And now Audio Theater Central. Hello, welcome to Audio Theater Central. This
is the show that explores family friendly audio drama through news, reviews and interviews.
I'm your host, JD. Sutter. This is episode two oh one.
In just a few minutes, I'll be joined by ATC contributor Austin Peache
and we're going to be reviewing album seventy five of Adventures and Odyssey. It's
going to be a ride, so get ready buckle up. Oh no,
wait, that was the last album. Anyway, We've got some feedback coming
up from Nato, Bethany Rose, and David. But before we get to
all of that, let's jump into some audio drama updates. We interrupt this
program to bring you a special report and in other news tonight, a brief
look at the headlines. Now they want exciting, fast piece news that's and
entertaining like this. If you are involved in an audio drama production, please
do not forget about the ATC News submission form. Please let us know about
what's going on, even if it's just a small update that you've posted a
cast list or something like that, new releases, whatever it might be,
Please let us know. There is a link right on our homepage at audio
Theatercentral dot com to send that information. I'm going to keep beating this drum
until people start using it. I'm trying my best to stay on top of
the news, but it's just way too much. Back in the day,
when we were just pretty much following adventures not a Sea and a Lamplider Theater
and maybe the Brinkmann Adventures, there was just a few ongoing series that I
had to try to track down updates on. But now there's so much going
on, and I've said this before that is a great thing. I love
it, but it's just too much for me to try to race out and
track down every single update that's going on before every episode. So please help
me to help you get the word out about what you're doing by sending us
those updates through that form. Well, before we jump into upcoming releases and
new releases, there are a couple of platforms that I'm really excited to tell
you about. First off is one called libro FM. Now you may have
already heard of this website, but it is essentially an audible competitor for audiobooks.
However, they do have quite a bit of audio drama and the reason
why I'm talking about them is because for a very long time, there hasn't
been a really good way of getting audio dramas that have been produced by the
BBC. They would occasionally release some of them on different websites, and it
was never really easy to get copies of them until recently. The easiest way
to obtain legal copies of BBC audio dramas was to search around on Amazon and
try to find the limited few that they have released on CD. And there
was not a huge number compared to how many shows that they have produced,
so you know, you would have to buy the CD copies and then if
you wanted digital ones, you'd have to rip them and add them to your
own personal library. Then a few years ago they started releasing a big chunk
of their stuff on Audible. Now that's great if you are an Audible member
and you really enjoy that platform. However, you do not actually own those
audio dramas because those are Audible files, you know, and yes, even
if you stop being a member, you still have access. But if something
were to happen, something crazy, the Audible platform goes away or somehow those
titles got removed from the platform, you didn't actually have those files on your
computer, so you didn't really own them. Again, if you're okay with
that, if you're fine with that risk, then that's cool. Keep using
Audible because they do have a huge number of BBC audio dramas, and I'm
primarily talking about the classic literature adaptations, which are really my favorites that the
BBC has done. But with Libro FM, all those same titles are now
available on this platform, and they offer DRM free downloadable files, so you
actually have the MP three's. That is a huge benefit in my book.
Now, they still do have a lower audio quality than I would prefer for
audio dramas, but at least you actually own the files. And again before
a lot of these titles were only available on CD, and some of them
are out of print in CD, and so they would cost a lot of
money. For instance, the I think around thirteen hours long Lord of the
Rings adaptation, it's all three parts. There was a beautiful box set with
maps and everything. I got it on Amazon several years ago, probably close
to ten years ago now, and I think I paid something around somewhere around
thirty five dollars something like that, and it was a used copy. But
the CDs were in great condition when I looked at the price of that,
because it's out of print now. Not long ago, there were only a
couple of copies available on Amazon and they were like one hundred some dollars.
It is a beautiful set. If you've got the budget and you want to
get that CD set, it would be a great addition to your collection.
But now you can get the digital files. Like I said, Lord of
the Rings, David Copperfield, Pilgrim's progress been her all kinds of classical adaptations
Sherlock Holmes, So this is a great platform. They do have an app
and you can stream those files through their app if you want to. But
again I think the biggest selling proposition is that you can actually download and own
the files. They also have a pretty good selection of some collections of old
time radio episodes, some of the Graphic Audio productions. I don't endorse everything
that Graphic Audio has produced, but they do have some really great stuff.
Red Wall another series that is a really good one. So lots of great
audio drama on there. There are links in the show notes and if you
don't mind, please use my links because these are affiliate links, which allows
Libro fm to give ATC a little bit of a kickback if you use our
links. So Libro fm is a great platform if you want to purchase some
great BBC Radio classic literature adaptations in audio drama form. The other platform I'm
excited to tell you about is called window Seat. Now. Window Seat is
a new app that will give your child access to a world of Christian audio
dramas, podcasts, and daily devotionals, all tailor made to ignite their imagination,
inspire their faith and cultivate their values. Now, this is a Christian
only audio platform that is aimed toward ages five to sixteen. I have been
talking with this team now for a few months and this is going to be
launching very soon, sometime this summer twenty twenty four. It will be app
only at launch, but a web version of their platform will be coming again.
This will be Christian only content. They will have shows such as base
Camp, Adventures, Your Story Hour, Pirateeers, Witnesses, Discovery, Mountain,
Nick Guy, Private Eye, The Human Eel, and many more to
come. This is shaping up to be a really interesting platform if you're looking
for some quality Christian audio drama programming. They do plan to add other types
of programming like I mentioned podcasts and devotionals and things like that, but they're
putting a huge focus on Christian audio drama. So if you are interested,
either as a consumer or as a producer, head over to windowseat dot Io.
There's also a link in the show notes and there is a place to
join their waiting list, so you can be notified the moment the app launches,
and if you are a producer, you can reach out and let them
know about your show. This again is shaping up to be a really interesting
platform. Now, this is different from Drama Phi. Drama Phi is way
more open. They have all kinds of content and it is not exclusively Christian.
So these two different apps are aiming for a much different demographic and consumer.
So I think there's a room in this space for multiple different options.
But if you're looking for Christian only content, this is an option that you
really want to consider. It's going to be affordable, and the tech behind
what they're doing looks really, really good, So again you want to keep
an eye out for this Windowseat dot Io. Now, one final note before
we move into the new releases, and that is the Audio Drama Institute that
John Tharnoff has been putting together. I've referenced it in the past, but
there is a little bit more information coming and we hope to have a website
up very soon with all of the details. But Phil Lawler, Kathy Buchanan,
and John Tharnoff are launching an all new Writers Recharge seminar. It will
be September fifteenth through the twenty first, and this is going to be top
tier instruction for writers with, as John puts it, a kick in the
pants, inspiration and a whole lot of fun. They will all be teaching
in person and meeting with writers one on one on the campus of the new
South Georgia Studios in Valdosta, Georgia. So again, more details to come,
but if this sounds like something you would be interested in, save the
date September fifteenth through the twenty first. More information in terms of cost and
everything else will be coming as soon as we have it, and we will
try to keep you informed on any developments as they come for this audio drama
institute. All right, let's jump into new releases. Triple Chord Productions is
a brand new audio drama company and they have officially launched just recently with their
first short form production called Appalachian Tales Bonnie Kate. It is available to listen
to on their website, or you can download it for free through their store.
They have plans for more full length and micro audio dramas in the works.
Triplecordproductions dot com is their website. They are on the socials as well.
Link is in the show notes if you want to check that out and
give a listen to their first production. Really excited to see another new entrant
into this space and really looking forward to hearing what they come up with.
Also out now Brinkman Adventures Season ten, Redemptive Velocity. Now, I think
this might be the first time they've done this, but all six episodes are
the same title, so it's Redemptive Velocity Parts one through six. The summary
is the Brinkman family has no idea what they're getting into after they enter a
high stakes reality show RV race across the country. Redemptive Velocity is full of
exciting plot twists, turns, and head spinning audio drama action. What starts
as a fun family race quickly becomes a threat to deeply held beliefs, values,
and even personal safety. Will the Brinkman's Finish the Great gueemy RV Race
victoriously or will the race finish them? These six new, apologetically themed episodes
deal with some challenging questions and issues facing Christians today. They will keep you
and your family listening and guessing until the rip roaring end. Wow, it
sounds like a wild ride. Let's give a listen to a little teaser four
part one. Hey there, Peter, what you're doing? Take you a
video for the Brinkman Channel? What you're on TIEV now? No, it's
just an Internet channel. Amazing, isn't What's amazing? Your mom's phone has
more computing power than all the computers used to send our men to the moon.
Now they even have a mini movie studio built in. Never thought much
about it. That phone has a microphone camera, GPS tracking, twenty four
hour news applications, access to almost every library in the world, more information
than the library in Alexandria, a virtual post office, and if you want,
you can even use it to speak to someone across the planet. Those
are all good things, right, Oh sure, But like all tools,
technology can be used for good and bad. It's up to the user.
What's that thing you got there? It helps me get around since my hip
surgery gets called a walker. I love that rote. Yeah, I'm monitor
to get back here so I can help this young lady with her flowers.
What you're doing, miss Berdi? Covering my roses back up? I always
get excited and uncover for them too early. It's supposed to freeze again tonight,
Wisconsin. Who weather? If you don't like it, just wait five
minutes. Can you bring in some firewood? Sure? Mom oh as always
sounds like a lot of fun with the Brinkman's Redemptive Velocity is now available on
CD and digital download. Also out now lamp Lader Theater's first audio drama in
Espanol, and it is one that we've heard of. It is The Boy
of Mount Regi in Spanish and Joven del Monte Rigi. Pardon my terrible Spanish
accent, but if you are a Spanish speaker and you want to hear some
great, high quality audio drama in Spanish, there is a link in the
show notes to check that out, and it is only available as a digital
download. I don't believe CDs are being offered at this time, and looking
ahead to what is coming soon. Also from Lamplighter Theater. Tip Lewis and
his Lamp is available for pre order now. I believe this one was recorded
back in May and so it is in post production. But it was written
by Phil Lawler. And do we have a couple of cast members. Jake
Phillips voices the character of mister Burrows. Gary Nation voices Minister Holbrook. Also
in the cast Craig Hart, Nato Jacobson, and Luke David. So a
little bit about this one. Tip is a leader, but not the kind
you'd want in your Sunday school class. Not only is he full of sarcasm
and provocations, he is the naughtiest boy in school until he hears a story
that compels him to come face to face with who he is and who he
would like to become. As I said, this one was written by Phil
Lawler and it is available for pre order now. Link is in the show
notes and an update on The Caller from Audio Imagination seventy seven Productions. Production
has been completed on The Caller and post production is underway. The release date
will be September thirtieth, twenty twenty four. The cast includes Logan Warner,
Annie Di Martino, Craig Hart, Jonathan Cook, Live, Joe Hanson,
Austin Simmons, Casey Barry Anderson, and Alicia Hanson. Still in post production,
so we don't know the final runtime, but it's looking like it's going
to be somewhere around thirty five to forty minutes. And this script, which
was written by Matthew Warner, is based on the urban legend of the Babysitter
and the Man Upstairs. Looking for a release this fall, and the artwork
has been posted on their socials if you want to check that out link in
the show notes. And finally, I am really excited about this one.
A new musical audio drama. I've talked about this before. This is something
I've wanted wanted to see high quality audio drama musicals for adults, because there's
been a lot of musical audio drama for children over the years in the family
friendly space, but not much in terms of content for adults. So a
name that you've heard on this show before, actor David Sanborn and Ellen Sanborn
have joined forces with John Fornoff to create a new musical audio drama that will
be released on radio. This mother and son duo have written and toured with
Stage musicals and different venues throughout the world, and this new show will incorporate
their most successful musicals and introduce fun new material as well. Again, I'm
super excited about this. More information will be coming soon. As soon as
I hear, will try to get that information out to you. This sounds
like it's going to be fantastic, so I'm really looking forward to this.
Well, I think it's time to bring Austin Peache on and let's talk about
Adventures in Odyssey. I remember her from that radio program what was it?
A Western musical melodrama? You helped out with the kids radio program and you
were great, another important tool of acting, the art of becoming Should we
alo or or something? For what? Well, once again it is time
to talk about Adventures in Odyssey. And this is gonna be a tough one.
It's gonna be a tough one because this is this is an album that
so many people have been looking forward to, myself included, and I do
know that it's been out for a little while now and lots of people have
been waiting for us to talk about it here on the show. Well,
the time has come to talk about Adventures in Odyssey album seventy five. The
Best is yet to come, released in October of twenty twenty three and begin
airing in early October through mid November. So yes, we're a little bit
late in getting to it. But you know what, this is a milestone
album, and this is a well it's the end of an era. I
think even Eugene uses that line in the last episode of this album. So
this one is it's a bittersweet. There are some beautiful moments in it,
and there are some ones that make you cry, and so yeah, it's
time to talk about it and let's just let's just get all the feelings off
our chest. So lost of FIGI is here joining me to talk about this
album. You ready to do this? I hope. So good to be
back. Okay, well, you know, I don't think there's much needed
in the way of introduction here. As I said, you know, this
is the album that folks have been looking forward to for quite some time with
a mixture of anticipation and dread, I think, because everybody was aware that
this was going to be the sindoff for the character of Eugene, or at
least that's sort of what we were pretty much anticipating. You know, we
weren't one hundred percent sure how it was going to play out, but we
knew there was going to be some sort of resolution with this character. So
that's what we get here. So Austin, will you do us the honors
of given the folks a little bit of a refresher and sharing the summary.
I'd be happy to The race is long. Sometimes stumble helps me up.
It's time my fault now loose hope, he gives me courage, swap song,
give mind to run long, and can wait to make it. The
Best is yet to Come, the promise, even wait, the fallive.
Everything has led to this moment. A new technology created by Odyssey's own Eugene
Meltzer, could change medical science as we know it. This new creation would
improve the lives of thousands, even millions, but Eugene is the only one
who can guide his work into the future. The four part adventure The Best
Is Yet to Come presents an incredibly difficult decision for the Meltzner family, with
implications for their friends and the rest of the world. Meanwhile, and two's
Company four as a crowd, Zuo Rydell pulls Emily Jones into a mystery where
the clues contradict themselves, they find a way to work together and solve a
bizarre case, and finally, a mysterious phone call gets Penny Bass an opportunity
to bring closure to a dark chapter from her past. The process comes with
its own painful revelations. Don't miss as far as it depends on me.
Past, present and future collide at a critical turning point this summer, and
our friends in Odyssey will realize that despite difficult times, the best is yet
to come. So this album is just over two and a half hours long
and two hours thirty five minutes if you include the two bonus tracks, which
are both songs this time. Interesting that they didn't have any sort of extra
scenes or interviews or anything like that, but I guess it was sort of
appropriate that they were both songs relating to that four part episode. And they
actually are nice little editions. I mean they sound great. Yeah, we
don't get acoustic version songs very often, that's true. That's true. Yeah,
just nice acoustic guitar, and as we'll get to later on the singing
their voices Robbie, Bruce and Shona just sound really great. So yeah,
I really enjoyed those extra bonus tracks there, So you know, there are
two episodes before we get to the climax of this album, which I'm not
sure that everybody is. I'm pretty sure everybody is waiting for us to talk
about but we're gonna go in order. We'll talk about these first, you
know, and then we'll move into the big topic that I know that that
people are interested in. So we're gonna start with episode nine sixty four,
as far as it depends on me, written by Abigail Geiger and directed by
Marshall Junger, with sound designed by Zack Schneider and music by John Campbell,
who incidentally does the music for every one of the episodes on this album.
Austin, I'm gonna let you kick things off. Any initial thoughts on as
far as it depends on me? Yeah, I'm what if we're gonna have
one of those moments where we disagree very much on the episode. I'm interested
to know what you thought about this episode. But kind of the introduction did
there a lot of people were thinking like, oh, we'll get to the
four parter and use these two. You know, this got kind of overlooked,
but really this episode was quite good in my opinion. I really enjoyed
it. It was a not a big epic kind of story or wasn't like
a big comedy or anything like that. It was a very not necessarily cozy,
but it's a nice slice of life episode that we don't get too often
in Odyssey, and bringing back elements from the Greener Conspiracy, and also Woot
and a Penny both being written well, and the really good moral and Penny
the time that she can actually teach somebody. I love those moments. So
yeah, I really enjoyed this episode a lot. So I didn't I didn't
hate this one, but I also didn't love it either. I did think
it was interesting to revisit this whole storyline, Like, was anyone really clamoring
for a resolution of the Trask thing? I mean, it was sort of
an interesting idea, but it was not anything that I was expecting. I
don't think anybody really cared about that, you know, So it was an
interesting thing for them to bring that back. But I will agree with your
assessment that in general, this was an interesting storyline. It had some heartfelt
moments, and it was nice to see Penny in a more serious mode.
You know, I've said this before, and I don't want to beat a
dead horse, but you know, I'm not a big fan of the character
of Penny, so this one where she is actually acting a little more mature.
For the most part, there are some moments which still made me cringe
a little bit, but uh, for the most part, she was pretty
normal. And she even makes a joke about that or or I think it
was it was the word normal that they used. You want to she said,
yeah, like, oh, we're not normal or something like that.
Well, she said, it's it would be nice. The daughter I'm blanking
on the name now, Elizabeth, she said it would be nice to talk
with somebody normal or something like that, and and Penny was like, and
She's like, what do you mean by normal or something like that. So,
yeah, we know that the Penny is quirky. But yeah, overall,
I did like how she was portrayed in this one. But I did.
I did still have some some things about this episode that I thought were
kind of corny, but overall I did enjoy it. Now here's one of
the moments that I thought was a little bit off. At the moment when
the mother via recognizes Penny and calls her riff Raff who framed her son and
that all that kind of stuff. She basically just like calls her out right
there, and that was obviously a moment that was meant to be a commercial
break or a break for the radio version, because there was no need for
them to really cut that scene because it picks up immediately right at that moment
again, but it goes into a music queue right there, which again was
for the radio broadcast to go to break there. But the music there felt
all comedic, which was a little bit weird to me because this was a
dramatic moment. She's like, basically, Oh, I recognized you from the
trial. You were one of the ones who framed my son, and we
have this kind of quirky, comedic sounding music que there, which I felt
was a little bit off. I would have liked to have had something a
little bit more dramatic, not overly so, but I don't know, it
just felt a little bit odd. Yeah, I don't think I would have
noticed that until you said it, but I would have. Sometimes I love
Don Campbell's music, but sometimes for some of stuff for Odyssey, sometimes things
go to like an extreme in one direction where it should be like more subtle
in some ways, or like some that it's over dramatic in some cases on
some episodes for certain moments, And I think this is probably I'm turn think
back to the queue. I have a general idea of how it was in
there, but I think, yeah, that comedy with that is like it's
speosally kind of comedic. I think you could have some comedic elements in that,
but it's kind of like I don't think you have to get you know,
very kind of you know, very serious tone there, and you can
have me some elements of that in it. But yeah, it just felt
a little bit too bouncy. I guess I don't know how else to say
it. Yeah, yeah, which I like to accent for for Verra,
like the actress for Vera, and also you know Elizabeth. I I enjoyed
those characters quite a bit, like you know, this is you know,
one off characters you never heard from them before. Yeah, you know,
they're all related to you know, Benjamin Trask, which I know some people
mentioning and I think you mentioned earlier that you thought it was like too far
past that point. I don't think so, because honestly brings back a lot
of old stuff things like Wonderworld or like Tasha Forbes, like in the Radell
Revelations, or even more recently like Extended Cut. It's kind of a sequel
kind of episode to an older episode. But I felt like this, I
felt like it was resolved to a point there, like in a Penny Saved,
because we hear he goes to jail. It's not like he, you
know, escaped prison or something like that, and we you know, mister
Skin has been caught in that kind of stuff, and of course Archie Hagler
is still in jail and mister grow it's been captured. But I like how
this kind of focus is and it has some distance from that, which kind
of plays into the moral of it, where sometimes you may think you have
moved on from a certain point and then you reminded of that and maybe things
aren't as resolved or as settled as you thought, and that can be a
good thing because that it's not like Penny is now officially done with this and
officially forgiven him even after these new things happened that she realized that we was
doing. But I felt, hey, if you had an issue with this,
you should have an issue with anytimes honesty brings things from like ten years
ago. Yeah, no, so I don't. I don't have a problem
with it being you know, the amount of time that it's been, so
yeah, I didn't say that that it's been too long since and I'm just
saying it was just like, I mean, everybody wanted wants to hear more
from Tasha Forbes or or you know, mentions of cool things from the past
like Wonderworld and stuff, but this character felt like it had already been resolved
trask, and so I would just like, Okay, why why bring that
back? Was it was there really was any Was there really a need to
do that? But I already tract the comment. I mean, other people
still made that comment, but yeah, like no, I get, I
get what you're saying there, but I think that's one thing that which i'd
go Geiger wrote this episode. I know you're not a big fan of her
writing, but I really like a lot of her episodes, and in this
episode and the following one, I think in one of the official podcast episodes,
she likes writing stories about conflict like interpersonal communication and relationships, but she's
done a lot of episodes like that in If I Never Told you, and
I'm blanking on some of the other ones. But she does such a great
job of creating realistic conflicts and showing how to work through those problems in a
very unique way. And I think I said this maybe on the last review
I was with you. They're talking about legally Wutin, But Abigolu Giger I
think does the best writing for Wootin and Penny because usually when she writes for
them, they're at their best. Marsha Younger is probably like a second,
but I think at this point Abigail does a great job writing for those characters,
making them not just super goofy, but having a balance at their goofy
side, and they're kind of more why side pun not intended, But like
with wuten, he takes time to talk to her, to teach her,
and even Penny gets a point where she can finally see through her sadness and
things like that. And I won't say the name of the person, but
I know you and I were having a conversation with somebody that we know who
she relates quite a bit with Penny, and even the Penny seems a little
bit unrealistic, this person actually relates to her a lot, and yeah,
there may not be that many people that relate to her, but the people
that can, I think works really great for them. And I think it's
one thing that I really like about when Penny is written this way, like
in this one and for a Penny I'm trying to think, like in the
I think It's Into the Woods or Out of the Woods and album fifty nine,
when she's talking about her church experiences and that kind of stuff, those
moments are really great. That makes Penny not just an air headed character.
And I love how this episode brought that across well. To your point about
writing the conflict, well, that's for sure because the whole mother daughter dynamic
there was really really well done, I think, And I'll get to that
in a moment, but before there's a couple of wooden lines. Like I
said, there were some that I thought were fun. There were some that
were or not so much to me, but I did like that. I
mean, this was such a wooten thing to say right towards the beginning there
when when Vera says something to Elizabeth and like uses her full name and Woulden
says, ah, she called you by your middle name and everything, you
know, I was like, that was such a wooden thing, and I
thought that was kind of funny. But later when he's talking too Penny,
I did like that moment because he's trying to be serious and just you know,
share with her his perspective. And he starts talking about his brother and
everything, and we've a really deep, serious moment, and then he says
something about Wellington. He was always shouting in his phone bye bye bye.
I thought that was a weird way to say goodbye, and I didn't want
that, and I thought, oh, come on, like that is a
very awkward moment to insert a really dumb joke, like Wudent's not an idiot.
I said this. I think in the last review, Woudent's not stupid.
Yes, he might misunderstand some things, but come on, he's not
that dumb. He's a businessman himself. To that though, it's kind of
meaning of Yeah, he's being kind of fun. I don't think it was
too out a place, but it's kind of saying his saying about how he
saw his brother acting and he didn't want to be like him. Yeah,
I get that. I get that, But the whole the bye bye bye
joke, I mean, it was just really dumb moment to insert that he's
trying to be serious, and I just felt very odd to drop a joke
right there. I would have much preferred him to just keep that serious tone
with her and just be heartfelt instead of trying to be funny. Whether whether
that was the writer making the decision to make a joke there that Rudin really
didn't understand what his brother was saying, or if it was just him trying
to be funny. Either way, that was not a good moment to insert
that in my opinion, agree to disagree, but continue. Well that's all
I have about that, but I just yeah, it just felt really really
odd, Like, yes, there are moments when you want to diffuse tension
with humor, but there was no tension there necessarily. He was just being
very heartfelt with his wife, and yeah, so it just felt weird.
But back to the mother daughter thing, after that blow up there with Elizabeth
and Viira, which again I thought was very uh, that's felt very genuine
and those two actresses were fantastic. They did a great job with that,
sure, and then when Penny praise there, that was a really really sweet
moment. I really liked that. Yeah, and this episode also because even
at the end of like greenw Conspiracy Part eleven, I think it is we
hear about Delta Trask being the real bad guy and him, you know,
making that comment about a thing about all these things when I'm counting my millions
or something like that. His voice is very on a calming and yeah,
he was a villain and this big villain, but I think this episode kind
of made me dislike him even more of what he was doing because you know,
stealing the artwork and like doing on his own and keeping it and that
kind of stuff. Like, Okay, I can really understand why Penny would
have a harder time with this because she had already gotten over him being this
you know, you have that kind of distance to a certain extent of them
doing this bad thing to other people. Yeah, he also like a kidnapped,
I mean these other people, but this I think is at a more
personal level to a certain extent that maybe it even harder to take m Yeah.
Yeah, so yeah, overall, I thought it was a pretty decent
episode. I did like those side characters. And it's weird because I don't
know, is it bad that I found that the best moments and the most
compelling part of this episode was these side characters that will probably never hear from
again, and not the main characters. I mean, I felt more connected
to what was going on with them than than Penny and Wooten's. But overall
it was a pretty decent episode. Well, I have to say this is
probably the best, if not one of the best, just Wooten and Penny
episodes as like them as main characters. Yeah, Like, I'm not a
big Penny fan, and over the years I haven't been that big of a
Wooten fan either, But yeah, like I said, Abigail does a great
job and usually Marshi Younger does as well writing those characters as more grounded,
and I appreciate that when the writers do that and bringing up, you know,
a little nostalgic because even with the Green New Conspiracy, a lot of
people have a lot of fun memories of that and a lot of people like
that, so bringing that, I think just adds that little extra cherry on
top to this kind of episode, which it was kind of funny that well,
not funny, I guess, but I wish that Clubhouse Magazine did not
spoil me on this episode because in the Clubhouse magazine, the Odyssey section about
things coming up or whatever they mentioned it's stopped through Trask in the Clubhouse magazine.
Like I didn't need to know that. I wanted that would have been
a great surprise and a great reveal because even the album summary they don't mention
who it is, Like, way to show your hand there, Odyssey.
Oh wow, I didn't realize that. Yeah. Overall, good episode,
you know, now that I think about it. I think the the uh
episode teaser also mentions I think she says her name in the too, so
it kind of spoils it there too. But yeah, that is an interesting
choice why they would have done that. I mean, I mean, I
guess it does happen right at the beginning of the episode, so it's not
a huge, huge surprise, but it is still a spoiler to a certain
extent. Yeah, Like I think it may some people thought, or at
least me, I thought it's something maybe like Penny's history, like back in
her childhood, like her our teacher or me her ex boyfriend or something like
that. Possibly, But I'm glad they didn't go that route and went this
way. M Yeah, yeah, it worked, It definitely worked well.
That brings us to episode nine sixty five two's Company Four's a Crowd, also
written by Abigail Geiger, directed by Phil Lawler, with sound designed by Luke
Gano and music by John Campbell. Well, you know what, I said
that everybody had been waiting for the four parter on this album, but I
know that a lot of people were waiting for this moment too, the moment
where Emily confronts Wit, And I'm so glad that they did this. It
needed to happen, in my opinion, So I'm really really happy that they
did have that moment. I wish it had been a little bit deeper and
not quite as sandwiched in or smashed in with another plot on the episode,
because it's really only the first few moments of the beginning of the episode and
then again towards the end, and the rest is more about what's happening with
Suzu. But regardless, I'm glad that they did it. Yeah. So
I've said before every Roydell episoisode I come to listen to, I try to
get my expectations very low, and I did that for value in the process,
and I actually kind of enjoyed that episode in album seventy four, and
I did the same thing with this one too. I can't reme if I
saw before I heard the episode or not that Abgo Geiger was writing it,
because I think Bob Who's and I think it's not Abigo Geiger. I think
I liked their episodes more writing for the Rodel's more than other writers like Kathy
Kennan and Phil Lawler. But yeah, I'm glad they did it. It
took way too long for it to actually happen. And also, one thing
that makes me a little sad is that in an official podcast episode, abiol
Geiger said that she wrote this episode not knowing. I'm not gonna get into
spoilers at all here, JD, because I don't think you've heard album seventy
sixty. I have you no, Okay, so I'll I won't add any
spoilers. But basically, she wrote this episode without knowing because I think the
Idell revelations I don't know realizations, and Album seventy six, I think those
are written or being written. So this is kind of a tangential story to
a certain extent. So like what happens in this doesn't necessarily affect what happens
to that and vice versa. And I think that's a mistake because that's kind
of what we had. Kind of the mess that we got into at the
beginning is because I have a unified vision of how the Redult cycle would go.
So when the Rodel revelations came around, Peel had to pick up all
these pieces from different writers and that kind of stuff to create something that fit,
and unfortunately didn't all fit all that great. But I'm assuming that's probably
the best that could be done from that. So on its own merit,
this episode I think does quite well with that. Like I'm glad she finally
had this conversation that she was honest about it. I'm glad that Wit apologized
because I'm trying to think, I know, we've had lots of episodes of
like Young Wit, you know, Jim Custer with you know, doing a
lot of some bad decisions and this kind of stuff. We don't hear Wit
saying a lot of apology, like even things like the Mortal Coil or some
of the stuff, like kind of the ones when he is in the wrong,
and for the longest time it was treated as not a big deal.
And I'm hoping that enough fans and parents, you know, made enough noise
about the situation, and they finally did do something about it. Again,
I think it's maybe too little, too late, because we still have to
live with the episodes that came before this. But I felt that it was
earned in the story like it. Like I said, it kind of comes
before all the main story, which I don't think it wouldn't have fit because
Emily wasn't in value in the process and the team it would have worked either.
And I'm trying to think, yeah, the team was the last one
before in the process. So I'm glad we finally get this. I still
don't like Emily being part of the team, but I like that we finally
got this resolution that Witt said I have. I think right here, I'm
sorry I was wrong and should have like let you know, I didn't write
all but but basically he apologized for doing this. And he also said,
like, you know, I know my apology won't make up for it,
which I'm glad. He also pointed that out too. Just because you say
you apologize something doesn't take away the her. It doesn't always you know,
people don't always forget can't just always forget about it. But I'm glad it
was vulnerable in that moment and that Emily Funny spoke her mind about that,
and she was also respectful. That's one thing that I think at this point,
like when she was talking to Mori and Suzu in the end of a
let's call the whole thing off, you know, she's blew up at them.
She was very angry. I was very great acting from Christina Pricelli there,
and I'm thinking that story why it's probably best. Again, I don't
think overall perceptions, you know, externally was good, but story wise,
letting her cool off to a certain extent, go through feelings more. I
still don't think her joined the team was a good thing. But after joining
the team and working with them for a little bit, getting to this point
and finally bringing this out kind of like the last episode, these kind of
not quite as long standing, but these feelings bourb beneath the surface, Funny
comes to the surface and finally get resolved. And it's not the best it
could be, but it's the best that we're probably gonna get. And I'm
at least slightly happy of how it turned out with this episode. But that
doesn't mean that in the future I'll keep my expectations higher. I still go
into write now episodes with low expectations because I still don't really care for her
Morey. I do actually like Susi at a little bit more than more I
think I'm that in the last review, So I'm glad this episode actually focuses
more on Susan and not Morey. But I've been talking way too long,
so you go ahead. Yeah, So, I mean I agree there.
It's just that Wit actually acknowledged that he had done something wrong and asked for
forgiveness. I thought that was great, although he's still he's still not apologizing
for everything. He was just basically it seemed like to me he was apologizing
that he didn't let her in on what was going on sooner, I think,
is how he worded it, something like that. So yeah, again,
as you said, you know, it's probably the best we're going to
get, But that that actually even happened was great. And you talk about
Christina Pochelli's performance, mean you were talking about another episode, but in this
one too. I mean, she was just fantastic, Like you could hear
that quaver in her voice as she's really just bearing her soul to him saying,
you know, I was angry. I didn't feel like I could trust
you. This is how I felt, and I didn't know how to bring
it up to you. And yeah, she just did a fantastic job.
And I really thought that moment was really nice. Now, since we're talking
about this whole issue, I'm going to bounce to the end of the episode
and just address that real quickly and then we'll go to the to the meat
of the story here. But so he does apologize and ask her to forgive
him, and she says, you know, I guess so, or something
like that, and you know, he doesn't push her again. That was
great, you know, just just letting her feel those feelings, and as
you said, she was very respectful. And then she goes on to tell
the story about what's going on with Suzu. But then when we get to
the end, she says, you know what, I was wrong. I
need to just say yes, I do forgive you completely, and then having
a wit make light of it when she asks him to forgive her. I
think that was the wrong move in my opinion. Again, it's the like
in that last episode. This was a very serious, deep moment, and
then having him insert that little joke where he kind of parrots back her I
guess so or maybe or whatever it was, it felt off. I just
like, don't don't insert humor right there. This was a deep thing that
really mattered a lot to Emily, and doing that to her it just felt
like, you know, pouring salt in the wound, you know, even
though she's trying to move on. And she was very forthright with her feelings
there, and I know that they moved on with it, and in the
story there she was totally fine with it. But it just I did not
like that. I felt like that was a wrong move by Wit there.
He should have just you know, kept it serious and thanked her, you
know, for because honestly, I don't think she did all that much wrong.
To be perfectly candidate. She perhaps because he is an elder and she's
an adult, she's a kid, she should have been upfront sooner. But
I don't think the way that she was feeling about it was wrong. And
I don't think she even really needed to apologize for how she was feeling.
But that's another issue. Yeah, I don't have as big a problem with
that. For some reason, it felt Wit does have that kind of side
to him sometimes the humor side, which I think, like we have the
value in the process. I mean, the way he's treating Maury and Suzu
compared to other kids, like his kind of parentine back, like you know,
his winding back up Maury or whatever. Yeah, for me, I
don't think it like it was just like a slight blip, like I don't
know if it took me out the story too much, like the humor kind
of did to a certain extent, But for me, it didn't feel unlike
Witch. But I can understand that, especially since this is like the last
last scene or next to last scene, because we had that kind of flashback
or whatever thing with it, I would probably say I would have a bigger
problem between this one and the one about the bye bye bye thing. I
think I probably have a little more problem with this one, even though I
have very little problem with either either one of them. But yeah, I
yeah, I'm waffling on that one. But I'm glad you did bring it
up. I'm sure there's probably some people that felt that way too, So
setting aside that again, I'm glad that this whole apology thing happened. But
that's not even really what this episode is about. So, as with the
last album, we had some really interesting issues. The episode here is addressing
some of the things that young people these days are really having to face their
peers. Always on social media. Everybody wants to be a social media personality,
and so streaming a prank on somebody else seems very plausible these days,
that somebody could very easily do something like that, And there are bullies out
there and that's a real thing that kids have to deal with. And so
I thought that whole aspect of this episode was pretty solid as well. Yeah,
like it's another set up mystery, Like we got a lot of those
with their Adell saga like Further from the Truth and the Secret of the Writer's
Ruse, but this one it's not necessarily meant to be for fun or the
brand the good People or thing like that. It's just meant to terment them
and try to make them look bad to a certain extent. So I think
the angle of a fake mystery worked better with this because it was a little
more at the end of figuring out why and how, not just that it
was a fake mystery, which I like that aspect of it. Which this
is also really I think it's actually pretty good mystery writing too, because it's
also one that I think makes it easier i'd say easier, easy ish to
solve along with them, which now all mysteries do that. So like the
things about her not having her phone like wanted to use curious phone, that
was like a red flag in my mind, like, ooh, why she's
not using her phone? That sounds kind of suspicious. And I think the
shoes, the drop by the window or something like that, I think it's
probably like the the phone thing, it's like a red flag. Oh,
I think it's probably something's up here. So and when Emily, you know,
brings those things up, it makes sense. So like the red flag
is there, and you can probably put little other the pieces together. So
I think it was a I think it was a well constructed mystery in my
opinion. Yeah, yeah, I don't have a whole lot of other thoughts
on this one. I would say it's a pretty decent episode. Again,
you know, I didn't love it. It didn't you know, despise it.
It's it's it's an okay episode, but you know, as with you,
I do like Susu better than Maury, and I think This was a
good use of the character and her wanting to have friends. I mean,
that seems pretty plausible, and I think it made sense in all in all
of those aspects, so you know, it was a pretty decent episode.
Yeah. I think this episode made me feel for Susu a lot more than
I have before, because both of them are very smart. But like Susu,
she already has, you know, kind of cute voice, and when
she's starting to cry and you know, tubell how she doesn't have any friends
and things like that, it made me sympathize for her a lot more with
that, and I could see how her bias, you know, wanting to
make friends would cloud her judgment. And also you know, thinking Emily had
it out for her, which she kind of did to certain extent, and
she's kind of waffling back and forth on what to do what not to do.
Which that's the one thing that Emily went above the minimum of what she
did. What she did. She did tell her, hey, something's going
wrong here. You need to be careful, and then she found out the
live stream later and she could have let that go the very the bare minimum
of being a decent person. I ended up getting kind of the moral aspect
here the bare minimum was like, Hey, something's wrong here. You need
to watch yourself. I'm concerned about something that might happen to you. And
when she find out what that is, she could have let that go on.
And I'm not sure if she would be totally not justified in doing that.
And yes, she like has she had the bad feelings she had against
her, wouldn't have mom good, but she did like the bare minimum,
but that already but that Emily One didn't interrupt it, suposed it and saved
Susu's reputation and did the livesprem of her own, which she talked about.
She doesn't quite know if that was the right thing to do or not,
which I don't think Wig gives her like yes or no, which to me,
I think that's justified because it shows the evidence because if okay, this
is a mystery, or taking this to the you know, I guess more
court of public opinion, and also rescuing her from being mismerched. So I
don't think that's a bad thing. Like I know, you get to legal
issues of like, you know, recording someone without them knowing, but you
know everybody does that nowadays. When you're out in about you know, everyone
has a camera on their phone or whatever. So I don't think Emily was
wrong in doing it because it did help save Suzu. And you know,
truth prevailed in that, and she's already live streaming, like she cut it
off. It's not like she was opposed to being live stream the concept of
it. She just didn't want, you know, her sins being uncovered.
So I think she was justified in that, and it sounded like she did
it more for the right reasons, I think, so I don't think I
had a problem with that. Yeah. Yeah, And to your point about
sympathizing with Suzu, April Hong really did a fantastic job there. And you
know, when Suzu finally understands what's actually going on and they start accusing her
of stealing the award and everything, you could hear the betrayal in her voice,
and she she just did a fantastic job there. So yeah, I
mean Suzu is an interesting character. There's there's some cool things that they could
explore with that. So that this was just an episode about her, I
was I was pretty okay with Yeah, another solid episode, I believe.
Well, we have arrived episodes nine sixty six has come nine sixty nine.
The best is yet to come. Oh okay, well, this was written
by a team or Marshall Younger and Kathy Buchanan all worked on the scripts for
this four part episode. And an interesting thing which I don't know that I've
seen before, and that is we have two different directors. And I'm guessing
that that must have just been because of the scheduling or something, and maybe
one of them took like the morning session with some of the actors and then
another one took an afternoon session with the rest of the cast or something like
that. But it was directed by both Kathy Buchanan and Marshall Younger, with
sound design by Zack Schneider and Luke Gano. So again we've got some teamwork
going on. Yeah. So here we are to this, as I said
earlier, end of an Era, and we have Eugene doing the intro of
the episode, which was cool. I'm guessing that Townshend also did that as
well, because that didn't sound like a recycled one, but I may be
wrong about that. Yeah, it's an interesting open And before we get to
the story, can we just talk about the use of AI for the voice
first. Yeah, that's a good point because there might be somebody listening who
did not realize this. But if you haven't listened to the official podcast and
haven't been participating in any of the fan communities, you may have missed it.
But yeah, they did use an AI technology, which is a voice
cloning software. Not AI. Generated voice is a process where an actor performs
all of the Eugene lines and then they do a voice matching or voice cloning
process that overlays the sound of Will Ryan's voice over the top of that actor's
performance, and in this case it was Townsend Coleman. So an amazing interesting
technology and I honestly don't know how else they could have done this sendoff for
the character of Eugene without relying on technology like this. It would have been
very unsatisfying to not I mean, if they had had to piece together snippets
of dialogue from old that episode odes throughout the years, it would have been
really, really difficult, and it would this I don't think the script would
have felt satisfying because they're gonna have to shoehorn everything in using existing dialogue.
So it's an interesting solution for this, and I think it worked. Go
ahead if you want to add to that for sure. Yeah. I was
very surprised when they announced something official podcasts about this, and by the time
they were done, I felt I felt pretty good about it, and it's
an idea. I never even thought of them doing, like I know,
when there was gonna be a four parter, I was saying, wow,
I a lot of that episode is probably going to be not Eugene focused with
a pro using old dialogue whatever. But that they were able to write the
script and then have the audio put to it made it easier. And I
think because I did it very ethically, which that's a conversation with a lot
of ais now it's like is it ethical, how should it be used?
Copyrights? Things like that. But one they got the permision of his widow,
Nancy, and they made sure it was okay with the actors, the
people that knew him, you know, close friends, that kind of stuff.
In Townsend Coleman, you know, was a very close friend to Will.
I think it was executed very well. And the one thing that I
don't like is that people are I've had I've seen this conversation on some Honesty
fan pages and such like, oh if we do this, then we can
bring back other old actors back and things like that, Like No, no,
that's not what this is for. This is to bring closure to a
character that we can't have closure to without it in a satisfying way. It's
not a way of bringing people back from the dead to do this. That's
why you know, like Andre Stoika, whenever he's not able to do Wit
anymore, I don't want them doing AI to bring house Smith back, er
Polumber back, or even keep Andre going as the voice of Wits and things
like that, because you want to get the authentic voice of the actor.
And that's why just a generative is not gonna sound as good as a as
a human. Even with this technology. There's some limitations of the emotion and
things like that with it. It's a unique circumstance. I think it's good
for this case, but it's not a it's a it's the exception, not
the rule that I think going forward. When you have a character that you
can't enclosure on, which as big a character as Eugene is, that's a
really big character. With a character like Tom Riley or Jack Allen or Bernard
or something like that, it's gonna be not as big a deal that they
make that extra effort to make this happen. But I think in this scenario
it works well. And actually recently, this kind of scenario and it kind
of a similar fashion happened with the music industry. So Randy Travis, a
country singer, he lost his voice several years ago and he's been unable to
sing for years. But recently, with his permission, they had someone do
kind of like this with the Old Ryan. They had an actual singer sing
lyrics to a new song and they match it with Randy Travis's vocals from past
songs to create a new single of Randy Travis. Quote Randy Travis singing and
here's the key with it. And then from when I heard he was brought
the tears like it was a way for him to sing again. He's physically
not able to sing anymore. With this technology, he's able to sing in
a way like I don't think I will I want people to do full albums
of you know, this kind of thing, but for that use scenario,
that's great, But are gonna do it for you know, like Hank Williams
or being Crowsedy or something like that. No, let that alone. But
for that circumstance, for his case, it brought so much joy to him
to be able to sing in that way they wasn't able to before. I
think that's probably even more unique scenario than with this scenario in Odyssey. But
it's interesting how this technology is being used and in unique ways and in ways
that are at the goal. And that makes sense. Yeah, and I
heard about this as well, and you know, it's it's due to a
stroke that he had that that he's not able to. It's very difficult for
him to even speak, though he can speak a little bit, but to
sing is pretty much out of the question. And it is a similar situation
too, because the singer who did actually sing the vocals is a close friend
and he has traveled with Randy Travis over the years, and he did sort
of like a Randy Travis tribute and he would sing Randy Travis's songs. And
so it's a similar thing to what happened with Will and Townshend. They were
both friends. He had he had heard Will so many times over the years
do this character, and so he knew how to try to match that inflection
and everything, and so yeah, that is a good. That is a
good comparison. And to the point of using this sort of a technology to
bring back all these other characters, yeah, I think I would agree with
you. That's that's probably not the best way to go, especially for somebody
who's been gone for many years, and you know, there are ethical concerns.
I mean, you can't just go and just start using somebody's voice just
because you want to. You know, it's that's that's not right. And
as you point out, you know, they they did consult with with Nancy,
and it is an interesting situation. I mean, personally, I was
hoping that they would recast the role of Eugene Melsner because I love that character
and I would would love to see him stay around. But because they made
the decision to have the family move away spoiler if you didn't know that the
Meltzner's leave, this was an interesting way for them to achieve that and have
it not feel forced and and two rushed. Although it was very quick,
we all sort of knew something like this was coming. I'm just glad they
didn't kill off the character, because who knows, they may they may cast
down the road, they could still do that. So yeah, I think.
Yeah, they talked about how they did have I think audition some people
for the role, and I think they've pretty much closed the door on bring
the character back, either with a recast or using the AI thing. Again,
Like, it's not one hundred percent, it's like nine nine percent something
like that. I'd be okay with him and recast in the future. However,
I know I'm getting ahead of myself here, but it's such a perfect
send off to a certain extent that it feels so cheap after a while to
bring him back. And that's probably why they wrote it this way, because
they don't have any plans to bring him back. But here's the question,
we'll hear Eugene back again recast or we'll kind of get married ooh, which
will happen first exactly? Which one's more plausible? Yeah. So, but
it's an interesting thing too that it did feel like a natural progression because this
whole idea. Of course, I know that this idea of this medical treatment
and everything, this was not in the plans until we lost Will, so
I know that this was an after the fact thing. But the way they
did it it really worked because we know that Eugene has been working on brain
related research for years and years and years, and so having him be involved
in developing this new treatment for and they don't say it out right, but
I'm assuming it was for Alzheimer's or some sort of memory loss sort of disease
like that, dementia or something like that. But a three D printed hippocampus.
I mean that's crazy, and today that's not far off from reality because
like back in the Novocom saga days, like obviously it's kind of ahead of
its time, Like I was reading about it's called neurlink or whatever of someone
able to, you know, control things with their minds, but then also
regressing kind of like Duncan mathis is interesting too because we opened this a cold
open it don't get to me cold opens on Odyssey, But the music in
that was very novacomp slug esque of music, like a lot like more electric
guitar and them were like cold kind of instrument kind of feeling there. That's
a good point. Yeah, yeah, Now this is something that I just
found out today as I was prepping for this. The actors who played that
couple, the Hancocks, June Squib who is the voice of Loretta Hancock.
Now if the Internet is to be believed. I know there are some errors
out there, so this might not be one hundred percent accurate, but the
Internet says that she's ninety four years old, and Monte Markham, the voice
of Vernon Hancock, is eighty eight, So I was like, wow,
they got some old timers in to play these parts. But they were both
fantastic, Yeah, for sure. And actually Monte Markham, he's been on
Odyssey before the thing. I recognized his voice when I heard him in the
first episode he played I can't remember I can't remember the girl's name, but
at the friend of Camilla's and rewinding the Big Picture or Camille's trying to cheer
her friend up, and then she talks to her grandfather later that has dementia
or something like that, not able to remember some certain things and that kind
of stuff, which is a similar situation with this character. But his voice,
I loved his voice in that. I loved hearing him in this one
too. Yeah, that character was called George yea. Yeah, rewinding the
Big Picture, but yeah, it was an interesting way to present this whole
research thing in the culmination of this surgery. And then I did not expect
that turn for the patient to actually die. I was like, WHOA,
did not see that one coming? Yeah, for sure. I did recognize
pretty quickly that the nurse was played with Kathy Buchannan, and she makes another
cameo later as the stewardess in the airplane. Okay, yeah, I thought
that was her too. I was pretty sure that it wasn't credited on the
wiki, but I was pretty sure that was her and Evan. David picks
up a couple of small characters in these four episodes as well, which I
thought was pretty cool. I did not realize that until I was I was
looking at the cast list here that you have on the Google doc here,
because I know in part four the bus driver sounded a really familiar but I
couldn't place his voice. And I saw that in part two he plays one
of the people that it's gonna be working with Eugene, Like, oh,
that's really cool. I didn't. I didn't recognize either one of those,
and I've heard Evan's voice quite a bit. Yeah, And the other employee
that they meet there was I think it was Dahlia. I don't think she
was a professional either. It sounded like that might have been another Focus employee
or something. So that was kind of cool, yeah, because I do
know they do that on occasion, is bring in some Focus employees to play
a bit parts where there's only a line or two. But I don't know
who did that one, but that was that was that was cool. I
always like it when they do that, and I'm sure it makes the day
of those people that get to play a character. Add that to your resume.
