TAZ Episode 66 - "THIS IS IT" animatic 

You know what hurts so much? Barry was *so close.* He was going to the cave THAT NIGHT. He would have found Lup. He had all he needed. He could have found her, and saved her. But he couldn’t.

the realization of “i’m davenport” is unparalleled sorrow. “who?” being a completely improvised line just goes to show the absolute magic of this story.

I don't know why but even when this is the most serious thing ever I couldn't help but chuckle and smile at Magnus' little, *"It's a duck!"*

You go directly to the criminal box with griffin mcelroy and think about what you've done

It's been over a year since I made this animatic (July 9th) and I have to say every single comment brings me to tears. I remember sitting down after school every day for a week planning out shots and glitches and little animations , I remember piecing this together in movie maker thinking about the future of Taz and where the story was going. And I remember before that sat listening to the episode knowing , damn I've got to Animate something for this it's so emotional and this podcast means so much to so many I've got to throw my hat in and make something before it's all over. I never expected such beautiful kind responses I'd receive I never expected so many responses! I forget how lucky the adventure zone is to have such amazing fans and SO MANY amazing fans and how incredible lucky I was for this animatic to get noticed. Everytime I receive a notification of a response/comment I feel blessed I've been lucky enough to be part of a creative , kind and caring community of podcast listeners so I just wanted to say: One year later : Thankyou again for all your comments every single means everything to me. Thankyou

“Not all exits ... are made equal.” I’m finished.

LUCRETIA BOUGHT A DUCK FROM MAGNUS. There is so much freaking heart in the story Griffin and the McElboys have crafted, and this is such a great tribute because it really captures that heart. The sadness and the love. Bravo and thanks for sharing.

i nearly shat myself when i saw that this animatic was 17 minutes god this is so fucking good too i feel like a dont deserve it thank you for blessing the universe with this content

In April of 2021, my uncle passed and the message "not all exits are made equal" ran through my head through months and it still does some days. But this show really pulled me out of such a rut simply because of the words of wisdom from Clint. Taako's loosing of Lip and family hit so hard simply because I could relate to him so personally. TAZ did so much to help me.

17 WHOLE MINUTES OHMYGOD BLESS

The Davenport one is actually the one that hit me the hardest. What Lucretia did to him is AWFUL.

“What home is good enough for taako?” Oh thanks, Griffin! Thanks for the Emotion!

everytime i hear lucretia's "I love you, I love all of you" i tear up

this is so amazing. i cried through the whole thing. thank you for doing lucrecia's part too and the ending, cause that sometimes gets me even more than the forgetting parts. its just wow. you did such a good job. thank you. thank you.

i am SO EMOTIONAL. THIS EPISODE KILLED ME AND ITS SO COOL TO SEE IT ANIMATED.

I JUST NOTICED LUP’S LICH FORM BEHIND TAAKO WHEN GRIFFIN SAYS “her friends were here again” OHHH MY GOD

Barry begging Taako to kill him so that he can remember always makes me tear up a little bit.

i can't stop watching this. It's essentially been on loop since I finished TAZ balance a year ago.

I've never watched The Adventure Zone but I cried so hard during this still thanks I guess thanks for making me be invested in something I've never seen and crying my eyes out😥

Every time I listen through the last ten-ish episodes of Balance, something new makes me cry. I’ve cried over Magnus and Julia. I’ve cried over Barry and Lup. I’ve cried over the Voidfish. Hell, I cried over John and Merle once. But this time, this time I’m crying about Lucretia. I fully understand what Griffin meant when he said she was his favorite character. The tragedy, the emotion, the rollercoaster. The way her story shadows the entire first six arcs of the campaign, only to culminate in her origins, her fall from grace, and her redemption in the context of the story we already knew. She’s honestly one of my favorite characters in any piece of media _ever._

Years later, and I think the only reason why this is not more popular, is because, well you cant share it to people who dont know

This would be a great way to prepare for the new episode- if not for the emotional rollercoaster that goes with it.

The music slowly corrupting and Griffins confident "This is it!" Gets me every time.

I have listened to this scene more times than I can count, and everytime, without fail, I get chills.

