Summary
A funny and quietly rather bleak finale takes the passengers of the Avenue 5 out of the frying pan and into several different fires.
There is so much going wrong for the crew and passengers in the Avenue 5 Season 2 finale that recapping it feels like being Ryan wheeling back and forth between conversations, trying to avoid several crises at once. But that’s this show all over, isn’t it? It isn’t so much out of the frying pan and into the fire as out of several items of cookware and into multiple different fires.
So, you’ll recall that in Episode 7, the ship was split in two in an effort to fool the missile from TOTOPOTUS (The Office of the Other President of the United States) into destroying only one half. However, a last-minute charge from Judd resulted in considerable confusion on all sides. The ridiculous system that had been used to organize the passengers fell apart instantly, and it was suddenly unclear, thanks to how many of them had literally jumped ship, which half of the vessel the missile would target.
This separated Ryan and Elena, Doug and Mia, and several other key personnel. The eels are on one side, the engines and toilet rolls are on another, and nobody is in charge. As has been a consistent theme throughout this season, part of the problem is that many people want to be in charge, which means nothing actually gets done. This is especially pressing now, as the missile is set to strike in just under an hour.
As usual, a potential solution presents itself out of nowhere. Spike reveals that he’s dying of a heart condition and is willing to sacrifice himself to save everyone by piloting an escape pod straight into the missile. “This is joyous news!” Ryan says. “Not for you, obviously. But joyous! And unbelievably sad…”
Joyous or not, Ryan keeps this news to himself and continues to negotiate with Judd, who has taken control of the other half of the ship, for eels and with Lucas for safe passage home in exchange for an abundance of planet-saving lithium.
At around the same time, Elena decides she wants to marry both Ryan and Charles, much to the confusion of the former and the delight of the latter. Even that goes wrong, though, since Rav has decided that if they completely cut the power on their side of the ship, the missile will target the other half.
In a split second, Ryan seems to have married both Charles and Karen, but not Elena.
Where this episode gets especially bleak, I think, is when Spike realizes that he isn’t actually dying thanks to the escape pod’s medical scanner, and Ryan and Billie try to convince him to sacrifice himself anyway. Ironically, his lack of heroics ends up saving the day, sending the missile veering neatly between both halves of the ship… and directly into the lithium-rich asteroid that was Ryan’s bargaining chip for safe passage home.
Since Ryan had already promised Lucas the precious mineral, this opens up a whole new can of worms for next season.
In one of the final scenes, we see Ryan and Billie using a perspective trick to create the impression that they have a giant chunk of lithium to exchange when, in reality, they’ve got a palm-sized chunk that’ll power an electric scooter for scarcely 20 minutes.
