Okay, everything in Season 2 so far has been ramping up to this moment.

First off, hello again Enoch! Gods, Buff Drinklots‘ performance. Fans self. If I was to rewrite Season 2 from scratch, Enoch’s arrival would be in the second or third episode. This is Cassandra’s reckoning. And she’s not holding it together very well after having been staked. Buff Drinklots’ original vision of Enoch was Bill Nighy from Underworld, but this version proved too hammy for audio drama and we had to tone it down to “evil simmer.” Enoch deals with world-changing events on a regular basis. This inquest is necessary but beneath them. They are constantly going between extracting truth and incinerating Kindred with a thought. They are not meant to be sexy. They are simply a force of will who happens to have their eye on Cassandra.

Also their discussion about Enoch being the Sublime is wonderful and I loved writing it. I was inspired by this episode of Esoterica‘s discussion of Burke. I know how much listeners seem to like the philosophy thrown into the show so I try to include it whenever I learn something interesting.

Next up is our star Rachel‘s favorite performance of hers! And it shows. Neither Mermaid Thighs nor I was expecting her to go full out monstrous-hungry-animal in the studio in a panic attack mixed with desperate restraint. For my editing, it meant stretching out the few chain-dragging samples I had to convey her movement in the prison. And of course, Rachel’s “So I ate her” narration cutting the whole unhinged sequence to its bitter end was incredible. Whenever I write a sequence in which the Kindred’s Beast is really jonesing for a drink, I have to end it in a drink. I’m sorry. I don’t make the rules. (Okay, I do make most of the rules but I have to pretend I’m following the spirit of Paradox Games’ ruleset.)

Then Elijio shows up and, well, Samael is a bit pissed at him. And will continue to be through Season 3. Elijio set up Cassandra and Samael is not going to stand for it, despite Elijio’s excellent reasoning on why he should have done it.

Back at the trial, D Dargis performs admirably as Rose in explaining why Sophia is a shit ruler; which you can tell isn’t going to go over well, but Rose doesn’t care. She’s the center of attention and knows what it best for all of them.

But the real inciting incident for this episode is Lictor Helena releasing Cassandra to discredit Rose. Amber Ashe did a great job doing a distinct set of inflections for Helena, separate from Aaralyn. I especially like her “what’s done is done.”

After an action-packed chase sequence which was murder to edit, featuring an idea of mine about “why don’t we use those giant flags off the cranes for paragliding,” all the pieces I’ve been setting up throughout the season fall into place. Like dominoes, one after another. I honestly don’t have much to say about these scenes in which everything ramps up to the conflagration of Sophia’s Court except I love how every actor is feeling the pressure roiling up, with no sign of release anytime soon.

Anyhow you know some shit just went down with the Camarilla when Esther shows up on your doorstep, requesting capture for her own safety. Josephine’s arc with Lorea is near breaking, Josephine almost getting what she wants, but not quite there. I was glad I got to write the line “Has any marginalized group been satisfied with “taking what they fucking got?” for Josephine because, y’know. Mood.

I’m also kinda proud of Helena’s “Are you the fairest? Are you Helen of Troy?” for calling out Cassandra’s worth to the Anarchs not being what she hopes it would be.

Everything goes from bad to worse – Lorea’s break with the rest of the Anarchs seems to be growing in spite of her capturing more of the Camarilla’s territory. Rose gets captured and ransomed back to Helena, with the twist that Rose wasn’t particularly happy about being ordered to kill Cassandra without backup. Which leads us to the skyscraper crane scene.

My eyes were pretty big for this one. My first draft of this scene was passable but sloppy. The actors liked it but I didn’t think it was tight enough or challenged Cassandra as a character. I entirely rewrote it before we recorded it to give Helena some more biting lines to try to hurt Cassandra. Also originally the Kindred Guard was killed but I thought that was a waste – Helena wouldn’t necessarily do that on her own and especially not for Cassandra.

Also the vitae part of the scene was thought up by Amber Ashe as we were recording for… Paradox Gaming Reasons that I hadn’t considered when I was revising the scene. So props to her for saving my ass again!

We end on Helena going absolutely feral on Cassandra. I made her screams sound as otherworldly as they do by putting two animal or an animal and a woman’s screams on top of each other. It was fun.

Next episode – my favorite bit of editing/foley!