Day zero. The team race to find Skinner and discover the truth about Hapna.

Yet more time is spent with The Hundun Project, with Soryu calling Axel out for a final battle on top of the angel on Babylonia Tower. Soryu is revealed to have a mental illness, because of course he does. And yes, Axel was stabbed through the chest two episodes ago and, no, the show doesn’t bother picking up on that at all beside a couple of winces. Instead, a solid third of the last episode of the show is taken up with a fight so perfunctory, a helicopter gunship shows up for no reason other than so Soryu can fire a rocket launcher at it. All of this by itself is rough. By the time the building collapses and an incredibly badly injured Axel surfs the debris to the ground, you realise that it’s something much worse.

This is a story about the world ending and the world is empty. A skyscraper collapses in downtown Babylonia City and the only people we see there are Axel and Soryu. Chris drives right up to them in the wreckage and leaves before the emergency services arrive. Instead of this being an epochal disaster taking place on what may be the last day of human civilisation, it’s empty spectacle witnessed at range. We’ve seen this exact sort of event happen in recent history. We’ve seen the devastation explosions and collapses in urban environments cause. Axel’s clothes aren’t even dirty.

This wild choice is just the first of several. It turns out that the Schipol incident where Skinner was injured and an early version of Hapna was accidentally released killing dozens was also the team’s superhero origin. All five Lazarus members were there that day. All five survived because their genes mutated on the spot. This is an interesting idea, and in fairness one the show has hinted at a few times. We now see that the soldiers in the opening sequence are from the Schipol incident, and every main character has hinted in various ways at an ‘incident’ in their past. But, especially after the Shoryu detour, it feels like a random card draw rather than a plot development. How are they mutated? Why just them? Was it just them? Why did it trigger? Was it Skinner’s idea?

All interesting questions. None answered, because of the show’s final two choices. After a full season of globetrotting and introspection, it turns out Skinner was in Babylonia City, where the team were based, all along. Oh and we’ve actually seen him before, at the homeless camp from the early episodes. There’s some fun irony here to be fair, but the moment they confront Skinner drops so much wind out of the show’s sails. Embittered, dying, heartbroken he asks Axel if the world is worth saving. The translated dialogue has always been a little flat but the dudebro line Axel gives him in response is one of the show’s worst offenders. But Skinner relents and gives them the cure before dying. The cure that is somehow distributed and rushed into production worldwide in the final 24 hours before everyone else dies.

The issue is that the finale keeps telling us we should care instead of showing us why, and it relies on the slick characters and designs to cover how badly it’s paced. The flashy action sequence this episode is ultimately meaningless, cynically staged and feels like high budget padding at the worst time.

And yet.

The actual ending is fantastic. The local cop Axel keeps meeting gets to save the day. The bunker salesman comes out of hiding. The stock market goes back up. We see a banner saying GOODBYE HAPNA, WELCOME PAIN! The world is saved but we’re not entirely sure it should be and that note of ambiguity is smarter and more meaningful than anything else in the 20 minutes before it.

Verdict: Lazarus was almost always good but should have been great. This episode makes so many infuriating choices it almost trips over its feet right at the end. It doesn’t. Just. But if we get the second season, and new arc hinted at here, everything is going to need to be a lot tighter. 5/10

Alasdair Stuart