Transcript
Speaker: That's what the lifts in his shoes actually are.
Speaker: Is they like injected into him?
Speaker: It's injected into his heel.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So every time he takes a step, there's a needle that goes up into his heel and injects him with pure, pure evil.
Speaker: Just, yeah.
Speaker: Just so he, you know, is constantly getting a nice pipeline directly into his veins of evil.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That really is the best way for him to go about it.
Speaker: If we're being honest.
Speaker: It is the best way to go about it.
Speaker: You know what else is the best way to go about it?
Speaker: What's that?
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me as always is Phil.
Speaker: And on today's show, we're talking about Five Nights at Freddy's, the fourth closet.
Speaker: That's the fourth closet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The fourth closet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: By Kira Breed-Riesley, who I am trying to find out information on her cancer treatment, but I can't.
Speaker: She's still sick from everything I could find, but there's been, it's like kind of, in my opinion, it looks like a no news, good news kind of situation.
Speaker: Yeah, there's nothing like popping up in the, aside from that she had cancer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah.
Speaker: And as we said last time we read one of her books, whatever we think about the book, cancer fucking sucks.
Speaker: And and, you know, so there will be no shade in that direction at all.
Speaker: And frankly, after the last book, which shocked the hell out of us at how much we actually enjoyed it.
Speaker: Yeah, the second book was much better than the first.
Speaker: Still not great, but.
Speaker: Markably better.
Speaker: Not amazing, but way better.
Speaker: I'll just say so far, it seems like the series which ends with this book is it somehow improved every.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Every book from what we've read so far.
Speaker: I've never heard of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I've never heard of that.
Speaker: I've never, I've never, and maybe, maybe there's an obvious one out there, but I've never, I can't think of a trilogy that got better as it went along.
Speaker: It's usually the opposite direction.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, so, and so far this one's pretty good.
Speaker: It's this one's Cracker Jack.
Speaker: I'll say I'll say that it's Cracker Jack.
Speaker: Do people say still say that?
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: No, that one.
Speaker: I you.
Speaker: But you just do you, baby.
Speaker: You just be.
Speaker: That's all that's required.
Speaker: You know what else I'll do.
Speaker: I'll do Patreon dot com slash Pixelit Pod.
Speaker: Go to patreon.com slash pixelipod.
Speaker: You can go there and sign up for free to read our posts and get early access to the episodes.
Speaker: One dollar gets you in the door for Phil's blog.
Speaker: $5 gets you the ad-free episodes and the bonus episode before every episode that we record.
Speaker: And $10 gets your name read out every week without fail.
Speaker: And to that end.
Speaker: I want to thank Jesus loves you, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, and Friendly Friends.
Speaker: Thank you for being a friend.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So this book seems to be loosely, loosely, loosely, like each book was kind of loosely based on one of the Five Nights at Freddy's games.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: This one is very loosely based on Five Nights at Freddy's sister location.
Speaker: from what I can gather.
Speaker: And that's because there is references to circus baby who is in that one.
Speaker: And yeah, so it's probably the one I played the most to.
Speaker: I remember watching you play that on stream.
Speaker: I think I actually enjoyed that one despite how how much it fucked with me.
Speaker: It had a lot more mini games, like a lot more different segments that you had to do.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: There was a lot more going on rather than the same thing over and over again, which I'm big on.
Speaker: To the point that they released another Five Nights at Freddy's game, which I don't think Cawthon actually designed.
Speaker: It might be the first time it's happened.
Speaker: And it appears to be like an adventure kind of game.
Speaker: And I'm honestly intrigued just because it's a it's a new thing.
Speaker: I've never seen this before, so that's kind of cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Let me see where it is.
Speaker: I find it.
Speaker: It came out this year.
Speaker: And what's funny is I've heard very little about it, but it's got great.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm looking at which is no surprise because I'm trying to figure out what are the actual canon games and what are the actual.
Speaker: Into the pit.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Into the pit.
Speaker: It's got a pixel graphic style, which is pretty sharp.
Speaker: It's like an adventure.
Speaker: kind of vibe to it.
Speaker: It honestly, it gives me, it's giving me a little bit of maniac mansion shit.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: It's, it's pretty interesting.
Speaker: And for 20 bucks, I might, I might roll those dice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Developer is mega cat studios.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, Indy, Indy company.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: They're based out of Pittsburgh.
Speaker: Oh, well, there you go.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: That's the final nail on the coffin that I needed.
Speaker: Oh, gosh.
Speaker: Very interesting.
Speaker: So, yeah, this is just it just they just keep making these fucking games.
Speaker: They're never going to stop between the canon games and the fan games.
Speaker: Like there is a new I feel like every time I go through my Steam queue when I'm when I the Discovery queue.
Speaker: maybe one out of every two trips through the queue, I see something that is a Five Nights at Freddy's fan game that just uses Five Nights at Freddy's stuff.
Speaker: And what's interesting is that it's kind of a neat thing.
Speaker: And here's the thing.
Speaker: Scott Cough and by and large can fuck off.
Speaker: But it's a neat thing that
Speaker: the characters seemingly just can be used in these fan games without any sort of repercussion.
Speaker: And it's kind of grown the fan.
Speaker: I think that's part of what helped the fan base grow is being able to.
Speaker: It's kind of fun.
Speaker: fucking excellent.
Speaker: It's like it's such a like he he's not trying to the dudes like I am rich beyond my wildest dreams.
Speaker: Why am I going to fuck with these kids who want to make fan games?
Speaker: It's only going to make things better for me.
Speaker: And and look at all the cool shit they're making.
Speaker: Like it's as much of a heel as he can be in this personal life.
Speaker: You know, you look at that and you're like, that is awfully forward thinking and mature.
Speaker: And to be clear, we don't have any information as to how he acts as a person aside from what he supports.
Speaker: And he supports taking away bodily autonomy rights from women.
Speaker: You know, things like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we're big on that.
Speaker: We're big on that.
Speaker: We're big on Bali autonomy over here.
Speaker: We're both married to women.
Speaker: And it's... Yeah.
Speaker: You know, call it a selfish self-interest kind of situation.
Speaker: But I really like when my wife is a human being.
Speaker: Yeah, I like it.
Speaker: I like it when people who are not child bearers...
Speaker: aren't making those decisions.
Speaker: Like, yeah, I'm big on that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, we, we, we don't know a lot, but we know enough.
Speaker: We know enough.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that he, and he donated to Ted Cruz and like, that's, that's, that's plenty.
Speaker: That's, that's plenty.
Speaker: Ted Cruz.
Speaker: The most unlikable it's it's so weird.
Speaker: And maybe maybe I don't I don't know how much I actually mean this, but there's a part of me that's like I could actually I would understand someone donating to Trump more than I would understand them donating to.
Speaker: No, same same.
Speaker: And like I for somehow I that like I could it makes more sense to me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You can be like, okay, I can see where he may have.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So Donald Trump for as much of a monster as he is, has, has a charisma about the way he does things that attracts people regardless of the fact that he is a literal human shit stain.
Speaker: Oh yes.
Speaker: Ted Cruz believes all the same things Donald Trump does and
Speaker: And has negative charisma.
Speaker: None of it.
Speaker: None of that.
Speaker: None of it.
Speaker: And as the great Al Franken, and I wish Al Franken was still in the Senate, as Al Franken once said, I like Ted Cruz more than the rest of my colleagues do.
Speaker: And I hate Ted Cruz.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: He's not liked by people in his own party.
Speaker: He is just not.
Speaker: And so, yeah, so that if you're giving that dude money, I don't I don't even I've known I know Republicans who I'm related to who someone has brought up Ted Cruz and they'll kind of wrinkle their nose and go, oh, I don't I don't really like him.
Speaker: It's it doesn't matter that he's on your side.
Speaker: He's a creep.
Speaker: He's a creep.
Speaker: I can respect that.
Speaker: So giving money to him is, well, it's completely unrespectable.
Speaker: I can't respect that.
Speaker: You know what I can respect, though?
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Putting the body in the marsh.
Speaker: Ooh, let's marsh the body.
Speaker: Let's marsh the hell out of this body.
Speaker: I love that plan.
Speaker: That is a good plan.
Speaker: When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them in
Speaker: In the mind.
