Michiko hasn’t really killed people. Ok, so she shot at a sniper helicopter which then amusingly crashed, and in all the carcrashes of episode 2 maybe someone got unlucky. But practically speaking, she hasn’t looked another human being in the eye and shot them down. This matters.

She has done everything else wrong, and in her habits of living she is unashamedly a vandal and a thief. And then in the course of doing things right, of carrying out justice, she comically bests the foe without recourse to killing.

She lives in a world of prison beatings and harsh childhoods. But far from being a thug, deep down, she’s a child’s hero. She is at once the honest broker and true guardian that every kid needs and a sneering criminal vandal. She is illogically able to not get shot and to evade capture – because she is a heroine. And her style of heroism is, for now, pure.

It was thus appropriate that the episode’s action came not in gunfights or a robbery, but in the form of car chases (with a typically great soundtrack). Who needs guns when you can have an action scene like this? The badguy gets humiliated, the old rival gets bested, the child calls for help, the heroine flies through the air once more to save the day.

The action served as the climax to an episode which covered the establishing of Michiko’s relationship with Hatchin and the introduction of Jumbo.

First things first. Hana is left clinging on the her woman for dear life. Still, our dependent Hatchin has a bit of spine, and a lot of straight questions to ask. She pulls out quite often that untrusting child’s scepticism. Quietly throws a bunch of honest and tough questions. She’s using her head and thinking around things. So she’s not a mental dependent. That does not mean that she doesn’t need a heroine. We can all think, and we’d all like a custom-made friend who can defy the world.

So it’s now time not just to be amazed by Michiko, but to believe in her. To keep asking those questions, but within the context of a relationship defined by a fundamental inequality between woman and child. A woman on a mission.

And a woman with rival. Naturally. A blaxsploitation feminised version of the classic criminal v detective, wild card v lawman dynamic. And, of course, there’s no question that Michiko will win the day. Jumbo gets some stinging words in, Michiko just bullies her into a silly defeat.

The joy of this is the nature of Jumbo’s pathetic obsession. It’s why she’d lean in to listen to some imagined secret message from her prey. We watch her rushing off to beat up some poor fake Michiko. We see her coming for prison visits just to be a bitch. And we know that Michiko wouldn’t bother to do the same – she just struts her stuff and forgets the law exists when she can. It’s an unequal relationship. It shows us that even the world’s toughest crime-busting fuckers can’t stand up to our heroine. And it shows us that law enforcement is sometimes more petty and personal than a criminal’s mission.

But loveable sub-heroic straightman Jumbo is not the only face of the opposition. There is, once again, the priest to deal with.

His gunskillz have to be a defining feature of the series so far. I particularly like the bit where our golden girl looks up in anger and he fires one shot off in panic as he turns and runs from an unarmed woman. A useless (deadly) popgun in his hands. This is the kind of little moment I like about high-budget action productions. Wordless expression. Where the audience doesn’t get time to ask questions of the show, because each moment it is acting its world out to us physically – showing us everything it can.

And sometimes backing off the more obviously dramatic forms of expression – the lack of a suddenly unveiled tattoo was nice. The show didn’t go for the ‘one true princess’ slipper fitting moment. It was Hatchin’s choice to jump into her destiny, not the tattoo dictating to her. She chose destiny. To jump on the bike and (a bit later on) keep asking those questions.

You might remember that Michiko looked first to the other kid. What of those features she sees in Hana – what of the destiny of genetic inheritance? You’ll have noted how Jumbo checked out that ballsy priest’s daughter’s belly just in case. We maybe worry about whether Hatchin really does bear the stamp of authenticity. And we get Michiko just saying that she believes.

There’s was in fact no immediate hallelujah first-sight ‘you’re the one’ decision. Michiko too has chosen to believe. And it’s not like love at first sight, where you’re made to fall for someone, there’s no lust in choosing platonic destinies. It’s coming from Michiko as a grown-up heroine, not as as some kid who still needs help to stay alive. She’s a toughnosed criminal with a dead lover and a queue of enemies, and she walks into the world and picks up someone to believe in.