Final Space Ends the Season Spectacularly with “The Sixth Key”

With the five dimensional keys in hand, Gary the crew of the Crimson Light go off to free Bolo from his prison, only now, seeds of doubt have been planted as to Bolo’s true nature, Cheryl is still intent to take the keys for herself to save her husband, and a possessed Avacato returns to just kill everyone in his way.

This episode was insane in all the right ways. From beginning to end, “The Sixth Key” starts running and slowly gets faster and faster like a runner hitting a natural high, but, rather than feeling like the story is being rushed, the progression not only feels natural, but earned… like it is essential to the story as a whole.

There is an awful lot to unpack with this one: Family, life, death and the like… so bear with me here.

First of all, possessed Avacato is such a great bad guy that it’s a shame we only got two episodes of him. Seriously, the idea of the ultimate enemy using the body of a friend to come at you is a terrifying prospect. I know that the demands of the season and the way that events unfolded prevented Evil Avacato from being utilized more than what he was, but his two appearances were impactful as heck.

The redemption of Cheryl, despite my misgivings with the character, felt earned. I enjoyed the virtual therapy and the odd choice of characters that took her through it… Tribore, H.U.E., and Fox. In retrospect, though, they really were perfect choices: H.U.E. being the personification of finding his humanity, Fox being a creature of empathy, and Tribore being the god/goddess of self-love. These three were the only ones to educate Cheryl in what she had missed and the animation in this segment was quite lovely as was the musical score. Quick? Perhaps… but as I said, at this point… it felt earned.

When I heard that there was to be a sacrifice, I naturally assumed Cheryl would rise up to take one for her son as a way to ultimately redeem herself but, honestly… I really should have seen Nightfall coming. It made sense. Nightfall’s journey was largely over, she had accepted that she would never get her Gary back and grew a peace with that fact and, her deciding to sacrifice herself so that Gary and Quinn could be together completely made sense and, yes… it was bittersweet and beautifully animated.

I plan on writing a bit about what I would like to see from season three (fingers crossed) but I’ll just say right now, that the show needs to firmly and ferociously establish that Quinn and Nightfall are two different people, otherwise, we’ve lost Nightfall and replaced her with a clone and that would be kind of cheap.

The action scene atop Bolo’s prison was amazing. Absolutely amazing. I’ve watched Avacato’s initial strike a couple of times and I’m almost pretty sure that some kind of 3D CGI was used to render characters, and yet, it blended very well and added an extra layer of fluidity and movement to the battle. Of course, it was also nice to see the entire crew come together to take on Evil Avacato and all of Avacato’s various counters to their attacks. Come to think of it, given that Avacato is pretty much unstoppable in his Invictus form, maybe that’s why we’ve only seen him once before… he would have just killed everyone.

Random Observations:

Keith David is always a win. Especially when he plays a godlike titans and uses the term “dickbag”

I think I love KVN even more now that he is actually insane and actually has an excuse to be annoying other than being an AIA-hole.

I cannot tell you how happy I am that Avacato is back and part of the crew again. My gods, I missed this guy as a regular which is probably why I saw his turn as Evil Avacato as more horrific than others.

An entire season and we still don’t know Fox’s backstory? Nary even a hint? What’s that arm about? How did he fall in with Clarence? So many questions, so little answers.

“The Sixth Key” does the things that the greatest season finales do. It wrapped up dangling storylines satisfactorily while setting up new ones organically. It solves old problems while introducing new ones. It flips the chessboard (I use that term a lot with this show) while setting up pieces for the next move. Most importantly, “The Sixth Key” does its most important job… it makes me want to see where the story goes next season.

Fingers crossed, that won’t be too far off because I’m ready already.