Gary Goodspeed

This article is about the TBS series character. You may be looking for the original series character or the pilot character.

Gary Goodspeed
Also known as	The Gary (by Lord Commander) Thunder Bandit (code name) Star Dragon (new code name) Primate (By Clarence)
Status	Alive
Place of origin	Earth
Faction	Galaxy One (formerly; destroyed) The Resistance Crimson Light
Occupation	Captain Convicted Felon (formerly) Mechanic (formerly)
Voice Actor	Olan Rogers Caleb McLaughlin (young)
Appearance
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Skin Tone	White
Hair	Blonde
Cybernetics	Left arm
Relationships
Family	John Goodspeed (Father; deceased) Sheryl Goodspeed (Mother) Little Cato (Adopted son)
Friends	Mooncake (best) Quinn Ergon (love interest) Avocato (other best; deceased/revived) H.U.E. KVN (least favorite; deceased/revived) Nightfall (deceased) Bolo
Other
Abilities	Piloting Marksmanship

Gary Goodspeed is the main protagonist of Final Space.

Biography

Pre-series

Sheryl rejects her son

Gary Goodspeed is the son of John Goodspeed, a former captain in the Infinity Guard, and Sheryl Goodspeed, a notorious space criminal. Sheryl was actually send to spy on John to find out his plans for an Anti-matter bomb, but ended up falling in love with him for real and having Gary with him. When Gary was still a baby, John finally caught on to Sheryl's true nature (he found her talking to her superior when he came to check on Gary), and ordered her to leave. This made Sheryl hate Gary, since she believed him to be responsible for John ditching her.

Gary, holding the jar with Mooncake, attending his father's funeral

Gary burns down his parental home

As such, Gary was mostly raised by his father. John gave Gary a caterpillar named Mooncake, whom Gary deeply cared for. When Gary was still a kid however, John died in a mission to close a breach to Final Space with his own invention, the anti-matter bomb.

After his father's death and his mother abandoning him, Gary spent the following years stealing and living in his treehouse. He lost Mooncake, who had since transformed into a butterfly, to two bullies, who took the jar from him and smashed it, either killing or releasing him. When Gary finally decided to leave his home, he burned it down.

Gary is sentenced to the Galaxy One

Five years before the start of Chapter 1, while seeking refuge from criminals Dr. Bluestein and Derek in a bar in New York, Gary encountered Quinn Ergon. He immediately fell in love with her, but learned that she was only interested in Infinity Guard members. Gary thus drugged a pilot and stole his uniform to impress her. All seemed to go well, until an emergency call came in and all Infinity Guards were ordered to return to the base, forcing Gary to try and actually fly a F71 Hawk to maintain his cover. He accidentally fired the ship's lasers and destroyed 92 Imperium Cruiser ships, along with a small family-owned Mexican restaurant. After being promptly knocked out by Quinn, he was arrested by the Infinity Guard. Gary was then sentenced to serve 5 years aboard the Galaxy One to repair satellites, devoid of any human contact, with only KVN, H.U.E. and a bunch of S.A.M.E.S. as company.

Gary has described his own life as being 'medium-to- good/borderline crappy.' During his five years in space, he send Quinn a video message every day. He also tried to get the S.A.M.E.S., some of which he named, to play cards with him, but they proved unable to.

Season 1

Each episode of Season 1 begins with a scene of Gary floating in space, with his oxygen running out (he starts with 10 minutes, and has 1 minutes less each episode). The season itself slowly works towards the events that led to Gary being in that position.

In "Chapter 1", Gary's sentence is nearing it's end. While fixing another satellite, he encounters a small green alien, which he names Mooncake after his childhood pet. He decides to keep Mooncake, but this makes him a target for the Lord Commander, who wants Mooncake to open a gate to Final Space. One of the bounty hunters send to retrieve Mooncake, a Ventrexian named Avocato, is taken captive by Gary and the S.A.M.E.S.. While initially hostile, Gary quickly manages to get Avocato on his side, especially after he learns Avocato's son, Little Cato, has been taken captive by the Lord Commander.

