Solar Opposites season six has arrived on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, and that means Solar Opposites is over. It ends on a high note (read io9’s spoiler-free review here), and it also does a bang-up job bringing all its storylines to a close—in some surprising ways. It was all a bit of a retcon, but it stayed true to the show and ended up being very satisfying to boot.
First, we learned the fate of the Wall; the storyline wrapped in episode eight, “The Last Flight of the Ariana 1.” After a daring mission to steal Yumyulack’s shrink ray—hoping to use it on everyone to restore them to human size—Cherie and company realize they’ve been chasing after a replica. Yumyulack has cleverly, and cruelly, created an exact copy of his weapon… in cake form.
But it doesn’t end there. With the SD card from Yumyulack’s phone in their teeny-tiny clutches (and an assist from the Pupa), the small people threaten to blackmail Yumyulack with his embarrassing selfies and tickle videos. Reluctantly, he agrees to make everyone big again, but there’s an issue: one person in the Wall isn’t physically capable of sizing up.
It’s Cherie’s daughter, Pezlie, of course, who was born tiny-sized. Cherie’s entire motivation was to make Pezlie normal and able to experience a regular-sized life. Devastated, she encourages Ringo, Nova, and the rest to go ahead and let Yumyulack zap them—but as long as Pezlie can’t grow larger, Cherie doesn’t want to either.
To Cherie’s surprise, everyone agrees to stay small in solidarity (and not tell the rest of the Wall what happened). Yumyulack grudgingly promises he’d help make life in the Wall more bearable by supplying food that isn’t candy once in a while.
“I know in my heart that this is going to work out!” Cherie declares. Then we cut to 90 years later.
The world has suffered a devastating apocalypse. The Shlorpians are glimpsed as rotting alien skeletons in their ship, presumably killed while trying to flee the planet. We zoom in on a skull in the yard, where the last generation of tiny humans is roasting a bug to stay alive.
Enter “great-grandma Pezlie,” who launches into the tale of how her mother, despite all her best intentions, “accidentally caused the destruction of worlds both big and small.”
We never see what actually happened—that’s left up to the wildest reaches of your imagination.
However, we can see that the Pupa did not end up terraforming Earth—the long-promised endgame of Solar Opposites—which the show addresses in its final two episodes.
In episode nine, “The Goocleus and the Protoshlorpian,” Korvo wrecks the “goocleus,” which is—long sci-fi story short—the homeworld-sourced substance required for the Pupa’s ultimate transformation. The Pupa’s going to be just fine, but he won’t be following through on his destiny of completely reshaping Earth—thus nullifying the mission the Shlorpians have been on all this time.
In episode 10, “What Is the Mission Anyway,” we see how tossing the mission aside has made everyone feel free and happy. The Opposites are thriving. Terry’s romantasy books are getting adapted into movies. Jesse and Yumyulack are kicking ass in school and applying to top colleges. Korvo’s new job in construction plays to all his bossy strengths.
Have the Solar Opposites finally found happiness?
Not so fast! The Pupa, despite having his terraforming directive removed, has been acting weirdly aggressive and doing all manner of ominous shape-shifting. The Opposites initially think it’s their fault—is there still some unresolved business with the Red Goobler, Korvo’s self-created nemesis, perhaps?—but that’s not the case.
There were teases throughout the season that something odd was up with Aisha, the ship’s computer. She revealed a sinister “red mode” amid an attempted reset in an earlier episode; then, the evil Aisha contacted the SilverCops (Solar Opposites‘ dirty intergalactic police) to tattle on Korvo’s goocleus sabotage.
In space, we catch up with Glen—once the Opposites’ human neighbor, now a mutated good-guy GoldCops operative working undercover with the SilverCops—as he joins the earthbound mission to annihilate the Opposites. In true villain form, the SilverCops announce the alien family is done for, but not before offering a detailed explanation of “the Shlorpian Scam.”
See, the SilverCops invented Pupas to help Shlorpians terraform planets. They created Aishas to make sure Shlorpians stuck to the mission. They’re even behind the asteroid that destroyed Korvo and company’s homeworld, Planet Shlorp. In fact, this is a time-honored cycle: once a Pupa terraforms a planet and Shlorpian society rebuilds, the SilverCops lob a celestial object at it. Once the population scatters and the planet blows apart, they swoop in and steal anything of value left behind.
The takeaway: “Your real mission is to make us money.”
The horror! Fortunately, Glen manages to summon the GoldCops just in time, and the bad guys get busted.
We cut to a few months later, and the family is doing better than ever. Terry’s making his movie. Jesse and Yumyulack are in college.
And Korvo, the Pupa, and the Pupa’s robot sidekick JK Sevens are traveling the galaxy, visiting all the other scattered Shlorpians to let them know about the Shlorpian Scam. Shlorpians everywhere no longer have to worry about their missions; they can just be families. “I’m about to set you free and boss you around,” Korvo announces with great joy.
There’s one more tease at the end. Through editing magic, the final shot of a galaxy morphs into a small object that the Pupa finds temptingly delicious. Korvo scolds the Pupa not to eat Solar Opposites, because “nobody’s going to pick up the show again if you get your spit all over it!”
We can hope, but if “What Is the Mission Anyway” is indeed the end, the Shlorpian Scam feels like just the right way to tie things up. And if you saw episode eight, you know Earth’s doomed in 90 years anyway.