Eskew by Episode: 12, 13

In which we offer commentary, anecdotes & random thoughts on every episode of I Am In Eskew.

Follow along with us as we go!

Episode 12: Alliance

In Europe, Riyo tracks down the professor responsible for the deaths at Banwell - and uncovers more than she bargained for.

The City and the Stars

I think the dream sequence at the beginning of this episode probably hints at a stronger relationship between Riyo and Eskew than we eventually commit to - we almost suggest the idea that the city could end up possessing her or transforming her into some kind of blossoming, empowered state. Which again feels like a bit of a parallel with what happens to the main character in Annihilation, and I think I had that in mind at this point.

We don’t end up going down that road, and I’m glad about it. I think it would have been a really shitty thing to do to the character, to have her individuality altered or encroached upon, when David has got away with remaining (relatively) intact for episode after episode.

It would have felt like a cheat.

Banwell

An extra note on Banwell, which is the artificial village set up by Professor Henley and co to test the notion of literally 'hostile architecture.'

 I got the name 'Banwell' out of a book of Old English and Middle English place names decades ago; it's a real village in Somerset with ancient ruins located nearby.

I've since seen at least one article arguing that it doesn't mean 'poison water' or 'deadly water' after all, but instead the rather less exciting 'river where the beans grow.' I'm choosing to ignore this.

I have a weird fascination with the sheer pragmatic blandness of English place names, the complete lack of poetry in them - 'Hunting ford' for Watford, 'Beard-shaped headland' for Skegness...'River' for Avon, for God's sake . You can picture the tribesfolk sketching out the opportunities and the risks in the simplest terms they could.

Naming a place 'poison water' just sends a thrill up my spine, that warning being delivered down through the centuries like an ancient nuclear waste site warning sign.

I used that name in a few different proto-Eskew stories featuring malevolent villages, so it felt like an appropriate tribute here.

One regret is that we didn't do more with it, perhaps actually sending Riyo out to investigate it. We were playing catch-up with her story so I think we probably rushed through quite a fascinating possibility for storytelling.

Subtext is for cowards

It’s almost hard to comment with any real insight on this episode, because so much of it is editorial already - Professor Henley is a pretty thinly veiled excuse here for me to begin blathering about the horrific potential within architecture - but I will say that writing about this stuff has led me to the video essays of Jacob Heller about spatial horror, which are fantastic.

Definitely check them out.

New York, New York

I genuinely am upset every time I think about the topography of New York or other cities that are overly focused around blocks. So much of it is just straight lines!

You walk to the edge of a grid, then you cross the road and pass onto another grid. It’s hellish, it’s manufactured. Why.

The soldiers piling into the wardrobe

I think one of the very first images I had in my mind when it came to Eskew as an interdimensional space was some kind of military team piling into a bedroom cupboard, like a clown car in inverse, all of these armoured soldier-types charging into a tiny space - and then disappearing.

And then when the cupboard reopens, all of their flak helmets just rattle out onto the floor.

I think it’s probably a Roadside Picnic reference, or a dream I had after reading Roadside Picnic…? Anyway, the connection is there.

Episode 13: Embroidery

An irritating co-worker attempts to befriend David, with unforeseen consequences for them both.

How do you know when you've gone too far?

Don’t get me wrong. I love body horror. And I believe very firmly that talking about body horror as ‘gratuitous’ or ‘excessive’ is, generally, obtuse.

Body horror is there to shock, delight, and provoke us; by its nature, it must be transgressive. It’s there to remind us of the vulnerability and the power within our own anatomies. Its specific purpose is to dissect and rearrange the physical components of ourselves which we rely upon to consider ourselves stable.

The violence is the point, so how can we talk about excess? The excess is the point.

Nevertheless...this is the one episode where I go back and forth a bit about whether I maybe went too far. The ending sequence really makes me grimace.

Orr

So as mentioned in a previous episode commentary, Kenneth is very much a rip of Orr from Catch-22 - down to the annoying mannerisms, and the way he keeps casually repeating a meaningful phrase to the protagonist which the protagonist completely fails to pick up on.(Orr wants Yossarian to join him on a flight so they can fake a crash and escape together, Kenneth wants David to check out Sabine from Accounting, a Eskovian apparition that’s gone haywire.)

Both characters seem to be hapless clowns and inevitable victims, whereas in fact they're quietly making their own plans for escape.

The difference, of course, is that Catch-22 ends with Yossarian having his Eureka moment and rushing out into the ocean to try and escape after Orr, whereas we keep the cameras rolling. David attempts to follow Kenneth into his 'escape tunnel'...and realises that Eskew will not allow either of them to get free.

On burritos

For years I worked just off Tottenham Court Road, in the middle of London - a really crappy gig. And there was a burrito stand close to the office, run by an older married couple and once per week, I’d head there and treat myself to a burrito.

It was always a hellish experience eating it, because burritos are messy as hell and I’m very clumsy, and if you took it back to your desk you’d end up spilling refried beans everywhere in front of everyone.

So instead, whether it was pouring or windy or freezing, I’d camp out on a bench in front of the roaring traffic, enjoying my burrito, as rice dripped down my front.

But they were so delicious, those burritos. And I was always too anxious to ask for an extra scoop of chicken, but I knew that eventually if I just kept things up, they’d come to remember my face and recognise me as a valued customer. If I just came back week after week, I told myself, they’d give that extra scoop to me of their own accord.

Eventually, one icy February morning, they did. They gave me a smile and we exchanged a few words and they gave me an extra scoop.

And then the company I was working at collapsed a week later and I never saw the burrito stand again.

Anyway, the mention in this episode is in solemn tribute to them.

Bad dreams

I actually had the dream that Kenneth speaks about, up to a certain point - a pair of creepy, cheerful Wednesday Addams-esque girls who kept advancing upon me with scissors and thread, chanting at me, ‘Stitch, stitch, stitch. Stitch, stitch, stitch.’

I was never sewn into or transformed into a bedsheet, thankfully.

Recently I played a video game, Wasteland 3, that reminded me of this scene and episode in the strangest way - there’s a faction, the Godfishers, who turn people into kites.

The idea is that this post-apocalyptic religion believes the gods have abandoned the world, fleeing upwards into the sky - so they sew their sacrifices into fleshy kites and send them soaring upwards to try and lure our deities back.

It’s very melancholy and disgustingly tragic. I was really taken by it, especially since the other factions were more the sort of Fallout-esque cartoon novelty concepts you might expect - killer clowns, Reagan worshippers, etc.

On that happy moment before the ending

We give David so little in this podcast. He’s allowed so few moments of agency. That’s why it’s really striking to me, this scene where he understands what’s been happening and he has a brief moment of mad elation and hope.

And Kenneth’s plan may seem crazy, even laughable, but I think the logic holds up. If the city is hallucinatory, but it’s on real, physical land, perhaps you just need to get above or beneath it in order to escape. I’m on board with it.

On the less happy ending after the happy moment

One of the first things I wrote that I was really proud of was a post-apocalyptic story, a kind of send-up of The Road, where there’s this guy blindly crawling around in a network of pitch-black tunnels after the world’s ended. And he carries a broken plastic doll with him, which he treats as his son, and he’s trying desperately to impart as much wisdom to it as he can before he dies, because the crucial thing is that life must carry on, this cannot be an ending.

I had it in mind during this last section, the sense of exhausted cynicism about our prospects, about our compulsive need to reject hopelessness at all costs and how that can make us reject reality.

Elsewhere in this series I think we’re a little more optimistic or at least settled with the notion that human beings will inevitably provide ourselves with a reason to keep going.

But this final scene - which also is a bit of a nod to the desperate hopelessness at the end of I Have No Mouth And Must Scream - is so utterly pessimistic and cynical, which is perhaps why I have the gnawing feeling that it was a bridge too far.

David is granted a return to the status quo only in terms of the most shallow sensations - he can hear the comforting sound of the stress ball again, but Kenneth’s situation has not tangibly improved - but he sees this as a victory, and a sign that some form of compromise with Eskew might be possible.

I think it’s his lowest moment as a human, and there’s probably some stiff competition there.

Next time: Allegra reveals her backstory, and Riyo steps into Eskew.