Tensions run high at Colony House when word of the coming food shortage leaks out.

After my complaints reached a crescendo over episode 5 I did wonder if this would be the episode to bring some clarity. The majority of the story focuses on Boyd who, let’s be honest, holds not only the town but the show together.

Boyd’s been having some challenging experiences recently and this episode really explores them. Except it doesn’t. We learn nothing. Again.

Harold Perrineau is one of my favourite things about the show. His delivery is only ever a sidestep away from incandescent fury, his objectives painfully simple but somehow all the grander for that. At the same time, with his overlarge blazer and open face, Boyd projects that shabby but determined demeanour I think any of us who’d survived what he’s survived would have.

This episode’s intense focus on where he’s at and what he’s trying to do is excellent and, as is so often the case for From, this is where it’s at its strongest.

Yet its weakness continues to hamstring it. Several significant events occur this episode and they kind of make sense within their own narrative structure but they do not move the story on in any way.

There are the barest hints of motivation and explanation flying around, maybe two significant lines this season but they’re never explored and characters continue to refuse to talk to one another.

I do wonder if, as far as it goes, people would continue to hold to ideas that are clearly wrong (because of lived experience) in such a pressured environment. Sure, we know people all over the place believe things that are patently not true all the time but in this specific set of circumstances I find it hard to square the things people claim as true with the experiences they’re having.

It’s as if no one in this show has ever watched a horror movie or read a fairy tale.

Verdict: So, yes, a watchable entry but no, not enough to lift this show up from where it’s wallowing.

Rating? 7 out of 10.

Stewart Hotston