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hiloedits · 2 years ago

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themaxbox · 11 months ago

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OKAY SO LIKE KING FALLS AM BROKE MY HEART AND NOT HOW A STORY IS SUPPOSED TO

To actually answer your original question, Anon, I personally would not go back and finish King Falls AM if I were you. That's weird advice for me to give, but it's probably for the best. If you are about two thirds of the way through, you are standing right on the tipping point (Episode 68) of the podcast. On one hand, I feel like if you haven't listened to 68, you don't fully understand the show or one of the central characters. On the other, once you listen to 68, you have very little choice but to see all 100 episodes through, and that *will* leave you feeling disappointed and empty.

For more context- WITH POST 68 SPOILERS- here's my full opinion on this podcast I adored.

Like my header image in a KFAM quote ya'll. I'm so mad with the direction this podcast went.

So Sammy Stevens is a closeted gay man who came to King Falls from the city because his supernatural-obsessed fiance was talking about this place before he vanished into thin air. It is a twist that contextualizes a LOT and rips the "Who is Sammy Stevens?" mystery wide open while tearing a hole in your heart. I love that episode. I love that SCENE. Being outed live on air is treated with the gravity it deserves, and Sammy's sudden vulnerability and Ben's unwavering, unchanging compassion and loyalty... MAN. *man.* It's ART.

It almost makes you forget that they're rehashing the most iconic plotline in the story up until this point, but worse.

Listen, the Save Emily plotline was cliche and often spun it's gears without going anywhere, but at least it was pushed forward by Ben Motherfucking Arnold. At least while Emily was missing, we still got some pretty iconic jokes and levity. And when we did turn our focus to Emily and the Rainbow Lights, Ben's desperation was tinted with just as much HOPE as it was pain. This is the podcast that said "Bad times are tough but not tougher than me" with it's whole fucking chest. Hope was the name of the game. Accomplishing the impossible through love was the POINT. When everything is going wrong, there were always jokes, a sense of community, and BEN SHOOTING A UFO OUT OF THE FUCKING SKY.

But when we shift to the "Let's save Sammy's missing boyfriend, Jack" plotline, things get hard to swallow. The show focuses a lot on Sammy's mental state- which is FAIR- but not really why so many people who loved the show are here. Because the levity was gone. The hope was gone. Sammy was giving up. I say episode 68 was the turning point, but the real shift happened in 75. When Ben and Emily FINALLY getting together is immediately undercut by Sammy trying to throw himself into the fucking void. We can't bask in it FINALLY happening because these episodes are dedicated to Sammy Being Sad Forever.

Look. There are ways to write about depression that work. This was not it. KFAM always had a lot of heart. It was comedic and hopeful to it's bones. Until it wasn't. Until suddenly the characters don't believe in doing the impossible for love anymore. It got so nihilistic in a way that did not feel like it was ever going to let up.

And now it won't.

See, none of this would be a problem if the story pulled itself out of it's hole. Maybe this time period was supposed to be rock bottom before once again hammering home the "love prevails" message. Maybe we were a handful of episodes from the return of old running gags and bright banter even in dark times. But we will never find out. Because Episode 100 killed off a long-term character, and Jack is clearly possessed or some shit. And then the show was cancelled.

There was an outcry when episode 100 came out that it was homophobic, and while I hesitate to go that far, I can see why large swaths of queer fans felt personally betrayed. I personally think it's coincidence that the gay love story takes place during the show's "misery-porn" era, but like, it still hurts to use a queer romance as a punching bag in that way. I defended KFAM from those who claimed that the "Ben shoots a fucking UFO out of the air for the power of love" show would bury their gays, but now that the show is never getting an ending, that's exactly what happened. Sammy Stevens will not get his happy ending. Life was worth fighting for, and then everything felt hopeless, and then the creators split due to "artistic differences" and we end... here.

That's not the good kind of tragic. That just sucks. I loved KFAM. Do yourself a favor and dont listen to it.

(Also. I listened to this stuff in high school. And the older I get the more I don't have it in me to see the people who made their only canonically Jewish character Ben "King Falls Christmas" Arnold as like... creative role models. That's just one example of a laundry list of lazy and dismissive treatment of minorities in the show. Like once again the writers LOVE their characters and I don't think they ever did anything to be malicious, but their level of laziness and lack of care does contribute to me not wanting to recc this to people. I didn't want to tack this on at the end like an afterthought, but I didn't want to not mention it at all, and the point of this was to give more of my two cents on the final 1/3rd of the show's writing, not on the flaws of the show overall).

sorry to bother but i saw ur tag about king falls am and not having it in u to recc it to others and now i am curious !! i remember listening to like two thirds of it and then forgetting it existed cause life - is it worth going back to?

I have no idea how long this has been in my askbox, so sorry about that lmao XD

And look. I loved KFAM. I still do. It meant the world to me at ome point, and I had the phrase "Bad times are tough but not tougher than me" on a self made poster on my wall, right next to the actual offical poster. But at a certain point (in the episodes following 68) it lost a lot of it's hope. It became a depressing slog. The space between mystery set-ups and pay-offs were growing shorter, which to me is always a sign of a show that is having to make things up as they go more and more often. Plus signs of trouble behind the scenes that slipped into the podcast in little ways.

EDIT: I was late to clock into work typing out a bunch of thoughts that I said really poorly so like. Stand by for my full "what went wrong with KFAM" thoughts when I get off work lmao.

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stilettoarchive · 3 years ago

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