Beth Childs

For the clone who stole her identity, see Sarah Manning.

Beth Childs
Biographical information
Full name:	Elizabeth Childs
Birthplace:	East York, Canada
Birthdate:	April 1, 1984 or March 13, 1984
Status:	Deceased
Manner of Death:	Suicide (jumped in front of a train)
Died:	November 23, 2012
Age:	28
Occupation:	Detective (Police Force)
Other information
Gender:	Female
Hair color:	Brown
Eye color:	Brown
Skin color:	White
Height:	5' 4"
Relationships
Monitor:	Paul Dierden †
Marital status:	In a serious relationship with Paul Dierden † (until her death)
Significant Other/s:	Paul Dierden † (boyfriend) Arthur Bell (work partner; friend; one night stand)
Family:	Leda clones (sisters/genetic identicals) Castor clones (genetic brothers) Kira Manning (genetic niece; via Sarah) Kendall Malone † (sister/genetic template) Siobhan Sadler (genetic niece; via Kendall)
Series information
Portrayed by:	Tatiana Maslany
Season/s:	1, 3, 4
First appearance:	"Natural Selection"
Latest appearance:	"The Antisocialism of Sex"
Appearance count:	7

"We do terrible things for the people we love… Stop asking why. Start asking who, sister."

—Beth Childs appearing to Sarah Manning in a fever dream

Elizabeth "Beth" Childs was one of the first clones seen on Orphan Black. She is a clone of Canadian origin. Her "tag number" is 317B31.

She becomes Sarah's entry point into the mystery of her suicide as well as the apparent clone conspiracy. Beth is revealed backwards from the moment of her death, as Sarah takes on her identity and reconstructs her last days. By literally becoming Beth, part of Sarah’s journey lies in understanding her, and she comes to deeply respect the valiant, damaged cop she so rashly switched places with.

Biography

Early life

Beth was born on April 1, 1984 in East York, Canada.

Her monitor was Paul Dierden. Not much is known about how they were set up to meet, or if he was her first and only monitor, but at one point, Beth began dating and later moved in with him.

Eventually, Katja Obinger was able to track down Beth. Katja had contacted her, telling her that someone was killing off her "genetic identicals" in Europe. Beth then used the facial-recognition software to find driver's licenses in North America that would match her and found two matches: Cosima Niehaus and Alison Hendrix. She tells Katja about them, then Katja soon requested to see her new "scientist friend", Cosima. Beth then asked Katja to give proof of herself and the other European clones (i.e. blood and hair samples, birth certificates, passports and photo IDs) on Cosima's request.

Since then, the trio in North America has been helping each other figure things out. Along the way, Beth taught Alison how to use a gun so Alison can protect her family in case anything happened. For this, Alison became grateful to her. She had also come to admire Beth's discreetness, given their situation. Despite this, they never really knew much about each other and tried to keep their distance.

Things took a turn for worse for Beth when she erroneously killed Maggie Chen after she avoided being caught by Neolutionists. Out of loyalty and love, her partner, Art, helped her cover up for her shooting of a civillian under the influence of narcotics by making it look merely as an accident. Despite this and because of her actions, Beth was suspended from the police force and became the subject to an internal affairs investigation.

Beth then became suspicious of Paul. Beth had loved him, but Paul apparently did not love her the same way, so Beth could not understand why he just wouldn't leave. In a box hidden in their closet, Beth kept some things of Paul's and hid a couple of letters she wrote to him. She then borrowed a spy kit from Raj Singh, a coworker from the station, and began spying on Paul. She may have found out that he is her monitor, making things more complicated and painful for her. Beth then apparently put an emotional and physical distance with Paul, and even stopped talking to him after the shooting of Chen.

In addition to the stress of everything that was going on in her life, Beth had been asking her doctor for extra prescriptions to her drugs and, according to Paul, had been mixing these up at times adding alcoholic beverages to it. In "Variation Under Nature", Cosima herself had pointed out that Beth was "Losing it. Clinically."

Season 1

Beth was the first clone that Sarah Manning encounters. She was first heard crying and later seen pacing down the platform opposite Sarah, who was virtually unaware of the other clones. In an almost ritualistic manner, Beth set aside her purse and stripped down to her work outfit, removing her shoes and folded her jacket in the process. As Sarah began to approach her, Beth calmly turned around to face her genetic copy—much to Sarah's shock and bewilderment.

Beth sees Sarah Manning for the first time.

After exchanging their first and last few glances, Beth shed a tear and simply continued walking towards the approaching train to her untimely death. Her body's cremation was paid for by Sarah's foster brother, Felix.

Despite the initial trauma of witnessing the suicide, Sarah never failed to see an opportunity. She stole Beth's purse and assumed her identity. Despite Sarah's short rush as Beth, the reality of Beth's past constantly complicated things for Sarah, leading her to more mysteries revolving around Beth's suicide.

In "Conditions of Existence", the group experimenting on the clones revisited her apartment to examine her. Mistaking Sarah for Beth, they perform the procedure on her instead. Paul eventually notices that Sarah lacks Beth's scar from a mountain biking accident and realizes that the woman he had been with was not Beth. He confronts Sarah, who then tells him the truth: Beth is dead, and that he may have unwittingly pushed her into committing suicide.

