CeCe faces up to the lie she’s been telling and discovers that the monster behind all of this is much closer to her than anyone dared think.

Jayden Bartels’ CeCe steps into the spotlight for the best episode of the show so far. Up to now CeCe’s been portrayed as the single family member who has their ducks in a row. She’s endlessly competent, a little obsessive, driven and focused. And she’s been lying the whole time.

John Mahone’s script embraces the show’s fluid approach to time, starting a month in the past and showing us CeCe come face to face with the worst realisation possible for her: she’s done her best and for the first time it isn’t good enough. Bartels plays the raging frustration and panic that moment brings forward brilliantly. CeCe’s not just the family member who’s okay, she’s the family member whose job it is to be okay and when she fails her self-image shatters. That’s going to have resonance for a lot of people. It certainly did for this reviewer.

The episode balances this character work with some neatly spooky, and gooey, action too and does so in a really fun way. After spending some time in Trey’s haunted car last episode, CeCe’s kombucha cup has some of the mysterious substance we’ve seen in every episode in it. CeCe doesn’t notice, drinks it and a moment of Cronenbergian nastiness invades a Disney+ show in the best of ways. She seizes during a job interview, loses time as she stumbles through the city (a special nod here to director Gillian Robespierre who perfectly captures what walking somewhere with a fever looks and feels like) and ends up back at her parents’ house. The situation escalates through vomit, goo and a subway tunnel chase that feels like the first time the show has nailed the balance required for its tone. It’s funny, goofy, horrific and tense all at once. It also connects the increasingly disparate events so far and puts the twins on the same page. Story as structure, structure as story. Very smart.

Verdict: Wrapping up with a killer lead in to the next episode this is the best hour of the season so far. Enormous fun. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart