You Need to Watch Orphan Black Immediately

Orphan Black has been drifting around my Tumblr dash for the past few weeks, so I finally made the decision to watch it. This decision resulted in me staying up until 4:00 A.M. and curling into a ball of feelings and insanity.

This show will destroy your life. Watch it.

The only thing I knew about Orphan Black going in was that there was a well-written lesbian relationship. Real talk: that alone informs about 95% of my decision to watch a show or not. I'm actually very glad that I didn't know anything about the plot going in. It made the reveals a lot more effective and exponentially increased my enjoyment. Since I want you to enjoy it as much as I do, I'm going to try and convince you to watch this show without telling you what it's about.

First thing about Orphan Black: it's complex. The best thing I can think of to compare it to is Pretty Little Liars in terms of how twisted the plot gets. But we're not in high school anymore. The stakes are higher than they are in Pretty Little Liars, and the stakes in that show are pretty dang high. There is a big sense of urgency in each and every episode, and you will never ever have to worry about getting bored.

The next thing you need to know about Orphan Black is that this lady is the star, and she is a magical acting goddess.

Also, just appreciate her face for a second.

This is where it gets trickier for me to tell you much without spoiling you, but rest assured that Tatiana Maslany deserves all the awards. I'm continually blown away by her acting ability in each and every episode, and so shall be you.

In addition, Orphan Black passes the Bechdel test every ten seconds. For those of you who don't know what the Bechdel test is, it's a way to gauge how well a TV show/movie/book/whatever thing is representing women. There are three criteria: 1) There must be two named female characters 2) who talk to each other 3) about something other than a man. While that doesn't seem all that difficult, you'd be surprised how many things don't pass. Basically this show doesn't just pass, but breaks the Bechdel test. I'm actually pretty sure it wouldn't pass the reverse Bechdel test if there had to be two named male characters who talked to each other about something other than a woman. Subversive awesomeness.

Also, that well-written lesbian relationship that moved me to watch it is there, too.

The season finale of Orphan Black is tomorrow, and there is a marathon on BBC America leading up to it. I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but that's just the perfect opportunity to get caught up, isn't it?