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How far would you go to prove a point?
— The tagline for Season 1.
Savage is a live-action/animated Mystery-Thriller Netflix series created in 2018. It gained a lot of controversy at the time of its premiere, as the main conflict was taken from a Pokémon doujin that shall go unnamed, despite the creator of the series having consent to do so by the creator of said comic. The series combines elements from the doujin with elements from Stephen King's 1977 Bachman-novel Rage, with elements from the slasher subgenre, Pretty Little Liars, and Control Z in later seasons.
The series takes place in a world where humans and anthropomorphic Pokémon coexist with one another and focuses on the titular Jack Savage. Jack is a young man currently taking an online college course and lives with his father in New Orleans. The city is almost peaceful, and for a while, nothing bad appears to have happened in Jack's life. All that changes one day when his girlfriend, a Fennekin named Linda Friedkin, is raped by two Pokémon. Investigation into the matter reveals that the two young men who committed the act were acting under orders from someone else, and there are 10 suspects, one of whom ordered the rape. When the investigation is going slow, and Linda is rendered mute by what she was put through, Jack becomes hellbent on punishing whoever wanted his girlfriend hurt, so he kidnaps the rapists and drags them into a room in a psychiatric clinic where he holds all 10 suspects hostage and threatens to kill them all in 3 hours unless whoever ordered the rape confesses. With the clock ticking down, and authorities unclear on how to handle him, the suspects need to figure out who among them harmed Linda. Meanwhile, a rookie police officer who is assigned to be Jack's negotiator becomes connected to Jack's goals by something that happened to his sister years ago and decides to cooperate with Jack to solve the case of Linda's assault.
The following two seasons take place sometime after the first season's events and follow mysteries seemingly connected to the case. Given the connections the conflicts of all 3 seasons have with each other, some spoilers might be left unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
Characters
- Main Characters
- Jack Savage: The main protagonist. A young man who is seeking vigilante justice for his girlfriend Linda after she is raped in Season 1.
- Linda Friedkin: Linda's Fennekin girlfriend. She is raped by two other Pokémon, setting Jack on his revenge path once it's revealed that they were ordered to do so by an outside party.
- Officer Mike Wilson: A human rookie police officer who is assigned as Jack's hostage negotiator, and becomes attached to Jack's goal since it reminds him of something from his past.
- Luke Savage: Jack's father. He has been raising Jack by himself ever since his mother died in a car accident years ago. He is struggling to understand why Jack thought his act of revenge would be a good idea and has a plotline where he tries to understand his son's mindset.
- Chief Marshall Clancy: The Cinderace chief of the New Orleans Police Department. He seems more focused on getting Jack to release the hostages and is struggling to understand Jack's desire for revenge against whoever harmed Linda.
- The Hostages
- Bobby Chase: A human businessman who is suspected of ordering Linda's rape on account of being near the location of the assault when it happened.
- Karen Chesterton: A human woman, and Sage's girlfriend.
- Tony and Angela Cosmos: An Umbreon and Sylveon respectively. Having married each other years ago, they are both suspects as they knew the rapists personally.
- Amber Friedkin: A Vulpix, and Linda's older sister.
- Ruth Harris: A young human woman who knew Linda personally.
- Sage Inferno: A Flareon, and Karen's boyfriend.
- Johnny Morgan: A human man whose ex-girlfriend lives next door to the Friedkin sisters.
- Spencer Rider: A gay Lucario who secretly has a crush on Johnny.
- Fredrick Ross: An older human man, and Linda and Amber's caretaker.
This series provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Peter heavily favored Linda over Amber, whom he often mistreated (mostly subjecting her to sexual abuse), before eventually abandoning them both one day after authorities became aware of his actions. This is why Amber was hardly ever friendly to Linda.
- Accidental Murder: Amidst the scuffle for Peter's shotgun, Amber accidentally shoots Linda in the abdomen, and the recoil knocks her into Peter, sending them both over the balcony, where Peter dies, and he cushions Amber's landing.
