As Tandy and Tyrone deal with their respective disappointments in their own ways, those around them suffer the consequences. Meanwhile, O’Reilly mourns the loss of Fuchs, but that may not be the extent of her problems.

So last time out, our heroes basically got exactly what they wanted. Tandy discovered the smoking gun that would exonerate her father’s good name and bury the Roxxon corporation, and Ty got Connors on tape confessing to having murdered his brother. The fact that this all happened in episode eight of a ten episode arc was the first clue that it wouldn’t necessarily be the end of things. Indeed, we got to see Tandy’s disappointment at the revealed truth of who her father was, and this week, we get to see Ty deal with the fact that getting the exoneration he’s waited all these years for wasn’t everything he had dreamed it would be.

Framing the episode is a lesson delivered by Delgado about the nature of hero stories and the arcs they must pass through, including tragedy from which they must arise to become reborn as a hero, or possibly – depending on the circumstance – as a villain. It’s a little on-the-nose, but it does offer some narrative insight to what we see unfold on screen.

In Tandy’s case, we are very much on the regression arc. She wants nothing more than to forget all that has happened and simply go back to her old life. However, she’s also learned a new trick to grab a ‘high’ and it’s one that makes returning to anything or anyone quite difficult. Watching her lash out after she came so close to becoming a better person is equal parts frustrating and upsetting for the audience, and it’s perhaps only Delgado’s narrative in the background on the heroic trope that offers us any sort of hope that she might yet come out the other side.

Ty, meanwhile, is confronted by a more mundane truth than Tandy’s. Not as earth-shattering in its implications but nonetheless devastating to him personally. His confrontations with his parents on the subject bear a painful echo of truth for the real world. Marvel shows in general and this one in particular have never been shy about political allegory in their storytelling, but here things get very brutal and plain – the world is not fair, and no matter how much you might think you have justice on your side, when people more powerful than you have one hand on the scales, it doesn’t make any difference at all.

Evita meanwhile is the one taking in Delgado’s lesson as well as worrying about her Auntie, who is convinced that doom is coming, and only the ‘divine pairing’ can stop it. All Evita has to do is work out who the other half of the pairing is, having deduced Tyrone is one half. Although she’s not had much to do for the last couple of episodes, this instalment leaves us in no doubt that Evita is important, and also that more lurks under the surface of that smile. I foresee big things for the character in season 2.

Pity poor O’Reilly though. Having come home to her boyfriend stuffed dead in the fridge (and it’s hard to think that wasn’t a deliberate choice by the showrunners to brutally reverse the ‘girl in the refrigerator’ trope), she has to deal with her own dose of reality about just what the limits of justice are. Circling between O’Reilly, Ty and Tandy on a loop throughout as Delgado’s lesson occasionally interrupts, the show plays with us as to who exactly will wind up being the heroes and villains of the piece in the end. One thing’s for sure, next week’s finale can’t possibly be as bleak as this instalment was. Could it?

Verdict: Dark, but in an adult and sensible way rather than overblown ‘grittiness’. The episode packs a lot of brutal truth behind its storytelling, and the conceit of Delgado’s narrative, while a little obvious in a way, also lends a sense of meta narrative to proceedings. I can’t wait to see how all the ends get tied off next week. 9/10

Greg D. Smith