I’m so sure I’ve watched this video like 50 times,,, and I cry every time 😭

This is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen

BARRYS CHEST WOUND BLOOD WAS SHAPED LIKE A HEART IM SOBBING

I LOVE YOU MAGNUS, I LOVE ALL OF YOU I'M SORRY, IT'LL BE OVER SOON I WILL ALWAYS BE WITH YOU

I held off so LONG to watch this until I've listened to the actual episode, and it does not disappoint!

I cried again. oh goodness. this is excellent. thank you!!!

Probably my favorite scene in all of taz, and u animated all of it and more!!! God you're amazing

RU-vid started putting TAZ stuff back on my recommended and I ALWAYS forget how much this entire bit HURTS OUCH. Anyways I love ur Lucretia duck design

"i don't want you to fall and hurt yourself, i love you" hits so hard every time :')

aaaa aaAAAAAAAAAGH im gonna cry. ive been meaning to relisten to taz and this vid, these clips still tug my heartstrings so badly. amazing work

God I'm crying over this all over again what the HECK. It's so beautifully done, at first I was a bit out off by how long it was for some reason? But I am truly amazed by just how well done this whole thing is.

Literally the end gave me chills down my entire body. Love this, one hundred times over

fuck man that was the most beautifully done taz animatic ive ever seen

BRAVO BRAVO BRAVO!!! I’ve never seen an animatic this long!!! It’s so wonderful

Beautifully done. Davenport as The Hanged Man? In The Mythic Tarot, The Hanged Man is depicted as Prometheus, who disobeyed the gods and brought light to humanity, and was punished forever. Brilliant and beautiful bit of symbolism, my artistic friend.

omg this is amazing! thank you so much for making this masterpiece! :)

this must've been a HUGE task to take on!! wonderful animation, thank you so much for your dedication!!

I don't normally comment on videos, but I wanted to take a moment to say that you did a fantastic job actualizing the visuals that had only been in my dome. Even though I'd heard the episode a couple of times, this still brought a few (manly =P ) tears to my eye. A perfect visual accompaniment the the audio. Cheers Mate!

17 minutes?? Of one of the most difficult parts of the show?? In a beautiful style???

I'm not crying, you are!

Beautiful animatic, the art is incredible and works with the audio so well.

this is so well done heck

The moments of the gang losing their memories makes me cry every time.

Clint giggling in the background when Taako says "who" is the fucking best.

I really wanted to see an animatic of this part, especially the end part where Lucretia finds them new homes, it's so emotional.

this is so good that i cried so much AGAIN this is the best TAZ animation in the world how do you do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is insane. I can't believe that you hit it. You hit all of it.

you made me cry again w this good job seriously

this is incredibly powerful. kudos to you.

I'm literally crying. this was an amazing animation!

i get shivers every fucking time. fuck yeah boyz, guess what im gonna work on next bb ;3

I got chills, bless you

fucking amazing ! this is incredible ! colored and well timed and great and just !!! im blown away dude

AAAAAAAAH GOD THE FEELS MY HEART

I swear my mood after that portion of the podcast was: I will never be happy again

I've honestly got left behind on the episodes and only recently started to catch up again. I'm up to Epd 17 though. Even though I kinda spoiled myself to events of the future, I can't wait to see how we went from Magic Brian to this Kingdom Hearts storyline.

This is so amazing!!

I'm just... sitting here sobbing.

This is it!

fucking SHIT this is incredible - tried not to cry and failed.

thank you so much for this

Watching this after my 4th time listening to TAZ Balance hurtttssssssss 3:00

the TAROT CARD

Mm. Juuuuust as I stopped crying at it, huh?

Hot diggidgy shit thats one baller anomation

Im so close to crying oh my god

SOBBING UNCONTROLLABLY

thAT WAS FUCKING INSANE.

oh my god,, i have no idea what this is?? but i wanna?? get into it

wow

What's the ost at the end when they say this is it

Hey, this series is longer than most television shows i dont have time to watch it... Where does all this story come from anyway?

I could listen and watch these animatics all day. I hope LetsJustSTART takes us all the way to the beginning. The beginning of adventure zone, cause holy shit... this hit hard and this is my first viewing of an TAZ episode... And I love the art style...

Yo real talk though, Davenport got it the worst.

"Taako I can't remember her face!" Barry cried while looking at Lup's identical twin

Travis's "who are you" is so amazing because it's not just him forgetting it's also sentimental about how uncharacteristic it was for her to hurt everyone like that...

