Far Cry Absolution: Chapter 4 + Epilogue

Another book bites the dust! Kevin and Phil recap the thrilling conclusion of Far Cry Absolution.

Video Version

Automated Transcript

Hey there everybody welcome back to pixel it My name is Kevin with me as always is Phil hello and today we are finishing Far Cry absolution

Phil  0:14
it is coming to a conclusion unless you played Far Cry five in which case you know that it's not really much of a conclusion but we'll get to

Kevin Erhard  0:25
it there's not an ending in any sense of the word not for the Far Cry story but yeah it's it's this is a brisk chapter it jogs right by you it's Captain America saying coming up on your left as your is your running around the Washington Monument or wherever the hell that was in DC dammit

Phil  0:53
you just you just pulled that one right out of your fucking pocket I'm impressed let's get we're already off to a good start

Kevin Erhard  0:59
off to a good start in good strong it's a strong reference and I'm it has absolutely nothing to do with what happens in this chapter.

Phil  1:07
Nothing not a damn thing.

Kevin Erhard  1:11
Oh gosh so um yeah it we start right off with them having taken a taking a little nappy nap in the car and we'll wakes up and he sees Mary Mae is not moving in the front seat and he's like oh my god she's dead. He has those thoughts because

Phil  1:34
first thing he does is check her pulse yeah

Kevin Erhard  1:36
because Jerome and drew have left

Phil  1:39
right yeah it's just the two of them in there and also now based on that we we know that he's been kidnapped not kidnapped sorry he's been rescued because that was not clear at the Amazon not

Kevin Erhard  1:51
clear at the end of the day Yeah. So he's

Phil  1:56
he's in there with her and just assumes that she's dead that's so fucked up he is at this point he's like okay well she's a body

Kevin Erhard  2:04
this is just a this is just a corpse that I'm sharing a car with pretty much yeah so Jerome is taking is taking drew has drew out of the car they don't specifically say why they're out of the car but I assume drew had to poop

Phil  2:22
or something yeah you know just like or it's like time for now that's it's a conversation I would have liked to have seen because Jerome's you know the holy man and here he is with the the converted fanatic, right. I would have liked to have seen that I know I know we're we're following Mary Mae and will here and those are our protagonists but I still would have liked to have seen the you know, preacher with a shotgun Yeah, talking to the tight up cultists, that would have been

Kevin Erhard  2:51
accursed I wouldn't I wouldn't have minded a brief point of view seen from Jerome's point of view in this moment that would have been cool

Phil  2:59
Oh absolutely.

Kevin Erhard  3:02
But yeah we got we got drone we got will finding drone and drew upstream and there's there's a little back and forth about about religion here

Phil  3:18
Oh yeah, yeah, this is a good one by though

Kevin Erhard  3:22
Yeah. Because so drew basically just says how's your religion any different and drum response I'm not forcing it on anyone. I'm here as an interpreter and sometimes even me the Bible is a foreign text I'm not the end all I'm nothing like that. And neither is God you've got to do what you've got to do whether God is with you or whether God is not I don't make excuses otherwise. Like damn that's a that is a that is a salad preacher man right there he is. He's cutting right through all the bullshit.

Phil  3:54
And I appreciated that but I was also there was a part of that was like, forgive me for being cynical Father, I

Kevin Erhard  3:59
don't forgive me for being cynical father, but I don't believe that you exist.

Phil  4:04
It kind of No, it kind of made me think of our very first book with Resident Evil and there's the scene with one of the guys and he's talking about liking guns or something like that. And basically he refers to himself as he's like, sure I paid my end.

Kevin Erhard  4:21
Berries good old family man berry coudl Berry.

Phil  4:24
He's like, but I'm not a fanatic. I was like, oh, Barry, where are you now?

Kevin Erhard  4:29
I'm a card carrying member of the NRA. But I'm not a fanatic. Or like well,

Phil  4:33
not a fanatic.

Kevin Erhard  4:35
Barry you see what we're getting here. See in 2021 Barry Alright, we're back in Resident Evil

Phil  4:43
we evidently didn't have enough to say about that. You know

Kevin Erhard  4:46
what I want to I let's just let's just turn back let's do an entire closing episode on Resident Evil What do you say?

Phil  4:54
I don't see why we shouldn't let's I mean, people will people will wake

Kevin Erhard  4:57
people away. Fine. We're gonna pause Far Cry right? Now and then. Alright, so we're back from talking about resume.

Phil  5:09
I want to talk about you know what you did?

Kevin Erhard  5:13
I'm sorry.

Phil  5:15
Yeah, well, it's gonna take time to heal those wounds, so

Kevin Erhard  5:18
transponders, transponders are thing. transponders are a thing. And that was how john had found them the first time. And right. And Will's like, was he doing the same trick again? And of course, john isn't doing the same trick. JOHN is too smart.

Phil  5:36
He's too smart. He's a wacky cultist to tattoos people how could you even assume that he's probably doing this? Isn't it systems is doing the same thing. It's doing the same here is good old good old john. So

Kevin Erhard  5:51
we, we, they've they wrap up their conversation, and with the decision to go to a place that we'll have been avoiding for a long time now, and that's, you know, if you've been following along, you could probably guess where that is.

Phil  6:09
Oh, yeah, you're there. They're heading over to Six Flags Over Georgia. Yeah. Which was will and his daughter's favorite spot to go. The plane tickets were not cheap. not cheap at all. not cheap. not existent. Really. It's the rest of the chapter is just him pretending to be in a plane when he's actually on a branch up high in a tree going. And then that's how the book ends. It was

Kevin Erhard  6:37
a points down at the ground and says, Look, I see Six Flags.

Phil  6:40
Yeah. And then if they falls out of the tree, he

Kevin Erhard  6:44
falls out of the tree. And it turns out that the old S.T.A.R.S. Had ruptured and he died.

Phil  6:51
And he died. That was the end there was little snow. Yes, sorry. You should have put that spoiler alert up there. No, we'll we'll take some to his old home which is given to the strike. He was the stupidest move he could have possibly

Kevin Erhard  7:07
made like the most obvious place they could have gone. It's like if you were making a list of places to go, it's wills old house. number one. Number Number two, Mary Mays bar.

