Jeremiah and Kurdy take separate paths as Kurdy goes with Elizabeth to make contact with a black separatist group, and Jeremiah helps Erin deal with her sister's tangled love life.

Kurdy and Elizabeth make contact with Shadow of the Crescent, a black separatist group, with a view to forming an alliance with Thunder Mountain. The leader, Kwame, is initially reluctant, but when he sees how insular some in his group has become, he is willing to open up a dialogue.

Jeremiah is becoming attracted to Erin, and Elizabeth and Kurdy grow closer in this episode.

Erin has an identical twin sister, Lauren. The two have never seen eye to eye. Erin says that when their mother was killed by the virus, Lauren traded her collection of jewellery to obtain drugs. In fact, Lauren had kept the jewels, and gives them to Erin at the end of the episode.

Lauren has sent a message to Erin to help her get away from her abusive ex-lover, Geronimo. In a fight, Erin kills him.

Elizabeth, an only child, came from a mixed-race middle-class family from Los Angeles.

Jeremiah makes love to either Erin or Lauren in this episode. Erin teases him by implying it was her, but it was Lauren who was wearing her hair in pigtails beforehand, so, unfortunately for Jeremiah, it was probably Lauren.

Kurdy: "The Big Death was an equal-opportunity assassin."

Kurdy refers to James Baldwin, Malcolm X and Dr Martin Luther King, as black revolutionaries, though their desire to be "all things to all people" makes them inadequate role models for some in the Shadow of the Crescent. Baldwin, born 1924 in Harlem, New York, was an openly gay black novelist, playwright and essayist who dealt with themes of sexuality as well as race, earning him condemnation from groups such as the Black Panthers. Malcolm X's views were initially more inline with those of the Shadow of the Crescent, but following conflict with Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, he sought a more inclusive approach after a pilgrimage to Mecca introduced him to white men he felt able to call brothers. Both Malcolm X and Dr King were assassinated in the 1960s.

Erin is teaching Jeremiah how to fence.

Thunder Mountain has made contact with at least twenty potential allies in the past few days.

Kurdy gives Elizabeth a glass cat that he was given by the leader of the Shadow of the Crescent. He first promised her he would find one in "The Long Road".

Jeremiah's attraction toward Erin comes somewhat out of the blue.

Why does Kwame say that "Kurdy" is a slave name? For all he knows, Kurdy could have made it up.

Good, character-driven stuff, the simple stories giving space in which to flesh out the Thunder Mountaineers and their relationships.