I think one of my fave moments is when Justin improvises the "who" and you can hear Clint's impressed chuckle in the background

Griffin has managed to make static white noise one of the most horrifying things ever. Also the ending of this episode never fails to give me fucking chills. I think this is my favorite episode of all time.

Imagine Lucretia's grief each time she went to check on one of them and they were gone. She journeys to Raven's Roost only to find it in the process of being abandoned. She asks the closest person what happened, and she's told that the merchant's district was destroyed by a deranged governor and that everybody who was in it is dead. She shows up to Taako's next scheduled show, but his wagon doesn't show up. She asks the authorities if they know what happened, and they tell her that he's on the run for poisoning and killing half a small town. In her final stronghold of sanity and peace, she takes a day off to go to the beach and recuperate, but... Merle isn't there. She tracks down Merle's house. Perhaps Merle is sick and didn't go out that day, she thinks. When she inquires his location from his family, they tell her that they can't find him either. He went out one day and never came back. All of these friends, who she was supposed to have kept safe, now missing, a criminal, or presumed dead. Imagine her surprise and joy when, out of nowhere, Killian comes back with three random reclaimers, and they are somehow *all three* of those friends who she had thought lost to her. Imagine the weight that was taken off her heart when she realized that they were relatively fine. And then imagine her having to go through that whirlwind of emotion again when she sends the team off to Wonderland and she's told that only two of them returned alive.

yo the bits of static that pop up while dav and let merle are chatting? killed me??

Taako: I'm afraid nobody else would have me. Griffin: Everyone in the world deserved to be around you Taako (...) and you deserve it too (...) You're Taako from TV and you are so, so loved.

6:42 *Buzzfeed article* What your favorite Red Robes would look like as ducks.

Hello? FBI? Please come arrest Griffin McElroy for killing me emotionally

"I don't want you to fall and hurt yourself." WHY DOES THAT MAKE ME SO EMOTIONAL??!

Lucretia’s “Magnus please just lay down please I love you” hurts me every single time

I can't imagine forgetting about one of your best friends while you're sitting right in front of them. I can't imagine what it's like to forget absolutely everything in the middle of playing cards. I love how you draw the imminent fading of the memories. Like, the slow consumption of the pixellation. You've done such a good job with this and I'm blown away by the sheer quality and scope of your work.

the ghost you drew of Lucretia's true reactions: "all back home", "this is going to be great", "great as always"-have me a sobbing wreck of a human. thank you, friend

I can't believe you animated this whole thing. this is seriously SO amazing, I'm gonna cry again?????? the little stuff you added like the hanged man and the typography and the outline of davenport I a m DYI NG

If it hasn't been specified, I like to think that Taako and Lup are identical (As does the rest of the fandom, it seems). The irony of Barry saying "I can't remember her face" to Taako just hit me and took some of the drama away from this scene for me. Yet, at the same time, added more...? Like, the voidfish is so powerful, that even though Barry is looking at the face of the person who he still knows to be Lup's identical twin, he still can't fathom what she looks like. Also, I kinda wanna put Taako in a Time Out corner for saying "You're not my mom!" when the Director asked if they were all okay! lol

the scenes of the boys forgetting their past are sooo well done; but what really got me is the gentle visualisations of lucretia's actions and emotions. truuuuly well done. so much attention to detail... i uhhhh cried harder then when i listened to the actual episode (which was 30 minutes ago); this hit much closer home. loved it

You honestly put an ENORMOUS amount of work into this and I'm amazed at how well it came out... I'm still both excited and terrified of what's going to happen next

17 minutes are you insane?! Holy cow! This is incredible!!!

Hey just wanted to say I appreciate every single comment y'all have left , it truly means the world to me all the amazing kind words you have left me Ive read everyone of them and take them all to heart. I hope to continue to create animatics that celebrate this wonderful podcasts aswell as it's amazing fans. Thankyou, truly thankyou all. Here's to the finale and whatever comes next.

Got to the end of Magnus and Lucretia, with tears in my eyes, and saw that it was only half over. This was excellent. Thank you for bringing these amazing scenes to life.

I always sob at Davenport having his memories removed.

The music cue that directly hits after "who?" will never not hit me hard