Reeling from Dana’s shooting her friends and family struggle to deal with the escalating situation in town.

Looked at one way, this episode is a little disappointing. Dana’s alive, awake and in pain but fine by the end of the episode and given the killer cliffhanger last time that feels slightly anti-climactic.

The reality is very different, with the double shooting leading to the entire town starting to slide downhill. Conrad Coates as Mayor Dillisch and David James Elliott’s Wayne get the scene of the episode as the two men find their bereavements and professions collapsing into one. On one side, Dillisch wants his wife to be given special treatment despite being a Reviver. On the other, Wayne can’t play favourites, secure for now, in not knowing one of his daughters is a Reviver. Both men are wrong. Both men have understandable reasons. The argument, and near fight that follows is vicious and perfectly played. It feels dangerous, unhinged, just like the town itself is starting to feel.

We get that in multiple other plots too, especially Blaine leading his group of religious zealots in an intimidation campaign across town. That culminates in a clash between a Reviver support group and Wayne’s people that in turn leads to the youngest of them, Tyler Barrow, being injured. That leads to him being ‘branded’ by something impossible and radiant that Blaine seems to have been keeping prisoner and is also whatever the kids glimpsed last week.

We also get Em embracing her newfound superheroine status complete with new hair and a sidekick. Kay, her delightfully skeevy roommate played by Maia Jae, is employed to do something very hard and very cool here. The bullet that shot Dana, hit Em. It’s still in her. All she has to do is get it out and cover it in the right kind of blood…

This sort of inventive use of the genre is where the show shines and it shines in every plot line here, the most chilling being Ibrahim discovering the inhuman experiments a colleague is carrying out on Revivers, reporting it and being fired. Revivers are a convenient threat now and one the worst elements of the town are jumping at as an excuse to do their worst. Right now, that includes Wayne, but that’s set to change.

Especially as, largely from her hospital bed, Dana solves the case on who killed Aaron and shot her and it’s Deputy McCray. As the episode closes, he’s confronted and the last vestiges of authority in the town begin to collapse. Because now not even the police can trust each other and McCray’s car is full of dismembered Reviver body parts… 9/10

Alasdair Stuart