Tribes of Europa – Season 1 Episode 6 (Finale/Ending) Recap & Review

Chapter 6

Episode 6 of Tribes of Europa begins with Moses tortured by the Crows for information. Elja shows up with his weapon though, telling them all to back up. After killing one of the soldiers, he manages to hold the others up at gunpoint… but just like that the cube loses power.

Moses and Elja race off, back on the road as Moses finally decides to come around to his way of thinking. They begin their 184km trek south.

Meanwhile, Liv heads out with the General and his men. In the back though happens to be Grieta, who’s reunited with Liv. Just before leaving for Brahtok, Liv tells Sam to free David, giving her instructions to do so using the manhole cover above the caged area.

On the road, Grieta and Liv talk. Liv realizes that Grieta is afraid of the Crows, unable to answer for fear of lying as she faces an uncertain future when she returns.

Speaking of uncertain, the soldiers pass through a small village where Crows have set up a formidable blockade, stopping them in their tracks. General Cameron steps out and shows the guards Grieta and how she’s kept captive. With him there personally, it’s enough for the crows to believe their words and allow them to pass… or so they thought.

Gunfire erupts and explosions rain down. It’s chaotic, as bullets spray across the muddy ground. Grieta and Liv take off together, dodging the fighting consuming both sides.

Grieta is hit by a stray bullet but together they make it into an abandoned house to hide. There, David suddenly shows up with his men, as it’s revealed that there’s mutiny within the Crimson ranks. He asks Liv to go with him but she refuses. David lets her live though and takes off.

Unfortunately Grieta dies while a horseback rider called Alia arrives, one of the Femen tribe, who encourages Liv to join them.

In Brahtok, Varvara admits to Kiano that she wasn’t always a Crow. She was forced to fight a man called Bear back when she was six. She pleaded for her life, which prompted Bear to show mercy, allowing Varvara to jump on his weakness and kill the man.

With this in mind, Kiano prepares for his Boj. The raucous sound of the mob fills the air as Kiano steps through the numerous phosphorus lights and enters the arena.

His opponent happens to be Jakob, Kiano’s own father. The Kapitan promises that if he doesn’t fight, both of them will be strung up by the wire. Eventually they brawl, where Kiano kills his father. Jakob whispers for him to find his family, trying not to show his grief in front of all these people as they chant “Crow.”

Alone, Kiano is allowed to mourn where Varvara revels that her name used to be Sophia. After his big win, Kiano is made into a mighty warrior and joins the Crow ranks.

Meanwhile, Elja and Moses make it to their destination, racing across the choked, rocky setting to a lake. It’s not initially clear where they are but the setting seems to hint at somewhere like Turkey or the Middle East.

Anyway, the pair make it by the shore but the cube runs out of power. Elja changes his mind and throws it in the water. Only, it suddenly hovers overhead and plunges into the lake, turning into a giant cube.

As they approach it, the insides open up and they step in, as the cube closes and plunges under the water and seemingly toward Atlantia.

The Episode Review

So Tribes of Europa bows out with an agonizing trademark Netflix cliffhanger that doesn’t really resolve any of our big plot points this season. In fact, it doesn’t really wrap up any of the character arcs we’ve seen either.

While that’s not necessarily a bad thing, given Netflix’s trigger-happy cancellation rate and the sheer number of unfinished shows on the platform, it’s always a little weary to get to the end of a show only to find nothing has been solved.

What we do get however, is enough to hope Netflix green light this one for a longer second season. The fantasy world is quite well realized, language issues aside, while the tribes are all unique and have their own rates of expansion.

The history of this world is intriguing and as a personal gripe, this is one of those series I actually think some flashbacks to the Black December date to see how some of these characters came to be with these tribes would be helpful.

Fantasy is notoriously difficult to write for, in fact it’s one of the hardest genres to get right, because not only do you need to write competent characters and an interesting plot, you also need to craft a believable world too. Here, this original screenplay does do well to flesh out the here-and-now story but the lack of history and depth with some of these tribes leaves one too many questions.

For example, why can’t the crows lie? Why do the Origines tribe only use crossbows and other primitive weapons while others use guns? What is going on with the Atlantians? And why did they choose to fly overhead at that precise moment? Have this tribe never flown a jet before?

And on that note, what is the Black Swarm? Why is it destroying everything?

There are a lot of unanswered questions here and we’d love to hear your theories on this show. Let us know in the comments below what your thoughts are on Tribes of Europa!

In the meantime, this series bows out with a pretty enjoyable slice of fantasy/sci-fi fiction.