Look, Kaos is a big-budget Netflix series with a very good cast, so the chances of the ending actually being an ending and not an obvious leg-up for a second season were virtually nil. But I, for one, hope to see the raucous retelling of Greek myth again sooner rather than later, since Episode 8 does such a good job of sticking the landing that the potential for the story going forward is limited only by the wardrobe department’s ability to provide Jeff Goldblum with new tracksuits.
So, was the prophecy fulfilled? Did our main characters unseat the Gods and set about building the world anew? Let’s break it all down.
Zeus Finally Goes Postal
Zeus has spent the entirety of Kaos fretting about a prophecy coming to pass. With Minos having failed to defy his own fate in Episode 7, in the finale Zeus returns to an idea he had earlier in the season and decides to kill the Fates. In so doing he also discovers his watch, revealing that Dionysus had swiped it way back in Episode 1, offered it up to the Fates in Episode 2, and given his father a fake replacement in Episode 4.
From this point on Zeus goes legitimately postal, which is saying something when he already barbecued his brother Hades with lightning in Episode 6. He turns up at a family meeting called by Hera and attended by Persephone, Dionysus, and Poseidon, and starts laying down the law.
For one thing, he’s keeping the Meander water on a strict ration, since he reckons the family has been taking their immortality for granted. He’s also taking complete control of the Earth, and to make the point clear he burns Hera’s bees and stabs Dennis, Orpheus’s cat that Dionysus has been looking after. Poseidon tries to turn the tables by confessing his affair with Hera, but she’s so frightened of Zeus that she denies it.
Kaos Ends With Prometheus Taking Control
Despite all this, Zeus ultimately loses his place at the head of the table thanks to Prometheus, who is finally freed by the Fates – who aren’t dead, it seems, but don’t appear again in a corporeal form – and left to roam Mount Olympus. By the time Zeus, confused by the disappearance of his “best friend” from his usual spot on the cliffside, gets home, Prometheus is sitting on his throne.
Zeus tries to flick Prometheus away as he normally does, but no such luck. His powers are on the fritz, his finger is bleeding, and the Meander collapses into the fountain. At the end of Kaos, it seems very much like Zeus has lost his powers and is at the mercy of Prometheus.
It probably won’t be that easy, though.
Riddy Is A Prophet
Riddy’s fate in the finale is quite low-key. After emerging with Orpheus from the Underworld, they discover that The Cave is gone. But Riddy has also realized her true feelings for Caeneus, and Orpheus has realized them too. Riddy is forced to tearfully confess that on the day she died, she was planning to leave Orpheus.
Despite pointing out the irony that while he was defying all the odds and the natural laws of the universe to pluck her from the Underworld through the weaponized force of his love for her Riddy was busy falling in love with someone else, Orpheus takes all this quite well. After an emotional hug the two part ways, and shortly after Riddy runs into Cassandra again.
At the start of the season, Cassandra’s soothsaying was inadvertently what got Riddy killed. But she tells Riddy now that she is also a prophet, like her, and that she must track down Ari in order to set the living free. It’s Caeneus’s job to do the same for the dead.
Kaos | Image via Netflix
Caeneus Can Renew Souls
Speaking of Caeneus, he’s finally reunited with his mother down in the Underworld. But this turns out to be a problem since she’s determined to pass through the Frame with him, not buying into her son’s claims that the whole thing’s a con and they’ll just end up in the Nothing.
Caeneus tries to prevent his mother from passing through the Frame and, in the process, she drags him through with her, finding herself petrified in stone. But as it turns out, Caeneus has the ability to undo this fate. He can renew human souls, which means he can reverse the harvesting process that has filled the cavern with the unsuspecting dead. His true power is finally revealed.
Ari Makes A Deal With The Trojans
After fulfilling her father’s prophecy in the penultimate episode, Ari drags the corpse of her brother Glaucus out of the labyrinth and into the presidential palace, where she presents him to her mother and explains what happened. When she confesses to having killed Minos, her mother, holding Glaucus’s dead body, says, simply, “Good.”
This leaves Ari as the President of Krete, and her first action is to offer her services to the Trojans. If she helps them to rebuild Troy, then they’ll help her take down Olympus. The women shake on it.
Seems fair to me.
