So it’s not a great surprise that Alex finds herself  in front of a therapist. The Germain Greer-ish woman is slightly irritated, as far as I can tell. And she knows who Gene is – because Alex has told her? Or does everyone recovering from a coma talk about Gene?

She’s sent Molly to stay with Pete. Since when? Why would she do that and where is Evan?

Alex is in a department store, they’re playing a song by Kings of Leon, released in ???  She sees the team on TV screens and they plead with her to come back. Shaz wants to to help with…something she is cut off from saying. Jim Keats doesn’t want to end up like the rest of the team, whose images flash past. Or Sam?

In the 2008 hospital, a news report shows the body of a police officer being recovered from a ditch. It isn’t clear how long it’s been there. It could be Sam, Martin, Gene, Alex.

Shaz catches Alex talking to the radio. Shaz tells her she’s ‘halfway there.’ Halfway awake?

Jim says that the chemistry between Alex and Gene proves his innocence. So what happens to the ones he doesn’t have chemistry with? He had chemistry with Sam? If Gene was involved in his death then perhaps it was accidental?

Jim thinks Alex can make a difference and lets her know that his watch stopped at 9:06. At the start of series 2 it was later in the morning when we see the clock on the hospital wall in the present day. So it couldn’t have been the same place?

Top Gear is on in 1983? Oh apparently it’s been on since 1977. So that makes it nice and ambiguous as to what year it really is.

The woman who turns out to be a criminal, not a victim, has heard stories about Gene Hunt. ‘He’s a copper bomb bastard, you’re in a for a shock.’ Is this a double bluff?

Why does Gene use Shaz? He practically ignores her for three years, then all of a sudden she’s useful? Because she’s fallen out with Chris? Is there more to Chris than meets the eye – still?

Alex – ‘I told you I’d come back for you’ to Dorothy Blonde. Does she think she’s Molly? I wonder if this is slowly getting us used to the fact that Molly never really existed. Or did young Alex know Dorothy?

‘Walking on sunshine’ by Katrina and the Waves? Released in 1985 but apparently two years earlier in Canada. SO are we in Canada?

What has been blacked out on Sam’s file?

Martin tells Alex that the only word she has said in the hospital in 2008 is ‘Gene’. But she knows nothing of Gene in 2008? Or did she? Did she summon him because he helped Sam?

What is the Jackanory sequence supposed to tell us? That Gene knows more about Alex than he lets on? That he’s at her bedside in 2008?

Two references to France – why? The only possible reason could be as a reference to Diana’s crash, surely, as there’s nothing else significant there. Is it 1997 in real time?

The blonde woman is like an anti-Alex, with her hair and black leather jacket. Does Gene see through her all along? Only Alex seems threatened by her.

Gene seems genuinely shocked by the tape of Alex’s pondering who he is and why she’s here. When she tells him that she’s from the future, he looks disgusted but not really shocked. Did he have a similar conversation with Sam? Does he know that what she’s saying could be true but just hadn’t realised that she was ‘one of them’? ‘I don’t know what she is, nothing’s making sense.’ Does she fail to get back because Gene didn’t believe her?

The heart image that appears in most scenes is thought to be a card from Molly in the future, but perhaps it is a card Molly gave her in the past that she’s imagining? It seems too childish for a 12 year old.

Once Gene finds that Alex was telling the truth about the route and location of the job, does he believe her claim to be from the future, or just that she isn’t bent?

Does Chris actually only decide to do the right thing at the last minute?

Does Gene hear Martin Summers summarising Operation Rose before he shoots?

Does Gene think he is sending Alex home?

• ‘First Sam Tyler, now you. Why do I always attract the liars and the weirdos?’

‘You’re staying here.’

Finally, Alex has decided not to overcomplicate things, and is even considering complying with Gene’s request for a skimpy dress at tonight’s celebration.

Gene thinks he deserves a seat at the top table at Chris and Shaz’s wedding. He’s apparently their mother, father, brother, uncle…basically every relative you can name. Is he all of those things?

When young Martin Summers warns them that the construction site manager is bent, Gene knows that Alex will follow him. Does he make the link between young and old Summers? Again, the construction site manager seems like a caricature.

Alex tries to explain to young Martin Summers that there is another, older version of himself in the world. When he arrives, Alex tells him that he can’t change history. But he soon does, killing his younger self.  Which allows him to survive in this world.

Is it realistic that Alex, although not the actual murder, would have got away with disposing of the body? It must have been difficult to hide the evidence. Was no one really looking for young Martin Summers?

After seeing Martin change history, Alex is tormented by images of her mother. Could she have saved them? Surely the attack couldn’t have taken place if they’d been lock away in a cell but they would have been released eventually and Tim had the tape bomb. I can’t tell if Alex is seeing Caroline at the age she was when she dies, or whether she looks older, more the age she would be in 2008?

