With Tony and Percy along for the ride, the team decide to make a run at a CRM field depot nearby. Rejoined by Huck they find the depot is not deserted. Meanwhile Huck fights with her past, Silas and Percy both make plays for Iris and brutality comes very close to home.

The bulk of this episode is a welcome spotlight on Annet Mahendru as Huck and it doesn’t disappoint. In short order we discover she was a marine, was deployed to the frontlines on the day the world fell and was ordered to massacre civilians and the dead alike.

She obeyed those orders. And has fought to live with it ever since.

Mahendru is excellent throughout, balancing Huck’s own raw trauma with the careful front she presents. Her relationship with Iris is especially well explored this week too, both young women bent double by their situation. The tragedy of Huck’s advice is that it’ll rip the Band-Aid off. The tragedy of Hope’s choice is that sooner or later that will happen anyway and, odds are, will hurt far worse. But what other choice can she make? Can any of them make?

The similarities between Huck and Hope make for poignant, sharp drama. When the world ended, no one was in a good place. Huck has worked to get back to where she is, knows how fragile her life is and knows that what’s coming is going to be a very different kind of apocalypse for the younger woman. To make matters worse Elton is clearly developing feelings for Hope just as Silas is crushing on Iris who in turn is flirting with Percy. The drama is stacking up and when that wave breaks, the show is going to be very different in its aftermath.

Elsewhere in the episode, Felix and Tony bond and Percy does something impossibly sweet for Iris. Having expressed her desire to visit museums, and realised that will almost certainly never happen, Iris is treated to a back of the truck equivalent. It’s impossibly sweet and goes a long way towards giving the younger thief the redeeming qualities he needs.

And then you’re shown Tony, with his head bashed in and a drunk Silas, blood on his hands and boots, in a nearby toilet stall.

There are no good answers here. If Silas did it the pro kid is everybody’s villain in the exact way I hope he wouldn’t be. If Percy did it then Iris has a personally designed nightmare waiting for her.

Verdict: The stakes are raising and the fragile hearts and minds of the characters are dangling precariously from them in this brilliantly shot (the opening montage! Good work Mr Cudlitz!) and acted episode. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart