TADC SPOILERS!!! well, eh, kinda, read at your own risk!
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am i safe to type now
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lemme give it a few more
(warning, my OPINIONS, ahead!! if you don't like them, that's okay! these are just my personal feelings with the episode, that's all :] you're allowed to disagree, and that's okay.)
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okay anyways SO
i know this will surprise some people, but I actually.. didn't.. like the finale. if i were to rate episode nine out of ten, it'd be either a 3 or 4, and that's me kinda trying to be nice..?
i feel like there were a lot of things that didn't make sense, plotholes, ect ect, and i have a lot of criticisms for it, so I just wanted to share my thoughts!
-i feel like the cast was out of character at a lot of points during the movie, but the main one was when jax came up to pomni and then chickened out and pomni just.. let him go? the reason why this feels out of character to me is because of the fact that pomni is very persistent, as we've seen from the last few episodes. hanging out with jax(ep5), seeking him out(ep6,7,8), checking in on his mental (ep7&8 and technically 6), literally fist-fighting him to prove a point that he does care(ep6), and trying to include him when she can?? reaching out for him too even though he kept pulling back?? (ep6&7) it kinda felt like it was pushed for the plot point of jax's abstraction, cause I really do think pomni would've pushed further out of concern for her friend who was CLEARLY mentally unstable
-to me, jax abstracting felt incredibly rushed and sudden, happening about.. 7-ish minutes into episode 9? (i think, dont remember too well!!) obviously it had been building up from the past few episodes, but the way it was handled felt like total whiplash for me personally. I also don't really care for him abstracting off-screen, and I know some people say that the others were all off screen and so it was consistent, but they weren't main characters. they were all side or background characters. some also have said that it shows how suicide (cause i think we all agree abstraction is a metaphor for suicide in this show) can be sudden, one second they're there and the next they're not, but writing-wise, again, it just felt out of place and odd to me.
-Caine coming back made absolutely no sense in my personal opinion. if he was deleted last episode, and that had him ending up in the void.. then he wasn't really deleted. the void is just what surrounds the circus, and caine literally just.. flew back. they basically just temporarily teleported him whilst he lost some of his abilities in the process.
-also, the scene of caine scrolling through instagram or social media and somehow gaining.. humanity or remorse just didn't- really- make sense either? i guess you could write it off as him seeing the human's real lives, and in doing so gets hit with a harsh dose of clarity, but it just felt. weird. i don't know how to explain it, and I can't really re-watch it to see the scene again (as i saw it in theaters)
-i think the pacing was very poor for this episode. now, keep in mind, episode 8 was also thrown in at the start so the finale could reach movie-length requirements, but I feel that wasn't really the best way to go..? we didn't have enough development between pomni and ragatha for their year-long hug to mean anything to me, i still have a lot of questions about scratch and kinger, and the world overall, and i honestly would've loved to see more of pomni interacting with gangle or zooble or just the cast with each other in general. that's what i loved so much about episode 8 where they were together as a team, episode 9 just felt forced with it and hollow, and there wasn't nearly enough buildup for me to feel emotional at the emotional parts. i also feel that jax took up way too much screentime, specifically the flashbacks too.. now, i understand that goose has said that he and pomni are the main characters, and I absolutely love that! I even defended it in one of my rant posts because I was tired of people being nothing but negative for literally everyone. but, i think i understand where they're coming from after episode 9. jax was introduced like the rest of the cast with the same value at the start, and I'd say around episode 5 is when we started focusing on him more. that's.. halfway into the show. i feel that goose having to state that he was a main character kinda shows that people wouldn't have been able to tell otherwise. i also feel that if this really needed to be a theater release, maybe goose could have doubled down and made ep 9 movie length instead, which would give the characters and plot way more time to develop. i really don't think a sane person would've minded waiting extra time for a longer episode with the promise of good quality and HOUR LONG DURATION bro?? like that's crazy!
-now, i absolutely adore jax's writing and the reason why he's developed as an insecure and scared character, but something also didn't make much sense to me either. after his and ribbit's talk, he tells her that if she speaks of this to anyone, he'll never speak to her again. which she doesn't, and he still ends up being a douche to her either way..? also, this 'douche' change literally happens overnight. in the flashbacks, we see how kind and even 'sweet' jax was when he entered, so this douchey personality wasn't there. now all of a sudden it is after one conversation? don't get me wrong, his coping mechanism is very realistic, but it would've made more sense for it to build up over time rather than him brushing ribbit off right away.
-i have a few more gripes but some of them are just little things that bugged me, and im not sure if tumblr posts have a word limit, so im gonna try to wrap this up (and make another post of my compliments! i give critiques, but there were a few things that i did enjoy from this episode :])
anyways, so yeah, those were some of my main issues, i have a few more but shrug shrug. and, i'm saying this as a three-year-long-day-one-fan of tadc who had a mega hyperfixation on it, i was disappointed by the finale and left the theater feeling underwhelmed and unsatisfied. i absolutely adore the series, i just really don't like episode 9. if you've read this far then uh, thanks! (hope you watched it already) if you have your own thoughts, I'd love reading them cause I like seeing people's thoughts on the show, whether it be (respectfully) negative and/or positive!
