Mar 17, 2009 03:30 PM
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Tue Feb 9
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Somehow I'd gotten it into my head that last night's Kyle XY finale would answer our questions and wrap up most of the show's loose ends. Instead, it just... ended. Spoilers and ranting below.
I don't blame the show's producers, who hadn't planned for this to be a series finale, but wow, that was an unsatisfying conclusion. I literally kept rewinding and fast-forwarding to make sure there wasn't another minute or two of episode, after Cassidy pulled the "Luke, I am your father... Oh wait, I mean brother" speech.
There wasn't just the out-of-nowhere question of, "How does Kyle deal with being related to this guy, who's been destroying his life?" Which I honestly wouldn't lose any sleep over anyway. It's not like Cassidy and Kyle are brothers in any meaningful sense, and it seems like everybody at Latnok is related to everybody else. There was the larger issue: can Kyle ever really be free of Latnok?
Even though Kyle dealt a serious blow to Latnok's science-maniacs in this episode, it still felt like a bit of a downer. Because Cassidy's right: Latnok will never stop trying to control Kyle, and they can get a lot more aggressive if they need to. So far, all Latnok's done is manipulate Kyle a bit, when Kyle wears his heart on his sleeve and proclaims loudly that the Tragers are the most important people in his life. Kyle is practically announcing, "Threaten the Tragers and I'll do anything you want."
And Latnok was at its absolute creepiest last night, with the plan to clone 100 Kyles and (possibly) turn them into biological computers, without any free will or life of their own. It sounded, reading between the lines, like a "Spock's Brain" scenario, only more dehumanizing and evil. With 100 Kyles hooked up, you could rule the world.
Supposedly, Kyle dealt with that particular threat last night, although I have my doubts. What kind of mega-scientific organization has an incredibly valuable formula, and only makes one offsite backup? I couldn't help jeering at the screen a bit when that plot point was introduced. (There's also the issue, which nobody ever raises, that this formula is a magic cure-all which brought back Nicole Trager from the brink of death. Kyle is sentencing millions of ordinary people to death by destroying it. And of course, if Latnok really wanted to rule the world, they could just sell the formula and become rich enough to buy countries.)
Some kind of resolution to the Kyle/Latnok issue would have been nice... even if it was just Kyle realizing that he's going to be fighting Latnok for the rest of his life.
One thing I did like was Mama Trager bringing up the fact that Kyle has gotten pretty ruthless and crafty all of a sudden, in a drastic (but mostly believable) shift from his old doe-eyed innocent act. He's basically doing what he has to do, since he's up against some pretty evil people, but it doesn't change her point. (Even if she did simper a bit too much in delivering her warning.) I'm all in favor of the show realizing that "coming of age" doesn't always mean "learning toasty life lessons and becoming a better person." Sometimes — often — becoming an adult means getting your hands dirtier.
The other thing I really loved about this finale — and wished I'd be seeing more of, in the fourth season we're not going to get — was the fact that both of "Kyle's girlfriends" really stepped up. Okay, so Jessi is still psycho and clingy, and has never seen a boundary she doesn't want to steamroller over. But at least this time around, Jessi got to do actual science, and prove she was as smart as Kyle, even though he's the golden boy. It was Jessi who found the warehouse where they were keeping the cryo-chambers, and who figured out how to use staph bacteria to kill the magic formula. Meanwhile, Amanda, who hasn't always been my favorite character, got to show some backbone and stand up to Jessi. Plus, she decked Nate. Woo!
Another character who got to prove how awesome he was was poor old Declan, who's been enjoying a bit of a renassance in the past few episodes, but especially last night's. Helping Kyle break into Cassidy's apartment, hacking into Andy's GPS as she's traveling across the country. I would actually totally watch a Declan spinoff. Oh, and speaking of Andy, the Josh/Andy closure was not particularly great in this episode, but I guess they got their real send off last week, with the cheesy Star Trek thing and the sleepover. The only character I really felt was shortchanged, by this episode as well as a lot of the recent episodes, was poor old Lori. We needed at least ten more scenes of her and cute DJ boy making out and processing.
All in all, I was frustrated even though this was a pretty solid episode of Kyle XY. What resolution we got felt somewhat forced, and the cliffhanger ending just felt a bit like dirty pool. Let's hope ABC Family comes to its senses and greenlights a miniseries or TV movie to address some of our pressing Kyle XY resolution needs.
What did you think?
Send an email to Charlie Jane Anders, the author of this post, at charliejane@io9.com.
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