Nightlight Podcast
We’ve talked about a lot of horror anthology podcasts here. It’s a treasured genre for me. It reminds me of watching Tales From The Crypt and Are You Afraid of the Dark as a child. So when I find a good anthology podcast, I fall in love pretty hard. Especially when the writing is this good.
Launched in June of 2018, Nightlight is an anthology podcast showcasing horror stories written by authors of color. It was created by Tonia Ranson, a speculative fiction author who loves scaring the hell out of people. And after listening to a few episodes, it quickly found a place in my podcast listening schedule.
The first episode of Nightlight, called Letters From Home, was astounding. Written by Justina Ireland, it is the tale of an alternate history in which the dead started to rise during the American Civil War. It was a dark and gristly story of young black girls forced into training to take on the living dead. Sue, our main character, is strong and brave. When the dead find their way into her school, she leads her fellow students to the only hope of safety they might have. This is a fun, dark story filled with well-written action. It feels like something that might have happened, had the dead risen at Gettysburg.
By the way, this is a story in the same world as Ireland’s book, Dread Nation. So if you like Letters From Home, you’ll probably be eager to get your hands on the book. I know I was.
Another episode I found delightfully dark was He Refused To Name It, by Eugene Bacon. Our main character is shocked when the brother of his ex-girlfriend shows up to see him, holding a baby. A baby that is his, even though he hasn’t seen the girl, Em, in months. Sadly, she didn’t live through the labor.
Filled with a mixture of emotions, our main character thinks back to the painful way things had ended between him and Em. He is left alone with a baby in his cold little apartment.
It should go without saying that the baby isn’t exactly the harmless creature he might have expected. But the ending is just shocking.
In listening to the latest story, titled Aunt Sadie’s Surprise, it’s clear that the quality of the content hasn’t diminished at all. It’s called Aunt Sadie’s Surprise, written by Michelle Mellon.
Many families have a matriarch. An elderly lady who runs things without question. This family queen often has a special recipe that everybody loves. And the main character’s Aunt Sadie is no exception to this. She makes a dessert called Aunt Sadie’s Surprise. Every time she makes it, she uses a different ingredient. Sometimes it’s bacon. Sometimes it’s extra large chocolate chunks. Sometimes it’s a dark and horrifying substance good people don’t dare mention.
Our main character wants very much to know the secret of Aunt Sadie’s Surprise. She’d also love to know the mystery of an ornate dollhouse in Sadie’s upstairs bedroom. When she finally gets what she wanted, it destroys her life.
I loved how warm and lovely this story felt. It was like stepping into your hometown and being welcomed with open arms. Open, bloody arms.
In addition to loving the horror stories themselves, I adore the interviews with the author episodes. The story behind the story is often just as entertaining. And as a writer myself, I love these discussions of art, and the birth of a sinister tale. I do suggest listening to these interviews if you can.
Every episode is beautifully acted. There is a dark and haunting soundtrack, and just enough sound effects to make a listener feel uneasy. I have yet to listen to a single episode that didn’t crawl right under my skin.
Nightlight has new episodes every week, with the latest launching on March 16th. If you’re looking for an eerie tale told well, then you need to check it out.
(4 / 5)
We have reached the last episode of the podcast, Dolores Roach. No, this really is the end. There are no more episodes unless they’re hidden away on some Patreon page I don’t have access to.
The reason I’m being clear upfront about this is because, after you listen to this episode, the fact that there are no more episodes is going to be both confusing and infuriating.
The story
This episode begins with Dolores in a tunnel, being chased down by a train. She barely manages to escape, jumping onto a subway platform and then boarding the train that almost hit her.
Dolores is in a state of panic. She just escaped the tunnels. She just saw Mother Cleats killed. Now, she’s on a subway train, surrounded by people she doesn’t know. And she is a mess. She hasn’t showered since going down in the tunnel, after all. She probably doesn’t smell great.
Dolores rides the train to Coney Island and gets off. She walks to the ocean and gets in the water to wash herself. And when she comes out, she’s recognized by an old friend, Georgie.
And it is then that we realize that it’s been Georgie she’s been telling this whole story to.
Seeing the state Dolores is in, Georgie insists that she come home with her. She gets Dolores some clothes and something to eat and makes her tell her everything that happened down in the tunnels.
And then, Georgie’s son comes home. A seventeen-year-old son who looks exactly like Dominic.
That’s where the story ends.
What worked
I had a hard time finding much to like about this finale. If it hadn’t been the last episode it would have been great, but it was.
However, I did like the shift in perspective that takes place when it’s revealed that Dolores has been telling this whole story to Georgie this season. Because of course, up until now, it’s felt like she was talking to us and only us.
What didn’t work
This episode had a lot of problems. For one thing, I didn’t trust Georgie from the start. And that distrust just got worse the more we saw of her. She’s a true crime writer who just happens to find Dolores when she comes out of the tunnels after two months. No, Dolores isn’t buying it and neither am I. And inviting a woman you have reason to believe is dangerous into your home is stupid. No one in their right mind would have done that. No parent would have allowed Dolores within the same block as their child. The whole thing was unbelievable.
But that complaint pales to the largest issue I have for this season finale. For this episode that is, as far as I can tell, a series finale.
I say that because I cannot find another episode listed anywhere. If I were to have just listened to this episode without knowing that, I would have assumed this was just a mid-season twist.
Because that’s what this feels like, a mid-season twist. It answers nothing. It wraps up nothing. It gives us no satisfaction at all. And that is more than frustrating. It is infuriating. It ruins any joy we might have gotten from the rest of the season.
The ending of Dolores Roach was, in short, not an ending. It stopped in the middle of the story, there’s just no way around it. And this episode came out in October of 2019, almost five years ago! I know that podcasts are rather notorious for having long periods between seasons. Mine is no exception, season three of AA will likely not see the light of day until 2025 at the earliest. But after five years I think we can all safely assume that we’re not getting any more episodes. And so Dolores is always going to be in limbo. We are never going to know whether or not Georgie was telling her the truth. We’ll never know what happened to Ginger or Ephraim. We’ll never know what Dolores does, standing in her old friend’s house with what appears to be Dominic’s seventeen-year-old son standing in front of her.
We will never know, because the show is taking an entirely different turn. And so, I’m afraid I have to add Dolores Roach to the same infamous list as Lime Town or The Black Tapes. This podcast was great until they decided to just not end it.
If you’ve waited this long to see if you should listen to Dolores Roach, here’s my advice. Listen to season one, it had a reliable and satisfying ending. But season two should be left in obscurity where all half-finished stories belong.
(1 / 5)
If you’re a fan of my work, please check out my latest story, Nova, on Paper Beats World. New chapters every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
We’ve reached not only the second to last episode of this Dolores Roach season but the series as a whole. If you’ll recall, last episode we were riding the high of a great new villain. We had an unexpected and shocking story arc.
Now, after listening to this second-to-last episode, that high is gone. And we are left with disappointment, lamenting what might have been.
The story
We begin our story with Dolores being shown to her new home. The home she’s to share with Ephraim is considerably smaller than the home they were sharing before.
Ephraim is thrilled. He’s read Mother Cleats’ treatment and is all in.
This doesn’t make sense to Dolores. To her, this place seems like a downgrade. But for Ephraim, it’s a chance to belong. A chance to feel safe, to not fear hunger or violence.
Dolores has no illusions of being safe from that, though. And she’s not thrilled with being drafted as the Chain’s new killer and cook.
She tries to get Ephraim to run with her. Even prison would be better than what she’s facing. But he doesn’t intend to go anywhere.
Next, Dolores tries to get Ginger to go with her. She points out that having a baby in a tunnel instead of a hospital is probably not her ideal birth plan. But Ginger has some sort of strange fit and screams at her.
Dolores is lost, unsure how she’ll ever fight her way through all of these people to get out of the tunnels. But at the last moment, she gets unexpected help from a very unexpected source.
What worked
Let me begin by saying that it’s honestly hard to say that anything worked in this episode. Which isn’t to say that it was bad. The acting was as wonderful as it’s been the whole series. The sound editing was wonderful.
But everything that did work suffered from the pacing. We’ll discuss that more later.
This episode was full of sudden yet inevitable betrayals that I love. I don’t want to ruin the fun for you. But it’s safe to say that no one is on good terms with anyone at the end of this. At least, the people still alive.
