Purgatory, Missouri – Season One, EP 3:  Roger

Purgatory, Missouri – Season One, EP 3:  Roger

Two weeks is like a lifetime these days, ain’t it?  Not only is it tough to wait for another incredible installment of this here show, Purgatory, Missouri, from the devilishly delightful mind of Stuart Pearson, but to be honest, I’ve got the comprehension of a freakin’ goldfish, and after twenty-four hours my whole mental slate has basically been wiped clean, never mind two full weeks!  I became artificially intelligent long before it was cool.  Retention ain’t my strong suit…I suppose that’s what I’m tellin’ ya.  I revert back to my factory settings almost every night whilst I sleep like the events of the day before didn’t even happen, reset for the morning and the next day ahead.  But alas…this world likes to string us along like we’re chasing the proverbial carrot on a stick, don’t it?  All the best shows make you wait at least a little while before doling out that next episode, partly because absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder, does it not?  It’s a darkened heart in this particular case I reckon, but you get what I mean.  Time to strap in for the latest episode of Purgatory, Missouri.

So let’s see here…we met Theresa in the first chapter, and we met Tony in the next…today we meet Roger, who is played by the legendary icon himself, Mr. Dave Foley.  I maintain, the intro of this freakin’ show alone is always enough to ice your spine…it’s damn near like everything else that happens after it is a bonus, every time.  OKAY – episode three is gonna be like THIS is it?  Right off the drop, you can instantly hear that there’s a MAJOR plot twist within what feels like mere seconds, which may or may not confirm some of the suspicions we’ve all had as we’re introduced to Roger and how he got himself to Purgatory, Missouri.  As always, I completely recommend you have a listen to the show before you read this stuff I’m gonna write about it, because I am spoiler-central y’all.  At least in my own way.  I’m not known for having any correct theories about anything, but I do reveal details and what those details do to jolt the circuitry of my brainwaves.  So while I can’t promise you anything I’ll say is right in what I’d surmise, I can promise you lots of leaked information about the episode.  It’s best for you to listen first.

Anyhow.  Where was I?  Right.  The first seconds of episode three.  Are we to believe that Roger has purposely found his way to Purgatory, Missouri, through some kind of near death experience?  Like he found this remarkable loophole that would allow him to travel there, yet still get the fuck outta there too, because he’s not actually dead?  Roger himself seems to have a different assessment than I do as we’re introduced to him, but one that I certainly appreciate – he’s talking about Simulation Theory, of which I spend at least half of my days on Earth considering as well.  With the Pinbots being so closely linked to NPCs, we’ve gotta at least ponder the possibility that Roger is correct about his whereabouts and…whyabouts?  Is whyabouts a thing yet?  If it isn’t, I’m declaring it is as of now…patent pending.  “Oh…hi…normal human?” asks Roger to a familiar voice we know as Blanca (played by the absolutely incredible and essential to Purgatory, Missouri – Crissy Guerrero), and we’re back in full swing with the show that we love.  Couldn’t have an episode without Blanca, could we?  Roger is desperately trying to figure out how to play the game that he thinks he’s a part of, clinging onto the idea that he’s a player in a simulation and not in fact, dead.  Which is also interesting, ain’t it?  I was so sure at the start that he figured out a way to bust into the realm of the beyond, and he’s way more convinced that he simply jumped to level one on his first quarter.  “I killed myself,” Roger admits…and so while he might not end up having the way back we thought that he might at the start when we met him, Purgatory, Missouri, might just have found its latest victim permanent resident instead.  People sure have a way of opening right up to Blanca when they meet her I tell ya, and bless this fine lady, she’s as amused by it as we are.  She’s proficient in the art of sarcasm to a level that’s outright astonishing, and something to aspire to.

Maybe there’s an Occam’s Razor thing goin’ on here.  When someone shows you who they are, we’re supposed to believe them the first time, right?  Blanca has been telling us from episode one that all these characters are meeting up in HER dreams – so maybe that’s what’s really happening.  Seems like it’s just as plausible at this point as any other theory we could come up with on our own, doesn’t it?  I love the fact that she essentially confronts Roger directly with this concept, which basically means that he doesn’t even exist at all…never has, never will, POOF – he’s just a character made up in her dreams.

Suddenly, Blanca seems to glitch right the fuck out in front of him in the middle of their conversation (rude!), and she doesn’t have any recollection of what occurred after she snaps back to…umm…reality?  She does however, have a really odd connection to the phone booth that we should be keeping an ear on, which has Blanca knowing exactly when it will ring, and she directs the characters we’ve met along the way to answer the call.  “My mouth has a mind of its own,” says our master of sarcasm – but this episode really dives into the fact that Blanca also knows much more about the people roaming through this crazy carnival and the history behind how they got here than they even seem to know themselves.  The second phone call from the booth, which has a really weird & wonderful way of showing up in all kinds of places throughout this nightmarish theme park as they walk, is even MORE fun than the first – as it turns out, our friend Roger has already got himself a promotion to become a sideshow operator.

While he appears somewhat reluctant to accept the role, he doesn’t turn away from the idea at first either, and off they go to the Hall Of Mirrors to talk to Five (played by Mindy Sterling, who has been a part of just about every show you’ve ever seen and has a resume that stands taller than you are) to see what they can find out.  Five is willing to level with Roger about who he is & who he’s about to become, and like many of the victims unfortunate souls of Purgatory, Missouri, he can’t see the forest for the trees.  Like it or not, we listeners already know that Roger is rippin’ down the proverbial highway to hell, and it’s probably only a matter of time before he’s gone as mad as the rest around this circus of carnage.  We get further definition to what the Pinbots are from Five’s perspective – she calls them Boogeymen, which are people “lost in their regrets,” and “can’t see anything beyond their own remorse.”  That tracks.  Roger is also informed that Blanca is “not one of us” – which supports her notion of being the outlier she claims to be.  Five seems to have nothing but contempt for Blanca even existing in the same airspace as she is.  I find that interesting too…it also supports the idea that Blanca’s basically a part-timer in this place, whereas someone like Five laments her own permanence.  Five goes on to warn Roger directly about Blanca – “She may be the most dangerous thing in the carnival, and that is saying something.”  It might already be too late for Roger though, who seems to be going through what Theresa went through in the first episode, right before we’re introduced to a couple of new cats roaming through the carnival.  We’ve got Tunnel Of Love (played by Tonoccus McLain) and Highstriker (Alina Foley), who discuss some of the more confusing and complex inner-workings of the way things are run in Purgatory, Missouri.  We learn that Five is “second in command” from their conversation, and that Five ain’t exactly well-liked herself.  There’s an uprising happening in the ranks, and “change is coming” from what we hear.  It’s all insane, and ends up creating more questions than I think I was hoping it might answer, but nonetheless, keeps us listening, riveted, and wondering where in the hell this show is going to end up next as it continues.

Listen to Purgatory, Missouri, directly from Stuart Pearson’s website at:  https://www.stuartpearsonmusic.com/purgatory-missouri-episodes

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