Mara is forced to consider her future with OniraTech in the wake of the latest round of derealisations, but Paul has a radical theory about what they might mean. If he’s right, Mara will have to relive the most painful day of her life to try to piece together an answer. Meanwhile, Oliver has a proposal for Alexis, but can he be trusted?

Last time out, we left Mara in a state of huge distress as she was confronted by a derealisation masquerading as Chris, her ex-lover, which then morphed into Ray, her comatose brother-in-law, as the real Chris sat confused on the other end of the phone with her. This week, the show wisely decides to skip the ‘victim of the week’ format and focus its attention on our heroine.

And boy does she need that attention. Unsure of what is real and what is not, Mara then finds herself the subject of Oliver’s attentions, as his unconscious body is brought to a hospital with her name written on it. Entering the Reverie to speak with Oliver, he asks a favour in return for offering her a radical solution to her problem – one that will ultimately mean her no longer being able to enter the Reverie or work with OniraTech.

Paul has an alternative proposal – maybe the Reverie is picking up something she’s buried in her past, and she needs to find and confront it in order to stop the derealisations from happening. That’s when things on the Mara side of the episode start to take a really dark and rather unexpected turn. Suffice it to say, revelations here put a whole new spin on the character and her backstory.

Meanwhile, Alexis has issues of her own to deal with, and Oliver is not helping. We get a painful curtain pulled back on her own past as well, and the first real sense that there is a lot more to the brilliant head of OniraTech than might have been first apparent.

In fact, that’s definitely the theme here – by taking a step back from its usual episodic format, the show affords itself the time and space here to really dig into the various characters and show us elements of each we hadn’t seen or necessarily anticipated. Charlie’s concern for and protectiveness of both Alexis and Mara becomes a little more explicable, Paul’s feelings for Mara come a little more to the fore, and we finally have an answer as to exactly which side Oliver is on.

As it heads to its conclusion, the episode leaves us with a series of small cliff-hangers, leaving us in no doubt that the finale will also be forgoing the usual format to tie up all these loose ends and more. The pieces are set for quite an explosive ending, and to be honest I can’t really tell if even the writers are planning on taking any of this into another season. That uncertainty in a niche property in its first season is bold, and I’m excited to see where this all ends up.

Verdict: Full of revelations, and taking some surprisingly dark directions with its various main characters, this is an enthralling penultimate part in what has been a mostly very strong series. I for one will be glued to the screen next week. 9/10

Greg D. Smith