Omni-Man Finishes A Viltrumite! But Why?

The episode’s music supervisor, Gabe Hilfer, proves to be its unsung hero - a trend continuing from last season. An on-point song selection up front (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ covering of Leonard Cohen’s ballad of loneliness, “Avalanche”) scores a flashback to Nolan’s departure from Earth, magnifying the character’s guilt and despondency as he flies by the broken remains of other planets and hovers around an enormous black hole. This twinning of internal and universal chaos and emptiness is swiftly interrupted by a malfunctioning Thraxan ship, which Nolan rescues, as though his time pretending to be a Guardian of the Globe had actually imbued him with a superhero’s morals. This is how he came to be the ruler of Thraxa, home to a species of kindly blue insectoids whose lifespans last about one human year, ensuring that any connections he unwittingly forms will be fleeting.