Alice has put some kind of soul transferring ring of fire spell around the Gate Night Carnival, Presidio is on the move, in town trying to retrieve the “monster” that Samuel was keeping in the back yard and Viv and Geoff are about to have to choose sides when the town is in danger from both ends and they might be its only hope. With body-snatching Harlow residents abound, inhabiting the teenage bodies of friends and foes.

WHAT I LOVED: Alice’s husband trying to talk some sense into her in his new body. Finding out why and how Alice ended up in the bottom of the lake. Edith getting what she deserved for being a human supremacist. The twins figuring out who they are and what they want and determining their own path and definition of family. Fred and  Omari (Daddy Warlock) in purgatory trying to sort out how to save their kids.

Deloris and Alice join forces to save their kids and takedown Edith for all the pain she has caused to both of their families, it was beautiful and poetic. I also liked that they left things kind of open with what happens to everyone and how life would go on after the town came face to face with real monsters, human and magical and won.

FINAL THOUGHTS: So much to unpack here, I’m not sure where to start. This finale was an emotional roller coaster filled with revelations, closure, understandings, and love.  While this episode wrapped things up nicely, overall it was a consistent slow burn that really found its stride around episode five when the secrets started falling out of the Allen closet and didn’t stop until the final frame in the Presidio dungeon with an eerie feeling reunion of sorts. After episode five, the episodes work pretty well as stand-alone episodes but, I would suggest binge-watching all the way to the end because when everything is said and done it comes off as a really good mini-movie and a great way to spend a rainy, or lazy, afternoon. 

SIDE NOTE: I also really liked the thumping in the house signaling that Grandpa Samuel was working on something even bigger in his mad scientist lab and I am hungry for season two!

BEST LINE(s): 

“Do you think I want to hang out with you?” – Omari to Fred in the ghost realm, explaining what he needs to do.

BEST MOMENT: Three-way tie for sure!

Gina giving Moshe the nod in the car before he attacks the Presidio agent by his car window and she shoots the two on her side of the car. BADASS!

Phillip going full quarterback baddie to help Geoff escape to rescue Viv and save their friends.

To the townspeople jumping the Presidio soldiers and taking back the mansion.

EPISODE’S MVP: This finale is all about the ladies, kind of like the end of X-Men Apocalypse where all the women join forces and defeat him. And, while Alice coming to her senses and selflessly doing the right thing and joining forces  Delores to save their kids and avenge their husbands and Cat giving Viv a pep talk and being ride or die to save the town. But, the MVP was  Gina, the sheriff, is the definition of a badass! She checks herself out of the hospital, calls bullshit on Presidio being the FBI, heads to the carnival, meets Moshe, doesn’t freak out when he vamps in front of her and heads out to take her town back! I’m not saying she’s a superhero but, I am saying someone should get her a cape.

Overall: 9.8 

We finally find out what happened to Seth, Fred’s brother, and he comes face to face with the man who killed him, a “monster” named Moshe who teams up with him and Deloris to find the kids and kill the warlock. Margaret is “rescued” by a Presidio strike team led by Fred’s mistress and the twins find themselves being treated way too kindly by the warlock Alice who is trying to turn them on their parents and explain to them who & what they really are.

WHAT WORKED: For a show set in the supernatural most of the interactions seem realistic and genuine. Each character has a motive and a mission statement that runs in line with who they are and in this episode the storylines and teams are pretty much laid out and make sense. The parents seem to be switching sides after coming to the realization of what Presidio really is, plus meeting Moshe made it so they are seeing that maybe the “monsters” aren’t the only monsters in this situation. I like that this revelation didn’t come without resistance nor was it covered in cliches, it wasn’t an I was racist until I met… moment but, more of a let’s work together for a mutual good and we can sort it out later and then they learn to trust each other along the way.

WTF: Presidio has been running a monster Auschwitz in Ithaca and Seth was a whole serial killer who had it coming!

