We find out why Alex went to juvie, what happened to Trey and start to get an idea of what’s really going on.

This breezy episode is a lot of fun and puts both Francesca Noel’s Alex and Jayden Bartels’ CeCe front and centre. The latter is on deck for a spotlight next episode but Bartels does great work here as Alex’s increasingly reluctant sidekick. The spark between the two of them is very nicely played and there’s a moment where you realise Alex trusts CeCe and CeCe doesn’t notice which is very sweet and poignant.

But this is Noel’s episode. Alex is one of the show’s most interesting characters, dropping similar one liners to the twins but with visibly more effort. This season is doing interesting work exploring how teens deal with economic and social discomfort, and Noel plays Alex as nobody’s victim, just deeply unlucky, furious and unfocused. Her scenes with Ana Ortiz as her mother, Jen, who also happens to be a cop (and Anthony’s brother’s girlfriend in a lovely piece of arc plotting we should have talked about earlier) are played straight, hard and honest. Her scenes in Trey’s demonically (?) possessed car are one part comedy, one part deeply unsettling. Great use of System of a Down too.

Alex, Jen and CeCe anchor the episode so well it papers over the tonal problem starting to emerge with the main plot. The jokes about Trey’s fate ring very false and the show is still struggling a little to find the correct balance between teen shocks and all out horror. It’ll get there, and the ending is a genuine ‘WHAT?!’ moment that throws into question everything we knew about the mysterious plant up to now.

Verdict: Tonal issues aside, a very good episode and definitely a sign of the season breaking stride. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart