This week on World on Fire our core characters face a number of challenges. Harry, Lois, Stan, and Rajib are navigating injuries, more sandstorms, and a lack of supplies. Kasia confronts Sir James on the true nature of his assignment, Henriette has to escape the Gestapo, and David finds himself in very unfamiliar territory after his plane crashes. And Marga realizes exactly why Gerta and Herr Tultz tried to warn her about the Lebensborn. Let’s analyze what happened in finer detail.

As the case unfolds, Annika is still deciding whether to tell Michael he is Morgan’s father. Her monologue this week shouts out Sir Walter Scott’s literary canon, as he was a resident of Edinburgh. Annika discusses Waverly, his lesser-known first novel, as a story Michael shouldn’t read. Annika then tells the audience Waverly is set during the civil war and the hero of the novel is an English soldier who meets a romantic revolutionary who messes up his home life. Waverley’s plot is a lot longer than last week’s sea monster ballad, so let’s dig into the missing context.

This week on World On Fire, we get a glimpse of events across the varying plotlines of the series and an update on the characters stuck in Nazi-occupied Paris. Harry has started in his new posting in North Africa but he has left so much at home in flux. Kasia loves that she can see Jan and Grzegorz again, but cannot abide having to play a passive part in the war effort. Lois is struggling with single motherhood. All of this, plus a new unexpected long-term boarder, is what Robina is left to manage by herself. Let’s take a closer look at the circumstances on the home front.

Annika Season 1 challenged mystery fans by using first-person narration to relate the crimes investigated by D.S. Annika Stradhed and the Marine Homicide Unit as well as the events in Annika’s life. This was an important nod to the series’ beginning as a BBC Radio 4 audio drama. Season 2 continues the fourth wall monologue tradition with Annika adding new literary references each episode that express her mood towards events in her personal life and occasionally regarding the case. While Annika relates a fairly succinct version of the literary reference, she often leaves out interesting background information or in some cases parts of the story in question. This series will illuminate the missing context.

World On Fire Season 1 premiered on MASTERPIECE at the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Season 2’s premiere, with wars and rising fascism, make the series more relevant than ever before. One of the most impressive things about the premiere is the way almost every major plot line is seamlessly woven together. There are new recurring faces in the fight for and against Nazi Germany. Let’s pull apart each plot thread and take a closer look.

When we left Amsterdam last week, Euro Cash and Eddie had discovered the hidden door that gave the non-demon murderer access to the conjuring space, Citra and Drunkie Howser were posted up in a club surveilling Magic Man and crew, and Grandad Conjurer had just attacked an orderly at the hospital before making his escape. Luckily for that orderly, Hassell was on her way to the hospital, so she finds him soon after the attack, administers a bit of haphazard first aid, and confirms that Grandad Conjurer is in the wind.

Reader, I’m honestly not sure how we are somehow already at the LAST episode of this season. There’s still so much left to untangle, and that’s just talking about the interpersonal nonsense everyone’s dealing with! Anyway, we’ve only got one television hour left, so let’s jump right in: that sniffer dog from last week was right on the money, and New Cassie, Sunny, and Pathologist gather under a forensics tent to discuss the newest remains this season. The body is that of a young man, and there are two bullet holes in the head. Other than that, there isn’t a lot to say now, but New Cassie asks for rush DNA so they can try and confirm that this is, as we all assume, Precious’ older son.

I’ll be real with you, reader: I was pretty excited when this episode, for the first time this season, turned out to be about the weird and esoteric, and kicked off with a magic ritual featuring two men covered in hand-drawn sigils conjuring something in a candle-lit room.

Last week, things FINALLY seemed to be looking up for our squad, at least when it comes to their interpersonal skills. Personal lives? The living embodiment of that "this is fine" cartoon dog.

It’s never great when someone who thinks they have important information to share with a detective gets murdered. But it’s definitely worse when that person has romantic history with said detective’s boss, and that’s the situation we’re faced with here at the start of episode 4.