Sky Atlantic’s Tin Star
Season 2, Episode 9: “The Unseen”
Directed by Justin Chadwick
Written by Rowan Joffe & Nathaniel Price

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Wild Flower,” click here
* For a recap & review of the Season 3 premiere, “Homecoming,” click here.
Jack’s (Tim Roth) preparing himself and his family the coming repercussions of Liverpool. Angela (Genevieve O’Reilly) and Anna (Abigail Lawrie) are wearing their bulletproof vests, packing heat alongside him. They’ve got to face reality together. Meanwhile, Johan (John Lynch) and the men are taking Rosa’s casket out of the house to be buried. Everyone in town watches on respectfully while the small procession makes their way to the graveyard. Like perfect symbolism, a dark sky crackles overhead and a storm brews above them all. During the funeral Johan makes clear he’s prepared for violence in retribution for his daughter’s murder. Great time to haul out a gun. The thin veneer of faith has all but worn away.
We see Angela show Anna a picture of her as a baby being held by her actual father. It turns out Jack isn’t the father of his daughter by blood. Her actual father was a bad man. The cartel’s not actually the problem anymore, it’s all Liverpool now. The girl’s real father is actually dead. He was a police informant Jack used, and so you can see how nasty things got eventually. The people coming are as horrible as Jack, if not worse.

“He sees all, but he forgets nothing.”

Johan tries to get his wife to leave, but Sarah refuses. She doesn’t feel any safer by leaving. Neither does she want to leave the place where they buried their daughter. She won’t abandon her husband. Just like Anna won’t abandon her family. She loves her dad, even if unconnected by blood. She doesn’t care about her real father. She cares about what she has, and so she works with her family to deal with whatever comes. This means Jack, Anna, and Angela lay out tactical plans. Y’know, like a normal family!
Jack and Angela reminisce about when he would beg her to marry him years before. He jokes he doesn’t want to anymore: “I‘d like to keep my options open.” Their relationship is so strong it’d take an unknown force to split it apart irreparably. They’ve been through the unimaginable, about to go through it all over again.
The Worths saddle up as black SUVs approach Little Big Bear and the colony. They have to split up. Jack says an emotional goodbye to his wife in case the worst occurs. It’s a heartbreaking callback to the last time they were in a bad, bad situation. Then Jack walks into the open down the main road of the colony to take a seat in front of his trailer. The approaching SUVs are parked just over the nearby hill. And already in town people are dying— Johan discovers Friedrich with a plastic bag taped over his head. Angela gets the drop on an armed man, putting a bullet in his temple.
That’s when the rest of the gunfire begins. Smoke grenades are tossed. Jack makes a run for it to another position. A man nearly has him dead to rights when a couple Ammonite girls distract with paint ball guns. At the Nickel house, Sarah’s shot dead by one of the men before her husband can kill him, sending the grieving father and husband on a one-man rampage. Anna kills a man, but gas is tossed through the window and she’s nearly overcome, saved by Johan who gives her time to get away but takes a bullet. We see Angela get Thomas out of there and into the woods. Jack executes a couple more men while one of the Ammonites is gunned down.
Johan wanders out to his daughter’s grave bleeding to death and lays in the grass. Jack surveys the bodies, finding two Ammonite girls picked up real weapons instead of paint ball guns, helping to clear out baddies. He sees, again, more of the collateral damage surrounding him quite literally, as bodies are strewn everywhere across the colony’s land. He heads back to the trailer and sits out front. It all weighs heavily in his eyes.
Is it finally over? Or, does it never end?
Jack then gets up from his lawn chair, walking back up the road. Will he go back to Liverpool to finish things for good? If not, the carnage will only continue following him. He and his family will never be able to truly rest.
So, please, dear lord, we need a Season 3! Tin Star is far too good to end here. This is one of the best shows of the past few years. It’s unexpected, weird, wild, and the drama’s top notch. Make sure to let Sky Atlantic know how much you love this series— Father Gore certainly will!