What does the season finale have? Well, what doesn’t it have? A secret city hidden in the Wayne, the culmination of a prophecy, mechanical pigeons, zig-zag swords, an MMORPG, and everything else I’ve come to expect from Welcome to the Wayne. Also, you’ve gotta love a show that includes the line, “I just tesseracted from Poughkeepsie!” As I predicted, the finale closes one chapter while leaving room for another.
The spy’s season-long plan finally seems to be in reach, and Andrei is the last piece she needs of the puzzle. It’s up to Team Timbers, along with their newest members, to save both their friend and the Wayne, but not in the way they’re expecting.
This episode ties together nearly every mystery from the season and puts them all into one big culminating finale. We’ve got Andrei and the mystery surrounding him. We’ve got WPs and the rainbow gas. We’ve got a more recent mystery the expanded team of kids has been investigating (mostly in the Andrei-less episodes) related to the Lewis Carroll poem “Jabberwocky” – it’s not really a party until you throw in references to a poem written at least 100 years ago. We’ve got the return to a particular small mystery from one of the first episodes of the show that even makes Ollie comment, “Bet you didn’t expect this to come back!” Basically, it all comes to a head, but like I said, there are still some new threads to pull at, new questions that have yet to be answered – good thing they got that season renewal after all!
Andrei is back after being absent for another few episodes. Technically, he does show up briefly in episode 19, but it’s a wordless cliffhanger leading into the finale, meaning Andrei the character appears in animation but not Andrew Rannells the actor. Here, though, we get both. Not as much of him as I would’ve liked – while he’s very much the focus of the episode, with multiple groups fighting over him, most of the action happens around him without him taking much of an active role in it. He’s maybe a few steps above damsel status.
Still, we’re not left without a bit of good stuff. For whatever reason, it kills me that, when Saraline tells Andrei (suffering under the effects of rainbow gas) to go home and eat something, he replies, “All I have are three gallons of Uncle Tahir’s Artisanal Ice Cream” – it’s so delightfully random and specific. Also, the denouement of the episode features a different side of Andrei, and I’m impressed with how completely different Rannells sounds. I mean, it’s still recognizably his voice, but with just a little modulation, Andrei’s bearing totally changes and you get a sense of just how big an impact his amnesia has had on him. It’s a small moment, but it’s a neat one.
By now, season 2 has aired, and Andrei isn’t in it, which makes sure. While there’s certainly room left open here for a potential return, his plot is sufficiently resolved in the finale. And so, farewell, Welcome to the Wayne!
Recommend?
In General – Yeah. It’s weird and inventive with a terrific sense of adventure and mystery. When I picked up these initially-unaired episodes, I watched the entire season, not just Rannells’s episodes, and the whole show is great.
Andrew Rannells – I would. Andrei is a fun, intriguing character, and I like what Rannells does with him. Plus, he fits in so well with the overall sensibility of the series.
Warnings
Violence, scary moments, some gross-out humor, and thematic elements.
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