Co-creator John Fawcett says next episode will be 'smaller and lighter' and 'there's not a bunch of emotional high stakes' after the 'climactic midseason.'
- May 25, 2015
AceShowbiz - "Orphan Black" just suffered a great loss as one of the characters made a big sacrifice in the latest episode. [SPOILER ALERT!] Paul (Dylan Bruce), who tried to shut down Project Castor but got double-crossed by his friends at the government, blew up the Castor facility with a grenade after a fight against the male clones, sacrificing himself and saving Sarah (Tatiana Maslany).
"This is about as excited as I've been for an episode of the show to air," co-creator John Fawcett tells The Hollywood Reporter of "Certain Agony of the Battlefield". "It's a really big, epic thing. It's what [co-creator Graeme Manson] and I really wanted to see. We wanted this to be a midseason climax."
Calling the sixth episode "a big, emotional, climactic midseason thing," he says that the follow-up episode is going to be "lighter." He adds that next week's outing is "an episode where you can laugh a little bit, there's not a bunch of emotional high stakes, conspiracy this, conspiracy that. So we wanted to follow it up with something smaller and lighter."
But things will get intense again after that as he adds, "After that, we still have [episodes] eight, nine, and ten to carry us through our build up for our season finale. That's structurally how we looked at it, from a writing point of view."
Explaining their decision to make a character sacrifice himself at this point, he elaborates, "That's what drama's about -- having characters that can sacrifice themselves, and open new doors, and throw themselves on bombs, and reveal themselves emotionally, and elicit big reactions from people. That's what makes great storytelling, and what Graeme and I have strived to do. Also, [to] keep people off-guard, and never certain. I don't like people getting too comfortable. We like that people tune in to our show, and they don't know what they're going to get. They don't know where we're going to take them. That's part of the fun of the show, and something we can continue to do."
On how big the damage Paul caused when he blew out the facility, Fawcett says, "The point of it was to corral all of the Castor [operatives], all of the DNA, all of their research into one room and blow the f***ing shit out of it. So that was his point. Beyond that, you have to see the remainder of the season."
Following Paul's sacrifice, "Sarah's driven now," according to Fawcett. He continues, "This is about circling the wagons right now for Sarah. From here on, she has to do what she can. This is a big, crushing blow to Castor. We would assume this has helped [the sisters'] situation immeasurably in the immediate, and use the energy from this to go forward and... get the answers. For Sarah, I think that's where she is emotionally."
"Orphan Black" returns with the new episode, "Community of Dreadful Fear and Hate", Sunday, May 30 on BBC America.
