Final Space Review: Until the Sky Falls

"Salvation comes in the blink of an eye."

--

As I've spent the last week sitting back and contemplating how to approach this episode, I've found myself increasingly unsure what my stance on it is. "Until the Sky Falls" is the long-delayed punch knocking our cast of characters back as hard as it can, and it ends with the party in the worst position they have ever been in this season... but even in doing so, it doesn't feel like an awe-inspiring distillation of the power of Final Space's story-telling dramatics. Instead, if it's not an actively frustrating episode, it's one that feels strangely out-of-step, not with the season's ambitions so much as the pace that it's been maintaining and thriving off of over this past stretch of episodes.

Perhaps it's important for me to single out what I think the greatest successes of Season 3 has been. Whereas Season 1 was intensely serialized, gelling together outside of its most pivotal moments and feeling perhaps too straight-shooting, Season 2 was more episodic, telling contained stories with a greater narrative diversity, to varying degrees of success and failure. Both seasons were remarkable, but flawed, and yet the greatest strength of Final Space persisted as its ability to burrow so deep into your soul with its dramatics: the betrayal, the sacrifice, the loss, the reconciliation. Season 3 continues to hold true to those most powerful of traits, all while weaving together the first two season's greatest qualities, predominantly through thoughtful, probing character work. Its episodes have all fed into the season's dark atmosphere, but they've also fearlessly dug into its cast, unafraid to make shocking revelations and bear witness to the gritty aftermath. 

"Until the Sky Fall" doesn't particularly maintain those trends, though. While it tries to make some room for moments of character work, they quickly get lost in the skirmish of its dense, adrenaline-fueled, 22 minute timeframe. It's not that there's anything wrong with Final Space stepping up the pace of its narrative, and true to the writers' undoubted intentions, "Until the Sky Falls" is intense. The issue is that its narrative comes across more as a series of revelations occurring at a staggered, arbitrary rate, too slapdash to allow a moment to breathe, or in most cases even register.

Indeed, it's difficult to thoughtfully recount the episode without my writing becoming a mere recollection of the plot. It picks up in the heat of action: Earth is on the verge of imploding and the Lord Commander has arrived only to suspiciously bypass any pre-established plans of his (capturing Mooncake) and begin drilling directly into the planet's center. Thus commences the episode's informational riptide, taking us along the plot with a heavy hand that constantly has us questioning whether or not we should know exactly why certain things are occurring, or if we should've known why in the first place. Every minute there's a new circumstance that needs to be attended to—Little Cato sneaks onto Avocato's ship with a bomb in tow! The magnetic field around Earth needs to be reactivated!—but which just contribute an unfriendly thickness to proceedings without allowing a thought to fester.

Perhaps it's best to break down both of those aforementioned situations, actually, because I think it's interesting to consider that every plot is purposeful but generally unbalanced. Avocato tries to tell off Little Cato from joining him in his pursuit of LC out of fear of anything happening to him, but the fact that we see Little Cato has snuck on anyway (alongside K.V.N. and Biskit), and that Avocato's concern is immediately superseded by his excitement that they have a bomb, keeps the episode too firmly in the lane of action without tending to the weight of its character beats. There is a strong motivator, actually, in the fact that Avocato's out for LC's blood after all of the pain he's inflicted upon his life, but that relationship is never displayed in a compelling way; his hologram confrontation with the guy, the closest we get, becomes less about their history and more about LC expositing the reason he's doing what he's doing (to become a Titan).

Meanwhile, Kevin van Newton alerts Gary and Quinn that they can't set up the K.V.N. Net because Earth's magnetic field flipped and that the two would need to activate the relay signal to correct it in Wisconsin. I think the whole stretch leading up to their journey embodies the weird pacing of "Until the Sky Falls" rather succinctly: Kevin tells them that there's no way they could make it to Wisconsin in time, so Gary stands outside, watching the world around him collapse with his spirit crushed... only for Bolo to come crashing out of nowhere and make a point out of the fact that no, actually, he can get them there. It's a dramatic beat that, over the course of a swift minute of lamentation, feels like an unnecessary complication. As with all of the episode, there's an incredibly interesting point to be made out of that brief period of time—Kevin makes a bleak point out of the fact that there's nothing that can be done, and that their life isn't science fiction—but the sentiments the episode wants to make cannot settle against its pacing.

With that being said, I want to make a point out of the fact that "Until the Sky Falls" does have its fair share of successes. Although it never quite finds a way of channeling into the narrative to its fullest potential, the visual of the Gary zombies descending from the skies like a fleshbag hailstorm is one of the most sinister treats from this season yet, adding on nicely to the increasing tension throughout the episode. More importantly, though, the one touchpoint that this episode has with the rest of the season is that it really sticks its landing; once the haze of the past 16 minutes clears up, "Until the Sky Falls" is finally able to lesson its tenseness and breathe, enabling all of the hardest-hitting elements of the episode to register unequivocally.

Most bittersweetly, this episode proves itself to be Kevin van Newton's swan song, as he makes the decision to sacrifice himself for the sake of activating the K.V.N. Net as Earth is annihilated. Of the season's small gains in the character department, Kevin was the most defining, a hysterical and occasionally misanthropic mastermind whose insanity was dialed in at just the right wavelength to irritate without being irritating. In a season where loss has been tragically ignoble, it's as gratifying as it is surprisingly touching to see him sacrifice himself for the greater good of the universe, at peace and with his life mission fulfilled. It's a happy moment, against all odds. 

But how quickly, with Final Space, that happiness can turn to disaster. I commented in my last review about how so much of this show seems built around the idea of fighting against the clock, and indeed, nine times out of ten this season, we've seen things happen just in the nick of time. But this is that elusive tenth time, and it's devastating: right when the K.V.N. Net is about to seal itself up, and with the team squad basking in the fact that they saved the entire universe, the hand of a Titan pierces through the system, detonating the Net and sending everyone back not just to where they were before, but further back than they've ever been. The Lord Commander's a Titan.

It's the perfect, startling note for an episode to end on that otherwise had too much that it had to work out to get to that point. I can't be frustrated at an episode for being gutsy, and "Until the Sky Falls" is one that I wish I could enjoy true to its intentionality; on paper, it should be a show-stopper, and truthfully, once it's able to slow down and savor its sense of time, it is. But to me, this is an episode that becomes a victim of its own grandiose visions. Here's hoping, though, that the excellent place it leaves us at can power Final Space to the stellar finish it's destined for.

FINAL GRADE: B-.

For my last Final Space review of "Hyper-Transdimensional Bridge Rising," CLICK HERE.

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