Season 3 of Orphan Black had some issues with cohesion. The plot-line revolving around one of the 'core four' clones felt very divorced from that of the other three. This season does a much better job of getting all of the quartet interacting on the same things, and ironically it does so by revealing a lot more to us about a fifth clone: the dead police officer Beth, whose suicide was pretty much the opening act of the entire show.
I'm generally pretty wary of the "now let's flashback and show a bunch of stuff that happened a long time ago" as a story-telling technique, as it can often be a pretty heavy-handed and clumsy way of changing the meaning of past story events in order to correct a story that has gone off course. In this case though, it works well: the events that are revealed generally reinforce the plot direction taken at the end of the last season. That plot direction wasn't one I felt was all that well set-up back then, but I have to admit it was probably smarter to leap into it before doing all this flashback material, so good call by the show's writers on that front.
As always, the cast remains very strong. Tatiana Maslany has rightly been lauded for her work on the show, but she is ably supported by pretty much everyone she works with here. The casting is a real benefit to the show.
Fingers crossed that the fifth and final season will deliver a solid ending to what has been an enjoyable show over the past four series.
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