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popculturebuffet · 3 years ago

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Final Space Season 3 Review: “How Far Are You Willing to Go to Fix It?”

Hello all you presumably weeping from that finale people! And it’s time for me to return to Final Space, to examine the good, bad and the triclops of season 3. I initially planned to just review the season as it came out, doing each episode one at a time as it came out and just adding it to my regular schedule. That lasted only three weeks as the combination of the Season’s return to being far more serialized like season 1 made it harder to dive into the characters when I didn’t know what direction they’d be taking, the series airing late on saturdays meant i’d have to cover it on Sundays, aka what I usually kept as a slack day if I got behind. So I tapped out, but I still wanted to TALK about the season, so i decided to just talk about the season as a whole once it ended, especially since my Close Enough Season 2 review worked well enough and Invincible ended before this season did giving me a tryout to doing a whole season review again, to see if I could hack it. I could and thus will probably be doing more of these from here on out.. not for every show, I still like covering some weekly, as i’m currently doing with owl house, it just allows me to cover shows that are either more comedy based or in this case more serialized, particularly streaming shows. It’s the reason I'm also now doing Close Enough as entire seasons.

So before hand for those who didn’t read my previous reviews, since i’d rather this stood on it’s own: I loved final space from the animatic, as they showed one along side the other shows in TBS aborted animation block. You know the one they tried made up of Close Enough (Which got shunted to HBO Max which worked out better anyway), Tarantula (Which you probably didn’t know existed and I still have not seen) and the Cops which was produced by Louis CK so you can tell why that was swiftly destroyed and buried behind 10 tons of concrete. So the series came out, it was well liked by a lot of people, disliked by some too and in general seemed like my cup of tea. I simply.. never drank it. Not having cable I assumed it would just show up on a streaming service I had. Then when it ended up on VRV I just told myself I'd get the week long trial and binge it then.. and never got around to that either. Yeah as you can probably tell I have a bad problem with procrastinating when it comes to watching shows. That’s why fine shows such as Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, Kid Cosmic, M.O.D.O.K., Harley Quinn, what I haven’t seen of Doom Patrol, what I haven’t seen of Wonder Over Yonder, Stranger Things, Transformers War for Cybertron, Castlevania (Though that one’s continued to sit thanks to one of i’ts co creators being a dickhead and breaking my heart with his shitty behavior coming to light), and Craig of the Creek have just sorta sat in my queue. I just tend to forget to watch a show till it’s piled all the way the fuck up my queue and I hope to change that at some point.

Cut to the Summer of 2019. I was watching my surrogate nephew during that summer but had to come in early in the morning and thus had a few hours to myself where I could watch whatever and noticed on Adult Swim that Final Space was coming back. My course was clear...

So I did... granted I caught up on season 1 AS I caught up on season 2 but still it was a hell of a good time. This series is excellent. Even with my problems with season 3 i’ll get into shortly, it’s still a damn excellent show with thorughly loveable and layred characters who for the most part develop nicely, great animation, one of the best voice casts in the business (In addition to Rogers and his friend Coty Galloway we also have the likes of Steven Yeun, Ashly Burch, Ron Funches, Conan O’Brien, Tika Sumpter and David Motherfucking Tennant), and a tone that at it’s best ballances heartbreaking character drama with some of the best humor in adult animation.

It’s also honestly a great Guardians of the Galaxy Cartoon. I’ll freely admit to not having checked out the Disney one, and with it’s washed out colors i’m not in a huge hurry. But this show is at it’s core a ragtag bunch of misfits and outlaws, most of whom aren’t stable on a good day, being thrust into the position of the unvierse’s saviors. That speaks to both the original Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning run AND the utterly fantastic movies, feeling like a nice mix of both having the Gunn Movies goofy humor and the comics ongoing plot about a cosmic horror lurking just beyond a breach that threatens all reality.

So yeah with all that i loved it and the two year wait for season 3 was painful, since it ended on the massive cliffhanger of our heroes entering final space, and Gary reuniting with Quinn, only for Invictus to creepily show up in the background. it also made crossovers difficult as I really DIDN’T know what would happen to everyone. As this season ALSO ends on a cliffhanger i’ve just sorta given up on things making 100% sense with canon now, but that’s not the point. The point is I was hyped going into this season all the way baby. So the question was did this season live up to that? The easiest way to answer that is under the cut... well the easiest answer would be yes and no but that dosen’t make for a good review/deep dive into the season now does it? So join me after the read more won’t you?

