#the punchwhistle twins

[booigi-boi]

Bunch of The Case of the Greater Gatsby characters for your enjoyment! 🍪

If this doesn't make you go listen to this funny film noir audio narrative then I don't know what will (on your typical podcast platforms 🤍)

[man-down-in-hatchet-town]

THE CASE OF THE GREATER GATSBY EPISODES 20-21

Okay, so tomorrow is the release of the LAST EVER EPISODE OF GREATER GATSBY (cry with me, folks!), and while I’ve been keeping up with my listening I have fallen a bit behind with these analysis posts, largely because these last few episodes have been so jammed packed with answers that up until last week there wasn’t much theorizing to do. So while this post is about episodes 20-22, I’m writing it after having already listened to episode 23 multiple times. I’ll do my best not to spoil anything from episode 23 in the thoughts below, but there will probably be a lot less pondering and guesswork than usual.

Anyways, spoilers for episodes 20, 21, and 22 under the cut!

Okay, first things first—are Shipwrecked really going to get away with not letting us in on Ford’s secret? I couldn’t quite tell what Fig was saying when Ford cut her off, so I pulled up the transcript and it looks like she says “I can’t believe you managed to them all in—“ Which, for the life of me, sounds like absolute nonsense. I’ve spent hours trying to come up with what she could be about to say, and I’ve drawn a blank. Any ideas?

Speaking of Ford, our boy definitely needs therapy. While I understand the place his anger is coming from, probably a lot better than Ford himself does, he does need to remember that technically Fig was hired to shadow Willy as a bodyguard and was technically there on set in her capacity as a P..I. as well. I predicted from the start that Fig’s side job would clash quite badly with Ford’s trauma, and frankly I’m surprised it’s taken this long to get there. But here we are and I am sad. :(

But hopes springs anew! Mel has officially shuttered The Grapes of Wrath! This seems like another tick in my “Mel is intentionally sabotaging the movie” column. If anything, the only real evidence contradicting that theory is that it took so long for her to shut it down in the first place. Perhaps Beanslot is particularly keen on Steinbeck? Regardless, Mel is still my personal favorite suspect for writing the letters, or at least for being the person behind them (I don’t quite believe she composed any of the messages herself). I know Fig and Ford believe the threatening author and the murderer are one and the same, but we have no real evidence for that, beyond the word of the letter writer. Plenty of people could have figured out he was likely murdered, and decided to use that increase the power of their anonymous threats. Mel, for instance, could have learned from Mo Beats. And now that I know who the murderer seems to be (more on that in my next post), I’m not sure what their motive for writing the threatening letters would even be.

Moving on from all these questions, let’s talk a bit about answers. TD stole The Greater Gatsby during the night of Mel’s party to bribe his way into Bixby’s Brigade. He gave the script to Willy on the suggestion of Roger, who was keen on his movie-star wife getting arrested and joining him in prison. Guys, I love Roger. I know he’s kinda’ terrible but I just can’t help it; I guess it’s that classic Gabe Greenspan magic. And he and Willy are, in a very odd and slightly worrying way, kinda’ perfect for each other. The swelling music cue that plays every time Willy decides his dubious criminal action is actually The Most Romantic Thing ever(TM) makes me laugh. Every. Single. Time. It helps that Roger is such a silly goose that it’s impossible to imagine any of his harebrained schemes actually resulting in harm coming to his lovely wife. That’s just not the narrative vibe, I guess. Also, I was right about Dash keeping an eye on Wilhelmina on Roger’s orders! Yay me!

The other bout of answers comes from the Punchwhistle triplets and their grand reunion in Fig and Ford’s office. As expected, “George Astrum” is both Eugene Punchwhistle and the Hinge Highwayman. Except for my brief foray into “Barnaby is Eugene!” madness (look, not all of my crazy theories can be right), George has been my top candidate for Eugene since his introduction in Scott’s tapes. Meanwhile, it turns out that Lex had not been kidnapped or swept up in some epic trail of clues, but had simply gone to ground as part of the search for her missing brother. While I missed the delightful Esther Fallick, the moment where they asked Lex if she was aware she’d been recast was maybe my favorite line of the episode. Love a good bit of meta humor. Lex also gives more evidence that the writer of the threatening letters has plenty of access to the set. While this does point a finger towards the supposed killer unmasked in the next episode, it could also point to any number of other characters. I’ll probably come out of this looking very silly, but, as I said, I’m still not convinced that our killer and adaption-hater are in fact one and the same…

A Couple of Other Thoughts: -If Ford hadn’t been acting so ridiculous about Fig’s onset work, she probably would have taken him more seriously when he said not to hand Mel the script. As it is, I supposed we should just be thankful that Mel did, in fact, destroy it. -Mel and Ford, for all that he hates her, seem to have the same opinion on the bookclub. I don’t think that’s particularly important, other than as an indicator that Ford’s perspective is a bit out of whack, but it’s funny regardless. -God, to be a fly on the wall next time Mel sees TD. I want a three hour Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf-esque character study about THAT.

[thesarahshay]

Every time I rewatch Gilded Lily and Ford says "The kind of glow you could only get in the Fresno sun," I flash back to one time on tour when I spent a little too much time in the Fresno sun and ended up delirious with heat exhaustion, onstage next to my brother who had caught some kind of bug and was running a fever, and we just careened through the show with a frenzied, slightly hysterical energy that would have done the Punchwhistle Twins proud.

[booigi-boi]

The Case of The Greater Gatsby is here! Here's some characters ✨🤍🖤

Listen to the audio drama wherever you listen to podcasts, please, I've been so hyped about it and made a Spotify account just for it

[man-down-in-hatchet-town]

Okay okay okay but I think you might be absolutely right about Dash being involved with the letters! I keep coming back to the fact that the Persauds came up with Greater Gatsby first, which implies that Dash was included in Gilded Lily partially as set-up for GG. And yet so far he hasn't really done much. But we know someone's hired him to keep an eye on Fig and Ford (who are working with letter victim Willie) and he also keeps sneaking onto the film lot, implying that he's got business there as well (could he have been looking for an opportunity to sneak a letter to Cliff?). So that's a pretty solid line ot draw!

I could totally see Mo just lying about Fitzgeralds' death to get out of having to do a murder investigation. But that doesn't explain what he was doing around Mel, or this major case he's got going on in a bid for promotion (it wouldn't make sense for him to just make up a case to "investigate" as his superiors would need to see the work and proof, though I suppose he could be lying about being on the brink of winning the promotion just to psyche Claudette out).

But speaking of Dash, here's the insane crack theory I came up with this morning and can't completely scrub from my brain: Dash is the third Punchwhistle twin. He's certainly enough of a clown to have vaudeville roots, and he's got a penchant for comedic costumes. "Dash Gunfire" doesn't even sound like a real name so much as moniker chosen to go along with the cool PI persona he so desperately wants to have. So what if he was the third Punchwhistle, who vanished in order to escape the vaudeville circuit and because he always felt out of place next to the obviously fast-talking and clever Rex and Lex. Since the third Punchwhistle vanished just when they were getting started, and I think its implied that they came up in New York, it could make sense that no one in LA would recognize him. Dash says that he just got back onto good terms with his family--maybe Penny got it wrong and the Punchwhistles aren't looking for their missing brother, but rather in LA to reunite with him, just keeping it on the down-low out of respect for his wishes. It would be kinda' fun if Dash and Ford both turned to being P.I.s to escape the entertainment industry--it would really make him Ford's foil in a way I don't think Ford would be comfortable with. Also casting Brian as Joey's brother would be funny, what with TCB in mind. IDK there's probably something out there that blatantly disproves this theory I just can't think of it right now.

Jumper

Spoilers for Episode 6 of The Case of the Greater Gatsby below the cut!

So, the footnotes in Barnaby's letter are super interesting. The writer was obviously responding to Fig's, Willie's, and Cliff's criticisms, confirming once and for all that whoever writes the letters is either the person who was listening at the door, or else the person to whom our shadowy skulker reports. It's very funny to think of them frantically and with no small amount of embarrassment cutting out more little letters at the last minute. If anything, I think they over-explained this time.

But what's the game here? There's definitely the implication from Vivian that Ford got played--but by who, exactly? Did the letter writer earnestly want to silence Barnaby, or were they intentionally trying to drum up some high-profile chatter? Sending a threatening letter to a man like Barnaby and expecting him to actually stay mum would be a little daft or naive. But on the other hand, trying to get him to shutter the entertainment section falls much more in line with goals of the other letters--getting rid of Willie and Cliff (trying to keep something about The Greater Gatsby hushed up?). It would be extremely strange to go to such lengths to keep them down and out of the public eye, only to then broadcast those efforts to the entirety of Tinsel Town. Unless this is all just a long-game to drum up paranoia, or, heaven forbid, publicity. After all, sending a letter to Willie would definitely be a way to ensure that people hear about it.

And Barnaby... just how conniving is he? Was he actively searching for further information in addition to getting help? When did it occur to him that he could publish Willie's and Cliff's problems instead of his own, therefore getting the sensational headline without putting himself in further harm's way? The headline certainly belies the "simply good man" persona he's been rocking ever since we first met him. Perhaps Vivian's dislike of him really does come from something more than boredom. We are starting to see the ambition that brought him to the top in the first place.

As for the rest of the episode, I do genuinely feel bad for Darby, but she did sign up to write a tap-dance adaptation of The Grapes of Wrath, so she should have known this was coming and handled it with more grace. Our girl's got a lot to learn about working with collaborators. And we still have her meetings at Bixby's to account for. I don't think we have any evidence that Mel's involved in their bookclub/rehearsal group/whatever Bixby calls it, so I suppose that a rewrite of Greater Gatsby is still on the table... (Also, the idea of can't-catch-a-ball-Farnsworth Farnsworth being completely silent the entire time he was on the set of American Whoopie is just very amusing).

Do we think the missing Punchwhistle will indeed never be mentioned again, or is the whole "just some flavor" thing a fake-out? Maybe it's a set-up for a potential sequel???