Speaker: Gettleson.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So we start out with chapter one kind of pulling a flashback kind of situation.
Speaker: The second book, for those of you who don't remember, ended with Charlie getting caught in a, what do they call it?
Speaker: The spring spring.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Spring.
Speaker: Inside a spring trap, I think.
Speaker: The spring trap suit, maybe?
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And then everything comes collapsing down on him.
Speaker: And the idea is that she goes the same way as an incestuous Lannister, buried under a bunch of rubble.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's the idea.
Speaker: So we're reliving that.
Speaker: Our main character for this one, Jon, because Charlie has been our protagonist for
Speaker: in the first two books.
Speaker: But this book will be following mostly John, which is interesting change.
Speaker: Makes sense, though.
Speaker: So he's trying to dig up Charlie from the rubble after this big explosion.
Speaker: She whispers his name and they both collapse into this underground room.
Speaker: He finds he sees a door with an animatronic figure on the other side, starts hearing piercing laughter.
Speaker: And then wakes up from what is a nightmare.
Speaker: And he has been sleeping with his TV on and there's some clown show or something like, like with a clown laughing hysterically.
Speaker: And that's where that was coming from.
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: Was it the news report about the clown people?
Speaker: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker: And it's actually good writing because at this point, we don't know what that is.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: There is just a clown on the TV, but we kind of are gradually pulling out a thread of what is going on in the background, which is absolutely unhinged, the stuff that's happening in the background.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: is nuts this compared to the last two this one is i feel like i feel like kira must have been just let off the chain at some point with this and they were just like just go have girl have fun yeah uh and if that's the case then good for kira um so john wakes up he has to go to work he works in construction site uh his co-workers ask him to come out with them after work and he kind of begs off he's very antisocial um
Speaker: He's also being criticized by the foreman for being distracted all the time, who basically threatens him.
Speaker: So if you know that which is correct, he says, you know, like this is an active construction site.
Speaker: If you're not paying attention, people could die, which is absolutely the case.
Speaker: So he says, basically, if you can't get it together, I'm going to have to let you go.
Speaker: One of the coworkers kind of offhandedly mentions a creepy new kids restaurant that he doesn't want to go to.
Speaker: That's why he wants to go out with his friends because otherwise he has to take his kid to his creepy new restaurant.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, uh,
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So John, John ends up just leaving ultimately in the end.
Speaker: And I like this.
Speaker: I like the perspective of John here where he has this thought and it's as somebody who has had been friends with extremely extroverted people, but also tried to balance the fact that I don't.
Speaker: I just don't necessarily want to.
Speaker: Yes, this thought process I've had before where it's like, well, eventually if I don't do anything, they're going to stop asking.
Speaker: And I don't want them to stop asking.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: This is the most relatable John has ever been, in my opinion.
Speaker: I don't.
Speaker: Everything you just described has run through my head on a very regular basis.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like you got to give the baby its bottle every now and then if you don't want people to just completely give up on you.
Speaker: It's like, I don't want to go out with you, but I don't want you to give up on me.
Speaker: I don't know why that's so depressing.
Speaker: Please keep asking me, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I just liked that.
Speaker: You thinking about me, he doesn't seem to have that, that same issue though.
Speaker: He heads home.
Speaker: He's got, he's got, you know, you've heard of a cigarette mom.
Speaker: He's got a cigarette landlord, a cigarette landlady.
Speaker: You can, you can just hear, uh,
Speaker: The tar, the decades of tar that have built up in her lungs as she criticizes him for living there for too long, which is kind of hilarious.
Speaker: And you'd think she'd be happy to have this long term tenant.
Speaker: But she points out that people who typically move there, especially young people, they tend to find something better.
Speaker: They find a partner or something and they move on.
Speaker: This is a way station.
Speaker: You stop here.
Speaker: And then you move on.
Speaker: And then you move on, which takes, I admire anybody who is like a way, as you said, a way station and knows that.
Speaker: She's accepted that.
Speaker: She's like, no, no, no.
Speaker: I don't have a nice business here.
Speaker: And she also acknowledges that like anybody who would willingly stay here for too long, there's got to be something wrong with what's going on here.
Speaker: Something's up.
Speaker: By the way, in my head, she was played by Anne Ramsey.
Speaker: Mama Fratelli.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: No, that's that's perfect.
Speaker: That woman needed more work.
Speaker: And this might as well have been it.
Speaker: He heads back into his apartment.
Speaker: He he chats with a toy rabbit's head.
Speaker: Theodore, I believe its name is.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: He was one of the animatronics from before.
Speaker: He's just got the head now.
Speaker: And he chats with it on a regular basis.
Speaker: And John is good and normal and fine.
Speaker: Uh, and then, and then promptly falls asleep watching TV in his chair.
Speaker: And, uh, basically they have described, uh, uh, my life in my early thirties, uh, late twenties, early thirties.
Speaker: I come home from work.
Speaker: I talk to something that can't possibly talk back to me and I fall asleep in the chair, wake up the next day, do it over again, which in some cases was just Lee and he was, you know, stoned.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: add in more gin and you've got the exact same thing.
Speaker: I think that's now I get this because this is meant to be for a younger audience, but I think the least realistic aspect of this is that John is not a full blown alcoholic.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So it, and also in terms of timeline, I don't know.
Speaker: I can't remember if it's established quite yet, but it's been a year.
Speaker: It's been like one year since that night where everything kind of fell apart, fell apart.
Speaker: So he ends up,
Speaker: walking, like just wandering the streets at some point.
Speaker: And Jessica, our bubbly kind of cheerleader ish kind of character, uh, the popular girl, you know, she finds him wandering in her car, uh, and like stops and kind of tries to encourage.
Speaker: She does basically the same thing as coworkers did.
Speaker: Like you should come out and hang out.
Speaker: She says she misses him.
Speaker: And she says that Carlton who has been away at school, um, um,
Speaker: is coming back and all the old gang is going to get back together and you want to come hang out with us.
Speaker: And that and that besides you need to talk to her.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Which which, of course, is Charlie.
Speaker: And the issue is, as we found out in the very last pages of the second book, is that he does not believe because after this horrific death, apparently he believes that this is not Charlie.
Speaker: This is not Charlie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because in the last pages of book two, there is a scene where Charlie comes to a diner and John's like, that's not her.
Speaker: That's not her.
Speaker: And that is now carried over into book three where he's like, no, it's not her.
Speaker: And Jessica is like, you know, you're really making her feel bad every time you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: He's been doing this for a year.
Speaker: He's avoided her for a year.
Speaker: They were once really close, darn close to romance.
Speaker: And now he can't even look her in the eye anymore and will not spend time with her.
Speaker: And so the story goes that she's upset about it.
Speaker: But who knows?
Speaker: That sounds like something an animatronic might say.
Speaker: And that's chapter one.
Speaker: Uh, chapter two, we start out in a scrap yard, uh, where a, another cigarette landlady, uh, no, no, sorry.
Speaker: This is, this is just, uh, just this mysterious woman interacts with Bob who might be the cigarette landlady's husband for all we know.
Speaker: Um, he's a security guard, uh, at a junkyard and you just go ahead and take five seconds to picture that in your head.
Speaker: And you're correct.
Speaker: Um, she tells him that she's looking for a specific load that dropped off in the junkyard.
Speaker: And he correctly says, that's not really how it works.
Speaker: We don't really keep track of all this shit.
Speaker: Uh, I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker: And so she says that, but she starts talking about his the previous night stuff that she couldn't possibly know, says that she knows that he ran to the rescue of what he thought was some kid out there who needed his help, but there was nothing.
Speaker: And he's kind of spellbound by this information.
Speaker: She couldn't possibly know this.
Speaker: He really hurt himself doing all this stuff.
Speaker: In fact, he's covered in bandages from the waist down, I believe.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And the section of this chapter ends with her saying, I want you to show me where she was, where that was.
Speaker: And she does this.
Speaker: She kind of like is standing over him and it's real fucking sexy.
Speaker: It's very mommy.
Speaker: It's very Lady Dimitrescu.
Speaker: I was going to say Lady Dimitrescu.
Speaker: I don't know why, but the entire scene gives lady.
Speaker: I haven't, I haven't played that game in a while.
Speaker: And I, that, that woman will never shake for my head.
Speaker: That's all there is to it.
Speaker: She's because, because,
Speaker: Oh, sorry.
Speaker: Monitor just went crazy.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: So we cut to John at the construction site.
Speaker: He pulls in.
Speaker: He is late and he is fired.
Speaker: And that's that.
Speaker: He kind of tries to defend himself and he's like, I'm not late.
Speaker: Well, I'm not that late.
Speaker: You know, it's just like, no.
Speaker: And the guy's like, yeah, come on, man.
Speaker: I can't do this anymore.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We can't just come on, dude.
Speaker: Like it seems.
Speaker: reasonable enough.
Speaker: I think he starts now that he's got all this free time, I guess he starts considering that he's going to go to the party that Jessica mentioned.
Speaker: And he spends a lot of time considering the fact that he has no idea what happened to Charlie and actually hoping that he's wrong about all of this, that, that, that she's not, you know,
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: I mean, why?
Speaker: Like, it's one of those things where it's like, well, I don't hope that I'm right, that she is not her, like that she is an imposter.
Speaker: She is a pod person or something like that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which you would think at this point, especially it's like, well, I'm going to see her.
Speaker: I don't want to automatically go in there hot thinking the worst.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's chapter two.
Speaker: Chapter three, we open with John going to the party and it's at Clay's house.
Speaker: Carlton's dad, who is like the sheriff or the chief police.
Speaker: He's one of those guys.
Speaker: And he is...
Speaker: pure divorce dad mode or actually, you know what?
Speaker: I'm going to actually they do make a point of saying he is post divorce dad mode.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That his wife left a while back.
Speaker: And for a while there, he was in a world of shit, basically doing the whole sleeping on a bare mattress kind of thing.
Speaker: And now he has actually gotten it together and the house looks pretty good.
Speaker: There's a lot of commentary on like, OK, he pulled out of that tailspin.
Speaker: We're all very pleased.
Speaker: Yeah, he's he is great.
Speaker: Very John's greeted very warmly.
Speaker: Everyone's really happy to see him.
Speaker: We've got Carlton there, Marla there, Jessica and Carlton has become a theater major to no surprise of anyone.
Speaker: He was always the mouth character.
Speaker: And they even make a point of saying that he's because he's in New York now and he's he's been trying to speak with a Brooklyn accent.
Speaker: See if anyone.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: Lamar is not there.
Speaker: And I think, I think at some point our author was like, we got too many characters.
Speaker: So they even make it.
Speaker: I don't even remember them referencing him.
Speaker: They just say he's not there.
Speaker: It's like she says that Jessica talked to him on the phone and said, you should come.
Speaker: Are you going to come back to Hurricane for because that's the name of the town for this party?
Speaker: And and again, I'm on Lamar's side here.
Speaker: Lamar says, fuck that town.
Speaker: I'm never coming.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: I remember y'all should leave, too.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And he can't argue with that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he isn't there and he will not be much like the little brother character who was also not there.
Speaker: But who wasn't there in the second book?
Speaker: Another one that we just kind of.
Speaker: The book does itself a favor by trimming off.
Speaker: just about every, like, if they didn't have, if they weren't really core to the plot anymore, they were just trimmed off.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And at this point, I don't mind saying the first third of the book, we're mostly dealing with John and Jessica, even Carlton and Marla who are here are not in it that much.
Speaker: So we're focusing down.
Speaker: It's John, Jessica and Carlton's dad, basically.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The former Clay, the former police chief, basically.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So those are those are kind of our main people.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Clay looks good.
Speaker: The whole place looks good.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There was a, so Clay kind of tries to give a pet talk, pep talk.
Speaker: Like, Hey, you know, you can do this and everything's going to be all right.
Speaker: And, and, and that kind of thing.
Speaker: And it's nice, but also kind of uncomfortable because John, John responds to the pep talk.
Speaker: Like, you're right.
Speaker: I don't want to do this and fucking leave.
Speaker: It fucking leaves, which is,
Speaker: I don't think we, I don't, most of us cannot lay claim to a pep talk ever being so successful so quickly.
Speaker: So he does run into Charlie.
Speaker: Charlie shows up.
Speaker: She's doing a whole new thing.
Speaker: Like her hair is different.
Speaker: Her style is different.
Speaker: And it's just another thing that kind of putting him off.
Speaker: So she says she wants to meet.
Speaker: And he does.
Speaker: And he does the he does the standard like it's like, well, why don't we meet at that one place we always met?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, like something that if she was a clone, she couldn't possibly know this.
Speaker: But she correctly assumes that he means the restaurant they would always.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And also, but he also says, do you remember what I asked you?
Speaker: Or is this the next scene?
Speaker: Does he say this?
Speaker: I think he brings it up here, but it does.
Speaker: What did I say to you before?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What was the last thing I said to you that night?
Speaker: She can't she can't say.
Speaker: But you can see and it's it's a it's a very good show.
Speaker: Don't tell where John is clearly saying things to her.
Speaker: cryptically enough to try to like test her.
Speaker: Like, yes, yes.
Speaker: And this is not the last time he does this.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's, it's pretty consistent.
Speaker: He says he has this great line where he basically says those weren't her eyes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like, he's just seeing someone else there.
Speaker: Charlie is heartbroken at his reaction.
Speaker: He's so cold and standoffish and, and just, just, she's not, she's not used to this side of him, basically.
Speaker: And then at the end of the scene, he says, you're in a desert walking along.
Speaker: You look down and see a tortoise that's crawling towards you.
Speaker: You flip.
Speaker: You reach down and flip it over onto its back.
Speaker: I am here.
Speaker: Uh-oh.
Speaker: Speaking of tiny creatures.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: It's poo.
Speaker: Oh, bother.
Speaker: Oh, poo.
Speaker: Oh, that's the poo.
Speaker: People, the people in the audio version of this are going to be very confused.
Speaker: It's Winnie the Pooh's.
Speaker: Well, it's this Pooh's birthday.
Speaker: Oh, happy birthday, Pooh.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's nothing quite like a birthday Pooh.
Speaker: Everyone likes it.
Speaker: Everybody loves a birthday Pooh.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The Pooh where you feel most alive.
Speaker: I choose not to explain any of that.
Speaker: No, don't.
Speaker: You don't have to.
Speaker: I don't think I need to.
Speaker: This podcast is just going to be about poo.
Speaker: We're doing a hard swivel, people, from here on out.
Speaker: Poo-lit.
Speaker: Whoa, poo-lit.
Speaker: I actually kind of like that.
Speaker: I do like that, too.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A podcast about books you read on the toilet.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I'm just going to leave poo-wake.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Actually, you should probably take him because I move around a lot.
Speaker: Plus, he's yours.
Speaker: Okay, thank you.
Speaker: She...
Speaker: Dude, you know, she installed a mic in that thing, right?
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: Conspicuously there.
Speaker: Where was it?
Speaker: Oh, Blade Runner joke.
Speaker: Anyway, continue.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: So Charlie has she we do get a little bit of Charlie POV here, and she's kind of freaking out because she doesn't know what.
Speaker: he was talking about.
Speaker: She doesn't remember that.
Speaker: She talks about her having this really hazy memory.
Speaker: And we do get this line where she says it does feel like she died in that moment, which is a really interesting line.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's chapter two.
Speaker: Chapter three opens up with two figures watching a series of animatronics.
Speaker: It's an old man, and he basically starts messing with the innards of one of them, like Frankenstein style.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a real weird scene.
Speaker: It's real weird.
Speaker: It's real rough.
Speaker: They're melting one down and they're pulling its molten innards out with syringes and injecting it into other stuff.
Speaker: It's real.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And you can't really put your finger on what the hell any of this is supposed to accomplish.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He says very cryptically that eventually the other animatronics will become more like his assistant.
Speaker: And we get kind of a glimpse at her and you realize that his assistant isn't quite human.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But apparently she is...
Speaker: More.
Speaker: More.
Speaker: More.
Speaker: More than human?
Speaker: More.
Speaker: More human than human.
Speaker: We cut to John back at home.
Speaker: He starts hearing this sound.
Speaker: It's described as this, like...
Speaker: Droning kind of low metallic sound.
