Witness… The Good, the Bad and the Stubborn

So it begins…

The final season of Witness if You Will… is upon us. For the next six weeks, we will be delving even deeper into the human experience via some delightfully dumb stories. This series has always been a way for me to vent about behavior I’ve observed in others and in myself, and this includes the global scale, although I’ve never wanted to get overtly political, at least not in an obvious way. But this season, not to get too ahead of myself, definitely takes some turns in that direction, aiming for a more satirical route utilizing the genres at hand. I guess this makes sense, since the majority of Season 5 was written in 2024, when you couldn’t turn a corner without being bombarded with some kind of legislative bullshit, and that, of course, feels to have only multiplied this year. So, it seems appropriate that we are kicking off this final batch of six episodes with something as nationally celebrated as a Western story.

In all honesty, I haven’t seen that many Westerns. I’ve seen The Wild Bunch, and maybe The Magnificent Seven. I fell asleep during The Searchers, and the original True Grit only served to distract me because Kim Darby looked uncannily like a young Justin Bieber, so I could barely take it seriously. I also watched it almost directly seeing the Coen Brothers’ remake in theaters in 2010, which I did thoroughly enjoy. In fact, I’d say the majority of Westerns I’ve seen have been by the Coens, as a lot of their filmography could be considered Neo-Western, No Country For Old Men especially.

The thing that inspired me to actually write a Western, however, was as simple as looking for genres that I thought could be fun to tackle. This is not new information— it’s how pretty much all these episodes came about (save for the ones that were inspired by dreams or past works of mine that I never quite landed). Going into S5, I had a makeshift list in my head of genres I’d yet to lampoon: gangster, prison escape, cabin in the woods, slasher, musical, coming of age, war, Vegas, body swap, time loop, star-crossed lovers. A few of these, I had basic story ideas, and for another few, I’d actually started writing with the intention of them being a part of S5 or S6 (this is when I was still considering a sixth season to cap things off rather than the fifth).

I think I chose a Western because it seemed like a fun challenge to give myself in terms of not just crafting the story, but also for the eventual editing process and adding in all the sound effects. It felt like a fun world to immerse myself in for a little bit. It was, especially, as I say in the outro, when it came to researching all the slang I could pepper into every line. I had done something similar with S2 E1 “The Butler Did It,” looking up noir-esque phrases Detective Dart could use. But that was just for one character. This was going to be five.

A portion of the list of Western slang terms I made.

Sorry it’s so tiny. And also, Google Docs doesn’t have a side-by-side option, and I had to open two different windows? Come on!

Before I started writing, I knew in my heart of hearts that not one gun was going to be fired, at least not until the end, and even then, it would barely be audible. I guess I sometimes like to take a page out of the Rian Johnson handbook and subvert expectations, almost to the point of delayed gratification. There is a sinister glee there that is almost antithetical to, you know, entertaining an audience that isn’t just me, but like I said earlier, it felt like dumb fun, so the nearly twenty minutes of self-reflection all the characters have is the right blend of stupid, hilarious and annoying to me. Maybe you disagree, and that’s fine.

Casting the episode proved to be 4/5 of a cinch. Miles Bartle, a former student of mine and fellow cinephile, not only has natural comedic sensibilities, but also had the right cadence in his voice I felt could lend itself to the Slim Pickens-esque quality I imagined while writing Leland’s dialogue. Logan Marshall I honestly could just picture in a sheriff costume for whatever reason, so he kind of had to be Bullfinch. Brittany Nielsen, a fellow Marin native, performed in an improv/sketch hybrid show called Trash TV that was a live episode of Maury, and in it she played a typical trailer trash person you would see on the show, giving them the perfect accent that I needed to have for Bucky Lou. And when it came to the notorious Miles Concannon (a name I previously used in a middle school project that involved writing a short story based on a Far Side comic [the bottom left one]), I knew this would be the first bit of casting from my iO Summer Intensive class, so I tapped John Garrad, an improviser from Australia, to forgo his nicest-guy-alive demeanor and play the rough and tough villain as we recorded his part remotely one evening in July of last year (jeez, I’ve been working on this season for a while!).

Brittany Nielsen as Bucky Lou on the left, and Logan Marshall as Sheriff Willard Bullfinch on the right.

Miles Bartle as Leland Merryweather.

When it came to Lullaby Hobart, this role was the only one written with someone specific in mind. However, some miscommunication and busy schedules ended up putting the kibosh in that casting. However, Anne Jordan, my fellow performer in Your Fucked Up Relationship at Endgames Improv, came to the rescue in a pinch, and was actually able to record with the rest of the cast, save John, who, again, lives in another continent. That recording, by the way, took place on October 19, 2024 (so yeah, again, damn it’s been a long time!).

Anne Jordan as Lullaby Hobart.

One thing I wanted to do this season was include some sort of Easter Eggs in the form of cameos from past performers. Not every episode this season called for such things, but I knew that Steve Kaye of “Wrong Button” and “Secret in the Swamp” fame would kill as the rambling bar patron at the end. I gave him free reign to tell whatever story he could come up with, and goddamn did he deliver. I believe I listened to it at night and had to stifle my erupting laughter as to not wake anyone else in the house.

So, as I said, this season, in addition to being stupid as hell, also comments on some pretty prescient themes, this one being the stubbornness so many people hold toward a number of given topics, both big and small. This inability to change our minds, for whatever reason, just feels like it’s gotten worse over the last ten years. I remember reading Stephen King’s novella, Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream, and being struck by this idea of belief and the dangerous power it can carry. I wish there was a solution to ending this disease of closed-mindedness, but I don’t think I’m smart enough nor am I in any position to provide a good enough answer. As a writer, sometimes the best we can do is point out the issue, possibly even some potential consequences, literal or figurative, and hope that whoever is reading or watching can see or hear the message being conveyed. This is a lot for a silly, little comedy podcast, obviously, but it is the purpose or even burden I feel I have as a writer, to be honest and somewhat hyperbolically lofty about it. So even in a comedy, I always want something to say, either on a personal or grand scale. I’ll probably be talking a lot about that in the coming weeks.

Welcome to Season 5!

—Andy