OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)Kana tells Masaki that she used to be able to generate NO but couldn’t as she got older, so now he’s the trigger for the machine, not her. As Kana tries stabilizing Harumi, Harumi finds herself as the type of ghost that Masaki would normally see, which takes her on a stroll through her memories, revealing (at least to the audience) that she is…a boy! A boy who had a sister named Natsuki, who were on their way on a ship to Mars like the other rich families in Alternative right before Kana’s massive NO surge ended up splitting their dimension in two. Harumi instantly found themself with a different family but kept their memories of Natsuki, and so decided to dress as a girl to keep that memory alive. Soon after, Kana resuscitates them, though they now have a purple ghost arm. Not that they have much time to process that as the big machine starts powering up. Kanda then realizes that it wasn’t just teenage hormones that were powering Masaki’s NO, but actually his love for Harumi. The green ghosts also flicker human forms for a second, one of whom being Pets, Kana’s estranged friend.It’s also revealed that “making the world normal again” for Kanda meant using this machine to remerge the two dimensions, which seems to be taking place UNTIL Masaki and Harumi kiss, seemingly causing a giant snake to emerge from Masaki’s forehead, it’s body showing random screenshots of the original FLCL (the bird ghost that was sitting on the machine before was doing the same but for Alternative). The snake then eats the portal beginning to form and disappears, causing the machine to shut down. However, when Masaki comes to, things are basically the same, but no one has ever heard of Harumi. Kana and Kanda move on, with Kana guessing that Kanda just wanted to see Haruko again, and Masaki graduates from school like nothing happened, but somehow gets the snake to take him to the dimension where Harumi (once again a boy and with his sister on Mars) now lives, with Harumi instantly recognizing him but thinking he just dreamt all of that. Finally, Masaki reveals the snake calls himself Atomsk.OUR TAKEFor the third and possibly last time, we have seen the final episode of FLCL. The yellow vespas have flown off into the sunset in search of giant space birds, the giant irons have been halted, and the custom Gibson guitars have plucked their last chords. And if you had told me that it would all end with half length sequel to Alternative that would flood its last episode with a crap ton of new lore right at the climax…well, I would honestly just kinda sigh and say that doesn’t sound like a great idea, which it wasn’t. It’s not like I can’t see the logic behind how these choices were made. NO portals have just been devices to send objects through in the original series, so why not make them capable of sending people to other dimensions. Or even SPLITTING dimensions. Or being able to see ghosts from those dimensions. And if you’re the only one who can see them, that plays into the feeling of social isolation that protagonists like Naota and Hidomi had, so it sounds pretty on brand, right? That seems to be, at least from what I can tell, where the thought process was going in making this season’s story in adherence to what came before.But I think holding on so much important info right until the end was the wrong call, in the end. Not only are we having to process way too much new stuff all at once, it keeps us from emotionally resonating with it all as we try to catch up. As mentioned with the Grunge reviews, that story made good use of the three episode format by having all the events take place around the same time. Shoegaze tries to do this by revolving around the incident at the tower, but still feels like it needed those three other episodes to properly pace stuff out. Masaki barely had much time as the focus to really connect with him, while Harumi’s development feels like a brick to the face. It actually kinda was to check back in with Kana and her loss of NO abilities, once again feeling like a nod towards Diebuster (a series by Kazuya Tsurumaki, the director of FLCL Classic) that also dealt with teens with magical forehead energy who sometimes had to deal with losing it as they grew older. But now it feels like her inclusion wasn’t really needed, aside from giving an explanation for why the dimensions were split.And Atomsk? Well, putting aside he DEFINITELY didn’t need to be here, why is he a snake now? Is this still a prequel to the first season and that’s why he’s a snake instead of a bird? But then why did he have images of the first season on him in a slideshow? Is that why Haruko saw them when she went through the portal at the end of Alternative? Why did the bird before have images of Alternative? Why nothing for Progressive or Grunge? Was Harumi trans and that’s why they wore women’s clothing or just traumatized by losing Natsuki? Because they seem to be doing fine with Natsuki now that they’re back in the other world and now wearing a male uniform and I don’t know what to think about this now. And I’ll probably have more questions once I go over these episodes again for the Season Review. As for how I’d rank the endings, I would probably place this in fourth, behind Alternative but ahead of Progressive, which is probably the most confusing ending this series has had. And obviously Classic is at the top with Grunge in distant second, but definitely the best of these newer ones. And next week, we’ll gaze once more into the shoe.