Dead Boy Detectives Episodes 6 and 7 Podcast

[00:00:00] This is the Sandman Podcast on TV Podcast Industries and we're discussing the Dead

[00:00:04] Boy Detectives, Episode 6, The Case of the Creeping Forest and Episode 7, The Case of

[00:00:10] the Very Long Stairway.

[00:00:42] Welcome back fellow dreamers, this is TV Podcast Industries and we are onto Episode

[00:01:17] 6 and 7 of the Dead Boy Detectives.

[00:01:20] It is The Case of the Creeping Forest and The Case of the Very Long Stairway.

[00:01:26] I'm one of your hosts John.

[00:01:28] And I'm your other host Derek.

[00:01:29] Welcome back fellow dreamers, yes.

[00:01:32] Onto our 6th and 7th, 7th being the penultimate episode of Dead Boy Detectives so we're

[00:01:39] getting close to the end now and yes a lot more stuff beginning to happen here

[00:01:45] for Edwin, Charles and indeed Crystal as well.

[00:01:50] Absolutely even poor little Nico.

[00:01:53] And poor little Nico and in fact Jenny.

[00:01:55] And Jenny too.

[00:01:56] Yeah lots of interesting stuff in these two episodes.

[00:02:00] It's always weird though when shows come out like this and release all the episodes

[00:02:03] on Netflix and they've been out now only three weeks and I feel like all the conversation

[00:02:07] about Dead Boy Detectives is completely gone.

[00:02:09] Yeah it's actually to my mind really bad for a show.

[00:02:16] It is, it's really detrimental to the show.

[00:02:18] I can see there's lots of people that enjoyed it and are waiting now for a season 2 announcement

[00:02:22] when season 2 coming.

[00:02:24] Is there going to be a season 2?

[00:02:25] This show went through such a development hell being brought to life because it

[00:02:29] was originally supposed to be an HBO then they completely retooled it, got new cast

[00:02:33] in, got Neil Gaiman involved as an executive producer, tied it in with the Sandman.

[00:02:38] It was about six years all in to get us to the screen then it all drops in one day.

[00:02:43] People watched it, some people didn't watch it, some people liked it, some people didn't

[00:02:46] and now the only conversation that's out there is will there be a season 2 of this

[00:02:50] show?

[00:02:51] I mean weirdly as well when the model of dropping them all, all the episodes in

[00:02:55] one go started on Netflix.

[00:02:58] At least my recollection of it, it was all because the whole box set phenomenon.

[00:03:05] So it was the fact that people had missed the weekly shows and then the box sets had

[00:03:12] come out and then they had sort of binged them all then.

[00:03:15] Well Netflix only did box sets of shows and some movies, that was all they did

[00:03:21] and they realised that lots of people watched box sets and when they had the box

[00:03:24] sets they binged them so they created shows specifically to binge.

[00:03:28] And yet the box set binging occurred because they were still released weekly.

[00:03:34] They added another layer of viewership, that weekly viewership, that excitement,

[00:03:43] the anticipation, the chit chat, you know the water cooler chit chat in inverted

[00:03:50] commas at work around shows, it all goes.

[00:03:54] And so unless it really, really does grip you, which with the amount of content

[00:04:00] that's never going to happen, then necessarily you won't get to the end of it.

[00:04:05] If it's all been treated like the box set.

[00:04:09] And why not have both the weekly release and then people who've missed that on

[00:04:13] Netflix have it there to binge or people who've watched it once have it there to

[00:04:17] binge again because they loved it that much.

[00:04:19] Yeah I know there's just that argument of people that love to binge who say they

[00:04:23] set aside their entire day to watch the whole thing but all I see are people that

[00:04:28] watch the whole thing in one day and ask for a second season immediately.

[00:04:31] And that's just not how it's going to work.

[00:04:33] It's now going to be a two year gap between shows.

[00:04:36] So one of the things I would say, and it's partially a criticism again of this

[00:04:40] model of releasing it all in one day.

[00:04:42] That's partially a criticism with Dead Boy Detectives.

[00:04:44] I do think they spend a lot of time in each episode recapping what's

[00:04:48] happened in the previous episode.

[00:04:49] And that's a weekly TV model where you go just in case you missed last

[00:04:54] week's episode, the characters will now recap the important bits of that.

[00:04:58] And there is the recap at the start of the episode as well.

[00:05:00] But the actual characters themselves have conversations about things that

[00:05:02] literally happened that you watched if you've been to the whole thing that

[00:05:05] you watched five minutes ago or ten minutes ago, which I think is really

[00:05:08] odd to do if it was supposed to be released in this way all put out in

[00:05:12] one day.

[00:05:12] So I don't think they were told that.

[00:05:14] I don't think they were told that this is going to be released on

[00:05:16] Netflix in one go because you wouldn't waste time in the compact

[00:05:21] amount of time available to tell people those stories.

[00:05:24] It's the modelled way in which it's gotten onto Netflix.

[00:05:28] Yes, exactly.

[00:05:29] And has kind of caused that to be honest.

[00:05:33] To be so complicated.

[00:05:34] And luckily it still holds up because that could have destroyed all the

[00:05:37] shows, to be perfectly honest.

[00:05:40] So, you know, fair use.

[00:05:42] But anyway, enough about Netflix models.

[00:05:46] Before we get into our spoiler-filled discussion of episode six and episode

[00:05:51] seven of The Dead Boy Detectives, please remember, fellow dreamers, to

[00:05:55] pop on over to our website at tvpodcastindustries.com where you can

[00:06:00] subscribe to any hellish or heavenly podcast catcher of your choice.

[00:06:07] You can also send in your thoughts, feedback, observations or theories

[00:06:12] to feedback at tvpodcastindustries.com.

[00:06:15] You can leave a voicemail over on our website or you can join

[00:06:19] our Facebook group as well at facebook.com forward slash groups

[00:06:24] forward slash tvpodcastindustries.

[00:06:26] Yeah, only one episode left of Dead Boy Detectives after this podcast,

[00:06:29] of course, so make sure you're getting your thoughts for the finale

[00:06:32] and for the season of Dead Boy Detectives if you can.

[00:06:35] To us to that email address or over to our Facebook group

[00:06:37] at facebook.com slash groups slash tvpodcastindustries where we have

[00:06:41] a spoiler post up for each of the episodes.

[00:06:43] We'd love to hear your thoughts on the show.

[00:06:44] It's a lot of fun watching it.

[00:06:46] A lot of them podcasting on it as well.

[00:06:48] Lots to chat about with these awesome characters.

[00:06:51] Yes, but let us kick off with episode six, the case of the creeping forest.

[00:06:57] Derek, who gave us what were when how what and why?

[00:07:02] Well, this show, of course, is based on characters created by Neil Gaiman

[00:07:05] and Matt Wagner, created for television by Steve Yockey.

[00:07:08] He's also the co-showrunner alongside Beth Schwartz, a former showrunner of Arrow.

[00:07:12] The executive producer on the show is DC Arrowverse producer Greg Berlanti.

[00:07:16] And this episode, episode six was written by Beth Schwartz and Oscar Baldorama.

[00:07:21] Beth is the other showrunner for the show, as I mentioned,

[00:07:23] and Oscar worked with Greg Berlanti on a number of his shows, including Arrow.

[00:07:27] He also wrote the first tie in novel to Arrow called Vengeance,

[00:07:31] which I just think is interesting because usually when someone takes on

[00:07:34] that role of writing the tie in novel to a TV show,

[00:07:37] they're usually really steeped in what's happening.

[00:07:39] Yeah, you know what I mean?

[00:07:40] So I think that's quite interesting for Oscar to have done that.

[00:07:44] Oh, definitely.

[00:07:45] And so tie in novel with DC or comic.

[00:07:49] Tie in novel for the Arrow TV show, the first tie in novel for that

[00:07:52] called Vengeance that he wrote.

[00:07:53] So he'd be pretty steeped in those characters.

[00:07:56] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:07:57] Yeah, that is an interesting kind of thing, really, isn't it?

[00:08:00] Yeah, yeah.

[00:08:01] The episode was directed by Glenn Winter,

[00:08:03] who directed episode one of The Dead Boy Detectives as well.

[00:08:06] Good stuff.

[00:08:07] John, do you want to give us the Netflix synopsis for this episode?

[00:08:10] Sure.

[00:08:12] A crisis forces Crystal to improvise on the job as Monty recruits the boys

[00:08:17] to locate his missing friend Gladys, but the eerie case isn't what it seems.

[00:08:23] It's a trap.

[00:08:24] It is.

[00:08:26] Admiral Ackbar.

[00:08:27] Admiral Ackbar comes back with a trap.

[00:08:29] He certainly does.

[00:08:30] But let us get into our top moments from this episode.

[00:08:33] Let's start off with the opening here

[00:08:37] because we have a new plan by Crystal to rid herself of her demon David.

[00:08:45] She's getting pretty sick of him infiltrating her thoughts and dreams,

[00:08:50] and she wants to kind of try and get rid of him once and for all.

[00:08:55] So head on over to Tragic Mix to see if he has anything behind counter

[00:09:01] on the shelf that she can use to rid herself of David the demon.

[00:09:06] Absolutely.

[00:09:07] She's just been jumping into her mind and kind of taking her out of any situation.

[00:09:10] Whenever he wants to jump in, he jumps in.

[00:09:13] But she also gets a bit of help here from Nico.

[00:09:15] I like the reasoning behind why Nico is jumping in.

[00:09:18] This is actually really sad, to be honest,

[00:09:19] because she's such a hopeful character and has been throughout the series so far.

[00:09:24] And everything that happened with Jenny in the days

[00:09:26] and her trying to intervene and trying to bring in what she thinks is about romance.

[00:09:30] The episode really opens with Nico ripping down all of her romantic posters,

[00:09:35] throwing out all of her anime that's all romantic based.

[00:09:38] And she believes now that what she's learned is love is way more stabby than she once thought.

[00:09:43] So that's why she's willing to help out Crystal getting rid of her former lover,

[00:09:48] David the demon.

[00:09:50] But I just wanted to kind of call out that poor Nico's going through this experience

[00:09:53] in the background and everything else that she's now lost faith in love, unfortunately.

[00:09:58] Yeah, exactly.

[00:09:59] But luckily for Crystal, Mick does have an artifact,

[00:10:03] the light of heart, which protects or should protect Crystal from the entanglement or the

[00:10:10] toxic repercussions of an entangled heart.

[00:10:14] It's a one time only use.

[00:10:16] And of course, Crystal does actually use this heart shaped artifact,

[00:10:23] which splits in two after she's used it.

[00:10:24] But the problem is that she no longer hears all the voices, not just David's

[00:10:31] or the demons, but also all the other voices that she has as her psychic ability.

[00:10:38] Yeah, it's a bit of an odd one, isn't it?

[00:10:39] Because Mick gives her the instructions, tells her that she just has to say what she

[00:10:43] wants to happen twice and believe it.

[00:10:45] So that's the instructions that she's been told when Nico reads them out.

[00:10:48] She says it twice.

[00:10:49] She says she wants to get rid of David and then she says she wants to be a normal person.

[00:10:53] That's the one that gets rid of her abilities.

[00:10:55] That's the one that effectively stops her being able to commune with the dead and

[00:10:58] and being having that psychic ability.

[00:11:01] So interestingly, I guess the instructions that were written weren't fully correct.

[00:11:07] Well, no, I think it's just what she actually ends up the phrasing of it

[00:11:11] means that she loses all the voices.

[00:11:14] She only says it once at the end.

[00:11:15] Like she says, I want to get rid of David.

[00:11:17] I want to get rid of David.

[00:11:18] I want to be a normal person.

[00:11:19] And it seems like that little addendum to the second time she said it got

[00:11:22] taken into account.

[00:11:23] Now, artifacts are tricksy, especially in the Sandman universe.

[00:11:27] So entirely possible that maybe the instructions were slightly off.

[00:11:31] Well, yeah, no, exactly.

[00:11:32] So I mean, whatever the rules are around this, she loses her power.

[00:11:38] Yes, she does being psychic.

[00:11:39] The other really nice thing as well in this part, in this opening part,

[00:11:45] and when Crystal is trying to sort out the voices in her head,

[00:11:48] is that Mick tells Nico and Crystal his tragic story of becoming a man, actually.

[00:11:55] It's done in a really nice way.

[00:11:58] That was really cool.

[00:11:59] What was the way it was told?

[00:12:00] Kind of reminding you of that?

[00:12:02] Reminding me very much of the Deathly Hallows, the Three Brothers

[00:12:06] and the Wand of Power, the Invisibility Cloak and the little infinity stone.

[00:12:18] That story was told in Harry Potter where they did the animated tale of it

[00:12:23] right in the middle of the story.

[00:12:24] Yeah, it's really nice.

[00:12:25] We hear the story of Sedat Sedna, the goddess of the sea,

[00:12:30] that took care of all the walruses and the sea life,

[00:12:34] but that Mick as a walrus was drawn to the lives of humans.

[00:12:38] And so Sedna granted that wish, but he's never seen Sedna or his family ever again,

[00:12:48] since then.

[00:12:48] So he has literally been landed.

[00:12:53] Yeah, exactly.

[00:12:55] Exactly.

[00:12:55] And true to most Neil Gaiman stories, this is taken from other mythology.

[00:13:00] The story of Sedna is a story that's told in mythology for centuries before

[00:13:04] about the father that sacrifices his daughter thinking it will keep him alive

[00:13:07] and then her becoming the goddess of the sea.

[00:13:10] So it's quite cool to have it in here.

[00:13:12] Yeah, no, definitely.

[00:13:14] Let us move on to our wild crow chase.

[00:13:17] Our next top moment.

[00:13:19] I love how this is prefaced where we see the revenge in progress with Esther.

[00:13:24] She's rallying Monty.

[00:13:26] She's slightly concerned that he has maybe fallen for Edwin

[00:13:31] and really asking him to, you know, have you really sort of laid the breadcrumbs properly?

[00:13:36] Yeah.

[00:13:37] And they're kind of going through their plan as then we get to the flats above

[00:13:45] Jenny's butcher shop where Monty comes in to tell the dead boy detectives

[00:13:51] about his missing friend, Galadis and the missing ghosts in the tall forest.

[00:13:58] Yes, yes.

[00:13:59] All to get them brought to the point of revenge for Esther.

[00:14:06] Interesting as well, she kind of calls out that she basically wants to punish the boys

[00:14:09] for what they did for denying her snake of its last meal, which is what's keeping her youthful.

[00:14:17] And then she's just going to feed Crystal to the snake to continue her youthful ways.

[00:14:22] It's like I don't really have any planning for Crystal,

[00:14:24] but bring her along so that I can then feed it to the snake.

[00:14:27] Is the plan.

[00:14:29] It is exactly.

[00:14:30] But Edwin kind of feeling bad about what happens with Monty where Monty kissed him

[00:14:35] and then realised actually it's not Monty that Edwin's attracted to.

[00:14:39] He's feeling a little bit bad for that, so he takes the case,

[00:14:43] even though there's lots more cases that should be taken.

[00:14:46] The fact that their case board is completely full of all the ghost cases

[00:14:50] in Port Townsend.

[00:14:52] The story of the dead boy detective has spread far and wide now.

[00:14:54] Well, that's it.

[00:14:55] And ultimately Charles isn't wanting to take the case, but yeah, Monty is feeling guilty.

[00:15:02] I like the fact that we have Monty kind of as they go in after they've taken the case,

[00:15:08] he says never get involved with Capricorn.

[00:15:11] So we were talking previously about Edwin saying Aquarius and Capricorns,

[00:15:16] are they compatible?

[00:15:19] They seem ineligible together.

[00:15:21] So we see that it is to do with Edwin at least.

[00:15:25] Yeah.

[00:15:26] But yes, they head towards the tall forest and find out that there's pure evil of some

[00:15:33] description in the woods because there's a ton of ghosts lined up on the border saying that

[00:15:39] they go in and they don't come out.

[00:15:41] We actually have a really good sort of moment where we see a ghostly deer that's died,

[00:15:48] has lost its way in the forest.

[00:15:50] And Edwin says to Monty that when animals die, they don't necessarily understand that

[00:15:56] they have died and so just still wander around where they used to live.

[00:16:02] But we see it getting consumed then by this green entity on the forest floor,

[00:16:08] this luminescent ghost fungus that is dangerous to ghosts, which we see with this deer being

[00:16:15] used as a prime example of that.

[00:16:19] Yes. Yeah, I like that scene.

[00:16:21] Yeah, no, I really did.

[00:16:23] They've split up as well.

[00:16:24] Edwin's with Monty, Charles is with Crystal.

[00:16:27] You've got these whisper stones that are supposed to glow if there are signs that

[00:16:32] Gladys has been in the area.

[00:16:33] Of course, the stones aren't doing anything.

[00:16:35] Exactly.

[00:16:36] I love the little moment where Monty says,

[00:16:39] oh, I think she liked to sail as well so she could be down by the docks when he starts

[00:16:43] to get cold feet because I do like the fact that Monty, in a sense,

[00:16:48] he's almost rebelled against his master, Esther.

[00:16:51] Esther asking him at the start, you're not getting cold feet.

[00:16:56] Are you sure you've told them the full plan?

[00:16:59] Trying to get him pumped up for doing this double cross.

[00:17:06] She is suspicious that Monty is possibly waning a little bit on this and I like the

[00:17:14] fact that Monty, realising at least seeing the deer getting consumed,

[00:17:20] is suddenly wanting to protect Edwin here.

[00:17:23] Yeah.

[00:17:24] And also because Edwin has been sharing with him, well, it was my first kiss.

[00:17:28] I've got all this jumble of feelings towards you.

[00:17:34] So I kind of like these two being separated off.

[00:17:37] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:17:38] And that's also, I think, to do with what Edwin says is going to happen if they get

[00:17:42] caught like the deer got caught, Edwin and Charles again will disappear with no future,

[00:17:47] no ability to come back.

[00:17:49] They will just be gone into darkness, living forever in that darkness as well.

[00:17:53] So I think that's also playing on Monty's mind.

[00:17:58] But it's interesting though that Esther didn't think this was going to happen.

[00:18:00] Esther has been very clear in the fact that she created Monty to be an attractive

[00:18:05] attractive guy to Edwin and that he would be able to get under his skin and be able to

[00:18:11] manipulate him.

[00:18:12] So she knew all the time that this was going to be the type of guy that

[00:18:15] might just fall in love with somebody else.

[00:18:18] So that's kind of her own fault, really.

[00:18:20] Yeah, exactly.

[00:18:21] She shouldn't have created him as attractive as he is.

[00:18:25] Also, Crystal here does come clean and tells the detectives that she can't actually

[00:18:32] read the tree.

[00:18:33] I love the fact that they do ask her to read the tree, which has got massive claw marks on it.

[00:18:40] She goes, it's a bear.

[00:18:43] How did you know?

[00:18:44] Your eyes didn't even go white.

[00:18:46] Exactly.

[00:18:47] Yeah.

[00:18:48] And one of the things that's underneath the Wild Crow Chase title that we have here is

[00:18:53] The Return of the Night Nurse.

[00:18:56] A couple of episodes ago she was kicked off the side of the mountain into the belly of

[00:19:02] Angie, the creature that was tormenting the locals in Port Townsend.

[00:19:05] Well, unwittingly.

[00:19:07] But now we find out that she's inside the belly of the beast.

[00:19:10] Yeah, it's kind of Jonah on the way a bit here.

[00:19:14] I love that there's someone else in there.

[00:19:17] I just loved the fact that she wakes up with a fishnet all over her

[00:19:22] and has this other person in there, this companion,

[00:19:26] Kashina, who's also in the belly of the angler fish.

[00:19:29] Yes.

[00:19:30] And Kashy is played by Cheech Manohar, who we mentioned back in episode two.

[00:19:34] He'd written episode two and was going to appear later in the series.

[00:19:37] So that's interesting.

[00:19:38] He was one of the writers on episode two and now here he is on screen.

[00:19:41] Yeah, good stuff.

[00:19:42] And I thought it was going to be a background character when I said that earlier

[00:19:46] in the season because I didn't check who's going to be playing the future episode,

[00:19:49] but I knew he was coming up in the show.

[00:19:51] So it's quite cool that he's here in the belly of the beast with Night Nurse, isn't it?

[00:19:56] Yeah, it is.

[00:19:58] Interesting character because you don't fully know what Kashina is,

[00:20:02] or Kashy as he gets affectionately known as.

[00:20:07] But the Night Nurse can't see his trauma and he in and of himself is fascinated with her.

[00:20:16] Starts to give her counsel as she's trying to escape the fish.

[00:20:22] They kind of get to know one another really.

[00:20:25] In a sense, Kashina is way too chilled for the Night Nurse.

[00:20:31] She's getting more and more agitated.

[00:20:33] I like the fact that the kind of interplay between the two is she's getting more and

[00:20:37] more frustrated because she goes, technically, I can live for eons and I can't spend eons inside

[00:20:43] of fish.

[00:20:45] But imagine thinking there's only one way to do anything because all she's thinking about

[00:20:50] is actually killing Angie, the angler fish, to get out.

[00:20:54] He just says maybe instead of stabbing her, why don't you actually talk to her?

[00:20:59] They talk to her and she starts to surface so that she can leave Angie's belly.

[00:21:06] But Kashy here gives her a ring as a reminder for their adventures that they've had inside

[00:21:15] her belly as Angie swims to the surface.

[00:21:20] It's something that's very intriguing because there's obviously a significance there,

[00:21:26] but at this moment I certainly can't unravel that particular mystery.

[00:21:33] I'm really intrigued to see who this character is and if we do get a season two or maybe

[00:21:36] it's in the final episode, I presume we're going to see Kashy back.

[00:21:40] He just describes himself as a very old man who lives in fish and he's had lots of

[00:21:45] adventures throughout that time that he's lived in a fish.

[00:21:47] This does align slightly with the story of Vishnu or Buddha, which is intriguing.

[00:21:53] So there's potentially some connection there.

[00:21:56] Again, these stories always incorporate some kind of mythology or some kind of religious

[00:22:00] beliefs throughout Samman that it's done that and in The Dead Boy Detectives.

[00:22:05] So it's entirely possible this is a version of Vishnu or Buddha that has been helping out

[00:22:12] the night nurse in the belly of Angie.

[00:22:17] It would make sense, again, protective of Angie.

[00:22:20] Why stab it to death?

[00:22:21] This is the thing that I'm riding around for hundreds of years.

[00:22:25] Why stab it to death?

[00:22:26] There is another way out here.

[00:22:27] He's had all the adventures he knows how to get out.

[00:22:29] So I think that idea is there anyway.

[00:22:33] So I don't know.

[00:22:35] This is a scene, I guess it had to happen, but I'm just not too sure how it played out.

[00:22:40] It felt a little bit like a stage play.

[00:22:43] It did a bit, yeah.

[00:22:44] I mean, it did.

[00:22:45] I'm not entirely sure that the inside of Angie was the most realistic.

[00:22:51] But in the end, I kind of enjoyed these two because

[00:22:55] it was kind of almost that calming influence of Kashi on the night nurse.

[00:23:02] And even I feel as though whether him saying to her,

[00:23:06] imagine just thinking about the problem differently,

[00:23:10] that might come into play with her because she's so definitive

[00:23:15] because she's effectively the afterlife bureaucrat.

[00:23:19] So she might just start to think a bit differently

[00:23:23] about Charles and Edwin possibly after this experience and meeting Kashi.

[00:23:32] So that's kind of intriguing to me.

[00:23:36] But I think we can move on to our next moment,

[00:23:41] which is entitled Research Project from the show.

[00:23:45] Now, I think this ultimately relates to the fact that they

[00:23:50] find out that there is this ghost fungus at play, which is dangerous to ghosts.

[00:23:55] And Charles nips back to the London office via mirror

[00:24:00] with at least nine tenths of Edwin through the mirror as well

[00:24:04] in order to get his book on supernatural flora and fauna.

[00:24:10] Flora and fauna, I guess.

[00:24:11] Yeah.

[00:24:12] And they realize that this is potentially a forest elemental.

[00:24:16] It's a ghost that effectively consumes or absorbs the energy of other ghosts.

[00:24:22] It feeds on them.

[00:24:23] Yes.

[00:24:24] And that's really dangerous.

[00:24:27] It's the thing that ultimately spooks Monty to start saying,

[00:24:31] or maybe she's down by the docks, really.

[00:24:34] But then it's larger than they thought.

[00:24:36] They realize that they put together a little concoction,

[00:24:41] which they chuck on the spot where the deer was consumed.

[00:24:45] It seems to kill off the fungus, but then it comes back in effect, a greater spread.

[00:24:52] Yes.

[00:24:52] And they suddenly realize that this is a larger

[00:24:56] forest elemental that's actually interdimensional.

[00:25:00] It's massive.

[00:25:00] So it's massive.

[00:25:01] Absolutely massive.

[00:25:02] And there's no way they're going to be able to create enough for this potion to take it away.

[00:25:06] Exactly.

[00:25:07] But luckily, I guess the cat king arrives as well.

[00:25:11] Well, that's it.

[00:25:11] Yeah, because Charles and Crystal, Edwin and Monty are still split up.

[00:25:18] The cat king comes to upset Monty the crow's double cross here,

[00:25:27] even though he's having cold feet about it.

[00:25:29] Yeah.

[00:25:30] He tells Edwin the entire plan, basically.

[00:25:33] It's a trap.

[00:25:34] Completely ruins Monty's whole plan.

[00:25:36] Monty goes back to Esther and tells her that the cat king's ruined the whole thing

[00:25:40] and has spoiled the whole plan while Edwin runs away to go and warn Charles.

[00:25:48] He gets punished for it by Esther.

[00:25:50] And once again, as we saw with his creation in the episode,

[00:25:55] he gets completely torn apart by Esther on the ground,

[00:25:59] completely destroyed by her for not carrying out her plan.

[00:26:05] Feathers flying everywhere.

[00:26:07] It's the lead up to that where Monty goes to Esther saying they know everything.

[00:26:12] And she's like, Monty, did you get too emotional, too close to Edwin?

[00:26:15] And he's kind of like, yes.

[00:26:16] And the next thing, she's killing human Monty, at least as I took it,

[00:26:22] to bring back her bird familiar Monty because we see the crow flying off.

[00:26:29] I also do like the fact that before this, the cat king not only shows up in the forest

[00:26:33] but with a chandelier above his head just to really pimp out his appearance.

[00:26:38] Of course he does.

[00:26:39] And kind of not only informs Edwin that this is a trap and who Monty actually is,

[00:26:48] but it's also the sweet conversation between the two of them where they were saying,

[00:26:55] that was my first kiss, says Edwin.

[00:26:57] And Monty says that was my first kiss as well.

[00:27:00] And the cat king really just comes in and says, well, your first kiss was with a crow.

[00:27:06] And again-

[00:27:07] CB How about the second with the cat?

[00:27:08] I guess.

[00:27:08] IAN Exactly.

[00:27:09] How about the second with the cat?

[00:27:12] And Monty kind of doesn't really know what to say, but

[00:27:17] he does hear tell Edwin those jumbled feelings that you are having off of Charles.

[00:27:25] It's not for the cat king, it's not for me and what will happen between us,

[00:27:31] but it's as clear as day to anyone that it's for Charles.

[00:27:35] And so a lot of stuff happens there.

[00:27:39] Separately though to this as well, we do have David the demon appearing to

[00:27:44] crystal in the forest as well with a lot of kind of crystal towers

[00:27:48] showing up in the middle of the forest.

[00:27:50] But to the point that Charles can also see David the demon.

[00:27:56] And David the demon here is saying, you've lost your powers.

[00:27:59] That was the only thing that made you special.

[00:28:02] Now you're just kind of boring really.

[00:28:04] CB Yeah.

[00:28:05] It's like any other girl basically.

[00:28:06] IAN Like any other girl.

[00:28:07] CB From his mind.

[00:28:07] IAN But we have Charles coming to the rescue with his cricket bat as he smashes

[00:28:14] all these crazy mind pillars where David is speaking to crystal and messing with her

[00:28:28] with his cricket bat.

[00:28:31] It's cool.

[00:28:31] IAN Absolutely.

[00:28:32] It almost felt a little sort of Shaun of the Dead.

[00:28:35] IAN Best weapon since Shaun of the Dead.

[00:28:36] Best use of the weapon since Shaun of the Dead.

[00:28:38] CB Well exactly, better than cricket.

[00:28:40] IAN And then just after that,

[00:28:41] everyone arrives to tell them the story, what's happened and how they've all been tricked.

[00:28:44] And then we get the arrival of our next top moment introducing Teeth Face.

[00:28:50] IAN I love Teeth Face.

[00:28:52] CB Really?

[00:28:52] I would like to be very close to Teeth Face.

[00:28:54] I'd like to see him from afar, from a long distance.

[00:28:57] IAN I think he seemed in the end quite reasonable.

[00:28:59] I think he was being tricked by Esther.

[00:29:01] CB He probably was, yeah.

[00:29:02] IAN Yeah, very scary looking, very CGI.

[00:29:06] The opposite of Night Nurse and Kashi in Angie's belly.

[00:29:11] But I just kind of like the introduction along with Esther being there,

[00:29:15] you know, you wouldn't believe what's gone wrong today.

[00:29:19] Now you'll get consumed forever.

[00:29:23] Her plan is coming to fruition here.

[00:29:26] She takes out Crystal who kind of knocks her, sort of daises her a bit on the floor.

[00:29:34] And this is where we then get the Washer Woman's prophecy coming to pass,

[00:29:39] where we hear the cry of the bird in Monty flapping around the ground as shaking.

[00:29:46] And this is the moment we get to understand Crystal a little bit better

[00:29:52] as she looks within and not without.

[00:29:55] IAN Yes, absolutely.

[00:29:56] Yes, look at finding a bigger source for her power.

[00:29:59] CB Yeah, meets her ancestors.

[00:30:01] I really enjoyed that.

[00:30:02] I mean, there's so many tales, you know, this idea of passing down

[00:30:07] powers between on the ancestral timeline.

[00:30:13] Interestingly, very similar to the Marvel show that we covered earlier this year in Echo.

[00:30:22] IAN That's right.

[00:30:22] Yeah, it really did remind me of Echo as well, this idea that we have the ancestors

[00:30:27] who are living inside who are able to be called upon to increase your power.

[00:30:33] Upon to increase your power.

[00:30:35] So the first meeting really of Crystal and her ancestors.

[00:30:38] IAN Yeah, like so she's speaking mainly to Iris here, but she's told she's more

[00:30:43] than a psychic, you know, you can connect into your ancestors and their collective past

[00:30:49] and their power.

[00:30:50] CB Yeah.

[00:30:50] IAN I liked Iris kind of kept going, well, technically this tree is you.

[00:30:58] We'll come to that another time.

[00:30:59] It's like, no, you're not dead.

[00:31:02] Technically you're alive, but you're in a place where actually, technically this is you

[00:31:07] when pointing to this like very bright luminescent tree.

[00:31:11] Again, almost a bit like Black Panther where you see the ancestral tree with the other

[00:31:17] Panthers on it.

[00:31:19] So I love how it all connects into that kind of idea.

[00:31:22] IAN Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[00:31:23] That's pretty cool.

[00:31:25] And, you know, Iris basically gives her a pep talk saying, you know, you're not weak

[00:31:30] and you're not alone.

[00:31:32] That's what demons like David are trying to make you think, try to make you feel

[00:31:38] trapped and weak and alone.

[00:31:41] CB Exactly.

[00:31:41] IAN And that this power is in her and she connects to it by kind of putting

[00:31:47] her fists into the ground and then is able to tell Teeth Face that he can leave this

[00:31:56] realm, which he does.

[00:32:00] But I kind of like to think that Teeth Face isn't quite as scary and evil as his

[00:32:06] appearance would make out because he's like, oh, that's okay then.

[00:32:10] And he goes but takes Esther with her but leaves Charles and Edwin.

[00:32:14] Exactly.

[00:32:14] Yeah, exactly.

[00:32:15] I like this.

[00:32:16] I did like Teeth Face.

[00:32:17] I wanted to see what that mushroom Esther's starter revenge kit was going to turn into.

[00:32:23] And we did.

[00:32:24] IAN But it also does show you how powerful Esther is.

[00:32:28] IAN Yes.

[00:32:28] IAN She's a powerful witch.

[00:32:32] She certainly is.

[00:32:32] She certainly is and then dragged off by Teeth Face at the end here.

[00:32:36] Yeah.

[00:32:37] And that just brings us on as usual to case closed at the end of the episode.

[00:32:42] Finishing out the stories of what happened in here.

[00:32:46] One of the stories mentioned obviously at the beginning was Nico falling out of love

[00:32:50] with love, which is really because of what happened.

[00:32:52] Jenny and they have a conversation all the way throughout the episode.

[00:32:55] She's been trying to catch the eye of Jenny or have a conversation with Jenny about

[00:32:59] everything that's happened.

[00:33:00] And Jenny's saying to her, look, I'm not angry at you.

[00:33:03] I'm just sad.

[00:33:04] I'm really sad that this has happened.

[00:33:06] Once again, I opened my heart and look how badly it went for me kind of thing.

[00:33:10] Well, I do like what she actually says, which is there's already one shut down nihilist here.

[00:33:16] We don't need two.

[00:33:17] Exactly.

[00:33:19] I can't forgive you yet for what happened, even though you couldn't possibly have known

[00:33:25] what Maxine was like.

[00:33:28] But if you love and you believe in love, you should help other people exactly as you did.

[00:33:32] And you should be yourself and don't shut yourself down.

[00:33:36] But just don't do it on me.

[00:33:38] That's a state which I really like.

[00:33:41] I like the fact as well that Edwin is trying to tell Charles his feelings after Monty kind

[00:33:47] of really just popped it in neon lights for him.

[00:33:51] And he gets so far, but Charles accepts what Edwin has said.

[00:33:56] You know, he goes, you don't have to pretend around me.

[00:33:59] But he doesn't quite manage to get it all out in time because we have

[00:34:05] the night nurse showing up now that she's been released from Angie the anglerfish.

[00:34:11] Exactly. And Charles seems to think that actually he's talking about the cacking

[00:34:14] that Edwin's actually in love with the cacking.

[00:34:17] So both the night nurse does give them an opportunity to get in the opportunity

[00:34:22] to stay together while she sorts out everything that's happened.

[00:34:25] She can see that they're good people.

[00:34:27] She does see it does seem like she's been changed by the interaction that she's had with

[00:34:31] Cassie. She gives them the opportunity to stay in the waiting room together when she's

[00:34:35] sorting out the paperwork and sending them to where they're supposed to be.

[00:34:39] There's been a technicality that it was down to a technicality.

[00:34:43] And she says she needs to kind of like look into this aberration until

[00:34:50] she actually finally figures it out, that they can stay together because on her notepad,

[00:34:57] you see the X for designation hell or there's another designation on it keeps

[00:35:04] flicking between the two. And so actually Edwin's place in the afterlife isn't fully

[00:35:12] determined. Even on her paperwork, we do get sort of a little focus in on the ring as well

[00:35:21] again. So again, I just don't know to what extent that ring has some kind of

[00:35:27] importance here with this. But interestingly, she seems a little bit more

[00:35:37] open to flexibility here, but until Edwin effectively gets taken away to hell by some

[00:35:49] absolutely. I don't know what was lurking in the dark, but we certainly get to see it

[00:35:55] in the next episode. Yes, we do. Yes, we do. We'll be talking about that in episode seven.

[00:35:59] So overall, John, what did you think of this one?

[00:36:01] I really, really liked this episode. I would give it four and a half fun guys out of five.

[00:36:10] I like getting Mick's backstory. I thought it was really nicely done.

[00:36:13] I love Night Nurse and Koshina together in Angie's, not very realistic belly, but nonetheless,

[00:36:19] I just kind of like that interplay. I mean, you said it was like a stage play. I would

[00:36:24] probably agree with you. I kind of did mean just the setting up. It felt like it was on

[00:36:28] stage. Yeah. I kind of, I like that. I like the whole trap and double cross as the main

[00:36:36] piece of this episode that Esther and Monty, you know, it all kind of came out.

[00:36:42] Kat King arriving in a forest with a chandelier over his head. I guess I would go for that

[00:36:49] to be honest. Why not? But I liked how it all came out and I kind of wanted,

[00:36:55] ever since Esther asked Mick for the revenge starter kick, seeing the sort of top of the

[00:37:02] mushroom. I was like, what is going on here? So I was pleased to see

[00:37:07] teeth face and to be honest. So I think there's a few failings in this episode for sure,

[00:37:14] but overall I'm going with the sentiment of it. And I think it's really, really good.

[00:37:19] Yep. I think there's a lot of fun as a show and without it at the cast and the characters

[00:37:24] they're playing are really elevating what's there on the page, I suppose for me. If I'm

[00:37:30] breaking it down to what's the case, how did that, how did it, how has it impacted the

[00:37:36] overarching storyline of how they're getting out of Port Townsend? I think I'd basically be

[00:37:40] watching the show wrong. You're supposed to be watching it at paying attention to the

[00:37:44] characters, their interplay and their personal connections between them. I think the cast

[00:37:48] are doing a great job with that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun

[00:37:51] and each of them on screen brings their own energy to us. They're all really fun to watch

[00:37:56] I mean, there's part of me thinking that actually they never get to leave

[00:38:01] Port Townsend. They'll be stuck there forever. I mean, in particular, I know Edwin's just been

[00:38:06] whisked back to hell in a flurry of activity or something at least that kind of looked like

[00:38:13] a spider type thing. But as this happened, I was like, oh, is the show now going to just

[00:38:19] be in hell? It's going to have a different aspect to it. Now having seen the next episode,

[00:38:26] I know that's not the case. But in that moment, I questioned whether there was ever a escape

[00:38:31] Port Townsend or whether at least the escape wouldn't be until season two. Yeah. And you

[00:38:36] know, now I know that's not the case because we're having watched the next episode, which

[00:38:40] will get on to in a moment. We're going to take a break between the two episodes.

[00:38:45] Just wanted to give a shout out to our friends over at the superhero show show who have broken

[00:38:50] the format on. They used to cover every comic book show out there, every show

[00:38:55] related to comic books. They're not covering Dead Boy Detectives. So if you have been

[00:38:59] listening to superhero show show and have come and joined us because they've recommended

[00:39:02] you come over to us for our coverage of Dead Boy Detectives. Thanks very much for joining

[00:39:07] us. Yeah, absolutely. Welcome to the podcast. Absolutely. But also for our TV podcast,

[00:39:13] industries listeners, you may notice that we're not covering X-Men 97. The superhero

[00:39:17] show show is covering every episode of X-Men 97. Yeah. So join Cassie, Ryan and Mike over

[00:39:24] at the superhero show show if you're interested in listening to their podcasts on X-Men 97.

[00:39:33] Yep. But I do always have to say they are a not safe for work podcast. You do have to

[00:39:38] your headphones. Very different to our own podcast in that way. But they do have a lot

[00:39:44] of fun. They've covered every single episode of the original X-Men animated series and

[00:39:47] then have carried on covering X-Men 97. So go listen to their take over on popfilter.co

[00:39:53] or just search superhero show show. But with that, let's take a break and we'll

[00:39:57] be back with episode seven. Remember that blue cap you used to wear? I remember you

[00:40:03] snatching it off me. You looked very smart in that cap. But what I tried to tell you,

[00:40:10] you just walked away. You never spoke to me. I got so embarrassed thinking that we

[00:40:21] were the same. I was nervous. I didn't realize. Do you think it has to be torture

[00:40:38] being the way we are? Listen to me. No, it does not. And although it is difficult

[00:40:48] for me to believe, I feel sorry. I am sorry for both of us. So am I. So am I.

[00:41:11] So episode seven, the case of the very long stairway.

[00:41:14] Yes, certainly is a very long stairway and dare I say it down.

[00:41:19] Well, yeah, it's the stairway to hell.

[00:41:22] That's what I'm saying. Down. But Derek, let us get into episode seven where you can

[00:41:29] rattle off who gave us what, when, how, why and for what reason?

[00:41:35] I never rattle off that. I don't know why you ask me to do it every time. But the episode was

[00:41:39] written by the show runner Steve Yockey and directed by Richard Spake Jr. He directed

[00:41:44] 11 episodes of Supernatural among loads of other projects. Probably best known

[00:41:49] to Supernatural fans as the Archangel Gabriel on the show. He was a very heavily featured

[00:41:54] character in some of the earlier seasons. You remember the Archangel Gabriel, John?

[00:41:57] I certainly do. He was very good in the show. So he's now a director.

[00:42:01] Excellent stuff. Yeah, loved Supernatural. And actually at the time of watching, I didn't

[00:42:07] realise that Richard Spake was directing a number of the episodes as well as being

[00:42:15] the Archangel Gabriel. Yeah, so yeah, that's cool. I like that stuff.

[00:42:19] So there you go. This episode we have Richard Spake Jr. who played

[00:42:22] who played Archangel Gabriel on Supernatural. Directed the episode.

[00:42:26] Last episode we had Cheech Monohair playing a main character in the show and he wrote an episode

[00:42:30] earlier on in the season. Yeah, cool stuff. I love all this.

[00:42:33] Just saying it gives really good perspectives. That's cool, isn't it? Yep. John, do you want

[00:42:37] to give us the Netflix synopsis for episode seven? Sure. When Edwin gets caught in a

[00:42:42] frightening situation, Charles relies on his best mate's meticulous notes to find him.

[00:42:48] A determined crystal confronts her ex. Let's get into our top moments from episode

[00:42:53] seven. As we mentioned, we're taking the ones that come up on screen as our top moments.

[00:42:58] There's not very many notes that come up on screen in this episode. In fact,

[00:43:01] there's only two that come up. We've actually made one up of case

[00:43:04] closed just because and maybe it was maybe I just missed it, but because writing my notes

[00:43:12] furiously. So that's why I thought, oh yeah, there must be a case closed in here.

[00:43:17] But we have our first top moment beating a dead cat.

[00:43:23] Yeah, so this kind of starts off with Esther coming back. I thought she was pulled to

[00:43:26] another dimension last time, but she crawls out from under the ground. I think she was

[00:43:29] just pulled under the ground by teeth face and then climbs back out from under the ground,

[00:43:35] unless she did come back from another dimension. She may have done. The other

[00:43:38] dimension could have been some soil related one where fungus kind of quite likes to live.

[00:43:43] So that are just saving some budget for not creating a brand new dimension for it to climb

[00:43:47] back from. Absolutely. I have to say this opening with Esther emerging, and I'm glad

[00:43:55] that they did that actually really quickly. So really she spent no time away from episode

[00:44:04] six to now. I was like, oh, is this a zombie? Initially, I wasn't really sort of

[00:44:11] thinking that it was in the same places where teeth face had taken her down. But just then

[00:44:18] seeing that it was Esther emerging and then effectively, she sets up the whole next scene

[00:44:27] as she goes, I'm going to beat that chic kitty. I just loved this whole interaction

[00:44:35] between Esther and cat. The two of them, I think are two of my favourite along with Monty,

[00:44:42] I would say. I've really enjoyed the humans that have been representatives of animals.

