Notes From the Hiatus Bunker: MAG 1 “Angler Fish”

General warning: these notes are from the perspective of someone caught up to TMA as of the latest mid-season break (Nov 26th, 2020) on a self-indulgent relisten. There be spoilers ahead!

SUMMARY: A drunk frat boy (if the UK had any such equivalent) narrowly avoids becoming a walking piece of taxidermy through sheer dumb luck.

ANALYSIS: We learn some important things about the Archives. We learn that the statements have run the gamut of the Institute pipeline “when an investigation has gone as far as it can, it is transferred to The Archives”, which makes it a little odd that we have any live Statements at all, but this is episode 1. I don’t know how strictly Jonny adhered to that conceit. If forced to rationalize it, I imagine Elias might have cut corners to encourage Jon to go down specific avenues and Jon could easily have been too overwhelmed by the new position to notice anything was amiss re: protocol. We also learn that the Institute was founded in 1818, and there’s trouble digitizing the records - even typing them electronically. All statements are either handwritten or plonked out on a typewriter. Oh! And speaking of distortion, during Nathan Watt’s account itself we’re treated to definitive tape static each time Jon quotes the creature asking “Can I have a cigarette?”, and in typical Jonny Sims fashion the literal phrase “the stranger” appears three times to tell us why.

Overall great standalone episode that is not very standalone at all. Specific shout out to future recurring characters: Sarah Baldwin and Daniel Rawlings, and the Archivist pronouncing “lol” phonetically. He’s trying so hard to be a professional academic, guys. It’s cute.

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: How much you wanna bet Elias forced Jon to perform the Archive ritual on the 200th anniversary of the Institute’s founding?
More importantly, was there cake?

Also, why did The Stranger position Sarah to have a career in sound design? Taxidermy I get, but sound design? Maybe I’m wrong, but I got the feeling the Anglerfish’s victims weren’t avatars as much as they were stuffed puppet-like extensions. What did it gain?

And how does one spell Angler Fish. I know there’s technically no such thing as a fish, but it’s two words in the episode title, one word on the transcript, and Google is giving me both. Any marine life experts floating around here? 

SUPPLEMENTAL: The bunker has wifi! This should have been apparent by the fact this is my second post, but I’m so used to taking it for granted, I didn’t stop to think why that was odd. I might have to explore these tunnels. Thank whoever was kind enough not to password protect their hotspot.