The first half of this episode nearly lost me. Long setup, slow conversations, material that circled without advancing… I honestly considered stopping and finishing another day. The show keeps proving my point about runtime: the writing here supports maybe forty minutes, and the padding around it shows.
Then the final stretch arrived, and everything changed. The tension snapped tight, the urgency felt real, and a confrontation between two characters with everything at stake delivered the season’s best scene.
Watching someone’s certainty crack in real time gripped me completely, and the ending landed with an honest punch. One the show earned through foreshadowing rather than cheap shock.
So I’m still in. The payoff keeps vindicating the patience these writers ask for, and the closing minutes gave me genuine hope for how this season resolves.
I just wish the road there weren’t so padded. 7/10.