That's pretty cool. Sure. So you know, we hear from Eugene
here talking to Buck. I'm guessing it was like a video call that he
was doing when he was away talking to them and they're doing their game over
the phone there. But I pretty much agree with Eugene about teens dating.
I think he was spot on there. Yeah, which we kind of have
this conversation with King of My Heart and Album seventy four with you know,
Katrina kind of being a little more lenient in Eugenia as much, which I
still agree with Eugene with that, especially the way how for lack of a
better term, volatle that Jewels and Buck are or they're constantly reverting back to
their old ways and doing selfish things and even to each other, not the
greatest thing. But I the storyline with them, you know, trying to
hide their dating relationship, which you know, picks up from album seventy four,
which is interesting that Buck says only Cooper know, but I was saying
that Bridget would probably know since she's Jewel's best friend, or maybe this book
this meant the only person that knew that he had told was Cooper. Oh
yeah, yeah, I didn't even even pick up on that. But that's
a good point. Yeah, I mean, I think I've made it clear
in the last review how I feel about that, and you know, how
they're sneaking around behind everybody's back. I mean, that's not good. Not
a fan of that, and so I don't want to be labor that point
because I think we did cover that pretty well that time. And then there's
another one here that again I also want to touch on briefly, but I
don't want to spend a whole lot of time on because there is a lot
to talk about and that's not the main point of these episodes, and I
don't want to lose a focus on this Farewell to Eugene. But I was
not a fan of having the book and Jules lead a song in an actual
worship service. I mean, I just don't think that's appropriate, having an
unbeliever on the platform in a church service. And also they outright lied to
Pastor Knox. Like Jules had just said that the song that she had been
talking about with Buck was inspired by him and his the fireworks and that whole
thing. Yet when Pastor Knox comes out to start talking to them, she
tells him that the song she was talking about was inspired by his message,
and she just outright lies to him, and that was never addressed. And
so I wasn't crazy about that. But again, I know that this is
people have very differing opinions on those sorts of issues, so I don't want
to pound it too much, but I just did want to bring it up
briefly. But yeah, I have thoughts about this too. I'll try to
keep it brief. I know, back in California Dreams, I think Connie
or Buck talked about Pastor Knox, you know, wanting her to be on
the worship team or whatever, and this one kind of talks about, you
know, being the choir. Yeah, I'm not so against the idea of
unbelievers, especially when it's kids. I mean, they're teenagers, they're you
know, they're not adults. Being a part of church activities and being part
of that because I know from you know, things like youth groups and things
like that, like not everybody is a Christian, but they get involved in
certain church activities and things like that. And singing too. I know there
is testimonies. I've heard people that weren't Christians but were put into possessions that
they're playing the piano or singing or something like that, where some at some
point what they were saying finally broke through to them and they got saved as
a result. So like I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, like you
one, to have more Christians and of course in the leadership roles of stuff
like that, to have Christians be the leading of that. But getting young
people and kids involved in you know, singing, you know, like kids
choir or something like that, I don't think is a bad thing. I
think it comes becomes an issue if you know, if they were if conjols
were adults and they had leadership roles and stuff. Yes, I don't think
you know how they got into it, you know, with lying about stuff.
And I'm still unsure if Wilson sold through their lives or not. I
feel like he did, because Wilson's pretty tricky, like he's like, oh,
you can do this, and he like because they he knew that they
were kind of lying about the listening to his message or whatever. I just
felt that it would be nice to have just a mention if something about like
Wilson knowing He almost comes off as clueless to a certain extent, but I
can tell like the subtext of what he's saying is like, yeah, I
think he's putting them on the spot, and he's really you know, bringing
it to them for not you know, paying attention and catching them in their
lie where they have to keep going along with it and then hope, hopefully
doing this they will eventually come to Christ or at least see the error of
their ways of being deceptive. Yeah, And to clarify, I'm not against
getting involved in activities and things like that, especially you know, youth activities
and that kind of thing. It's just that this was a this was a
midweek actual church service, and so nobody's going to change my mind on this,
So I don't I don't think that was a great thing. But as
I said, I'm not gonna be labor that point. But there to your
point about him sometimes coming across as a little naive, he does a little
bit sometimes, Yet we do know there is a depth to him because of
the way he handled the whole Olivia thing, and that was really extremely interesting
and I and I really liked him, especially towards the end of that where
they're all in the church praying for her, and again, beautiful, beautiful
moments there. But yeah, I think you're You've got a good point that
it would have been nice for him to at least acknowledge it. And I
think in this case, he is seeing through what they're saying. So I
think he had a pretty good idea of what they're doing, and I understand
his reasons for doing what he did. So yeah, I get all of
that. But was Wilson Wright let's go there, the whole thing with with
Buck and Jewels calling each other or comparing themselves to Romeo and Juliet, and
I forget now who was I think it was Bucky said and that didn't turn
out very well or something like that. I thought that was a great line,
But the Bucky O that sounds cheesy and corny. But when he said
Jules yet, that cracked me up. I thought, that's that's a pretty
funny one. Yeah. Yeah, his dad may not like puns, but
he sure does. I guess that's not quite a pun, but close.
And that whole scene with them whispering up and down the pew, that was
hilarious. I liked that quite a bit. Yes, that was so much
fun, like a game of telephone passing the message all the way down the
road and the only person that got it wrong was Conne. At the very
end, he's like he's interested in smelts or something like that, like that
was the only person that didn't hear it. Yeah, that was great.
That was really fun. And it was beautiful. Like you mentioned earlier about
the the singing, them singing amazing, Grace is is really beautiful and just
more of a folks you kind of you know, just stripped down saw of
all the orchestration. That kind of stuff was really nice. Yeah. I
love showing his voice. I think she sounds really good. And then when
they switch into parts and start harmonizing, it just sounds really nice mm hmm.
Which you don't get too many scenes in Church on Odyssey too. Often
it's been it's been a while at least, Like no, I shouldn't say
that. I think we've heard a little bit about that in the Calhoun Family
episode where Trey embarrass himself, like the Missions trip or something like that.
I think there was a scene in church in that we had that in the
Lost One argue. But hearing it, you know, more from the audience
and things happening in the audience or the congregation and not just hearing what's being
said on the pulpit was interesting and seeing you know, them interact with each
other. Mm hmm. So that actually happens in part two. But at
the beginning of part two, that scene where Wit is giving Eugene advice,
and I was thinking, that is just like Wit to be giving Eugene sound
advice, giving him truthful, good wisdom from his experience, regardless of how
he might feel about it personally, because you know, they have a long
history together and this is hard on him, you can tell that, but
he's he's setting that aside because he's really thinking about what is really best for
them, And that was just kind of neat, even though that's not overtly
shown there in that scene, But that was just what came to my mind.
Yeah, what was really great in these episodes? For sure. Yeah,
now we reference to those potential employees that Eugene would be working with as
they were visiting back there in Baltimore, and I thought that was funny when
Buck said to Katrina, like, Dad's a rock star and she's like,
in this world he is. Yeah, that was interesting. I find of
interesting that you had four parts, but you have each episode's kind of focused
on one thing to a certain extent. It almost seemed like the turnaround of
them hiding their dating and then telling about it and then trying to get them
to not leave. It's like it happened pretty quick, and I know it
had to happen within the four parts, but it's like each episode had a
certain focus. Like Part one had, you know, setting up relationship stuff,
trying to spend more time together, you know, bucking jewels and then
ew Gene, you know, with this all this stuff happening with the research
and that kind of stuff. And then Part two is kind of going to
Baltimore, checking things out, breaking the news to Connie, you know.
Part three is more of a committed grips with that, and then Part four
is kind of more of the send off itself. So even though it's you
know, four parter, I think the focus is pretty good in each episode
where things are still carried throughout. I think did a good job at being
self contained to a certain extent in each party. That's a good point.
Yeah. Another thing that Buck had said during that time, I think he
was I think it might have been when he was talking to Jewels on the
phone, something about that telling about the the apartment and everything and that they
were showing them in Baltimore. But he said something about I grew up swimming
in a drainage ditch or something like that, and I'm like, that was
so funny to me because I'm like, I remember as a kid back in
the Midwest when we would have really heavy rains and the in the in the
small rural towns where I lived there was the ditches would flood, and as
kids, we'd always go out and play in that stuff. We had a
blast in that. I'm like, I'm right there with you, Bucks,
same same. Yeah. Thankfully you were in a Connor artist when you were
a kid. That's true, that's true. Yeah, And that that moment
at the funeral, though, with Missus Hancock. That was a beautiful moment
there. I really really liked that, and you can see that it's at
that moment that sort of the light goes on for Buck. And even then
I still didn't expect him to be the first one to reach the conclusion that
they should leave. But you're right, it all did feel like it was
a little bit quick, but again you kind of had to. They couldn't
drag this out for you know, multiple albums and things like that, so
I think within the amount of time they had it did work. Mm hmm.
Yeah. That scene at the funeral brought me to some tears a little
bit. I expected to cry listening to these Part one. I didn't cry
or cheer up at all. I think in that one I was more focused
on this uniqueness and listen to like how much I can tell if that's Townsend
or like Will and that kind of stuff, Like I think there's enough disconnect
to a certain extent, like I kind of guess, pray what would happened
later, But that writing and the acting, also the music for that scene
at the funeral just maybe tear up just how beautiful and heartwarming and heartbreaking it
was there which is a really neat scene. M h. And then we
end with them all you know, Buck saying I think we need to leave
or whatever sort of towards the end there of part two, and I'm like,
no, I don't want that to leave. Yes, yeah, I
think I tear it up around that point too, But I think it was
a really neat scene there because the men in the backyard, like I camp
fire, we here recordings of wolves ukulele. There was a nice which is
a nice touch. They also have you know him in the treehouse, which
we have you know them building in the past, and Eugene bringing up when
he lost I know, uh, Katrina bring it up about Eugene losing his
memories. That was a great callback, yes, and how hard it was
for her and how this technology could help people like not have to go through
that things like that. That was a great callback, Like it didn't feel
shoehorned in there. It was a permanent callback for those that know and worked
great for that situation. Also, the theme of memories that these shows were
going for one if it felt very natural for her to bring that up right
then, Yeah, that was that was a really cool, cool thing for
them to do. And then we get to part three, and I knew
that Connie was going to have a hard time with this, and it makes
absolutely perfect sense that she would have a hard time with losing Eugene. And
you know, in the earlier parts of this episode, I was like,
oh, man, she's she seems like she's she's not okay with it,
But she's not. She's not as emotional as I think as I thought she
would be. But then we go into this a little weird thing where she
tries to sort of sabotage the whole thing, not really sabotage it, but
she tries to get things changed so that they don't have to leave, And
that felt a little bit weird. I mean, I totally get her not
wanting to them to leave. That that makes sense, But for her to
actually go to the point where she calls his potential employer and tries to get
him to change the entire program that they were working on and move everything to
Odyssey or whatever, that felt a little bit like a little bit of a
stretch for Connie. But other than that, her not really being happy about
this whole thing, that made sense to me. Yeah, And with even
confiding in her that he was having a tough time. I really liked that
moment too. Yeah, I know people had some people were kind of divided
on how Connie acted. I brought this up in the past about like with
Millstones and like a thanks taken story of how Connie seemed to be reverting back
to like her teenage years or whatever. And when I was really listening to
this for the review, I remember it being a little bit more overboard when
like he drops the bombshell about it. I think it was very balanced at
that point, like her going to try to keep him in there. One,
it's better than trying to just not get them involved in any way,
like hey, like spreading lies about him or something like that. Yeah,
so that definitely have been good. Like I understand her reasoning for that.
Yes, she shouldn't have done it, and again I don't think it was
right for her to do it. But I think of any character, any
person in her life that she would go above and beyond to try to keep
in her life, it would be Eugene, if not with So I think
it's understandable and yes, she shouldn't have done it, but I don't think
it was totally out of character for her. Now, if it was someone
for like Jillian or Penny or maybe Jewles to a certain extent, since she's
like her sister, half sister, that kind of thing. But someone that's
had the most history with Connie, it makes the most sense for her to
do that. I'm not criticizing her for having those emotions. Yes, she
should have done it to begin with, but I don't think it was the
worst thing that she could have done. No, I don't think it was
the worst thing. It did feel a little bit overboard. I mean,
she was definitely overstepping her bounds. But that said, I think Eugene was
a bit harsh to her whenever he found out that she was the one who
had actually called the doctor too. I felt like he was a little bit
too dismissive of her feelings considering the history that they have together. It was
a very brief moment, but yeah, it felt a little harsh to me.
Yeah, I think I agree with that because I think some people talk
about that too, Like some people felt like Wit was being a little bit
too callous about things. And I think with Eugene two, because I have
this in my notes. Because of the technology, it's not quite monotone.
But there's only so much range of emotion that you could hear in the voice
with this technology, So I think it probably has something to do with it
of how it doesn't sound as natural when he's either being emotional like you,
like sad or happy or angry or whatever. I think that's partially to blame
to how he sounds in this. Again, the words are the same,
But yeah, I think he pray was but understandable from his side of something
that kind of his dream job and that can help so many people like jeopardizing
that and that a close friend is doing this, like he himself says Mets
later, that he's been too focused on this to kind of grieve over not
being around anything like that. He missed that a certain extent later, like
he's nothing about Yes, he should be concerned about his life and his family's
life, but yeah, I would say went a little bit overboard. I
think they're both. I don't know. I think he was probably more justified
and what he did and how he said it than Connie was. I don't
think she was justified in her actions. I think her feelings were justified.
But I think that because they've had this kind of adversarial to a certain extent,
you know, big green brother and sister kind of thing where they step
on each other's toes sometimes and but you know they always make up. Yeah.
Yeah. I have to also mention Showan's performance there when she's talking with
Connie about Buck Leavey super super good, like like she was, just because
you know, I think I think you and I have said and I know
that I've said and I think him. I've talked about this with perhaps Michael
Schrader in an AIO review. But they're not the greatest influence on each other.
Buck and Jewels all the time. You know that they often push each
other to do things that are not great. But you know, you talked
earlier about sort of feeling empathy for Suzu, and I kind of felt that
for Jewels in this moment too, because you know, we know that she
hasn't had a great life, and Connie's doing what she can to try to
get her on the straight and narrow these days, but she still does have
a lot of hurt in her background, and that feeling of rejection and not
getting the love that she needed as a kid, and so feeling that Buck
is deserting her here in this moment when they had talked about this and she
thought they were on the same page. I mean, I totally felt like
she her feelings were understandable and shown are really shown in this moment. I
didn't think about how that was gonna sound, but Yeah, she did a
fantastic job and I really thought she was great. Yeah, that was some
great act in there, and one of the few times that Jeweles has opened
up that much about our feelings and emotions to Connie. Yeah, and it's
a breaking point for her. And I think that's one thing because it's easier
to criticize a fictional character than is, you know, a real life person,
Like if someone like Jewels or Buck, we knew someone like that in
real life and they did the actions that they did, it'd be a lot
more understandable, and we probably be a lot more forgiving to a certain extent,
because of course they're real people. We should forget them because God tells
us to otherwise we won't be forgiven. But character wise, continuity wise,
in a show like this, it's difficult to take those moments when oh they
did this again. They keep getting in trouble, they keep pulling each other
down. That's a real life thing, because that's how real life works with
a lot of people when they have bad relationships, bad home life, they
take that on and treat the same people around them like that. They may
not mean too, but it's either like that's how they've known or they have
a hard time reconciling what is good and what isn't. So I have been
pretty harsh about Jewels and buck to a certain extent. Again, their fictional
characters. We can criticize them all we want and think how the show should
go writing wise, but if you look at it a lens of if these
people are in real life, which there are people like these people in real
life, it should gives a lot more sympathy for those people and also have
more empathy for them and pray for those kind of people. Yeah. Yeah,
And when Connie comes to the door after Bucket pulled his little stunt with
the song and the fire works, that was kind of cool too, though
kind of a reference back to the whole fireworks at the big ending of part
one. But when she said that Jewles had left and went to California,
I was not expecting that at all. I knew that since she hadn't come
out to see what was going on right away, that Jewles wasn't going to
be there, but I thought it was just go be she wasn't home,
but that she had actually left. I did not see that coming. And
then that was a great, great way for them to bring in Ted Humphries.
You know, I've said in the past that I think Jay Smouse is
one of the best things to happen to AIO since the reboot. And I
got to say that Ted Humphries is one of my favorite things that's happened in
recent years when they really started to use him a lot, and you know,
having episodes completely dedicated to him, even and very very small part in
these episodes, But I love that character, and he's so funny, and
it made perfect sense, you know, to have him be on the same
flight or something. So it was cool to hear from him. Yeah,
because it's the cliffhanger and you hear a character that you know of like,
Okay, this person's gonna be important, but how with that? And again
it's Jules kind of California dreams to a certain extent, and also Connie herself
to a certain extent, run away from her problems were only from God.
It's a different scenario with this here. But there's other parallels to older episodes
later in part four, but we'll get to those. But I know,
with Connie being emotional about Eugene leaving and things like that too, I was
getting a little bit more emotional. Like I said, each episode for me
was ramped up the emotion for me, Like each one, I was crying
and turning up more and more. But yeah, this was a good the
climax, I guess to a certain extent, not quite the climax, but
everything is all to a point where, Okay, they are leaving, Jeles
isn't going to be here for it, get the strained relationship with Eugene and
Connie, and they get the resolution in the next episode. So everything's at
a fever pitch right now. Yeah, And Ted's telling her that he's going
to see his great aunt and you know all those things about stories, and
he said, well, she's gonna be telling him stories about her neighbor's dog
digging up her petunias and jewels, makes some sort of comment like you know
what, Just essentially he's brushing it off, you know, like she's not
interested whatsoever. And he says, trust me, it's not as interesting as
it sounds. And I'm like, it just shows how it's so funny.
It's plague into that stereotype that he's, you know, tone deaf to what
people are thinking around him, and like his being out of touch with the
with the the young crowd that we've had in other episodes. And I thought
that was a really fantastic way to illustrate that that quirk of his personality with
just that one line, and I loved it. Yeah. Well, that
brings us to the final part, part four, and as you mentioned earlier,
that was Kathy as the flight attendant to Kathy Buchanan, which I thought
was pretty cool. And then speaking of callbacks and interesting mentions of things from
from back in the day on the show, I loved that mention of Joe
Finnemon. I mean that was really really cool. Yeah, And going back
to the Ted Humphreys thing here a little bit. I like carrying him outside
of his news reporter role. But you don't get that often because not just
someone's defined by their job when you see them outside of it, because he
does a certain extent with you know, seeing the the footage of you know,
the fireworks and that kind of stuff, the trees getting scorched and all
that stuff. But it's kind of neat seeing characters that, if they're defined
by this characteristic or their occupation, to see them outside of that role a
little bit more is really nice. M h. I love the line that
he had that. Uh the comment there is like, you know, I
don't know what what am I doing? It says taking up most of the
armrest or something like that. She just does not hear, and she realizes
that she's acting like her parents. She's continuing that cycle of leaving people when
they need you most. Yeah, that moment of self reflection was really nicely
done. Yeah. And then then we hear that Witt has named the library
after that, and so Katrina says, you've named it after us, So
I'm assuming you just called it the Meltzner Library or something, not Eugene specifically.
But then we hear that he has put like quotes from Eugene around on
the walls or something, So that'll be interesting. I wonder if they will
mention that or reference that again at some point. Yeah, but they don't
say exactly, like you said, what kind name is it the Gene Melster
Library, does the Melster Library the Melster Family Library. I would say it's
always called the library, you know, like the train room and the Bible
Room and things like that. So the only one that gets the most interesting
probably is the little theater. It's not just the theater. Yeah. And
then probably the biggest callback of all, and it's not even really a callback,
but getting to hear from Bernard, even though I know that that was
audio from an old episode that didn't air, it was just super cool to
hear Bernard Walton and it's probably the last time we'll ever hear from him unless
they recast, which they probably will never do. But yeah, that was
that was a highlight for me. I loved that part of this episode.
I found it interesting that they put Bernard on the cover because that was a
big deal for people when they saw that, Like, that's another thing that
they could have kept under their hat and had as a surprise. Some peop
probably would have still me suspected it. But then they have Bernard on the
cover, like, oh, that's probably like a prey a marketing thing,
like oh hey, Bernard, he's in this and I gotta buy this album
for the club to listen to this, but bring this up quickly. I
know Wooten is on the cover too. We don't hear him say a line
per se, but I hear, especially in headphones, I heard some background
talking of his and him his like oh and you know, like his laughs
or something like that here and there. Ah, So it would have been
nice to hear hear from him. But I'm glad they didn't oversaturate with characters
in this, Like so the mentions like oh, there's Cooper and things like
that, which also earlier Jules mentions you can see with the Calhouns or the
Washington that was interesting. Oh that's right. Yeah, yeah, huh.
I totally missed it noting that down. Yeah, that's cool. That is
cool. But the one thing with the with Bernard being there, this is
one time where the timeline, the chronology, the canon of Odyssey is different,
because before this episode we had Bernard chowp and the elsewhere in Odyssey comics,
and that just explained that he was like doing more work in Connorsville or
something like that, and he came back to Odyssey after a long period of
time or whatever, and then he had interactions with Eugene and then he goes
on the h family trip with Leonard Never and the Melsters and that kind of
stuff, which I liked that we had that interaction there. But with this
episode, it's like, Oh, he's been gone for a long time and
now he's back. But this comics just came out a year or two before
this episode came out, but it isn't a big deal. Like I'd rather
hear him in the audio episode was cool with the comics seeing him interact with
other characters more, and I think a lot of people thought that they'd reuse
the audio from the Innoven era, which I'm really glad they did. But
it was nice hearing him, which we in official podcast years ago they shared
from the end of the era where this came from. There were some lines
that we didn't hear in that original I don't think there were lines of older
episodes before that, so hearing the new lines and then in this situation with
Bernard was very special. Yeah, And just to clarify, just in case
you're not aware, this was originally intended to be a sind off for Eugene
years ago when the staff thought they were going to lose will Ryan as Eugene
for various reasons, which we won't go into all of that, but they
thought that he wasn't going to be on the show anymore, so they had
written this episode and actually even recorded it, and then things changed and Will
stayed on the show. So they never aired that episode, but they had
that audio and it was the perfect time to bring that back and reuse that
so we could hear one more time from Bernard because you know, they had
it again. They had an interesting, unique relationship. That whole vacation arc
with Bernard and Eugene are just wonderful classic episodes that that fans love. I
mean, longtime fans point to those episodes as some of their favorites a lot
of the time. And you know what, the Four Corners episode and Hollywood
Earthquake and all of these things that they have gone through together. It's just
it would have felt a little bit odd to not have him somewhere involved,
or you know, even if they had just mentioned him, it was still
felt a little lacking. So I'm really really glad that they went that route.
Yeah, and it worked out too. Like the only person they had
to change was you know, because Tom originally read the poem with them and
this one Jason takes over, which was interesting. They have talents of playing
two characters, two major characters in this one. But it's been a long
time that I've read the poem. It's the poem is an the official guy
like the words of it. I heard the podcast years ago with the audio,
but hearing in this setting, after hearing the build up to him leaving,
I think I started hearing up listening to that one too, and I
just loved some of the lines, like you know, like a stubborn war
you grew on me and you know, you know, I wanted to shove
a cat down your throat and things like that. That was very Barnard,
something Bernard would very much say. Then any you know, will miss your
greetings and salutations, and like, oh my heart, yeah, yep,
that that moment, it was just kind of all smiles for me, just
because it was so cool to hear hear him at that moment. What got
me at the most at this point was when Eugene starts giving his little speech
and yeah, that was that was tough, and you know, he says
something like, you know, the first time I heard that bell ring above
the door, was the day my life began. And I was just like,
oh, yeah, you think you think back, Yeah, you can
think back. Good day, gentlemen. Yep. Ah. It was also
cool too because I think they talked about the pitch of podcast and I think
I suspected it, but during some of the poem reading they actually use wil
Ryan's lines from that episode, not you know, the mix of Will and
Townsend's voice and that one there. So there's some elements of still of actual
just Will's voice using there. And also think I heard Luke and Zach's one
of them say about how to supplement They had clips of you know, you
know Eugene's famous you know hmm, like oh like his you know, little
reactions they sprinkled out throughout which I listened to again, I picked up all
on a lot more of those. Yeah, that's a that's a really neat
touch for Yeah, I've said it before. The detail and the level of
thinking that goes into every little aspect of these episodes is just sometimes it just
blows me away at the things that they think of, and it's it's why
this show is is so good and it has lasted for so long. I
mean, these these people really care about every aspect of it and it shows.
Yeah, and I think some of us were talking about slacking the ada.
I think someone mentioned about how the quality of these episodes, like the
sound quality seem to be different, having a different tone or sound to it.
And then if it's a podcasts where Luke and Zach talk about doing the
sound design, part of the reason it was like that because to make this
audio sound to fit with everyone else, these basically like almost like a filter
of some sort to make it kind of like a set tape kind of quality
through for all this four parter, so the entire episode has maybe more this
analog warm kind of feeling to a certain extent. So I thought it was
really cool, like it was that way to mask how you know, Eugene's
audio is different from everybody else's lines, you know, just people using their
authentic voices there. But that's another cool, cool little uh thing they did
to make it work. And I don't think most people probably would have picked
up on that. Yeah, I didn't actually listen to these in headphones and
so I haven't. I have probably missed a lot of the little nuances of
that parts of it. But yeah, I love that they pay attention to
those things. Now, speaking of the whole Connie and Eugene dynamic here,
I love how she says something about hoping that he gets a Noble prize or
something like that, and then he corrects her Nobel prize. You know,
It's like that was just a classic Kanyie Eugene moment there. I'm glad this
happened. It seemed like it seemed very Conne Eugene like. But I was
glad it wasn't the last scene with them, but her giving him a toast
oven the Deluxe model, then saying goodbye, and you know, the hug
like I felt unsatisfying to a certain extent, but like, I'm glad they
didn't have that happen. And then oh, I love with saying there when
he's saying goodbye to Eugene, always remember I love you, I'm proud of
you, and the best yet to come. Oh my goodness, I'm tearing
up already. That was just a beautiful moment there. And also we haven't
heard this for years, but you know his keys whistling for his keys,
which I think is the same audio from that there, which if you think
too much about it, like the technology has increased quite a bit since then,
you pray wouldn't need that anymore. Yeah, there was more of an
easter egg for like the classic fans, like, don't think about it too
much, it's just a callback. Don't think about too much. Technology is
better than that now. But it was like, oh, I was so
cool. Yep. I had that in my notes too, and also that
that line from Wit and also what you said about them, that's sort that
sort of goodbye between Kanye and Jean not being super satisfying. I had that
mentioned as well. I was like, man, that that can be the
way that it ends for them. You know, that's just not going to
work, you know. So I was so glad that they did that.
And oh, my word, Katie was phenomenal. Katie. He wasn't acting.
I'm sure that was raw emotion. Oh it killed me. I remember
the first time I heard it. Oh, it just wrecked me. And
I I texted her. I was like, Katie, oh my goodness,
I mean, that was a fantastic. I don't remember exactly what I said,
but I was just like I just had to tell her like that,
you that scene was just fantastic, and and I know that they've talked about
it on the on the podcast and things. This was a this was a
very difficult thing for the cast, this whole especially probably this fourth fourth part,
you know, just because for them this is not just a character like
it is for us as a as a listener. This is a friend of
theirs and and uh so yeah it Oh goodness, Yeah, I want to
jump back real quick about with I don't know if you noticed this, but
when they leave, you know, he says goodbye with the way intonation,
there is not an awful law like at the end of exit with the voicemail
that Eugene has you know, well wherever you are with it's kind of the
notation there. It kind of made me think of how that ended. It
wasn't the same exact words, but the way the InfoNation was it sounded pretty
similar. Mmmm, that's a good job observation. But yeah, I think
with you know Katie, you know, talking there like she did such a
great job and life expectancy like when Connie's mom dies, like it was that's
some of the Katie's best acting there. But I haven't listened to it back
to back or side by side or whatever, but compared to that because as
created an actresses as Katy is getting that raw emotion there of her grieving the
loss of Will, her best friend, and as the character Connie losing her
best friend Eugene. Yeah, yeah, it was very emotional for me.
I started crying crying there as well. And it's I don't think it's urban
said on the show, but like of Connie saying that Eugene is her friend,
I have to try to think about that, like she might have said
Penny at some point, I'm not certain about that, but to the point
that she finally says that, oh no, no, no, when Eugene
is gone in overcom she says he's one of my closest or one of my
best friends or something something like that. But in this time she says,
you know, she cares about him so much, and all these emotions and
all that she's been through, like most of her life, like I don't
know how old Kanye's at this point, but most of her life, like
every kind of like Eugene. Her life began when she came to Odyssey,
and ninety nine percent of the time that she'd been out, Eugene has been
there. I don't know if that percentage is correct, but yeah, it
was. It was great. And also Eugene being kind of the wise mentor
kind of like in life expectancy when he was companying her about her mother dying
and giving the advice that he had learned from her mom about grieving and things
like that. Talk about memories, I really like that about the importance of
memories. They help sustain us. They also help us to move on,
and it's a blessing from God. Yes, memories can be painful. Not
all memories are good, but those good ones, you know, even if
you have a very sad, bad life because of the circumstances beyond your control,
those good memories somehow. I can't say this because I've been very blessed,
not how to difficult childhood or anything like that, but I would think
that for some people, those good memories they stand up more sometimes more,
I mean, think about the bad ones more, where the good ones seem
to shine a little bit the brightest there. And that's probably you know,
God's providence in doing that. Yeah, it was just a beautiful moment,
a wonderful bit of dialogue. There can't say for sure who wrote it,
since there were three writers credited here, but that moment was just beautiful,
and yeah, it all comes full circle. There's there's this thread that's been
running through all four of these parts about memory, and first we're in a
medical context and then we have it here as in these memories are these times
we've had together, and he says, the memories we've had together are blessings
and they'll be with us for the rest of our lives. And it was
just in fact, let's go ahead and take a listen to that this moment.
I mean, it's one of the best moments of this entire four partner.
Oh, Miss Kendall, I believe God has given us a wonderful way
to help us in situations where we experience loss. What I've spent years now
working to help people regain and retain their memories. Recently, I've gained a
renewed appreciation for the gift that they are. The memories we have of the
people we love for not only reflections of reminiscence and thanksgiving. They sustain us
when we're sad, they help us move on. The memories we've had together
our blessings will always have for the rest of our lives. Yeah, we
do have some pretty good ones, don't we Many years of both mirth and
melancholy all worth keeping, worth treasuring. And even that that sih there,
that's great acting right there. I mean it's not just in the words that
you say and how you say it, but it's in the spaces and in
those just those little vocal efforts and it's reactions just so good, so good,
and and man that line, you know, years of mirth and melancholy.
Life is a mixed bag. It's not always roses. But notice what
he says there. They're all worth keeping, worth treasuring because these are the
memories that we've made together. And ah, it's great, great stuff.
Yeah, things you can learn from even the bad stuff. It's hard to
be thankful when you're having those bad things happen, but looking back on them,
you can see God's hand in your life and the things how things could
have been worse, or things that you learn from that, and the times
that you know, this almost happened or this did happen. I heard a
sermon by a pastor who talks about this woman that was going through really rough
time or whatever, and I think him or someone else had asked about like
how they can pray for her like that, and she said, you know,
pray for me. They don't waste this pain. In the midst of
that, she was wanting to use that pain to use that time to either
like like grow deeper inner relationship with God, learn something about it, to
help her improve her own life, and that kind of stuff. And that's
very hard to see in the middle of hard times like that. But looking
back on the rough times, you know, lie, you know, as
Christians, we had the wonderful blessing that no matter what happens in our life,
you know, verbins A twenty eight, God works all things out for
good. Now all things are good, that God works them together for good,
right right. And just a little bit later, Eugene makes a comment
when he's talking to Wit I believe, and he says, you know,
life is filled with bittersweet moments, and so he's even still on that theme
there, and it kind of makes me think of that essay that I wrote
back in January, and I did an audio version of it, and it's
called Finding Value in Loss, And I was not thinking about these episodes at
all when I wrote that. I was prompted by completely different things. But
it's just in this conversation that you and I are having right now, it
has come to my mind and it's making me think about that and I think
it fits really well. So link is in the show notes if you want
to check that out. If you haven't heard that, I know I've mentioned
it on the show recently, but if you haven't heard that, I would
consider it a favor if you would go listen to that and let me know
what you think of it. But it is so true that life is a
journey and there are all of these moments that come together that form the whole
of who we are, and we have the choice of deciding how we're going
to react to the things that happen to us, and how we're going to
respond and how we're going to use these hard times to grow. And it's
so so valuable and important and that they're really bringing this home because we know
the target audience for this show are children, and so a lot of this
might be lost on them, but they're still going to feel the weight of
what's happening in these moments, in these scenes, and I think it's still
going to have an impact, And of course it will have a greater impact
for those of us who are adults and have lived a little bit of life.
But I love that, you know, they're using this moment of this
sind Off for this character to bring home these life lessons. And it was
beautifully done for sure. And one callback I thought of, you know,
when they're saying, you know, giving each other real hug, I was
thinking, I'm Katrina hug me yep, I thought of that too, and
I'm wondering here. We talked about this the last and the two standload episodes
about humor ruining a moment. What did you think about the vests and the
last word? Okay, so this felt very natural because this is the this
is how they've reacted and been with each other the entire time, And it
felt like Connie was not trying to make light of anything but her quip about
the vests. It felt like her trying to lighten it for herself, like
she's about to lose it completely here and so she's trying to diffuse it a
little bit not I don't know it. For some reason, this one really
worked. I thought it really felt Yeah, I think so, it felt
like it belonged and you know, and then him coming back with you know,
you're you're picking on my wife and or you're picking on not just me
at but my wife as well. You know, I don't know it really
worked in this moment for me, And I also was thinking to hear me,
hear me where she wasn't She was saying it spitefully talk about you know,
like the vests that makes them look like amphibian and then she says later
on spiefully, you know you went truthfulness and a fronts or whatever. Look
you look like an armadillo and that turtle vest, Like what that's downright cruel.
That's what I was also thinking to the time she said, badger,
badger. Yeah, I loved it. I loved it. And it's a
nursing the last word it's only once I think an Odyssey canon. In the
story itself, we have it's a rap where Eugene talks about having the last
word or whatever, and he keeps saying that, oh yeah, well it
doesn't show this whatever, and then Lucy tried to, you know, move
away. Then he keeps coming with the last word, like this one is
much more of a I guess kind of easter egg. Because rabid fans of
the show would know how that's o. Katie and Will are in the studio,
they're also trying to have the last word in this kind of stuff.
In the scene they keep aud living that kind of stuff. So it was
one of those easter eggs there that long time fans of the show would know
between the two things, that the vest and the last word thing, the
last word one felt a little bit more inserted, the other one felt much
more natural. But this one I thought worked as well, and I understand
why, but it did not bother me. But yeah, I thought both
of them were really really nice, and the music all throughout these these final
scenes was just phenomenal. It really just meshed well with the mood and it
helped enhance the emotion. And I thought John Campbell did a fantastic job there.
And the worst part was towards the end there with Wit He's absolutely losing
it and that was that was the worst part for me. And he's he's
basically sobbing and he says to Connie he's really gone, and that's what it
just really really hit home for me. But overall, I think the way
that everything was handled, considering all of the circumstances and all of the things
that they had to deal with with the technology and all that stuff. I
thought it was handled really well. And then working in the entire thread of
well, what's what's going on with this family, because they've just adopted Buck,
and you know, everybody was wondering if they decided to kill off the
character of Eugene, how are they going to do that after you know,
they've they've just become a family that's not gonna work. You know, we've
all we were all kind of speculating on what could happen here, and then
working that into it. The way they did with having them you know,
Buck, I think is because I remember somebody to talk. I don't remember
who it was, but I remember being in conversations with people who had brought
up the idea of having Bucks stay in Odyssey, or or that Eugene might
go away for some period of time to work on something and Buck and Katrina
would stay in Odyssey. And but so there's all these different things, and
but the way they did it, it really seemed to work. And I
thought that Jewels had missed out, like I thought. I didn't think that
they were gonna cut back to them, and that that totally caught me by
surprise when when that actually happened. Yeah, it's actually similar to how Connie
and Eugene when Witt was leaving and coming back to Odyssey, how they have
this mad dash, all these bad, bad things happening, like all these
obstacles will get to them, like I missed it or I missing goodbye and
missed this party and that kind of stuff, and then when it really matters,
they they meet. Yeah, and bringing in Marshall as as Officer Burke.
