This post is about the podcast Alice Isn’t Dead, Part 1, Chapter 4: “The Factory by the Sea.”

When I listened to this episode the first time, I missed a lot because I was so focused on the music.

I started it again on my commute this morning and realized there was much more going on. I’d been mildly aware that something scary happened, but I completely missed the little time jump and the man who seems to have aged before the narrator’s eyes.

The way the music flows along with the story is very well done. At the line “The whole of the machines echoed from the empty scaffolding and walkways,” the music portrayed this so well (yet subtly) that it felt like I was there.

After four episodes, frequent listeners are probably well accustomed to the episode structure, which starts with a brief snippet from the narrator before Joseph Fink’s introduction. It’s very familiar for “Welcome to Night Vale” fans, too, because it’s much like Cecil’s strange and profound intros.

“The Factory by the Sea” contains still more relatable road trip incidents, such as the narrator’s reactions to the rudeness and/or stupidity of other drivers. I especially liked the description of a suburban church as having the same architecture as a Taco Bell.

Side trips into what the narrator sees on the road paint the picture of her telling the story into the radio, rather than actually depicting the story as it’s currently happening. Being one more step removed from the action makes it even more compelling when we actually hear things happening in real time (i.e. the attack in the previous episode).

Pieces of our world also pull us into the story through recognition, only to use oddities to give us the feeling we’re actually not in that world. Thus it’s even more brilliant that this story is told in the world of a trucker. Truck drivers seem to have their own little private subculture that makes day-to-day activities distinctly apart from everyone else’s experiences.

As the story continues, I keep thinking of the narrator as someone who’s slowly descending into insanity. She’s talking to someone who may not be hearing, someone who’s no longer there, and as she remembers interactions with Alice, she may wonder if she was ever actually there.

So, was she? Who knows. It’s not really about answers at this point.