Speaker: And he's trying to figure out where it's coming from.
Speaker: And he realizes it's coming from inside the toy rabbit's head.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is totally normal and good.
Speaker: Very normal.
Speaker: Very good stuff.
Speaker: Very good stuff.
Speaker: There's no reason to throw that thing away at all.
Speaker: So he finds a journal that he'd been keeping where he is just filled with.
Speaker: it's hard to call it a journal.
Speaker: It's like a research thing where he's basically filled it with all of the facts that he knows about Charlie.
Speaker: And he's kind of ashamed to, to admit that he doesn't, he doesn't really know all that, all that much specific about what happened.
Speaker: It's all very speculative.
Speaker: He is surprised at how little he actually knows about her.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: From their childhood, from when he reunited with her a couple years ago, and also prior to that.
Speaker: They've only known each other for real brief windows, and within those windows, he has not gotten a real clean look as to...
Speaker: Who the hell is she?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which, which, you know, I, I hadn't thought about, right.
Speaker: It's, it's true.
Speaker: He doesn't know that much about her.
Speaker: Uh, we get little childhood memories of the two of them and including a moment where, uh, uh,
Speaker: She was trying to give Charlie back his gum when they were kids, like his chewed up gum, trying to force it back into his mouth.
Speaker: Just adorable.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Totally normal and good.
Speaker: Totally normal.
Speaker: He starts to wonder if this isn't Charlie, who the heck is it?
Speaker: And he starts to wonder about Sam, who was Charlie's twin, who has died slash disappeared.
Speaker: Uh, from childhood.
Speaker: And he had always assumed that Sam was a boy based on the name, but Sam could be a girl's name too.
Speaker: So maybe what we're dealing with is a twin here.
Speaker: So he's, he's, he's Q and on the fuck.
Speaker: He is really pulling on threads.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: And here's the, the, the wild thing is like, even as, as the book progresses, like a lot of these things are just fucking him just taking shots in the dark.
Speaker: Oh, it's true.
Speaker: Because she has no clue what could be going on.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This would be a really bad adventure game because it's like, it's so much guesswork.
Speaker: Like normally there's like, it's just going to be a clean pattern that you get this thing and get this thing.
Speaker: No, this is way more realistic.
Speaker: It's like use fish with rubber stamp.
Speaker: Well, yeah, it might be like the disc world point and click game to be fair.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: So this is another time that I really related with John.
Speaker: The next day he wakes up and goes, holy shit, I'm late for work.
Speaker: Oh, wait.
Speaker: I 100% had that happen to me on multiple occasions where I was like, oh, shit.
Speaker: Oh, no, they fired me.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Clay shows up at his place to check on him again, which I'm just like stranger danger.
Speaker: But then they're not they're not children anymore.
Speaker: They're not children anymore.
Speaker: They are full, full ass adults.
Speaker: Not half-ass adults, which are what children are.
Speaker: Full-ass adults.
Speaker: Full-ass adults.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: But he does have a purpose beyond that.
Speaker: He basically says that he wants to – he knows that he's going to be meeting up with Charlie.
Speaker: And he's trying to kind of like get him to ask her – get some information from her about her aunt.
Speaker: because there's like some interesting information that he's getting that connects back to her aunt, Jen.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That he just like, you know, if you think about it, you can just ask about that.
Speaker: Just ask about Aunt Jen because Clay is like, it's Clay is kind of basically in the same spot as John.
Speaker: He's also doing guesswork.
Speaker: He's an adult who is a former detective who can, you know,
Speaker: put things together a little bit better.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's he at least has some training in this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a little further along than John or John's like John's like identical twin.
Speaker: And he's like, no, what about Aunt Jen?
Speaker: Because she's weird.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because she's she's weird.
Speaker: And she's a person we could actually talk to.
Speaker: Um, he, he kind of alludes to scary stuff that he saw in the family compound, uh, and basically makes it clear that he thinks that Afton slash spring trap, uh, is still alive, uh, and, and starting some shit.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: At this point, the rabbit head Theodore starts going nuts.
Speaker: It's making horrible, grindy sounds.
Speaker: And then just kind of stops, which, again, it's totally normal after that to just keep something like that and not throw it away.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like it's a good thing I didn't have more agency as a kid, because the moment that that Teddy Ruckspin woke me up with some sort of like
Speaker: battery, low message, like freaking out kind of thing.
Speaker: I would have thrown it in the fucking garbage.
Speaker: There was a, so the thing that always, I lived in a pretty old house when I was not European old, American old, which is built in 1890 or no 1884.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So, and I remember in the basement, I,
Speaker: And at some point, one of the owners had installed a like a bottle opener on on one of the wooden beams in the basement.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like the little kind of.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, get your, you know, pop open a beer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it was this terrifying looking Cyclops.
Speaker: Like demon headed cyclops.
Speaker: And every time I passed by it, you know, I would be, I would be terrified.
Speaker: Uh, it was, it was next to a poster, a height measurement poster of Dr. Julius Irving, Dr. J. Um,
Speaker: This basement also had a pit in it, just like a hole that went down.
Speaker: I can't remember exactly what it was for.
Speaker: Probably coal.
Speaker: You kept coal in it or something like that.
Speaker: Stored something in there.
Speaker: It stored something.
Speaker: But I never saw the bottom of it.
Speaker: It was like you opened it up and then it was just black going down.
Speaker: And you're like, oh, yeah.
Speaker: Well, well, I'm not going to die there.
Speaker: There's also a room that was always locked that my for the real reason it was locked.
Speaker: It's because my dad would keep cans of paint in there and he just didn't want us getting into the fucking cans of paint.
Speaker: But the bottomless pit room was not locked is what you're saying.
Speaker: The bottomless pit was not locked.
Speaker: You had access to that any time.
Speaker: But the paint room, paint, the paint, the paint room was locked.
Speaker: And before I knew it was in there, my brother would always tell me that that is where dad kept the bodies of his first family.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Which is, you know, that's just being a good older brother.
Speaker: And then at that point, he would run past me and up the stairs, turn the light off and lock the door to the basement.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: This is all sounding this.
Speaker: This all tracks.
Speaker: This as an older brother, this all sounds very normal.
Speaker: Sounds normal.
Speaker: Normally.
Speaker: We never grew up in a place that had a fucking pit, though.
Speaker: We had a basement and a pit.
Speaker: My brother, I would have been like, we're going to investigate.
Speaker: Get the we're going into the pit.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: I mean, it was probably only like six feet deep, but the fact that it was, it's, you know, it's dark in the basement.
Speaker: So you can't see into.
Speaker: And everything's so much bigger when you're that age.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: When you're a kid.
Speaker: The holes are deeper.
Speaker: The holes are deeper.
Speaker: I mean, sure.
Speaker: If I, you know, went back to that house now, I'd be like, oh, okay.
Speaker: Well, that's really not that bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's not that bad.
Speaker: That's how I am with all of my German childhood memories.
Speaker: Germany was such a terrifying place to grow up as an American kid with no context.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And only a limited understanding of the language.
Speaker: And then when you went back as an adult, it was still terrifying.
Speaker: It was still terrifying.
Speaker: But I like it.
Speaker: But now I'm like, oh, but this is fun.
Speaker: I'm enjoying myself.
Speaker: This is great.
Speaker: Yeah, that's so.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Uh, let's see, where are we?
Speaker: Oh, horrible sounds coming from the horrible sounds from the rabbit sounds.
Speaker: Um, so John, uh, heads to the restaurant to see Charlie, uh, their old movie theater.
Speaker: Uh, he passes by what, what used to be their old movie theater.
Speaker: It has been replaced by, Oh, excuse me.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: shouldn't yawn right before this, cause it's giving it the wrong impression, but, uh, uh, their old movie theater has been replaced by circus babies pizza, uh, which there are no normal P I imagine that even like your standard ass mom and pop Italian restaurant pizza shop in this universe, uh, has dead people in the closet or something like that.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Uh, like that's, there's just no, there's no pure and good pizza in this world.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: And then when you add in clowns, which of course this place has, and he goes in and it's just covered in clowns.
Speaker: It's like an insane acid trip.
Speaker: Chuck E. Cheese.
Speaker: It's like an insane clown posse.
Speaker: Oh, no, it couldn't be that.
Speaker: That's just not a thing.
Speaker: That's not a thing, really.
Speaker: No, no, it's like it's I'm not even going to I'm not even going to dignify it with Chuck E. Cheese.
Speaker: This is an this is an acid infused showbiz pizza.
Speaker: It is absolutely insane.
Speaker: He is again, I'm going to say this.
Speaker: He's correctly stopped.
Speaker: Because he doesn't have children.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which is a pretty common rule in these places.
Speaker: We're like, well, you have to have a kid to come in.
Speaker: Which is totally fine with that.
Speaker: There are a lot of rules out there that I bristle against and I go, that seems like a stupid point.
Speaker: Let's say not that one.
Speaker: Not that one.
Speaker: I'm good with that one.
Speaker: Keep that one.
Speaker: And that's chapter three.
Speaker: Chapter four opens with Jessica.
Speaker: Jessica in her apartment.
Speaker: She's bringing home the groceries.
Speaker: Something feels wrong.
Speaker: And then in her apartment, we get a little inner monologue about how cool it is that, you know, her life now.
Speaker: She seems like she's doing OK.
Speaker: All things considered, like she's she's got her own little life and she seems pretty happy in it.
Speaker: She sees someone in the dark in her apartment and freaks out.
Speaker: And it ends up being Charlie, who is not in any way being suspicious in the dark, who explains to her basically like I broke in.
Speaker: The door was always open, so I just let myself in.
Speaker: I just want to borrow an outfit so I look nice when I go see John, which Jessica tries very hard to like go, oh, sure, that is a
Speaker: That is a normal thing to do.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I will.
Speaker: I will be.
Speaker: I will help you slay Queen Slay.
Speaker: And then please leave.
Speaker: And then please get the fuck out of here.
Speaker: They talk about her and John and we get a glimpse into how much Charlie's kind of freaking out over the fact that she doesn't know what John wanted her to remember.
Speaker: She's really kind of torn up about that.
Speaker: We cut to Charlie outside.
Speaker: It's time for the meet cute.
Speaker: Time for the remeet.
Speaker: The remeet.
Speaker: They're meeting at the restaurant and John keeps pulling the like testing her memory series of questions.
Speaker: He's not upfront about anything.
Speaker: He's like, well, if you liked that so much, what did we call it?
Speaker: It's like that kind of thing.
Speaker: Just one after the other.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We get a weird moment where like she just says she'll have whatever he has before he's even ordered.
Speaker: And John even says, he's like, I guess I should order something good then.
Speaker: Yeah, whatever he had.
Speaker: And he's like, what's good?
Speaker: It's really weird.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She goes to the bathroom.
Speaker: She excuses herself to kind of get herself together.
Speaker: And while she's in the bathroom, we get a POV moment of her telling herself, I am Charlie really trying to kind of pep herself up a little bit.
Speaker: She comes back and then she confesses to him that she can't remember what he asked her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So he asks her, he asks her, how did you survive?
Speaker: She says, I don't know.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And he says, and he asks her, how did you get away undamaged?
Speaker: To which she replies, I didn't.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which is a pretty good line.
Speaker: It is a good line.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But you're still like, you're still like, at this point, the book is kind of leading you down.
Speaker: Oh, maybe John is like paranoid.
Speaker: Maybe John, maybe John is paranoid.
Speaker: And maybe this is just like two kids who went through something really fucking traumatic.
Speaker: And this is how trauma changes you.
Speaker: You know, it's.
Speaker: Which is a very cool idea.
Speaker: If you can taking extrapolating like killer animatronics in a game and translating it into the PTSD that comes afterwards, the aftermath of it and the paranoia and stuff.
Speaker: Fucking cool.
Speaker: I like that a lot.
Speaker: I saw a movie last night that I have been told I need to watch and I fucking loved it.
Speaker: I saw Nightmare on Elm Street 2.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Last night.
Speaker: I loved it.
Speaker: I know a lot of people who have given it shit, but the one thing I knew about it is that.
Speaker: I can't even remember which one is two.
Speaker: They kind of bubble together in my head over time.
Speaker: Which is understandable.
Speaker: And the thing is, this one's actually pretty unique because I'd never, this is one of the only ones I'd never seen.
Speaker: And the only thing I knew for sure was that I think it was the writer that,
Speaker: had said, yeah, this is this is a metaphor for for being gay, being a closeted homosexual, especially in the 80s.
Speaker: And no one knew that.
Speaker: No one realized it fully.
Speaker: Well, gay people probably did.
Speaker: But but the rest of the world didn't until like 15, 20 years later when he said that.
Speaker: And I'm watching this movie going, how
Speaker: How did people miss this?
Speaker: This is the gayest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker: And it's wonderful.
Speaker: It's super 80s.
Speaker: And it's as opposed to so many of the other stories with Nightmare on Elm Street where he's getting into your dreams and kills you that way.
Speaker: And it's all that.
Speaker: He is trying to basically inhabit the main character's body so that he doesn't have to use dreams.
Speaker: And it gets very wishy-washy with how it all works.
Speaker: The rules don't always make sense.
Speaker: But between –
Speaker: the new spin on like a really unique spin on, on the character and, and the actors are great.
Speaker: And like, it's super eighties and right.
Speaker: Freddie's fucking excellent.
Speaker: It's where you get, that's the one where you get amazing.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: That's that's the one where you get his you're all my children now line.
Speaker: And it makes it makes me think of this a lot because it's like this is this new direction we're taking it.
Speaker: We're in the first one.
Speaker: We're running from the guy with the fingers.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: The second one is far more about the aftermath and what do we have to deal with now that that's done.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We're still going to get killer puppets and stuff, but.
Speaker: Oh, totally.
Speaker: It's far more.
Speaker: There's something under there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Rather than what it is on the tin.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Very much.
Speaker: And for a game that is just like this one trick pony jump scare game, that's pretty impressive.
Speaker: I'm just kind of amazed that we came from that overwrought, overwritten first book in this trilogy to this.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The first book is a mess.
Speaker: It's a mess.
Speaker: It's a mess.
Speaker: It is all over the place.
Speaker: There's things about it that don't make sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Why did they build a mall around Freddy's?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Still doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker: Too many characters.
Speaker: Not interesting enough.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: 15.
Speaker: There's the, yeah, the mystery squad was like 15 kids.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And nobody dies.
Speaker: None of them die.
Speaker: Nobody dies.
Speaker: And then by now where it's pretty tight, we're in a pretty tight little story now by the third book.
Speaker: It's like, it's kind of like whittling down your first draft over the course of a trilogy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like real realizing what you've done wrong as you go along.
Speaker: But your first two drafts were published.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Which is not a good way to go about it.
Speaker: I know, I know 20 somethings of the world that your book is special and good and should be published right now.
Speaker: You don't want it to be published.
Speaker: You don't want, you don't want anyone to read that shit.
Speaker: Just trust me on this one.
Speaker: Um, so, uh,
Speaker: this point, John kind of is thinking to myself, she's giving me all the right answers, uh, which is kind of suspicious.
Speaker: But at the same time, he, he, he goes back and forth during the scene where he, he wants to believe her.
Speaker: She makes him laugh and, and stuff like that.
Speaker: And he starts to kind of let his guard down.
Speaker: Uh, but ultimately he's still very, uh, untrusting of the whole situation.
Speaker: Um, um,
Speaker: She's changed her hair and her clothes.
Speaker: She did all that.
Speaker: She explains to him because she wants to feel like somebody else.
Speaker: She, you know, the whole, that whole shit that we just went through.
Speaker: I wanted to feel like someone who hadn't done all that, which is it's, she's the blue haired girl.
Speaker: Like that's, that's, that's it.
Speaker: So he confesses to her, his theory is,
Speaker: that she is actually Sammy.
Speaker: And she thinks that's hilarious.
Speaker: And says, Sam's dead.
Speaker: I took you to, you took me to his grave.
Speaker: And he says, well, I took you to a cemetery.
Speaker: Yeah, no, no.
Speaker: She says, I took you to his grave.
Speaker: He goes, you took me to a cemetery.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And it's like, what's the, like, you never showed me any graves.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: We were at a cemetery.