BEST LINE(s): 

When Fred comes face to safe with the “monster” who killed his brother in that bathroom in New York, in the woods after both of their teams were destroyed by Alice, and Moshe explains his side of the story:

“Why didn’t you kill me?” – Fred

“I’m not a monster” – Moshe

“Neither am I!” – Fred

BEST MOMENT: Wonder Twins said WHAT! In the woods, while Viv and Geoff try and make sense of all of the things that Alice told them before she let them go, they get ambushed by a team of Presidio agents who attempt to detain them. At first, they stay calm and try to reason with their wood be captors but, when it becomes obvious that they aren’t listening to these minority kids in the woods and are going to use force and take them in and not home, they lock eyes and send out an electric wave that disables the men and it is awesome!

EPISODE’S MVP: Alice. Hear me out, yes I know she’s full-on evil and she sets her phasers to kill when she could just set them to stun but, since Presidio is all about indiscriminate monster murder, experimentation and holding them captive can you blame her? She’s kind of the “monster” Magneto to Moshe’s Professor X. So, yeah she likes to get a little dirty with her handiwork but, she’s tired of running and hiding and being mistreated and she’s fighting back. Can you blame her?

Overall: 8.2 

Deloris gets saved from Alice by a rogue group of Camo’d up, armed to the teeth, mixed species monsters and warns Fred while she tries to keep Sheriff Gina alive. Viv is keeping her maybe monster/ cyborg protector “safe” by hiding him in her closet while Phillip and Geoff get closer.

WHAT WORKED: The story as a whole. The writing is still solid and now they’ve done away with the useless side stories and are focusing on the meat of the main characters, it’s easy to fall all in. The framing, the color palette, the direction, and the acting are all pretty good and in this episode, the show has really hit its stride.

WHAT WAS OFF: It didn’t detract from the story, it wasn’t even that it was inconceivable or wrong but, it kind of threw me off that with all of the emotional maturity that Geoff showed with Phillip, that he got upset that his newly out boyfriend wanted to wait two weeks until after his dad’s election was over.  It was kind of disconcerting to see him return back to his old spoiled , aloof ways.

BEST LINE(s): 

When Viv is trying to hide her new “friend” from her grandma and thinks she’s going to get caught –

“Are you hiding a boy in your closet” – Grandma

“No, that’s more Geoff’s style.” – Viv

Not only was this cool because she really was hiding a maybe boy in her closet but, by saying it’s more “Geoff’s style” shows how accepted he is and I love families that love and accept their kids as they are.

BEST MOMENT: When Viv follows the mystery may be a monster, definitely cyborg, to Seth’s room and he lets her know through his LED eye that there are some weird cult drawings under the rug and that this is where he came from. Her shift in thinking about her parents and grandparents gives her a bit of an aha moment and, she seems to start to grow.

EPISODE’S MVP: Deloris. I’ve always been a fan of Tamara Taylor but, in Open Your Eyes she showed everyone else why they should be. Deloris really went through it in this episode, from having to save her friends life, in a way that was sort of similar to the way her dad died (down to the uniform), to having to steal evidence from her dying friends locked office, to her coming home to find her mother -in- law dying on the floor of her home, a swat team with their throats slit and her kids missing it was too much. So, when she lets out that broken scream as the scream faded to black and the credits rolled, my heart went with her. The sheer emotion and realistic nature of her performance and the writing and direction of it all made Deloris, no contest, the MVP

Overall: 9 

Fred enlists his mothers’ help in figuring out what was stolen from his dad’s archive vault, Viv and Geoff are giving their parents the silent treatment and feeling kind of lucky that their secret house party got a free pass because their parents secret trumped theirs. Viv gets suspended from school for defending herself against her would-be rapist and he threatens to press charges if she doesn’t apologize. Deloris’ old friend Gina, the town sheriff, has a lead on the murders of the butcher and the vamps that link back to her and Fred and a string of unsolved murders all over the world.

WHAT WORKED: Viv’s desire to humanize the monsters is a nice touch and it poses a very valid grey area question.  Geoff choosing not to out Phillip but, asking him to accept who he is so it doesn’t end up killing him, or making him want to kill himself, granted that doesn’t always work and the odds of Phillip coming out in their small town is unlikely, it was nice to hear on TV.

WHAT DIDN’T: There wasn’t much to find fault within this episode, it was pretty well written, beautifully acted, and I can’t think of one flaw.

