Drama
Orphan Black: Echoes
The Orphan Black franchise is back. And its new show echoes the violence, profanity and homosexual romance from the original.
Petey considers herself a typical New Yorker. She gets coffee from a stand on her way to get coffee from a shop. She does therapy, yoga and meditation. She jaywalks, avoids bottles of urine on the subway, looks relieved yet somber when giant monsters are murdered and, of course, loves Broadway.
Yes indeed, Petey believes she has it all—the perfect job, the perfect apartment and the perfect fiancé.
But then it all goes up in flames … literally.
Petey’s socialite mother (who barely recognizes her daughter’s existence and treats her like scum when she does) informs Petey that her father has died and that she’s inherited his cult.
As you can imagine, Petey’s not really interested in joining—let alone running—a cult. But the same day, she finds out her fiancé is cheating on her with her best friend, she gets fired, and her apartment catches on fire.
Hoping to lay low for a bit while she figures out her next move, Petey leaves the big city for the deep South town of New Utopia.
Upon her arrival, Petey discovers that the cult her dad created doesn’t just want her to be their leader: They want to worship her.
They believe her presence marks the fulfillment of a prophecy, one that will eventually take them all to space to live out their days in a heaven-like paradise. And in order to guarantee their spots on the spaceship, each member of New Utopia believes they have to please their new leader.
Petey, of course, isn’t comfortable with that. She never asked for a human Shih Tzu. She doesn’t want a parade every morning celebrating the fact that she’s awake. And she doesn’t even know where to begin with her late dad’s many, many widows.
Petey wishes to bring New Utopia into the 2020s. She tries to free people to do what they want, not what she wants. And she especially wants an oat milk latte.
Unfortunately, she’s got her work cut out for her. Because when Petey tells the citizens of New Utopia that they don’t have to serve her, they panic. Chaos ensues. Turns out her dad did a pretty good job of brainwashing them all.
But Petey isn’t going to give up just because things get hard—that’s what she’s done her entire life. Instead, she’s going to pull herself up by the designer bootstraps and start doing some good in the world (or at least in New Utopia).
Like many cults, New Utopia has its own unique religion with very specific rules to follow. No doubt these eccentricities will reveal themselves more and more as the series progresses. But on Petey’s first night in town, they perform a human sacrifice and drink the victim’s blood.
Yeah. And things go south from there.
Petey learns her dad liked to start his mornings with an orgy with his wives (though he apparently used that term liberally, since the term ranged from actual sexual activities to simply helping him with the TV remote). Petey’s new best friend, Eliza, was married to her dad briefly. Bandit, Petey’s crush, makes it pretty clear that he’s only interested in two things: breaking up the cult and sleeping with Petey. And the show loves its use of euphemism and double entendre.
Praise Petey doesn’t paint men in a good light either. Every guy in New Utopia (especially Petey’s dad) is portrayed as either a misogynistic jerk or as a sniveling sop. Petey’s ex-fiancé is literally a plank of wood (which brings me back to my point about double entendre) because “there are no good men in New York.” And in case there was any doubt, there’s a lot of talk about feminism dropped casually into conversations. Bandit seems to be a sort of decent fellow, but he’s also pretty crass.
And speaking of crassness, the show has some colorful language. Most of it is misuses of God’s name. But there’s also several bleeped out f-words.
All in all, Praise Petey isn’t for families. That’s obvious. But it also brings up some really questionable worldviews that will probably make it a nonstarter for the adults in the audience as well.
After losing her job, her apartment and her fiancé, Petey leaves New York City to run her deceased dad’s cult in New Utopia, West Carolina.
There’s a lot of spiritual stuff associated with the cult of New Utopia. The members believe that Petey is part of a prophecy that will lead them to a heaven-like paradise in space. Therefore, they won’t allow her to leave their town. She’s essentially worshiped, and even though she doesn’t like the attention, she allows it to continue. A member of the cult says that Petey’s participation in yoga and meditation, among other things, could be considered cult-like. There’s a reference to astrology.
The citizens of New Utopia sacrifice a man on Petey’s first night in town, drinking his blood and prompting Petey to outlaw the practice. A monster attacking New York City is killed in the background of a scene. A man says his dad exploded. An apartment catches fire after a woman accidentally knocks over a bunch of candles. Another person gets kicked by a goat into a puddle of mud where she’s nearly devoured by an alligator (someone rescues her). Petey’s dad mixes a bowl containing “totally safe Kool-Aid” (a reference to Jim Jones’ cult committing mass suicide with a similar drink in Guyana in 1978). New Utopia’s elders cut Petey’s hand with a knife in a ceremony (though they immediately bandage it).
Three women shower with Petey when she arrives (with crucial anatomy covered by limbs or soap suds); she notes suggestively it wasn’t the “weirdest” shower she’s ever had. Women wear revealing outfits. Petey learns her dad had multiple wives and that he was fond of orgies. She watches a video where her dad stuffs an apple into the mouth of a man tied up and wearing a leather mask.
The town bar’s name is a double entendre and features a visually suggestive logo. People talk about sex rather crassly. Petey’s fiancé in New York is a literal plank of wood (which is definitely a euphemism). She catches him cheating because her best friend sports a splinter on her lip, which she received from kissing him. There’s a nude statue in someone’s office. Many couples kiss. Petey mistakenly believes a man wants oral sex before he tells her she misunderstood his intention.
Characters drink wine and liquor. The f-word is bleeped out five times. God’s name is abused a dozen times. We hear one to two uses each of “h—” and “p-ss.”
Petey has severe self-image issues—to the point where she self-deprecates even when she voices a good idea. She’s mistreated at her job and eventually fired for calling herself “dumb.” And her own mother pretends she doesn’t exist most of the time.
Elsewhere, a woman jaywalks, nearly causing a car wreck. People lie. Someone vomits offscreen. Several people avoid a bottle filled with urine on a public transport.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
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