Ray knew how Chris paid for the engagement ring, so did he know all along that Chris was a mole? The fact that Chris is so naive, does this mean that the rest of the team don’t really know how or why they’re there? If this is an afterlife, surely there is less emphasis on right and wrong and less need for complexity and secrecy?

• ‘I am your judge, jury and executioner.’

Alex is in awe of how beautiful London can be…rose tinted glasses? Or is she seeing the old London for the first time?

Alex doesn’t question how quickly Chris identifies the drown victim despite nonchalantly flicking through the pile and making jokes about the rest of the missing person files. She’s not paying attention. Did she get shot because Operation Rose got too far? Did she need to cut it off sooner?

Mrs Mitchell is so convinced that her husband isn’t dead, it’s a huge shock to find that well, he is. She reported him missing several days ago though, surely it must have crossed her mind?

Loan shark Trevor Riley is a caricature of an 80s yuppie weasel. I don’t recall the early 80s but I thought it was more towards the end of the 80s that these creatures appeared. For me, he adds credibility to the theory that this is all Alex’s imagination. Except Gene sees him when Alex isn’t there…

Seeing Molly on the Tv suddenly made me flashback to episode 101 – ‘You nearly died in front of me.’ Which is exactly what happened to Alex. Did she really say that or was Alex imagining it?

Ray want to learn more about psychological profiling. Is this a nod to the shift that will occur in the third series? The team start to reject Gene’s methods and accept Alex as their influencer.

Gene thinks that in the 21st century, when Donna is released from jail, we’ll be zipping about in flying cars and flying to the moon…or does he really? He says it very flippantly, in a retrofuturistic sort of way.

Then Alex receives a message through the radio, just like Sam…

‘Yes, Bols, I’d miss you’…does Gene shoot her to stop her going? Did he work out what happened to Sam?

Keith Harris and Orville are discussing Alex’s condition – why would the memories of her childhood be transferring messages only she can see if she’s not really in 1982? She isn’t fixated on nostalgia as far as we know.

During this episode, I wondered if Pete was actually sitting at her bedside recounting the tale. It is a case for uniform, not CID, so how do they end up with it?

Pete’s mum has clearly never seen Alex before. Pete and his dad…not so sure. I’m convinced Brian can hear Alex as she speaks. Does that mean that someone in trauma , or in hospital, can connect to the other world? Brian was ‘the only one who made her feel her life wasn’t over when Pete left her with Molly’. Where was Evan? Did Pete’s mum disapprove?

So, someone everyone thought was dead, isn’t, but has turned up in disguise. Is this a clue as to Sam’s whereabouts?

Pete has Shakespeare’s Sister’s ‘Stay’ on 7″ vinyl in his room, which wasn’t released until 1992. Is this a message from the future? Is it actually 1992?

14 year old Pete gets used to this thirtysomething woman lecturing him quite quickly…by the end of the episode he seems to have grown quite fond of her. Does Pete realise who she is, so makes that corny hand gesture? Alex is trying to change the course of fate by lecturing Pete, will that ever succeed?

Ray’s looking to join the Army. What could the Army represent?

Gene went back to Manchester for a charity do. Now, I know there’s a softer side to Gene but travelling all the way back for a charity do? He also doesn’t go anywhere without Chris and Ray and they didn’t seem to know anything about it. Six months ago would also be just after the Prices were killed. Is Evan in Manchester with little Alex? We don’t see them in this series, so maybe. Alex hasn’t talked about the immediate aftermath of her parents’ death.

Tying into that, Jackie Queen’s reappearance reveals that Alex doesn’t think much of the North, including Scotland. Bad experience?  She also isn’t keen on journalists. Perhaps understandable as Tim and Caroline’s demise might have drawn a lot of unwanted attention. Back in the new 1982, Viv has been told to ignore enquiries from up North. Is this really a North vs South, good vs evil? Later on, it becomes a Manchester v Liverpool thing…

Alex asks Jackie if she ever saw Sam after the seige, Jackie seems a bit confused, but not shocked. She confirms that he was the most loved man she had ever known, was happily married to Annie but they didn’t have any children. She also said that once he stopped fighting whatever it was that he was fighting, he was happy.

Rachel is a Bananarama fan…in 1982? Bit early. Are you sure it’s 1982? Certainly they weren’t famous enough in 1982 to be adorning duvet covers. Wikipedia says they didn’t release their first album until 1983.

Given the subject matter…where is Vic Tyler in all of this?

Rachel says she can identify Jarvis and seems confident. But she then refuses, because she’s scared or because it wasn’t him? Who else should they be looking for?

Gene says Supermac tried to destroy the only thing he ever loved, and he means nothing. What is he referring to? Alex? The police force?

