 We all want to feel useful, don't we? To feel needed, to be told that we are already perfect, just the way we are. When you are an orphan of war, living in the undercity where they have to claw and scrap just to survive, one's worth suddenly comes into question more often than not. These feelings are heightened. For powder it certainly was. Maybe seeing her parents die so early on, and watching everyone around her fight just to survive in their crime ridden city, maybe all of that made her deeply afraid of what might happen where she left alone in that world. Vi understands this and her sister's fears, and so she looks out for her, by bringing her along on their jobs to not only make her feel useful, but also to rapidly mold her into someone who can one day be useful, for her own sake, for her sanity, and for the safety of them all, when that day will come when they will have to fight back. Milo and Clegg are constantly complained about powder's usefulness, or lack thereof, and from so early on, we see powder with these inventions, whether it's Mauser, or these gadgets and bombs that she's always tinkering with. Powder can't fight like Vi, and she isn't savvy in the ways that Milo or Echo are, so she searches for her own ways to be of service to those around her, so that she may never get left behind. At her core, she has a deep, deep fear of being abandoned, and so she will do whatever she must to ensure that that will never happen. Maybe it's this over eagerness that causes things to go wrong for her, as Milo foreshadows what she is and who she will become in the very first episode. She jinxes every job, he says, something he has repeatedly called her. This mental baggage that she carries along with post-traumatic stress and the intense fear that she has, even from so young, it clouds her judgment of reality. At the end of the first act, when Vi leaves her out of the job to save Vander, powder doesn't hear anything after her sister tells her that she is not ready. Powder doesn't at all listen or understand when Vi tells her that she is all that Vi has left, and that she can't lose her only sister, that it's because she loves her that she's leaving her behind. To powder, being left out was her worst nightmare realized. And her mind could not focus on anything other than the fact that she was not ready, that she was not good enough, and that she is being left behind, hence her extreme reaction to it all. To powder, being left behind means that she is not loved, that she is not deserving of love because she is not strong enough. Which explains her jubilation when her bomb finally works. Powder is finally helpful, right? That action was met with the base violence necessary for change. However, it wasn't the slap that really damaged powder, it was the answer to her simple question, after realizing the horror that she had caused. Why did you leave me? Change or progress is a common theme of this story, and the story often confronts characters in the face of change, challenging them to accept the fact that things are not what they once were. When we meet what was once powder, now in the care of Zon's king, Silco, she too has changed. We, the audience, are forced to accept that this is that same little girl from what feels like a lifetime ago. Jinx's first interaction with Silco tells us that though she is so different, she has not fundamentally changed. As she gets angry when Silco doesn't ask her to help. Believing that this task that Silco had assigned to Savika had damaged his view of her, now he thinks I'm weak, she says. I'm not weak, I'm going to show him. That sounds very similar to when Vi asked her to sit out the job, and later with that same determined look on her face, she was desperate to prove that she could help, that she had value. But instead of the monkey bomb, this time she blows a building to pieces and kills a few dozen enforcers. Jinx has changed so much, and yet not at all. And much of that change is because of Silco. Vi and Silco are like two planets that Jinx orbits around. Jinx in her quest for love attaches herself to those who are willing to offer her that affection. These are the two people that have helped shape her the most into who she is, and they are big parts of why her identity becomes so fractured. First and foremost, I think it's important to point out the fact that Silco absolutely does love Jinx, unconditionally even. He understands the girl to a degree that not many do. Silco understands Jinx's constant need for reassurance. He understands where all this stems from. Trauma from the war, the undercity, being an orphan. He understands her feelings of hurt and betrayal by a sibling. Because he too felt betrayed by his brother. He understands her deep, deep guilt over the fact that she killed Vander and her friends. And while he doesn't