Review: That Amazing Digital Circus – The Last Act “Remember”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
With Caine subdued, the residents of the Digital Circus learn the truth of their existence and make decisions moving forward. Pomni tries reaching out to Jax one more time, even if it might be too late.
OUR TAKE
Nearly three years, nine episodes, hundreds of millions of views, and countless overblown controversies later, The Amazing Digital Circus has reached its curtain call. Plenty of fans who had the disposable income to buy a movie ticket have already seen this final episode during the theatrical run, The Last Act, which was paired with the eighth episode and some bonus material, so those fans have already had several weeks to digest this finale and all its implications. And that includes me, since I snuck into a screening that played right after the movie I was actually there to see. The choice to play the finale early in theaters was one of the many aforementioned overblown controversies this series and its creator Gooseworx has suffered over the years, but as much as I do enjoy being able to rewatch the finale on my TV now, seeing it first on the big screen really helped to enhance it, so I really hope that Glitch gives this treatment to future shows. It may also have helped that I had a pretty good crowd that reacted sometimes but never got to Minecraft movie levels. Luckily this release made quite a bit of money for Fathom Events so we could be seeing more of these from Glitch. It even made more than Fathom’s releases of the Jesus-based show The Chosen, so you can technically say “The Amazing Digital Circus is bigger than Jesus!” with a big asterisk.
But enough preamble, what about the episode in question? Well, after the previous episode had the gang in an intense confrontation with the mentally unravelling Caine, followed by his rather anti-climactic “deletion”, that left a big question mark as to what the final episode would even be about. The posters for the theatrical screening made it seem like Jax would be some major antagonistic force to keep everyone trapped, but as we soon learn, there wasn’t any hope for escape anyway. The residents are not actually the humans they have memories of, but brain scan copies that Caine turned into sentient beings he could entertain. With that goal now confirmed to be out of their reach, everyone tries to just learn to adapt and live in the Circus how they like…except for Jax, who abstracts, losing his mind and becoming a mass of chaotic brain dead data. Still, Pomni, the one who has always held out hope, attempts to reach out to what’s left of Jax, uncovering his repressed past and previous friendship with Ribbit and Kaufmo, two previous residents who had abstracted before Pomni got there.
This is also where we learn that Jax is actually a closeted trans woman (though I’ll maintain using “he/him” pronouns since they never refer to him as “she), which is quite the revelation if you haven’t been following the theorizing videos, since this was apparently a pretty common theory along with the characters simply being copies instead of real people. While the Jax reveal does at least give closure, many have been understandably disappointed that this final episode leaves things so unresolved. However, I would argue that this series has always been about making the best with what you have, even if it’s less than you were hoping for. This is most notable with Caine, who is revealed to still be alive and has an empathetic change of heart upon reflecting on his behavior and how he’s handled being alone. I’m actually pretty glad he didn’t die and had a chance to “redeem” himself, as it were, much like I’m glad we finally got more chances to sympathize with Jax. Neither of them were meant to be enemies to be defeated, but two people who were dealt a bad hand and adapted how they could to survive, even if that led to learning awful behaviors. All they can do, and all we can do, is try to do better day by day.
This was an exceptional way to close the show, something that has taken its time and been held up by the support of those who wanted it to succeed. For all the stress of making it and how the fanbase turned into such an angry mob, I don’t blame Gooseworx AT ALL for wanting to have nothing to do with this show moving forward, but I do hope they remember the time working on it fondly and gift us with another heartfelt show down the line. Even if I’ve been more detached from the show’s development than some of its superfans, I have always been able to tell that it was made with lots of love and passion, with an important and necessary message to say in times as dark as these. Hopefully we’ll be back to the circus again someday, but if we aren’t, I can always say I had an amazing digital time.
