Johnny meets with the mutant lawyer who first recruited him to the Underground to see if she can provide leads on the Inner Circle. Lauren and Andy are having the same dream which is distracting both of them in different ways. The Inner Circle continues to plan for their new war, which means tying off the loose ends from Lorna’s birth.

Starting with a flashback which forcefully recalls the introduction of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine all those years ago in Bryan Singer’s original X-Men movie, this week’s episode seeks to give us a bit more context on a lot of things. Said flashback shows us how Johnny got recruited by Evangeline Whedon – a mutant rights lawyer who is herself a mutant, and a key player in the Underground network. The relevance becomes clear as we revert to the present day and discover that this is the person to whom our heroes must turn to try and find some useful information about the Inner Circle.

Or at least that’s what Johnny is after – in truth, Marcos just wants to know where Lorna and his baby are and Caitlin just wants to get her son back. That obsession on Caitlin’s part is starting to drive a wedge between her and Reed though, which bubbles over here. Of course, Reed has secrets of his own that he’s struggling to keep as it seems his father’s ‘fixing’ of his powers wasn’t as permanent as he might have thought. And neither of them really seem to understand Lauren’s feelings on pretty much anything, until she starts spelling it out.

But it isn’t just Lauren suffering the tortured dream of her and Andy’s reunion – Andy is having the same dream and it isn’t helping him focus on the training Reeva is making him do in preparation for the Inner Circle to start operations. There’s never any doubt that Reeva is prepared to do whatever she needs to in order to ensure her plans run smoothly, and that’s displayed when she orders the triplets to tie up all the loose ends from Dawn’s explosive birth. Esme seems less keen than the others though – perhaps there is a weak link in the Inner Circle after all?

Elsewhere, Lauren and Clarice are still doing their best to reunite Christina with her sister Jasmine and Agent Turner (remember him?) is struggling to adapt to life outside of Sentinel Services, even more so when the blackout caused by Dawn’s birth has his mutant-finding senses tingling again. One suspects that Turner still has a part to play in all this unfolding drama.

As usual, everyone is bringing their ‘A’ game here – every performance is well realised and the scripting is absolutely first rate. You feel the tension, the pain and the trauma with everyone as you go, and the ending is a gut punch of conflicting emotions.

Verdict: Tense, compelling, and laying down enough threads that it feels like we could be watching these stories unfold for seasons to come. Great stuff. 9/10

Greg D. Smith