Review: Final Space “The Happy Place”

Apparently, Gary is all about dancing…

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The squad’s new ship, the Crimson Light, doesn’t appear to have top-of-the-line defenses—or defenses at all—when it’s captured by a passing ship without a struggle. Once on board, they come face to face with a bunch of fuzzy, zany-eyed aliens who introduce their ship as “The Happy Place.”

Because the alien leader recognizes Gary as the man who made Earth disappear, he separates him from the others with the promise of absolute happiness. Once they’re gone, Nightfall becomes a de facto leader and learns that the “aliens” are shady almost immediately. After a spirited firefight, everyone sets off to find Gary, with the exception of Clarence—who are steadily becoming the worst character on TV—who stays behind in a dimwitted attempt to illegally sell the enemy ship.

While Gary is unconscious, hooked up to an IV, and experiencing nonsensical, dancing dreams, the rest of the team steps up in his absence. Little Cato and the bizarre siblings find and rescue Tribore, Quinn’s strange lackey and former leader of the resistance. And elsewhere on the ship, Nightfall and Mooncake rescue Gary from a dangerous stasis that was draining his happiness in order to power all the electricity in the galaxy.

With the team reunited—except for useless Clarence—the head alien removes his clearly fake head to reveal his true identity, a random earthling name Todd. His wife and child were two of the many people vanquished into Final Space after the giant Titan hand snatched the planet. This news depresses Gary so Nightfall assures him that Earth gets taken in every possible timeline and there was nothing he could’ve done. With that, the crew escapes—even that ass-hat Clarence—leaving Todd in a severely damaged ship to plan his revenge.

 

Our Take

“The Happy Place” was a perfect example of a filler episode. Last week the mission was mapped out only to have no considerable follow-up in the next installment. Granted, the episode order this season increased to thirteen compared to last year’s ten, but a tight thirteen has been a popular template since serialized shows became prominent. In a way, this installment was like an early, planet-of-the-week Star Trek episode, except it wasn’t very good.

The opening scene that involved the four prominent, male humanoid characters pissing everywhere was an infantile gag that was beneath Final Space, as well as any show that aired since the invention of television. And of course, that scene heavily relied on Clarence because that useless, annoying character had little else to do. Speaking of the devil—okay, that’s unfair because at least the devil has a personality—Clarence’s B-plot felt completely tacked on and unnecessary. It was already well established last week that Clarence is a shady guy who’ll do anything for profit; there was no need for his improbable action scenes that included groan-worthy jokes like him being forced to shake every one of his insect buddy’s many hands.

Todd, the forgettable villain, was voiced by Alan Tudyk because he’s contractually obligated to appear in every animated project for the next twenty years. As usual, his performance was good, but he wasn’t given much to work with. There were far too many unanswered questions surrounding the character of Todd that made him an unworthy character and villain. First off, why was some random earth guy in charge of collecting all the power for the universe? Did he create his alien/robot buddies as part of a long con to trick Gary, or had they always been part of the operation? And most important, why would anybody emphasize with this character when he’s drained thousands of beings long before somebody he had an actual grudge against came around? Sorry, serial murderers just aren’t empathetic.

However, the most confusing part of this episode was Gary’s reverie. If Todd was supposed to be sucking out his happiness why was he constantly in peril during his fantasies? If it was meant to be his happiest time, why was he married to a cookie, instead of Quinn, the woman he’s been obsessed with for five years? And has Gary even once mentioned a love for dancing?

The lone highlight from this episode was the further exploration of Ash. It’s great to see this powerful being balance her kind nature and deadly temper. Plus, her pairing with Little Cato makes for an interesting rapport, even though she sees him as nothing more than a sweet kitten.