Mouthwashing Explained in Chronological Order - Full Analysis

Mouthwashing! Just keeps on getting worse, aye?

(I I)
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[redrisley]

Mouthwashing has such an intense amount of storytelling occur behind the dialogue, in visual cues, subtext, and environment changes. It's been so fun to read all the comments, especially people pointing out things I hadn't considered myself! I'm learning and adapting my concepts every day *0*. I'm glad there's so much love for the natural complexity with which the characters are presented. If you are interested in more, I expand on a my thoughts in Anya's character analysis video!
Thanks again everyone for watching the video, and don't forget, Mouthwash is not a replacement for actually brushing your teeth! ;)

Some extra details / corrections people have pointed out!
- Swansea's keychain is probably a swan, pun of his name and metaphor for the deadly protective nature of swans, not a goose!
- The second before the crash, when you enter the cockpit as Curly, his side of the control board gets an 'interact' ui, informing us that he went for the controls and likely saved everyone from a full-on collision
- If you die to Swansea 10 times during the graveyard scene, you get an achievement called 'the happy ending'
- Anya's 'The illusion of Choice' book relates to the developer's first game 'How fish is made'! I played through it and use it's info in the Jimmy & Curly video!
- The cannibalism scene should have been placed between the start of the corpse party and the scene where he picks Curly up off the table to bring him to the cryopod. This is shown both in his leg, and that the aerial shot of the corpse party hallucination shows every person having a chunk of leg on their plate, including jimmy. Later when he picks Curly back up to carry away, Jimmy's plate is empty, showing that the consumption, either just by Curly or possibly both of them, happened in the mean time.
- The TV scene is from the perspective of Jimmy, not Curly! Shown in that you can find Curly's giant head behind a storage shelf (an Easter egg).
- Whether or not Swansea actually attacked Jimmy in the end, or how those events went down, is very up for interpretation!

Also sorry for the poor voice audio quality! 🙇‍♀ This was my first time making an analysis video, and I made the mistake of talking quieter and closer to the mic (thought that would sound better, was wrong lol). It's better in all other videos~

[mica]

I hate that jimmy tries to use Anya’s words to defend himself to poelle the pony in the end, “our worst moments don’t define us.” so disgusting

[Frogcatyyy]

"Why do you think Pony Express put a lock on the medical room door but not in the sleeping quarters?" Is such a haunting line.

[warriorwolvez]

I feel like swansea was guarding the utility room for another huge reason, bc it was the only other entrance to the medbay. That allowed Anya one safe place, the very thing she didn’t have when she needed it most: a locked, safe room. And in there she finally got to make a decision and take control of what happened to her.

[PlutoIsntReal_]

Something that truly, really stuck with me after playing Mouthwashing is that Jimmy didn't even wait to see if the pod worked. He claimed he was "saving" Curly, he said that he was fixing things by saving the one person who would never be able to tell anyone the truth (if found) He said he was sorry... and then the coward shoots himself before seeing if the pod actually sent Curly into cryosleep. He didn't care about the result. He didn't care is Curly was "saved" or not, because in his eyes if he died a "hero" before he can even see if it works he is still redeemed. It genuinely shocked me, hearing the gunshot before we saw there cold air and frost fill the chamber. Really a bastard until the very end.

[NokoFace]

Curly's ending is so horrific. Because in all likelihood, due to how little the company cared about them, he's going to wake up 20 years later in the same pain he was in, alone and made to suffer a slow, agonizing death.

[SpencerSkooks]

I thought Swansea’s keychain is a swan, which are known to kill their young if they are ill/injured, which would be why Swansea wanted to put Daisuke out of his misery.

[crasterlongshanks]

The rotten cherry on top of Jimmy's "arc" is that while he gives everyone else their time and respect, he mourns Daisuke, gives Swansea his time to speak, and tries to save Curly, he doesn't give a single thought to Anya as a person. She's just an obstacle to avoid, and be saved from, like he thinks that *she's* the threat to *him* because the effects of what *he* did to her could hurt him. Until the end he never once apologizes, or mourns Anya, he just regrets the fact that he had to face the consequences of his actions and how it effected everyone *else*.

[nacho]

Side note: in minute 31:48 Jimmy tries to use the mouthwash as a disinfectant, when Anya, the NURSE, previously pointed out that due to its sugar content it would not work (17:17). Showing once again how little he takes into account anything she says.

[AidaKittyBoy]

Something I never see brought up is Curly's panicked breathing in the final party scene. You can hear Curly realize he's looking at a bunch of corpses Jimmy lugged into the room and put party hats on.

