Bill and Helen discover something horrific, and something life changing. Sarah and her children discover the world is larger than their survival needs.

So the good news is we get the reveal. The better news is that we also get the show starting to, slowly, step out into the light.

First off the reveal is… odd. Which it kind of needs to be. No tripods, no Martians, just curious quadrupedal robots with biological innards. On the one hand this denies us the cathartic discovery of the tripods and the Martians. it also gives the people convinced that the book can’t be adapted, which sometimes includes me, some food for thought. Also it gives Bill something to do besides be a creepy accidental murderer and very intentional stalker, so there’s that.

Elsewhere the show does a much better job too of steering into its failings. The vastly dark tone is very much still in effect here, as evidenced both by the horrible discovery Bill and Helen make about their son and the show’s deeply crass implication that Sarah is about to kill herself through grief. On the one hand, we’ve already seen one mother do this. On the other hand we’ve already seen one mother do this and in a show where one female character is near monosyllabic and another is driven to near villainy to protect her children, that’s not the best look. The show does well to avoid it, and hopefully this is another indication of it steering its own path. Because not only does Helen gain bother age and agency from this episode, she also begins to define her own space. Something Bill will undoubtedly hate. Good.

But it’s Ash who has the most effect on the show and the characters he meets. Aaron Heffernan plays the big, friendly porter as a man with no front and the moral compass that Sarah thinks she has. He has no medical training, no resources but no one else is helping so he will. The effect he has on Sarah and Kariem is seismic, taking them out of themselves at the exact time its needed the most. As the end of the episode shows, the hospital may not be a safe place any longer but the people there are at least on the same page. For now.

Verdict: Still massively dour but on its way into the light, this is the best episode of the show so far by some margin. If it can keep the reveals rolling out like this, then it’s going to be just fine. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart