Diksha Sundriyal
Prime Video’s ‘I’m a Virgo’ is an absurdist comedy-drama series that takes the audience into the world of a 13ft tall man named Cootie. Cootie has lived in isolation his entire life. His parents worried that if he went out into the world, he would be labeled a villain, and things wouldn’t end well for him. By 19, Cootie is fed up with the rules. When he befriends a couple of teenagers, they take him out and show him what the real world is like.
Cootie had an idealistic view of the world, but when he goes out, he realizes that things are not that simple. By the end of the season, he goes through a tremendous change and has a completely different view of the world from what he had learned from the comic books he used to read before. The ending leaves a lot to ponder for the characters and the audience. Here’s what it means. SPOILERS AHEAD
I’m A Virgo Recap
13ft tall Cootie is brought up by his aunt and uncle, who want to keep him safe. History has proved that a person like him always meets a tragic fate at the hands of the public, who demonizes them. They know that the same will happen to Cootie, but as he grows up, it becomes more difficult for them to keep it at home. Eventually, Cootie makes friends and goes out of the house specifically built for him. He grew up reading comic books that feature a superhero called The Hero. The creator of those comic books is a billionaire who has turned himself into The Hero with the tech and resources at his disposal.
While Cootie explores the world, his friends Felix, Jones, and Scat fight the capitalistic establishment set to render them jobless and homeless. Cootie discovers that Jones has the power, which he terms psychic theatre, through which she can make anyone see her point of view, i.e., win an argument. He also meets Flora, who works at the Bing Bang Burger joint. They start dating as Flora relates to him because she has been through something similar.
Reading the comic books, Cootie thought he would be accepted as a hero. At first, he enjoys his time in the world, but then, everything goes down as his aunt and uncle had predicted. After Scat’s death, Cootie participates in a protest, following which he is termed a menace to society. When he sees himself portrayed as the villain that the Hero fights in the next issue of the comics, Cootie decides to take control of the narrative and redefine the meaning of being a villain.
I’m A Virgo Ending: What Did Jones Show the Hero?
Initially, Cootie believed the Hero was the epitome of a law-upholding citizen. To him, the Hero always abided by the law, which means he could never do any wrong. However, when Cootie goes out into the world and watches the Hero taking the law’s side even when the law seems to be in the wrong, the 13ft tall man realizes that his perception of the superhero was wrong. Meanwhile, the Hero had been looking for a worthy villain and finds that in Cootie. In the finale, Cootie and the Hero come face to face. The Hero beats up Cootie and is ready to arrest and imprison him in the jail he’d built for giant people, Jones shows up.
Cootie tells Jones to do her thing, so she convinces the Hero to give her three minutes to prove her point. Using her “psychic theatre” ability, she shows the Hero how he is necessitating the very thing he is trying to stop. He thinks he is stopping crime by enforcing the law on the people, especially marginalized communities. He might think he is a good guy because he is on the law’s side, but the law itself is not as black and white as he believes. It is dictated by those in power, those who hold the strings of the world in their hands and play the whole thing to profit themselves, even if it means creating more chaos and crime in the world.
Jones shows him that people like the Hero refuse to see the truth behind the nature of the law, how intrinsically it is bound to serve the powerful and hinder the progress of the common people. Her arguments make the Hero see his ideology and actions in a new light. When her monologue ends, the Hero is too stunned to speak. He leaves the scene without a word and doesn’t come back to arrest Cootie and imprison him.
What Happens to the Hero?
The Hero, aka Jay Whittle, was born into a rich family. He had everything at his disposal, including the law. So, he grew up believing that upholding the law by any means necessary would make the world a better place. He never bothered to examine the nature of his beliefs or question whether tying his morality to the law was the best way to deliver justice. In his mind, he was the hero because he was on the right side of the law and thought that his actions were turning the world into a better place. This is why he showed up when people were being evicted from their homes or when they were protesting against the injustice of the system.
The Hero had deluded himself into believing that the world was either black or white and there was no color in between. Not even gray. If you are against the law and the system that upholds it, you are a bad person, a criminal who should be put behind bars. He held fast to this belief and told himself he was doing the world a favor. However, his illusion pops when Jones shows her a different side of the story.
In one scene, the Hero’s mother asks him why he is so obsessed with the law when it is made to serve them. He doesn’t get it then, but after Jones’ psychic theatre, the picture becomes clear to him. He is not making the world better by blindly following and enforcing the law because the law isn’t strictly black and white. The system isn’t fair. Instead, it is built to create the conflict that the Hero tries to resolve. It is built to foster crime, and violence is an inherent part of it, no matter how you look at it.
A system that doesn’t benefit those without power is not a fair system. And anyone working in favor of the capitalistic system built to favor the few is against the people. This shatters the Hero’s illusion, and he realizes that he really is part of the problem. As he leaves Cootie and Jones alone and flies away, we can see the disappointment on his face for himself and the system. This realization could lead him to hang his cape and leave behind the persona of the Hero. Perhaps, if he really wants to do good, he will use his wealth and resources to make the world a better place. Or, he could listen to his mother, sit back and relax, and let the world spin as it always has, in their favor.
What Does Cootie’s Rash Mean?
As an absurdist show, ‘I’m a Virgo’ relies on symbolism and metaphors to convey its point to the audience. We can deduce all sorts of meanings about Cootie’s height, his thought process, and everything else in the show. The same goes for his rash. It first appears when he starts to model for Asphalt Royalty, a clothesline that uses him as a model in the mall. For Cootie, this is a way to earn money that he can use to buy burgers at the joint where Flora works. This is his excuse to meet the woman he likes. However, the job starts to eat at him when he develops a rash due to the fabric of the clothes he is given to wear.
The rash worsens with time, especially as things get more complicated around Cootie. He is labeled a monster by the media, which spreads nothing but hatred about him. Having been turned into a villain, he decides to accept that label rather than fight it. He knows there is nothing he can do to make people believe otherwise, so he decides to own the title and become the villain. This is, of course, him turning to the dark side. He wants to do something that sends across a powerful statement. He wants to do what Jones does but at a bigger scale. He tries to fix the electricity situation by destroying the power plant’s regulator, but it turns out that it can easily be replaced.
Eventually, Cootie realizes that the system is too big for him to fight on his own. Jones warned him about this, which is why she was more focused on getting the people to work together rather than going down the road where she might have to resort to violence or illegal ways to get the work done. These would be shortcuts that would never work in the long run. Cootie understands it now, which is why, when it comes to defeating the Hero, he asks Jones to use her way rather than fighting the Hero himself.
In the end, as the Hero flies away, Cootie itches at the rash that has developed into a completely different thing. It has grown much, much worse, and something slithers inside when the camera pans over it. It could mean several things. The rash could signify Cootie’s view of the world and the capitalistic system that he is sucked into. Previously, living in isolation away from the world, Cootie never had to worry about money. He didn’t know or bother to find out how his aunt and uncle were making money to feed him and house him, considering his unconventional requirement. Ignorance was bliss for him even when he ventured into the world and made some friends. When he gets a job and starts making money, he is caught up in the true nature of reality and sees the world for what it is.
The rash worsens as Cootie’s image worsens in front of the world. There is no cure for the rash, just like there is no solution for Cootie’s problem of being demonized by the world that exaggerates his every action to make it look like his very existence is a threat to the world. With this, we also see a change in Cootie’s ideology and thought process. He had been an innocent young boy who saw the world through the lens of the comic books and TV shows he watched growing up. But he is forced to change his ways when he comes into the real world. Things are worse than he thought them to be.
The world, the system, the law, even the Hero he admired all this while are rotten and part of the, if not the, reason why things are not getting better for people around him and why things won’t get any better for him either. In the end, even though the Hero doesn’t arrest him, it doesn’t make things any easier for Cootie. The law is still against him, the media still paints him as the villain, and his size will always make him the odd man out, posing threats on his life, whether from a cult that considers him the messiah or someone else. The worsening rash is, in a way, a forecast of all the troubles and bad things on the horizon for Cootie.
Read More: Where is I’m a Virgo Filmed?