Changing For Better and for Worse So to start us off let’s talk about the changes between seasons. Season 3 returns to the more serialized style of season 1 as while Season 2 had an overarching story, it was a bit more episodic from week to week, especially early on, likely due to network mandate. This is likely due to Season 2 having far more network interference: the move to Adult Swim first run in season 2, while better for getting the show an audience, also lead to FAR more network notes and stress, leading to bits Olan was unhappy with: he wanted the Lost Spy just to focus on Gary and Little Cato’s plot and was forced to add in the clarence plot, something I can agree sucked as said plot was not very good and in hindsight likely wasn’t because they were forced to add it. He also apparently didn’t like the literal Pissing Contest scene, which I can get as it’s a bit broad.. but I still love it for i’ts sheer ridiculousness and how it’s throughly rooted in character: apparently ventrxians are still cat like enough they piss on things to claim them as property, which is batshit enough, but everyone deciding to buy into this premise, with Gary willfully wizzing along with his future sun leading to an all out piss war? That’s just... it’s beautiful man.

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Added bits like Nightfall just.. not getting involved in this, Ash’s galaderial style boast, HUE just standing there and getting peed on, everyone taking a hydration break and of course the button of ash cheering at getting UTI just... I can’t gush enough about this entirely weird and entirely literal pissing match apparently.

Point is it’s clear from the return to a more seralized story that feels like one LONG story across 13 episodes instead of smaller stories building up to a big finish like most cable animated shows that both the show got more creative control back and that Olan feels more comfortable telling the show as one big season long story that segues into the next one big season long story. And i’m fine with that honestly. Other shows such as Frisky Dingo and Bojack Horseman have done wonders basically being one long story and in the era of streaming, where Season 3 will no doubt drop at some ponit on HBO Max, it’s perfectly designed for those who like to binge the hell out of a season in one go. It made covernig it week to week too difficult to keep doing that, but i’m wholly for it and if it’s what Olan wants for the series i’m all for it.

It also worked far better for this season’s plot line: Last season was more of a treasure hunt, so it could easily flow as individual episodes eventually stacking up. This season is about our heroes desperately trying to survive in the most hostile environment imaginable. It fit perfectly to go back to one big arc as we genuinely DIDN’T know if the cast would make it out and it helped with the tension: we honestly wouldn’t know if anyone was safe till likely the very last minute of the season.. and as we saw.. they STILL weren’t.

This leads me into another major change: the tone. With things have escalated and our heroes now stuck inside Invictus’ home turf the mood was often extremley bleak. The show never lost it’s humor mind: Gary’s freakout when finding out he’s in the origin place of the KVNS, Avacato and Gary’s ho yay reaching an ALL TIME HIGH with them standing shirtless in a field together via psychic connection, the entire bit with Little Cato not realizing Gary and Quinn were about to have sex (”Go.. go play with grandma!”), the cookie turret, I could go on> The show had enough humor to help with the dark tone and ballance it out.

The only real issue with the darker tone was that , much like fellow bleak as hell show that still had some good goofy bits Bojack horseman the tone was a LOT to take at times. While Seasons 1 and 2 were still dark and still had moments that punched you in the emotional balls such as Avacato and Nightfall’s deaths, they were far more ballanced and there was far more of a sense of hope. Here.. it’s very clear our heroes are one step away from death at any moment, are often desparing and loose a LOT over the season with no real victories. Every win comes at a cost and while it works dramtically god was it draining to just watch these characters I truly cared about constnatly LOOSE everything they care about and instead of ending in triumpth it ends with Mooncake probably dead and Invictus triumphant and our heroes marveling at the horror they’ve unelashed. It’s just.. a LOT to ask to have the season be so overwhelmingly grim for our heroes.. and have it STILL end with our heroes starring down a lovecraftian version of galctus whose hearld not only was my faviorite character but killed the series kirby-esque mascot.

I still want to emphasise this dosen’t make the show BAD or anything and Olan is within his rights to ask a lot of us. I still care about the cast and still feel they can somehow fix this despite the odds massively stacked against them. And honestly i do prefer an ending that’s nightmarish with little hope over Bojack horseman which would constantly set us up that things would get bette ronly to knock us back down again. Worse before it gets better is better than “It’ll get better.. we promise... “ while laughing behind your back. Still love that show too by the way. I just hope there’s a little more hope next season to help ballance out the utter hell our characters go thorugh like seasons 1 and 2 to make the bitter but wonderful medicine go down easier is all.

But if you want an actual problem I had with the season, i’m glad to point you to was the weaker team dyanmics. Part of what drew me to the show were the interesting interpersonal relationships: Season 1 started it off great with Gary as the clear center and having a unique dynamic with everyone in the cast, but Season 2 is so great to me in part because it evolved that: it was no longer just about gary and everyone played off each other well. You had a LOT of intresting balls in the air: Clarence and Gary hating each other’s guts, Clarence’s kids loving him dearly, Ash’s weird friendship and pseudo relationshpi that cycled firmly back to friendship this season with LIttle Cato and her bonding with nightfall, Little Cato and Fox having a rivarly thanks to racial tensions, HUE’s bitter snarking turned romance with Ava, everyone but apparently fox being annoyed with KVN... there was a LOT of good character stuff in the season and the cast of characters just really bounced off each other well comedically and storywise.

This season dosen’t lack that entirely as theirs still tons of good dynamics, if it did I wouldn’t think of the season all that positively but it feels like there was less effort put in to make this version of the team squad feel like a choesive team/family. While there were still existing dynamics carried over: Gary and everyone, Quinn with Gary and HUE, Little Cato with Ash and his Dad, etc, there didn’t feel like a lot of effort to bring in new ones. Fox is killed off WAY too soon, something i’ll go into more when I talk about Ash, Sheryl only starts getting dyanmics with everyone 2/3 of the way into the season for no adaquate reason, and Biskit is just kinda thrown in there and dosen’t really have a solid relationship with anyone except Gary. They just don’t feel like a cohesive group. Sure their disfunctionl and frankly disfunctional group of outcasts who are like family is my jam, but those setups usually also have clear dynamics like the JLI or the crew of the lost light. Here there’s something.. missing that wasn’t missing last time, a sense of warmth. IT’s easily the second weakest part of the season.

Finally before we get into characters we have the pacing of the season which is also a bit weak: it feels like things are a bit too sped up to the point it often feels like they jump from one plot point to another. They throw a LOT of things at you: ash aging up, ash turning to the dark side.

Gary’s complicated feelings with his mom, Tribore’s bullshit, The KVN Net Quinn’s final space poisoning, everyone getting final space poisoning, Bolo dying, clarence dying, my baby boy dying, my baby boy blob dying, lttiel cato being a prince, Lord Commander.... it’s not like some of those plots don’t lack merit they do but their tryign to cram ALL of them into 13 episodes. It felt like Olan got a bit too overambitious and overexterted himself trying to fit ALL of this into 13 episodes and some of it suffered. I get being afraid that you won’t get everything in on a network bad at giving shows more than three seasons I do, but when your actively planning for and sequel baiting for a fourth in the finale you can afford to slow the hell down a little. Even She Ra, as heavily seralized as it was, still found time for character exploration in it’s darkest and most intense season with the final one. And that was the same number of episodes, the same run time, more characters to juggle, and a whole series to wrap up.

So we move on to characters and to get this out of the way one of them is easily the biggest issue I have with the season

Tribore Can Fuck Himself:

Yeah that wasn’t subtle but my feelings towards this annoying triclops aren’t. I didn’t mind him in Seasons 1 and 2. In season 1 he was comic relief that turned out to be secretly badass and in season 2 he had some truly funny moments, especially his subplot in “Arachnatechts” where he keeps circling back to the same bar and ends up acomplishing nothing for the main plot.

But this season he became INSUFFERABLE. While his new son Quastranastro was fine, though I think the “gag” of him speaking only spanish isn’t funny at best and is midly offensive at worst, and has a great dynamic being more serious than his dad, Tribore himself just felt unnecessary. His plot leading people out of final space accomplished nothing other than making sure he was on the other side to reactivate the bridge.. something that could’ve happened anyway by simply having him gather refugees off screen or giving him maybe one subplot. Instead he takes up the subplots of at least three episodes in a season that as seen above BADLY needed the room for more character interaction and better story pacing.

