Dr 909 tells the team they knew Hapna was failing because they hacked the systems of a company called Delta Medical. Lazarus makes Delta Medical an offer; help save the world. It doesn’t go the way anyone expects.

Lazarus has broken stride now and it’s sprinting along. This episode is fantastic and explores three themes: the extra-legal nature of the team, the feral capitalism surrounding Hapna, and human nature.

Axel gets his contractually obliged fight of the week, and at first it seems a little cursory. As the team work out how to get into Delta Medical, Axel just walks in, flirts with a couple of guards, fights an elevator full of people and walks straight into the CEO’s office. It’s a weird beat but it works. Axel silently flirting with male and female guards alike before they try to take each other’s heads off is a fun way to explore his character, and it also defines the fight in an interesting way. This is the closest we’ve seen to Axel losing, and his usual flow and grace is replaced with the exhausted, untidy attrition of just trying to last longer than your opponent does. Tied in with Axel’s turn on opening narration this week, and his offhand revelation that Hapna doesn’t work on him, it takes him to some interesting places. It’s starting to feel like Axel’s confidence comes from a borderline terrified desire to feel something and I’m curious how this gets explored Given the show’s recurrent background characters of a luckless cop and the neighbourhood cat, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if we saw one or both of the guards again. He should call them.

We get a note or two about how the team fit into the world too. Team leader Hirsch meets her superior, and it’s implied strongly that they know a lot more about Hapna than Hirsch has told her colleagues. We also get some really fun stuff with them working with Dr Ahmed Rahman, the CEO of Delta to draw Skinner out into the open.  This is where the feral capitalism comes in as we find out Delta owned the test monkeys we saw at the end of the last episode and that a constellation like pattern is etched into a dead Hapna subject’s eyes on death. Crucially, much like Stephenson from the previous episode, he embodies both relentless greed and human nature. Stephenson wanted money to party, Rahman wants to save the world and get paid for it. Neither are right, but Rahman isn’t quite wrong enough to be a villain.

That idea of human nature being complex is central to the show so far and doubly so here.  The plan to draw Skinner out comes from Axel, who’s bored of chasing him. The plan itself manipulates people’s hope by announcing a fake cure in the hopes of drawing Skinner out. It’s a good idea, but it collapses because the team don’t take into account the very human nature they’re trying to exploit. The cure is grabbed by a terrified press conference attendee and under cover of that, an external hacker piggybacks into the building to steal the plans for the cure. This is great fun, as Popcorn Wizard, the new hacker joyfully wrecks stuff. Her way into the building is enormously smart and fun and her non-violent chaos is the exact thing a team full of drone pilots, spies and human martial arts highlight reels aren’t equipped to deal with.

Eleina, on the other hands, knows exactly what she’s doing. The last ten minutes of the episode are a flat-out sprint for the team and a game of chess between the two hackers. Eleina’s plan within a plan centres on them losing, something Axel in particular has no idea how to do, and it instantly gives her a measure of calm and focus that makes her one of the show’s most interesting characters. The other is Popcorn Wizard, a joy filled RV driving hacker in Pakistan who salutes Eleina’s near miss in catching her with glee. The world may be dying in 21 days but Popcorn Wizard knows fun work when they see it, and the back and forth hacker battle finishes with a tip of the hat. As well as, perhaps, a hacker version of the meet brute between Axel and the guards.

Verdict: We’re nearly at the halfway point of the show. We’re at 21 days before everyone dies. People are getting desperate, and creative, and the show is getting all the better for it even as the situation for the characters worsens. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart