Ryan undergoes a Clancification, Jess describes the highly volatile world of NA beers, and Damien is anxious to talk beans! LONG LIVE BEANS! Welcome to Whiskey and the Weird, a podcast exploring the British Library Tales of the Weird series! This season, we're bowing in reverence to our eighth book in the collection, ‘Holy Ghosts: Classic Tales of the Ecclesiastical Uncanny’ edited by Fiona Snailham. In this episode, our featured story is: The Parson's Oath by Ellen Price/Ellen Wood/Mrs. Henry Wood.
Bar Talk (our recommendations):
Jessica is watching Red Rooms (2024; dir Pascal Plante); drinking The Best Day Brewing's NA Kolsch.
Damien is watching The Coffee Table (2022; dir. Caye Casas); drinking Nelson’s Green Brier Tennessee Whiskey.
Ryan is reading The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy; drinking Glenlivet Double Oaked.
If you liked this week’s story, watch Mandy (2018; dir. Panos Cosmatos)
Up next: "In The Confessional" by Amelia B Edwards.
Special thank you to Dr Blake Brandes for our Whiskey and the Weird music!
Like, rate, and follow! Check us out @whiskeyandtheweird on Instagram, Threads & Facebook, and at whiskeyandtheweird.com
Ryan: [00:00:00] I won't kill you.
Jess: I won't kill you. That
Damien: line would've landed.
I'm telling you. Yeah.
Jess: Oh God.
Damien: You should have pulled the other girl's head to the side and talked past her shoulder and said, I'm not gonna kill you. I'm
Jess: not gonna kill you. I just wanna clear this up. Yeah. I'm not gonna murder you. In
Damien: case there was any question, I just, you can leave, that's fine.
But I just want you to leave knowing I wouldn't have killed you. You'd have been safe. You'd, you, you'd be alive.
Ryan: Welcome back everybody. I'm Father Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I am regular Jessica Berg
Damien: and I am the Demon Deacon Damien Smith. And together
Ryan: this Trinity is Whiskey In the Weird, the podcast that for the past seven seasons has been delivering you detailed and even occasionally correct analysis of the best spooky stories from times gone by.
Each season, we've prayed that you have been enlightened by our disputations on these themed selections from the British Libraries [00:01:00] Tales of the Weird Series. As you know, we cover one volume of these canonical classics every season. And each episode we provide careful exegesis of one story. Please make sure you read the story before listing.
However, as we always give a full spoiler summary. This season, we turn to a particular testament of terror as we explore holy ghosts, classic tales of the ecclesiastical, uncanny, and now hark. I hear the cathedral bells. Calling us to Vespers, hasten to your Aries. Scoop more incense on the coals and join us in the pews before the last candle.
Flickers out for tonight's reading comes from an all together different lectionary and our master story planner, Jess is here to tell us what it is. [00:02:00]
Jess: Let's go with the Parsons Oath by Mrs. Henry Woods.
Ryan: I swear Mrs. Henry Wood. There she is. However, before we get to that, we've got some bar talk to do.
Jessica. What non-alcoholic beer are you drinking tonight?
Jess: We are continuing our tour of the na beers that are available at my local Wegmans with the best day Brewings Na k, which is another real easy drinker. It's another one that tastes like a kohl wood taste. You know, it's
Ryan: Positive notes to start
Jess: the bar is I understand the na beers and I appreciate that Na beers are really taking off, but you can always tell when you get one where they're like, they're trying really hard to make it specifically taste like something.
And this one just tastes like a K, which I appreciate. I, it's not gonna replace the labat in my fridge [00:03:00] primarily because it costs the same for a six pack as a 12 pack. But like, if I was going somewhere and I wanted to bring a beer that people. Would like and isn't the athletic ones, which I'm not that wowed by.
This is probably what
Ryan: I would, so let me ask you a question, Jess as a recent purveyor of the NA beers. Mm-hmm. Is it like you want it because you want to taste a beer? Or is there another non-alcoholic like standard non-alcoholic beverage that you would just rather have like a Coke
Jess: if it's the you want
Ryan: this because you want a beer?
Jess: Yes. So I think it's probably part of it is that I work from home and so after drink all
Ryan: day, then
Jess: no, mostly I don't have a big separation between working and not working. Right? Mm-hmm. Because I'm essentially on call a lot for my job and I work in the house that I also live in. And so for me it's nice to be like, okay, it's the end [00:04:00] of the day.
I'm done working. I'm gonna like sit at my picnic table and have a beer and just look at my phone for 20 minutes as I transition away from work into something else. Gotcha. And so part of it is I want something that is not like a soda or a bubbly water or something that I would drink during.
You wanna have the
Ryan: End of the day beer you're drinking while the rest of us are driving.
Jess: It's similar to like, like, I like a liquid death if I'm like going somewhere because it's also just I don't want a plastic water bottle.
Like I want something that feels You want more substantial hand. I want hand. I gotcha. I gotcha. And so I think the Na Beers fill that. But it's also there are a lot of na. Spirits and stuff, you can pick up that. Mm-hmm. Some are good, some are unbelievably bad that you can't imagine anyone would ever willingly drink this but we'll try some of those also.
But I also watched a movie that I don't [00:05:00] know how I feel about recommending
Ryan: who,
Jess: I'm
Ryan: on the edge of my seat. Have
Jess: either of you seen red Rooms?
Damien: Not yet.
Jess: Okay. So it came out, I think,
Damien: no,
Jess: it did the film festival circuit, I think in like 2023, but it's listed as a 24 release. It is a Canadian, French Canadian specifically horror thriller directed by Pascal Plant.
It is. The, one of the more disturbing movies that I've ever seen
Ryan: where you don't, that's saying something too,
Jess: but you don't see anything particularly disturbing. And part of, I think the reaction to it is because I've been like trying to find this movie for a while because it's been out and it's been really hard to find.
And the movie is essentially about a model who becomes [00:06:00] obsessed with this like court case. And the guy on trial is accused of filming and distributing like snuff films. And so you nevers really see anything, but it's a murder trial where he's like, mm-hmm murdering these teen girls. But it's really about this model who gets really obsessed with it.
So it's about this like obsession with true crime and what are people's responsibilities to like. If you're consuming this content, if you're really getting into like these cases mm-hmm. Like what, what's going on? What are you doing? But it's really interesting and dark and gets into like the motives behind people who are really into these true crime things and like what they're getting out of it in a way that's like icky, like it's an icky movie to [00:07:00] watch.
Right. And it's also weird to have been looking forward to it and have been like trying to find it, because that's part of the movie too, is people are like looking for how to get access to these like red room snuff tapes and it's just sort of like.
Ryan: I dunno if you, I take it, this is not at your local Blockbuster.
Jess: It's, it is now on shutter, I believe. Oh, boy. So you can now find it. I, or I think I maybe rented it on Amazon or something like that. It is now being distributed, but I don't know if I recommend it. I think it's worth watching if you are inquisitive, but it also makes you question like, why would you wanna watch something like this?
Sure. In a way that is like, rewarding. So I don't know if you want something that's a little bit weird and challenging and French Canadian.
Damien: Eh,
Jess: it's called red rooms.
Ryan: All right.
Jess: Ryan, what are you drinking?
Ryan: Tonight I [00:08:00] have a rather plain scotch whiskey, but that's not to say it's a bad one. This is the Glen Livet Double Oaked edition.
