Izzy

I do still wish there was one or two more scenes included that I think would have made me enjoy it more on the first watch, but I think its really interesting how for most of the movie even though we know clark is a shitty husband and a shitty boss we don't know HOW shitty he actually is.

For majority of the movie its extremely plausible that clark is just a run of the mill douche bag. Sure he yelled at his therapist at the beginning but its therapy! Mary even tells him its the point of the exercise for him to get angry like that! No big deal! And yea he's rude to kat and bobby when filming the commercial but he's clearly frustrated about business and that he just broke a chair with his ass in a silly pirate costume. That scenes might even feel relatable for many people in the audience with shitty jobs.

And then when he's exploring the backrooms for the first time he almost has this childlike wonder about the place. Where most people would reasonably just not go back in he's getting so much delight from finding something he thinks is pretty important and using his architect knowledge to map the place out. Yea he's reckless with Kat and Bobbies lives but even that feels like Clark is just So! Excited! To Explore!

And then hes strangling Mary. And then he has her tied to a chair. A chair that's in his fake family doll house of these backroom still-life's, with his sort of ex wife standing at attention in the corner and these people he seemingly doesn't know from his real life that he's taken as friends? New family members? Whatever he is using them as stand in's for it is definitely not whatever they were originally "made for" in the backrooms.

I think it serves as such an ice bucket drop on the audience of how horrible Clark really is as a person. No he probably wasn't tying his ex wife up outside of the backrooms or anything like that, but he almost certainly commanded their home like she was. Clark is fundamentally a broken man in someway who's desperate to feel normal? In control? Powerful? A mix of all three and more? Clark is given the tools to create those feelings for himself though by the backrooms and literally JUMPS at the opportunity. At first I thought there had to have been a time skip before this scene that I missed but no, Clark literally turns to this new lifestyle in the backrooms the second he meets his own backrooms memory.

I was just a boy, you see

I plead of thee have sympathy for me

Home sweet home

its okay! we dont have to change! its just the way we're wired!!

Inspo image 👇🏽

Felt like actually making a digital art piece instead of just traditional art gulp.

This is how I insult Clark bc I secretly kind of have a soft spot for this fucked up loser ❤️‍🩹

seeing clark divorced, struggling with money, no friends, sitting and drinking and festering in his own self pity brought tears to my eyes faster than anything ever had before.

I saw him out off breath hopping around on the peg leg with the pirate impression talking about how you don't even need credit to buy from him and I was so close to sobbing it wasn't even funny. putting on a face when you're breaking down inside with no hope is terrifying to me.

I was so sad during the kitchen table scene because everything Mary said was true, he was lost now. It's like seeing someone you wished would succeed just give up and fall asleep in their grave.

Eye test.