Defiance Finale Recap: Bon Voyage...?
Syfy’s Defiance on Friday night closed Season 3 with one of the most series finale-est episodes one could imagine, apparently choosing not to hedge any bets about its future.
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The hour picked up where last week left off, with vicious Kindzi planting her purple paws on li’l Lucas Tarr. Stahma did all she could to wrest the child away from the Omec, even offering to be Kindzi’s slave, but to zero effect. Luckily, just as Kindzi began laying her tongue on the tot’s noggin, Datak showed up to drive his jerry-rigged talon through Kindzi’s skull and into the wall. But as even Alak had to remark, “How is she still alive?!”
Later, Yewll laid out for Nolan, Amanda, Irisa et al a plan to ride pods up to the Omec ship and overheat the engines until the vessel explodes. When Datak volunteers to go along (inviting derision from his missus), Amanda figures a psychopath could come in handy.
Amanda however will not be taking the trip, because during a skirmish with a very hungry Omec she gets her Pilates-perfect abs slashed. Irisa goes in her stead, despite some protest from Nolan. Once on board the Omec ship, Yewll has Datak plug her (ouch!) into the computer, while Nolan sets out to sabotage the engines and whatnot. Little did anyone but the good doc know, this will be a one-way trip for her. So before Datak grabs a pod back to the ground, he and Yewll share the closest thing to pleasantries as the frenemies can muster.
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Back on Earth, Stahma and Amanda have words of their own, as the former bandages the latter. After inviting the reminder that Amanda still holds Kenya’s death, among other transgressions, against her, Stahma admits, “I am uncomfortable with the reality that the person I most admire, the woman I respect more than any other, despises me.”
Aboard the ship, Irisa has misgivings about their plan, upon seeing that among the many Omec in sleep chambers are mere kids. Though Datak argued that these young’uns would not think twice about tearing into wee Lucas, Irisa ultimately throws a huge wrench in the works by telling Nolan that she is staying on the ship, to see it and the Omec to safe harbor. To that end, Nolan — who had driven a knife into Kindzi’s cranium, leaving the Omec to tumble into and get shredded by a giant fan blade — asks Yewll if the planned explosion can be averted, and she says yes — but only if they vent the growing excess of energy through the propulsion system, effectively sling-shotting the ship into the galaxy, far from Earth (which, Nolan, reckons, is perhaps the best place for all these Omec to be).
Nolan then throws a curve of his own, by KO’ing Irisa and shipping her back to Earth, but not before father and daughter trade tender I Love Yous. Nolan stays aboard and takes the captain’s chair, with Yewll still plugged into the mainframe, as the vessel warps into the unknown.
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Six weeks later, Irisa narrates her latest journal entry, revealing that the “restored” arch has been named after Nolan, while a montage shows a happy Berlin, Alak and Lucas, and Datak and Stahma. Irisa tells us that Amanda, seen looking forlorn in the mayor’s office, suspects Nolan is dead — though Irisa knows better. And as she notes how her dad, ever since being a lad, wanted to travel into space, the camera zooms us into the cosmos, zigging and zagging, until we see the “captain” happily piloting the Omec ship, far, far, far away.
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