Over the course of the season, Gary loses his arm to the Lord Commander, and gets a robotic arm as a replacement. He meets Quinn again, as well as a future version of her named Nightfall. Together they discover the Infinity Guard has been corrupted by The Lord Commander, and is helping him open a breach to Final Space. This breach, identical to the one John Goodspeed closed years earlier, is threatening to destroy the Earth. Gary and Avocato eventually find Little Cato imprisoned on Zetakron Alpha and rescue him, but Avocato dies in the rescue. Thanks to Nightfall, they learn Final Space is a prison for the Titans. She introduces them to Bolo, a good titan who is imprisoned in Inner Space. Trough him, Gary gets a chance to go back in time and meet his father one last time on the day of John's final mission, mainly to learn how the breach can be closed. From John, Gary learns there is a second anti-matter bomb on Earth. With help from The Resistance, Gary and friends manage to get this bomb and confront the Lord Commander to close the breach. Despite their best effords, Mooncake is captured and forced to open the breach further, allowing one of the titans to pull the entire Earth into Final Space before Quinn sacrifices herself to detonate the bomb and close the breach. Gary himself ends up drifting in space after being thrown off the Lord Commander's ship. The season ends with his oxygen running out.

Season 2

At the start of Season 2, Gary is picked up by the Galactica Trash, a ship belonging to Clarence. He is reunited with Little Cato, H.U.E. and KVN, later followed by Nightfall and Mooncake. Along with Clarence and his adopted children, Fox and Ash Graven, Gary has a new mission; find the five Dimensional Keys that can free Bolo from his prison, so he can take them to Final Space, and Quinn.

This season, Gary gains a new enemy in Todd H. Watson, who blames Gary for the loss of the Earth and his family. He also meets his estranged mother again, who still has nothing but contempt for him. Near the end of the season, she and Todd even gang up against Gary. When an incident with a young Temporal Worm sends the team three years back in time, Gary uses the opportunity to free a past version of Mooncake. He also makes a deal with Time Swap Sammy to let them save Avocato the moment he originally died. The plan works, but joy is short lived; during a mission to Kanopus Prime where Gary hopes to contact Quinn through the planet's clearwater, Gary ends up possessed by the evil Invictus, until the creature decides Avocato is a better host and takes him. After this incident, Gary decides to officially adopt Little Cato, since the boy lost his real father for the second time.

Despite a betrayal by Clarence and Todd and Sheryl teaming up against them, Gary and friends eventually get all five keys and bring them to Inner Space, where they have a final confrontation with Avocato/Invictus. Nightfall sacrifices herself to free Bolo so Gary can we with Quinn again. Thanks to Tribore, Sheryl realizes how wrong she was and begins to make it up to Gary for the years they missed. At the end of the season, the team enters Final Space in what is possibly a one way trip, and Gary is reunited with Quinn.

Appearance

• Gary at 10 years old
• Gary as a teen
• Gary as an Adult

1/3

Gary is a tall, thin man with light skin and bushy blonde hair. During his sentence aboard the Galaxy One, he wore a red jumpsuit with a teal belt, gloves, boots, and a white triangular collar bearing the Infinity Guard symbol. When his prison sentence ends in Chapter 8, he changes back into his civilian clothes: a red shirt with a blue circle on the chest, a brown leather jacket, blue jeans, a black belt with big silver buckle, and brown boots.

In "Chapter 2", after returning back to the Galaxy One after Gary's arm was ripped off by the Lord Commander, Mooncake gets the idea for a cybernetic replacement by ripping off one of the S.A.M.E.S.' (specifically Rob's) left arm. Avocato then volunteers to perform the prosthetic surgery on Gary, which strengthens their bond and officially signifies the start of their friendship.

Starting in Season 2, Gary has a much more roughed up look. His outfit is the same with the blue circle on his shirt changing to orange. His hair is more “fluffy” looking when compared to season 1. During the time when he was stranded on Terra Con Prime following the events of The Remembered, he grew patchy stubble, which can be inferred he shaved off shortly after being rescued by the crew. He still keeps his jeans, jacket, belt, and boots during season 2 and 3.

Gary’s Appearance in Season 2 of Final Space

Personality

At the start of the series, Gary is shown to be more immature and arrogant, but as the series progressed, Gary has notably matured over the course of each chapter. Gary often has a habit of talking inadvertently, or as he self-proclaims it: 'word-arrhea'.

His time spent isolated in deep space has made him excessively receptive to friendship, as shown through his staunch loyalty to both Mooncake and Avocato, despite barely knowing them and becoming involved in various dilemmas because of them. Despite this, his hate of KVN has not been whittled away by his years of separation from intelligent lifeforms, and instead reveals a very petulant and short-tempered side of his personality.

Gary's emotional development seems stunted to some extent, which series creator Olan Rogers' notes as being a consequence of his father's passing away when Gary was quite young. In addition, Rogers has commented that Gary's energetic and cheerful demeanor is a psychological defense mechanism that he uses to cope with the grief of losing his father. It is also evident that his mother abandoning in his childhood also played a role in his current personality as he grew up. Furthermore, this element of his personality may have been further compounded by his five years without human interaction; while Rogers states that Gary is at least thirty, his personality seems more akin to someone in their twenties, which is the age at which Gary was imprisoned.

While his immaturity seems to lessen between the flash-forward in Chapter One and his current state, he is still shown to develop emotional attachments with extreme ease, and to have very poor and strange mechanisms for handling rejection, which seem to entail "Footloose," styled episodes of elaborate dancing. In addition, he has an obsession with cookies, to the point of being willing to undertake the risk of imminent death for the opportunity of being able to slip a cookie under his helmet, throwing a childish tantrum after H.U.E. tells him that he's matured too much over the course of the series to possibly want cookies anymore, and even asking that H.U.E. change his death countdown to the time until a batch of fresh cookies has been baked.

Abilities and Equipment

Prosthetic Arm: Once belonging to one of the S.A.M.E.S., Gary's left arm was replaced with a mechanical prosthetic, with the help of Avocato, after Lord Commander ripped off the original limb in Chapter Two.

Piloting: Gary starts out inexperienced with flying spacecrafts, seen in the flashback scene prior to his arrest in Chapter One. However, as the series continues, Gary's piloting skills and overall knowledge of the ships he flies gradually improve. It is also implied that Gary had hoped to become a pilot for the Infinity Guard growing up, as shown in "The Sixth Key".

Thievery: It is unknown how long Gary has been experienced with stealing, but he has always been seen getting away with anything he takes. Stolen items include a piece of jewelry in Chapter One, a dimensional key in "The Remembered", and stealthily taking another dimensional key from Sheryl in "Descent Into Darkness".

Relationships

Mooncake - Best friend

Gary found Mooncake while he was repairing a satellite outside of the Galaxy One in space. He took a break after repairing it to watch a movie through hologram, when he noticed a pixel on the screen started acting weird. It started getting bigger, then Mooncake flew through the hologram of the movie and onto Gary's face. While Gary was initially frightened by Mooncake's appearance, he quickly realized his face was being hugged rather than attacked, and relaxed. "I could use a face-hugger in my life." After that, Mooncake went with Gary into the Galaxy One and has stayed with Gary, and they have become companions and friends. Gary is the only one who can understand Mooncake, as seen when Mooncake tells him what happened after he was kidnapped by The Order of Twelve, to which he replies "Oh, that's it."

Avocato - other best friend

Gary met Avocato when a group of Ventrexian bounty hunters boarded the Galaxy One to confiscate Mooncake for the Lord Commander. When they were aboard, Gary hid Mooncake and told H.U.E. to lightfold the ship to safety. When Terk realized the ship was lightfolding, he evacuated to his ship and escaped. Two of the bounty hunters were sucked into space and disintegrated by the lightfold engines. Avocato used his grappling hook to stay safely inside the ship during the lightfold. Later, he holds Gary at gunpoint and demands Gary hand over E-351. Gary responds by asking if he wants to play cards, to which Avocato dropped the weapon and put his paws up. While it appeared he surrendered to Gary when asked to play cards, really he was surrendering to a large group of S.A.M.E.S. who followed Gary to defend the ship and Gary with their built-in weapons. Gary then proceeded to tie up Avocato and try to make him play cards for the next nine hours. It was an unconventional beginning to what would become an epic friendship.

After Gary uses KVN to smash Terk's Ventrexian Stealth Probe, Avocato offers to help Gary get Mooncake to safety. Gary will only accept Avocato's help once they performed the Clasp of Friends, in which they conventionally decided to forgo the tradition of getting balls to the wind naked. Later on Terra Con Prime, Avocato is captured by the Lord Commander's soldiers and was prepared to betray Gary and Mooncake in order to retrieve his imprisoned son from the Lord Commander's clutches. However, he has a change of heart and attempts to help get Gary to freedom, but not before the Lord Commander rips off Gary's left arm.

The two of them somehow manage to escape Terra Con Prime, and Avocato offers to perform the surgery attaching Gary's new robotic arm. The two perform a second Clasp of Friends with Gary's new arm at the end of Chapter 2.

Quinn Ergon - love interest

Gary had met Quinn Ergon five years ago at a bar called Where the Earth is Still. He impersonated an Infinity Guard Pilot to try and impress her after being told that she'd only be interested in them by another Infinity Guard person. He followed a Pilot into the bathroom then knocked him out and took his uniform. He left the bathroom and went to talk to Quinn, then there was an announcement calling Infinity Guard personnel. Quinn went with Gary and they boarded an F-71 Hawk Ship that Quinn expected Gary to be able to fly (since he wore the Pilot uniform). Well... he ended up blowing up ninety two Imperium Cruisers and a small family-owned Mexican restaurant then being arrested. (Sorry, Guadalupe!) This is how he became a prisoner aboard the Galaxy One. Ever since that day, Gary has made daily recorded videos and sending them to Quinn (which she supposedly never received) for his entire five years of imprisonment. After discovering he can save Quinn from Final Space, Gary spends the entirety of season 2 attempting to save her.

H.U.E.- Galaxy ONE AI

H.U.E. is the AI of the Galaxy One ship that Gary has been a prisoner on for five years. H.U.E. controls the ship and watches over Gary, adding a day to his sentence whenever Gary tries to steal a cookie. In spite of their conflict, H.U.E admits that Gary is his only friend (especially when he admits to share a similar dislike for KVN). Shortly after Gary fended of the the raid sent by the Lord Commander, H.U.E. held newfound respect for Gary for his bravery and courage, and even offered him a cookie, but later withdrawn it when Gary began acting cocky again. H.U.E. was also willing to pull a practical joke and bluff on Gary at one point.

KVN - ONE-SIDED Nemesis

KVN is Gary's Deep Space Insanity Avoidance Companion, even though he causes Gary to go insane himself. Gary has been stuck with this loser for five years, and hates him. So much. Gary hates him for various reasons, including, destroying the ship while he was away, sealing the door to the bathroom and shooting at him during a rescue attempt.

Lord Commander - Nemesis

The Lord Commander became Gary's nemesis when it was discovered that he was trying to capture Specimen E-351, or Mooncake, to use to unlock Final Space. Lord Commander will do anything to get a hold of Mooncake, because he believes unlocking Final Space will save him from dying from using his powers. He also imprisoned Gary's best friend's (Avocato) son (Little Cato), then later killed Avocato after him and Gary saved Little Cato.

Little Cato - Adopted son

Little Cato is Avocato's son. Avocato told Gary to look after his son, right before sacrificing himself to the bomb sent by the Lord Commander, that killed Avocato. Now Gary has to look after his passed best friend's son and does his best to protect him. In the season 2 episode "The Lost Spy", after running away, Gary finds Little Cato and offers to adopt him. Little Cato accepts and the two hug, showing their care for each other.

John Goodspeed - Father

Gary's father, John Goodspeed, was only around when Gary was a young boy. He was a part of the Infinity Guard, and one day he had to leave for a mission. He gave Gary a caterpillar named 'Mooncake', then left to board his ship and leave for a mission. Soon after the ship took off, it exploded, killing John. These were the last moments Gary spent with his father.

Sheryl Goodspeed - Mother

Gary's mother who abandoned him shortly after his father died. Not much is known about her except that she is also collecting the dimensional keys, though she does so for an unknown reason. It is shown that Gary has a number of unresolved issues with her. Their relationship became further strained when she brazenly and unrepentantly stole the dimensional keys that Gary and his friends had acquired. After obtaining the dimensional keys from her, Gary puts Sheryl in a cell. Tribore feels as if she can help in the final battle and does deep therapy with her. After the therapy works, Sheryl accepts Gary as her son and the two work together.

Quotes and Catchphrases

Catchphrases

• "Sweet Grandor's glove!"
• "Oh my crap."
• "Oh my double crap!"
• "Tough titty whompus."
• "Shut up KVN!"
• "This is the real, raw Gary."

Quotes

• "How about fricken’ no?!"
• "You see, I like that. I like a girl with a lot of phones."
• "Let's get wild. How about you buy me a drink?"
• "I am going to murder your face off!"
• "I need a face-hugger in my life!"
• "Mooncake has feelings, and you just peed all over them with your cat whiz."
• "So....you probably have a few questions...."
• "Oh my god! David, kids, it's me! Your Mother!"
• "No, my arm! I forgot my arm back up there!"
• "I need to record my feelings!"
• "Tough titty whompus!"
• "I'm pumped! Super excited."
• "Hey sphincter sack! Rock, paper, scissors!"
• "Oohhhh KVN...what in the name of the three rings of hell did you do to the ship!?!?"
• "You really know how to press my buttons. Press!"
• "Cutting the engines and gliding in like a glorious coasting stealth squirrel was a bad idea!"
• "Twist my nipples rough!"
• "Do you really think I‘m going to hang myself with guitar strings?!"
• "Well if this isn't life then I'm a raging sack of walnuts!"
• "YOU IDIOT! That's my frickin' arm! You just ripped off my arm! AAAH! Oh my God!
• "Hi little buddy. It's been a while."
• "Oh my crap."
• "Oh my double crap!"
• "Maybe I should through in, "WHAT KIND OF MOTHER WALKS OUT ON A KID AFTER HIS DAD DIES AND NO ONE TO LOOK AFTER HIM! AND THEN DOESN'T HEAR FROM HER ABOUT ANYTHING EVER ABOUT ANYTHING EVER AGAIN!?"
• "Do you play cards?"
• "I am the captain."
• "You look every little bit as spicy as the last time I saw you."
• "Oh my wow! Oh my wow!"
• "Must you KVN? Must you?"
• "I don't know why more kids are named Death is sweeter then life, Fine boy you have"
• "I've never seen an on-day! I'm done being the excuse for all your mistakes! Things went the way they did with Dad because of you! You did that! And you're gonna have to live with it!"
• "She's good at taking what's important to me. That woman hasn’t seen the last of me. It’s on."
• "That's what love is. You don't see it coming. It sneaks up on you like a thief and steals your heart. To be honest, it's a little bit of a bastard."
• "Toast a marshmallow, and get on with your life."
• "Looking good Gary!"
• "I'm not running away. Not this time."

Alternate versions

In "Chapter 8", when Gary was let into the deepest part of the mind of the titan Bolo, he encountered dozens of alternate versions of himself, including a female Gary, a Gary whose head is a balloon, a construction worker, a clown, a wizard, a robot, an Eagle-head Gary, a cookie headed Gary, a microscopic Gary, amazing moustache Gary, and a Gary without eyes.

In "The First Times They Met", Nightfall uses the Virtulazium on the Crimson Light to recreate a version of her timeline's Gary.

In both "The Closer You Get" and "The Sixth Key", dozens of dead Gary's can be seen floating in Final Space. These all come from timelines in which he, and not Quinn, was the one to seal the breach to Final Space.

Trivia

• Gary is voiced by the creator of Final Space, Olan Rogers.
• Gary's phrase, "tough titty whompus" comes from show creator Olan Rogers' own mother, a phrase she would use when he didn't get his way.
• It's possible that the reason Gary messaged Quinn every day of his sentence, is because he has no one else to call and talk to outside of the Galaxy One ship.
• As a child, Gary has an interest in insects, as his childhood treehouse had a collection of bugs. This could also be a reason why his father gave him his pet caterpillar Mooncake.
• He is the first character to lose a father. The second being Little Cato.
• In Chapter 1, Gary mentions that he is Presbyterian. This is then later referenced in episode 8 when Gary is told that he had been pre-selected to see Bolo before he had been born. This is a reference to a belief that Presbyterians believe in called "Predestination" where a person would be destined by God to either go to hell or heaven before they had been born.
• According to Olan Rogers twitter, all of the characters birthdays are the same as their voice actors. This would make his birthday June 11.
• Gary is 32, as mentioned in The Sixth Key.
• Gary is a parody and pastiche of science-fiction protagonists.
  • Similar to Luke Skywalker and his father Anakin, he loses part of (or all of) an arm to the main antagonist.
  • He is blond and wears red, similar to Cale Tucker from the film Titan A.E.
    • Both of their fathers are voiced by Ron Perlman.
  • He was born during the rinse cycle of a hovercar wash.
  • After his mother abandoned him, he lived in his treehouse and burned down his house.
• It is revealed in "The Lost Spy" that Gary has the single largest bounty in the entire galaxy.

Gallery

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Gary Goodspeed.