Final Space Review: The Remembered

"This is so serious."

Well, I feel like some parts of my last review didn't age too well. I knew that something particularly shocking was coming up, and the fact that Olan considers "The Remembered" to be the first piece of a two-parter means that we're only halfway across the journey... but what an interesting ride. (Massive spoilers here, by the way, So keep that in mind, and watch the episode before reading this if you haven't already.)

There's a lot to be said about "The Remembered," but let's get the obviously good stuff out of the way before delving into anything more controversial. Time travel is an overplayed gimmick, but Final Space really nails the fun inherent to that sort of premise by having a Time Worm transport the Crimson Light three years into the past, right into the Lord Commander's home planet that we previously explored in "Chapter Two." There's certainly some hilarious callbacks indebted to their return to Terra Con Prime, including Gary's street meat infatuation and some more complaints about those dastardly stairs, but it's at its best when it actually plays around with how the events of the past set other events in motion.

The idea of things coming full circle is crucial to "The Remembered." The most fun example, of course, is Gary's continued bad luck with the DeWinters, scaring the mother to death and leaving her body to be found by past Clarence and supplied to past Gary. Even more underplayed and cute, though, is their discovery of Mooncake locked up in Terra Con Prime; Gary releases him so that he can find himself in "Chapter One," and it's a nice touch that suggests that there's a few more complications to the series' narrative than one might think. The big game-changer, though, is Avocato, who we get to see during his time under the allegiance of the Lord Commander, and the implication that Lil Cato informing him that the man he worships is the one who plots his demise is the reason he refused to sacrifice Lil Cato later is perhaps the episode's most meaningful revision.

The time traveling, too, is spearheaded rather delightfully by the introduction of a new character, Time-Swap Sammy, whose main duty is making sure that Gary and co. don't do anything that screws up the events of the present. There's a gray area in the graveness of their mistakes, of course, which is arguably a source of frustration with the events of the episode—the idea is that the crew's actions here directly affected the events of Season 1, yet Sammy advising that they not screw anything up seems antithetical to the importance of their interference—but "The Remembered" manages to feel meaningful without becoming merely self-indulgent. You can see everything clicking into place with relative ease, and even if most of those decisions were probably afterthoughts of Season 1, they still work nicely, which is no small feat.

For whatever there is to be said about "The Remembered," however, the one thing that I keep coming back to is the aforementioned reintroduction of Avocato, which I have... somewhat mixed opinions on, to say the least. Perhaps the most straightforward issue for me is that this is another complication to Final Space's massive cast and their dynamic. Sure, we can just keep splitting them up to alleviate that problem, but there's still a sense that they don't quite feel cohesive, and while Tribor's departure was a smart decision, Avocato's such a prominent character that adding him back into the cast might cause some imbalances.

Speaking more philosophically, though, bringing Avocato back feels strangely contradictory. Part of the impact of his death in "Chapter Six" was that it was Final Space taking a stance. It seemed to suggest that the events of the past were here to stay, and that Gary and his crew would have to learn to live with the consequences of their actions. Tragedy is still very much a component of the show, but Avocato's death was the pivot that proved what Final Space was capable of on a narrative front.

Wisely, there's some stipulations to his return—the effect of the bomb, even though Gary is able to save him, leaves him with irreversible brain damage and memory problems—but it feels almost like it cushions the blow of that moment. I liked the idea that Final Space had a sense of permanence and that there were no takesy backsies, and while the resurrected Avocato will never be the same, a part of me wishes that his character was dead and buried.

There's even more questions working to the episode's detriment in regards to its Time Swap mechanic, too. The idea is simple: if a character is resurrected, another character must take his place and stay behind, and Lil Cato makes the decision that he's willing to sacrifice himself to rescue his father. Things get a little wobbly, though, when that plan actually gets enacted, culminating in Gary sacrificing himself and unlatching from his harness when it doesn't go far enough to catch Avocato's body as it gets knocked into space from the explosion, and Gary free-falls into the Lord Commander's prison colony planet, allowing for the great albeit botched moment of his attempt to kill the Lord Commander once and for all and prevent the horrors he causes in the present.

That's all well and good, but it doesn't really feel like an actual Time Swap because nobody truly gets lost in the process, with the Crimson Light circling back to pick Gary up several months later. That false equivalency makes Avocato's reacquisition feel even more cheapened, in my opinion, because there's no loss that actually registers, and I feel like that epitomizes the extent of "The Remembered's" issues: at what point does Avocato's return feel earned, or unearned? It's, no doubt, a question whose answer is subjective, and one that I feel few will really entertain out of excitement that ya boy's back, but only time will tell how everything pays off. As of right now, though, in an episode bent on going full circle, the circle around Avocato's return feels weirdly incomplete.

Notes and Quotes:
-Fun fact: Gary's pained cry of "WHY ARE THERE SO MANY STAIRS?!" was ripped directly from "Chapter Two," as if the callback needed even more consolidation.
-I think it's interesting how "The Remembered" is able to bypass possible issues that could stem from Gary meeting Avocato three years before their formal introduction by putting Gary in an outfit that masks his identity. Thus, the events of the past and present hold up perfectly, with Avocato never reasonably making the association that the weird man in the suit claiming they were best friends would, in fact, be his future buddy.
-This is a bit of a nitpick, but I was surprised that Gary and Lil Cato weren't really emotionally-phased by re-confronting Avocato's near-dead body as it was launched out of the Galaxy One. That's a sore spot with Final Space in general: it seems to have a hard time acknowledging its more tragic moments this season, from the quickness with which Gary gets over his guilt about destroying Earth in "The Happy Place" to Lil Cato seeming to have no trauma from the events of "The Other Side." It's a subtle detail, but hopefully one that the series will look more into in the future.
-Lastly, since nobody seems to be commenting on it, the line from the Lord Commander about Avocato is very interesting to me: "Avocato is an unstable compound. With the right push, you'll see what he's really made of." Assuming it wasn't just a throwaway line, maybe resurrecting him won't turn out to have been the best idea...

FINAL GRADE: B+. While a lot of what I think veers somewhat negative, and I'm wary of what good bringing Avocato back will do for the series—if executed poorly, it'll feel like something of a pulled punch—everything else about "The Remembered" is pretty delightful, and it's hard to really hold that development against the show this early on. The success of "The Remembered" is dependent on how Final Space is able to play its cards in the future. With that, I give the series the benefit of the doubt, even if I'm not the most enthused by this particular creative decision.

For my last Final Space review of "The First Times They Met," CLICK HERE.

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