Found some energy again and now I feel a burning need to go back and talk about the Jack/Carly dark signer duel because, in all honesty, I think this may be the best of the dark signer duels, full stop. At the very least, it easily makes the top three in terms of stakes, character dynamics, and sheer drama. But what I really feel the need to talk about is what this duel does for Jack's character because I feel like there's a lot to unpack here. Long post ahead.
So, first off, I freely admit that I dunk a lot on Jack, and I can't help but feel like that's partially the point of his character during the early parts of the show. He's a standoffish, overly proud guy who comes across as kind of a dick, he betrayed Yusei and stole from him, and both our protagonist and we as the audience are being given every reason to not hate him, precisely, but to at the very least want to see him go down. His ego is so massively bloated and the way he constantly goes on about thinking he's a better duellist than Yusei makes you root for his downfall at the Fortune Cup. Considering he's the rival character, I think this is all perfect. I eagerly anticipate Jack getting his butt handed back to him on a silver platter every time, and it works great.
That said, this characterisation would get a little stale if they'd tried to run with it the whole show, I think, which is why I'm glad they didn't. However, that doesn't mean I don't have my gripes with where they went with Jack. This is obviously my personal opinion and no one's pressured to agree with me, and I speak from a standpoint of nothing but love for this show because I just adore it with all its quirks, crazy bits, and, occasionally, dropped plot threads. The only reason I even feel such an urge to post about this in the first place is because I love this show to pieces, which is why I like to turn the bits that didn't work for me over in my mind, allowing me to imagine where things could have gone instead. Jack is, for the most part, a good character who has a good spot in the narrative, but I do feel that he looses a few things from the third season onward that previously made him extra compelling in the first and second season. But I'm not here to talk about season three and cyborg shenanigans just yet.
Instead, let's talk about the dark signers arc. Because this arc gives us such an interesting perspective on Jack. He starts the whole season out by suffering his greatest defeat at the hands of Yusei, in public, before a crowd that was as good as convinced he'd win—as convinced as he himself was. And it's an intriguing spot for him because he's been standing on this pedestal the entire time, and then Yusei just comes in and knocks it right out from under his feet. Jack may not be an overly emotional character, but he is, indubitably, at his lowest point after he loses in the Fortune Cup.
Enter Carly, who couldn't be much more different from Jack if she actively tried. (Although they do share some very interesting core aspects.) She provides us with an immediate, stark contrast to Jack that shines a light on both their most prominent character traits by letting them bounce off one another. Jack's stoic and cold, Carly's bubbly and energetic. Jack's proud and self-assured, Carly's a bit awkward and stumbles occasionally. However, both of them are driven and stubborn. They both want to prove themselves, you could even argue that they share the same goal: Make more of their lives. Except, Jack technically achieved that goal and now plummeted back down, whereas Carly's still chasing it.
What interests me even more, though, is how Jack acts around Carly, because I think if you showed someone only Fortune Cup Jack and then told this person that the same character would later fall in love with an awkward reporter girl who's constantly on the brink of getting fired and uses her deck mainly for fortune-telling, they would not be very inclined to believe you. Sure, he's still standoffish and proud, but the fact alone that he immediately tolerates Carly's presence, to the point of duelling together with her without much issue? Fortune Cup Jack would never.
Carly has such a profound impact on Jack as a person, it's extremely compelling to watch every time. At this low point where he is after Yusei defeats him, she catches him and gives him a new perspective that allows him to finally see himself as something other than King of turbo duels, and not only that, she also softly takes him down a peg and gets him to see that his belief that every person has to stand for themselves, that bonds to other people are useless and only a hindrance, was wrong, that no man is an island. I really wanna highlight this because in a show where this exact message is the main philosophy of Yusei, the protagonist, one might have expected him to teach Jack that. But he doesn't. Carly does. Jack even confirms as much himself.
And what makes this hit even harder is that he doesn't simply tell this to Carly herself, he reaffirms it in the duel against Goodwin, too, knowing well that the man himself, Yusei, and Crow can hear. I have to put this exchange here because it drives me insane:
The thing is, if this were Fortune Cup Jack, Goodwin would be right on the money here. But no-longer-King Jack? Post-Carly Jack?
(Can I also say that my brain starts short-circuiting every time I hear Jack literally confirm, with his own damned words, that he loved Carly? Because he did!!! That's canon!!!!!)
People (and those people absolutely include me) often talk about how much of a disservice cutting her out of the story later did to Carly, but you know what? As far as I'm concerned, it also did a disservice to Jack. Here, at the end of the DS arc, we have Jack with a nice bit of character development, with a lesson learned, setting out for a new path in life. And then what do they do for the pre-WRGP and WRGP arc? Basically reset his arc two thirds of the way and pretend he has to learn this exact thing again. Sure, he lives together with Yusei and Crow later, meaning he at least tolerates the whole "bonds" thing, but in comparison to the Jack up here, it feels a bit... off. Not to speak of the later episodes where they act like Jack has to relearn how to do teamwork from scratch for the WRGP, even though he is shown right in this final dark signer duel, playing perfectly on the same wavelength with his foster brothers. (Though the fake Jack episode is still good on its own, don't get me wrong; it's just questionable whether they really needed to make Jack learn the same lesson twice instead of giving him a different focus later.) Not to speak of the fact that turning Carly into a glorified cardboard cutout later essentially cuts him off from any further, interesting interactions with her that could dig into the deeper aspects of the character. Because whether you ship these two or not, I don't think anyone can deny that Carly shone a light on Jack's character that no other person in canon managed to. So I will forever lament how Carly was axed post DS arc, but honestly, Jack also suffered from the sudden change in Carly's writing.
I like to imagine all the scenarios we could have gotten if they'd decided to follow through with this character development for Jack, or, hell, if they'd simply decided to properly work through everything that happened between Carly and Jack. We could have gotten Jack really coming to terms with what it means to tread the new path he chose for himself. We could have gotten him maybe not apologise (I don't think he's the kind of guy to apologise, lmao), but at the very least talk to Yusei and maybe Crow about his betrayal. And I mean, Kiryu got to remember being a dark signer later, so why didn't Carly? There was so much untapped potential for dear, sweet Carly coming to terms with her violent actions while being guided by Aslla Piscu there, and Jack could have been central to that, in a sort of returning-the-favour way. Or, if they had to push him back almost to square one, they could have made that a plot point. Have Carly remark on his strange demeanour. Have them bounce off each other again, figuring out where they stand with each other and with themselves.
It just feels like there was a lot of character writing there that could have been great but was never even considered. And in the end, this hinders both Jack's and Carly's journey.
As far as their previous dynamic and dark signer duel is concerned, though? That is Jack at his absolute best for me.
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