Phil  7:18
Right. Right. Those are the two places number three

Kevin Erhard  7:22
the church

Phil  7:24
like Right, right, just yeah, just straight back to where they just escaped from

Kevin Erhard  7:29
straight straight down the list.

Phil  7:31
Turn on your heel and head out. Yeah, like yeah, it was just, it just struck me as like, kind of like like, Guys, you You escaped. They're gonna check out your old house. Like he makes a point of saying like is he gave the house to the church? Yeah. You know, that was part of it. Like he gave it to them. And so they so it's not like it's a hidden feature on the landscape they know about this place. In fact, it genuinely surprised me when they get there that no one's waiting for him already. like you'd figure like this is

Kevin Erhard  8:09
Yeah, a couple of guards. Yeah, it's like he gave the house to the church is like, I'm surprised there's no one living there. Like right?

Phil  8:19
We do. We do enter the house and find out exactly why. It's probably better that no one's living there. It looks pretty bad.

Kevin Erhard  8:30
It's in pretty rough shape. It has not been taken over.

Phil  8:33
Yeah, yeah. And it's still covered an old empty liquor bottles. And, and someone has spray painted the word murderer on the wall. And both of these factors are things that you can kind of imagine will going like Oh man, this place is a shithole. Geez, I wonder who did all this? Yeah, Eden's gate totally wrecked my old house in the inner monologue like yeah, that was me I did that I did both Oh, and he

Kevin Erhard  9:02
did he did both about this thing see spray paint and murder on the wall when he was really really deep in his feelings.

Phil  9:08
Oh big time big big feelings.

Kevin Erhard  9:11
He was he was so deep so deep in those feelings so deep in

Phil  9:15
those feelings and and yeah, and the liquor bottles are from back in the day when he was you know, it's Is it like 10 years that he's been I know they swell for a while I think it's 12 years 12 years 12 years. So these are like 12 year old liquor bottles. Now don't get me wrong I don't expect the you know, the cult that spawned the the alpha male that is Lani is probably not exactly up to speed on like cleanliness or anything like that. Right? But I'm kind of amazed that no one went in there with a garbage bag and then just let's just throw a just toss all those bottles of Jim Beam into the bag.

Kevin Erhard  9:54
Yeah. And about and so it's been 12 years or so. as, as, as Jill Valentine would say 144 months worth of dust have accumulated.

Phil  10:10
Oh my god. I'm just literally thinking I was gonna make a joke about. I was like, I wonder if Kevin remembers the fucking Oh my god. Yeah. So it is in there. Everyone's just getting a glimpse into Will's psyche here. Yeah. Yeah. And,

Kevin Erhard  10:36
and he has some like, bummer moments and I understand that it's it's important to put them in there. But you know, it's he has the bummer he wished he had done instead of them. He wish he had gone just pickled himself and alcohol like he'd tried to do so many nights and days after they'd gone You know? Yeah, that has

Phil  10:57
that he has, it should have been me. It should have been me. Yeah, he has those. Those moments are pretty expected and and they deliver they deliver on that they do deliver

Kevin Erhard  11:07
on that.

Phil  11:08
Yeah. So Mary Mae goes off to give herself kind of a quick wipe down. This sounds less titillating than it actually is. Especially or less titillating titillating than sounds. Especially when you remember that she's just had a you know, non consensual tattoo foisted upon her

Kevin Erhard  11:32
yes she she basically just kind of cleans the area around the tattoo which I gotta imagine is it's probably not they're probably really focused on keeping these these tattoos from getting infected because the intention is to cut the skin out

Phil  11:52
yeah yeah it's like she the and on top of that one of the I was like gritting my teeth the whole time they're describing this because at one point they talked about she's so covered in dirt and grime and the shit that the words envy which john had tattooed on her she can't even see them under the the dirt and grime and so she like gets down there with like a little rubbing out like she's I'm just imagining her like dabbing rubbing alcohol to honey this is this is this is infected it's your there's no point there's no yes this is this is a mess you you know short of like a good scour this is not going to this is not going to go well I don't know just a single cotton ball and a little bit of hydrogen peroxide just you're going to need some that's gonna do the trick

Kevin Erhard  12:40
you're gonna need some antibiotics

Phil  12:44
you know big big dam when

Kevin Erhard  12:47
I really wish this scene though so they're kind of like wills breaking out his supplies and making some canned food for them. They they cut up some spam and put it into tomato paste and, and beans and all that stuff. And this was the opportunity to call back to the stern Oh,

Phil  13:14
yeah, yeah, absolutely. My people my people everyone's got sterno in their home.

Kevin Erhard  13:20
They call back to the store no didn't happen because he has an app to burner campstove that he used when he was young man freshly back from the war. So for those of you keeping track at home that's is like a like a 47 year old stove that eats you

Phil  13:40
which is it's and and on top of that I recently used one of those stoats literally a few days ago, I went camping with my fiance. And first and foremost I love that thing. I love it. I those things are amazing. But yeah, it's like no, it would probably work okay after 40 years because really what you're doing is

Kevin Erhard  14:00
not a whole lot of parts. moving parts to it. Yeah, it's

Phil  14:02
just a metal frame. And what I'm concerned about are the tanks of propane that you would have to use for it. Like that. That's that's it's so good. Okay, so how that works. You think it would slowly escape over time? Yeah, at least over the course of 40 some odd years but I don't know. Yeah. They are. They are they are living like me in my sophomore year of undergrad so they're just just the whatever food you know is is vaguely around and and poor Mary Mae she's in the in the bathroom looking for any sort of ointment or tincture or something like that. All the lotions and savs have like separated over the years. Yeah, it's a mess. It didn't he gave her like his old one. His wife's old Sure, I

Kevin Erhard  14:57
believe he did. Yeah, yeah. Just just they feel like they don't call it out specifically. It's just like she understands the implication of like running woman's shirt, you know,

Phil  15:09
right yeah she's like oh I see Yeah, right. Yeah so they're just having kind of a pitiful moment like they're all just it's not a it's a weird moment I it is I call attention to it because it's weird it's

Kevin Erhard  15:25
so weird and it's like it's awkward. They have drew they're

Phil  15:31
like drew is still like, not having he's still drew is still

Kevin Erhard  15:36
he's pissed off at all of them his fire and brimstone. drum is in probably in the best shape of all them because he hasn't been you know, non consensually tattooed or

Phil  15:50
or carrying 145 pound man or the

Kevin Erhard  15:54
shot at all that stuff right so the thing that that cuts the this awkward moment something they noticed that something is now on fire. Yeah that's drums car drums cars now

Phil  16:12
I'm like man was doing you guys a favor now these guys are sending my fucking car on fire. So yeah, even skate is found them to which I can only reply da Of course

Kevin Erhard  16:24
they were gonna find you. They're like you. I don't understand why they didn't rule out why didn't they just take Jerome's car and just go

Phil  16:34
that Ty had that question too. You know, it's like in Far Cry five it's made really clear that the Eden's gate group is like patrolling the roads and no one and no one out that kind of thing right Don't get me wrong there's a level of like I don't know if there's a level of bullshit to that that I don't fully but

Kevin Erhard  16:57
again it's game logic bullshit like oh they can't get out you can't get out of the valley like really? You can't

Phil  17:03
right and these guys like that but they don't even try like there's no even mention of like let's just get the fuck out of here and find the fence yeah there's there's not even not even an attempt at that or even talk of

Kevin Erhard  17:18
talk of it later. But yeah, not like yeah,

Phil  17:23
at this point no and that would have been the first thing I would have said like when whenever when sitting and we're like eating spam and tomato paste which delicious the moment we have a moment of talk I'm like Okay, so this road will get us out of fucking Montana right let's just follow that road and go

Kevin Erhard  17:42
like this go to Idaho like what's what are we doing here?

Phil  17:47
They've got other Colts there we can deal with we'll just deal with it as a GM

Kevin Erhard  17:52
if I recall correctly, they are on the western half of Montana. It's not like they're in the middle of Montana I believe there I think you're right i think they're ready the game is set relatively close to the Idaho border

Phil  18:06
right so there's something that you can do about this I don't it's Yeah, but but whatever moving this point where we are really just wrapping it up at this point drums cars

Kevin Erhard  18:16
on fire and that at this point

Phil  18:21
yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, that's a good point even if even if one of them had had the wherewithal to say let's get out of here and head west young man Yeah. But you know, at this point of cars on fire and Eden's gate has arrived

Kevin Erhard  18:36
so gate has arrived and they have arrived in the big way there is so many of them and will they well you don't see that there's that many yet but you know that they're there and will is like let's go just leave drew GTFO we can sneak out of here I know a way out that we could get out of here and marry man you

Phil  19:00
know and you and you know will is being sincere because he's the one who had to do literally all the heavy lifting when it came to getting drew out of there right and if he's still after all that work willing to go fuck this kid let's just go then he's you know, he's being sincere. Yeah,

Kevin Erhard  19:16
yeah, he's willing to cut his losses But Mary Mae is not and that's the power of family.

Phil  19:22
The you know, Guardians of the Galaxy. Ooh,

Kevin Erhard  19:25
that's that is the Fast and Furious family right there.

Phil  19:29
Yeah, right there. They're too fast to fit

Kevin Erhard  19:31
in diesel walks right in and says family and then leaves and then anyone that walks back

Phil  19:37
out because it turns out he's part of evens gate. That's the thing. They don't tell you. The Fast and Furious movies. The family they're talking about

Kevin Erhard  19:44
is Eden's gate gate. Ian's grandfather of a family is the is the father in Far Cry five they're all they're all. Far Cry five prequels.

Phil  19:57
Oh, what are all Yeah,

Kevin Erhard  19:57
what's what's that? Oh, the joke is Leaving me. Okay.

Phil  20:01
It's uh, it's escaped. It's out. Okay. All right. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Kevin Erhard  20:05
The jokes gone.

Phil  20:05
Well. The joke jokes got jokes gone. Okay, good. We'll we'll essentially, he's going to, he's like, Yeah, he's easy to tell him. I know exactly how to get the hell out of here. So let's go. And so what's Mary's plan? Exactly does she ever like get into was about to do what she's about to do?

Kevin Erhard  20:30
Oh, her plan is she's just gonna take drew and she's gonna just wave a gun around. Works.

Phil  20:40
Okay, great. That's another thing. Once again, this is a moment that I thought I'm like, I'm gonna have to come to Kevin on this one because I feel like I feel like I missed something here. But no, she just basically like leaves drew to the crowd with a gun to his back. While will is he's covering her. He's like he's found he's found

Kevin Erhard  21:04
a little sniper's nest and is covering her.

Phil  21:07
And I don't know if this was on purpose or not, maybe this is just me. But the way that will described how he was going to have to climb up so he could get the full view of everything it made me think of earlier Far Cry tower climbing. Which by that time had become a joke even Far Cry for any any of you who don't know, in Far Cry, three, and four, and all the little standalone DLC games that came out. One of the big things and one of the big criticisms is that you would get to a new region, and you'd have to climb this giant tower that was sometime kind of puzzly and you had to figure out the best way you had to climb all the way to the top and activate some radio signal or something on top, and it would open up the rest of that little region to you. And it got really samey and kind of just got it just got tedious yeah after a while and for infor cry five one of the first missions you have is this old prepper man sends you up to go to the top of a radio tower and he makes a point to say now Don't worry I'm not gonna have you climb in these all over the state i just we just got to do this one so it became this self reference Yeah, I have to wonder if this wasn't related yeah

Kevin Erhard  22:25
cuz it was like it was the Ubisoft like game design model because it wasn't just Far Cry it was Assassin's Creed as well also has the edge right has towers that you climb in Assassin's Creed it was usually like a period specific type of thing. So Assassin's Creed two and three which are the only ones I played fully move to editori where he played

Phil  22:54
he was so mad about the third one they had a badass Native American warrior and they wasted them

Kevin Erhard  23:00
yeah yeah so like in the ones in Italy that you know it was a church like you'd climb to the top of a church tower or something like that and then yeah, died usually

Phil  23:11
they were churches I the one I liked the one Assassin's Creed I liked was for because you know pirates. Yes, it was it was churches and towers, you know, bell towers, stuff like that. But in any case, yeah, those were all that was kind of a running gag throughout a lot of the Ubisoft games. So I couldn't help but think that wills

Kevin Erhard  23:31
line was was a was a little nod to the the tower climbing.

