Review: Final Space “The Torra Regata”

New season. New ship. New crew members. Same friggin’ KVN!

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Following a season finale where any and every character might have died, Final Space is back, and almost everyone survived. As hinted at in the last episode of season one, Gary was beamed up by a spaceship moments after running out of oxygen. The ship is a scrap-collecting vessel which allows HUE to transport his consciousness into a clunky robot body before the entire haul is dumped onto a garbage planet.

The scrap game is run by Clarence, the owner of a “doo-dad” shop who Gary tangled with in the past. Here we discover how he keeps his shop filled with junk—including the skins of dead aliens. Not thrilled to see “the primate,” Clarence captures him and HUE, and Gary once again becomes a prisoner. On trash planet, we meet Clarence’s adopted children: Fox, a muscular, yet sensitive assassin with a Gatling gun for a hand; and Ash, a super powerful celestial being. The gang is also reunited with Little Cato and KVN—two more prisoners in Clarence’s growing collection.

Meanwhile, while Quinn is lost somewhere in final space, her future self—Nightfall—remains in the present to take care of unfinished business. First, she straight up murders the Lord Commander, releasing the Titan spirits that controlled him into the ether. Secondly, she rescues Mooncake and reunites with Gary to continue her semi-secret mission.

When they meet up, Gary is racing in a deadly regatta in exchange for his freedom. But, the mission is really a heist to retrieve a special “doo-dad” from the ship of one of the competitors. After surviving the race, the sought-after trinket is revealed to be one of five keys needed to release the supposed friendly Titan, Bolo, who promises to open Final Space for them so they can rescue present-day Quinn.

Our Take

And so, a season-long quest begins. This multi-staged mission comes at a perfect time, since Gary’s arc has already been completed. No longer a clueless, jerk, “Captain” Goodspeed proved himself three times over and developed into a character with heart, bravery, and even morals. Good for Gary, but not necessarily good for the show.

His transformation from selfish oaf who only cared about Quinn to capable hero who cared for many was effective, although it happened too abruptly. Even in season one he was reformed as early as episode seven. But there’s still plenty of story to tell, and Gary could always relapse or begin a new journey of growth, so it’s worth hanging around for at least a few weeks.

We also need to talk about the rise of Clarence. It looks like this character—voiced by show producer and funnyman, Conan O’Brien—will play a more substantial role than his single-episode appearance last year. And while Conan is a hilarious human being who has helped sculpt the comedy world over the past three decades, his voice work isn’t as interesting as the multi-layered performance David Tennant gave as the Lord Commander. Unfortunately with Tennant’s name now in the guest cast and with his character vaporized, it appears we won’t be hearing much from him for the remainder of season two.

The rest of the old cast has returned, with the exception of Coty Galloway—R.I.P. Avocato. And the new cast members are welcome additions. First we have Jane Lynch as the voice of AVA, the new ship’s AI, whose usual sassiness will make an excellent foil for broken and brokenhearted HUE. There’s also Ron Funches and Ashley Burch as Fox and Ash, respectively. Both actors are no strangers to the voice-over realm—particularly Burch whose work ranges from Attack on Titan to the video game series Life is Strange—and they really give life to this pair of unpredictable siblings.