I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how something was… off the moment Henrik made his return. So I decided to go through the ending frame by frame, and… I have some thoughts.
Firstly, Jack’s face when Henrik was part-way through saying “Vhat are you doing?”, a few moments after being interrupted. You’d think he’d be confused if he truly didn’t know who was speaking, right?:
This does not look like confusion to me. Not in the slightest. His eyes are wide, his mouth slightly agape– whereas confusion on him looks like very narrow eyes, scrunched up eyebrows, and a harder overall expression. This is confusion:
A huge difference, am I right? So… what’s the first expression, then?
That, to me, looks like realization.The horror kind. He knows exactly who’s speaking to him– and he absolutely wasn’t expecting to hear that voice again, not any time soon if at all. Like us, basically.
And this one’s not confused, either. A little bit of surprise, maybe, but NOT innocent. His posture is a bit afraid or uncertain, but his eyes– he still looks like he’s going through that horror-type shock, and that, whatever he’s doing, he had no intention of getting caught doing it.
If I may make a quick comparison to something else he’s been caught doing–
It’s almost exactly the same in his eyes, is it not?
Now, for ze good doctah’s expressions. There’s two of them I want to take a look at here:
First, this one, that happens after he introduces himself and before he points to the chair:
Henrik, here, IS confused (and rightfully so, might I add), but that’s not the prevalent emotion here. The eyebrows still aren’t furrowed, his eyes are still soft rather than hard. What’s keeping his expression from tightening up? Disbelief and fear. There’s something that he doesn’t fully understand, and it’s scaring him.
Next, this one:
While his voice may suggest otherwise, he’s not 100% angry. Jack’s angry face is much tighter than this, and from what we’ve seen of Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy, I’m fairly certain we all know when he’s mad.
This is afraid. This is disbelief and a consequential snap. He’s not “mad”– he’s freaking out. Big time. He knows something’s wrong with all of this. Hell, his voice was higher pitched than it normally is in almost that entire clip and it even broke in the middle of saying “And zhat is MY chair!”.
Conclusion?
This is Henrik’s fear. Being replaced. Which totally makes sense, might I add, given that in his Power Hour he was afraid of losing his wife and kids to another man if he couldn’t provide for them. And given Anti’s nature of exploiting specific fears, “Dr. Jacksepticeye” might have been Anti’s way of playing on that this entire time, to show Henrik how easy it would be for him to be replaced and forgotten.
I think that “Dr. Jacksepticeye” is a puppet designed around Schneep’s fears, and this was Henrik finally standing up to him after months of hiding away.
But the fact that he finally showed up isn’t necessarily a good thing. Henrik may have gone into hiding to keep himself from being usable by Anti– and as a doctor with tons of surgical tools at his disposal, he’d be VERY useful for Anti’s purposes. Which means that the whole deal was a lose-lose situation for him in the first place; either watch as he gets replaced and forgotten, or let Anti find him again and put himself back in danger of being controlled.
That honestly, truly sounds like something Anti would put a person through, if you ask me.
What made him return today, then…? He probably couldn’t stand just watching this happen anymore.
And as for what might come next, if this is, in fact, the correct context? It’s a toss-up. Anti likely was NOT planning on Schneeplestein showing his face again any time soon, so now he needs to think fast on what his plan is. And Henrik… Henrik cannot be stable right now. Wherever he’s been, he’s probably been able to see everything that’s happened in the past nine months. He knows what he’s up against, and that his odds are up in the air. He also needs a plan, and quick.
Whew. This turned out way longer than I thought it was going to be. Sorry for the long read– my theorist senses have been just itching to dive into something completely new!
octoberspirit 