Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Five Nights at Freddy's! Let's Open the FOURTH CLOSET
10 Plays1 year ago
This is the END of the FNAF Series written by Kira Breed-Wrisley and so far it's the best of the trilogy! Will that energy stay gold? We shall see Pony Boy. That's right, Outsiders reference.
Our SocialsFollow us at patreon.com/pixellitpod and hop into our Discord!
Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/pixellitpod.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/pixellitpod
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
That's what the lifts in his shoes actually are.
00:00:04
Speaker
Is they like injected into him?
00:00:06
Speaker
It's injected into his heel.
00:00:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:09
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.
00:00:16
Speaker
Just, yeah.
00:00:17
Speaker
Just so he, you know, is constantly getting a nice pipeline directly into his veins of evil.
00:00:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:24
Speaker
That really is the best way for him to go about it.
00:00:27
Speaker
If we're being honest.
00:00:28
Speaker
It is the best way to go about it.
00:00:29
Speaker
You know what else is the best way to go about it?
00:00:32
Speaker
What's that?
00:00:33
Speaker
Hey there, everybody.
00:00:33
Speaker
Welcome back to Pixel It.
00:00:34
Speaker
My name is Kevin.
00:00:35
Speaker
With me as always is Phil.
00:00:36
Speaker
And on today's show, we're talking about Five Nights at Freddy's, the fourth closet.
00:00:44
Speaker
That's the fourth closet.
00:00:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:45
Speaker
The fourth closet.
Author's Health and Book Series Quality
00:00:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:00:47
Speaker
By Kira Breed-Riesley, who I am trying to find out information on her cancer treatment, but I can't.
00:00:56
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.
00:01:07
Speaker
Yeah, there's nothing like popping up in the, aside from that she had cancer.
00:01:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:14
Speaker
And yeah.
00:01:17
Speaker
And as we said last time we read one of her books, whatever we think about the book, cancer fucking sucks.
00:01:24
Speaker
And and, you know, so there will be no shade in that direction at all.
00:01:29
Speaker
And frankly, after the last book, which shocked the hell out of us at how much we actually enjoyed it.
00:01:35
Speaker
Yeah, the second book was much better than the first.
00:01:39
Speaker
Still not great, but.
00:01:41
Speaker
Markably better.
00:01:42
Speaker
Not amazing, but way better.
Patreon and Support Perks
00:01:45
Speaker
I'll just say so far, it seems like the series which ends with this book is it somehow improved every.
00:01:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:58
Speaker
Every book from what we've read so far.
00:02:00
Speaker
I've never heard of that.
00:02:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:04
Speaker
I've never heard of that.
00:02:05
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.
00:02:14
Speaker
It's usually the opposite direction.
00:02:15
Speaker
Right.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:17
Speaker
Uh, so, and so far this one's pretty good.
00:02:20
Speaker
It's this one's Cracker Jack.
00:02:22
Speaker
I'll say I'll say that it's Cracker Jack.
00:02:24
Speaker
Do people say still say that?
00:02:26
Speaker
I don't care.
00:02:27
Speaker
No, that one.
00:02:28
Speaker
I you.
00:02:29
Speaker
But you just do you, baby.
00:02:30
Speaker
You just be.
00:02:31
Speaker
That's all that's required.
00:02:33
Speaker
You know what else I'll do.
00:02:34
Speaker
I'll do Patreon dot com slash Pixelit Pod.
00:02:38
Speaker
Go to patreon.com slash pixelipod.
00:02:40
Speaker
You can go there and sign up for free to read our posts and get early access to the episodes.
00:02:50
Speaker
One dollar gets you in the door for Phil's blog.
00:02:54
Speaker
$5 gets you the ad-free episodes and the bonus episode before every episode that we record.
00:03:04
Speaker
And $10 gets your name read out every week without fail.
00:03:09
Speaker
And to that end.
00:03:11
Speaker
I want to thank Jesus loves you, Kyle Seaman, Ruthless Mudder, Middle of Things, Sigma Sal, and Friendly Friends.
00:03:19
Speaker
Thank you for being a friend.
00:03:20
Speaker
Yes.
Book and Game Connections
00:03:22
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.
00:03:32
Speaker
Yes.
00:03:32
Speaker
This one is very loosely based on Five Nights at Freddy's sister location.
00:03:38
Speaker
from what I can gather.
00:03:40
Speaker
And that's because there is references to circus baby who is in that one.
00:03:46
Speaker
And yeah, so it's probably the one I played the most to.
00:03:53
Speaker
I remember watching you play that on stream.
00:03:56
Speaker
I think I actually enjoyed that one despite how how much it fucked with me.
00:04:03
Speaker
It had a lot more mini games, like a lot more different segments that you had to do.
00:04:09
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:04:10
Speaker
There was a lot more going on rather than the same thing over and over again, which I'm big on.
00:04:17
Speaker
To the point that they released another Five Nights at Freddy's game, which I don't think Cawthon actually designed.
00:04:25
Speaker
It might be the first time it's happened.
00:04:28
Speaker
And it appears to be like an adventure kind of game.
00:04:34
Speaker
And I'm honestly intrigued just because it's a it's a new thing.
00:04:37
Speaker
I've never seen this before, so that's kind of cool.
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:40
Speaker
Let me see where it is.
00:04:40
Speaker
I find it.
00:04:43
Speaker
It came out this year.
00:04:44
Speaker
And what's funny is I've heard very little about it, but it's got great.
00:04:49
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.
Controversial Donations Discussion
00:05:00
Speaker
Into the pit.
00:05:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:01
Speaker
Into the pit.
00:05:03
Speaker
It's got a pixel graphic style, which is pretty sharp.
00:05:09
Speaker
It's like an adventure.
00:05:13
Speaker
kind of vibe to it.
00:05:14
Speaker
It honestly, it gives me, it's giving me a little bit of maniac mansion shit.
00:05:19
Speaker
Sure.
00:05:21
Speaker
It's, it's pretty interesting.
00:05:23
Speaker
And for 20 bucks, I might, I might roll those dice.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:27
Speaker
Developer is mega cat studios.
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:32
Speaker
Well, Indy, Indy company.
00:05:34
Speaker
That's it.
00:05:35
Speaker
They're based out of Pittsburgh.
00:05:37
Speaker
Oh, well, there you go.
00:05:38
Speaker
There you go.
00:05:39
Speaker
That's the final nail on the coffin that I needed.
Book Summary: Jon's Journey
00:05:43
Speaker
Oh, gosh.
00:05:44
Speaker
Very interesting.
00:05:46
Speaker
So, yeah, this is just it just they just keep making these fucking games.
00:05:51
Speaker
They're never going to stop between the canon games and the fan games.
00:05:57
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.
00:06:06
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.
00:06:18
Speaker
And what's interesting is that it's kind of a neat thing.
00:06:23
Speaker
And here's the thing.
00:06:25
Speaker
Scott Cough and by and large can fuck off.
00:06:28
Speaker
But it's a neat thing that
00:06:35
Speaker
the characters seemingly just can be used in these fan games without any sort of repercussion.
00:06:42
Speaker
And it's kind of grown the fan.
00:06:44
Speaker
I think that's part of what helped the fan base grow is being able to.
00:06:49
Speaker
It's kind of fun.
00:06:50
Speaker
fucking excellent.
00:06:50
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.
00:06:59
Speaker
Why am I going to fuck with these kids who want to make fan games?
00:07:01
Speaker
It's only going to make things better for me.
00:07:03
Speaker
And and look at all the cool shit they're making.
00:07:06
Speaker
Like it's as much of a heel as he can be in this personal life.
00:07:11
Speaker
You know, you look at that and you're like, that is awfully forward thinking and mature.
00:07:16
Speaker
And to be clear, we don't have any information as to how he acts as a person aside from what he supports.
00:07:26
Speaker
And he supports taking away bodily autonomy rights from women.
00:07:32
Speaker
You know, things like that.
00:07:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:35
Speaker
And we're big on that.
00:07:36
Speaker
We're big on that.
00:07:37
Speaker
We're big on Bali autonomy over here.
00:07:40
Speaker
We're both married to women.
00:07:41
Speaker
And it's... Yeah.
00:07:43
Speaker
You know, call it a selfish self-interest kind of situation.
00:07:49
Speaker
But I really like when my wife is a human being.
00:07:53
Speaker
Yeah, I like it.
00:07:54
Speaker
I like it when people who are not child bearers...
00:08:05
Speaker
aren't making those decisions.
00:08:07
Speaker
Like, yeah, I'm big on that.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:11
Speaker
So yeah, we, we, we don't know a lot, but we know enough.
00:08:14
Speaker
We know enough.
00:08:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:15
Speaker
And that he, and he donated to Ted Cruz and like, that's, that's, that's plenty.
00:08:21
Speaker
That's, that's plenty.
00:08:22
Speaker
Ted Cruz.
00:08:25
Speaker
The most unlikable it's it's so weird.
00:08:29
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.
00:08:39
Speaker
No, same same.
00:08:41
Speaker
And like I for somehow I that like I could it makes more sense to me.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:47
Speaker
You can be like, okay, I can see where he may have.
00:08:51
Speaker
Okay.
00:08:51
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.
00:09:10
Speaker
Oh yes.
00:09:10
Speaker
Ted Cruz believes all the same things Donald Trump does and
00:09:15
Speaker
And has negative charisma.
00:09:18
Speaker
None of it.
00:09:18
Speaker
None of that.
00:09:19
Speaker
None of it.
00:09:20
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.
00:09:38
Speaker
And I hate Ted Cruz.
00:09:40
Speaker
Right.
00:09:41
Speaker
Right.
00:09:41
Speaker
Exactly.
00:09:42
Speaker
Exactly.
00:09:44
Speaker
He's not liked by people in his own party.
00:09:48
Speaker
He is just not.
00:09:48
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.
00:10:05
Speaker
It's it doesn't matter that he's on your side.
00:10:07
Speaker
He's a creep.
00:10:08
Speaker
He's a creep.
00:10:09
Speaker
I can respect that.
00:10:11
Speaker
So giving money to him is, well, it's completely unrespectable.
00:10:16
Speaker
I can't respect that.
00:10:18
Speaker
You know what I can respect, though?
00:10:19
Speaker
What?
00:10:20
Speaker
Putting the body in the marsh.
00:10:22
Speaker
Ooh, let's marsh the body.
00:10:24
Speaker
Let's marsh the hell out of this body.
00:10:26
Speaker
I love that plan.
00:10:27
Speaker
That is a good plan.
00:10:29
Speaker
When I tell you to dump a body in the marsh, you dump them in
00:10:35
Speaker
In the mind.
00:10:37
Speaker
Gettleson.
00:10:37
Speaker
All right.
00:10:40
Speaker
So we start out with chapter one kind of pulling a flashback kind of situation.
00:10:49
Speaker
The second book, for those of you who don't remember, ended with Charlie getting caught in a, what do they call it?
00:10:57
Speaker
The spring spring.
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:59
Speaker
Spring.
00:11:00
Speaker
Inside a spring trap, I think.
00:11:02
Speaker
The spring trap suit, maybe?
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:11:07
Speaker
And then everything comes collapsing down on him.
00:11:10
Speaker
And the idea is that she goes the same way as an incestuous Lannister, buried under a bunch of rubble.
00:11:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:19
Speaker
So that's the idea.
00:11:20
Speaker
So we're reliving that.
00:11:22
Speaker
Our main character for this one, Jon, because Charlie has been our protagonist for
00:11:28
Speaker
in the first two books.
00:11:29
Speaker
But this book will be following mostly John, which is interesting change.
00:11:34
Speaker
Makes sense, though.
00:11:36
Speaker
So he's trying to dig up Charlie from the rubble after this big explosion.
00:11:41
Speaker
She whispers his name and they both collapse into this underground room.
00:11:48
Speaker
He finds he sees a door with an animatronic figure on the other side, starts hearing piercing laughter.
00:11:56
Speaker
And then wakes up from what is a nightmare.
00:11:59
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.
00:12:06
Speaker
And that's where that was coming from.
00:12:07
Speaker
Is it?
00:12:08
Speaker
Was it the news report about the clown people?
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think so.
00:12:13
Speaker
And it's actually good writing because at this point, we don't know what that is.
00:12:16
Speaker
Yes.
00:12:18
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.
Charlie's Identity and Jon's Paranoia
00:12:31
Speaker
Oh, absolutely.
00:12:32
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
00:12:59
Speaker
He's also being criticized by the foreman for being distracted all the time, who basically threatens him.
00:13:04
Speaker
So if you know that which is correct, he says, you know, like this is an active construction site.
00:13:10
Speaker
If you're not paying attention, people could die, which is absolutely the case.
00:13:15
Speaker
So he says, basically, if you can't get it together, I'm going to have to let you go.
00:13:20
Speaker
One of the coworkers kind of offhandedly mentions a creepy new kids restaurant that he doesn't want to go to.
00:13:26
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.
00:13:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:32
Speaker
Uh, uh,
00:13:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:34
Speaker
So John, John ends up just leaving ultimately in the end.
00:13:39
Speaker
And I like this.
00:13:40
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.
00:13:55
Speaker
I just don't necessarily want to.
00:13:58
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.
00:14:05
Speaker
And I don't want them to stop asking.
00:14:06
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:14:07
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:14:08
Speaker
This is the most relatable John has ever been, in my opinion.
00:14:11
Speaker
I don't.
00:14:13
Speaker
Everything you just described has run through my head on a very regular basis.
00:14:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:17
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.
00:14:24
Speaker
It's like, I don't want to go out with you, but I don't want you to give up on me.
00:14:27
Speaker
I don't know why that's so depressing.
00:14:28
Speaker
Please keep asking me, you know?
00:14:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:31
Speaker
I just liked that.
00:14:32
Speaker
You thinking about me, he doesn't seem to have that, that same issue though.
00:14:37
Speaker
He heads home.
00:14:38
Speaker
He's got, he's got, you know, you've heard of a cigarette mom.
00:14:42
Speaker
He's got a cigarette landlord, a cigarette landlady.
00:14:46
Speaker
You can, you can just hear, uh,
00:14:49
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.
00:14:59
Speaker
And you'd think she'd be happy to have this long term tenant.
00:15:03
Speaker
But she points out that people who typically move there, especially young people, they tend to find something better.
00:15:10
Speaker
They find a partner or something and they move on.
00:15:14
Speaker
This is a way station.
00:15:16
Speaker
You stop here.
00:15:18
Speaker
And then you move on.
00:15:19
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.
00:15:28
Speaker
She's accepted that.
00:15:29
Speaker
She's like, no, no, no.
00:15:31
Speaker
I don't have a nice business here.
00:15:32
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.
00:15:42
Speaker
Something's up.
00:15:43
Speaker
By the way, in my head, she was played by Anne Ramsey.
00:15:49
Speaker
Mama Fratelli.
00:15:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:51
Speaker
Love it.
00:15:51
Speaker
No, that's that's perfect.
00:15:53
Speaker
That woman needed more work.
00:15:55
Speaker
And this might as well have been it.
00:15:59
Speaker
He heads back into his apartment.
00:16:01
Speaker
He he chats with a toy rabbit's head.
00:16:06
Speaker
Theodore, I believe its name is.
00:16:07
Speaker
Yes.
00:16:07
Speaker
He was one of the animatronics from before.
00:16:10
Speaker
He's just got the head now.
00:16:12
Speaker
And he chats with it on a regular basis.
00:16:14
Speaker
And John is good and normal and fine.
00:16:17
Speaker
Uh, and then, and then promptly falls asleep watching TV in his chair.
00:16:21
Speaker
And, uh, basically they have described, uh, uh, my life in my early thirties, uh, late twenties, early thirties.
00:16:30
Speaker
I come home from work.
00:16:31
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.
00:16:43
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:16:44
Speaker
Exactly.
00:16:45
Speaker
And,
00:16:46
Speaker
add in more gin and you've got the exact same thing.
00:16:49
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.
00:16:58
Speaker
Right.
00:16:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:59
Speaker
So it, and also in terms of timeline, I don't know.
00:17:03
Speaker
I can't remember if it's established quite yet, but it's been a year.
00:17:07
Speaker
It's been like one year since that night where everything kind of fell apart, fell apart.
00:17:14
Speaker
So he ends up,
00:17:16
Speaker
walking, like just wandering the streets at some point.
00:17:20
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.
00:17:33
Speaker
She does basically the same thing as coworkers did.
00:17:35
Speaker
Like you should come out and hang out.
00:17:37
Speaker
She says she misses him.
00:17:38
Speaker
And she says that Carlton who has been away at school, um, um,
00:17:43
Speaker
is coming back and all the old gang is going to get back together and you want to come hang out with us.
00:17:50
Speaker
And that and that besides you need to talk to her.
00:17:54
Speaker
Yep.
00:17:55
Speaker
Which which, of course, is Charlie.
00:17:58
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.
00:18:10
Speaker
This is not Charlie.
00:18:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:11
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.
00:18:22
Speaker
That's not her.
00:18:23
Speaker
And that is now carried over into book three where he's like, no, it's not her.
00:18:27
Speaker
And Jessica is like, you know, you're really making her feel bad every time you.
00:18:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:32
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:18:34
Speaker
He's been doing this for a year.
00:18:35
Speaker
He's avoided her for a year.
00:18:37
Speaker
They were once really close, darn close to romance.
00:18:41
Speaker
And now he can't even look her in the eye anymore and will not spend time with her.
00:18:46
Speaker
And so the story goes that she's upset about it.
00:18:49
Speaker
But who knows?
00:18:49
Speaker
That sounds like something an animatronic might say.
00:18:54
Speaker
And that's chapter one.
Mysterious Developments
00:18:56
Speaker
Uh, chapter two, we start out in a scrap yard, uh, where a, another cigarette landlady, uh, no, no, sorry.
00:19:03
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.
00:19:09
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.
00:19:18
Speaker
And you're correct.
00:19:20
Speaker
Um, she tells him that she's looking for a specific load that dropped off in the junkyard.
00:19:27
Speaker
And he correctly says, that's not really how it works.
00:19:31
Speaker
We don't really keep track of all this shit.
00:19:34
Speaker
Uh, I don't know what to tell you.
00:19:37
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.
00:19:53
Speaker
And he's kind of spellbound by this information.
00:19:56
Speaker
She couldn't possibly know this.
00:19:58
Speaker
He really hurt himself doing all this stuff.
00:20:00
Speaker
In fact, he's covered in bandages from the waist down, I believe.
00:20:03
Speaker
Right.
00:20:04
Speaker
And the section of this chapter ends with her saying, I want you to show me where she was, where that was.
00:20:11
Speaker
And she does this.
00:20:12
Speaker
She kind of like is standing over him and it's real fucking sexy.
00:20:18
Speaker
It's very mommy.
00:20:19
Speaker
It's very Lady Dimitrescu.
00:20:21
Speaker
I was going to say Lady Dimitrescu.
00:20:25
Speaker
I don't know why, but the entire scene gives lady.
00:20:29
Speaker
I haven't, I haven't played that game in a while.
00:20:32
Speaker
And I, that, that woman will never shake for my head.
00:20:35
Speaker
That's all there is to it.
00:20:36
Speaker
She's because, because,
00:20:39
Speaker
Oh, sorry.
00:20:41
Speaker
Monitor just went crazy.
00:20:43
Speaker
Anyway.
00:20:46
Speaker
So we cut to John at the construction site.
00:20:50
Speaker
He pulls in.
00:20:51
Speaker
He is late and he is fired.
00:20:54
Speaker
And that's that.
00:20:56
Speaker
He kind of tries to defend himself and he's like, I'm not late.
00:20:59
Speaker
Well, I'm not that late.
