Final Space Review: The Leaving

  

"I've left a lot of places called home. Trust me, you get over it."

--

One of the hardest things to pen about a review, for me, is the opening. I have to condense all of my general thoughts about the episode I just watched with tact, nuance, and a certain level of reflection of what preceded it. I have to look smart enough to make the reader think that they'll be in good hands across the paragraphs that follow. But that doesn't mean that I'm any less susceptible to the anxiety of your average Final Space fan when something happens that just rips your heart out and leaves you at a loss for words. When "The Leaving" ended, all I was simply left wondering, nervously, was how the hell will Final Space finish off this season in anywhere close to a comfortable spot?

That underestimation of the amount of risk Final Space allows itself to take with its story-telling is something that enables its more emotionally-scathing moments to cut so deeply. From where the episode ended (which I'll work up to in a moment), there's no time for healing; almost the entire crew sits on the precipice of death while simultaneously having to deal with one of the greatest dangers they will ever face. And to think that we got there with an episode that started out, most cruelly, like everything was going to be alright. (You're a tricky, mean little episode title, aren'tcha?)

Across most of the first half of "The Leaving," things are going surprisingly well. Biskit easily locates the bridge in spite of HUE's skepticism that it could ever be found, and the team squad quickly works together to bring it back online using Mooncake as a power source. As it slowly charges up, that also grants our crew the sort of downtime that they've been in desperate need of for far too long. While some characters treat it hedonistically or apathetically—Gary and Quinn immediately run off for some celebratory love-making, while Ash boredly flicks her powers in her fingers—that silence also makes room for more theoretically-profound material, which "The Leaving" finds in the form of Little Cato finally asking Avocato about his mother.

It's a question that's been floating in the ether for a while now: how will the truth of the matter be received? And indeed, knowing the power of that uncertainty, "The Leaving" is built around weaponizing that information. There's already a hint, amidst this grace period in the episode, that things might not be as easy as they seem; Avocato nervously lies to Little Cato about his mother against his better judgment, saying she died during childbirth. That's the moment where the episode's feel-good facade begins to crack, and from there the crack just continues to grow until everything shatters.

First, morale goes from the highest its ever been to the absolute lowest. Within the span of ten seconds, the brutal shift of "The Leaving" kicks in: we go from celebration, to terror, to abject tragedy when the gate hits 100% charge... only to dangerously over-charge and be forced back offline. All of the hope that was guiding the episode along evaporates. There's nothing to look forward to, and Avocato pulls Gary anxiously aside and frets about how he lied to his adoptive son again—a conversation that Ash walks in on, to detrimental effect.

Every week when I pen a review, I feel like there's something about the last review, in its general miscalculation, worth wincing about. I was correct, last week, in pointing out Ash's alienation from the rest of the crew, but I was incorrect in thinking that it could speak to any more of a trust being built. This entire season has found her confidence in Gary and the others tested and compromised as her uncertainty for Invictus' alleged evilness intensified, and whatever nice moments she's been granted point more towards the deeply complicated tug-and-pull of both sides than reconciliation with the team squad. And indeed, too, I think that Final Space has done a great job, across this season, of allowing us to understand why Ash feels as she does, even if the episode ends with her committing a psychotic, selfish act which she feels the hero for.

Ash is a complicated character. She's someone who feels like she has nobody she can trust, and has endured a tragic existence which has validated that sentiment. Her birth parents offered her to be fed to a serpent, during which she saw her sibling die; her adoptive father pettily betrayed her for the sake of schmoozing up to Sheryl, putting her brother on life support; and she saw Gary kill her brother, even if Invictus was pulling the strings of the entire "prophecy" that foreshadowed that action. The person she was closest to in the crew, Nightfall, sacrificed herself, and the only person who's been able to properly connect to her and not betray her trust is Little Cato... so when she witnesses Little Cato as the victim of the sort of duplicitous injustices which have haunted her life, she feels like she needs to protect him. She interprets Avocato as a despicable person for the past actions that he himself struggles to reconcile with—even when he's literally on the verge of finally telling his son the truth—but instead of offering him the chance to confront him, she tries to kill him and steals his son away to "the good side."

Of course, we as an audience recognize that Ash is in the wrong, a point "The Leaving" brutally punctuates in having Ash forcefully tell Little Cato his father's secret, and even more forcefully steal him away as he cries out that the Galaxy Two is his home. But Ash reads as a character who is a victim by her own trauma, and one that just so happens to have all the powers in the universe. In her own weird, twisted, and inexcusable way, she's deeply sympathetic. She has that upsetting humanity to her that grants her into more than just the vague malice of the Lord Commander or Invictus. She's the perfect villain. 

So I repeat, with one episode left before this season is over: how the hell with this season end? Will Tribore come back into play? Will Evra? Will everybody die? I don't know. I'm bracing for a level of heartbreak the likes of which we haven't yet seen. That's the scariest, and simultaneously the greatest thing about Final Space for me: at a certain point, no amount of my analysis can do justice to the excitement and dread that the show makes me feel, week after week. I can't pretend to be some intellectual overlooking the show. I'm just rolling with the punches like everyone else, and feeling that pain, and praying, foolishly, that everything will be okay. Spare no mercy, Olan. Go in for the kill.

FINAL GRADE: A+.

For my last Final Space review of "The Dead Speak," CLICK HERE.

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

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