- Adaptational Sympathy: In the doujin that the first season's main conflict is taken from, the actual rapists didn't seem to have any second thoughts on their actions. Here, however, it's revealed that Kit and Zero, the ones who raped Linda, were blackmailed into doing so via homophobic threats, and they never wanted to harm anyone. The guilt drives them to attempts suicide, only to get interrupted by Jack abducting them and forcing them to watch as Jack threatens the suspects until whoever made them do it confesses. Later seasons work hard to make them sympathetic.
- Anyone Can Die: The hostages from Season 1 are all targeted by the Rain Man in Season 2, as is Kit, Zero, Officer Wilson, and Jack. By the end of the season, Jack, Amber, Sage, Zero, and Officer Wilson are the only main characters still alive.
- Bait-and-Switch: In the final minutes of the first season's penultimate episode, time runs out, and Jack makes good on his threat, shooting and killing everyone else in the room. Then he runs out of bullets before he can kill Amber, the only one left alive. Amber proceeds to attack and murder him, taunting him about being the one who ordered Linda's rape before he dies. We see the part where Amber reveals herself to Jack before he dies at the beginning of the final episode, only for Amber to find herself in a room with everyone else still alive, staring in absolute horror at her except for Kit and Zero. Then it kicks in that Zero used Illusion to trick her into exposing herself after it's made clear that she won't be fessing up any time soon.
- Big Bad: Each season has a different one.
- Season One has whoever it was that organized Linda's rape, as they're the ones Jack is opposing. They're later revealed to be Amber.
- Season Two has the Rain Man, a mysterious Serial Killer who has kidnapped Amber, and is attacking and murdering several other people connected to the events of Season One. Peter is revealed to be the Rain Man in the penultimate episode of the season, and since his actions indirectly influenced Amber's actions in Season One, he is arguably the Big Bad of the entire series.
- Season Three has an anonymous hacker who is threatening to bomb part of the city, is impersonating the deceased Peter Friedkin, and is preying on Jack's emotions by taunting him about Linda. Sage is later revealed to be the one behind all this.
- Big Sister Bully: Amber is this to Linda. Justified, as Peter abused Amber for years, and heavily favored Linda more than her.
- Bittersweet Ending: Jack manages to save New Orleans from Sage's bombing attempt, is hailed a hero, and manages to acquire his dream job at the police department. Officer Wilson has become the new police chief, and Walter has remarried. Unfortunately, several people have died, including Linda, Sage is missing, and Amber will forever live with the guilt of everything she did to Linda. On the bright side, she and Zero manage to earn forgiveness for their actions, and the latter decides to adopt the former as a daughter. Plus, Amber and Jack have made peace, married each other, and have a daughter whom they decide to name after her Linda in her honor.
- Blackmail: Amber knew the address of the Westboro Baptist Church, and threatened Kit and Zero with leaking their addresses and admission to being gay to the church unless they raped Linda on her order.
- Bury Your Gays: Johnny and Spencer are the Rain Man's first murder victims, and later, Kit and Zero are attacked in bathroom stalls with Japanese Hornets. The former succumbs to his injuries later on, while the latter survives.
- Cain and Abel: Amber's mistreatment of Linda escalated to the former ordering the latter's rape solely because she's not a good cook.
- Darker and Edgier: Out of all Pokémon works, this is among the darkest and edgiest of them since taboo topics are explored here.
- Dead Guy Junior: Jack and Amber's baby Fennekin in the Series Finale's time skip is named after her deceased aunt Linda.
- Decoy Protagonist: Dr. Block is featured on several posters, and is seen as the head of the support group organized by the suspects, suggesting that he might be an important character. However, he is the last one to be killed by Jack before the hostage situation gets underway.
- Disney Villain Death: Season Two ends with Amber and Peter falling off a balcony to the floor below in the latter's lair, with Amber's fall being cushioned by Peter, who suffers fatal head trauma.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Linda was raped solely because Amber didn't like her cooking. Hearing this riled up everyone in the room a lot, and it alerts Amber that she's screwed.
- Everyone Is a Suspect: All 10 hostages who aren't Kit and Zero are suspects in ordering Linda's rape, and as Jack points out, none of them can be called truly innocent unless proven so.
- Flashback: There are several flashbacks throughout the series. The first season primarily has them detailing stuff about the hostage's lives, and what they were doing on the day of Linda's rape, with evidence from the police investigation presented by Officer Wilson backing them up.
- Foreshadowing: Eagle-eyed viewers might notice that Amber is trying (and failing) to rally everyone against Jack so they can escape, and is the only one to do so. If you saw the doujin that the main conflict of the show is taken from, that should help you identify Amber as the one Jack is looking for if her actions during the hostage situation aren't enough.
- Freudian Excuse: Amber's mistreatment of Linda stems from their father's mistreatment of Amber, which Linda never knew about.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Peter's mistreatment of Amber is what influenced Amber's mistreatment of Linda, and to an extent, the events of the first season.
- Inter Species Romance: Jack and Linda (a human and a Fennekin) are both in a relationship and so are Sage and Karen (a Flareon and a human).
- Karmic Death: Peter is accidentally knocked over a balcony, and dies when he hits the floor.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After Amber is revealed to be the one who ordered Linda's rape, she suffers for it. First comes a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by the other hostages while Jack, Linda, Kit, and Zero watch. Then, after being released from the hospital, Amber is forced onto the streets and forced into prostitution so she can eat. This allows the Rain Man to kidnap her as part of their plan to reconnect with Linda. After all of that, Amber finally sets out to repent.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Amber is on the receiving end of one from the other hostages after she is exposed as the one who ordered Linda's rape, and for a very petty reason too.
- Oh, Crap!: Amber has this look on her face upon realizing that Zero used his Illusion ability to trick her into exposing herself as the one who made him and Kit rape Linda.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Amber, Kit, and Zero all become pariahs after they are revealed to have been the ones who harmed Linda in the events of Season One. Even during the events of Season Three, no one is eager to forgive them, as Amber is bullied by several people who aren't happy with her for what she did to her sister, Zero has lost a ton of respect from everyone who knew him, and the scene where Kit's death is revealed shows that his gravestone was vandalized.
- Parental Favoritism: Amber and Linda's adoptive father Peter favored the Fennekin more than the Vulpix. However, this trope is exaggerated by the fact that Peter abused Amber (mostly sexually).
- Psychotic Smirk: The Big Bad of each season tends to give one at certain points during a moment where they're in control. First, there's Amber while she's watching Linda get raped, then there's Peter when he sees Amber crying in fear at Bobby's severed head, then there's Sage after he activates the bomb underneath Plaza Tower.
- Rape and Revenge: The first season's main conflict is Jack seeking vigilante justice on whoever ordered Linda's rape.
- Spanner in the Works: Jack's sole plan after kidnapping Kit and Zero was to simply drag them into the room where Dr. Block and the suspects were, hold everyone hostage, and only use his gun to kill if his target didn't fess up within 3 hours. Unfortunately, several people noticed him and tried to stop him by rushing him and attempting to take his gun, forcing him to kill several people to reach the suspects, including Dr. Block.
- Took a Level in Kindness: After the penultimate episode of Season 2 establishes that Amber is starting to feel guilty about everything she's done, she gets a redemption arc in the third season, trying to atone for her actions. She even refuses to get involved in Jack's schemes to stop the bomber threatening the city, solely because she doesn't want anyone else to get hurt as a result of her actions.
- You Monster!: During "The Reason You Suck" Speech directed at Amber by everyone else in regards to what she did to Amber and why, Ruth hurls this phrase at her. Linda later chucks this phrase at Peter while she and Jack are confronting him about everything he's done.
