As the booster falls away, the three upper stages seem to want to contue flying together.

I did not see any noticeable seperation of the three upper stages at all until the ejection charges fired almost simultaneously. I don't know if somehow these rockets were stuck together or if this is the normal way they fly.  If they continue to fly this way - why bother with three seperate upper stages?  It acted more like a 3-motor cluster of the upper stage.

The aqua colored stage has the launch lug on the bottom, so the other two stages must fly off the booster stage's launch dowel before the aqua one can fly off.  I suspect this is why the aqua stage suffered the burns on it's back-end from either or both of the other two rockets.