Jo goes after Kindred when she finds a connection between him and the attack on Benny and April, but can she make it stick? Piper experiences more confusing visions, and Ed has some bad news.

This week’s episode feels a little less cluttered, and a lot more sinister, as the full extent of Augur Industries’ influence and malevolence starts to become clear. Picking up exactly where we left off last week, with Benny sitting in the wreck of his car dazed and confused, the episode feels a lot more focused, even though there’s plenty going on.

There’s another run of the ‘Rich guy isn’t as bothered as he should be’ thing between Terry O’ Quinn and Alison Tolman, this time with Robert Bailey Junior’s Chris involved as well, which somehow works a lot better than last week – yes, we’ve seen it all before, but there’s something in the way it’s shot, the chemistry of the actors and the sharp contrast between Tolman’s open, honest demeanour with a slight edge and O’Quinn’s quiet confidence and sinister charm that just makes it all pop. When it comes to the conclusion you know it will, it hurts all the more because you’re seeing Jo lose – something which just feels undeserved for the poor woman.

Meanwhile Piper is having some odd visions again but not in the same way as before. This is actually a very interesting plot strand, shoved in at various moments throughout the episode as apparently more of the oddness which exists around the little girl but then ending with something which makes it much more significant. She’s also starting to make Ed and Mia take more notice of her various peculiarities, and that’s going to set up some interesting narrative possibilities of its own. I’ve said it before, but Alexa Swinton is killing it in this role, perfectly balancing the wide-eyed innocent likeableness of the character as well as the more worrying edges.

And speaking of Ed, he’s got issues of his own to be dealing with apart from having the strangest adoptive granddaughter in the world. This is something that’s been hinted at before so it’s not terribly surprising but it does make me wonder if they are going to give in to the obvious narrative line they can follow or do something bolder. Given the nature of the show, I suspect the former, but Clancy Brown is so damned likeable that I could probably forgive it quite easily. At any rate, he’s doing sterling work here, whether it’s dealing with his own stuff or just delivering a stern rebuff to Benny for things he should know better than doing.

Star player this week for me though is Donald Faison, whose character Alex gets easily the most satisfying line in the episode when he and Jo have another one of those conversations that just leave me scratching my head as to exactly what it was that made them split up in the first place. It’s only a small moment, but it speaks volumes, and nicely answers the question as to why someone like Jo thinks she stands a chance against the might of Augur and Kindred – he’s underestimating her at his peril.

It’s interesting that the show retains all its comfort viewing family friendly edges, but is starting to take a much darker turn consistently. Kindred is a genuinely intimidating antagonist, and the lengths to which he and Augur are prepared to go are unsettling in their implications, doubly so because the show has done the groundwork so well in making us like all these characters. For all that it uses a lot of stuff we’ve seen a million times before, it’s in the execution that this show manages to make things feel fresh and entertaining week after week.

Verdict: Balancing darkness and light expertly, and presenting ever more intriguing possibilities week after week, this is the show that just keeps giving. 8/10

Greg D. Smith