Limetown: Episode 2: Winona

September 23, 2015 1:15 PM

American Public Radio journalist Lia Haddock shares the first interview in recorded history with a survivor from Limetown.

Here's a brief write up from The Daily Dot that has some details on how the podcast is made.

posted by yasaman (23 comments total)

Let the speculation commence! After the interview with Winona, my guess is that there's some weird hivemind/ascended to another plane of existence business going on, and that Winona has been kicked out of it or escaped, which damaged her brain, and that's why she's so scrambled. The way Winona used such distancing language to speak about her husband and daughter was definitely creepy.

I found the end very chilling thanks to a combination of the excellent foley work and the voice acting. The pounding on the door and screaming just felt very visceral, and upped the stakes of the story.
posted by yasaman at 1:26 PM on September 23, 2015 [5 favorites]

yasaman: "some weird hivemind"

I definitely got an insectile feel from Winona and the guy at the end. The network of caves could be their hive.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:47 PM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I felt like this episode was a let down after the first. It felt to me like the narrative got put on rails, the whole take this cellphone, and wait to learn more neeeexttt weeeekk schtick kinda is at odds with the framing as an investigative podcast in the tradition of Serial. The Black Tapes has actually produced the opposite feeling in me as time has gone on, from what was so obviously going to be a monster of the week by the numbers run through a bunch of typical ghost stories, to something far more interesting and spoiler as it has developed (since somewhere around episode 5 I think?).
posted by books for weapons at 5:43 PM on September 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I liked it. With only seven episodes, it makes sense that Lia would find a major clue fairly soon - though the total absence of Limetown survivors was creepier than one come back wrong. That said, the conversation they had was deeply eerie, and it sounds as if things had gone off the deep end way before the madness.

The banging and yelling scared the shit out of me - I was so glad to be in an office rather than alone at night. The added visual of someone making that horrible noise with their head was a great touch!

Agreeing with above speculation about a hive mind, with the limestone tunnels their hive. The question is why they're reaching out to Lia? At the beginning of the conversation Winona was contemptuous they Lia didn't even know what question to ask - that sounded like the Citizens. But then something of the individual still clung to the memory of her daughter, and wanted information on her. So not a perfect mind-meld, and hard to tell if this is sanctioned by whatever they are now, or if this is an act of rebellion.
posted by harujion at 1:46 AM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

If this is Lia's role, and Winona is playing her own role, and so on and so on, it suggests to me that whatever project was set in motion at Limetown is in some way completed.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 12:13 PM on September 24, 2015 [4 favorites]

I definitely got an insectile feel from Winona and the guy at the end. The network of caves could be their hive.

And here I was, about to complain that this episode didn't touch on the network of caves, where people have gotten lost. Come on, of course everyone escaped into the underground caves via hidden passages, with a week for the clean-up crew to remove any trace evidence that the citizens missed when they were preparing for their sudden departure. Include hive mind, and everyone can be doing their part without a visual record of such planning.
posted by filthy light thief at 1:00 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

If this is Lia's role, and Winona is playing her own role, and so on and so on, it suggests to me that whatever project was set in motion at Limetown is in some way completed.

Or is coming to an end, though other forces are still trying to prevent the plan from coming to completion (thus the headbanger warning to Lia).
posted by filthy light thief at 1:02 PM on September 24, 2015 [3 favorites]

filthy light thief: "the clean-up crew to remove any trace evidence"

An actual insect swarm would be very good at that...
posted by Rock Steady at 1:08 PM on September 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

Except they'd leave their own trail of physical detritus. They're no crack team of clean-suited evidence removers.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:02 PM on September 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Well sure, but I'm thinking the authorities who investigated Limetown were looking for human hair and skin, not cockroach shit or whatever.
posted by Rock Steady at 2:29 PM on September 24, 2015

I feel like the name "Sylvia" (Winona's ?daughter) is important somehow, but can't turn up much beyond the patron saint of expecting mothers (and there is an interesting interplay here - from Wiki "Anglicized form of the Dakota name Winúŋna, meaning "firstborn daughter.") and a ballet notable for being based in an Arcadian style.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 3:19 PM on September 24, 2015

Meta Suggestion:
When each new episode comes out, could someone come to the end of the previous episode's thread and just post something like "New one's out!"? I check my Recent Activity a lot more than I check my podcast app.
posted by Etrigan at 7:14 PM on September 24, 2015

Oy, all that BANGING.

I wonder if that guy's "the next citizen you'll hear from."

Seconding that "the man I lived with and the girl I lived with" is very creepy.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:49 PM on September 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

OK - new theory. Ophiocordyceps unilateralis is a parasitic fungus that causes behavioral changes in ants. (Probably don't read the wiki article if you're squeamish about parasites.)

Of particular note: O. unilateralis has been known to destroy entire ant colonies. In response, ants have evolved the ability to sense that a member of the colony is infected; healthy ants will carry the dying one far away from the colony in order to avoid fungal spore exposure.

I am putting forward a theory that the 'dry rot' that 'spread like a cancer' through the buildings in Limetown is of a similar (albeit fictive) nature, and this is where the hivemind is created.

The actual science work being done in the town was of no particular consequence - at the time. Whatever purpose the scientists were recruited for took place after the incident, likely in the caves.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 7:45 PM on September 26, 2015 [3 favorites]

I hope it's not that, because there was a fairly well-regarded and well-selling zombie novel recently that used Ophiocordyceps as well. (I won't name it for spoiler reasons, even though the fungal explanation isn't really a huge surprise plot point.)
posted by Etrigan at 8:42 PM on September 26, 2015

I am aware of this thing.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 9:21 PM on September 26, 2015

I am aware of this thing.

Given the context, this is a fitting and creepy commen.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:10 PM on September 27, 2015

Fell asleep listening to this episode. Not recommended. The head pounding mutant shrieks woke me without benefit of context, and though I was good and awake for some time after that I didn't dare relisten to the pod until I was getting ready for work the next morning.
posted by Kinbote at 4:39 PM on September 27, 2015 [8 favorites]

Fell asleep listening to this episode. Not recommended.

I think we can close down the nominating for Biggest Understatement in this year's MetaFilter Awards.
posted by Etrigan at 5:30 PM on September 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

I felt like this episode was a let down after the first.

Yeah, I found the open-endedness of the first one more intriguing than some of the 1950s-sci-fi-esque imagery of this episode.

I'm hoping the next one returns to the horror-writing guidance that the unseen is scarier then the seen.
posted by salvia at 11:53 PM on September 27, 2015 [3 favorites]

Just finished both episodes. So good! Am I the only one that's convinced Lia Haddock is from Limetown? Seems like a lot of little children might of escaped if they were being given protectors. Also the whole "my distant uncle thing" is totally "the father that went missing and we took you in."
posted by mayonnaises at 1:33 PM on September 29, 2015 [7 favorites]

Oooh, I hadn't thought of that! I am convinced that she's being manipulated by Limetown mind magic and is not doing any of her reporting of her own volition.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:56 PM on September 29, 2015

I hope that you are not suggesting that Lia Haddock... is a red herring.

I'll see myself out.
posted by the uncomplicated soups of my childhood at 5:17 PM on September 30, 2015 [6 favorites]