THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES  

She really came in here and said "I saw a ghost. She was on fire. Then I moved away" and EXPECTED TO GET PAID???? GURL 💀😂

Obviously adhd is the only true defense against the spiral

I would kill for Martin "you could pour soup in my lap and I'd probably apologize to you' Blackwood

joshua "freeze the key" gillepse and robin "i left the spiral for dinner" lennox need to meet

I love the entire episode being dedicated to the rest of them struggling without Jons powers

highlights: "i saw a ghost" "...your name is john smith." "l e t m e s t a r t a g a i n" "s z s m s p i d e r s" All of this people probably had a real encounter with something but without spooky eye powers its so hard to put em together and its so damn AwKwArD

martins awkward exchange with the girl will never NOT be funny oh my god him giving her the money for coffee yet being like maybe not as much as a macchiato is COMEDY GOLD LMAOO

the concept of a guy entering that spiral, getting stuck for 6 hours, realizing he'll be late for dinner, and then just LEAVING that spiral is literally the funniest goddamn thing to happen in this podcast

I just realized how scary Jon would be on a date or smthn. He asks you one semi-personal question, accidentally uses his powers, and the next thing you know you're giving a horrifyingly detailed explanation of your deepest darkest fears for the whole restaurant to hear.

"I woke up and... ghost!" Absolutely KILLED me!

Basira is clearly used to taking people's statements, I love the character consistency.

so i feel bad for martin bc he was just so awkward but robin, i think it was, talking about his dog? that’s just adhd tbh

The spiral guy is 100% proof that not being scared is the best way to get out of the thrall or whatever of the entities. He straight up went "oh shit I'm gonna be late for dinner, so now I will leave." and then HE DID!!

imagine michael traps someone in his weird hell corridor dimension and its this guy who just decides to leave bc he'll miss dinner

i love how the only sure thing to combat the powers so far is being so absent minded you barely notice smth's weird

ok martin just murdered my soul through second hand embarrassment but i related HARD to Basira just being completely nonplussed by robin just choosing to leave the Spiral......goddddd i love these characters so much

god jon really was the thing holding shit together huh. ive been binging these, and i loved all of them but always found difficulty with suspending the disbelief that all the stories are told so detailed and calmly and dramatically, when describing horrible death and trauma. its cool to see that it was actually just jon accidentally compelling them the whole time, and if they didnt have him itd just be this nonsense 24/7.

"Who are you?" "I'm uh.... Smith" "... just Smith?" "John! John Smith" "Jooohn" "Smith" "............your name is John Smith" "John Smith" Why was this so funny

I actually think is kinda refreshing to hear awkward statements like this from time to time instead of somber stories with the unknown. Lets me know there's actually "normal" people in the TMA universe

Wow. That is in... Stark contrast to what statements we heard with the Archivist. I guess getting a dramatic creepy story out of someone isn't as easy without creepy eyeball powers.

I mean this episode just explained how the spookies stay hidden. Seeing a spooky is damn near impossible to put into words, without the archivists power they're just incoherent rambling. I also love that all of these stories probably happened and are extremely useful but without Jon's power barely any information can be gathered from them

Martin's was terribly, humorously, PAINFULLY awkward. Tim's was mostly just "meh, okay" (=.=) which turned into a "yeah, eff you too" >:[ Basira's kept going out of tangent and she's exhaustively tried to bring the dude back to the point of the story. And then Melanie's just trying her best to get a statement but the dude is traumatizing himself even further. And John's most likely tied up in a van somewhere.

I love this episode. They all had encounters with the one of the big baddies but their statements ended up being nonsensical just because Jon wasn't present with his freaky power to compel them to compose spooky poetry. Not to mention their encounters are hilarious? The first woman just kept going back to sleep? The second guy instead of saying something creepy like "the dark ate my friend" thinks that the GOVERNMENT did it???? What??? Like they are just skulking around there waiting for people to break into a tube station??? The third guy just left. I feel bad for the fourth guy but I love how normal he sounded while describing his problem unlike the ghost spider guy.

"Statement. Ends." Lmao, I can actually _hear_ the life draining out of Tim thanks to John Smith.

