In which April and Ram have been transported through a tear in Space / Time to the Underneath - home to the Shadow Kin. It is a volcanic world of perpetual night.
Meanwhile, the Coal Hill district is under threat from beautiful but deadly alien flowers, which feed on blood...
Dorothea Ames, the new school principal, informs Miss Quill that she and the Governors see her as a useful ally in helping defeat alien threats. She has a way of disabling the creature which inhibits Quill from using weapons. She wants Quill to talk Charlie into using the Cabinet of Souls to eliminate the flower menace. However, she intends that Charlie use this instead to destroy the Shadow Kin and so avenge their dead peoples.
Despite the disappearance of their children through the tear, Ram's father Varun argues with April's - Huw - over the relationship which has developed between them. Matteusz and Tanya have to mediate and get them to concentrate on the real problem.
April and Ram make their way through the Underneath to find Corakinus. April has determined to kill him - the only way to separate their shared heart, despite it also meaning her own death. She finds that she can think like a Shadow Kin, and uses this psychic link to trace Corakinus to his palace.
She battles the alien king and defeats him. Her mother, Jackie, manages to forge a link with her via a Space / Time tear, and through this portal Huw pleads with her not to kill Corakinus and herself. She relents and lets him live, but orders the Shadow Kin to imprison him. By defeating him in combat, she is now their ruler and can command the army.
Charlie admits that he is unsure who he might have targeted with the device had he opened it - the flowers or the Shadow Kin.
Ames admits that the flowers had been a deliberate introduction by the Governors, in order to observe April, Quill and Charlie in action. She informs Quill that she will still proceed with helping her remove the weapon block, despite her failing to get Charlie to open the Cabinet.
Corakinus breaks the anchor linking him with April, so that she loses her power over the Shadow Kin.
She and her mother force Huw to leave - only able to return when they permit him to do so. April now possesses the power of heal Jackie's paralysis.
Brave-ish Heart was written by Patrick Ness and was first broadcast on 12th November 2016. It forms the second half of the story which began in Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart.
There are no additional guest cast members.
Reception was mixed, with most critics praising the character development, whilst others pointed out the poor sci-fi elements, which weren't properly thought out. April appears to have helped cure her mother's paralysis, but how is never explained. Nor is the manner by which the Shadow Kin eliminate the flowers. They seem to turn them into shadow en masse, which was not quite how the aliens operated before.
The tone is varied, with characters pausing mid-action for heart-to-hearts, or speechifying. The fight between Corakinus and April makes one wonder how he managed to become king in the first place.
Overall, it is a middling episode which acts mainly as a set up for the final section of the series.
It is nice to have gotten away to an alien planet for a change. We've missed that this year, with Doctor Who taking one of its increasingly frequent gap years.
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