Faced with the prospect of Chester revealing Chico’s fate, Marcus has no choice but to play his game, and he and Saya must recruit an uncomfortable ally to help track him down. Meanwhile, Maria is under increasing pressure from Chico’s father to find the people responsible for his disappearance.

Having a secret you must keep lest a ruthless cartel boss and his entire gang descend on you with the wrath of a thousand devils is hard enough. Having one of the people who has to keep that secret being a bipolar sufferer who is off her meds and increasingly erratic is a little worse. Having your serial killer nemesis reveal he has the head of the corpse that can incriminate you though? Well, let’s just say it’s bad times for Marcus.

Enlisting Saya’s help is an interesting move – sure she’s capable and smart, but there’s also still the very open question about their mutual feelings for one another. It adds a certain frisson to the dynamic of the episode’s A plot – tracking down Chester – but then the episode goes deeper, with what can’t be an accidental Silence of the Lambs homage as they enlist the help of teacher and former serial killer the Scorpio Slasher, reasoning that to find a serial killer it’s best to ask one how.

Taking its cues very much from Jonathan Demme’s seminal movie, the episode makes sure to make the most of its central conceit. There’s an uncomfortable number of parallels that the Slasher is able to draw between himself and Marcus, as well as a natural talent for observation and deduction which helps him swiftly fill in the blanks that Marcus intentionally tries to leave. French Stewart does an impeccable job of portraying a man who is dangerously unassuming in appearance but no less deadly, and wisely avoids the trap of making the Slasher in any way redeemable. There’s no danger at any point of the viewer feeling like they are on his side, which helps wind up the tension as he finds himself abroad in the city for the first time in years with three young students – however capable they might be.

Meanwhile the B plot has Maria increasingly on the brink of falling to pieces as she is pressured by Chico’s father and other members of the cartel to get some concrete results in the hunt for whoever has made Chico disappear. These scenes carry additional weight given the context lent by the origin story from last episode, but also work because Maria Gabriela De Faria’s performance is finely tuned. It’s difficult not to sympathise with her predicament, even given the self-destructive tendencies she displayed in the last episode, and it’s clear that even if she does manage to carry off the deception of Chico’s father and the cartel as to his fate, this is an experience that will leave her with a whole new set of scars on top of the previous ones.

Madam Gao continues to be a thorn in Lin’s side – easily more capable, perceptive and ruthless than Lin, it’s increasingly difficult to see why it’s he and not her who assumed authority over Kings in the first place. Much as it’s easy to dislike her presence and the fact that she sided last week with an actual Nazi of all people, it’s difficult to deny some of her points in the oddly messed-up world of the show, and it’ll be interesting to see how the imminent power struggle between her and Lin resolves.

Finally there’s Chester himself, who it is increasingly becoming apparent is deeply unhinged. This is the part where the show really does commit to being as in the viewer’s face as possible with its boundary-pushing and the general levels of gore, violence and just plain wrongness. Chester is increasingly becoming an interesting character – especially here as we find out the full tale of exactly how Marcus made his name with the burning down of the orphanage and we get to see a little more of exactly how Chester thinks. One thing is certain – things are likely to only get messier from here on in.

Verdict: Spacing its time and pacing well between a fascinatingly tense and brave A plot and the various other side narratives going on. The only issue you’ll have is keeping up. 9/10

Greg D. Smith