After a spate of attacks on churches and synagogues, Inspector Reid (Matthew Macfadyen) got on the case and realised he was looking for one culprit, bent on stirring religious dissent. With some help from former “ink-streaked urchin” of the print works Fred Best (David Dawson), Reid traced the inflammatory pamphlets linked to the attacks to a printer who – upon discovery by the Whitechapel bobbies – promptly sliced open his neck in an act of ecstatic self-sacrifice.

At the heart of all this throat-slashy, blood-smeary fanaticism was a man by the name of Gabriel Cain (an excellent turn by Paul Kaye), a softly-spoken cult leader obsessed with the notion that the world was so mired in sin, suicide was his followers’ only option. Sadly for everyone involved, one of Cain’s former devotees was none other than Drake’s new missus Bella (Gillian Saker), who soon found herself back under Cain’s spell.

With Rose (Charlene McKenna) becoming entangled in the cult and London’s religious population verging on riot, there was barely time to reach for a dose of laudanum before people were coming to a sticky end all over the place – and with them, sadly, Bella.

While Bella, Drake and Rose provided an emotional core, at the philosophical heart of this week’s episode were two scholars: Cain and Isaac Bloom (Justin Avoth). While Cain, a man who claimed to be in search of the truth, was in reality a megalomaniac parading himself as a symbol of hope, Bloom was a sombre, cautiously agnostic man who at once accepted the difficulties inherent in religious faith whilst acknowledging it as a necessary facet of humanity.

In a series which works hard to build layers of thematic meaning, Bloom’s words to the permanently questioning Reid – “A man without faith is a man without hope” – worked perfectly to remind us of Reid’s character, and why we love him so: he’s a man constantly reminded of the darkness of human nature, who still chooses to believe in goodness.

As far as the series arcs are concerned, we got a touch of the Susan/Jackson saga, with Jackson (Adam Rothenberg) having no luck in his attempts to communicate with his estranged wife, but there was no more on Reid’s romance with Jane Cobden or Susan’s entanglements with Silas Duggan, not to mention the fact that we haven’t heard a peep from Jedediah Shine since Episode 2 (we’re assuming he’s gone on holiday to get away from all that moustache-twirling).

With only the two-part finale to go, there’s still a pile of loose ends to be tied up. Of course, after the quality of Series 2 so far, we’re confident these final episodes will deliver. You might even say we have (ahem) absolute faith.

Aired at 9pm on Monday 2 December 2013 on BBC One.

> Buy Series 1 on DVD on Amazon.

> Order Series 2 on DVD on Amazon.

Watch the Series 2 trailer…

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