The group meet and get to know Percy and are not quite sure what they feel about that or the help he needs getting back his truck.

For about the first half hour, this feels very weird. Ted Sutherland is good as Percy from the jump but he feels, for all his charisma, like an unnecessary tack on. He’s the cool kid in the trench coat who isn’t quite as cool as he thinks he is. He’s JD from Heathers without the sociopathy, Han Solo without the cool ship and designated adults. He’s, in a word, tropey, in the exact way that iris (overachiever, person of size), Hope (bloody furious, riddled with guilt), Elton (fatalistic, endlessly competent, not sure how he brave he is anymore) and Silas (horrified by what he did, no longer worried that’s all he is) aren’t. He’s the cool kid in a group that doesn’t need the cool kid and as a result a lot of the episode finds you thinking the same thing some of the characters are:

Why are you here, again?

The answer comes in a second half that’s surprising in the exact way you’re worried the episode can no longer be. Percy is revealed to be working a con with his uncle, a delightfully down at heel Vegas magician played by 30 Rock’s Scott Adsit. He’s cheerfully aware off what he is and that, coupled with Percy’s admission that this is the first time they’ve worked the scam and people have actually tried to help them, puts everyone on wonderfully shaky ground. Iris (who gets a deeply creepy fight in a dumpster with a pair of Empties) doesn’t know what to think about Percy, Percy doesn’t know what to think about the group, and Silas doesn’t know what to think about Iris’ not quite new boyfriend. It’s all a magnificent tangle of complex emotions and agenda and, coupled with Hope coming ever closer to admitting she killed Ellton’s mom, it’s all going to topple over soon. Especially as none of them know the Campus has fallen. Yet.

When it crashes down, it’s going to be disastrous and change the show forever in some really fun ways. My personal suspicion is that Elton is going to go dark side but we’ll have to wait and see. Based on this carefully, expertly designed episode, we won’t have to wait too long.

Verdict: Top marks to Walking Dead alum Michael Cudlitz for directing the episode, especially the haunting shadow puppet sequence. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart