The Stone family gets no breaks at all, between a shooting and the strain of Grace’s condition and the mystery surrounding it. But when Michaela has a troubling new vision it begs questions nobody can answer and leads to a whole new type of calling.

Ok so we all knew how that final cliffhanger scene was going at the end of the first season, as Michaela walked into a room where Zeke and Jared were struggling with a gun that inevitably went off just as she arrived, but as is often said with writing – it’s as much about the journey as the destination.

As Michaela is hovering between life and death she has a new kind of vision – not of someone else’s future but specifically of her past, although proceeding in a very different way, which raises new questions about exactly what did happen to Flight 828 that fateful night and the exact nature of their return.

As time passes with her recovery, she and Ben try to get to the bottom of that vision, renewing their efforts to track down all the passengers from 828. That quest leads them to a specific couple with a tragic story all their own, and a new twist on the exact nature and purpose of callings as well as more concrete evidence that they aren’t the only ones getting them.

Meanwhile Saanvi continues to see her therapist and talk about everything that’s going on in her life, blissfully unaware that she’s talking to The Major. This is a tense little branch of the plot that the writers seem intent on playing out for a while to come.

There’s also the little matter of Grace’s pregnancy and exactly who the father is. Most likely it’s Danny, but Grace and Ben aren’t quite ready to deal with the possibilities there so they’re both happy to just carry on with it being their thing for now. But how long can they really keep that from the rest of the family.

With all this plus the mysterious purpose of Zeke and the looming death date, you’d think the writers have plenty of balls in the air, but just in case, they chuck another one into the mix as well, and oh boy, it’s a doozy.

Verdict: Tense, dense and never afraid to throw in another storyline or two. A strong start to the second season. 8/10

Greg D. Smith