The Beginning Of The End - Tumblr Posts

you went from “i love you,

to pieces,” to

“awesome.”

overnight.

it hurt, 

but now i know the end is coming

faster than i thought.

it hurts so much

to not see the love in your eyes 

anymore

you went from “i love you,

to pieces,” to

“awesome” 

overnight.

the heart is a fickle bitch

i swear she’s a fickle bitch.

my heart is in pieces, 

and a hole

is now where you used to nestle your face in it

you went from “i love you,

to pieces,” to

“awesome”

over night

burst into tears. 

my heart has been ripped from my chest.

“i love you, btw”

“awesome”

i’m sorry that i don’t know 

how to make you love me anymore.

I just feel like them!

THIS IS NOT A DRILL 😭😭😭

I wouldn’t see an innocent child executed. What harm has he ever done anyone?

MERLIN – Season 1; Episode 8; The Beginning of the End

The Beginning of the End Thoughts

Wow. Just wow. I knew the Amphibia series finale was going to emotionally destroy me but what I wasn’t prepared for was the fact that it had me tearing up within the first minute of The Beginning of the End. Marcy was already an incredibly relatable character but that opening scene hit me in a way I wasn’t expecting (it hit too close to home. I am way too much like Marcy) and really made you understand why Marcy did what she did. 

Marcy is a character who is incredibly lonely. Anne said it herself in this episode that she and Sasha never gave any of Marcy’s interests a chance or paid attention when she would ramble on about them. That opening scene of Marcy being so excited about this movie that she loves, quoting it and info dumping about it to the two, wearing a blanket as a cape, and trying to hide her disappointment when they don’t share any of her enthusiasm touched upon her isolation in such a poignant way in such a short amount of time. 

Many people can probably relate to Marcy. I know that I have experienced that same thing multiple times in my life. Marcy has always been heavily neurodivergent coded but this just encapsulated that experience in less than one minute. She went through life not being able to connect with others very easily and found connection and understanding in media. All of her attempts to share that experience were met with halfhearted or nonexistent reactions. She wants to share this connection and experience with people she cares about. But she is left alone watching the movie every time while Sasha and Anne sleep. That disconnect is something that makes everything so clear and painful.

For Marcy it wasn’t a matter of if the friendship fell apart after she left but a matter of when. I can’t blame Marcy for this. Was her decision rash? Yes. Was it selfish? Yes. Was it the wrong choice? Yes. But do I understand it? Yes. 

She was a scared and lonely thirteen year old child who didn’t want to lose the few people who did hang out with her.

I will admit that I was a little scared about how the show would handle Marcy in these last few episodes because she is the only one of the three that hasn’t completed her personal arc but this episode wiped those worries away completely. If they could craft such an emotional and relatable minute of animation that could make everything about Marcy’s decision, character, and friendships snap into place then I knew they could do her character justice in the final two episodes.

This is why I could never get behind people saying that the trio was best splitting ways after Amphibia because of all the betrayals. Sasha, Anne, and Marcy were going to fall apart as a friend group before they went to Amphibia and they spent the majority of their time in Amphibia apart. They are the definition of sometimes you have to grow apart before you can come back together. They had to fall apart as friends and grow as people separate from each other before they could come back together as true friends. Just like Anne said.

Anne points out that Sasha herself is proof of this. Sasha did genuinely care for Marcy and Anne but she wasn’t a good friend (that line where she tells Marcy she didn’t care about the spoiler hurt so much) and the core also calls her out on it too. But Sasha grew during her time in Amphibia to where she is kinder, more understanding, and legitimately supportive with the entirety of “The Three Armies” serving to hit this point home. And if Sasha can change, the girl most set in her ways, then so can Marcy. And if Anne and Sasha’s friendship could be salvaged then so could their relationship to Marcy.

This goes into one of my favorite parts of the episodes (outside of it making me somehow love Marcy even more) getting to see Sasha and Anne as true friends. I really like their dynamic now that they have patched things up and both grown significantly as people. Sasha supports Anne at every turn and tries to help even when she very obviously has doubts about Anne’s plan of action. But you also get to see little pieces of the good parts of their old friendship and how it is enhanced by their new dynamic such as when they used their old dance to become so in sync that they could beat Olivia and Yunan. 

Now onto Anne and Sasha finally coming face to face with Darcy. This scene was everything I wanted. The core taunting Anne and Sasha with the personal information they know about them and knowing what will hurt them the most. Sasha’s genuine hurt and anger over Darcy implying that Sasha and Marcy were never really friends to begin with. Anne managing to outwit the core and buy herself some time. The tragedy of the three friends’ situation. 

The core being revealed to the girls has been a long time coming and I wasn’t disappointed. They knew exactly what buttons to press and how ruthless to be. It’s still so creepy because of the mannerisms and memories that it has from Marcy. It really hammers home how morbid this sock puppet routine of theirs is. I can’t wait to see even more of them in the next episode.

