I’ve identified the show as telling a wagon train story, right? Well this is the one where they have to circle the wagons because an enemy is attacking.

But really, as one may expect from the title, this episode is about getting Dr. Julia back with the group. It all begins when Alonso goes against the group’s wishes and goes back to get her. It’s a good thing he does, though, because he brings her to the camp just in time for a crisis to unfold that gives her every opportunity she needs to prove herself to the Eden Project gang. Seriously, I spent part of the episode wondering if Julia had set up the situation just to get back into their good graces. But no, it’s true, Julia is finally back on the good side and tells the whole truth about her affiliation to the Council and even throws away the device she’d been using to keep in touch with Reilly, the Council representative.

The crisis that brings Julia back into the fold begins when Yale is shot with an “incendiary worm bullet” which is, of course, a high-tech round that hits a target, painfully burrows to their core, and then explodes an hour later. It was designed specifically to be cruel, and it is the telltale weapon of a Zed Unit, a spinoff of the Yale series of cyborgs. Zeds are criminals who had been taken, memory-wiped, and turned into near-invulnerable supersoldiers (the one here absolutely looks like a simulant that should be trying to kill Dave Lister). Julia is able to use her surgery powers save Yale (and later Alonso when he is also shot). She also puts herself into harms way several times to try to prevent others from being hurt. And then she lies to Reilly, saying that Uly has been shot, so that Reilly will reveal the weak spot of the Zed units (which is at the base of their skull). When Danziger is shot and captured by the Zed, Julia leads the rescue and, though she can’t operate on him because her hand was injured by the supersoldier, she leads Devon in saving Danziger. Really, Julia has proven herself in Every Reasonable Way to be a loyal and valuable member of the team. As far as unreasonable ways, we don’t see how Morgan feels about it yet. (I joke that Morgan would be unreasonable, but he was actively attacked by Julia last episode, so if he harbours some ill-will about that, it’d be more justified than a lot of Morgan’s complaints.)

That’s about it. This episode is all a-plot, really. What else is there? Well, 1) We learn that Reilly may not actually be on the planet, but in orbit. I’m not really sure why that’s significant, but I guess it is progress. 2) During the attempt to save Danziger, Bess is a fully participatory member of the team, mostly manning the communications gear. 3) There’s a recurring crew of secondary characters (there’d have to be given the setup of the show) and this episode does give them a little more active role. I’ve mentioned Baines (who is a Black male, the only one apart from Yale, I think) and there are a couple others who seem important enough that I should know their names, but don’t. There’s a white woman who seems to be in charge of the weapons, and a very generic white guy who just generally stands near Danziger when Baines isn’t the one standing near Danziger. I like slowly seeing these side characters get more prominence and I hope that the rest of the crew, who don’t even get lines usually, get a bit more focus on occasion. 5) Oh yeah, I should mention, in the resolution of the episode Julia captures the Zed unit alive, but he’s designed to commit suicide when captured, so that’s the end of him.