The True Infected Hidden In Plain Sight?
28 hours after coming out of my second viewing of Danny Boyle/Alex Garland’s raging beauty that is 28 Years Later, and my head is still spinning with absolute awe, delight and the surprising, poignant existential beauty of what I’ve seen. Added to that is the unnerving potential horror of what I believe I’ve seen, and for some reason haven’t. A ‘hidden’ aspect which may be the true infected beating heart of the film and the beginning of the new trilogy in the franchise.

The following isn’t so much a review (100% GO SEE THIS FILM, it’s absolutely 10/10. 100% DON’T READ ANY REVIEWS BEFORE SEEING IT), but will be a full-on spoiler splattered and saturated attempt at lifting the mask of what I believe I saw, and more importantly didn’t, which felt even more sinister and far-reaching given the state of contemporary UK, and its future. It won’t dwell on the overt themes in the film, such as Spike’s coming-of-age, but will dive into the deep, where the film’s writer Alex Garland often hides critical thinking treasures.
Given these are my observations and speculations on the subtextual meaning of the film, they haven’t been expressed or confirmed by the creative team as the direction of the franchise. But it’s everything I felt upon multiple watches, and it added so much more to a film I already thought was stunning.
FULL SPOILERS, SPECULATIONS AND DECAPITATIONS AHEAD
Maybe the Rage virus (and the film itself) is not just about a biological threat, but an encoded metaphor for white ethnostate supremacy, militaristic indoctrination, and nationalistic nostalgia dressed up as heritage, which ultimately leads to the downfall of society through its inherent racism.
In full transparency my bias for Alex Garland is pretty significant. He is a writer and director who has inspired, enthralled and challenged me countless times. He is intuitively compelled to respect the audience by not patronising them, acknowledging/respecting their intellect, and knowing that if they don’t understand something, they will put the effort in to find out, to learn, grow, and most importantly, think for themselves. That gives him the freedom, and no doubt joy, satisfaction to advance his own development, curiosity, exploration and basically raising the game for everyone involved, creators, crew, cast and audience alike, as one, for storytelling and cinema. As it should be.
Garland and Boyle have collaborated on three previous films, so have clearly known each other for many years, indeed Alex having written the 1996 book ‘The Beach’ which Danny later filmed in 2000, was the catalyst for Alex’s film career. Yet it is the coming together again after many years of substantial and tangible filmmaking experiences by both that truly makes 28YL really shine. Effectively grabbing the past by the throat and sprinting into the future.
It is well known that some of the greatest horrors ever made imbue the times they were made in. How could they not, as the writers/makers are directly affected and inspired by everything around them. It is this aspect of colloquial and regional focus in the latest Rage chapter that truly elevates the story, by going smaller, at least initially from what we’ve seen so far, it becomes more potent, much like the original 28 Days Later back in 2002. The man-made Rage virus was created and released in the UK, it is its home, and horrifically, that seems quite appropriate.

The film opens with a sequence that immediately feels somewhat like an idyllic Aryan Bavarian village set in the Scottish Highlands. A family of all blond, blue-eyed kids are gathered transfixed by an episode of Teletubbies. A TV fantasy where strange colourful creatures live and roam amongst surreal rolling hills, with giant white windmills, and a sun that has a newborn baby’s smiling face. A young boy named Jimmy sits with his six sisters and cousin Delilah (that name will return later), tensions visibly mount as they hear raised and panicked voices outside the room. The scene swiftly flips and screams from joyous saturated colours, to blood-soaked death.
Jimmy is the only one to escape, hiding from the raging killer horde, the murderous, fevered congregation spreading what will become the new testament. His childhood has brutally ended, frozen, utterly terrified while squeezing the gold crucifix just handed to him by his evangelical pastor father, who maniacally welcomed Judgement Day, right before receiving his. Jimmy has been baptised in death.

ISLAND AHOY!
28 years have passed and the clouds part to reveal a small isolated island, Holy Island Mission, slightly off the northeast coast of England. The island distinctly echoes the shape of Africa, the birthplace of humanity, possibly foreshadowing where it might all end too. It also flies the St George’s Cross, which we will also come back to, a castle, village, battlements and giant medieval crossbow armaments.
We are first introduced to 12 yr old Spike (Alfie Williams), his dad Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and visibly ill bed ridden mother Isla (Jodie Comer) as the young boy is about to partake in what is clearly a coming of age ritual on the island, equivalent to a hunting ‘blooding’. He’s a couple of years younger than when it would normally happen, but his dad has such male bravado belief in his son, proclaiming he will be fine. It harks of the same misguided jingoistic pride of parents who send their children off to needlessly die in wars.
It’s not a surprising trait considering the make-up of the island. As we are slowly introduced to the inhabitants and symbolism that subconsciously moulds societies from an early age. In the school the children sing a hymn together, Abide with Me, written by Henry Francis Lyte in 1847 as he was dying of tuberculosis, trying to find solace in imminent death, and often sung at funerals in modern UK. It’s indoctrination by repetition, a mantra, but it’s been edited, a verse missing, subtly changing the meaning, removing vulnerability, enhancing the belief in an almighty power guiding them.
To the attentive, something else becomes evidently missing, anyone who isn’t white, a distinct anomaly in modern UK. The printed colouring book illustrations on the classroom wall depicting the various roles that children will one day be given; Hunter, Farmer, Forager, Builder, Fisherman, Councillor and Seamster are all drawn with archaic stereotypical gender roles, and all white. The only new role is an empty Watchtower, hand drawn on a scrap of paper given its particular significance to this gated crossbow armed society and their need for security keeping oversight on the causeway that connects to the mainland at low tide.
It feels like a village version of Sparta, a militaristic mono-culture, where male kids are taught at an early age to shoot arrows to kill the infected, and maybe more. While the women and young girls are preparing the feast and decorations to celebrate the expected success of Spike’s mainland quest.
A battered and torn English flag hangs on a mast above the village. The St George’s Cross, not the Union Jack of a United Kingdom, but the flag of Brexit isolationists, a symbol soaked in historical blood, crusades, military sanctity and aggression, heavily associated with white supremacists, hooliganism, anti-immigration, nostalgic imperialism, and a mythic white British past. A colonial past equally echoed in inter-spliced flashes of Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film Henry V, where his all white army are seem shooting arrows at the French ‘invaders’. That film itself was WWII wartime propaganda commissioned by Churchill (himself notoriously racist, particularly in relation to Africa), upholding a vision of colonial racial purity, superiority, divine right, and military virtue. Promoting religious militarism that irrespective of it’s colloquial, familiar tropes, ornaments and decoration to anyone in the UK or Ireland (who grew up watching British TV), is no different than that of North Korea, China, Communist Russia or the USA.
Even the design on the football jersey Jamie is wearing mimics the chaperone hoods worn in the medieval period of Henry V’s troops.
Spike briefly considers the significance of his forthcoming odyssey and places back the Power Rangers figure he was about to bring on the hunt. In that simple action he renounces his youth, the boy pretending to be the man, and sets off into groupthink.
Jamie has a mild blood lust energy in preparation for his son’s first killing, where he gets to murder infected people. His focus is clearly set on the violence, rather than finding a treatment or solution for his ailing wife. It feels like he is just waiting for her to die, which is potentially also dawning on Spike.
Cheered on like heroes by the villagers as they go to leave the island, it is all clearly part of the indoctrination, you must be able to kill to be part of this society. This is cemented in by the timely and brutally on point overplay of the spoken word poem Boots by Rudyard Kipling, a white supremacist who was known for promoting empire and presenting racial hierarchies as natural and necessary, even penning ‘The White Man’s Burden’ in 1899 urging the US to colonise the Philippines. The opening line even reveals it’s inherent racism, as British Army troops colonially stomp over the indigenous once again:
‘We’re foot—slog—slog—slog—sloggin’ over Africa’
The hypnotic and repetitive words are powerfully, disturbingly read by an American actor Taylor Holmes in a 1915 recording, that is both brutally terrifying in its starkness, but also horrifying in that it’s used by the U.S. Navy in SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) training during their Hell Week, specifically because of its trance-inducing cadence, conditioning automatic, muscle memory killing.
As Jamie and Spike walk out onto the causeway to the mainland, it may not last a week, but they are definitely entering Hell.