00:21:01
Speaker
You know, it's just like, no.
00:21:02
Speaker
And the guy's like, yeah, come on, man.
00:21:04
Speaker
I can't do this anymore.
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:06
Speaker
We can't just come on, dude.
00:21:08
Speaker
Like it seems.
00:21:10
Speaker
reasonable enough.
00:21:11
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.
00:21:21
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,
00:21:32
Speaker
Of course.
00:21:33
Speaker
I mean, why?
00:21:34
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.
00:21:42
Speaker
She is a pod person or something like that.
00:21:44
Speaker
Right.
00:21:45
Speaker
Right.
00:21:46
Speaker
Which you would think at this point, especially it's like, well, I'm going to see her.
00:21:49
Speaker
I don't want to automatically go in there hot thinking the worst.
00:21:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:54
Speaker
And that's chapter two.
00:21:57
Speaker
Chapter three, we open with John going to the party and it's at Clay's house.
00:22:02
Speaker
Carlton's dad, who is like the sheriff or the chief police.
00:22:07
Speaker
He's one of those guys.
00:22:09
Speaker
And he is...
00:22:11
Speaker
pure divorce dad mode or actually, you know what?
00:22:14
Speaker
I'm going to actually they do make a point of saying he is post divorce dad mode.
00:22:18
Speaker
Right.
00:22:19
Speaker
That his wife left a while back.
00:22:21
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.
00:22:29
Speaker
And now he has actually gotten it together and the house looks pretty good.
00:22:34
Speaker
There's a lot of commentary on like, OK, he pulled out of that tailspin.
00:22:38
Speaker
We're all very pleased.
00:22:41
Speaker
Yeah, he's he is great.
00:22:44
Speaker
Very John's greeted very warmly.
00:22:46
Speaker
Everyone's really happy to see him.
00:22:48
Speaker
We've got Carlton there, Marla there, Jessica and Carlton has become a theater major to no surprise of anyone.
00:22:57
Speaker
He was always the mouth character.
00:23:01
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.
00:23:07
Speaker
See if anyone.
00:23:07
Speaker
Oh,
00:23:10
Speaker
Lamar is not there.
00:23:13
Speaker
And I think, I think at some point our author was like, we got too many characters.
00:23:21
Speaker
So they even make it.
00:23:22
Speaker
I don't even remember them referencing him.
00:23:24
Speaker
They just say he's not there.
00:23:26
Speaker
It's like she says that Jessica talked to him on the phone and said, you should come.
00:23:32
Speaker
Are you going to come back to Hurricane for because that's the name of the town for this party?
00:23:38
Speaker
And and again, I'm on Lamar's side here.
00:23:41
Speaker
Lamar says, fuck that town.
00:23:43
Speaker
I'm never coming.
00:23:44
Speaker
That's right.
00:23:44
Speaker
I remember y'all should leave, too.
00:23:47
Speaker
Right.
00:23:48
Speaker
And he can't argue with that.
00:23:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:51
Speaker
So he isn't there and he will not be much like the little brother character who was also not there.
00:23:58
Speaker
But who wasn't there in the second book?
00:23:59
Speaker
Another one that we just kind of.
00:24:01
Speaker
The book does itself a favor by trimming off.
00:24:06
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.
00:24:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:16
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.
00:24:27
Speaker
So we're focusing down.
00:24:29
Speaker
It's John, Jessica and Carlton's dad, basically.
00:24:32
Speaker
Yes.
00:24:33
Speaker
Yes.
00:24:34
Speaker
The former Clay, the former police chief, basically.
00:24:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:39
Speaker
So those are those are kind of our main people.
00:24:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:43
Speaker
So, yeah.
00:24:43
Speaker
Clay looks good.
00:24:44
Speaker
The whole place looks good.
00:24:47
Speaker
Let's see.
00:24:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:48
Speaker
There was a, so Clay kind of tries to give a pet talk, pep talk.
00:24:53
Speaker
Like, Hey, you know, you can do this and everything's going to be all right.
00:24:56
Speaker
And, and, and that kind of thing.
00:24:58
Speaker
And it's nice, but also kind of uncomfortable because John, John responds to the pep talk.
00:25:04
Speaker
Like, you're right.
00:25:06
Speaker
I don't want to do this and fucking leave.
00:25:08
Speaker
It fucking leaves, which is,
00:25:12
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.
00:25:21
Speaker
So he does run into Charlie.
00:25:23
Speaker
Charlie shows up.
00:25:25
Speaker
She's doing a whole new thing.
00:25:26
Speaker
Like her hair is different.
00:25:28
Speaker
Her style is different.
Animatronics and Sinister Operations
00:25:30
Speaker
And it's just another thing that kind of putting him off.
00:25:34
Speaker
So she says she wants to meet.
00:25:36
Speaker
And he does.
00:25:38
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?
00:25:45
Speaker
Right.
00:25:45
Speaker
You know, like something that if she was a clone, she couldn't possibly know this.
00:25:49
Speaker
But she correctly assumes that he means the restaurant they would always.
00:25:52
Speaker
Right.
00:25:52
Speaker
And also, but he also says, do you remember what I asked you?
00:25:56
Speaker
Or is this the next scene?
00:25:57
Speaker
Does he say this?
00:25:59
Speaker
I think he brings it up here, but it does.
00:26:01
Speaker
What did I say to you before?
00:26:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:04
Speaker
What was the last thing I said to you that night?
00:26:07
Speaker
She can't she can't say.
00:26:08
Speaker
But you can see and it's it's a it's a very good show.
00:26:14
Speaker
Don't tell where John is clearly saying things to her.
00:26:19
Speaker
cryptically enough to try to like test her.
00:26:22
Speaker
Like, yes, yes.
00:26:24
Speaker
And this is not the last time he does this.
00:26:26
Speaker
Right.
00:26:26
Speaker
It's, it's pretty consistent.
00:26:29
Speaker
He says he has this great line where he basically says those weren't her eyes.
00:26:34
Speaker
Right.
00:26:34
Speaker
It's like, he's just seeing someone else there.
00:26:38
Speaker
Charlie is heartbroken at his reaction.
00:26:41
Speaker
He's so cold and standoffish and, and just, just, she's not, she's not used to this side of him, basically.
00:26:49
Speaker
And then at the end of the scene, he says, you're in a desert walking along.
00:26:52
Speaker
You look down and see a tortoise that's crawling towards you.
00:26:56
Speaker
You flip.
00:26:57
Speaker
You reach down and flip it over onto its back.
00:26:59
Speaker
I am here.
00:27:02
Speaker
Uh-oh.
00:27:03
Speaker
Speaking of tiny creatures.
00:27:04
Speaker
Oh, no.
00:27:07
Speaker
It's poo.
00:27:08
Speaker
Oh, bother.
00:27:09
Speaker
Oh, poo.
00:27:10
Speaker
Oh, that's the poo.
00:27:13
Speaker
People, the people in the audio version of this are going to be very confused.
00:27:18
Speaker
It's Winnie the Pooh's.
00:27:20
Speaker
Well, it's this Pooh's birthday.
00:27:23
Speaker
Oh, happy birthday, Pooh.
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:26
Speaker
There's nothing quite like a birthday Pooh.
00:27:28
Speaker
Everyone likes it.
00:27:29
Speaker
Everybody loves a birthday Pooh.
00:27:31
Speaker
It's true.
00:27:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:38
Speaker
The Pooh where you feel most alive.
00:27:43
Speaker
I choose not to explain any of that.
00:27:45
Speaker
No, don't.
00:27:46
Speaker
You don't have to.
00:27:47
Speaker
I don't think I need to.
00:27:48
Speaker
This podcast is just going to be about poo.
00:27:54
Speaker
We're doing a hard swivel, people, from here on out.
00:28:00
Speaker
Poo-lit.
00:28:01
Speaker
Whoa, poo-lit.
00:28:02
Speaker
I actually kind of like that.
00:28:03
Speaker
I do like that, too.
00:28:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:05
Speaker
A podcast about books you read on the toilet.
00:28:08
Speaker
I love it.
00:28:09
Speaker
I love it.
00:28:10
Speaker
I'm just going to leave poo-wake.
00:28:12
Speaker
Okay.
00:28:12
Speaker
Actually, you should probably take him because I move around a lot.
00:28:17
Speaker
Plus, he's yours.
00:28:20
Speaker
Okay, thank you.
00:28:21
Speaker
She...
00:28:24
Speaker
Dude, you know, she installed a mic in that thing, right?
00:28:26
Speaker
Of course.
00:28:29
Speaker
Of course.
00:28:29
Speaker
Conspicuously there.
00:28:32
Speaker
Where was it?
00:28:32
Speaker
Oh, Blade Runner joke.
00:28:34
Speaker
Anyway, continue.
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:28:38
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.
00:28:49
Speaker
he was talking about.
00:28:50
Speaker
She doesn't remember that.
00:28:51
Speaker
She talks about her having this really hazy memory.
00:28:54
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.
00:29:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:03
Speaker
And that's chapter two.
00:29:04
Speaker
Chapter three opens up with two figures watching a series of animatronics.
00:29:11
Speaker
It's an old man, and he basically starts messing with the innards of one of them, like Frankenstein style.
00:29:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's a real weird scene.
00:29:19
Speaker
It's real weird.
00:29:20
Speaker
It's real rough.
00:29:20
Speaker
They're melting one down and they're pulling its molten innards out with syringes and injecting it into other stuff.
00:29:29
Speaker
It's real.
00:29:30
Speaker
Exactly.
00:29:31
Speaker
And you can't really put your finger on what the hell any of this is supposed to accomplish.
00:29:36
Speaker
Right.
00:29:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:37
Speaker
He says very cryptically that eventually the other animatronics will become more like his assistant.
00:29:45
Speaker
And we get kind of a glimpse at her and you realize that his assistant isn't quite human.
00:29:51
Speaker
Right.
00:29:51
Speaker
But apparently she is...
00:29:55
Speaker
More.
00:29:56
Speaker
More.
00:29:57
Speaker
More.
00:29:57
Speaker
More than human?
00:30:00
Speaker
More.
00:30:01
Speaker
More human than human.
00:30:05
Speaker
We cut to John back at home.
00:30:08
Speaker
He starts hearing this sound.
00:30:10
Speaker
It's described as this, like...
00:30:12
Speaker
Droning kind of low metallic sound.
00:30:16
Speaker
And he's trying to figure out where it's coming from.
00:30:19
Speaker
And he realizes it's coming from inside the toy rabbit's head.
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:24
Speaker
Which is totally normal and good.
00:30:26
Speaker
Very normal.
00:30:27
Speaker
Very good stuff.
00:30:28
Speaker
Very good stuff.
00:30:30
Speaker
There's no reason to throw that thing away at all.
00:30:34
Speaker
So he finds a journal that he'd been keeping where he is just filled with.
00:30:41
Speaker
it's hard to call it a journal.
00:30:42
Speaker
It's like a research thing where he's basically filled it with all of the facts that he knows about Charlie.
00:30:49
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.
00:30:56
Speaker
It's all very speculative.
00:30:59
Speaker
He is surprised at how little he actually knows about her.
00:31:05
Speaker
Right.
00:31:05
Speaker
Like,
00:31:07
Speaker
From their childhood, from when he reunited with her a couple years ago, and also prior to that.
00:31:20
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...
00:31:27
Speaker
Who the hell is she?
00:31:29
Speaker
Right.
00:31:30
Speaker
Right.
00:31:30
Speaker
Which, which, you know, I, I hadn't thought about, right.
00:31:33
Speaker
It's, it's true.
00:31:34
Speaker
He doesn't know that much about her.
00:31:36
Speaker
Uh, we get little childhood memories of the two of them and including a moment where, uh, uh,
00:31:43
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.
00:31:50
Speaker
Just adorable.
00:31:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:52
Speaker
Totally normal and good.
00:31:53
Speaker
Totally normal.
00:31:55
Speaker
He starts to wonder if this isn't Charlie, who the heck is it?
00:31:59
Speaker
And he starts to wonder about Sam, who was Charlie's twin, who has died slash disappeared.
00:32:07
Speaker
Uh, from childhood.
00:32:09
Speaker
And he had always assumed that Sam was a boy based on the name, but Sam could be a girl's name too.
00:32:14
Speaker
So maybe what we're dealing with is a twin here.
00:32:17
Speaker
So he's, he's, he's Q and on the fuck.
00:32:20
Speaker
He is really pulling on threads.
00:32:23
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:32:24
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.
00:32:33
Speaker
Oh, it's true.
00:32:34
Speaker
Because she has no clue what could be going on.
00:32:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:38
Speaker
This would be a really bad adventure game because it's like, it's so much guesswork.
00:32:45
Speaker
Like normally there's like, it's just going to be a clean pattern that you get this thing and get this thing.
00:32:49
Speaker
No, this is way more realistic.
00:32:51
Speaker
It's like use fish with rubber stamp.
00:32:56
Speaker
Well, yeah, it might be like the disc world point and click game to be fair.
00:33:01
Speaker
But yeah.
00:33:02
Speaker
So this is another time that I really related with John.
00:33:06
Speaker
The next day he wakes up and goes, holy shit, I'm late for work.
00:33:09
Speaker
Oh, wait.
00:33:12
Speaker
I 100% had that happen to me on multiple occasions where I was like, oh, shit.
00:33:17
Speaker
Oh, no, they fired me.
00:33:18
Speaker
Great.
00:33:20
Speaker
Clay shows up at his place to check on him again, which I'm just like stranger danger.
00:33:28
Speaker
But then they're not they're not children anymore.
00:33:31
Speaker
They're not children anymore.
00:33:32
Speaker
They are full, full ass adults.
00:33:36
Speaker
Not half-ass adults, which are what children are.
00:33:38
Speaker
Full-ass adults.
00:33:39
Speaker
Full-ass adults.
00:33:40
Speaker
Exactly.
00:33:42
Speaker
But he does have a purpose beyond
Threats and Discoveries
00:33:44
Speaker
that.
00:33:44
Speaker
He basically says that he wants to – he knows that he's going to be meeting up with Charlie.
00:33:49
Speaker
And he's trying to kind of like get him to ask her – get some information from her about her aunt.
00:33:58
Speaker
because there's like some interesting information that he's getting that connects back to her aunt, Jen.
00:34:03
Speaker
Right.
00:34:05
Speaker
That he just like, you know, if you think about it, you can just ask about that.
00:34:09
Speaker
Just ask about Aunt Jen because Clay is like, it's Clay is kind of basically in the same spot as John.
00:34:19
Speaker
He's also doing guesswork.
00:34:22
Speaker
He's an adult who is a former detective who can, you know,
00:34:27
Speaker
put things together a little bit better.
00:34:28
Speaker
Right.
00:34:29
Speaker
He's he at least has some training in this.
00:34:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:31
Speaker
It's a little further along than John or John's like John's like identical twin.
00:34:36
Speaker
And he's like, no, what about Aunt Jen?
00:34:39
Speaker
Because she's weird.
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:40
Speaker
Because she's she's weird.
00:34:42
Speaker
And she's a person we could actually talk to.
00:34:44
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.
00:35:01
Speaker
Um,
00:35:02
Speaker
At this point, the rabbit head Theodore starts going nuts.
00:35:04
Speaker
It's making horrible, grindy sounds.
00:35:07
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.
00:35:17
Speaker
Right.
00:35:18
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
00:35:28
Speaker
battery, low message, like freaking out kind of thing.
00:35:32
Speaker
I would have thrown it in the fucking garbage.
00:35:34
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.
00:35:45
Speaker
Right.
00:35:46
Speaker
Okay.
00:35:46
Speaker
So, and I remember in the basement, I,
00:35:57
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.
00:36:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:08
Speaker
Like the little kind of.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:10
Speaker
You know, get your, you know, pop open a beer.
00:36:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:14
Speaker
But it was this terrifying looking Cyclops.
00:36:21
Speaker
Like demon headed cyclops.
00:36:23
Speaker
And every time I passed by it, you know, I would be, I would be terrified.
00:36:29
Speaker
Uh, it was, it was next to a poster, a height measurement poster of Dr. Julius Irving, Dr. J. Um,
00:36:41
Speaker
This basement also had a pit in it, just like a hole that went down.
00:36:49
Speaker
I can't remember exactly what it was for.
00:36:51
Speaker
Probably coal.
00:36:52
Speaker
You kept coal in it or something like that.
00:36:56
Speaker
Stored something in there.
00:36:57
Speaker
It stored something.
00:36:58
Speaker
But I never saw the bottom of it.
00:37:00
Speaker
It was like you opened it up and then it was just black going down.
00:37:05
Speaker
And you're like, oh, yeah.
00:37:07
Speaker
Well, well, I'm not going to die there.
00:37:10
Speaker
There's also a room that was always locked that my for the real reason it was locked.
00:37:18
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.
00:37:25
Speaker
But the bottomless pit room was not locked is what you're saying.
00:37:29
Speaker
The bottomless pit was not locked.
00:37:30
Speaker
You had access to that any time.
00:37:33
Speaker
But the paint room, paint, the paint, the paint room was locked.
00:37:37
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.
00:37:46
Speaker
Sure.
00:37:47
Speaker
Which is, you know, that's just being a good older brother.
00:37:49
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.
00:37:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:59
Speaker
So.
00:38:01
Speaker
This is all sounding this.
00:38:02
Speaker
This all tracks.
00:38:03
Speaker
This as an older brother, this all sounds very normal.
00:38:08
Speaker
Sounds normal.
00:38:09
Speaker
Normally.
00:38:10
Speaker
We never grew up in a place that had a fucking pit, though.
00:38:14
Speaker
We had a basement and a pit.
00:38:18
Speaker
My brother, I would have been like, we're going to investigate.
00:38:21
Speaker
Get the we're going into the pit.
00:38:23
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:38:25
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.
00:38:31
Speaker
So you can't see into.
00:38:32
Speaker
And everything's so much bigger when you're that age.
00:38:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:36
Speaker
When you're a kid.
00:38:36
Speaker
The holes are deeper.
00:38:37
Speaker
The holes are deeper.
00:38:39
Speaker
I mean, sure.
00:38:39
Speaker
If I, you know, went back to that house now, I'd be like, oh, okay.
00:38:44
Speaker
Well, that's really not that bad.
00:38:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:45
Speaker
That's not that bad.
00:38:48
Speaker
That's how I am with all of my German childhood memories.
00:38:52
Speaker
Germany was such a terrifying place to grow up as an American kid with no context.
00:38:56
Speaker
Right.
00:38:57
Speaker
And only a limited understanding of the language.
00:38:59
Speaker
And then when you went back as an adult, it was still terrifying.
00:39:02
Speaker
It was still terrifying.
00:39:04
Speaker
But I like it.
00:39:06
Speaker
But now I'm like, oh, but this is fun.
00:39:07
Speaker
I'm enjoying myself.
00:39:09
Speaker
This is great.
00:39:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's so.
00:39:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:14
Speaker
Uh, let's see, where are we?
00:39:15
Speaker
Oh, horrible sounds coming from the horrible sounds from the rabbit sounds.
00:39:21
Speaker
Um, so John, uh, heads to the restaurant to see Charlie, uh, their old movie theater.
00:39:27
Speaker
Uh, he passes by what, what used to be their old movie theater.
00:39:31
Speaker
It has been replaced by, Oh, excuse me.
00:39:33
Speaker
Jesus Christ.
00:39:35
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.
00:39:57
Speaker
Sure.
00:39:58
Speaker
Uh, like that's, there's just no, there's no pure and good pizza in this world.
00:40:03
Speaker
No.
00:40:03
Speaker
Uh,
00:40:04
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.
00:40:11
Speaker
It's like an insane acid trip.