While the show does have other comic relief characters in KVN and Biskit both serve actual purposes: KVN is invunerable and can fly so he can be useful in a pinch, and proves invauable in the season’s climax, and said invunerablity is a nice set up for the KVN Net. Biskit is both more entertaning and provides a tech guy for the teach squad, something they really didn’t have before. They had scientests sure but no one who was a gadgeteer genius. They needed a rocket racoon type.

Tribore.. adds nothing. He has no character arc, isn’t funny enough most of the time to support things, and just shows up randomly to eat up screentime. The last two seasons he provided backup this season he.. opens a door. A roll which could’ve been honestly left to Clarence had the let him live or even to that one guy wtih the ass arm who liked him a lot whose name I don’t know how to spell. Tribore feels MEANINGLESS this season and clashes badly with the far grimer tone and stakes without providign levity or an escape beacuse your just wanting to get BACK to the characters you care about no matter how bleak their situation is. Part of why the last part of the season is so good is he’s GONE. HOPEFULLY Olan dials him back next season because while I could take the series other flaws as the good was enoguh to counterballance I can’t take another season of this dickhead parading around.

Child Of Darkness and Light:

So we go from the character I hated most to my faviorite. Ash was an instant faviorite to me along with her brother Fox so naturally her turn to the dark side dark phoenix style is a mixed bag for me. The concept, despite robbing me of the character I knew isn’t bad: Ash slowly sucummbing to her worst impulses, her rage and impuslviness, and listening to the worst person possible at the worst possible time. It honestly reminds me of the Dark Phoenix Saga and frankly, for all the faults I have with how this storyline was executed it’s STILL a better and more gripping Dark Phoenix Saga adaptation than either of the x-men movies that tried that.

For those of you who wonder what a Dark Phoenix Saga is or if it relates to that shitty last X-Men movie the latter answer is yes, obviously and the first is that it was a storyline in the X-Men comic books. And as some of you may know I bring up X-Men a lot in this blog so the comparison coming to mind was inevitible really.

It focused on Jean Grey, one of the original X-Men and at the time a young woman in her 20′s or so who nearly died saving the X-Men from a spaceship crash only to be reborn as the godlike Phoenix, having powers far beyond what she could ever have dreamnt of before and said power scaring her a bit. Eventually after some other stories she and The X-men got in a fight with Magneto and assumed the X-Men were Dead because Beast told her no one could’ve surivived that despite the fact you know, his mentor faked his death, the x-men have surivived deaths lots of times and molten lava really isn’t a match for Storm, Cyclops or Banshee’s powers. Then again the X-Men likewise assumed Jean was dead for the same reasons despite her having the powers of a god so maybe everyone just hit their head real hard in that storyline.

Point is Jean was mentally gaslighted and manipulated by Jason Wyngarde, aka Mastermind, an old foe of the X-Men hoping to join the Hellfire Club, a bunch of fancy assholes in victorian dominatrix gear who wanted to conquer the world. His intent was to turn her into a living weapon totally enthralled with him by both seducing her in the present using a glamour and making her frequently think she was in the past, endulging her darker impulses so she’d be more useful.

As you can imagine fucking around with the emotions of a god backfired badly for the asshat as eventually, as his killing Cyclops, Jean’s boyfriend, in her head durin ga psychic sword fight, long story, this naturally pissed her off enough to break his control and drive her insane. The jump was a bit abrubt but the resutls, jean turning her costume dark and turning into a vengeful dark goddess who ate an entire solar system, were horrifying as they were decently set up, ending tragically in Jean killing herself while lucid via a space laser, again long story, to end this nightmare. Of course later retcons would reveal this was a clone of jean made from her memories and etc but that’s not the point.

My point is a saga with a tragic ending starring a young woman given too much power too fast and manipulated by a creepy dickhead, if not sexually this time thank fucking christ, who wants to use said power for their own ends.. sounds familiar don’t it?

So the setup is right the character is sorta right and the concept is right.. so why dosen’t any of this feel right? It’s simple.. they kinda forced it a bit too much.

It started out okay: Ash finds out her powers come from invictus and confronts him, with Invictus giving her three days to decide who side she’s on, aging her up a few years while also giving her a second eye and a nifty new outfit and haircut. It’s not a bad concept: a lost of innocence and the hard choices we face as adults via metaphor. It’s good stuff.

And it continued to be good through the next step but not without serious issues of it’s own: Invictus had taken Fox, something I was eh about as it meant Fox would have no real time to interact with Avacato or Quinn. But I figured hey we’ll get some good evil ron funches, and he’ll be back eventually right?

