I absolutely hate the ending
First of all, I'll start by saying that this is absolutely NOT Gooseworx's fault, and this is no hate to her whatsoever. I get that she was under so much pressure, and there's some of the fandom who probably deserve a half-baked ending for harassing her so much.
So now, onto my thoughts:
I began watching TADC in September, and I've been obsessed with it since. It's been such a huge part of my life...
And this ending is enough to make me wish I had never even watched it in the first place. If this was how bad the conclusion was going to be, I can't believe I ever got into the show in the first place.
First of all, Jax's story. It was SO poorly handled! It was obvious that his abstraction was a long time coming, and that he brought it on himself, but why the hell did it happen offscreen, and barely anyone seemed to care? I know he bullied them, but just last episode we had Zooble telling him he was one of them and that they cared about him! That's all thrown out the window, and only Pomni seems to give half a shit about trying to help him.
Speaking of which, why do we have that scene of her trying to save him if he's not going to be saved in the first place?
And then we HAVE to talk about the absolutely horrible scenes in his mind. The ones where he chokes Pomni, and, like, fantasies about Gangle enjoying getting bullied? What the actual fuck was that? Nether of those scenes make sense to me and thinking about them actually makes me sick. They're both so out of character for Jax!
And then we have the way Ribbit's relationship with him deteriorated. This is something we've all been looking forward to seeing for absolute months, and this is how it happens? Maybe it's just my piss poor subtitles, but basically, he opens up to her, Kaufmo knocks on the door, and he suddenly gets weird for absolutely NO reason, and just starts cutting her off? I can't...
Basically, Jax's whole story's conclusion is shit. He is, without a doubt, the most layered and complex character in the show. And what do they do with this? Chalk him down to a simply verbally abusive character for no reason, never have him apologise or come to terms with his mistakes, and we see the suicidal character we liked and related to just end his life rather than heal. Even people who didn't like Jax will probably be pissed at this conclusion for him.
Then, we've got Caine's story. For me, his character came to a perfect close in episode 8. He was a tragedy, doomed from the start, and his deletion showed exactly what needed to be done for his character. And then...he's back? How? His return was absolutely SO rushed and poor, and badly explained! I hate it! He didn't need to come back! His character came to an amazing close, and bringing him back and giving him a half-assed apology takes all the weight away from episode 8!
Also, the pacing in the episode is so poor. We have about 40 minutes of Jax's abstraction/terrible mindscape, and the rest is just a terrible beginning and a weak conclusion. Everything is either so rushed or so dragged out, and there's no in between.
And then there's the amount of questions that go unanswered! What happened to C&A? How did Caine even come back in the first place? How does abstraction even work, because that's never even explained?
There are two good things in this episode for me:
The Ragatha and Pomni hug!
Abstragedy being canon
The rest of it? I'm gaslighting myself into believing that this was a fake ending just in case it got leaked, because I don't want this to be real...