Phil  23:38
Right? I couldn't I couldn't help but wonder if that's what they were doing. But So Mary Mae with this plan, she just kind of shoves drew down there with a gun to his back and just kind of starts chatting with the crowd now it's weird because there is an effective moment here where she's like looking into the crowd of Eden's gate people and there are people she knows Yeah. The one of the ones that really stuck with me I was like, Ooh, that is kind of brutal. is one of them is an old elementary school teachers Yeah, and it's like oh wow. Because you know with the cultists in the game as in most games it's like zombies base yeah

Kevin Erhard  24:20
they're

Phil  24:20
they're kind of faceless right they're faceless

Kevin Erhard  24:22
you don't really see any there's not much detail to them like all the other women are dressed in the same kind of dress and all the men have like the beard

Phil  24:34
Yeah, you've got like five character models total right? yeah and and so you don't feel bad about shooting them down and everything like that. But the first thing she's seeing is all these people that she knows you know, people she passed in the street, maybe not people she was best friends with, but definitely part these. This is part of her community. Right. I thought that was really effective. Yeah,

Kevin Erhard  24:56
yeah, I agree. I also like the fact that rape For that john yells out to her what's your plan here?

Phil  25:03
Yeah, yeah, no you fucked up when the crazy tattooing psychopath preacher kid is making more sense than me because she truly doesn't she is winging it my friend she is winging it yeah

and and then john actually follows it up with another another interesting point he's like we're not here for you like we didn't we didn't come here to get you married maybe we came here to get well

Kevin Erhard  25:30
yeah we already tattooed you like we would have Yeah, like we're here for will and yeah it's like oh yeah that makes sense.

Phil  25:41
At least like he's like we you know you you already rejected us and you know we tagged you we're sending you we were gonna send you on your way pretty much yeah and now but he's like but you know we'll betrayed us and we do not deal with that level of hurt and rejection very well. So yeah, he makes it clear it's like we don't give a shit about you and your little brother here we are coming for will so it's good thing wills up in the tree.

Kevin Erhard  26:09
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's a good thing and and then it cuts over to will and basically drome is they just kind of they they describe basically the scene for will the way he's looking at it and now Jerome is he warns drum like be ready with a shotgun you know, in case case they pop up on them

Phil  26:35
and he doesn't have an interesting point there too with Will he? He's got an easy shot on on on john. Yeah, he said he said he could take him out right then but he can't do it right uh, you know it's like I guess because I was like what the fuck you you literally just murdered like 25 dudes you know and then he but it's a it's a fair enough point that he basically says those people were self defense right and and and this

Kevin Erhard  27:08
blooded murder which I would argue

Phil  27:11
if I may Yes, but it's also kind of self defense because those guys are all there to kill

Kevin Erhard  27:19
you Yeah, yeah. So I mean you know we can we can we can slice through the and I'm sure I am sure Montana has very strict as has has a lot of self defense laws about you know, like defending your castle or whatever the fuck the right wing nuts want to call it. Cuz you know, you could say that this is wills old property and these people were there to try to kill. There's probably a person who could argue that. So let that that's a bonus episode. Right there is the is the hypothetical trial of of will. What's his name? Last name again? Byers. Boyd. Boyd. Boyd. Will boy Yes. The hypothetical trial of will Boyd in the murder of john seed.

Phil  28:15
Yeah, yeah, that would be how we got it we're gonna find the video game lawyer get them on

Kevin Erhard  28:19
Yeah. What? Video Game lawyer and we're on one side and legal legal on the other.

Phil  28:25
There you go. Perfect. Perfect. Someone someone helped hook us up with that. Yep. So yeah, they're just kind of standing there facing off with each other at this point. It's a really weird and awkward scene there and it's awful because john keeps making good points. He

Kevin Erhard  28:46
keeps making good points. He is doing like, I want to say spiritual jujitsu on Mary Mae at this point.

Phil  28:53
Oh, yeah. He very easily turns himself into the victim. You know, he's like, you're the one waving a gun around. like as if they weren't just firing ak 47

Kevin Erhard  29:04
like you're waving a gun around and be like, oh, by the way, we didn't kill your we didn't kill your dad. No, we're not murderers.

Phil  29:14
We're not murderers. And and you know, he's like, and you're the one who's like got a gun on your brother. He's tied up like he's a hostage. Yeah. You know, and and he he talks about you know, it's really interesting because in Far Cry five the thing that Jonathan is super into he's like this televangelist kind of type right? He doesn't resemble this Jonathan so much, except for the fact that he's the one doing the tattooing. But you get a snippet of him getting there. And I'm just I found a I found a little part here. It's talking about Gary and and he says, We welcomed Gary. We knew about us. Wife your mother our hearts went out to him but we john stopped now and raised his arms to encompass all of them we did not kill him the father did not kill him I did not kill him what your father wanted from drew was not something we had to had any saying only drew can answer your father and his answer was no and and basically he's explaining why you know we're getting to what happened yeah to drew and Mary mais father but he's also hinting at what will eventually be his big his big Sherman thing rise his his catchphrase is the power of Yes, yes, yes, exactly. It's kind of hinting it that this this seems to be like the beginning of where that all comes from, which I thought was a nice it is

Kevin Erhard  30:46
a nice touch. And it's also a nice little subtextual moment here from from urban Wait, that they still have not. Nobody has said specifically outright what has happened yet. But Exactly. He says only drew could answer to your father. Like we like we're not involved in the whatever happened between drew and your father, like the church did not have we had nothing to had no say in what could happen between, like a father and son. Like what? I don't know, what did you of

Phil  31:21
course,

Kevin Erhard  31:21
which is not true.

