One year ago today, Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party Chapter 2: The Masque of the Red Death was posted to YouTube. While in some ways this pales in comparison to the anniversary of the premiere, I am nevertheless taking the opportunity to look back on some of my initial impressions of this episode and reflect on how they’ve changed, now that I’ve watched the whole thing approximately ten zillion times. Warning: Poe Party and Clue spoilers ahead.
Because chapter 1 was so good, and because I’d spent the whole week re-watching it and wondering what was going to happen next, I couldn’t possibly wait until I got home from work to watch chapter 2. Because YouTube is blocked at work and I don’t have unlimited data, I went to the McDonald’s a block away on my lunch break to use their free wifi, a tradition I repeated for every future episode (except Chapter 3, since that came out on Labor Day and I didn’t have to work). Recently one of my friends reminded me that I told him this when he asked, “Don’t you go to McDonald’s every Monday?” And I had to answer, “Not anymore” while feeling really sad that Poe Party was over. But anyway, back to chapter 2. I distinctly remember having a very hard time being productive at work after lunch that day because I kept cracking up remembering all the jokes. Though this ended up being the shortest episode in the first half of the show (and the 3rd shortest overall), it is full to the brim with hilarious dialogue, which is everything I ever wanted. Interestingly, however, the part of the episode that initially had the biggest impact on me was:
I say that partly because it led to this:
which made me ridiculously happy, although compared to some of the things Charlotte says later, this doesn’t really seem that insulting anymore. More importantly, though, this was pretty much the only time in the first 9 chapters when I actually suspected Charlotte. After noticing all the Clue references in chapter 1, and seeing other fans post about the Count of Monte Cristo, I was pretty firmly on the Eddie-isn’t-really-dead train, and I wondered here if Charlotte was pulling a Professor Plum in the third ending:
Also, in the fanfic I wrote that week, there were three different murderers: Emily, Charlotte and Eddie. As it turns out, after two chapters, I’d not only guessed the correct number of killers, but also accurately identified two of them! And there is no possible way anyone could have figured out Anne at that point, since we didn’t even have the handkerchief clue yet, so in hindsight, I’m pretty impressed with my one year ago self. EXCEPT, I did not stick with the Charlotte theory very long, so by chapter 10 I’d almost forgotten that at one point she was my prime suspect. But I’ll talk more about why I changed my mind next week on the anniversary of chapter 3.
I love your Poeparty/Clue love so much. In my head, though, when your coworker asked “Don’t you go to McDonald’s every Monday?” you sadly answered “Nevermore.”
This entry was posted by jbc on Wednesday, August 30th, 2017 at 6:25 am and is filed under Tumblr.
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