Episode Commentary (Chapter 28)

Heavy spoilers follow below for the episode in question!

0:00

My brother and I grew up with an ancient US Civil War toy fort and two sets of soldiers that had belonged to my dad when he was a kid.

We had absolutely no idea who was whom, or any of the historical context - we just knew that the goodies would have to defend the fort against the baddies.

With enough old cowboy and war movies under our belts, the ebb and flow of siege sequences and heroic defences was very familiar to us, and we played it out over and over with minimal variations (usually the goodies would release a toy cow stampede out to defeat the baddies).

So the ‘last desperate stand’ is something I’m very fond of, in other words, and it seemed like we had a great opportunity to stretch ourselves by having a great big siege in our show as the season’s dramatic climax.

The problem is that while there have been tons of cinematic siege sequences, the obvious frame of reference for most people online these days - for good reason - is going to be Helm’s Deep from Lord of the Rings.

So a frantic instruction scrawled in the scripts repeatedly was ‘try not to make this part too Helm’s Deep-y.’

This also meant we absolutely could not have the siege take place in the rain, as that would feel like a Helm’s Deep homage - which was a huge pity, because rain would be absolutely brilliant for a big audio action sequence like this, when you’re cutting back and forth from location to location and you want to be able to give a quick sense of whether we’re inside, outside, etc.

So as a little inside joke, we have atmospheric pouring rain at the beginning of the episode which then helpfully clears up by the time of the actual siege.

5:11

Steven and Mark Anzalone - brothers and creators of the Maeltopia horror podcast - play Brother Flicker and Brother Fade here, which we’re hugely grateful to them for!

Having a pair of brothers was basically a whim. I realised we needed a minor character to pop up at the Paraclete’s Gulch to deliver exposition, and given that this episode is mostly about Faulkner going a bit Henry V, having a bumbling, officious pair of Shakespearean watchmen-types seemed like a fun idea.

5:50

Since I started working on the sound design I’ve struggled with gun sounds and particularly how much reality we’re allowed to stretch by having loud *gun cocks* noises at every turn so the audience knows there’s a gun in the room.

So this bit is just a joke at my own expense.

7:00

In general, I feel like I’ve become a bit of an evangelist for audio-drama as a medium where almost anything is possible with prior set-up (and a medium where trying to execute anything ambitious without that prior set-up is likely to be a disaster).

This whole episode is testing that theory pretty hard: in these early scenes we hear the clang of the iron window shutters, we understand that there’s an upper floor with a row of windows overlooking a big mechanical metal door, and we know that there are metal walkways and staircases further down in the lower caverns of the Gulch, instead of stone floors.

Which means - in theory! - that the geography and choreography of the later action scenes should be relatively easy to follow, as we’ve already established the sounds we’ll be hearing later on which will ground us in a particular location or room.

We’ll see!

8:44

In narrative terms, this episode is also mostly just us, with weary satisfaction, setting off the punchlines to set-ups that occurred right at the start of the season, most obviously with Shrue. One relatively minor one here: we learn what happened to the people who were being victimised by Mercer and Gage all those episodes ago.

We also have a lot of character predictions from earlier in the season proven right, mostly by Carpenter - the roads were muddy enough to hold up Mercer and Gage, and Mason did have a plan.

14:33

Carpenter’s decision to play a non-combat role here is in-character (I think, I hope) given her journey this season, but there’s also a recurring acknowledgement throughout the ep that she’s basically strayed back into Faulkner’s story to help him perform it; she needs to remain on the sidelines, because he needs to play out the central role himself.

And so we keep seeing her overstepping, and Faulkner chafing at that, before she retreats back into the support role.

And we also get Mercer - who would not be able to contemplate someone like her parallel protagonist making the decision not to take charge - fixating slightly on the idea that Carpenter must *really* be the leader of the disciples.

15:40

I also wanted us to keep coming back to the suggestion that Faulkner is stage-managing his own heroism - he’s got his speeches already prepared, he’s dictated the course of history should they lose. We are watching Faulkner become Henry V, but (appropriately given the character of Henry V), we’re also watching Faulkner act out that transformation for his disciples in the knowledge that it’ll assure his legacy.

There is something more cynical happening under the surface.

Which, of course, is what makes him susceptible to Thurrocks’ offer later on.

15:50

It does make sense that Gage might repeat the same tune on the flute that they’ve been practicing - which is meant to be an old song of the Parish - to get the attention of the Trawler-man’s disciples. But it’s also very much a ‘hey, Jon and Muna, you’ve over-ambitiously put too much emphasis on music while relying only on stock SFX libraries’ moment.

17:54

I was thinking specifically of The Green Knight here by having Carpenter’s abandoned quest item be miraculously returned to her.

22:32

I have no idea which performer is my favourite in this ep, but outside of the two big emotional moments between Carpenter and Faulkner, I really think everyone deserves massive credit for delivering a ton of functional dialogue from scene to scene.

The battle sequence is only possible by having the characters outline their plans in advance and communicate the practicalities to each other via walkie-talkie (so we know what’s happening), so there’s a lot of dialogue which is really just description which needs to be delivered as if it’s urgent and vital.

It’s not fun to perform, but everyone does a great job with it!

23:36

Between this episode and So Long, Good Luck (new ep coming soon!) I’ve realised that I really enjoy walkie-talkie / radio scenes.

You can allow for these pregnant long silences and still moments which add to the tension or thoughtfulness of the scene without leaving the audience wondering ‘what are the characters doing?’ or 'has the audio switched off?' The characters are waiting, the same as us.

30:00

This actually isn’t the longest episode of The Silt Verses - Chapter 1 and Chapter 4 are both a few minutes longer - but it’s by far the most ambitious (and completely monologue-free for once), and most of that ambition sits within this 15-minute sequence from the 30-minute mark to the 45-minute mark: can we give the believable sense of a big, chaotic battle, with only a few VAs, without it descending into gunfire-heavy chaos?

Cutting back and forth between Carpenter and Faulkner and mostly keeping the action out-of-focus was quite key to that - not trying to show *too* much at once.

29:42

Not stealing from Helm’s Deep here - “Good luck, everybody” is the last pre-massacre line from the climax of Blackadder Goes Forth, which I only realised in retrospect.

30:18

Carpenter waiting with the wounded and children in the caves listening to the sounds of battle from above probably *is* the most Helm’s Deepy we get.

But I don’t think there’s really any good way around that. You didn’t invent caves, Peter Jackson. Grow up.

31:50

I’ve written before here that I’ve really enjoyed starting to work on the sound design myself, and this moment is one good reason why - Méabh had a very minor stumble on this particular line and then delivered a second take immediately like the pro she is.

I was about to cut the repetition, and then I thought, ‘oh, what if an explosion goes off overhead and it makes her pause?’

And that breaks up the flow of the expository dialogue and makes the scene feel more natural and more driven by the background tension. It’s great to have access to these accidental opportunities for grace.

33:14

Very thrilled that we get away with using a ludicrously goofy ‘LOOK OUT!’ stock voice effect here by cutting it off halfway through and following it up with a big explosion.

33:51

We probably have a little too much in-focus action in this specific scene, and the cracks start to show (I don’t think we can convincingly portray Brother Flicker actually moving or firing as he prays), but I do like the head explosion at the end.

35:00

This little dialogue-free section with the flamethrower wasn’t in the original script, but we wanted to give the impression that the attackers have the early advantage (and that Mercer and Gage aren’t just heedlessly running into the trap). But again, we didn’t want to resort to lots of shouting and gunfire that might become a meaningless cacophony.

The flamethrower is actually a brilliant tool at the audio-drama battle-crafter’s disposal, then, because it gives that sense of movement, power and action while being a relatively pleasant noise to listen to.

36:26

We were mapping out this episode from near the very beginning of the writing process and we were actually really stuck on the question of ‘how do we get from the start of the battle to the end of the battle?’ for a while.

Again, it can’t just be screaming and shooting, and there are some things you just can’t choreograph in audio only.

And finally it clicked - hey, Faulkner has been in a traumatic experience down in a cave where echoes were used to confuse and entrap victims! He’s in a cave again! Phew.

40:23

Hey, it’s our logo!

42:31

I’m just so happy that we got to do a Chekhov’s Jellyfish. I can retire happy in the knowledge that we got to introduce a giant monstrous man’o’war, with no plan at all behind it, and then we figured out a way to have it pay off 12 episodes later. That just feels good.

And even that the name “man’o’war” would turn out to be thematically appropriate to Faulkner proving himself in battle? Beautiful, random chance.

48:33

A couple extra call-backs: Thurrocks tried to nudge Faulkner to show off the Wither Mark back in her first appearance, while Mason was dwelling on the topic of ‘change or die’ back at the start of Season 2.

52:51

And finally, just a huge shout-out to Jamie Stewart, who absolutely eats this entire scene up. He devours it.