Ok, so this was more doable than I thought and I'll have something to show soon. I thought that the insert of the lions mouth was sandwhiched between the same shot, but it's not. A hard cut to the next shot actually works just fine. I've removed jimmy's yelp but need to find a fitting replacement. I've worked on building up the score but now it is a proper patchwork lol. I've isolated hits from the music to have full control and using reverb to simulate room sound when they cut off. So we have the drone louden rather than fade out, and then there are some hits over the top to smooth us into when the music properly comes in. i've also swapped sections around to see if that works a bit better as well.
[cry emoji]. You spotted a cut and it's still there and it's damn hard to fix. But you were RIGHT to do so. I will make it through this... somehow. Still, there were a lot of awkward cuts there so I'm glad the rest seems natural.