That was pretty fun. Yeah, that was that was a nice touch.
It was pretty pretty cool to have just the poolehouse and and that just
sort of ext I know, it's a very small role. So he played.
Wont to bring the act distion for that one there, but yeah,
it was not hearing him and how he kind of saved the day. I
like that, Yo, give me a ride and a ticket. Yeah,
I love how even before that, when they're trying the car, Eugene to
saying, you know, like I want to say, are you crying?
Says minimally like that's a very Eugene thing to say, and then he's like,
you know, you know, this is the road contact of how to
drive it's like eugen eat stop side. It's like, oh my goodness,
it's so funny with that. It's like, oh, he was conduct like
go to a teacher, and they'd also like call back to his accidents or
whatever, and a license to drive it was, and then they're fighting over
who needs a dry right, Yeah. Yeah. All in all, I
just think it was really extremely well done. I mean, as I said,
my my personal preference, as I sort of came around to was that
I would I would have preferred them to recast and and the Melsteners to stay.
But considering that that's the way that they went, this is probably the
best way that they could have done it. And even Chris at the end,
you know's she gets her sinned off for Eugene too, you know,
thanks for the memories, Eugene, she says, And that was beautiful too.
So overall, I loved these episodes for what they are and how it
all came together, and the performances were just phenomenal. The music was beautiful.
But I also don't like them because of what they mean for the characters.
But it is what it is, and I think it was extremely well
done. So I'm guessing you Pray weren't super happy that Buck and Choules will
continue their dating relationship. I think it was a sweet moment, but still
I'm not totally liking it, But I understand for the characters to keep the
connection between Odyssey and Baltimore with Eugene and them, I think I think it
works, and I think they're still a good to be come out of that,
even though I'm not crazy about the idea in real life. Yeah,
I'm pretty much on the same page there as well. And I mean I
think it's even better because they're they're not going to be in the same play
the same place together, so it has to be long distance, so it's
you know, they're not like they're going to be getting into any trouble with
each other. So on one hand, that's that might be a better outcome.
Yeah. Well, I mentioned each episode to spring up progressively more emotional
for me, and part four. I've cried listened to Odyssey episodes listening to
them for the first time because you know, like something like Unsinkable or One
More Name or some older episodes I listened to as an adult that hit me
differently. But at the party, you know, Bernard's poem Eugene's you know,
kind of speech to them by to Connie good By the Wit I was,
I don't know, I'm not ashamed to say I was. I was
crying throughout. And then we get to the last year with wit crying that
just broke me. I was. I was pretty much sobbing at that point.
And part of it was very multifaceted for me, because not only was
I, you know, grieving that will Ryan had passed away, and that
this character of Eugene that I growing up listening to was going away. The
day Part four aired on The Club, a similar situation that so those characters
are going through I was experiencing at the time. I think the week previous
something like that. I found out that when my cousins that listened the same
time with me, I got to church with them, I see him usually
a few times a week or so, and I found out that he was
going out east to do schooling there, and I did not know it until
about a week before he left. And so it's kind of a gut punched
me to a certain extent. Not I'm not as close close to him as
I am. Like Eugene Connie are like I'm still pretty close to him,
but going with idea like I'm not going to see him at church, I'm
not gonna be able to hang out with them, things like that. And
the day that this aired in the club was the day that him and it's
Fily left to go back east to drop him off. So all those emotions,
the reliability with it kind of again that small taste of like what the
characters or something with that, it just it was a bit overwhelming for me,
Like i I'm not, I'm not, I'm satisfied with how things turned
out with all these episodes. I think they were done very tastefully. I
think they did such great They did great fan service. They didn't give the
fans everything they wanted, but I think they gave him a lot of those
Easter eggs and callbacks and the things that we wanted to hear before him leaving,
like things like with Bernard and things like that. And I appreciate it
also with you know Wit at this point, because I think again people think
of that what was being lovel too callous and not shown his emotions, like
conymentions about you know, isn't your wisdom ever take a day off like lazy
or angry or whatever. We don't see WIT's emotion that that much, like
we hear a little bit of that and always home we talks about you know,
it's Tom's birthday and him missing him, and correct me if I'm wrong.
I can't remember a time that at this age, not like young Wit
crying this much about something that we hear him doing that, and so just
you know, just kind of tears in his voice, just quivering or something
like that, outright crying and sobbing like that, Like, yeah, I
can't recall. Yeah, it was like that's a new thing, I'm guessing.
And that's probably also one thing that's so unexpected or so rare that it
hit me and stuff for other people doing that. And also I know a
lot of a lot of people pick on Andre and I I think a lot
some of it's unwarranted. Actually a lot of it that I've I've accepted him
as Wit long ago and I've gotten to meet him before, and Andre is
just one of the nicest people ever. But think about it too. Andre
has been on the show almost as long as Paul Linger or House Smith,
and he's worked with wol Ryan almost as long. So his emotions and that
possibly might have been kind of rolled too to a certain extent as much as
Katie of course, but it feels earned in that not just for the character
of Wit to do that, but also for Andre with the history that he's
had with wol Ryan over the years on the show as well. And a
great acting moment for Andre, and also the writing for wits him bringing like
the Abrahamic moment and things like that that he told Connie and also with Eugenie
earlier, just some great, great writing for Wit, and again great acting
from Wit as well from Andre. For Wit. Absolutely absolutely, yeah,
I totally agree with that. It was a really raw moment and just yeah,
that was the part that got me the most, I think. And
that is a good point that you bring up that he did have a history
with will Ryan as well, and we sometimes forget about that because us old
time fans, you know, we forget that he has been on the show
for that long. And I think that's a good point to remind people about.
And you're right. I hear people being less than enthused about his voice,
as with a lot I hear people seeing stuff all the time, and
I understand a little bit because his voice is very different from both hal And
and Paul's. But this was a very beautiful moment. And to your point
about the writing, again, there were just some wonderful lines there, and
yeah, I guess I'm repeating myself now, but I just think the whole
wrap up here was beautiful, extremely well done. And I don't know if
if I if I can truthfully say that I feel like the best is yet
to come, because you know, after having been listening to the show for
so many years and looking back fondly at some of these great episodes from the
past and these moments, especially of Eugene, and knowing that we'll never have
any more of those, it's kind of hard to say the best is yet
to come. But you know, the show goes on, life goes on,
and I think they did a fantastic job. And of course we do
need to shout out Nathan Hubler as the producer of the show and executive producer
Dave Arnold. This was a huge team effort. This was not just a
couple of writers writing a couple of scripts. This was not your average album.
This was everybody, all hands on deck. Marshall Younger as showrunner,
everybody was involved in this. I'm sure. I'm sure it was not easy
for them, not just the actors, but for you know, the focused
staff too, and you know, the Odyssey team. They've worked with Will
for decades, and so this was a beautiful way to say goodbye to Eugene
Meltzner. Yeah, and I think I know you were as enthused with the
first two episodes. I think a lot of people, because there's some looking
for the four parter and all that stuff, they overlook the first two.
I think overall, this entire album was very good. I don't think it's
quite as good as Album seventy two. I think that one is probably the
best of the sixth part or the six episode albums of Odyssey. But like
really, Odyssey has has some really great albums, like most of like pretty
much all except for one, for like seventy one. I think all of
seventy two, seventy three, and now seventy five are I know, it's
it's some of the best Odyssey has done. And I'm really appreciative all the
effort the team went in to make all these stories not just the best of
everything in this album, because all of them, to a certain extent,
are being some kind of close your or continuing storylines from the past about characters
that we care about and things we need to think need to resolved in that
kind of stuff, and I think for the most part, all those are
resolved in a very satisfying way, very emotional way, and especially with you
know, the four parter, again, not what everybody wanted. No matter
what decision they made, you're not gonna please everybody. Yeah, yeah,
I'm just glad they didn't take the extreme of you know, killing the character
himself. I'd prefer them recasting. But with this I appreciate at least the
diligence and time they took to give a good sign off for the character.
Thank you Odyssey team, and and thank you, thank you Will Ryan for
spending so much time on the show and giving us the character of Eugene.
And we love you, Will, We miss you absolutely, yeah, absolutely,
you know, there there were there were some beautiful tributes on the podcast,
and you know they had a Nancy on there too, on the official
podcast as well. So you know, as somebody has said, I think
they may have said on the podcast, but I know I've heard it among
the fans. You know, we'll always have these episodes to go back to
and listen to over and over again. So yeah, he embodied the character
of Eugene Meltzner so well. And Eugene was Will. Will was Eugene,
And I mean, that character is so iconic and I will always have those
memories and love those episodes. And that brings us to the end of album
seventy five. And isn't that kind of interesting too. The I don't know
if that was intentional on their part, but to have it happen on a
nice round and number like seventy five, and as Eugene says there in part
four, it is the end of an era. Well, thank you,
Austin. Always good talking with you about Adventures and Odyssey, and I appreciate
you lending your opinions and your expertise on the show for us today. Well,
thank you, JD. It was an honor to be on this podcast
and not necessarily the most easiest or most fun review so the content, you
know, with the sadness of it and all that, but I always have
a fun time talking about Odyssey and talking with you and being on ATC It's
always a pleasure. So what are you think of the show? Please leave
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two seven seven zero. Oh, we've got some comments here on episode two
hundred, which was a marathon to produce. Took a long long time to
get that episode recorded and edited and out to you, but I'm so thankful
that everybody seemed to really enjoy it. Got some great feedback here. Nato
Jacobson said, everyone in their grandmother has a podcast, and frankly, I
think most of them don't serve a valuable enough purpose to be worthy of attention
and investment. What I sincerely appreciate about your work JD and that of your
team is that Audio Theater Central is of a rare breed which does not fall
into that category. I recently had a friend to reach out on behalf of
someone wanting to pursue voice acting, and I told her what I've told many
others. If you're interested in family friendly audio drama, go to ATC for
orientation. It's that simple. Most people wouldn't even know that I work on
these shows if it wasn't for you, as there is generally very little recognition
of cast or crew in the space. It's a practical and meaningful resource for
a tiny end that is being helped by nothing else like it. And we
have you to thank for that. Wow, Nato, thank you so much.
Those are very very kind words and very high praise. I don't take
it lightly. I really really appreciate that, and that means a lot to
me. That we are serving a purpose here and that's what we've been striving
to do here since twenty ten is shine a light on what is being done
in this amazing space called family friendly audio drama, get the word out,
bring in more listeners. That's what it's all about, and of course,
foster some community with all of us who are already fans. You know,
we've got to have some other nerds to talk to, so thank you again.
Nato. Rose Beasley said, happy two hundred JD. What an awesome
accomplishment in Milestone. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this entire episode. It was
packed to the max. Yes, the longest episode ever in the history of
the show. Thank you, Rose. David Hilder said, congratulations, just
finished listening. So great to hear the voices of so many talented people in
the industry. Yes, absolutely, what a chock full lineup of amazingly talented
folks. Loved loved love getting to talk to all of those amazing folks.
Thank you, David. And lastly, Bethany Baldwin said, fantastic episode.
Congratulations on such an amazing accomplishment. Thank you so much. Bethany, really
appreciate it. Now I realize that all of the feedback this time around was
very congratulatory, and hey, I don't write it. I take it the
way it cubs, you know, So if you have a question or some
feedback on something we've discussed here on the show, what Austin and I just
spent a nearly two hours talking about in album seventy five of Adventures in Odyssey
or anything else that we've talked about here on the show. Please reach out
love hearing from you well. The song at the top of the review segment
was the Best Is Yet to Come by Scott Krapaine from his two thousand and
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yet to come. Nothing can your pad wants in storm? We we will
join the agels, singing Holy the Lord, the bast to come the promise
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