By: Alex Tilton

I need to begin this review by defining a term. TVtropes. org defines ‘hand wave’ as “any explanation involving the backstory, a retcon or a use of [plot device], which is noteworthy for its lack of detail or focus.”

I’m going to be using this term a lot because UA: S3 does this constantly. Some spoilers ahead.

For the uninitiated, UA is a Netflix series based on a series of comic books. It concerns the Hargreevs family, a group of biologically unrelated people who were all born on the same day to women who weren’t pregnant the day before and have superpowers. They were raised by an eccentric billionaire named Reginald Hargreevs, who was not at all nice and exclusively concerned himself with making them learn how to use their powers. Consequently, they hate each other, they’re dysfunctional, and it takes extreme circumstances to bring them together.

Season 1 consisted of, very briefly, six adults trying to reconcile their horrible childhood while unraveling a plot to destroy the world. Or, more accurately, a plot to allow the world to be destroyed. Season 2 dealt with the aftermath of the failed attempt to prevent the destruction of the world in season 1. Both seasons involve a lot of time travel and split their focus about 60-40 in favor of character development over action. This is a good thing. It means we actually care about the people we’re watching and the action now has consequences.

Season 3 begins with the Hargreevs siblings going back to their own time to discover that things have changed. And although it’s very well done overall, we see the same problems we saw before with the first two seasons. The drama is a little convoluted and hard to believe. If the world is demonstrably about to end, any sane person would put aside their differences and deal with it. But, somehow, these people just can’t quite manage that and extreme measures have to be taken to unite them. And, again, we see that the previous attempt to save the world has created the next threat to the world.

This isn’t a problem in and of itself because the characters and the plot take the time to deal with this. There’s an explicit conversation about whether or not it would be better to let the universe end this time rather than try to fix it again since two out of two times previously their efforts have made things worse. However, it becomes a problem later when they do try to solve it.

More or less out of nowhere, the solution to the crisis is made known. It has been hinted at across the series, but (and this is critical) at no point is the audience given a clue as to why this solution will work. And it turns out that this is because there isn’t a clue to give. The Hargreevs go on a mission to find a literal ‘reset the universe’ device. But it’s never connected with what’s happening. It’s built up so that the reveal isn’t completely out of nowhere, but it is completely unconnected with the crisis.

Ok, fine. This can still work because, after all, the crisis is just an excuse for the family drama to play out against an interesting background. But the solution needs to be connected to the problem somehow, not just something that incidentally exists alongside it. And then the technical aspects of it don’t make any sense either. The Hargreeve siblings themselves are, coincidentally, the keys to making this universe reset machine work. How handy! But why? That would make sense if this reset machine were in some way connected to the crisis that it caused, but since it isn’t then it doesn’t. And it’s driving me insane. The first two seasons paid a lot of attention to detail. The relationship between the crisis and its solution made sense. This time it doesn’t even try. The acting, the production value, and the character chemistry are all great. The character development is the main focus of the series and it’s done well because the writing and script are very good. But the core plot mechanics are a blatant, incoherent hand wave, and then the crisis solution is the hand-waviest hand wave that ever waved its hand in Handwavia.

It wouldn’t bother me so damn much if it hadn’t been so easy to fix. The plot could have been restructured to make this all make sense, but they didn’t bother, and so for me, the series ended on a note of angry frustration.

It’s still one of the better things I’ve seen recently and I do recommend it for what it’s worth, but it doesn’t live up to its own previous standards of internal consistency, and I just can’t ignore that.

Image source courtesy of www.sportskeeda.com