I saw a version of the ‘Pomni abstracts’ scenario from that heavily locked door from Jax’s mind in Episode 9 in a dream last nights
Here’s all the details I remember (in a list format because I love these/find them easier to read):
- Jax pushes Pomni and she doesn’t get up (maybe because she hits her head and gets dazed or because she’s genuinely too shocked/upset to process moving), and just so happens to fall in a way that covers her eyes/head
- Jax, because she’s panicking internally at the contradiction of ‘I pushed her like Mom’ and ‘we can’t die here’, makes a cruel jab about Pomni faking being unable to move for attention/pity/slapstick comedy before sulking off (to panic attack in her room before suppressing herself again)
- After this incident Pomni gets like Ribbit and self-isolates (and in a neat reversal SHE is the one avoiding Jax on purpose when she tries to play off the situation because she subconsciously knows what’s happening and is terrified of losing Pomni)
- Pomni isolates herself to the point where the other circus members, sans Gangle, notice and call Jax out when Pomni herself won’t engage with them and seems generally depressed after the gun adventure (again another contrast to Ribbit where nobody realises).
- Ragatha or Zooble basically demand Jax apologise to Pomni in a moment of anger/disbelief at her cruelty, but this causes Jax to deny anything happened and refuse to apologise at all out of stubbornness/spite
- Also in between these parts are little cuts that show Jax trying to partner with Pomni on adventures and her refusing by picking someone else (Ragatha, Kinger) or hiding altogether in her room to avoid going at all.
- Jax has a ‘goes to Pomni’s door and chickens out on knocking’ moment followed by a sharp pang of ‘what am I doing’ moment when he spots a firearm on Caine’s latest adventure and doesn’t immediately try to pick it up (because gun adventure=when she ruined the budding friendship with Pomni which cascades into Ribbit+Kaufmo+Mom feelings).
- Jax goes to Pomni’s door the second the adventure ends. She tries to talk to Pomni through the door, making jokes about how she ‘didn’t miss anything’ during the adventure. No answer. She tries again by pointing out how the adventure had a chill part (knowing Pomni likes those the most). Still nothing. Jax panics and in a moment of impulsivity unlocks Pomni’s door and throws it open.
- Pomni is abstracted. The light from the open doorway makes her agitated. Jax doesn’t run away or try to talk to her, she’s still reeling from ‘I did it again it happened again’ and gets beaten up.
- Jax is found shortly because of the noise by Ragatha, who also freezes in despair/horror at Pomni’s fate before glaring at Jax and calling for Caine as she rushes away.
- Pomni is put in the cellar right in front of Jax (she’s clinging to her and refuses to let go until Caine separates them to open the cellar hole in the tent floor). After the hole closes Jax tries to put on her signature smile, but she just…can’t. Her pupils dilate on their own, but her mouth is in that ‘gone’ state so the only way to tell what she’s feeling is her eyebrows and ears/other body language.
- Jax tries to be in proximity to the remainder of the cast, but they’ve all in shock from Pomni’s abstraction and Ragatha’s version of events (as she was rushing to Caine for help she bumped into Zooble and said something like ‘Jax corrupted Pomni just like I knew he would and now she’s abstracted’). So, they avoid her like Pomni did (especially Gangle and Zooble, Ragatha stays close to Kinger and because she’s Ragatha tries to at least be polite to Jax but Jax reads it as ‘Ragatha typical insincerity’ and shut the door on still having her to lean on like she did with Ribbit).
- Bunch of rapid cuts of Jax POV of jet in the hallway and just standing at her abstracted friends’ doors, staring at them blankly and touching the faces.
- During the last long held shot of Pomni’s door there’s a pulse of shifting neon colours in the Jax POV and we hear her gasp/shudder quietly. Jerk out of ‘her head’ to third person POV to see her slumped against Pomni’s door with her hand still pressed to wooden Pomni’s cheek. Her weeks/months long ‘blank face’ is gone and her smile is back and her pupils slowly go from tiny to huge as she feels the mental fog/peace of abstraction coming on. She turns to rest her back against Pomni’s door, hugs her knees and offers a pathetic snide little laugh at herself for dooming yet another person and herself (her last line audible is something like ‘I deserve this’).
- Wall of abstraction eyes to end the scenario.