Ooh. I'm not a, I'm not a big. A believer in all the different additions and iterations and finishes that a lot of these distillers are doing. This was a, I think, a Christmas present from someone. It's fine. There's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with regular Glen Livet either. So, I mean, this is what I reached for because it was right there in the cabinet.
it's got a sweetness to it that, that is a little bit more forward than I would normally like in a whiskey. But it's maybe a nice after dinner whiskey. Glen Livet double Oaked edition. As for what I've been reading, I I recently lost a battle a battle that perhaps I've been fighting for a long time, and that is, I can't imagine the battle to not become my father.
Damien: Oh, no. Oh.
Ryan: And I read The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy. You
Damien: Clancy. Oh, [00:09:00] he's Clancy. I did. Oh no, we lost him. Jess Damien. More than that, I loved it. Oh no. That's what happens after you say, I read Tom Clancy. No, that's how, you know,
Ryan: I've never read this before. I thought I had seen the movie, but now I'm really questioning whether I've seen the movie.
Alright, I'm gonna go back and watch it. I have
Jess: recently watched the movie
Ryan: look. The, the book was fabulous. It was tense edge of your seat stuff from start to finish. The man knows how to hold your attention. I was not overwhelmed by technical detail, which is everybody's fear when you hear Tom Clancy mentioned and maybe later books really do get that way.
There is technical detail in it. There is some specificity. But it is in part because of that specificity that you are tense because you then know exactly what can and can't happen in the given situation. So he ratchets up the tension by telling you the technical details [00:10:00] of different pieces of military hardware.
It was a really great read. Perhaps my favorite part of it was when I told my dad that I was reading it, he said now you, you understand, son, that, that was back when the Russians were the bad guys. I said, yes, dad, thank you.
Jess: Thanks dad. I
Ryan: know how to read a historical novel
Damien: also.
Not really the good guys these days, to be honest.
Jess: That's so funny. I know what
Damien: I just like his primary was that I wouldn't get it.
Jess: You. Yeah, yeah. Let me give you some context
Ryan: for
Damien: this, just so you know. Boy.
Ryan: I said this last week. I will say it again for the Hunt for Red October. It's a book that I could recommend easily to just about anyone.
it's a fun read and it deserves all of the accolades that it gets and you don't need to be as afraid of it. As perhaps you are. That's so funny. Damien, what about you? I Clancy I love that.
Damien: I mean, I don't really know how to follow your [00:11:00] classification to be honest. I, I feel like I owe, I owe everyone of a pause.
For the Ryan we once knew is dead Long way, become
Jess: a
Damien: grandfather. Long live Father O'Brien. Rest in peace. Padre's Padre is here. That's really funny. Okay let's see, what am I drinking? I brought home a little bottle of Nelson's Green Briar Distillery classic product there. And I guess it's their.
Tennessee Whiskey, uh, handmade sour Mash, Tennessee Whiskey from Nelson's Green Briar. It's a Nashville distillery. It's one of the oldest in the city. I went to the town of Honky Tonk recently ate myself, filled myself with bologna sandwiches from Robert's Western world. Had a spit kick in good time, you know, to keep our PG rating and really enjoyed it.
, So I traveled to this distillery. Actually had a cocktail while I was in the distillery itself. It was called, there's always whiskey in the Banana [00:12:00] stand. It featured the Reserve Burger. Sure, a little bit of the rye, then a banana, chai syrup, and some orange. And they put a little piece of dried banana in there.
And probably they were playing into the fact that their whiskey is really banana to that. I know often in tasting notes there's an overwrite banana sense. It's like a little sweet, a little floral, but a bit on the saccharin side. I found that with this particular whiskey, it's highly affordable. It's like 35 bucks.
It's a standard bottle if that's your range. So you could find it like next to the bullets and whatnot. If your distributor brings it to you it's a good mix. And whiskey, I would say, I'm not gonna be one that sits there and drinks it up. Not, probably gonna, not pour it over an ice cube alone.
I'll use it as a mixer. Because I, I think it's just got a little too much sweetness and vanilla for me to like, with a nice slice of
Ryan: banana bread perhaps to be
Damien: standalone. Yeah, maybe. Or you know, maybe, maybe saturating it in making like banana bread tiramisu or something. I don't know. Yeah, [00:13:00] it's, it's not bad.
It's got a good classic like old school. Let's go back to that
Ryan: idea for a minute. 'cause I think that's about merit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Damien: Banana bread tear. Masu. You're welcome. Pregnant Jess. She's like, pour some pickle juice on it. Yeah, so that's, so it's not terrible, but I just don't think it's, it's one of my favorites or not one that I would truly recommend to a lot of folks.
There are better whiskeys out there, but it's worth a sample that's green Briar's Tennessee whiskey. So it's their signature party. All of our drinks coming in mid tonight, coming in a little mid, but also to play off the fact that Jessica watched a movie recently that she's not sure about recommendation.
I'll follow that thread as well. Nice. And talk about. The coffee table.
Jess: Ugh, I'm not watching
Damien: Thator. Yeah. It's a Spanish movie came out in 2022 directed by Gaas. Okay. I'm not gonna talk about this movie too much except for the fact that it is, it's available for you to watch. I think it sounded like Tubi or Pluto or one of those, like 3D, it's for
Jess: sure out there.
[00:14:00] Yeah.
Damien: Uh, I don't know anything about this include, gosh, furniture, the possibility of pedophilia and a decapitated baby. And with that might be out. I think we will probably move on to the next segment of today's podcast. It is. There
Jess: were a couple of like horror podcasts that I listened to.
Damien: That talk about it?
Jess: Yes. Like they were just like, oh, we're gonna talk about this movie. And I was like, nah, I don't think I need to listen to
Ryan: this. Here's what happens. Certainly not now, Jess. Here's what happens. Yeah. And
Jess: I don't have a weak stomach. I have a high tolerance for weird stuff. I understand. But at the same time, I didn't, I don't think, I don't understand
Damien: why movies like this get made.
I really don't. It's in the same vein and not as long and grotesque. It's, it's sort of one note. It's a pretty fast movie, but I ate an edible one night. The kids were asleep. I was like, kids, I wanna watch something really weird. I
Jess: turned it on for the kids,
Damien: and I did. And I was like, [00:15:00] why did I do this to myself?
Why did I do this? I'm questioning everything to the world. This is just, this is a blankety blank, blank. Terrible movie, but terrible in the sense that it's just the content. Is not for human consumption. The movie itself pretty well made, all the other elements that weren't absolutely horrific.
Kudos to you. So
Ryan: it's one of those I felt that way about all the sequels to the human caterpillar or human centered caterpillar,
Damien: the hungry little caterpillar that withdrew and ate a and a kiwi and a and a kid banana sandwich. Yeah. No, it's, it's, so Don't look any, don't look it up. Don't look it up.
Don't watch it. Don't you heard, you heard what I had to say about it? Don't look up. Don't watch it. Erase this episode. Bye. Mail
Jess: me $5.
Damien: You're welcome. I saved you. I saved you 90 minutes of pain. No. So that's the coffee table. Okay. 2022 Spanish black comedy. Alright, [00:16:00]
Ryan: moving
Damien: on
Ryan: then to the next segment, our author and
Damien: publication info.
Jessica, you, you and I should do that this whole season. Just talk about movies that nobody should actually watch.
Jess: Yeah. Yeah. Do you ever feel bad about all your life choices? Maybe here's a book
Damien: you should never read. Burn it if you find it. Yep.
Ryan: God. Well, friends believe it or not, our author tonight was not born.
Mrs. Henry Wood.
Damien: What
Ryan: Rather this individual was born Ellen Price on January 17th, 1814 in Worcester, England. Her father was a glove manufacturer and her mother was noted for her imagination. That's all I could find about this lady's mother was that she was an imaginative, I don't know what, that she
Jess: invented the gloves.
Ryan: However, Ellen didn't live with either of them for a while. Instead, she was reared by her paternal grandparents. As a child, she had a lot of illnesses and problems, but perhaps for our purposes, the most [00:17:00] significant of those was a debilitating curvature of the spine, which kept her in bed, and therefore kept her reading and writing.
When she was 22, she met and married Mr. Henry Wood. Oh. He was a successful banker and importer exporter at the time, and he took her away to France. It's the beginning of a beautiful love story there. She bore him, two daughters and three sons. However, after the children were born, Henry's business failed.
The family moved back to England and Ellen took up writing professionally. This time she was successful enough at it that she was able to support her family, which is, which is really remarkable when you think about it. She wrote over 30 novels, most of which were extremely popular. In 1867, she purchased the magazine, the Argosy, and she would serve as its primary editor until her death.
She [00:18:00] enjoyed accolades from Leo Tolstoy and had working relationships with a lot of other literary luminaries, such as Christina Rosetti, all who contributed to the Agasy because of their friendly relationship with Ellen Price. Mrs. Mrs. Henry Wood, she published a lot of her own work in the Agasy as well, most of it anonymously, which I thought was a nice touch.
If you're gonna use, if you're gonna use your own publication. Put your own work out there at least anonymous ways. I do think that
Jess: she was the only anonymous one though, so it's just like you knew I,
Ryan: yeah, maybe
Jess: there's, oh, there's four anonymous stories. I prefer not to think
Ryan: of it. Cynically, Jess.
Jess: Oh, good for you.
Damien: Well, well,
Ryan: According to Scholar, scholar Jennifer Fegley, and I apologize if I mispronounced that name. She worked subtly and astutely to boost women writers undercut the distinction between high and popular culture and undermine rivals. [00:19:00] That sounds fun.
What doesn't sound fun is she died of bronchitis on February the 10th.
Oh god. 1887. Nice segue. You're welcome. The Parsons Oath was first published in Bentley's Missal in March, 1855. This was a literary magazine primarily focused on serialized novels. It published some of the biggest names over its 32 year run, including Charles Dickens, Wilke Collins, Thomas Moore, Edgar Allen Poe, and of course Mrs.
Henry Wood. And that's gonna take us to our summary, which I believe Damien has . I do. Can you believe it? I'm excited. Mrs. Kara Smith,
Damien: are you excited?
That's Mr. Thank you. All right here is, and just under a few minutes, the Parsons oath by your friend of mine, Ellen Price. Ellen Wood, Mrs. Henry Wood, you pick your poison [00:20:00] part one Regina Winter School. Marman Littleford a job below her governing class in intellect, but just right to be a foil in this story receives guests to her classroom at the end of sewing session.
Also, the end of the school day here we're introduced to a crabby Mrs. Hurst and Mrs. Bud. Mary Brown, the sickly teenager, assisting Ms. Winter in her teacherly duties. Know me, servant to the now dead father of the town's clergyman, and the right reverend himself, John Lewis. Oh, and Jane Hugill, whose entire purpose is to open and close the door.
Thanks, Jane.
Jess: Thanks
Damien: Jane. Thanks, Jane. We get a little backstory. Mostly that old Dame Fox was blind in 80 when she finally croaked leaving none other than Miss Winter to take over the teaching duty, even though she didn't think it was the appropriate course of action for her. Largely encouraged by John Lewis, [00:21:00] who as we come to find out along with the entire town, is deeply in love with Regina slash Jenny.
Slash Jen slash Gina. Those are all the nicknames for Regina Winter. Oh oh. Also, also in love with her. The dastardly in green Velvet, George Brassy Brown, the dashing Lord of the real. And again, someone who's deeply in love with this winter, although his approaches to her are less than gentlemanly, even his nickname, has a pretty sus explanation, which I hope we cover in the q and a as to how he got to name to be brassy.
But all in all, this guy's just a stone cold creep. So I'm curious, where is this story gonna take us? We got a clergyman who's in love with the town teacher, and a guy who [00:22:00] fell into his own wealth and standing thanks to his parents who sees something that he wants that doesn't want him back.
Anyway. Along those lines, brassy professes his decision. His decision, mind you to marry Regina.
Jess: Perfect. Great. No notes.
Damien: She says his. She says no in a very mid 19th century way, only to have him persist, only to have her insist only for things to get even more cringey. John Lewis in earshot intervenes to which Regina thanks him by saying, this guy's gonna kill me one day.
If he does, will you give me a good Christian burial? And the vicar says, of course I will. And then they laugh, LOL. And then John says, but seriously, I love you, even though I'm a very ripe 30 years old. Will you marry me? And Regina says, she's below a station. He says, are you nuts? You're way above everything I could ever want to be.
She agrees. And they look to [00:23:00] Mary a few months later. Brassy gets word of this and interrupts Regina's walk home one day while standing near a hedge. He says some really unbecoming things to her, but not so unbecoming that it's blatant. She gets a really creepy feeling. He says, Hey, can you shake my hand?
Re he shakes Regina's hand after confirming the rumor that she's to wed the vicar, and she goes on her merry way soon after Regina has to go to the real, where her assistant, Mary Brown, lives with Brassy. Now, I don't know if they're, if their father daughter or if they're brothers, brothers. I didn't, I thought, I thought maybe they were brothers sister.
But then anyway, so we'll figure out the relationship. Mary Brown lives with Brassy at the Real, she goes to retrieve the scarf for her poor aid and is never seen again. Mary goes looking for her after waiting. For that warming scarf. Only to not find her, but she does see a lurking shadow in the garden of the [00:24:00] estate, and she confronts Brassie who plays dumb.
And so the mystery remains. Part two, seven years have passed Regina. True. The promise at the end of part one is never heard from again. Mary Brown dies 'cause she was sick. Bye Mary. Mrs. Bud dies from being a total B bye, Mrs. Bud. Nomi's husband. What happened to the
Ryan: door holder?
Damien: Yeah. No. We don't know what happened in Jane Harle.
I'm sorry. Or her door still holding that door hug.
Hold on. All right. I had to anyway. Uh, Nomi's husband, by the way, also dead. He was shot by Poachers and John Lewis is now very sick, but at least he's alive. Brassy got arrested for being in cahoots with the poachers who allegedly killed Mr. Nome. But the evidence was a little flimsy, so the case was dismissed.
Upon finding newfound freedom, he sells off the rail and hightails it from a Liverpool port to a destination unknown. He's never heard from again. [00:25:00] Bye brass in this area. Lewis is tossing and turning. One night he's been plagued by nightmares, and again, this night he has a vision where Regina visits him and begs him to uphold his promise to bury her proper.
He wakes up in a cold sweat and yells to know me and says, Hey, Regina's ghost came to me in a dream again and said she's haphazardly interred under a very specific arrangement of beans and vegetables. I'm dead serious when I say that there were two entire pages lining exact about these beans, about the layout of the beans, cabbages, and vegetables.
Which
Jess: is it? These beans? No, no, no. Those beans are different. It's the beans by this kind of, it's gotta
Damien: be specific.
Jess: How else I
Damien: gonna find these? There's
Jess: too many beans folks are
Damien: facing east while the, anyway, it was wild. Lewis says. Do you know where in the gardening universe this Legum [00:26:00] matrix exists?
And Roy says, yes, I do. Yeah, of course. It's at thrill. I've memorized perfectly described
Jess: all of the beam layouts.
Damien: The bean alignment is is exact. So they get permission to dig from the new owner of the rail. And lo and behold, there under that very specific bean bean matrix is Regina's corpse still wearing what she wore the night she disappeared.
Unfortunately, nothing is conclusive in the eyes of the Lord, so nothing can be done until Timmy Ted, oh no, I'm sorry. That's Ted Tims arrives to say, Hey John, Reverend John. I was drinking with Brassy that night so long ago, seven years ago in fact. And while he was in the cups, he admitted to I'm sorry to say, defiling and shooting in the heart, young Miss Winter in [00:27:00] cold blood.
So that pretty much validated it. Oops, sorry I didn't of mention it. Yeah. It's just, he basically said he was drunk. I thought he was just being a little braggadocious. So that was his excuse, even though this woman went missing and has been missing for the last seven years. Point is, is his story, validated it in the eyes of the Lord and in Lewis, and so he uses the last of his feeble strength to offer the sacrament over Miss Winter's grave, thus fulfilling.
Dot dot. The Parsons. The Parsons of Oh, thank
Ryan: you. The
Damien: end.
Ryan: Excellent summary, Damien. Very well done. Let's
Damien: just dive right into the beans. Shall we just go and talk beans? Can we start with, yeah. Do you wanna talk about all that beautiful bean footage right now? Or what's
Jess: everyone's personal bean configuration?
Do you ha like, do you have like runner beans? Do you have a trellis? It's the pass.
Damien: It's the password of my crypto wallet, so I'm not sharing that information right now. My bean alignment is essentially how you get to my Bitcoin.
Jess: There was a a lot [00:28:00] more bean talk than i's a sentence that hasn't been
Damien: said before.
We're establishing firsts anyway. Yeah, that's the layout of the story, but I really hope we talk beans tonight. I have a bean hedge myself. I'd like to keep
Ryan: behind it.
Jess: Oh yeah. Love bush bean. I get it.
Ryan: Yeah. Bush bean. So one of the first articles I found while researching the story was about how.
The works of Mrs. Henry Wood are hugely influential today in one particular medium, and I'm gonna need you to guess what it is. Square foot gardening. Good guess, but no, Jessica, life
Jess: lifetime movies.
Ryan: You have got it on the head. Yeah. Nice. Lifetime movies. This is in all seriousness, the article demonstrated how lifetime movies mine the works of Mrs.
Henry Wood for their plot lines. Incredible. I, I just I wanna know what your reaction is to that, Jess, how did [00:29:00] you, how did you hit that? So squarely
Jess: it is an unfortunate side effect of being. Born and raised a woman and a girl at one point, is that you just are forced to like osmosis these lifetime movies somehow.
Ryan: I'm impressed that you got this. I'm stunned. Actually,
Jess: they are just on, if you're at someone's house for some reason, they're just on and there. Yeah. There's the most incredibly formulaic the husband is the murderer who marries you for your money, or the boyfriend you reconnect with is the murderer because he's married you for your property.
There's not a ton of variation except for the jobs. Everyone's got a cool job. They're a, a magazine editor, and then. They get murdered or [00:30:00] almost murdered, they don't always get fully murdered.
Ryan: I think what this article shocked me with was, was how convincing the evidence was. Like they went plot line for plot line of lifetime movies and like matched it up with Henry, Mrs.
Henry Wood story. That's so funny. So they're not as formulaic, they're just copied.
Jess: They're just
Ryan: plagiarized.
Jess: That's really funny.
Ryan: Damien a Lifetime movie watcher or,
Damien: or No, not so much. I get what they're all about and it's basically lifetime is what Hallmark is if you take away Christmas and includes somebody dying.
So pretty much there's a
Jess: little more like girl bossing in lifetime movies. Like you're fair, you know, you're a sexy, independent woman doing something. Mm-hmm. And that's why you're being punished for whatever. Yeah. Sex,
Damien: sexy, independent, fill in the blank profession. Governance. Yeah.
Jess: Scared of strangers.
There's a lot of that. There's a lot of stranger danger.
Damien: Sure. So no, I'm not a fan of the genre, [00:31:00] but that's not to say I'm not fan of formulaic, cinema. It's just not that. We all are
Ryan: probably, yeah.
Damien: Not that I'm just sitting
Ryan: here, I'm just, I'm just stunned and derailed that my question was so easily answered by Jess.
Well done, Jess. I'm, I'm impressed. Thank you. I
Jess: mean, I, I thought
Ryan: that was not a plant at all. We did not discuss this,
Jess: I hadn't read this one before, but there is something very like lifetime movie, hallmark movie. Like you can, it makes sense. You get the sense that this was, if not the beginning of something that, you know, like the framework for a continuing way to tell stories.
Ryan: So on the first page of this story, there was an interesting detail. It said that Ms. Winter was dressed in mourning and only reveals a page or so later that it was on account of the passing of her father.
Damien: Right.
Ryan: But that detail on page one is a strong bit of foreshadowing, and I wanna see how did you feel about her use of foreshadowing in this [00:32:00] story?
Jess: Well, let's, let's go slightly darker than that for a second. The foreshadowing of, if you are a woman and you say out loud, I think this man might kill me,
Damien: you gonna bury me proper. I sure
Jess: will. I think that both in fiction, and perhaps too often in real life, there's a pretty good chance that man might murder you.
Yeah. And so that was one where it was like, it was a, a very interesting thing to put in there. And then mm-hmm. Also a very interesting way to show the Parson just being like in a hundred percent sincerity, be like, yes, of course I love you. I will bury your dead body. Okay. A normal response would've been like, oh, how about you don't go by that guy you think is gonna murder you?
right,
Damien: right. Perhaps
Jess: there's some other action we could take as a community so you don't get murdered by this very obvious [00:33:00] murderer.
Damien: She did carry herself with enough confidence to where, and she openly rebuked his forwardness . And it almost seemed like it was, it was said in this slightly jocular way.
And not to say that. Derides, the overall weight of that sort of threat and statement, but also it makes a lot of sense. It's just I'm gonna laugh this off because I'm too scared to say otherwise. And so people around me will laugh too. Now we're probably a little more conscious of when that's happening because it's so prevalent.
But then would it have struck chords to the Michael Vicar? Probably not.
Ryan: I wanna say something stronger about this foreshadowing and. It's not foreshadowing, it's just, I'm telling you what the plot of my story is gonna be. Oh, sure. Okay, fine. It was, it was so over the top, not just there, but, but in several places.
It was just like there's no wondering left. You just know what's gonna happen now.
Damien: Well, every character was [00:34:00] introduced with the exact with a troupe, with the exactness of who they were. Right. There was no subtlety. It's like, here's a dashing young man of 26 dressed up in green velvet, and he's a total jerk.
Here's the, like the first, his nickname is Brassy. Yeah. Yeah.
Jess: Here's my assistant, and like she turns to the camera and coughs blood into a handker chest. Seriously,
Damien: I am sick. Oh,
Ryan: Mary Brown.
Jess: Oh, Mary,
Ryan: here's the door holder. She's holding a. A door.
Jess: Yeah. We all know our jobs here.
Ryan: I think that, oh, it was, it, it was just immediately distressing to me how plain this all was.
Alright. All right. Let's see. I, I wanna compare and contrast the characters of Brassy Brown and the Reverend Mr. Lewis. What did you make of these men? Damon You wanted to talk about Brassie's nickname? Go ahead.
Damien: Yeah. Okay. So he's called Brassy and they give a little bit of [00:35:00] a softer rationale as to why.
But then there was also one line that stuck out that I was like, what does this mean? And I'd love to get your opinion on it. So that line is.
This gentleman was Mr. George Brown, universally known in the village by the cogman of Brassy. He had acquired the Appalachian when a boy, partly because he was gifted with a double share of that endowment familiarly called brass, and partly mm-hmm. Because in his boyhood, he displayed a curious propensity for collecting together odd bits of brazen metal.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Ryan: I, I, I studied that for a while myself.
Damien: What does a double share of that endowment? Familiarly called brass mean? Is that as gumption? Is that I took it to be confidence. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I took it to
Ryan: be like his sway, his swagger
Damien: maybe the verbiage that was used, a double share of that endowment.
Like just [00:36:00] went straight to the Granal region. For me, I thought that he was a well player. I think it might be on purpose. He, maybe he is. Maybe he is. Maybe something gave him that swagger, you know?
jess.
Jess: I mean, I guess I read it as confidence, but whatever I buy it, it's
Damien: funnier. The clause, double share of that endowment, double share of that endowment.
It's just, it a little pun, a little saucy, a little lifetime. So
Ryan: in the 19th century, is this what this phrase means? I, I can't say that. I don't know, but it sure it reads that way now, confidently say
Damien: yes. Yeah. This isn't like a s muddy dime store novel or anything to that effect. But I guess if you're gonna make a bad boy, a bit of a bad boy, you might as well, before the murder starts, you make him seem like he's a real, because she also went through great, you know, to say something like the face would've been handsome, and indeed it was.
But for the willful devil may care expression that pervaded it. Mm-hmm. It's like he's naughty. He's the one your mama a bad tells boy a, to stay away from bad boy. [00:37:00] I could totally not, we just thrown him out
Ryan: of the village, except he's got a great swing in moving on.
And by way of contrast, the poor Reverend Mr. Lewis, I just, my heart went out to this man, what a dud. He's a sap. Oh Lord I was that sap for a long time and maybe I still am. Can I share with you that dating while in seminary is an impossible proposition?
Really? It's just,
Jess: I
Ryan: mean, yeah, I would, it's not an easy thing to do For a while, I went, I went around and told people that I was in fire insurance
Uh, it was this poor guy. He's in love with this woman and he's just, he's everything she needs and nothing she wants. And isn't that just the way it goes with these stories?
Damien: Oh, but he'll do, because she did finally acquiesce.
Ryan: Yeah. It just
Jess: un enthusiastically
Damien: unenthusiastic.
Ryan: Un enthusiastically. Yeah. Un enthusiastically. the
Damien: [00:38:00] only reason I didn't go to seminary was because I knew that dating would be a slog.
Ryan: I, I wondered if that's what it was.
And that kept you from the cloth.
Yeah. I don't know. Jessica, what do you, what do you, these Brassy Brown and John Lewis could there be more, two more different people?
Jess: Two more different people that are both the worst option, but you also get the sense that she would be very fine with neither.
Ryan: Yeah.
Jess: Like, yeah.
Ryan: And it was in fact at the start of the story, right?
Yes. Very fine with neither.
Jess: But I assume that continuing to just be a, a school marm when you're a woman of some station above who would be a school marm probably means it was viewed as like this is a temporary distraction, right? Like you can teach for a while, right? But eventually, but then you have to
Ryan: get on with your, your life.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Jess: And so god, if you've got these two options, right, pick the one who isn't gonna murder you. Is it gonna kill
Damien: you?
Jess: But gentlemen, the [00:39:00] bar is pretty low. I'd say
Ryan: I should have tried that perhaps in Chicago all those years ago. I won't kill you.
Jess: I won't kill you. That
Damien: line would've landed.
I'm telling you. Yeah.
Jess: Oh God.
Damien: I'm not gonna kill you. I'm
Jess: not gonna kill you. I just wanna clear this up. Yeah. I'm not gonna murder you. In
Damien: case there was any question, I just, you can leave, that's fine.
But I just want you to leave knowing I wouldn't have killed you. You'd have been safe. You'd, you, you'd be alive.
Ryan: Well, now that we've mentioned the gents what about the ladies? How big of a role, or to what extent does their agency extend? So how big of a role do they play? Mrs. Wood was noted in her writing for boosting women.
Does she actually accomplish that? In this story,
Jess: we have one. Yeah. One likable lady. We've got a door holder, someone who's actively dying of tuberculosis.
Ryan: A a handful of people whose names I can't remember because they don't have a point,
Jess: a couple of mean, mean girls.
Damien: Their point was to show up to be the mean girl and to say how women don't necessarily [00:40:00] need an education.
Why are you teaching them to read? Yeah. Don't, this is rink wrinkle
Ryan: Hurst, or whatever
Damien: her
Ryan: name
Jess: was. Um, But honestly I thought that was fun. That was a fun part of the story, to have a bad guy show up. But it's just yeah. A sassy housewife lady,
Damien: wicked stepsister almost. Oh, that's a good phrase.
Yeah, I didn't think of it that way. I thought it was, I thought it was random and I just thought it added, because there was a lot of, first of all, can we get Mrs. Wood here, a semicolon? There were so many like elongated phrases and run on sentences. I was just, and a lot of them were in the description and tying one character to another in this, and sometimes it was hard.
It was hard to parse out what was actually being said. There
Ryan: really was. It really was.
Jess: Even in the opening scene where they're in the, I assume, some kind of schoolhouse.
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: And we've got a helper, the door girl. One person walks in, someone else is coming. But [00:41:00] then those two people are talking while,
Damien: right.
Jess: The pa, you know, like, why did you
Damien: leave the door open? Jane, here's people, because someone else is coming. People, yeah. There's more people
Ryan: coming. Wasn't, well, it might be an accurate description of a schoolhouse at that hour. Sure, sure,
Jess: sure, sure, sure. But it wasn't great staging so many folks. No, you're right.
Ryan: You're right. Like, '
Jess: cause everyone kept getting up and the one lady's like sitting on a desk, but then she's over by the door. It's just like, it made it a little hard when it's a ram
Damien: rod introduction of all these characters. Yes. Mm-hmm.
Jess: All of your characters are introduced all at once and
Ryan: it's the dati persona performed.
I don't, I don't know how much this story does to boost women. I mean, I, and maybe she's not known for that, for this story, but for somebody who's noted as having done that in her writing, that the main character is killed. That's not. Giving them a lot of agency or, or giving them a lot of
Damien: power.
I think the agency is stemmed from the fact that she was killed being [00:42:00] right. She was right about absolutely everything. She was right about what she was deserving of, but what she wasn't chasing maybe, but about her own professional lethargy. She was right about this jerk, but she wanted not to be. And it just went to show that, agency autonomy, confidence, the wherewithal still doesn't protect you from a drunk and lusty.
Suitor. Okay. Have we
Jess: talked about frig on this podcast?
Damien: No, but I think you were the one who introduced me to the phrase for, to
Jess: the idea of bridging. So it is a, a concept that has existed in all media for all time. But a comic book writer named Gail Simone wrote about it in the context of comic books. I think it is.
Oh God, green lantern or green arrow or something. Basically a comic opens with him discovering that his ah, beloved girlfriend, who he loves and would do anything for, who has no story and is not a [00:43:00] character, has been brutally murdered and shoved in a refrigerator. And that's Oh, it's literal
Ryan: for, yeah.
Yes. So it's
Jess: literal frig. And that's the catalyst for his whole entire arc. Right. The values, why he does everything, who he is, everything like that. And so it's just, it is a trope where women exist to get murdered, to make, men's pain a more exciting story, right? Like, you can't just be a man going on an adventure.
You have to be a man who this thing happens because of this
Ryan: avenging, this injustice to your woman. Yes.
Jess: But usually along that trope, it's more known for just sort of like introducing a woman and immediately murdering her, I think. Whereas this is like, we know who our character is, we know what she does and who she is, and a little bit about her family, and then she gets murdered, but she still mostly gets murdered as a plot point for the Parsons, downfall and sadness
Damien: and the fulfillment of [00:44:00] his oath that he promised us many years ago.
Jess: So , it is fulfilling that sort of like the catalyst for how the rest of his life goes is just that she got murdered
Damien: if that was it. I would say yeah it's a little weak, but the fact is, is the separation of the story into two parts and in the second part, like so much stuff happens off or off page that we get caught up to the bad guy we know is him. He gets off and he disappears from the story and from the land. And he is never heard from again. And there's an illusion of the fact that no one knows. It's
Ryan: funny that this guy mentioned that he murdered
Damien: somebody.
Jess: Yeah. And I didn't do anything.
Yeah, exactly. Who disappeared and then he disappeared. But ultimately
Damien: he sold his estate, hopped on a ship at Liverpool and who knows where that ship landed. 'cause no one ever heard from him again. Ostensibly, he could still be out there.
Ryan: The last ship of Demeter.
Damien: Not terrible, any hoodle. But you know, like Mary Brown [00:45:00] dies and all these people die and everything, and it just goes to show.
So it's like this it's, it's a literal fast forward. And the only person that that served. Was John Lewis. So I think that do, that took away all the agency that was established in the first part made him the character and made him the character moving forward. And I think that was a weak move.
Ryan: Hmm.
That's a fascinating interest idea. I, I concur with it. I hadn't thought of that that way before. It's also
Jess: a weird time jump 'cause it's seven years.
Ryan: Yeah.
Jess: So it's like long enough that every, everyone has s died, left, or like is on their deathbed
Damien: at the Ray Bull age of 37, by the way. Yeah. But there
Ryan: it was, it was an awful commentary on, on life expectancy.
Yeah.
Jess: It's just like, it's not that far in advance. Just take a vitamin and like, go for a walk, man. Just take a
Ryan: vitamin. How old was this reverend when he was courting this young woman? 30. He was 30. So he's 37. [00:46:00] Yes, 37.
Damien: Yeah. Uh, brass was, or Brassie was 26. That's what they said of six and 20 is how he was described.
Ryan: So in her introductory remarks, our editor calls this story, quote, a conservative haunting. What do you think she means by that? And do you agree?
Oh,
Damien: that's a good question. I would agree if the intention, and if the definition was that it's not, there's not like a tangible ghost that's, it's not like a poltergeist or a violent spirit,
Jess: right? Is it conservative as opposed to like a flamboyant taunting where you're getting stuffed chucked at you.
Damien: Hey everybody, I'm here. I'm under the beans baby. No, I, yeah, exactly. It's not so like lamb and audacious and like. And boisterous to cause a ruckus. He's basically like a guy who's plagued with the memory of a woman he loved and
Jess: she's talking to him [00:47:00] through the beans. The
Damien: only thing is that she mentions specifically where she's buried.
So it's very, it's a very, very soft And she wants a proper burial. Yeah. It's a very, that's what she wants, soft hunting. So he, she doesn't want
Ryan: revenge. She wants a, a proper burial.
Damien: And we don't even know, to be honest. 'cause he dies after he buries her. So he uses his last strength to like perform the sacrament or whatever.
And then, or I don't know if that's the right terminology. Do you perform the sacrament, do you prepare for the sacrament one? You just,
Ryan: you
Damien: know,
Ryan: you funeral celebrate the funeral. Yeah. You,
Damien: you sack up. All right. So, so I, after sacking up, he dies. So we don't even know if. It stopped the haunting, if the haunting was cured by the burial, if it was a haunting at all.
Or just like a guy who had some really crazy dreams, weird dreams. Right. And somehow intuited maybe from a story that Mary Brown told, because Mary Brown actually witnessed that shadow in the garden. And you know, maybe like pointed him in that direction with some recollection. We don't know what happened in those seven years and if he was privy to any clues that may have indicated where her body was.
All we know is that he had these dreams and then he woke up one day and was like, I'm [00:48:00] sick of this. Do you know where this bean spread is? And Romy's like, yeah, I do. And so the They cover her then. Yeah. Like freer soul and then that's it. So I think conservative is an interesting term, but mm-hmm. I can totally see where it aligns.
What about you, Jess?
Jess: Yeah I think subtle. It's a subtle haunting. Yeah. It's a, another good one. An occasional dream. A memory of someone mentioning they saw a shadowy ghost dog Creeper. In a specific garden. Like it's not a leap to then be like, oh, something's telling me I should look in this garden. Yeah, prob probably should have done it seven years ago, dummy.
Ryan: Right? Yeah. I think, I think the term conservative, there is a reference to the idea that this is not a scary haunting. This is not a mean-spirited, revenge driven revenant, right? This is a person who [00:49:00] is seeking the fulfillment of an oath, the promise of a Christian burial, and, and, and that's it.
And it's, it's a very calm Yeah. I mean, aside from the fact that a murder is what drives it, there is no violence to this right story. It's a
Damien: haunting of the conscience. Yeah.
Ryan: Yeah.
Jess: But would it have been better? If it was a revenge story, if we're gonna fridge our women, we should at least get some sort of like John Wick style action, shoot him up where he tracks down brassy in Australia.
See, I think
Damien: that's just not John Lewis, I think. Yeah, that's, that's totally not John Lewis. Yeah, but that's, but it might be the tuberculosis
Ryan: girl. Like that's, that's where she comes in that like, she like that. Great. No, I
Damien: see, I see Romi going on the vengeance path.
Jess: Yeah. Or the, this like the band of mean girls track down the guy and they have a sh Charlie's
Damien: Angels style
Jess: shootout.
Yeah. Jazz it up a little bit.
Damien: I don't know if [00:50:00] that happened, honestly. Then it would've read like any other story. The fact that it happened the way it did. One, it was quiet. It was quiet. It, yeah, it played probably more realistically. And two, it also just, it echoed how human life was just so, so fleeting at this time of like.
Plague and post and pestilence, and it just seemed that everyone was dying or being sick or being, everyone's really in
Jess: a hurry to be there. And so I
Damien: was like, all right, so she died. We don't know how. We don't know why, but she's probably gone. Let's just move on. And the only thing that didn't was his conscience pass the beans.
Yeah.
Jess: Listen, if I ever get murdered and I'm put in a garden, I would just like someone to just do a little investigating about it. Don't just dig around for a minute. Don't just immediately also die. That does not help.
Ryan: But I bless you. But I bless you. I, I wanna get you to speculate for a minute on what do you think Mrs. Henry Wood's goal was for this story? And if you can come up with one, do you think she accomplished it? [00:51:00]
Damien: I think it was to inspire a future network. To a television network. What she knew nothing about Template.
Yeah. To have a template. Yeah. For which they could recreate her story over and over and over. Sometimes spice it up, sometimes dull it down, but do the same damn thing and have people watch it with relish.
Jess: Yeah. The the surface lessons are like, nothing good happens if you're a teacher.
Ryan: No. This is where I'm going with it.
And like, it's a reinforcement of understood truth.
Jess: Like it's your fault for getting murdered because you shouldn't have gone to this guy's house. Yeah. And you did. Right. So now you're murdered. It's, it's a
Damien: story That's that known better. He gave you all the signs. Yeah. Why would you test it? You knew it.
