INHUMANS Season Finale Review: Hammering the Final Nail on the Series' Coffin


INHUMANS has officially concluded its first season. With lower chances than lightning striking twice, INHUMANS' renewal for a second season seems almost impossible at this point. With this episode concluding the season, hammering the final nail on this series’ coffin, I feel an almost surprising amount of contentment. I’m not content because the series ended on a positive note; it was obvious that wasn’t going to happen several episodes ago. Rather, I’m content that INHUMANS ended just as it began: filled with nonsense and unanswered plot holes. 

So, what exactly did INHUMANS leave its audience with? The series is over now, and we have the conclusion to everything that INHUMANS spent its entire run building up to. First and foremost, INHUMANS let every character go on without any retribution. Not a single person learned from their mistakes, despite the countless times that each character’s wrongdoings were shoved in their faces. 

Black Bolt didn’t learn what it really meant to be a leader, continuing the spree of lies he’s been spewing to the entire Royal Family and inhuman society. Karnak still acts selfishly, doing only what benefits him rather than considering his family and friends. Gorgon, who was brought back to life only because of Karnak’s selfishness, is now more of a mindless brute than ever. Maximus never learned that he isn’t the center of the universe or that his egotistical actions have larger consequences. Even Medusa, who spent the entire season building up her well-deserved confidence, is left blindly following the man who continues to lie to her face with no second thought. 

In the end, the Royal Family is basically handed back the thrown, with the entire inhuman population choosing to follow Black Bolt and the rest of the family to live new lives on Earth instead of suffocating on the moon. Maximus is eventually stripped of the throne because of his own incompetence instead of any actual victory for the Royal Family, and is left to live out the rest of his life by himself, a fitting end for an egotistical maniac like Maximus. 

As the episode closes out, it’s easy to see that INHUMANS is not a show that was ever going to portray change. These characters are static versions of themselves, standing still as the world (and moon) move around them. This has been one of the central problems of the show for me, and has halted any chance of connecting with these characters. If they were different people at the end of this episode, people who had learned from this entire fiasco, then I genuinely believe INHUMANS could have been a different show, one that had at least an inkling of deserving a second season. 

However, contrary to many people’s opinion on the situation, it’s pretty obvious that the show itself thinks it deserves a second season. It opens up so many new story lines, only to ignore that they ever even acknowledged them in the first place. The biggest confusion of the episode comes from the introduction of some unspoken “greatest enemy,” an enemy that only Black Bolt and Triton seem to know about. They keep so many secrets, this comes as no surprise, but this time they seem scared out of their royal underwear. 

When they find out that the protective shield surrounding Attilan is about to collapse, they immediately realize the potential danger that this great enemy will put them in. With no time to explain, despite the fact that this enemy is mentioned within the first 90 seconds of the episode, Black Bolt sends the entire Royal Family on a mission to evacuate all of Attilan. For the rest of the episode, we’re left wondering what this mysterious threat could be, only for the credits to roll and this Inhuman mystery left to roam as a plot hole in the realm of (potential) television cancellations. The only hint we get is the throne of Attilan glowing after the fall of the shield, but what does that tell us? Is the throne the great evil? Is it going to defeat the Royal Family by making them sit on it? If so, it’d probably still be a better villain than Maximus. 

I had no idea what to expect with this finale, and I really don’t think that I was the only one. INHUMANS has been confusing its audience all season, and even up until the last second, it kept us wondering what unexplainable thing it was going to do next. This has been a wild ride, and for those of you out there who stuck through this until the very end, I applaud you and thank you. It’s been oddly comforting knowing that there are some people out there who are just as confused as I am, and I feel like we’re a family. Not the Royal Family of course, but a family that actually cares about each other. So, it’s been an absolute pleasure going through this with you! 

But to be honest, I’m not so sure we should have a family reunion anytime soon. Season one has been scaring enough.

Written by William Staton, INHUMANS Beat Writer


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