• ‘Never trust a man who gives to charity.’ Or who attends police charity dos?
• ‘He was not put on this earth to have kids. He’s got other work to do.’

What do Robin Elliot, Kevin Hales, Martin Summers and last week’s gypsy have in common? They all look at Alex as if they know she isn’t from 1982. Martin Summers declares this later on but what about the others?

Robin tells Alex that she’s physically present but her mind is elsewhere. Like him. I take this to mean that her brain is still alive in the present day.

Gene still refers to Manchester – ‘the make up counter at Kendalls’. Just a slip or is he in two places at once?

Robin knows that animals will be cloned. This is an obvious nod to the future but perhaps he has only seen something rather than being transported forward in time.

The student union scene is hilarious. Gene clearly knew who they were looking for so why did he take to the stage for his admittedly brilliant speech. Did they learn something from Sam after all?

Molly is brushing her teeth too hard. Do they have sinks in private rooms at hospitals? I kind of imagine that she’s in the present day hospital ward, the way she is looking calmly at Alex. Not sure what the blood is supposed to represent?

Qustion: If Supermac has power to transfer Gene to Devon how can Gene be the controller in this world?  And where do the Lord Scarmans come in?

Alex can’t see Molly’s face, it’s obscured by her hair. She runs away and Alex doesn’t chase her…she isn’t sure that she knows who her daughter is anymore. What is Alex actually travelled forward when she was hit by the car bomb in 1981, and has actually returned to her natural chronological order?

The team aren’t as concerned about Alex’s bullet in the head as Annie was about Sam’s disorientation. Is this because they’ve seen it all before or because they know she hasn’t really been shot. Is the shooting just one of the stories the inhabitants of CID invent to reassure themselves?

A man dies in a car crash and it’s referred to as the ‘death of a princess’,  since that’s the model of car involved. Is this a clue that someone else knows Alex is in 1982? Alex thinks he was on something, mirroring the actual events surrounding Diana’s crash.

The gypsy woman stares at Alex. She sees her differently to the rest of CID. Does this mean that Alex’s true circumstances are different to theirs? Romany people believe that spirits surround them constantly so she would not necessarily be concerned that Alex was there, only wonder why. She tells Alex that the tarot cards show that someone is stopping her getting home, and tha her lifeline is fading.

Alva knows that Alex has a child but she says kids plural.  If she is starting to forget Molly, is it possible that she had already forgotten another child before the shooting?

Shaz is part Romany. Since no one in the camp reacted to her does this mean that she is definitely alive in 1982?

Things that may turn out to be significant:

• What if there’s more than one real world?

• Give up power to a Tyler – maybe not tied up so literally, in this episode.

• Your fate is connected to the fate of many others.

• Alex gets closer to truth by empowering Chris and Ray.

The Weakest Link is on at 11.15am? Only an hour has passed since Alex was shot. I think this means that a year in 1982 equates to an hour in 2008. I’m reasonably convinced, due to the presence of the 4th generation iPod, that the person in the hospital bed is Sam. This could mean that Sam remained in a coma after his leap in 2007.

Molly’s in Mrs McCluskey’s office. Hmm. If Molly is in Grange Hill in 1982, does this mean she is also in 1982? The credit for Brian Capron could be significant. As far as I remember, the younger cast used to be credited before the teachers.

Kevin Hales – ‘We are everywhere.’ Later thought to refer to Supermac’s evil empire, but did it?

Gene doesn’t talk about his ex-wife. End of. Except…I’m fairly certain that we’ll be seeing or hearing from her in Series 3, and that she possibly knows something about Sam.

As soon as the pirate stripper is from Hyde, Gene softens. If in London, why wouldn’t she just say she’s from Manchester? It’s like Hyde is a secret code. And why would she think that Gene would know her mum?

The way Sally is shot was more like a dull thud to me. There was no gunshot. A moment before, Alex hears the air ambulance sirens from 2008 and looks into the light, then Sally is shot. It looks odd…my first instinct was that Sally caught a bullet, or was impacted, by something from 2008.Gene seems so shaken and disillusioned he almost gives in and tells Alex why she’s there. But perhaps that would release her and he knows that he needs her help.

Gene’s reaction to finding that Supermac is having an affair with the dead officer’s wife reveals his complete and utter distaste for adulterers. I’m thinking it’s possible that Gene’s wife had an affair with Sam and so he released Sam from his world. It would also explain Annie’s absence.

What does Alex say when Gene finally rescues her from Martin Summers’ bizarre hospital torture scene? And why hospital?I think the way the scene interpolates with the ambulance rescue is a clear indication that Martin Summers is also in limbo.

Things that may turn out to be significant

• ‘You’re not going anywhere unless I say so.’
• ‘Speak English Bolly, or I swear to God I will shoot you.’