A woman in labour and a drunken slip of the tongue begin to expose the truth, as the villagers continue to lie to Helen about her husband’s whereabouts.

Early publicity for this series implied that the two main strands featuring Law and Harris would be separate, if interconnected, stories. This rather pulled the wool over this viewer’s eyes (as I’m sure was intended), as of course it was revealed at the end of last week’s instalment that Naomie Harris’ Helen is Sam’s wife. There were so many clues last week (her money troubles, her extreme reaction to her eldest daughter talking to a stranger) that I almost felt a fool for not working it out sooner.

The action begins just a few hours after we left Helen and her girls seemingly safe and sound in bed. They’re soon woken by a woman’s screams, and we discover the identity of the expectant mother referred to last week. No prizes for guessing it’s Jess (more or less confirmed during the live event anyway) or for guessing the identity of her baby’s father, not that either of them are aware of their connection.

As usual the villagers, especially pub landlord Mr Martin, lie through their teeth as Helen tries to get to the bottom of what happened to her troubled husband. She strikes up something of an alliance with Paul Kaye’s Cowboy, who explains a little about the consequences of the festival. We’re privy to an excellent scene where the Cowboy pushes Helen about her feelings towards her (she thinks) murdered son, and it’s a refreshingly honest if blunt discussion about grief, especially the way children are assumed to have been “little angels” when they may have been anything but. Good stuff for Harris to display her acting chops (Kaye too, he does slightly weird brilliantly).

Similarly her eldest daughter befriends Freya Allan’s Kail, Jess’ eldest daughter, who supplies the most coherent account so far of Osea’s history. Her earnest references to the island’s connection with the “health” of the world and extreme historical weather events make her seem like a Pagan Greta Thunberg, and it’s good to see Allan more involved at last. How much of what she says is factually true I do not know, but we finally get an explanation for why photos of Jack the Ripper’s victims are blatantly on display in the pub. As if there isn’t enough weirdness already without adding Jack to the mix, and inevitably his identity is “revealed”.

Despite the soap opera-like nature of some of this week’s plot, the tension, as usual, ramps up again towards the end. I have no idea how this will play out in next week’s finale, but from the preview it looks to involve a lot of running away from people with sharp objects.

Verdict: More drama than horror this week, which allows for some of the characters to become more fleshed out. A shocking moment towards the end hints at the balance tipping the other way for our final visit to the island. 7/10

Andy Smith