Doug discovers that Skinner visited a religious commune built around an AI called Naga years ago. It’s not much of a lead, but time’s running out and Eleina has an inside line. She grew up there…

Lazarus does Midsommar and does it brilliantly. The design of the show has always been a weird and entertaining combination of old and new and that’s front and centre this time. Naga is a glowing orb of data in a temple made of hands surrounded by simple wooden huts. The Lazarus team drive a futuristic SUV and a classic soft top up to the mountains, both covered in futuristic touches. An AI worshipping cult is just part of the local landscape. This is the future, and it’s weird and ragged and fascinating.

The episode builds on Eleina’s spotlight last episode and gives both her and Leland a lot to do as they walk through her old life and discover that humanity was in trouble long before Hapna. The cult’s cheerfully honest approach to problems, burning them to death, has the wide eyed stare of zealotry and growing up in an environment like that clearly influenced the gentle, softly spoken and deeply anti-establishment Eleina. The episode cleverly shows us the religious estrangement she has with her mother and the different approach each generation has to Naga through her friend Hanna. The same age as Eleina, Hannah stayed where she fled and the complex relationship between the two drives the episode. This isn’t the future they wanted, but whether it’s the future they’ll settle for is up to them.

The rest of the team get a surprising amount to do too, and it’s nice to see Axel’s constant need to keep moving is a character beat. The closing rescue gives everyone the spotlight and also ties the episode into the arc plot by revealing Naga is based on Skinner’s brain patterns. And Naga wanted to be a god. Whether Skinner does or not is a different matter, but as the episode closes the team have Naga’s data bank and, finally, a look inside Skinner’s mind.

Verdict: 17 days to go…

Alasdair Stuart