We find out everything about the Blackdeer case, and in doing so we find out that everything started there.

This is essentially episode zero for the entire show. It completely recontextualises very nearly everything we’ve seen and changes the focus of the show completely.

Key to that is May, who we finally get an origin for. Katharine King is superb as a focused, determined young woman who finds herself overtaken by tragedy and flat out refuses to stop swimming. Rose Blackdeer, Jesse’s daughter, was her girlfriend and when she was murdered, May started doggedly walking the truth down. Her first appearance in the show, in the Morgue, isn’t accidental, it’s a lead. The burned Reviver is Jesse Blackdeer and she was investigating his murder too. It’s an incredible twist, changing everything we’ve thought about those scenes and it gives the show so much more scope. It also, in King and Brandon Oakes as Jesse, gives it two more major ensemble players. Both have the same damaged steel, and both resonate brilliantly with Dana and Em. Four people, all broken by a town that didn’t notice or care, refusing to take it lying down.

We also get answer after answer, including Blaine’s clear culpability in Rose’s murder which in turn changes how we view him. He’s a zealot because it’s all he has. He’s a believer because he’s damned.

The Cypress sisters get a lot to do this week as well, with Melanie Scrofano taking Dana from good hearted and determined to the bitter and brittle cop we see now, and Romy Weltman reconnecting Em with her innocence. In the case that defines their lives, they finally have a lead. No wonder they both jump for it with both hands despite what it costs them.

As the episode closes, we see that they were on the right lines with it all, Aaron, the other cops, Blaine, but didn’t have all the pieces. We also see Jesse, in a heartrending moment, led to his daughter’s body by the ‘angel’ he helped escape. He puts her to rest and then he and the angel disintegrate into sparks and drift away. He, at least, is at peace. The others have a ways to go yet.

Verdict: An extraordinarily good piece of TV. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart