Grimm Fairy Tales: Apocalypse

SPOILER WARNING: This covers the ending of all five issues of Grimm Fairy Tales: Apocalypse, including what happens to Hades and Liesel Van Helsing. Grimm Fairy Tales: Apocalypse brings together a lot of characters and storylines, but the part I wanted to talk about is the relationship between Liesel and Hades, and where this series leaves them. The larger story starts with the consequences of defeating the Cabal. Their ritual sacrifices had been keeping another evil contained, and with them gone, the Four Horsemen are able to break free. Robyn and the others are trying to deal with that while their own group is falling apart. People are arguing, old problems are coming back, and characters who need each other are having trouble even staying on the same side. There’s plenty of room there for a big fight where everybody eventually comes together and saves the world. But Hades is already dying before they get to the last battle, and Liesel has to go through the rest of this story knowing that. After the Pale Rider touches him, Hades starts deteriorating. There’s a scene in the second issue where he asks Liesel to take him home. He means their home together, rather than the Underworld. That’s a small conversation in the middle of everything going wrong, but it says a lot about what his life has become. The place he wants to go is the place he shares with her. Liesel keeps trying to find a way around what’s happening. Even in the final issue, she’s holding on to the possibility that killing the Pale Rider will undo the damage. Hades doesn’t believe he has that much time left. He tells her he won’t survive until sunrise, and he doesn’t want to spend the end of his life lying in bed while everyone else is fighting. Their conversation also brings his past back into it. He remembers the question she asked on their first date about how many people he had killed while ruling the Underworld. He knows that history is still part of him. Being in love with Liesel hasn’t made everything he did disappear. She still tells him he’s the love of her life. That’s a lot to put into a scene where one person is trying to say goodbye and the other is still looking for a way to keep him alive. They’re talking about the same situation from two very different places. Liesel is looking for another possibility. Hades is trying to decide what to do with the time he has. Angelica is part of this too. Hades has a daughter, and their relationship has its own problems. She’s losing her father while Liesel is losing the man she loves. Those are different relationships, and the ending gives both of them space. Then the fight reaches the point where defeating the Horsemen still hasn’t made everyone safe. Their remaining energy is about to explode, and Marian and the others can’t contain it. Hades arrives with Liesel and Angelica and sees what’s happening. He kisses Liesel goodbye. He touches her face, then Angelica’s, and walks into the energy. He reaches the skeletal horse inside and takes the whole thing away from Earth. The explosion happens out in space, where it can’t kill the people below. Hades dies, and Liesel is left watching from the ground. The ending stays with the people who survive him. There’s a funeral on the beach, with a boat set out onto the water, and Liesel tells Angelica why that place mattered to her father. He had gone there the night Angelica was born. It was somewhere he found peace, and he had wanted to be a good father. That conversation brings him back to the two relationships at the center of his ending. There’s the life he built with Liesel, and there’s the relationship he wanted to have with his daughter. Both women are there, trying to live with his absence. So the tragedy of Apocalypse for Liesel is that she survives it. She helps reach the end of the crisis, but she can’t save Hades. The person she calls the love of her life is gone, and the final pages give her time to grieve. That’s where their love story ends in this miniseries. The world is still there, their friends are still there, and Liesel has to continue without him.