Well the good news after that Saving Hope cliffhanger season finale is that Alex isn’t dead. The bad news is she’s still in a coma and Charlie seems pretty happy about that. Things picked up right where Season 2 left them, with Alex’s body on the operating table and Dawn and Maggie scrambling to save her, while spirit Alex and Charlie tried to figure out what this new situation meant.

I’ll admit I got a kick out of Dawn repeatedly telling Charlie to stop talking—although I wish someone had taken it one step further and demanded to know just who he was talking to when the supposed love of his life was nearly dying in front of him. It was one of a handful of lighter moments that balanced out the very dark place Alex went to almost immediately after her short bonding session with Charlie.

While the whole coma-meets-alternate-life isn’t a new thing to television, I do appreciate the direction Saving Hope went in—instead of giving Alex a glimpse at a life (and husband?) she would wake up wanting, we got a shocking look into her past when it eventually came out that Alex had witnessed her father’s suicide. If it came as a jarring transition as her fictional daughter turned into her, I missed it because I was completely caught up in Luke’s return.

If there was anything I would have wanted to come out of Alex’s attack, it would be a chance for her to see her brother again—though ideally not with their dead father suspended next to them. But as the two finally got to talk again, the possibility that the two siblings could spend the rest of eternity hanging out in their childhood home and having barbeques seemed like a nice alternative to recovering from a brutal scissor stabbing and diving back into the complicated mess that is Charlie’s unique set of abilities and a very unresolved love triangle. Then again, maybe I’m just really partial to Luke.

Because as soon as Alex disappeared from Charlie’s sight, that love triangle was kicked into high gear. While I should probably preface my feelings on Charlie deciding to beat up Joel with an admission that I’m hands down Team Joel, that wasn’t a particularly mature or constructive way to deal with the horrifying things happening at Hope Zion—and it certainly wasn’t going to do Alex any good.

Not that Joel needed a physical pummeling to go with his emotional one when he got hit with the double whammy that his patient was the one who stabbed Alex (while he was asleep, no less) but that said patient then went on to throw himself off the hospital roof. And despite how hopeless it was, Joel and Zach were doing all they could to save the guy until he demanded Joel let him sleep—the kind of medical decision I’m sure wouldn’t fly in court, if anyone ever checks up on this. I’ve got the feeling making that call will be sticking with Joel for a while, and not just because he was being tailed by a ghost.

More Hope-ful moments:

• “Maggie, are you crying? Because if you move, she dies.” Dawn is probably not the most reassuring person in a crisis.
• “Godzilla, Mothra, do you want to shake paws and call it even?” What Gavin didn’t say was who was who?
• “Mothra didn’t have paws, man. She was a moth.” I am pleased to report there was also plenty of Reycraft in this episode.
• “That’s disgusting. What are you, like a teen hooker?” Dawn on Gavin’s sugar to coffee ratio
• “I read in a paper that we’ve reached peak beard, but I’m not so sure.” Zach should definitely take advantage of his Armenian half and really show us what peak beard is.
• Charlie: “I can see you, and I’m glad.” Alex: “I’m in a coma, Charlie.” Basically says it all.

Saving Hope returns to its regular time period on Thursday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.