At the end of episode 1, we were left with a cliffhanger with the discovery of a second barrel. The second episode begins with a summary of the first episode, basically recapping. This episode did not really advance the plot that much, but rather, it just shows us how cold the case went. The case went cold for about fifteen or more years, so this episode basically talked about what happened in those years and the efforts to find new leads. In the last episode, we were given the details of what happened, so in this episode, we learn of what the detectives did about their findings.
At the beginning, they use a recap to let the listeners know what happened previously. For me, it was very helpful because I hadn’t listened to the podcast since I posted my last blog post. They don’t take too long to recap, just about a minute to give us the quick rundown of things. It was also very interesting how they used this episode to reflect the period of time where nothing happened. For fifteen or so years, no new discoveries or leads were found. This episode reflected that because nothing much happened in the episode, either.
In the last episode, we learned there were actually two barrels instead of just one, and they were about 300 ft away from each other. For some reason, the second barrel had gone unnoticed during the time of the first barrel’s investigation. So, Jason Moon uses this information to get the listeners involved by asking why/how the barrel wasn’t found during the first barrel’s investigation. He also plants a seed in our mind about how far the police search actually went, because if the barrel was only 300 ft away from the first, how did the police search miss it? This helped the listener get more involved with the investigation and makes us question things.
The second barrel contained two unidentified victims’ bodies as well, similar to the first. This time, we learn the second barrel had the remains of two other females, both young and were probably related to the first victims. We get introduced to Ronda Randall and her brother-in-law, John, who are both amateur investigators. The question is, why did they bring in two amateur investigators? What makes them significant enough? They invest a large amount of time and effort into helping solve the case, but I believe they were important to the podcast because in the previous episode, we were thrown a ton of information. So, having these two helps us recap and also helps the investigators get new insight from another point of view. Sometimes, amateurs have really interesting insight, so I’m excited to see how they implement these two into the future episodes. At the end of the episode, we learn that they began to start running tests to put together the information on the victims. This way, they can perhaps find a clue or pattern and condemn the murderer for their deaths.
There is a lot of suspense building up because even though this episode didn’t really tell us much that was new, we get introduced to some more people who might be important to the mystery and we learn that there are definitely things going on that can’t be explained, but with some tests and research, things will be revealed soon. The music, like I mentioned in my last post, helped really build up the suspense with the transitions. It really sets the tone for the next episode too because at the end, it feels like we’re definitely going somewhere in the next episode.
Word Count: 606
Hi Stephanie,
Like you mentioned, I think recap episodes are really important in any form of media storytelling. A lot of people will start a story midway through and so recaps can give them an idea of what the story line looks like, but it mostly helps those of us that haven’t listened to the story in a while and just need a refresher on what happened previously. I think it’s not only helpful but actually necessary that podcasts like these end on cliffhangers to draw the audience in. Especially with the overwhelming amount of media and information thrown at us nowadays, cliffhangers can be crucial to the success of storytelling in media by catching someone’s attention enough to commit to a story. I know personally that Cliffhangers are half the reason I feel compelled to continue listening/reading/watching a story. One final element I can appreciate is an episode like this one that helps make sense of and organize information dumps. Information dumps can definitely be very interesting in themselves but it can also leave audience confused and in need of a helping hand to understand what was just placed in front of them. Even the amateurism of the two investigators could have been a tactic to make the podcast more compelling because it could give a fresh perspective on the case. It sounds like these first two episodes are just really building the tone of the story for the next episodes. With all the suspense one can only hope the rest of the podcast delivers.
(word count: 256)