00:40:14
Speaker
Chuck E. Cheese.
00:40:15
Speaker
It's like an insane clown posse.
00:40:21
Speaker
Oh, no, it couldn't be that.
00:40:24
Speaker
That's just not a thing.
00:40:25
Speaker
That's not a thing, really.
00:40:26
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.
00:40:30
Speaker
This is an this is an acid infused showbiz pizza.
00:40:34
Speaker
It is absolutely insane.
00:40:38
Speaker
He is again, I'm going to say this.
00:40:40
Speaker
He's correctly stopped.
00:40:43
Speaker
Because he doesn't have children.
00:40:45
Speaker
Right.
00:40:46
Speaker
Which is a pretty common rule in these places.
00:40:49
Speaker
We're like, well, you have to have a kid to come in.
00:40:53
Speaker
Which is totally fine with that.
00:40:55
Speaker
There are a lot of rules out there that I bristle against and I go, that seems like a stupid point.
00:41:01
Speaker
Let's say not that one.
00:41:02
Speaker
Not that one.
00:41:03
Speaker
I'm good with that one.
00:41:04
Speaker
Keep that one.
00:41:07
Speaker
And that's chapter three.
00:41:08
Speaker
Chapter four opens with Jessica.
00:41:12
Speaker
Jessica in her apartment.
00:41:13
Speaker
She's bringing home the groceries.
00:41:15
Speaker
Something feels wrong.
00:41:17
Speaker
And then in her apartment, we get a little inner monologue about how cool it is that, you know, her life now.
00:41:23
Speaker
She seems like she's doing OK.
00:41:25
Speaker
All things considered, like she's she's got her own little life and she seems pretty happy in it.
00:41:32
Speaker
She sees someone in the dark in her apartment and freaks out.
00:41:37
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.
00:41:47
Speaker
The door was always open, so I just let myself in.
00:41:50
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
00:42:01
Speaker
That is a normal thing to do.
00:42:03
Speaker
All right.
00:42:04
Speaker
I will.
00:42:04
Speaker
I will be.
00:42:06
Speaker
I will help you slay Queen Slay.
00:42:09
Speaker
And then please leave.
00:42:11
Speaker
And then please get the fuck out of here.
00:42:15
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.
00:42:28
Speaker
She's really kind of torn up about that.
00:42:32
Speaker
We cut to Charlie outside.
00:42:34
Speaker
It's time for the meet cute.
00:42:36
Speaker
Time for the remeet.
00:42:38
Speaker
The remeet.
00:42:38
Speaker
They're meeting at the restaurant and John keeps pulling the like testing her memory series of questions.
00:42:48
Speaker
He's not upfront about anything.
00:42:49
Speaker
He's like, well, if you liked that so much, what did we call it?
00:42:53
Speaker
It's like that kind of thing.
00:42:54
Speaker
Just one after the other.
00:42:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:57
Speaker
We get a weird moment where like she just says she'll have whatever he has before he's even ordered.
00:43:05
Speaker
And John even says, he's like, I guess I should order something good then.
00:43:11
Speaker
Yeah, whatever he had.
00:43:13
Speaker
And he's like, what's good?
00:43:19
Speaker
It's really weird.
00:43:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:22
Speaker
She goes to the bathroom.
00:43:23
Speaker
She excuses herself to kind of get herself together.
00:43:26
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.
00:43:37
Speaker
She comes back and then she confesses to him that she can't remember what he asked her.
00:43:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:45
Speaker
Right.
00:43:46
Speaker
So he asks her, he asks her, how did you survive?
00:43:49
Speaker
She says, I don't know.
00:43:50
Speaker
Yep.
00:43:51
Speaker
And he says, and he asks her, how did you get away undamaged?
00:43:55
Speaker
To which she replies, I didn't.
00:43:58
Speaker
Right.
00:43:59
Speaker
Which is a pretty good line.
00:44:00
Speaker
It is a good line.
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:02
Speaker
But you're still like, you're still like, at this point, the book is kind of leading you down.
00:44:09
Speaker
Oh, maybe John is like paranoid.
00:44:12
Speaker
Maybe John, maybe John is paranoid.
00:44:15
Speaker
And maybe this is just like two kids who went through something really fucking traumatic.
00:44:20
Speaker
And this is how trauma changes you.
00:44:22
Speaker
You know, it's.
00:44:23
Speaker
Which is a very cool idea.
00:44:25
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.
00:44:40
Speaker
Fucking cool.
00:44:41
Speaker
I like that a lot.
00:44:42
Speaker
I saw a movie last night that I have been told I need to watch and I fucking loved it.
00:44:50
Speaker
I saw Nightmare on Elm Street 2.
00:44:52
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:44:52
Speaker
Last night.
00:44:53
Speaker
I loved it.
Themes and Comparisons
00:44:56
Speaker
I know a lot of people who have given it shit, but the one thing I knew about it is that.
00:45:01
Speaker
I can't even remember which one is two.
00:45:03
Speaker
They kind of bubble together in my head over time.
00:45:07
Speaker
Which is understandable.
00:45:08
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.
00:45:14
Speaker
And the only thing I knew for sure was that I think it was the writer that,
00:45:18
Speaker
had said, yeah, this is this is a metaphor for for being gay, being a closeted homosexual, especially in the 80s.
00:45:28
Speaker
And no one knew that.
00:45:29
Speaker
No one realized it fully.
00:45:30
Speaker
Well, gay people probably did.
00:45:33
Speaker
But but the rest of the world didn't until like 15, 20 years later when he said that.
00:45:39
Speaker
And I'm watching this movie going, how
00:45:41
Speaker
How did people miss this?
00:45:43
Speaker
This is the gayest thing I've ever seen.
00:45:47
Speaker
And it's wonderful.
00:45:49
Speaker
It's super 80s.
00:45:50
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.
00:45:59
Speaker
And it's all that.
00:46:01
Speaker
He is trying to basically inhabit the main character's body so that he doesn't have to use dreams.
00:46:11
Speaker
And it gets very wishy-washy with how it all works.
00:46:15
Speaker
The rules don't always make sense.
00:46:17
Speaker
But between –
00:46:18
Speaker
the new spin on like a really unique spin on, on the character and, and the actors are great.
00:46:27
Speaker
And like, it's super eighties and right.
00:46:29
Speaker
Freddie's fucking excellent.
00:46:31
Speaker
It's where you get, that's the one where you get amazing.
00:46:34
Speaker
Come on.
00:46:34
Speaker
That's that's the one where you get his you're all my children now line.
00:46:38
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.
00:46:45
Speaker
We're in the first one.
00:46:46
Speaker
We're running from the guy with the fingers.
00:46:48
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:46:50
Speaker
The second one is far more about the aftermath and what do we have to deal with now that that's done.
00:46:58
Speaker
Right.
00:46:59
Speaker
We're still going to get killer puppets and stuff, but.
00:47:01
Speaker
Oh, totally.
00:47:03
Speaker
It's far more.
00:47:06
Speaker
There's something under there.
00:47:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:08
Speaker
Rather than what it is on the tin.
00:47:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:11
Speaker
Very much.
00:47:12
Speaker
And for a game that is just like this one trick pony jump scare game, that's pretty impressive.
00:47:20
Speaker
I'm just kind of amazed that we came from that overwrought, overwritten first book in this trilogy to this.
00:47:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:30
Speaker
The first book is a mess.
00:47:33
Speaker
It's a mess.
00:47:34
Speaker
It's a mess.
00:47:35
Speaker
It is all over the place.
00:47:37
Speaker
There's things about it that don't make sense.
00:47:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:41
Speaker
Why did they build a mall around Freddy's?
00:47:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:46
Speaker
Still doesn't make sense to me.
00:47:47
Speaker
Too many characters.
00:47:48
Speaker
Not interesting enough.
00:47:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:50
Speaker
15.
00:47:51
Speaker
There's the, yeah, the mystery squad was like 15 kids.
00:47:56
Speaker
Right.
00:47:57
Speaker
And nobody dies.
00:47:58
Speaker
None of them die.
00:47:58
Speaker
Nobody dies.
00:48:01
Speaker
And then by now where it's pretty tight, we're in a pretty tight little story now by the third book.
00:48:07
Speaker
It's like, it's kind of like whittling down your first draft over the course of a trilogy.
00:48:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:15
Speaker
It's like real realizing what you've done wrong as you go along.
00:48:20
Speaker
But your first two drafts were published.
00:48:23
Speaker
Right.
00:48:23
Speaker
Exactly.
00:48:24
Speaker
Which is not a good way to go about it.
00:48:27
Speaker
I know, I know 20 somethings of the world that your book is special and good and should be published right now.
00:48:35
Speaker
You don't want it to be published.
00:48:36
Speaker
You don't want, you don't want anyone to read that shit.
00:48:39
Speaker
Just trust me on this one.
00:48:41
Speaker
Um, so, uh,
00:48:44
Speaker
this point, John kind of is thinking to myself, she's giving me all the right answers, uh, which is kind of suspicious.
00:48:50
Speaker
But at the same time, he, he, he goes back and forth during the scene where he, he wants to believe her.
00:48:56
Speaker
She makes him laugh and, and stuff like that.
00:48:58
Speaker
And he starts to kind of let his guard down.
00:49:00
Speaker
Uh, but ultimately he's still very, uh, untrusting of the whole situation.
00:49:06
Speaker
Um, um,
00:49:07
Speaker
She's changed her hair and her clothes.
00:49:09
Speaker
She did all that.
00:49:10
Speaker
She explains to him because she wants to feel like somebody else.
00:49:13
Speaker
She, you know, the whole, that whole shit that we just went through.
00:49:17
Speaker
I wanted to feel like someone who hadn't done all that, which is it's, she's the blue haired girl.
00:49:22
Speaker
Like that's, that's, that's it.
00:49:25
Speaker
So he confesses to her, his theory is,
00:49:29
Speaker
that she is actually Sammy.
