Julien Neaves, Caribbean Head Writer
All journeys must come to an end. And this is also true for the journey of Prince Vaser Claw in his titular Trinidad and Tobago Sci Fi/superhero webseries. Well, at least for now. With a galaxy-sized SPOILER ALERT let’s breakdown the fourth and final episode, “Reckoning.”
So we pick up right where the previous episode left off, as alien hero Vaser (Jumael James), his love Princess Lura (Vanessa Seunal), and goofy lost human Keith (Kendall Arneaud) have arrived at Condor, the reported location of Excalibur (Adrian Sammy from Code R.E.D.D.), the man who killed Vaser’s parents when he was a child. And the episode starts off strongly and not so strongly. On the strong side we have the shocking revelation that Keith is actually a turncoat working for Excalibur. I just thought he was an incompetent clown; I didn’t know he was a traitor. What a twist! Not so strongly is the look of Condor. After building up this location for the entire series when we get there it’s a place that looks very much the random old building in Trinidad that it is. Now we understand the GT team isn’t working with a Hollywood-level budget, but I think more effort could have been put into giving a place more visually dissimilar from what we had seen before.
Back to the positives, Excalibur was a decent enough big bad, though at some points his voice dropped and I couldn’t understand clearly what he was saying. The flashback with him offing Vaser’s parents, though, was one of the highlights of the finale. And the climactic battle with Vaser delivered some of the best action of the series. From V bursting out of the cool-looking freeze trap (I don’t know what’s it’s called, but I liked it), to transforming into his butt-kicking royal wear, to displaying his powers, to beating the crap out of Excalibur, this was a fantastic showcase for our hero. We have the revelation that the villain was merely a pawn of the Chancellor and Lallane’s presumed-dead ex-general father, but we knew the Chancellor was shady before so not exactly a major twist.
And speaking of Lallane, where the heck was she this episode? Her subplot the past three episodes was easily the most lacking aspect of the series, and then it doesn’t even have a proper ending. Why not have her learn that her father is alive or even that the training was a plot by the ex-general? But nothing, nada. The number you have dialed is not in service.
I also found we could have had Lura do a bit more than be a damsel in distress and smooch partner for Vaser. Yes, Keith rescuing her went some way in smoothing things over with Vaser (though he did put her in it in the trap in the first place), but she could have had a little action scene and helped out her lover in some way. Back to the positives, Charli Griffith is her usual great self as Queen Lou-cinda and her announcing to the galaxy the Chancellor and the ex-general does give us some fun visual effects shots that help to expand this world. And taking things full circle from the first episode the post-credits focuses on pyrokinetic Infrenaa (Akeima Gibson) and gun-toting Tamia (Ambika Boodhu). I enjoyed their introduction so I am looking forward to the further adventures of these killer ladies.
In the end (resist the urge to breaking into Linkin Park Editor Jules, resist it!), Reckoning delivers a mostly satisfying end. And the series has done its job to get fans invested in seeing more of this hero, these characters and this alien world. Love live Prince Vaser.
Score: 6 out of 10
Julien “Editor Jules” Neaves is a TARDIS-flying, Force-using Trekkie whose bedroom stories were by Freddy Krueger, learned to be a superhero from Marvel, but dreams of being Batman. I love promoting Caribbean film (Cariwood), creating board games and I am an aspiring author. I say things like “12 flavours of awesome sauce”. Read more.
You can watch or rewatch the finale for yourself by clicking here. And you can catch my reviews of the previous three episodes below:
