This episode occurs during the events of the TV show's episode 9. We investigate a murder, a bomb goes boom, and we end up surrounded.
This episode occurs during the events of the TV show's episode 9.
We investigate a murder, a bomb goes boom, and we end up surrounded.
Creative Team:
Executive Producer/Head Writer - Aron Coleite
Senior Writer - Carly Woodworth
Writers - Eugene Ramos, Gabriel Ho
Executive Producers - Rae Votta (Netflix), Cole Galvin (Netflix), Jonathan Hirsch (Neon Hum)
Senior Producer - Gabrielle Lewis (Neon Hum)
Director - Corey Lubowich
Sound Design & Mix - Dan Dzula
Music Supervision - David Steinberg
Associate Producer - Kara Kornhaber
Cast:
Harvard - Tessa Netting
MIT - Kimia Behpoornia
Gap Year - Jared Goldstein
USC - Kyle Sherman
Featuring Austin Crute as Wesley Fists
HARVARD: A pall has been cast over Glendale. A swath of black, darker than the eyeliner at a Cure concert. My name is Harvard and this is "The Only Podcast Left." Today we weep. We were devastated to report our own Gap-Year was murdered. And just as we dealt with that shock, we learned Eli Cardashyan's vibrant life was stolen by the bastard Jaden Hoyles who was fittingly booched to death by a mutant pug. I was in 3rd grade when I had my first brush with the grim reaper. My parents got me a Beta fish. I named him Rocky and he became my everything. I made my own fish food from garlic, dried seaweed and omega- 3 fatty acids to help with Rocky's ADHD. I used the fundamentals of feng shui and installed a zen rock garden to make Rocky's bowl a palace of peace. I even played binaural subsonic relaxation music when I was at school. Rocky was my rock. Beta fish don't have long life spans, but Rocky outlived every statistic. I had him for two years. And then, one day I came home from school, and Rocky wasn't in his bowl. I asked our au pair, Vilhelmina, if she moved Rocky to replace the water, but she didn't. And then I noticed something on the floor. It was Rocky. Waxy. Dead. He jumped out of his bowl. He killed himself. Rather than live under my dutiful care, Rocky opted to commit suicide. I was smothering him with my love. My psychologist told me not to take it personally; that this wasn't my fault. No matter how much we might care for someone -- we can never know the pain in their heart, even if their hearts are located near an anal fin. As the great talmudic scholar and Canadian hip hop artist Drake wrote, " Tables Turn, Bridges Burn. You live and learn. With the ink I could murder, word to my n-word Irv. Yeah, I swear shit just started clickin' dog. You know it's real when you are who you think you are." This is “The Only Podcast Left.” We're going to have a special show today so that we can offer remembrance for Jaden Hoyles, Eli Cardashyn… And Gap-Year. We begin this episode with a memorial on Jaden Hoyles written by USC.
USC: Uhhm, we should discuss last week.
HARVARD: No.
MIT: We both said we love you.
HARVARD: No.
MIT: But it's unresolved.
HARVARD: No.
USC: You can't just keep saying no.
HARVARD: No.
MIT: Harvard.
HARVARD: No.
USC: Melissa...
HARVARD: No.
USC: We have to deal with this.
HARVARD: People are dead. Our friend was murdered and you think it's a good time to talk about swapping spit?
MIT: ....No.
HARVARD: No. We will not talk about who wants to cop-a-feel over the clothes and dry hump on Marc Maron's couch, okay? We will not talk about digging for oysters or glazing the donut or taking Anakin out of his helmet. No. No no no no no. Not. This. Week. We begin this episode with a memorial on Jaden Hoyles written by USC.
USC: Of all the kids who survived the apocalypse, there is only one who deserved to be humped to death. A fitting end for a trash person. Arrivederci, Jaden Hoyles. I hope you're in a special room in hell where they only play the last season of Lost on repeat.
HARVARD: That's it...? That's all you wrote?
USC: Hoyles doesn't deserve a eulogy.
MIT: Everyone deserves a eulogy.
USC: What about Hitler? Does Hitler deserve a eulogy? Or Jimmy Fallon?
HARVARD: It's not the same thing.
USC: Hoyles made every bathroom in the school a breeding ground for Hep-C.
HARVARD: Only ten girls were diagnosed.
USC: He was a convicted sex offender.
HARVARD: He was a kid.
