The ‘Valley’, as it’s known, is a hidden away refuge, an idyllic setting working as a co-operative commune, using the land and natural resources to help the 20 or so members live a happy, sunny existence picking fruit, having barn dances and generally making good of the situation they are in. Now, I can’t tell if Max Beesley is a bad actor (he didn’t seem to be in Hotel Babylon), but the more he plays Tom, the more robotic, clumsy and just dim he seems to be. As the series goes on, Tom seems to be devolving, becoming a dullard useful for killing people, regressing as a character to become a Cro-Magnon man rather than moving forward and developing. His clumsy attempts to profess his love to Anya and his jealous rage all seem a little contrived, clumsy and badly written. And rather than try and talk things through (he has been with these people for the best part of a year), his monosyllabic attempts to show his caring side and all the moody brooding and threats just come across as lazy. The result is Sarah, too, is infected and quarantined to the house with her fate inevitable as over the course of the episode she slowly dies and shows that her ‘uselessness’ along with her initial unpleasantness and self survival were misplaced. For here she shows just how strong she is while at the same time breaking Al’s and the rest of the Family’s hears. Played over the majority of the episode, her death is dealt with very well. Resigned to the fact that she will get ill and eventually die, Sarah puts her life in order, professing her love to Al and also talking about the future she isn’t going to have. Well written, intelligent and poignant, this major element of this week’s episode again shows how strong some of the writing is for the show (apart from the already mentioned two-dimensional Tom) and at times how dark the drama is. And while not as bleak as last week’s, there is still enough clout to show that nobody in this new world is ‘safe’. The card’s co-ordinates are for an airfield, a place where, apparently, the ‘chosen’ people who were given the card were told to go to be picked up and transported away from the UK before the virus hit. Meeting an insane passenger who missed the flight, it appears that the government and those in power were told beforehand of the virus and those chosen and with cards were shipped to somewhere else. As much as he is a font of knowledge, the information stops, as the man, finding that Greg is not there to transport him out, blows his own brains out. With this knowledge the couple return to the Valley just as Sarah is passing away, and after a small vigil, the Family are off again. For it seems Abby, after seeing the mutation of the virus and with the information gained from the man in the airport, decides that the only thing to do to stop or try and prevent the virus is to return to the lab she was abducted to at the beginning of the series. However, it seems that the Family’s initial fears that the virus is once again on the loose are confirmed, as the lab is abandoned and those who were left have all succumbed to the virus, dead without finding a cure – apart from Whitaker, who has Abby’s son and the hook for the cliffhanger and series finale. Once again, a strong episode and even the little things that are said in passing like noting that the virus could be, and probably is, spreading through wildlife all seem at first throwaway ideas, but are all woven into the tapestry of what’s going on and the bigger picture in general. Check out our review of episode 4 here.
