Spoilers

In Sheriff Boyd’s absence, Donna and Kenny struggle to manage the chaos as a busload of unwitting newcomers arrives in town…

From is back and it starts directly from the moment season 1 ended. In that sense not a single one of the cliff hangers is concluded in this episode – they’re just extended.

Despite this, the opening episode is strong. We get a decent amount of time with our season 1 characters while those new souls arriving on the bus we saw pulling into town at the end of the last episode are introduced.

The newcomers are a little weak – heavy on the tropes and light on the nuance but, at the same time, a handful of them are obviously here to stay so I’m sure we’ll be getting more of their stories with some welcome fleshing out.

Having said that our resident techbro remains little more than ‘the smart man who needs to solve problems’. In other words it’s not all great writing with the original cast either.

The episode’s continuation of the story without any break is interesting as it doesn’t feel like a new series but actually a continuation of the last. The strength here is that the narrative continues without any contrivances or breaks (even if it’s a terrible way to actually end a season).

My shout out goes to the bus driver, who’s cranky, bewildered and ain’t got no time for people’s nonsense. I loved her refusal to take anyone’s crap just as I was feeling increasingly sorry for her because the truth is going to ruin her day.

The more bewildering elements of the story (the lighthouse, the chimney and getting trapped in the warrens) were tense but as baffling as ever, being the weakest part of the episode. I’d love to see those parts mean something but until we get some major revelations it’s more of the same.

I don’t mind stories which present a world without explanation but the trick to getting them right is not to leave it too long before you provide an explanation. From continues blasting past that moment without caring whether you’re following and that is as frustrating now as it was last season.

What I really want here are some stronger character arcs. We get hints of that; grief and shock being played out in plausible ways, characters making decisions that are coherent rather than out of place. Yet it’s small beans as each member of the ensemble gets their time.

Verdict: As a continuation of the story this is a good episode that moves things along a little but provides some tension and interest. However, I want more and that statement echoes my feelings from season 1 a little too much for me to expect we get some answers. 7/10

Stewart Hotston