USC: Okay. Fine. Shit... Okay. You might not know this, because well, obviously you can’t tell a person’s size from the sound of their voice… But I’m not the tallest kid. In fact, I’m short. And growing up, the playground was a minefield of nicknames. Imp. Midget. Ewok. Let me tell ya, words hurt. And then Jaden Hoyles changed everything. It was a Tuesday morning in Advisory when Hoyles came in. He farted as he passed my desk... Just like really let it rip. It was… It was loud and it was wet. It was that kind of fart that you could taste with your eyes. The kind of fart that you smell twice. And naturally, everyone turned to look. And that’s when Hoyles pointed at me and yelled, "LORD FART-QUAD." From that point on, that's what everybody decided that they wanted to call me.
HARVARD: Wait, I thought you got the name from the skid mark incident in kickball.
MIT: I thought it was from the time you didn't take your Lactaid pills and then ate a pudding pop.
USC: Okay, yes. Those both happened, and they were ugly, but I got the nickname from Hoyles. And it was the best thing that ever happened. You don't even understand the nicknames I was called for being short. And then, Hoyles renamed me. Every time that dick wrinkle saw me, he'd yell, “ALL HAIL LORD FART-QUAD.” And crop dust me.
HARVARD: That's awful. How is that the best thing that’s ever happened?
USC: Lord Fart-quad was a not-so-original riff on Lord Farquad from Shrek. So instead of being mocked for my size, I was insulted for my flatulence.
HARVARD: That doesn't seem much better.
USC: Well, being small is my forever curse. There is no growth spurt lying ahead. The best that I can hope for is getting lifts in my shoes or I don’t know fall in love with an Olympic gymnast. But, there is one thing we all know about farts -- they eventually dissipate in the air. Yeah. Hoyles called me Lord Fart-qaud. And then that became Sir Trouser Cough. And then, The Last Airbender. And then, Smellin' Devon, which became, Smelly Devy, which became Devy, which became Dev. And fuck it, that’s a perfectly fine nickname. And it's all because of Hoyles. So if you get a whiff of a fart that smells like burnt hair and wet newspaper thrown in a blender -- it is probably Jaden Hoyles, firing one big stink torpedo at you from the afterlife.
HARVARD: God bless him. MIT will now memorialize the king of the mall, Glendale's own...Eli Cardashyan.
MIT: Uh, I didn't know Eli in school. He mostly hung out with the Armenian mafia who vaped on the third floor hallway right underneath the "Don't vape" posters. And, and even then, he was mostly on his phone. But I do know that Eli lived for social media. He had -- he had ten instagram accounts, including: Easy-Eli. Eli-Don't-Lie. Cardashyan-Kush-420-Weed. Cardashyan-Cushion-Pushin, That's-So-Eli. Mercedes-AMG-Eli-63. And Mercedes-AMG-Eli-63-Spammmmz. He was also on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, 4Chan, 8Chan, 16Chan, 32Chan, Pheed, Thumb, Chirp, LinkedIn and MySpace. I was able to hack the servers for those sites and access Eli's accounts to paint a better picture of Eli. These were his top three posts. Number three had 87 likes. It read, "My favorite flavor of soft serve is chocolate vanilla swirl because it's proof that we can all get along. #BlackLivesMatter. #Yummy." His second most liked post had 99 likes. It read, "When I grow up I'm gonna be a gynecologist in the 90210, cuz Rodeo Drive poon smells like dolla billz." I didn’t -- umm -- I didn’t wanna say that. Uhhh. And his most liked post of all time was an accidental screen grab from John Wick 2. It got 1356 likes. Eli was determined to upgrade his social profile to “verified." Sadly his online life was cut tragically short. No, well it was not because of the apocalypse, but because he saved up all of his money from working at his aunt's threading salon to hire a publicist. In mere weeks, Eli had hundreds of thousands of followers. Eli finally felt like he had friends. And we know this because of his last post which read, "I feel like I finally have friends." It wasn't liked by anyone. And Eli was banned from all social media soon after that post. It turns out the publicist Eli hired was -- was a hacker from Bulgaria who used Russian bots to boost Eli's followers. Eli -- Eli was my favorite of all the kids in the mall. Yes -- no -- yeah, I know. He was something of a villain. And he tried to murder Josh and Angelica and Wesley and Josh again. But, but -- but he was a shy, introverted kid who was just determined to live his best life. And he never gave up until he got what he wanted. And he inspired me to come out of my shell, make my voice heard and ask for what I want in life.
HARVARD: Why are you looking at me like that?
MIT: I will never give up.
HARVARD: Stop looking at me like that.
MIT: I'll never give up, Harvard.
HARVARD: We're not talking about us.
MIT: I will never ever give up. Rest in peace, Eli Cardashyan.
HARVARD: Our last eulogy is about Gap-Year. Jaden Platt was not an extraordinary human being. He worked at the Gap. He liked doing the thing where he’d put two Pringles together in his mouth and pretended he was a duck. He did this even though he had non-celiac gluten sensitivity and eating chips gave him a massive migraine. In truth, the most interesting thing about Gap-Year's life is his death. Gap-Year was murdered. Today, for my eulogy, I am going to follow in the footsteps of Serial and Dirty John and Criminal and My Favorite Murder and S-Town and In The Dark and Serial Season Two where they went off the rails a little bit and Serial Season Three where they tried to get back on track, but it was never as good as the Adnan Syed case. Like all those shows, I am going to solve the murder of Jaden "Gap-Year" Platt. Last week, a horrific scene appeared on one of our security cameras. The image was a lifeless body, laying face down in that weird strip mall on Hatteras. You remember it. It's the one with the shoe repair, vegan kebab restaurant, barber school, a Kumon Math Center and a branch of Glendale Savings & Loan. This is the strip mall we all thought was a front for the mob. Now it was actually a crime scene. And it wasn't the fact that we were seeing a corpse that had us shook. Guys, this is the post-apocalypse, we've all seen bodies. I saw my Bat-Mitzvah tutor run over by the trolley at the Americana and watched as her carcass was pecked apart by feral roosters. This body was our friend…Gap-Year. He was stabbed by an 8-inch chef's knife with a pomme red handle from the Tom Colicchio/Top Chef collection. So who murdered Gap-Year? And why? And was it someone we knew? Was it someone he knew? Did he anger a tribe? Or was he a victim of random violence? A case of wrong place, wrong time? And why was he in the mob strip mall? No one ever went to the shoe repair, vegan kebab restaurant, barber school, Kumon Math Center or Glendale Savings & Loan before the world ended. So why was he there now? Let's start with what we know, and then recreate the timeline...
USC: Okay. Uh. He went to find a celebrity Ghoulie.
HARVARD: Our most popular segment.
USC: We haven't even had a single sighting, so.
HARVARD: It's still very popular.
MIT: Well how do you know?
HARVARD: Don't you read our talk backs?
USC: We have messages?
MIT: What?
HARVARD: We have a message.
USC: Okay well that’s news to me, what does it say?
HARVARD: Celebrity Ghoulies at the studios!
USC: Who sent it?
MIT: Umm -- looks -- oh --Isla K. Illu.
USC: I--Illu? I -- I mean I don't know her.
MIT: Oh, well. I think she was in my AP History.
HARVARD: Yeah, but people love celebrity Ghoulies, guys. And Gap-Year was determined to find one. This was our last conversation.
GAP-YEAR: I'm going to find you a real celebrity Ghoulie.
HARVARD: Wait...Like, a real celebrity Ghoulie?
GAP-YEAR: A really real celebrity Ghoulie.
HARVARD: No more high school janitors?
GAP-YEAR: Heck to the negative.
HARVARD: Not Jay Leno?
GAP-YEAR: Never Jay Leno.
HARVARD: And not Jimmy Fallon.
GAP-YEAR: Wouldn't dare.
HARVARD: That was the last time we saw Gap-Year. 2 hours later he was dead.
USC: So whatever happened in those two hours led to his murder.
MIT: I've gone through the security cams.
HARVARD: Smart. Retrace his steps.
MIT: 32 minutes after he left, we spot him up north of the 134.
USC: Which is a nice neighborhood. Big houses.
HARVARD: Could belong to someone famous.
MIT: But he doesn't find anyone.
HARVARD: So then where does he go next?
MIT: Okay. 47 minutes gone. He's in Eagle Rock.
USC: That also makes sense.
HARVARD: Why?
USC: Well, I mean, TV writers live in Eagle Rock.
HARVARD: How do you know that?
USC: Because they sit in Starbucks with their stupid computers and wear the hats of the shows they worked on. Like I don’t care if you worked on “The Good Place.”
MIT: Yeah and why move to Eagle Rock?
USC: I mean I think that The Trader Joe's has actual parking.
MIT: Oh okay, that’s fair.
HARVARD: So what's Gap-Year thinking?
USC: TV writers know celebrities.
HARVARD: Because they work together.
USC: And they might even be friends. And then maybe, you know like just maybe, hear me out, the TV writer has a crush on the celebrity. So he keeps inviting her over for game night and dinner. She's not so into it, but he promises it's going to be fun. And eventually she says yes. But when she shows up, it's just the TV writer. He says like all of his friends canceled at the last minute. The celebrity is like, what’s going on, she’s suspicious because she thinks the TV writer has a crush on her, but he already waited in line for three hours for the chicken sandwiches -- so you know the celeb stays. And as the night goes on, they have a really great time. Once the celebrity really gets to know the TV writer, once they like actually spend time together she sees how nice and charming he can be. So you know, the TV writer wants to help the celebrity and they come up with awesome shows to do together. It's like a real creative positive collaboration, just the two of them.
HARVARD: We're not talking about us.
USC: I wasn't.
MIT: "The TV writer and celebrity come up with awesome shows together?"
USC: Shut up, it's called riffing.
MIT: Oh r-- It's called being thirsty.
USC: Stop it!
HARVARD: It has nothing to do with Gap-Year.
USC: Yeah. Right. Fine. Whatever. Where -- where did he go next?
MIT: One hour and fourteen minutes and he goes to the studios.
USC: Like Isla K. Illu suggested.
HARVARD: It is our most popular segment.
MIT: Okay, he went to Universal. Warners. Disney. And then it gets erratic.
HARVARD: He goes to a Starbucks.
USC: And then. Yeah. Another Starbucks.
MIT: Then another Starbucks.
HARVARD: Then another Starbucks.
USC: Then another Starbucks.
MIT: Then another Starbucks.
HARVARD: Then another Starbucks.
USC: Then another Starbucks.
MIT: Then another Starbucks.
HARVARD: Then another Starbucks.
USC: Another Starbucks.
MIT: Another Starbucks.
HARVARD: Then another Starbucks.
USC: God, then another Starbucks.
MIT: Then another Starbucks.
HARVARD: Then another Starbucks.
USC: Then another Starbucks.
MIT: Then another Starbucks.
HARVARD: Then another Starbucks.
USC: Then...
MIT: Another Starbucks.
HARVARD: What does it mean?
MIT: Something else is going on here. The movement is erratic. He's going north, then south, then back-tracking, then re-back-tracking so he's tracking back on the back-track he already tracked back on.
HARVARD: Was he being followed?
USC: He's acting like it.
HARVARD: Check the cameras.
MIT: No one was following him.
USC: Maybe he was smoking pot.
HARVARD: He was sober.
MIT: So why zig zag across Glendale?
USC: Because someone was following him.
MIT: There's no one on the cameras.
HARVARD: Wait guys… What if the people following Gap-Year knew about our cameras and were intentionally avoiding them?
USC: How would they know?
HARVARD: They're fans of the cast.
MIT: Shit!
HARVARD: Yeah. The people who killed Gap-Year listen to our show.
USC: You don't think it's -- you don’t think it’s the LARP Lords?
MIT: No, Optimus Prime would never.
HARVARD: The Highland Park Donut-Hos?
USC: No, it can't be them.
MIT: He was murdered with a knife.
USC: He was murdered with a chef's knife with a pomme red handle from the Tom Collichio/Top Chef collection. The Donut-Hos are pastry chefs. The biggest knife they'd use is a peeling knife.
MIT: Then what tribe is it...?
HARVARD: Oh it sounds like Producer Mark might have an answer. He says there's an audio file on our message board.
USC: Who sent it?
HARVARD: .........Gap-Year.
MIT: I'll download the audio.
HARVARD: Producer Mark, whenever you're ready. Play it.
GAP-YEAR: *Fart noise*
MIT: That was the entire recording.
HARVARD: Yep. That's our Gap-Year.
MIT: ...I miss him.
USC: Yeah, me too.
HARVARD: I know who killed Gap-Year.
MIT: What?
USC: Who? Who is it?
HARVARD: It's me. I killed him.
USC: No you didn't.
MIT: You were here with us.
