Morgan’s group begin putting the plane back together as Strand’s team frantically try and work out how to help.

This isn’t a big plot arc episode but in terms of characters it’s pretty massive. Everyone gets some interesting stuff to do and it’s all, as usual, orbiting the concept of helping people. John and Dwight are a great example of this: men who naturally fit together as a team because of commonalities in world view and background. But John isn’t the desperate man he once was and, when they find a letter from Sherry begging Dwight to stop looking for her, he hides it. Wrong? Almost certainly. Coming from a good place? Without a doubt.

They’re not the only ones either. June can tell Al isn’t saying something and reaches out to her, cleverly, on her own terms. The journalist is legitimately guilty for letting their only means of escape get away but she can’t reach out. Yet. Again, seeds planted and with good intentions.

The same is true everywhere here. Morgan and Grace’s kind lie about the amount of radiation suits. The moment of pure joyous triumph when Jim’s old brewery balloon saves the day and the sickly feeling when it immediately makes things worse. This is a push me/pull you of an episode, as hopeful as it is bleak. Superficially I can absolutely see what it’s been criticized for being slow.

But it isn’t. This is a show that constantly orbits and interrogates the ideas of kindness and assistance, and what that says about society. Everything done this week is done from good intentions, regardless of outcome. These people want to be heroes and their efforts to do that truly are heroic. Whether they bear fruit, remains to be seen. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart