Daimon and Gabriella are called to an incident of possession, and must battle to save a man’s soul from a dark entity. Yen starts poking further into his work than he perhaps should when Ana takes a trip to St Teresa’s to make inquiries of her own of Mother.

There’s still something not quite firing with Helstrom in this second episode, and I’m not sure I can put my finger on it. The acting is good, though Tom Austen can feel a little rote in his delivery in places, skirting the line between dry sarcasm and slightly wooden delivery at times. The set design is lovely, the FX shots are all good and the basic story beats work. But something just feels…off.

The reunion of Daimon and Ana goes about as we would expect – there’s clearly some sibling affection there, buried under a lot of trauma and resentment from each side. Ana has decided she wants to speak with Mother, something about which Doctor Hastings isn’t too thrilled, and even less so given the way things play out. But Ana isn’t the sort of girl to give in easily, even if she isn’t necessarily as powerful as she likes to think she is.

Called to the scene of a horrific accident by a priest who’s convinced the remaining living victim is possessed, Daimon is surprised to find an entity older than he expected – something truly evil and something which also appears to recognise him. As he and Gabriella try to save the man’s soul from being consumed by the entity, he’s also fighting the battle of finding out exactly what (if anything) the creature’s cryptic pronouncements about Daimon and his sister might mean. The back and forth between Helstrom and Rossetti is really good here, with the Vatican agent getting to reveal a little more about herself which rounds out the character and gives her a bit of an edge. Again, it’s impressive that the writers have avoided the sort of tropes one might expect in this sort of show. Rossetti is a Vatican agent yes, but she’s seen her fair share of real pain and darkness, she’s no desk jockey pen pusher there to just get in the way.

Yen meanwhile – this actually might be the issue. The show is not terribly clear from one scene to the next about exactly how much he knows, what he’s doing or why. This makes it difficult to follow certain elements of the plot, not helped by Caretaker meeting yet another character for another cryptic conversation, neither of which apparently merit further explanation.

I think it’s that the whole thing is starting to feel like we’ve been dumped in the middle, and the audience is expected to catch up with no real assistance. As excellent as all the character work is (and it is), it’s hard to keep up with the finer details of the various subplots at play. I hope it sorts this out quick.

Verdict: Great performances and ideas hamstrung slightly by the show not giving us quite enough context. Hopefully it’ll get better at providing that as it goes on. 7/10

Greg D. Smith