Review: Final Space “All The Moments Lost”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
The Galaxy Two is immediately chased by the Lord Commander’s ship, forcing them to lightfold at random to escape. What they don’t know is that Invictus ends up pulling them towards a black hole leading directly to him…somehow. The crew is hit by the increase in gravity as they try to get away, but Quinn’s condition begins making her hallucinate how her sister Avery died, apparently because her military mom raised them very strictly, causing Avery to despise Quinn for looking after her. Eventually, Avery went off into battle and told Quinn not to follow, presumably leaving to her death. Meanwhile, Ash hesitates to use her powers to save the ship after learning her powers come from Invictus, but gets over it after a speech from Gary, who also talks Quinn away from dying. The ship is able to get away, leaving Ash behind, while Quinn’s condition has spread to her head now.

OUR TAKE
This episode was A LOT at once, in some ways good, in some ways not so much. Final Space is often at its best when there are big emotions surrounding grand cosmic action set pieces, and trying to desperately escape a black hole is certainly a pretty big one of those. The main emotional focus is Quinn dealing with these sudden oncoming memories about her sister and mother, finally shedding some light on her backstory in a similar manner to when Gary had hallucinations about his own childhood and witnessing his father’s death back in the fourth episode of the first season near an exploding star. You might think this is meant to evoke parallels to that scene, but it just seems a bit too eerily similar. Plus it’s a little weird that we’re nearly halfway through the third season with Quinn (or at least some form of Quinn) being a main character and this family tragedy hasn’t come up at all until now, not even in an offhand comment from Nightfall. So it ends up feeling less like naturally revealed information and more some more tragedy grafted onto Quinn for more dramatic effect.

We also seem to be chipping away at the cast even more, since Ash is now in the clutches of Invictus, who can apparently pull ships out of lightfold and suck them near black holes on a whim AND is responsible for Ash’s powers. I understand that you should make what will likely be your endgame boss into a major threat, but it’s getting to a point where they seem to be adding new amazing powers for him on the fly just to increase the tension. But at some point, it becomes more of a question as to why he doesn’t just pull them into ANOTHER black hole, this time without Ash to save them. Invictus is already barely a character himself at this point, but we need some sort of limitation or reason as to why he hasn’t won already, because these grand major moves are going to stop sticking at a certain point. And with Sheryl the last of the Season 2 cast still hanging on and not having a ton of relevance, I’d put at least some money on her biting it sometime soon. Oh yeah, and Quinn is now about to die, except totally not really and we’re likely about to take care of it next episode because it would be way too sad for her to die like this right after getting her back. You gotta slow down, Final Space! Breathe!