After hearing disturbing reports from an old military base, Jeremiah and Kurdy investigate, only to be captured by Michael, the leader of an antagonistic group. With fervent self-belief and all the weaponry of the base at his disposal, Michael sets about trying to discover from Jeremiah the location of Thunder Mountain.

Michael runs Cranston - specifically, he occupies the site of the Mclaren Army Base, 102nd Airborne Infantry. Michael moved in shortly after the Big Death and began recruiting the local raiders. Amongst its weaponry are, or rather were, 114 Daisy Cutter bombs, capable, so Michael says, of incinerating anything within 600 yards.

Michael mentions some other groups - the Rocky Mountain Brigade, a posse from Montana, the Army of the South, Mitchell Gang… and Valhalla Sector. He says of them, "the old world's dead and buried, but those fuckers, they just don't want to get the message." They've apparently been arming up, and Michael thought they were going to come after his group, but "something scared them".

East Cameron, a town about thirty miles from the base, has refused to cooperated with Michael's gang; he blows up the town with six Daisy Cutter bombs.

Markus's contact, Jesse Montoya, warns of something noteworthy happening in Cranston. He is crucified and shot by Michael and his gang.

Michael's lover, Julie, is pregnant. They met when he rescued her from the desert. One would imagine neither character survived the destruction of the base. A shame.

Michael: "You know what they call these things? Daisy Cutters. Is that a pretty name or what?"

Kurdy to Jeremiah: "Ever since I met you, you got a plan for every damn thing. You don't take a piss unless you got a plan."

And to Michael: "So, like, you're God? I don't know man, I just thought you'd be taller."

The quote "Defending the line", written on the base's entrance sign, evokes memories of Babylon 5's "Battle of the Line" to defend Earth during the Minbari war; and later Captain Sheridan's intention to "hold the line again the darkness, no matter the cost".

The BLU-82, nicknamed the Daisy Cutter, was used in Vietnam, Operation Desert Storm during the first Gulf War and the conflict against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Originally designed to clear jungle ground for the landing of helicopters, the intimidation factor led to more aggressive use. At 15000 pounds it is the largest conventional bomb in existence. It has a lethal radius of 300 - 900 feet and is dropped from 6000 feet from an MC-130 cargo plane, being too heavy for regular bomber aircraft. It is detonated when the 38 inch trigger hits the ground and is pushed up into the bomb breaking its casing. By exploding shortly before it hits the ground, this minimises the creation of a blast crater.

Some links on Daisy Cutters:

• Federation of American Scientists Military Analysis Network
• Guardian Unlimited - contains an interesting Flash-based description of the bomb.
• Global Security.org

Following Jeremiah's diatribe against God last episode, this one picks up on the theme of religion - indeed, one could almost believe that after daring God to "come down here", that's exactly what he's done. Michael's self-belief isn't a God complex exactly - rather than believe himself to be divine, he appears to imply that men who were previously worshipped as Gods were ordinary people whose followers compelled others to deify them by force. Disturbingly, there's more than a grain of truth in this.

Michael's obsession with "The End of the World" is obviously intended to mirror Theo's from the pilot. This leaves a number of unanswered questions: where does the phrase originate from? Did Theo hear it from Michael or vice versa? Are other groups aware of Thunder Mountain? If so, it's only a matter of time before one of the antagonistic groups discovers its location.

Michael's comment about Valhalla Sector not accepting the passing of the old world is curious - does he believe them to be, perhaps, a commune of adults immune to the effects of the virus, like Meaghan? If so, then if Jeremiah finally finds it, it may not give him quite the closure he's looking for.

Did Julie know how to arm the remaining Daisy Cutters, or did Michael keep them in a permanently armed state just in case? Given that they are designed to be dropped trigger-first towards the ground (see References), it's possible that the trigger used doesn't blow them up directly, but instead detonates a conventional explosive charge powerful enough to rupture the casing and thus explode the bomb.

It's not clear if Jeremiah took both truckfuls of refugees to Thunder Mountain as he planned to. One can't imagine Markus being too happy with them turning up; although willing to use the facility's resources to help people, he remains reluctant to accept outsiders as residents. It's more likely that with the threat from Michael and the military base gone, the refugees went to settle in the nearby towns. The Mountain could use that girl who's nifty with a rifle, though.

A mesmerising, unforgettable episode, with no diversions and an extraordinary, multifaceted performance from Jason Priestley.