"The Collapse of Nature" is the fourth season premiere of the Canadian science fiction television series Orphan Black. It first aired in Canada on Space and the United States on BBC America on 14 April 2016. The episode was written by Graeme Manson and directed by John Fawcett.
The series focuses on a number of identical human clones, all of whom are played by Tatiana Maslany: Sarah Manning, Beth Childs, Alison Hendrix, Cosima Niehaus, Rachel Duncan, Helena, MK and Krystal Goderitch. The format of the episode differs from all previous episodes, being a flashback episode taking place before the pilot episode. It follows Beth Childs (played by Tatiana Maslany) weeks before her suicide, as she investigates the operations of Neolution. Several guest actors returned in flashback scenes as characters who had died or been written off. Inga Cadranel, whose character Detective Angela "Angie" DeAngelis was written out after the second season, returned, as did Dylan Bruce as Paul Dierden after his character's death in the previous season.
The episode received positive reviews from critics, who praised the episode's plot development, a return to the basics of the first season in storytelling, as several critics pointed out the convoluted conspiracy plot of subsequent seasons, and Maslany's performance. It was watched by 229,000 American viewers.
As with all episodes this season, the episode title, "The Collapse of Nature," comes from Professor Donna Haraway's 1991 book Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, being a specific excerpt from the essay entitled "The Biological Enterprise: Sex, Mind and Profit from Human Engineering to Sociobiology."
Plot
Flashback to weeks prior to the events that occurred in the first episode of the series, "Natural Selection". A young woman wearing a sheep mask stumbles through the forest. As she hides behind a tree, she witnesses a white man, Frank (Ian Matthews), and a black woman, Roxie (Miranda Edwards), who are wearing paramedics uniforms, burying a body in the dirt. The two later kiss. The young woman becomes startled and cries out, which then attracts the attention of the couple who shine their flashlight in her direction. Before the two can come after her, the young woman places a teddy bear sticker on the tree she was hiding behind and runs away from the scene. She then calls Beth Childs to inform her of what she witnessed.
Beth and Art are present while the CSI team digs up the body in the woods. They find that the dead man had his cheek cut open, exposing the inside of his mouth, and Janis (Jean Yoon) discovers that the man had a surgically bifurcated penis. Beth begins investigating the man's death and discovers his connection to Club Neolution. She goes there to investigate and meets Trina (Allie MacDonald), a body-mod Neolutionist who informs Beth about the body modification and surgical alteration indicative of Neolution. She questions whether Trina knows anything, but before she can answer, her boyfriend, Aaron, stops her. Beth gives her number to Trina and tells her to call if she knows anything. Before leaving the club, Beth grabs a copy of Aldous Leekie's Neolution book and later is seen reading it in her car. She then goes to question Dr. Leekie (Matt Frewer) at the Dyad Institute. Dr. Leekie seems amused by the fact he monitors the well-being of Beth Childs, about which she has no idea. His right-hand-woman, Evie Cho, is excited to have finally seen one of the clones that Leekie monitors.
Throughout the episode, Beth's downward spiral is increasingly evident. She is shown often snorting crushed tablets and taking pills, her relationship with Paul has become strained as she suspects that he is monitoring her, and she is shown to be concerned about losing her job at the precinct due to her drug addiction. Whereas Sarah's relationship with Cosima and Alison is a sisterhood, the episode reveals that Beth's relationship with the two women was strictly for business. She trains Alison in gun defense, Cosima enrolls in college and begins studying biology at Beth's request in order to find out more about the clones. And Alison provides financial support for Cosima's studies and Beth's services, as well as providing pills for Beth and clean urine for Beth to use in order to pass her drug test at work.
Beth later meets with M.K. in a junkyard trailer, who communicates with her over the internet, warning her not to trust anybody, alluding to the fact that Art, or even Paul are potentially watching her as part of an experiment. This leads to Beth's greater suspicion of Paul, leading her to try to force sex upon him. Upon his refusal, she motions to shoot him in the head but later retreats.