God DAMMIT Olan. Yeah I was not okay with this.. and not just because I genuinely loved the character, love Ron Funches and had hoped season 3 would flesh him out more. Instead while it did give him a gripping backstory.. fox died 5 episodes in, tragically and with no real chance of coming back like Avacato did.

Admitely I do like the idea of Invictus setting up a self fufilling prophecy: saying Gary will kill fox then forcing gary to do so using his evil magic whatever it is. And the death scene itself is genuinely gripping, with Gary pleading “No please no”, Ash’s horrified and devistated reacton and an ambigoius moment wher eyou genuinely can’t tell if Fox came back in the last few seconds.. or Bollo was right and he was truly dead.

The problems however are sadly all too present for the scene’s momentum to hold. The first it again wastes a character we barely got to know despite being around a full season and having an interesting personality and backstory, and who never really got to interact with Avacato or Quinn before his death. The second.. is that it makes Ash come off like a moron. Look I get Ash is impuslvie and prone to anger, it is a thing with her. But she’s NOT dumb. A bit unhinged and violent sure but dumb no.

The problem is, especailly after rewatching the scene for the above gag.. .the scene MAKES her come off as really dumb. Invictus tells her Gary will kill fox eventually.. and then MAGICALLY Fox shows up in the dream world with her and is being all sweet despite last being seen possessed, is trying to convince her the creepy horn demon who gave her powers and transformed her on two seprate occasoins neither with her consent their cool now, and is suddenly stabbed by Gary who was VISABLY SCREAMING HE DIDN’T WANT TO DO THIS WHILE PURPLE ENERGY COURSED AROUND HIS ARM SWORD.

It just makes Ash into someone as gullible as Knuckles the Fucking Echidna and it hurts my brain a lot

The next step in her arc is with Forgiveness, probably the best episode of the season but one that makes her arc confusing as Ash rushes off in anger.. and finds Evira, a genderless blue space being that she hits it off with. They smash stuff and have a gay old time, subtly revealing that Ash is presumibly the queer character Olan mentioned before this season, and helping Ash let go of her anger by appreciating the beauty of the world. It’s really good stuff. And incredibly gay which as anyone whose been on this blog can attest to is something I can always get behind as I have tons of queer ships and this quickly became one of them.

The problems are not in this scene itself. .but it’s aftermath. Ash apparently forgives Gary only to turn around which is realistic enough, sometimes people don’t let go of things that easily and just hide it, but the show dosen’t hint at it so it comes off like it comes out of nowhere. More importantly despite introducing a gay romance for Ash... Evira vainshes. They never appear the rest of the season and while they’ll likely be back next season, it comes off as accidental queer baiting as a result. The fact Ash goes EVIL by the end of the season also comes off bad. I don’t think any of this was intentional, I just think Olan done goofed and didn’t think of any implications of this. The fact both of the episodes featuring Ash’s full heel turn aired during pride does not help. That said it’s still a better pride tie-in than “There’s Room For Everybody Under the Rainbow” or “Beat Up this bisexual for prizes”

And I only say fully confirmed because....

So after an episode with Sheryl where ash is tempted but seemingly rejects invictus and even helps exorcise a gary.. we get The Leaving. The Leaving is where this arc goes from decent, with ash tempted by her own self hatred and doubts to go to invictus.. to her deciding HE WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG! I’M TAKING LITTLE CATO, BYE!

It just feels fucking abrubt. Her resenting Quinn is an intresting idea but they didn’t develop it enough to feel natural and while her being upset at finding out Avacato lied would be a godo catalyst, the other episodes just don’t give me enough evidence she’d turn this quickly. Her wanting to leave WITH Little cato to get them away from Gary and Avacato makes sense. Little Cato is the only person on the Galaxy 2 she has left and she wants to protect him. I liked that. .but her suddenly going to invictus and trusting him just makes no sense. He took her brother in th efirst place! I don’t mind her having some doubt, maybe invctus actually works to convice her but no. invctus gets a hearald soley because the plot says “whelp ash goes evil about here.

Her actions in the finale also just feel.. off in places. While I like the idea of her reveling in her power and not feeling powreless, again it’s not all bad and the confrontation with Gary and Avacato is hella tense, with her genuinely wanting to help Little Cato and the two dads forced to confront her..It’s just spoiled by everything around her: HUE aburbtly turns on her instead of trying to help her too, not tha thtey were close but still, Gary only says “I’m sorry we failed you” and dosen’t try to save her at any point... it just seems like everyone but Spidercat, Thunderbandit and Mooncake wrote ash off the moment she came back and instead of using that for drama they just kinda ignore it.

Her killing Mooncake also feels.. forced. Like “okay we have to have her be evil now”. But it just dosen’t feel like she’s far gone enough when episodes ago Mooncake is the person who got her ot return home. It’s just aw eird 180 to spite gary when again GARY DID NOTHING WRONG AND YOU SAW IT AND COME OFF AS A MORON FOR NOT SEEING IT. Even getting I myself can be iratoinal COME ON. It’s just a sad waste of a good arc and my favorite character, especially since Ashly Burch, whose come to be one of my favorite voice actors, brought her goddamn a game all season and is the only thing that made this arc’s ending tolerable is her good voice acting. And even she strained to make this work at all. Gah.

Dying is Easy Baby, Living is Harder

Going from the worst character arc to the best character arc, we have Avacato. I was utterly floored when Olan brought him back last season, his return being easily the biggest swerve of the season. I was optimsitic Olan would do something good with it and had good reason for this.. and was throughly right.

Avacato easily had the most gripping arc of the season, with us learning on just the depths of who he used to be: a remorsless killer who simply killed because it’s what he was good at, a butcher with no purpose.. until Lord Commander came knocking and offered something better... a cause.. a better galaxy and all the killing he could ever want to make it so.

So Avacato gladly killed the king and queen of ventrxia who trusted him dearly.. only to change in one moment. .finding their baby son, HIS son, among the wreckage and taking him in, never telling his boy what he’d done out of shame. With this one hell of a reveal the entire character is upended. As Avacato puts himself in the finale “You saved me”. By raising this kid he went from a butcher for a monster.. to a loving father who’d do anything to protect his adopted son and try and attone for his past. He knows he can’t possibly even the scales but he can damn well do his best anyway.

And while this was already great in it’s debut, setting up a time bomb to go off any time in the season, it hit it’s peak with the best scene in the season and possibly the series: With Gary at his lowest, his guilt over Fox’s death swallowig him, Avacato picks this moment to confess. The resulting acting from Olay and Coty is just.. majestic.

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Seriously just the quivering in his voice , the sheer pain as he tells gary what he did, Gary’s utter HORROR at what his best friend did, that no matter how much he loves Avacato.. what he did to his son outweighs that and both snapping at each other: Gary calling him a coward (not unfairly), and Avacato saying “You murdered fox”. Just the raw emotoin in the acting and animation here.. I don’t have enoguh words. It’s freaking beautiful. The only reason this isn’t the best scene of the year is because it’s not over yer.. and because “I’d Have You Dad” happened. But it’s damn fucking close to that scene in terms of emotion and the fight that insues is just brutal, two friends, frayed emotoinally and at their lowest ponits just wailing on each other for catharsis. I cannot praise this scene enough.

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Or it’s direct followup, whcih I consider part of it. Olan... really shined this season as Gary. While he was decent to start, a bit shouty but fine he hit his stride last season and just climbed higher this season, with this speech being his peak (though the zombie gary scene is a close second). This speech is raw, emotional and speaks to who gary is. He dosen’t mince word at what Avacato’s done or how much it’s going to hurt Little Cato when he finds out the truth.. but he forgives his friend. At Avacato’s lowest, curled up in a ball begging his best friend to cast him aside for this.. Gary refuses. He knows what his friend did was terrible.. but he knows he’ll do his damndest to fix this and did what he did. That he can be better for his boy and deserves better than to be thrown out. More on gary in a bit.

So while Avacato starts to recover the strain of things eats away at him till he breaks down to Gary after Little Cato asks about his mom. Unfortunately Ash was listening, all that happens.. but the real shining moment is in the finale. Faced with what he did, his past sins coming back to haunt him and Ash ready to stand as his executioner, he tells him what he did... but what Ash can’t grasp in her anger.. is that Avacato still loves his boy, that he did something terrible, he killed his birth parents, he lied to him his whole life.. but he loves that kid. Little Cato saves him and while he may not deserve his son.. he loves him more than anything and always will. And that coupled with Gary’s words reunites father and son. The road no doubt won’t be smooth now the truth is out there.. but it’s bound to be damn excellent and I can’t wait to see it.

