Yes, They All Get Guns. But how are they using them? Each time a gun is shot, the level of intention is what determines the outcome. Follow me.
After Caine hands Jax and gun and modifies Jax's brain, Jax shows his true levels of untrustworthy-ness as he shoots Ragatha. She is flung all the way off-screen by the amount of force behind his intention to harm her. He gets a gun in his hand and his first thought was to shoot her...
As team bad guys stand in the hallway Pomni shoots her gun the first time. The bullet hits the target but the can stays where it is. It BARELY moves because she is thinking about having to do the same to those she calls friends.
Jax shoots with reckless abandon, not even looking at his target, and the can flies away. Of course he would want to hit it with ridiculous force to show off and to further his feelings and point of 'who cares?'
Pomni lets go of her thoughts on humanity and dips into her chaotic evil to just enjoy the game as Jax tells her. She effortlessly shoots again and the can flies away just as Jax's did.
When Zooble takes their shot at Kinger, it is not with malice. You can tell they are simply playing the game: cold and efficient. No emotion attached, knowing that no actual harm will come to Kinger.
When Kinger shoots back, it's just so him and Ragatha can move to a safer position. (You can argue that Zooble and Gangle were hidden well too, it doesn't change my point because neither of them were hit.) His shots are almost perfectly wrong... wouldn't hitting them through the bars be more likely than hitting the bars themselves?
Even the types of guns they pick up show their intent. The most obvious are the ones Ragatha picks up. She is first seen with the tiniest gun that is rendered useless when Jax blows off her hands.
Pomni follows Jax with a shot through Ragatha's head, bits of stuffing flying out. But as we see her on the ground her head is still intact. Pomni shot her to play along with the game, not to be cruel in any way. This is a common theme for Pomni- more on that later.
Kinger shoots a couple more shots, but just hits the barrel Pom and Jax hide behind to give Ragatha cover long enough to get to safety.
Rags finds a gun and turns it on Jax in time, but the gun is a toy prop. This happens to no other character in this episode and really shows that she has no intention of hurting anyone, even Jax whom she has told she hates when on the stupid sauce.
Jax leaps over Rags and shoots her in the head, and her WHOLE HEAD EXPLODES. This is a more cartoony display of a person getting shot, unlike Pomni's shot at Ragatha, and obviously a lot more aggressive. Oh and did I mention intent? Yeah. He has nothing but disdain for her and I would love the history behind it.
After Ragatha spreads her toxic thoughts to Jax like spores into the open air, she puts her finger in his gun and it backfires. Funny how she accidentally causes more harm by trying to protect someone...
Out of embarrassment that Rags somehow took one of his lives along with this new terrible thought of "Corrupting Pomni" that Jax now has swirling in his head, he shoots her with major overkill. Emptying the rounds and still trying to shoot more is wiiilld Jaxy boy. We don't see Ragatha's body much here, but that's a lot of stuffing and it can be assumed her head was completely blown off again.
Zooble keeps finding automatic rifles? I don't know what the correlation is, I just thought I'd make it and someone who actually knows anything about guns could make sense of it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
The scene in the dark hallway is slightly different because they can't see each other, so the mission of shooting somebody can still be fulfilled without necessarily aiming for that person.
Jax shooting Pomni on accident while hoping to hit Kinger (and him quickly apologizing omfg) could further Jax's fear or even STEM FROM THE FEAR of what Ragatha told him. He fears he might hurt her, even unintentionally. As he says later "everybody" already blames him for Kaufmo's abstraction (and probably Ribbit's), which simply has to include himself with how he wear guilt when unmasked. That worm Ragatha placed in Jax's brain that he is going to hurt Pomni could be wiggling around and skewing Jax's gunshots towards Pomni. You still following?
And then Kinger doing his "Ricochet super move" only to end up losing his last life to it. Kinger never hurt anybody? Duh. He is a girl-dad whose objective was protecting his first daughter and we forever love him for it.
In the tube with team unmasked Jax is very close to shooting poor Gangle, but she dodges in time of his bullets. This could be a nod to her being slightly less subservient towards him this episode and not just letting him win? And Zooble just shoots back as cover and concern for their lover teammate.
When Zooble turns to shoot at team bad guys, you can see again that they take few and calculated shots at them. Thinking of accuracy and bullet conservation to efficiently play the game, not of reckless behavior and causing others any pain.
Gangle gets her tommy gun and has the time of her life. Notice ONCE AGAIN that even though she has strong negative feelings towards Jax, she does not hit him once. In her craze she shoots at the tunnel where they all then fall out. She just wanted the feeling of power shooting the gun, seeing Jax being the one afraid for once, but not the feeling of satisfaction by hitting anybody.
While a determined Pomni struggles with the sniper to continue playing along with the game, a smiling and content Gangle picks up her tommy. Two gun shots, but only one of them goes down because Gangle never wished to hurt anyone.
Pomni's shot at Gangle is just like the one she made at Ragatha- realistically straight through the head to show she is still tied to others being human and to minimize any suffering. While still playing along with Jax as "evil" Pomni.
Pom shooting through both masks counting as two lives is a great bonus. Love that Gangle is smiling all the way through :)
Flashbang bombs (or whatever they are called??) being stashed in Zooble's room is interesting because Zooble has admitted to not liking their body and probably therefore doesn't like being perceived. A weapon that literally blinds others would be a perfect fit for them.
Also, they find more of those same automatic guns in their room. They shoot the bad guys in a way that disarms them and gives Zooble time to run away. There was a sweet taste of revenge in the air during this scene, but the two did just sing the song Zooble called creepy, Zooble hates Jax (as they alluded to in the bar adventure), and Pomni just shot Gangle. Hence the overkill I'm sure.
Pomni is purely having fun when she is getting back at Zooble. Honestly, good to see her having a good time because I was convinced for a while she was just a whiny b^%&#. Turns out she's just real and this is a crazy place to be.
Anyway, with delusional determination she spins the rounds to make it total chance if a bullet would even come out and shoots at the frickin' ceiling. She hits all four guns out of Zooble's hands AND hits Zooble in the back.
When the bullet hits Zooble in the back, I don't believe it took one of their lives? They fall over and make an exclamation that it hurt, but we don't see their hearts show up above their head nor a regeneration animation. Pomni was trying to pull a trick shot, and the final hit felt like a bonus.
Honestly not sure if Zooble got shot at all before this so lemme know if I missed something. Only two bangs are heard from team bad guys before Zooble disappears so maybe the one in the back counted I dunno. Not everything is animated, I get it. Just an observation.
Kinger being girl-dad. Precious.
It wouldn't show in a picture, but Pomni's hand is trembling slightly around the gun when Jax holds it up to his face. Mind you, Jax is also holding her arm steady. He can feel her shaking and is potentially shaking as well. This small detail shows it becomes real again to Pomni, their facade has dropped after Jax did not go along with her betrayal. Shooting him now would be shooting her friend who she is just finally learning about and bonding with.
On a personal level, she asks if shooting him would be so upsetting that it would end their friendship. This shows how insecure about the relationship she is. (Which is totally valid btw because we're talking about Jax who hides how he feels about others with cruel and unusual punishments.)
Jax physically poked Pomni and emotionally prods her as well during this argument. Even with her hate for physical touch and Jax getting in her space in anger, she does not point the gun at him.
We all were thinking the same thing after Jax's dastardly words towards Pomni and the distraught and perplexed look on her face when she turned away from him.. but ALSO, it is as if she is weighing out in her head why she hasn't shot him yet. If it's even worth shooting him?!
Same way Jax stared at his hand multiple times after he forced Pomni away from him.
The gun also represents the whole day they had on the same team. She let loose like he told her to and had fun. With. HIM. Now he wants to pretend and deny it happened and asks her to shoot him. The game is over, but Jax is always playing.
Instead of sliding in the sewer Pom throws the gun at him, literally choosing to fight for what she believes rather than give up on him or herself.
Also adding "You're not the funny one!" was interesting to me after earlier saying "What's your archetype then, the villain?" Calling him that indirectly at this moment is perfect.
Woof. Of course there are a trillion other things I could say about this show that has consumed my waking days, but that's all the gun appearances in the episode. Hope at least some of this made sense, haha.
Lemme know whatcha think! :)
