Saw the Digital Circus finale with a group, really loved it! The big dramatic moments hit.
There’s a couple things I would’ve done different, and you get the sense they didn’t have the larger plot threads in mind until the halfway point of the show, but like, they used their time well here, the important character moments were built up and paid off, it had teeth and we were sniffily passing around the tissues and the crowd was super into it. Great end to the series.
Spoilers for the Digital Circus finale
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Very glad they established early that they were all uploads and could not possibly “return” to the real world or anywhere. Felt right that they all took this hard and were left completely hopeless.
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I liked how Jax’s history had a few understandable but unforgivable fuckups, and that Pomni had to face this with grace. Everything with Ribbit was particularly hard to watch, and made you hate him for his weakness, which made her every literal step towards him for absolution really moving.
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I like that the abstracted did not return, they were lost, Jax could not unfuck this and Pomni couldn’t save him from it, but she could absolve him, and the kindest thing everyone could do for them was make a peaceful place for them to be lost within. The aquarium look to it all was really cool.
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Zooble being my MVP, I was really happy to see them get so many moments of strength through despair, needing Gangle as much as she needs Zooble. Zoobs has every reason in the world to hate their situation and be furious with Jax and be angry at what Caine has done to them, so it really hit when they formed the chain from their parts and guided the abstracted in, I loved that visual.
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Loved Pomni being all glitched and fucked-up after being pulled out of the abstracted Jax, something she ran from when Ragatha had been stricken by it earlier. Ragatha holding her hand on the Pomnster’s shoulder even though it hurt… that’s the juice. Love these characters having earned their bravery.
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Was not expecting Caine back at all. I could maybe consider this a little rosey? But I also found Caine’s scene of building each stepping block out of the simple shapes very affecting. I couldn’t quite tell you why, I think something to do with how this was how he built the circus in the first place, how this was him building himself back from nothing. I liked that the fear and the rage were still there and he allowed them to have their say and decided not to let them shape him. Very good AI-character moment. The kind of shit I would’ve liked to see AM afforded, but, I know that’s not what I Have No Mouth is about, AM is lost to it, this hate as human as the things that disgust him.
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The shit with Jax, Ribbit and Kaufmo was genuinely heart-breaking. I like that they showed a lot of the good and the joyous before it got fucked beyond repair. The swear-censor bar bit was real good and efficient character moment for them. Really really was not expecting Kaufmo in particular to be as well-done as he was, I love that he was funny in a dumb, sedate way, and that he failed as much as Jax did. You can absolutely see why he abstracted.
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Very strange that Scratch was set up as a core designer of Caine, and that his brain tumor was mentioned, but we never actually saw him talk or do anything. I don’t mind it as muuuuuuuuch because we can intuit that he made the brain-scan technology as a way to try to keep a version of himself alive, but, a single scene would’ve been nice.
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In a similar vein, a single scene showing Kinger and Queenie when they worked at C&A would’ve been nice. Just a quick little thing. You could’ve had Scratch in there. I would’ve liked that.
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Did not need that post-credits showing the irl people, obliviously going about their lives, felt dumb that they’d all somehow be at the same bus stop. Wouldn’t have minded showing, say, three separate scenes of them in different places. We know that Jax frequents Zooble’s bar, there’s two right there. Just a little cute for me.
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I found the release of Blue/Bubble/Abel a little odd. Nice that it happened, I think it was meaningful as a Caine moment, but it was a little strange. Definitely one of those things that felt like a retcon a little that Blue was Bubble in a sense. Don’t know if you needed Blue at all.
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Visually awesome sequences in this. Beyond the abstraction realm stuff, Ribbit’s room and especially the void DOS-dot Caine manifested into, with the shapes, I liked that a lot. Again, made his building of the staircase from simple shitty shapes affecting.