theorisingā¦ iāve already seen a lot of people say that jax in this scene intentionally pushes the red button to keep the gang in the circus forever, because he doesnāt want to go back to his real life and heās willing to keep everybody else there with him to avoid it - which absolutely is a possibility. but i think thereās also something to be said for the possibility that he was aiming for the blue button.
jax hates the circus. for all his bullshit about not caring, about how itās just a silly wacky cartoon world, we know he hates it. and in this episode, itās only gotten worse for him, with an almost abstraction, and these constant flashes of something other, something that he canāt quite place and that are dark and creepy and unsettling and that he wants to stop. so i think thereās a real chance he was aiming for the blue button - not because he necessarily wants to leave, but because he wants whateverās happening to him to stop, and leaving the circus is the only way to achieve that. heās terrified, heās in pain, heās losing his grip on the world heās in and the magic button to make it stop forever is right there. thereās a few shots that i think support this possibility, too:
for one, when jax is running to the console, the blue button is the one that stays in his line of sight the entire time. while this could just be coincidence because of the side of the room heās on, i do find it interesting that he doesnāt seem to either look behind pomni at the red button, or shove her out of the way like he does to zooble.
second, after heās pressed the button, his eyes kind ofā¦ flick between the two of them. which yes, is likely partially out of shock he pressed either of them at all, but i do think itās also because the one he pressed is not the one he was intending to.
and third, the big one: the immediate anger at caine for messing with their minds. the first part alone, āyou got in my head,ā i originally read as jax being angry that, despite all his cynicism, caine gave him the first glimmer of hope heās had in ages. but with the second part, the absolute fury of āyou can mess with our minds too, canāt you?ā makes me think of caine being a puppeteer rather than a manipulator. itās not just that he messed with jaxās emotions, itās that he shifted his brain (and his hand) to picking the opposite choice - not the one jax wants, but the choice that caine wants - for the gang to stay with him, for the gang to want to stay with him. the ending where a member of the team likes their life with him, because even if itās by force, caine can lie to himself that jax chose it. it doesnāt matter to caine how the stay button gets pressed, only that it does.
all in all, i think thereās a strong chance that rather than keeping everyone in the circus to avoid his real life, jax was making an attempt to get them - or rather, himself - out of the circus, if only to force his abstraction/visions to stop, only to have his hand forcibly swayed by caine.