00:49:32
Speaker
And she thinks that's hilarious.
00:49:35
Speaker
And says, Sam's dead.
00:49:37
Speaker
I took you to, you took me to his grave.
00:49:41
Speaker
And he says, well, I took you to a cemetery.
00:49:44
Speaker
Yeah, no, no.
00:49:44
Speaker
She says, I took you to his grave.
00:49:46
Speaker
He goes, you took me to a cemetery.
00:49:49
Speaker
Right, right.
00:49:50
Speaker
And it's like, what's the, like, you never showed me any graves.
00:49:54
Speaker
No.
00:49:55
Speaker
We were at a cemetery.
00:49:57
Speaker
Yeah, which is a great point.
00:50:00
Speaker
She starts, she does mention Aunt Jen.
00:50:04
Speaker
And at this point, her commentary is kind of leaving him uneasy.
00:50:07
Speaker
It's getting a little...
00:50:08
Speaker
It's getting a little weird.
00:50:11
Speaker
So he.
00:50:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:12
Speaker
She starts like really drilling him on Aunt Jen.
00:50:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:16
Speaker
Out of nowhere.
00:50:17
Speaker
Out of nowhere.
00:50:18
Speaker
And he doesn't know what to say.
00:50:19
Speaker
Because at this point he's seen her, but he's never actually met her.
00:50:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:25
Speaker
So he's like, I don't fucking know.
00:50:27
Speaker
Like it just, he has nothing to offer.
00:50:28
Speaker
Do you know where Aunt Jen is?
00:50:30
Speaker
Right.
00:50:31
Speaker
And he's like, I assume she was with you.
00:50:34
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:50:35
Speaker
He was like, I assumed you were living with her.
00:50:37
Speaker
She's like, oh, no, no, I got I got out of there.
00:50:41
Speaker
Eventually, the conversation dies due to lack of interest.
00:50:45
Speaker
And and we and we he leaves and outside there's a big crowd around this pizza place that he has passed.
00:50:56
Speaker
And it is just awful.
00:50:58
Speaker
a fucking Mardi Gras parade of clowns.
00:51:02
Speaker
Just clowns.
00:51:03
Speaker
Some of them are in really elaborate getups.
00:51:05
Speaker
Some of them are really cheap, shitty getups.
00:51:08
Speaker
This is something that I would not.
00:51:10
Speaker
A lot of people assign the adjective Lynchian to a lot of things, and I often disagree.
00:51:17
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.
00:51:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:51:26
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.
00:51:33
Speaker
It's just clowns.
00:51:33
Speaker
It's just, it's not necessarily scary, just weird, just weird.
00:51:39
Speaker
And he's very thrown by this until he sees a sign that basically says, if you, it's the grand opening
Clues and Revelations
00:51:45
Speaker
of the pizza place.
00:51:45
Speaker
And if you dress like a clown, you eat for free.
00:51:50
Speaker
So that's where all the clowns come from.
00:51:51
Speaker
So that's,
00:51:52
Speaker
That's why my nightmare hell on earth happened in Hurricane Utah.
00:51:58
Speaker
So John says, fuck this.
00:52:00
Speaker
And he heads to Clay's house.
00:52:02
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.
00:52:13
Speaker
John sees, he sees that Clay has Ella, which is one of the early animatronics.
00:52:18
Speaker
Right.
00:52:19
Speaker
That Charlie grew up with.
00:52:21
Speaker
It was the bicycle one, right?
00:52:22
Speaker
It was the girl on the bike.
00:52:23
Speaker
I'm pretty sure it's the one on the bike.
00:52:25
Speaker
And Clay says, well, Charlie, I asked her if she wanted it.
00:52:30
Speaker
And she said no.
00:52:31
Speaker
And that just makes, John's like, oh, that ain't her.
00:52:34
Speaker
There's no way in hell she would have said no to that.
00:52:38
Speaker
Right.
00:52:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:40
Speaker
Clay admits to John that another kid has been kidnapped.
00:52:45
Speaker
That makes the second kid this month that's been kidnapped.
00:52:48
Speaker
But then almost kind of immediately tries to go, it's probably fine.
00:52:51
Speaker
It's probably fine.
00:52:52
Speaker
Usually, usually when someone's kidnapped, it's one of the kids' parents and it's like a divorce thing.
00:52:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:52:57
Speaker
It's not bad.
00:52:58
Speaker
We're fine.
00:53:01
Speaker
but two kids did get kidnapped.
00:53:05
Speaker
Just so you know, John decides he's going to leave and Clay offers him his gun.
00:53:12
Speaker
Clay offers him his gun.
00:53:15
Speaker
And to which John responds with the, I've got all the guns I need move.
00:53:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:26
Speaker
John asks clay if he knows a veterinarian, uh, because these pythons are sick basically is what he does.
00:53:33
Speaker
And, uh, that's, that's how he handles that.
00:53:38
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.
00:53:48
Speaker
It seems to be coming towards him.
00:53:49
Speaker
Uh, uh, but, uh, in the end it just kind of passes him.
00:53:54
Speaker
He gets a look,
00:53:55
Speaker
at this costume figure and realizes that this is not like the other clowns.
00:54:00
Speaker
It's something else.
00:54:02
Speaker
And it darts into the darkness and, uh, and he goes, I guess I'll just keep going home then.
00:54:11
Speaker
Moving on.
00:54:12
Speaker
Yeah, moving on.
00:54:13
Speaker
We cut to Clay, who realizes that something is in his house with him.
00:54:20
Speaker
And then we cut right back to John, who starts hearing more sounds coming from the severed rabbit head.
00:54:28
Speaker
That's a weird sentence that I just said, but it's all accurate.
00:54:31
Speaker
It's all accurate.
00:54:32
Speaker
And it starts to actually form words.
00:54:34
Speaker
And over time, he's able to discern that it's saying shining star, silver reef.
00:54:41
Speaker
And that's that's really doesn't mean anything to him.
00:54:46
Speaker
But he has a bad feeling and he runs back to clay.
00:54:49
Speaker
He has been gone less than an hour and finds clay unconscious with the door destroyed behind him.
00:54:58
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.
00:55:09
Speaker
Uh, uh, uh, he's basically threatening these other entities and it's, uh, uh,
00:55:14
Speaker
you get the impression that it's these animatronics that somehow feel things and are scared of him.
00:55:19
Speaker
And he's threatening them with, uh, more molten surgery, I guess.
00:55:24
Speaker
You, yeah, whatever that was.
00:55:27
Speaker
Um, so we cut to the hospital where, uh, John is sitting with Jessica.
00:55:32
Speaker
They're waiting to hear from how clay's doing.
00:55:35
Speaker
Uh, John gets Jessica up to speed essentially.
00:55:38
Speaker
Um, and,
00:55:39
Speaker
And a nurse comes out and says he wants to talk to you.
00:55:43
Speaker
And he's been beat up pretty bad.
00:55:47
Speaker
And it doesn't it doesn't seem to have any interest in saying anything until the nurse leaves.
00:55:50
Speaker
And then he pops back up and he tells them it's it has to have a range.
00:55:56
Speaker
which that's not information that they can really use just yet.
00:56:00
Speaker
Right.
00:56:01
Speaker
Then he gives them photographs.
00:56:03
Speaker
They are.
00:56:04
Speaker
It's this envelope filled with photographs of all of them, all the kids basically at different points.
00:56:10
Speaker
And it's clearly like private investigator style photographs of their group.
00:56:15
Speaker
Someone's been keeping an eye on them.
00:56:19
Speaker
John tells Jessica what happened, what the rabbit had told him.
00:56:25
Speaker
Again, I'm saying these sentences out loud.
00:56:27
Speaker
Fucking rabbit head.
00:56:28
Speaker
Fucking rabbit head told him.
00:56:30
Speaker
And she points out to them that Silver Reef is a ghost town not far from there.
00:56:36
Speaker
It's an old silver mining town that now no one lives in.
00:56:41
Speaker
We get a brief, kind of a token appearance for Marla and Carlton.
00:56:46
Speaker
We're still in the book.
00:56:49
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:56:50
Speaker
We're still here.
00:56:51
Speaker
And Charlie as well.
00:56:52
Speaker
They arrived to see how Clay is doing.
00:56:56
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.
00:57:04
Speaker
at him.
00:57:06
Speaker
He doesn't know what that's all about.
00:57:09
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.
00:57:19
Speaker
She's, she's the mother of one of the missing kids.
00:57:22
Speaker
And she explains to them that clay, she came to check on clay.
00:57:25
Speaker
She's really worried about him because clay had promised her that he was going to find her kids.
00:57:30
Speaker
So clay has been kind of like devoting himself to these, these,
00:57:35
Speaker
these crimes, which is probably one of the reasons he was, someone was trying to bump them off.
00:57:40
Speaker
Which also is not a thing you're supposed to do in that field.
00:57:49
Speaker
No.
00:57:50
Speaker
In investigations, you're not, you're not supposed to promise anyone anything.
00:57:54
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.
00:58:01
Speaker
It's the same as if your doctor like promised you something like that.
00:58:05
Speaker
Like, say you're really sick.
00:58:06
Speaker
He's like, I promise that we'll take it.
00:58:08
Speaker
It's like, I promise you'll be a okay.
00:58:10
Speaker
And be like, yeah, you don't want to do that.
00:58:12
Speaker
You don't want to do that.
00:58:13
Speaker
Nope.
00:58:13
Speaker
Uh,
00:58:15
Speaker
So John and Jessica head out to the ghost town there.
00:58:21
Speaker
At first, they're kind of at a loss.
00:58:23
Speaker
They're not really sure what is going on.
00:58:26
Speaker
And then they notice a wooden archway that leads to a field and it has a star at the top.
00:58:32
Speaker
It's their it's their shining star in Silver Reef.
00:58:36
Speaker
And so they head out in that direction and they find a little house.
00:58:41
Speaker
They knock at the door and find that inside is Aunt Jen, who doesn't really know them.
