Marcus and Tomas investigate further as the demon inveigles itself further into Andy’s life – and Bennett and Mouse meet an old friend.

This series continues to impress and continues to get stronger with each passing week. The multiple different plotlines are juggled apparently effortlessly, with movement on every front, and there’s the long-awaited return of Maria Walters… albeit perhaps not for as long as you might have hoped.

The centrepiece of the episode is the interrogation scene, as Marcus and Tomas bait the demon that’s plaguing Andy. It’s one of those scenes that you just don’t get in a lot of TV nowadays, allowed the space to build up the tension to breaking point. All involved – the actors, the writers, the director and the editor – deserve kudos for tightening the screws exactly as they need to be, giving us as audience information that the exorcists may not have but which they can feel.

The scenes with Truck and the other kids are heartbreaking: the sense of impotence for all involved as the System grinds inexorably on, while the return of Harper’s mother was shocking in so many ways – not least because of everything that we’ve been told about the demon. I couldn’t be certain if she was really there, initially, or whether this was a hallucination in the same way that Grace and Nikki are.

And talking of shocking, the return of Maria Walters, and Mouse’s dispatch of her, certain qualifies under that heading. I had faith that we’d see her again (I didn’t think the producers would include her in the “previously on” reminders if we weren’t going to) but after all that happened in season 1, I thought she’d be a constant for however many years this show runs. [I wrote this before talking with Jeremy Slater on Thursday – the reasons behind this decision are now explained in the add-on portion of the interview here.]

Verdict: Everyone firing on all cylinders – The Exorcist at its best. 10/10

Paul Simpson