David’s plan begins to unfold, with the various players performing their assigned roles, some more reluctantly than others. However, there’s a Melanie-shaped fly in this ointment.

Picking up literally where the previous episode left off, this instalment begins with a bit of flashback, giving us some insight into exactly what’s been going on with Melanie these last weeks. Going right back to a scene from the opening episode of the season and working forward from there, we see the complex journey that the character has been on this whole time, which both explains her relative absence from proceedings and also offers a whole new set of questions. One thing is clear though – Melanie is still very much clinging to her love for Oliver, which isn’t all that surprising when you consider she kept him frozen for a couple of decades hoping his mind would return to his body.

Elsewhere, Cary and Kerry work out what they’re supposed to do via the instructions David planted in their heads, and in spite of Kerry’s misgivings on the matter, they go about their task. Mainly this line of the show seems intended to serve an eventual philosophical conversation between the two which is sweetly touching. They’ve always been an odd presence within the show, the dynamic between them one of its more fascinating elements, and it’s nice to see them get a bit of screen time together.

And then there’s Lenny, who is even more reluctant to play her own part in proceedings, and so takes advantage of her new found freedom by returning to one of her old haunts and going on a bit of a bender. Unfortunately for her, she’s not alone (and possibly may never be), and she’s not getting any peace until she goes and does what David has in mind for her. That may not be the worst thing in the world though, as we learn something interesting about Lenny here that had long been hinted at but never fully confirmed – much as she may revel in her role as a bad person, even bad people have soft centres if you look hard enough, and here we see Lenny’s in full for the first time.

All this may come to naught though, given that Clark got that nasty bash over the head from Melanie as he was on his way to fulfil his own part in David’s plan. The Shadow King and Oliver may be one step ahead of David on this one, although it’s by no means clear that they themselves are on the same page.

Verdict: Still taking its time, this episode at least has the virtue of having some actual things happening and no longer feeling like the narrative is trapped in treacle. It’s going to be interesting to see how things resolve towards the end. 8/10

Greg D. Smith