Season 3

In the episode "Formalized, Complex, and Costly", it is revealed that on the night she committed suicide Beth had attempted to confide in Arthur Bell about the existence of the Leda Clones. However, Art had dismissed her attempts to reveal the truth as side-effects from the pills she had been taking days prior to her death. Her second appearance in the series since her suicide in the opening scene of the episode "Natural Selection", comes in the form of a hallucination while Sarah is suffering from a fever caused by the injected blood of one of CASTOR clone Rudy in "Certain Agony of the Battlefield". While making tea, dream-vision Beth tells Sarah the story of the day Paul moved in with only two suitcases to his name, which she says should have been a red flag “but I was so gaga for him I convinced myself he was some kind of Zen master, materially unattached.” After gulping down some pills she continues, “You two are a good match – liars, grifters.” When Sarah says she misses her and blames herself for letting Beth jump, dream-world Beth is angered but insists, “No. I jumped. I let myself get consumed by this thing… I killed myself because I couldn’t understand it.” Sarah claims not to understand either, to which Beth responds, “You’re starting to.”

Season 4

In the episode "The Collapse of Nature", Beth receives a call from M.K., the LEDA clone responsable for initiating her in the conspiracy, in the middle of a night after she has witnessed a body being buried in the woods by the suspicious paramedics she has been following for their connection to Neolution. Beth heads to the bathroom to ready herself and receives the co-ordinates for the body's location. It is revealed here that she snorts on crashed up pills with a kit hidden underneath her bathroom sink. Before heading out, Paul tells her to come home early as he will be making dinner that night, kisses her on the cheek and pats her on the shoulder goodbye.

At home with Paul, following another of their continuos arguments about her drug adictions, when he walked away she told him he was hollow, that there was nothing inside of him then she pointed a gun to the back of his head but before he turned around she hid the weapon behind her back. Beth packed a bag and left to spend the night at her work partner's, Art, house. Despite his daughter staying with him he allowed Beth in upon seeing how upset she was. After sleeping it off on his couch for a bit, she is awoken when Art returnes and they have sex. They fell asleep on his bed but Beth woke up to pick up a phonecall of an informant, she dressed and went to follow a lead on a case involving Neolution. With her mind still not completely clear of the pills and alcohol she'd taken at home she got spooked when seeing someone from the police station working with the criminals, she stumble causing sounds that alerted those she was spying on so she started running, when she got to an alley she realized someone was behind her so she shot her gun, killing Maggie Chen. Beth felt instantly ill and vomited upon realizing the woman was not carrying a weapon as she had assumed. Beth called Art for help and he aided her to cover what had really happened. When the officer who wa ssupossed to take her back to the station showed up, it was the man she had just seen working with the neolutionists

Through flashbacks we find out that M.K. told Beth about monitors and that's how she discovered that the person fulfilling that job in her life was her boyfriend, Paul. Beth and M.K. kept working together to investigate those involved in persecuting the clones, until a member of the organization threatened the lives of those closest to Beth unless she took her own life for she had come to know too much.

It is mentioned by Susan Duncan when they meet that Beth had suffered abuse from her father, although the nature of it was never disclosed, and Susan apologized to her for the organization's failure to prevent such a thing for happening to one of their subjects.

Personality

According to Art, Beth was often seen as somewhat aggressive, headstrong and a bit verbally vulgar. In "Natural Selection", as Beth waited her turn to talk to her doctor, he mused to Beth "Where's your wit gone? You haven't called me dipshit all day." In "Variation Under Nature", Cosima jokingly advised for Sarah to keep her sense of humor since Beth, evidently, could not.

Beth also seemed concerned for and took good care of her physical fitness, together with her boyfriend, Paul. When stressed, Beth tended to ask her doctor for medications. Unfortunately, she tended to mix these up at times and downed them with alcohol, causing constant emotional worry and concern for her boyfriend, Paul.

Appearances

Season 1 appearances
Natural Selection	Instinct	Variation Under Nature	Effects of External Conditions	Conditions of Existence
Variations Under Domestication	Parts Developed in an Unusual Manner	Entangled Bank	Unconscious Selection	Endless Forms Most Beautiful

Season 3 appearances
The Weight of This Combination	Transitory Sacrifices of Crisis	Formalized, Complex, and Costly	Newer Elements of Our Defense	Scarred by Many Past Frustrations
Certain Agony of the Battlefield	Community of Dreadful Fear and Hate	Ruthless in Purpose, and Insidious in Method	Insolvent Phantom of Tomorrow	History Yet to Be Written

Season 4 appearances
The Collapse of Nature	Transgressive Border Crossing	The Stigmata of Progress	From Indistinct to Rational Control	Human Raw Material
The Scandal of Altruism	The Antisocialism of Sex	The Redesign of Natural Objects	The Mitigation of Competition	From Dancing Mice to Psychopaths

Gallery:

1/3

Trivia

• According to police reports in "Instinct", her badge number is 1114.