It’s by no coincidence that the first kills are the weakest Slow Low amongst the infected, once that seal of lost humanity is broken Spike is repeatedly praised to not allow any questions or rationale to enter his head. Thinking cannot be allowed to happen, killing must be automated, dehumanisation is essential, as his dad advises ‘The more you kill, the easier it gets.’ This desensitised automated slaughter is clearly at work in Gaza today, where decades of militaristic conditioning is absolutely providing the outcome it was designed to create.
Upon returning to the island and shifting from killing to a mere lunge away from being killed themselves, the villagers have been preparing the celebrations in the community hall that has all the trappings of a traditional working men’s club, being set up by all the women with a distinct The Women’s Institute feel, parochial tea, cakes and bunting, tapestries depicting an all white society, celebrating the successful killings and return of our new ‘hero’.
The set up of the festivities are eerily overseen by a young figure wearing a stark white highly stylised face mask, with an arrow in its forehead (lobotomised). Genuinely unnerving both in how it looks and that one could possibly believe is a minimalistic caricature of Nigel Farage, the leader/owner of the UK’s extremely right wing populist Reform party, who have had endless accusations of racism throughout their existence. Is he the guiding spirit of Holy Island Mission?
This pedestal status doesn’t sit well with Spike as the stories his dad is telling the drunken captivated crowd are not the reality of what happened, his near catastrophic errors and fears in the moment have become a tale of epic survival and heroism, they are dressed up lies. But as with any propaganda, never let the truth get in the way of a good story, especially when building mythologies.
Everything is subtle though, not overt, subconscious by design or evolution, palatable, small tastes, slow feeding, yet still ultimately gorging on hollowness, nutrition-less candy floss embellishments. In reality few people actually question why they have the beliefs they hold, or where they came from. Even the roaring and joyous group rendition of the song Delilah, originally sung by Tom Jones, is a song that romanticises femicide, which potentially Jamie and the village could be accused of in self evidently not trying to find help for Isla. Are they deliberately allowing her to die because she is deemed weak. Even Jamie has secretly moved onto Rose, a younger and healthier islander.
Bizarrely the film was released in the same week that the distinctly right wing leaning Keir Starmer’s Labour party are bringing in laws for ‘assisted’ dying, while at the same time attempting to drastically cut support for the disabled, while simultaneously increasing the military budget. Is Starmer trying to create his own neoliberal Sparta?
For whatever reason Spike (aptly named in that he just might be the one to burst the propaganda bubble of this ethnically homogenous militaristic society) decides to take his mother to see the fabled Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) who he has just learned of. Maybe this GP (medical General Practitioner) can help his mother, when no one else seems to want to.
Even the doctor, unbeknownst to himself, has a negative mythology written about him by some of the islanders, where again, the stories are more important than seeking the truth.

DOCTOR KELSON, I PRESUME
This new journey across beautiful rolling hills and giant white windmills, echoing the beginning of the film, also brings into the mix a new blond haired blue eyed figure in the guise of a Swedish ‘Viking’ soldier Erik (Edvin Ryding) who has been left stranded on the island, the sole survivor of an infected attack, and soon after, a newborn baby, again echoing the radiant sun in Teletubbyland.
It also brings in Samson (named by Kelson), the gigantic Alpha infected male who has the raw power to brutally rip the head and spine out of his kills, potentially keeping them as trophies of his power and status. We don’t actually know yet, but again, it echoes something ahead (pun intended). The Alphas are known to be different in that the virus has acted like a tsunami of steroids, a roided out beast, who is almost an unstoppable force of nature. These versions of the infected are evidently more intelligent too, and seemingly control groups or nests of infected, guiding hunts for food and new victims to spread the virus.
A (blue eyed) baby girl has been delivered by Isla, Spikes mum, from an infected woman, who seems to be the daughter of Samson, who has come to get her, and is literally willing to tear everyone apart to complete his objective.
Miraculously the child doesn’t appear to be infected, maternal instincts bypass any prevailing illness and mother and son must protect her at all costs. It is only Dr. Kelson with the aid of a blow dart containing morphine xylazine, a mix of an opioid and a very powerful animal sedative that immediately immobilises the Alpha, stopping him from ending their basic humanity and desire to not see young innocents suffer.