Phil  31:23
It's not true. It's just not true.

Kevin Erhard  31:24
Not true. But it's it's like, it's, it's not true, but it's the smart answer from john.

Phil  31:31
Right. But you know, it's also it's, it's easy to listen to him, you know, say things like it Oh, he's like, we didn't we didn't do anything to your dad, which is easy to assume that he's just flat out all the way around lying, right? Um, because of the kind of characters they have proven themselves to be.

Kevin Erhard  31:52
Only drew could answer

Phil  31:54
to your father drew can

Kevin Erhard  31:55
answer and his answer was no. Yeah,

Phil  31:59
his answer was none.

Kevin Erhard  32:00
It's Mary Mae. She felt her hand loosen from her brother's shoulder she had known in some way. But it was beyond knowing. It was like an accident scene and clear, bright sunshine of day. But its action was so horrendous that a memory that same moment was dark as night. unseen, unwanted, pushed away. And yeah, we now we're getting a little bit of a turn. And in that, in that moment, Drew turns, he turns, turns around and looks at her. Because the moment that the scene is completely turned, it's almost like the scene goes from Mary Mae in the midst and drew in the midst of this crowd of the church. And it's almost like in a play, you would throw the spotlight, you'd turn down the lights, and you'd throw the spotlight just on Drew, and Mary Mae, because the world has shrunk to just around them.

Phil  32:55
And it's their moment. This is a moment between the two of them. Yeah, that we as the audience get to be privy to. And through starch Scotty starts whining,

Kevin Erhard  33:07
he is such a he is so whiny I am such a little bit just like you're you're older and smarter and funnier and stronger, and daddy gave everything to you. Right? And it's

Phil  33:20
like and here's the thing we sibling rivalry and issues like that. That's real, that stuff happens. And so there's a part of you if you have any experience with that or if you know anyone who has or even if you're just an empathetic person there's a part of you that wants to go well let's let's hash it out. Let's listen and see what he's got to say. And I'm about as empathetic as it gets right? I just I want to hear everyone's damn story. And and even I was listening to him going, Oh, shut the fuck up. Your little prayer isn't meant admittedly not something that one should say to a cultist that you're trying to unbreak right but I couldn't shake it. I couldn't shake it.

Kevin Erhard  34:04
And that's the thing is like, is part of this is is revealing that like, it's not really the cult for drew is it? Not really, it's not the callback that that really enabled this it's it's true. This is like this is kind of this is Drew at its core. This this this sibling fury. Yeah. And drew bass kind of a sad dude. He just explains that. He goes daddy never listened to me. He never understood me. The father did Eden's gate did. So he talks he also talks about how when they when he and his dad were talking he put his hands on me but I was not the little boy he thought me to be I had grown my mind had grown. Whatever power he wants had over me was gone. And Mary Mae is still trying to fight the idea. And response

Phil  35:01
Mary Mae still over there going but what happens but

Kevin Erhard  35:04
if she responds It was a car accident and drew just launches into this another monologue and he ends it with picture the fact that I was finally stronger faster and quicker than he had ever been picture that and then you'll understand it was not an accident that he forced my hand and he paid for all the wrong he'd done to me. He leaned in now coming closer, it was nothing to kill him. It was like sticking a knife into something already dead. And now this moment, I love so much because it's it feels very Cormac McCarthy, right? It it. It feels very Coen Brothers, which you know, brothers, you know.

Phil  35:52
Did they direct they like they they like Korematsu they like their Western yeah yeah. Yeah,

Kevin Erhard  35:57
it's he admits it and she immediately shoots him in the head like there was no hesitation

Phil  36:05
none it's kind of a mix when it when it when it just clicks and she just like without hesitation just shoots him in the head. It was it's really insane because I was expecting

Kevin Erhard  36:21
more or more like hemming and hawing from her Yeah,

Phil  36:24
yeah, but at that point, but the author rightfully knew that at that point there been enough of that Yeah. You know, she had she had worked herself up and made excuse after excuse after excuse, even when he was trying to tell her the truth she wasn't quite listening and when there was nothing else for her to do, but listen, she took no hesitation and just gackt her freaking brother in front of his weird cult which you don't often get to do

Kevin Erhard  36:56
no I would say that's a very highly recommend I'd say it's a very limited experience.

Phil  37:01
Yeah, and let's face facts now that drew is dead the spread Eagles just not going to be the same that budding family business of Montana the spread eagle but you

Kevin Erhard  37:16
know I heard you were thinking of franchising the the name

Phil  37:20
so there's going to be like the spread eagle West and the spread eagle East

Kevin Erhard  37:23
yeah yeah yeah that's a love there you know spread a goal that you'd you get on the turnpike at the gas stop there's

Phil  37:33
Yeah, yeah. And then eventually the original spread eagle that everyone goes to it's like it's fine it's good and it's an experience and everyone should do it once when you're in town for the first time but really the good ones the one out on the Beltway right before you get into town that one's really that's

Kevin Erhard  37:48
really good that's where Yeah, it's everybody knows that and

Phil  37:52
it's always and it's less crowded for tourists all that shit you know? And the spread eagle t shirts the same so you can just get it there

Kevin Erhard  37:59
that's it's the same 2599 Yeah, cotton

Phil  38:04
Kevin we really need to open up on an unrelated

Kevin Erhard  38:09
I related So Mary made kills her brother and John's like yeah, that's kind of what we wanted.

Phil  38:22
He's kind of he's kind of impressed isn't it? Yeah. He's like he's like holy shit and he actually he does something I never would have expected him to do in a roundabout way but john admits that he was wrong

Kevin Erhard  38:35
like I should have given you this inner Raph

Phil  38:38
Yeah, he's like you're not envy your wrath and we that that is a way better sin to be

Kevin Erhard  38:43
his way on the list of sins. It's It's way better.

Phil  38:47
Right? And so at this point, you're expecting Okay, here comes the firefight. But Ian's gate just kind of like they're like right on by like did that was that was exactly what they wanted. Like drew

Kevin Erhard  39:01
was in trouble. He killed your dad. And he needed to die. So you did it.

Phil  39:07
Yeah. You did it. You kept our hands clean.

Kevin Erhard  39:09
We hand you when you need you. I was wrong about you. And you should have been wrath because you're a piece of shit. But thank you, but you're a piece of shit center. But thanks

Phil  39:23
It's so weird. Yeah, like they could just take them out. Because as we know anyone who's played Far Cry five. Mary Mae plays a role in bringing down john as you play through it through the first first act Yeah. And and so he could have just taken her out. And I'm wondering why should why they're leaving and then we'll have this moment where he's he's like, he's kind of explaining it to draw and which is like, which I'm like, oh, goodwill. Thank you. I needed someone to explain why they're just goddamn leaving right now. And he's he basically says like they have, they have a secret about Her now like it's like wait what? They're gonna blackmail her. Isn't the whole point that they run this fucking time like

Kevin Erhard  40:07
yeah I don't understand what they need what they have over her her family is dead

Phil  40:12
right? Her whole family's dead and they're like oh but we know you killed your brother and she's like yeah and I know that you killed like 1000 other people what what difference does it make? But are you gonna tell the cops like let's run to the sheriff we're Eden's gate we play by the rules sometimes sometimes

Kevin Erhard  40:30
you know when and when it matters yeah the whole thing it's funny because will is like watching the whole thing he can't hear anything

Phil  40:41
no no he just kind of assumes that like he's just like yeah that's pretty much what happened down there just said it just shut up well and

Kevin Erhard  40:49
dramas like no one is beyond to help not you or me or Mary may and will said nothing It was a mess it was all a fucking mess and there was no way he could see his way out of it. But he knew they would try and have the chapter

Phil  41:02
end of chapter which which you know what? That kind of that says it all it really does. It's like it's a fucking mess.

Kevin Erhard  41:09
It's a mess.

Phil  41:10
I need a protagonist who shows up in a video game to get a video

Kevin Erhard  41:14
game protagonist honestly to get raped pretty much to not have any more complex you know morally gray protagonists dealing we need we need a video game protagonist who can't die to kind of like the way through through this

Phil  41:33
we just don't have time for this goddamnit and we Yeah, so yeah, that's chapter four

Kevin Erhard  41:40
which is pretty much like the it's pretty much the end of the story. Like we get to chapter five it's really short.

Phil  41:48
It's a very minimal it is

Kevin Erhard  41:50
a it is a de no ma if anything

Phil  41:54
Yes, exactly. But that's but that is the end of the story. We get we get our final chapter we get our end that final chapter at the end of the last Harry Potter book where you find out wherever women ended up and all that shit But yeah, named

Kevin Erhard  42:10
after the bravest men I ever knew. Winston Churchill German

Phil  42:15
and we went for two different races.

Strong Churchill strong Churchill the most racist man alive

Kevin Erhard  42:34
Yeah, Harry Harry voted leave by the way. Oh my god of course he of course he did he voted leave 100% he's he's you know he's a Tory he voted leave he's he's six and now he's probably complaining about the fact that you know like shipping prices are now too high in the UK which they wouldn't have been if they hadn't left but you know whatever.

Phil  42:59
That's that's whenever whenever Oh Harry Oh

Kevin Erhard  43:03
Harry. Knee learn Yeah, what are you gonna learn to not be written by hateful hateful turf?

Phil  43:14
Like I think that is like our fourth anti anti rally rant

Kevin Erhard  43:21
fuck you JK Rowling

Phil  43:24
let's yeah let's just in case anyone's wondering her current everyone looks like her

Kevin Erhard  43:28
Should I want I would love to hire like an editor to just listen and super cut like things together of when we like are like going after a public figure just so we have

Phil  43:44
oh god yeah that day is coming

Kevin Erhard  43:49
so we'll basically is in the woods and yeah you know it's it's it's back to chapter one writing you know he's he's much yeah

Phil  44:02
he's just out in the woods out in the woods he's

Kevin Erhard  44:04
living and possibly dying as he possibly is dead in the last line

Phil  44:12
they briefly at the end of chapter four at the beginning of chapter four some point drew has told Jerome about he watched will hack up a bunch of blood Yeah, but that's basically the end of it and by now on chapter five he you're right it's basically just back to chapter one. He he likes stocks his way through the woods back to his not his not not not the home he used to share with his wife and daughter off what down? Right? But he's like, yeah, his his hide out in the woods. And Holly and a bunch of the Eden's gay people are they're just plundering the whole place and making themselves at home. So he basically just kind of goes well, I guess it was stupid. For me to come back to that place thinking things would be fine but

Kevin Erhard  45:03
just goes and lives off the land. Yeah,

Phil  45:06
that's that's literally the the end of his story. It it just says that he just he just disappears into the wilderness to live off the land. And and some say that you can still hear

Kevin Erhard  45:19
yes it is a full moon it also kind of hints that maybe a grizzly bear eats them that's the thing it does. One stack and another he put a hand out to the brush and pulled away a branch there was darkness beyond an unknowable void that asked now for him to enter to see and see what had followed him for hours and for days and possibly for all the years of his life. And that's picture wrap on will we are getting zero more information on will. It is it is the it is the vague ending of your protagonists which you know, all the artsy stories and with a

Phil  45:58
I really would love it though if like if we were making this into a film and it's like he's like going into here something out in the wilderness and all sudden this fucking bear just up and examines like after everything is good after all the bad answer he's done he just like ah shit. Is this fair? Just starts tearing them to shreds.

Kevin Erhard  46:19
It's like the it's like it's like like brad pitt, brad pitt and Burn After Reading oh

Phil  46:27
god oh god that was such a pitiful way to die. Yeah, just just just just did some goofy look on his face being shorter shreds by a bear. He does he does have a quick moment at the very end where basically he has this the talks about the memories of his family. And how basically it's it's, it's okay to revisit those memories and he any and you know, he hopes that you know, he talks about like, you know, as long as you have those memories your your family they're never really

Kevin Erhard  47:02
yeah, that's a really nice lines about like, nothing ever goes away.