And the Rest:

So breaking down the rest of the cast, as those were the two bigger arcs, we start iwth Gary. As I said moments ago, Olan is at his fucking peak this season, a season that puts the poor guy through the wringer as he finds his girlfriend dying from poisoning, finds out his best friend/boyfriend murdered someone, has a well meaning gesture to stay behind nearly kill him, has to fight zombie versions of himself, has to watch as an alternate version of himself slowly dies, watches his best hope get beheaded, his son get kidnapped, his surrogate daughter go to the darkside because he was forced to stab her bother, and to put the cherry on the crap sunday, watches his other best friend die horribly by said surrogate daughter’s hand’s ushering an elder god into his universe.

So yeah he gets a LOT of good character stuff here. Besides all the stuff from forgivness he also gets a hell of a moment taking in Quinn’s pain for her knowing it might kill him but doing so anyway and one in the finale tellnig ash “Sorry we failed you”. It just shows off that beneath the lairs of weirdo and cookies lurks one of the most heroic, kind, and noble characters i’ve seen in a cartoon. He’s gone from blowing up ships by sheer incompence and semi-stalking a woman he barely knew to a loving father, partner and friend who takes every loss to heart and tries his damndest to make sure it dosen’t happen again. Gary is at his best here.

Quinn got some much needed fleshing out this season. Her horrifying past with her awful bitch of a mother who forced her into a corpse room and her self hatred over not saving her sister (something that is not at al lher fault to begin with), make for some compelling television. It gives her “I have to do it all by myself” characterization that was so damn annoying in season one context, that she has to.. because she has an inbuilt martyr complex. The season also deconstructs it heavily, with the KVN Net fiasco being entirley on her shoulders and Avacato rightly calling her out.

They do and don’t fix her relationship with Gary from Season 1. See my problem there is it escalated pretty quickly from him trying to stalk her to a deep relationship. Here they do give them some time to breathe and the actors have genuine chemstry.. but it still is hard to to take this relationshpi seriously when you realize they’ve been together exactly two months, and that Gary spent at least 6 months hunting for a way to save someone he barely knew. It’s not bad there are really precious moments between the two, I just wish we got some more depth as to WHY they like each other that isn’t just...

Finally there was this weird thing where Olan seemed to think Nightfall IS this Quinn... he .. he does remember he set up last season that Nightfal lisn’t a version of this unvierse’s Quinn right? But we weirdly get her assuming she’s going to become nightfall without eve rmentioning that and Nightfall somehow predicting what she’d do. I dunno it just feels off.. I don’t mind ruminating on if a chracter will become a future version of herself but the timelines have diverged enough that shoudln’t be an issue.

HUE got the shaft this season, being relegated to the computer, but he was still a delight when he showed up and I get his shunting to the computer was to help weed down the cast as even with Fox killed off way too quickly our main cast still consists of 9 characters WITH HUE and that’s not including important side characters like Tribore, Bolo, Quastronastro and Kevin. The reveal in the finale however was awesome enough to make up for it and i love his bulky new body. Gonna come in handy at the end of the world i’ll tell you what.

KVN is KVN. He’s mildly annoying at times, utterly hliarious at others. He’s always been this way but unlike Tribore he’s more tolerable. While like Tribore no one in the main cast really LIKES him, unlike Tribore KVN suffers enough phsycial punishment and scorn from everyone else on a regular basis to even it out.

Sheryl was a good addition.. but they sadly took their sweet time doing anything with her, with Sheryl getting maybe a line or two or a big damn heroes moment early on. Thankfully as the season went on we got a few nicer character moments from her: Gary finding out she really came to protect HIM and has lost her obessive and destructive desire to get John back, really truly being there for her son. While I wish they’d focused more on Gary adjusting to his mom actually loving him now, this was still nice. But with the rest of the episodes she got nice character moments with everyone that showed she really had changed: She has a nice team up with Avacato, tries to help Ash sympathizing with her drifting nature but hoping she’ll make the right choice, and gets a great moment with Quinn in the finale encouraging her that she isn’t entirely nightfall and that...

All in all I liked her even if she was underused.

