I didn’t get chance to review the last episode, which was a shame because it was a very good episode, and the EMP bomb was an outrageous idea which they pulled off very well without blowing loads on an expensive effect. Thank fully for these reviews, alot of my thoughts for episodes 12 and 13 overlap, so I’ll work those in together.

This and last week’s episode are effectively padding while Marwan puts into effect his next plan. That sounds like me winding up to completely slate these episodes, but I’m not, I mention it, because when you look at these episodes on paper, they should be rubbish, but they were far from it. Being nothing more than padding, I think it gave the writers more freedom to actually write two exciting episodes because of the fewer story developments that they needed to deliver, and those developments where mostly confined to Marwan’s few appearances.

When the writers need to fill a gap, they slap in a gunfight, there’s nothing better than an gunfight. Some have been better than others, for this series this episode’s was very good, although they built it up for forty minutes, which was more than is really deserved, being only a few minutes long.

The worst thing about this episode was the two thinly written muslim brothers, which were clearly shoehorned into the episode to defuse the feelings that earlier episodes incited islamphobic attitudes. It’s commendable that they have tried to put some represtations of muslims which weren’t negative, but here it was badly done, and felt like a token guesture simply so that FOX could hold up there hands and say “look, it’s not all negative”, and merely covers up the problem rather than dealing with it.

I’m not sure how to approach my next comment, because I’m not yet sure where I stand on it. It made for good drama, that I’m sure on, but I think there was a bit to much of it. What I’m talking about it is the emotional, relationship scenes between Michelle and Tony. As I said it made for good drama, and we all know we would have been disappointed if it wasn’t dealt with, but by spending so much time of it this episode, they really leave no room for further exploration next episode. Meaning it will almost completely disappear, which I fear will undetermine the good work done on this storyline.

Two good episodes, better than average for the series, the pace of future episodes depends solely on how well they shift gears when Marwan’s next plan is revealed. If it’s as shocking and as devious as they’ve built Marwan up to be, then the future could be bright for the rest of the series, if it’s not, then series four will suffer another set back, which it will struggle to come back from.