The spiral clearly booted Robin as fast as it possibly could. I'm crying laughing omg

the increase of um uhs really highlights the awkwardness of telling a story without weird archivist powers to help you out lmao

If the next ep doesn't start with 'Statement of Michael Spiral regarding a random ass dude that left for dinner' I don't wanna hear it

Martin guilt tripping himself into buying that girl a coffee lmao

Honesty, I can't help but picture the Spiral and/or Michael just kicking Robin Lennox out when they realized he went in more circles than they did LOL

So I just listened to the assistant round table and found out that Martin giving the girl money wasn't even in the script. Apparently Alex just did a bit of improv and the actress was actually desperately trying not to laugh. I love this entire cast so much.

"So I left." "You-- huh?" "I was gonna be late to dinner, so"

Never realized how helpful Jon's powers were LMAO

the dog walker dude is a phat mood. i psychiatrist once turned to my mom when i was in the middle of a tangent and said "you realize its not normal for people to talk like this, right?"

I know others have said this, but when talking about this podcast one of my main criticisms has always been "people are too coherent, they remember everything perfectly, it's so detailed." and to understand now, fully, with one episode what I was already starting to understand because of Jon's powers- it recontextualizes everything. It adds such a beautiful layer and explains it so well and demonstrates it. This episode is painful to listen to. and I LOVE IT. It feels so reassuring. I miss the Archivist now.

robin is me doing basic tasks and repeating half of the shit i say because i dont remember a damn thing

this is my first comment on one of these episodes but I just need to say I physically withered when Martin forked over the coffee change

*I AM DYING.* I LOVE THAT THERE'S A NARRATIVE REASON FOR THE STORIES THAT ARE TOLD TO JON BEING SO DRAMATIC AND WELL-TOLD. I ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT THEY WERE A TAD UNREALISTIC BUT THIS IS SO WELL EXECUTED AND AWKWARD!

I'm in stitches, these are so horribly awkward. I never worked in customer service, but from all the stories I heard I imagine _this_ is exactly how most of the conversations go.

The way Jon says “I guess you had to be there” 👁👄👁

the audio distorsion when something Odd happens freaks me out so much i love it

The true horror: English awkwardness

the dog guy is hands down my new favourite character ever

I like to imagine Michael let Robin leave the Spiral just because he thought it would be funny. He was right too.

My heart goes out to the poor man with the spider problem talking to........ it's really hard for me to differentiate Melanie and Basira's voices, but I know it must be one of them.

Did Peter just launch that poor dude into void

this was actually a really great way to celebrate 100 episodes, a slight break featuring a good amount of the cast with some humor...I think I needed it, thank you. I've been binging these this past week and the amount of anxiety I normally experience has about tripled and it's not because of the spookies--- it's because of JON

"If I were trapped in the middle of an eldritch spiral, I would just leave. RIP to you guys, but I'm different." - Dog Guy

You know one thing i've been thinking through out this series is "it sure is lucky that ALL of the people who come in to give statements are such eloquent detailed story tellers" And I kept wondering what it would really be like for the average person to try telling a good coherent story to someone in this situation. Now I know. Pour one out for these poor souls, god Martin's end conversation gave me so much second hand pain I suppose the archivist's powers also make people better at speaking, so that explains a lot 😂 I probably should have figured that by now.

Robin: are you a dog person? Basira: *sweats perfusely*

This girl who sees a whole ass ghost and just goes back to sleep and this kid who just up and leaves the spiral death trap when he's late for dinner are my idols I wish I was half as nonchalant as these two

finally commenting on this episode because it's the only one i've absolutely had to pause, because holy shit. i'll take those 99 episodes of horror and suspense easy. secondhand embarrassment is a poison i'm not immune to

Jon, please come back, we're suffering.

THe GOvErNmEnT- Goddamn killed me.

Elias, sitting in his office, getting a voice from the ether: "Dang, these suck, man. It's like eating a bag of chips, there's no nutritional value here. When is Jon coming back?"

