Final Space: Chapter Six Review

"HUE won't let me have a guitar. Do you really think I'm going to HANG MYSELF BY GUITAR STRINGS?!" "Yes, dude." "Yeah, well, you're probably right." 

They should've just gone and fixed the breach.

No, I told myself, I'm not letting this show catch me off-guard. And, to some degree, I succeeded. But then that ending comes in and punches, nay, stabs you square in the gut. But before we get to that, let's go over everything else this episode does right. Even without its ending, it would be as tight a narrative as ever.

Chapter Six is the first episode (and last, but we'll get to that) to put everything in order by unifying our leading cast, allowing us to push onwards on the long-delayed quest to save Lil Cato. In other words, there's a lot on this episode's plate: it's legitimately monumental, signifying a shift in the overall narrative even beyond the obvious (Just wait on it), and we're finally moving from the preliminary rounds of setting the narrative up to the meat of the narrative itself.

To bring everything together, though, the episode first has to rip things apart, finding Quinn and Avocato at odds with one another over whether or not to fix the breach; Gary, the inevitable tiebreaker-at-gunpoint, decides that both are necessary, but Lil Cato is the priority. What the scene does is establish that even if the previous chapter set the precedent of our group of heroes as, well, a group, they're still not really a team. There's a certain amount of mistrust to having Avocato tie Quinn up out of fear of her taking over the Galaxy 1, for instance, but that mistrust only rings more true when she almost does.

Quinn, up to this point, is the most problematic. She's bound by a specific set of principles, but decidedly not an intimate sense of empathy so much as the ultimate good. To be entirely fair to her, not saving the universe is far more consequential than not saving Lil Cato, but that doesn't mean it's more important, so what Chapter Six sets out to do for Quinn is humanize the situation. It achieves this by finally putting her in front of Gary's hundreds of video messages. For a character who constantly struggles to see eye-to-eye with the others, it's the fact that Gary's so genuine that ultimately wins her over, and that revelation—with logic being overruled by empathy—is a major step, however underplayed, ultimately forming her decision to drop her agenda and save him and Avocato.

Avocato, too, gets his much-needed dose of exposition. Despite being the most sensible and grounded voice on the show, he's a character with a more mysterious past that finally gets addressed: he was once second-in-command to Lord Commander but refused to kill Lil Cato as a means of proving his absolute allegiance, a move that ultimately displays his vulnerabilities and points towards his downfall. (JUST WAIT.)

Gary, meanwhile, is the binding force between the two, and by extension, the binding force of the episode. He, of course, plays a more active role in assisting Avocato, almost functioning as some sort of funhouse-mirror straight man; Gary's still Gary, but he's also the voice of reason and a nice counterbalance to the tension that plays out as they infiltrate the prison colony. There's an interesting role reversal here: Avocato can't be unmoving in the face of his own son, so it's Gary's responsibility to help keep him in line. But in spite of not being around with Quinn for more than three minutes of the whole episode, he has an equally profound effect, with his final message sent to Quinn being perhaps the most heartfelt thing he's said on the show. Gary isn't at the forefront of the episode, but I'd argue he's the real hero.

Alright. You ready? Here's your disclaimer if you haven't seen the episode yet. Seriously. You sure? Let's go.

Chapter Six, up to that point, is about bringing back the status quo, and for precisely 45 heartwarming seconds, with Lil Cato reunited with his father and the gang safely back on the Galaxy 1, it does. But this is Final Space, a show that knows how to tell a gripping narrative like nobody's business, and it uses that brief period of bliss to ultimately rip us to shreds: there will never be a status quo, and Avocato's sacrifice is a grim reminder of that fact.

There's some ingenuity to that scene, too: it's all of the elements of the show coming together at full throttle. The music, while initially joyous, becomes haunting; the cinematography flashes across each character's raw anguish; and the subsequent dead silence as Lil Cato stares out the hole in the ship at the end stings. Making something so evocative without so much as dialogue is high-risk, high-rewards, and Final Space reaps the benefits: this is a moment that the show was building up to, and it delivers on every front.

The question remains: what next? And it's hard to say. But that's the thing about Final Space. Everything happens for a reason, and in the face of abject tragedy, it'll bring our characters closer together and compel them towards saving the universe with more thirst than ever before. So let's take our second to mourn Avocato's loss, but it was for the greater good.

Notes and Quotes:
-Fine music choice this episode. It deserves the credit.
-"You sure you want to do this? There's a 99% chance that this is a trap." "Traps are just open casting calls for heroes. Plus, you already tied up Quinn, so there's no real rebound after that."
-"Where are you going?" "I gotta take care of some biz. Curious?" "No!" "Thought so. I gotta release a fat pee stream." "I wasn't curious."
-"Okay, nice to meet you. And your name is?" "Death is sweeter than life." "I don't know why more kids aren't named 'Death is sweeter than life.' Fine boy you have here."
-I really liked being able to see Gary's video messages in this episode; there's something so real about him throughout that I appreciate in spite of the cartoony wackiness weighed against him.
-"What do you really know about me?" "I know for a guy who says he's not a cat, you sure do love milk. Other than that, not a lot."
-"Surprise." "'Surprise?' You gotta be kidding!" "Dude, no one's surprised." "I spent many hours of my day planning this. Everyone in the entire prison was murdered for this surprise!" "Well I don't know what to tell you. I don't think it was worth it." Lord Commander alternating between utterly ruthless and woefully pathetic is as enjoyable as ever.

FINAL GRADE: A+. I don't really know what else there is to say here other than that this is one of those rare episodes of television that manages to blow you away in spite of how insurmountable the expectations might seem. Consider the crap fanned, I say. This is the series' gamechanger, but just how it'll change the game is yet to be seen.

Unfortunately, this also marks the last of my pre-air episodes, considering the last three were, I believe, in post-production when the initial batch was sent off; that means my reviews won't be anywhere near as timely as they are now in terms of posting schedules. Fingers crossed on being able get ahold of them, but either way, I'm pumped for whatever's next even more than I was before.

For the last Final Space review of Chapter Five, CLICK HERE.