We’re almost to the finish line, and things are wrapping up nicely—but there are still some unanswered questions for the finale to fill in. This week’s review contains a lot of spoilers, but they’re impossible to avoid. So make sure to catch up before reading this … you’ve been warned.
When we left off last episode, Dirk Gently (Samuel Barnett) was assuring us he’d solved the case while he and Todd (Elijah Wood) put their hands on the Unlimited Energy Device and pulled the lever before we cut to the credits. At the opening of this episode, we see that the time machine indeed works. It zaps you back in time, but you remain in the same location as when you started. So Dirk and Todd are still in the Animal Transfer Unit at the zoo, but they’ve been transported back to the point when the bad guys stole Lydia, hooked her up to the soul switching machine, and swapped her out for the Corgi.
One of the most interesting parts is when we finally meet Rainey. He is currently in the body of a woman with strange symbols drawn all over her face. Gordon Rimmer (Aaron Douglas)—who appears to be Rainey’s lackey except on the verge of rebellion—explains that he’s got Lydia Spring but Patrick Spring has the other machine. He wants to ransom Lydia for Patrick’s machine so they can control it all.
But Rimmer and Rainey don’t see eye to eye, which results in an altercation where Rainey threatens to keep the Corgi and Rimmer threatens to drop the machine and smash it to bits. However, before much can be decided, a man in an outfit that I can only describe as a steampunk Stormtrooper uniform comes in and kills everyone he comes across. Rimmer and a few of his bald minions get away.
The steampunk Stormtrooper corners Dirk and Todd, and, as Dirk suspects, under the armor is none other than Patrick Spring (Julian McMahon). We finally find out a large part of what the heck is going on as Dirk guesses, at gunpoint, exactly what has happened to put Patrick Spring in the very place he stands.
In a nutshell, Patrick Spring is really Zachariah Webb. In the 1880s, he tried to create a time machine, but it only half worked. It sent energy through time but without the matter along with it. It zapped the souls out of the bodies of the bird and cat he tested it on. Eventually, Webb fixed the machine, but the next time he fired it up, he accidently sent it into the future. When it came back to him, it was severely altered and contained a bloodied note written by Dirk. Something had clearly gone wrong, and he had to jump into the future to check it out.
His first jump was into 1968, and as we’ve seen, you jump in time but stay in the same location. So when he left his laboratory and started to explore his mansion 80 years in the future, he found that it was being used as a squat by a bunch of hippies who were led by a man named Jake Rainey. Rainey had the machine and wouldn’t give it back. Things didn’t go well, and Webb had to flee.
Jump ahead to 1981 when Webb decides he needs to defeat Rainey. He renames himself Edgar Spring and begins to build an empire. He knows he needs the machine back, but Rainey and his band of hippies have figured out how to swap souls using the glitch in the machine, and Rainey frequently changes bodies to evade Webb/Spring. Spring wages war against the hippies who have renamed themselves The Men of the Machine.
Complication number one: Spring falls in love. He has a daughter, and in 2001, the bad guys kill his wife. He decides to take extreme measures and skips right to the future, hoping to surprise Rainey and The Men of the Machine—which is where we are right now.
As Dirk explains, Zachariah Webb, Edgar Spring, and Patrick Spring are all the same person but jumping through time. They exist simultaneously but out of chronological order. Lost yet? Hopefully not, because this is the explanation part of the story, and if this doesn’t make sense there’s not much hope.
Spring leaves, and Todd and Dirk head to the hotel where they know he has gone. We start to see all of the puzzle pieces falling into place. Lots of action ensues, and we see quite a gory hotel scene—the carnage of which was found in the opening of the very first episode. Not only is everything connected, it seems that everything has come full circle.
At the end of the episode, Dirk, Todd, and Patrick discuss what a heck of day they’ve had. Patrick is quite defeated and is heading back to 2001. He wants Dirk to finish things and get Lydia to safety. We also have a rather irritating scene between Dirk and Todd.
Todd is mad at Dirk for knowing that everything was going to happen as it did and calls him a monster. He’s basically mad at Dirk for what he thinks was a lie, even though he lied to his own sister for six years about having Pararibulitis. It might be intended to be a touching scene, but it comes across as mostly annoying, and Todd seems a bit whiney.
One more episode and all will be revealed. I am guessing that it’s going to be quite an episode since there are still a lot of loose ends to tie up. We need to know where Bart—the holistic assassin—figures in, after all.
See also: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency 1.06: “Fix Everything” Episode Review
Kerry Hammond loves all types of mysteries. She is a Book Reviewer and Blogger for Mystery Playground. Follow her on Twitter @kerryhammond88.
Meanwhile Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, is the largest city to come under lockdown since Shanghai suffered two months of restrictions earlier this year.