As Orphan Black embarked on its fifth and final season last week, it became clear that the sci-fi series was finally ready to answer the big questions—about eugenics, biology, and morality—that have intrigued fans and critics alike throughout its run. It was never a clear path getting there, but the joy was in the journey—and once it’s complete, viewers will lose one of the most intelligent, empowering shows ever to air on television.

Not that you’d know that, necessarily, from the show’s public perception. Orphan Black started with a bang when it launched on BBC America in March 2013, becoming an immediate hit with audiences and critics alike—The Hollywood Reporter called it “addictive and compelling,” while The Huffington Post praised lead actress _Tatiana Maslany—who plays nearly every character on the show—for her “impressive versatility.” It didn’t take long before a diehard group of fans now known as the Clone Club cropped up, obsessively tweeting, Tumblring, and cosplaying Orphan Black into cult status. And then, well . . .

By its third season, the show was hitting series-low ratings, a trend that continued well into Season 4. Maslany’s performance, bolstered by the dedicated work of her body double, Kathryn Alexandre, and supporting actors including Evelyne Brochu, Maria Doyle Kennedy, and Jordan Gavaris, was as sharp and nuanced as ever; she even won a much-deserved Emmy in 2016. But a shift in focus turned Orphan Black from must-watch TV to an afterthought. The spectacle of clones interacting and getting to know one another (who could forget that amazingly silly clone dance party?) was arguably the heart of the series. After Season 1, though, clone-bonding began to take a backseat to an increasingly convoluted mythology that could puzzle even the most meticulous of viewers.

It’s no surprise that Orphan Black—a show that’s always required its viewers to have both a deep sense of intellectual curiosity and a willingness to be mind-fucked on a weekly basis—suffered on the heels of its zeitgeisty beginnings. The average viewer began to peter out, opting instead for programming that was a little less confusing.

But as taxing as Orphan Black can be, it rewards those who stick around tenfold with some of the best female characters and overall storytelling on TV. Maslany’s five main clone characters—Sarah, Cosima, Alison, Helena, and Rachel—are all vastly different, deeply flawed yet steadfast in their pursuit of their own versions of justice. There has rarely been an episode aired that doesn’t feature some small victory for the clones, be it Sarah and twin sestra Helena working together to break out of a military prison or Cosima and Delphine discovering the former’s genome sequence and, eventually, a cure for the illness that’s been afflicting her for the past few seasons.