Review: The Awesomes ‘The Final Showdown’

Spoilers Below:

Hotwire & Concierge revealed to Prock that Perfect Man is the illegitimate child of his father, causing Prock to realize his dad has always been a bit of a villain. The Awesomes then devised a plan to break Perfect Man out, take some of his blood, and then somehow give a transfusion to Mr. Awesome to cure him. However, they would need a sonic boom to open the door of Perfect Man’s ice jail, and paid a visit to Malocchio Jr.

Meanwhile, Mr. Awesome got his hands on the Destroy-o-Bullet, just as the Awesomes arrived to battle the Replacement Awesomes. The good bested the bad, but it turned out to be a stalling technique until Mr. Awesomes returned. Luckily, almost every superhero in the history of the series showed up to take him on as well.

After gaining access to Awesome Mountain, the gang located Perfect Man, used Junior to break him out, and Prock told him they are brothers. Perfect Man then battled against Mr. Awesome, eventually getting shot with the Destroy-o-Bullet, apparently killing him. In a moment of shock at his actions, Mr. Awesome was distracted long enough for Prock to inject his dad with Perfect Man’s blood, curing him. It was then revealed that the bullet was a decoy designed by Prock.

One year later, the Awesomes and the Malocchios were celebrating in Italy, along with their newest little addition. Just as the episode was ending, an alien spaceship showed up, looking for the humans Mr. Awesome promised them a year ago.

In Case You Missed It:

1) Back-to-back folder jokes? That’s how you KNOW this show is good.

2) Prock’s mom’s advice: “Honey, long before your father took some serum and became evil, he was kind of an asshole.”

3) Lady Malocchio referred to her daughter as a “hero-slash-traitor-slash-hero-slash-pregnant-lady.”

4) After realizing he was overmatched vs. Muscle Man, Codebreaker was sure to hold his nose when he escaped into the water.

5) Prock’s barely-audible whisper to Perfect Man: “Very important…and then…Mr. Awesome.”

6) Mr. Awesome’s logic: “The world wasn’t going to support a hero who had multiple children out of wedlock.” / Perfect Man: “Tell that to the NBA.”

And here we are at the end of another season of Hulu’s The Awesomes. Now with three years under its belt, the show is essentially a veteran – but before we examine this last season as a whole (look for that review next week) let’s talk the finale a bit.

Last week’s installment set a lot of things in motion: 1) Prock was moments away from discovering Perfect Man is his brother. 2) Perfect Man was minutes away from discovering that Prock is his brother, AND that Mr. Awesome is evil. 3) Mr. Awesome was on his way to becoming president, and the eventual owner of the Destroy-O-Bullet. 4) The various other elements hanging in the balance, like the plan to convert Mr. Awesome back, Hotwire’s pregnancy, the state of the Awesomes vs. the Replacement Awesomes, etc.

The writers would have to come up with a way to tackle all of these issues, with only 22-minutes left in the season to do so. You’d think the simpler the resolution the better in this situation, but not so. As I constantly point out, The Awesomes is mainly a character-driven show, so the solution would be more characters!

In the finale, we saw the Euro-Awesomes return, joined by the Dames of Danger from earlier this season (among others) and even Malocchio Jr. completed his recently reunited family. Or course the usual main characters plus Dr. Jill Stein-Awesome-Kaplan and Dr. Jeffrey Kaplan were present too.

But the real strength of this episode was the story. Sure, the characters drove the show and the humor was plentiful enough (but not hilarious) to keep things amusing, but a lot of work clearly went into the plot. I always enjoy shows & movies that appear to give a conclusion, but then delve deeper into the details and reveal the real intricacies of the plan. “The Final Showdown” did just this, with callbacks to a few hints that the viewers might have missed.

For instance, people may have forgotten that Dr. Malocchio mentioned his son was temporarily shocked after injuring his dad, or that Frantic quickly returned from somewhere and told Prock his task was completed – to name a few instances – but they all ended up being critical elements to the story. Even the very end was a reference to a previous statement made in passing by Mr. Awesome, after he learned it would take a year for the aliens to reach Earth.

As I said before, this wasn’t an especially funny episode, but finales aren’t called “punchline episodes” for a reason. They are the final resolution to a problem (and/or a new cliffhanger) and this one did a fantastic job tying up all the lose ends in a very entertaining way. I have no idea what the future holds for The Awesomes, as it has yet to be renewed for season four, but we should take comfort in the fact that it ended a very solid season with a very strong finale.