Having discovered Chester’s hideout, the gang hatch a plan to take him down once and for all. Marcus has some personal complications to deal with. Gao and Lin head towards an open confrontation. Willie faces a choice.

This episode begins with a frankly bizarre musical number as we see Chester and his family performing a rendition of some song or other in the Shabnam residence, and then it never really feels like it gathers proper momentum after that.

Sure, stuff happens – an awful lot of stuff in fact – but it all feels a little scattershot and disjointed as it flails on towards a conclusion which feels unsatisfying on multiple levels.

First, there’s the discovery of Chester’s whereabouts by the gang, and their decision to do something about it. The plan which they hatch feels like it arbitrarily relies on some outside help from Lex (with Petra thrown in for good measure) and the way in which they secure that help feels… a little underwhelming.

Then there’s the additional emotional complications as Marcus’s (obvious) feelings for Saya (and hers back) start to get stronger, while Maria is still bouncing off the walls, worried about what might happen if Diablo finds out the truth about Chico, struggling with her own mental health and already deeply suspicious of Saya and Marcus’s closeness. This one realistically is only ever going in one direction and has been from day one; what I am less clear on is what the writers want us to feel here – sympathy for Maria or for her boyfriend and how he has to cope with her. Either way, it feels a little confusing.

And there’s the ongoing power struggle between Lin and Gao which in all honesty feels like the only coherent sub-plot the episode offers this week. How it plays out feels temporarily underwhelming until the payoff. Gao is a person who plays the really long game, and however clever Lin may be, it’s a mistake for him to believe that he’s ever really ahead of her.

Willie meanwhile finds himself on the horns of a dilemma. As a pacifist in an assassins’ school he’s not fitting in all that well, and his new romantic attachment is giving him new ideas about what he could and perhaps should be. However, there’s also the tug of his ‘family’ at kings, and the truth ringing in his ears from Marcus that Pacificism is all well and good but ultimately just hurts the other side. Though the philosophy behind this ongoing dilemma for the character is good, some of the execution, especially in one of the closing scenes, is a bit on the nose, and it seems fairy obvious what Willie’s choice will be as the finale rolls around next week.

Verdict: Patchier and a little more haphazard than normal, I can only hope that they’re saving the really big payoff for the final episode. 6/10

Greg D. Smith