V1

Perpetually sleep deprived

[haastera]

Remember that major plot point about how Murder Drones and Infected Workers need to drink oil to avoid overheating, and the more they use their powers the more oil they'd need? Hence Doll's Ep3 kitchen stuffed full of dead workers.

Guess that was forgotten about in Ep6-8.

[haastera]

The Solver should have been killed by N's nanite acid rather than by UZI suddenly gaining access to a level of power Yeva, Nori, and Doll never even came close to solely because N is her boyfriend now.

It'd mean nanite acid wouldn't remain a completely irrelevant part of the story and be the proper way to write the power of friendship/love instead of the Shonen anime power-up we got. Perfectly encapsulating UZI's statements against Doll in Ep3, how they move forward together or not at all.

Then there would have been two sides to UZI defeating the Solver, the mental side, and the fact that she physically wouldn't have been able to destroy its core without N fighting alongside her. Whereas Doll's hatred of the Murder Drones meant she went it alone and died alone, UZI was only capable of defeating the Solver because of her forgiveness of the Murder Drones. She literally couldn't have won alone or without them.

Not to mention that the Solver losing due to having the weapon it created specifically to kill other Solver hosts used on it instead would be a fitting end, delivered by its favorite pet, no less.

UZI would then consume the Solver black hole and everything else could stay the same.

Would have been a better ending than the one we got where UZI unlocks power comparable to the Solver without any training or deeper knowledge simply because she's happy N is her boyfriend now.

[haastera]

Easy ways to fix parts of MD Ep8 without increasing the budget or adding minutes to the run-time.

Problem: How did N find UZI and know she was alive?

Solution: It would have cost nothing to add a little proximity map or something visible in the corner of N's visor in the scene where he finds Uzi in space, with a little line of text saying something like, “Admin Location VISIBLE/hidden”

Problem: How did N get past J to take her ship?

Solution: We could have gotten a 10 second scene showing a mocking J standing over a defeated Thad, Lizzy, and Khan. As she’s giving them an Ep1-style monologue talking about how easy it was we see N in the background scribble something onto a piece of paper, turn that piece of paper into a paper airplane, throw it at her, climb into her ship, and start it just as J turns around and realizes what’s happening. She then unfolds the paper airplane to find the IOU note.

Really just a short 5-10sec scene showing N taking the ship while J is distracted.

Problem: Where did the Solver and J come from?

Solution: Take one of the many screens visible inside the ship and add a flight path diagram showing what system the ship came from.

Problem: J's shallow character

Solution: Have a moment during the episode where N furiously asks her how she can willingly stand next to that thing after what it did to Tessa. Call her a coward and remind her that out of all of us, she cherished you the most. J doesn't need to say anything in response, but digital tears begin to streak down her visor as she's fighting to imply that deep down J knows they're right and hates herself for her inaction.

Problem: Nori conveniently falling from Space directly back to CFL.

Solution: 5 second scene where Nori teleports back to the surface of CFL like Doll could, panting as if it took an extreme effort and remarking how Yeva always made it look easy.

All of these would have been easy to implement without changing the plot and collectively extend the runtime of the episode by 15-20 seconds at most.

[haastera]

Also think I've figured out why I had such viscerally negative reaction to Ep8 when I first watched it.

The beginning of the episode gives you massive tonal whiplash.

The end of Ep7 makes it feel as if the characters are in their darkest and most desperate moment yet.

-The patch was destroyed

-V's dead

- UZI's gone after dramatically sacrificing herself to save N and is now in Space.

-N has no reason to believe either are still alive and is now alone after having lost the two people he cares about most less than an hour apart from one another.

-The planet is about to be destroyed and J has neutralized any other method off world but her own ship, setting up the expectation that N is going to have to go through his old boss to get to it.

-Lizzy, Thad, and Khan make a badass entrance complete with UZI's re-built railgun to challenge J.

Yet the beginning of Ep8 skips over all of that. We don't see N's reaction to losing UZI and V, we don't see him confront J for the ship, emotionally asking if she knew about Tessa, we don't see Thad & Lizzy get their moment against J Ep7's ending set up.

Instead UZI wakes up, immediately re-unites with Nori who basically tells her, "yeah, the patch isn't actually necessary, nor do you have to wage some epic internal war with the Solver to purge it's connection, just remain calm and believe in the power of love and you'll be fine.

Then she reunites with N, who's all smiles & piloting J's ship, less than 3 MINUTES into Ep8.

All of that tension, that despair, that feeling that the characters are finally in the endgame now. Gone.

Vanished, written out of existence.

It's like Murder Drones went from being comedy-horror in Ep1-5, had Ep6 has a turning point, (literally what Glitch called the merch collection for 6), where things began to become more serious horror.

Increased the serious horror with Ep7, with the ending of Ep7 being the scariest and most serious moment of the series thus far.

Only to completely revert to comedy first at the beginning of Ep8.

When watching it back to back the difference between the end of Ep7 and the beginning of Ep8 is night and day.

Genuinely makes me wonder if Ep8 was hastily re-written because it's so obvious. It feels like bad fanfiction.

[crowlhoard]

Well, there was only so much time for a rewrite, but it would have had to happen somewhere after the end of 2023 since the final episodes never included these images and that's when Glitch still called it the final of season 1

I guess a lot of scenes that Liam assumed can be easily inferred were cut, since obviously the most effort and budget went into the choreography of the fight, so that's what was given a priority.

But assuming most production are somewhat linear, there was already too much spent on the 6 and 7 to change much about them, so most of cutting and editing flexibility was left for the last episode.

I think as a very obvious set-up for the second season, episode 8 could've worked with some more extra scenes besides the after credit one being the main indicator that things may be very far from okay in the bunker.

But if Liam wasn't sure he had enough ideas for the whole next season or isn't sure he'll want to continue after his well-deserved break, re-writing it enough to call it final episode was safer that leaving an obvious promise for more.

But I still stand by the point that it was in bad taste to wait until the last episode to announce the series final and there should have been a more creative way of defeating Cyn besides 'believing in yourself' to properly finish off the narrative.

[haastera]

I've got to admit, I didn't like TADC as much as I liked Murder Drones (that might change with TADC Ep3, especially after MD Ep8), but I give Gooseworks a lot of credit as a creator for being open and honest about the likely lack of a S2 this early on. While it may be disappointing to some in the short-term, that kind of transparency sets and manages expectations.

[camacan-cmwrites]

The Reveal of Episode 8

With how high-stakes and fast-paced episode 8 was, I think a lot of us missed details and dialogue that completely change how we view this show. More specifically, how we view J and V.

Before I can analyse J, I think we need to talk about this reveal. Because it was only after I put the pieces together that I started to see the complexity of her character. So that's what I'm going to do.

Quick disclaimer, most of what I'm going to talk about will be about V, since most of the foreshadowing and the actual reveal itself is from her perspective. So, let's get into it.

Since episode 3, one of the biggest questions we had was "what does V know?" And it is only now in the finale that we have the answer.

"Wait, didn't we already get that reveal in episode 5?"

Sort of. In episode 5, we see inside the memories of N and V, and we finally learn about the Elliots, Cyn and the massacre at the gala. We all collectively assumed that this episode was the full extent of V's knowledge.

But, in episode 8, there's two lines of dialogue that reveal she knew way more than we thought.

In this first line, V says that her and J were told/believed that if they did their jobs and kill the workers, Cyn would leave them in peace. This line shows us that both V and J knew their orders weren't coming from JC Jenson, but from Cyn. It's implied by her earlier line "we were supposed to get away J" that they had discussed this plan of following orders to avoid Cyn. "Getting away" for them meant being left in peace, safe from all the trauma and horror Cyn brought.

How do I know this? Well, listen to V's line again. "We do our jobs, and it leaves us alone." (It's kinda hard to hear it cause J talks over her :/)

Doesn't it remind you of this line?

That. Thing.

V's line in Absolute End is a reference to the line from Cabin Fever. At the time, we assumed she was talking about Uzi, as in "we do our jobs, and Uzi leaves us alone." However, I now think that it was actually a hint about her knowledge of Cyn's control over them. In this scene, she's not talking about Uzi. She's talking about Cyn.

"We do our jobs, and Cyn/AS leaves us alone".

This also makes N's response make more sense. He "doesn't know what she's talking about" because she won't tell him about Cyn.

So, what's the other line of dialogue that supports this theory? Well it's this moment from Flesha.

Flesha basically reinforces what we have just established; that if V did her job, she wouldn't hurt them. However, she adds two details to this that make it all the more brutal.

The first is that she says she wouldn't have hurt her or N if she did her job. To me, this vastly changes the way I view V.

We've known from the start that V was a psycho who mercilessly killed workers. But we also knew that she wasn't exactly happy or stable in this role.

From around episode 3 and 4, we knew that she did these horrific things to protect N, despite us not knowing what she was protecting him from. We all knew she was driven by the need to keep him safe.

And by episodes 5 and 6, we thought we knew why. She was trying to protect him from the memories of the mansion, from the trauma they went through together. It's why she sacrifices herself to save N and Uzi. She's learnt to not only trust Uzi, but that she couldn't keep protecting him forever. By sacrificing herself, she had given everything to save them both.

But now, with the knowledge that V knew who sent them, and that she knew what they did to Earth, a whole new layer of complexity is added. She killed mercilessly to keep Cyn away. She avoided N so she wouldn't feel the guilt of what her and J were making him do without his knowledge. She continuously tries to go back to normal, to go back to killing workers (and Uzi) because of her fear Cyn will realise they aren't working. Its why she tells Uzi that she'll have to kill her anyways once she's no longer useful, because she was afraid that Cyn would possess Uzi and punish them.

And by episodes 5 and 6, she knows the only way she can secure their safety long-term is by stopping Cyn once and for all. And so she sacrifices herself so that N and Uzi can escape and finally put an end to her torture.

V was terrified of failure, and of hurting N as a result, from the very beginning.

The other detail Cyn adds to this theory is actually what she does. She says V did a bad job and rips N's heart out.

With all the information I just provided, look at V's reaction to this. The girl is FREAKING OUT. This is her worst fear, that her failure would get him killed. That her failure would put them through hell, again. And so she panics and runs, fully expecting Cyn to kill her and then make her clones go through the whole process again, this time without N, alone.

Another piece of evidence that supports this theory is the scene in episode 6 where the gang meet with J and "Tessa"

"Tessa" tells them that Cyn's last know act was sending the MD to the human exo-planets. N is confused by this, but V does not react. What's more, when you compare V and J's body language in this scene, they mirror each other. I think this is supposed to show us that both of them already knew about Cyn sending them to Copper-9, more so that both of them know information about their origins that they share in and hide from everyone else. It's a stretch, I know, but at the very least I think the mirroring was foreshadowing of their shared knowledge.

My final thought on all of this is V's relationship with Uzi now. For the longest time, she saw her as a threat. But now, Uzi is a comrade, her friend. Uzi is the only other person, besides N, to protect her. Uzi is the only one to make a sacrifice to save N AND V, eating the null from Cyn's heart.

And while I don't know if V found out about Uzi's sacrifice in episode 7, I'm sure it would only built on the mutual respect they have for each other.

So, there's the reveal explained. V and J knew all along about Cyn sending them to Copper-9. They thought if they killed the workers, Cyn would leave them in peace, but instead she tricked them into clearing a path for her to destroy the planet.

*Bonus: while researching, I found this line that is insane foreshadowing. I'm sure it's been found already but have it anyway.

[haastera]

Considering the Solver's goal is to destroy C9, and eventually, the entire Universe based on JCJ's research in Ep7, I'm not sure how the Solver would ever have fulfilled its promise to leave N and V alone unless it had some way to re-create the universe.

Though it's still so weird how we know that N, V, and J have all willingly done this exact same thing before on multiple human exoplanets. Presumably, V and J would have their memories of doing so, as this clone of J recalled her time on C9, so why would either of them ever believe that the Solver would keep its promise after it had already used them to destroy several other worlds?

I guess that means V somehow negotiated with the Solver to wipe N's full memory for C9 specifically? Why the Solver agreed in the first place is another confusing matter when it could have just said no and re-cloned them.

Also, why the Solver even needed them to clear a way when it could have easily landed on C9 and immediately initiated the world's destruction is another uncertain question.

At least this provides an explanation for why N was the only one who didn't recall anything.

[haastera]

Also think I've figured out why I had such viscerally negative reaction to Ep8 when I first watched it.

The beginning of the episode gives you massive tonal whiplash.

The end of Ep7 makes it feel as if the characters are in their darkest and most desperate moment yet.

-The patch was destroyed

-V's dead

- UZI's gone after dramatically sacrificing herself to save N and is now in Space.

-N has no reason to believe either are still alive and is now alone after having lost the two people he cares about most less than an hour apart from one another.

-The planet is about to be destroyed and J has neutralized any other method off world but her own ship, setting up the expectation that N is going to have to go through his old boss to get to it.

-Lizzy, Thad, and Khan make a badass entrance complete with UZI's re-built railgun to challenge J.

Yet the beginning of Ep8 skips over all of that. We don't see N's reaction to losing UZI and V, we don't see him confront J for the ship, emotionally asking if she knew about Tessa, we don't see Thad & Lizzy get their moment against J Ep7's ending set up.

Instead UZI wakes up, immediately re-unites with Nori who basically tells her, "yeah, the patch isn't actually necessary, nor do you have to wage some epic internal war with the Solver to purge it's connection, just remain calm and believe in the power of love and you'll be fine.

Then she reunites with N, who's all smiles & piloting J's ship, less than 3 MINUTES into Ep8.

All of that tension, that despair, that feeling that the characters are finally in the endgame now. Gone.

Vanished, written out of existence.

It's like Murder Drones went from being comedy-horror in Ep1-5, had Ep6 as a turning point, (literally what Glitch called the merch collection for 6), where things began to become more serious horror.

Increased the serious horror with Ep7, with the ending of Ep7 being the scariest and most serious moment of the series thus far.

Only to completely revert to comedy first at the beginning of Ep8.

When watching it back to back the difference between the end of Ep7 and the beginning of Ep8 is night and day.

Genuinely makes me wonder if Ep8 was hastily re-written because it's so obvious. It feels like bad fanfiction.

[haastera]

After having re-watched the entirety of MD from beginning to end in one sitting, the series finale is fine given the limitations.

If you view MD as a silly, occasionally somewhat scary series where the answer to most questions is, "don't think about it too hard", the ending is adequate.

If you turn your brain off and watch it you'll have fun.

[haastera]

Can someone more knowledgeable about animation than me explain how such an obvious error like this slipped past any kind of QA at Glitch?

[haastera]

Remember when people thought the corpse spires were going to be important since their construction was step one of the Solver's two step plan?

No. They weren't.

[haastera]

Taking the literal route, this ghost of Doll would make a lot of sense if UZI is in an illusionary world or simulation created by the Solver. Doll was consumed and assimilated into the Solver which now resides inside UZI. Seeing as she was also a Solver host, it's not impossible to think that fragments of her would still exist inside the overall hivemind.

[haastera]

So J was aware, V was aware, the other Murder Drones were presumably aware the entire time, so why was N the only Murder Drone in existence who had his memories totally wiped and didn't know despite the Solver implying in Ep7 that he willingly did what it asked on other worlds?

[haastera]

We didn't even learn how Nori survived her death and made it to Cabin Fever Labs. How can you not explain that at all?

[haastera]

And where exactly is she planning to go?

Back where she came from?

Where is that?

So many unanswered questions.

[haastera]

The life UZI had always wanted. Everyone she cares about is happy and safe, she's popular and acknowledged, her parents are both alive.

Almost as if it was created specifically for her.

[haastera]

The final scene is probably the most interesting of the entire episode in my opinion.

While this is most likely a way of showing that the Solver still exists inside UZI and nothing more, the implications are unsettling if taken literally. Especially given the Solver's ability to create perfect holograms and mimic others near flawlessly.

[crowlhoard]

So either N is dating a projection made by Solver or an actual Uzi, who is sharing her body with an entity he literally has PTSD from and she hid it from him. Both options are pretty dark.

And I agree, this uncertainty is the best part of the ending, after the whole "we beat the bad guy through punches and power of friendship, everyone loves the outcast, her parents are now super supportive and everyone lives happily ever after in the bunker".

[haastera]

UZI got an ending so perfect and happy it's almost like it was carefully engineered for her.

[haastera]

if you think about it, it's a question of when, not if the Solver corrupts UZl, just like it presumably did to CYN.

Perhaps UZI could resist and remain herself for 10 years, 100, 200, 300, but the Solver will eventually find a weakness. Unless they can find a way to destroy it completely its victory is inevitable.

All UZI has done is buy time.

[haastera]

The final scene is probably the most interesting of the entire episode in my opinion.

While this is most likely a way of showing that the Solver still exists inside UZI and nothing more, the implications are unsettling if taken literally. Especially given the Solver's ability to create perfect holograms and mimic others near flawlessly.