Transcript
Speaker: You know, you really don't need to disembowel some nude guy to figure that one out.
Speaker: I mean, don't get me wrong.
Speaker: I bet it helps.
Speaker: I bet it helps.
Speaker: It really reminds you that we are very frail people to watch a pendulum with an axe on it slice a man right up Broad Street.
Speaker: really, really drives that point home.
Speaker: You know, I get it.
Speaker: I understand.
Speaker: But like I said, I think I could have told you that.
Speaker: And no profit I. Let me put it that way.
Speaker: Hey there, everybody.
Speaker: Welcome back to another episode of Pixel It.
Speaker: My name is Kevin.
Speaker: With me, as always, is Phil.
Speaker: Hello.
Speaker: And today we're talking about the next arc of the Bloodborne comics collected in the trade paperback The Healing Thirst.
Speaker: By the same authors and illustrator as last time, Kot, Kowalski, and Simpson.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: The death metal titlings continue.
Speaker: The death metal, it's, yeah, really, it really would have been perfect on a t-shirt circa 1989 to 1997.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: With the sort of font that no one can read.
Speaker: And it like the shirt faded after a few washes.
Speaker: So that's what you wanted anyway.
Speaker: That's what you wanted.
Speaker: You really didn't want anybody paying attention to it.
Speaker: It's not about wearing new clothes, mom.
Speaker: So healing thirst, healing thirst.
Speaker: Now, the first thing I did notice with this one, because we speculated on this with the last volume, this does not continue the story that we just finished up.
Speaker: It's a totally different story.
Speaker: It is a.
Speaker: brand spanking new story the the hunter and the creepy fish kid uh are nowhere to be found nowhere to be found and and and thank goodness i i hope they're doing well but i'm not gonna miss the creepy fish kid i really hope that kid drowned
Speaker: And the irony of it all, if he turned into a horrifying fish beast only to drown, you got to admit that's good writing.
Speaker: That would be that would be dramatic irony in its finest.
Speaker: Yeah, that's either really good writing or just terrible writing, just depending on.
Speaker: Yeah, depending on who you are and, you know, how many times you claim to have read Infinite Jest.
Speaker: There is only a hair's breadth of difference between good and terrible writing.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: It's true.
Speaker: And often it has everything to do with how much you've been drinking.
Speaker: That is a fact.
Speaker: That is a fact.
Speaker: Hemingway has entered the chat.
Speaker: Oh, wait, Hemingway, you left the chat.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Just that was quick.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: They say he's a minimalist, but this is ridiculous.
Speaker: And that's the lit part of pixel lit right there.
Speaker: Sláinte.
Speaker: Literary references for the scholarly at heart.
Speaker: That's what we bring.
Speaker: That's what we bring to the table.
Speaker: So this story is about a scientist, a Mr. Science man.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: Well, it's about two people, but we were introduced to the scientist first.
Speaker: Right off the bat.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And honestly, before we get too deep into it, I want to ask you, Kevin, about two specific things.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Being that you know this game way better than I do.
Speaker: And I did a little research and that sort of thing, but I figured it would be better to just hear it from you.
Speaker: The two first things first.
Speaker: What...
Speaker: And I ask these about these two things because they have everything to do with the entire storyline.
Speaker: The first thing is old blood.
Speaker: And the second thing is Ashen blood.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: What are we talking about here exactly?
Speaker: So I'm actually not entirely sure what the Ashen blood is referring to, other than it's like some sort of diseased, it's like a blood-borne disease, right?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: The old blood, though, specifically, and they talk about...
Speaker: They talk a little bit about gods and what was found down below.
Speaker: The old blood comes from an eldritch god that is basically living below Yharnam.
Speaker: And...
Speaker: It has like healing effects and that sort of thing.
Speaker: Yeah, that's the thing is that is that Yharnam basically became this city known for its its ability to heal any ill anything that ill you using the blood ministration, which is the application of
Speaker: Of the old blood into your system.
Speaker: And I'm here's the thing.
Speaker: I'm trying to recall as many of the details I remember from my sure my time spending the great sage body video.
Speaker: Yeah, you're timing the shit.
Speaker: That's how I, yeah, I get it.
Speaker: And, you know, after this, I might get back on my shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, that's, I tell you, because that's the thing.
Speaker: It's like this stuff, the brief, because, you know, I did do, I did, it's good that
Speaker: that you knew about the old blood.
Speaker: Cause I did more reading on the Ashen blood.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I get the impression basically that this is a prequel to the events in bloodborne.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: This, this is still, this might even be taking place before the first four issues.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, because the hunters are a thing, the healing church is a thing, but it's very new at the same time.
Speaker: Yeah, it is not the Night of the Hunt, which is a, even though it's called the Night of the Hunt, it is specifically an untimed event.
Speaker: Basically, it just goes as long as it needs to go.
Speaker: And they make reference to the moon is kind of changing positions in the sky.
Speaker: The scientist makes reference to how it's like not it's not behaving the way the moon should.
Speaker: So, yeah, there's there's the night of the hunt, which is and which is endless until the hunt is over.
Speaker: It's sort of like winter in the Game of Thrones, the Song of Ice and Fire series.
Speaker: Winter is not necessarily a truly timed event.
Speaker: It just happens for however long it happens.
Speaker: Yeah, it's not it's it's it's a it's an event.
Speaker: Yeah, it's not it's not one season or so many days.
Speaker: It's just it goes as long as it goes, which is fascinating that Bloodborne kind of has that concept built into it because the next game that Miyazaki and From Software are working on is called Elden Ring and the world building and lore was written by George R.R.
Speaker: Martin.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Which I know more than a few geeks who are a little annoyed about that one.
Speaker: They're still, especially now that we know how the Game of Thrones TV show ended.
Speaker: There are more and more people out there who are like, okay, George, we need you to redeem this, please.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And he spent some of that time working on the new FromSoftware game.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: So that, that it better be worth it, George.
Speaker: God damn worth it.
Speaker: But yeah, I just wanted to bring up those two things specifically because that they are basically the, the two most important things in the, in, in this volume that might not be, it might not be clear to our listeners what we're talking about when it comes to that sort of thing.
Speaker: And Ash and Blood, it feels a little bit like, um,
Speaker: it's almost like an undead curse meets anemia meets the beast.
Speaker: But I don't know.
Speaker: There's it.
Speaker: That's the thing is the confusion is also apparent in the characters because the characters don't know what's going on either.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And that's the entire theme of the volume.
Speaker: Basically, our two main characters are a scientist and a priest, and they're both trying to figure out what, what,
Speaker: is causing this illness, what could cure the illness.
Speaker: And so, yeah, they're there in many ways just as confused by the whole situation as the reader might be.
Speaker: Yeah, they're very perplexed.
Speaker: So basically it starts off with the scientist examining a corpse in the middle of the street.
Speaker: And a few hunters casual about it.
Speaker: And a couple of hunters walk up to him and they're like, uh, Hey buddy.
Speaker: Um, in my heads, um, they sound like Patrick Warburton.
Speaker: Hey, Bill.
Speaker: Hey, buddy.
Speaker: Hey.
Speaker: Hey, Peter.
Speaker: Hey.
Speaker: So, this guy's afflicted.
Speaker: You can't just go around the corpse there.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I got a little Dennis Miller-y there.
Speaker: Yeah, it did start drifting into the Dennis Miller.
Speaker: You can't just go in there and check on a corpse, babe.
Speaker: You're not...
Speaker: It's not really how this kind of town works.
Speaker: That's a reference that will get me.
Speaker: You think I'm keep time coming, babe?
Speaker: Yeah, he's going around, he's got so many corpses around, they're starting to call him Paul Pot back at the locker room, you know what I'm saying, babe?
Speaker: That's an impression that will garner me absolutely no social currency in 2021.
Speaker: That is, that impression is, I want to say, 30 years past its expiration.
Speaker: It is lumpy.
Speaker: It is starting to smell.
Speaker: It is cheese now.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's cheese.
Speaker: Yeah, it is cheese.
Speaker: It is cheese that briefly, for some reason, became a football commentator and then went full hard right on us.
Speaker: So turn.
Speaker: Yeah, good old cheese turned right right after Monday Night Football.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: And I'm left to pick up the pieces going, I loved you, cheese.
Speaker: Don't you understand?
Speaker: I loved you.
Speaker: And you hurt me.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: I used to watch Dennis Miller's show religiously as a kid.
Speaker: Oh, I love that guy.
Speaker: I love that guy.
Speaker: The peak.
Speaker: I thought it was the peak of humor.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's like a lot of things.
Speaker: It's like, it's like Bill Maher.
Speaker: You know, I, you love them for a little while when you're younger and you revisit it as an older person and you go, Oh boy, glad I grew out of that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's what a child thinks a smart adult is.
Speaker: Yeah, it's basically my relationship with Dennis Miller and Bill Maher from my 20s into my now late 30s is, I hope, the same relationship that most of Joe Rogan's fans will have of him some decades down the line.
Speaker: And that's probably unrealistic.
Speaker: Yeah, it's very unrealistic because Joe Rogan is dumb to begin with.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like there's no, there's no superfluous intelligence or large words being thrown around to kind of cloud your judgment, uh, to prevent you from truly thin slicing him.
Speaker: He just is what he is.
Speaker: He just is what he is right off the bat.
Speaker: Right off the bat.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's, that's a good point.
Speaker: Okay, so.
Speaker: So, insulting Joe Rogan, Dennis Miller, Bill Maher in episode 11.
Speaker: We are, we are just, we're cooking with gasoline, my friend, like we are on it.
Speaker: Yeah, but you know what?
Speaker: Fuck them.
Speaker: They're, they're, they're all terrible people in, in very different ways.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: As are many of the antagonists in volume two of Bloodborne, the trade paperback graphic novel.
Speaker: Way to bring it back.
Speaker: Way to bring that train, that runaway train right back onto the tracks.
Speaker: God, I'm good.
Speaker: You are so good.
Speaker: I'm so good.
Speaker: So, yeah, the scientist, we basically get a glimpse of him.
Speaker: You know, we get our introduction to him.
Speaker: He doesn't play by your daddy's rules.
Speaker: He's going to find out the cure to the malady that is afflicting his city come hell or high water.
Speaker: And then it cuts to the priesthood, the healing church.
Speaker: Yes, we are getting our first Healing Church characters, which is interesting.
Speaker: We don't really get much in the way of Healing Church characters or NPCs in the game itself.
Speaker: I believe there's one guy that is affiliated with the Healing Church, one NPC, but it's like the Healing Church has already kind of collapsed for the most part.
Speaker: When we get into Bloodborne itself.
Speaker: So now we got some some brothers from the healing church and our priests.
Speaker: They use the they use the term brother and priest, I believe, interchangeably in certain points.
Speaker: And we are introduced to Clement.
Speaker: And it took me a couple seconds to realize what was actually happening here.
Speaker: Because the first time we see him, he has his eyes closed.
Speaker: And then suddenly he's splattered with blood.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: He's, he's concentrating.
Speaker: And then suddenly he's splattered with blood.
Speaker: And we have another priest that gets in real close, asking him what it is that he sees.
Speaker: Hey, hey, Clement.
Speaker: Hey, hey, Clement.
Speaker: What do you, what do you see there, buddy?
Speaker: What do you see there?
Speaker: What do you, what do you, you notice anything, Clement?
Speaker: Open your eyes.
Speaker: And, and.
Speaker: That's pretty much what happens.
Speaker: And the image backs up a little bit and we see that Clement is sitting there surrounded by his fellow priests.
Speaker: And they the blood that has splattered him in the face has presumably come from this pendulum blade that has disemboweled a nude man on a table a handful of feet away from him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this is this is kind of like.
Speaker: Is he like searching the entrails for prophecy kind of thing?
Speaker: That's the impression I got.
Speaker: Yeah, the blood splatter, the blood hits him and then he has a vision or something.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because they want him to say something.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And his and his vision basically is that you need to beware the frailty of men.
Speaker: And and I could have told you that, you know, you really don't need, you know, to disembowel some nude guy to figure that one out.
Speaker: I mean, don't get me wrong.
Speaker: I bet it helps.
Speaker: I bet it helps really remind you that, that we are very frail people to watch a pendulum with an ax on it, uh, slice a man right up broad street.
Speaker: Really, really drives that point home.
Speaker: You know, I, I, I get it.
Speaker: I understand.
Speaker: But like I said, uh,
Speaker: I think I could have told you that.
Speaker: And no profit.
Speaker: I let me put it that way.
Speaker: So so right off the bat, we we get a good glimpse in the notion that we're we're dealing with like a a a kind of dark.
Speaker: version of the Catholic church in the medieval age, also known as the Catholic church.
Speaker: Also simply known as who they are.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: We're just, we're just racking up the enemies.
Speaker: Everybody is catching strays tonight, Phil.
Speaker: It's true, man.
Speaker: I just catch these hands, son.
Speaker: That was terribly white.
Speaker: That was terribly white.
Speaker: That's all I know how to do.
Speaker: Oh, Lord.
Speaker: So we get some back and forths of the journals of our scientist and a priest who is kind of an unusual priest, wouldn't you say?
Speaker: Yeah, he's, he's, I mean,
Speaker: He's basically questioning everything.
Speaker: That's our introduction to him.
Speaker: Aside from getting splattered with blood, he is just writing down his doubts.
Speaker: And that's kind of our first true introduction to him.
Speaker: He's like, I'm praying to the old gods, but this doesn't seem right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right off the bat, we've got a doubting priest, you know, which which he's just.
Speaker: And I'll tell you what, he is not exactly being real open about it.
Speaker: And after I saw some random guy get splattered with a giant heavy blade, I don't blame him.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Keeping that shit to yourself seems like, you know, the way to go.
Speaker: But yeah, so we're seeing some parallels between him and the scientists.
Speaker: Both of them want answers.
Speaker: Both of them are kind of unsure about the church at very least.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And the priest is writing down that there's going to be, there's talk of purges happening, which is basically all the hunt is, is it's purge one through four.
Speaker: Is that all?
Speaker: Is that have there only been four purge movies?
Speaker: Actually, I can't tell you.
Speaker: There's a there's a I think there's a forever purge out right now.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's that's that's.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was a franchise that really picked up and went.