I also appreciated the setup for a pivotal death. Early in the season, Ephraim told us that the middle rail was certain death to touch. I think we all knew that this was going to come up eventually. That we would, sooner or later, see someone’s eyes melt out of their sockets. And yes, I’m pleased to say that did happen.
What didn’t work
If the podcast Dolores Roach has a flaw it is in its pacing. And that flaw came very much to light in this episode. Because this should have been at least two episodes.
It was not as fun to see the ending of this episode as it would have been if there had been more build-up. An important character betrayal didn’t mean as much as if there had been more of a build-up.
Overall, this story would have felt so much richer if there had been more room to breathe and experience them. It was as if we were to be served a wonderful meal. And instead of savoring it, we shoveled it down without truly tasting it. And that’s a shame. This seemed like a delicious story. I wish we could have tasted more of it.
Even though there should be more, there is only one episode left of Dolores Roach. And I don’t know how to feel about that. They’ve done everything they set up to do already. So, what’s left for Dolores now? That’s the only question we have left to answer.
(3 / 5)
If you’re a fan of my work, please check out my latest story, Nova, on Paper Beats World. New chapters every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
We’ve now reached episode three of Dolores Roach, season two. And it appears we’re at the part of the story where everything is going to go right off the rails.
The story
We begin our story just as Dolores’s laughing fit over McDonald’s lets up. She and Ephraim are sitting down to a meal of dead man. While she’s still lukewarm on the concept of eating person, he’s never had anything so tasty. Granted, if I’d spent who knows how long eating ramen and canned pineapple, I might find person steak a treat as well.
Ephraim wants to use the rest of McDonald to trade with The Chain. Dolores isn’t so happy about the idea. She wants to give it to the hungry homeless people in the tunnels. But Ephraim insists.
They cook the meat and take it to a woman Ephraim knows in the chain named Ginger. At first, she was not interested in speaking to them. Until she tries the meat they brought.
At this point, I think it is important to mention that Ginger is pregnant. I think that’s going to become important later.
She then takes them to Mother Cleats, the leader of The Chain. Cleats seems overjoyed to meet them. The reason why becomes clear soon.
Cleats has an internet connection. And she knows who Dolores is. So it’s not too hard for her to figure out what sort of meat Dolores has brought to them.
This turns out to be very good news for Cleat. Because she’s not just in the tunnels because she has nowhere to go. No, she’s planning for a war that will end the world. And she’s trying to make sure that her family Chain is fed and taken care of. To do that, she needs food. And Dolores, who is good at getting food in nontraditional ways, might be the answer Cleat’s been looking for. Whether Dolores wants to be or not.
What worked
The star of this episode was our new antagonist, Mother Cleats.
I think we all knew, as soon as The Chain was mentioned, that there was someone at the top of that chain. I thought we were going to get some opportunistic bully who’d strong-armed their way to the top of the food chain. I was not at all expecting a crazy end-of-world cult leader. But that’s what Mother Cleats is. She is fantastically insane. Just to give you an example, here’s an actual line from the episode.
“It’s becoming impossible to ignore the subliminal messages they’re having Whoopi Goldberg send me through the View.”
Not only is Mother Cleats a lot of crazy fun, but she also does something treat for Dolores. She makes Dolores the hero again.
Dolores has, of course, always been our protagonist. But I’d argue that she hasn’t been our hero for a couple of episodes right now. We weren’t rooting for her to succeed, so much as we were rooting for her to get caught.
Now, Dolores has someone to fight against. She has people to potentially save. She has a chance to be a hero.
Of course, she also has a chance to set herself up in a good position. She has a chance to be a mad general under a mad queen. So long as she can keep her queen happy, she can live a comfortable life. And we know that Dolores, so far, has been concerned first with self-preservation. Will she keep to that MO? Or will she rise to the occasion and save the people of the tunnels?
With the story heating up like this, it’s hard to believe that there are only two episodes left in the season. And that’s a shame. This show is going in some wonderfully dark directions. I can’t wait to see what the last two episodes have to offer.
(5 / 5)
If you’re a fan of my work, please check out my latest story, Nova, on Paper Beats World. New chapters every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