"What people are down there in the tunnels..Mr. Smith" "You know.... The Government" 💀💀💀

I love how IRL most of this episode was also improv. The actors just got given a small description of what to say and they had to improvise from the LMAO

RIP Brian tho... bright side, no more spiders?

gOD THAT MAN WITH THE DOG DROVE ME BONKERS ITS WAS LIKE,,, TEN MINUTES AND ALL I KNEW WAS THAT THERE WAS A GUY AND HE WALKED A DOG IN THE WOODS. and then,,, and then he LEFT??? HE L E F T ARE YOU K I D D I N G ME?? anyways fun times at the magnus institute

the dog guy was driving me crazy asdfghjjghk he seems like a sweet guy but oh my god...... .... please wrangle your train of thought

this was a genius way to introduce how jon's powers really work while also giving us a comedic break. i was beaming from ear to ear the whole episode. truly phenomenal work from all cast and crew, although i don't know why i'm surprised anymore lmao

Shout out to my man Robin for not having any of this supernatural crap. He is out there walking his dog, visiting his mother for dinner and living his best life, what a legend

As a person who has worked in customer service for two years, I fully empathize with with the protagonists this episode. This is exactly what working in CS is like. People want something from you, but refuse to tell you what it is. A customer has a problem that takes 30 seconds to fix, but instead they will take five minutes to tell you everything except the information you need to fix it. And, finally, customers yelling at you for something your company has no control over or isn't even related to your company in the slightest.

It never occurred to me that without The Archivist it would be exponentially harder to collect adequate statements.

You KNOW Elias is watching all this with popcorn in hand

"it was scary and it made me feel scared" thats a big mood with this podcast lmao

this is fantastic! all of these stories connect to previous themes but bc john and his archivist powers arent there, theres not coherent story to put them together lolol, hilarious thank you

The pure chaotic energy of the archival assistant squad trying to operate without Jon’s powers to make subjects coherent morphing into pure the horror and dread of listening to an innocent man being subjugated to the Lucas family’s bullshit is so seemless yet still strangely jarring

HE JUST LEFT IM 💀💀💀

Robin is a mad lad

That third one sounded like a really bad d+d dm explaining a room in d and d

People: die by the hand of the spiral The dog guy: *_so I just left..._*

the spider statement was the funniest this guys just like "THATS NOT N O R MA L !" n she has no idea what to do lmao

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="65">1:05</a> Lynne Hammond, Pt. 1 <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="284">4:44</a> “John Smith”, Pt. 1 <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="488">8:08</a> Robin “Rob” Lennox, Pt. 1 <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="686">11:26</a> Bryn Finlinson, Pt. 1 <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="892">14:52</a> Lynne Hammond, Pt. 2 <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1121">18:41</a> “John Smith”, Pt. 2 <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1158">19:18</a> Robin “Rob” Lennox, Pt. 2 <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1272">21:12</a> Brian Finlinson, Pt. 2

I love that these might all actually be connected to powers and are in at least 2 cases!(?imo) But without jon or even like context they don't know?!

In the transcripts, there's a subtitle that's literally "[Desperately trying to get him on track]"

first of all this episode is HILARIOUS and Tim is just, so, so, done. martin tried being so helpful but dear God. basira, your poor poor girl you got stuck with the guy not even the Spiral wanted to tolerate. and, damn, Lukas, Elias is protective over his people? I can only imagine if he weren't, jesus

I can totally picture in my head Tim's expression on his face while he was speaking to "Smith"

A hundred episodes in and this is, by a landslide, the most painful thing I have had to listen to.

halfway through and i'm convinced this episode happened the way it did because people complained about language used in the statements taken directly from subjects and how unrealistic it was for people to speak that way. message received mr sims, no more complaining about people speaking too well.

The funny bit is that if you recall, the only "true" stories Jon had encountered were the ones that only worked on tape. So it implies these rambling people actually did have something to them if they weren't recorded digitally or something. Or maybe they just felt like getting into Jon character and used the tape...

Love how the first girl did not give a single f AT ALL😭😭 just went straight back to sleep. She don't care.

"Today is a jacket day" and "Have you heard many old me cry?" Are the best lines of this episode lmao

omg thank god jon has eye powers because we've been spared from statements like this the whole series... imagine if we had to sit through 2 and a half seasons of this urfkjdnvcxmjknm

IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO JACKY THE DOG I SWEAR TO GOD

Lynne and Robin are both clearly avatars of The Ignorance.

"so what did you do? You're waking up in the night and seeing a woman is in fire in your flat so you...? "I mean what can you do? She wouldn't be there for long." That is hardcore. Just watching a woman burn to death in your flat.

This episode is great and I love it, but it’s also kind of infuriating.

bro no wonder elias didnt want to hand jon over to the cops. when he does statements and the eye (i GUESS) gives him the compelling people to overshare powers they go so much smoother. imagine having the powers to know things and just hearing the questions going back and forth in the archive all day, i'd go insane.

Martin is so patient.

I feel like this is not only to highlight Jon’s powers/necessity but also as a big “WE KNOW WHAT WE’RE DOING” to the people complain about the statements being unrealistic and “people don’t talk like that” etc. bet they were waiting to do this episode for so long, lol.

Martin's awkward talk with the lady made me more uncomfortable than anything else so far, it was painful.

THE GOVERNMENT!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAH

Oh my god the first girl’s statement was low-key frustrating. I was able to explain the event that made me enjoy the supernatural and paranormal stuff when I was in 2nd grade in more detail back then than that lady could. So frustrating.

this was the funniest thing ive heard in a while skksndkshak i was almost crying. i feel like the actors of the statement givers were having a great time with it all + there were some great deliveries this episode!!

This episode is so difficult to listen to but I feel like this is deadass the most realistic shit I've ever seen

Some of these statements sound like pulling teeth.

I'm only a few minutes in, but I can feel all the effort Martin is putting to try and ask questions as John does

My theory from this episode and what we know so far: The first witness was "attacked" by the Desolation. But the woman was so numb about it that, even after the Desolation trying so hard to make her get scared (first the smells, then the image of a burning woman and lastly slightly touching and burning her), she was like "oh okay *proceeds to go back to sleep*", the Desolation just decided to leave her alone 😅 The second witness was probably attacked by the Dark. I mean, his statement was very similar to that one episode about a photographer with their partner going to a church that was below another church to take photos and in each photo there was, at first, a human like shadow, and then they became many shadows, and finally the partner was taken by them. We all presumed it was the Dark's doing then, and I believe it was the Dark's doing again now. But the witness was so much of a conspiracy guy, that his mind just straight up went to the government 😂 The third witness was attacked by the Spiral. Now, even though his adhd was the cause of his statement being so not coherent and always getting away from the point, I don't think it's what saved him; his lack of fear did. We've already heard a statement of a person being inside those corridors so we somehow know what the Spiral does to a person in there, their anticipation of an ending of them never coming, and fear starting to build up in them with every passing turn that shows more of the corridors and no way out. But in this episode, the victim just accepted they're in a maze, without wondering how or why, and just went with it. And even after seeing how much time had passed so easily, they didn't get scared of what the heck was going on in there, but instead they just went like "oh, I'll be late to my mother's". The fact that he was worrying about making his mother wait for him instead of being scared about himself and when he'd be getting out of that never-ending maze is probably either worked as an anchor to bring him back or made the Spiral understand that he's not a good fit for being in there and the Spiral let him out. It was funny though :P For the last witness, he's the only one out of the four witnesses in this episode, that was actually scared from the entity that was attacking him, in his case the Web, and I don't know if that is the reason why Peter Lukas, who's either working for or is an avatar for the Lonely (I've been referring to this entity as the loneliness entity, but I've seen some people calling it the Lonely so I'll also be using that name instead), attacked him or it was just an unpleasant coincidence. The Web had targeted him, and considering the amount of spiders he said there were in his place, they wanted him either just for prey or to kill him and use his skin like that girl who was only skin and the inside of her was hollow and full of spiders in a previous episode (I think it was the second episode were the homeless vampire-killer is giving his statement, can't remember his name right now). But, before it was able to finish its plan, the witness met Peter Lukas who was probably also drawn to him and he was sent away to a world just like our own but infinitely empty of life besides him, and he's forever trapped in there until he dies or he finds a way to get out of it. All in all, a very good episode for the 100th episode of the series, a bit of change from the horrors and spookiness of the series to something more light and funny, but at the same time still adding the supernatural in the episode and also moving the plot a bit. It was also interesting to see how people would normally give their statements to people of the Magnus Institute who are *not* the Archivist, and that makes even more sense why the Archivist is the one who should be taking their statements 😂 Even the written ones, that didn't get in tape from Gertrude yet, even for those ones the Archivist was present or right in front of the witness while they were writing their statement, so that way they would be affected by them and write their statement as they're supposed to be written.

This episode is the best bit of acting and character interaction so far

That ep was so frustrating IT KILLED ME. the girl with Martin? If she had been in front of me I'd have send her away in no time. The spider dude? Clearly the lad has a phobia and needs help, give him a cookie and a therapist's adress. I think 60% of the Archivist's assistants' job is to deal with people like that 😂