Thoughts on the Last Act (& The Amazing Digital Circus in general)
Spoilers for literally the whole final episode, by the way. And yes, this is posted before it releases for free on youtube. No, I didn't go to see it in theaters. Tiktok had my back. I didn't even seek it out, it just came onto my FYP. At that point why would I not just watch it?
It wasn't... bad. I think if there had to have been a jax-centered episode it shouldn't have been the finale, though. We were all told someone was going to abstract in episode 7, but then nobody did. Maybe she should have.
The scene where Jax tells Pomni that she doesn't want to go is one of the most emotionally resonant things to me. I also commend Michael Kovach for his voice acting in this episode. I think it stood out from the other episodes, and I think he was better here than in the entirety of Murder Drones. God, Murder Drones. I don't even want to think about that.
I wonder why Gooseworx didn't just make Jax the main character to begin with if she was going to be a self-insert. By comparison Pomni might be the least developped character in the show.
This clearly did not turn out to be the I have no mouth and I must scream adaptation we all expected. They came so close with Caine's shit loss in episode 8, but it kind of fell flat.
I saw the digital recreation revelation coming a mile away. My time with The Hollow prepared me for this (Shoutout to the Hollow Fandom. They could fit in a special ed short bus.) I didn't figure it out until episode 7, though, unlike MatPat, who figured it out before episode 2 even came out.
I just wish it was played for more of the devastating fact that it was. They're all trapped in a digital world with just the five of them for all of eternity while their real selves live their lives. If only they acted like it.
Bubble was a massive red herring, especially when Gooseworx said Bubble was a boy we all thought this meant Bubble was the bubble boy computer virus, nope. Bubble is just Bubble, and Bubble disappeared when Caine disappeared. If Bubble were Bubble Boy, Bubble wouldn't've vanished because Bubble Boy can't be deleted.
It isn't explained in the slightest how they get the circus to regain its color, or how Caine returns. And Caine had a lot of stuff around him that should've been developed more, like the pictures.
It's so painfully obvious that this show needed more time to flesh out its story and characters. Gooseworx said we'd get an episode meant to develop each of them. A focus episode. We got focus, but not for whole episodes for some. In my opinion Gangle and Jax are really the only two that get actual focus episodes that develop who they are. The rest of the characters have their development sprinkled around in the rest of the runtime.
Not even Pomni received any character backstory development in a focus episode. It's shown that she does become a kind of leader for the group, but it would be nice to have that come out to shine somewhere besides the penultimate episode.
The fact that another person never appears after Pomni is also disappointing. That is one of the best plot ideas that could've happened, and it didn't. Pomni could've exercised her leadership skills in a less stress-based situation if she had a new person to help acclimate themselves into the digital circus.
The fact that there is no payoff to Gummigoo's character is insane, and shows to me that he is literally just furry fan service, which doesn't even need to be there since we have Jax.
The ending to the show we got wasn't the worst... per se... but I still would not say it's that good... I'd put it in the same tier as the finale of Beastars Season 4. Episode 9 should have been split into two episodes instead of being an hour long. Clearly the show was rushed and didn't have nearly enough runtime, I don't know if that's Gooseworx's fault or if Glitch wouldn't let her make the show longer, though she seemed satisfied with what she had made (Idk why)
So here's what I would've done instead.
Episodes would cap at 25 minutes. Some episodes could be less than that, but not longer. There's just no need. After the first four episodes, (although I think there is more that should've been delved into regarding Kinger in episode 3,) we should've gotten more time with Gummigoo. At some point an episode that gets back to him and why he was clearly aware of something Pomni wasn't aware of in episode 4 would be needed.
Before the episode Untitled, we need an actual Ragatha episode and an actual Zooble episode. These don't even have to be a full 25 minutes. Then we need Pomni's focus episode. Hint more at her backstory than just what she mentioned in Untitled.
After that, there would be Beach Episode, but I we need to include more beach and also it should end with Jax abstracting just after the revelation that they weren't actually going to escape the circus. I have mixed feelings about Abel just because he was foreshadowed for several episodes just to be an AI that gets deleted. Honestly I would replace him with Gummigoo and have Caine force him to trick them.
Then in the next episode we learn Jax's backstory, and if possible end the episode with Caine's deletion. The circus will fall apart, Bubble can be Bubble Boy and cause chaos, Pomni now knows that you can see an abstraction's memories by coming into prolonged contact with them, so they do that with the others like Queenie, Scratch, Ribbit and Kaufmo. They'll find out that they're trapped there forever, and then the next episode will run basically like the last 20 minutes of The Last Act with that Caine sequence, except maybe he isn't going to have a change of heart. I'd like a bad, hopeless ending if they're just gonna live there forever.
So, Episode 1: Pilot. Episode 2: Candy Carrier Chaos. Episode 3: The Mystery of Mildenhall Manner. Episode 4: Fast Food Masquerade. Episode 5: [Ragatha]. Episode 6: Untitled. Episode 7: [Zooble]. Episode 8: [Pomni]. Episode 9: They All Get Guns. Episode 10: Beach Episode. Episode 11: [Jax]/hjsakldfhl, Episode 12: Aftermath of Deleting Caine. Episode 13: The Last Act (Final 20 minutes)
