Day two in the village of Osea; as the residents prepare for the forthcoming festival will Sam find any answers to the escalating mystery – and is he really in danger?

We last saw Sam making his way back to the pub, having missed his chance to leave before the tide cut him off. We pick the story up the following morning, with Sam and Jess pondering what the previous night’s booze and debauchery has led to. We get some of their backstories filled in this week, specifically regarding what Sam was doing in the woods, and Jess’ family difficulties. Katherine Waterston gives a very natural and slightly world-weary performance, and I can’t help but wonder if Jess really is just a slightly hippyish visitor – she seems too good to be true and is surely hiding something. Jude Law’s Sam continues to impress, this week discovering that his connection to the village is far stronger than just his grandfather having been stationed there during the war.

Having been depicted as a complex but still fairly ordinary man stranded in a strange and possibly hostile environment last time, here the tables turn a little, with Sam being presented as a threat to the village and specifically Epona, the teenage girl he saved from suicide. The answers he gets when he finally demands them are perfectly reasonable, if a little pat, and temporarily suggest that all the drama may be in Sam’s head. We’re again privy to his nightmarish revelatory dreams and visions, all blood, guts and fire, which so far is the only specifically fantastical element to the story. I do hope this is shown to be dramatically justified, and not just weirdness for the sake of being weird, or even worse included in lieu of proper problem-solving.

Last week we saw a couple of the villagers make the sign of the upside-down cross associated with Saint Peter (and, it must be said, some heavy metal bands who don’t really know what it symbolises). This week we learn a little more about the villagers’ religious convictions, seemingly a mishmash of early Christianity and Pagan mythology. When asked the landlord describes them as Christians plain and simple, but there’s obviously more to it than that. I’m far from the only viewer to have made thematic links with The Wicker Man, with its protagonist cut off from the mainland, bemused and seemingly threatened by a community which follows unfamiliar religious beliefs. The parallels are so obvious and numerous though that I wonder if we’re being led down a blind alley, and that this may turn out to be something other than a homage to Edward Woodward’s Hebridean investigation.

As with the first episode, it’s hard to cast judgement without knowing where this is going. We do get some answers, but just as many new puzzles. As the day wears on the tension mounts and the already peculiar residents become increasingly disturbing. I’m beginning to form suspicions about some of what’s going on, and next week should contain a mini-resolution of sorts, so I’m looking forward to seeing if I’m right.

Whatever transpires, I think it’s safe to say that Sunday will not be a day of rest for poor Sam…

Verdict: This continues to be enigmatic, as well as beautifully shot and performed, if perhaps a little too wilfully odd at times.  7/10

Andy Smith

Click here to read Andy’s review of the first episode