Let’s talk about the fridge in the room. This is an episode that’s tremendously fun, funny and sweet. Miranda MacDougall, as Izzy, is so great you instinctively expect her to be a member of the team.

And then she dies.

While Ralph and Barry, powerless, watch.

It’s a gutsy move in one way. Ralph’s journey towards taking the job seriously is complete and he and Barry have finally met in the middle, as evidenced by the lovely final scene.

It’s a terrible move in another. Because for the umpteenth time, this episode asks you to watch a female character be sacrificed so a genre show can add more manpain to the engine.

It’s lazy. And this show should never be lazy. It only works here because it’s so carefully constructed; this is a moment where everything should go right and nothing does. It gives DeVoe much needed agency, it gives Ralph the final kick in the pants he needs and it propels Harry into a new kind of plot for this season’s designated Wells.

But Izzy still dies so a bunch of guys can emote. And there is no getting around it.

If you can deal with it, there’s a lot to enjoy here. Ralph’s great, Izzy’s great, there’s some interesting stuff happening with Marlize DeVoe and Cecile’s telepathy plot pays off! Again!

It’s all fun and this season remains the strongest the show has ever been. But this week it has blood on its hands that can’t help but feel unnecessary, unfair and not in the dramatically appropriate way.

Verdict: A good episode with a bad central event. Here’s hoping this is a trip, not a stumble. 7/10

Alasdair Stuart