Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

Pirates really don’t make the best friends

Spoiler Warning for Zero Friends Again

What I love about this episode is everything.

Yes, even the crazy length of twenty-seven minutes. That is right. Twenty-seven minutes. Possibly twenty-five minutes when you deduct the recap and intro. This is an exception to my general rule that constructing an episodic series around a consistent timing per episode is better for meeting audience expectation and their satisfaction.

Here, the episode length works because the story fits perfectly. There isn’t the sense that something needed to be expanded or that it would have fitted better smushed up with the previous episode. It feels right.

The story itself is what some might deem a filler episode as it is the connecting tissue between episode five’s betrayal, and episode seven’s season finale set-up, yet to call it such would be a disservice. This episode centres in on character development and friendship between the four kids while also keeping the main arc alive with the subplot of Jod’s re-arrest by his former second mate, Brutus.

Let’s talk about the latter first.

Jod finds himself with zero friends again as he emerges from the lair only to be taken prisoner by his former pirate crew. Apparently, nobody the audience could identify lost their lives in the acid chamber in the previous episode. SM-33 is quickly deactivated again by the pirates and Jod taken off to do the equivalent of walking the plank – being airlocked into space.

These scenes are very evocative of pirate tropes with the punishment, the communal judgement, the pirate songs, and the use of the Pirate Code. It is hinted at strongly that perhaps Jod uses a mind suggestion to get himself the time to talk and perhaps even uses suggestions further to sway pirates to his side.

After last week’s betrayal of the kids, it is satisfying to see Jod get his comeuppance. He doesn’t get to revel in being the captain of the Onyx Cinder for very long. He has been betrayed himself. Yet Jude Law, the writers and the director here, do a good job of having Jod be likeable enough that the audience doesn’t really want to see him get spaced. He’s affable, charming. He’s not Jack Sparrow, but he is the charisma of a movie Pirate Captain nonetheless.

The resolution that Jod gives up the location of At Attin to save himself is believable. We don’t spend too much time with the pirates, but what we do spend builds a good amount of tension for the final two episodes. Will Jod and the pirates successfully invade At Attin and ruin the idyllic life there in their pursuit of gold?

The primary plot sets up a race to At Attin as the kids themselves as they manage to escape the planet with KB having the coordinates of home. I just loved this whole plot.

It is convenient that the trick stool led nowhere more nefarious than pipes that spilled out onto a beach instead of another acid bath. Fair enough onto a beach with a carnivorous monster crab and its murderous babies but still.

The reveal of how augmented KB is because she stalls is wonderful. The resulting argument that Fern and KB have because KB is scared, and Fern stubbornly believes they can all do what she can is great. It’s a realistic kid argument. I love how it results in the mix up of the kids into different pairs once again.

Neel is a wonderful counterbalance for Fern. He is sweetly able to get her to realise that not everyone is like her, for her to make allowances. It’s wonderful character growth for Fern. And there is wonderful character growth for KB in the other pair as she has to rely on Wim to save her by creating a new micro-fuse for her.

It had been hinted at by her parents in the flashback that there was a medical threat hanging over KB’s head the longer she was away, but the reality of her situation that she will die without working augmentations is startling. I love how they hint of more of a story behind the accident and Fern’s response to it too in what KB reveals.

Saving KB also gives Wim fabulous character development too. That moment where KB points out that he just saved her life and calls him Jedi? Chef’s kiss. Just beautiful. I also love Wim’s simplicity here too when KB confides that she’s scared that without Fern she’ll end up with no friends, and Wim immediately adopts her for himself and Neel.

The make-up scene between Fern and KB is well-played by both actresses. It rings with the truth of young girls, teenagers, falling out and making up, especially the proclamations of being best friends.

I loved the save from the crab monster, nicely rendered as scary enough, and Wim’s dismay that his plans, even though he is the good guy, always go awry.

Is the whole rescue from the crab monster, and the subsequent take-back of the ship entirely realistic and believable that these four kids could do achieve it on their own? Well, not really, but swept away with the great action sequences, and the tension of the compactor eating their ship, the audience wants to buy into the idea enough to suspend disbelief. I was cheering as they lifted off all wobbly into the sky in their newly shiny spaceship which had been hiding beneath the camouflage of an old wreck. (Of course, that button that was never to be touched was indeed touched just as predicted.)

The contrasting picture of Jod’s friendless situation and the four of them coming together as a team to save themselves was well done. Kudos to Bryce Dallas Howard for direction this episode. It was stellar from start to finish.

In conclusion

These last two episodes have been tremendously good story-telling. I’m excited for the ending and hoping that even if the kids can’t land the ship perfectly, that the show itself will stick the landing.

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