Warning: The following article on if Scott Pilgrim is dead in Takes Off contains spoilers for the Netflix show.
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off hit Netflix last week, and to say that the new adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s celebrated graphic novels is generating buzz would be a gross understatement.
The eight-episode animated series is already enjoying critical acclaim; it currently boasts a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, and our own review lauded it for its “irresistible characters and rampant absurdity.” One of the reasons people are talking about it is because it’s front-loaded with some pretty wild surprises. The biggest one? Scott Pilgrim seemingly dies in the very first episode.
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How Scott Pilgrim Died in Takes Off
For its first 20ish minutes, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off treads familiar ground. Then, suddenly, it doesn’t. The first episode, “Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life,” closes on Scott (a returning Michael Cera) losing his fight to the first of Ramona Flowers’ (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) Seven Evil Exes, Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha). Pretty much everything about the fight – where it occurs, who witnesses it, who’s involved, etc. – is the same as the comics and Edgar Wright’s film. Well, everything except the outcome.
Patel appears to punch Scott into oblivion, sending everyone present into a stunned silence. The episode then cuts to black, leaving everyone expecting to see more of Cera’s voice performance stunned.
Is Scott Pilgrim Really Dead or Does He Come Back to Life?
Predictably, Scott isn’t really dead. He does come back, but it isn’t until the sixth episode. The show uses his absence to flesh out all of the other characters, resulting in an even warmer, more complete experience than Wright’s excellent Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
If you want to know more about what’s going on at Netflix, check out this article about how its userbase has increased despite the crackdown on password sharing.
