The Ecstasy Of Life
Episode 8 of The Irregulars begins with the Linen Man and Sherlock standing in front of the Rip. Sherlock has made a deal with the proverbial devil, who promises to hold up his side of the bargain. Meanwhile, Billy leads the cavalry charge as all the kids grab weapons and head out. As they do, black smoke rises up, choking the atmosphere. Random fires set London ablaze while blue lightning crackles and illuminates the sky. The end has begun, and this leads the team into the sewers to track down Sherlock and the Linen Man. Bea finds herself conflicted, struggling to control her own fear. In fact, she ends up as a liability to the entire team and screams out when she sees frightening imagery (Remember when Bea told Jessie she needs to grow up and face her fears? Maybe you should practice what you preach, Beatrice!) With the kids separated and gripped by panic, the Linen Man isolates them all and preys on their biggest fears. While they do, Jessie manages to see inside the Linen Man’s memories and understands what’s driving him. It turns out all of this hatred stems from jealousy over his best friend and his partner. And just like that, he falls down the cave and straight to his doom. Well that was… disappointing. Jessie heads down and speaks to the Linen Man during his dying breaths. He confirms that Alice was the one who opened the Rip this time. As she races off, through the portal comes Alice who doesn’t seem to have aged a day. She embraces her girls before admitting that she wants them to get rid of this world. Jessie however, rejects this and decides she needs to close the Rip. Bea stands in her way though and refuses to let her do it, embracing her Mother’s ideology. With the Rip growing, Billy, Leo and Spike find themselves isolated from the others. They promise Bea they’ll stay safe and head up to the surface. While there, they notice people possessed and scramble down to the basement. Only, they’re not safe there either as the nun becomes infected by this strange plague and comes after them. Blue lightning crackles up from the Rip and into the sky as Jessie grabs Bea’s hand and shows her that life is worth living and fighting for. This is enough for the girls to tell Alice she needs to go back so they can close the Rip. Jessie puts her hands forward and plunges them into the portal, doing her best to try and close the Rip. Sherlock too gets involved, thanking John for being a good friend and plunging into the Rip and sacrificing himself. Watson and Bea both grab Jessie and pull her out, allowing the Rip to close completely and stop all the supernatural spookiness emanating from this. In the wake of this, The Irregulars all gather together and pay their respects at the graveyard before eventually going their separate ways. It’s here Leo breaks the news to Bea that he needs to go to Europe. However, he admits that he’s in love with her and always will be. Unfortunately, he has to go and see Helena, which happens to be a deal he made to free Billy from prison. Meanwhile, at the 48.02 mark of the final episode we get some character progression for Spike. It turns out his fear was seeing Jessie hurt. This is what drove him on to try and save her. As the episode closes out, Watson agrees to have dinner with Bea but she starts crying when she realizes how hard it is to stop loving someone. As she begins weeping, Watson rests a hand on her shoulder and promises he’s not going anywhere as the season draws to a close.
The Episode Review
So Thwe Irregulars bows out with a pretty lackluster and disappointing finale to be honest. This show has been a tepid affair overall; a supernaturally charged series that’s intentionally grabbed the Sherlock Holmes lore in a bid to try and stand out from the swathe of other teen fantasy dramas out there. Instead, the show completely squanders its source material and warps it into this fun but flawed series. The lack of characterization for any of the main players here is one of the biggest problems on display. Bea and Jessie are obviously the main players here but everything just feels so surface level with very obvious and basic motivations. Billy, for example, has been wasted in this show while Spike just plays up the comedy relief for large stretches of the series too. Instead of anything particularly original, The Irregulars borrows heavily from shows like Umbrella Academy without actually doing the manual labour to make us care about these people. Even worse, the contrived love triangles in this show have absolutely no chemistry between the cast. To top it all off though, the finale throws in this disposable Linen Man who’s easily dispatched by Jessie touching his hand and making him see his own fears. His whole cliched “take over the world” shindig feels pretty shallow and weak, topped off by the most lackluster death in the whole series. The ending certainly wraps things up conclusively though, although the possibility of a second season is left on the table. Now, some people may be taken by this but poor writing, thin characterization and a very cliched and obvious finale make this a show to forget. I wouldn’t hold your breath for a season 2.
