‘I don’t suppose we could have a moment of cuddling.’ A return to the multiple plot strands of the first episode, as the Shadow Kin King decides he wants his heart back from April, causing her to begin to share his aggression at precisely the moment her errant father reappears in her life. Meanwhile, Charlie is getting a bit too princely for Matteusz and Tanya’s liking, giving Quill the perfect excuse to throw in her lot with the mysterious School Governors and their representative, the new Head Teacher Ms Ames.

It works better because we’ve had chance to get to know some of these characters, although Charlie’s imperiousness is a little bit unexpected (and feels more suited to a series finale). The reveal that he has a doomsday weapon in the Cabinet of Souls – one that could potentially resurrect the Rhodian species at the expense of another – sends Matteusz into full, Eli Roth’s Hostel Ruritanian stereotype, vexed by ‘duty’ and ‘very bad governments’ (are there only women left where he was born because all the men “went to the war”?).

Meanwhile, April and Ram get a bit romantic (at the same time the Shadow Kin King is getting it on), hot on the heels of Charlie and Matteusz doing the horizontal tango. This, and April confronting the anger she feels about her own father a week after Tanya went through something similar, is stepping in the footprints of Nightvisiting. However, the creepy side-plot of Quill and Ames joining forces to battle the threat of vampiric alien petals that replicate like Gremlins is relatively interesting (the piranha flowers are a more distinctive threat than the Buffy Monster of the Week Shadow Kin). The cliffhanger promises more explosive moments.

Next Time: Brave-ish Heart