Summary
“Peppers” is a decent episode with an actual forward momentum, but it’s too little too late with only one episode remaining.
“The best episode of Y: The Last Man so far” is a pretty backhanded compliment, all things considered, but “Peppers” is close to achieving that title, which I suppose means it isn’t quite as bad as some of the others have been. Things happen in it, at least, some of them tolerable developments not entirely triggered by the proud stupidity of the core cast. There’s the pretty brutal death of a key figure to consider. Yorick was moderately tolerable some of the time. I mean, this is faint praise, but what can you do?
Y: The Last Man season 1, episode 9 recap
Again, though, at least it feels like something is happening – in the Pentagon and among the Daughters of the Amazon, at least, if not necessarily at Marrisville, where 355 continues to recover from a head injury, Dr Mann gets laid, and Yorick mansplains prison to the former convicts. I genuinely laughed at the “He whispered ‘racism’” line; it’s the right amount of woke patter that I’m willing to tolerate since it seemed to be poking fun at the earnest, well-intentioned kind of white do-gooderism instead of being all preachy about it. Sometimes this show’s social commentary can unintentionally feel a bit like something Roxanne would say, and the point of her loaded, oversimplified “all men are evil” rhetoric is supposed to be that it’s ridiculous and she’s a fanatic.
Speaking of Roxanne, I just don’t understand why anyone follows her at this point. Having been displaced from the big box store last week, they’re on the lookout for new territory to call home, which Roxanne has interpreted as simply ransacking places. I’m getting a bit peeved by such a big deal being made of how she recruited domestic violence survivors only for all of them to be treated exclusively as simpering acolytes without anyone even questioning the logic of destroying food and supplies during their hostile takeover. The only dissenting voice is Nora’s, and Roxanne doesn’t even seem to take her seriously. You’d think Hero would fulfil more of a function here, but no, not really; she mostly just ambles around being totally unimportant to the plot.
What this is all in service of, really, is building anticipation for the fact that the Daughters of the Amazon are on their way to Marrisville, where Yorick and 355 are dancing to “No Scrubs” by TLC, which is a terribly ironic song for Yorick to be dancing to, but whatever. I really didn’t mind all this stuff – it’s easily the least annoying Yorick has been – but it’s hard not to see it as anything other than a bit of time-wasting while the rest of the pieces get shuffled into place elsewhere. There’s a bit of business regarding 355’s past, but the takeaway, really, is that she’s distancing herself from it. She’s already going off-mission anyway, but the question of who she’s going to actually take orders from if not the Culper Ring or Jennifer personally is one that doesn’t have a particularly easy answer.
Most of the significant action in “Peppers” occurs in the Pentagon, and I’m okay with that. I know some have complained about all this stuff, but it always seemed like the most compelling drama to me, or at least the most sensible. There are two major events there this week. The first is when Regina, Kimberly, and General Reed finally try to usurp Jennifer by revealing what they know about Yorick’s survival and accusing her of personally ordering 355 to kill the pilots. The second is Beth and her anarchist friends storming the Pentagon itself, though being understandably confused in their attempts to overthrow the government since nobody seems completely sure who the sitting president is.
Either way, though, Regina ends up dead, the centre of American political power ends up overrun, and news of Yorick’s survival gets out. We’re heading, inexorably, towards all the show’s different storylines finally linking up; the Daughters of the Amazon heading towards Marrisville, and the shenanigans at the Pentagon rushing out to meet them both. With only one episode remaining, though, and the show having already been cancelled, there’s a good chance we’ll never get to see any of this come to fruition. The TV adaptation of Y: The Last Man will be remembered as a misguided and uneven effort that ended before it could really get going. At least the comics are still out there.
You can stream Y: The Last Man season 1, episode 9, “Peppers”, on FX on Hulu.
