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It’s understandable that after the two and a half hours (or so) narrative ofMouthwashingis over, you’ll probably still have some questions. The story is told out of order, with you switching between different time periods before and after the Tulpar freighter spacecraft crashed, and also switching between the perspectives of both Curly and Jimmy.
All of this, combined with hallucinations, ambiguous events,and untrustworthy narration, it’s easy to lose track of what is exactly going on throughout Mouthwashing, especially as you get closer to the game’s trippy finale. So, what exactly is happening to each of the doomed members of the Tulpar crew, and how does this relate to the core themes of the game?
Spoilers Ahead!
Chronological Overview
The setting of Mouthwashing is a freighter deliveryship known as the Tulpar, in a dystopian future where most deliveries are now automated, but the five member crew working for Pony Express are some of the last human workers.
The crew are abouthalfway through their over a year-long journey when the ship crashes. Mouthwashing starts from the perspective of an unknown character, whointentionally redirects the Tulpar freighter ship into the path of an asteroid, turning off the ship’s autopilot to do so.
After this, the rest of the game flashes between the days leading up to the crash, where youcontrol the ship’s captain, Curly, and then scenes in the months following the crash.
Hereyou control Jimmy, the co-pilotwho has taken up leadership after the crash severely harmed and disfigured Curly, leaving him conscious, but with almost no control of his body, and unable to speak.
The other three members of the crew areAnya the medic, Swansea the senior mechanic, and Daisuke, who’s Swansea’s rookie internon his very first journey. Curly’s narrativebefore the crash shows his dynamicwith each of the four other crew members.
Notable moments include his trusting relationship with Anya, wholets him know that she’s pregnant, and seeing thestrained working relationshipbetween the experienced and resentful Swansea, and the incapable but optimistic Daisuke.
It’s also important to note the unique relationship between Curly and Jimmy.Jimmy only hasthe job of co-pilot thanks to Curly getting him the position, but also his clear disdain and jealousy of Curly’s leadership skills, and high rank.
The mood sours as Curlyreceives a telegram from the higher-ups at Pony Express, informing Curly that after this voyage,the whole crew are being let go and their jobs will be automated.
While the telegram recommends that Curly doesn’t inform his crew of this until the delivery is almost complete,he ends up telling the crew during a speech (unfortunately, during a surprise party the crew planned for him) where they all, of course, react badly.
There are multiple examples of the cruel and exploitative nature of Pony Express as a company, with posters of the company mascot Polle encouraging employees to not sleep for more than five hours, and that any minor mistakes will immediately be docked from their pay.
Jimmy has a particularly bad reaction,outlining how Anya has no savings and is under-qualified, Swansea only has a few working years left, while bemoaning that Curly will be able to bounce back thanks to his position, and Daisuke will be able to rely on his parents' money.
It’s revealed late in the flashback thatJimmy was in fact to blame for the crash, driven to the edge by the stress of his impending lay-off and Anya’s pregnancy.
The last moments of Curly’s perspective are spent running past Jimmy to try to resolve the impending crash,managing to save the crew from instant death upon collision, but mutilating himself in the process.
Then, controlling Jimmy, you follow themuch more dire events following the crash, with multiple sections of the ship blocked off byautomatically ejected insulation foam, sealing off damage to the ship and blocking off the empty space outside.
Being a much harsher and antagonistic character in more strained circumstances,Jimmy berates and patronizes Anya for being unable to force-feed Curly his painkillers, and clashes with Swansea forblocking off the utility room who claims it’s full of insulation foamand would be dangerous to tamper with.
A couple of months after the crash,the crew is finally ready to break into the cargo(potentially risking their hypothetical pay) to see if there are more resources as they are quickly getting through their rations and oxygen. Much to the crew’s horror, the massive cargo isstocked entirely with mouthwash.
As tensions between the crew get deeper as the months progress,Swansea relapses into alcoholism, drinking the mouthwashand becoming unhinged, but still vehemently guarding the utility room.
Everything comes to a head whenAnya locks herself inside the medical room, having lost hope due to her dire situation, with her attempting to care for the crew and Curly, all while dealing with constant aggression from Jimmy.
With the only way into the medical room being through the blocked-off utility room,Jimmy convinces Daisuke to help him with a plan to knock out Swanseawith a cocktail spiked with pure alcohol so they can steal his key.
Upon getting into the utility room, it’s revealed that the damage isn’t nearly as severe as Swansea made it out to be, with the room mostly intact, butonly one of the four cryogenic pods in working condition.
Jimmy immediately blames Swanseafor protecting the room so he could use the 20-year lifespan of the pod to escape with his life after the rest of the crew die.
Jimmy convinces Daisuke that only he would be able to make it through the vent into the medical room, but in doing so he is severely injured, but he still manages to open the room from the inside.
After waking up from the spiked cocktail, Swansea laments that he was unable to save Daisuke from the dire situation. He ends upusing the emergency axe to put the pained Daisuke out of his miseryafter Jimmy only made the situation worse by using the mouthwash as a failed antiseptic on Daisuke’s deep wounds.
It’s later shown when Jimmy returns to the medical room thatAnya died from a self-induced overdoseafter she locked herself in.
The truth of the events later are more blurry. While there are visions ofSwansea chasing Jimmy with the axe, there is also a scene whereSwansea has been tied to a chair by Jimmy,where he insults the co-pilot for his cowardice andending with Jimmy eventually shooting him.
After this, Jimmy collects each of the corpses of the crew members around the table,re-creating the surprise party, only with Curly’s body in the middle of the table instead of a cake. Following a hallucination of the crew believing in him,Jimmy cuts off Curly’s leg, eating it, and then it’s implied he forced Curly to eat part of his flesh as well.
Following a series of painful and intense hallucinations, whereJimmy has to face all of his mistakes and manipulations,he eventuallyattempts to take responsibilityfor everything he’s done by putting Curly, the only surviving crew member in the last functional cryogenic pod, and shooting himself off-screen.
Daisuke’s And Swansea’s Story
While it’s quite simple to extract the core narrative of Mouthwashing from the scenes you play through, understanding the nuances of the relationships between each of the core characters is a little trickier.
It’s a lot easier to understand the relationship between Swansea and Daisuke once you realize thatSwansea was hiding the last cryogenic pod because he intended to save it for Daisuke, and also that Swanseanever trusted Jimmy.
Even thoughDaisuke is often mocked by the crew- by Swansea in particular, thanks to his lack of experience and wealthy upbringing - he still tries to remain positive, even when the situation is particularly rough.
Up until his last moments,Daisuke was manipulated by Jimmyto go through the vents that would ultimately get him killed,just because Jimmy said it would make Swansea proud.
In spite of their strained relationship, it’s implied that Swansea recognized that Daisuke is theonly member of the crew with potential if he managed to survive the crash. That’s why he put so much effort into guarding the pod in the utility room, even after relapsing into his alcoholism after 15 years sober.
Since Swansea never trusted Jimmy, it’s also easy to surmise that a big part of the reason why he kept the cryogenic pod secret, is becausehe could tell that Jimmy would easily become violent if he knew that there was only one spot for the crew to survive.
Anya’s Story
Anya is one of the most tragic characters in Mouthwashing. She’s given an even worse fate since she is mostlyperceived through the lens of Jimmy, a character who assaulted and impregnated her, and still holds little respect for her in spite of her attempts to hold the crew together and keep them safe.
Jimmy constantlybemoans Anya for telling him what to do, and seemingly shrugging off her duties to be his responsibility.Jimmy snaps at her,pointing out all the different things that she’s told him to do.
However, if you flip the perspective,Jimmy’s few moments of usefulness and actually helping the crew are mostly just the tasks that Anya has instructed him to do.
Because of Jimmy’s warped perspective, and still believing that he can be a hero, this is insteadtwisted into him thinking that Anya is incompetent.
Anya eventually falls victim toher complete lack of autonomy and the growing weight of Jimmy’s abuse, growing hopeless and eventually overdosing in the medical room.
Even so, she is the only character whose death isn’t shown, andJimmy seems to to feel a lot less guilt about her passing compared to the other characters.
While Jimmy is shown to have some sort of ‘redemption’ by the game’s finale, he’s still unable to redeem himself for everything he’s done, not even respecting Anya enough to properly acknowledge his part in her suffering and eventual death.
Jimmy’s And Curly’s Story
The two controllable characters couldn’t be any more different.Curly explores the brighter version of the Tulpar, before the crash, and even though tensions are rising, it’s clear he tries his best and howmost of the crew respect him.
In comparison, the ship is much darker when in control of Jimmy after the crash, with himconstantly berating and manipulatingthe crew, and his mental state clearly deteriorating with how often the ship descends into endless halls and horrifying abstract imagery and hallucinations.
These two main characters best encapsulate the theme that becomes more and more apparent the further you get into Mouthwashing: the theme oftaking responsibility.
For Jimmy, this is clearer. It’s obvious that he shrugs responsibility off, as he rarelyacknowledges his part in the downfall of each of the crew membersand even tries tojustify the crash that he caused. Throughout most of the game, he’s haunted bymanifestations of his avoiding responsibility, often taking the form of twisted versions ofPony Expresses' mascot Polle.
In spite of this,it takes him until the end of his hallucinations and delusions to truly accept most of what he’s done, by ‘saving’ Curly in a cryogenic pod and eventually killing himself.
Curly, on the other hand, is also partially responsible for the issues during Mouthwashing, but in amore indirect way.While Jimmy was the more active participant in the problems caused throughout the story,he’s only present on the ship since Curly gave him the opportunity.
It’s ambiguoushow much Curly knew about Jimmy’s jealous, vindictive, and violent naturebefore he offered him the job, but it can be assumed that he was at least partially aware.
Curly is punished for not actively preventing all the issues that Jimmy caused bylosing all autonomy after the crash, unable to take the responsibility that eventually ends up crushing Jimmy.
