The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act’s Leak Situation Was CRAZY

Preamble: This is a satirical article I originally published on Medium in the wake of The Amazing Digital Circus’s episode 9 leaks back in May this year. Obviously, my article was not very accurate storyline-wise, although I did sneak in a few honest thoughts of mine about the first eight episodes. In honour of TADC’s episode 9 coming to YouTube today after a very successful run in theatres, I have decided to share my parody review here.

Sit back, relax, and I hope you enjoy.

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In the past few days, the Portuguese dub of an animated movie called The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act has leaked online. While these leaks initially started out as short clips presumably taken wildly out of context, they have since extended to a near-complete cut of the entire film’s main section.

For those of you who don’t know, The Amazing Digital Circus (or TADC for short, as I will refer to it) is a portal fantasy/contemporary sci-fi web series on YouTube and Netflix. Directed by Gooseworx under the whims of the studio Glitch Productions, the show’s premise essentially boils down to “Jumanji meets circus, except it’s much harder to win the game and leave.”

The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act is the feature-length release combining both the recent episode eight and the upcoming episode nine. It was supposed to be released for the first time in theatres this June 4th — and online on June 19th.

Alas, fate took a different course, and now oodles of leaks are circulating thanks to weak security on the Portuguese dubbing team’s end. Gooseworx is crashing out, fans are going nuts, and bad actors have gleefully exploited this situation for clickbait. It has only been a few days, and things have gotten out of hand in a way Glitch is struggling to contain.

Out of curiosity, I decided to check out the most recent leak: the 80% finished version of episode nine’s English sub. I had anticipated the show’s finale for quite a while, after all, and the leaks just meant I could get to it quicker. Besides, they were already out anyway. It wasn’t like I was the person that hacked into the dubbers’ computers or published the leaks.

If there’s one word I can use to describe the movie, it’s this: bonkers. To put it bluntly — your mileage will vary.

Warning: Mentions of graphic violence. Also, spoilers for episodes 1–8 of TADC and 13 Reasons Why.

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The story starts with the direct aftermath of episode eight’s ending. The psycho AI ringmaster Caine has been accidentally slain at the hands of Kinger’s programming skills — and with that, the circus is crumbling. More than ever before, it is a ticking clock for the players to escape their VR sandbox before it’s too late.

Naturally, all six main characters freak out. They argue, blame each other, and devolve into their worst traits from earlier on in the show. It is this chaos that brings us the scene which likely brought The Last Act to a de facto PG-13 — alongside the swearing, of course.

With the default circus censors off, resident sad bad bunny boy (no pun intended) Jax is unable to suppress his memories of the human life he has tried to forget for years. As it turns out, he has A: no surviving family, B: no friends, and C: a horribly long sentence for felony murder waiting for him. In despair, he commits suicide.

For some baffling reason, Jax’s death is an eerie homage to Hannah Baker’s infamous suicide scene all those years ago in 13 Reasons Why before it was mercifully edited out. While Miss Baker’s full passing is nearly lost media now, Jax’s death comes pretty damn close to being its cartoon version without outright plagiarizing.

Don’t get me wrong: Jax’s suicide scene is technical perfection. The lighting is dreary, the silence is ominous, and each visual is painstakingly animated. Shots of the real C&A intersperse with close-ups of him experiencing a panic attack, with the final deed being shown in grisly, grisly detail.

Like Miss Baker, Jax slits his arms in a washroom. Unlike her, he chooses to stab himself in the shoulders. The result is a fluid with the viscosity of maple syrup streaming out of his body as he screams and thrashes in agony against the toilet back. As the fluid floods the ground, the screams become gasps unable to take any air.

After two minutes and fifteen seconds, the last shot of him is an aerial view of his liquid soaked rabbit corpse glitching. It is all yellow, not red or even purple like his avatar — likely to prevent Hollywood perceptions of blood from taking over, in the latter case. If it weren’t for the fact the blood shown was golden, this scene alone could have easily earned the movie an R rating.

Whether you find this drawn out scene of Jax dying excruciating, depressing, or way too over the top, it definitely speaks volumes to the efforts of TADC’s animators. I’m honestly not sure if that’s good or bad, but I regretfully lean towards the latter.

In the meantime, Kinger tries to bring the circus’s abstracted humans back to life via coding, as his wife, Queenie, became one of them decades ago. Unfortunately, abstractees — as shown by the show’s lore — are effectively dead, their only remnants being surreal monsters made of black goop and colourful eyes.

Kinger’s attempts at breaking the laws of nature royally backfire, with him being electrocuted to death. This scene is thankfully much less graphic than Jax’s. While I would have personally preferred for Kinger to go out in a heroic sacrifice towards the end of the story, I already anticipated him dying anyhow, so I wasn’t too disappointed that he did.

The remaining players — Pomni, Ragatha, Gangle, and Zooble — try having a quiet moment with each other to cope with the sudden deaths of Jax and Kinger, even if there’s no time for the typical funerals Ragatha plans. However, consumed by her grief and complex feelings towards Jax, Gangle runs off elsewhere…where she promptly gets kidnapped by an abstractee.

The abstractee in question is Ribbit, Jax’s friend who abstracted some time before Pomni entered the circus in the show’s pilot. Little is shown of her in TADC’s first eight episodes (Jax’s other abstracted friend, Kaufmo, gets noticeably more attention), and little of her as a person is shown in the brief flashback which follows Gangle’s kidnapping.

Nonetheless, it’s nice to see Ribbit have slightly more of a personality than just “Jax’s dead friend.” TADC — while typically great with gender parity — always had an issue with female side characters, with them either played for laughs or fridged disproportionately compared to their male counterparts. Ribbit’s longing for emotions doesn’t fully rectify this, but it’s a boon.

Anyways, Pomni, Ragatha, and Zooble go on a series of action-packed heists to rescue Gangle, evading glitching architecture and other abstractees on the loose alike. These scenes, like a lot of TADC scenes, have exceptional art direction, with sharp camera angles and stylized combat which could give a battle shonen a run for its money.

Eventually, though, Ragatha’s hidden frustrations with her lot in the circus boil to the surface. This leads to her conjuring an exit — and a real one, this time. As a result, she, Pomni, and Zooble end up in a three-way argument about whether to leave and save themselves…or continue trying to rescue Gangle, potentially ending with everyone dying.

Pomni’s spat with Ragatha then devolves into a verbal barrage that goes completely off the rails, with Pomni blaming Ragatha for Jax’s suicide and Ragatha telling off Pomni for ignoring the fact that she too, is grieving Kinger. Frustrated, Zooble goes off on their own to find Gangle. From this, they discover yet another person is dead.

Out of the episode’s three current timeline deaths, Gangle’s is the least graphic. She doesn’t die on screen insofar as her bloodless remnants glitch. Thanks to this, there is a genuinely tender moment where Zooble picks up Gangle’s broken comedy mask and quietly cries.

While the main cast of TADC was never meant to be fully balanced, Zooble fans may appreciate that they finally get noticeable focus here beyond their apathetic personality. That being said, this does come at the cost of Gangle’s character development and, of course, life.

Once Zooble straightens themself out in the head, they run back to Pomni and Ragatha to inform them of Gangle’s passing. They make it to the duo — but before they can say anything, Abstracted Ribbit™ kidnaps them. This is what makes Pomni and Ragatha set aside their differences, reconcile, and go on a rescue mission to save Zooble.

Unlike Gangle, Zooble is quite a defiant captive. While they still have to be saved by Pomni and Ragatha, they also manage to stall Ribbit’s attempts to kill them. Their makeshift attempts at using various everyday objects like chairs and tables to protect themself contribute some noticeable levity to an otherwise dark story.

Ultimately, Pomni and Zooble make it out of the circus in time before it crumbles on them, as Pomni is the protagonist and it would be very bad publicity for Gooseworx to kill the only unambiguously queer character in the cast. The two wake up in warmed up cryogenic pods, with the pods of deceased players warming up as well.

Ragatha, for her part, isn’t quite dead. When Pomni comes to check on her, she notices that unlike Jax or Kinger or any of the abstractees, Ragatha still has a pulse and consistent breathing. The final shot of the show has Pomni smiling before the gorgeously storyboarded end credits come on.

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Overall, I give the story a 3/5. The pacing is a mess, some of the gore was excessive, and some of the characters did get frustratingly screwed over.

But in the end, the show still has a heart. I held back tears at the moments of friendship, I cried when Gangle died, and I cried even more as P!nk’s “Try” played over the end credits. Despite the finale’s…iffy choices, it absolutely didn’t ruin the show as a whole for me.

Gooseworx was right. TADC ain’t for little kids.

The finale definitely proves it.

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PS: the image below is totalllly not relevant. How could any of it be?

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