Where do I even begin with how awesome that all was?

In the briefest plot this week, Hasil and Sally Anne have worked out a budget of how much they’ll need monthly to survive, get their own house, and pay for hospital bills. Hasil and Butch go to the underground fights, and Butch wants Hasil to lose just the first fight so they can convince more fighters to take on Hasil, thinking they can beat him. But, this is Hasil and he’s a Farrell, so even if he wanted to lose, I don’t think he’s capable. He beats his first opponent into hamburger meat, to Butch’s dismay, as he’d gone so far as to bet against his friend to really sell the story.

The fight organiser is wise to their shenanigans, but lets it go because people want to fight Hasil anyway. The ‘main event’ is warming up, a giant dude who has a hard on for battering ‘freaks’ like Hasil. Butch is genuinely afraid for Hasil, that if he tries to beat the big guy he’ll get a crunchy beating, and again suggests Hasil take a dive — this time for his own protection.

Hasil’s like, ‘Lol, that’s cute’ and when the fight starts, beats the big man unconscious in less time than it takes to say ‘Ged Ged Yah’. They win, get paid and Butch — who is the most decent dude — giving Hasil his complete share of his winnings.

Later, Hasil and Sally Anne rent a cute little house and plan to buy furniture. Sally Anne is okay with the fighting, but asks he just be careful. She wakes alone, and finds Hasil sleeping on the ground outside so he can see the sky, the full moon. It’s a lovely tie in to something Lil Fos says later about not being able to see the sky.

For now, these two … are okay. Just okay, but that’s better than nothing.

As for the rest? Strap in, kids. We go straight up the mountain where Gwen is being held by the Kinnah, prisoner inside her own home. Enoch and others from Big Foster’s crew want to rush the Kinnah, but Big Fos — in a marked difference from how he used to be — calls for patience while Gwen is under guard, lest she be harmed.

As a total aside, Asa’s absence really hit me this episode. There are a few different scenes in a few different threads that feel like they could have been conceived with him in mind. Promos for next week only make it worse, and I’ll get to that …

Down the hill, Wade is examining the murder house and finds Big Foster’s revolver which of course our boy wouldn’t have had the sense to take with him; does he even know what fingerprints are?

Lil Foster sits at a lunch table near two black prisoners who silently accept him there, but Trevor the dick wanders over to waffle some more.

He is every single cliché in the world, highly educated, referencing Shakespeare to justify his racism and man, am I glad this episode turned out like it did, even for what it means later. Trevor talks up Lil Fos’ ‘purity’ and super whiteness and juuuust while I was preparing to boil these recaps down to ‘Racists racist, and Lil Foster ignores them, end scene’, Lil Foster improves the plot 10,000% by flicking mashed potatoes into Trevor’s face.

Picture me shrieking with laughter, because I am.

Trevor, mortified, waves his men off while the silent room watches on. I’d have liked to have seen SOME people laughing at him; come on, now! I know he’s the eeeevil Nazi, but the actor isn’t exactly selling how scary I should find this dude. A chuckle would have been nice.

In her home, Gwen is calling out the fact Morgan whines about ‘dependence’, while she and her women use the guns they hate to take over the Farrell camp.

Morgan calls her out for learning the Kinnah were evil and running straight to Big Foster. Yeaaah, the only problem there, Morgs, was that Gwen didn’t make the move sooner.

Morgan talks of how their ancestors came to America with all the pagan practices the Christians had tried to wipe out; the Old Ways. She says a blood sacrifice is needed, tonight on the full moon, to restore them and fix things, and that Gwen will be the one to kill ‘the strongest of them’. Gwen calls it what it is — madness — but Morgan snaps, it’s what they believe.

Yeah, girl, that doesn’t make it sane, does it? Morgan does have one on her; Gwen’s attempted murder of Big Fos … both of them. Gwen refuses, and claims Farrell don’t kill Farrell, and somewhere Asa’s ghost is like ‘biiiiiiiiihhh?’ cos they sure do when you need them to, G’Winveer.

A young Farrell man is dragged inside, and Morgan promises one will be killed, hourly, until Gwen agrees. When Gwen again says no, the guy is shot to death in front of her. Big Foster barrels through Kinnah with such speed and ease as to kind of render his earlier fears moot, because Morgan and Co. don’t even hear him coming ‘til he’s in the room.

Show …. just pay attention to stuff like this, for my sanity.

Morgan takes his willingness to die for Gwen as a sign he’s the one to be sacrificed.

Wade visits with little Sam, who is cleaned up and looks happy at a group home. Wade asks about his parents, and off my theory last week about how much Sam could describe Big Foster, he does indeed say a big hairy man hurt his family. But, when shown a picture of Lil Foster he shakes his head, and clarifies his big man had long white hair.

Yes!

Ledda is organising another action at an upcoming ‘Coal Festival’ that’s a regular summer event.

One woman doesn’t want to disrupt the festival everyone looks forward to year round with an action, and she’s probably the kind of person who complains about protest marches, and then complains just as hard when someone kneels during the anthem.