Speaker: That franchise had some get up and go.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's basically what if the Fast and the Furious movies, but instead of cars, it's people murdering each other.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Because in the end, it's all about family.
Speaker: It's all about family.
Speaker: That's the thing the Purge and the Fast and Furious franchises have in common is family.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just that in the purge, you need to kill yours.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: That's the main difference.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: So we get to the priest and the priest.
Speaker: Yeah, he's he's doubting.
Speaker: He's not clear on anything.
Speaker: And basically, he takes it upon himself to search under the city, basically, in these sewers.
Speaker: he's trying to find out because the rumors go at least from what I could tell basically the rumors go that the old blood and the ashen blood and everything all kind of stem from some source underneath the city and he wants to go figure that out and he is surprised down there he is at the end of that the first part the first issue ends with him being surprised and then
Speaker: Issue number two begins with the revelation that he just got punched in the face by the scientist who is also down in the sewers.
Speaker: I love that, by the way, because, yeah, the last moment, the last you see of the priest in that issue is him looking off into the distance, holding a torch above his head.
Speaker: You're already getting like eldritch feels from a lot of the shit that's going on.
Speaker: He's underground.
Speaker: He's in the sewers.
Speaker: Holy fucking shit.
Speaker: What horrible thing is he seeing?
Speaker: It's it's it's a it's a it's a scientist with long hair punching him in the face.
Speaker: A scientist with long blonde hair.
Speaker: And as the priest notes later, a terrible left hook.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Even.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He points out, he's, you're not, you're not really great at throwing a punch, which is an another glimpse into the life that this guy used to have.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: The priest clearly has, has, has taken some on the chin.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Much like, much like Scott Farkas, he's taken it on the chin.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he handles it well.
Speaker: He does.
Speaker: And they realize that while they are both down there kind of from two opposite ends of the spectrum, if you will, that it looks like they might both be down there for the same reason.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And we have a real Bloodborne Dark Souls moment where
Speaker: the priest tells a joke apparently yeah yeah it's a certain diseases may well begin in the soul and then um
Speaker: And the scientist says, tell that to a syphilitic.
Speaker: And the priest goes, I would, where he's still coming to the mass, but he, and t he, he goes, the scientist goes, what?
Speaker: And the priest says, fell off.
Speaker: But he fell off.
Speaker: And then the scientist says, ha, the priest goes, ha ha.
Speaker: And then they burst out laughing.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's kind of the end of the killing joke.
Speaker: Like, they both start uncomfortably laughing kind of a lot.
Speaker: They're uncomfortably laughing walking through these dark, creepy sewers together only with a torch.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, you know, it accomplishes its goal that moment.
Speaker: It's like, okay, these guys have more in common than it seems, and they're going to be the best of friends.
Speaker: So they're talking about syphilis, which...
Speaker: I mean, is the insinuation that the guy's ding dong fell off because of the syphilis?
Speaker: Is that what they're getting to?
Speaker: I suppose so.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I don't know if that's a conversation.
Speaker: I know that with syphilis way back in the day, A, it made you go crazy.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, people went mad if it wasn't treated.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And when it was treated, it was usually like, we're going to inject mercury up your dick.
Speaker: So that might do just as much harm as good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But and I know that the nose would fall off like your nose would decompose and fall off.
Speaker: And a lot of a lot of like nobility and that kind of thing actually crafted noses made out of silver or gold or other precious materials and would just wear them strapped to their faces and, you know, to hide this gaping cavern in their face.
Speaker: I don't know about the dick, but that was my first thought, too.
Speaker: I was like, he fell off.
Speaker: He's making a dick joke.
Speaker: I have to assume.
Speaker: It still works.
Speaker: It still works.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: It still works.
Speaker: Yeah, we get the idea.
Speaker: They're friends now.
Speaker: By the way, the ha ha ha is almost written, the styling of the letters, it's almost exactly like the end of the killing joke.
Speaker: it really is, isn't it?
Speaker: It's that like kind of unhinged, unrestrained Joker style.
Speaker: Ha ha ha.
Speaker: It's, it's immediately what my brain thought of it.
Speaker: It's yeah.
Speaker: Without the implication that one of them broke the other one's neck in the silence afterwards.
Speaker: It's a, but yeah, it's, it's a little unhinged and, uh,
Speaker: You know, it kind of I got to say this.
Speaker: This volume is a lot more.
Speaker: It's way different.
Speaker: So the one we just finished.
Speaker: It's so different for a lot of reasons that we're going to get into.
Speaker: But
Speaker: This section here, because it's not just that there are a couple of moments that they have in the sewers, starting with the punch in the face and ending with that ha ha ha moment.
Speaker: And there are lots of little moments in between there where it's just.
Speaker: Weird, isn't it?
Speaker: They've got a weird relationship.
Speaker: They're making kind of goofy faces at each other.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That high seriousness that existed 100% in the first volume of this series.
Speaker: is not drawn, not even close because it does come right the hell back.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: But there are no weirdly goofy moments like this in issues one through four.
Speaker: No, no, they just don't exist.
Speaker: Yeah, not at all.
Speaker: Basically, it's as if we got a 21 Yarnham Street, you know, buddy cop.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A little bit.
Speaker: It's like, you know, yeah, it's, it's like he, you know, yeah, it's odd couple style, you know, it's like, he's the atheist scientist and he's the doubting preacher, you know, and they're going to get to the bottom of what's causing people to turn into monstrous werewolves.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's like tonight at seven on UPN.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're going to need a lot of blind faith.
Speaker: Uh,
Speaker: It's that kind of thing.
Speaker: And that just doesn't exist in the, in the other one.
Speaker: It's so it is, it's a really odd moment between these two.
Speaker: And, and, and we get a couple, we get a couple more moments like this as it goes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They, but in the next section, one of them, um,
Speaker: The priest talks about how he feels like he may have found a friend, which is kind of sweet.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: At the end of the world, you know, it's like finding a friend at the end of the world.
Speaker: This is... Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, because this is, you know, this is a fucked up world.
Speaker: And clearly...
Speaker: You know, this being a sequel, a sequel, a prequel to Bloodborne where, you know, everything is right and truly fucked.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But you're it's already got lots of little moments of, you know, what kind of a world are they living in?
Speaker: Things are getting are starting to turn, take a turn for the worse.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And they do actually address the idea of like, you
Speaker: You know, what are you even living for at this point?
Speaker: What's even what is even the point of this?
Speaker: And and we get it.
Speaker: And it actually does cut to that next week.
Speaker: We get some glimpses into their relationship through their journal entries.
Speaker: And then we find the scientist having a smoke.
Speaker: Outside with near a woman named Matilda, who clearly is a close friend of his of some kind, you know, his friend and neighbor Matilda, who is actually referenced in the first first issue.
Speaker: of this arc.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: In the first issue, there's a moment where the scientist is standing alone.
Speaker: It's after he's told by the hunters to go punt.
Speaker: He is standing alone on a bridge.
Speaker: And the narration is, I do as the hunters say, but first I rest at my place of power.
Speaker: The place where I first met my dearest Matilda.
Speaker: Oh, darling, if they only knew how much better their lives are, were you stand on the same ground as them.
Speaker: If only they could feel the love I feel.
