The Amazing Digital Circus REVIEW - Episode 3: The Mystery Of Mildenhall Manor

 

The Amazing Digital Circus REVIEW - Episode 3: The Mystery of Mildenhall Manor

    The Amazing Digital Circus, the juggernaut indie animation series created by Gooseworx and produced by GLITCH Productions, has hit its third episode, and boy, is it a spooky doozy perfect for the Halloween season! It's got scares! It’s got lore! It’s got discussions of body dysmorphia, memory issues, and trauma! And shotguns! What more could you WANT?!? 

     Overall, I would consider this the most mature episode we have seen (so far) in terms of subject matter and tone. Still, those facts only make for a more memorable experience that builds on the existential themes the show is building!

Synopsis

    The third episode of The Amazing Digital Circus follows the gang (sans Zooble) going on a horror-themed adventure in the ghost-infested Mildenhall Manor. This haunted mansion sees Pomni and Kinger trapped in the “Rated Mature” section, trying to puzzle their way out of the physical and mental horrors the path presents. Pomni slowly comes to understand Kinger more throughout the ordeal and his unique mental state.

    At the same time, Zooble, who had been doing all she could to avoid going on these adventures, is put into “therapy” by Caine, who is trying to understand why she keeps skipping out despite his efforts to appeal to her tastes more. The session, after Zooble tries to articulate her utter discomfort with her digital body and the body dysmorphia disorder she grapples with, pivots then to Caine’s insecurities (since he can’t grasp her issues despite her efforts) of his only purpose, making adventurers, being subpar, and Zooble keeping him from having a mental breakdown. 

    With the plots of the episode roughly broken down, let's deep dive into each of them to discuss what made them great!

The ‘A’ Plot: The Mildenhall Manor

Kinger in a Nutshell (Art by @Anthonylegua1)

 

    The ‘A’ Plot of the episode, the adventure in the manor, is, naturally, the most dense, leaving a lot of ground to cover. The episode leaves little room for Jax, Gangle, and Ragatha (besides for some brief checkups and gags with them) but gives us A LOT of attention to Pomni and the here-to-unexplored nutcase, Kinger! The two of them trapped in a “mature” haunted house horror experience gives them both time to shine, requiring them to lean on the other in the face of being hunted by a literal face and headless monster! 

    This episode marks the first time Pomni can bounce off one of the main cast 1-on-1 for the entire episode (besides Ragatha), which gives room to show her growth. Pomni, still several layers of traumatized from the first two episodes, is trying her best to engage with and socialize with the rest of the cast, even trying to explore the limits of her new digital body, but is still noticeably on edge after all she’s faced so far and, when faced with the horror-game scenarios, barely keeping it together. Thankfully, Kinger is there! 

    Kinger, a chess-themed lunatic who, at first, seemed more like comic relief than anything, really shines (literally) in this episode. Kinger, at first, gets the two of them stuck on the “mature” horror path, barely helping, if at all, with his mania and memory issues. As the episode continues, his lucidity and competence grow, from coming up with solid plans to escape the manor, remembering more and more, and making shockingly good use of a shotgun against the monsters in the manor! All of this comes to a head when he reveals that his memory issues fade when in darkness as a result of one of his strongest memories: His wife abstracted, and before being banished to the cellar, Kinger managed to calm her down just long enough to hold her one last time, thanks to the two of them being in darkness. Kinger is a tragic figure, a shambling husk of a man just trying to keep sane, with only the dark giving him the mental clarity he has lost in the light. He manages, though, thanks to the main message he imparts to Pomni. 

    Pomni, through her existential struggles in the first few episodes, always seems to pull through better when interacting with and empathizing with others. It has not been perfect, with the loss of Gummigoo being the sharpest knife in her (so far!) attempts to adjust. Later, at Kofmo’s funeral, she starts to get what helps everyone else keep moving forward in The Digital Circus, which Kinger would then spell out. The people in the circus are what make it all worthwhile. None of them are perfect, but they all try and, in those little moments of care, selflessness, and camaraderie, those memories they make are what make it a little more bearable and worth treasuring, as there is no telling how long that might last before any of them abstract. They all need to lean on one another to make it through the adventure to the next, and, in the end, that’s precisely what Pomni and Kinger do, escaping the mature horror section of the manor, hand in hand, holding their breaths, as the entire cast was doing in the start of the episode. The plot caps off with Pomni both thanking Ragatha, already applying the lessons she learned in that adventure to appreciate and love while she can, and her having a newfound respect and appreciation for Kinger, seeing him in a much better light thanks to what she saw of him when he’s in darkness. 

    In short, there is a lot of heavy stuff in that Plotline, so what about the Zooble therapy? How does it compare to such a dense main plot? I would say: Very well!

The ‘B’ Plot: The Zooble Therapy Session

The look of a very productive therapy session

   Zooble has not participated in any adventurers so far! But why??? That is what Caine wants to discover in this plotline, where he makes her go through a “therapy” session that straddles the line between a body dysmorphia discussion and great comedy!

    The ‘B’ plot is, naturally, not as long as the ‘A’ plot. Still, it manages to use all its time by giving us a brief but powerful look at Zooble’s issues and a more comedy-charged but telling glimpse at what makes the ringmaster of the Digital Circus tick. 

    The crux of the plot is after Caine fails to recall what Zooble’s problem was (and not make the therapy session all about him), Zooble explains they struggle with being comfortable in their own (digital) skin, unhappy with their bizarre body and, even with Caine having provided them with an entire box of body parts to swap in and out, can’t find anything that feels right. The most profound nuances of this are beyond the scope of my education or personal experiences, but the messaging of body dysmorphia is clear as day, and the dismissive attitude of Caine, who, even with the attempts to “help,” comes very close to modern insincerity over the issue. Overall, this revelation recontextualized many of Zooble’s actions up until now, presenting someone profoundly uncomfortable with their customizable body and, very likely, unable to ever escape due to the nature of Digital Circus. Caine, meanwhile, is as funny and, in his way, oblivious as ever.

    Caine, as always, continues to be a great source of comedy, and, as someone who loves to overthink animated, more stuff to speculate over!

    His attempts to figure out what has been wrong with Zooble are interesting. They come from a decidedly selfish place, wanting them to participate in the adventures he worked hard on but is at least trying to understand it in a way that makes sense to him. It seems to me Caine is not trying to be insincere when listening to Zooble's problems (at least intrinsically), but the AI is, as he spells out, born and built to make adventurers for the players to enjoy. It is entirely possible that Zooble’s dysmorphia, beyond his attempt to give more options for them to explore (as one might give a player customization options in a video game) is literally beyond his digital scope to grasp and, in the wake of that, defaults to trying to make the adventurers more appealing to them without hitting the root problem. That is not all we can speculate about in this therapy session plotline. 

    The episode also introduces something that may come up later: When Caine begins to question if he is even good at his sole purpose, creating adventurers, the area around Zooble and him starts to glitch out. Was this a one-off gag or foreshadowing that the entire Digital Circus, on some level, is predicated on the AI’s own mental stability and confidence? They could build up this little moment later as either a dangerous outcome the rest of the cast must avoid for their survival or, on the flip side, the key to escaping the circus, as the game glitching out may allow them to leave (if such a thing is possible). At this very moment, we don’t have enough information to determine if it was good or bad, but it might be worth watching out for in later episodes! 

    Overall, this plotline offered a lot of laughs, an extraordinary exploration of Zooble (and their very real body dysmorphia), and the potential for Caine’s problems as an AI and how it could make or break the Digital circus moving forward!

    With all that said and done, how does the episode compare to the preceding two?

How Does The Episode Compare?

They just keep getting better and better

 

    Episode three is the best of the series we have seen so far from a writing and visual standpoint, barely losing out to episode two in comedy. 

    Regarding writing, the previous two episodes were not bad by any means. The first episode functioned as the pilot and had the baggage of establishing the gist of the series, which kept any overall narrative within the episode non-complex but straightforward. The second episode was a step up from there, showing us what the series would look like going forward. Still, its B plot (the rest of the gang still going on the adventure while Pomni is gone) paled compared to the A plot, which is saved only by its stronger comedy. By a mile, the third episode is the most tightly written of the three. Its opening segment pays off in the ending; the segmentation of the A and B plot contrast enough to be unique and fun to watch in their own ways, tackling separate but still meaningful topics, and the entire story of Kinger is short but sweet in a way that will stick with viewers well after watching and completely recontextualizes him in a way that is worth rewatching the other episodes for. These points are built up better with the episode's visuals, which are out of this world!

    The animation and visuals of episode three are easily the best we have seen. The Amazing Digital Circus, while a visual marvel at its baseline, uses a very bright, pastel color palette that can be a bit visually overstimulating and offputting at times. This episode changed all that with its location in a haunted mansion. The dark and spooky locations we see the cast go through, filled with shadows, low light, and more muted colors, honestly make all the models of the cast look absolutely gorgeous, making even the cartoony Kinger’s stronger emotions feel melancholy and substantial. The highlights were the monster chasing Kinger and Pomni, an utterly terrifying fleshy beast straight out of an early 2000s horror game, and the darkness segment where the characters mentioned above had their eyes drawn and animated in 2D. This tremendous creative choice enhanced the scene! The previous two episodes were not bad visually at all. Each had their marvels of animation between them (the abstracted Kaufmo, The Fudge, etc.), which are brought down a bit from the visual overstimulation and samey use of bright pastel colors. In contrast, this new episode goes up proverbial points for bucking that trend and doing it masterfully! That is not to say the Mystery of Mildenhall Manor is without fault, as I feel it loses out in the comedy department. 

    The comedy for episode three is no doubt the weakest aspect. It still has its fair share of great jokes. Caine and Kinger (even with his sanity increasing) are still comedy gold. The focus on more serious and horror-themed subjects does not allow for more comedy to shine in the storytelling as a necessity. The pilot and the second episode win out in the comedy department, with the latter being the best of the bunch with its heavier focus on slapstick and great visual gags and the former making more of an effort to fill out its characters in their initial characterization. Losing out in comedy is a small price for sweeping the other two episodes in visuals and writing. 

    The Mystery of Mildenhall Manor is clearly a standout episode compared to what we have so far! Overall, though, how is this episode?

Conclusion

Don't look too deep into the beast's abyss

 

    The Mystery of Mildenhall Manor, the third episode of The Amazing Digital Circus, is the best of show so far. The episode's choice to focus on the very human struggles of loss, mental instability, body dysmorphia, and the need to connect and love while you still can was an inspired one to make. The visuals and writing make this episode stand head and shoulders above what we have seen. Overall, The Amazing Digital Circus keeps improving with each passing episode in all categories, and if the show keeps up at this pace, it will no doubt be legendary!