I just hope that Sasha doesn’t actually get mind controlled because she needs to be there with Anne to free Marcy. They both need to play an active role in that moment for their friendship to come together. I’m sure that will be the case but that made me a bit nervous. I’m sure I’m worrying about nothing because Amphibia nails its finales.

While the decision fills me with way too much anticipation I believe ending on Andrias and the Core invading earth was the perfect place to stop. This is really the final chapter and I can’t wait to see how it ends. All In is 48 minutes and all these episodes did was prove that I’m not ready. I thought I was prepared but then this episode made me tear up within the first minute and I realized I was doomed.

Amphibia also knows exactly when and how to change its end credits and these ones hurt so much. The soft piano rendition of Marcy’s theme over the scene of her watching her favorite movie alone while Anne and Sasha sleep was a gut punch. This really emphasized the tragedy of Marcy’s story, her isolation, her escapism tendencies, and how her naivete and loneliness led her to this point.

There’s also the fact that I don’t think their dynamic was 100% one sided. It’s true that they didn’t show the care and appreciation they should have towards Marcy’s interests and this was shown many times throughout the series before this point but Sasha and Anne bring up things Marcy has said or interests of hers up when she isn’t there at multiple points. They took their friendship with Marcy for granted and should have shown more active interest in what she would tell them about. I just want to point out that they did care just not in the way Marcy needed but now they are at a point where they can both recognize this and rectify it because of how much they have grown.

That episode may be one of my top five of the series. It does such an amazing job with Marcy and has such great music that I can’t help but be blown away. I didn’t think I could relate any more to Marcy but here we are. It also sets up so much going into the final two episodes that I can’t wait to explore. 

Scattered thoughts

I love Grime in these episodes.

Sasha and Grime have a few wholesome moments. I have missed their dynamic recently.

I liked that The Three Armies came to the conclusion that Anne can’t solve hundreds of years of systemic and class issues between the toads, newts, and frogs. The three factions can’t solve them right away either but they can start.

I loved Anne being named mediator of the year at her school.

I think series finales can be hard to talk about right after the fact. So many emotions, expectations, and hopes are built up going into it that it can cloud your perception of the finished product the first time you view it.

For some aspects of Amphibia this was partially the case for me. I can say that my thoughts on the finale have morphed since I first watched it. I want to say up front that overall I loved the finale and I love Amphibia and now that time has passed I think I can explain my revised thoughts on the earth epilogue.

I actually do agree with my write up here. But I want to set the record straight on a few things in my initial earth epilogue thoughts. There are some things I stand by. I don’t think the dialogue got across that the three girls stayed in contact after amphibia. Considering that the Beginning of the End and All In had a huge emphasis on the girls wanting to stay friends after all this and how much they wanted to make their friendship work despite the distance I felt this fumbled the ball in showing this. But I understand and will defend the choice to have them drift apart. 

This fits the themes of the show and it is a bittersweet and realistic moment. Amphibia is about change and it is also about the friendship of three girls that fell apart and they were forced to grow as individuals so that they could come together as true friends.

In a way that’s also what they did here (except their friendship naturally drifted apart instead of broke). They drifted apart and grew as individuals and went down different career paths and they were able to find each other again. And they still deeply care about each other. That ending reunion and the photo at the end show this.

The trio drifting apart doesn’t negate the feelings they share for one another. Their friendship still means so much to each of them and they still care deeply about each other. Nothing is permanent and that’s okay. It doesn’t make the memories or connections any less meaningful.

Do I wish the trio stayed close and never drifted apart? Yes. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like the themes and ideas that this portrayed.

The argument that Amphibia isn’t realistic and thus the realistic ending doesn’t fit the show doesn’t hold much water in my opinion. Amphibia is a larger than life epic that has magical anime powers, an amalgamation of multiple minds that have conquered death, 1000 year old newt tyrants, and much more but it manages to be full of real, heartfelt moments that capture the experience of life.

And it's those smaller moments that speak to real experiences that make this show work as well as it does.

For example, The Beginning of the End was a spectacle that held the long awaited first confrontation between Anne, Sasha, and Darcy and the beginning of the battle against Andrias and the Core but the moment that everyone was talking about and empathizing with was the flashback.

The flashback was a snapshot of what the calamity trio's friendship was like back home that showed Anne and Sasha's indifference to Marcy's interests and passions. This flashback portrayed an experience a lot of people who watch the show can relate to and it is what made their reunion in this episode even more of a gut punch than it would have been before (more of my thoughts on this moment are here).

This show wouldn't be as special as it is without these moments.

The show has always been grounded in the characters and in its life lessons about change, friendship, and growth/growing apart. And I think it managed to get that across perfectly with this ending now that I’ve had time to sit with it.

perpetual beginning of a perpetual end, circa 45 years ago.

look at you, you're gorgeous!