Watching this week’s episode of Y: The Last Man was an interesting experience given that FX on Hulu announced the show is not being renewed the day before the latest episode dropped. “Ready, Aim, Fire” was one of the more compelling episodes of the previous handful, but will the final three episodes be enough to give the show hope at a new home?
Last week I was critical of the show’s pacing. After seven episodes it felt like things had stalled and nothing was happening, but Episode 8 breathed some life into the show. Or at the very least it gave the characters stuck at the warehouse an intriguing plot twist.
Y: The Last Man reveals Roxanne’s big secret
“Ready, Aim, Fire” moves back and forth between the past and present, revealing how Roxanne (Missi Pyle) came to power at the big box store. It turns out that she was never a detective. She was a rather meek employee whose male colleagues kept walking all over her. When the event happened she didn’t know what to do, but eventually learned to shoot and made a plan to assume the identity of a detective in her little world. To make her plan work she killed everyone who came to the warehouse and hid the bodies.
Until now, Nora (Marin Ireland) had been on the sidelines at the warehouse, trying to keep out of trouble lest she and her daughter find themselves ousted from Roxanne’s apocalyptic utopia. When she learns that she and her daughter will be kicked out anyway, she decides to set fire to the warehouse, using the previous night’s bonfire as cover.
The next day Nora discovers the state trooper’s car in the river and finds Roxanne’s nametag. She confronts Roxanne and tells her that she used to work in politics. Nora says Roxanne has a weakness and needs to keep the group together even though their home was destroyed. In return for safety for herself and her daughter, she helps Roxanne give a rousing speech to inspire the other women. Very clever, Nora, very clever.
Sam (Eliot Fletcher) realizes that he can’t live at the warehouse anymore with all of the man-hating going on. He is a man and it’s painful to hear all the vitriol. Hero tries to convince him to deal with it, but he leaves in the middle of the night. Roxanne watches him leave and then spins the story to Hero that he’d been planning on leaving for a while. Now Hero is invested in Roxanne’s lies. Sam ends up at a school, where he meets the lovely principal who encourages him to play music and be himself.
“Ready, Aim, Fire” is the first time in a while that the characters did anything that really grabbed my attention. Nora’s power play was brilliant. She doesn’t care that Roxanne lied, and she doesn’t care that she burned down the warehouse. She’s making sure her interests are protected and she’s parlaying her political know-how to get protection. It’s very Washington D.C. of her.
It looks like Roxanne is being set up as a kind of supervillain…but who is she fighting? The men are dead. It’s a compelling story to be sure, but I’m not clear what her game is. Nora, on the other hand, is as transparent as can be. She’ll do anything to achieve her goals even if it means advising a leader she knows is lying; that’s politics for you. Roxanne’s intentions are unclear at this point, but what we do know is that the group is collectively known as the Amazons.
Y: The Last Man feels aimless
With two episodes left in the season I’m hoping that the action really starts to pick up. Episode 8 was intriguing, but it remains to be seen how the warehouse story will eventually connect to the bigger story, if at all. (I have to think that having Hero at the warehouse means something…)
The team behind Y: The Last Man were shocked by the cancellation, especially with what they’re saying are the best three episodes of the season ahead of them. Now that there are two episodes left I’m wondering what’s coming and if it’s enough to have another network pick up the show so that the story can continue.
The problem, as I see it, is I’m not exactly sure where the story is going. It’s been stuck in the mud for a few weeks now. Episode 8 gave the series a bit of a push, but was it enough to give it any new momentum?
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