HARVARD: I know. I didn't literally kill him. I didn't repeatedly plunge a chef's knife with a pomme red handle from the Tom Colicchio/Top Chef collection into and out of his back, I didn’t sever his arteries and fatally damage other vital organs. But it's still all my fault. Listen to this... This was from our first episode:
HARVARD: Did you even try?
GAP-YEAR: No.
HARVARD: Get your ass out there and find us someone good, okay? Uhh, did you check the rock climbing gym downtown.
GAP-YEAR: Fine, but if anything happens to me... my death - it’s on your soul.
GAP-YEAR: Harvard.
HARVARD: Gap-Year?
GAP-YEAR: Harvard. You won't believe it, but I found…
HARVARD: Are you all hearing this?
MIT: Just Producer Mark playing Gap-Year's voice through the audio. Apparently there was more on the recording.
HARVARD: What the fuck was that?
USC: Earthquake?
MIT: Sounded like a bomb.
HARVARD: Holy shit was that a bomb?
MIT: Is everyone okay?! I’m not good.
HARVARD: What if there’s another bomb?
MIT: I don’t -- umm -- not good.
USC: Should we go? I mean we -- we should go.
HARVARD: We stay put. We figure it out.
HARVARD: Check the cameras.
MIT: I can check the cams but I don’t know if anything’s up. Um. It's Baron Triumph.
USC: Shit, he blew up Hohmann Country Club.
HARVARD: Holy shit.
MIT: All those Cheermazons --
USC: Oh my --
HARVARD: He has a fucking army of Jocks.
MIT: What's he going to do...? Harvard? Melissa? What do we do now? What do we do now? I'm scared.
HARVARD: Me too.
MIT: Who will eulogize me if we all die? You're the only ones who know me.
HARVARD: Uhhh, we'll give our own eulogies. Right now. We do the one thing the dead can't do. We tell our stories in our own voices... We get three words. Three words to describe our life.
MIT: That's not a lot.
HARVARD: USC, you go first.
USC: Han shot first. Go with it.
HARVARD: MIT...? Three words.
MIT: I love you.
USC: What? Wait. Okay, can I change mine?
MIT: What? NO!
USC: Stop -- What --
HARVARD: WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS! My three words are… Sorry Gap-Year.
MIT: We still haven't listened to Gap-Year's last recording. Maybe he did find a celebrity Ghoulie?
USC: Yeah. She's right. She’s right. We don't know what Baron Triumph is gonna do, or how much time we have left.
HARVARD: Okay. Producer Mark. Play the audio.
GAP-YEAR: Harvard. You won't believe it, but I thought I finally found a celebrity Ghoulie... I could swear I actually saw Owen Wilson. And I thought about how this whole thing started. And you were right. I remember now. I -- I said we should find celebrity Ghoulies, but I found something else. There's a tribe of kids at the studio. They're all wearing suits. Real nice suits. Like they're going to a funeral. And I heard them listening to our podcast on some speakers, but I don't think that they're fans of the cast. They were following me, but I'm pretty sure I lost them. I’m like fucking great at this. PEW PEW PEWWW!! Oh, fuck. Fuck! I think they just heard me. Okay. I -- I'm going to try to hide in a Starbucks or something.
HARVARD: That's the last thing he said?
MIT: The time stamp is just before we saw him on our cameras.
HARVARD: At least we know who killed him.
USC: Kids wearing suits!
HARVARD: Exactly.
USC: No! Look outside the fucking window! LOOK! THERE ARE KIDS WEARING SUITS!
HARVARD: What the fuck--
MIT: Holy shit. Oh my god. They're everywhere.
USC: God, there’s so many of them. We're surrounded.
MIT: What do we do?
HARVARD: They followed Gap-Year to find us.
MIT: What?
HARVARD: Look. They have Gap-Year's Map to the Stars Homes -- TMZ edition.
USC: Oh my --
MIT: It has Marc Maron's address.
USC: Why are they here...
HARVARD: Well, Gap-Year said -- he said the kids in suits were at the studio, right? The message on our boards told Gap-Year to go to the studio to find a celebrity Ghoulie. They wanted Gap-Year to go there so they could follow him back here to us.
MIT: Who left the message?
USC: I mean, Isla K. Illu!
HARVARD: No. It's a message from the kids in the suits. Not Isla K. Illu. It's... I'll, uh, kill you. I’ll kill you.