NOTE: This article contains information only on the Sheryl Goodspeed from the second season, and not from the third season where she's a hero.
| “ | Truth, the day I lost your dad, my heart shattered. Whatever was left was too small to love anything anymore. | „ |
| ~ Sheryl explaining her reason for neglecting her son Gary. |
| “ | I wish you were never born. | „ |
| ~ Sheryl expressing her resentment of Gary when he was a baby, also her infamous quote. |
Sheryl Goodspeed is the secondary antagonist of Season 2 of the science fantasy animated series Final Space. She is the wife of John Goodspeed and the mother of Gary Goodspeed.
She is voiced by Claudia Black, who also played Shelly in the same show, Admiral Daro'Xen in Mass Effect 2, Cydaea in Diablo III, Ma-Sha in Rick and Morty and Klothow in Ahsoka.
Biography
She once worked for an organization that was in conflict with the Infinity Guard. Being hired to infiltrate the Infinity Guard to harness their secrets, Sheryl meets and woos Gary's father John Goodspeed. However, over the months, the two genuinely seem to fall for each other climaxing in the birth of their son. Unfortunately for her, John discovered her true motivations and tosses her out after she yelled at their baby son. Sometime afterwards, John sacrifices himself to seal the breach to Final Space. From there, Sheryl became resentful of her son, and eventually closed herself off from loving anyone, abandoning a young Gary.
From there, Sheryl became a wanted criminal who was sentenced to be executed. She reunites with Gary after he decided to save her from death, and she effortlessly amazes the rest of the Crimson Light. After assisting his mother in one of her heists to retrieve an old "family heirloom." The heist nearly kills Gary and Clarence by the high-tech security system, but they narrowly escape from getting eaten by a worm. Once she gets what she wanted, she leaves her son and the Crimson Light at night.
In "The Lost Spy," Todd sends his henchmen to capture her as part of his plan on getting revenge on Gary. After killing several of his henchmen, Sheryl grew bored of it and voluntarily went to him. Entering her memories, Todd observes her life with John and offers a partnership where he would help her collect the dimensional keys in return for assisting him in getting payback. She agrees to the deal, ending the episode.
"The Set Up" reveals that she was still in contact with Clarence who, after feeling underappreciated and unloved, agrees to go with Sheryl's plan and betrays the Crimson Light and nearly kills his adoptive son Fox. He then steals the dimensional keys and deactivates AVA. Clarence successfully gives the two dimensional keys to Sheryl, fully expecting her to choose him. Instead, she pokes fun at him, pointing out how he willingly gave up everything and that they were nowhere close to being the same. The episode also reveals that Sheryl was working for a Titan named Oreskis who claims that he would allow her to see her husband again once the dimensional keys are all found.
"Descent Into Darkness" shows her leaving the Dimensional Keys on Todd's ship as bait for Gary while she goes to retrieve the 5th and final key from the planet Rugaro, which was in the middle of being sucked into a vortex leading to the Dark Zone. She kills the leader of the race guarding the key, the Beforians, and takes the key from its altar, resulting in all of the Beforians being disintegrated and destabilizing the planet even more. When Gary confronts her, she reveals her goal to resurrect John by giving the keys to Oreskis, along with the supposed revelation that Bolo is actually evil. Gary remains undeterred and demands the key from her, causing her to attack him and try to capture him to hand over to Todd, seemingly apathetic to the likely possibility of Todd killing him. Nightfall duels with Sheryl for the key, with Nightfall being briefly injured in the leg during the struggle, only for Gary to charge at her and steal the key from her. She then jumps on top of Gary and accidently knocks the key off edge of the cliff onto a rock in a river of lava. Sheryl overpowers Nightfall and takes her hostage in order to force Gary to surrender, only for Nightfall to headbutt her, allowing Gary to throw Nightfalls spear into Sheryls shoulder and pin her to the ground. Gary then proceeds to call Sheryl out for her abandonment of him and for blaming him for her falling out with John and tells her that she will have to live with the guilt of her actions for the rest of her life. These words drive Sheryl to tears, causing Gary to take her prisoner instead of leaving her to die, with him, Nightfall, and Hue returning to the Crimson Light with her and the key. Gary locks her up and leaves her to be guarded by KVN (similar to how he had to endure KVN's antics during his sentence on the Galaxy 1), before leaving Sheryl to her fate as she pathetically begs him not to leave her there with the robot as he begins singing.
In "the Sixth Key," Sheryl tricks Tribore into releasing her, afterwards she holds Gary at gunpoint to get the Dimensional Keys back, only for Fox to knock her out. After being locked back up, Tribore, Fox and Hue take her to the virtualazium, where they create simulations of her memories of her falling out with John. Tribore forces her to come to terms with the fact that it was her own choices that cost her Johns love and a life of happiness, despite once again attempting to scapegoat Gary, with Hue driving the point home by showing her images of the life she could've had if she had owned up to her mistakes. Crying at the realization of what her actions cost her, Sheryl is convinced by Tribore that even though John is gone, she still has a chance to make amends with Gary and make new, happy memories with him if she joins them. Sheryl agrees and joins forces with the rest of the Team Squad to save Gary from Avocato (under the influence of Invictus). Following Nighfalls sacrifice and Bolo's release from his imprisonment, Sheryl helps Gary fly the ship out of a collapsing Inner Space, before going into Final Space to save Quinn.
Personality
| “ | Sheryl: Ugh, you little bastard! Gary: Yep, it's me. It's the little bastard. And you're my mom! Let that sink in for a second. Have you got it, alright? Parent teacher conferences, baking cookies?! Not crazed rampages on your boy. Sheryl: You caught me on an off day. Gary: An 'off day'?! 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 going to have to live with it! |
„ |
| ~ Gary confronting Sheryl over her cruel treatment of him and calling her out on her refusal to take responsibility for her horrible choices. |
Sheryl is a charismatic and manipulative spy. She was very skilled at seducing men for her purposes, as shown with how easily she duped Clarence with cheap flattery. Her life took a turn, however, when her superiors sent her to gain John Goodspeed's trust to obtain his anti-matter bomb plans. Overtime she grew to genuinely love John to the point where she delayed completing her mission and made excuses to her superiors to keep from being taken off the job so she could stay with him. At a critical moment in the end, though, her commitment to her mission won over her genuine love for her husband and she gave the plans for the anti-matter bomb anyway, even after they had a son together. When John rejected her after her betrayal was discovered, she was left heartbroken and bitter, which only got worse after he gave his life to close the first Breach in Final Space.
Sheryl grew to deeply resent her son Gary after her falling out with John, placing the blame on him alone for her husband leaving her due to his crying being what led to him overhearing her report to her superiors, even though Gary was only a baby, and it was her own choice to betray his trust that caused him to end their relationship. She even tells her infant son that she wished he'd never been born in an act of pure spite. In the brief time that Gary was under her care following her husband's death, she was completely neglectful of him, pulling away from him when he tried to lean on her for comfort during John's funeral and shut him out of her room while getting drunk. After Oreskis offered to bring John back to life in exchange for the dimensional keys, she didn't hesitate to abandon him to fend for himself when he was still a child, which left a significant impact on his growth as a person. When they reunite in the present, she acts kind and supportive towards him to trick him into helping her find a dimensional key, only to leave him again once he had fulfilled his use, while telling him that she doesn't have enough love in her heart left after John's death to love anything anymore, even him. She never made any attempt to harm or kill him at any of these points despite her misplaced resentment towards him when it didn't suit her interests, but proved willing to leave him at the mercy of the vengeful Todd Watson to get her hands on the last dimensional key and threatened him with a blaster outright to get them all back after her initial defeat.
In her quest to bring John back to life, Sheryl was ruthless and willing to sink to any low to get what she wants. She committed a long list of crimes that warranted her imprisonment in a supermax prison and didn't show any remorse for the Beforians when they were killed as a result of her theft of the fifth dimensional key. She also killed all of Todd Watson's bounty hunters and only let them capture her because she was bored by her constant victories over them and wanted to figure out who kept sending them. She was also very treacherous, using Clarences attraction to her to convince him to steal the dimensional keys from Gary only to go back on her promise to be with him while admitting her disgust for him.
Underneath her cutthroat personality and her bitterness towards Gary, Sheryl is deeply regretful over turning John against her and weeps tears of guilt when Hue and Tribore show her simulations of the happy life she could've had if she had owned up to her mistakes. Following her therapy session, Sheryl finally acknowledges her guilt and makes amends with Gary in the hope of building a better future with him and regain a sliver of a happy life, defending him from Invictus and following him into Final Space itself to help him save Quinn, setting herself on the path to self-improvement and redemption.
External Links
- Sheryl Goodspeed on the Heroes Wiki
- Sheryl Goodspeed on the Final Space Wiki
 Villains
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The Team Squad Titans Lord Commander's Army Others | ||