In flashback, we see Alpha and Lydia meet the man who would become Beta. In the present, Alpha comes clean to her lieutenant as the satellite falls…

This is genius, Nicole Mirante-Matthews’ script taking us deep into the minds of the show’s two pet monsters. Greg Nicotero’s direction is on point too, wittily balancing some oddly familiar looking locations (I’m sure Rick ran past that alley in season 1…) with a very different view of the world.

The flashbacks explore the birth of the Whisperers as Alpha and Beta meet under terrible circumstances. Beta, it’s heavily implied, is disfigured, wandering the halls of his mental health facility fortress with a Brightburn-like mask. Ryan Hurst brings the perfect combination of intimidation and fear to the big man and the cautious way Alpha indoctrinates him speaks to that. Beta is a terrifying force, but a malleable one, the blood-soaked Pinky to Alpha’s Brain. When he finally comes aboard, his loyalty is absolute.

Which makes the events of the present all the more seismic. Beta, the loyal soldier, discovers that not only does Alpha have a shrine to her daughter but she’s still alive. Alpha’s desperate destruction of the shrine just about seizes control back but the die is cast. Beta knows she isn’t perfect, and worse, knows she’s a hypocrite. The rest of the episode explores the baby who was ‘sacrificed’, the mother’s attempts to kill Alpha and her sister’s defence of the Whisperer’s leader. It’s stark, brutal stuff explored with a clear eye if not a clear conscience. It also, I suspect, is the seed of the Whisperers’ ultimate destruction.

Verdict: Anchored by brilliant performances from Hurst and Morton, the episode finishes with a smartly handled nod to exactly where it fits in the season. A detour, certainly, but a necessary one, that gifts us this dark, foreboding episode. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart