Despite being on mandatory leave, Ralph Anderson continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding the murder that has turned the town upside down.

With episodes 1 and 2 being shown on the same night, effectively serving as a two-part premiere, we now get down to the nuts and bolts of the story. Shifting in tone away from a police procedural, we’ve now moved into X-Files territory, with Holly Gibney drafted in to help explain the unexplainable.

Holly is played by Oscar-nominee Cynthia Erivo and she’s just what the show needs to try to make sense of what’s going one. She’s the one who posits the idea of a doppelgänger and works out what happened in Dayton years before. Holly Gibney also appears in the Bill Hodges novels (Mr Mercedes, Finders Keepers, End of Watch) as well as the Mr Mercedes TV show. Arivo’s Holly is a very different, more confident character to that played by Justine Lupe on that show.

What really ups the X-Files Factor is the attack on vile detective Hoskins (a vicious Mark Menchaca) while investigating the barn where Maitland’s double ditched his clothes, the prison inmate who cuts his own throat and the mysterious bedroom visitor who passes on messages from Jessa to Ralph.

Verdict: It’s feels like we’re deep in Stephen King country now, not just because Holly Gibney has joined the drama, but the explicit inclusion of supernatural elements only previously hinted at. 8/10

Nick Joy