Talon and Luna return to the Outpost with their new ally, much to the surprise of their friends. But with the other Six ‘Gods’ on their way and time running short, they and the rest of the world will have to take all the help they can get.

Bit of an odd one this, if I’m honest. The Outpost has been impressing me for weeks now with decent acting, nice writing and an overall improvement in form. This penultimate episode of not just the season but the whole show feels a little… lacking by comparison.

It doesn’t help that Aster’s main contribution towards fighting off his brothers and sisters and ending their threat seems to be sitting around cross legged meditating a lot and speaking in riddles. It helps even less that he seems to hover between being a sympathetic character and a bit of an arse. Hearing his story of how he fell in love and wanted to protect the world and its people from his siblings is quite touching. Hearing his sneering dismissal of the Kahvi as simple destructive tools who should be left to die, slightly less so.

It also doesn’t help matters that you can see every character being pushed towards a final wrap up. Zed, distraught last episode at the death of Nedra, seems basically over it. Munt and Warlita, who I swear were already a couple back in the last season, move awkwardly towards being an actual couple. Talon makes an uncharacteristically frank declaration of her feelings to Garret. It all feels very much like everything is being put into neat boxes so it can all be finalised, and I can’t shake the feeling that with the show’s traditional aversion to consequences, that many of the characters who have died will suddenly re-appear somehow before the final credits roll.

Between hokey dialogue, stilted exposition and some of the situational dumbness of characters that I was used to (seriously, how does it take so long for Talon and the other Blackbloods to make the connection between themselves and the ‘Gods’?) it really does feel like things are backsliding now as we barrel towards the conclusion of what all of this has been about. It’s not quite as bad as it has been in the past, but this is a weak setup for the final conclusion to the show.

Verdict: Oh dear oh dear, just as everything was going so well, the show returns to its disappointing form. 6/10

Greg D. Smith