Phil  47:07
Right any any hopes that Mary Mae will eventually learn that which is nice. Yeah. Yeah, so that's that's nice. But then yeah,

Kevin Erhard  47:15
buried some maybe?

Phil  47:18
Probably probably probably. I have to if he's living out in the woods, he's probably going to die beating being eaten by a bear. Yeah, that's one of the reasons it's one of the reasons you go to live out in the woods so you don't die of like slipping on soap one morning like actually, Yeah, that'd

Kevin Erhard  47:35
be like the bear or like a an infection.

Phil  47:41
Right, right. Yeah. And in that case, if it was probably good, eat your corpse anyway.

Kevin Erhard  47:46
So that's Yeah, yeah, you're they're they're scavengers there. Yeah, like yeah,

Phil  47:51
wherever they go,

Kevin Erhard  47:52
good. Still good.

Phil  47:55
So and then, now that his protagonist, storyline is wrapped, we cut over to Mary Mae who's looking over the three graves of her three dead family members. And it's a hilarious kind of exchange. I don't think it's meant to be hilarious but I couldn't stop laughing where the sheriff is just like oh that I'm just gonna just gonna read it so fuck I'm like yeah, yeah, so the sheriff was like watching her look at this these graves and what do you finally brought his eyes to Mary Mae said I guess this means you found your brother

I mean, I know that like country folks are less sentimental and shit but

Kevin Erhard  48:52
that's what's called gallows humor right there.

Phil  48:56
Definitely yet and so like eventually goes What did he die up? says his heart gave out it was natural. That right? She says that's right. He says if I go in there and I asked what happened to your brother they're going to tell me that his heart gave out and she says I don't know why they wouldn't the coroner seem to give it to a straight when daddy was in there and accident I believe is just basically having this back and forth where he's like, you killed your brother, didn't he? Oh, she's like, nope, his heart game. Sorry about everyone. They're going to back you up on the whole heart giving out her and she's pretty sure. He's like, I know I'm just a you know, a corn bone Sheriff from Montana, but I also know what a metaphor is. So his whole heart given out thing I also watched Star Wars Revenge of the Sith. like giving you know, I know that people don't just die of a broken heart. No matter what princess lay. His mom did. Yeah. So This guy's fucking insane back and forth so the sheriff just leaves her alone because you know what fuck it and I and I respect that yeah

Kevin Erhard  50:09
I truly share fucks off and

Phil  50:12
yeah he's like cuz Eden's gates still around he's like we're gonna have a lot worse to deal with here. It's

Kevin Erhard  50:18
in the sheriff finally is like You know what? I probably got to do something about this and you're like, Oh, well, thanks for finally getting off your ass sheriff.

Phil  50:27
Yeah, thanks for pro logging the beginning of Far Cry five. Yeah, cut

Kevin Erhard  50:30
to the sheriff in the helicopter with the the federal agents,

Phil  50:35
which which stands out honestly is one of the best video game opening and scenes I've ever played. He also

Kevin Erhard  50:42
one of the things that I noticed is they do set up the fact that it's not the sheriff and they don't know where the leak came from. And then they answer that question in the pro and the opening of Far Cry five, that it was the dispatcher in the sheriff's office that is yes. leaking things to the church.

Phil  51:02
Yes. Now and that is something we forgot to get specific on in the fourth chapter. They basically like, yeah, there's been there's been a leak. Wait, hold on, I'm getting something mixed up here.

Kevin Erhard  51:13
Like at some point, at some point, I forget what it was. But they talked about at some

Phil  51:17
point john says to and he says he says, because they said, How do you find them? JOHN said, You act like we didn't know where you were the entire time. Right? So someone's been like, feeding them in for me. Yeah, yeah. And

Kevin Erhard  51:29
Mary Mae also talks about how john knew that john knew she was going to get through. She brought she brought that up earlier. She's like, she knew I was going to get through after I talked to the sheriff. And so yeah, it's not the sheriff. It is it is her It is his dispatcher. I forget the name her name, but he's like, I remember at the end of the beginning of Far Cry five. He's like, God dammit, Martha, or whatever her name is.

Phil  52:02
Yeah. Yeah, like God fucking dammit, lady.

Kevin Erhard  52:06
Wait here. Yeah, it's your Why'd you say Martha? anyway? Save

Phil  52:16
and save ein Rand. Why did you say boy? Oh God, you

Kevin Erhard  52:20
say iron Rand

Phil  52:21
save every word. Oh, and then finally the book ends with Mary Mae back at her bar. She's cleaning the place up, getting ready for business. get her ready. And her first and her first? Well I don't know if you can call him a customer. But your first visitor is the young sheep herder from before they

Kevin Erhard  52:44
got the shit kicked out of them by Lonnie. Yeah,

Phil  52:47
yeah, and he's and he's he's he's no worse for wear at this point and volunteers to help her out. And and you find out that he's the same age that she was when she first started helping her dad out at the spread eagle spread eagle. The family bar family bars spreading you try the fried pickles ladies and gentlemen here the spread and that's and that's Far Cry absolution. So Kevin, what do you think?

Kevin Erhard  53:18
It is written extremely well there are some weird like contrivances that I think are done for the sake of like setting things up for the game. There's also some weird things like and you could tell that this was I looked into it this was written being written before the game came out and then while the game was still in development, so some of the details changed over time.

Phil  53:46
Wow, okay, that explains Mary Mays that's

Kevin Erhard  53:49
good airy Mays hair color changed the fact that she doesn't even seem like she has a tattoo in the game itself. In fact there's a mention certainly never address certain it's never addressed the her family is never really addressed other than her no other than her daddy her daddy's truck, which is as video game II as it gets. Yeah, and there's actually a bit of lore in Far Cry five and if you go to the clinic or something like that, there's a mentioned that Mary Mae is allergic to tattooing. So

Phil  54:23
Ah, so she's dead. Yeah, she's

Kevin Erhard  54:29
dead. So yeah, it's there's some weird little differences. And they obviously had to set it up with a character like, like will who was not definitely not going to be in the game. You know, he's this really active protagonist, it seems it would seem weird if he wasn't in the game.

Phil  54:52
And I believe will Shaq is a place in the game you can get too anxious.

Kevin Erhard  54:56
Oh, is it okay I didn't. I didn't realize that. You know

Phil  55:00
mean you find this place but you never meet

Kevin Erhard  55:02
okay yeah so will Boyd is his he's too much of a dealer to not be involved when the shit hits the fan

Phil  55:12
yeah

Kevin Erhard  55:12
yeah so you know that's that's kind of but yeah I liked it I think it was in terms of like the pros it was the best pros of all of the books that we read

Phil  55:26
yes I have to agree a certain point I was I was feeling like this was the best one we'd read so far and I kind of backed off of

Kevin Erhard  55:36
that yeah no I'm putting I'm putting Halo fall of reach back on top because it it I am too It's yeah definitely has a better it's structured better it's

Phil  55:46
it's yeah it's just a better put together better

Kevin Erhard  55:48
Yeah, it's a better end to end experience.

Phil  55:52
Yes and and on top of that, I do believe that you could read Halo false reach without having played the video games without even really knowing very much about Halo and really enjoy it still as its own thing whereas based on the ending based on a lot of the little details you really do need to play Far Cry five to fully appreciate this Yeah, because there's not a lot of kids just pick it up at the nurse

Kevin Erhard  56:23
there's not enough resolution for the the the meta narrative of the church and Eden's gate now all that stuff

Phil  56:33
no I mean how there's not enough setup for it there's not enough setup Yeah, you don't know squat up now don't get me wrong they don't go into great detail in the game but you know the book you know you just vaguely know that there are a weird ass vaguely All righty Christian call right but it doesn't go in and that like there's the you know the leader and they baptize people against their will and that's kind of it you don't you don't go into anything of detail right? So you know it's like that's the kind of thing I have to feel like if this were being written independent of the video game an editor would say hey, we need to know more about this Yeah, it needs to be a little bit played the game

Kevin Erhard  57:19
your needs it'll be a little bit I would say longer and I would probably throw another like if this was going to be completely independent I would have I probably would have plotted it out with an additional point of view character perhaps Jerome as somebody who can really be the anchor for like before and after because obviously his as the pastor he's seeing people flee like leave his congregation and go over to this other one. So I think that would be kind of interesting yeah, that's you know, that's neither here nor there I think urban Wade did a hell of a job with what he had what he the the university had to play with he made it a lot more serious a lot more dramatic than Far Cry has ever been before.

Phil  58:17
Oh, and a lot more Yeah, there's

Kevin Erhard  58:18
the characters became a lot more complex for Far Cry.

Phil  58:25
It's true I finished up this chapter. And then I sat down and played a little Far Cry five to keep myself in the mindset and immediately went and did one of the race challenges where I'm listening to redneck rock blasting through torched you know, circular target right now with fireworks going off in this hillbilly you know mountain roadster and I was like you know maybe the tones a little different and as an as a professional writer, like I know the feeling of like, you hand the copy over a certain point and a certain point they're just gonna they're probably just gonna do whatever the fuck they want with it Yeah, um, so I can only but but I've never made had something so dramatically shift I just imagine urban weight being like he gets the book out there and they're like, this is great, we love it. We're doing it we're publishing it and then the game comes out and they're like hey, so the games you want to play the game we actually threw in a few references in there and that it earned that I think you'll like it and he's like, Oh cool. I'm really excited that they finished this edgy dark Western game right? That I that I you know, it's like they starts playing it's like Wait, what the fuck is going on here?

Kevin Erhard  59:50
Yeah, you know what it is? Is is urban waits Far Cry is the the fully thoroughly political far Cry a video game that we never got

Phil  1:00:03
that's exactly it you know for those of you who don't know, Ubisoft has basically bent over backwards sideways and diagonally every opportunity they get to avoid admitting that there's anything political Yeah, that happens in their games even though the games are insanely political there's no getting around it but anytime people ask questions they become Neo in the matrix bending over backwards while bullets like ring over them somehow but urban wait didn't get the memo that Ubisoft is trying to keep this game from being political right and you know don't get me wrong he's still not too overt about it but it's it definitely says more

Kevin Erhard  1:00:48
yeah

Phil  1:00:50
in a straightforward way then then then Ubisoft would probably write

Kevin Erhard  1:00:54
a few yeah believe yeah 100% All right. Well, I think that about does it for Far Cry absolution and we had been playing around with our schedule and it's it's looking like we're going to be doing deadspace martyr next which is just in time for Jesse time. For the first spooky season we're going to be doing Dead Space murder, which tells a story of the church I believe it's the church of unit tautology in the Dead Space other than the Dead Space universe, which it's basically the founding the finding of the first marker and all that all that fun stuff. So we'll be digging into that and Phil is going to force himself to play dead space and and get some get some spookiness out there. I love it. I love it too. And then until next time, make sure that you you you like us on on the tweeters and you you on the tweeter tweeter machine and you give us a five star rating on Apple iTunes reviews or Apple podcast app whichever one you happen to be using. And share share it with your family share it with your friends, share it with your enemies, you know do just just get it out there write it on write write pixel it on on postcards and mail it to random strangers and never explain why.

Phil  1:02:26
Put it in a sharpie on bathroom walls and and in rural sections of the American southeast and send us pictures.

Kevin Erhard  1:02:34
Yeah, that's pretty much the best way to do it. And yeah, hashtag pixel tagging. Actually don't do that. We don't I'm not sure if we could be held liable for that. So Uh huh. Well, I am I am explicit. Don't do I am explicitly telling you to not do that. Wink.

Phil  1:02:54
Wink

Kevin Erhard  1:02:55
I am not winking. Goodnight, everybody.

Phil  1:03:02
Good night.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai