They didn’t even mention Gummigoo (which I liked?)
Before the episode I vocally disliked SOMA not because it seemed like an unlikely outcome (to the contrary, the episodes made it clearer and clearer plotwise than it'd happen) but because I felt like a single episode was too little for the weight of the reveal. Instead, we got 2 minutes, and I think that was better. Why? Well, it flipped the question.
My key issue with SOMA was believing that the cast were actually sentient. Sure, Pomni treated Gummigoo as such, but the rest of the series really didn’t care. No one else on the cast treats him like a real person and Spudsy’s and the rest of the army of disposable NPCs are clearly treated as less then human. Plus, there’s no one within the story would could have proven that they were sentient in any practical way.
The finale refuses to take part in this debate. They’re sentient, we don’t need proof, we don’t even need to argue it really (can't remember if Jax did...). They cry a little and move on. Because the question the finale asks is what now? How do you deal with being a different person? (as shown by them keeping their circus names)
Once that becomes clear then accepting their sentience is simple suspension of disbelief. It’s the premise, no one is debating it, get over it. Which I preferred because I wasn’t being told to believe in the ridiculous as reality but just to treat the silly as real for a moment
And it does throw away the joy of seeing their growth realizing out of the circus in their initially stagnant lives but there are advantages in return. They have to deal with the misery and acceptance of what they’ve lost and get to enjoy exploring their out of circus counterparts.