Final Space Review: The Grand Surrender

"What's the plan?" "I didn't think that far ahead! That's not good at all!"

In my last review, I wrote a lot about the struggles with Final Space's massive cast, and while "The Grand Surrender" manages to solidify them a lot more while telling a tighter, more focused narrative, a lot of those issues still persist. With seven characters filling out the episode's A-plot, and the remaining three taking care of the B-plot, there's a lot more of a happy balance reached in the weight of what each party handles, but no matter how fulfilling the episode's narrative is on a lot of fronts, the underutilization of a large slice of its ensemble leaves a bit of a frustrating aftertaste.

On the plus side, "The Grand Surrender" gives us a new name for our current rotation of heroes: they're the Combo Pack. It's an apt descriptor, too: what we've got is an assemblage of fries, and onion rings, and dipping sauces, and yes, unfortunately, napkins. It makes for an interesting, and I should hope, relevant little bit of allegorical criticism, so let's just break this one down. It'll be fun, right? Right.

ONION RINGS:
The most important characters are the onion rings because, let's face it, they're the selling point of a Combo Pack. Ash, indisputably, meets the criteria: she's the dynamic heroine of this story, finally getting a chance to really demonstrate some maturity in revisiting her dark past. When H.U.E. discovers that she has a tattoo of one of the Dimensional Keys, it's quickly surmised that Gary and co. must return to her home of Serpentis, a planet where everyone worships a fire serpent (named Worthwynt) with dreams of being offered to the creature as an act of goodwill. A flashback fills us in on this grim chapter of her life, too: she witnessed her sister, Harp, being consumed by Worthwynt, and when her parents held her back from being able to spare her sister, her psychic powers unleashed, killing them and forcing her to flee (where she meets her new family).

Of all the protagonists, she gets the most fulfilling journey from the start to the end: this is an episode dedicated to her building inner strength and learning about herself and her powers. A lot of that is achieved, too, with the help of fellow Onion Ring-tier compatriot Lil Cato. Their compatibility has been teased in the past, what with Ash's infatuation with the poor guy, but this made for a nice test of their chemistry. He's able to grant her a level of reassurance that nobody else, up to this point, has been able to, helping her realize that her sister, now one of the Surrendered living a life of servitude inside of Worthwynt, couldn't be saved.

Perhaps most shockingly of all, though, K.V.N. was a true champ. Whereas the episode was driven largely by Ash's character development, K.V.N. kept the narrative moving along, whether that means disguising as a prophet and luring several people to a brutal death, or having the expertise built into his deep-space-insanity-avoider-companion machinery to solve some confusing riddles from Worthwynt's key guardian. Even when worst comes to worst, he manages to beat the poor guy into a pulp with the help of a Forever Ball. Darn you, K.V.N., for however insufferable you may be, you're holding this team together.

FRIES:
There's nothing inherently wrong with being a Fry; its just a mandatory part of the Combo Pack. Everyone likes Fries, but they're not really a highlight so much as a given, and Gary definitely fits that label. With this being Final Space, he's at the center of all the action to some capacity, but he doesn't really have much of an active role in the episode's progress—all the magic happens around him. Most importantly, he hammers in the Combo Pack as a monolith, and even if not all contributions are equivalent, at least everyone's unified.

DIPPING SAUCE:
Dipping Sauce is far from the show-stopping component of a Combo Pack, but it's what ties everything together, a superfluous but highly-appreciated accoutrement. That about sums up everyone involved in "The Grand Surrender's" B-plot, with Nightfall, Fox, and H.U.E. helping a runaway groom man up for his wedding. It's entirely inessential to everything else (it literally ends with the groom falling to his death at the altar), but it's a great chance to give Fox some more screentime to develop his personality, as he's definitely the most loosely-defined member of the Combo Pack. Here, his highly-empathetic but aggressive efforts to help the groom realize his deep-set issues and commit to his marriage put him on the map.

While Nightfall and H.U.E. don't get anywhere near as engaging of a role, Nightfall makes for a fine straight man, while H.U.E. continues to be the most comedically strong character of the season, tossing away depressing lines with ennui managing to escape every nondescript, matter-of-fact piece of dialogue he shells out. His failed attempts at being the life of the party, in particular, register fantastically: "We can throw the bachelor party in H.U.E.-town. C'mon, y'all. Get up. Get up. Get up."

NAPKINS:
It could be said that Napkins hold the important role of keeping everything tidy, but in the case of this Combo Pack, it's an item that you don't really consider a component, but insofar as it comes with everything else, it makes it into the description out of a technicality. Unfortunately, Tribor, Clarence, and Mooncake don't get too much to do in this episode at all. It's strange how much the series seemed to rush to get Tribor back considering that his usage here is somewhat disheartening, with his one notable moment being a joke made at the expense of his uselessness. At the very least, Clarence's presence feels felt, and Conan O'Brien, as always, is a perfect conductor of the character's dickishness, but he doesn't do much here aside from repeatedly get in Gary's way, which is good for a laugh but not conducive of anything more substantive.

Mooncake, sadly, feels the most purposeless. I couldn't even tell you if he talks here.

Ultimately, there's a lot to like about "The Grand Surrender," especially in regards to how much work it does to flesh out Ash, but it's very much a concentrated effort, and that means that a fair amount of the cast just feels like it isn't bearing any weight in the narrative. With its final scene finding the crew of the Crimson Light splintered and going off on their own accord, we're left with the image of a team that doesn't quite feel like a team yet. Hopefully, as the stakes increase, we'll start to see more equality across the Combo Pack, but as it stands, there's still some fine-tuning to take care of.

Notes and Quotes:
-Continuing off of Final Space's ongoing quest to reference as much of Olan's backlog as possible, the cold open is a game of thimbles, complete with axe-throwing and body dismemberment.
-Important canon: Tribor has three dicks.
-"Yo, I'm not scientist, but that looks weird."
-It's disappointing how A.V.A. hasn't really adopted much of a role in the series yet, aside from finding ways of reminding H.U.E. of his tragic existence. It's a fun role, but not one with a lot of depth, feeling like a bit of a waste of Jane Lynch. I'm sure that'll get turned around in due time, though. I can feel it in my hard candies.
-"Rice. Now the birds will also die."

FINAL GRADE: B. "The Grand Surrender" is definitely something of a taste of what's to come, with Final Space creating an emotionally-compelling journey that gives Ash her first moment (of many, hopefully) in the spotlight, but it still isn't quite sure how to handle its meaty ensemble. It's a promising entry into Season 2, and I feel as if the general sensibilities of the past few episodes are proving Final Space's sustainability pretty well, but it's far from perfect with its issues far from invisible.

For my last Final Space review of "The Happy Place," CLICK HERE.

Additionally, you can access every Final Space review I have ever written HERE.

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