Final Space Review: The Arachnitects

"Okay, this part is cool. I will give you that."

There's a lot going on in "The Arachnitects," pursuing three distinct ideas across its 22-minute timespan: Tribor's departure from the Combo Pack to rebuild the resistance, everyone else's journey to activate a Dimensional Key after Mooncake gets mysteriously taken hostage in another dimension, and the offering of a heavy dose of world-building mythology. It's a surprising change of pace for the season, presenting itself as a detour through and through, but an incredibly important one, and against all odds, it's probably the most crucial piece of the puzzle to Season 2's elaborate narrative yet.

Of everything about "The Arachnitects" that needs to be tackled, perhaps the best place to start (as the episode does) is by discussing Tribor. Ever since being rescued in "The Happy Place," there's been a sense that he was destined for something else, with his limited contributions to the episodes that followed leaving the series' intentions of having him involved fairly dubious. The reveal that he chooses to leave the crew and forge his own path, in that sense, checks out, and it seems to promise that he'll offer a more exciting presence. Unfortunately, though, not much of that really shows here.

Instead, Tribor simply gets more time to demonstrate his valiant ineptitude, romanticizing the task at-hand of helping Gary save Mooncake while failing to actually offer much assistance. There's a lot of appreciable humor to his sub-plot, which helps—his journey to reassemble the resistance becomes a vicious cycle of getting one person at a time and re-entering the same saloon, much to the annoyance of its Hawaiian shirt-donning bartender—but it's hard to ignore that he's rather useless. However, on the plus side, the light silliness of the journey he goes on actually makes for a nice counterweight to the episode's increasingly-dense plot, and that it suggests more important developments with Tribor are coming is a step in the right direction.

The other side of the coin, Gary and the crew's journey to both retrieve Mooncake from the Arachnitects and, in the process, learn how to activate their Dimensional Key, is far juicier, even before they reach the titular Arachnitects. I fully expect a mixed reception of the episode's first half on account of how much it meanders, but I actually found it to be an incredibly enjoyable stretch. For one thing, it's a great opportunity for Final Space to demonstrate its comedic chops; while I've found them to be fairly lackluster as a whole, the lighter tone of the first half does "The Arachnitects" wonders. That lack of weight and pressure that most episodes' humor buckles under feels alleviated, and the character's exhaustive journey from potential Key activator to Key activator presents Final Space at its most fun.

It's also just a great chance to allow everyone to get out of the Crimson Light, fleshing out the world that the series is set in by sending them off to various nooks and crannies across the cosmos. While most episodes have been centered around specific locations, there's something exciting about how much they jump around from place to place, largely indebted to the series' beautiful and varied art direction. One second, we're in a violet-hued cave occupied by two massive, "sup"-saying mole creatures, and the next, we're at the house of Clarence's niece, Dartritio, in the middle of a bubblegum-colored wonderland that feels inexplicably parallel to the Land of Ooo.

Luckily, Dartritio has the power to activate the Dimension Key, taking the episode to its final, most exciting stretch. With the help of Ash's prom-related rage, they enter the dimension where Mooncake is being held, only to be confonted by several massive spider-like creatures called the Arachnitects. There's a lot to unpack of what happens next, but here's a brief summary: Mooncake has been captured by the Arachnitects—the creators of the Titans—as a protective measure, believing that his presence outside of their dimension creates a cosmic imbalance that threatens to reopen Final Space. This is important because a mysterious, unconquerable evil named Invictus has corrupted every Titan (who were initially good) except for Bolo.

The Arachnitects fought to trap Invictus and the corrupted Titans in Final Space, but they broke through, creating the breach that John Goodspeed sacrificed his life to seal, with the side effect of materializing Mooncake. That's pretty much it as far as the episode's history lesson goes, but it's all fascinating, filling in a lot of the gaps of the previous season with some interesting new information that paints a broader picture of the conflict at-hand. The Titans were established as a malicious, mysterious force of evil across the entire first season, and learning that they were initially benevolent creatures is sort of an insane revelation; we used to view them as that which should be feared most from the show, but they're just another part of the pecking order under Invictus, and now that he's got his arms around the Lord Commander, it's only a matter of time before crap gets real.

Even though the Arachnitects want to hold onto Mooncake for pretty obvious reasons, Gary's not letting them do that without putting up a fight. Just like the caterpillar/butterfly Mooncake, Mooncake 2.0 is (in his own strange way) a gift from Gary's father too, a coincidence that hits you right in the feels and gives Gary more to fight for. He's lost too much trying to protect Mooncake, Gary claims, to just let the creature go. This isn't as emotional of an episode as a lot of the others this season—showrunner David Sacks even tweeted out a very specific "No Kleenex necessary" for this one—but it resonates nonetheless, and luckily, after Mooncake successfully mends a dangerous seam in the dimension, the Arachnitects decide it's alright for him to simply "work from home."

Maybe there isn't a lot that concretely occurs in "The Arachnitects," but at the same time, it never comes close to feeling like it's just setting the stage. Instead, it's a fun little errand en route to the goal with some great laughs, yet secretly loaded with some of the heaviest material yet. You might disagree, but to me, that just feels like Final Space in exceptional form.

Notes and Quotes:
-Balloonshop Reference of the Week: K.V.N., punching the walls of the Crimson Light indebted to his peevedness, tells them that they're "cruisin' for a bruisin'." Put Thomas Gore in the show already!
-There's something undeniably cute about Lil Cato, Ash, and Fox's naivety when Gary tries to explain the birds and the bees to them, especially Lil Cato's awestruck delivery of "They are?" when Gary tries to explain things through the analogy of "little invisible chaos marbles."
-"Huzzah for pubescence."
"Did I scare you with my in-depth stories of bodily changes?!"
-Frascenhower, who appeared in "The Happy Place" as one of Clarence's bidders, makes a surprise reappearence here as one of the characters Clarence directs Gary to as potentially being able to activate their Dimensional Key. It's nothing too special, but considering that last week brought about the even more shocking return of the family that Gary traumatized in "Chapter Two," I'm left wondering if any of the strange characters that he meets across this episode are going to make a comeback.
-K.V.N. on the trick to activating the Dimensional Key: "Of course! A combination of song, painful screaming, and being whacked about with abandon."
-Before anyone makes any comments about it, although the episode is listed by the title "Arachnitects," my copy of the episode has a "The" in it in keeping up with the season's naming scheme. So there you go.

FINAL GRADE: A-. "The Arachnitects" devotes itself to everything that makes Final Space what it is. There's some disappointment to be had in Tribor's sub-plot, though like everything else about the episode, it's an indication of what's to come, with the more crucial parts of the "The Arachnitects" leaving us more well-informed than ever. If you're into world-building, I can't think of a better outing from the series' catalog, and while there's a lot to take in, the approachable and otherwise more amicable state of the episode keeps everything enjoyable.

For my last Final Space review of "The Notorious Mrs. Goodspeed," CLICK HERE.

Additionally, you can access every Final Space review I have ever written HERE.

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