[00:44:49] And I think Esther, the witch really, really cool, but I love that she goes to see the

[00:44:54] cat king. What does she say? She says you blew up Monty's spot and ruin my surprise,

[00:45:00] which is basically the knob of it. Yeah, Esther. Yeah, he ruined her plans. He ruined everything.

[00:45:06] Yeah, absolutely. But there is some interesting bits of the conversation, particularly when the

[00:45:11] cat king points out that Edwin has been to hell. He's seen more pain than you can possibly

[00:45:16] imagine. And that gives her a new plan. It brings a new idea into Esther's head that

[00:45:20] not only can she just punish him like she was going to now if she punished him, maybe

[00:45:25] she can get some extra boost to her magic from this guy who's experienced so much pain

[00:45:29] by being in hell for seven decades. Well, absolutely. I mean, we see her later on

[00:45:34] in the episodes going to Tragic Mix magic shop in order to get resources and bits and

[00:45:41] bulbs together from Mix in order to power a device that will extract Edwin's sort of

[00:45:50] torment. She kind of describes it in the way that with a normal ghost, it would be too

[00:45:56] much. But someone who has survived the ongoing pain of hell, I think he'll be able to

[00:46:02] stand it and that will really make me powerful. Another way of extracting power for herself,

[00:46:10] whether it's like she in a sense a bit like how she does with extracting beauty

[00:46:16] and youthfulness from sacrificing the girls to her big pet snake under her kitchen,

[00:46:27] effectively. But I love that in a sense, the cat king lets this slip because he ultimately is

[00:46:33] kind of like, you know, exasperated kind of going, you know, what games are you doing?

[00:46:39] Are you playing now? You know, why are you here? You know, all you seem to do is want to

[00:46:43] seek revenge, look pretty. You know, what is the point of view? It kind of just compares it to

[00:46:49] Edwin, you know, who survived hell and she goes, oh, you've given me a nice little gem

[00:46:54] of information here. I have a new plan. He can give me power. So suddenly, you know,

[00:47:03] in a sense, it's a good job. Teeth Face failed for her because she's gotten some

[00:47:08] new information from the cat king and she's going to act on it. But before she does,

[00:47:13] she wants to take her pent up aggression out on him as well, which is pretty brutal given

[00:47:19] the amount of time she uses her steel walking cane to beat him around the face. And I like

[00:47:26] the fact that luckily, the cat king is only up to his second life. So he has to use his

[00:47:35] third life. He's like, that's my third life. Only get nine of these. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[00:47:41] But she, you know, threatens him with stay out of my way or I'll have to kill you again and

[00:47:47] again and again. I'll whiffle those lives out of you, cat king. I'm almost certain she

[00:47:54] counted off the rest of his lives and saying again, again, and she's chuckling away. So I

[00:47:59] absolutely loved the scene between the cat king and Esther. Really, really good. Yeah,

[00:48:07] great. Love to see these two on screen together. It's really good. But back over with Crystal

[00:48:12] and Charles and Nico and the night nurse who've just seen Edwin dragged out of this dimension

[00:48:18] by the big spider that dragged him off back into hell. Charles was trying to

[00:48:23] convince the night nurse to send him to hell so he can retrieve his best friend.

[00:48:28] But night nurse is going to go and look, I can't do that. That's way beyond my remiss,

[00:48:33] way beyond what I'm here for. There's too many permits and forms I'm going to have to fill here.

[00:48:39] Well, I mean, Charles is kind of adamant. He's like, well, I've got Edwin's diary and he

[00:48:44] escaped hell previously. If you open up a portal to hell, which is where the bureaucracy

[00:48:50] is going to come in for her potentially, then I'll go and get him. And when I get back,

[00:48:56] so this is the deal that he makes with her. When I get back, we're yours. So it's a win-win,

[00:49:03] you know, even if you might have to fill out a lot of forms for it to happen.

[00:49:08] Interestingly enough, you know, when she does open the portal, because ultimately she accepts

[00:49:15] the deal. I didn't expect that she was going to stay there with the portal open.

[00:49:21] I was like, ooh, that feels dangerous. All the different sort of monstrosities of hell come

[00:49:30] sort of pouring out if they're not careful.

[00:49:33] You'd think yeah. Yeah. But at least there's a long stairway in between the two.

[00:49:37] But I suppose there's a really important moment here for particularly for fans of Sandman

[00:49:41] where Night Nurse is trying to find out whether she can trust Charles and goes inside his mind.

[00:49:46] And here we get the tale of really how Edwin and Charles met properly shown on screen here.

[00:49:52] And this is very similar to what we saw in the Sandman comic books, the story of effectively

[00:50:00] Charles being bullied, getting hypothermia and going off to hide from the bullies that had

[00:50:05] attacked him and meeting up with Edwin, the ghost who is haunting this building,

[00:50:11] haunting the school that Charles is now going to 70 years later.

[00:50:16] And I like some of the touches here in the conversations that they have because Edwin,

[00:50:23] ultimately when Charles does pass away, he says as soon as you could see me,

[00:50:28] I knew you were going to die. I like the deadpan way in which Edwin sort of says

[00:50:36] I'm dead Charles. I went to school here in 1913 to 1960. Even just the bits and

[00:50:44] bobs when you have Charles saying about the bullies who were beating up a kid from school

[00:50:52] who was from Pakistan. He goes, I'm half Indian from my parents. And Edwin's just like,

[00:50:59] oh, they were the same country when I was a kid.

[00:51:03] And just those little nuggets that I really kind of liked that interplay.

[00:51:11] I like the way Edwin almost has this curiosity in terms of how he looks,

[00:51:16] at least in this flashback or this entry into Charles's memories by the Night Nurse,

[00:51:23] this curiosity about Charles as they're talking about it. And in the same way,

[00:51:30] reciprocated by Charles is asking all these questions, but doesn't really fully understand

[00:51:37] what's happening until he sees himself on the floor, dead from the hypothermia.

[00:51:45] Exactly. And it's an interesting one. We've talked a little bit during the season here as

[00:51:49] to why death hasn't caught up with Charles and Edwin. And interestingly, Edwin kind of plays

[00:51:55] the role of death here for Charles. He knows Charles isn't going to survive. He's got hypothermia,

[00:52:01] he's about to die. The minute he was able to see Edwin, that means that Charles is on the

[00:52:06] edge of death. He's had that brush of death basically, as we've seen throughout the series.

[00:52:11] But Edwin's here to usher him into the next phase of his life, which is what the death

[00:52:16] character in the Sandman comics has always done. She's been there to usher them onto

[00:52:19] the afterlife. In this case, Edwin's ushering him onto working together in the Dead Boy

[00:52:24] Detectives. But I think it's interesting that he does have this friendly demeanor with Charles,

[00:52:30] doesn't let on to him that he's dying or he's definitely going to die. Never,

[00:52:35] never frightens him by that concept. And Charles thanks him for that,

[00:52:39] says that allowed him to experience this. He thanks him for not revealing that he was dead

[00:52:46] until the point that Charles sees himself. Yeah, absolutely. It's really quite touching.

[00:52:52] I think the other important thing here is, you know, when he does finally say

[00:53:00] that he's dead to Charles, he says, well, I'm going to have to go now because death will

[00:53:06] be coming for you. But I don't mean like that he was replacing death. That was definitely

[00:53:10] going to be coming to take Charles away when he eventually died and passed on. But because

[00:53:13] we don't have that scene with death freeing Charles to go and spend the rest of his

[00:53:18] eternity with Edwin or anything like that, I feel they still have that lovely moment

[00:53:24] post death that we would have had represented by the death character in Sandman or in the

[00:53:30] series. I totally agree. But we see that death does come for Charles because we get the blue

[00:53:36] light because we have Charles saying, well, I'm going to have to go now because death's

[00:53:39] going to come for you. I'm not supposed to be here. Yeah. And so when the blue light

[00:53:45] comes, I'll be going that way. And Charles is, I don't want to go yet. And so obviously

[00:53:51] goes with him when you start to see the blue light of death arriving off screen.

[00:53:57] Yes. Yeah. So I guess he learns from Edwin how to hide away from death then from that

[00:54:02] point onwards there on the run from death. So again, not explained explicitly here. And

[00:54:09] I do hope that it is brought back into Sandman. I hope we get that crossover with

[00:54:14] the dead boy detectives where the two characters appear in Sandman and we get a bit more of an

[00:54:18] explanation as to why death didn't spend all of her time chasing down these two guys,

[00:54:23] just let them disappear into the ether, I suppose. But in this show, of course,

[00:54:26] we do have that set up that with Night Nurse that she is chasing down all the missing

[00:54:31] children, all the ones that didn't get taken away by death. And we had that mentioned last

[00:54:35] episode of the deer and the animals that are able to roam the earth not realizing that

[00:54:40] they're dead. So potentially there's a little connection there, a little explanation,

[00:54:43] but I do think they'll probably underline it hopefully in the future of Sandman, at least.

[00:54:48] Yeah. But I mean, ultimately, the Night Nurse here is trying to see if she can trust

[00:54:53] Charles with the deal that he's offered and she sees enough empathy and just how they are

[00:54:59] with one another, which is really good. Yeah. She sees the true love between the two. Yeah.

[00:55:03] That she does open up that portal. Interestingly as well, Crystal offers to help and to go

[00:55:11] with Charles with the experience of her newfound powers from what she did to the Forest Elemental.

[00:55:22] But Charles is definitive, he says no and Crystal ultimately says, well, I'm going to go

[00:55:28] to my ex to open up a portal to hell as well. So we see her heading off. Nico decides

[00:55:35] ultimately to stay in her apartment. But Jenny follows her when she hears

[00:55:42] Crystal talking about going to find her ex. Again, it's that protective nature of Jenny.

[00:55:49] Yeah, exactly. She thinks that these are two young girls who've had a lot of hurt in their

[00:55:53] life. They need somewhere to stay. She's willing to put them up. And I guess, you know,

[00:55:57] it explains right back to the first episode why this is such a cheap place to stay. You know,

[00:56:00] Jenny has the sign off and who stays in her place. And she's giving a home to these kids

[00:56:05] that have been what she feels badly hurt. And she sees one of them going out going,

[00:56:10] I'm going back to my toxic ex boyfriend who what she thinks is abused her and beat her. And

[00:56:15] they had a terrible relationship. But Jenny's going hang on a second, grabs the cleaver,

[00:56:18] of course, and brings it with her to follow it just in case anything really bad is going

[00:56:22] to happen to Crystal. So like that, I thought that was that was really good. But still,

[00:56:28] yeah, wow. What a what a quick turnaround from Crystal on going back to David for help

[00:56:35] now after just getting him out of her mind. Yeah, you know,

[00:56:38] but she's kind of invigorated. And she's given herself agency now that she knows that she

[00:56:46] more about her powers. Yeah, I guess it's given her that confidence to confront him.

[00:56:51] She feels she's more powerful to be able to go and deal with them. Yeah,

[00:56:54] exactly. And I love the fact that then, you know, we we before we get to the sort of the next sort

[00:57:01] of chapter in the TV show, we do see that Edwin is running around hell being chased by dolls.

[00:57:09] So I mean, yeah, this is all just my worst nightmare. And dolls, it really is this is

[00:57:17] one of your absolute. Yeah, dolls in hell. Yeah. I mean, if anyone has listened to

[00:57:24] our penny dreadful, I think it was season two, where you have the witches and the creation of

[00:57:33] the dolls. I mean, that's certainly extreme is just so horrendous. I mean, I really can't be

[00:57:40] doing with dolls. So I think I'm with Edwin here. This is my idea of hell for sure. Absolutely. And

[00:57:47] there's a great kind of I guess it's now a call back that I didn't understand it at the time in

[00:57:54] the episode, the lighthouse leapers were Edwin and Nico are walking around the gift shop and

[00:57:58] Edwin saw one of those kind of old time dolls and just turned its head away from him.

[00:58:03] And I was wondering why he was so perturbed by but obviously myself and John have been

[00:58:07] together for 20 years. So I know John's fear of those dolls. So I was like, oh,

[00:58:10] Edwin must have that kind of fear as well. And now in this episode, you know, absolutely why

[00:58:13] he hates dolls so much. I'd put a blanket over it or just chuck it in the bin.

[00:58:18] So does this kind of feel like your hell here, John?

[00:58:21] It does actually. Those horrendously sort of dead, stir Victorian dolls. Yeah. Not a chance.

[00:58:31] I mean, even there was something that came up on Twitter a few years back around these

[00:58:36] dolls being washed ashore on the beach. And I was just like,

[00:58:41] if I was out like, you know, walking the dog along the beach and that habit, I just be like,

[00:58:45] what the hell is going on here in front of a ton of like creepy dolls? And so, you know,

[00:58:53] we see Edwin here and we see Charles and going down the spiral staircase to how he does meet

[00:58:58] Maxine on the way he's kind of questioning why am I here? Yes. Now the map that Charles

[00:59:04] is following that place where she's sitting, the stairway that she's on is the limbo between

[00:59:10] a heaven and a hell effectively. So so she's not been committed to hell, which is what I

[00:59:14] originally thought. I thought she was being punished for everything that she'd done for

[00:59:19] her stalking of Jenny for the, you know, wanting to murder her and her saying that in

[00:59:25] that episode that she has to clean it all up again. Maybe she's killed somebody else before

[00:59:30] because of a relationship. But it seems like at the moment, the decision hasn't been made

[00:59:34] as to where she's going to. And she doesn't know why she's here, why she's been punished

[00:59:38] the way she has. She hasn't gone straight to heaven. She hasn't gone straight to an afterlife.

[00:59:42] She's somewhere stuck in the middle of it all. Absolutely. And Charles is making his

[00:59:45] way through the spiral staircase and the hotel reception is using Edwin's notes here,

[00:59:51] which we see is limbo. But also speaking of notes, I definitely wrote down when I saw the

[00:59:58] empty hotel where he goes in and hits the button and you hear the monsters shout,

[01:00:01] I definitely wrote down Hotel Oblivion from Umbrella Academy where they're going into that

[01:00:06] hotel and hit the button of the monster attacks. But he also works his way through

[01:00:10] lust and gluttony into effectively a dull hell. And it's kind of interesting because I'm glad

[01:00:18] when they worked their way back through there that we understood because I was just like

[01:00:23] going, this seems so weird because the hotel limbo reception was completely empty other than

[01:00:31] the roar of the beast after Charles had rung the bell. But walk through lust and it was all

[01:00:39] empty and gluttony was also all empty. I know you're going to go, it's just Netflix

[01:00:44] saving budget. Yeah, exactly. There's a couple of cakes in here. But I like that as they

[01:00:50] came back through on the way out that they could see everything because it's only once

[01:00:57] you've experienced the horror that you can see hell. Yeah, absolutely. I thought that was a

[01:01:02] really good touch on the way back as you say at the way Hilo was going. It doesn't really

[01:01:08] speak of gluttony and that empty room doesn't really speak of lust unless you're lusting for

[01:01:13] silence and alone time. But let's talk about it. Let's get on to the big moment of the

[01:01:18] episode which is Welcome to the Dullhouse. So welcome to hell. And it is Edwin's hell

[01:01:23] that we're experiencing here. Yeah, and this is I think the Night Nurse says it's a

[01:01:30] mid-level demon from hell that seems to come and grab Edwin. So this is kind of mid-level

[01:01:39] hell, I guess. Yes. To some degree. Certainly a mid-level demon that's assigned to punish

[01:01:47] torment Edwin for what he's done. I really like this. It's again, the story within Sandman

[01:01:55] universe is you go where you believe you're supposed to go after you die. Edwin's been

[01:01:59] put in hell because he was sacrificed to a demon and now he's being chased down by another

[01:02:05] demon. The way he explains it when he meets up with his tormentor Simon, he explains that

[01:02:10] the original demon that he was sacrificed to passed him off on another demon and then onto

[01:02:14] another demon. So this third demon, this dulls headed demon is the third demon that

[01:02:20] has been tormenting Edwin for many years. And we hear that every time he's chased,

[01:02:25] this demon catches him and kills him. And it happens many times and has happened many,

[01:02:29] many times over the 70 years that he spent in hell. Yeah. Turns him apart endlessly.

[01:02:35] Endlessly. Yeah. Sounds pretty, pretty horrendous. It does. But within all of this,

[01:02:40] we meet Simon, the one of the leaders, I guess, of the boys, the bullies that sacrificed Edwin.

[01:02:47] And there's an interesting story underneath it all that effectively Simon felt like himself and

[01:02:53] Edwin were the same. Simon was attracted to Edwin always wanted to talk to him, but Edwin

[01:02:58] was so quiet and kept to himself and never talked to Simon. Yeah. Simon says,

[01:03:02] But you never answered me, you know, like you're embarrassed. Like Simon did actually reach out

[01:03:10] or try to say stuff to him. But I think Edwin was so introverted or so closed off

[01:03:17] that he didn't respond. Well, in the story of the show,

[01:03:20] I think this is really all about Edwin's feelings. He did know back in the early 1900s

[01:03:25] that he had feelings for other boys and repressed it so much that he was unable

[01:03:29] to even raise his head when there was somebody else like him. Simon feels that

[01:03:34] there was something, someone else like him in Edwin and tried to reach out to him.

[01:03:38] But then it turned really nasty because Edwin didn't respond to him at all.

[01:03:45] The fear came within Simon, it seems, that he didn't want to be found out as being the

[01:03:50] only gay guy in the school. And they were going to pay a prank on Edwin, not realising

[01:03:57] what they were doing was actually sacrificing him to a demon. He thought he was going to scare him.

[01:04:02] And it went really bad. Exactly. It's the fact that society had placed

[01:04:08] these dampeners on both Simon and Edwin. And in order to prove that they weren't like

[01:04:16] what they were trying to repress, they go to the extreme to do something else.

[01:04:20] And that's the thing. But actually, you know, it's the reason why Edwin ignored Simon,

[01:04:26] even though Simon did try and reach out. So ultimately, it becomes a vicious circle that

[01:04:33] becomes more vicious when you're also then having to prove you're something that you're

[01:04:38] not. And in this sense, it was an extreme form of that from Simon. I found this a really,

[01:04:43] really good story because, you know, it starts with Edwin saying, you know,

[01:04:47] it's right you're here day in, day out after what you did to me. You know,

[01:04:50] we see Simon effectively, he's I mean, I think it's like hell by a thousand paper cuts.

[01:04:57] Death by a thousand cuts. Just tearing pages from a book for over 100 years. But in the end,

[01:05:05] when Edwin learns of this and when you see actually death coming for Simon in hell,

[01:05:12] you see the blue light on him. You realise, you know, not necessarily that Simon is forgiven

[01:05:18] for what he did, but there's now an understanding of the whole situation.

[01:05:24] Absolutely. And Edwin is able to process and deal with it more so. And even so now,

[01:05:31] because of all the stuff that's happened in the previous episodes, along with Monty,

[01:05:35] with the cat king, all these things that, you know, have just little firecrackers in Edwin

[01:05:42] around who he is. And this seems to be sort of the thing where those firecrackers just

[01:05:48] connect a bit more in Edwin. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like there's just that really

[01:05:52] heartbreaking moment from Simon where he's ignoring, you know, the possibility that he could

[01:05:58] escape with Edwin here and he's saying to him, you know, does it have to be torture for us?

[01:06:02] Is that the be-all and end-all of realising that you're gay, that your entire life is

[01:06:08] going to just be torture? And I think that is what frees him. I think that's what allows

[01:06:15] Edwin to forgive him for what happened and allow him to be freed. And there is the catalyst,

[01:06:21] of course, in the second big appearance of one of the endless in Dead Boy Detectives,

[01:06:27] where we have the appearance of Despair, who would probably hang out quite often in a place

[01:06:32] like Hell, one of the realms of Hell. Despair was a character we didn't see very much of in the

[01:06:38] first season of Sam. We only saw them for I think one or two episodes. But here they are

[01:06:45] looking in on the despair that's being created, looking in through the mirror.

[01:06:50] And I really liked the conversation that we have between Edwin and Despair, where he gets

[01:06:55] transported into their realm and they start talking to Edwin and saying, oh, Edwin, Edwin

[01:07:01] Pain. That's a really pretty name, Pain. I really like that. And then just the experience

[01:07:11] that Despair has feeding off people around who are in despair. It's a really interesting

[01:07:19] manifestation of a character. And that's what all of the Endless are. Death is the manifestation

[01:07:24] of death. The Sandman is the manifestation of dream and despair here is the manifestation of

[01:07:30] that characteristic. I suppose.

[01:07:32] No, absolutely. And I love the fact that we get Despair here where they say,

[01:07:37] well, we're friends now. Go back to your killer and gloat because that's what's feeding them.

[01:07:44] Yeah.

[01:07:44] And I love that when Edwin goes back through the way he came in

[01:07:50] with. And you have the changing conversation that ultimately means that death arrives for Simon.

[01:08:00] You see the mirror crack because there's no longer Despair there. So it's a really good

[01:08:05] moment.

[01:08:05] Really like that. And then Charles finally makes his way to meet up with Edwin and

[01:08:11] takes him back out and gives them the courage to run from the dull headed spider demon,

[01:08:15] I guess we're going to call it.

[01:08:17] Well, with a few sort of supernatural pyrotechnics as well just to slow down the eight legged

[01:08:25] freak doll nightmare spider.

[01:08:28] Yeah. Yeah. He's packed well at Charles. He knew he needed to bring some weaponry with him.

[01:08:33] So he's packed enough to at least put it off at Scarad for enough time to give them

[01:08:38] a bit of a break so they can run.

[01:08:40] And the thing is though, as well before they finally get out, I mean, we see that

[01:08:44] you know, the doll spider is still pursuing them. But on the spiral staircase, it's where

[01:08:52] Edwin needs Charles to know his true feelings for him just in case the doll creature does

[01:08:59] get hold of him and drag him back to hell.

[01:09:02] But in case anything happens and he tells Charles that he loves him and is in love with

[01:09:09] him. And I like actually how Charles comes back here and says, you know, you're my best

[01:09:14] friend. I can't say that I'm in love with you back, but let's get out of here and

[01:09:21] we can work through these feelings once we're out of hell on the staircase.

[01:09:26] But I like that, you know, I like the distinction and that he says as well, you

[01:09:31] know, you're so much my best friend. I came to hell to come and rescue you.

[01:09:36] Exactly. There's nobody else I did that for.

[01:09:37] There's a platonic love in that, at least from that perspective.

[01:09:41] Yeah.

[01:09:41] Because you know, you have Edwin giving out to Charles as well prior to this for risking

[01:09:47] himself coming at him. So I thought this was a really, really excellent moment.

[01:09:53] I think the whole thing was it was really, really good.

[01:09:57] But they do make it back into Crystal's bedroom just in time before the doll spider

[01:10:04] can catch up with them. And I do like the fact that despite all this touching sentiment

[01:10:14] being passed back and forth, you kind of have the nightness raining on the parade a bit here

[01:10:23] because this is where then Edwin realises that a deal has been made by Charles in order

[01:10:30] for Charles to actually come down to rescue him. And she's like,

[01:10:33] well, I must take you boys now to the lost and found effectively of the afterlife.

[01:10:39] Exactly. But I'm not a monster. You can have 30 seconds to say goodbye to everybody.

[01:10:43] Exactly. I was like, is that all Kishner has given you?

[01:10:47] I do wonder, and I know you mentioned it last episode as well, I do wonder

[01:10:52] that ring that Kishner gave her.

[01:10:54] Looks eclosing.

[01:10:56] Yeah. Is that what's giving her a little more empathy?

[01:11:00] Rather than her just being the bureaucracy or the embodiment of the bureaucracy that's going to just

[01:11:06] follow the forums. I wonder if that's what has happened as it has it that particular ring had

[01:11:11] some kind of power over. I'm not sure yet, certainly from the episodes, but it is Nico that

[01:11:16] finds the loophole to make sure that they don't go back to hell. She has to fill out

[01:11:21] another forum because Edwin went to another realm, as did Charles and there is a requirement

[01:11:26] for the forum. I like that this is the resolution to what happened while the

[01:11:32] Night Nurse waited and was constantly, constantly annoyingly questioned by Nico over and over again.

[01:11:39] But the resolution to it is actually Nico found a way out of this.

[01:11:42] Found the loophole to give them more time.

[01:11:44] Exactly. And it's not that she stumbled on it. Actually, it feels more like

[01:11:48] this is what Nico's plan was while they were in hell, that she would do something to help

[01:11:52] the boys out and help them from not going to hell.

[01:11:56] Interestingly as well, Edwin has lost his cat tag as well.

[01:12:01] He has.

[01:12:02] Been taken down to hell.

[01:12:04] Because he went to hell. Yeah. So he's no longer tied here to poor Tencent,

[01:12:08] interestingly. So yes, we'll find out more about that next episode.

[01:12:12] One of the bit that did happen within this Welcome to Dollhouse section is with Crystal

[01:12:17] and David, her going back and having the battle really, I suppose, with her former demon.

[01:12:23] He realises she has her powers back and much more so.

[01:12:26] And he possesses Jenny.

[01:12:28] Yeah.

[01:12:28] And I was like, oh no, don't do this. I like Jenny as she is.

[01:12:31] Yeah.

[01:12:32] And I love that she uses her new powers in order, you know, filled with confidence in

[01:12:39] order not only to get into David's head. I mean, she says, I've just realised this

[01:12:44] place is actually mine.

[01:12:46] Yes.

[01:12:46] And so she's able to take back her memories from him.

[01:12:51] And then also to really lock him down, she buries him in her place.

[01:12:58] Yes.

[01:12:59] You know?

[01:12:59] Yeah.

[01:13:00] Now I actually don't think this is going to work out that well.

[01:13:03] I have this feeling and I haven't seen the last episode, but the tree is going

[01:13:08] to dim or parts of it because Iris, one of her ancestors does say, but don't

[01:13:14] leave him there for too long.

[01:13:15] So we're certainly going to have to revisit the fact that she has buried

[01:13:21] the demon David in this very personal space that is technically crystal.

[01:13:33] Yes.

[01:13:34] Yeah.

[01:13:34] Yes. I think it's just a very simply, I think it's just you are allowed

[01:13:38] to bury your problems for a while, but you can't bury them or they will

[01:13:41] resurface and they will cause a problem.

[01:13:43] So they do say to her, her ancestors do say to her, this is the perfect

[01:13:46] place to put him for the moment, but make sure you come back and deal

[01:13:51] with this in the future as it will cause major trouble.

[01:13:53] And with that, Jenny is dispossessed, but also so is David, which is good.

[01:13:58] So David is like, well, where the hell am I? Who are you?

[01:14:03] What am I doing?

[01:14:04] Yeah.

[01:14:05] He has gotten his own self back.

[01:14:09] Yeah, exactly.

[01:14:10] Which is great.

[01:14:10] Yeah.

[01:14:11] Well done, David.

[01:14:12] Yeah. I did like with Jenny here when we see her in in Crystal's place,

[01:14:17] all possessed and she's singing Belinda Carville's Circle is in the Sand

[01:14:21] in that really creepy way.

[01:14:22] Yeah.

[01:14:23] So that was really good again.

[01:14:24] Really like Jenny this season.

[01:14:26] And there's just that moment when you're watching these,

[01:14:28] when I was watching these scenes that I was going,

[01:14:29] this might be the last we see of Jenny something really bad is going

[01:14:32] to happen to her because of this, because of this mysterious way she's

[01:14:35] singing and because David's possessing her and has no care at all for anybody

[01:14:40] connected to Crystal.

[01:14:42] In fact, he's saying I know you love your friends.

[01:14:45] I'm going to take them out basically, you know, if you don't come back to me.

[01:14:48] So I absolutely lost Jenny was for the chopping block, but thankfully no.

[01:14:51] No. And the other interesting thing, which I think will play a big part,

[01:14:56] Crystal does return her memories.

[01:14:59] Yes, she does.

[01:15:00] Yeah.

[01:15:00] So that will be very intriguing.

[01:15:03] Yeah.

[01:15:03] Yeah. What are those memories?

[01:15:06] David's been taunting her about the fact that she may not want to see those memories.

[01:15:10] We've we've had little glimpses of some of the things that she had done while she was with

[01:15:15] David and while she allowed him to be to be inside.

[01:15:19] So what are those things that they did?

[01:15:22] Yeah.

[01:15:22] Yeah, that'll be really interesting to see.

[01:15:24] I guess that's our final episode.

[01:15:26] So I think that's everything that's happened in the episode.

[01:15:28] Yeah, I think it's case closed.

[01:15:31] Any notes at all from this episode?

[01:15:34] Just the only note was it's great to see despair in the episode I mentioned,

[01:15:37] obviously having a member of the Endless come over and tie it in so tightly with

[01:15:41] Sandman was great in the first episode where we had death.

[01:15:44] But here we have Donna Preston coming back playing despair who played the role within

[01:15:49] Sandman. Also, for those of you who listen to our Good Omens coverage for season two of Good

[01:15:54] Omens, Donna Preston was in there as one of the customers in the coffee shop who came back

[01:15:57] a couple of times. And we'd mentioned that there was a big focus on her with the camera

[01:16:02] right up with her as a customer. She really stood out in there.

[01:16:05] So it's really cool to have her in another Neil Gaiman show like Good Omens season two

[01:16:10] and now returning to the role of despair. I'm really hopeful that season two of

[01:16:15] Sandman is going to feature much more of those characters playing up against each other,

[01:16:20] the Endless playing up against each other.

[01:16:21] So we hopefully will see more of despair when season two eventually rolls around in Sandman.

[01:16:26] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:16:27] So John, what did you think overall of this episode of Dead Boy Detectives?

[01:16:31] Really, really like this. I'd give it five kitty lives out of five.

[01:16:39] No, I just thought going to hell, it's really kind of released a lot of the

[01:16:44] conversations that have been happening sporadically or unfinished throughout the

[01:16:51] series so far between Charles and Edwin. And I just really like that even just with

[01:17:00] the flashbacks to Edwin and Charles's relationship as Charles dies, but also seeing then Simon as

[01:17:10] Edwin's tormentor back in 1916 when he died and did the curse. I just loved the opening

[01:17:20] with the beating of The Cat King by Esther so good and that she's kind of found a little

[01:17:28] nugget that she can pursue that's even better than Teeth Face. And then I think also with

[01:17:37] the continuing of Crystal's journey here, and it was nice to see David being released,

[01:17:42] have that demon dispossessed from him as well as Jenny. So I'm hoping Jenny

[01:17:49] is still there and in fine fettle.

[01:17:51] Yeah, she seemed okay just a little put upon when we saw her after everything that happened.

[01:17:57] So yeah, really enjoyed this episode.

[01:17:59] Yeah, I'd say far and away the best episode of The Dead Boy Detective this season,

[01:18:03] really enjoyed it. I think as I said before, the only tale that I've read in the Sandman

[01:18:08] stories of Edwin and Charles is the tale of the two of them meeting for the first time

[01:18:12] as Charles dies and Edwin reveals that he's been a ghost who's keeping him company during

[01:18:17] his death. So I think they told it quite well here. It had to be different because it

[01:18:22] wasn't as tied into the Sandman as I was expecting, but there's still an opportunity

[01:18:27] there to tie it back into the Sandman as to why death isn't chasing the two of them as much as

[01:18:32] you would expect for an entity that can appear wherever she wants to appear across the planet.

[01:18:38] So there is still a possibility, but I thought it was done really well. The visit to hell or

[01:18:42] the personal hell, let's say of Edwin I thought was really well handled. Seeing the spare

[01:18:46] back was fantastic. And yeah, lots of other good interactions between these characters once

[01:18:51] again. This is definitely my favourite episode and it's set up finale of the season that I'm

[01:18:55] looking forward to. Yeah, absolutely. Let us get on to our feedback of these two episodes.

