THE AMAZING DIGITAL CIRCUS - Remember

39:52 👀 was that what Jax picked up from his dad regarding his mother? 55:54 "why are you still fixated on that night" he wanted it to be left in the past, she kept bringing it up(understandably) but in doing so was reminding him of his "over share" which he wanted to forget happened

9:24 especially as it parallels when Jax "messed up" with the buttons, both of them did "something" to "keep them trapped" but the response from the others was different to each one, Jax likely saw it hypocritical of them to react like that to kingers "mess up" when they had such a different reaction to Jax's

Hey i know this was a while ago but I know you mentioned you hope the doors have a lesson (the ones with the characters). If you didn’t catch it those doors were essentially how he felt about the others (played out in extremes). So what can be inferred (not certain) is he thinks Pomni is always trying to fix him and that is her goal not to have a friendship but to fix him. The next two are wonky. With Gangle according to the door Jax seems to like Gangle in a more than platonic way and thinks that she likes his rudeness and thinks its just their way of flirting. With Zooble its hardest but it seems like he thinks that she is just this aggressive character that will hate and blame him always no matter what. This is all theory but generally its the extremes of how he feels about the characters

bubble is the blue ai

I'm so glad they confirmed lots of folks suspicions that Jax is a trans woman!

The only thing I'm disappointed with a little bit is I feel like we need this and then also like 2 (at least) other episodes. I really would have liked for other characters to also get their story fleshed out

Also after episode 9 it makes more sense why Jax didn't fight back when Pomni attacked him.

I actually love they didn't make a big show about Jax abstracting during it. I think it feels more natural that all abstraction happens out of sight. Like they don't abstract where they have people around to see them and help them through they just do when they're alone. Isolated. Feeling like they have no one to turn to. If you want to think of the "You're my closest friend" in another way that isn't Kinger erasure. You can remember Kinger is Pomni's dad. Which puts him above friend. The minute we see in this black and white cartoon world a realistic looking gun my theater burst into nervous laughter cause idk about the rest that was not the direction me and my partner were expecting that scene to go Idk if you remember Mildenhall Manor when Kinger said the darkness took the jagged edges off his wife so he could touch her one last time. But that's what Pomni was doing. idk if it was to say goodbye or to see if she could pull him back but I'm so certain that's why she shot the lights out and then hugged him Also something I haven't seen talked about. But in the untitled episode there was a stargazing adventure. And I wonder if Ribbit put it in or if Jax put it in to remember Ribbit. But like her room as well as the scene of Jax first laughing all is like in that vein and I immediately was transported there So this isn't me trying to convince you trans jax. I do truly believe it. This is something I see with that conversation. "When I showed weakness I was less of a man than him." to "I told her something deeply personal that I thought would get her off my back." Girls are allowed to be more emotional. Weaker. If he's not a man maybe he's allowed that. Overall I get it. When me and my partner talked his response was just he came out being some form of queer which I can personally also see. But just from in show text I think that is excellent writing to veer toward trans without saying trans. Especially with someone so deeply internally not ready to accept it. Not ready to say the words out loud because the person that should have been in their corner laughed and berated them when they tried to be that vulnerable once. So for the pronouns I see a lot of people changing to she/her for Jax. I feel so deep in my bones that Jax is Transfem. That being said. That does not mean that she/her would be correct. It could still be they them. I still personally hop between they/them and he/him BECAUSE he is not out yet. He is still in his egg. Like it's nearly cracked but he's still in there so I won't change pronouns until he is ready. But also he's a cartoon character. Use the pronouns that feel most right to you. The fandom for this will always be split. So I'm pretty sure that's before he sends gangle and kinger down in the hole in ep 1 cause he has the bowling ball he took from Kaufmo's room So I don't think glitching and abstracting is the same. Like glitching is just painful and makes things harder but I don't think actual abstraction is contagious as I think it's literally a mindset. So the scene where Caine brought in Scratch wasn't him being unabstracted. That was a parrellel of what our Caine is doing to when Caine from before the circus was doing. Learning how to get out. How to make the circus. And the obsolete is probably because they assumed the project didn't work Also so sorry for the long comment. It is literally a stream of consciousness because I love how you've interacted with this (and honestly all media)

It takes a Circus

My theory before the final was so much darker lol. I thought all the brain scans were because their real selves had been dying in the real world.

The song when Jax and Pomni are together makes it seem like it's about Pomni, but if you look closely, it focuses on Jax. Basically subtle hint about trans Jax

You can now understand that it wasn't jealousy Ragatha was feeling, she was scared the same would happen to Pomni

Honestly I feel some answers being left open feels on theme with the whole bittersweet finding happiness where you are theme. But I can understand feeling unsatisfied.

The whole thing with Jax crying when he was looking at the mirror when he’s saying “you don’t look too good” this was during the pilot. As you see in his hands before it zoomed into his face was the bowling ball that Jax had when he grabbed from Kaufmos room and ran away. And then this scene happens before meeting up with Gangle and Kinger to throw the bowling ball at them to push them into the hole where the Gloinks and the Gloink Queen nest was

The one thing I got spoiled on was that "Isn't she Lovely" played at some point in the episode and was possibly connected to Jax.

Friendly reminder: You don't gotta worry about misgendering Zooble since it's literally impossible! They use any pronouns! ^w^

Trans Jax has been confirmed canon btw <3 Us Trans Jax truthers were right! 😂 You can't hide from us Mortius! You saw it with the bow!

I will say I disagree when you said "Abstraction is contagious" I don't think the glitching from touching them means that. Abstracting is synonymous with suicide, its not a contagious thing, more the abstraction itself messing with their own code, potentially how grief can feel.

Must have forgot to post the enter button OOPS. So Okay Here's the Thing did a short about this some people will reject it if anything short of the character turning to the audience and saying "I am transgender" . I know you're dodging those assholes but yeah they piss me off.

The idea that they dont show Jac abstract to me is the best choice in this whole episode. Abstraction is a parallel for suicide in this world and when someone commits suicide you rarely ever see it happen, you just find them later and they are gone.

I cried in the theater and I cried again with you. I wish in some ways Jax had come back, but there are some losses you can't recoup, you just have to grow around it and I think this is a good moment with that feeling. Personally, I like to imagine that one day the abstracted folks can return, but only when *they* are ready. Kind of as a part of a journey to recovery thing, since their minds are clearly in there. That is why Caine can't fix them, because the core problem was internal and he just worsened it. He didn't cause it, can't fix it. No evidence, just makes me feel good. Anyway, glad to take this journey with you and soon you and your wife! I hope she enjoys the experience.

Zooble does use all pronouns if that helps! But also ty as someone who uses they/them

Although it hurt, I was glad the abstracted people didn't get brought back. If Caine couldn't do it while at his full power, why would he be able to do it after losing the blue AI? It would've felt cheap/cheesy, and I feel like it would've undercut all the beautiful scenes about their grief throughout the episode. None of that would hit half as hard on even the first rewatch knowing none of it really mattered because Jax came back anyway. It just would've torpedoed all the emotional weight of the episode, and I think the bittersweet makes for a better ending.

This episode made me cry both in theaters and when I watched it on youtube. I'm so glad you caught the rocking door, thought you were going to miss it for a second

I went to see this last episode on theaters.... and now that i've had some time to process all of it... i can confidently say that..... I have mixed feelings with this Finale. There wasn't anything in it that i disliked... i had a lot of fun while i was watching it.... but i just wasn't feeling it completely. What i mean is... i could feel the emotions a lot of scenes were meant to provoke in me, but i just wasn't feeling them nearly as much as they should've. I recognized that what i was watching was good and well-written but it just wasn't landing for me emotionally, at least not fully. And after all these days.... i think the reason why i felt this way... it's because i think a good chunk of the things presented in this last episode felt either.... unearned (Like the Pomni-Ragatha situation) or out-of-the-blue (like Caine not being deleted, plus his super fast change of mentality). And i think another thing that didn't sit right with me is that... the amount of time that was put into Jax's character conclusion while all the others (besides Caine) only got small moments. I know this is a mean-spirited joke.... but i can't help but feel like that there is a grain of truth in calling this the "Jax Show" instead of "The Amazing Digital Circus". My final conclusion is that..... this Finale felt a bit rushed, like it needed at least one more episode. And yes, i know about the whole Gooseworx situation and how that could've affected the production of the show, which it's a real shame that it happened in the first place...... but still....... that doesn't mean i can't criticize this Finale for what i think it didn't do right. It's not a bad Finale, but it's also not a Great Finale, to me it felt...... Adequate, adequate in a good way...... but just adequate.

My interpretation to the different "realities" inside the "Jax Doors"... is that they are how Jax planned or imagined how he would respond to everyone abstracting, basically how he would cope with each of their potential deaths.... Cold and cynical towards Pomni after Ragatha's abstraction cuz he sees her as someone who constantly tries to "fix him". Flirtatious towards Gangle after Zooble's abstraction because he sees her as a plaything. Funny and Dismissive towards Zooble after Gangle's Abstraction cuz he predicts that they would blame him for Gangle being gone. And i think one of those Jax Doors is completely sealed because that's the door that shows how he would react if Pomni Abstracted, and unlike what he said in episode 6... he would be unable to move on and just have a complete Crash-out. That's what i think at least. Also.... the Exit Door in episode one was just something Pomni conjured accidentally due to her desperate desire to go back to the real world, but as you know... it wasn't a real exit, it was just a portal to a replica of the C&A Offices that Caine made. And... the scene of Caine going to the neural scans and him using a nearby wifi connection to access the internet are supposed to be the past and the present. Caine didn't "un-abstract" Scratch... that was the moment he first encountered the neural scans of the C&A workers and made them into characters on the Circus.

Mortius talking about how he's happy with the way everything that did happen in the episode was resolved well over the credits scene of Caine locking the blue AI away and not addressing it at all is unintentionally hilarious

"I can play the Minecraft theme on piano." - I can play a bit of Anne's theme from Amphibia on piano. It's simple and beautiful enough that I r eally wanted to. Sometimes that's all it takes and all it should be. "If they've been copies all this time, what was up with the exit door in episode 1?" - They explained that. It was literally just Caine making them something they'd been asking for. I will say, this series has been only 9 episodes, but cause they're spaced out over 3 years, people have forgotten some details. Like reactors keep asking about when the whole crew went to get brain scans, but they did all mention they went through some abandoned office, put the headset on out of curiosity, and that's how they got there. Which, with enough time and definitely with rewatching, does all come back, but because these reactions are snapshots of y'all just starting to puzzle it out, we feel the need to explain it. Like... I just did up there. So I probably told ya something you already realized... yeah, that's probably annoying. With Jax, I think there's too much hinting at trans-ness for it to be ignored. I'll also say, there's a "horror" movie - it's PG-13 & mostly psychological, but still very emotional - called 'I Saw the TV Glow' that came out in 2024 from a trans, NB director that has VERY trans subtext. And that feels very much like an inspiration for this final episode, one most who've seen it have noticed. Plus Gooseworx is trans & has said she relates to Jax the most, so I do think at this point it is there. This does focus more on pre-trans/closeted toxicity & resentment, and I love that they go as far as they do with that. As a trans person, I'll say I still use They/Them pronouns for Jax, just cause they haven't actively come out or transitioned yet, even in the real world, but I still understand & see who they are.

In case no one has said it, Jax is holding the bowling ball he got from Kaufmo's room, before he throws it at Gangle and Kinger and all three of them drop down to meet gloink queen. So, still the pilot. Basically a scene we didn't get to see because we were in Pomni's pov

"I'm not saying it's canon" The push for straightforward representation, while ultimately a good thing, has made new audiences blind to coding and allergic to subtlety. Not even blaming Mortius of this, but the fact he has to preface all of this with "WHICH COULD MEAN NOTHING" to keep people who are so adamant to not see it unless they hear an outright confession out of Jax, when the whole point of Jax's character is that she came out once and it went so badly that she's never gonna do it again, from being annoying in the comments. Which won't work btw, they'll still be annoying. All that negativity aside, the bow scene is so cute and wholesome and I spent hours after the episode thinking about it and trying not to cry

That scene that juxtaposes Caine with the Wifi Cafe with Caine and the obsolete file is basically a juxtaposition of past and present. Caine originally traveled for a long time in the void and learned, possibly quite painstakingly or slowly, how to access the obsolete brain scans, which is what lead to the original crew being put into the Circus. In the modern, Caine traveled a long time until he came across a cafe with wifi. He learned how to reach out there as well, and learned how to access the internet to get information, and pulled up the internet searches on our main crew. Jax is _extremely_ strongly trans coded (speaking as a trans woman). Beyond Amanda Hufford's statement on the topic, along with the choice of song, there are a bunch of things that tip me off that Jax is closeted from themselves* but is not only trans but is specifically a trans woman. This culminates in the headspace: That bolted shut door with the planks and chains? That's a secret Jax isn't acknowledging even to themselves. I could probably write a 30 page essay on all of the various bits of symbolism here. I was leaning that way up until this episode, but this episode felt like it underscored it in triplicate to me. If that's all true then: Part of what happened, I suspect (and this is where I'm on shakier ground, but I'll stand by it as a theory), is that when Ribbet put her ribbon on Jax, a big part of their freakout was guessing that she _guessed "his" secret_. Ribbet may have, or may have just been treating the ribbon as a genderless object, but regardless: to _Jax_ it was a gendered object and to _Jax_ it was a symbol. It explains, but does not excuse, some of their animosity: beyond being scared of getting close to someone and any fears there, they specifically thought she knew something beyond "killed their mother." (* I'm using "they" for the sake of convenience here: jax would respond _very_ poorly to being called "she" at this stage, but "he" feels wrong based on the other observations and Hufford's comment) I loved the finale. When I walked out of the theater my first comment, however, was "I loved it and I thought it told the story that Goose wanted to tell and it is an extremely strong version of that story, but I don't think it is the story that a lot of the show's fans wanted."

Would love to see you react to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic!

I’m sure the exit door in episode one was Pomni conjuring up one before even knowing she could. Hence why in episode eight she was able to go right back there to grab a computer console.

I feel like while you were contemplating not being able to get Jax or rabbit back you missed the subtle character growth of Caine saying the cast can come see what he's made "whenever they're ready" and "feel free to"

everytime i see the Caine scene i cant help but think of the emoji movie lol

Yes, so real for the crash out about "predictable" writing. Like, it's a sign of good writing when main themes and concepts are seeded along the way with foreshadowing and set-up parallels. Yes, people who are genre savvy or paying lots of attention might guess where it's going early, but then they get the satisfaction of seeing how that plays out and everyone gets to enjoy how everything fit together and major ideas come back in later episodes and it's all the richer for that. This obsession with "being twisty" leads to messes like Sherlock or the last season of Game of Thrones where they start pulling things out of left field just so no one can "guess" where its going and it means nothing is set up or pays off or matters and trying to be a good genre-savvy fan who tries to care about the work is punished.

Pomni waving to us and breaking the 4th wall is a bit in honor of Jax since he was the only character to really continuously break the 4th wall.

I am so excited for TADC with mortemiss

To be honest I personally didn't really like this ending (there were still some parts I enjoyed of course), but it does definitely make me happy to see other people enjoying it and getting something out of it. So even if it wasn't for me, I do still gain a new appreciation for some aspects by hearing what other people liked about it, so this was very enjoyable :)

Watching this in the theatre I didn't cry as much as I did in the rewatch, probably because I didn't have time to pause and digest everything at the speed it was happening, but rn it's just a sobbing fest. As someone that identified and really liked Jax from the first episode, his development and end just hit me so much harder. I didn't use to buy into the trans fem Jax theory, it just seemed a lot of reaching, but looking back on it maybe it was the same kind of repression that I exercise; the lashing out when you get too personal, the making jokes just so you don't have to deal with it, the making everyone else more uncomfortable that you are so they can just back off, being cruel to your friends and calling it a joke, everything was like getting a slap to the face, because I would laugh about it, omg he's just like me fr, and then turn around and see everyone saying how they just wished Jax would die made me feel a kind of way I still can't explain. I guess it also was a call out about repressing my own feelings about being trans, I struggle a lot about being deserving, being very fem presenting and not yet transitioning in any meaningful way but in name, I just feel like I can't wave my flag as confidently as I do my Bi one, so it gets mixed up in all the anger and bitterness that I call my personality. But hey, what am I going to do about it, but tell a hurtful joke. I am the funny one after all. All that yapping just to say that I probably am a lot less critical about the plot because it hit me personally in a way I didn't expect, but I really really loved this ending.

So, at the end when Caine took out that blue orb. Am I right in thinking that THAT was Abel, the blue AI that Caine absorbed, right?

So I have a theory about what they ment by "injuries" for gangle, cause it was mentioned that she had a fast food job, and at the end of the fast food adventure gangle was hit by a truck, what if gangle was hit by a truck in real life possibly getting her brain scanned shortly after

there are a few things that are answered if you rewatch the series and piece things together. Like we can reason that Zooble, Pomni, Jax, and Ragatha all found the same head set. CA closed down and the office space is abandoned. Since Ragatha is a real estate agent, she was likely going through the property. Jax was squatting. Both Zooble and Pomni were urban explorers. Kinger obviously was scanned before CA shut down. The only one we don't really know about is Gangle, but since they all live in the same area, we can assume she also found the same headset. The scene where Jax is looking at himself in the mirror crying holding the bowling ball is from episode 1. The exit door was also explained in episode 1. It was an adventure Caine had made because he misunderstood that everyone was asking for an 'exit' and tried to give that to them but ended up scrapping the idea (forshadowing the similar adventure involving 'Abel'). Bubble is still a mystery, but he's clearly some part of Caine since they keep hinting that they share body parts and Bubble torments Caine with his own inner thoughts that causes him to crashout.

On one hand i would've liked something different with everything wrapped up a little more cleanly (I still don't know HOW Caine came back??) On the other hand it's fine if it's not, sometimes the point ISN'T to wrap everything up neatly and that's okay. The story made sense and as long as Goose is happy with the ending and how it went that's what matters more to me. I don't know if I particularly *like* the ending, BUT it's not my story and I'm happy it got seen through to completion in a way Goose wanted/liked! I also just kinda wish it bookended a little more, like someone new arriving and everyone welcoming to the new circus to mirror the chaos of Pomni's first arrival or smth but hey that's what fanfic and fanart is for!

It was a little put off that cain gets to come back but jax, who effort was actually put to rescue him, was not? Like, I get the idea that "people die and you grieve and move on" is the lesson here, but I wish they pushed some sort of way to save the abstracted. Maybe something like how humans can all conjur things and manipulate the world around them, but they can't manipulate each other. But maybe jax could have used conjuration to save himself? If pomni was able to convince him to not give up on himself, he could have undone his own abstraction. And it would have been unknown up until now because cain went out of his way to prevent them from knowing they could manipulate the world around them for so long. That if he HAD embraced what made the humans human, there wouldn't have been abstractions in the first place. Also noticing that "might be trans" human jax frequents human zooble's queer bar of "we don't judge you, just be yourself."

Okay yeah so with the doors inside of Jax’s abstraction kinda shows what he thought of the circus members if that makes sense- there’s probably more to it but im not entirely sure. The one that makes the most sense is what pomni said to him in the door where ragatha was abstracted. Pomni says stuff like, “you need me” and “i can fix you” and that’s exactly what he thought she was doing at the end of episode six.

This episode is probably my favourite in the whole series! The music is divine and some of the shots in it are just beautiful. That Caine shot when he shatters the first wall had me gawking in the cinema.

20:30 thats how it felt seeing it in theaters tbh. Just silence.

When I was taking classes for my CNA, we had to learn about different types of grief. I learned a lesson I will never forget and that is that there is no “wrong” way to grieve.

Amanda Hufford confirmed after the ep jax is a trans woman

Every reactor I’ve seen so far, the line “why can’t I cry for him” got EVERYONE deep in the heart

!!!!!!!!

AHHHHH im so excited

Speak about speed!