The plant melts down, throwing a Chernobyl sequel plume of smoke into the air. John and Dwight, separated from the group, contemplate fending tor themselves. Sarah and Wendell get help from a very surprising source and we meet an old enemy wearing a new hat.

This has been a deliberate, considered half season that’s kept the action grounded and frightening and up close. The reward for sitting through that is, (deep breath): the characters’ rebuilt plane just avoiding a radioactive plume because two characters cut the cargo net full of Walkers loose from the plane.

This whole sequence feels like the moment the show as it is and the show as people want it to be meet. Leaving on the plane is incredibly difficult; everything that can possibly go wrong does. But at the last possible minute, things come together because of how these characters have learned to work for one another, not just for themselves.

Time and again, Michael Alaimo’s script demonstrates this. John and Dwight coming clean with one another is a moment of remarkable, stoic understanding that’s oddly touching. John saying goodbye to June, and June and Morgan’s determination to give him the time to get home is touching precisely because of how underplayed it is. Strand realising, at last, that he really really wants other people to live too. Morgan and Alycia discussing how they need to not feel guilty about surviving. Daniel riding to the rescue. Wendell doing the same thing. All of it speaks to two major sea changes in the world the show is part of, both of them for the better.

The first is the absence of the, at times performative, cruelty of previous years. A few years ago we’d have been down John, June, Wendell or all three. A few years ago Logan, and it’s so much fun to see Matt Frewer again, would have been a Negan clone. A few years ago Daniel wouldn’t have shown up. Here, all those things happen and without them, no one lives. Every life deserves saving, every life matters in this world. That’s a powerful, hopeful message for this show. A necessary one too.

Verdict: Fear The Walking Dead has already been renewed for season six and it’s easy to see why. This is a complex, deeply weird show about what survivors do when they realise they’re allowed to do more than survive. I love watching it grow and I can’t wait to see where it goes next. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart