The Death Cure Review

Lots of spoilers ahead! Read at your own risk... 

The Maze Runner trilogy ended well with The Death Cure. The story mostly took place in Denver, Colorado, which was one of the few cities left standing, although it quickly becomes clear to Thomas that the city is falling apart. The book starts where it left off, in the Wicked facility where Thomas had ended the Scorch Trials. All of the characters are told that they will have a medical procedure to get their memories back. Out of those characters, only Thomas, Newt and Mingho refuse to do so. However, the "Rat Man" forces them to get the procedure, but at the last minute, Brenda (who, along with Jorge, had been a secret Wicked employee) saved the day and helped them escape. Turns out that Theresa had already escaped with the other surviving kids. Later we learn that she only left because she thought Thomas had some some reason.

Everyone ends up in Denver, where Gally makes an appearance. He is part of a group called the Right Arm that is fighting against Wicked. Together, they plan to infiltrate the Wicked headquarters and take it down. They send Thomas in early to "turn himself into Wicked." Much to his dismay, he learns that as the Final Candidate, he is going to be kept alive while the doctors dissect his brain, so he would literally be donating himself to science. Fortunately, his friends show up in time, but the original candidates learn that Wicked has been gathering other immune people (about 500) and keeping them in the maze, while the Right Arm plans on blowing up the entire facility. However, Chancellor Paige, who we only hear about in the epilogue, gives Thomas a note with the blueprints of the facility, along with the directions that a Flat Trans is available to take him to safety.

Thomas has to race to rescue his friends, gather the immune people from the maze, fight more Grievers, as well as the crazed Right Arm people and Rat Man, who still wants to use Thomas' brain. The last third of the book is packed with action and violence. People die, buildings get blown up but it more or less ends well. In the end (SERIOUS SPOILERS AHEAD)... the surviving immune people go through a flat trans to some sort of idyllic place where they can reform society. Teresa died at the end, but Brenda made it. Clearly she and Jorge were aware of the chancellor's secret plan if the cure itself didn't work. So now two hundred or so people survived and were left to repopulate the world.

I thought this was a good ending to the series. A couple things annoyed me, though. First of all, why in god's name would Thomas not want his memories back? Sure he's been getting memories but still has a lot of questions. Why wouldn't he just get his memories back. Also, the back up plan for saving society was smart but they should have gathered all the immune people and put them in the safe place, while still running the trials to find a cure.

Anyway, it was a solid ending. The prequel (The Kill Order) is coming out in August, so I'm going to get that. It focuses on the decision that Wicked made to release the Flare disease into the public to control the population after the earth got ruined by the solar flares. Sounds interesting!