SKULL ISLAND
This chapter with the introduction of Kelson is as jaw-dropping in its existential humanity, as was the horror we have seen before. Via his medical training and knowledge he has come to the realisation that iodine acts as a deterrent for the virus, humorously introducing it as an excellent prophylactic, and as a natural armour, entirely paints himself in the substance. It is as visually captivating to see in that he appears to glow an almost fluorescent orange on screen, as it is effective against the virus. He also has to be producing the iodine himself (most likely from seaweed) as it has a limited shelf life.
Iodine is red by nature, and a few thoughts and possibilities come to mind upon seeing his approach. It is reminiscent of battle paint, or woad that Celtic warriors would have covered themselves in before going into battle, to terrify the enemy, and provide spiritual protection for the user. Earlier in the film we had seen footage that appears to be from the perspective (or at least give that impression) of the infected, where everything has the essence of a blood red tinted filter, as if the virus has changed the colour spectrum range of the host’s eyesight. This leads to the potential that Kelson could also have certain camouflage capabilities, mentioning he prefers to keep his distance from them, unlike the islanders who we know hunt them for sport. Indeed Samson has been living in his area for over three years, they are no doubt very familiar to each other, and noticeably, both seem to be collectors of heads.
On said heads, the good doctor has been collecting the human bones and skulls of the dead for at least 13 years. He has taken the inherently transient nature of human existence, and transformed it into a magnificent semi-permanent ‘temple’ celebrating those lives, humanity, art, architecture, ritual, religion, meditation, and a truly tender philosophy of embracing the warm glow of mortality via the Latin phrase ‘memento mori’, remember you must die.
Digressing slightly, but still related, the UK artist Grayson Perry made an incredibly beautiful four part series called Grayson Perry’s Rites of Passage for Channel 4 (UK) in 2018. Visiting various nations and tribes around the world, he observed the traditions people had to deal with this completely natural transition of existence. Some of the rituals were deeply moving, possibly strange to western eyes, but ultimately hugely empathetic, and if you had the capacity to remove reserved conditioned bias, made absolute sense in healing the psychological effects of losing loved ones.
In stark contrast to western nations, that effectively hid, removed, sanitised, medicalised and actively distanced the situation, making it something to be observed from afar, as opposed to actively participate in. That participation being known as a significant therapeutic aspect of the healing process by the non-Westerners.
Kelson lovingly embraces the eastern approach, celebrating the majesty of life itself, the infected and non-infected alike, ‘because they are alike’. He has built a truly magnificent sanctuary reminiscent of the Watts Towers in Los Angeles built by Italian immigrant Sabato Rodia over a period of 33 years, constructed with found objects, where Kelson has found past lives that once saw, spoke and thought.
Spike has never heard such thinking before, yet immediately relates to it, and tragically, will be directly experiencing it.
One other unspoken aspect of the process by which Kelson produces the cleaned remains, is the raw unifying brutal reality of it, we are all the same under our skin. Death exposes the real truth of who were actually are, and reveals the harsh lies we lived, holding prejudices based on surface details, in particular skin colour.
It further brings home once again (for the attentive) that Samson is the only character that we’ve met in the entire story so far that is black. Named by Kelson no doubt after the biblical character renowned for his dramatic strength and figurative status given to him by God, which he used to bring down the supposed enemies the Philistines. All this is of course early religious propaganda in itself, pure racism to dehumanise others, make them less than. In one of the associated tales, he was responsible for tearing down the pillars of a temple, so it may be an indicator of what is to come. Particularly in regards him tearing down the gates of a city, and his ultimate defeat by a woman with the same name that was sung about by the islanders, Delilah.

Kelson’s profound humanity leads him to a life defining and tenderly, peaceful ending diagnosis of Isla having terminal cancer. What little life she has left will be flooded with suffering, confusion and debilitating anguish. In a transient moment of coherence, she indicates to him for a dignified and pain free ending, and a release from burden for Spike. The sequence that follows is genuinely the most powerful, affecting, and deeply resonating moments in the entire film, with the greatest of human empathy and kindness on show. A film that is so much about death, is equally so much about life itself, during which we get a brief overview of the temple at night that looks like an eye looking up at heaven, God, or whatever belief one might have, but once again it is a unifying metaphor of the human anatomy that frames our entire experience of existence.
Fortuitously once again, the film was released at a time when assisted dying was being discussed in Parliament and on the cusp of being introduced into English law, however possibly without the same humane integrity considering general neoliberal objectives.
