Waffle's Observations on Dungeons and Daddies Seasons 3's Ending
Because I only have one friend who listens and I NEED TO SAY IT SOMEWHERE
i wasnt expecting a good or happy ending but i wasnt expecting the "oh you failed a quicktime event, here's the what-if bad ending cutscene that you skip to go back to before you failed the quicktime event and get the real ending" ending
i definitely dont demand my media have a everybody's having a great time ending but i just dont think this was a good ending at all. The actual state of the world goes largely undescribed, the characters spend about 20 seconds each describing what they do for NINE MONTHS time, and their struggle in that time is completely glossed over. I just think narratively this ending was not well written.
I guess in terms of "character development" it was ok.
trudy = humanity and family
francis = forgiveness
kelsey = dedication to education
blake = soup
In the first episode, Kelsey says that education is important and she'll be there for your kids, and that's what she ends up doing. Etc. In that sense they were okay endings for each character. But the actual STORY of the ending just wasn't good.
I do like that Kelsey stays behind. They have 5 days, pretty much no hope, but she stays for the kids to guide them as death looms and that's cool. I think trudy as a tripod and francis as a very cool but horrifying corpse possessing blanket of his dead father stepping onto a space ship is much stranger, but the visual of them each seeing the other essentially zip out of existence is very strong. Looking at each other through the little window and their faces zoom away at incredible speed with no reverence or theater is very visceral.
The ENTIRE season, the cast is VERY selfish. So it works that EVERYONE ends up selfish, too. Bebe is like "this is all our fault" and she's right because if project heartland had simply succeeded only peachyville would have been destroyed (though I don't remember what happens after that, zhuzel told kelsey it'd be fine I think but who knows if that's true), and they knew that. They could have tried to evacuate people and simply let the world continue but they were so hell bent on saving their part of their world they let the whole thing get destroyed instead of take the easiest option of letting things play out. They had a trolley problem and chose to attempt to save everyone KNOWING they had next to no chance and KNOWING the alternative would minimize harm (in theory).
I do like the tragic irony that the driving force behind not stabbing yourself to stop zhouzel is because they didnt want francis to "kill himself" and had previously had a problem with stopping the very same, but in the end that choice killed everybody else.
they were right to be concerned the first time but I think when you're at the point where his mom's dead, his dad's a shambling rag of human skin with a head on it, and he's taken the form of both as a monstrous living corpse, maybe it's ok to let him make that choice
what even was their plan for how he'd live after all that
honestly it would've been very dark but appropriate if anthony's "what does francis do these final months" story had been "He tells shane what he did and then he is not seen or heard from again"
ok here's my POSITIVE ending proposal
Except when trudy hands over the arm with the etched spell in it, the spell revealed is Seek the Lost. As the arm transfers to Kelsey's ownership, the spell refuses her and "casts itself" to spend itself for Trudy since it's hers. Subconsciously, Trudy knows that her other option was to fire the knife at francis, and part of her regrets not doing it after spending 9 months living with him and knowing he wouldn't have regretted it or resented her for it. The spell reveals the location of the knife- having struck the mothman's ship in the ocean when it missed the target and landed. The moth men come to reclaim the ship from a presumably dead world, and dredge the knife up in the process. Francis has in the passing 9 months, even in his new form, clearly chosen to continue to live and has atoned. Trudy is dedicated to Timmy. Kelsey grabs the knife and stabs herself, attaining all the knowledge she had, pretended she had, and never had at all. And she plagiarizes the world into existence the way it was, but it's not quite right. Nobody who died returns. Everything is kinda wrong, but it's a mimicry of what it was.
ok here's my NEGATIVE ending proposal
it goes as it did
Except we get an entire episode worth of "what they did in the meantime" character growth instead of extremely short and frankly ridiculous snippets like "Francis atones for hurting Shane and he's not only cool with it but also fell into the manosphere" or "Kelsey watched TV".
ALSO: When they find Trudy's original brain in the basement, they initially open a wall behind a chalkboard revealing a captive santa claus. Will does not negate this premise. Kelsey asks Trudy if this is why Christmas did not happen the year prior. Will does not negate this premise. Santa says they can call Elf Team 6 to do a tactical nuclear strike on the location after evacuating. Will does not negate this premise. In fact, Will then declares after they close that window, they open another- not only not negating the premise, but allowing it.
JOKE OR NOT, they should've gone back to get Santa in the end and used Elf Team 6 to tactical nuclear strike the space dick.
Also the finale version of Hole in the Stars sucked, im sorry. it's just bad. the original is visceral, I was so excited for a full version of it. Instead there's now two half-versions. Also the ending version has chunks that are about Francis (sort of, he aligned pretty well with the original by sheer coincidence) and Kelsey (explicitly), but has nothing about Trudy or Blake, which is weird. It's unfinished feeling. I was so disappointed by it.
