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Arc 18: Queen - Dissecting Worm
458 Plays10 months ago
This story isn’t intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass.
Complete list of potential triggers: here
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Dissecting Worm: The sister podcast to Brockton Bay Book Club where our hosts Jacob and Allan discuss adapting Worm for television.
Episode Description:
Echidna: Villain. S class threat. Brute/Master/Changer/Trump. Upper limits unknown. Origin unknown. Do not make physical contact. Clockblocker required for dissection.
Get in contact with us @brocktonbaybc
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Timestamps:
(00:00) - Introduction
(01:10) - Dissecting Begins
(33:46) - Zencastr
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Worm and Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Worm is a web serial by J.C. McCray, also known as Wildbo. You can read Worm in its original format by visiting parahumans ah.wordpress dot.com or donate to Wildbo's Patreon at patreon dot.com slash wildbo. This story isn't intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass. For a complete list, check the description for all of Worm's trigger warnings.
00:01:11
Speaker
All right. Welcome back to dissecting worm with myself, Jacob and Alan as always. love And Michael, as always on the, on the, on the keys. I keep trying to use Michael on the trombone on the trombone. Of course we're into arc 18, making our way through worm. And it's kind of fun. This is a long, this is a kind of ah a kind of long arc, ah eight, eight chapters plus five interludes, I believe. Yeah. it Was it five? I thought it was five. Yeah. No, it's five interludes. You're right. Yeah. So yeah, we've got a lot, a lot, a lot to get to. It's going to be interesting. I, we were chatting briefly here before we hit record.
00:02:03
Speaker
um A lot of this interlude kind of works as is, which is to say it's especially the back half of the, and not including, ah include sorry, I said interludes, the arc, not including the interludes, the back half of the arc as a lot of action, a lot of kind ah combat against Echidna. kidna um and i i mean I don't want to speak for you, but I would i don't think any of that really changes. like that's that's yeah That's the fight. you know It's been a hot minute since I've actually read this. So I'm just going back over my notes, but I really don't see a whole lot of changeups. I do know some of the stuff that I just don't like. um And some things that we need to talk about in the front half that maybe need some changing. And of course, interludes are you know to be expected to be thrown around and put different places. but Yeah, I think we'll kind of touch on each interlude for sure. and
00:03:00
Speaker
talk about where it might strategically make sense to place if at all. um Yeah, let's so let's dive in. kind of just I guess we'll kind of just go chronologically here with the arc and see where we see we end up. So ah kick things off. This is post travelers arc where we got all the travelers
Coil's Storyline and Dinah's Role
00:03:23
Speaker
stuff. So now we're Now we're full on into Echidna is free and the undersiders are kind of figuring out what to do. Yeah. They're left to figure out what to do about Noel. What is yeah kind of what is Noel? What makes her dangerous? And they're essentially interrogating Dinah to calculate all this information, which brings me to my first, um, so my first, uh, thing to talk about. So, um,
00:03:55
Speaker
You know, as we continue, we have ah the continual Dyna coil problem. um Um, you know, and we've talked about trying to figure out how to keep the arc of coil and Dyna, mostly coil, um, relevant in this given that, uh, like he just kind of gets snuffed so quickly. If we started season three, he gets like, two episodes and then is, you know, dead, like that just doesn't feel right. Honestly, and unless you took him to like episode five, even like, you know, it was somewhat of a buildup, like it just wouldn't feel right to kill coil. So, you know, we've discussed essentially having him captured and thrown in for irony, irony, uh, serendipity.
00:04:54
Speaker
you know you know Poetic justice, we'll just go with that. Poetic justice, we throw him in Dinah's old cell. That's the word I'm looking for. hu
00:05:05
Speaker
Yeah, so ah and keep but keeping him alive. We'll deal with him later. Yeah, yeah for deal with us for now. Keeping him alive with the potential to be like, hey, how do we ah interrogate him or do whatever so that we can get ah so we can take care of Noelle? That's why we're keeping him around ah essentially what I would also propose, um just as a thought experiment, Taylor says, or Dinah says, gives her the numbers, there's a 50% chance that I get to go home. And you know Taylor realizes, oh shoot, kind of that 50% is probably me, that like I either justify that she we need to keep her around or we you know take her home immediately.
00:05:54
Speaker
Like otherwise I won't let her go. And she chooses in the serial to take her home immediately, which feels very nice. It feels like a close off, ah you know a cap to the coil arc, which is weird because it's the opening you know to this ah essentially. if i'm i'm wrong Am I wrong? and No, I think you're i think it's so it's the first or second chapter. um Yeah, um be the second chapter but yeah, like it's pretty early. Yeah. That's weird for like an opener to this episode. If you're doing an episode here, especially given just have the, you know, the traveler arc, like this feels like something that should go at the end of we kill coil. We take her home. We deal with the next problem. So either we leave it very much the same where we just end whatever episode we had coil dead with, with taking Dinah home and then
00:06:52
Speaker
maybe having Lisa call Taylor and be like, ah, that, that bitch did one more thing. He let Noel out. And she's like, is that bad? And maybe, you know, uh, she says something like, you know, bad enough that he, you know, uh, yeah, I don't know, you know, something bad, but we don't have Dinah here at all for, for any of that. Dinah is home. Dinah fucks off for a while. Or we've run with the other 50% Taylor keeps Dinah.
00:07:29
Speaker
Just for the duration of the, uh, of the Noel, I think the duration of the fight.
Character Motivations and Narrative Pacing
00:07:35
Speaker
And we kind of play out more and more that like Dinah realizes that, you know, uh, this is, you know, her chance of getting home is extra slim because Taylor is Like, oh no, we just need you for one more thing to help fight Noel. But after this, as we move forward in the story, we're going to get to um a couple of things where like Taylor gets outed, you know, they fight some bad guys and, you know, a decent handful of bad guys from what I remember, just like back to back to back and trounce them. But then eventually Taylor flips.
00:08:17
Speaker
And I think that maybe having Dinah, I know that Dinah is integral to that, but maybe her having playing a more continual part in that. I don't like the idea of having her kidnapped for a long time. Cause that just doesn't fit the character, but I think at least having her for the Noel fight until we're done here and then turning her over maybe is I think a a better conclusion to this. Yeah, it's it's definitely tricky. I definitely agree that oh splitting up, keeping things as as written chronologically is a bit off because you have
00:09:02
Speaker
the killing of coil, Noelle is released, everyone's like, oh shit, what do we do? Well, hold on, let's take a minute and get Dinah home. Like, let's just break for a sec. Like it doesn't, pacing wise, that would not work too well, especially talking about like beginnings and ends of episodes. yeah um So either either, yeah, either you'd be bringing Dinah home first, like you said, and then they get noticed that like, Hey, I like your idea of Lisa calling Taylor and being like, Hey, we're, we're cleaning out the secret base. And, uh, well, one of the cages is empty, you know, and kind of realizing from there, ah this is assuming you're playing it out kind of as written where they they've offed coil earlier on, you know, um, yeah, either doing it that way or waiting. And I think it, I think at the end of the day, it boils down to whether or not we want to keep coil.
00:09:56
Speaker
coil's death until after Noelle or not, which I know we've we've kind of talked about doing it that way. um I have been kind of flipping on that back and forth, and maybe this will make more sense when we get to the end of the Noelle arc, which I believe is 19, so next arc, and kind of um and kind of kind of feeling, putting in the feelers out to how that's going to wrap up. yeah But the more I've thought about it, the more i don't The reason I don't like it when reading it is because we are just introduced to Coyle as Thomas Calvert. And it's very quick, it's very rushed. ah And granted, that might just be because when I pick up an arc, I have to read like three and I've got to set it down. But it feels very quick and it feels like character like like Coyle's character comes and goes very, very quickly.
00:10:52
Speaker
But if we are, as we have talked about, sort of restructured Coyle's character a bit so that Thomas Calvert's been more of a character earlier,
Timeline Adjustments for Tension
00:11:01
Speaker
the reveal is as a bit more ah more backing to it. um It's not as out of the blue as it is when you're reading it. oh um Uh, yeah, I have an idea for this. Okay. Cause you know, we've pushed and pulled the the timeline of coil and his reveals cause you know, multiple ones. Number one of him being revealed, uh, to be the employer for the undersiders. Um, and then number two, um, revealed to be Thomas Calvert, you know, the PRT director who never was, um, what if we just nixed.
00:11:41
Speaker
the undersiders finding out about Thomas Calvert. And we had war ah our our ward detective boy, Weld, be the one to to put the pieces together. yeah it It takes it away where the reveal to them is, you know oh my gosh, you know we we finally, they finally find out who Coyle is at the, what? what The beginning of the slaughterhouse nine arc, I think is when we put it. I think it's later than that, but it's, uh, or is it the, at the end, I'm trying to remember. Yeah. I think it's after, I don't think it's the beginning of the slaughterhouse line arc. I thought it was the beginning during it. Um, because, uh, it's, you know, it is at the beginning. It's cause they'd go to steal the, um,
00:12:38
Speaker
the the secret ah files from the PRT. They use the whole, who um them pretend they take over Sophia, they pretend to be, and they steal the PRT files, which the PRT files are on the slaughterhouse nine. That is what they are stealing. right right And then our story, we have Lisa say, hey, do you want to hand it over to the big boss personally? He divvies up the territories and says like, what do you want? Which is the conversation they have in like, arc four or something like that after the bank heist. Like it's so quick. yeah um Actually, no, not arc four, arc six, maybe. When they first meet, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, so we we bump it up later. So it is at the beginning of that. So we get a whole season of Coyle being there and her having the, like the undersiders having the tension of, is Coyle going to rat us out basically? And does he know that I don't, I'm not okay with,
00:13:36
Speaker
her being, Diana being kidnapped, I wanna rescue her, which is fine. On the flip side, we have of course, Piggott getting ousted as the PRT director and Thomas Calvert, I think we bring him up quicker. I think if Piggott's out, Piggott's out. I don't think we keep her around for longer than necessary. um Thomas Calvert takes over, maybe she's just suspended, you know, a classic, ah suspended with pay.
Plot Twists and Weld’s Investigative Role
00:14:06
Speaker
I like the idea. Uh, well, it depends on when you want to do it, I guess. I like the, I mean, there's a lot of ways you can make that make sense. You could easily have her suspended after, after dropping bombs on Brockton Bay, yeah after firebombing, firebombing Brockton Bay and dropping the bucket of bombs. All you got to do is a one line thing about how all this wasn't authorized, you know, and year ago, suspended, you know, so yeah. Um, ah so Thomas Calvert takes over in the interim.
00:14:33
Speaker
you know He was deputy, he's still technically deputy director, but he's acting you know director for the time being. And while he's there, Weld continues to ask questions that he was already asking about Pigot, like why the hell was Defiant here? Maybe he's the one who'd be like, ah when they walk in, like, um you know we we all know who this is, right? And they're like, shut the fuck up. It's like, right. right you know And maybe he does some more digging into, maybe there's something that ah Thomas Calvert lets slip. Maybe he says something later on where he says a percentage, just mentions like, ah, there's 30% chance of this. And that just kind of you know bothers Weld because you know he's heard that percentage thrown out before. And surprise, surprise, it was like the undersiders back at,
00:15:31
Speaker
Uh, the meeting when he put together that it was Dinah. So then, well, it starts digging in and he's like, okay, what's Thomas Calvert's backstory? What's, um, you know, what do we know about him? Where does it come from? Like, and, and through the, you know, that'd be a good way to, I don't, I like where you're going with that. That would work. That would work well. And it it works well for the audience, too, because those are the little little clues we talked about how, like, you want to feed your audience. And obviously, we're talking about, like, new, you know, ah new members of the worm community, right? Book readers obviously aren't going to be surprised by anything.