While I shriek the definition of protest at her, some fiiiiiiiiiiine, tall drink of water stands up in the back and introduces himself as Gordon the sexy, sexy eco-warrior. He reminds them that protesting the mine isn’t about being liked or popular; here is where I begin to suspect this storyline was originally about Asa, because this blond, scruffy, well-travelled man is in many ways just a taller Asa Farrell. We’ll wait and see if he turns out to be as quietly psychopathic, too.

He’s also … it must be said, too good to be true. I’ll be watching him.

In prison, Lil Foster is approached by two of Trevor’s men who quickly attack him. Lil Foster does just enough to defend himself and no more, so as he’s walked, not dragged away by guards, he calls out to Trevor: ‘A real man fights his own battles’. Trevor looks chagrined.

Under guard, Big Foster tells Morgan he finally believes the stories his mother told him about the demons, calling Morgan a demon to her face. I honestly think that is giving her too much credit. Morgan teases Big Fos that Gwen will kill him, not just for her people, but because she wants to.

And here, again, I am wondering, was this written with Asa in mind? Remember, Big Fos was pretty much meant to die in season 1.

At Ledda’s house she’s feeding Gordon, who is manspreading like effing crazy, and they chat about his journey, his agnostic spiritualism, veganism and all that. He was on course to be a tech billionaire, working at Google before news of a river being damaged for some industrial project got to him, and since then he’s travelled the country protesting pipe lines, coal minds, dams, the works.

Ledda explains how before the new coal company, she didn’t mind the mines because everyone had jobs and money, and they were pretty much all underground. But, this new project to destroy the mountain is just too far for her. Gordon goes all in and calls her a true hero for fighting so hard, especially when there are so many angry, unemployed people fighting against her. He flirtingly asks if he can use her shower, and then even more flirtingly, invites her to join him.

And she does, because damn it, she deserves some fun.

I am, however, reminded of the real life Mark Kennedy scandal, from a few years back in the UK. Kennedy was an undercover police man with ecological protest groups, and was found to have slept with dozens of women under false pretences, as well as being accused of not just being an observer, but agent provocateur of many of their political actions.

I do not trust Gordon, at all.

Doctor Awesome patches up Lil Foster, while quietly vexing about Lil Foster’s ignoring his sage advice to keep his head down, and offers to have him moved to safety in Ad Seg. Lil Foster declines — he misses seeing the sky too much when he’s in that cell — like Hasil, sleeping outside, instead of indoors. These boys and their skies.

Lil Foster shows the doctor the sketches he’s made, which are not of his home but somewhere else he doesn’t know, as home was too beautiful to draw. They bond over the doctor having come from India to find a better life, and Lil Foster’s confusion about prison, which is not like the Box back up the mountain, but something else entirely. The doctor gives him more paper, and Lil Foster leaves him the sketch the doctor liked so much.

D’aaaw.

Wade goes home to find the children’s cat murdered in the mail box. Jesus fucking Christ. Caleb dreamt the cat was in trouble last week; that was the nightmare Wade tended to.

Wade bins the body of the poor, innocent cat, and heads inside to wash his hands. Upstairs, he hears Ledda and Gordon laughing in the shower and looks hilariously scandalised.

Gwen is alone, afraid but suddenly … there’s Lady Ray. The former Bren’in appears as a ghost/hallucination, and she’s so happy to see Gwen, and Gwen is so relieved to see her.

In the funniest scene of all time, Gwen asks what she should do, and Lady Ray unflinchingly says ‘Kill Big Foster’. Gwen is like ‘Uuuuh he’s your son and my husband?’ and Lady Ray is like, ‘Did I stutter?’ and reminds Gwen she wanted him dead too. Gwen says she did then didn’t, while Lady Ray just keeps on; ‘Kill him now’.

I can not stop giggling at this, oh my God. Between this and Emily’s utter lack of fucks given when they thought he was dead and his body stolen, this is just too good, my word.

Lady Ray reminds Gwen that with one more death and, again, this is Big Foster, the Kinnah will be gone and everything goes back to normal.

And here we commence the shattering of my heart; Trevor approaches Lil Foster again, and arm chair psychologies again; he thinks he’s getting at Lil Foster calling him an animal and saying he’s more blood thirsty than he claims to be. Thing is, we know Lil Fos isn’t a killer, but Trevor doesn’t. Near as Trevor knows, Lil Foster is a) just in general, a Farrell and therefore ‘wild’, and b) killed a dude.

Who or what is he trying to do by needling him about being a killer …. in prison? I know the mocking might be more about Trevor trying to convince Lil Fos he’s more racist than he acts, but that doesn’t make any more sense, and neither the lines nor their delivery come across that way. No matter, anyway.

Trevor rescinds the ‘offer of brotherhood’ and then makes the eternally stupid move of pulling a knife on our boy. Like I wondered last week, where are these dudes’ survival instincts to keep trying to get at him? You saw him fight off a dozen guards, then the guys from last week, then two more dudes in the canteen, all without breaking a sweat or so much as ruffling his glorious mane of hair. Why, Trevor, do you think you can take him? Dumbass.