Speaker: Yeah, which is a great point.
Speaker: She starts, she does mention Aunt Jen.
Speaker: And at this point, her commentary is kind of leaving him uneasy.
Speaker: It's getting a little...
Speaker: It's getting a little weird.
Speaker: So he.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She starts like really drilling him on Aunt Jen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Out of nowhere.
Speaker: Out of nowhere.
Speaker: And he doesn't know what to say.
Speaker: Because at this point he's seen her, but he's never actually met her.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he's like, I don't fucking know.
Speaker: Like it just, he has nothing to offer.
Speaker: Do you know where Aunt Jen is?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And he's like, I assume she was with you.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: He was like, I assumed you were living with her.
Speaker: She's like, oh, no, no, I got I got out of there.
Speaker: Eventually, the conversation dies due to lack of interest.
Speaker: And and we and we he leaves and outside there's a big crowd around this pizza place that he has passed.
Speaker: And it is just awful.
Speaker: a fucking Mardi Gras parade of clowns.
Speaker: Just clowns.
Speaker: Some of them are in really elaborate getups.
Speaker: Some of them are really cheap, shitty getups.
Speaker: This is something that I would not.
Speaker: A lot of people assign the adjective Lynchian to a lot of things, and I often disagree.
Speaker: This shit right here would be David Lynch of like just walking down the street of the town and there's a clown parade.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they're, and they, and it's not, and the thing is, is it's not like over the top killer clowns from outer space clowns.
Speaker: It's just clowns.
Speaker: It's just, it's not necessarily scary, just weird, just weird.
Speaker: And he's very thrown by this until he sees a sign that basically says, if you, it's the grand opening of the pizza place.
Speaker: And if you dress like a clown, you eat for free.
Speaker: So that's where all the clowns come from.
Speaker: So that's,
Speaker: That's why my nightmare hell on earth happened in Hurricane Utah.
Speaker: So John says, fuck this.
Speaker: And he heads to Clay's house.
Speaker: They have a talk about Aunt Jen and Charlie and their relationship and not really knowing where she's been and that kind of thing.
Speaker: John sees, he sees that Clay has Ella, which is one of the early animatronics.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That Charlie grew up with.
Speaker: It was the bicycle one, right?
Speaker: It was the girl on the bike.
Speaker: I'm pretty sure it's the one on the bike.
Speaker: And Clay says, well, Charlie, I asked her if she wanted it.
Speaker: And she said no.
Speaker: And that just makes, John's like, oh, that ain't her.
Speaker: There's no way in hell she would have said no to that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Clay admits to John that another kid has been kidnapped.
Speaker: That makes the second kid this month that's been kidnapped.
Speaker: But then almost kind of immediately tries to go, it's probably fine.
Speaker: It's probably fine.
Speaker: Usually, usually when someone's kidnapped, it's one of the kids' parents and it's like a divorce thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's not bad.
Speaker: We're fine.
Speaker: but two kids did get kidnapped.
Speaker: Just so you know, John decides he's going to leave and Clay offers him his gun.
Speaker: Clay offers him his gun.
Speaker: And to which John responds with the, I've got all the guns I need move.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: John asks clay if he knows a veterinarian, uh, because these pythons are sick basically is what he does.
Speaker: And, uh, that's, that's how he handles that.
Speaker: Um, so he, he, he lets himself out, uh, John, while he's, while he's heading home, he sees another costume figure coming the opposite direction.
Speaker: It seems to be coming towards him.
Speaker: Uh, uh, but, uh, in the end it just kind of passes him.
Speaker: He gets a look,
Speaker: at this costume figure and realizes that this is not like the other clowns.
Speaker: It's something else.
Speaker: And it darts into the darkness and, uh, and he goes, I guess I'll just keep going home then.
Speaker: Moving on.
Speaker: Yeah, moving on.
Speaker: We cut to Clay, who realizes that something is in his house with him.
Speaker: And then we cut right back to John, who starts hearing more sounds coming from the severed rabbit head.
Speaker: That's a weird sentence that I just said, but it's all accurate.
Speaker: It's all accurate.
Speaker: And it starts to actually form words.
Speaker: And over time, he's able to discern that it's saying shining star, silver reef.
Speaker: And that's that's really doesn't mean anything to him.
Speaker: But he has a bad feeling and he runs back to clay.
Speaker: He has been gone less than an hour and finds clay unconscious with the door destroyed behind him.
Speaker: Um, chapter five kind of opens with this vague interstitial where, uh, these, this voice that you get the impression it's the same Frankenstein doctor kind of dude.
Speaker: Uh, uh, uh, he's basically threatening these other entities and it's, uh, uh,
Speaker: you get the impression that it's these animatronics that somehow feel things and are scared of him.
Speaker: And he's threatening them with, uh, more molten surgery, I guess.
Speaker: You, yeah, whatever that was.
Speaker: Um, so we cut to the hospital where, uh, John is sitting with Jessica.
Speaker: They're waiting to hear from how clay's doing.
Speaker: Uh, John gets Jessica up to speed essentially.
Speaker: Um, and,
Speaker: And a nurse comes out and says he wants to talk to you.
Speaker: And he's been beat up pretty bad.
Speaker: And it doesn't it doesn't seem to have any interest in saying anything until the nurse leaves.
Speaker: And then he pops back up and he tells them it's it has to have a range.
Speaker: which that's not information that they can really use just yet.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Then he gives them photographs.
Speaker: They are.
Speaker: It's this envelope filled with photographs of all of them, all the kids basically at different points.
Speaker: And it's clearly like private investigator style photographs of their group.
Speaker: Someone's been keeping an eye on them.
Speaker: John tells Jessica what happened, what the rabbit had told him.
Speaker: Again, I'm saying these sentences out loud.
Speaker: Fucking rabbit head.
Speaker: Fucking rabbit head told him.
Speaker: And she points out to them that Silver Reef is a ghost town not far from there.
Speaker: It's an old silver mining town that now no one lives in.
Speaker: We get a brief, kind of a token appearance for Marla and Carlton.
Speaker: We're still in the book.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: We're still here.
Speaker: And Charlie as well.
Speaker: They arrived to see how Clay is doing.
Speaker: Charlie is clearly uncomfortable and she's kind of John notices that she basically positions herself in a way that she never has to look.
Speaker: at him.
Speaker: He doesn't know what that's all about.
Speaker: So Jess leaves, Jessica leaves and John meets her outside and we get a moment where they, she's, she introduces him to, I think her name's Anna.
Speaker: She's, she's the mother of one of the missing kids.
Speaker: And she explains to them that clay, she came to check on clay.
Speaker: She's really worried about him because clay had promised her that he was going to find her kids.
Speaker: So clay has been kind of like devoting himself to these, these,
Speaker: these crimes, which is probably one of the reasons he was, someone was trying to bump them off.
Speaker: Which also is not a thing you're supposed to do in that field.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: In investigations, you're not, you're not supposed to promise anyone anything.
Speaker: You're like, yes, I will look into it, but you can't promise a result because you don't know what the result's going to be until you look into it.
Speaker: It's the same as if your doctor like promised you something like that.
Speaker: Like, say you're really sick.
Speaker: He's like, I promise that we'll take it.
Speaker: It's like, I promise you'll be a okay.
Speaker: And be like, yeah, you don't want to do that.
Speaker: You don't want to do that.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: So John and Jessica head out to the ghost town there.
Speaker: At first, they're kind of at a loss.
Speaker: They're not really sure what is going on.
Speaker: And then they notice a wooden archway that leads to a field and it has a star at the top.
Speaker: It's their it's their shining star in Silver Reef.
Speaker: And so they head out in that direction and they find a little house.
Speaker: They knock at the door and find that inside is Aunt Jen, who doesn't really know them.
Speaker: They know her, but she doesn't know them.
Speaker: She's very cagey.
Speaker: Yeah, she's very cagey.
Speaker: They explain that they want to talk about Charlie and she lets him in.
Speaker: She recognizes Theodore the rabbit head.
Speaker: Um, and, uh, and they get her up to speed and they clearly want her to explain to them what the fuck is going on.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Uh, and it's going to take more than, than they realize they're, they're going to have to be sneaky on some level if they want her, want her to tell them anything.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But at that point, there's a knock at the door.