In a similar ritual process to tribes previously discussed, Spike is given the honour to ‘find a place for her, the best one of all’ as he climbs to the highest point, so that the memories of his mother will always face the rising sun, and he will lovingly think of his mum with every warm gentle sunrise forever more.

REBORN & NEWBORN
As tragic as these events have been, Spike has now clearly grown as a boy, now clearly a young man, far more than the experience he had with his dad and his society’s set of beliefs who regress into the past. There were so many lies and so much aggression with his dad, and in stark contrast, so many harsh but life celebrating and affirming moments with his mother, who has shown a far more tender and kinder version of a future to search for, and build. It is a telling reversal of traditional child-rearing where the mother looked after the child from birth, then the dad would take over to instil more ‘manly’ or aggressive traits that arguably lead to many of the social troubles we face today.
First he must briefly return to the Mission so that newly named baby Isla might survive given she desperately needs milk or she will die.
Leaving Isla outside the gates of the community to be discovered by her crying, not only has obvious references to biblical stories, and echoes ancient Greek tales, like that of the Trojan Horse. Is she truly not infected, or is she condemning the society under the guise of innocence?
There’s also the wonderful potential extra layers of given her mixed heritage on so many levels, is she potentially as a source of salvation, a cure for the virus that contains the stark message warning of racist beliefs in ‘purity’ of blood (or inbreeding) guarantees the downfall of a society, whereas equality and unity is the only way mankind can survive.
Maybe that actual ‘mix’ of white mother (infected), and black dad Samson (infected) producing the miracle that is baby Isla (infection free?) indicates that very mixing will bring our salvation, in that Isla’s mixed blood could provide an antidote. Yet it would be deemed racially impure by white supremacists, who might even reject a cure given its origin. Of course it’s worth remembering there’s not a human who ever lived that didn’t evolve from the same dark skin origin, it is in fact the lighter skins that are the mutations. Evolution has already shown us by the very fact we still exist, that to mix is to live, progress, survive. To stagnate, or ‘purify’ is to die.
The planned violent indoctrination and ideological homogeneity was with his dad, but the real and far more potent life lessons came from the love, kindness and openness of his mother, and the wide open knowledge, teachings, and humanist spirituality came from Kelson. Spike has enhanced his ability to survive, by learning to think for himself, and as such realises there is so much more to learn, than mechanically repeat a group ideology for the rest of his life, so he takes off to investigate the mainland, that he basically knows nothing about at all.
It’s not long before Spike meets a whole new entity that he has never seen the likes of before. It’s a potential indicator of where 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple might go, following a Huckleberry Finn-type odyssey as he travels the land meeting various characters and groups along the way.

‘REAL POETRY’
On the verge of being potentially overwhelmed by a group of infected in a blockaded narrow gorge, that feels much like a verse from an Athenian Greek mythology, Spike meets who we learn from the credits, The Jimmys. Like a remixed modern adaptation amateur dramatics local village version of the Battle of Thermopylae (where a small force held off a vastly bigger force by utilising the landscape), The Jimmys highly track-suited and ‘trained’ troops descend from above like Greek gods and commence what can only be called a Kung Power Rangers FUBAR-style brutal slaughter of the infected, utilising specialist weapons they have designed and built themselves, like a high octane, drug fuelled, ultra-violent, macabre blend of The A-Team, Jim’ll Fix It and the Teletubbies.
None of that might make sense, by design. The tone of the film takes such a hardcore jack-knife pivot, that it is genuinely shocking to behold. In full transparency, the first time I saw the film, I initially thought the influences and references were coming from elsewhere, potentially indicating where the next chapter would be heading. I thought that it felt like the 1979 cult film classic The Warriors, where an event happens in one area of a city, and a group of individuals trying to get home to safety have to make it through various territories governed by very distinctive gangs, each one unified in very distinctive dress and choice of weaponry.
I thought The Jimmys was a mix of The Warriors and Power Rangers as I giddily watched the utter frenzy that splattered the screen. The horror was literal in itself, but then as often the case with Garland’s stories, the more you sink into the layers, it exposes a far deeper terror. The uniform or costume of choice for these troops are the equivalent of the trademark signature dress code of an infamous English TV celebrity who genuinely ruled the British airwaves particularly from 1975-1994 in his TV show Jim’ll Fix It, where young children from across the country wrote in with wishes to experience a dream they’ve always held. He remained hugely prominent in media culture for many years after.
It only revealed after his death in 2011 that a tsunami of allegations and evidence came to light in 2012 through ITV’s Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, that exposed his decades of sexual abuse of children dating back till at least the 1960s, indicating hundreds, if not thousands of victims. Such were the levels of depravity, that there were multiple testimonies and credible allegations of necrophilia, as for some inexplicable reason, he had unsupervised access to hospital mortuaries.
It was evidently clear that he had been protected by the establishment across multiple and at the highest levels, who willingly protected him and censored the truth about his atrocities. It’s a distinctly apt figure and unholy depths of inhumanity to introduce to the saga given the levels of dehumanisation and active genocide that is going on today, that is equally censored by the establishment to protect the abusers once again.
In the film, Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) is indeed the kid who survived the attack at the beginning of the film, and we have seen both subtle and brutal brief mentions of him throughout the film. In his world culture crashed into a wall, it stopped dead in 2002. So in that alternative universe, the truth about Savile was not known to the general public, but it was known by some, the audience watching this film and its sequel will also know. That becomes a fantastic device to play with our perceptions, creating a cognitive dissonance that is a wonderful blood soaked sandpit for Garland, Boyle and director of the next chapter Nia DaCosta to play with.
‘I think here’s a few too many coming now, even for a fine young warrior like yourself’ regales Jimmy in a super-relaxed, posed position upon the rock blockade looking at the stream of infected sprinting towards them. ‘Do you mind if we step in?’ with the expression of what can only be called maniacal, deeply unsettling, before announcing to his troops, ‘Fucking go!’ and thus unleashing utter abattoir mayhem
Significantly enhancing said carnage is an anarchic noise punk version of what appears to be the Teletubbies song by a group called That Band Called Susan. It is absolutely glorious in both its assault on the senses, effectively preaching, screaming confusion and insanity into the scene.
It is a frenzied mish-mash of what is effectively the trauma inside Jimmy and his cohorts’ heads. Unfettered childhood trauma, death, colour, with TV characters and personalities, ultimately becoming the mentors of their own misguided memories, becoming apprentices to extreme fantasy, an echo chamber where their lack of knowledge becomes their very mentor and guide. Not unlike modern social media.

SOME-WHITE-THING EVIL THIS WAY COMES
There could be massive potential for many parallels to emerge between The Jimmys, and William Golding’s 1954 book Lord of the Flies, which dealt with people’s inherent capacity for evil, even in children who end up trapped on an island with no adults, and descend into savagery.
Not only is the scene effectively a concussion of reality and our perceptions of what we’ve just watched, the impact rings on in our ears as we try to gather our coherence, our thoughts and grounding. WHAT THE FUCK!!!???? Is the only apt and just response.
Garland has stated that 28 Years Later is thematically about family, Bone Temple will be about evil, and the last film redemption. We’ve just had the briefest of tastes of said evil and it hit like an arrow to the head, there’s zero doubt about the potential impact in the next film.
Adding once again to the many layers of the trilogy this entire incredible team are resurrecting is the choice of Nia herself. A highly regarded black female writer/director, who has already made an excellent horror film in Candyman (2021), which dealt with systemic racism, the cyclical nature of violence, the legacy of storytelling as both preservation and curse, with the weaponisation of narrative by systems of power.
It is known that Cillian Murphy is reprising his role of Jim from the original 28 Days Later for Bone Temple, which means it’s very possible (and hopefully happens) that Naomie Harris also returns as Selena. After their characters survived hell together, they found love in each other, reinforcing again that unity across all is how we survive.
All incredibly potent, vital themes in contemporary times, utilising the deep historical layers of this incredible film. It indicates the potential direction of the series and the evil that is coming, an evil we have to face to survive.
The story isn’t the horror. The horror is our reality. We are the Rage, it already surrounds us.
Boyle, Garland, and DaCosta aren’t just reflecting contemporary society, nor mining its past. They are screaming a warning about a maniacal future that has broken free and is sprinting directly towards us. But you have to open your eyes to see it, because it’s been hiding in plain sight all along.
‘Howzat!’
‘Let’s be palls.’