Henry torments Penelope, Miguel gets within sight of his sister, the NFFA party takes a very surprising turn and Jane makes a moral decision she will absolutely live to regret. Possibly briefly.

Let’s rip the bandage off here, because this season has a plot line that’s rapidly becoming a problem: Jane. It’s not Amanda Warren’s fault, it’s entirely the fault of the writers’ room. Jane is, to borrow a phrase from Hank Azaria, carrying the idiot ball. Like Rick and Jenna she’s an objector to the Purge who uses it for her own ends. Like them, she realises her mistake. Unlike them, she’s trying to keep to the moral centre ground. The moment this episode where the triage van staff go full Lisbeth Salander and brand a man on the verge of killing his wife makes perfect sense in the context of the show and is a perfect off ramp for Jane. The fact that she still sticks to her morals in the face of this should be inspirational or even poignant. Instead it’s maddening as for the fifth straight week she basically wrings her hands and tries to warn David she’s hired someone to kill him. It’s the one plot running in place, the one plot which feels forced and the one plot that needs to resolve and soon.

Elsewhere the episode is vastly better. The back story for Miguel and Penelope is as welcome as it is needed and it even provides welcome context for Henry. Like the Cowboy, he’s broken. Unlike the Cowboy, he’s broken hard long before he gets drawn into the Purge. Dylan Arnold is excellent here as are Gabriel Chavarria and Jessica Garza. Penelope in particular is everything Jane should be but isn’t; awake to the mistake she made and mad as Hell about it.

But the joy of the episode comes from the NFFA party. The plot trundles along amiably enough with lots of rich white people actively murdering the poor instead of simply cutting off their freedom of movement or right to vote. Then, suddenly, silenced gunshots ring out and Rick and Jenna realise the same thing we do: if this was a Purge movie, this would be the moment the Resistance stormed the party. And they are on the wrong side.

It’s a gleefully nasty reveal, made all the better by who their ally is and rounds the episode off very nicely.

Verdict: Things are falling apart, the centre cannot hold and so far Jane is the only one who can’t see that. Hopefully next episode that’ll change. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart