It’s hard to believe this isn’t the season finale.

“All Things Must Pass” is an epic tour de force that showcases nearly the entire cast of Defiance at their best and culminates in an intense cliff-hanger that could easily have been a worthy conclusion to the season.

It starts with Datak Tarr and his wife being abducted by mysterious assailants. They wake to find themselves chained in a silo. With no escape — from their captivity or from each other — they are forced to confront the flaws within themselves and their relationship. And for all that they are the epitome of Castithan ruthlessness, there is still some good, and perhaps even a certain degree of nobility, within them.

Meanwhile, Mayor Pottinger continues his efforts to woo Amanda, but things do not go entirely according to his plan. The short version is that Amanda is kind of awesome.

Having been rescued by Quentin, the matriarch of the McCawley clan at last returns home, and there was not a dry eye in the house.

Following the events of the last episode, Nolan finds himself lost in the wilderness. He knows that the only hope of stopping Irisa lies with Mordecai, with whom she shares a mysterious connection. But before he can seek out Mordecai, Nolan must drag a mortally wounded Tommy the many miles back to Defiance.

Running low on food, Doc Yewll is forced to return to the surface, accompanied by the EGO-induced hallucination of her dead wife. Along the way, she stumbles across the wreckage of the Kaziri and realizes that Irisa has woken it.

And Irisa at last brings her plan into motion, waking the Ark fleet to do what Nim Shondu could not: cleanse the Earth in fire and create a new paradise for the chosen few.

There really wasn’t any element of this episode I didn’t enjoy. Defiance’s greatest strength, its cast, is used to its full effect, but “All Things Must Pass” also has an epic sci-fi feel that Defiance has generally lacked. Once again, I am struck by how vastly this show has changed, and all for the better.

Of course, it goes without saying at this point that the Tarrs’ plot was excellent. An entire hour of nothing but Stahma and Datak would still be worth watching. All credit to Tony Curran and Jaime Murray for their stellar performances.

Similarly, anything to do with the McCawley family is quite welcome. None of their scenes in “All Things Must Pass” advance the plot in any meaningful way, but they’re all sufficiently powerful that I don’t really care. It’s all just very well done.

Doc Yewll is someone else who never disappoints. Her acerbic banter with her hallucinatory wife offers no shortage of entertainment. I would have liked to have seen a greater acknowledgement of the emotional impact of still having her dead lover in her head, but then again, Yewll’s a pretty tough cookie.

I’d say that Nolan’s plot was probably the weakest part of this episode, but there’s nothing wrong with it. It just didn’t shine as brightly as the others. It was nice to see him and Tommy finally find some kind of peace between them.

Taken all together, “All Things Must Pass” is an excellent episode, and perhaps Defiance’s finest outing to date.

Overall rating: 9/10

This episode deals heavily with Tarr family politics. Do you need to know anything more about it?

You shouldn’t, but in case you feel you do, read on.

“Doll Parts” begins with Alak’s mistress, known as Treasure Doll during her work at the Need/Want, taking a rather unfortunate and completely fatal tumble off the Arch. It was obviously not an accident, and Amanda takes up the search for her killer.

Why Amanda? Because Nolan has bigger fish to fry. Desperate to stop whatever Irisa intends to do with a terrasphere, he ventures into the wilderness to apprehend her at any cost, gaining the aid of Tommy along the way.

Nolan’s plot is plenty interesting, but I actually preferred the mystery of Treasure Doll’s murder. At first, it seems cut and dried that Alak did it to cover up their affair, but with all apologies to Occam’s Razor, sometimes the obvious solution isn’t the correct one.

Unfortunately, the resolution of this plot was spoiled for me beforehand, which is a shame because it’s really a great twist. Even knowing the outcome, though, it was a fun ride, full of intrigue and strong performances from most of Defiance’s cast.

It also involved what may be the first genuine laugh we’ve ever heard from Stahma.

It will haunt my nightmares.

If I have one complaint about this episode, it’s that Amanda’s grief over Treasure Doll’s death feels odd considering there has been little to no onscreen interactions between them before now. They retcon in a strong relationship between the two, and of course it makes sense that Amanda would care about all her employees. But some foreshadowing would have gone a long way.

Still, it’s a pretty minor hiccup in an otherwise strong episode.

On the Irisa front, it seems we have finally learned what “Irzu” is after. I am a little disappointed that it’s essentially a complete repeat of the plot of the MMO version of Defiance, but on the other hand, I’m always up for a good doomsday scheme, and there are still some intriguing questions left to be answered, like how the Kaziri wound up on Earth thousands of years before what is generally believed to have been first contact between humanity and the Votans.

This part of the episode also offers some of Tommy’s best scenes to date, and perhaps the first instance in Defiance’s history of Nolan not being a complete dick to him.

All in all, “Doll Parts” provides a strong set-up for what will no doubt be an epic conclusion to the season, all wrapped up in a delicious blanket of intrigue, interpersonal politics, and bloody vengeance. Truly Defiance at its finest.

Overall rating: 8.1/10