Speaker: No terror could ever touch it.
Speaker: So that's right.
Speaker: And jumping forward.
Speaker: Now we are meeting Matilda, who happens to be his neighbor.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And she seems nice.
Speaker: He seems nice.
Speaker: He's a little obsessed with her.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: It's cute.
Speaker: She has her rose garden that she tends to.
Speaker: And I liked that.
Speaker: And that was the detail I was getting at.
Speaker: I think the rose garden is neat because, you know, he says she's working on her garden.
Speaker: He asks her how she's doing.
Speaker: And she says, concerned about the state of the world and grateful for what remains of it.
Speaker: So she's got a level of optimism and hope that you don't generally see.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: In these kinds of worlds, you know, that grimdark kind of thing that you see in things like Bloodborne.
Speaker: She clearly represents a side of it that we do not get a glimpse of too frequently.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And which is probably why he loves her.
Speaker: You know, like she's she's she is a shining bright spot in the darkness.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Because as a scientist, he's super aware of that.
Speaker: Things are terrible.
Speaker: And he's trying to he's trying to solve them.
Speaker: But right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And he also inadvertently reminds Matilda that her husband is dead.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Her husband has died recently.
Speaker: We don't yet know how that went up, came about.
Speaker: And that will definitely be revealed later.
Speaker: Oh, definitely.
Speaker: But for the time being, you're basically left to believe it probably has something to do with this ash and blood.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: We can assume that it could blame you could blame you.
Speaker: This tender moment is interrupted by a werewolf attack.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: As you know what?
Speaker: Too many, too many tender moments interrupted in that way.
Speaker: I find it.
Speaker: Have you had a tender moment interrupted by a werewolf attack?
Speaker: I love you.
Speaker: I love you so.
Speaker: Ah, damn it.
Speaker: Not again.
Speaker: We've all been there.
Speaker: Call 1-800-HEALING-CHURCH.
Speaker: We'll dispatch one of our hunters right away so you can have the peace of mind that your tender moments will not be interrupted by a horrible, horrible werewolf.
Speaker: Check us out at www.nomorewolfinterruptions.gov.
Speaker: I'm going to see if that website is actually owned by that URL.
Speaker: So yeah, the hunters.
Speaker: No, hey, it's not owned.
Speaker: Oh, hey, maybe I'll snap that one up.
Speaker: We're going to have to pick that one up, I think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So the hunters save them.
Speaker: And yes, Alfredius, the scientist, he gets a face full of blood.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So both of our protagonists have been treated to a face full of blood, literal blood, literal blood baths.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: More like a blood shower.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A blood spritzer.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: A misting.
Speaker: Misting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: That's that makes more sense.
Speaker: So there it's we get parallels between the two of them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're dealing with.
Speaker: And and we get a glimpse of the hunter basically telling him, you know, nothing to see.
Speaker: All is well.
Speaker: He's basically giving him the all is well that Kevin Bacon gives at the end of Animal House.
Speaker: Right, right, right.
Speaker: And treats himself to a nice big mouthful of some vial of red liquid.
Speaker: Yeah, that's 100% a blood vial, which is what the hunters use to keep themselves at the top of their game.
Speaker: They drink these little vials of blood.
Speaker: So it's like liquid Coke or something like that?
Speaker: Pretty much.
Speaker: Pretty much?
Speaker: Just like, yeah, yummy.
Speaker: This'll do the trick.
Speaker: It heals you up nice.
Speaker: Yeah, apparently.
Speaker: Good Lord.
Speaker: Yeah, because he's really enjoying it.
Speaker: Well, what's funny is, I guess you can drink it, but in the game, the hunter that you play just takes it and stabs it into his leg.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's just, just intravenous.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, blood years right into that big ass vein.
Speaker: That's in your leg.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Some of us just don't like the way it tastes.
Speaker: I get it.
Speaker: You know, you know, you don't like it.
Speaker: What is there to be right up the butt?
Speaker: Right off the back.
Speaker: Those are your three options.
Speaker: You either drink it out of the vial.
Speaker: You, you, you, you, you shoot it into your leg or in the poop right there.
Speaker: So we cut back to the priest and he.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: I really want to talk about putting this blood in your butt a little more, Kevin, if I might.
Speaker: No, I'm sorry.
Speaker: Continue.
Speaker: And we're back.
Speaker: I just cut out the 30 minute interlude of, well, we're not going to talk about that.
Speaker: So we cut back to the priest.
Speaker: I think, I think everyone will be grateful in the end.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And apparently one of the other priests decided to burn the body that the priest had.
Speaker: There was a hunter basically that was decaying from ashen blood that he had down in the basement.
Speaker: And one of the priests just decided to throw it into the incinerator.
Speaker: Yeah, just get rid of it.
Speaker: Just get rid of it, which is a bummer because the priest was like, yeah, I was looking at that.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It was part of his research process.
Speaker: So he's kind of SOL there.
Speaker: He had an easy depository.
Speaker: I don't know if that's the right word.
Speaker: He has access to some blood that he can, you know.
Speaker: investigate here and now it's all gone it's all gone it's been burned uh much like in the 1980s uh masterwork uh return of the living dead where they burn the body and that just makes more zombies
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: So is this patient zero?
Speaker: Is this what we're dealing with?
Speaker: We don't know yet.
Speaker: We don't know yet.
Speaker: But the priest does find that the hunter scraped something into the table with, it looks like a fingernail?
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's his fingernail.
Speaker: Yeah, he scrapes the words, when ash and blood and waters of Yharnam become one, the unnameable shall rise.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we're dealing with a whole lot of spooky foreshadowing with that guy right there.
Speaker: So we get more buddying around between the scientist and the priest.
Speaker: The priest brings him some goodies to look at.
Speaker: Yeah, they're trading off on supplies, basically.
Speaker: The priest's bringing him...
Speaker: Blood to look at, you know, anything to investigate there.
Speaker: They're working together, you know, but they're keeping it quiet because, you know, they're not going to be the healing church is probably not going to be thrilled about the idea of him working with scientists with an atheist scientists who doesn't believe in the elder gods.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Doesn't doesn't believe in their particular brand of crazy bullshit.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Well, you know, what's interesting about it is that actually it gets more into it, I believe, in the next episode, next episode, next issue.
Speaker: There's a conversation between the scientist and the priest about that.
Speaker: But the, this issue ends on a neat little back and forth between, uh, it's like three scenes happening simultaneously.
Speaker: One is the priest is talking to the head priest, um,
Speaker: Or no, not our priest.
Speaker: There's this little blonde-haired twerp of a priest who has basically been spying, kind of spying on Clement.
Speaker: And reporting back to this head priest and being like, well, you know, they think that maybe it's the blood ministrations.
Speaker: Meanwhile, the scientist is like,
Speaker: I need to study a live specimen, somebody who is, who has the old blood, like, injected into them.
Speaker: We're getting cuts back and forth between that and Matilda, and she's just singing, she's making some rose soup, I guess.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's making.
Speaker: I thought the same thing for those of you who don't have this.
Speaker: She's literally cooking up some kind of a stew and the main ingredients appear to be red rose petals or something like that, which that is a that is a interesting.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I know on British Bake Off, occasionally they'll have an episode where there's somebody who's like, oh, I flavored it with rose.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Yeah, I get that.
Speaker: Even though I don't know what, like, who are you trying to, who are you trying to impress?
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: For God's sake.
Speaker: For God's sake.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nobody's, nobody's, nobody's that British.
Speaker: Nobody's.
Speaker: No one's so British.
Speaker: They're like, oh God, it would be delicious if you could just put a few more rose petals inside.
Speaker: Oh my, it would be scrummy.
Speaker: but no, that's not a thing.
Speaker: And for the record, I will not be taking any rebuttals to this, despite the fact that I do know British people.
Speaker: No, no more about your country than you do.
Speaker: The end, the end, the end.
Speaker: I expect the end.
Speaker: I expect no rebuttals.
Speaker: Yeah, we will hear nothing.
Speaker: We will hear not even from Paula Hollywood, not even if Paul Hollywood offers a damn handshake.
Speaker: Oh, God, that fucking handshake.
Speaker: God damn it, Paul.
Speaker: Get over yourself.
Speaker: Look, I love how happy you seem to have become lately in the more recent episodes.
Speaker: He seems to be having a whole lot of fun.
Speaker: He seems to be in a better mood now.
Speaker: He's loosening himself up.
Speaker: He's loosening up.
Speaker: Shaking it loose.
Speaker: I'd love to see it.
Speaker: Love to see it.
Speaker: I'd love to see it because he was kind of an obnoxious, arrogant son of a bitch before.
Speaker: And he's still got that, but I like him now a little more.
Speaker: Anyway.
Speaker: Welcome to the Great British Bake Off podcast.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Blood porn.
Speaker: The Great British Bloodborne.
Speaker: The Great British Bloodborne podcast.
Speaker: Yeah, this is what you came here for, isn't it?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Anyway, look, Paul Hollywood, just stop being such a dick about that handshake.
Speaker: It's all I'm asking.
Speaker: It's just a handshake.
Speaker: Who the fuck are we?
Speaker: Life is too short, man.
Speaker: Life is too short.
Speaker: What is a man but a miserable pile of secrets?
Speaker: What is a man but a miserable pile of scones?
Speaker: enough talk.
Speaker: Have at you enough.
Speaker: And then the British Bake Off theme just starts.
Speaker: So, yeah, our scientists.
Speaker: has got to figure out, uh, he he's, he's realized that the only real next step for him is to, yeah, to find out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To find out what, what the deal is.
Speaker: And in true, um, I'm going to say Cronenberg fashion, the scientist decides that the only way to, to further the experiment is to do it on himself.
Speaker: On himself, on himself.
Speaker: And so we get we're left with that wonderful cliffhanger where where, you know, our delightful Matilda has she's making rose soup.
Speaker: She coughs and coughs and there's blood in her handkerchief in the classic La Triviata sort of way.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: La Traviata, whatever.
Speaker: Moulin Rouge, people.
Speaker: You know what I'm talking about?
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: And and our priest, our good priest has found out some sort of dark secret in the blood ministration index.
Speaker: It's clearly clearly labeled.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: We don't know what it is yet.
Speaker: We all we also know that the bad priests know what's going on now and they're going to be gunning for us.
Speaker: And then finally, finally.
Speaker: Cronenberg Cronenberg he Cronenbergs himself and and I just Cronenbergs I just love the the face that the bad priest is making uh at the end there you could just the only I can hear his jowls moving as he says this the only there's no reason to find the old blood
Speaker: I'm not raising up.
Speaker: He's, he's, and he's got these wide open eyes and the fat gels.
Speaker: And it looks like the most horrifying introduction to a children's show you've ever seen.
Speaker: Like, yeah, it's, it's not, not great.
Speaker: It's not great.
Speaker: And you know what I just realized is I would like a bloodborne, uh,
Speaker: comic, but illustrated entirely by the artists who did the covers for scary stories you tell in the dark.
Speaker: Oh my, why would you do that?
Speaker: Why would you even put that out into the world?
Speaker: Jesus, Kevin.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: That.
Speaker: Oh, those fucking books were criminal.
Speaker: First off.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: I'm just thinking about them.
Speaker: They were sitting on my bookshelf.
Speaker: I don't think anybody ever bought scary stories.
Speaker: I think it just came.
Speaker: It just appeared on people's bookshelves one day.
Speaker: I think you're right.
Speaker: I had, I know I had the collected trilogy.
Speaker: Like I had like the, with the neat little, you know, sleeve of all three of them on my bookshelf.
Speaker: And, and I know I read them kind of frequently, but I don't know where they came from.
Speaker: They were, they were the truest example of that thing that fucks with you that you can't stop messing with.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like, like when you, when you,
Speaker: find out what happens when you slide a penny along one of your fillings, you know, and you're like, oh, God, oh, Jesus, why that?
Speaker: I'm never doing that again.
Speaker: And then five minutes later, you do it again.
Speaker: Yeah, I never I've never heard of what is that?
Speaker: What does that do?
Speaker: It's like chewing on aluminum foil when you got fillings.
Speaker: It's like it reacts with a metal in your teeth and it kind of gives you a jolt.
Speaker: Weird.
Speaker: It sucks.
Speaker: It really sucks.
Speaker: And it's like, you know, I guess maybe this experience is a little worse.
Speaker: Sticking your tongue onto a nine volt battery.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's a way more accessible version.
Speaker: Yeah, let's go with that.
Speaker: It's the same basic idea.
Speaker: And you're like, well, that sucked.
Speaker: And then you immediately stick your tongue out to do it again.
Speaker: You know, I can't.
Speaker: I couldn't even do that.
Speaker: I couldn't even do that thing with the fillings.
Speaker: Now, if I tried, because two years ago, I got all of my metal fillings replaced with that ceramic stuff that they use now.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: How, how, how long did that take?
Speaker: Oh, how many fillings do you have?
Speaker: Uh, I have a lot and it took a very long time and my teeth hurt for three months.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I believe you.
Speaker: That sucks.
Speaker: They were, they were sensitive to both hot and cold for about three months.
Speaker: They were sensitive to hot, cold and everything in between.
Speaker: It hurt when air touched them.
Speaker: It really did.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: That sucks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay, guys, we're going to need to set up a Patreon so I can have all of the fillings in my head replaced in the same fashion so I can report back to you all.
Speaker: So you can really understand the pain that I went through.
Speaker: It's very important that as podcasting partners and buddies that I experience the same level of pain and disillusion that you have.
Speaker: Uh, and, and that's just the beginning.
Speaker: It's really a start.
Speaker: Uh, if I, if I can take it, make it real serious for a moment, um, brush your teeth kids, you know, Oh, for God's sake, brush your teeth and floss and floss.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Don't, don't do what I did.
Speaker: Don't be like, it's probably fine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's not fine.
Speaker: It's not fine.
Speaker: It isn't.
Speaker: It isn't.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You'll be dead soon.
Speaker: Uh, and, and you'll, and, and rotting moldering in the grave.
Speaker: your, your corpse stiffening and slackening will think to itself, my teeth hurt because that shit follows you into the afterlife.
Speaker: I'm convinced anyway.
Speaker: That is such a terrifying thought.
Speaker: That is like absolutely.
Speaker: That the afterlife is real, but the only sensation you have is.
Speaker: Is the pain in your teeth.
Speaker: Is if you didn't take care of your teeth.
Speaker: That's like a German cautionary tale that you tell your kids in the 1850s.
Speaker: If you don't take care of your teeth when you die, you'll feel all the hurts in your teeth for the rest of eternity.
Speaker: Sleep well, mein Liebling.
Speaker: Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Well, we start with a location shot of a church.
Speaker: It's lovely.
Speaker: I really do love the way that I think we mentioned this in the last issue, but issue the last episode.
Speaker: But the artist does such a good job with the landscapes and the architecture.
Speaker: The people are fine.
Speaker: It goes back and forth.
Speaker: But goddamn, this artist is clearly having so much fun drawing the world that they're in.
Speaker: And I think that's really valuable.
Speaker: Were you put off by the chicken?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: Yes, absolutely.
Speaker: It's so gross.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, it looks like it could be chicken piccata, but it also looks like it could be a fetus.
Speaker: It could be anything.
Speaker: It is unsettling.
Speaker: Or a stomach.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Just awful.
Speaker: Like just some sort of organ.
Speaker: What Kevin's talking about, guys, is we come back to the church.
Speaker: We come back to our head priest.
Speaker: He is ordering the shrimpy little squirt of a...
Speaker: you know, brown noser priest who's been spying all this time.
Speaker: He's ordering him around and telling him, you know, basically, basically they're going to be like taking people in, but only for a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Basically he's making sure that any good deed that the church does it is, it doesn't affect their bottom line too much.
Speaker: And while he's doing this, he is sloppily eating, uh,
Speaker: some piece of meat that is leaving smears all over his knife.
Speaker: And his chin.
Speaker: He's got it on his chin.
Speaker: And his chin.
Speaker: He's probably talking with his mouth full.
Speaker: And he's like, they must find their own salvation.
Speaker: The healing church is so lame.
Speaker: Yeah, he sounds like that's exactly what he sounds like Bane in the Harley Quinn cartoon.
Speaker: You know, for only a day to sleep, to rest, they must find their salvation.
Speaker: And I'm going to finish this weird piece of meat.
Speaker: Is it chicken?
Speaker: Is it a stomach?
Speaker: Or is it some sort of fetus fish creature?
Speaker: Find out in issue five.
Speaker: Spoiler alert.
Speaker: There's no issue five.
Speaker: It's horrible.
Speaker: It's terrible.
Speaker: It's really gross.
Speaker: I mean, it's like on first glance, it could be chicken piccata.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: If that's a thing.
Speaker: Oh, it is a thing.
Speaker: In this world.
Speaker: Oh, in this world?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I know that chicken piccata is a thing.
Speaker: Chicken piccata is...
Speaker: Oh, it's totally a thing.
Speaker: That exists.
Speaker: Well, you'd better put your recipe down.
Speaker: That's absolutely going on the website.
Speaker: We're going to share our favorite chicken piccata recipes.
Speaker: Although I am more preferential to chicken franchise.
Speaker: But, you know.
Speaker: So he's eating this horrible thing.
Speaker: But we do finally get back to
Speaker: our main guys, our, our priest, our scientists.
Speaker: And they're having the conversation that I was referencing earlier.
Speaker: They're talking about how the church is at fault.
Speaker: This is the church's fault.
Speaker: And they make the reference to, we should have never descended underneath the city.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And yeah, they referenced some sort of historic moment in the city's, uh, Oh no, we're talking about them.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: But they're, they're, you know, just something they're talking about the history of the church and, uh,
Speaker: What is it he says?
Speaker: It's so interesting.
Speaker: He says, this ash and blood thing showed up, and then, like, out of the clear blue sky, the church just happened to have an answer to it, a solution to it.
Speaker: And that doesn't seem like a coincidence.
Speaker: And the priest, despite the fact that it's pretty clear at this point that he's not really on the church's side.
Speaker: So he still kind of defends himself.
Speaker: It defends the church in a little bit.
Speaker: He defends the beliefs of the church.
Speaker: And this is something that, you know, it's kind of, it's one of those things that you can kind of get into with the whole, you
Speaker: Catholicism issue where people will defend, well, at its core, the beliefs are sound, you know, and I don't even, I don't necessarily agree with that, you know, because, because of a lot of issues that the stances the church has, but people can argue, oh, well, the beliefs are sound.
Speaker: It's just, you know, some bad people within it that are some bad apples, even though a few bad apples spoiled a bunch.
Speaker: Nobody ever,
Speaker: really finishes their train of thought with the bad apples thing.
Speaker: They never finish the metaphor, do they?
Speaker: No, they don't.
Speaker: Funny that.
Speaker: So, yeah, I like this little scene where he goes, so you don't believe in the old gods despite their clear presence.
Speaker: And he's referring to the things that were discovered below the city.
Speaker: The old god that was discovered below the city.
Speaker: And the scientist has a pretty nice retort that I believe in the things that are below the city.
Speaker: But I don't know if I should we should actually be calling them gods.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Which is, you know, fair.
Speaker: It's fair.
Speaker: And it's like people I feel it's like the it's a very obvious stance to take for somebody in a Lovecraft and a Lovecraftian story to be like, well, it's a it's a it's a thing.
Speaker: It's certainly a creature.
Speaker: I think we're assigning a little bit too much by calling them gods.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's a whole lot right there.
Speaker: That's a whole, there's a lot of baggage assigned with gods.
Speaker: It's, it's a creature and it's not from here.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, so they have, and, and it's weird because just when you think that the, uh, priest is kind of coming around and that he makes the most sense and that sort of thing, you have a moment there, uh,
Speaker: where they're talking about the difference between science and religion, that age old chestnut.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: And the whole thing ends with the scientists saying proof is proof.
Speaker: And the priest saying, and God is God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I, I don't know what that means.
Speaker: I don't know what it means either, but, uh, the, the scientists claims that it was an opening in his, his argument, um, in the next page that Clement, Clement, um,
Speaker: basically wins.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He, he, he, he, he secedes the, the, the, the argument to him in that moment, which.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: Fine.
Speaker: Whatever helps, man.
Speaker: Whatever helps.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And, and, and in that same journal entry that, that Kevin's referencing, he basically talks about how the city's getting worse.
Speaker: There's a lot of dead bodies now.
Speaker: Yeah, it's not.
Speaker: Whereas when we first we saw the one werewolf and it got killed pretty quick and there still seemed to be a lot of hope for the future and that sort of thing.
Speaker: The city is not doing as well anymore and more and more people are dying and it's just it's not looking great.
Speaker: So any hope that he may have had going into this is slowly ebbing away.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the and what there's a there's a little bit of a twist now because they are the priest and the scientist Clement and Alfredis or whatever his name is.
Speaker: They're discussing and Matilda shows up.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Having fallen deathly ill.
Speaker: And she shows up at the scientist's door and and he basically he realizes that he's just this is how this is what I have to do.
Speaker: You know, any any feeling in terms of saving the world, you know, he felt like the world was getting worse and I can't save the world.
Speaker: He has that.
Speaker: I can save her.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: This woman that he's in love with.
Speaker: So he's kind of reinvigorated in that moment in his in his quest for the cure, if you will.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And then we have another we have another little scene between him and Clement.
Speaker: And the one thing I want to point out is they talked about in the first arc.
Speaker: Fishboy and the hunter talk about coffins with chains wrapped around them.
Speaker: And we see it.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We see them in this scene as they're walking by.
Speaker: We see just a pile of coffins basically to the side of the road and they have chains wrapped around them.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a terrific little detail.
Speaker: It's it's you know, it's not a whole hell of a lot of attention is brought to it, but it's yeah, there's a level of detail.
Speaker: It's a nice foreground element.
Speaker: It's terrific.
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's really nice.
Speaker: And it goes back to what I was talking about before with the artist that he's just having a lot of fun creating this world with his art.
Speaker: And that's a great example.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, uh, yeah, we see some, uh, uh, Alfredis, uh, ref mentions that he's using the, the blood ministration basically to, he's, he's giving, uh, Matilda the old blood to kind of cure her of, of her illness.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Um, and the, the priest is not too sure that that's good.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, the in the scientist insists it's a dosage issue.
Speaker: It basically it's kind of in a way it made me think of the argument for chemotherapy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That you're poisoning yourself, but this poison will kill the real evil inside of you.
Speaker: So speak.
Speaker: The thing is, the scientist at this point is acting less like a scientist.
Speaker: because he's just shooting in the dark and the priest is being more like, well, you really haven't studied this dose.
Speaker: He's the first person to say all that.
Speaker: You're just doing it.
Speaker: Because now the scientist has become desperate.
Speaker: We end with a blood red moon rising over Yharnam.
Speaker: We have this blood red moon and the narration is, is ominous.
Speaker: We believed we could stop hell from descending on our land.
Speaker: And in the streets, the streets are empty.
Speaker: Uh, they're like eerily quiet, except you can just see coffins, you know, these chained coffins laying about, uh, statues toppled over.
Speaker: It's, it's nice and eerie.
Speaker: Uh, and then we, we just get these different cuts around and we see the roses have died.
Speaker: People have just like died in the middle of the streets.
Speaker: Um, yeah,
Speaker: There's like a woman who is zombified feasting on somebody else.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Things have turned for the worse.
Speaker: In a damn hurry.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And Clement has been, he hasn't seen the scientist in a few days, but he's doing his best to try to get some blood back to him.
Speaker: right because that's basically you know the the scientist is desperate for that you know he realizes that the the you know in order to keep
Speaker: Matilde going in order to keep himself going, frankly, because he's been testing.
Speaker: He's obviously tested the old blood on himself.
Speaker: It's become this maintenance kind of thing.
Speaker: It's very much.
Speaker: It makes you think a lot about what people talk about with addiction.
Speaker: You know, you need more and more and more, and he's desperate for it.
Speaker: And yeah, Clement is.
Speaker: going to try and get it to him he hasn't spoken to him in a while right after the last little tiff over whether you should be using the the blood at all and i just realized something hilarious is that the scientists looks like looks like the way egon spengler was drawn in the real ghostbusters cartoon
Speaker: Yeah, he actually, he totally does.
Speaker: He's really tall and wiry.
Speaker: He's got that like white blonde hair.
Speaker: The only difference is instead of sporting some sort of weird ass pompadour, he's, he's like all like eighties, early nineties, vampire, long hair, she, John Lennon glasses, which of course I guess Eon, Eon also had the John Lennon glasses in the car.
Speaker: He did.
Speaker: Yeah, he totally did.
Speaker: He's totally Egon.
Speaker: Holy shit.
Speaker: We've got to Photoshop Egon's hair onto this guy.
Speaker: We've got to put it in there.
Speaker: We've got to make sure that that's our profile picture or something on Twitter for a little while.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then we get the ultimate betrayal.
Speaker: So Clement, it's the most heartbreaking thing in the book is that Clement, after fighting with his inner demons, actually gets the blood.
Speaker: and takes it to South Ray Freitas.
Speaker: And, and you find out that, um, he is, uh, Alfredius has, has gotten his own supply of blood by turning Clement into the authorities.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They've been waiting for him to show up and he traded his ass in and, uh, and, and the hunters take Clement away.
Speaker: He is take dragged back to the church.
Speaker: Oh, it is.
Speaker: It's really fucking sad.
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: And we get another look at just how desolate the city is.
Speaker: We've got we've got an overturned wheelbarrow.
Speaker: We've got we've got a river filled with rotting corpses, a blood red moon and werewolf Christ, of course.
Speaker: Crucified werewolves.
Speaker: It would not be Yharnam without them.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: You know, he died for your howls.
Speaker: I don't know what that means.
Speaker: So, but he's and the scientist, he's clearly racked with guilt.
Speaker: But Matilda seems to be doing, you know, he believes he's like she's going to survive, you know, and therefore the ends justify the means.
Speaker: He tries to tell himself that he doesn't care that he betrayed Matilda.
Speaker: you know, his friend, uh, because it means that, that, uh, yeah, you know, Matilda is going to make it out alive.
Speaker: We have this sequence of shots that kind of mirror the shots earlier in issue in the first issue of this collection where the moon slowly turns into the swinging scythe of the pendulum, uh,
Speaker: Except this time, instead of some random priest being strapped to the table, it is Clement who is going to pay for his heresies, I guess.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, for stealing old blood from their store.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, they're just sick of him, though.
Speaker: And so he's the next guy going down.
Speaker: And while the pendulum swings, he's basically giving them a speech as to why he joined the church.
Speaker: You know, in a way, he's talking about the...
Speaker: the life he had led before that he had studied science and even forbidden sciences.
Speaker: And then he decided that religion really was the place for him, that it would be the best thing because it would hopefully make some sense of a world that doesn't make sense, which I think is great because it explains even after all this time, even after
Speaker: So we've seen him on several occasions at this point defend the church, even though he's also overtly stated that he doesn't really like the organization itself.
Speaker: We get an idea as to why he's doing this.
Speaker: He's he he he's looking for sense in a senseless world.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And and then his speech and presumably his life.
Speaker: And I hope these are his last words.
Speaker: And with Kevin, do you want to read these?
Speaker: These are because these are some of the best goddamn last words I've ever heard in my life.
Speaker: You know, he does all that that stuff that you just said.
Speaker: And then he finally there's a turn in the speech and he says it was important for things to finally make some semblance of sense.
Speaker: But none of this makes sense, does it?
Speaker: We are just vessels.
Speaker: Buckets of blood spilled and refilled.
Speaker: And his final word words are, I hope you all die screaming.
Speaker: That is fuck, bro.
Speaker: That is tremendous.
Speaker: That is some fucked up shit, man.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: That is metal as fuck.
Speaker: And presumably he gets, you know, spatchcocked on the pendulum there.
Speaker: But holy fucking shit.
Speaker: That is that's just that they could have named this volume instead of like, you know, the healing thirst.
Speaker: They could have called it.
Speaker: I hope you all die screaming.
Speaker: Yes, that would have been an amazing name for it.
Speaker: Oh, shit.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So his fate is sealed.
Speaker: And we and but what about our scientists fate?
Speaker: Our scientist is boarding up his house now because things have taken a turn for the worse outside.