Speaker: So John and Jessica hide in a closet.
Speaker: And when they go to the closet, they find that there is a animatronic framework with a knife.
Speaker: And John realizes it's not working.
Speaker: But that would be a bummer if any of us ran into a closet.
Speaker: This is terrible.
Speaker: This is not good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's a wireframe man with a knife.
Speaker: You wouldn't be happy about it.
Speaker: I doubt.
Speaker: I would not be happy.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And so they say, fuck that.
Speaker: And they get out of there and they realize that this is the machine that Charlie's dad made to kill himself.
Speaker: So it's a suicide bot.
Speaker: So that's fun.
Speaker: So instead, they just they're like, let's just hide in this room.
Speaker: We can keep the door closed.
Speaker: We don't have to go into a closet.
Speaker: They're hearing they hear Charlie outside.
Speaker: That is Charlie who was knocking on the door.
Speaker: John gets this wild hair.
Speaker: This is kind of what Kevin was talking about before, about like how he just has no ideas.
Speaker: So he goes with everything.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So he kind of has this suspicion.
Speaker: And so he's just there are boxes filling the room.
Speaker: So he just starts digging through the boxes.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, just like that's filled with mechanics.
Speaker: Like there's got to be shit in here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: There's something.
Speaker: He basically does the exact same thing any of us would do if we were playing a point and click game.
Speaker: You're just like click, click, click, click.
Speaker: What can I use in here?
Speaker: And finally opens a chest.
Speaker: And who do you think's inside?
Speaker: But Charlie.
Speaker: Charlie.
Speaker: Charlie.
Speaker: Charlie, Charlie in a box, Charlie in a box.
Speaker: It's it's it's Charlie in a box.
Speaker: She's been wrapped up with blanket stuff and they assume she's dead until they realize that she is breathing.
Speaker: However, shallowly she's not doing so good.
Speaker: And so Charlie.
Speaker: So he's like, we got to get her the fuck out of here.
Speaker: Um, we cut to Charlie's POV.
Speaker: She's like, it's this dreamy liminal kind of state she's in where she's half conscious, half not.
Speaker: And, uh, she knows she's being carried, um, and, and taken away.
Speaker: And, and it's basically given a glimpse into her mind.
Speaker: Um, they hide in a closet, uh, uh, and, uh, and Jessica does a pretty clever trick.
Speaker: And, uh,
Speaker: runs to the window in the room and slams it open very loudly and then runs to hide in the closet so that it makes it sound like they escaped out the window.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: A figure in red lurches into the room and just like throws itself out the window, clearly hunting them.
Speaker: When they go outside, they find Aunt Jen dead and ripped to shreds.
Speaker: She is disemboweled.
Speaker: Yeah, she's disabowled.
Speaker: She's opened up.
Speaker: It's a bummer.
Speaker: It's and probably one of the more graphic deaths in this entire trilogy.
Speaker: In the entire series.
Speaker: Yeah, the whole thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They actually get into detail with this.
Speaker: Guts are out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And they hop into John's car and escape to his place.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The end of the chapter, the chapter ends with POV of fake Charlie, not Charlie.
Speaker: Charlie, quote unquote.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Who is reveling over the fact that she killed her aunt Jen.
Speaker: They had a weird we get we get the moment.
Speaker: Actually, we get a narration of the moment leading up to it where she like just just scares her to death.
Speaker: And in the final moments before she disembows her, they they say that they say, I love you to each other.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then and then and then that's a wrap.
Speaker: on aunt Jen.
Speaker: We get part of one chapter with aunt, aunt Jen, all timer in terms of a background character that is, that is almost never seen or heard of, but mentioned a lot.
Speaker: And then she gets like five pages in one book.
Speaker: She gets like three lines and then she's killed off the most violent, will he wet violent way of any character horribly.
Speaker: So yeah,
Speaker: That's a wrap on Jen.
Speaker: And when the chapter ends with not Charlie hopping into her car and speeding away into the night.
Speaker: And and that is and that's as far as we're going to go right now.
Speaker: That's the first third of the fourth closet.
Speaker: So, Kevin, what do you think so far?
Speaker: Yeah, I think this is a lot better, as we've already said, than the other two books.
Speaker: I think it's fascinating where it's going.
Speaker: It's kind of like the natural evolution of the animatronic stuff where it's like, oh, they weren't just building animatronics.
Speaker: They were building these things that could replace people.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And the Charlie, like that, that the Charlie that people have been interacting with since that night,
Speaker: Is is not Charlie.
Speaker: It's yeah.
Speaker: It is a literal robot programs to act like Charlie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Full AI and everything just trying to, you know, fill the shoes has Charlie's memories programmed into her.
Speaker: Literally.
Speaker: That's why I do.
Speaker: I make the made the Blade Runner reference earlier.
Speaker: Like this is.
Speaker: She's a replicant.
Speaker: She is a fucking replicant of Charlie.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Murderous, yes.
Speaker: Murderous, yeah.
Speaker: That's why even when we had POV from her, she was confused and thrown by certain things because she does have Charlie's memory.
Speaker: She does have that installed into her.
Speaker: I also think it does a very good job.
Speaker: I know a lot of the trauma stuff is more or less a red herring, but I think at the same time, it does a good job exploring the fact that John is –
Speaker: Patently fucked up.
Speaker: But at this point, he is his brain is broken.
Speaker: I agree.
Speaker: I think I think it's like on one hand, I wish there was more of it.
Speaker: Like I was disappointed when I found out that unequivocally, unequivocally, he is right.
Speaker: Yes, he was right.
Speaker: There's no ambiguity here.
Speaker: He is right.
Speaker: She was a fake.
Speaker: And I was disappointed with that.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Because I would have liked to have seen that stretch out a little more, the paranoia and the fear and all that stuff.
Speaker: I would have liked to have seen how many legs you had with – how much legs that could have had.
Speaker: But I also recognize that your target age for this book is probably 12 or 13.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: That's not really the direction you're going for them.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We want to have our character back so that we can get on with the story.
Speaker: Get on with the story.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I do agree that what they have given, and that's the thing.
Speaker: I'm trying not to be too greedy because what they gave us, what Kira gave us with this is pretty good.
Speaker: It's pretty solid.
Speaker: The red herring, the mental breakage.
Speaker: I hope she keeps it up.
Speaker: I hope that we get more.
Speaker: of that as we go along.
Speaker: Because that line, what is the line again that Charlie says?
Speaker: I'm not
Speaker: Oh, he says, he said, I don't know how you escaped undamaged.
Speaker: She's like, I'm not undamaged.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like, she absolutely is.
Speaker: I was like, Jesus, that is like, you can have an alternate version of this story.
Speaker: Like you said, basically continuing on from that point, just exploring the fact that,
Speaker: Like you don't even need any animatronics.
Speaker: Just explore the fact that these characters live through the shit that they lived through.
Speaker: A horrible thing.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And I mean, there's, there's horror authors who have done that where you have, it's like Grady Hendrix wrote final girl support group.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Which is about the final girls in a, in a,
Speaker: After their slasher story.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What a great idea.
Speaker: It's just fantastic.
Speaker: I've not always been a huge Grady Hendrix guy, but I haven't read that one.
Speaker: And that one, I'm genuinely interested in because that's- Grady Hendrix does a really bang up job with the titles of
Speaker: Yeah, he sure does.
Speaker: Like the titles are very intriguing.
Speaker: Like, ooh, how to sell a haunted house, I think is one of his other ones.
Speaker: But yeah, anyway.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So I agree.
Speaker: I think it's they're going in some really interesting directions.
Speaker: Whether or not we can keep it going is going to make the difference for me in the next episode.
Speaker: you know, a couple hundred pages.
Speaker: Yeah, totally.
Speaker: Well, now that we've got that under our belts, Kevin, there's only one question left to ask.
Speaker: And that is, what are you playing?
Speaker: I am playing.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So did I talk about hollow body last time?
Speaker: You, yes, yes.
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Then what I played in between, uh,
Speaker: last time and this time is a game called Zero Protocol, which is a first person horror game that is very, very obviously based on, uh, system shock.
Speaker: It is like you, the, the, the, the influences are right on the sleeve for, for Zero Protocol.
