Jentry and Gugu enter the Zhong, to discover the truth about Jentry’s parents and their deaths. By talking to them.

So many things snap into place this episode. We meet Zhongkui again and discover he’s the warder of a prison of ghosts. The first raised eyebrow is the fact Jentry’s parents are there, but the reunion is raw and sincere and very sweet.

The second raised eyebrow comes when we see how they died. They’re greedy, short-sighted and Gugu does her best to save them from themselves, but it isn’t enough. As it plays for the first time, it’s a welcome dark take on the story, Jentry’s parents revealed to be good if flawed people who know they were flawed and are working on it. It’s tragic. It’s understandable. It leads Jentry to rededicate herself to her training.

It’s a lie.

The tragedy of this mounts as the episode accelerates. Jentry rededicates herself to her training to break her parents out. She has a redemption narrative now, something and someone to fight for. When she thinks she’s ready she returns to Bixi and meets… cats. Shapeshifting creatures called Bakeneko, who confess they impersonated her parents as a favour to a friend.

The ground shifts under the series as Jentry, still reeling from this, is given a string of memory pearls by a ghost she doesn’t recognise. When she puts them on, she sees the truth: her powers were transferred to her by Gugu, to stop her parents selling a powerful artifact to the Mogui, Mr Cheng.

This is the exact midpoint of the show and it tips everything we thought we knew over. Jentry’s parents aren’t ghosts. Gugu isn’t a heroic figure trying to do her best. Jentry isn’t the chosen one. She’s just the nearest vessel Gugu had to hand. The reveal wraps the show’s themes of cultural difference, adolescent alienation and grief around its fists and punches the world it’s set up into splinters. It’s breathtakingly done, mixing tragedy with comedy and it ends on one hell of a cliffhanger. Jentry, alienated, finally armed with the truth, ready to free herself from Gugu and her powers once and for all.

Verdict: Surprising, bleak, tragic and furious this is an incredible episode. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart