#bayden

Rider is dying in the finale. none of this goofy, wibbly-wobbly "oh haha we make it look like she's dying but she didn't!" no she's dying for realsies

this is still distressing for Horse. obviously

I'm not sure how Horse would get the Rift Key, since the Woman has it and kills the recombined Nowhere King with it

side note: am I dumb or does it not actually tell us what happened to the key and the Woman afterwards. like, does she die? is the key destroyed? does she just take the key and go back to living with the Beartaur? are she and the Beartaur roommates? are they dating? is this a friends-with-benefits/situationship sorta thing? so many questions, not enough answers

ANYWAYS

we know the Rift Key can recombine things

and it is used to combine things that weren't combined before to make minotaurs (which we see step-by-step in "The Ballad of Becky Apples" with Bayden and almost Water Baby)

side note 2: Bayden NEVER GETS TURNED BACK. when Crandy recognizes him, he (re)gains control of his body and is the dominant personality I guess? (rip to the creatures he was combined with) but like...they don't fix him. he just stays in that form. so that does seem to suggest Woman destroyed it or took it with her or hid it or something unless Bayden just chose to stay that way which I don't think makes sense BUT I DIGRESS

Horse is distraught

and Rider says it's okay (maybe even re-sings her lullaby) and she's ready to die

but Horse can't accept that

because she spent two seasons trying so hard to get back to Rider (heck we have at least two songs of Horse lamenting her fears of everything being all for naught) and what was the point if Rider dies now

so Horse gets the Rift Key

and the herd belatedly realizes what she's doing and try to stop her - especially Wammawink, I'd really wanna highlight her reaction - but they're too late

and Horse uses the key to combine herself and Rider to save Rider's life

leaving us with Rider-Horse-taur (much to Rider's horror)

so we can get some psychological horror of the two vying for control because Rider knows this is wrong and wants them to split again but Horse just can't let her go and is afraid that if they split, Rider will die, so the two are at odds within the same combined body

Bayden got minotaur'd.

And then Bayden showed up in the human world, and was loudly livetweeting directly above the minotaurs. And then the bird fetus dropped on the minotaurs (because of course, how would it get to his followers, they're literally in another world) and repeated just enough...

"Bayden. Directly above minotaurs."

When that happened, I was so surprised and amazed that I said "oh shit" out loud. My stepdad heard me from the dining room (I was watching in the living room) and told me to watch my language. He doesn't like when people swear so I try to watch my language when he's at home (and I'm not in my room, I can swear as much as I want in my own room) which is why this making me shocked enough to swear out loud is a Big Thing.

Then Bayden just kept tweeting, while being captured and in the leadup to being minotaur'd. And I realized...

The birdtaurs' obsession with the world as a story has caused them to not realize they're a part of it. And this separation in their minds of "things that can happen to them" and "things that can happen to other people" made Bayden not realize what was going to happen to him until it already had.

When Bayden came out as a minotaur, I was so amazed. I'd seen spoilers of minotaur-Bayden, but didn't know how it was going to happen. I couldn't tell the difference between most birdtaurs at that point anyways- Bayden just wasn't that important in my mind until this happened, I saw him once but didn't expect him to be a major player, so I forgot him instantly. So when he turned into a minotaur I was like "so THAT'S what that screenshot was from."

Minotaur-Bayden is so grotesque and I love the design. The combination of bird and alligator to make whatever that is? The sharpening of all his Centaurworldy features? The fact he still doesn't have a nose, so his noseless beak-face plus the alligator's mouth made the top part of the beak squished in while the bottom part jutted out? The fact he still had his durpleshirt on? It's quite honestly one of the best designs in the show.

Comfortable Doug's line of "Is this a death we must mourn or a birth we must celebrate?" made me appreciate Comfortable Doug much more than I had before. I still don't like the moletaurs being hairless, but that's fine. Also after Bayden roared, Doug went "...Still not sure." which made me laugh.

In the Hootenanny episode, the little line in the song of "oh by the way guys has anyone seen Bayden" made me think like. Oh shit. They don't know what they're in for. Honey, you've got a big storm coming.

Then in the finale episode, when Bayden captured Crandy and she recognized him instantly? And she was like "what did you think of my latest [whatever it is she does]" and he went "Like. Like. Like." and she was like "He's still in there, you guys!"

I was all "are they going to have to kill their friend knowing he's their friend?" but then the final song showed the birdtaurs with Bayden, helping to rehabilitate him. Uncomfortable with what he's become but still seeing him as their friend and liking him- that made me like the birdtaurs way more than I did before. Before that, they'd seemed kind of shallow, but now I can see they actually care about each other beyond just watching each other's content and having their own fans for their own content. The way the tweeting-egg fit perfectly into Bayden's jutting jaw also made me smile.