Why would you? Right. Why
Ryan: would you do that? It's a story that's built on entertainment value. That reinforces [00:52:00] perceived truths about society. Sure.
Jess: Honestly, that was probably one of the bigger things that made me think of these lifetime movies, because a lot of the, like themes of these movies are conservative in the other way of like, you are in the suburbs and you're worried about people moving in.
Sure. And you're worried about, like things happen when you get a raise or you get a new job or you move to a new city. So there's this like fear of kind of like both the unknown, but also like, well you should have known better, right? Mm-hmm. Like, these people are scary because they're Right, right.
They're whatever. And so yeah, that, that being built in of like. Be more scared. I, I guess, I
Damien: guess pay more attention. Your death is your fault because all the signs were there.
Jess: All the signs were there. And it's your fault for being a teacher.
Ryan: Yeah, it's weird. So what about the writing then? What did you think of [00:53:00] the writing?
Personally, I felt like it was rather forgettable. It, there's nothing, even the structure like part, like
Jess: part one, part two.
Ryan: By the time I got to part two I was like, oh yeah, that's right. That it did say part one back there. That seemed unnecessary. Like a few asterisks could have done the same thing.
It was a bit rambly. It, it was a bit writing didn't do much for me. Yeah, bit wordy. I would say Characters were unnecessary, although I, you know, you like the Mean Girls Posse. I was completely useless.
Jess: I liked the idea of it, I think more than the execution in that it was hard to tell who people were, where they were going, where they were in the space.
Right. It
Ryan: was very hard. It was very hard to tell what was, who was doing what.
Jess: You know, like we talked about the story last week where nesbit's writing was, you know, parts of it were great, but for the most part it just sort of didn't get in its own way. Right. This wasn't even that. This was just like, this gets in
Ryan: its way.
Jess: It kind of gets in its way, but it's also just like, it's not [00:54:00] add, adding anything to the story. Yeah. It's sort of like you could accomplish a lot of the same thing if this were a bullet pointed list of plot.
Damien: Well, I think unfortunately in serving it's fairly unnecessarily deep cast. That's where a lot of the wordiness came in, is just like reminding the reader, oh, by the way, remember this person, like, here they come, but you take that away and then it's a three page story.
Exactly. It's the problem. Exactly. Exactly. This un like last week's story was a simple story well told. This was a simple story over complicated.
Damien was, but it's also, I think it also inspired Twilight. I'm just gonna call it Stephanie and I for basically taking everything that Mrs. Henry Wood wrote.
Ryan: What do you think, Dee, was it wholly enough for this anthology? Did it church, how many cathedral bells are you letting it chime? How many cathedral bells are there usually? I, I think we normally go on a, on a scale of 10 here, 10 bells. I feel like that seems a, oh, that's a, that's a small caron.
Really?
Jess: A small caron. I think one big bell. Don't churches just have one big bell? [00:55:00] How do Carolina of bells,
Damien: I mean, are you talking about like, how many times you pe the bell peel the bell? No,
Ryan: no. How many actual bells there are up there in the tower? So 10 bells
Damien: is a real thing. There are buildings with 10 bells.
Ryan: Oh, that would be very small. Yeah, that's a small bell assortment. Yeah. Like 17 21, 25. That's more normal. So you're saying a flock of bells is called a carol? A Caron, yeah. A Caron. A Caron. The person that plays them as the car manure that rhymes with manure. Not perhaps intentionally,
Damien: but yes. Wow.
Okay. So I wouldn lie, this is the most
Jess: I've ever learned about Bell. I just thought there was one big bell. If Ken
Damien: Bells is a fairly small Carolyn a Bells, but it follows with our previous like assignment of, does it, does it toll?
Does it wholly, does it church? I would say that this is probably a two or a three on the Churching out of 10. And the reason is, is because the only churchiness comes from the fact that a central character was a holy man, right? But [00:56:00] nothing about his position. Really fascinating. Nothing of it. Yeah.
He, he basically faced a crisis. He not, he's
Jess: not doing much churching. Yeah. And yeah, he said except for
Damien: the function for which, right. Yeah. For which he's charged. Yeah. Right, right, right. But still, it just, it it's not much. You're right. It was a, we didn't even get a vision of the church, I don't think.
There was. No, no, we never saw the church. There was no service, no church, nothing. So I give it a three outta 10 bells on the, does
Ryan: it holy. I I might go even less than that. Wow. Yeah. I might say two. Yes, there's a parson there. Um, but he's a, through no fault of his own, he's a low churchman.
He goes by Mr. Rather than the reverend or father. Uh, it's just no fault of
Jess: his own who else's fault. He picked it.
Damien: Mr. Lewis, just, uh, uh, actually, you know what? Nevermind. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine.
Ryan: Mister's fine. Yeah, he, it, he, yeah. This doesn't church for me very much. What [00:57:00] about you Jess?
Jess: I, I think I'm gonna go four churches.
Oh, wow. As
Damien: you would, why did you over church him? He doesn't deserve four churches. Basically. Lutherans are safe by grace
Jess: On the, knowing that for seven years it's been eating at him that he hasn't done this religious right. Like it's killing him that he didn't perform the funeral rollers for this dead woman he loved.
Ryan: But the beans have been fantastic. It didn't
Damien: toll the Caron.
Jess: And so I think bring
Ryan: the changes, I think is the phrase you're looking for.
Jess: Knowing that that's in his head of like.
Damien: But it could have been anything, Jess. It was like, it was like two teenage lovebirds. Like I promise I'll, I'll give you my jacket to keep you warm when we bury you if you don't.
Sure. And in a jacket, that's way it
Ryan: read. You're right. Yeah, it is. It could been a jacket anthology.
Jess: That story would've jacket. She wanted her
Ryan: to wear his letter jacket from high
Damien: school. It could have been, but it wasn't. He just happened to be a priest [00:58:00] and he happened to do the thing. That's probably the most boring thing that priests do, and that's what he promised her.
Jess: I bet there's probably more boring things than priests do. Oh, there are.
Damien: Okay, fine.
Jess: I think someone's still gotta do a lot of paperwork. You gotta fold
Damien: a lot of cloths it seems, as a
Ryan: priest. Yeah. There's a fair amount of cloth folding. But do you have to like there's volunteers for cloth folding. I was gonna say too, do you have to steam your
Jess: own outfits or does someone No, no,
Ryan: no, no.
There's volunteers for that. Yeah. I was gonna say, so you have a steamer and a
Damien: folder.
Ryan: Yeah. Ah, you're looking that highlight several.
Jess: I also have
Damien: door holders. If only John would've lived past the age of 37. He could have lived that high. He could've gotten to this fold. Life. Life. Advanced state of affairs.
That's
Ryan: right. Uh, did the scare hold up for me? Absolutely not. There's nothing scary here. Nothing scary about it. It's a conservative haunting. It's
Damien: a conservative haunting. Nothing really scared of.
Jess: There was one second where our tuberculosis girl sees a, a. I think she says like a black dog or someone on their hands and [00:59:00] knees.
And I had a, like a glimmer of hope. Like, oh, what if that comes back? That could be cool. It doesn't, right? There's, it
Damien: doesn't, but like, because that's, it was just brassy around. Brassy was just bury his, bury his victim.
Jess: But like, I liked the idea of like some kind of monster creeping around, but it wasn't, it's just, I was like, nothing
Damien: about the death was scary.
But the ominousness, that Brassie pretended when he was talking with her on that bridge when he was standing next to the hedge and he was using all that double speak and being like, oh, so you and the priest, huh? And she's like, yep. And she was feeling really awkward. He was feeling really awkward.
And then he like. Can I just shake your hand? I just wanna shake your hand. I just wanna say congrats. And she's like, okay. And then they shake hands and he goes on his way. That to me was a little like Wahlberg and fear, where it was like, yeah, ladies, you're gonna get murdered. Pretend. Yeah. Like you, you know, you're, you're, he's ringing your bell, he's ringing your Caroline
Jess: not to be a, a lifetime movie victim.
Blaming here, but like, don't shake a weird man's hand on a [01:00:00] bridge. Just
Ryan: avoid that if you tell your friends. Yeah.
Jess: Just,
Ryan: That's gonna take us to our whiskey ratings here on whiskey In the Weird, this is how we rate our stories from Zero Fingers of Whiskey to Five Fingers of Whiskey or the coveted full fist.
Last week we came in strong this week. I don't know, Damien, what are you given? The Parsons Oath
Damien: two and a half. I mean, it wasn't a terrible story, but it wasn't, it wasn't one of the better ones that I've read historically in this volume. I dunno where it stands up, but just on its own legs, it was okay. I thought that there were some elements that were interesting and that I didn't expect that were sort of anti tropic.
Like the fact that the bad guy made it clear he was the bad guy. He just got away and got away and was never heard from again. Like, that was sort of interesting. The quietness. I, I like the word that you used earlier in this in, in the episode, Ryan, when you discussed sort of the pace and the tone of the, of the story.
Everything was quiet and hyper realistic. The fact that it was a conservative haunting, it just, there was nothing that was hyper supernatural to like carry it out of the realm of, could this have been [01:01:00] something that happened in some small town in England, maybe. But that being said, the characters weren't too interesting.
Either that or they were caricatures and the writing did get in the way of itself. It was overly wordy. Mm-hmm. So, two and a half for me. Jess, how about you?
Jess: I also came in at a two and a half A, Hey,
Ryan: hey, we're two for two so far.
Jess: Thought
Ryan: two for
Jess: it was not that exciting. Kind of a bullet point, list of plot points, but there's only three plot points.
Short list. It's a short list, single slide presentation.
Damien: Here we go. Yeah.
Jess: But I like that you can kind of tell it's an early version of a lot of other stories that are coming from this. I'm gonna track down that article and see if I've watched all the lifetime movies that might have been based on some of, uh, Mrs.
Henry's, other, other works.
Ryan: Oh man, I, I feel a little weird about this. [01:02:00] I'm coming in at a two.
Damien: Oh, okay. Why do you feel weird? A bit lower?
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, it'd be
Jess: weirder if you went five. I think
Ryan: No would be, would that would've been weird? It would be, but I didn't expect to be the lowest person. Uh, I was bored by, I was bored by this story from start to finish.
I was not interested in what was happening. I thought the characters were, blah, I thought the plot was blah. I thought the as, as we mentioned at the top of the episode, sort of the foreshadowing was like, I'm just gonna tell you what's gonna happen. Yeah. And then, and then, oh, whoop. What do you know that happened?
I wasn't interested in this tale. I think the only thing that saved a star, or, or excuse me, a, a whiskey finger or two for me was we and this sucks if this is the best we can do, but we got the priest who isn't a bad guy. Yeah. He, he is, he's a, he's a dollar piece of milk toast.
Oh yeah. As hell. But he's not
Damien: bad. He's not evil.
Jess: Yeah, your aspirations are just kind of a boring guy. He dies. Oh man.
Ryan: I really hope we can [01:03:00] do better than this soon. But yeah, I, I will not be remembering the Parsons Oath at the end of this season. I'll be hard pressed to people say, have you ever read any Mrs.
Henry Wood at maybe, I don't know. I think I saw the Lifetime show. Yep. Perfect. Nice.
Damien: No, but I've read Alan
Ryan: Price.
Damien: Yeah, that's right. God, that's gonna
Ryan: take us to our, if this, then that for this episode. And I believe, Jess, you've got that for us tonight.
Jess: Yes. And it is a little bit different because it's if you read this story and you're like, you know what, it would be better if Nicholas Cage was going crazy and also on a lot of drugs.
Ryan: That was my exact thought. I was wondering and
Jess: was getting revenge. Then you should watch the 2018 film. Mandy. Yes. Directed by PAOs Coma Cosmos. Cosmos. Cosmos.
Damien: Yeah.
Jess: It stars Nicholas Cage. Andrea Riseborough, who I actually love, and I think she's one of the [01:04:00] coolest actors in the world. She is Nicholas Cage's girlfriend Mandy, who gets kidnapped by a guy who also loves her, but he is in charge of a cult.
And then we go on a real, a real wild drug fuel, wild ride
Ryan: Metallica soundtrack,
Jess: imaginary revenge plot through the rest of the movie where I forget the cheddar
Damien: goblin
Jess: there, there's a cheddar goblin that I've just blocked out of my mind. But it has, it has, if you've watched anything by this director before, it has the craziest visuals.
Yeah, it's so fun to watch. It is, I would say isn't like super
Ryan: saturated in color too. Yeah. Yes. Saturations and stuff are nuts. It
Jess: is Nicholas Cage at like his most fun and unhinged.
Ryan: Yeah.
Jess: Like you can just
Ryan: deep pants for a fair part of the party movie. Just, [01:05:00]
Jess: you can tell he's having a great time making this incredibly weird movie.
So
Damien: to be honest, if you're holding a 10 foot chainsaw, are you not having a great time? That's right. That's right. If
Jess: anyway, if you read the story and you're like, Hmm, I think I would like something more, here's something more. And That's right. And then some,
Damien: a bonus helping a revenge. That is a great if this than that, Jess.
Right.
Ryan: I it is a memorable one, that's for sure.
Damien: Wow.
Ryan: Well that's gonna do it for this episode of Whiskey and the Weird, we want to thank you so much for joining us. If you would please rate and review us wherever you catch your podcasts. That really does well, I, I actually don't know that it does anything, but it makes us feel warm and fuzzy.
So please, we always wanna thank Dr. Blake Brandis for providing the music for whiskey in the Weird, and, Damien, where can they find us on the socials these days?
Damien: And another way you can make us feel warm and fuzzy is to follow us on the socials. You can find us at whiskey and the [01:06:00] weird on the meta properties, as well as Blue sky.
Blue sky. We're at blue sky now. Yay. So search for us on Blue Sky at whiskey and the Weird, we spell our whiskeys with an E and we hope you do too. If not, I'll wait approximately seven years before I show up and ask you why.
Jess: Perfect. And
Damien: then
Ryan: I'll bury
Damien: you and then I will bury you, uh, under my beans.
Well, Jess, what are we reading? Next time
Jess: we're gonna go with something called in the Confessional. Amelia b Edwards.
Ryan: Ooh, I really like her. I haven't read that story before
Damien: though. I can already tell by the title that this will far out Cana Far. What is it? What are the bells? Carolers.
Jess: Manure
Damien: es
Jess: carol
Damien: Manure.
Yeah, but what is it Caroline? This is gonna far out. Caroline, any of the stories we've read so far, I can tell by the title alone. Let's, let's hope
Ryan: so.
Damien: I'm
Ryan: Ryan Whitley.
Jess: I'm Jessica Berg.
Ryan: And I'm Damien Smith. And together we are Whiskey in the Weird, somebody Send us Home. [01:07:00]
Damien: As always, keep your friends through the ages and your creeps in the pages.
Nice. Bye-bye
Ryan: everybody.
Jess: Bye.