Cindy and the JSA are forced into an epic conflict with Cindy’s new ISA – a fight in which there may well be no winners.

It feels like it’s a bit early for a climactic showdown between the new JSA and the new ISA, what with Cindy barely having gathered her new crew together, but here we are and boy, is this an episode which takes no prisoners.

Mike’s involvement is predictable though still not exactly what he (or the audience) may have suspected when Cindy voiced her interest, but at any rate, he’s in a lot of trouble again, and he’s not the only one. Pat gets himself well and truly on the wrong side of a fight he can’t win (or even have) and that leaves Barb with the responsibility for making some tough choices – ironically of the two decisions she takes, sending her daughter off into battle seems to be the easier one.

Turns out though that the thing driving Cindy’s quest for revenge has ideas of its own. As the two teams of teens lay about one another, causing a lot of damage to their school in the process, it quickly becomes clear that perhaps Cindy doesn’t quite have the control over Eclipso that she thinks she does.

And then there’s the rogue factor of Shade turning up to stick his oar in – the man seems to have a genuine beef with Eclipso, but does that mean that Cindy and her friends can really trust him? Indeed, should they, given that as far as they know whatever fate befell Dr McNider was his doing?

It’s not an episode that’s shy with the violence or the body count for that matter – these aren’t playfights, even if more than half the participants are kids, and bad stuff is never far away from happening. The writers pull no punches and by the time the credits roll, things somehow look worse than they ever have before.

Verdict: A dark instalment where the stakes are high and nobody is ever quite safe. 8/10

Greg D. Smith