The Amazing Digital Circus, made by Gooseworx and produced by GLITCH, has released the second episode of the animated show on YouTube. The pilot, also considered the first episode, came out on October 13th of last year, and significantly blew up on the internet, generating 315 million views since then.
Candy Carrier Chaos! Plot Summary
The second episode, Candy Carrier Chaos!, does not disappoint in its existentialism and comedy. The episode takes place seemingly the day after Pomni’s arrival. She has a nightmare about abstracting and being thrown in the cellar, alone and the others saying she wasn’t cut out and they don’t even remember her. She wakes up, thankful it’s a dream, and meets Ragatha at the door.
Caine, their AI ringmaster, has created an adventure for them where they have to retrieve a truck full of maple syrup taken by bandits. Once they get it, they must bring it back to the Candy Kingdom.
Pomni seems to have settled a little into the digital life but remains jaded. Caine transports them to the Candy Kingdom and starts their adventure. Pomni isn’t interested but goes along with it anyway. They drive a war tanker truck to catch up with the bandits, but the group is split when Pomni is thrown on top of the bandits’ vehicle and separated. Most of the group falls into a river of fudge, meeting a fudge monster, and Pomni glitches out of the map with the leader of the bandits, Gummigoo.
They reach the bottom of the map, only for Gummigoo to see his model and the model of all his friends. He has an existential crisis and Pomni has to tell him he’s not a real person like her and that he and his friends are NPCs. He doesn’t take this well unsurprisingly, and Pomni tries to cheer him up, wanting a friend, and invites him to the circus with them. This helps and Pomni takes advantage of the glitching to launch them back to the surface.
Meanwhile, the others are riding the fudge monster when Pomni’s truck kills him temporarily. They’re reunited and Pomni seems to be in better spirits since we first met her. The glitch produced two maple syrup trucks so the bandits take one while the crew goes back with the other. Jax, being the antagonistic character he is, had the key to the kingdom he stole from Ragatha, and let the fudge monster in to eat the candy people. They leave to go back to the circus, bringing Gummigoo.
Gummigoo says he can get used to this new life when Caine realizes an NPC followed them through and he kills him. Pomni-and by extension us, the viewers-are shocked by this. Caine explains that if he starts to lose track of who’s real and who’s an NPC, who knows what could happen, and seems to have a thousand-yard stare for a moment, perhaps suggesting a scenario where he may have killed a person thinking they’re an NPC.
Pomni goes crazy briefly, before Zooble, who skipped the adventure, comes over to Ragatha saying the funeral service for Kaufmo, their abstracted friend. Ragatha invites her to the funeral and Pomni realizes that she doesn’t have to be alone here. And she can rely on these strangers to get through this together.
Theories
One of my favorite parts about these episodes is the theories surrounding the series. There’s so much unknown about the world and even our characters. While we know our characters are mostly in their 20s-30s, with Kinger being late 40s, nothing else is known about them outside this digital world. I know I would like to know more about who they truly are outside the context of the circus.
However, Gooseworx has said recently that the characters do actually remember parts of their previous lives, just not their true names. Gooseworx also tweeted that a lot of this show is centered more on the characters themselves and not so much the lore of the universe they’re in. These tweets lead me to believe we’ll have more episodes centered on a particular person, and we could learn about who they were before.
Another theory circulating is that Jax is hiding a lot from everyone. He puts on a persona of being rude to everyone, but when they first start talking about Kaufmo, there’s a quick moment of genuine sadness; whether it’s for Kaufmo or remembering someone else, we don’t know. Some fans theorize he lost someone close to him and that’s why he acts the way he does.
Also, wouldn’t it be messed up if Gummigoo comes back in a future episode and remembers everything? Or he doesn’t? I can’t tell which is worse, but he may potentially come back since Ragatha says Caine reuses NPCs sometimes.
As of now, there’s no announcement of a new episode anytime soon, but considering the second one came out six months after the first, I don’t anticipate we’ll be waiting a long time for these episodes. Like every other fan though, I’ll be eagerly waiting to see what the next episode will bring and what more messed up things will happen.
