For my final post about A Murder on Orchard Street, I listened to episodes 6 and 7 along with the bonus eighth episode. Episode 6 informed the audience about the state of the O’Brien family following Burke O’Brien’s murder in addition to transitioning the podcast into the present day. Here the audience learns about Detective Kenny Silvia’s retirement, and the assignment of a new detective for the O’Brien case, Mike Dordo. The episode then concludes with Detective Silvia and podcast host, Kristina Kylie, obtaining an updated suspect sketch from Forest Bloede, Burke O’Brien’s friend who was accused of shooting O’Brien. To their surprise the new sketch resembled the original eyewitness who claimed that Bloede shot O’Brien. Episode 7 picks up right where episode 6 ends with Detective Silvia and Kylie finding and interviewing the eyewitness and unfortunately finding themselves back at square one. The bonus episode acts as an additional supplement to the main podcast where Kylie conducts a round-table interview with Detective Silvia and two of Burke O’Brien’s sisters, Rory and Mariah.
The final three episodes of A Murder on Orchard Street are interesting in their construction because there’s slight deviation from the formular established in the first five episodes. However, this change is fitting because while episodes 1-5 focused on retelling the events from the original 2003 case, episodes 6 and beyond occur in the present day. It’s important to note that, besides the bonus episode, the changes aren’t so drastic that it makes the episodes feels unfamiliar; the changes are similar in scale to the ones made for episode 3 that were discussed last time. Episode 6 is mostly similar to previous episodes, but part way into the episode, instead of using audio clips from interviews, the audio is from conversations that are occuring between the remaining members of the O’Brien family, Kristina Kylie, and Detective Silvia. Episode 7, however, is most similar to episode 3 in that it has enough changes that allow it to build an atmosphere that most of the other episodes lack, which is apparent in the way it’s constructed. Most episode open with Kylie summarizing the events of the episode, but episode 7 opens with Kylie monologuing about her worries with interviewing the eyewitness that creates a tense atmosphere which the rest of the episode carries. Like episode 3, episode 7 features a heavy use of music that comes in at certain points in the podcast to contribute to the tense atmosphere. This is fitting since Silvia and Kylie are, as Kylie states, “Entering potentially dangerous territory,” because the eyewitness that they are interviewing may have been O’Brien’s killer. One notable example of this is when they initially begin interviewing the eyewitness, the eyewitness plays dumb becuase his co-workers are nearby, but ends up revealing that he remembers the entire thing after the co-workers leave. The music coming in startled me a little bit because I was so used to the absence of music from previous episodes.
The bonus episode is interesting because it acts as more of a companion piece to the main podcast, rather than a conclusion. The episode is only lightly edited, voice audio is mostly uncut except during transitions where music is used instead. The format is completely different as well; rather than being narrative focused, this episode is structured more like the discussion panels that we do for our own podcast.
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