Final Space: The Toro Regatta - Review

Warning! Full spoilers for the Final Space Season 2 premiere, “The Toro Regatta,” and the events of Season 1 of Final Space ahead. Buckle up your butt cheeks.

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Final Space is off to the races in its Season 2 premiere - literally. The show wastes little time establishing the new status quo for Gary and what’s left of the crew of the Galaxy One after their ill-fated confrontation with the Lord Commander last season. While all the setup for what’s to come this season is exciting, it doesn’t leave much time to unpack the devastating events that closed out last season.

That light in space which seemed to be coming to rescue Gary in the finale ends up being from a ship belonging to Clarence (Conan O’Brien), a scrapper who we met briefly on Tera Con Prime early last season. It’s clear before long that it’s less a rescue and more a scavenging run, as Gary and his cohorts are placed into indentured servitude. They’re forced to help Clarence steal a priceless artifact - the Nymerian Cube - off the ship of a racer competing in the Toro Regatta, a deadly contest where only one ship survives and wins.

Clarence and his “children,” Fox (Ron Funches) and Ash (Ashly Burch), are welcome additions. O’Brien’s vocal performance makes Clarence a pompous dandy and one that will sound familiar to anyone who’s been a fan of his late night shows for a while. It’s well-suited to a character with such a superiority complex. Speaking of superiority complexes, AVA (Jane Lynch), Clarence’s AI, seems like she’ll be stealing scenes all season with cutting one-liners about great she is and how terrible poor HUE is, what with his crappy new body.

The Regatta itself is Final Space’s animation at its best, sleek and colorful. The desert setting and insanely high speeds evoke the excitement of the Boonta Eve Classic from Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. Once Gary finally obtains the Nymerian Cube, he’s assigned his Season 2 mission by none other than Bolo (Keith David), the good-natured Titan from last season who’s calling on Gary to release him from his prison so that he can help turn the tide against the evil Titans of Final Space.

The Titans are on the move too, and it looks like the Lord Commander may get his wish to access their power, as he’s seemingly saved from death at the hands of Nightfall by a being called Invictus. With a spooky name like “Invictus,” he’s sure to be a tough foe going forward. Bolo’s invoking of Quinn (“together, we can save her”) does seem like it could be a red flag for his motives - after all, he’s been imprisoned for a very long time, might he be manipulating Gary here?

The race and the setup for the rest of the season, while both great on their own, do leave little time to reflect on how Gary, Little Cato, and the rest are feeling about losing Quinn… not to mention the entire planet Earth. Final Space is always strong when it slows down to focus on character (the aftermath of Avocato’s death comes to mind), but outside of a couple of brief flashbacks, there’s very little of that done here. There’s no doubt that will be coming down the line, but it feels like more time could’ve been spent on it in the Season 2 premiere.