It’s barely even a fight. Lil Foster disarms him in two seconds and holds the knife on Trevor ,and when Trevor decides that in fact Lil Foster doesn’t’ have it in him to kill (make up your mind, Trevor!), Lil Foster breaks his neck with one hand. LIL FOSTER! NO!. (…. never mind, Trevor).

Guys, so far everything I predicted would happen in this story line, has happened; approached by Nazis and asked to join, declines. Innocent interaction with black guys causes more tension with the Nazis. And now, he’s killed their leader.

But, you know, Trevor the dick is dead so HURRAY!

Wade comes home to Ledda and in stuttering, awkward Wade form, he explains he heard her in the shower and he’s not too happy about it, considering her husband just died and all that. In so many words she tells him to shove that attitude up his ass, and again it descends into a fight, but its interrupted when a brick wrapped in flaming cloth is tossed through the window. She puts out the fire, and he dashes outside, but misses the driver.

Wade, bro, this is where you call a town meeting as Sheriff, and put these people on fucking blast, and promise to bring the fucking rain.

…. but it’s Wade, so instead he blames Ledda, and threatens to take the girls away for their own safety, calling everything her fault. She pointedly reminds him she’ll be dead soon anyway, so he can take her daughters wherever he wants.

This shuts him right up.

He gets back to the police station to the fantastic news that the gun he found killed Breece, and doesn’t have Lil Foster’s prints on it. He busts into Matt’s office to throw the man out, and take him to task for railroading an innocent man. Smug, smug Matt tells him Lil Foster just broke a man’s neck.

He does not say this happened in self-defence in front of witnesses, because it probably wouldn’t matter anyway. Wade looks crushed while Matt looks smug, and I hope Wade beats this man unconscious sooner than later.

The timing here is so poignant. Had Lil Fos taken his solitary like he was offered, he’d have been out by the end of the day. He chose the sky, and now he’ll never see it again.

At home, Wade contemplates a beer with all the anxiety of an addict, deciding how hard he wants to tune out the world. He heads outside and looks up at the same full moon swaying everyones moods this night, and he makes a decision.

Inside he apologises to Ledda with real sincerity. In that stuttering way of his, he says he knows what to do now; it might not be legal, but he’ll do it. He’ll handle it.

Ledda is (and I am) deeply concerned, but Wade says no more, and goes to say goodnight to the kids.

He’s going to bust out Lil Foster?! He’s going to help The Farrells bust out Lil Foster?! Oh heeeeellll, yeah.

Morgan comes to fetch Gwen for the sacrifice. Big Foster is bound to a post, and Gwen is given a stone knife and addresses the clan, tells them it will all be okay. She holds the knife to Big Foster’s throat but then abruptly states that he’s not the strongest of them.

She turns, drives the knife into her own side and collapses. Furious, Morgan races over with her own knife to cut Big Foster’s throat but Gwen calls her back to offer the correct knife … point first.

Morgan leans over her to take it and behind her, long-legged Big Foster raises a foot and boots her hard in the back, directly onto Gwen’s knife.

The other Kinnah women shriek and collapse as the Farrell rush them and disarm them, cutting Big Foster free so he can race to a fading Gwen and hold her in his arms.

That. Was. AWESOME.

I feel pretty confident in thinking Gordon is the replacement for Asa, but I’m more confident predicting he’s some kind of plant sent in by Haylie or the Feds to disrupt Ledda’s work. His immediate hard flirtation with the woman did, as I said, immediately put me in mind of a very similar real life scenario, and I’m curious to see how this all plays out. I would love if he’s legit and he really cares about Ledda, I really would. God knows she deserves some happiness in her life.

But … all I could think of was the Mark Kennedy case and I don’t think that’s an accident.

I did miss Asa this week. He and Ledda really bonded and though their chemistry, felt more familial; the idea he’d have left the mountain to come and help her save it from below would have worked out pretty well with everything else going on. Chances were he would have been banished for killing Big Foster, and honestly, I think he’d have gone back down the hill … maybe sought out Ledda, if things had been different.

Alternatively, if he wasn’t meant for this storyline, he’d have made a great sacrifice for the Kinnah, but I’ve already speculated they killed him first just so they could even have a hope of getting at Gwen. Ah well. Listen, Lady Ray and Elon have both made appearances. I hold out hope for Joe to pop up and say hello, even as a g-g-ghost.

Now Morgan is … well, is she dead? Weakened at the least; deafened for sure, I wonder if they’ll reveal their involvement in Asa’s death, which now seems beyond a doubt. It would be nice to get that closure, not just for us, but for Big Foster. He’s earned that much.

Promos for next week indicate that Farrells are about to come to arms and break out Lil Foster, perhaps with Wade’s help, and if you’re not madly in love with the smile he flashes in that trailer when he realises his people have come for him, I don’t know who you even are.

Ged Ged Yah!