In previous reviews, I’ve expressed my disappointment with the Promised Neverland season 2, and going into the finale I wasn’t expecting much but nothing could have prepared me for this. There is no way to sugar coat this, this episode was simply a failure. It failed in storytelling, character development, plot, and at providing an ending that would at least be satisfying and mitigate the mistakes of past episodes. I simply cannot express how both disappointed and sad I feel at seeing one of my favorite series reach such low levels. This review contains spoilers but you honestly wouldn’t miss anything if you didn’t watch it.
Forgettable Characters
The episode begins with Peter Ratri’s backstory as he claims that the kids could never be free before he ki**s himself. They try to make this into a big and emotional moment but honestly I just couldn’t care about what would happen to this guy. When he di*d, I legitimately felt nothing. This guy had made like 10 minutes of screen time which was not enough to flesh out his character to make him interesting. Maybe it could have been impactful if what he had said (that they could never be free) come true in the future but as we’ll see that never happens. Overall, his d*ath felt like a cheap gimmick to make a generic villain be more important than he really is.
The next scene in which the kids forgave Isabelle also felt so cheap and fa*e. These people haven’t met in at least a year and they’re making up now. Didn’t Isabelle say in the last episode that she was doing this not for them but for her own interests? Why would they trust her so quickly now? For people who are supposed to be super smart, they don’t seem to follow basic logic and consistency. This just ruins their characters and development these past 2 seasons even more. This all sounds bad but it gets even worse.
A Truly Terrible Ending
Easily the wo*st part of this episode was the ending where the kids escape to the human world while Emma and the gang stay behind. I simply can’t believe how rushed this final part was. The scene where they finally make it to the human world was basically a 30-second slideshow. Although it was somewhat interesting, I felt that there was so much wasted potential. Why not have a full episode that explores their lives in the human world. Maybe explore the culture shock they would have. Maybe we could also have some worldbuilding about this human society and how it interacts with demons. What I’m trying to say is that there are so many possibilities that could have been done with this part that would have been infinitely more interesting than what we were shown here.
But what was even w*rse was the 30-second slideshow of Emma and the gang defeating the demons and rescuing all the kids. I have complained before how this season has rushed the story but what was done here is simply absurd. They basically crammed an entire season worth of content into 30 seconds. I simply cannot articulate the amount of potential that was wasted here. They could have used a new season to maybe redeem themselves from the fail*re of this season. However, given the Promised Neverland Season 2’s poor reception, I can see why they would just end this failure of a series right now.
And at the end, they all just show up, get together, and live happily ever after. It completely undermines what little emotional weight there was in the scene where Emma and Phil say goodbye only to have them come back in the same episode like nothing happened. It felt like a cheap gimmick to get you emotional that completely fails. I rarely get emotional when watching an anime but I genuinely felt ins*lted when I saw that last scene. Overall, this is up there with Darling in the Franxx and Charlotte for having one of the w*rst endings I’ve ever seen in an anime.
To conclude, I simply cannot express in words just how dis*ppointed I am. Not just with this episode but with this season as a whole. Week after week, I’ve held out hope that something good, something even remotely resembling the greatness of season 1 would show up. After the season finale, I see now that I was simply wasting my time with this show. I can now say with certainty that this is one of the most consistently dis*ppointing animes I’ve ever seen. At Least Charlotte and Darling in the Franxx were excellent until their endings. This one started with so much potential only to completely waste it all. At best it is an average action anime but nowhere near as good as its predecessor. It’s truly sad how such an amazing series has fallen from greatness to mediocrity.
