Jo is faced with the tough decision as to whether she really wants to foster Piper permanently, not helped by further revelations about the nature of the little girl.

This feels a little like the pilot episode, in that a lot happens while in reality nothing really seems to go much further forward. There’s sinister meetings, further revelations about the extent and nature of Piper’s powers, and new elements being introduced in every other scene, but ultimately what the episode is really about is whether or not Jo wants to keep Piper around.

Obviously this all tees off from the realisation last week that Piper isn’t exactly human, and that a computer disc – albeit a really advanced one – was what was needed to cure her illness. This would of course be enough to freak anyone out and Jo is really struggling with it. What’s nice is that rather than just focus on Jo’s response to this, the show gives equal time to Piper’s own reaction to the sudden change in Jo’s demeanour toward her. Piper may not be human, but she’s perceptive enough to notice that her new surrogate mother isn’t feeling so maternal towards her at the moment, and that might cause issues.

Terry O’Quinn returns from his brief cameo last week to do a bit of sinister villaining in a two-hander with Alison Tolman which works well enough but also sort of feels like the kind of scene we’ve seen a million times before in the genre – rich, enigmatic guy we are almost certain is a villain trying to pretend they’re just being reasonable and concerned. For what it’s worth, Tolman wrings the best she can out of it with him, but it’s tough to escape the feeling the scene is a little extraneous to overall proceedings.

Much more interesting is Maria Dizzia as Emily, former Augur Industries scientist and obviously slightly unbalanced genius. What’s fascinating about this character are her apparent contradictions, determined to save Piper and willing to go as far as aiding Jo and Benny breaking into an Augur facility last week but equally terrified of her former boss and apparently not all that concerned about Piper’s actual welfare beyond giving Jo just enough information to save her life. I look forward to seeing what the writers do with her going forward.

But honestly, between the running from one location to the next, various new bits of evidence and the slight shift in Piper’s own behaviour, everything really just serves as a backdrop to early and closing scenes that bookend that important question – will Jo take Piper on permanently? The answer is a little contrived but nonetheless pleasing for now – but I suspect it’s an answer that may get more complex as time goes on.

Verdict: Throwing an awful lot at the screen to essentially get to a very simple A-B plot, this works more on the strength of its cast than its oddly cluttered writing. 7/10

Greg D. Smith