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?
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.