*A few spoilers.*
As Rick points out in dismay, the season finales tend to get a little wild on this show, and this year is no exception. On the whole, it works for me, and it manages to resolve most of the season arcs in a way that’s satisfying—and without the finale “hook” getting in the way too much.
At the end of episode 9, all the main kids were distraught. Andrew worried his parents were going to get a divorce. Nick was concerned about Elliott absorbing Seamus’s toxic attitudes. Jessi was jealous of her baby half-sibling. Missy believed the reason Elijah didn’t want to kiss her anymore is because he thought she was ugly. And Jay wished he could be different after Matthew Moulin Rouged him (a.k.a. broke his heart to “save” him.) In the finale, all of them wake up in someone else’s body, and like any Freaky Friday situation, they have to learn an important lesson if they want to switch back.
I won’t spoil who all the body swaps are—most are pretty expected, although a couple surprised me in a fun way. We get classic scenarios, like 1) a kid in their parent’s body at work, frantically trying to figure out what their parent actually does, 2) a kid struggling to convince someone who they really are, and 3) a kid needing to have a heartfelt conversation while pretending they’re the other person. There are some good touches, like one kid only half swapping—the other person stays in their own body, so the kid can control just one side of the body, which leads to some great gestural sight gags.
One body swap I will spoil is Nick’s…because he wakes up in Seamus’s body! This means Peter Capaldi spends most of the episode playing Nick-in-Seamus, and he does a nice job of making his lines sound like Nick while still using Seamus’s voice. I like when Nick first wakes up, exclaiming, “Wait, why is my voice so weird? Why do I feel my skeleton?”
In terms of Matthew/Jay plots, I’m having season 2 flashbacks. Remember that one, when Matthew’s plot intertwined with Jay’s and then became all about him, to the point that Matthew was dropped out of it entirely? That’s pretty much what happens here. Episode 9 was a great one for Matthew, focused very much on his fears and feelings, but when he didn’t make a wish along with the rest of the kids at the end, I figured he wouldn’t be getting in on the main action in the finale.
And he doesn’t. He doesn’t even get as much as Elijah, who’s trying to have an important talk with Missy, unaware that she’s body-swapped. Matthew’s only in one scene and doesn’t really have any direction interaction with Jay. He notices something hinky with another body-swapped character, but that’s it, and we never circle back around to his and Jay’s relationship. A very Andrew Rannells-lite way to end the season, which is a bummer.
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