We Analyze Golden

Going back to what I said about showing and telling with Jax's monologue here?

Throughout this rewatch I have listed MULTIPLE examples I can make to argue against the "TADC tells and never shows" criticism and prove just how wrong that is. I'm also not gonna act like TADC doesn't just tell you some things, but when it does tell you some things I'd argue it's pretty natural. Especially in cases like this.

Cause yes, show don't tell is important. I think people forget that in some cases, in order to get vital information across to the audience, you DO at some points have to tell things. Telling is okay to do when it's natural for the in universe world and characters to tell it.

And here TELLING you is being used as a narrative device to set the audience with an ideal that gets proven wrong by what the episode SHOWS you. Thus it's using both SHOW and TELL effectively.

Yes, that IS good writing.

Let's be honest we all thought she would shoot herself.

There's no stake to her shooting herself if she did. She would've just been teleported to the losers room and joined the cat cult.

I'm very curious, had she actually shot herself right here, gave Jax a very clear visual image of what committing sudoku looks like, would that have scared Jax off from doing it later? Shook Jax to her core so badly that she wouldn't abstract and therefore she would've been saved?

Probably not. You could argue.

"What would you do if I abstracted tomorrow?"

"I'd move on. And probably forget about you."

Jax. Please. Stop projecting. Stop telling people that's what you want them to do when you die.

Also on Pomni's end, she herself is established to have trauma from Kaufmo's death and one of her greatest fears is being abandoned and forgotten. That she would die and nobody would care at all.

"Yeah I bet you don't! Because you're scared. You're scared you'll actually show a human emotion!"

WOW. DIRECT HIT.

Also Gooseworx said that one of her main regrets when writing the show was that Pomni was initially supposed to be a much more angry character. And this ended up getting toned down significantly because Lizzie Freeman got the part. Now I love Freeman as Pomni, don't get me wrong.

But I am very curious, in an alternate universe where somebody else landed the role of Pomni, (Like, idk Elsie Lovelock just to throw an idea) and therefore we got said angrier Pomni. I BET YOU THESE LINES WOULD BE DELIVERED A LOT MORE DIFFERENTLY.

Like, you don't even have to really change her dialogue. Just change the voice actor to someone who is really good at voicing angry characters, and these lines make the entire character come across a lot differently.

I kinda don't want to talk about this fight scene too much because this is one of those scenes that people have analyzed the crap out of. There are videos and posts made dedicated solely to this scene.

Even TADC haters, most of which I've seen say that this is one of the best scenes in the show.

And it is. This show has a pre-third act fight and break up that actually WORKS storywise.

I wanted to mention an underrated detail of this scene, that being when Jax says "You're a cartoon clown how am I supposed to take you seriously?" And we get this expression from Pomni.

"Are you coming onto me? That's what everybody wants, a straight couple!"

Pomni frame.

Why are they cats?

I

SUPPORT

WOMENS

WRONGS

Jax with feminine eyelashes.

OH SHUT UP I FORGOT ABOUT THIS.

SO THAT'S WHERE THE FLASH GRENADE CAME FROM IN EPISODE 9?!