Five days ago, Gooseworx’s acclaimed indie cartoon The Amazing Digital Circus concluded its run with an hour-long final episode. While many are lauding the show as a success for transgender creatives everywhere, I find its finale a bit confused as to its goals. What could be a cautionary tragedy mistakenly warps itself into another example of a trans woman being thrown to the curb as soon as it’s acceptable to forget about her. Despite a series of incredibly resonant scenes that I and many other girls will continue to turn over in our heads for the foreseeable future, The Amazing Digital Circus does not fail to stick the landing so much as it lands flawlessly and then breaks out into a sprint before tripping on its own shoelaces.
Most of Episode 9’s runtime is dedicated to Jax’s inner turmoil, beginning with her going off alone to abstract in a corner somewhere off screen and ending with a heartfelt discussion with Pomni. The decision to let Jax’s abstraction be something that happens off-screen, and to smash-cut to the aftermath, really sells how the remaining cast feels about it. It’s quite possibly the strongest narrative choice made in this episode. From the outside looking in, anyone making an attempt on their own life comes off as sudden. We, as viewers who are privy to Jax’s darkest moments, are fully aware that Jax is an active abstraction risk. The other members of the circus are NOT aware of this. As far as they’re aware, Jax isn’t any worse off than the rest of them, “He’s just an asshole.” Deaths, especially the suicides Jax’s abstraction is framed after, are not always so predictable. They do not always have warning signs. Sudden character death doesn’t always make for the greatest story telling, though. By telegraphing the warning signs to us but not Jax’s peers, Gooseworx is able to portray the abruptness of a life ending without making the viewer feel like narrative possibilities were stolen away in an instant. It helps that abstraction isn’t quite the end of Jax’s narrative either.
Though Jax’s abstraction is abrupt, plenty of time is spent exploring why it happened. Pomni’s little walk through Jax’s mind is kind of like finding a departed loved one’s diary and reading it. The little bits of hatred, anger, lashing out, just generally wanting everyone to give up on her, Pomni sees all of it. Where Pomni’s actions diverge from that of normal diary snooping is the room with the four Jaxes. Three of them play poker together and the fourth is shackled to the piano, providing entertainment for them. This is Jax’s last line of defense. This room is repression made manifest. At the poker table, one of the Jaxes is wearing her oh so hated maid dress. She claims to do so “ironically”. When told she isn’t “the real jax”, she proclaims that “reality is gay.” Unlike her. Jax would never be gay. Jax is peak masculinity and as we all know, the performance of heterosexuality is pivotal in the performance of gender. There is, however, one party in the room that disagrees with this. The Jax at the piano is the one who offers Pomni a key. That key leads to the innermost parts of Jax’s mind, where all her secrets and trauma play out in a montage that is honestly, beautifully directed. The usage of first person perspective is a great touch. Through this scene we get to perceive every time Jax used irony or detachment to try and push people away from her. And we see the one time she opened up to someone. Watching her be honest, be accepted by her dearest friend, and then retreat back into the closet anyway for fear of ostracization by others hurts. Watching as she is so obviously pushed to her breaking point by her inability to trust others hurts. But, there is something no one has considered about this perusal of Jax’s memories. It only happens because Jax trusts Pomni.
This tale about what happens to you when you don’t trust others and try to repress yourself ends with Jax telling Pomni everything. Every single thing. She lays it all out. And that’s still not enough to save her. For you see, despite the fact that Pomni is standing face to face with Jax, it’s too late. Jax has abstracted and there’s no coming back from that. This is a message that would be a little more clear if the thing that stopped Pomni from calming Jax down was not a pair of flash grenades someone just happened to leave lying out. The beauty of the needle drop on Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely?” is undercut by what can only be called a freak accident. In the literal sense, Jax was gone the moment she abstracted, but narratively? It was the flash grenades that did her in. They’re only on screen for a second, but their inclusion muddies the message. They only make the events that follow feel even more sour. Pomni’s separation from Jax is played as the big moment of everyone in the circus trusting each other. Zooble says, directly into the camera, “We’re all in this together.” as if perhaps, they were going to try speaking with Jax. This does not happen. Instead, everyone works together to erect a tent, a final resting place for the abstraction that was once Jax. There are many strange things about this sequence. It’s the most memorable part of the finale and it starts with Jax stepping on a flash grenade. The message that everyone is in this together is invoked as they leave Jax to her fate. The way that even choosing to trust someone for real this time isn’t enough to save Jax from her fate. Isn’t She Lovely is a song about the birth of a beautiful baby girl. Here, it’s clearly meant to be reinterpreted as the birth of a beautiful 20-something girl, but it ends up serving more as a funeral dirge for a girl that will never get to be. Jax is referred to during the remainder of the episode as “he” and “him”. While it may not be her secret to reveal, it’s interesting that Pomni doesn’t even think for a second if she SHOULD say something. This is simply the way Jax’s story ends. She coped poorly, died, and now even people that should know better are going to remember her as some asshole guy. Is it unrealistic? No, but it sure is depressing. Combined with the fact that Pomni only knows these secrets because Jax actively allowed her to know, the intention of promoting interpersonal connection and honesty becomes muddied.
If the show ended there, it would have been sad but not exactly disappointing. Unfortunately, the waters of tragedy are only further muddied by the final twenty minutes of the show. Against all odds, Caine returns. After looking through social media feeds he discovers that the people the circus acts are based on still exist out there in the world and they’re living lovely lives. The details of those lives are revealed in a montage that seems pretty unnecessary to the show’s themes. Not even fifteen minutes after having our hearts wrenched out, we’re told Jax’s full dead name and shown a picture of a boymoder that is still using he/him pronouns. This is the closest thing to a triumph for her. At least she has friends this time. If that weren’t odd enough, the revelations about the world outside are mostly just shrugged off by the cast. “Abby is out there, [...] I’m just Pomni.” From there, everyone gets on with their lives. Triumphant music plays as they all settle into their wonderful circus lives. Pomni visits Jax’s grave- I mean abstraction- every now and again, but it ends up just being her and Kinger that spend any time with the abstractions in the new aquarium tank that was built for them. A sweeping, upbeat rendition of the show’s main theme plays as we all move on from Jax killing herself because at least Zooble can have sex now. Pomni killed and ate those shitty-looking fish. Ragatha plays baseball! There is no time to mourn because it’s time to party.
There is a clear tonal shift in the finale. It’s like two episodes that wanted to take drastically different directions, but were smashed together for a theatrical release. Jax’s story is obviously extremely personal to Gooseworx. This episode was the culmination of three years of, “What could I have been if I kept lying to myself?” It moved a lot of girls. Real people are coming out as transgender after having watched it because the feelings it evoked were so tangible. It doesn’t sit right that such a powerful, fandom-unsafe swing is followed up with the most typical, risk-free, happy ending that could be mustered. Was Caine’s return necessary? Did we really need answers about the cast’s names and faces? It took under a minute to move on from our grief and into “Caine has learned the error of his ways and can play nice, we promise.” What did this add? Was it merely an attempt to make sure no one left the theater in tears? Perhaps there was Caine merchandise that still needed to be moved. (The curse that is merchandising’s impact on indie animation is an essay unto itself.) Regardless of the answer, moving from watching a trans woman lay out every bit of pain she’s ever been through to a Happy Ending that doesn’t include her… is rough. What is so unsatisfying about The Amazing Digital Circus’s finale is not that things don’t turn out well. It’s that everything turns out INCREDIBLY well for everyone, everyone except for one person. The impact of the tragedy is dulled as it is ultimately swept aside in favor of a montage of silly antics. The praise the story is receiving for portraying visceral trans girl emotions is well-deserved, but the show still had to figure out how to wrap up several less interesting concepts in a neat bow. If your domain is post-canon fanfiction, I’m sure it did a great job at that. If your domain is, instead, stories that are finished, it all rings a little hollow.