Review: Final Space “Chapter Three”

Are you not entertained?!

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Little-Cato (Steve Yuen) beat-boxes in solitude when he is given a device by Nightfall. The Lord-Commander’s guard comes in to tell him his father is a coward, but Little-Cato rebukes this.

Gary makes another video diary for Quinn, mostly about his new metal arm, it goes awry, as well as his four remaining days of sentencing, when the ship is attacked by the Lord Commander’s forces. Luckily, help(?) arrives in the form of a Temporal Worm. It could fling them forwards or backward at any point, but as the saying goes, there’s no time worse than the present. Coming out the other side, the crew find that only four days have passed, which means Gary’s sentence is over! Except not quite, as the Infinity Guard put in a provision that time travel doesn’t impact the punishment. This actually makes a lot of sense, especially in a world that has adjusted to forced time travel as a natural occurrence.

What DOESN’T make sense is why H.U.E. is splitting hairs here. For one, they’re holding onto an incredibly dangerous life form, a bounty hunter, and a prisoner who has only been committing more crimes since these events started. Second, all of these things are being pursued by one of the most influential figures in the show’s lore (I don’t really know how to assume just powerful the LC really is in terms of influence). Both of these factors present two options: either they add a kajillion extra years onto Gary’s prison time for these actions, or they call in the Infinity Guard to discuss how they can use these new potential assets to retaliate. And sure, WE know something fishy is going on with the Guard, but THEY don’t yet. It’d at least be worth discussing, but it just doesn’t come up. Plus, what changes when those four days actually are up?

Anyway, the crew is looking a place to hide from future attacks, and their destination is Yarno. Back on Terra Con Prime, Lord Commander visits the Order of the Twelve, apparently the “eyes of the universe”, to see if they can find his prize. Helper Hula (Hoola?)’s first observation is that his power seems to be draining his life, or at least quickening his death. He’s pretty aware of this and needs Mooncake to prevent it, blowing up the Helper’s eight eyes to make a point, even at the cost of some of his remaining lifespan.

Gary and Cato make it to Yarno, with Gary taking in the local color AND local narcotics before Cato Pulp-Fictions him. They’re here to meet with an Order of Twelve chapter to hide Mooncake, meeting Helper Stevil. Gary immediately takes issue with this guy on the basis of “evil” being part of his name, which…I mean, look, I don’t exactly expect Hope Hicks to be a beacon of optimism. But seems he was right to be wary since they’re working with the Lord Commander, Cake-napping Mooncake and sending Gary and Cato to a Lazarus Trap, which works by plaguing anyone in it with whatever they think of at the time. After escalating traps and temptations, they are eventually freed by Cato smacking Gary in the face (not sure why it took so long to do that). Mooncake very easily escapes his cell and wipes out combatants in an alien gladiator type deal, though the increasing number of corpses begins to weigh on the little guy’s conscious. The Lord Commander takes this opportunity to arrive, nearly taking him when Gary and Cato show up. It’s here where Mooncake’s true purpose is explained somewhat; unlocking the titular Final Space. They manage to just barely escape with one more show of Mooncake’s destructive power and some help from Nightfall. Though a little world killing death beam isn’t enough to deter Gary’s friendship and things end on a somewhat happy note.

Quinn, meanwhile, is investigating a quantum gravitational disturbance in her hijacked ship when she’s alerted by Tribore about the other Guards after her. They soon arrive, snatching her, but the disturbance starts sucking them all in. Quinn makes it to an escape pod as the rest of the Guards are killed, and sends a distress beacon that reaches Gary’s ship.

OUR TAKE

Now that the novelty of a new show has worn off, can this show hold a crowd? Well, it’s hard to say with it premiering at random times and random platforms, but there’s also the matter of this episode, which appropriately throws time travel into the mix because some things here are done too soon, and others too late.

Before that, though, POSITIVES! Seeing the Order of the Twelve gives us a glimpse at what religion is like in this world, which fleshes things out a bit. Same for the clause regarding time travel impacting prison sentences, showing forethought on something everyone’s acclimated to now, seeing how the fantastical to us is mundane to them.

That can’t really push back the downsides, however. Aside from the issues I brought up earlier regarding the matter of Gary’s remaining prison time, the reveal of Nightfall last episode was intriguing at first, but now it seems like they blew their load a bit with her. Leaving her a masked mysterious figure was probably the way to go for now, but now we’re left with questions we’re going to be hanging on for at least the next few episodes. Not that making us ask questions is necessarily bad, just that this didn’t seem the right time to lay them on when we’re just getting to know how this world works.

There’s also the matter of the Lord Commander’s portrayal. Like Gary, his comedy can start to grate, but that can be somewhat ignored if he’s sufficiently intimidating. I’ve spoken on David Tennant’s work as his voice and not knowing how exactly to take it, though now I’m starting to lean on the negative. He’s a pretty standard spoiled-brat type at first, and now we have a motivation for him: using his powers is killing him, so he needs MacGuffin-Cake to find a way to live…which is also a pretty standard villain motivator. Maybe there’s some more nuance coming our way soon, but right now, I just don’t know. And I’m not super thrilled about it taking us three episodes to get to the title having real significance (and without any clue on what that significance is, no less).

I’m hoping this was just a letting down from the initial promise, but time will tell. The fateful reunion between Gary and Quinn finally occurs next time…whenever or wherever that actually comes out.