A new discovery means that Snowpiercer and Big Alice may need to work together for a common cause. Troubles continue to simmer between the different classes of passenger. Bess gets a promotion she may not be ready for. Zarah makes a shocking discovery that might upend her new life before it’s properly begun.

As the show warns you before it starts, it feels important to note that this week’s episode contains a scene involving suicide, and therefore should be approached with that in mind.

So, Snowpiercer and Big Alice are locked together, reliant upon one another. They also each have a member of the other’s population captive, and their respective leaders want to get a look at one another, ergo an exchange is to be made, though not before Layton has gotten some valuable information out of Kevin, the porter from Big Alice.

But Melanie’s return prompts some more questions – her conviction that she saw snow outside leads to her and her colleagues making some tests that reveal a stunning truth – one that could possibly form the basis of an alliance working towards the greater good between the two trains. But can Wilford be trusted even a little bit?

Elsewhere, Till is struggling to find a place for herself other than ‘person who follows Layton around’ but she may regret voicing that thought to him as she finds herself given a promotion she never wanted and may not be adequate to discharge. She’s not really got time to think about it though as a tailee has been brutally attacked and maimed and she needs to get to the bottom of it. By the time she does, the implication is chilling, backing up her ‘crazy’ theory as to exactly what might be occurring aboard the train.

And while volunteering in medical, Zarah is confronted with an unexpected face from the past, one that might turn her entire new life with Layton upside down. Watching her struggle with this is one of the most genuinely hard things in the episode to see, as she runs a full gamut from stone cold bitch to empathetic character and never really quite settles on either.

Sean Bean is also continuing to have a great deal of fun as the returned Mr Wilford, charismatic enough to be utterly believable as he plays to adoring crowds but also absolutely terrifying as he calmy dispenses his own form of ‘justice’. It’s not hard to see why Melanie did everything she could to put him as far behind her and everyone else as possible.

Verdict: Genuinely difficult to watch in places for all the right reasons. Sean Bean might have been born to play this role, and the conflict promises to be absolutely compelling going forward. 9/10

Greg D. Smith