Welcome back to The Barrels of Bear Brook. In this installment I will be analyzing the third and fourth episodes titled, “A Smaller Haystack” and “Eunsoon Jun”. Both episodes begin with the infamous narrator Jason Moon bringing us right into the action. In each episode Moon starts by giving basic background information about the topic for the episode to give the listener some basic information we can start to base the story on. In episode three, this looked like recapping previous episodes and explaining a recent press conference on the cold case held in 2015. In episode four, he covered the case of a mystery woman named Eunsoon Jun and her sinister love interest. However, in both episodes Moon doesn’t formally introduce the podcast until about five or six minutes into the recording. I thought that was really clever and was something I didn’t notice during the first two episodes. Moon delays the introduction most likely to draw the listener in by getting them wrapped up into the story. This helps to create an effective hook for each episode that forces the audience to keep listening to find out more. Episodes one through three fit this mold really well because we are given background knowledge, a sneak peek of what the episode will be about, and a little recap from the previous episode. While episode four had relatively the same structure, Moon brings up a completely random and seemingly unrelated woman with no explanation as to how it relates to the previous episode in the beginning of the recording. The only heads up we got about this woman was in the last thirty seconds of episode three with a cliffhanger about a man who sent chills down a woman’s spine. This was extremely fascinating because not only did it follow up on a cliffhanger, the complete unrelatedness to the case made me want to keep listening to see if it would relate in the end. And holy cow was it worth it.
In addition to Moon’s usage of hooks and cliffhangers, the music helps dramatize and add suspense to the already puzzling mystery of Bear Brook. In both episodes one and two, music played a substantial role in building suspense, making transitions fluid, and setting the tone for the episode moving forward. This trend continues throughout episodes three and four. For instance, in episode three they used more dramatic music when there were new developments in the case while narration had more flat music. The thickening of the plot combined with mysterious music helps build the feeling of suspense and helps to keep the audience engaged with the story. Not only did they use music to add drama, but they used sound effects to make it seem as though you were there with them. The usage of background noise from the press conference or rain sounds from an at-home interview helped to put us there with Moon while he was gathering new information.
I can’t stop thinking about this podcast. The mystery, the new developments, the production, the music, I can’t help but want to know more. I can see why Moon got so invested himself. All of these tactics used to draw the listener in are doing a great job at making me want to listen more. They remain consistent between episodes and I think that is a big contributing factor to why the podcast is so successful. I might even be considering a career in investigation after this. I guess we’ll see.
There are three episodes left in this saga of mystery, abandonment, murder, and suspense. Stay tuned.
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Haley,
I have never heard of this podcast, but from what you have written in your post, it sounds super interesting!! I am listening to the first season of Serial, and similarly to the narrator of your podcast, the narrator of mine also delays the true beginning of the podcast episode for a bit to give a short recap on previous episodes and to bring up or emphasize any information that will be important to the current episode. Personally, I find it kind of helpful to have that recap at the beginning so I can get my bearings and can remember all of the important stuff for the upcoming episode, so I am sure it is helpful for your narrator to do this form of introduction as well. My narrator does not use cliffhangers at the end of her episodes, but in hearing that yours does I can only imagine that listening to a cliffhanger at the end of every episode makes it pretty easy to want to listen to the next one.
From what you have described, it seems like the narrator does a really good job of drawing listeners into the story and keeping listeners interested in the story, which as you said is probably why it has been so successful. It sounds like a podcast that is super fun and interesting, and one that a person could very easily get hooked on. I hope the next three episodes are just as good and just as satisfying as the first few episodes you have listened to!
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