This episode is where the rubber starts to meet the road. After a full season, near enough, of the show working out how grim it is (extremely) and how broad in scope it is (also extremely), this episode sets a lot of things in motion for the finale and some of them are… a little worrying.

The good stuff first. Bill and Tom, action scientists make it back to Bill’s lab where he discovers the aliens have a full map of our DNA. This, the fact they seem to be taking babies (reinforced again this week in a surprisingly fun, frantic action set piece) and the curious effect the alien technology has on Sacha and Emily all form up to create what’s clearly the central thrust of the show; the aliens are either building weapons out of us or, on some level, they are us.

All of this is fine and interesting and feels like a nicely post-millennial take on the subject matter. What’s starting to bother me is the way the show treats disability. Emily’s blindness, even though it’s one of the catalysts for her very sweet relationship with Kariem, is starting to feel a little like a hook used to steer the plot. Sacha gets it even worse, transitioning from incestuous patricide to a clear fixation on Emily when he sees Jonathan’s photograph of her and a fascination with the alien technology. There’s a clear implication the two are directly linked and finding out why should be fun. But there’s also a severe danger of using their conditions as Othering, turning them into something not quite human and not quite alien and that, especially in the year of our Lord 202OHDEARLORDWHATNOW is not going to play well if that’s where the show goes.

It’s not there yet. Quite. But it’s closer than I would like and that casts a pall over the rest of the episode. I suspect it’s deliberate, but it’s still uncomfortable. In particular, the London contingent are on their way to becoming a weird little family, and the birthday party (set to Cinematic Orchestra’s ‘To Build a Home’, arguably one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed) is gentle, light-hearted and real. It’s also, I suspect, the peak before we plunge back into the darkness. Likewise the reveal on Catherine’s sister making it through the attack that closes the episode.

Verdict: It’s still good, it’s still grim and it’s still walking the razorline between good and a catastrophe of trope-filled writing. Two episodes to go. Almost there. 7/10

Alasdair Stuart