NB There are some spoilers in this review

A UFO convention gets Harry one step closer to carrying out his plan, while Lisa and David ingratiate themselves with the Hawthornes.

An alien attending a convention of alien conspiracy enthusiasts sounds like an excuse for some delicious fun and jokes at our expense, and indeed it is. It may seem odd to attempt something so quirky for the series’ penultimate episode, but it’s used to reiterate Harry’s nature. Asta takes to the stage to naively inform the audience that she believes the aliens are essentially here to help us. Harry’s singular internal monologue reply of “nope” says it all. By now of course we’ve warmed to Harry, he’s our hero to all intents and purposes, so it’s still a bit of a shocker that he hasn’t changed his mind in the least. I had assumed going in that eventually he’d warm to us, his friendship with Asta and others convincing him that we’re flawed but ultimately worth saving. How delightful that such an obvious arc has been avoided.

Harry’s conversation with Giorgio A. Tsoukalos (real life alien “expert” aka that guy with the weird hair from all those memes) gives us a bit of background on alien/human interactions over the course of human history; all that Erich von Daniken nonsense is essentially true for storytelling purposes here. It’s Harry’s encounter with alien hunter Peter Bach (Lost’s Terry O’Quinn) that provides him a way to carry out his plan. Bach’s genuine fear of Harry, and his insistence that his tracker not be removed as it’s his only possible link to finding what happened to his unborn child, is properly chilling (moreso as the cold open actually shows this distressing event from thirty years earlier). While Harry doesn’t go as far as actually killing him, there’s the sense that he might, and it’s useful to be reminded again of his real nature as we head for the home stretch. Likewise the moment where Asta is approached by another American Indian who points out that if the aliens are essentially Columbus then things may not go well for us.

Away from the convention we join the Hawthornes as they lay on dinner for Lisa and David, to all intents and purposes this show’s Men in Black (as Sahar points out, “People in Clothes” doesn’t have the same ring about it). I’ve been a bit dismissive of Ben, the town’s mayor, as he seems eminently unqualified and a bit of a prat, but this week we get a lovely little glimpse into his psyche. He’s genuinely hurt that someone was murdered on his watch, and notes he was probably just across the street when it happened. We’ve become used to most of the men in this show being figures of fun, so it was a stark and rather sweet little moment.

Talking of figures of fun, Sheriff Thompson finally cracks the murder case, based on his erstwhile deputy’s legwork. It must be said that “the wife did it” is hardly the most surprising outcome, but anything more complex would have thrown the show off-kilter. It’s not about the murder, it’s about Big Black learning to respect Liv. It should have been horribly schmaltzy, but the moment when he comes into the bar and joins her in a karaoke duet of The Wind Beneath My Wings was actually pretty special. Lesser actors would have had me doing the comedy fingers-down-my-throat-with-sick-noises routine but instead I just cried a little bit. Spinoff series please…

So only one episode remains for this season. As mentioned above, this show really hasn’t gone where I assumed it would and can barely guess how next week will play out. We know Max is on to Lisa, and are left with the chilling thought that he, along with Sahar and Asta, may well actively help Harry carry out his plan to destroy the human race. Plus we have D’Arcy, already suspicious of Asta, who in this week’s conclusion (rather easily it must be said) stumbles across something Harry really should have got rid of ages ago. Goodness knows what she’ll make of that. With a second series on the way this may of course play out next year but, working on the assumption no one involved knew that was happening when this was made, it’s a safe bet there’ll be some sort of conclusion even if some threads are left hanging.

Oh yeah, Harry’s leg grew back.

Verdict: Another cracker as we prepare for the end (for now). I enjoyed every moment of this, so… 10/10

Andy Smith