share that guilt, he accepts her. Despite everything that she's done, despite all of the mistakes that she's made. No matter how bad of a person she might feel that she is, he accepts her. Silco trusts Jinx. He wants to hear the story from her perspective. Silco has given Jinx chances upon chances. Silco has given Jinx grace and patience. She has opened up to him about the hallucinations of Milo and Clagor, about what plagues her heart and her mind. He's seen her go through meltdowns and bouts of psychosis. He's seen it all. It's been six or seven years. He watched her grow. Silco has seen every iteration of Jinx, all the highs and the lows, and still, like a father. He remains patient, and he continues to trust her, despite everything. He continues to love her, despite everything. In that time away, that was exactly the type of unconditional, uncompromising love that Jinx needed. But at the same time, it was so damaging for her. He was manipulative. Silco tried to slowly kill off the person that she was, drowning her memories, trying to make her forget and destroy powder, her past life, her past experiences. That was not what she needed. She needed to heal, to grieve, to mourn, to accept what she had done, not to detach. Silco molds her into both a daughter and a weapon. In the fifth episode, Silco takes her to the same waters that Vander almost drowned him in, and Jinx interrupts him, repeating the quote millions of times that Silco had told her that Vander wasn't the man she thought he was. During these years that they've been together, Silco clouds her unstable and untrustworthy mind. This little girl does his bidding, and he knows that she will do it, so long as he gives her praise and admiration and love. Zan's king has been trying to poison whatever image she has of Vander as her father, by projecting much of his own anger and his own feelings towards Vander onto Jinx. Moreover, as stated, he has repeatedly tried to disconnect whatever guilt or trauma or fear that she has about what she's done or who she's hurt. But she shouldn't feel bad because he was a bad, disloyal man regardless. Silco cleverly connects the betrayal he felt with Vander to Jinx's feelings of betrayal by vie. He creates common ground for understanding so she can see him as something to aspire towards, someone to be, while they are the same, the way he truly became Silco was by letting a weak man die. So he tells her that she needs to let go of her past, to be forged into something greater, he says. Let powder die, Jinx is perfect, he tells her, and in the same waters that he was forged in, he places her into that water like a baptism. You are strong now, just like you're always meant to be. Silco goes against what everyone has ever told her, that she was too weak, too weak to help out on the job, not ready. Jinx has certainly told him of all the things that Milo and Klegor and even Vi called her, the worthlessness she feels and has felt, and Silco uses that to slowly shape the type of person he wants Jinx to be. While talking directly to her, he says in the third person, Jinx is perfect, another statement to try and disconnect powder from Jinx. But despite all of his efforts, it is all for naught when Vi is rumored to be back in the undercity, as Jinx lights up the flame in search of reuniting with her sister. When it's important to restate, especially with Jinx, is the mental baggage, the trauma and the mental illness that she has affects every part of her. It's hard for Jinx to gauge reality, to gauge the things that people say to her, or even what she's seeing with her own two eyes. Her senses, her mind is often unreliable. Though she does show great awareness at times, every interaction she witnesses or is a part of is clouded. And that is the struggle of her mental illness. This is especially apparent when Jinx and Vi reunite, and Jinx with that horror and sadness in her face genuinely asks her sister if she's real. That's how debilitating her hallucinations have been. But she also knows that she has changed, which gives her anxiety about whether or not Vi will accept her. Caitlyn's mere presence is constantly warped and demonized by the hallucinations that her mind is bombarding her with, making her believe that Vi has betrayed her and abandoned her again. And in Silco, who has been hammering the idea that the two only have each other and that she should trust no one but Silco, only makes things worse for her. In one breath she says that Silco stabbed Vander in the back, and in the next she returns to him. She is aware and confused. As Vi now entered as a player, Jinx becomes more lost than she has ever been. The hallucinations and the meltdowns get heightened because now she truly has no idea where to go or who to choose. She's still stuck on that fateful day being pulled from both