aunt_zelda | The Magnus Archives: the rest of Season 1

Episodes 21-the S1 finale and S1 Q&A.

Copied/expanded on from my twitter liveblogging on episodes.

Spoilers below the cut:

Freefall: This upset me. I love flying and the open sky and connect it to feelings of my grandfather, who passed away last year. I will not be listening to this episode again. Too sad, both the story and the personal stuff.
What a cliffhanger at the end though!

Colony:
1) I love Martin so much I will protect him with my life
2) This episode was so disgusting and upset my trypophobia
3) Martin is now sleeping at the Institute. I’m sure this will be important for fanfic purposes later.

Martin: I like spiders! Big ones at least, you know the ones that you can see some fur on? I think they’re quite cute …
Me: I love you.

Schwartzwald: This is straight up the Statement of Randolph Carter. Like not exactly but like … this is a fanfic reinvention and I ADORE it so much!
(Again with the spooooky Arabic books though :/ not cool. Like I know spoooooky Arabic books are a staple of the genre due to Lovecraft, and I know he did far worse and far more racist things, but that’s still … not great. I swear I though they were gonna mention Abdul Alhazred for a sec in this episode. That’s not a good thing.)

Also lol Martin showing up in his underwear midway through recording.

Strange Music: Oh wow this one was super good! It’s got a lot: a young woman grieving her grandfather (wow Mr. Sims, hit me personally in the soul), SCARY CLOWN DOLL BAD, circus mythology, and the suggestion that the Institute is stealing things.

Elias sounds like a shady bitch.

Also the first time we hear Sasha’s voice! She sounds sweet. Why is Jon such an acerbic dick when he’s got such sweet employees?

Growing Dark: This is pretty good, another one that’s more in service to the ongoing narrative than anything. Again, breaking bulbs, and oppressive darkness. This show focuses on city horror and so people in it are profoundly horrified by ~darkness~ Meanwhile here I am, having grown up in the woods, being like “… y'all would not survive a long winter.”

Also … Jon, your predecessor was clearly murdered by something eldritch. Why didn’t Elias warn you? That’s uhhhhhh probably very important.

Me, every time the show mentions “witches”: … tread carefully. *knife emoji*

… some context. There is One English Man I trust to write about witches and that is the late great Sir Terry Pratchett. There is a lot of very bad and misogynistic history involved with the concept of witches, and the depiction of them in stories.

I’m trying my best to avoid spoilers and art but from what I’ve seen, there doesn’t seem to be a unified canon look for Jon other than “tired.” Rumpled Sweater Man Badly Needs a Nap, more at 11.
I’m choosing to imagine Martin as an extremely cheerful goth, possibly with hints of pastel goth, because fuck it, it’s an auditory medium I can do what I want with my brain. (When he walks in on Jon with no trousers, Martin’s underwear has little bats printed on it.)

A Distortion: I love Sasha so much. And wow this one is quite intriguing. That visual of the thing reaching in through her arm to pull out the worm was … eughghghghgh.
Also, if there’s these eldritch beings wandering around and some want to “help” … yikes.
Does Jon feel a shred of guilt that his callous dismissiveness and acerbic ways have caused not one but TWO employees to think that in order to get him to believe them, they have to pursue extremely dangerous eldritch beings by themselves, without warning anyone else, unarmed?!
Like jesus, Jon, your employees look up to you and apparently you come off as a massive git who wouldn’t take them seriously unless they endangered their lives.
And like this is England! So none of them can have guns, tasers, or even pepper spray!!! Jeez, Sasha didn’t even bring a heavy flashlight on her confrontation. She’s braver than any US Marine.

A Sturdy Lock: So there is definitely *something* that preys on the lonely. This is very personally disturbing to me, as someone who likes to be alone quite a lot. It’s a great concept though, especially as those it preys on … don’t have a support network to notice or care.
It troubles me that Jon isn’t making these connections. It’s his literal job to make these connections and he’s not noting similarities between circumstances.

Skintight: the minute she mentioned the sound person was “very short” I knew something was Wrong. Sound people are almost always super tall dudes with gangly arms to hold the boom pole.
Jon continues to come off as an enormous bag of dicks, especially towards women.
I’m unclear if the skin-peeling Thing is the same as the meat-based Thing. They could be the same Thing or two different Things?
Either way, VERY nasty. I’ve worked in woodshops, staple guns to flesh are … not pretty or pleasant. That was a great and very unsettling detail.

… is he meant to not be good at his job
… is that the point
… is the point that he’s meant to be bad at his job because finding out more things is Dangerous
… maybe Elias isn’t a shady bitch at all maybe he’s doing this for a reason.

Cheating Death: ooooooh this one was fantastic! Gross, haunting, mythic, perfection. Wonder who else is out there and if we’ll meet them.

Killing Floor: this one really unsettled me. It was so gross and scary. Another one to validate my vegetarianism. Of all the eldritch Things being ominously hinted at I think the meat-based one scares me the most.
A lot of the eldritch Things have had something to do with mysterious doors that later vanish. I thought it was just one but no, several of them have done that in statements.
This one was one of the scarier for me just from the sheer details and implications. Describe the episode and it’s not that creepy, listen, and … well I’m still feeling grossed out.
The candy crush ads only add to the horror.

First Hunt: WHOOAAAAAHHHHHHHH
NEW FAVORITE?!
NEW FAVORITE!!!!!!!
It’s got everything! Hunter becomes hunted! Critique of gun/violence fetishization by men! *dismissive voice* America! A super hot werewolf! A Jacobean revenge tragedy reference! AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Honestly I’m thisclose to tweeting voidmerch suggesting a “Hot Eldritch Werewolf” shirt. ‘cause good lord. Wow. What an EPISODE.

Hive: This was super gross and very very good. I got itchy driving home listening to it. Unpleasant in a good way. Also great voice work by Mr. Sims here.
Sadly we don’t learn much but at least I know it’s not doing the ~eeeevil witches~ thing.

Boatswain’s Call: wtf was this even. Good spooky little story that leaves me with more questions than answers. What did they feed? What was that? The Lonely one? Something else?

Anatomy Class: while this one was super creepy and a great thing to listen to, great building tension … idk like I found it weirdly sweet from another angle? They just wanted to know how to make their bodies *properly*, stop judging them for being a bit odd about it? Some people are tactile learners ok! We all have different ways of learning, it’s not all auditory or visual.

Also Jon continues to be absolute garbage at his job. First refusing to correct errors on past statements, getting snappy at Tim for pointing out he’s messing up & being sloppy, & having the general attitude of “if it’s not worm-related, it’s probably fake, despite all evidence!”

List of people Jon doesn’t believe:
- fellow academics
- paranormal investigators
- “hysterical” women
- people who admit to a family history of mental issues (find me a family that doesn’t have that)
- people who admit to taking drugs ever (statistically that’s most people)
- anyone, really, who isn’t talking about Worm Woman or Böök from Scandinavia Man

Old Passage: delighted so many elements are coming together! Gerard! The booooooks! That architect! Also we have a number for the Things: thirteen. Have we heard statements about all of them yet? I’m not sure. Some seem to overlap.
Burning. Meat. Bones? (Is the bone thing and the meat thing different?) swallowing sky. Loneliness. Darkness. The hot werewolf. Worm woman. Disease?

Taken Ill: this was super gross and sad but not very bombastic. How did her uncle know what to do? What was up with the old man and the woman with the scar? Brass popped up again … relevant?
Again Jon Sims is afraid of very old people and very thin people.
So there’s a hypnotic table and a spider lighter. Ok.
Also one of my favorite tropes, Those Two Guys.

Burnt Offering: I know this is spooky and sad but the “horror” of being a whole HOUR away from civilization just made me laugh. The UK is so tiny. I grew up in rural New England and went on a lot of hikes as a kid. An hour is nothing. An hour wandering the woods you could still be in many of my old friends’ backyards tbh.

Awwww despite being interrogated by an angry Jon, Martin kindly tells him to get some sleep. You deserve better, Martin.

Gertrude wtf. The more I hear of her the worse things sound. Elias wtf are you hiding.

Lost and Found: This one was just sad. This sad gay man lost his husband to some eldritch abomination that lives in a vase.
As someone who feels attached to things, and worries about being gaslit, this one hit me a more than a little personally.
Again this “Michaelo Saleza” person. … is he the same Michael as the Helpful Slender Man? Or a different one?

I’m delighted that Martin is the type of goth who insists spiders are important to the ecosystem, despite all that’s happened.

Infestation: GROSSSSSSSSSS
I wish they’d adjusted the sound levels a bit on this one, the LOUD SCREAMING in my car confines on the drive home tonight was … really unpleasant.
Jon is desperate not to become a mystery, auuuuw.
Elias remains a VERY SHADY BITCH.
I’m delighted Martin finally took Jon to task for his dismissive nastiness in the recordings. That was really grating on me this season. It’s a relief to get that out in the open.
Very troubling that all the recordings are the Real Incidents. Eughghghghghh. Great reveal!
Tim is high as fuck, and I think he took his shirt off? I headcanon Tim as The Hot One, he’s got that attitude.
“low-fi charm” oh Martin honey, you got it bad. And you deserve better.
OH NO SASHA

Human Remains: That is NOT Sasha and I have big problems with that I’ll get into later.
Elias isn’t just a shady bitch I think he straight up murdered Gertrude for learning too much.
3 shots to the chest, in the UK? Unsettling.
Jon snapping at traumatized Martin is upsetting.

As creepy as the Fake Sasha Eldritch Thing is, all I was thinking of was the Jib Janeen jokes from Sparks Nevada. Like the obvious imposter the team for some reason can’t notice.
Love this show but it’s not a great look when all your female characters are dead or disappeared.
Like … I really love this show but I don’t think they thought about the optics of having the only main woman on the cast possibly murdered at the end of S1. We end the season with Sasha missing, Jane the ongoing female antagonist burned up, and Gertrude confirmed dead. It’s a tiny cast but as it stands, all four recurring main cast men are alive and well (some suffering gross wounds but still) and the only women are dead, or missing presumed dead.

S1 Q&A:
- I really wish this was longer.
- I feel bad for saying his voice sounded unnatural early on.
- “Earl BigMac” ahahahahaha omg
- Lol he was inspired by creepypasta and … literally makes the sound of the worms with creepy pasta.

… WAIT A MINUTE
THE MECHANISMS
OH OH MY GOD
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh my god I thought he sounded vaguely familiar and I chalked it up to like whatever I watched a lot of UK crime shows as a teen. He narrates like the entirety of Ulysses Dies at Dawn!
*screaming about this revelation instead*