00:58:49
Speaker
They know her, but she doesn't know them.
00:58:51
Speaker
She's very cagey.
00:58:52
Speaker
Yeah, she's very cagey.
00:58:53
Speaker
They explain that they want to talk about Charlie and she lets him in.
00:58:57
Speaker
She recognizes Theodore the rabbit head.
00:59:00
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.
00:59:07
Speaker
Right.
00:59:08
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.
00:59:16
Speaker
Right.
00:59:16
Speaker
But at that point, there's a knock at the door.
00:59:19
Speaker
So John and Jessica hide in a closet.
00:59:23
Speaker
And when they go to the closet, they find that there is a animatronic framework with a knife.
00:59:29
Speaker
And John realizes it's not working.
00:59:33
Speaker
But that would be a bummer if any of us ran into a closet.
00:59:36
Speaker
This is terrible.
00:59:37
Speaker
This is not good.
00:59:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:39
Speaker
There's a wireframe man with a knife.
00:59:41
Speaker
You wouldn't be happy about it.
00:59:42
Speaker
I doubt.
00:59:43
Speaker
I would not be happy.
00:59:44
Speaker
No.
00:59:45
Speaker
And so they say, fuck that.
00:59:47
Speaker
And they get out of there and they realize that this is the machine that Charlie's dad made to kill himself.
00:59:54
Speaker
So it's a suicide bot.
00:59:55
Speaker
So that's fun.
00:59:57
Speaker
So instead, they just they're like, let's just hide in this room.
01:00:00
Speaker
We can keep the door closed.
01:00:01
Speaker
We don't have to go into a closet.
01:00:03
Speaker
They're hearing they hear Charlie outside.
01:00:06
Speaker
That is Charlie who was knocking on the door.
01:00:10
Speaker
John gets this wild hair.
01:00:11
Speaker
This is kind of what Kevin was talking about before, about like how he just has no ideas.
01:00:16
Speaker
So he goes with everything.
01:00:18
Speaker
Right.
01:00:18
Speaker
So he kind of has this suspicion.
01:00:20
Speaker
And so he's just there are boxes filling the room.
01:00:22
Speaker
So he just starts digging through the boxes.
01:00:25
Speaker
Right.
01:00:25
Speaker
You know, just like that's filled with mechanics.
01:00:27
Speaker
Like there's got to be shit in here.
01:00:29
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:30
Speaker
Right.
01:00:30
Speaker
There's something.
01:00:31
Speaker
He basically does the exact same thing any of us would do if we were playing a point and click game.
01:00:35
Speaker
You're just like click, click, click, click.
01:00:37
Speaker
What can I use in here?
01:00:39
Speaker
And finally opens a chest.
01:00:41
Speaker
And who do you think's inside?
01:00:43
Speaker
But Charlie.
01:00:44
Speaker
Charlie.
01:00:45
Speaker
Charlie.
01:00:46
Speaker
Charlie, Charlie in a box, Charlie in a box.
01:00:51
Speaker
It's it's it's Charlie in a box.
01:00:54
Speaker
She's been wrapped up with blanket stuff and they assume she's dead until they realize that she is breathing.
01:00:59
Speaker
However, shallowly she's not doing so good.
01:01:03
Speaker
And so Charlie.
01:01:05
Speaker
So he's like, we got to get her the fuck out of here.
01:01:07
Speaker
Um, we cut to Charlie's POV.
01:01:10
Speaker
She's like, it's this dreamy liminal kind of state she's in where she's half conscious, half not.
01:01:16
Speaker
And, uh, she knows she's being carried, um, and, and taken away.
01:01:20
Speaker
And, and it's basically given a glimpse into her mind.
01:01:24
Speaker
Um, they hide in a closet, uh, uh, and, uh, and Jessica does a pretty clever trick.
01:01:31
Speaker
And, uh,
01:01:33
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.
01:01:42
Speaker
Right.
01:01:43
Speaker
A figure in red lurches into the room and just like throws itself out the window, clearly hunting them.
01:01:53
Speaker
When they go outside, they find Aunt Jen dead and ripped to shreds.
01:01:58
Speaker
She is disemboweled.
01:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, she's disabowled.
01:02:01
Speaker
She's opened up.
01:02:03
Speaker
It's a bummer.
01:02:04
Speaker
It's and probably one of the more graphic deaths in this entire trilogy.
01:02:08
Speaker
In the entire series.
01:02:09
Speaker
Yeah, the whole thing.
01:02:11
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:12
Speaker
They actually get into detail with this.
01:02:13
Speaker
Guts are out.
01:02:15
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:17
Speaker
And they hop into John's car and escape to his place.
01:02:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:26
Speaker
The end of the chapter, the chapter ends with POV of fake Charlie, not Charlie.
01:02:32
Speaker
Charlie, quote unquote.
01:02:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:34
Speaker
Who is reveling over the fact that she killed her aunt Jen.
01:02:40
Speaker
They had a weird we get we get the moment.
01:02:42
Speaker
Actually, we get a narration of the moment leading up to it where she like just just scares her to death.
01:02:49
Speaker
And in the final moments before she disembows her, they they say that they say, I love you to each other.
01:02:54
Speaker
Yeah.
01:02:55
Speaker
And then and then and then that's a wrap.
01:02:58
Speaker
on aunt Jen.
01:02:59
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.
01:03:11
Speaker
And then she gets like five pages in one book.
01:03:15
Speaker
She gets like three lines and then she's killed off the most violent, will he wet violent way of any character horribly.
01:03:23
Speaker
So yeah,
01:03:24
Speaker
That's a wrap on Jen.
01:03:25
Speaker
And when the chapter ends with not Charlie hopping into her car and speeding away into the night.
01:03:33
Speaker
And and that is and that's as far as we're going to go right
Themes of Identity and Trauma
01:03:36
Speaker
now.
01:03:36
Speaker
That's the first third of the fourth closet.
01:03:39
Speaker
So, Kevin, what do you think so far?
01:03:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think this is a lot better, as we've already said, than the other two books.
01:03:48
Speaker
I think it's fascinating where it's going.
01:03:53
Speaker
It's kind of like the natural evolution of the animatronic stuff where it's like, oh, they weren't just building animatronics.
01:04:00
Speaker
They were building these things that could replace people.
01:04:05
Speaker
Right.
01:04:06
Speaker
And the Charlie, like that, that the Charlie that people have been interacting with since that night,
01:04:14
Speaker
Is is not Charlie.
01:04:16
Speaker
It's yeah.
01:04:17
Speaker
It is a literal robot programs to act like Charlie.
01:04:21
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:23
Speaker
Full AI and everything just trying to, you know, fill the shoes has Charlie's memories programmed into her.
01:04:32
Speaker
Literally.
01:04:32
Speaker
That's why I do.
01:04:33
Speaker
I make the made the Blade Runner reference earlier.
01:04:36
Speaker
Like this is.
01:04:37
Speaker
She's a replicant.
01:04:38
Speaker
She is a fucking replicant of Charlie.
01:04:41
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:42
Speaker
Murderous, yes.
01:04:44
Speaker
Murderous, yeah.
01:04:45
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.
01:04:51
Speaker
She does have that installed into her.
01:04:55
Speaker
I also think it does a very good job.
01:04:57
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 –
01:05:08
Speaker
Patently fucked up.
01:05:09
Speaker
But at this point, he is his brain is broken.
01:05:15
Speaker
I agree.
01:05:16
Speaker
I think I think it's like on one hand, I wish there was more of it.
01:05:22
Speaker
Like I was disappointed when I found out that unequivocally, unequivocally, he is right.
01:05:29
Speaker
Yes, he was right.
01:05:30
Speaker
There's no ambiguity here.
01:05:32
Speaker
He is right.
01:05:34
Speaker
She was a fake.
01:05:35
Speaker
And I was disappointed with that.
01:05:37
Speaker
Sure.
01:05:37
Speaker
Because I would have liked to have seen that stretch out a little more, the paranoia and the fear and all that stuff.
01:05:44
Speaker
I would have liked to have seen how many legs you had with – how much legs that could have had.
01:05:49
Speaker
But I also recognize that your target age for this book is probably 12 or 13.
01:05:54
Speaker
Sure.
01:05:56
Speaker
That's not really the direction you're going for them.
01:05:59
Speaker
Right.
01:05:59
Speaker
We want to have our character back so that we can get on with the story.
01:06:03
Speaker
Get on with the story.
01:06:04
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:04
Speaker
But I do agree that what they have given, and that's the thing.
01:06:07
Speaker
I'm trying not to be too greedy because what they gave us, what Kira gave us with this is pretty good.
01:06:12
Speaker
It's pretty solid.
01:06:15
Speaker
The red herring, the mental breakage.
01:06:19
Speaker
I hope she keeps it up.
01:06:20
Speaker
I hope that we get more.
01:06:23
Speaker
of that as we go along.
01:06:27
Speaker
Because that line, what is the line again that Charlie says?
01:06:31
Speaker
I'm not
01:06:34
Speaker
Oh, he says, he said, I don't know how you escaped undamaged.
01:06:37
Speaker
She's like, I'm not undamaged.
01:06:39
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:39
Speaker
Yeah.
01:06:40
Speaker
And it's like, she absolutely is.
01:06:42
Speaker
I was like, Jesus, that is like, you can have an alternate version of this story.
01:06:48
Speaker
Like you said, basically continuing on from that point, just exploring the fact that,
01:06:53
Speaker
Like you don't even need any animatronics.
01:06:55
Speaker
Just explore the fact that these characters live through the shit that they lived through.
01:07:00
Speaker
A horrible thing.
01:07:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
01:07:01
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.
01:07:13
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:14
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:14
Speaker
Which is about the final girls in a, in a,
01:07:19
Speaker
After their slasher story.
01:07:24
Speaker
Yeah.
01:07:25
Speaker
What a great idea.
01:07:27
Speaker
It's just fantastic.
01:07:28
Speaker
I've not always been a huge Grady Hendrix guy, but I haven't read that one.
