Spoilers: How the First Season of 'Orphan Black: Echoes' Ends

By Dustin Rowles | TV | August 27, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | August 27, 2024 |

This is my attempt to summarize the opening season of Orphan Black: Echoes. Set in 2052, 37 years after the events of Orphan Black, this series explores themes of grief, identity, and the ethical implications of advanced technology, blah blah blah.

Kira Manning (Keeley Hawes), daughter of Sarah Manning from the original series, is now a brilliant scientist. Driven by grief over losing her wife Eleanor Miller (Rya Kihlstedt) to Alzheimer’s, Kira accepts funding from tech mogul Paul Darros (James Hiroyuki Liao) to repurpose organ-printing technology. She uses this to create two copies of Eleanor: one her current age (Eleanor) and another twenty years younger (Lucy, played by Krysten Ritter). Kira’s goal is to buy herself time to find a cure for Alzheimer’s.

The first half of Echoes focuses on Lucy, who, with her boyfriend Jack (Avan Jogia), discovers she’s a printed copy with no genuine memories before her “birth.” Lucy also encounters Jules (Amanda Fix), a teenage version of herself. As the three versions of Eleanor unite with Kira, they begin to uncover and oppose Darros’s true ambitions.

It’s revealed that Darros has been printing young versions of geniuses - including mathematicians, scientists, and even a Supreme Court justice. His misguided goal, born from his own experiences with loss and suffering, is to give these brilliant minds a chance to reach their potential without the hardships that shaped their original counterparts (a bit of a lame premise). Kira, Eleanor, and their printed counterparts work to thwart Darros’s plans, even enlisting help from a young printed version of Darros himself.

The season finale brings this conflict to a head. Darros, aided by his henchman Tom (Reed Diamond), abducts Jack’s daughter to force an exchange for Jules - a copy he created. In a shocking twist, when Lucy attempts to rescue Jules, Darros shoots her in the head and kills her, justifying it by claiming Lucy had corrupted his plans. However, he immediately reveals another copy of Jules, this one blonde but still played by Amanda Fix.

Meanwhile, Kira and Eleanor work to identify Darros’s other printed geniuses. They quickly deduce twelve but struggle with the thirteenth. The finale’s climax reveals this final copy to be Kira herself, leaving audiences to wonder if the Kira we’ve known is printed or if Darros created a younger version we’ve yet to meet - a storyline likely to be explored if AMC+ renews the series.

Despite a rocky start, Echoes does show marginal improvement over its run. However, it never comes close to reaching the heights of its predecessor. The show’s greatest strength lies primarily in Keeley Hawes and Krysten Ritter, whose performances elevate the material just enough that I’d begrudgingly continue watching a second season but not enough that I’d be bummed if it were canceled.