So Far I Haven't Seen Anyone Talk About Vanya Watching Pogo Die. I'm Curious To Hear Your Thoughts On

So far I haven't seen anyone talk about Vanya watching Pogo die. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that scene

holy shit holy smokes I have SO many thoughts thank you so much Anon because there’s a lot of subtext and so many interesting dialogue choices, blocking choices, and musical choices that add so much to the scene. Major fucking props to Elliot Page for his stellar acting and major props to the CGI team for the subtle emotions on Pogo’s face, as well as Adam Godley for a heart-wrenching voice performance.

you know its a big deal when i actually rewatch the scene instead of going off my shitty memory

I’m gonna try and break it down so let’s actually start by establishing the vibe between these two before this scene. 

Episode 1 established that Vanya does love Pogo or at least to some degree she does, she is someone that she trusts. He’s the one who tells her that the mansion will always be her home, he’s the one who tries to assure her her father did love her (that’s fucked up Pogo, come on man), and he’s concerned about her safety (offering to call her a cab). Vanya’s defenses are still there but they aren’t as raised as they are with Diego or Allison, there is some level of trust in their relationship (she opens up about the sandwiches in an attempt to make small talk, she does not actively make an attempt with her other family members).  If she was stuck in the house while her siblings were out, no doubt she probably latched onto this old chimpanzee as a pseudo-father figure.

She trusts Pogo, she is not aware of his complacency in her abuse. Pogo holds affections to all of them but I do think there was a bond between Vanya and him that’s being alluded to here. 

Let’s fast forward to the scene now that we’ve established there is a bond, because we have set-up so let’s have some pay-off:

Vanya tearing down the mansion is a fucking treat to watch, there’s no denying that. However, the events leading up to it are sad, distressing, she should never have reached this point of destruction. She was betrayed by the people she loved (Allison with the rumor, Leonard with the journal, and her siblings by locking her in a cage and walking away and leaving her there). She’s breaking down mentally and she’s taking the house down with her - she is both tearing down her cage and herself.

Look at how calmly she’s walking, she’s done. 

So when she gets to the living room (is that what it’s called?) and she has the flashback of Reginald telling at her to be quiet, yeah she’s fucking pissed. He tore apart her life, he told her time and time again to be quiet, continuously muted her (physically with the cage, mentally with reinforcing the rumor). She is done with Reginald, she’s done with it all. Except-

(We’re going line by line now)

“Miss Vanya, that’s quite enough!” Pogo talks to her like a child throwing a tantrum and in some ways, she is. He talks to all of the Hargreeves if they were children and in many ways, they really all are. They’ve never grown up, Vanya never got the chance to grow up. When was the last time she was in touch with her emotions, before they were strangled by her pills? When she was four years old. Of course everything is overwhelming, she’s been sedated for years now. 

“Miss Vanya, I under how upset you are. But I can assure that none of your siblings bear any of the responsibility for what happened to you as a child.” Pogo is trying to defend the other Hargreeves and to some extent, what he’s saying is true. But the thing is...what happened to her as a child is continuing into her adulthood and destroying her life. She has lived sedated and under the influence of a poorly thought out rumor. She’s struggling physically and mentally. What happened to her as a child is still clearly fucking her life up and the other Hargreeve siblings contributed to it, unknowingly or not.

And when she turns to them, her eyes turn brown again. She is herself and she needs to be to hear his answer. This is someone she trusts, this is someone she has turned to for comfort time and again throughout her childhood and when she moves towards him, pretending to be lax and casual, you can tell there’s a storm brewing. She doesn’t want him to be a part of this, she doesn’t want to believe that another person she thought could trust is complicit in this fucked up conspiracy of her life.

She asks anyways: “Did you know?”

Listen to her, she’s on the verge of tears and she so desperately wants Pogo to say no, she wants to spare him but only if he admits that he still cares, that he wasn’t a betrayer. This is an opportunity for him to escape, to lie, and Pogo, who has been so wrapped up in keeping secrets throughout the season, now knows that lying will only make things worse. He tells the truth but he does it in a way that let’s us know what we’ve always known: Pogo’s loyalties have always lied with Reginald, never with the children.

“Your father discovered...that you were capable of great things. Much like your brothers and sister. But your powers were...too great. He only wanted to protect you from yourself as well as your siblings.” Vanya has been told she’s ordinary, that she is not worth much because of that. Now she’s being told she was too great? Pogo pretty much just said: You will never be good enough.

Then the last line...fuck he has shifted the blame onto her, that her father was only doing what was best, that she was too dangerous. Pogo, what the fuck.

Vanya asks again, she needs to hear him say it, and there is no triumph in this scene, this is another betrayal of someone she thought she was close to, someone she could trust. All he’s done is say you’re not enough and you’re too dangerous. 

Major fucking props to the CGI on this part where Pogo is silent, he is thinking this over. He has spent years fanning the flames of this lie and if he lied again, if he said, Vanya would not have killed him. But Pogo knows the time for lies is over, that Vanya, who is a little girl that is hurting from years worth of abuse and lies, deserves the truth: “Yes, Miss Vanya. I knew.”

There is no one left that has not betrayed her in some way or another, Pogo has just admitted it. Vanya hangs her head, her face grows shadowed and both the gears in the audience’s head and Pogo’s head are turning: what will she do? Then she looks up and her eyes are silver. Vanya is letting go of any sliver of hope she once had for her family, she’s done. She thought had a bond with Pogo, a level of trust from a bond forged in childhood to one quieter in adulthood but still there. It’s gone and he’s said as much.

She lifts him in the air and keeps him there, lets him writhe in agony in a similar way to Leonard. Both of them have betrayed her, both of them are going to pay for it.

Look at where she flings him! The symbolism is SO fucking blatant here: He is impaled on antlers underneath Reginald’s portrait. The show has shown us these taxidermied animals (she’s turned Pogo into one) and how Reginald’s portrait looms over them. She knows where his loyalties die now and in some ways, it reads to me as Vanya saying: “You will die like a dog by your master’s side.”

She’s watching someone she thought she could trust die, she did that to him. She’s not enjoying his suffering, she didn’t relish in the act of impaling him, but she did because that is what she believe needs to be done (the parallels between this and Leonard’s death...fuck man). She needs to be sure he dies, she’s not taking any chances While he dies, he is being forced to look into the eyes of his killer, the killer he helped create.

The music is sorrowful as Pogo gasps for air, blood dribbling down his mouth. As with any Vanya soundtracks, there is a heavy use of strings, strings are Vanya’s instrument. It’s grieving, Vanya is grieving for what she has lost and for what she never had to begin with.

Thank you so much for the question, it was a real treat to go through the scene again and just dig into how phenomenal it is. I hope this somewhat answered your question, even if I did go a bit overboard!