You know, I don't think I've actually laid out all of my point for point issues with the finale, so here goes, all of my personal complaints:
we barely see the characters use conjuring or put in any effort to rebuilt the circus. it's all left to montage or off screen. It was really disappointing, given how much conjuring was hyped up
Jax's montage draaaaaaaags. It's so long, and a good portion of it is just showing us stuff we already know
Jax's montage ALSO makes him even worse than he was ever implied to be in prior episodes (how did you manage to character assassinate someone who was already beyond awful???), yet doesn't have any kind of satisfying conclusion to either his character or the people he hurt. Pomni hugging him feels especially tone deaf and unearned, but doesn't feel like it's saying anything interesting about unconditional love, or the impact an abuser's suicide has on their victims. There's good stuff there, arguably some of the best in the episode, but it's half baked at best
There's huge chunks of character building that are just missing from the episode. How does everyone uniquely deal with the fact that they are a digital clone? Did Ragatha or Gangle ever build up their self esteems after Jax's death? How does Kinger deal with being partially responsible for Caine and the circus? WHY does Pomni feel such a strong need to reach out to Jax, even hurting herself to do so? Some of these might be implied, but an implication can only go so far. Don't the character's we've been with since the beginning deserve just a little bit better than that? And we saw so much of Jax, why can't the show even spare a moment to properly unpack any other character?
Gangle being unable to cry for Jax is good. Her then crying for Jax later feels unearned. I know it's supposed to show the complex emotions in a situation like this, but the show doesn't even let Gangle speak for herself on her feelings in the moment. She deserves way better than "why can't I cry for him?" being basically her only line in the finale when she is arguably the last living character to be MOST affected by Jax. With the way it's presented, it feels forced to foster more sympathy for Jax, because apparently nobody is allowed to stay angry at him after his death, or if they are, it is APPARENTLY not important enough to show on screen.
Also this one is a nitpick, but Zooble's line, "having a lot of complex thoughts?" feels so unnatural and borderline patronizing. why would you ever say that to your emotionally distraught friend after the death of their abuser? At least ask if they're okay! You're not their therapist!
Caine's redemption doesn't feel like enough for what he did. I hate his line "I was irresponsible," brother, you were cruel! You tortured them! I know he's referring to the whole situation he put them in, but I don't think the show wants to look at what Caine did in the eyes. He abused his power over the people IN HIS CARE because he had a fragile ego and couldn't handle the smallest compromises or criticisms. I feel like that requires a bit more effort to unpack than what the show gives us. And of course we don't actually see what the characters think of him coming back, it's just Zooble saying "oh, it'll take some time for us to trust you again. But it's good to have you back. for some reason." What about Ragatha? Gangle? Kinger? Pomni??? What do they think of this???
AND ALSO. When I first saw the scene of Caine pulling the blue AI out of his head, I thought, "No, there's no way the blue AI was making him glitch and be evil. That's a total cop out of character, making it seem like the bad things he did weren't really him. It must've just been a coincidence he stopped glitching after that." And I don't know if we've gotten out of show confirmation on this, not that it matters...but actually the blue AI making him evil is the most logical takeaway from that scene, and I've seen people basically accept it as canon. I have no choice to accept it as well. What a TERRIBLE way of redeeming Caine's character. Like, "he absorbed the other AI, then let it go in the end, which is good. But also, the other AI was totally making him evil, so he had to do it anyways." Is the person you kidnapped in your basement making you evil? Will letting them go solve your mental illness and absolve you of everything you've done? According to TADC, yes.
There's probably a lot more nitpicks I could go over. there's also all the stuff in previous episodes that is made retroactively worse by the finale, since now that the show is ended, we know those loose threads are never getting tied again, and things that felt like they'd be important later just turned out to mean nothing at all. Like what ABOUT "scratch, the first abstraction?" what ABOUT Caine being able to mess with their minds? WHAT ABOUT GUMMIGOO???
