So here's quite a strange coincidence... RAPSHEET was in yesterday's "Twice Weekly" puzzle by @wordswithwally. This grid was already fully constructed before the puzzle went live, so that was a completely accidental gimme for me.
The “for plot reasons” part of the clue has to do with when they find the mask that says “P. SHERMAN - 42 WALLABY WAY - SYDNEY”, I guess they would have no idea where to go look for Nemo if Dory couldn’t read.
And while I did call this “the final boss” it’s not because it’s the last puzzle in this mini series, I still have a 15x15 to release as the Sunday puzzle. It’s just that this one is WAAAAY harder than the other 6, similarly to how the NYT works with Saturday vs Sunday difficulty.
Whew that was a workout! By the end I was confident about the whole puzzle except the ALDA/TEA crossing. Luckily running through the alphabet to fill the last square didn't take long!
The TEA clue is some kind of mnemonic about the word for “tea” in different languages (I think I’ve seen it in some other crossword). The ALDA clue is… straight up cryptic (mortAL DAnger)
Seriously, this puzzle has only 5 completions without check/reveal, and the average time is 19:26. So it looks like you just crushed it! I need to know how you did that.