#scene notes

Hey I still love Mel and Jayce together, they are so beautiful. Even after Jayce lashes out, they still have a lovely relationship and value each other so much.

Jayce and Mel are together and leave Viktor ALONE on the FLOOR

Gawd it feels so personal. Viktor has never been this dramatic. It really feels like he put himself out there and was turned down.

Sky reaches out to comfort Viktor, but Viktor draws away. And that's when he says...

Scene notes under the cut featuring Aiden, Kaine, Clarissa, and a very cranky Harpy (oh and a confused Ramba that just wants to skewer someone and doesn’t care who atm)

Fitz might even make an appearance - heh, yeah he does

He looks so alone and helpless

it was a CHOICE for Jayce to be (a) wounded (b) shirtless for this scene. It was a real choice.

BABY augh

amazing facial expression, what a mental state Jayce must be in, amazing way to realize your friend is naked

Like, this is a serious scene and I love it and I don't mean to make light of it, but the fact that they're both wearing little to nothing is driving me a little insane, that was a choice, that was such a choice

Harry Lloyd's line readings man. idk why this fucking killed me

HE'S BEAUTIFUL??????

aughhhhhhh

AHHHHHHH

AAAAUUUUUUUUUGH

"I'm alone no longer..." he says in the Council Chamber...

"I now speak with all their voices." And I think the camera move is really interesting, the way it spins around him, it's like it *should be* a reveal, you would expect the camera to whip around and show all the voices Viktor is speaking with. But instead, all it reveals is that he is alone. It's a false connection, but he believes in it.

At the Hexgates in the finale, Viktor tells Jayce about what he thinks he's doing. He tells him that he's setting them on a path where "we can be of one mind. United."

Later, when Viktor brings Jayce into the cosmic realm...

"This is what you see?" Jayce says. He's been fighting VIktor since he got back, but now it all makes sense. All these souls, together, and connected. And it's beautiful.

In the end, though, Viktor is absolutely shattered by what his older-self says. And why? On the surface, it's a calm scene. a beautiful scene even...

But dreamless solitude... Old-Viktor isn't just admitting he was wrong, he's saying he created a hell for himself. He condemns himself to loneliness. And it destroys him...

I also want to take an aside, to talk about the other part of what Old-Viktor says...

This ties into something Machine-Herald-Viktor said earlier, and contrasts with it, that he thought he was heading down the path of "an unbroken saga of progress..." He didn't realize where he would end up was "an end to pursuit." And what is an end of progress, and end of evolution, if not death? Viktor had condemned not just the world, but himself to a waking death. But that's a tangent from the theme of isolation vs. connection I'm focusing on here.

When Viktor comes back to himself now, he sees all the "evolved" souls differently. This wasn't connection that persisted until he was old, it was a false, forced connection. He is actually alone.

This is such a smart shot, because of how fractured Orianna is. She's already a creepy robot, but more than that, our picture of her is broken into pieces. We see her back. Her eye in one mirror. Her hands in another. Her shoulder in another. Her face and Singed's face are separated, reflected in different mirrors, emphasizing the distance between them.

I don't think we talk enough about what a knife in the gut this scene was. Vi re-enacting her biggest mistake with this new-Powder.

But instead of everything going to shit, Jinx comforts Isha with kindness and maturity.

So they fight. Then Viktor attacks them in his marionette, Mel and Jayce work together, they defeat Viktor by teaming up, thus they reconcile.

Jayce began the scene in the Council chamber by lashing out at Mel, *blaming* Mel. And he does that because he's dealing with an inner conflict. trying to understand *why* everything happened and his role in it. The whole fight with Viktor wasn't just a physical fight, it was Jayce struggling with what his role was in everything that had gone wrong. Like he blamed Mel, he also blames Viktor, telling him "This is your obsession, everything you did to these people you did alone." He renounces any part in it. But Viktor tells him that this whole chain of events started with him. I really think this scene is about Jayce coming to terms with both his responsibility and his agency. And in the end he does, and he no longer blames Mel.

Instead he is there for her, he literally supports her.

That's the whole point of this shot, to show the two of them reconciled. They didn't have to have a shot like this, Mel didn't *have* to be weakened to the point of fainting. And Jayce didn't have to catch her. If they wanted to emphasize the distance between them, Mel could have leaned on the table or a chair for support instead.

Furthermore, I would argue that the impact of these shots, of Viktor's isolation, hits much harder with Jayce and Mel reconciled. Throughout the show, Viktor and Mel have been counter posed, and now they are again, but Mel is with Jayce, and Viktor is abandoned, alone.

And then there's the "You'll never be a passenger scene," which I love, and it is literally insane to me that some people try to hand-wave it away. So let's spell out exactly why it's so good.

First of all, it starts off with Jayce's absolute unconditional apology. Perfect apology, no notes. And he acknowledged Mel's pain.

Mel responds by sharing a deep, personal fear. She's making herself vulnerable and putting a lot of trust in Jayce.

And look at the way he looks at her! The sympathy and the affection <3

And how does Jayce respond to Mel? With heartfelt affirmation. "There's one thing I know in my bones," he says, emphasizing the depth of their relationship. Oh to have someone believe in you the way Jayce believes in Mel. I love them.

Haters and naysayers have pointed to the lack of physical contact in this scene, and the staid vibes. And yeah, Jayce and Mel have been on different journeys, on different paths, they are different people now, and their relationship *is* different too. They aren't in a place to bounce back to what they were before the Black Rose and before the anomaly, and the point of this post was never to argue otherwise.