Solar Opposites: This One’s Just about the Wall

Solar Opposites Season 3 Review

Last year, when the third season of Solar Opposites came out, I either forgot or chose not to write a review for it. I wound up having to go back and rewatch some of the episodes to remind myself what happened. Now that I’ve watched the latest season, it’s given me some thoughts about the preceding one. Most of them have to do with the Wall and the Silvercops, but there are a few about the Solar Opposites themselves. In the spirit of the show, I thought it best to go back and give my review for Season Three, and a lot happened.

Learning More about the Pupa and the Shlorpians Was Fun

Since the show’s mostly episodic regarding the main characters, not a lot of development occurs on that front. That is, save for the Pupa, who seems to be leaving toddlerhood and becoming the equivalent of a young child. And as the season finale makes clear, it’s picked up on the worst traits the Solar Opposites exhibit, putting everyone in danger. The end result is them having to forswear most of their sci-fi stuff for the Pupa’s sake, which was a bittersweet thing to watch. It’s nice to see how Season Four shows that it doesn’t fully stick, but that was a big deal at the time.

The other big thing was the reveal that Shlorp’s been destroyed multiple times over the years. The reveal that they repeatedly go out and terraform other worlds because their own keeps getting destroyed changes how we look at them. While they’ve always been seen as sociopathic jerks, this reveal turns them into an intergalactic invasive species seeking to conform all of existence. No wonder why the Silvercops hate them so much.

The Silvercops Were an Intriguing New Part of the Series

The Silvercops were one of season three’s most welcome additions to the show. At first glance, they look like an expy of the Green Lantern Corps, but with silver instead of rings. They’ve also made it their mission to stop the expansion of the Shlorpians, and they do a good job at it. It is made obvious that they racially profile Shlorpians from the get-go, but given the whole “invasive species” stuff, they’re in the right.

Sadly, the Silvercops aren’t the good guys; at best, they’re anti-heroes. In the episode focusing on them, it’s revealed that they can be pretty dirty and corrupt. Given the more we learn about them in the fourth season, it paints a bad picture. Should the Solar Opposites ever run into them, the show doesn’t seem to hold any qualms about who it wants the audience to root for. The Solar Opposites may be amoral jerks, but the Silvercops aren’t saints, either.

The Wall Remained the Best Part

As always, though, the best part of the season remained the Wall. In the trailer for season three, it looked like this popular sub-plot would see Tim escape the Wall and take the fight to the Solar Opposites. As it turned out, though, the whole thing was a fake-out. In truth, Tim imagined the whole thing as he was dying from lead poisoning. He thought he had become the hero he wanted to be and won back the love of Cherie. In truth, though, he died a chump with Cherie cursing his name, and his lies revealed soon after.

Things only get better from there. Right when things start looking up for Cherie and the new leaders, the power goes out, forcing her and Halk (the hero from the last season) on a mission into the depths of the lower levels. Getting to see how the Duke’s flooding of the lower levels in the first season had turned the place into a wasteland filled with cannibals and mosquitoes was another fun addition to the Wall’s story. In addition, it also brought back characters that hadn’t been seen since that time, and none of them were in good shape.

The end of the season saw Cherie hit her lowest point. She’s the only one who came back alive, only to find the Jesse-worshipping church kidnapped her daughter and propped her up as a fake messiah. It was so frustrating knowing we had to wait another season to find out what happened, but it made for an excellent cliffhanger. Thankfully, we know that everything worked out in the end.

Another Fun Season, Overall.

Overall, the third season of Solar Opposites remained as fun as always. It could go from being hilarious to dead serious at the drop of a hat while never dropping its sense of humor. In hindsight, this season was also the last one to have co-creator Justin Roiland voicing Korvo. Since then, the accusations and allegations he’s been facing have turned one of the golden boys of comedy in Hollywood into a pariah and booted from all projects he was a part of. 

Thankfully, even though he had left, Solar Opposites didn’t drop in quality, and I’m glad that things worked out for Season Four.

I Give the Third Season of Solar Opposites a 4/5

Click here to see my other animation stuff.