I didn’t feel it was rushed, so much as fast paced. The difference being in whether it felt intentional.
They developed the story well, developed characters well, but made use of timeskips to kind of gloss over some important character moments in ways that felt like they were leaving it up to viewer interpretation.
It felt like just about everything was intentional, but it also felt like they left a little bit too much up to the viewer to figure out. It seemed like each arc needed roughly another episode worth of runtime for exposition and to slow down and expand upon smaller character moments for it feel like the viewer was getting all of the needed info. Otherwise, I liked the fast pacing and felt like it worked for the series.
Spoilers, obviously.
What I really, really need with that last arc is some semblance of explanation of why the talk no jutsu Jayce did in the last chapter couldn’t have been approached in chapter 6.
First we think that either he is crazy or that he has some sort of justification, it’s unclear.
Then in episode 7 we learn what he endured and that either some future victor or parallel universe victor told him to do that.
Then we see that it was actually the future, and that apparently future Victor deceived Jayce to be the catalyst of Victor’s evolution (That’s what came to my mind when Jayce took the form of the dead Jayce from ep7). This ending is avoided thanks to Ekko, masterfully done 10/10.
THEN, we learn that no, that future victor actually told Jayce to talk with past victor, or at least to show him that memory. So. why the fuck did Jayce ignore all of that and just try to do a murder in ep6? For shock value? He is supposed to be one of the smartest characters of the series. Not trying to talk with his dear friend when future friend asked him to betrays his character, honestly.
Either I really misunderstood that last sequence, or they should have just skipped it…
Furiously drinking coffee and completely empathizing with the confusion you had. (SPOILERS CONTINUE)
I think the problem was that Jayce, after returning from the future timeline, only had one goal; and that was to stop the destruction from happening. This is why he was a crazed murderous vagabond… he hadn’t recognized the figure from the destroyed timeline as his friend. Yes, I know that the freaking staff should have been a giveaway but shrug. For whatever reason he hadn’t put together that future Viktor was the one who’d saved him and his mom and gave him the acceleration rune.
It seemed to me that only changed when he was trying to talk down evil Viktor and Ekko’s time bomb went off. Why, because he could see his face through the cracked facade? I dunno.
If this had just been clearer, likely through more exposition in the destroyed timeline or even as you suggested, some expression of this conversation between Jayce and Victor beforehand, it wouldn’t have been nearly as frustrating for me.
That being said I actually really loved the thought that evil had actually won, took eons to recognize what victory really meant (and I love that his name was Viktor), and then took eons longer to fix it.
Yeah, it’s such a shame. If only we didn’t get the second “flashforward” (lol) where we see future victor talk to Jayce, the story would have been very well weaved and explained without big plot holes:
- Jayce goes to the future, some semblance of victor tells him to go back and to kill him to avoid this future.
- He does that, however this triggers a massive war.
- Jayce loses, and he realises as he takes the form of the dead future jayce, that whatever entity was controlling Victor, or whatever he became after losing his humanity tricked him. He accepts his fate since he willingly killed his friend, triggering the death of thousands. 10/10
- The wild variable, Ekko, appears. Ekko seems to free Victor from the control the mind machine has on Victor/Revives the humanity inside of him.
- In that moment, Jayce recognises that this is actually the Victor he knows and that there’s still a chance, so he tries to convince Victor, now that he is free of his control/apathy.
- Jayce succeeds. Victory! (lol).
That last scene really breaks this timeline and the only explanation is that Jayce was too far gone when future victor talked to him, so much that he ignored the advice, only to remember it when he already was on the mind-world and ekko did his move… Which can be valid but… we just saw jayce deconstruct his hammer and do some incredible physical feats, he didn’t seem to be clouded when he talked to future Victor, but determined.
It pains me greatly that either from a lack of exposition or from some excess they fucked up a masterful story.
- In that moment, Jayce recognises that this is actually the Victor he knows and that there’s still a chance, so he tries to convince Victor, now that he is free of his control/apathy.
Good point! That was the first time after Viktor left Jayce at the lab where he looked human and vulnerable, instead of stoic and machinelike. So for Jayce that’s also the first time where another option than destroying Viktor became an possible.
I think it has it’s charm that it ended as quick as it did. Sure, another season to really get into stuff would’ve been nice but this way it’s a 2 season limited show that was really good and they can now decide who they’ll make a new show of next.
Ha, they read our thread! :P
I’m actually glad they’re saying it was intentional, because that means they can try to do things differently in the future. And maybe they’ll release more supplemental material, like the book about Ambessa, to fill in the story, so we can appreciate the animated series better.
I just would have crammed a little less storylines in it. The finale was very lacking storywise for me as the somehow had to glue Victor’s arc together with the Mel/Jayce arc.
The whole Jayce Hextech arc was such a big nothingburger for me in the end. So much screentime wasted on his lame journey through the multiverse. Also the Ultron fight in the end was definitely one of the endings of all time.
The more grounded stuff was wayy better (Vi, Jinx, Singed). Even Victor’s arc was cool while getting mcguffined.
And one nitpick: Why has Warwick no snoot? They should’ve kept with the more dog-like design for the goodest boy.
