Matthew’s discovery of who it was that broke into the lab leads him into some rash action. Ysabeau attempts to dissuade Diana from her love of Matthew by revealing some of his darker past to her. Tensions are rising among the Congregation.

Well, there’s not much more action in this instalment, but at least things are finally starting to get moving. Matthew’s return to Oxford yields him the knowledge of exactly who it is that violated the lab and tried to steal its secrets. To say he is displeased by this revelation would be somewhat understating the fact, although one can’t help but feel that what he then goes on to do about it may well have some serious repercussions both for him personally and for the situation between the various creatures in a more general sense.

Back at the family pile, Ysabeau tries a new tack in her mission to gently disabuse Diana of her affections for her son by revealing more of both his past and the specific nature of vampires. This gives us another round of those stories that sound much more interesting and full of adventure than the ones we are currently seeing play out, although it is nice to get the ‘origin story’ of how Matthew became a vampire in the first place.

Meanwhile the demons are still doing… something. This part of the show is very unclear to date. We know that demons are a third type of creature alongside vampires and witches but we don’t know much about them beyond that they’re vaguely ignored/dismissed by the other two species of creature and they’d like to try to club together to make this not the case. It feels like an oddly tacked on subplot that hasn’t really gone anywhere at all yet, but there are hints here that it may be about to start having a little more direction.

And of course there’s a discovery about Diana’s heritage which reinforces still further her apparent special-ness and ensures that she is almost definitely some sort of chosen figure (as if we didn’t already know from all the faintly tedious stuff about how amazingly powerful she is even though she isn’t consciously aware of it). Matthew rushes back to her side to give her the news but then gets rather distracted with something else and now it would appear that all bets really are off.

The Congregation just continue to bicker among themselves, mainly, against the backdrop of the luscious Venice skyline. Whether they’ll ever actually make any sort of decision about something to do is anyone’s guess, but Gerbert is definitely up to no good, Trevor Eve clearly relishing the chance to chew the scenery in his own trademark way.

There’s nothing inherently bad to be said about the show. It just continues to pace itself at a crawl, spend far too much time on exposition instead of actual action, and feels a little wilfully obtuse with regards to one third of the creature trinity. It’s beautifully shot, it has the appropriate feel of pathos and darkness, and there’s a genuine sense of weight and age to the vampires as there should be. It just could do with pepping up a bit.

Verdict: Still slow and steady, though showing signs of moving in the direction of some sort of action soon. Watchable, but increasingly frustrating. 6/10

Greg D. Smith