Felix and Huck catch up. Hope makes her play. Silas faces his past.

Three episodes in you can see how much being a serial agrees with this show. We get a resolution to Hope’s first big plot (what happened on The Day The Sky Fell), a really solid action setpiece and a lot of character development for Silas. In addition, a major end credits scene, which we’ll get to.

The kids first though. Hope’s need to prove, and redeem herself, crests here with the run for the siren. Mansour does a fantastic job as a terrified, determined person with natural leadership qualities who’s terrified and doing it anyway. So much so in fact that when Hope’s tackled by a pair of Empties there’s a genuine sense of danger. You know this show is finite, you know the damage these kids are taking simply by living in this world. You don’t know if she’ll make it. The fact she does is impressive. The fact she does in a manner that gives Royale a moment in the sun and calls back to her empowerment/accidental ditch fall first Empty fight is massively impressive. This is a show that knows what it’s doing and knows how to do it very well.

That’s doubly true of Silas’ plot. Hal Cumpston has been the least utilized cast member so far but here he’s front and centre in a plot that’s as tragic as it is interesting. We get constant flashbacks of Silas in the back of an ambulance with his knuckles bloody. We see him with his hands cuffed. We see the other kids at school muttering about what he did and an awkward interview with Felix when he first transfers in. We get flashes of Silas, murderously angry, pummelling someone. We see him offer to carry everyone’s bags because he’s strong. The ‘That’s all I am’ is silent.

This plot twists the knife if like me, you’re a person of size. I’m 6’2, broad and tall and comfortably north of 300 pounds. If you’re sniggering right now? That’s on you. I know my size. I know my intelligence and I know my worth and it’s taken 44 years to get that far. I’ve carried myself like Silas does here. I’ve been the ‘big one’ and watched as people forget my face and my brain. I’ve lived a lot of my life, like this kid does, painfully aware of how much space I take up. Cumpston’s careful presence and mournful demeanour are both familiar and both, bluntly, heart-breaking. Being a big kid is far harder than being a big man and Cumpston shows us all that.

He shows us a way out too. Silas’ constantly present headphones are either the sort of metal you play to kill the pain or a voice mail from his grandparents. It’s never said out loud but it’s clear he was from an abusive home and, in the end did something about that. It’s also clear his grandparents knew and did what they could, knowing full well it wasn’t enough. These are the points where Silas’ experience differs from my own but it hits just as hard. He, like the others, is just trying to live in a world that doesn’t quit fit anyone. The difference is it fits him a little worse than everyone else and, unlike them, he’s trapped in his own head. This week, in a moment as simple as him throwing a blanket over Iris’ shoulder, you see him step out a little from that. That was the moment I teared up. I’d like to think I wasn’t the only one.

Elsewhere the episode also impresses. Felix and Huck remain charming and just a little under used but this week, thanks to a very smart and in character reason for them to not return home and find the colony butchered, that looks set to change. Likewise Elton’s reveal that he’s carrying his mother’s manuscript is another nice character beat. Especially as it’s folded into Silas holding the tyre wall up for them in a moment that plays a lot like the final scenes for Hodor in Game of Thrones, just with a better ending.

But the ending is where the episode shows its teeth. The colonel returns, as does Barca, one of the men with her when they slaughtered the colony. He can’t sleep, is consumed with guilt and in response she turns on every electrical appliance in her flat, shows him the running water and reminds him that they have power, heat, light and a responsibility to guard the tens of thousands of people out in the CRM, building a future.

Then she has him committed.

And then she turns everything back on and breaks down in tears.

It’s an amazing scene, not just because Al Calderon as Barca and Julia Ormond as Colonel Kublek sell it but because this is the dramatic engine of the show.  Can you build a better future on the bones of the living and the dead? Kublek seems less than convinced and so do I but seeing that play out as the central debate of the show sounds fantastic.

Verdict: Intense, ambitious, character driven. The Walking Dead’s newest sibling is so far also one of its strongest. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart

Click here to read Alasdair’s reviews of the first two episodes