After ViCAP links the River Murders to a pharmaceutical company, Clarice seeks help from Julia Lawson, the corporate accountant for the company, who refuses to work with the FBI, and with Clarice specifically.

Clarice still feels like it’s in the information gathering phase rather than pushing forward, and there’s no suggestion yet that the resolution of the River Murders case will be easy. Each member of the ViCap team working on this case is doing so under the radar, Krendler giving prime suspect Joe Hudlin a shot across the bough, warning him of things to come.

Clarice is applying pressure to Tyson Conway, and Murray Clarke is getting valuable information about how much sales reps are earning for pushing dangerous drug Reprisol. Catherine Martin is meeting up with her ex-fiancée so that she can move on with her life, and Ardelia Mapp is told that for the Black Coalition to succeed in its racism case against the FBI, Starling must be implicated.

But the biggest sucker punch comes from Alastor Pharmaceuticals’ accountant Julia Lawson (Jen Richards). As a trans woman she felt the ire of the local community when transsexual ‘Buffalo Bill’ was demonised for the serial killing of women, and Julia holds Clarice accountable for not clarifying that Bill was not representative of trans people. This of course reflects criticism levelled at The Silence of the Lambs (novel and movie) for its depiction of Jame Gumb, and it’s noble for the show to take on and address that legacy skeleton in its closet. But perhaps the biggest shock is Hudlin gaslighting Julia by intentionally deadnaming her.

Verdict: A significant episode that feels more substantial than last week’s, but we’re in danger of this procedural drama focusing too much on the procedures than satisfying the needs of the drama. 7/10

Nick Joy