With her crew having deserted her and unable to get hold of Ivy, Harley decides to go back home to her doting mother in Bensonhurst. But when her father re-appears, things start to go very wrong very quickly. Meanwhile, Ivy is in big trouble.

The show starts to do something very interesting here – it actually commits to consequences for what’s gone before. The crew don’t just come running back to Harley once she’d worked out she’s been an asshole. Ivy can’t get herself out of the particular bind in which she finds herself.

Mostly the episode chooses to stick with Harley herself, crying a lot, eating ice cream and generally bemoaning the loss of everyone who cared for her, until a little pep talk convinces her to seek refuge in the arms of her loving family back home. How this squares with what little we saw of her childhood in an earlier episode is never really clear, but what we do get works well enough that you’ll forgive it.

It’s certainly an interesting take, revealing things about Harley’s past which make sense of her various hang-ups as well as certain of her abilities and strengths. It even manages to pull out a few surprise twists along the way, right at the moment that it seems set on delivering a very cliched ending.

Meanwhile, Ivy is at the mercy of shadowy figures who have unclear intentions for her, but in keeping with the off-the-wall nature of the show, they’re taking long enough about it that there’s a chance she can get herself rescued, albeit a slim one.

Verdict: Starting to feel like it actually has a structure in mind beyond ‘hangup of the week’ as it heads into its final straight. 8/10

Greg D. Smith