Director's Notes – Episode 109

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

We have a running joke that Jeffrey knows every person through his time working with the Kitchen Dog Theater in Dallas. The biggest example of this is St. Vincent, who, before she was collaborating with David Byrne, was Jeffrey’s intern. Another amazing person that Jeffrey knew from his Kitchen Dog days was Tina Parker, who you might know as Saul Goodman’s receptionist in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. 

We were super excited that she was available to voice this important but as yet unheard character. Does this mean that Breaking Bad and Night Vale take place in the same universe, and that it is 100% canonical in both universes that Tina’s character in Saul’s office is secretly a deer faced god of destruction? I think I speak for the Breaking Bad team when I say, yes, that is exactly true and canon.

When we started to talk through how this story would play out, we realized we faced a major question: Just how much did we want to explain?

The answer is and remains: As little as possible. Listen, there is never going to be an interesting explanation for weird or supernatural things in fiction. Because the answer to magic has to be magic. There is never going to be an answer that works by the logic of our world, because the logic of our world leads only to our world. 

Instead of explaining, what is interesting to us, and we hope, to our listeners, is telling stories with the weirdness. Using elements of the strange as building blocks for stories that have their own logic and consistency. Not a logic that explains the weird but that incorporates the weird.

There is a certain amount of why in this episode. But the why isn’t the point. The point is the story about Huntokar as a character, and what that means for the story about the people in the town. We’ve heard what led us to this moment. Next, we will see what the people we know and love do with this situation they’ve found themselves in.

And there is still a lot of story to tell. What’s the deal with the men and the crates? What is going on with the Blood Space War? If Janice decides to go to an out of state college, how will Cecil deal with that?

And just what is the story of the Faceless Old Woman? Oh man is that a good one, and we are making plans to tell it eventually.

This isn’t the end of our show. But it is the end of some things. Nothing stays the same. Everything has to change.

- Joseph Fink
June 1, 2017