Alex, Kyra and James start formulating a plan to escape Point Blanc, hastened by their shared ‘dreams’ and the reappearance of Laura who has radically changed like Arrash and Sasha. The Division continue to follow leads in the wake of Martin’s death, which serves only to put the shadowy figures to whom Grief answers on notice.

Just past the halfway point and things are starting to heat up for our titular teen agent and his adult colleagues. This time out, having seen what happened to Laura and finally convinced of the pressing need to escape, Alex, James and Kyra elect to formulate an actual plan of escape. What’s really nice here is that – much as was averred by Horowitz himself when talking about the show – there are very few gadgets or shortcuts for our hero to use. Instead, he relies on the smarts of both himself and his new allies to get over the obstacles presented to them.

Meanwhile, back in the UK The Division are still chasing along a little way behind the uptake, but at least now the bad guys get to join in. Yassen has the photograph of Alex and Tom which he liberated from Wilby’s corpse, but he’s still not cottoned on that the kid who is clearly at Point Blanc is the person he needs to be looking into. This leads him to do a bit of recon at the boys’ school wherein he actually runs into Tom. He’s then called to deal with a fresh problem after The Division do a bit of blundering around which leads to an encounter with Alex as well, which similarly comes to little.

And speaking of The Division, as Parker Roscoe takes the reins of his father’s business empire with his Point Blanc ‘guardian’ at his side, Alan Blunt intuits that there may be something fishy going on with the boy (imagine!). He elects – in true micro manager style – therefore to go and visit the boy for himself, in an interaction which yields one clue which feels a little far-fetched both in its placement and the immediate significance everyone places on it.

Back at Point Blanc, the escape plan seems to be working really well until one of the gang finds themselves face to face with Miss Stellenbosch, who promptly disappears completely with them, leaving the others to ponder exactly what they should do next.

It’s entertaining stuff to be sure, and Otto Farrant in particular is absolutely killing it in the title role. I think perhaps the slight issue is that it’s trying to make a show for all age demographics out of a novel written nearly two decades ago for kids, and that dissonance leads to one too many plot contrivances that end up making adults on both sides and the secret agencies they represent seem a little incompetent.

Verdict: Smooth drama, great action and some lovely acting just marred ever so slightly still by slight niggles with plot convenience. Still bloody good fun though. 8/10

Greg D. Smith