“Asta knows this version of me. But I am one thousand nine hundred miles from being with someone who knows the alien part of me.”

At the end of last week Harry was set to head off to New York in response to the signal received, he thinks, from one of his own people. However a spanner in the works arrives in the form of the real Harry’s green-haired runaway daughter, Liza (Taylor Blackwell). It takes no time, obviously, for her to spot that her Dad isn’t how she remembered. Since he can’t tell her the truth Harry has to play along, and what follows is a fairly predictable tale of antipathy leading to eventual bonding. It’s quite sweet and star Alan Tudyk is at his best when he’s having to pretend to be something he’s not, but it didn’t really engage me too much. It did feel a little like a retread of last year when his wife Isabelle turned up. Which does beg the question – how does Harry not know Vanderspieigle had a daughter? She’s not Isabelle’s daughter (she was his second wife) but she’d surely at least know of her and have asked after her?

Elsewhere we have Patience’s Family Day, an attempt by Mayor Hawthorne to boost the town’s reputation and morale. We get to see Asta and D’Arcy take part in a chilli-eating contest (by which I mean actual chillis) and witness a children’s play, written by Ben, about the famous 59, the miners who all died in order to save one (who died anyway). Unlike the audience of horrified parents I thought his play was rather good and the accompanying song amused. As well as this we get more on Sheriff Thompson’s past including a flashback. It’s hardly the most original cop back-story, but it’s good to have some more light shed on him. Meanwhile Deputy Baker still thinks she’s been abducted due to the missing day in her memory – I stupidly didn’t pick up on this last week, but of course it’s due to the fake events Harry implanted in her and Thompson in order to get them off his trail.

Speaking of Thompsons, this episode is directed by Lea Thompson (Marty’s mom in Back to the Future); she’s also helmed a couple of episodes of the forthcoming second season of Picard. She does a good job with material which isn’t particularly interesting to me. I have no end of patience for the residents of this little town, but this time I really did want the show to “get on with it”. We’ll almost certainly never see Liza again so what was the point? If Harry needed softening the events of last week cover that, and I did feel it was treading water before we head off to the Big Apple.

Verdict: After the last episode’s reveal regarding the fate of Dr Stone and hints things may be ramping up this feels like the brakes have been put on, for no particular reason. Plenty of fun to be had for sure, but I’d be surprised if this episode adds anything to the season as a whole. 6/10

Andy Smith