sides. Echo plays a small part in this too. He has also watched Jinx slowly unravel into the person she is today. Echo says that he has lost hope in her ever turning back to the person that she was and yet powder's face remains on their mural. She still means so much to him and it's why he couldn't kill her when given the chance. Echo is a part of her life that she has been conditioned to try and forget. To try and sever. And after being nursed back to health thanks to Shimmer, Jinx's struggle only worsens. Pitting Vi and Silco against each other, literally and physically at the table, was all of Jinx's internal turmoil being put out on display. Merging frantically for an answer. Forcing herself to make an impossible choice between her sister and her father, both whom she loves dearly. While she had everything she desired with Silco, as she says, Vi's voice and her presence was always there. It kept her alive. It colored her world. Jinx is desperate to know which one won't abandon her and now she has to choose between who will give her what she wants. Going to uncover who has been lying to her and who will ultimately love Jinx for all that she is. Because again at her core that is what she is searching for. Validation, acceptance and unconditional love. Vandu, Vi, Silco, Echo, they've all given her and shown her so much love, but it is not enough. It does not fulfill her. Her mind just won't let it. She still feels like at any moment she can get left behind. Summer has only exacerbated these fears. Speaking of her mind, over the course of this series, Jinx's hallucinations, while provocative and aggressive, have never truly manifested like they did in this episode, unlike how they manifested on the operating table while she was dying. When Silco implores her to kill Caitlyn, to hurt Vi, it's at this moment when this rather unique meltdown begins. And once again, Violet calls for powder. She pleads for her sister to wake up, to picture the people she loves, Milo, Clegg or Vandu, with each name the hallucinations get worse. And when slowing these images down, in a split second, Vandu turns from his regular human form, the form that Jinx knew him as, into the shimmer infused monstrosity that she killed. This is her guilt. Once again, the imagery is so telling. The guilt swallows her up into a void where those three hallucinations, those demons that have tormented her very existence begin to suffocate her. The image of these monsters is so volatile and hostile and invasive, unlike anything we've ever seen. They usually last for seconds or mere moments. Now they exist on their own, they walk around, and they smother Jinx. And this provokes Silcoe's anger. Vi was trying to help, but instead triggered and worsened her mental state immensely. This provokes Silcoe's anger, maybe because he knows what's happening to his daughter. Maybe he's seen this sort of meltdown before, and like any father would, he tries to stop the cause. Silcoe's death and his words at that moment bring all of her voices and demons and monsters to a halt. And it gives her this chilling clarity. Jinx finally realizes that Vi is unable to see Jinx's powder. Vi implored her to remember who she is. Vi is unable to recognize and accept that this is not the little girl from all those years ago. Vi isn't even able to call her sister Jinx. For Violet, that's not her name. It was a name that was used to demean and belittle her sister, by Milo, and unfortunately by her. It's an insult. She can't call her Jinx. I think Vi's own guilt prevented her from accepting the fact that she played a part in her sister becoming Jinx. But that in itself fractured the girl's identity even more. Vi cannot accept that the powder she knew did terrible, unforgivable things. Let her little sister join the man that killed Vander, that killed their father. She thinks just running away from Silcoe will bring powder back. That Jinx is just a persona. Vi ultimately cannot accept that powder is Jinx. In that moment of clarity, Jinx understands it all. Instead of making the impossible decision to choose between powder or Jinx or Vi or Silcoe, something else happens. In all that chaos, when Silcoe tries to stop the cause of his daughter's meltdown, Jinx shoots to protect Vi. It's her sister. But she also understands the final words that Silcoe tells her. And so she amalgamates all of these pieces of her identity into one, finally. And she makes a decision. Jinx loves her sister, but she has changed. Powder has changed. Powder has and will forever be a part of Jinx. No longer does she desire to be loved like before by Vi. She does not need her sister's validation anymore. Jinx is perfect. A singular identity crafted in crowned all on her own. Separate from both Silcoe and Violet, this is what she has chosen. This is Jinx. Here's to the new her.