Little Cato was great this season, Steven Yuen was graet as always but he was kinda put off to the side. His dad’s arc grappling with the fact he killed LC’s parents is more about Avacato than his son, and LIttle Cato is really just a supporting player in most other characters arcs. It’s not a bad thing though as he got plenty of focus last season and will no doubt get more next season. Unlike the abrupt death of Fox I don’t feel they wasted Little Cato and he still had plenty to do he just dind’t have an arc of his own and again with what he know snow, that’s clearly going to change. Yuen also got some great work in, showing that even though he’s now been nominated for an oscar and has a major starring role as ...

He’s still got it in the roll that really made me a fan of him after I became aware the guy existed thanks to a failed attempt to make a movie out of Chew.

Mooncake is Mooncake. Like KVV he dosen’t really cahnge.. but he sure can die though. Jesus that was crushing.

Biskit was a nice addition to the cast. While like KVN and Tribore he’s clearly comic relief that dosen’t really suffer emotionally, he seperates himself for both by both being extremley funny after a while and extremley useful, providing a tech person where the team had none before and having some fun gags including his apparently having merch in the ship’s gift shop, and telling Little Cato about his seminar “If you have to ask you can’t afford it!” He was just a fun little ball of crazy in a period of immense darkness, my only beef being I wish they explained his two episode abseence. He NEEDED to be absent for Fox’s death and the mourning after, but they could’ve explained why offhand.

Moving onto supporting we have Bolo who was great if underultized. Look i’m always up for some keith david.

So naturally i’ve always loved Bolo and he got some awesome moments, though I am curious why he and gary having beef went nowhere. Otherwise he was good. His Cookie Guardiian on the other hand...

But yeah Bolo was great he just didn’t get to do much after the first few episodes beyond get highlandered.

Kevin Van Newton was a good addition, with Tom Kenny really getting to flex his crazy old man muscles again and the twist Nightfall contacted him was genius. He was a ncie cranky old man and while his death was tragic he was around just long enough to not overstay his welcome. Don’t have much else to say about him so heres a present barfing nutritious neco wafers on children

Invictus.. isn’t the strongest vilian to me. Their terrifying, have great powers and great skill.. but we don’t know WHAT they are, why their doing all this, or what thier goal is which makes them just come off as a generic god level monster. It’s part of what made the Ash arc not quite work: Invictus just dosen’t have the personality to come off as convincingly decptive so Ash comes off like an idiot for trustnig the demonic voice that already stole her brother. I will say the animation for Invictus is damn terrific and the zombie gary’s are just genuinely terrifying. Seeing our loveable heroic goofus reduced to decayed deranged fanon fodder for our main bad guy is utterly horrific and always terrifying and I can’t wait to see even more next season. Hopefully next season makes invictus a better villina.

Thankfully we got the series BEST villian back.

David Tennant is back as the Lord Commander and my god I missed his presence. He’s still a depraved, utterly terrifying monster but now has an intresting dynamic with invictus: forced to serve someone else and left on the receiving end of someone else being a shitty boss. He’s just a delight.. the character hasn’t changed really at all but that’s fine with me.

He also WINS for a while, getting his titan body, a shocking twist I did NOT SEE COMING. The horrifying image of this monster even MORE powerful and emerging from earth’s remains.. that’s fucking iconic. His tearing up Invictus’ minions and telling him “Now to rmeind you who I am was awesome”. Sadly intead of overthrowing invictus.. he ended the season put in a box.

Hopefully he finds someway out as i’td be awesome to see him and the team squad

Finally we have Clarence. While he only had one episode I felt Conan acted his ass off here and he got an emotional sendoff. I generally never expected to forgive the little fart nocker but here we are. I also did love the gag of bringing back every minor character from season 2 and the dewinters to plauge our hero as he tried to save everyone and his tearful final moment tugged at the heart. That being said the one complaint I have is no one saw his sacrifice yet Ash behaves as if she knows her father died

Final Thoughts:

So on the whole the season isn’t BAD. It has plenty of tension, the music, animation and voice cast are top notch and it had some great character work.

I do feel the season coul’dve been BETTER though, with the lack of real work on team dynamics, sloppy pacing, sloppy treatment of ash and sloppy joes on top of a certain green asshat wearing a fetching beret really held the season back from being as great as it could’ve been. This show is still one of the best out there but I hope it can get back to it’s best self next season. But I will gladly line up: even if I had trouble with this season I will always love this show. It’s back to back for life and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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