On the way to bury Nick, the original survivors discuss what led to the destruction of the Stadium colony. They all circle back to one day, and the terrible decisions they all made there…

This is an emotional gut punch of an episode four times over. The first is the reveal that Strand had an escape car full of supplies planned. The second is his courage at donating it to the group. The third is the reveal that Nick and Luciana almost left and would perhaps have survived if they did. The fourth?

That the survivors are so focused on revenge that they’d rather excavate a cache of weapons than bury Nick.

This is a tour de force from the entire cast as we see the hope surrounding the stadium starkly contrasted with the brutal truth of the present. Colman Domingo is especially good and it’s fascinating to see Strand not only return to his original approach to life but be this conflicted about. No one’s the bad guy here, not even the Vultures. This is just two groups of people who don’t understand how to survive, trying to do just that and getting in each other’s way.

That leads to some surprising moments. The Strand plot and the ending are two of them. The honest to God water slide Walker fight is another. Most of all though what’s surprising here is the fifth gut punch, the one you don’t see coming.

Every single one of these people made a heroic choice. Strand handed his escape car over. Nick and Luciana refused to leave. Alicia persuaded Naomi to set up an infirmary. And that put all of them in the line of fire.

This is hopeless and bleak even by the show’s usual standards and, I’d hope, is a long dark night of the soul that only lasts this half season. This is compelling territory for sure but it’s territory you can only visit so many times as the core show has found, more than once, to its cost.

Verdict: Nonetheless this is a cracking episode with a hell of an ending. The serial model is a common tool for these two shows but, unless something goes horribly wrong with the mid-season finale, we can’t help but feel it won’t be executed this well for some time. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart