tadc ep9 tirade
this is going to be long and bitter because i've invested three years of emotional energy into this show, plus spent money on merch and a ticket. don't like don't read.
All 58 minutes of this finale can be boiled down to; 32 minutes of Jax, 10 minutes of Caine, and 16 minutes of nothingburger.
Minus the minute dedicated to the nostalgiabait theme song, which did NOT need to be included because Caine revives 37 minutes later. Why underline his absence like it's going to be permanent and show the circus losing color? This is unnecessary, both of these things were already shown last episode in a far more interesting way.
Jax's freakout is warranted, he just got skinned alive on top of weeks of torture, but his reasoning of "He gets to mess up like this and everyone takes his side?" is dumb. If Kinger got caught, or failed, or never hacked the torture would've worsened and everyone would've definitely abstracted. Caine couldn't be fixed either, his system self-destructed. Caine dying is the best scenario for their fucked situation but he's not in a state to think rationally.
I expected the brainscan reveal and everyone's reactions. I'm not happy about Sane Kinger being reduced to a therapist, it would've been impactful for him to break and be like "Caine is basically conscious and I killed him fuck gimme a sec".
I don't like the conjuring montage. Why are we fast-forwarding over a MAJOR MESSAGE of the show, "There is meaning to be found in a stagnant life"?? All they have is each other and things can't get more stagnant. More on that later.
Pomni watching Jax walk away, after he clearly intended to talk, with the voiceover "I should've pried but I forgor about abstraction" is so bad. Jax has been on abstraction watch for WEEEEKS and that was through HONEST TO GOD TORTURE. No fucking way Pomni, who witnessed "how bad things could get" on her first day in the circus, wouldn't pursue him. Her later line, "You should've just talked to me, man" was a slap in the face.
The cut to Abstracted Jax was garbage. My question is, where's Kinger? He has the most experience with abstraction and knew Jax, we don't get a thing from him?Â
That leads into my next gripe, how did Pomni enter Jax's mindscape and why didn't Kinger do the same with Queenie? Can they still do it with the other abstractions? It only ended because Abstracted Jax panicked and stepped on a flashbang, could it have continued if Pomni calmed him down? We'll never know.
I'm sorry I couldn't stop thinking about that "acting like a victim" meme during Jax's 32 minute spotlight.
Caine didn't need to be brought back and his only use is being a quick-fix for the circus and fulfillment for the humans to know their real identities. Him connecting to a random wifi is supremely lazy and doesn't make sense, was it always there? Why did it taper out? Why hadn't he tried that before? Why was the BlueAI making him unstable when the opposite was established? Why did the humans accept him in .2 seconds? Why didn't anyone notice color returning to the circus before he revealed himself? So many C&A questions too.
I'm not going to try to rationalize the graveyard pillowfort that houses 13 semi-aware corpses.
I expected this to be an "every character" episode, because why wouldn't it be? Ep8's climax focused on everyone's traumas, the natural progression would be them unpacking that while trying to make the circus liveable. Conjuring familiar landmarks, establishments, their real homes! We could've had a moment with Jax and Pomni, with him admitting that he didn't have a home and letting her help him make one. And that leads into him genuinely apologizing for the hurt he's caused, uncomfortable conversations brightening up into hope and eventual forgiveness. The whole circus tent also should've been taken down by them in favor of a huge expanse of land with all of their creations, so it feels like they made actual progress instead of ending in the same exact spot as before.
done bitching and moaning, 3/10 episode.