00:16:12
Speaker
but new viewers want to have the fun of making that connection. So you slip in little things like, Oh, well picks up on a percentage thing. So does the audience, right? Like he's the surrogate in that scenario where you're dropping the clues for weld and also the audience. So that when weld makes a connection, everyone's like, ah, yes, I knew it. You know, that kind of thing. Yeah. And maybe he also starts looking into man. What is, what is a coil been up to? Cause he's been awfully damn quiet since, you know, all the way since ah Leviathan.
Thomas Calvert's Backstory and Connections
00:16:50
Speaker
Nobody's seen nor heard, but ah there appear to be a lot of like guns for hire and like a lot of money moving around um buildings that, ah you know, given the state of the ah city,
00:17:06
Speaker
Like, yeah, it's not unusual that somebody would buy up a bunch of cheap property, but, you know, there's a lot more infrastructure getting put in or that was prepared for, you know, one of those, oh, the fallout shelters were like made before the fallout. Like, yeah they they knew it was gonna happen kind of thing. like and then you know yeah ah Just I got to throw this out there. Another really easy thing we got to slip in, we never mentioned, but ah during the Leviathan fight, Coyle doesn't participate. And they give, I think like Lisa gives them the kind of excuse, well oh well, his power wasn't going to go to do any good against Leviathan. It makes sense that he would just hide this out.
00:17:46
Speaker
But we should totally show Thomas Calvert with the PRT, you know, doing calculate, you know, whatever, just working on stuff in an office, like cut to that at some point. Again, we're not making any, uh, any assumptions at that point, but just another visual cue that like, oh, well, Coyle wasn't fighting Leviathan because he was Thomas Calvert in that moment, you know, Uh, so just little things like that, that are going to be really easy to slip in so that people can go back and be like, Oh yeah, you never saw Thomas Calvert and coil in the same room to get, you know, that kind of thing. Kind of interesting. Yeah. I like this, you know, playing up, you know, eventually him going to like a building and seeing like, man, there's a, there's a lot of military looking guys hanging around here. That's odd. and They have a lot of supplies, like who weird. Um,
00:18:43
Speaker
and eventually putting two and two together. Especially if we do a whole like, wow, that looks like old PRT gear almost. Like, yeah and you know, Thomas Calvert, you know, classic like, oh, we're selling off all of our old equipment from the PRT.
Taylor's Internal Conflict
00:19:00
Speaker
Except, you know, he could have been doing that with equipment that's been in for a year or like just got there and immediately sells it off, yeah covers it up. um So yeah, I think, doing that, ah that was my big thing. um I think a lot of this chap, this whole season specifically should be Taylor dealing with ah herself,
00:19:32
Speaker
if that makes sense. um And I think this episode or this arc really, sure well and the next arc will really show it off. We have Taylor having to, ah you know, she's pursuing her morals. She comes to the boundary. We're like, that's definitely going to fuck you up. We know it's going to fuck you up. And it does ultimately fuck her up with coil. And then she, you know, I think it would be interesting to play with the fact that like she ends coil or captures him and then basically does what coil was going to do anyway.
00:20:13
Speaker
like very much just does the coil stuff, but she was just upset the coil was doing it kind of, which is why, you know, i kind of think about the like, oh yeah, what if she hangs on to Dinah, like ah just a little bit longer. um And then, you know, she's gonna have to physically deal with that when she gets eaten by Echidna and then literally has to face versions of herself. ground I think this is a great, arc, this one and the next one specifically, a great arc to depict the transition to you know her next stage. um I know that the the next set of you know the neck what we'd consider the next season would be what most people consider the transition period. I think this is actually it. I think this is what, or at least the catalyst for it. I think Taylor just needs to be confronted with enough
00:21:13
Speaker
bad decisions, clock blocker calling her out for a while, you know, having versions of her twisted versions of herself coming out, maybe some spouting some stuff for her to finally go, Oh my gosh, I need to figure out the trajectory of my life. And then have that be the, you know, the, the arc character arc for next season. Um, but I think having her be reluctant to give up Dinah, and maybe using her a tad longer wouldn't be a terrible idea. Yeah, i'm not I'm not opposed to that. I think even if we did stick with with killing coil as written before the Noelle fights, um which I'm sort of talking myself back into, but we'll come back to that. Yeah, if we do that, I just, I don't want to do the i don't want to do the whole death of coil in the in the mayoral office.
00:22:11
Speaker
office thing. like I just think it's so convoluted and bad. I think we could stage it better for sure. i don't even like If we're doing the fact that, like I don't even think we need to get rid of coil. like I think we just have coil be coil. He just tries to get rid of Taylor and continues being Thomas Calvert. but like maybe he suggested that Piget gets compromised that way he takes over. Like that's the plan right there. He knows that if Regent is anywhere near a kidnapped Piget, she's out and oh no, who's next in line? Like yeah it doesn't make as much sense for somebody to be like, oh, I'm you know the consultant director halfway across the country. And I knew that I would be getting put in charge of with Brockton Bay.
00:23:05
Speaker
Like, okay. Oh, you know, maybe, maybe there's a bunch of greased palms there to make that go well. But I think it's better if he's just, Oh, I'm second in command. First command was compromised by my own doing really. And I knew like, of course I get bumped up. Like that's a super simple plot. Yeah. I don't think we need to get rid of coil in any fancy fashion. Um, I think we just have weld, all of that be replaced with weld being a detective. you're You're talking specifically about the whole plot that Coyle has to, to quote like stage his own death. Yeah. Yeah. That whole thing. Yeah. I think we nix almost all of that in favor of just, he tries to kill Taylor. Taylor kills him. We move on to Noel. Um,
00:24:03
Speaker
ah yeah still don't like i'm for that yeah I still don't like where it is in the season. That's my tough part. Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense. I think, I think where it is in the season could work again, provided that we do a good enough job but giving Coyle and Thomas Calvert enough of an arc prior to that, which you've already talked about doing, you know, just making sure that that's a character. character Because if in that case, then at least you sort of have like a, a true shock moment where people might not be expecting it. It feels like a season finale thing. I'm like, Oh no, you know, that's, that's more like, you know, what you'd expect out of like game of thrones or something. You know, it's like, yeah, ah well, that's what I was contemplating in my head. When are other times that we have seen a mid, a mid season shocker?
00:24:58
Speaker
as to a post-season and, you know, cause even Game of Thrones, the death of your boy in season one, Sean Bean, like that happens. Yeah, that happens at the end. Like that is, yeah it does like um an alternative give episode maybe there's, I forget if there's one more episode after the end of
Narrative Decisions and Impact of Coil's Death
00:25:19
Speaker
that. there is yes he's in episode nine and then yeah there's episode That's fine because it's near the end, but I'm trying to think of other shows now. The worst, of course, is ah Luke Cage, where midway through the season one, they switch villains. And it's just awful. does noless So we don't want to do that. um But I think that might've just been a transitional issue. um I agree. i think I think Luke Cage suffered from the fact that Marshall Ali was just so good.
00:25:52
Speaker
Um, it was him, right? God. and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Was, was so good. And everybody loved him as a villain. Uh, that losing, losing him was like, Oh, well, yeah, anyone's going to be kind of a step down now. Um, and the replacement villain ah what i completely forget was just, completely forgettable. I think you do, we avoid that a little bit because one, Noelle has been a building issue. It wasn't out of the blue. Two, not a permanent villain replacement, you know? And then three,
00:26:32
Speaker
ah Coyle's death is a really big character growth moment for both Taylor and the undersiders. It's sort of like the end of a chapter. And while I do think that works better at the end of the season, and I'm still not opposed to kind of shifting it, I think you can get away with it mid-season because there's still more to this character. Like, season-wise, there's more to both Taylor and the unders Undersiders that I would want to explore. Post-Coils death.
00:27:07
Speaker
that I would not want to wait until next season to do. you know So like you said, like Taylor wrestling with Dinah and in yeah having to deal with herself and having to deal with ah conference ti confronting the the ah ah the wards. um Like there's a lot of good moments in here that I really like after Coyle's death. It just hits a bit differently. um So yeah, again, I'm not, I'm still kind of flip-flopping on it. I think there's pros and cons either way, and probably be something where we visit, of course, after next arc when we're kind of like, how do we want to wrap up the season? You know, we'll, we'll, we'll probably come back to that yeah again. I'm sure I do like your idea of delaying
00:27:56
Speaker
uh, giving Dinah back to her family until after Noel again, one, just for pacing. It just makes sense. But to Taylor using that to sort of justify like, Oh, she's, you know, she is useful. Uh, you know, you really, it'd be really good to have her help her stop the end of the world. You know, like again, it starts to build that dilemma that Taylor is going to carry with her for the rest of the series. And I liked the idea of, ah sort of this weird triangle between Dinah, Lisa, and Taylor, where nobody wants Dinah to be there. And yeah everybody knows that this, that Taylor doesn't feel good about it, but like Dinah's not about to be like, oh, hey, can I go home now? Like right you are kidnapping me still. And nobody wants to admit to that.
00:28:55
Speaker
But also like it's some weird impasse that all three of them are at where like Lisa's like, you sure you want to do this? And Taylor's like, yeah, just for right now. And Lisa's like, of course, just for now. And Diana's like, yeah, just for now. That's what they always say. Like where everybody's kind of in on the thing where Taylor's being a villain about this, but nobody's really talking about it. And it would make up for a really nice moment in the final episode, where like, one of, if not the last thing Taylor does for the season is return Dinah. Like it's, it'd be a really nice moment. That moment is, regardless of when Coil dies, that moment is a finisher. You don't just have her return Dinah in the middle of a season.
00:29:52
Speaker
in the middle of a fight. Yeah. It just doesn't feel right at all. Yeah. I agree. And once again, for people who are going to complain about this, this is not a
Adapting Worm for TV
00:30:03
Speaker
realism thing because timing wise, I mean, this is, this is a, a poetics thing. Like this does not work in what I feel like you would line things up with like, Oh yeah. How does this feel? to just do randomly. It's like timeline wise, if I'm a real person, you know, doing Taylor, Dinah is going right the fuck home. She's going home with a little, like you know, she gets scrubbed up. She gets a little bow slapped on her head and she gets dropped off on the front porch. Yeah. Um, and a bassinet, uh, right away. Yeah.
00:30:42
Speaker
No, but I think you know this is what's fun. This is what's fun to talk about is when you're adapting mediums and you're you're moving from book or web serial to television, like you've got to account for the beginnings and ends of episodes. You've got to account for pacing and things like that. like that's what That's what's really fun about this whole discussion we're having is how would you restructure the story when necessary to make it flow better for a different type of audience. so If you disagree with us, let us know. We want to hear from you. If there, you've got another idea of, uh, of how to do this, give us a call. Tell me where. Yeah. We would love to hear from it. It's a, it's a tough one. It's, it's a, it's a tricky little, it's a tricky little piece of the puzzle for sure. It's the, it's the, it's the tricky. It's the trickiest piece of the puzzle and we've been dealing it since arc one, like season one. We talked about that early on. We knew this was coming, knew it was going to be a problem. Yeah.
00:31:41
Speaker
So, um, yeah, we want to move on, move along, move along. Uh, I want to skip the interludes for now and come back to them at the end. Okay. Um, let's see. I just have play up Taylor acting a little bit more like coils, you know, making some more villainy decisions. Uh, um, oh, uh, weld connecting Noel to the missing 40 people in New York. Oh, yeah. Okay. I think having him, you know, cause we've kind of had him as the side character. I think having him put together like, well, how dangerous is Noel? She's like, well, she eats people. And he starts, you know, doing his thing where he's like, h we did have 40 people missing in New York and the travelers were there. That would make sense. Cause we don't know what she looks like or anything. And if she's this monstrous thing that eats people, then that totally makes sense.
00:32:39
Speaker
Yeah, I really like the idea because I mean, I know I'm not alone in telling my anytime I'm watching like, especially fantasy or superheroes or, you know, really ah just Uh, simple sci-fi for like a bit like popcorn flick type thing, you know, yeah whenever you're watching that kind of stuff, yeah you always go like, if I was just there, this would be so much easier yeah because I would act and talk like a normal person. And I would put together these pieces so easily. Like everyone does that, right? And it's, it's nice to give weld.
00:33:19
Speaker
or give any character, but I like that we're giving it to, well, you know, that role essentially so that the audience has someone where they can go like, thank you. That's what I've been saying. Like just ask the questions, you know, like it's going to be nice having a character like that in the story that, uh, that gets, that is very satisfying to watch figure things out. Totally.
00:33:46
Speaker
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00:34:35
Speaker
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00:35:22
Speaker
And the Wells conversation with I Dolan and the protectorate, uh, and tattletale, there's like a whole, there's like a whole conversation there. It's pretty good. I do like all those conversations. Yeah. I think all my notes are after this, like are basically just related to the, to the interludes. Yeah, I was, I'm kind of just kind of going through the chapters here. Cause again, I just wouldn't really want to change any of those conversations. I like, I like the way this fight is paced. Um, I talked a little bit about this in book club portion, Brockton Bay book club, but, uh, these couple, these couple arcs with a kid in his fight and the Wells fight, I remember pretty vividly. And I think it's because I do think it's one of the better paced sections of the story. Once it gets into the conflict.
00:36:16
Speaker
yeah It takes a while. It's a long fight. There's these moments where they get to breathe. ah There's a lot of conversations. There's a lot of teamwork. And a lot of that I think is just going to work very well on screen. um yeah It feels more like we're watching a couple episodes of like band of brothers, right? when they're You've got the fight going on the whole time and they're always fighting. But then, you know, every episode, there's like a little, some conversations and they kind of regroup in and they're talking and there's character growth and then, oh, you know, and again, they go fight, you know, and they come back. Like it kind of feels the same way. Yeah. Um, I do think, uh, you know, sort of as foreshadowing, I think showing Taylor,
00:37:02
Speaker
being ah Number one, she you know has this talk with Clock Blocker about how she appears. And I think having her take what he said there and apply it immediately to her dealing with the Texas wards, it is the Texas wards, right? It's the next's the Chicago. Chicago, the Chicago wards. Yeah, the Chicago. Yeah, the Chicago wards, because Texas wards have young buck. ah The Chicago wards, um I think would, be some good foreshadowing for what's going to happen in the future. And yeah, also show that like Taylor realizes she looks bad and needs to be less. um She needs to be more copacetic to to people. She needs to be less antagonistic towards these groups that she's trying to work with. And also it would be nice to have outsiders that she hasn't fought yet that
00:38:01
Speaker
maybe have heard of her, but then they meet her and are like, ah, you're not that bad.
Interludes and Character Introductions
00:38:06
Speaker
And the Chicago wards are that are pretty, pretty good at that. We're like, Oh, you know, Hey, nice to meet you. And she's like, Hey, I'm skitter. And they're like, Oh shoot. Aren't you, isn't there a villain named skitter? And she's like, yeah, that's me. And they're like, Oh, well, you're not what we expected. And she's like, I don't know what to tell you, man. I, you know, yeah. The best thing to say is I was trying to do some good, you know, And things got out of hand and they're like, God, you know, it's rough. You know, we get everybody has a story, you know? Yeah. Yeah. ah Don't always approve, but you know, and, and like I said, they're all very cool about it in comparison to like the rest of the wards that we've met were like, we've been fighting her and they're all assholes, which, you know, so some with very good reason to be, but yeah. Uh,
00:39:01
Speaker
Taylor essentially having to make the the personal change to not be a dick to people. And maybe have it be nice to have some people that aren't a dick to her. Yeah. I do like, um I like the, the difference between Chicago wards and Brockton Bay wards, mainly being like Brockton Bay wards and Brockton, like everybody in general, really we're really, we're living in like this just post-apocalyptic city. I mean, it's, it's as bad as it gets. And then here comes Chicago and you can assume that they've got their own problems, but it's clearly a functional city.
00:39:44
Speaker
And they find out real quick. Yeah. But it's like a, it's a, it's a great, uh, contrast. And I think that's going to be a lot of fun to see played out. Yeah. Other than that, I like, I think all of this works. Um, you just want to move to the interludes because I feel like that's going to be, I think we just move on. I'm just taking another look here, but, uh, yeah, I mean, Uh, the clone fights are gonna be fun. You know, it's gonna be fun to see played out. Um, I Dolan going and doing his thing with the gravity hits like a lot of the power stuff. It's just going to be really cool to see on screen. Um, I think, uh, end of the episode. We, I think we end the episode with, uh, Taylor getting eaten. Oh yeah. hundred percent that That's a game under right there. Um, uh, let's start with interlude three.
00:40:36
Speaker
If you don't mind, Jessica. young Ah, yes. I think we can spread this out through the season. Oh yeah. Oh, did the season? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Like there's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight of these. Um, and some of them are immediately chronological to stuff that's happened. Um, so. you know, the Victoria one's great because we see the follow-up on that from, I mean, we we we have an opener to that at this, I think at the beginning of this season, where, you know, she's like, where the fuck is my daughter? And they're like, uh, yeah, whoops. And we, and we even hear about her from clock blocker. Like what the, you know, you hear what the fuck happened and then we can even, you know, show like, yeah, here, here she is. Um, we, we unfortunately haven't seen Sveta, but we have seen Mitroshka before.
00:41:37
Speaker
um But we'll get to talk with her in another interlude. I was gonna say, in all honesty, Sveta is one we're cutting. Like, just, I'll be the bearer of bad news there, but she hasn't been seen before. Yeah. We're not gonna see her now. Sorry. Can we do, can can you do me a favor? Can we switch cutting Sveta for Matryoshka? Cutting. ah Well, either either way, Matryoshka too, Um, I'm just thinking in terms of like, in this case, it doesn't make any sense to see Sveta in an interview or sorry, in a, in a therapy session with Jessica Yamada because we've never seen her before. Yeah. Well, what I'm saying is we sub out Sveta where she maybe was dropped off during the, uh, during the quarantine of
00:42:35
Speaker
um shoot in the traveler arc. We show her in the traveler arc where she's one of the creatures that gets dropped off and is attacking people. Yeah. But maybe she escapes and gets caught by the PRT at a later year. um i I know we had this big discussion before about last time about not doing anything, you know not taking into account stuff for the sake of the story. And this one for the sake of Ward, the sequel series. um However, Sveta does continue to show up ah later in Worm. And I think it would be important to introduce her now because we also have Weld as a big character. And Weld and Sveta are a couple. So then if you're going to have her, then you need to go all the way back to season two and have her arrive maybe with Weld or something like that.
00:43:33
Speaker
Oh, I was just going to have her arrive during the traveler arc.
Integrating Side Plots and Maintaining Continuity
00:43:37
Speaker
She's here. And then eventually, however, she naturally gets out in the story anyway, which I think happens. And is it in this? I'd have to, I'd have to go back and you have to go back and look at it. When weld shows back up, she's with him. Yeah, I'd have to, I'd have to. Cause he leads the, the case 50 threes. Right. Oh, I remember that. yeah Yeah. Yeah. She's, she's with him the whole time there. Yeah. Uh, Yeah. Again, I mean, again, it's one of those things where like you, you just have to justify the character being there. So either you introduce her a much sooner so that, you know, she'd make sense that she's present. Yeah. Um, if you're just, if all, if the first time you're seeing her, the audience is seeing her is in a counseling session in the middle of season three, it's not going to work. It'll feel yeah completely out of the blue.
00:44:27
Speaker
I think that that's all I'm saying. i Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think the purpose of keeping her, if I'm just going to make up some justification, would be that what Jessica is doing and um exploring sort of how people would handle case 53s. Like on one hand, we have a bunch of case 53s that are very while inhuman are still in control of their bodies, mostly speaking, the you know ah there's they there's a level of humanity to them where they can walk, talk, they have their own will, their body you know does what they tell it to. um And so how do you deal with somebody who has a case 53 where they are, their body is literally just blown to tendrils. like
00:45:20
Speaker
and they don't have control over it. um And on one hand, we have something that occurred via Cauldron, Sveta, and one we have that occurred via, you know, powers, Victoria. And I think showing that like, this is the kind of people that are around ah Victoria, where she's gone, kind of how monstrous the the range of powers can be Um, and then you get into the more normal types. Clockwalker, Weld, Fachette, Kidwin, Vista, Hydalon. Um, I think it's a good show of just range and like, what does it look like to have a para-human, you know, para-silum? Like we, we've seen, we've seen the prison, which
00:46:12
Speaker
To be fair, I don't feel like the birdcage actually adds all that much to the story.
00:46:21
Speaker
And I think it just answers that question. Where do bad kids go? And I think this would be a great answer to that as well. We're like Marquis really doesn't do anything in this story um other than he is like He exists. That's, that's his whole but purpose in the story. He exists so that Amy can have a father. That's a villain. That's it. And otherwise, you know, he just sort of shows off the bird cage. Um, at the same time, I think, you know, if we're going to justify that, then the equal justification for showing off the para human asylum would be like, here's Sveta. She's, you know, her and Victoria show how monstrous, you know,
00:47:05
Speaker
What, what, what you have to do to be in the asylum, like what the, what the world looks like for dealing with those kinds of issues, just as like, well, what do you do with criminals that are superheroes or superpowered? Yeah. I mean, again, I think you just have to justify just kind of, you just got to figure out how to fit it in. Yeah. Um, I think you literally, you do it as just, uh, you could do this as your cold opener for a lot of these, except for like maybe our 17. Um, just, uh, you know, Jessica going in, cause a lot of these, like her shown at talking with idol on talking with this to talk with kid when flesh out. Well, all of these could be thematically placed with issues. We've already dealt with, you know, uh, Oh no, I liked, I liked the idea of spreading that out. Yeah. I liked that. Um, so, and, and maybe cause I'm trying to think, I don't even think we have that many episodes that we've gone through so far. I think it's like, what?
00:48:03
Speaker
15, 16, or just maybe it's just 16, 17, 18 so far. what What have we done? season yeah three I guess 15, 15, 16, 17, 18, which I'm sure we could cut more episodes out of, but maybe these are just like you do two per episode so far. um Oh, I think, yeah, I think in terms, yeah, we've really talked about how many episodes per season. I think you easily can get 10 episodes out of this. yeah um I think the Noel fight yeah is going to but take a while. That's three episodes, probably. ah Really?
00:48:40
Speaker
I think you stretched that out a good bit. I remember when again, because it again, with action, it's one of those things where when reading it, it reads so much faster than seeing it. I mean, you could literally give, uh, uh, I Dolan and Echidna a 20 minute fight and not blink. And it's, you read it in about three sentences. I see. I was going to say you could, all can you can also do the opposite where I've been reading for 20 pages and that was a five second fight.
00:49:12
Speaker
Yeah, of course, just depends. I think in this case, I think the echidna fight is really like there's a lot going on. You've got all of the clones. They've got a fight. um You I'm just saying not that you have to, but I'm saying you could easily drag this fight out a lot, especially if you want to space in, ah you know, breaths and conversations and moments where they're regrouping. Like you want the fight to be meaty for them to be tired. um you know you you want you want that to take a while so that it's satisfying when you get to the end, especially if this is going to be our big resolution to the season and not coil. like it you You're going to want to drag it out a bit,
00:50:01
Speaker
which is a good thing. i think I think that gives us a lot of room to work with. Yeah. I think more time to slip in your ah slip in your you're cold opens. Yeah. ah let's see Yeah, so let's just, we'll spread those out through the season as they become, I think, chronologically relevant. I just think we have them where you know those issues crop up. um ah Interlude one, most powerful man in the world. I'm okay cutting this. Yeah, um I probably am too. I was thinking a lot about how
00:50:37
Speaker
how you could fit it in, but it's it's really hard to fit in without without just like really messing with the ah pacing of the story. And it's such a, it's such a random bit of world building that just is so disconnected from everything else that's happening. And importantly, really has no bearing on the rest of the story in regards to Zion. Like, um, yeah, I don't, I don't think like at best, at best,
00:51:14
Speaker
Uh, we have like a 20 years ago, you know, there's a cold open 20 years ago, right? Homeless guy watches the gold morning dude touchdown or, uh, yeah, Mr. Gold morning, sign on touchdown. And he like does the whole talking to him. And then like basically says like, go like stop the end bringers, like, you know, save us. And then he takes off. And that's it. I don't think we introduced this new, like the, the woman he passes the power off to, or we either, we just pick one of them. We either start with, I like the idea of the homeless dude personally. I think that's a, I think you fit this in. I think you fit this in whenever we get to talking about, and we're jumping way ahead. And of course we have no idea how we're going to plan this, but just like talking about the entities in general.
Interludes and Character Arcs
00:52:09
Speaker
And how they arrived and interact like you fit this in at that point. That's and it sort of. Yeah, you're right. When you're right, you're right. You're right. Yeah, I agree. I cut cut this here for now. Yeah. um ah Crusader. I like that we get to see Theo again. I do like seeing Theo. I think that part is important. I think.
00:52:38
Speaker
I think we'd have to think about ah a way to maybe tie this in a bit more. I think we bump this to later on. Okay. There's a moment in which Taylor joins, uh, you know, the Chicago wards and I believe Theo is in on that team there. He is. Yeah. After the the time, but he's been, you know, he's been there a while. I think they arrive essentially at the same time. Hmm. um I think that we put the kids capture about the same time as Taylor's.
00:53:18
Speaker
And that way he has been training for a while and the there's definitely a hardened element to him. um And Taylor kind of just takes over the villain bullying slash training him. Yeah, but like he's okay with it. Cause he's like, I understand I've got to do whatever it takes. And when they threw me to the, they left me for the wards, like they knew that was what it took. Yeah. Um, and, and maybe, maybe he's gotten his powers already. Maybe he got his powers, but he really sucks at them or something like that. And they were like, we can't help you, but you know, who's really good with powers, the fucking wards.
00:54:04
Speaker
Right. Um, yeah. So I'm okay bumping that as well, all the way to the twenties. Yeah. um ah We could, we can go back to that for sure. It might be nice to see Theo in the season, um, at one or one point or so, but, um, fine kind of just putting a pin in Theo for a minute and maybe thinking about him a bit more. I mean, we could have just show Theo trying to do stuff and It's sucking. like like it' It's one of those things we're like, and and again, spitballing here, but we we've talked about, and we haven't even really talked about specifics, but we know we want to throw in a couple extra scenes with arms master and dragon or defiant and dragon. We know we want to throw in a couple extra scenes with a fault lines crew who we're going to get to in a minute here.
00:54:56
Speaker
Um, like just to sort of flesh out these other arcs and plot lines that are going on, these, these B and C plots, right? It'd be really easy to probably tie in a bit of Theo into one of those just again, to give him some presence so that, uh, he's, he feels more relevant when he shows up more permanently. Just stuff like that. But yeah, I'm fine either way. Definitely kind of readjusting that, that interlude.
00:55:28
Speaker
And then, uh, speaking of fault line, I love the fault line interview or interview interlude so much, um, yeah really fun interlude. And I think it just needs to be in this season and feels like a bit of a capstone. Like this feels like we've had a couple other scenes in the season, not a lot, two scenes total three, maybe, you know, um, of fault line. ah you know, hunting down cauldron or something like that. Again, putting pieces together. Yeah. And then we capstone with this in like the, you know, one of the last episodes of the season. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, the problem with this is, uh, there's an incident that happens that requires, um, oh that's right. They gotta be there. Right. So they'd be there, but, uh, we could have something that this is called in.
00:56:29
Speaker
earlier, I think. Yeah. Yeah. ah And we could even say like, Oh no, I've got a, you know, that we could have this be an aside to, or an extra credit and credit to the episode in which the underside is like, man, we need more money to
Echidna's Perspective and Thematic Choices
00:56:52
Speaker
do stuff. You know, Lisa says that thing like, Oh, to get dragging off our hands, I need some money to go buy. essentially a tip from the dragon slayers on how to defeat dragon, yeah and you know, coils like how much is that going to cost? And she he's like, do whatever it takes. And she made maybe does that, but she also takes some of that money and just goes, Hey, calls up what's her face and goes, Hey, I've come into a great deal of money. I can afford it. Like name your price. Yeah. Yeah. You know,
00:57:21
Speaker
I like them exploring Madison, Wisconsin after we've seen that and the travelers interlude, you know, um, stuff like that's going to be good stuff. Like I don't want to really want to change any of that. I like all of that. Yeah. um Um, do we, here's the thing. Do we want to have Contessa, uh, there? Yeah. Okay. I think so. And there's two ways you could do it, of course. One, um you don't show, like like it's written, you don't show her kicking their ass and you just leave that as a bit of a mystery. Or two. That's pretty good. i Which I kind of lean towards that. I think that works well. Yeah. But we do see Contessa often much later on and we do see her in action. So it wouldn't be
00:58:14
Speaker
crazy to show her in action. And it would be a fun scene to show. um And just see her, the like just easily dispatching characters we've come to know and love. Yeah. Very, very easily. I like the idea of her not being shown. It builds tension. I do like that. Technically, we've already seen her all the way back in our version where she Potentially was the one to trigger a lung. Whether we show that or not. Oh, right. Whether we choose to show that. Right. Right. I forgot if we even included that part in our, I don't, I don't think we did, but I forgot about that. Yeah, we didn't show
Ensuring Narrative Cohesion and Pacing
00:58:57
Speaker
his trigger event. um
00:59:00
Speaker
ah Yeah. But no, I think that stands as is. I think that goes as maybe a cold opener um to an episode. Yeah. Like it worked pretty well. Maybe, maybe a little earlier on. um Last one, Echidna. Yeah, I mean, this is just the fight scene. We just get it from Echidna's perspective. The one thing I really like about this interlude is that it's really the death of Noelle and it's like where she lets Echidna take over pretty much permanently. um And that's really hard to show.
00:59:43
Speaker
I think, I think you have her have a conversation with Taylor, I think where Taylor and her have a face off after the idol on face off. And essentially she goes, yeah, you got me. But like you, what you don't understand is like, I will give up everything myself included. If it means fucking you guys over. she closes her eyes and when she opens, like they're glowing and they're like, you know, no, like, you know, there is no Noel, there's only Zool. Right. yeah Right. Um, you know, and, and she can even give her like little monologue, like it's constantly like eating at me at once to, you know, it wants to consume me at once to take over. And I'm afraid that like, if I let it go, you know, it'll eat all of me, but
01:00:41
Speaker
If that means killing you guys, then like, I am all in on that. Yeah. And Taylor's like, fuck. And, you know, she's like, well, you know, next time, you know, you know, goodbye. Like, I hope, you know, hope, hope you all fucking die. And then closes her eyes, opens them and they're like glowing red. and and Yeah. Yeah. I think that works. I think that works pretty well.
01:01:05
Speaker
Uh, I think that wraps it up. I don't feel like there's a whole lot else to this. I feel like this is another action. Pretty straightforward. Pretty clear cut. Again, I i think um ah think these these couple arcs with the Echidna fight are fairly simple for the most part, yeah which i'll find I'm fine.
Podcast Wrap-up and Audience Engagement
01:01:25
Speaker
That's the deep breath before the plunge where we get to the ah time skip and a couple arcs. so yeah I do think this goes to show the fact that we have done I would say an arguably a way less editing than we did before goes to show that for the most part, I think while those pacing and, um, all the issues we have been feeling like we needed to fix have become more macro scale instead of micro scale. Yeah. Um, yeah. So I don't feel like there's late a whole lot to work out here.
01:02:03
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, it's nice. I feel like he's really innocent of the first couple arcs. Yeah. I feel like you, you know, if thinking in just regards of like pacing, I feel like he's finally hit his stride with the travelers, which, you know, is a literally like, I think, did we say like the 50% mark? So, um, and I'm thinking ahead and I feel like, uh, yeah, once you get past coil, I feel like a lot of it is just, Very, I think there's some slower sections that are, you know, trans transitional that might be a little off, but overall I think most of these arcs are probably going to be pretty like, ah, yep. And then that happens next point, you know? Yeah, exactly. ah Exactly. That's a good hour. I think it's solid. Well, we said it, uh, said it a little bit ago. We'll say it again.
01:03:00
Speaker
Where did we, where do we mess up? Let us know. How would you do things differently? How would you restrict your how would you do things differently? Yeah. Let us know. Give us a call. Leave us a comment. Reach out to us. We, uh, we love to read all of the good feedback and ideas people have had. So ah keep it coming. This has been a lot of fun. Ark 19, next episode for Dissecting Worm. And of course, stick around for the ah Brockton Bay Book Club's reading of Ark 19 as well. Ark 19 will finish the echidna fight. And I'm pretty sure finished season three, hypothetical season three here.
01:03:37
Speaker
I think we kind of looking at that as being the the dividing point there. So that'll be a lot of fun. And we'll put the bow on that. And then of course we'll have a season three wrap up as we've been doing. So stick around for that. That's going to be a lot of fun as well. Any final notes? Uh, we want to give him any shout out to our Patreons. Always got to give a shout out to the Patreons. Shout out to all of our Patreons. Yes. Thank you so much. We're recording this in the future, so I'm afraid if I start to name names and then there's- Yeah, we'll have to name them, but you know who you are and we we appreciate you. Reach out to us, 980-999-0438. You can leave a voicemail. Let us know your thoughts on all the many things we've said. And of course, until next time, take that, you worms.
01:04:31
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. Read along with us at parahumans dot.wordpress dot.com. We'd love to hear your thoughts. What did you love? What did you hate? Anything you think we missed, etc. as long as it's kind. If you'd like to get in touch, you can find us on Twitter, threads, Instagram, TikTok, and Reddit at Brockton Bay, B.C. or click the link in the description.