Joe’s orbs end up doing the trick: even though Pete trips before he can toss the flare, everyone sees it and race to the source. As he sinks into the bog, utterly exhausted, he says he doesn’t want to die there, and wants to see everyone again. He gets his wish: he doesn’t die, and Oliver, Nanao, Chela, and Vera are there when he comes to.
After some hugs and tears, Lia makes her presence known, and begins an incantation that they can’t stop, leading to the creation of a “Grand Aria”, a little world in miniature where Lia reigns supreme. It takes the form of a giant womb. No one can get in, and no one can escape.
Stacey and Lynette end up caught in the Aria as well, but Vera knows even with numbers on their side, they’re all now living under Lia’s rules. Interestingly, their magic doesn’t seem to suffer, as they’re able to destroy newborn chimeras aplenty; it’s just that they never stop coming.
Vera decides to take a gamble and rattle Lia’s cage by telling her she was never good enough for Alvin. Lia’s reaction shows Vera that there’s still some humanity left in her, or she wouldn’t be lashing out in anger. Vera’s whole hope is to create an opening long enough for her underclassmen to strike, but she pays dearly in the form of grievous bodily harm.
With Vera out of commission, it’s up to Nanao, and between her and Oliver I thought we might get one or two Spellblade attacks. But while Chela and the others give Nanao enough time to get within range to kill Lia, when the time comes to bring her sword down, she can’t do it.
She gets knocked off her broom and picked up by Oliver. She apologizes for not being able to get it done, for Lia was “but a child” to her, and she simply can’t bring her blade down upon a crying kid. Oliver understands; it’s just who Nanao is, and one of the reasons he cares for her so.
Now, it would appear to be curtains for the good guys, but Lia’s humanity remains exposed after Vera ripped off the magic scab to reveal a raw wound of longing. Lia watches Oliver holding Nanao and wonders how long its been since someone held her like that.
Just then, a beautiful, pure, piercing song emantes from outside the Aria, and holes and fissures start to form, letting bright white light in. Alvin and Carlos have made it. That “Final Visitor” thing they mentioned last week? It’s time for that, because the Whitlows have a pact with the Salvadoris.
Because Carlos is a castrato in order to preserve his magical singing voice, he is utterly immune to all forms of sexual magic. In other words, he’s Salvadori Kryptonite. So if Lia were ever to be consumed by her family’s magic, as she is here, he can come in and put and end to it.
Of course, that power comes with a price; a price Carlos knew all too well but was prepared to pay. Taking Lia into his arms and calming her eliminates her threat to the rest of Kimberly and the world, but the two of them end up dying in each others’ arms.
Carlos tells Lia he loves her and always has; Lia tells him he hates her, but because he’s casting away his life to save her. His lingering final song evaporates the Grand Aria, and the crisis ends. And while I’d thought Vera too had bitten the dust, somebody healed her at some point.
Time passes, and before long the talk of Ophelia Salvadori fades away from the halls of Kimberly. After all, at a school where so many students meet violent ends, this was more or less par for the course. The Sword Roses manage to escape unscathed, and as a closer and stronger found family than ever.
Life returns to normal, with the Roses hanging out in Katie’s inherited workshop. Katie teaches Marco math, Olivier teaches Nanao magic, Guy cooks for Pete and the others, and Chela continues as the motherly heart of the group. When four teachers pass them, they all bow to show respect, but as they pass, Oliver shoots them a death stare.
They are his future targets, for which there was no time this season to cover. The final shot of a hungry Nanao breaking him from that stare, telling him to hurry up so they can go eat, exemplifies Oliver’s predicament going forward.
In Nanao, Chela, Katie, Pete, and Guy he has people he cares about and doesn’t want to lose or get involved. He’s not some avenging angel with nothing to lose. At the same time, he has the solemn duty to avenge his mother. Hopefully we get a second season to explore how he juggles those responsibilities, and learn if and when those two lives will cross.
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