Statement of Briony Rose Smith concerning her thoughts and feelings after completing the fourth season of The Magnus Archives podcast. The statement will try to avoid spoilers but as this is the fourth season it may be difficult to highlight changes and improvements without giving away something. You have been warned.
Statement Begins
What is it? Horror podcast, now four seasons in. It started as a man, John, just trying to organise a messy archive full of statements about people's encounters with various horrors and has now turned into the ace apocalypse stoppers of the UK.
What are the episodes like? Despite so much going on it's still overall managed to keep its episode structure. Start, statement, end. There have been a few that have broken that as action John does things to try to make things better but mostly it's kept itself together. This season had a bit of a duel narrative going. John, at least at the start had a lot of personal issues to deal with and Martin was being tempted by the dark side taking many episodes for himself.
Any particularly cool? I'm struggling to think of particular episodes this season. The most notable thing is we got so many answers this time around. Answers around hilltop road and Agnes Mogegue, answers around the space station and how many of the names we have heard over and over started their journeys. You can really feel things starting to come to a head in this season.
What's the bad news? I don't know whether it was because this was the first season I didn't binge but, because we are so deep, because there is such a thick meta plot the statements themselves, unless they are important or happening as we are listening, are becoming a bit inconsequential. Don't get me wrong, I still love listening to them, I still love the little snippets of horror but I'm not really remembering them very well anymore.
Good news? Ahh. The metaplot of Magnus just keeps getting better. John is struggling with the idea that he is turning into/is a spook himself now. We see other spooks in so much horrible detail and then that finale, holy duck. Because we were getting so many answers I was starting to get worried we may not have enough for another season but then...then the last episode happened and me and the other half spent a while theory crafting as to what could happen next. and if Martin did, in fact, see any good cows on his walk.
Would you recommend? Yes! if you have made it this far then there is no reason to stop. Bring on season five!
Statement ends
The Magnus Archives is available all over the place. Check out their website to find out where you can listen to it: The Rusty Quill