Tyler Davis
Subversion has become a dirty word as of late within the sphere of popular art discussion. Taking expectations and purposefully going out of your way to do something unconventional has become such a trend as of late that the merit of subversion has, mostly, lost all depth. Now, things come and go with an almost ‘shock jock’ like cadence, which is especially saddening to see because it’s created an air of toxicity surrounding the storytelling trope itself. It’s become so bad that even stories that use subversion quite well can’t help but find themselves caught up in senseless controversy.
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is one of those near-perfect works of subversion, where fundamentally altering the preconceived notions of the piece does nothing but elevate itself as a pseudo-sequel to the original comic book epic, which itself gains an extra bit of richness from the route this show takes. You see, ‘Takes Off’ almost acts like a ‘What If?’ rendition of the Scott Pilgrim story, one that nearly takes Scott out of the picture completely to place a true thematic bookend on the series that it had somewhat lacked as the comic came to a close back in 2010.
One of my biggest gripes with the original story is how, by the end of the series, protagonists Scott and Ramona still look to each other to fill and fix the worst parts of themselves, as opposed to having been the progenitors of their emotional growth. While yes, they do change as individuals by the series’ end, and part of that comes from their introspection, the book’s messy finale paints that picture crookedly. Said mess works perfectly as a thematic closure to a series all about the mess of our internal and external relationships with ourselves and others, but it always felt like it was just the beginning of something much grander in thematic scope.
However, O’Malley left himself little room plot-wise to truly sequelize the comics onward. Thus, ‘Takes Off’ enters the picture as a twisted retelling of the books with a new core theme that builds off the original series in ways both big and small. Ramona and Scott find themselves separated by the spacetime continuum itself in the show, Ramona having to deal with League of Evil Exes on her own while Scott must face what he and Ramona will eventually come to if they don’t fix themselves, themselves.
So, from this setup, the series delivers on the core heart of what fans adore about the original series while offering more in terms of depth than ever before. The show expounds upon the Evil Exes and their not-so-evil reasons for being glorified video game bosses in the film and in parts of the original comic. While their edges are smoothed out by this growth, the more complex edges seeing their levels of complexion in the comics changed to fit the show’s mold, it still adds so much to the franchise overall.
What this subversion of the plot also does is give a little more justice to Knives and Ramona as characters in their own right. While they both were written excellently in the comic, their growth and lives were centered around Scott’s progression, something that is essential to the themes but something that they barely got to develop out of by the end. Here, both get a ton of agency to discover themselves, all the while Scott gets to face down the worst parts of his ‘Nice Guy Persona’ as he approaches his future as a choice. Being a bad person in the way that Scott often was in the original series is that of choice, one that he now faces as his ability to choose a better future for him and Ramona comes under threat. While the first series played around with emotional realization and growth, this one takes the next step forward into themes about choice. Our choices regarding forgiveness, pity, love, and more are something all of the characters, even the smallest, face. It really hammers home everything a sequel would need too, in terms of evolution, but does so much more with its plot by subverting what audiences expected this show to be.
It’s no secret that a lot of the controversy regarding this show comes down to it being advertised as a pitch-perfect adaptation of the comics and it was instead something totally brand new. It heavily showcased the beautiful animation as something worthy of O’Malley’s original art and the style; the show combines that with the film adaptation’s cast and the video game adaptation’s soundtrack designer in order to lure people in purely off nostalgia. It was shaping up to be a project purely for the Funko Pop crowd, but its devotion to the source material all the way down to its weird animation quirks worked out in the long run. The series, even with its new direction, still exudes everything people love from the franchise in its aesthetics and its soul.
So yes, subversion is sometimes really killer. The surprise shock of seeing Scott lose in the opening episode where he should have won and watching what that became over time was a treat that required the audience’s shock in order for them to engage with what the team wanted to say about choosing to change for the better. Scott chooses, Ramona chooses, and the show chooses itself by being everything it is at heart but updating its narrative to grow the series up. If you’re a fan swept up in the senseless complaints about the series not being Netflix’s normal recycled schlock, drown out the noise and give this show a chance. It’s not just the Scott Pilgrim show we need, but it’s the one that we deserve in terms of care, quality, and intelligence.