Popular science fiction drama Orphan Black contains so many clones, almost all played by Tatiana Maslany, that it would be a huge task to rank them all. There are said to be 274 LEDA clones in total, plus “lost” clones, Sarah and Helena.
In the show we see these clones appear in several different ways. A handful are main characters, some make short guest appearances and others are just mentioned in passing.
Here we’ve avoided the likes of briefly seen clones, such as Katja and Jennifer, as we know virtually nothing about them, certainly not enough to rank them. There are also a whole host of other unnamed, or named but never seen, clones who are excluded. Instead, we’ve ranked just the main clones we see and the support characters we know the most about, based on their intelligence.
Tony Sawicki
Tony ranks here mostly as very little is known about his back story. The only transgender clone, we see him only briefly in the second season but it’s enough to get some kind of idea about his life.
Tony has a criminal record and is involved in a life of crime, alongside Sammy who was revealed to be his monitor. While nothing else is really known about Tony, getting involved in a criminal lifestyle is certainly not a smart move.
Krystal Goderitch
Krystal is the dumb blonde of clone club, although not as dumb as you may think. She’s portrayed as very naive but yet she still manages to uncover a lot about her cloned sisters.
As the story progresses and she becomes further embroiled in the issues facing the LEDA clones, her lack of smarts becomes more apparent. She is easily confused and cannot properly understand what is happening to her and the others. This makes her both entirely harmless and an easy target, as we discover towards the end of the show’s run.
Charlotte Bowles
Charlotte is the youngest of the clones and ranks here due to being at least 10 years off reaching her potential. She was created 20 years after the others and was cloned directly from Rachel, rather than the original genome.
She’s the only survivor of the 400 attempts to restart the program and as such the only young clone. While she’s shown to be both self-aware and very smart, we never see her potential fully realized.
Beth Childs
While we see very little of Beth on screen, more about her life is revealed throughout the show. After Sarah initially resumes her identity, we realize she is a cop and a smart one at that.
After being approached about the LEDA clones Beth managed to figure a number of things out. However, her discoveries lead her into danger and ultimately to her decision to take her own life and go out on her terms.
Her career and detective work prove she’s smart but she also got involved with drugs, proving she’s not the smartest clone in the lineup.
Alison Hendrix
Alison initially seems like just a bland suburban housewife and mother but there’s much more to her than a stereotype. While she loves her role as a wife and mother she shows initiative, intelligence and quick thinking throughout the events that unfold.
After things descend into chaos, Alison keeps a cool head, works through her issues and begins to find herself. While not as clever as other clones, her intelligence is related to her ability to think through problems to protect her loved ones.
Rachel Duncan
Rachel is fairly unique in that she’s always known she was a clone. Her upbringing has left a huge mark on her and she sits towards the evil end of the morality scale.
Despite being one of the most obnoxious clones, she is also one of the smartest. Surrounded by science and with a solid grasp of science she may be irritating but she’s also intelligent. Don’t underestimate what lies beneath that steely exterior.
Sarah Manning
Sarah is definitely more street smart than academic smart but her brains keep both her and her sisters alive on more than one occasion. Quick thinking, deal-making, negotiations and her street smarts combine to make her a force to be reckoned with.
Her scientific knowledge may not be on a par with some of the other clones but her real-world experience makes her better able to think her way out of tricky situations than either Alison or Rachel, earning her a place just ahead of them both.
Veera Suominen AKA M.K. or Mika
After a troubled childhood, Veera’s desire to find out more about her identity leads her into a life as a hacker. She goes into hiding, living a life consumed by hacking and communication through her alias as M.K. and often wearing a sheep mask.
She’s very intelligent and technical with a huge amount of computer knowledge that allows her to circumvent security systems and the like. Her smarts and skills are used by the clone club as they discover more about their history.
Helena Manning
Helena is probably the clone with the most transformative story. Brought up as a self-aware hunter she was taught to track down and eliminate other clones. Not only did this make her ruthless but it showed her to be smart.
Her skillset combines the tracking skills of M.K. with the street smarts of Sarah to produce a force that should never be underestimated. As she becomes more aware of what is actually going on, she’s smart enough to make the right choices and move to the clone club’s side, bonding with her sestras and learning Alison’s compassion in the process.
Cosima Niehaus
Cosima is easily the smartest of the clones, with many saying she’s a genius and the one who all of their futures depend on. She’s a Ph.D. student with a scientific background. This leads to her being able to unravel some of the science behind the LEDA clone project.
Although she has help from Delphine, she manages to figure out her own genetic markers and makes a number of other important scientific discoveries throughout the show. Her brains are frequently utilized to help out the clone club.
