Final Space Review: One of Us

"You don't know what danger is until you've read my customer satisfaction survey."

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It would seem as if, after the past four episodes of patient warm-up, Season 3 is finally ready to let slip the dogs of war. While we've spent much of the past season getting a pulse on the foundational changes to the status quo—the most prominent strands being Quinn and Gary's relationship and the re-entry of the Lord Commander—"One of Us" is an episode centered around the climactic intersection of those two camps, ending with the team squad finally, fully intact once again... sans one. We'll get to that.

There was a lot of things I was worried about with this episode; with how much it has on its plate, it risked being another entry into Final Space that has too much on its list and has to selectively omit certain characters, and those fears only grew more rampant when the episode picked up a fluffy C-plot involving Tribore and Quatro. But against all odds, "One of Us" is most certainly the most balanced episode of Season 3 yet, giving every character a moment of their own that defines their utility in the grand scheme of the show.

Most immediately and refreshingly, it digs into this season's most underutilized players, Sheryl and Ash. Sheryl has unfortunately taken the brunt of Final Space's cast issues, having spent almost all of Season 3 up to this point being dragged along with one or two lines per episode to remind us that she's still there, but "One of Us" finally uses her in exactly the right way. She's a fascinating character, someone both trying to better herself but still full of wily tricks, and the episode makes an interesting point out of those two sides working in tandem: she sets herself free and disregards the pleas of the others, though does so to rush a transmission out to Gary to save them all. As understated a moment as it is, too, there's something cute about watching her and her son struggling to feel each other out when they come back together (hug? handshake? high-five?) that speaks sweetly to the slow rebuilding of their relationship.

Ash, however, is the episode's primary focus. Olan's suggested that she's one of the principal characters in-focus for the season, which came as a surprise to me considering how little she's gotten up to this point. "One of Us," though, is a watershed moment for her that points the season in that direction, finally digging deeper into all of the questions surrounding her mysterious powers even if it answers as many questions as it creates. Ash, as the Lord Commander declares, isn't like the others in her cohort; she's one of them, with unfathomable powers similar to his own, and he insists that she can show her the path to true power as her protégé. 

Of course Ash says no, but that was never where the drama surrounding her character here lay. As the Lord Commander and Invictus tease her with tastes of the power she could have if she joined them, things get deeply unnerving to watch. This is the most Ash has ever gotten for an explanation of her powers, and it's a chilling revelation that she and the Lord Commander are one and the same that she has to reconcile with, let alone try to comprehend. Future episodes will no doubt continue to define Ash's abilities and her place in the world, and I'm absolutely here for it; she's been one of the most promising newer members of the main cast, and it's about time that she's getting the full Final Space treatment—loss, heartbreak, and everything in between.

As if that wasn't enough for Ash, once Gary and co. locate them at the rendezvous point and work to free everyone, her adoptive brother becomes taken over by Invictus before he can be unshackled. As far as character sacrifices go, Fox's abduction by Invictus was the most unceremonious so far (barring A.V.A.), but I don't see that as inherently bad; whereas Final Space risks being emotionally overwrought at points (it loves pumping the vocal songs in every time it wants to jerk some tears), the oomph of the moment is in the shock of it all, that it happens without giving us enough time to be truly internalized. As Gary coldly but truthfully puts it, "We stay, we die." There's no breathing room to grieve. Perhaps the sudden nature of the moment, too, helps mask the fact that Fox is one of the show's most criminally undeveloped characters, making his rendering as a pawn to Invictus the best course of action for his use this season while raising his most defining personality trait—his brawn and blind violence—as a massive threat. Either way, it's a brilliant way to raise the stakes and make things that much more personal.

It's worth mentioning, too, that after a short absence, Tribore and Quatronostro got to carry out a fairly extensive C-plot in this episode. It seems like the characters are being set up for a similar narrative that Tribore carried out across last season, building up a resistance that questionably intersects with our main camp of protagonists. There isn't much more to his use here, but for an episode as eventful as "One of Us," it's easy to appreciate a bit of silliness to keep things from becoming too heavy, with the nice pro of some world-building.

Whereas nobody else dominates the episode as much, "One of Us" still manages to create moments for the rest of the cast to round out proceedings. Perhaps most worryingly, H.U.E. reveals in a body scan that Quinn only has 36 hours left before her Final Space poisoning consumes her (though true to Quinn, the episode leaves that out to rot in uncertainty rather than drawing further attention to the ticking clock). Avocato and Lil Cato also have a nice moment here, even if they're tucked more in the back of this episode, with Avocato trying to reassure his son about what it feels like to be taken over by Invictus. But hey, on the overwhelmingly positive side, Gary has a friggin' Mega Man arm, and his discovery of its powers at least grants Biskit, who pointed him in that direction, some meaningful utility. So there is a silver lining to things even if, uh, Quinn is dying, Ash's hands and heart are broken, and Fox has been abducted. It's also a sword!

It's sort of a feat for Final Space to formulate an episode so compact, but that's also where the success in "One of Us" lay: it's filled with goodness, allows everyone involved in the cast to shine (when has that ever happened?!), and never in its narrative complexity does it come across as suffocating. In other words, Season 3 has checked into the building, y'all. Here's hoping that tightness is here to stay.

FINAL GRADE: A.

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