Twenty One Pilots just dropped this absolute masterpiece of a music video for Paladin Strait and I am having so many thoughts.
The (literal) Neon Gravestones? The zombies as a representation of what we've become? (They're controlling you, those thoughts that rule over this depression city, and now this is all you'll ever be—a body seized by Them)
Torchbearer and the Banditos acting as a distraction for Clancy to face the Bishops (his demons, the dark parts of his thoughts) only for everything to end when Blurryface enters the picture (so few, so proud, so...emotional)?
I don't know what I was expecting with that ending. I don't know what color will Clancy's (Tyler's) eyes be when he opens them in that last frame. (Golden? Red?) I don't know if I want to know.
Clancy opened his eyes. Clancy opened his eyes to look straight at Blurryface when he was being grabbed by the neck (painted black—always black) in remembrance of the Jumpsuit music video. Did Blurryface take control? Is Clancy back to fighting himself? (In an album about cycles, about not knowing if you'll ever truly get better, about backsliding and pushing through and growing old with the same fears you had over ten years ago—this seems oddly fitting)
But that's not the message. You are better than you were ten years ago, if only because you're still here—still alive—and now you're able to snap your eyes open and stare your demons down (even if they're grabbing you by the neck).
