Man, that was great. Did you ever see such a thing? I feel bad for people not watching this show because that was the finest hour of a show I've seen in a while. Everything happened! It's Episode 8, so it's an act break, but even still. That was some Emmy shit.

The first half focuses almost entirely on Sarah's abduction by Pastor Mike, who forces her to drive all over town while they have a mixed-message conversation that she only figures out toward the end of their time together: As suspected, he's just another Linden, somebody driven to save children to the degree that it looks crazy to everybody else. But even looking in this mirror, she still can't understand what he's talking about until it's too late.

The second she finally figures out he's not a killer, or anything bad, he notices she's been signaling the cops their location with a turned-on walkie-talkie, and takes her to a bridge to kill her (and presumably himself). She ushers the cops to their location by telling the story of the time she saved Holder from killing himself -- second tearjerker moment, after a jaw-dropping confession of her conscious efforts to lose custody of Jack over the course of the series -- and they arrive just in time for a standoff that she stops by invoking Mike's own compassion, which she shares. Beautiful moment.

And then there's Ray Seward, who is just falling apart with two days to go before he is hanged. Panicked calls to his lawyer yield no results, and he ends up having a fall-down panic attack from which he's rescued by -- get this -- fucking Francis Becker. Who flips on a dime and shows him more selfless kindness and compassion than anybody on this show maybe ever has done, walking him back out of his terror. It's temporary, obviously, but that somehow makes it even more shockingly beautiful.

After a lovely dinner with Stephen that restores both their equilibrium and turns them back into something resembling people, Linden gets the call from Ray: He'll set up a meeting with Adrian for her if she thinks she can save him in the next forty-eight hours, because they both know he didn't kill his wife.

Lyric turns up back on the street, and breaks Bullet's heart into a million pieces for the obvious reasons that was going to happen. Which would be the headline here, except Bullet ended up complicating Sarah's kidnapping by telling Holder that Lyric was in the custody of the Pied Piper, none of which was true, and ends up ruining their relationship. It's a sad, ugly, sickening shit show when he breaks up with her -- and when she finally tracks down the vanished survivor Angie to make amends, he won't take the call. Which is too bad, because the episode ends with Bullet entirely alone... And getting stalked by the Piper herself.

Next Week: Joe Mills is back in rotation, Bullet may be in trouble, and Sarah Linden may well be shooting an assailant. The only shit she hasn't pulled yet this season.