This post is about the podcast Alice Isn’t Dead, Part 1, Chapters 5-7: “Signs and Wonders,” “Sylvia” and “Let’s Break into a Police Station.”

I got a little behind on Alice, but I still want to write about the whole of part 1, so I decided to combine the latest three episodes to catch up on my stray thoughts.

In chapters 5, 6, and 7 in Part 1, as we’ve seen (or heard, I guess) in previous episodes, every now and then we’re introduced to a new concept, style or treatment of the narrative that I think starts to add not only to our understanding of the narrators journey, but to our ability to become a part of the world. “Signs and Wonders” starts out with more of the normalcy of being on the road: cruise control, billboards, etc., then starts a slow burn into the narrator completely breaking down. She’s going through Alice’s computer and their finances — which is what you do when your spouse dies or disappears — and finds out about all of Alice’s lies. That’s already hurtful; so eventually, when she sees messages on billboards that could only have come from Alice, telling her to give up looking for her, it’s too much.

I mostly appreciated the progression between going through records of the past, and a possibly communication from Alice in real time; the first incident of this so far (as far as the narrator knows). The first possible evidence that Alice hears the transmissions or, at the very least, knows her wife is looking for her.

I rarely have any criticisms of this podcast, but episode 5 could have used a trigger warning about the near-accident… I was in my car and slammed on my breaks stupidly, thinking it was real. But that’s less of a criticism, really, and more of a compliment of the sound, timing and acting that led me to fall for this.

In “Sylvia,” the narrator meets… well… a girl named Sylvia, obviously, a hitchhiker. The commitment to only hearing about interactions with others through the narrator, with no live action, continues here. It’s an even more interesting choice when it’s an actual passenger, which is a clue that at some point Sylvia is no longer around, so she’s telling the story in past tense. And that format makes it more of an impact when something live happens — like maybe a near accident or a violent attack in the trailer. I don’t think this choice is a coincidence, but instead really brilliant writing and direction. Add in the musical score and the sound effects, and you’ve got a great combination of everything that comes together to make a tiny slice of entertaining drama.

“Let’s Break into a Police Station” is partly a hot mess of insane scheming and desperate attempts at gathering information, just like it sounds. After a recap of the scene just before they break in, there’s a cut back to the narrator driving and talking about what it’s like to drive through Texas, and you hear her truck pulling out. Going back and forth like this reminds us that she’s telling the story; it’s not happening now. She’s back in her truck with the CB radio, alone. At the next cut, again, you hear the engine at the beginning. It seems to imply that she’s telling the story while stopped, but then talking about the landscape when she takes off again. Meaning the telling of this story could take place over several hours, several days, several weeks… who knows. Time becomes meaningless. It’s an interesting effect.

As the action starts, some light sound effects come through in the background while the music intensifies. I guess if I were thinking hard about this on first listen, it could be a distraction from what I already know — that she’s telling the story later. But instead, it’s slight faintness and quickness, only including loud, accentuated sounds of a situation that would have included many sounds of chaos; so it’s more like a faint memory of the sound heard from the point of view of the narrator. (Although, if this transmission is getting to Alice, she wouldn’t be hearing it.)

My favorite thing about the latest chapter is that their mission, and possibly finding some information to help unravel all the mystery, is really inconsequential (or was on my first listen), because I was so much more interested in the storytelling style. I’m getting more this way as the show goes on, possibly because when there’s so much mystery and you know you’re not getting big answers quickly, you stop wanting them. Or, some of us do. I’m going to call it “Lost syndrome.” If you were angry at “Lost” all the time instead of enjoying it for what it was, you’re probably going to hate this podcast.