People really don't know what they got with this episode I feel.
Just from a purely stylistic point of view -- the pool of 2010s energy this series draws from never ever ever crystallized in such a cohesive way and it might never again. Just Tessyn took a year to model and months and months to animate & VA, and it's all done with such sincere swagger. If you grew up before 2016 you SAW the pieces of this stuff pop up all over, individual writers, animators, musicians, voice actors with their separate projects that never coalesced but suggested that something like this could happen, and it did, with more competency and passion than we'd ever imagined a story of this type could get back then.
We'll have forever to vulture over the specifics of where arcs go and don't but it's worth it to take a moment, think, and realize that this stuff was monumentally ambitious and pulled off what it set out to magnificently (namely the protag trio) while balancing discordant tonal extremes.
Earlier episodes weren't as good as these things but by 7 and 8 you can see and appreciate the way the tone flows from end to end of the emotional spectrum, scene to scene of the episode, in such a way that it looks effortless, all the while keeping a solid thematic throughline. And criticize as we may the excesses of subtlety, if you sit down and consider the pacing constraints it'll click that the show's handle on the flow of information can be exceptional.
This is stuff you'll never see again in your lives. It's a type of creative energy that doesn't exist anymore put in service of an extraordinarily competent production that never loses its sincerity. Think what you may of the writing, you should appreciate this, because this is the kind of earnest creative project the world needs so badly.
jacobvanloon
kianamaiart
titsay
yousharknotpass
izzy806
blakekathryn
