Battle Of The Baaaaaaaaad Mothers

It is a truth universally acknowledged that no matter what choice a mother makes with regard to her own life and/or the rearing of her children, she will find a way to regret not having done the opposite and torture herself with guilt. Usually the media contributes to mothers' feelings of inadequacy -- but not when it comes to Orphan Black and Scandal! In both shows' most recent seasons, viewers have been treated to thrilling, admirable models of contemporary motherhood in Mrs. S. and Marie Wallace! Sure, they still have to deal with the annoyance of their adult children's withering disappointment and burning resentment about whatever the hell (it's a lot of "You lied to me my whole life" -- waaaaaaaah!), but at least they can put a pin in that from time to time and kill people.

Clearly, both these women are bad-asses we'd all do well to emulate. But which is badder?

Who's dealing with higher stakes?

Tough one right out the gate! As a wanted terrorist connected to an international network, Marie has the potential to destroy millions of lives, and that's all on her own; if she decides to deploy mom guilt, she can even get her daughter to use her influence with her daughter's boyfriend, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. If Marie knows which buttons to push when, she could be a double agent by proxy INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE!!! On the other hand, everyone inside that White House is pretty corrupt, including the President himself, who is a murderer. But still.

Back in the '70s, Mrs. S. got mixed up with some mad scientists and her life was changed forever: she took custody of a foster daughter named Sarah, moved to Toronto A Large, Anonymous City, and set about keeping Sarah from ever finding out the truth about herself: that she was a twin, whose sister had been entrusted to nuns in the Ukraine! And also that both Sarah and her sister had a bunch of clones. Of course, if the public at large were to find out about it, the realization of human cloning technology would be huge. However, for all the conspiracy business swirling around Project Leda and its descendant, The Dyad Institute, from what we can see the technology has hardly been perfected, and the knowledge of how it's actually done isn't being kept in a centralized repository anyone who'd try to exploit it even knows about, if they could even follow the instructions. And at this point whatever other hands this information could fall into could scarcely be wronger than the ones it's been in up to this point.

Winner: Marie.

Whose cause is more righteous?

That depends: which of them do you trust? We've seen Marie kill a lot of people in pursuit of her assassination plot, but the only person who actually got killed was a teenager who somehow still goes by the name of Jerry in the year 2014, so...I'm not saying maybe he's better off, except I am. We don't know whom she's working for, or how it benefits her for Fitz to clinch the sympathy vote and get re-elected (legitimately, this time) (well, legitimately-ish). And while she keeps intimating to Liv that Liv's/America's real enemy is Eli, at this point they both seem pretty bad.

By contrast, Mrs. S has barely killed any people that we've seen, and those all seemed to be on the bad side of the story, which is to say, in opposition to Sarah. Mrs. S. may be kind of slippery -- handing off Helena to Paul in the season finale was somewhat questionable -- but in the grand scheme she seems to be defending currently alive people against theoretical scientific ideas.

Winner: Mrs. S.

Who's the better mother?

Gonna go ahead and give this to the one who didn't have any part in downing a commercial jetliner full of civilians.

Winner: Mrs. S.

Who's a better dresser?

Though I certainly appreciate how good Mrs. S. is at dressing her figure in stylish yet age-appropriate looks, at the end of the day she's still a stay-at-home guardian to a young child and she dresses for that role in pieces that are more practical than glamorous. Marie was stuck wearing the same prison uniform -- in a black site, so no one even looked at her and thus it wasn't even worth trying to accessorize it -- for the better part of two decades; now that she's out, she's making up for lost time in a big way with a parade of sharp suits fit for the board room...or the hotel room where she's planning mayhem and chaos!

Winner: Marie.

Who's scarier?

We've certainly seen how Mrs. S.'s threats to deny Sarah access to Kira is a prospect that fills Sarah with terror, but I'm still GONNA GO AHEAD AND GIVE THIS TO THE ONE WHO BROKE OUT OF PRISON BY CHEWING HER WRISTS OPEN.

Winner: Marie.

Victor

If it were the Battle Of The Salty Ladies Who'd Be Really Fun To Have (Spiked) Tea With For An Afternoon That Rolled Into A Real Late Night or Battle Of The Potential Barbour Hunting Jacket Models, Mrs. S. would have run away with it. But even though Marie is a newer addition to the field, her power is kind of undeniable.

Winner: Marie.