Director's Notes – Episode 128

(NOTE: As always, Director's Notes contain spoilers)

These director’s notes are a few days late, and the reason is that I made a mistake and just didn’t write them. So apologies for that. I’m writing them now from my upstate home, here in the woods. Yesterday I saw a fat little bunny run across my yard. Later I saw that same bunny dead in the road. Then that bunny was eaten by the crows and the neighborhood cats before the afternoon was over. The circle of life is swift here.

Often times a chef will start a restaurant because they are excellent at cooking. Then the restaurant will get so successful that the chef will have to hire a brigade of cooks, and will mostly oversee, rarely cooking anything themself. Then they’ll open a few more restaurants, and will find that they are hardly in kitchens at all anymore, instead mostly working in the head office of the restaurant group and out doing publicity and tv shows. It is the strange irony that if you are very good at cooking, the peak of your career is that you stop cooking.

It’s not quite that way with podcasters and writers, but the success of Night Vale did allow us to start a podcast network, which means I’m no longer just a writer. I’m also co-owning and co-running a business with a lot of moving parts. Plus I’m releasing books which means going to publicity meetings and doing book tours. It definitely means there’s less and less quiet space in my life to do the writing part of my job.

But I make it a priority to find that time. My hope is to turn off all business things this weekend and just write. What a joy that will be.

Enough about me. This episode sees the three plotlines established in the first episode start to come together. The nature of structuring this three parter around three seemingly unrelated stories is that the first episode was maybe going to feel a little disparate, but I hope that this middle chapter makes it clear how the three stories will start to interact and affect each other. The goal for myself is to land each story within the other.

One of the stories is the mayor consolidating power under her office, on the theory that she could do more good. The real world counterpart to this idea is obvious. Over the terms of the last several presidents, the power of the presidency has been more and more consolidated and less and less limited. Each side let “their” president do this because they figured it was for the greater good. But as the supporters of Obama found, the danger of giving a good president nearly unlimited power is you can’t then take that power back when an evil maniac steps in. Those counterbalances existed for a reason, and we were foolish to excuse any president setting the precedent of discarding any of them. 

Over in another storyline, we have this second Dana, who is credited in the script as “Evil Dana”. But of course, she’s not really that. As we learn toward the end of the episode, she is merely a Dana with a mission, and who is willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill that mission. In that way, she is not so different from the Dana we know, who is expanding her power as mayor for similar reasons. They are both people willing to do what it takes. 

Small note, but we get to hear Dana’s ringtone in this episode. I always enjoy choosing a character’s ringtone, as it allows me to reflect in some way their personality. Cecil a few weeks ago had a Carly Rae Jepson ringtone, because of course he did. Dana has an Amy Winehouse B-side called “You’re Wondering Now”. 

I’d like to end these notes by just spending a moment on what a wonder Jasika Nicole is. To write for a performer of her caliber is a gift for any writer. On the Night Vale Presents network this month, Jasika is playing 1) our own lovable and brave Mayor Cardinal, 2) the ruthless double of Dana, and 3) the anxious but determined Keisha over on Alice Isn’t Dead. Each of those characters feels entirely different except for the fact that, embodied by Jasika, their language sings. If you are a writer, seek out performers who can make your language sing. 

Ok, I’m going to go for a run in the woods now. I hope it turns out better for me than it did the bunny.

- Joseph Fink
May 18, 2018