#mag002

Second episode! I'm going to say it... I LOVED it, not only because of the horror factor, but also because of Joshua Gillespie character development (although I would call it more... Habit)

She is also very intelligent. If I had been in that situation, I would never have thought of putting the key in ice. I am too stupid for that.

I declare Joshua one of my favorite characters in the series so far (I know I'm only 2 episodes in but... I'm dumb)

Now... The main idea of the episode... A coffin that you must not open, I love it! Especially that mysterious air behind that... YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT [Skibidi] IS INSIDE

Favorite lines from the episode:

"Also, and looking back this sounds stupid, but I’d just grown a beard and thought it would be hard for anyone to recognise me as the same guy"

This is so me, Only instead of a beard, it's the wild hair I have now

"was the presence of three words, scratched deep into the wood of the casket in letters three inches high. They read: DO NOT OPEN"

My mind: OPEN IT, OPEN IT, OPEN IT

"I was drinking a glass of orange juice at the time and absent-mindedly placed it on top of the lid"

He is like me fr

“It was a low, gentle sound. I’ve seen Dawn of the Dead, I know what the groans of the undead are meant to sound like, but it wasn’t that at all. It was almost… melodious. It sounded almost like singing, if it was muffled by twenty feet of hard-packed soil.”

Case #9982211, Joshua Gillespie Release date: 25 March 2016 First listen: 13th Oct 2020, on the walk into work

Right, so I’m listening and writing this while under the effects one of Mr Jonathan Sims’ favourite plausible explanations: head injury. I’m fine, just took a tumble at work and the headache’s starting to creep in.

- Joshua Gillespie! Return of the King! So sad never really got to hear what became of him. (she says, fully aware that whatever is coming at us at the end of the month could be ANYTHING)

- With the introduction, there’s one unifying theme between the 2 statements we’ve had so far, and that is the unpleasantness starts with a ‘lads on tour’ energy. A night drinking in Edinburgh, a boys’ holiday to Amsterdam. So far the demographic, and ok we’re 2 episodes in, for victims seems to be male students… Have been a student myself, and not a male one, a rather unkind part of me thought it nice for the background radiation of terror to shift for a while. It did also tell me that I needed to take care on any stag trips I may attend.

- For clarification, I’m a cis woman and yes, I have been on stag weekends. We went to Thorpe Park and did The Crystal Maze Experience, I had a lovely time.

- Yup, very white/cis/het/male energy here, heading out in a foreign city on your own, presumably not telling any of you’re party where you’re going. Granted, it was the 90’s but still.

- Cardiff! Cardiff gets a mention! Another city I have lived in for a spell.

- The mysterious ‘John’; hard to describe or picture. And I imagine that a lot of men my adopt the name ‘John’ while in Amsterdam. The odd phrasing and the fact that he said he was from Liverpool has always been strange to me, I don’t know if there’s been a pay off there that I’ve missed.

- Huh… The Buried weighing him down. Just thinking about what could weigh you down in this instance; student debt, obligation to your own word, dread.

- Done some maths because this is who I am apparently… £10,000 in 1996, with inflation, would be £20,864.13 today.

- Bournemouth… been there…

- So hopeful. So naive. The Entities don’t need you address or name mate.

- And the first appearances of everyone’s favourite cockney delivery men, I say from under my ‘Breekon and Hope of Nottingham, Handle With Care’ fleece throw. I’m feeling delicate, I need handling with care.

- Jonny Sims has spoken about the importance of pulling tactical sickies, Joshua also subscribes to that wisdom.

- When an unknown coffin is dumped in your living room in mysterious circumstances, what do you do? Tea. Yeah, you can tell this is a British production.

- So the vessel for an eldritch horror becomes a coffee table. I’d take it over IKEA.

- The scratching and singing: It makes no sense, it is impossible and that makes it all the more terrifying.

- ‘Some might call me a coward’, Sir, the fandom calls you a King.

- When the melodic moaning started, I don’t know why but the first thing that came into my mind was ‘mermaid’. I’ve never watched ‘Pirates of the Caribbean, on stranger tides’, or what ever it is but I’ve got the vague image memory of a mermaid in a glass coffin like cage. And with the strange singing, I thought ‘mermaid’. And not your Disney models of mermaid. Lamp like eyes and teeth.

- ‘Goes to show you can get used to anything if you have to.’ Well wasn’t this a doozie of a line to hear some 8 months into a global pandemic… ‘It’s funny how fear can become as routine as hunger.’ Jonny, I just want to talk. Thing is, I had another storm on the way and we had no idea.

- The freezing of the key. Genius.

- When he opened to door to John and Breekon and Hope and they saw that he had not succumbed to The Buried. In my head, that moment became when ‘The Sacrificial Lamb Refused To Lie Down’.

- ‘When the screaming started...’ gotta pay the piper John. The Buried wants its numnums. I mean, he was described as having an odd density to him, but he was also short and up against Breekon and Hope, he wasn’t winning this fight.

- ‘I got a new job and moved to London’. Ho SHIT, DID HE MOVE INTO PETER LUKAS’ APARTMENT BUILDING!? He was already primed for The Lonely, spending all his free time alone in his flat as the coffin didn’t really lend itself to entertaining. Does anyone have a date on when Lukas’ The Silence ritual was meant to take place? Is it post 1998?

- Huh, forgot Jon was a Bournemouth local boy. I’ll probably talk about this at some point, but my home stomping grounds are pretty bare of statements. And that could be read a number of ways.

- Timothy Stoker. My boy. My fun time boy. ‘Despite Tim’s best efforts.’ Oh and his efforts are the best aren’t they.