On a tidally locked desert world, a heretic faces her accusers. Judgment is coming for someone. But who?

An entirely different world, and an entirely different approach to storytelling for this second episode. The location is what strikes you first: beautiful, stark and oddly lived in. MacGregor cleverly lines the dunes with flags, giving a sense of a larger universe outside this intimate moment of horror.

That larger universe is embodied in Jay Villwock’s Sayer, the judge at what we soon realise is an execution. They have the most to do here, carrying the weight of the world, the hypocrisy at its core and the bulk of the relationship with Samantha Cormier’s Accused. What they deliver plays less like old testament blood and thunder and more like the polite, banal evil that grows when Rules Are Followed at all expenses. It’s a great turn, and one that anchors the episode.

Cormier is equally excellent but has much less to do. If the Sayer is the embodiment of the intensely conservative culture then the Accused is the blazing sun of change that threatens that even as it draws people in. The metaphorical evolution of ideas presented in the form of a terrified, resolute young woman and what she becomes. There’s a moment at the end of this episode where the Sayer is either reaching towards, or recoiling from, something impossible that embodies everything about the story. The future is here. What you do with it is up to you. But don’t take too long.

The ending for this episode asks a lot of you in the exact way the ending of ‘Ice’ does not but to me it’s just as rewarding.

Verdict: This is a different kind of story, one that could be a first chapter of a larger piece but works well on its own. Powerfully inventive and intense, it’s another strong entry in this remarkable new series. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart

https://www.1ksuns.com/