Desperate to find a way of getting Piper back, Jo turns to a surprising source of assistance. Alex continues to help Chris, enlisting a face from his past who has a life-altering proposal. Piper continues to play along with Helen while pursuing plans of her own.

In light of Piper’s reluctance to go with her last time out, Jo convinces herself that the girl is clearly being manipulated by Helen and Benny, and that it’s incumbent on her to perform a rescue. But given how short she is on leads, she turns to an unexpected source for help in tracking down Piper again and having another shot, using the mysterious message that Piper transmitted to Mia and Ed via the ham radio. And that’s where the show starts to walk itself into some tight corners, narratively.

We still aren’t really clear on what it is that Helen and Benny are working towards, nor why they need Piper’s help. All we are clear on is that Helen is bad and Piper is not. Where this starts to get a little complicated is in how that set of circumstances is played out by the script. Piper is simultaneously playing along with them but also trying to work against them, while also pushing Jo away but trying to reach out to her. It’s a lot, and the show does well to navigate it all for the most part, although it does feel like it slightly undermines itself with its conclusion here.

Meanwhile, Alex is enjoying playing at detective with Chris, much to the annoyance of Jo. But there’s more to it than his surface level enjoyment of a bit of boy’s own adventuring and that’s brought into sharp relief by an offer from the old college friend he brings in to help with interpreting whatever it was that he and Chris saw last time out. It’s becoming clearer by the episode that Alex has unresolved feelings which are being complicated further by the recent adventures with his family, though the show remains opaque as to exactly why it was that he and Jo split in the first place.

At the same time it’s becoming ever clearer that Brooks has some feelings of his own, though Jo seems a little undecided on her own feelings in that matter. A love triangle seems a little passé for what this show has been doing to date, but maybe they have another surprise for us yet. For now, I’d settle for some idea of exactly what it is that Helen and her associates are after.

Verdict: Running a lot of teasers but starting to stretch the whole premise of the bad guys’ motives and plans being mysterious a little thin. 8/10

Greg D. Smith