Speaker: That being said, it's, it's not bad.
Speaker: It's, it's a really neat indie game that, um,
Speaker: you know it's another one of those games where it's like nobody it's like one dude developed it or or whatever um oh yeah i have a certain weakness for those yeah and uh it's you are basically the head of security for an arctic research base uh
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I'm looking.
Speaker: And you wake up.
Speaker: You have a memory of going in and getting the job.
Speaker: And then the next moment is you waking up in the hospital.
Speaker: wing of the building with no memories in between which is also i feel like might be a reference to soma um which kind of soma has a similar beginning but yeah it's a really neat game um i would say that oh did it just come out with a new patch after i beat it um of course
Speaker: You beat it on the OG style, sir.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So one of the things that was tough for me was that the game, it's a survival horror game, but melee as of the patch that I played it was almost not an option because the enemies attacked too fast and
Speaker: It was kind of hard to judge where the hitbox was on when they were swinging versus your attack.
Speaker: And there was no interrupts.
Speaker: So when you attacked and hit the guy,
Speaker: It didn't stop them from attacking.
Speaker: They could just keep spamming their attack.
Speaker: Everything's a haymaker.
Speaker: No matter what you get hit by, you have like four little health pellet dot things on your bar, four hits, and you're dead.
Speaker: I spend most of the game with one health remaining.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Because it is one of the other things I'll say, and maybe this is going to be better now that melee has been rebalanced with the new patch, is that in terms of ammo, the game is very unbalanced where it front loads it.
Speaker: And then by the second half of the game, you have nothing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And because melee doesn't work, melee combat doesn't work in the front half of the game, you're using the ammo as you get it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You're not like you're stuck with that.
Speaker: You're not really able to save anything.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: That was kind of my gripes with it.
Speaker: But in terms of like, it's still a neat game.
Speaker: I would recommend it if you're interested in just like a little, you know, four hour survival horror game.
Speaker: Very clearly based on some of my favorites.
Speaker: You know, I think it really...
Speaker: It really pulls off a lot for what it is.
Speaker: And I think the developer seemingly is very responsive to the notes that he's been getting on the game.
Speaker: That's always nice.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Because in the comments on the store page, people have been talking about that, like,
Speaker: you can't melee these guys, you know?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So he's, he's working on adjusting that.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Zero protocol.
Speaker: It's nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's a, it's a, it's a neat little game.
Speaker: There's this one moment where you are,
Speaker: supposed to find a passcode and the clue is like oh it's my favorite movie the poster's hanging in my office when you first look in the office it's 2001 so you put in 2001 and the door opens but when you come and get into the office to turn around the corner the poster is not 2001 anymore it's the thing and it's just like a weird really weird like meta moment you're like what
Speaker: That's pretty cool.
Speaker: Where did the 2001 poster go?
Speaker: So it's like actively fucking with you.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: Yes, exactly.
Speaker: I like that.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's what I've been playing.
Speaker: I've also been playing UFO 50 still.
Speaker: UFO 50 will eventually hit Balotro rules where I stopped talking about it, but it's not...
Speaker: I didn't tell you to launch UFO 50.
Speaker: I'm just clicking on the page.
Speaker: Did someone say UFO 50?
Speaker: I've continued to play UFO 50 and it's great.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: I can't remember what I played most recently, what I've beaten most recently.
Speaker: Otherwise, another thing that I just started up was Nobody Wants to Die.
Speaker: which is I've had my eye on that one to a future retro, futuristic detective neo-noir, uh, type of game set in a very, um, I won't say it's not a blade runner style universe.
Speaker: It is a, uh,
Speaker: Altered carbon style thing because it's about bodies that are so in altered carbon, they would call bodies sleeves so that you would, you know, when you die, they would just pop you, they would pop your consciousness out of the body and they would put it into a new body.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So that is kind of what's going on in Nobody Wants to Die, is that you're able to exchange your body for new ones.
Speaker: And you're now you're a detective.
Speaker: I didn't get a lot of time into it just because I had to.
Speaker: It's one of those games where I had to sit there and fuck with the graphics settings until it worked right.
Speaker: You know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: Like, no, that's not it.
Speaker: That's not it.
Speaker: And finally, I got to a point where I was happy, but it was it took me a while.
Speaker: And, you know, I just kicked off the story.
Speaker: And you're you're playing a detective who is formerly on the force and you're being called in basically to do one more case and figure out who who knocked off this mook, you know, uh-huh.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'm looking forward to spending a little more time in that.
Speaker: So, Phil, what are you playing?
Speaker: It's not been all that much, I'm afraid.
Speaker: I did finish Crow Country.
Speaker: Loved it.
Speaker: Loved it.
Speaker: It's so funny because, yeah, it's just so funny because for how...
Speaker: basic bordering on cartoony uh uh the uh the graphic style is um you wouldn't automatically think that it could carry um a grim kind of serious uh story uh the way that it did i was really impressed with that uh i think the most impressive thing for me though with the game was that just like
Speaker: You know, Resident Evil games, this is meant to be played multiple times and trying to beat your old score.
Speaker: I got a B plus, which for me, I think is very respectable.
Speaker: I got the crowbar and I'm actually genuinely interested in trying it again, which most of the time these days when that's an option, I'm like, oh, well, I'll come back to you later.
Speaker: Yeah, there's a lot going on.
Speaker: So I was genuinely impressed with it.
Speaker: I thought it was a lot of fun.
Speaker: I thought the puzzles were
Speaker: pretty good i i felt like i was always clipping along um i never felt like i was just flat out stuck which always is kind of a huge uh gauge uh with with these sure puzzle games yeah um the i never quite got the hang of the of the shooting um
Speaker: It's so old school and I'm just like, oh, these days are behind me.
Speaker: Like it just the only way they could have made it tougher on me is if they've gone ahead and done tank controls.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But I really liked it.
Speaker: I liked the ending a lot.
Speaker: I liked the story.
Speaker: They're a little twist at the end.
Speaker: I thought it was pretty good.
Speaker: And I and the thing is, it just made me excited to.
Speaker: I was like, I really want to see what this developer does next.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: i i there are there are few developers like that that i i collect over time so i think we all do this um where they they you're just like oh i want to see what else you've got going on what the next one is and uh and and uh so that's that's pretty cool and they do have some other stuff and i might i might look into it it's not quite the same as this um i'm a sucker for a resident evil clone basically and this one is
Speaker: a pretty solid one.
Speaker: So that's that's basically all I've done.
Speaker: I am I am going to be going out of town for work and then for pleasure next week.
Speaker: So expect a lot of switch reviews coming up.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: God forbid.
Speaker: Yeah, we're getting out of town for a little while.
Speaker: So, yeah, I'm going to be taking my switch with me and hopefully I'll have some more stuff to talk about with that.
Speaker: Yeah, that's been me.
Speaker: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, you know what?
Speaker: That'll end this episode.
Speaker: And if you want to end this episode on a high note, go ahead and follow us on Shitter, on Blue Sky, on Patreon.com slash PixelitPod.
Speaker: Really, you name it, we got it pretty much.
Speaker: If you're on YouTube right now or not on YouTube right now, go to YouTube.
Speaker: Go to YouTube.com slash PixelitPod.
Speaker: Or is it just Pixelit?
Speaker: I can't remember, but you'll probably find it.
Speaker: I found it.
Speaker: I have faith in you to find our channel on YouTube.
Speaker: Go to it.
Speaker: Subscribe to it.
Speaker: Like all of our videos.
Speaker: Every single one of our videos.
Speaker: All 100 goddamn 70-something videos.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker: It's a lot.
Speaker: It's a lot of stuff.
Speaker: There's content.
Speaker: We got a backlog, baby.
Speaker: We got it.
Speaker: I think that's my...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's my favorite thing with discord.
Speaker: When people come in, they're like, Hey, I just discovered you guys.
Speaker: And I was like, cool.
Speaker: I'll check out what else you've done.
Speaker: And you guys have been at this for a while.
Speaker: It's like, yeah, pace yourself.
Speaker: Don't you don't want to, you don't want to pull something.
Speaker: Don't we got, we got veterans.
Speaker: We got, we got podcast veterans in there and they pace themselves.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So anyway, bye.
Speaker: Bye.
