Final Space Review: The Hidden Light

"A little love coin just deposited into my happiness savings."

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Right off the bat with our second episode of our fledgling season, it's interesting to compare "The Hidden Light" to the episode that preceded it. "...And Into the Fire" was a flashy spectacle that sought to bring the horror tones of Season 3 to the forefront, but "The Hidden Light" aims to give the overarching narrative a bit more direction. The end result is an episode that doesn't match the former's energy, but it's a crucial stepping stone nonetheless, an enjoyable journey with all the right twists that sets Final Space on the right track for future devastation. 

What I was most interested in, going into the episode, was how "The Hidden Light" would handle its large, fragmented cast. As I mentioned last week, I feel that while Final Space has smart intentionality to how it divides its characters up and uses them across every season, it can be hard-pressed to give them engaging work episodically. While this episode distills what I think this season's priorities are going to be, and while there's still a large portion of the show's cast that feels untapped, it definitely feels a lot smoother than the premiere on that front. 

For one, the cast's most expendable members, Tribore and Quatronostro, disembark on paternity leave, granting us a bit of respite. More notably, though, "The Hidden Light" does a good job of breaking everyone up into an A-team and a B-team with properly-weighted segments, ensuring that the narrative of the episode can feel more diverse and fulfilling. Quinn and Gary, alongside H.U.E. and K.V.N., are the episode's leading cast, embarking to Earth in hopes of jacking a ship to reunite with everyone else and somehow leave Final Space, while the Catos and remaining team squad carry out some more long-term plot developments.

Quinn and Gary's material comprise the vast majority of "The Hidden Light," and while it's a bit fluffy, it has a game plan that it pursues without operating at their expense. Bouncing Gary and co. from point to point gives off Season 1-esque vibes with how straight-shooting its progression is, but it also makes a lot of room to explore Gary and Quinn's relationship in a more relaxed context, which is a blast. As Gary says, it's their first time alone together since they were reunited, and it's nice to see them being more intimate and able to showcase the kindred spirithood that, in their separation across the preceding season, we've been lacking. It's also an excellent chance to show Gary's growth as a character, going from the reckless, hopeless romantic that declared her his "muy bueno super spicy lady" to a man who's faced the weight of the universe and gotten more of a pulse on who he is, even if he'll still deliver some inexplicably charming spiel about his soul donut being filled. 

Continuing "The Hidden Light's" generally reflective trends of its past, we also get the thrills of returning to the post-apocalyptic Earth that got basketball-palmed into Final Space. There's not a lot of sights to be taken in, aside from a brief stroll through Paris (much to H.U.E.'s delight), but the idea that the survivors of the calamity have been receiving the past five years' worth of Gary's transmissions to Quinn, turning them into unlikely celebrities, is an inspired bit of world-building while also allowing Final Space to make some cute, tongue-in-cheek references to its earlier seasons. ("I love when Gary yells." "I know! Why did he stop, it's the funniest thing!")

The greatest gain, though, is the debut of Kevin van Newton, a visionary roboticist and the creator of K.V.N. who, camping out in an underground bunker, might be one of the only human survivors.  Aside from being an enjoyably kooky presence (credit, as always, to the Tom Kenny's endless versatility), he's also looking to be an interesting supporting player for this leg of the show. The revelation that he worked with Nightfall years ago to align everything for this present timeline, crafting a new ship (the Galaxy Two!) for Gary and the team squad to ensure their present survival, allows the character's influence to continue being felt in spite of her sacrifice. Meanwhile, that Kevin seems to offer the only viable solution to escape Final Space, through a hyperdimensional bridge that he started but never completed under the contract of the Infinity Guard, grants him ongoing purpose. 

There are pros and cons to Final Space continuing to expand its cast when we already have a dozen in the team squad, but the show wisely seems like it'll keep him toiling away in the periphery instead of whittling away at more of the show's precious runtime. Oh, and on the note of cast shuffles: H.U.E. finally gets to end his time spent as a corporeal being and return to being a proper AI, and for however fun he was as a garbage bot, it's a wonderfully well-deserved, full circle moment.

The episode's remaining players, meanwhile—Avocato, Lil Cato, Ash, Fox, and Sheryl—get looped up by some Arachnitects, under suspicion that Avocato is still being used as Invictus' meat puppet. As usual with their appearances, we get a nice dose of world-building, though they quickly part way for the main course: Lord Commander's re-entry into the series, dramatically murdering the creatures and making a point out of the fact that, within Final Space, there's no safe corner to take solace in. We haven't seen the Lord Commander since all the way back in "The Toro Regatta" (where Invictus takes claim of his corpse to carry out ominous, unfinished business), but his re-entry is certainly welcome. As much as Invictus is a looming, greater threat, LC is a more palpable antagonist with a deeply-personal connection to our cast of characters. While it's unclear what his plans are at this point—he suffocates Lil Cato in hopes of scoring information on where Gary is, but Lil Cato doesn't even know—I'm excited to see them come more into fruition.

Lastly, there's Mooncake and Bolo. Season 3 seems to be taking things pretty slowly with them, but it's an agreeable enough approach, feeding into the uncertainty surrounding Bolo and his morality. All we gather here is that Bolo and Mooncake's main goal is to destroy Oreskis, the mysterious Titan that notably came to Sheryl's aid in Season 2, but we're yet to see how they'll intersect with the rest of the main cast. One thing's for certain, though: navigating out of the bed of lies that Bolo recruited Mooncake with will make for a problematic, potentially-damning reunion.

"The Hidden Light" isn't anything masterful, but it's a solid piece of the ongoing puzzle that demonstrates the sort of refinement from Final Space that, going forward, we should anticipate. Hopefully the vote of confidence that it pushes the season along with gets some of last week's skeptics back on-board; I think we're in for some good stuff.

FINAL GRADE: B+.

For my last Final Space review of "...And Into the Fire," CLICK HERE.

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

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