Guardians-of-the-Galaxy-107An intercepted Nova Corps broadcast suggests that Thanos is looking for a new General in the wake of Ronan’s demise, and Gamora is named as one of the candidates. Though Quill is quick to shrug off the notion, the others aren’t so sure. Especially after she apparently vanishes, taking Quill’s cube with her.

Back on the trail of the Cosmic Seed, the team run into trouble of the large, gloopy and tentacular kind as the arrive at the next planet marked on the map. One of the series’ goofier monsters, it’s still an entertaining resolution, but once the beastie is done, Gamora is nowhere to be found. The gang is forced to ask – have they really had a traitor in their midst after all?

Quill follows Gamora’s trail, leaving the others to fix the Milano, and finds her crashed pod on an ice planet. After a brief confrontation involving the two of them and Nebula, Quill is knocked out and wakes up on Nebula’s ship – a carbon copy of the Dark Aster – as a prisoner.

Of course, nothing is quite as it seems, and the reveal is well handled and dramatically satisfying, as two former siblings face off against each other, too blinded by their own ambition and enmity to realise the truth until it’s much too late. There’s nice use of Groot as a confidant as well – too often, the big guy doesn’t have much to do except repeat his famous catchphrase and act as the deus ex machina to get the team out of scrapes by growing longer arms etc. It was nice to have him get his own ‘function’ to a plan that went beyond these tropes, and indeed which actually made use of the character’s ‘limitations’.

One thing’s for sure as the episode closes though – we haven’t seen the last of the antagonists, and at least one of them walks away more dangerous than before. As Gamora tells them all at the close, now they have competition in their quest for the Cosmic Seed.

Verdict: With some great touches including the innovative use of Groot as a character, as well as nods to the movie, once again this is a great episode for fans of the Guardians. The series just gets stronger with each passing episode. 9/10

Greg D. Smith