Episode's out now. If you get spoiled it's your own fault.
There is a scene shortly after Jax abstracts where Pomni and Ragatha have a heartfelt talk about being each others' best friends, and then they hug and spend a long time walking away from each other while the camera focuses on both of them. I was DEAD certain that the prolonged shot on them waving goodbye to each other was foreshadowing something awful happening, but nothing ever did, so it ends up just being weird cinematography.
And that's about the only quibble I have with the finale of The Amazing Digital Circus. What a wild ride it's been. Yeah, maybe I would have liked to see Rags and Pomni being friends instead of them saying they were--if anything, Pomni is closer to Kinger than to Ragatha--but I can get over that, it's easy to assume that they have adventures offscreen.
I'm a fanfic writer, plot happening offscreen isn't a dealbreaker for me because it means I can write it myself, or see someone else write it, both are good.
Jax... Honestly, calling him my least favorite of the six feels unfair because I DO still like him, or rather I like watching him. I just vibe with the others more. Him abstracting offscreen... when I saw it in the theatre I thought it was a weird decision. I didn't think they'd show it offscreen, I thought it was one of the others breaking out of the basement and Jax would show up later safe but depressed.
Instead... we got something that really makes me question all over again what Abstraction even is. Could Pomni have saved him if not for that diabolical flashbang grenade that was just in the hall for no reason? Maybe, maybe not, but yikes.
But after watching it again... it being so sudden is the point. Jax only being open and vulnerable after it's too late to matter is the point. He threw himself off the building and only realized on the way down that he didn't want to go through with it. That's real. It's the realest thing that could have happened to someone who had been denying reality for so long.
I'm in an odd position where I have the media literacy to genuinely appreciate what we were given, see the vision and understand it, and yet I don't have the vocabulary or the experience needed to properly critique it. For one, I'm not trans. I'm ace, but I can't really relate to what Jax is going through. Even talking about it now is making me anxious because I don't have the knowledge to address it with the nuance it deserves. But I felt his pain. (Her pain. They're pain? Jax never outright accepted it so I'm going to say he, but know that I recognize the obvious trans implication.) I felt the despair over what could have been, and I understand the feeling that, everything could have been okay if he's just taken the risk. But trauma and self-hatred kept him locked in the box he built around himself.
And then it was too late.
Gooseworx said it early on. "There's meaning to be found in a stagnant life." Life needs meaning, even if it's something small. We can take whatever meaning we want, but if we refuse to have ANY meaning... it eats at us. In the Circus, the meaning is found in each other. Being there for who you can. Friendship and community and love. Jax couldn't accept that--couldn't accept that he deserved it--and pushed everyone away until there was no one to catch him when he fell.
Gooseworx made this show for a specific target audience, and by god did it find us. And everyone else, too. After all, who doesn't love the circus?
And now the Circus has left town. Where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns... Maybe next year.
I wonder what it'll be like for the next poor sucker to find that headset.
