Final Space Review: The Happy Place

"Gary, where are you?" "In case you're interested, H.U.E. is right here. Heyyy."

When "The Toro Regatta" ended, one thing caught me somewhat off-guard: with its last frame smushing Gary, Lil Cato, H.U.E., K.V.N., Nightfall, and newcomers Clarence, Fox, and Ash together, I realized that the current cast of the show is straight bloated. Throughout Season 1, every gain seemed to be matched with a loss, keeping the sizable ensemble at a steady equilibrium, but this season's gains threaten that sense of harmony, and unfortunately, I don't feel like "The Happy Place" really put me any more at ease with that fact.

That's not to say that "The Happy Place" doesn't find some great utilization with most of the cast, because it certainly does. An early highlight is the cold open, taking the form of a sprawling, cinematic pissing match between Gary, Clarence, and almost the entire cast (Nightfall watches on, completely unphased), and it's the sort of go-for-broke joke that just works because of its insanity and dedication, all while getting everyone in on the fun. Likewise, even once all the characters get broken up, none of them ever fade into the background. The premise of the episode, though, doesn't enable them to show a stronger sense of chemistry than we've seen before, even when it tries to advance them as a unit.

A large part of that just has to do with how "The Happy Place" breaks everyone up. When the Crimson Light gets dragged into another vessel, the crew finds themselves in the so-called Happy Place, led by a mysterious creature by the name of Hushfuffles. He immediately whisks Gary away into a sleep chamber and injects him with a serum to transport Gary, mentally, to his happy place; meanwhile, Clarence attempts to sell the Happy Place for a quick buck, while everyone else sort of hangs out and waits for the Happy Place to rear its unhappy head around.

Gary's adventure is, by far, "The Happy Place's" highlight, transporting us to his neon-colored, synth pop-fueled happy place, a world where he's a retired bad-ass with a cookie family who gets called back into action to defeat evil frost bears with the power of dance. It's the sort of absurd amalgamation of ideas that succeeds in how thoroughly-embedded it is into Gary's psyche—it's the dumbest thing ever, yet makes complete sense for what he imagines as his perfect, escapist paradise.

Even if Final Space is a generally serious show, it always wants to make room for something undeniably silly, but it's true that there's a certain point where that sentiment can get somewhat distracting. The fact that Gary's happy place sequence overshadows almost everything else despite the other characters' plot bearing more weight, in that sense, is a bit alarming. While the series' priorities tend to be fairly in-check, "The Happy Place" hints at Season 2's increased openness to experimentation outside of being purely driven by its grand narrative, but the formula isn't fully worked out here because of what it chooses to emphasize.

Comparatively, what's happening with Lil Cato, Nightfall, Ash, Fox, Mooncake, K.V.N., and H.U.E. is far more important, keeping a foot grounded in reality while revealing what the Happy Place actually is: a place that ensnares people and drains their happiness to power everything in the galaxy (even toasters!), and leaves them for dead. In their subsequent search to rescue Gary from being siphoned to death, too, it's revealed that Tribor was also captured in a vessel, joining Gary's team by the end of the episode. It'll be interesting to see what he brings to the team considering how small of a role he had in the grand scheme of the first season, but the cast feels like it's at critical mass as it is.

The greatest revelation of "The Happy Place," though, comes from the reveal that Hushfuffles, real name Todd H. Watson, actually has a legitimate vendetta against Gary fueling his attempts to kill him and his friends: in his destruction of Earth last season, he killed Todd's family. It's the first time Gary has really been held accountable for the consequences of his actions, and it's a devastating blow for the character; in his quest to do good and save the universe, not only did he fail to some degree, but he annihilated Earth and all of its innocent civilians. Unfortunately, that incredibly dark cloud only really hangs over Gary for a split second after they escape Todd's death-trap of a ship, and after a quick conversation reaffirming everyone as a team and telling Gary there was no other course of action, everything just feels too neatly filed away.

There's a sense of stakes encapsulating "The Happy Place" as usual, but with so much work placed into novel but inconsequential ideas, there's not enough room for it to reach the sort of emotional maturity that the situation calls for as it ends. Instead, its developments feel more concrete—with the addition of Tribor and Todd as a new antagonist—than abstract—Gary's frustrations never truly resonate, and the team doesn't feel like its earned the tighter bond that the episode suggests. Final Space is at its best when it can find a way to incorporate both aspects, but today, unfortunately, just isn't that day.

Notes and Quotes:
-Unfortunately, Clarence didn't have too much to do here, with his place in the episode feeling remarkably tacked-on. Don't get me wrong, attempting to sell a spacecraft which isn't even his, and subsequently initiating a bidding war, is the perfect sort of caper for Clarence to get into, but it just feels like it fills time that the episode could've used otherwise to work on developing what's more important, with the fact that it deliberately ends without Clarence succeeding in the end cementing that fact. There's no real gains here.
-"A vessel is approaching our location, and Ash? You now have a UTI." "YES."
-Ash has really proven herself to be the best new character, and of the episode's bloated cast, she leaves the largest impression with her intense infatuation with Lil Cato helping yield some of the episode's funniest moments.

FINAL GRADE: B-. While "The Happy Place" has its merits and gets to do a lot of fun stuff, its inability to straighten out its priorities leaves it feeling more hectic than it actually is. It's an episode dedicated to explicit progression more than anything else, with it brushing Gary's destruction of Earth under the rug feeling particularly unrealized, and while that means that Final Space will keep moving forward into greater things without looking back, it doesn't always hurt to reflect.

But hey, we got a pissing match and dance battling. Even I can't really complain about that.

For my last Final Space review of "The Toro Regatta," CLICK HERE.

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