Lucy & Eleanor’s Decisions, Explained

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Orphan Black: Echoes Season 1 Episode 8 “The Paradox of Joyce.”]

Trust doesn’t play into a key decision Eleanor (Rya Kihlstedt) makes for her future—as well as that of the younger printouts of herself—in the latest Orphan Black: Echoes.

When Eleanor fills the youngest printout, Jules (Amanda Fix), in on her life, including the fact that she dies of early Alzheimer’s—which is why Kira (Keeley Hawes) made new versions of her wife—the teen asks if she can do anything, considering how brilliant she is and her discoveries in neurobiology. But the drug that Eleanor has developed doesn’t work with early onset cases. Jules then brings up her mother, Melissa (Kathy Baker), wondering if she might know how Darros (James Hiroyuki Liao) got a scan of Eleanor at 16 to print her.

At first, Melissa doesn’t recognize Eleanor when she approaches her. (“Isn’t she incredible?” Kihlstedt raves of Baker.) When Eleanor says she’s sick and going to start to forget things, her mother says to ask her what she came to ask. What’s it like, Eleanor wants to know. Forgetting things you never wanted to remember in the first place isn’t so bad, Melissa says, but what keeps you awake at night is you don’t know who you are.

After that, Eleanor decides not to give up on finding a treatment and goes to see Kira. She’ll work with her, but it’s not about “us,” she stresses. There may not even be an “us” anymore. It’s about work, not forgiveness. But why does Eleanor choose to go to Kira? Is it because she trusts her? Is it because she knows Kira’s the best person for the job? Is it the love they have?

Sophie Giraud / AMC

“It’s so hard to un-intertwine all of those pieces, isn’t it? That’s the stuff that I found so incredible about the story from [Episode] 5 till the end,” Kihlstedt tells TV Insider. “The more I talked to Anna [Fishko] and writers and directors and Keeley about it—that’s what I love about this is that they’re all [intertwined]. I mean, to me, the thought of having to go through losing your memory, your connective tissue to your life, to your loved ones, to what you do… she’s such a woman guided by her brain. And to lose that, I think, to Eleanor, is the most terrifying thing, and then she has to go through it again.”

She continues, “So I think that is the impetus behind her decision is that the writing’s on the wall, she knows where it’s going to go, she has one chance now, and she better get on it f**king fast. And I also think that Kira is absolutely the one and only person who can do this. So I think it’s not about trust. That has been eroded in some ways. What I think Eleanor makes a decision on is, ‘I’m putting that aside. I love you. I know who you have been. I don’t know who this person is, but there’s no doubt in my mind that you can’t do this without me, and I can’t do it without you. Everything goes aside. We’ll deal with it later.’”

Elsewhere in the episode, Lucy (Krysten Ritter) is faced with a tough decision: Jack (Avan Jogia) is taking Charlie (Zariella Langford-Haughton) away and wants her to come with him, but as they’re getting their fake passports, Jules needs her. Lucy chooses Jules.

“She’s so conflicted because she can’t leave Jules,” explains Ritter. “She’s grown to love her and adore her and want to protect her. And I think she has people now and people that know her and people that fill in her history that she doesn’t have at all. And I think it’s a very big conflict for Lucy because she loves Jack and Charlie. I think it was a very difficult decision for her.”

There is a great moment in the truck with Lucy and Craig (Jonathan Whittaker) as she’s torn about her decision. “I enjoyed those scenes so much,” Ritter says. “The scenes with Craig were so rich and so easy. I always like playing those scenes with a father figure. There’s always so much to pull from, and he’s such a wonderful, present actor. And the thing is, when you’re taking part in something, you want to have as many colors as possible. And you have the relationship with Craig, which is a completely different thing. You have the relationship with Jack, which is love, and then the relationship with Charlie, which is mothering, and then the relationship with these women. Then the younger version, the little sister, like someone to take under your wing. So all of those different dynamics I felt brought out a different color for Lucy, which is appealing to me as an actress.”

Orphan Black: Echoes, Sundays, 10/9c, AMC