'Orphan Black' season 4 episode 5 recap and review: The sinister operations behind Brightborn Clinic are revealed in ‘Human Raw Material’

Season 4 Episode 5 of Orphan Black gave viewers an in-depth tour of Neolution’s clinic.

The episode revealed the group’s true quest, which is to build better humans. This brings the story to the baby-making game behind the Neolution-operated Brightborn Clinic. Viewers were in for a surprise to see the scary and sinister operations hidden behind the shiny and fancy make-up of the institution.

Krystal is back in the picture and no signs of covert phone calls from M.K. or Helena’s funny one-liners were seen. During the episode, Sarah dealt with family matters upon realizing her poor parenting skills.

The episode’s highlight was Cosima’s venture into Brightborn Clinic. With the help of Alison in making a fake ID, Cosima was able to pose as Douglas and Julian’s surrogate to create a Brightborn baby. She attended the orientation with Donnie and used her knowledge in science to dig deeper into the clinic. However, Evie Cho and Susan Duncan were there -- and they definitely knew what the Leda clones looked like.

Evie still proceeds to talk more about the company and how their future baby would thank their aspiring parents in the orientation. Cosima attempts to sneak off as they toured the facilities. However, she found herself sitting on the pool-side with Susan, who simply presents herself to be a standard employee.

Cosima starts questioning Susan about the risk of what they are doing. Cosima then emphasizes that “germline editing,” which is directly altering the embryo’s DNA, may have possible effects on the future generation. Susan then reiterates that it is why the practice is illegal in most countries.

The episode gets more interesting as Cosima explores the lab facilities using the key card she stole from Susan. Wearing scrubs as a disguise, she gets pulled into a delivery room where a woman, who was tagged as a “carrier,” was giving birth. Viewers were in for a surprise to see a severely deformed baby, which the doctors quickly took away.

Susan sees Cosima again. This is the point when the latter realizes that Susan Duncan is her maker. A heated debate between the two ensues and Cosima points out that she is sickly and is unable to find a cure. Susan offers to help provided that she shares Kendall Malone’s DNA to generate a cure that would help everyone. The question is, would Cosima do it?

“Orphan Black” Season 4 airs on BBC America. It also airs on Syfy in Australia.