#jason steele

Me in 2025, 31 years old:

I ALWAYS THOUGHT OF YOU AS MADE OF MOONLIGHT

I'm not trying to be overly hyperbolic or anything, I genuinely believe that. Every Filmcow video just reaches me on such a deep level, each of them so vivid with meaning and room for interpretation, each perfectly encapsulating what it feels like to live in a world you have no control over...

Anyways, go watch the Llamas with Hats epilogue! I interpret it to be portraying our ever-collapsing planet from the perspective of a billionaire. But I'm a commie bastard, so you'll probably have a different take!

So like any normal Jason Steele mega fan (I'm calling us The Steelers (Copyright be damned)), I was present for the Llamas With Hats Epilogue, a 20 minute append to the 11 year old series about a mad scientist llama with a particular skill for horrific contraptions involving human meat. He also wears a hat. I'm hardly the only one to have caught onto this story as an allegory for abusive relationships, and the epilogue continues this idea wonderfully.

Carl, having killed himself after his creations destroyed the entire world, finds himself in the afterlife. He's still haunted by the voice of his only friend, fellow llama Paul (also behatted). The epilogue is almost entirely focused on Carl and his coming to understand his greatest crime. Not the global genocide, or all the horrific torture he put countless people through with his many meat monsters, but hurting his llama boyfriend, the one person he actually cared about. Kinda.

Carl is a fascinating character, and the epilogue I think does a great job at outlining precisely what he is. The series finale is perfectly somber. No jokes, no laughs, just misery. That's the state of the world, and it's the state of Carl. But the epilogue does something to recontextualize the finale, in a way some may not like. The finale leaves the impression that Carl is well and truly miserable. This remains intact. But it also leaves you with the impression that he genuinely cared about and missed Paul. And while it's certainly possible that Carl came to genuinely miss Paul over the course of time between their last meeting and the finale, I think the epilogue does a much better job outlining Carl's exact relationship with Paul.

Carl, in his own words, is a dangerous sociopath with a long history of violence. Throughout the series, it's shown that he and Paul spend a lot of time together. Vacations, time at home, walks through the park, there does seem to be a functioning relationship there on some level. But in the series itself, all we see is a version of Carl that is well and truly a horrific monster. A monster who seems to primarily appreciate Paul because he's someone who puts up with Carl and his antics. Carl seems to have fun antagonizing Paul with his many monstrosities. When Paul finally leaves, Carl is desperate to get him back. The epilogue makes it clear that this isn't out of genuine love, it's just possessiveness.

Carl is stated very clearly to be beyond redemption. And though I'm typically of a forgiving mentality, I'm comfortable saying that a llama who makes meat dragons out of orphan baby hands for fun probably isn't someone who can be redeemed. Carl is very resistant to this idea at first. He thinks that Paul will forgive him if he just never does anything wrong again. And even after he dedicates himself to this idea, he can't help but enact violence on the first thing he sees. It takes remembering that Paul is dead, and that he was the one responsible for Carl to realize that he isn't healthy for Paul. That for them both to move on, that he needs to let go. For both their sakes.

Carl is probably the most deplorable character in Filmcow's catalogue. Not even Jenny with her Pizza Hut is that evil. But he's allowed peace. He's not punished forever, it's unlikely it'd even do anything if he was. He's just left to make what was probably the hardest decision he possibly could. He became the acorn. He let go. He gave himself up so that something else could live and be free.

You can't even really describe this as a selfless act, though. Paul is dead, he'll never know what Carl did. He'll never know, and he probably doesn't care. There's something beautiful about that. Carl making a sacrificial decision for nobody but himself. Even the most evil, irredeemable monster is capable and deserving of inner peace. The destruction of the world and death of every living thing didn't make Carl happy. Getting everything he ever wanted just made him miserable. Letting go is the only way for Carl, and abusive people like him, to ever achieve peace.