Bonus Stage: Coma

Bonus Stage is a web cartoon made back in the 2000s, presumably 2003 to 2006 by no other than Matt Wilson himself. It follows the two main characters; the sociopathic scientist Joel Dawson and his normal roommate, Phil Argus who in the earlier season used to work in a superhero team using his superpowers. Joel also had a girlfriend named Elly Strife who has a crush on him along with Rya Botkins, who was a deadpan snarker robot who was supposedly meant to be Phil's girlfriend but instead verbally harms everyone; mostly Phil himself. It was meant to run over 100 episodes, but it was cancelled in its 89th episode-run due to the creator's lack of interest for the show itself.
As some of the fans know, the show recently returned with it's upcoming 90th episode; which includes a redesign for each and other character of the series. Hours after the trailer was released; I opened up a private interview with Matt himself, asking normal questions about the show itself along with other projects as Matt answers each and one of them. The last question I asked was if he had scrapped ideas other than the final episode which Matt with that he had tons of scrapped episodes ideas earlier on for the show back then it was first at it's rate. He also said that he only half-finished one episode; simply called 'Coma'. he then sent me a google drive link of the SWF file to the episode and said I could have it but not to release it since he doesn't like it due to how "dark" the episode was and claimed that it was also the first thing he hates about the show.
I clicked on the link out of curiosity and downloaded the file; the filename was simply "BS_Coma". Luckily I had a flash emulator which being Ruffle, so I could watch the episode; just to see what contains in it. I dragged the file onto Ruffle and pressed the play button as it then started.
== The episode ==
The intro was the one from the first season with the character's design from this said season. At this point I was interested to see how the episode would go. It started just like any other episode; Joel acts dumb and does something while Phil gets annoyed about it. In this episode; Joel plays baseball in the house and starts throwing it around the living room, hitting the TV and several random objects around the room. Phil walks in and gets frustrated about it and ask Joel to go and play outside with it, this is when the episode switched into what Matt said was "dark".
Joel mistakenly thoughts that Phil was Evil for some reason (which is the show's cartoon-ish depiction of the devil himself, but in the only finished fragment of the episode, he was just only mentioned). He then screamed "AHH! IT'S EVIL!" before throwing the ball right hard at Phil as he also screamed in a fright, seeing the ball charging at him, hitting him in the head and thus, also hitting the back of his head on the wall behind him; knocking him out cold. Silence fills the room as Joel notices Phil and tells him that he thought for a moment he was Evil but Phil didn't respond or get up, he was just laying there on the ground; not moving at all, with a slight cartoonish bruise on his head.
"Phil?" Joel asked as Elly walks into view, complaining about the noise before seeing Phil's body before dropping her knees and trying to wake him up. this is when Elly looks at Joel, asking him what he just did to Phil after noticing the bruise on his head from earlier. Joel was confused about why Elly went so serious at this point and asked about it and also said that he was just, "playing catch-the-ball with him", but Elly never respond.
 It smash-cuts into a hospital room; showing a closeup of Phil wearing a gown and also on life support with a bandage wrapped over his head along with a ventilator on his mouth. The bed and ventilator themselves looked drawn, like Matt decided to use the pen tool for the objects just for once.
It cuts to Joel and Elly being told by a doctor (who had a very strong striking resemblance to Andrew; a later character in the series. except that he was designed into fit into the season one era of the show) that Phil was in a coma-like state for the time being after he checked on his brain and noticed that his brain's activity had became impaired as Elly reacted in shock as Joel had no reaction at all.
This is when he said something beyond very stupid and also beyond very sociopathic; he made a horrible joke about the state that Phil was in before an awkward silence filled the entire room with both the doctor and Elly staring at Joel with her in both pure shock and anger. Joel notices this and asked "What?". This is when she said something to Joel which stuck with me for a short period time.
"Why, would you say that Joel? Why?" Elly asked before shouting at the top of her lungs. "THROUGHOUT THIS WHOLE TIME JOEL, YOU'VE GOTTEN PHIL INTO A COMA AND YET YOU'VE MADE IT WORSE SAYING SOME STUPID JOKE ABOUT IT?! I'M DONE WITH YOU JOEL, I'M BREAKING UP WITH YOU, AND THERE'S NO GOING BACK." Elly announced as she then smacked Joel in the face before storming out of the room, sobbing uncontrollably as Joel stared with surprise and shock on his face. This is surprising since Matt never actually shouted very angrily in the show before. After this scene; Joel didn't say anything before finally understanding the entire situation he's in.
"Now I understand ..." Joel grieved as he then rushed off, saying Elly’s name repeatedly, asking her to wait up as the doctor was still standing in the room with no expression ever plastered on his face the entire time, this is when it went to white, simplifying that this is unfinished, leaving anything more that would’ve happened the episode, in a cliff-hanger.
== Aftermath ==
Throughout this whole time, I was left both surprised and stunned about how serious the episode went mid-through; which is out-of-the-ordinary presuming what the show has tons of funny episodes since it’s a comedy but yet; it’s going to have a dark episode aswell. That case, I wanted to know about everything about this episode itself and also what it was circulating on about.
=== Matt’s answer ===
I asked Matt about it and it took a few minutes for him to respond with this one single long answer; It was originally meant to be Episode 10 of the show, following Episode 9 where Joel dies in a comedic way and gets sent into hell. It was also meant to be taken place right after the said episode. 
When Episode 9 was completed, Matt thought it would be funny to do another episode with the same exact thing but aiming onto Phil with a different way of how he would die and get sent to hell since he’s normal but serious character in the show itself, this was THAT episode. He wanted it to have happy ending where Phill woke up from his coma after Joel teleported to hell and saved him from Evil by the way of a "cool epic battle moment which was supposed to light up the mood for the episode" but sadly he left it unfinished because he realized about how much he went too far on it and thus, cancelling the episode and replacing it's place with a different episode along with a different idea for that new-episode. 
However, some elements of this scrapped episode were secretly re-used in later episodes without saying and also in comedic ways; There's a episode in Season 3 where Evil teleports into Earth where he meets and also tells Phil about what to do in his order (which is a partial reference to an unanimated scene of Coma where Phil wakes up in Hell and meets Evil). Another was in one of the last few episodes where Phil kills it's past self, leaving Joel become suicidal about it and thus, hanging himself whilst Elly and Brad watched (Referencing Joel’s depression and grief over Phil’s unconscious state from that said Coma episode).
Matt ends his story about the episode right here and there and thus, leaving me to either understand and get why the episode was replaced in the first place.
Category:Lost Episodes
Category:Computers and Internet
Category:Aj9849’s Horror Show
Category:Internet
Category:Animation
Category:Bonus Stage