[01:19:02] Our fellow dreamers. Yeah. First up on episode six, we got some Facebook feedback from Dr Bob

[01:19:08] Phillips. Yeah, Dr Bob Phillips says ace, it really can't be anything else, can it? But

[01:19:13] Charles is ace, isn't he? Patch jacket, violent sports bat and the Brill exclamation,

[01:19:19] I knew game and was a massive Doctor Who fanboy thought it might be coincidence, but it can't be

[01:19:24] also starting to fall for the cat king. He might be a cougar, but he's a little

[01:19:28] kitty when it comes to Edwin. Yeah, just kind of hoping that you'd be the one that he's

[01:19:34] he's he's like a little kitty, not a cougar. Absolutely. Just dangle a ball of wool over him

[01:19:40] and he turns into a soft little kitty. That's exactly exactly. But at least in episode seven,

[01:19:45] we saw that he has claws as well. As for the comment from Dr Bob Phillips, Dr Bob,

[01:19:51] I'm such a big Doctor Who fan as well, as you know, especially this weekend watching

[01:19:56] the new episodes with shooting out was as Doctor Who absolutely loved them really good,

[01:20:00] but I miss I completely missed the first time I was reading it and what who you were

[01:20:04] connecting Charles with being. But of course, ace, who is the companion to the doctor in the

[01:20:09] 80s, I can really see what you mean that there is some connection there with Charles that

[01:20:14] maybe Neil Gaiman or one of the writers within the show did take some inspiration from

[01:20:19] the character of a since Charles is from the late 80s early 90s. So I could see that they

[01:20:23] could have taken some inspiration for the character from from ace in in Doctor Who very

[01:20:28] good. Dr Bob also on episode seven, Dr Bob says to rescue from hell the outlawyering

[01:20:34] of an administrator ancestry and girl power. What a way to set up the final moments for

[01:20:39] our death crossed loves. Excellent. Yeah, excellent Dr Bob. That is a great way to set

[01:20:45] up the finale. It is it really is. Yeah, I'm looking forward to episode eight. Yeah.

[01:20:50] Yeah. Thanks, Dr Bob. Heather Wallace says the song playing when Charles and

[01:20:54] Edwin first meet is under the Milky Way by Aussie band The Church released in 1988.

[01:21:01] I've always loved it. The scene of Charles and Edwin meeting was beautiful,

[01:21:06] sweet and says everything you need to know about their friendship.

[01:21:10] Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it was really good. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know,

[01:21:14] as we say that is the issue in The Sandman. But I think you can see why some other writer

[01:21:18] would look at that and go, oh, I can tell a really good story about Edwin and Charles from

[01:21:22] here about how their relationship went on afterwards. So you're absolutely right. Written

[01:21:26] by Neil Gaiman in the comics and somebody else took inspiration. Definitely. And other

[01:21:32] writers took inspiration and wrote other comics off the back of that meeting of the two characters.

[01:21:36] Yeah, definitely for sure. Thanks, Heather. Thanks, Heather.

[01:21:39] Lara Willie-Shrinks says this was the best episode so far from the bloody matchup of

[01:21:44] Esther versus the cat king to Crystal versus David to the boys versus Dante's Inferno.

[01:21:48] Nice touch with the actual drawing of the seven circles of hell in Edwin's notebook.

[01:21:52] I was hoping for a good Omen style cubicle labyrinth office version of hell, but this

[01:21:57] hell looks much more like a video from the band Tool. What's with all the baby doll heads,

[01:22:02] Edwin? Who knew Blinda Carlisle could sound oh so ominous? I'm so glad that we more or less got

[01:22:08] the boys origin story from the comics. It was really well done. I also like that

[01:22:12] Edwin's confession to Charles was met with such kindness and also so much honesty. I'm

[01:22:17] rooting for them, whether as best mates or something more. And when I saw that being

[01:22:21] standing in the Hall of Mirrors, I literally squealed with delight to get another guest

[01:22:26] appearance from the Endless in the appearance of Despair, hoping to see one more sibling in

[01:22:31] the finale. Who could it be in the finale? Desire? Yeah, or maybe they fall asleep and

[01:22:38] Sandman himself comes in giving them the endless dream. Yeah, yeah, you never know.

[01:22:46] I'm really happy that we've gotten both Despair and Death of the Show and I'm

[01:22:53] really looking forward to seeing more in the Sandman of the characters. I'm not sure I'd push

[01:22:58] for another member of the Endless. They're always great to see, of course, but I don't know

[01:23:03] whether I'd push for a third in this season. I want the boys to have their big ending on

[01:23:07] their own. Yeah, and I think like yourself, Laura, the kindness of Edwin's confession by

[01:23:15] Charles was just really, really good. I just thought it was so well done.

[01:23:23] Like you, I just loved all these matchups. I should say, Esther versus the Cat King to open

[01:23:29] on a bang. Crystal and David and of course seeing the boys in Hell dealing with the

[01:23:39] the doll spider and Despair and meeting, you know, your tormentor or what you thought was

[01:23:46] your tormentor in Simon really, really good. Yeah. And you asked where they got the doll

[01:23:52] headed spider from. I think they got it from John's nightmares. That's where they took the

[01:23:56] doll headed spider from. And when the head spin as well, it's like ventriloquist dummy

[01:24:05] horrors as well. Even Chucky. Like it's a special place with Chucky that just, like I love it, but

[01:24:12] it really gets me. Absolutely. Possessed dolls. Never enjoyable to see. Great stuff. Thanks,

[01:24:20] Laura. Yeah, thanks, Laura. Awesome Kids says, it was good. They really should just make

[01:24:26] Supernatural as part of the Sandman Hellblazer Vertigo universe. I do think they missed a

[01:24:32] step, not including desire along with despair. The King of Cats is a perfect minion for desire.

[01:24:38] I hope this continues. Thanks so much, Orson. Yeah, that's a great point around old Cat King.

[01:24:46] Through my guess and over endless coming through the Cat King. Yeah,

[01:24:51] desire coming in and just petting his head as tickling his belly. Yeah,

[01:24:55] as he rolls on the floor at their feet. Yeah, possibly reinstating his nine lives if

[01:25:00] Esther goes a little too close to getting rid of all of them. That could be it. That could be it.

[01:25:07] It's really interesting. I think we mentioned it on the podcast. I just can never remember,

[01:25:11] but Eric Kripke, who was the creator of The Boys and also the creator of Supernatural,

[01:25:16] mentioned many, many occasions that he took loads of inspiration from the Sandman when

[01:25:20] he was creating the characters and the concepts for Supernatural. It started out with

[01:25:24] a ghost show with demons, that kind of stuff. But you get the feeling at times with

[01:25:28] Eric Kripke that he flipped through to chapter 15 of Sandman and went,

[01:25:33] I'll create my version of that character in my show. So it's because Eric Kripke took

[01:25:39] so much inspiration from the Sandman that I just almost feel part of the universe as well.

[01:25:43] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, totally see it. Great stuff. Thanks, Orson.

[01:25:46] Thanks, Orson. We have an email in from Coffee and Vodka on episodes six and seven

[01:25:50] as well. He says, Greetings fellow hellbound defenders. How weird is that

[01:25:54] Crystal's generational power source is a direct copy of Echo's from the Marvel show we talked

[01:26:00] about as if to underline it playing the latter show theme at the end of episode seven was perfect.

[01:26:06] Yeah, the show theme for Echo was Burning by the AAS, which is what plays at the end of

[01:26:11] episode seven. So a really good catch there, Coffee Vodka. Yeah, definitely. It's such a great

[01:26:15] tune as well. It really is. Yeah, absolutely. Coffee Vodka says, and what is there to say

[01:26:20] when every performance by everyone is a simultaneous standout and the music and effects are top notch,

[01:26:25] making a couple of hours pass like 30 minutes. Crystal's table turning on David was great.

[01:26:30] I can't see Jenny renting a room to any one of that interesting a character again. Wonderful

[01:26:35] to see Night Nurse again as well to see Charles and Edwin's elephant in the room recognised.

[01:26:40] And the biggest question I've been left with is what's up with that ring? Five baby doll

[01:26:45] spiders, shroom consumed conjurers and rings of ponder out of five piece and take care of

[01:26:51] coffee and vodka. Excellent stuff. Thanks, coffee and vodka. I see you shortened it to

[01:26:57] NN for Night Nurse. That's exactly how I've been doing it in my notes. And also,

[01:27:03] as I was reading it, as Derek was saying out loud, I almost went nine inch nails.

[01:27:08] Of course. Yeah, of course. NIN. Yeah, great stuff, Coffee Vodka. Yeah, same question

[01:27:14] as you have. What is up with that ring? Is it just making the Night Nurse easier to deal with?

[01:27:19] Is it taking away the bureaucracy from her brain? That's the bureaucracy ring, maybe or

[01:27:24] the anti-bureaucracy ring. I might need to take a couple of those to work with you next

[01:27:27] time you're in the office, John. I think I might have to actually.

[01:27:31] Great stuff. Thanks everybody for your feedback. Great to have you on board.

[01:27:35] And remember one final episode to go. We'd love to get your thoughts on the Dead Boy

[01:27:39] Detectives season one, hopefully email us to feedback at TV podcast industries dot com or

[01:27:44] pop on over to our Facebook group at Facebook dot com slash groups slash TV podcast industries.

[01:27:49] The spoiler post up there for the eighth episode. Leave your thoughts on the entire series there

[01:27:52] if you haven't had a chance to leave them there so far. Yes. Thanks so much for joining

[01:27:57] us fellow dreamers. Of course, we will be back next time with our discussion of the finale

[01:28:03] of Dead Boy Detectives episode eight, the case of the hungry snake.

[01:28:11] Well, we know who the hungry snake is. It's under exercise.

[01:28:13] Right. We certainly do. I guess it'll all come to a head there.

[01:28:18] We should probably say we are going away for the next week and a half.

[01:28:22] These episodes normally come out on a Wednesday, but we are going to be away

[01:28:25] for a week and a half. So if we get the chance to record the finale before we go,

[01:28:28] then it will be out next Wednesday. If we don't get the chance to record

[01:28:32] the maybe a little delay, there may be a bit of a delay. And I actually don't know when we

[01:28:35] will be able to record it if we don't get it done.

[01:28:38] Well, that means we've got to get it done. Yes.

[01:28:41] Yeah, that's upset. So but with that, thanks so much for joining us. We will be back

[01:28:46] with the dead boy detectives next time.

[01:28:48] Yep. Please stay subscribed fellow dreamers to the podcast so you can join us for our

[01:28:54] episode eight take. And if you enjoy the podcast, please share the podcast with your

[01:28:59] friends because sharing the podcast is sharing the love.

[01:29:03] Yes, please stay subscribed fellow dreamers. And of course, until our episode eight finale

[01:29:09] discussion. Keep watching. Keep listening. And of course, keep dreaming.

[01:29:13] Bye.