In our most recent episode, we took a bit of a detour. In the aftermath of Leif vs. Clementine, we slammed on the brakes of the forward action of the story and we suddenly found ourselves in medieval Jerusalem. Clementine, our mysterious, chaotic, sometimes demonic antagonist, was revealed to be not much different from you or I. In the beginning at least, she was just a confused person trying to figure things out, grabbing on to anything that feels good. Aren’t we all?
Even though this was an important step in the development of Clementine’s character, it was a considerable departure from what we normally do in the show, and I was worried that people just weren’t going to go for it. It’s really warmed our hearts over the past week to hear back from so many of you that you enjoyed this little detour we took.
When you’re creating something, assigning it to a genre can sometimes be frustrating and limiting. We’re currently sitting somewhere in the top ten of Apple Podcasts “Comedy Fiction” chart, but if you had never listened to the show before and had only heard this past episode, it would be a head-scratching moment for you. When you’re branded a comedy, it creates expectations, and expectations are (ask any Buddhist) a form of suffering. This is another one of the joys of creating something independently. If I had to approach some sort of “boss” and pitch to them that I wanted our next episode to be a dramatic, three-person, no core characters, tragic love story in medieval Jerusalem, it may have raised alarm bells and you may have never heard the episode and I would have spent the rest of my life wondering what it would’ve been like to write it. Being able to do whatever we want with the show has made all the pain and suffering involved in independent producing completely bearable.
The Non-Speaking Supporting Cast
In addition to Clementine, Terric, and Yosef, there were a couple of other characters at work in this episode. The first is the city of Jerusalem itself. I suppose I felt that Clementine, a confused and powerful person, deserves a city that is also powerful and confused.
Since its founding, Jerusalem has seen a wide array of forces try and exert control over its destiny. It served as the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Israel and Judah before experiencing rule under the Babylonian and Persian empires. Then came Alexander the Great and then the Romans. It alternated between Christian Crusader states and Islamic powers during the Crusades, followed by a stretch of Ottoman rule lasting for centuries. British control arrived with the mandate era, only to give way to the establishment of modern Israel in 1948. Jerusalem's division between Israel and Jordan ended with Israel's capture of East Jerusalem in 1967. Few cities in the world have been tossed around like Jerusalem, with each group that controlled it changing it just a little bit and also changing themselves in the process. That culturally chaotic place seemed to be the perfect place for Clementine to touch down in and get in touch with her own chaos.
Another, maybe more subtle, character in the episode was this dude:
I went a little crazy in this episode when it came to bird sounds. Every bird you hear in the episode I made sure was a native of the area in and around Jerusalem, not the least of which was the Eurasian Hoopoe. You can hear its odd and ghostly “triple hoot” song in key moments of the episode, and became a way of signaling Clementine’s knowledge of who she truly is growing closer and closer wether she likes it or not.
The Hoopoe is the national bird of Israel and can be spotted throughout all kinds of religious iconography in the city. King Solomon apparently would speak to Hoopoes and give them messages to deliver to far off lands. When the Queen of Sheba was invited by King Solomon to Jerusalem, the message was delivered by a talking Hoopoe.
Thank you again for listening and supporting the show, even when we do things that are a bit outside of the norm. It was a wonderful experience making this episode and thank you to Ian Ferguson, Tomi Zanshtein, and Lauren LeBlanc for turning in such great performances.
(Psst. This email may get cut off by your email client. At the bottom click “view full message” to make sure you get the whole thing.)
Fan Art Roundup!
The fans, they are arting. Let’s have a look, shall we?
Over on Tumblr we have tiny things! Tiny Joyful Art has been making some very tiny paintings inspired by the show. See if you can tell which episode each of them are from.
We would say Whisperdann is back but Whisperdann has never left! Here is Leif having a good old fashioned phone-gab.
Here is Fan Art Roundup newcomer Quisters with fantastic takes on Gloria, Ava, Ted, and Caspar.
And finally: Ramsey is back! (Ramseyprojekt on Insta.) Continuing his Diner Polaroid series with this one from Chapter 22.
Up Next: We Say Goodbye to the Young Man.
Coming up on the 29th of this month we will, oh so sadly, be saying goodbye to our beloved miniseries Young Leif with our final episode “Exit Interview”. Young Leif was our first attempt at telling a story in the Midnight Burger world that did not center around the diner itself. The characters were different, the music was different, the “viiiiiibe” was different. Not unlike our most recent episode, we weren’t really sure what the reaction would be to something like this, but everyone has been really loving it and we are very proud of what we put together. We hope you enjoy the final episode and we are so grateful to our amazing cast that brought the story to life in such an indelible way.
New Newsletter Feature: Playlists and Songs!
Over on our subscriber discord we have an entire section devoted to songs and playlists so I thought I would start including them in the Burger Letter. We’ll kick it off with Alice Malice and their Clementine-inspired playlist:
And Speaking of Subscribers…
(More ways to subscribe coming soon if you’re not a Patreon or Apple person.)
And Finally: YouTube?
We’re not sure how YouTube is going to factor into the world of Midnight Burger but we do know that the more people who subscribe to our YouTube channel, the more useful the channel could be for us, so if you wouldn’t mind, please head over to our channel and subscribe, if nothing else you can hear Ava playing Poisoning Pigeons in the Park without having to fire up the whole episode. Thanks!
Thanks once again for subscribing to our newsletter! Just remember we’re out there, somewhere, lookin’ for ya!
-Joe