Speaker: Clearly.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: He also admits that he killed Matilda's husband.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Matilda's husband, you know, that whole thing.
Speaker: He didn't he didn't die of the ash and blood or whatever the hell it is.
Speaker: He pushed him off a bridge, presumably just because he wanted to be with Matilda.
Speaker: And he says that he says he's like, it's just I hated that guy.
Speaker: I fucking hated that guy.
Speaker: Like, it just he just sounds like the guy was a jerk.
Speaker: And maybe he was.
Speaker: Maybe he wasn't.
Speaker: But he pushed the guy off a goddamn bridge.
Speaker: So he's we're we're we're understanding that he is admitted this to Matilda.
Speaker: And as he's stacking the boxes to basically block the door.
Speaker: So the people outside, whoever's outside can't get in.
Speaker: He says, thank you for forgiving me.
Speaker: Yes, you understand.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: Perhaps not the time for a walk.
Speaker: Maybe later, yes.
Speaker: No, maybe not today.
Speaker: Maybe tomorrow.
Speaker: Maybe, yes.
Speaker: Hell, hell is here, but we shall outlive hell and we shall rebuild.
Speaker: For this is the purpose of science.
Speaker: And then we get some wobbly text from behind him as we see Matilda descending the stairs.
Speaker: We never get a good look at her, but she says, my dear, I'm healed as she appears behind him.
Speaker: And yeah, you're right.
Speaker: We don't get a great look at her, but we do know from a page or two previous, it's beautiful, unreliable narrator stuff, because he says,
Speaker: And and the picture of her is clearly dead.
Speaker: Yeah, she looks very dead in.
Speaker: Yeah, she is super dead in in her in her bed.
Speaker: So when she when you find her behind him saying I'm healed, probably less good news.
Speaker: Yeah, it's very much.
Speaker: It's very much.
Speaker: I'm healed in the sense of Pet Sematary, bringing your loved ones back from the grave.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Very Pet Sematary, actually.
Speaker: So and that concludes volume two of Bloodborne.
Speaker: So what do you think, Kevin?
Speaker: Totally different than than the first volume.
Speaker: But I really enjoyed it.
Speaker: I really enjoyed the very this was a lot more plots and
Speaker: There's a lot more plot and character moments in this than in the first volume.
Speaker: The first volume was very it was almost more ephemeral and artistic and thematic.
Speaker: It's like we it's just this about this journey through hell more or less.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this one is we have we have real grounded characters that we understand a lot about the hunter and the kid in the first one.
Speaker: We don't know much about them, but Clement and Alfredis, we know who they are.
Speaker: We know what kind of motivates them.
Speaker: And we can track their character change from beginning to end.
Speaker: Flemens is this man of faith, but he's clearly got something gnawing at him with how everything is going down.
Speaker: And by the end, he sees everything pretty clearly for what it is.
Speaker: Like, yeah, this is all chaos, and it's the church's fault.
Speaker: Right, right, right.
Speaker: And whereas our scientist, who's supposed to be the voice of reason and logic and that sort of thing, goes down this desperate spiral to the point where he's not even willing to accept the reality of the situation.
Speaker: Yeah, he loses his mind to the desperation.
Speaker: And he really reminds me of...
Speaker: I feel like there's any number of characters in zombie films that there's these characters that they just kind of, they start out as maybe a voice of reason, but by the end they are the most unreasonable of characters.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Totally.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I totally agree.
Speaker: It's it's just it's a great example of who can you trust and and that sort of thing.
Speaker: Who can you trust?
Speaker: Whose whose opinion?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Can you actually value in a world like this?
Speaker: And I think what's funny is neither.
Speaker: It doesn't matter.
Speaker: Ultimately, it doesn't matter.
Speaker: You know, no matter what these two characters discovered, neither of them were going to stop what was coming.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: And and it's a it's a good prequel in that sense where, you know, you knew that if you played the game, if you know anything about, you know that, you know, they're not going to there's no like really overt happy ending to be had here.
Speaker: But.
Speaker: you're still hopeful.
Speaker: You're still hoping something, you know, good can come out of all of this mess.
Speaker: And, uh, and, and, and the, and the one good thing that comes out of the whole mess is it's a good story.
Speaker: It's a pretty good story.
Speaker: It's a pretty good story.
Speaker: I think that's the most you can hope for in a situation like this.
Speaker: It's all you can really ask for.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's all you can ask for.
Speaker: It made me think of this.
Speaker: Comparing this to the first volume, it made me think of this little show.
Speaker: It's called Game of Thrones.
Speaker: You ever heard of it?
Speaker: No, I've never heard of it.
Speaker: Super indie.
Speaker: But the whole thing is with certain episodes, there's always a tone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: At least there was the large, you know, the large world outside.
Speaker: That's always there no matter what.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But some episodes of Game of Thrones would be, you know, war and bloodshed and action and that kind of thing in this huge, dark, grim, dark world.
Speaker: And then other other episodes, it felt like we're very slow and contemplative and thoughtful and that sort of thing.
Speaker: And and I feel like Volume One of Bloodborne
Speaker: was one of the more action, monstery, you know, personal journey kind of things.
Speaker: Whereas this volume, we got one werewolf and he lasted for like a page.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So this is, yeah, volume one is John beyond the wall.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: That's exactly it.
Speaker: And volume two is like, you know, the Lannisters in their tent talking about, you know, letters, why they always pay their debts or something like that.
Speaker: One betrays the other.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's dark and sad and violent in certain ways, but not in the same way.
Speaker: that the first volume was.
Speaker: So I'm, I'm really impressed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This writer, cause it's all the same, all the same writer.
Speaker: And it's shown very, very wildly different tones in these four different four sets, four issues, issue sets of, of book.
Speaker: And I like it.
Speaker: I do too.
Speaker: It genuinely, now that we've read the second one, I mean, after we read the first one, I was curious.
Speaker: I was like, oh, I wonder if they were going to get another, if we're going to get a different story.
Speaker: That's kind of cool.
Speaker: That's interesting.
Speaker: And now I'm like, oh shit, I've got to, I need to know what the next one is.
Speaker: Like, I need to know what kind of thing we're going to get.
Speaker: out yeah and from the cover i i believe it is gonna focus on um it's gonna focus on eileen the crow um from uh it's it's just my guess um but we'll see when we read it it's a good name yeah it's a good name yeah so i'm looking forward to these we've got two more of these left uh and uh and the difference between reading these and a novel is they go by a lot they sure do i
Speaker: this is good it's really good stuff well I think that about wraps it up if you feel like you want to hear from us more often you can always follow us on twitter at pixel lit pod we tweet there mostly Phil tweets there so if you want brief little jokes about I don't know pixel lit type stuff head over to our twitter account
Speaker: Or even better, if there is a book or graphic novel or something based on a video game, or as we've mentioned recently, video games based on books.
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: Why not, man?
Speaker: Why not?
Speaker: If you've got something that you really want us to read, we want to tell us, man, because we're always looking for stuff and we're happy to hear it.
Speaker: So, yeah, find us on Twitter.
Speaker: That's the easiest way to get a hold of us.
Speaker: And that'll do it for today's episode.
Speaker: Thanks so much, everybody, and have a good night.
Speaker: Bye.