BEST LINE (s):

“I broke a nail” – Fred’s Mom as she gives him the finger, she’s sassy and I love it.

BEST MOMENT: Viv in the principals’ office for the win. It was the realness of the audacity of her would-be rapist blaming her for him getting hurt and the sheer hubris of him gaslighting her and saying, “she had problems” and he has no idea why she would ever attack him. Watching Viv’s reaction to being called into the principal’s office and accused of assaulting her almost rapist was realistic and caused me to have a visceral reaction and uneasiness towards the whole situation. There’s a myriad of ways thing could have played out in this scene and not every woman reacts the same way so, her reaction was super valid and plausible and shuts down this antiquated idea that the way to tell if a woman has been assaulted, or almost assaulted, is how she reacts afterward. It was interesting to see these events play out in a show where the end didn’t come off as being exploitative or put in for shock value.

EPISODE’S MVP: Viv all the way! From her being sick of all the lies, to having to deal with a gaslighting rapist and an unconcerned principal to trying to save her monster rescuer from her dad’s traps, Viv was put through it in this episode and she came through like a champ. Her reactions were realistic and really helped to push this story along and I look forward to seeing how her character progresses throughout the rest of the season especially with the smooth, thoughtful, reflective, badass way that Taveeta Szymanowicz portrays her.

Overall: 9.0

While mom and dad are away on a mission, Viv and Geoff have the run of the house and Geoff, in an attempt to win friends, influence people, and rebuild his rep, leads him to throw a party at the mansion. Deloris and Fred head to a Presidio outpost where everyone is on high alert because something wicked is coming and the kids try to ignore their visions and sixth sense.

WHAT WORKED: The reveals, the writing (except for Madison, see below), the acting, the visuals, it was all pretty damn good. Each episode seems to build upon the last almost flawlessly and when it comes to the family they are well drawn out and feel like real people in an unreal situation, which makes them interesting and draws you into their world.

The realistic portrayal of the almost rape scene with Viv (except for the “cyborg” rescue) it showcased a “nice guy” who wasn’t bad looking and the girl who went off with him. Before they went out Cat shared that he had been with half of the girls in their class and she suggests that she, Viv, should be smarter than that, which shows the stigma that the onus is on the girl and even the usually levelheaded Cat could fall prey to society’s blinders when it comes to the sexuality of women. Cat stopped short of slut-shaming the other girls but, her mentioning that the guy had a rep didn’t take into account that maybe not all of those girls wanted to be with him and might have been too afraid to say anything about it. In that small scene on the grass we see that rape isn’t about sex or need or desire, it is about power and when Viv rejected him he sought out to show her a lesson and it didn’t matter what she was wearing, doing, saying (besides NO and STOP) he was going to put her in her place. I commend the writers for exploring these nuances, not letting us have to see Viv or anyone, get raped to push forward the storyline and for being careful and respectful of the subject matter.

WHAT DIDN’T: I am not understanding why Madison is featured in every episode, what her issue is with Viv and why she is taking up any screen time. Her character isn’t central to the story and it doesn’t move the series onward so, having her show up and spend two minutes talking smack about Viv and then going off into the moonlight is becoming repetitive and annoying. We get it, she’s a “queen bee” , “bitch” type but, we kind of got that memo in the first episode and there have been no new developments or even the hint of a character arc. At least with Phillip there was method and depth to his madness and jerkiness and layers were revealed in every episode that made us care about him but, with Madison, she’s just coming off as a stereotypical, cliched mean girl which would be fine is she was entertaining (think: Regina George or Cheryl Blossom) but, she isn’t so, I find the 2-5 minutes devoted to her antics each episode a waste of screen time.

BEST MOMENT: When the October Faction secret comes out of the bag and Viv and Geoff catch their parents red-handed when an alarm goes off and security protocols are engaged while their parents are in the middle of scolding them after catching them cleaning up after a party and lecturing the kids about trust.

EPISODE’S MVP: Geoff. For one of the most real, most heartfelt “it gets better” speeches on the rooftop to save his nemesis, the closeted Phillip, from jumping.  Gabriel Darku gave one hell of a performance and, I’ve been sleeping on his talent, this episode showcased not only his ability but the depth of his character.

Overall: 8.1