Ben and Grace’s marriage is put under enormous strain as the full consequences of Ben’s actions become clear. A worrying new tendency in the treatment of passengers has Michaela questioning her loyalties. Cal makes an intuitive leap to try to help solve the calling which is affecting all the passengers so deeply.

Having literally kidnapped and assaulted the man he was already under a restraining order to stay away from, Ben is properly in the deep brown sticky stuff. Locked up and awaiting his fate, it’s left to Grace once again to be the rock of the Stone family marriage, but has Ben pushed everything just too far for even his loving wife to cope with anymore?

Michaela, determined to bring Saanvi in for her confessed murder of The Major, finds herself given pause when it starts to become clear, beginning with Ben, that passengers from 828 are suddenly being treated significantly differently, not just by their fellow citizens but by the organs of state. For Michaela, whose life and self-image are defined by her career as a good cop, this is a lot to take in, leaving her questioning exactly where her loyalties should and do lie.

Speaking of Saanvi, upon being confronted by Vance, she confesses what she snuck off to do last time out, which prompts fairly cold fury from a man she’s come to rely on as a confidant and friend. It’s becoming increasingly clear between this and his visit with Ben in this episode that now Vance is back at the NSA, he’s not the friend the 828ers had become used to relying on.

And while all this is going on, a violent, painful Calling is starting to overcome all of the passengers, visions of fiery conflagration and silent screaming returning to them all ever more insistently. Cal, faced with the reality of his father being unable to do much and nobody else really seeming to listen to him, turns to an unlikely source for guidance, and ends up persuaded to follow his own instincts in trying to put a stop to whatever the Calling is warning of. But where he ends up as the credits roll is a genuine surprise.

The show has left off the aspect of the suspicion with which the survivors are viewed for a while now, but it’s back with a vengeance here. Given current events in the world, it’s doubly uncomfortable to watch our heroes realise that not just the man in the street but law enforcement agencies and actual governments now view them as an ‘other’ – one to be contained/controlled at costs that might otherwise seem outlandish in a civilised world. Where the show goes next, as it combines this with the increasingly theological bent to its meta plot, will be interesting to see – it’s a balance that I don’t envy the writers having to try, and if it goes wrong, it could well be awful.

Verdict; Starting to venture out onto thin ice but – for now – I’m keeping the faith (pun intended). 8/10

Greg D. Smith