01:07:34
Speaker
And that one, I'm genuinely interested in because that's- Grady Hendrix does a really bang up job with the titles of
01:07:42
Speaker
Yeah, he sure does.
01:07:43
Speaker
Like the titles are very intriguing.
01:07:45
Speaker
Like, ooh, how to sell a haunted house, I think is one of his other ones.
01:07:52
Speaker
But yeah, anyway.
01:07:54
Speaker
So, yeah.
01:07:55
Speaker
So I agree.
01:07:56
Speaker
I think it's they're going in some really interesting directions.
01:08:01
Speaker
Whether or not we can keep it going is going to make the difference for me in the next episode.
01:08:07
Speaker
you know, a couple hundred pages.
01:08:09
Speaker
Yeah, totally.
01:08:10
Speaker
Well, now that we've got that under our belts, Kevin, there's only one question left to ask.
Game Reviews and Reflections
01:08:15
Speaker
And that is, what are you playing?
01:08:19
Speaker
I am playing.
01:08:20
Speaker
Okay.
01:08:21
Speaker
So did I talk about hollow body last time?
01:08:24
Speaker
You, yes, yes.
01:08:27
Speaker
I did.
01:08:27
Speaker
Okay.
01:08:28
Speaker
Yeah.
01:08:28
Speaker
Okay.
01:08:29
Speaker
Then what I played in between, uh,
01:08:33
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.
01:08:47
Speaker
It is like you, the, the, the, the influences are right on the sleeve for, for Zero Protocol.
01:08:55
Speaker
That being said, it's, it's not bad.
01:08:57
Speaker
It's, it's a really neat indie game that, um,
01:09:01
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
01:09:21
Speaker
Hold on.
01:09:22
Speaker
All right.
01:09:22
Speaker
I'm looking.
01:09:25
Speaker
And you wake up.
01:09:27
Speaker
You have a memory of going in and getting the job.
01:09:32
Speaker
And then the next moment is you waking up in the hospital.
01:09:38
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
01:10:00
Speaker
You beat it on the OG style, sir.
01:10:02
Speaker
Yeah.
01:10:03
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
01:10:26
Speaker
It was kind of hard to judge where the hitbox was on when they were swinging versus your attack.
01:10:36
Speaker
And there was no interrupts.
01:10:38
Speaker
So when you attacked and hit the guy,
01:10:41
Speaker
It didn't stop them from attacking.
01:10:43
Speaker
They could just keep spamming their attack.
01:10:46
Speaker
Everything's a haymaker.
01:10:50
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.
01:10:57
Speaker
I spend most of the game with one health remaining.
01:11:01
Speaker
Wow.
01:11:03
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.
01:11:21
Speaker
And then by the second half of the game, you have nothing.
01:11:27
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:28
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.
01:11:36
Speaker
Yeah.
01:11:37
Speaker
You're not like you're stuck with that.
01:11:38
Speaker
You're not really able to save anything.
01:11:41
Speaker
So.
01:11:43
Speaker
That was kind of my gripes with it.
01:11:46
Speaker
But in terms of like, it's still a neat game.
01:11:48
Speaker
I would recommend it if you're interested in just like a little, you know, four hour survival horror game.
01:11:57
Speaker
Very clearly based on some of my favorites.
01:12:02
Speaker
You know, I think it really...
01:12:05
Speaker
It really pulls off a lot for what it is.
01:12:08
Speaker
And I think the developer seemingly is very responsive to the notes that he's been getting on the game.
01:12:19
Speaker
That's always nice.
01:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
01:12:21
Speaker
Because in the comments on the store page, people have been talking about that, like,
01:12:27
Speaker
you can't melee these guys, you know?
01:12:30
Speaker
Right.
01:12:30
Speaker
So he's, he's working on adjusting that.
01:12:33
Speaker
Great.
01:12:34
Speaker
So yeah.
01:12:37
Speaker
Zero protocol.
01:12:38
Speaker
It's nice.
01:12:41
Speaker
Yeah.
01:12:41
Speaker
It's a, it's a, it's a neat little game.
01:12:43
Speaker
There's this one moment where you are,
01:12:48
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
01:13:18
Speaker
That's pretty cool.
01:13:19
Speaker
Where did the 2001 poster go?
01:13:20
Speaker
So it's like actively fucking with you.
01:13:24
Speaker
I like that.
01:13:25
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
01:13:27
Speaker
I like that.
01:13:27
Speaker
That's cool.
01:13:28
Speaker
All right.
01:13:28
Speaker
All right.
01:13:29
Speaker
So, yeah, that's what I've been playing.
01:13:31
Speaker
I've also been playing UFO 50 still.
01:13:35
Speaker
UFO 50 will eventually hit Balotro rules where I stopped talking about it, but it's not...
01:13:45
Speaker
I didn't tell you to launch UFO 50.
01:13:47
Speaker
I'm just clicking on the page.
01:13:51
Speaker
Did someone say UFO 50?
01:13:53
Speaker
I've continued to play UFO 50 and it's great.
01:13:58
Speaker
I love it.
01:13:59
Speaker
I can't remember what I played most recently, what I've beaten most recently.
01:14:05
Speaker
Otherwise, another thing that I just started up was Nobody Wants to Die.
01:14:10
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.
01:14:26
Speaker
It is a, uh,
01:14:29
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.
01:14:46
Speaker
Right.
01:14:48
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.
01:14:58
Speaker
And you're now you're a detective.
01:15:02
Speaker
I didn't get a lot of time into it just because I had to.
01:15:04
Speaker
It's one of those games where I had to sit there and fuck with the graphics settings until it worked right.
01:15:09
Speaker
You know what I mean?
01:15:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:15:10
Speaker
Oh, yes.
01:15:11
Speaker
Like, no, that's not it.
01:15:12
Speaker
That's not it.
01:15:13
Speaker
And finally, I got to a point where I was happy, but it was it took me a while.
01:15:18
Speaker
And, you know, I just kicked off the story.
01:15:21
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.
01:15:39
Speaker
So, yeah, I'm looking forward to spending a little more time in that.
01:15:44
Speaker
So, Phil, what are you playing?
01:15:48
Speaker
It's not been all that much, I'm afraid.
01:15:50
Speaker
I did finish Crow Country.
01:15:55
Speaker
Loved it.
01:15:56
Speaker
Loved it.
01:15:57
Speaker
It's so funny because, yeah, it's just so funny because for how...
01:16:03
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
01:16:25
Speaker
You know, Resident Evil games, this is meant to be played multiple times and trying to beat your old score.
01:16:30
Speaker
I got a B plus, which for me, I think is very respectable.
01:16:33
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.
01:16:46
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot going on.
01:16:49
Speaker
So I was genuinely impressed with it.
01:16:51
Speaker
I thought it was a lot of fun.
01:16:52
Speaker
I thought the puzzles were
01:16:54
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
01:17:19
Speaker
It's so old school and I'm just like, oh, these days are behind me.
01:17:22
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.
01:17:27
Speaker
Right.
01:17:28
Speaker
But I really liked it.
01:17:30
Speaker
I liked the ending a lot.
01:17:32
Speaker
I liked the story.
01:17:33
Speaker
They're a little twist at the end.
01:17:36
Speaker
I thought it was pretty good.
01:17:37
Speaker
And I and the thing is, it just made me excited to.
01:17:41
Speaker
I was like, I really want to see what this developer does next.
01:17:45
Speaker
Yeah.
01:17:46
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
01:18:13
Speaker
a pretty solid one.
01:18:14
Speaker
So that's that's basically all I've done.
Travel Plans and Future Content
01:18:17
Speaker
I am I am going to be going out of town for work and then for pleasure next week.
01:18:24
Speaker
So expect a lot of switch reviews coming up.
01:18:29
Speaker
Yes.
01:18:30
Speaker
God forbid.
01:18:33
Speaker
Yeah, we're getting out of town for a little while.
01:18:35
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.
01:18:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's been me.
01:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's great.
01:18:44
Speaker
Awesome.
Podcast Promotion and Listener Appreciation
01:18:45
Speaker
Well, you know what?
01:18:46
Speaker
That'll end this episode.
01:18:48
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.
01:19:00
Speaker
Really, you name it, we got it pretty much.
01:19:04
Speaker
If you're on YouTube right now or not on YouTube right now, go to YouTube.
01:19:09
Speaker
Go to YouTube.com slash PixelitPod.
01:19:12
Speaker
Or is it just Pixelit?
01:19:13
Speaker
I can't remember, but you'll probably find it.
01:19:15
Speaker
I found it.
01:19:16
Speaker
I have faith in you to find our channel on YouTube.
01:19:21
Speaker
Go to it.
01:19:22
Speaker
Subscribe to it.
01:19:23
Speaker
Like all of our videos.
01:19:24
Speaker
Every single one of our videos.
01:19:26
Speaker
All 100 goddamn 70-something videos.
01:19:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's a lot.
01:19:32
Speaker
It's a lot.
01:19:33
Speaker
It's a lot of stuff.
01:19:34
Speaker
There's content.
01:19:35
Speaker
We got a backlog, baby.
01:19:36
Speaker
We got it.
01:19:37
Speaker
I think that's my...
01:19:39
Speaker
Yeah.
01:19:39
Speaker
That's my favorite thing with discord.
01:19:41
Speaker
When people come in, they're like, Hey, I just discovered you guys.
01:19:44
Speaker
And I was like, cool.
01:19:45
Speaker
I'll check out what else you've done.
01:19:46
Speaker
And you guys have been at this for a while.
01:19:48
Speaker
It's like, yeah, pace yourself.
01:19:49
Speaker
Don't you don't want to, you don't want to pull something.
01:19:52
Speaker
Don't we got, we got veterans.
01:19:55
Speaker
We got, we got podcast veterans in there and they pace themselves.
01:19:59
Speaker
So yeah.
01:20:01
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:02
Speaker
So anyway, bye.
01:20:10
Speaker
Bye.