He can hear Jimmy talk to them and he realizes explicitly that Jimmy has COMPLETELY lost it. And Curly can't do anything about it trapped in his broken, painful body without even eyelids to close to avoid seeing it.

Curly's post-crash existance is my own personal hell, so maybe it just hits me extra hars.

[milkrov]

The irony of Curly failing to acknowledge and turning a blind eye to Anya's suffering in the beginning only for him to be robbed of his independency and voice as she was while being forced to observe Jimmy's abusive behaviour and crimes ending up in a feeling of guilt for not taking the responsibility when he was still able to.

[lavendersight]

Something i noticed: anya is constantly saying that she beleives "our worst moments dont define us"? But she IS defined by her worst moment, intentionally or not. We, as the player, will never know her for anything but what happened to her, she is only ever really talked about in the context of what happened to her, and everything in the game is centered on what is very likely her worst moment. We will like NEVER have a chance to see her at anything as her lowest

[doracosta]

The amount of stress Anya was put through while being pregnant for at least one or two months traumatized her even in her death.. i feel so bad for her

[ontothemartin]

I think what really does it for me is the implication that Jimmy already mistreated Anya so hard way before all the SA and Baby incident that even while Anya already looked quite disturbed about Jimmy before the crash, no one else in the crew suspected a thing.

They were all so accustomed to Jimmy being disrespectful to Anya for like half a year that nobody ever saw any difference in Anya's behavior until Curly saw her hiding a fking gun.

[regveg]

when jimmy puts curly into the cryopod at the end, believing that was taking responsibility, he says "now you'll survive" and calls him "captin." throughout the game, responsibility is HEAVILY tied to that title by jimmy and he calls curly captin as his final excuse, as if passing or blaming everything on him. the crew is the "captins responsibility"

[meluda]

Also not to mention the strange way the birthday cake is getting sliced. The way it's getting sliced is more like cutting meat. Foreshadowing Jimmy slicing off Curly's leg. Great video

[yepisuredolikecats]

I hate jimmy. I hate jimmy. I hate jimmy. I hate jimmy. I hate jimmy. I hate jimmy.

[bulmadoc]

anya, at her core, is so, SO kind. she's smart and talented and silly, we see that with curly and the sorry board, in which she's kicking ass. and she is only defined by her worst moment. jimmy made that worst moment happen — on that ship, jimmy IS her worst moment. he is what defines every aspect of that game, he is the sugar in the mouthwash and the asteroid in the cockpit. she makes me so sad :(

and the fact that curly was very likely never found or searched for afterwards since pony express doesn't care about it's employees. he died inside that cryopod, 20 year's later, surrounded by the bodies of his crewmates

[Shadria]

The 'Take Responsibility' backwards walk had Daisuke's face appear when you turn around, not Swansea. You can tell thanks to the giant axe slash across the face between the eyes. Swansea is in that one fan vent though, you can see the yellow shirt and double chin.

[ryan_opolis]

I think the scene about Swansea attacking Jimmy with the axe is an example of Jimmy creating his own narrative to justify his actions.
During that scene, there is an item already in Jimmy's inventory which is unusable and has the description 'My hands won't stop shaking'. The player needs to grab a metal pipe and a rope, which are both used to block the latch to the door before Swansea breaks the window and reaches in. Keep in mind that chronologically, Jimmy has already obtained the gun from the lock box. This means that the unknown item is the gun, but if Jimmy had the gun in this situation, then why wouldn't he use it then? It's because this scene is Jimmy's 'reality' where he is binding the cockpit door with a rope, and jamming it with a metal pipe, whereas in truth, Jimmy tied Swansea with the rope, and beat him with a metal pipe (Swansea's chest, stomach, and knees are all bloodied, as well as the floor all around the chair he's tied to).

Jimmy DID use the rope to bind something, but it wasn't the latch to the cockpit door, it was Swansea.
Jimmy DID use the metal pipe to 'defend himself', but it wasn't to brace the cockpit door, it was to beat Swansea.
Jimmy DID have a third item, but the only explanation to not using it then was because he couldn't use it then. He couldn't use the gun because that scene never happened.
It's Jimmy making up a scenario to convince himself that he can 'fix' Swansea by killing him. If Jimmy accepted what actually happened, that Swansea sat down with him and had a long heartfelt conversation, then there is no way Jimmy could justify being a great man by tying up, beating, and murdering someone who never fought back.