Right after Pomni leads the others into taunting and insulting Caine, he freaking SNAPS. He drops any pretenses of affability he still carried, and instead of random and cartoonish torture like he'd done throughout the episode, he subjects the humans to reminders of their psychological traumas.
Pomni gets trapped in a dark void where feral, abominated versions of Gummigoo, Max and Chad grab her and try to tear her apart, starting with her arm, then her legs. While horrifying and even though Pomni has long accepted that the original Gummigoo is gone, she still carries lingering guilt over his deletion and since he was the first one she truly connected with, and Caine exploits that guilt by using a twisted version of him to torment her.
One very important and devastating detail about Gummigooâs (very likely) final ultimate fate is how is heâs constantly been used as a living digital plaything for Caine to manipulate his digital existence. At one point, he played a sympathetic antagonist who made his only true friend in Pomni after suffering an existential crisis. Then, his personality was destroyed alongside that version of him and heâs replaced by a data clone who is simply wanting some food. By the time we reach the penultimate episode, heâs effectively been turned into a mindless animalistic abomination whose sole instinct is to kill the only friend he ever made. Gummigooâs existence is tragic not just because he was forced to change against his will and was destroyed repeatedly for it, but his lack of autonomy has destroyed any hope of a better existence. He simply was never allowed to have one by his cruel digital god, Caine.
Ragatha is then confined to the seat at an eerie dinner table, surrounded by other broken rag dolls with knives stuck in them and is at the mercy of a giant silhouette that represents her mother. This all represents how Ragatha, even after years at the Digital Circus, is still haunted by her mother's shadow. The fact that her "mother" launches knives at her only makes the situation even more bleak for the poor rag doll, as it could either be taken figuratively or literally with how one of them lands directly in her hand and in her button eye, and at least two more hit her in the chest, pinning her in place. By the end of it, Ragatha's just left staring mutely at the silhouette looming over her.
Even sadder is before she gets pinned, the moment Ragatha gets stabbed she instinctively mutters what sounds like a frightened "Mama!". She immediately recognized it was her mom because she got stabbed. What a great mom!
Gangle is surrounded by portraits of Comedy and Tragedy masks that spin around her as she cries, eventually all melting away into darkness. Then the same truck that ran her over in the fourth episode emerges from the same darkness and runs her over. Already one of the biggest punching bags in the Digital Circus, she's now being surrounded by mocking reminders of her failed pursuit at an artistic career and is then forced to relive one of the worst experiences she's had in the circus.
The truck could also imply she was involved in a car accident that left her with a lot of trauma, and if that IS the case, then Caine including that in the Spudsy's adventure in the first place just makes it even worse.
Zooble gets dragged into a pit by thousands and thousands of copies of their limbs and body parts, with a bunch of mirrors forcing them to stare at themself, in a body they hate and didn't choose for themself. This was Caine cruelly and deliberately mocking Zooble who previously expressed insecurities about their digital body.
This scenario specifically proves that Caine didn't forget what Zooble said every time they tried talking to him about their parts back in Episode 3. It just didn't matter to him specifically because in his view, he had solved that problem by providing Zooble nigh endless alternate parts. That this did not actually solve the problem was seen by him as Zooble just being unreasonable.
Despite being the resident bully and asshole, Jax's torment at Caine's hand is not meant to be karmic justice and is every bit as disturbing and devastating as the others. The guy is surrounded by silhouettes of Ribbit, Kaufmo, and Pomni â those he considers his only friends whom he opened up to and revealed his true self to â who instead laugh at and grab him, tearing off his purple layer of "skin" to reveal a yellowish ragdoll-like skeleton underneath, reminding Jax how much he hates being "vulnerable" with people. Pomni being included here indicates he was starting to connect with her too, despite trying to blow her off... which just makes it so much worse. Say what you will about Jax, but even he doesn't deserve that.
The collective of shadows tearing at him starts with generic circular-headed humanoids, suggesting Jax had similar experiences or at least felt the same way about other people before he'd entered the circus. Making matters worse in hindsight: the ones following them are people he met within the circus, and they do not include Ragatha, another person confirmed to have known the three grabbing him and implicitly made an effort in reaching out to Jax. Given that Ragatha feels she definitively "failed" Jax, we can only imagine just how bad things really got between the two of them for Jax to never give her as much value.