God these thought-vomits are getting long! We got a break this week but excited to see what comes next and how Ford handles Barnaby's betrayal! (And don't think I've forgotten about the secret being held over Ford's head, Shipwrecked, because I haven't.)

[man-down-in-hatchet-town]

Everything You Want

If you ever needed proof that I really love Shipwrecked, here it is: I tore myself away from Hatchetfield on NPMD RELEASE DAY (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) to put down some thoughts on Greater Gatsby, episode 7. As always, spoilers below the cut.

(Before we jump into that, though, MASSIVE shout out to Curt Mega for this podcast, Nerdy Prudes, and Pulp Musicals. He's worked on almost everything that's keeping me going right now. Man of the Season. Thank you for your service, sir.)

Okay, I got to say it. Ford suggesting that Peter Lorre, an ethnically Jewish guy who had to flee Nazi Germany, isn't used to hate mail was... a choice on his part. But the running gag of celebrities taking threats as complements is genuinely one of the best gags in the series so far.

So the writer of the letters is going after adaptions. The further we get into this, the more I start to wonder if these letters are really just an old-timey viral advertising campaign. If you build up this whole, buzzy, real-world-intrigue story about beloved actors being threatened for appearing in adaptions, you know what will happen when such adaptions come out? Ticket sails will soar. People will want to be part of the narrative, to see the movie Jimmy Stewart or Wilhelmina Vanderjetski put their life on the line to make. And someone in the business threatening other people's lives just to increase profits is thematically just the sort of thing that would exist alongside Ford Phillips and his hatred of the cynical, exploitative Hollywood system.

But the problem there is, what would that have to do with F. Scott's murder? There's got to be a reason both these cases are part of the same story. Perhaps Fitzgerald somehow found out in his deep-dive into Hollywood secrets, and the letter writer killed him to keep him quiet. It's not a worthy motive, but most aren't, and the greed at the top of the ladder knows no bounds. Or maybe the letters are being sent out by someone connected to the movie but unrelated to the murderer in order to specifically market a rewritten Greater Gatsby and further capitalize on Fitzy's death--make it seem like he died for the art. But then again, the public doesn't know he was even murdered in the first place...

Or maybe I'm flat-out wrong about the whole marketing angle. Really, the most obvious answer is that Greater Gatsby was basically an adaption, and the writer of the letters genuinely hates such movies. They threatened Fitzy, then simply followed through. But that falls apart if you look a little deeper. Beyond "hatred of adaptions" being the silliest reason to kill someone, such events would imply a pattern of the writer murdering a victim before moving onto the next and that hasn't held up. So maybe F. Scott was being threatened to stop work on his film by someone who had a secret to protect. The situation spun out of control, our threatener killed Fitzgerald, and is now writing all of those threats as a distraction. That way, if the threats he/she ever sent to Fitzgerald were found, investigators wouldn't see through to the real motive behind them.

Meanwhile, all of the celebrity cameos were very fun and silly, but didn't tell us much other than give the slightest glimpse into why Ford hates Jimmy Stewart so much (still perfect character lore). We got another mention of Eugene from the Punchwhistle twins, definitely making him feel less like flavor and more like set-up. And do we think Rex's perfect recall is going to come back, or was just a device for this one scene? In Ford's personal orbit, it sounds like Bixby's quest to fix his financial issues has gotten him into real trouble. There's clearly something clandestine about the group he's renting the backroom out to, and their potential relevance to Mo, one of the few people to see Fitzy's body, is another point in favor of that group connecting back to our murdered author. I still think they're working on remaking Greater Gatsby in secret.

Speaking of secrets, we don't know where Barnaby was the night of Fitzgerald's murder, or why he's lying about it. He could be the murderer, he could have also been having an affair as well... I gotta tell you guys, Barnaby might be one of my favorites but I wouldn't trust him with a moldy piece of bread. The way he stabbed Ford in the back and then instantly came to him for help because someone else was untrustworthy? What a guy. (He's right about the cops, though. Don't trust the fuzz.)

Regardless, it looks like Fig and Ford are setting their sights on Darby. I doubt she's the one behind the letters but I'm hoping we'll start to get answers about her "book club" and whatever the hell Bixby's gotten himself into...

[shipwreckedcomedy]

Suspects: 6' & 5'6"; sibling comedy duo who grew up on the Vaudeville circuit; are their nonstop hijinks covering for their deep insecurities? Or something more sinister?

Brian Rosenthal & Esther Fallick are The Punchwhistle Twins

The Case of the Greater Gatsby | A New Fig & Ford Radio Play from Shipwrecked Comedy | Now on Kickstarter!

[marykatewiles]

Welcome Punchwhistles to the Fig & Ford madness!

Suspects: 6' & 5'6"; sibling comedy duo who grew up on the Vaudeville circuit; are their nonstop hijinks covering for their deep insecurities? Or something more sinister?

Brian Rosenthal & Esther Fallick are The Punchwhistle Twins

The Case of the Greater Gatsby | A New Fig & Ford Radio Play from Shipwrecked Comedy | Now on Kickstarter!