You cannot violate the consent of a dead person. The only time the writer comes close to justifying the headline is when she claims that the audience might be able to deduce the identity of a still-living man with whom John had a relationship. Otherwise, there is nobody living who is negatively impacted by the reveal that John was gay. To suggest we owe a debt of secrecy to a dead person is ridiculous, especially when it precludes the telling of a powerful story about a strong, charismatic, loving gay person. Far be it from helping gay people in the South, ignoring John’s story would have hurt them through deprivation.
First couple of episodes were a murder mystery. Interesting.
Next couple of episodes about the possibility of buried treasure. Interesting.
Then it became a massive downer. Massive downer.
I’m on the 3rd episode. Wow! I love it so far. I’m hooked!
I enjoyed it very much overall. But found the last two episodes reasonably thin and it was fueled by promises of flashier revelations than ever happened.
I think it would have been an even better two hour TAL story than 7 hours.
I thought it held up fairly well, although it could have been been maybe an episode shorter. I thought the ending suffered from two problems. One is that it’s a true story, and those don’t have satisfying endings the way fiction does. I thought this would be helped by the fact that, unlike Serial, the whole thing was produced after the reporting was over, so they could structure a narrative out of the raw facts. For most of the podcast, I thought they did that quite well, especially the revelation in Chapter II and the way the next couple of episodes were structured. In trying to save a good revelation for the final chapter, however, they both failed to do so in a really satisfying way, and at the same time, buried their lede. The fact that John almost certainly suffered from Hg poisoning was something that I felt should have been mentioned earlier, not least because he also exposed Tyler Goodson to Hg, which significantly changes my opinion of their relationship. I feel like a better ending would have been to play the material they had at the time for Tyler and Rita (the cousin) and learn whether that changed their relationship.
RIP John B.
Public Service Announcement: Everybody got a Will all sorted out and signed?
What a miserable show. I listened to the whole thing, and more or less agree with the Vox piece linked above. I’m recommending others to listen to something else with your time. I’m left with a chip on my shoulder* about Shittown, most of the people in it, and specifically Brian Reed. I guess it is a mixed virtue/vice among journalists to not know when to stop. He didn’t. In the end it was too invasive, and not presented well.
[spoiler]I have a pet peeve with interviewers getting too in-the-face and tacky with grieving people. I think I developed it listening to TAL.
He made hours and hours of recordings of John’s calls, but apparently never played any of them to the relevant characters? He sits there listening to Rita badmouth Tyler, and I’m screaming at the radio “Play her the tape!” of John saying he loves the kid like a son and “that boy and his brother are each getting 20 oz of gold when I die”. Rita is terrible. She wasn’t part of John’s life, and she came in and just deleted it once he was gone. I hope Tyler ran off with the gold.
To me, the invasive part was the grief of the surviving friends, not the homosexuality. And withholding the mercury poisoning fact felt wrong, not titillating or whatever he was going for. Hey, listen about this wild and charming guy who killed himself! Just kidding, actually a lot of this was just the behavior of a man dying of mercury poisoning. But I had you going, huh!?[/spoiler]
*Don’t worry. It’s a podcast-sized chip, but still.
I was thoroughly engrossed by S-Town. But I didn’t like the “release all seven episodes at once” approach, because I felt like I had to listen to all seven of them before I could start reading reviews and discussions like this one, because I didn’t want to risk either spoiling or being spoiled.
(Responding to a spoiler, spoilers through end of series.)
I thought one of the most interesting parts of listening to the podcast was the way it painted Rita. We heard about her first from Tyler’s perspective, which is exactly what you just described. But then we actually talk to Rita, and unless she’s an insanely skilled pathological liar, she’s doing a good job of taking care of John’s mother. And what good would it have done for Brian Reed to play a recording? It would have had no legal value whatsoever. And as far as we know, there weren’t actually gold bars that Rita was deciding what to do with.
I just finished listening to it, and have been thinking about it quite a bit. One of the striking things about it is that you realize that there are no villains here. Everyone pretty much seems to be doing what they think is right. Hearing the exact same events recounted from the two different perspectives, agreeing on most facts but each casting the other side as the bad guy was eye opening.
If I had a complaint, it was probably that I just couldn’t bring myself to like John B., even though he seemed to be surrounded by people who loved him. Making that poor woman listen as he died was unforgivable.
if for nor other reason, this should be required listening for everyone on the planet!
mc
There is some of that. But then you have a third perspective: John’s. [spoiler] I don’t think he ever said the word Rita to Brian in their calls. Brian said John had barely mentioned some cousins he didn’t care much about. John did however go on about how he hoped to make a difference for Tyler. Despite Tyler doing some obviously dumb shit, he didn’t deserve to be treated the way Rita did. Everything about Tyler’s perspective is more genuine.
I know a recording of the guy (or his dying text message) isn’t a legal thing, but do you think actually knowing John’s feelings might have mattered when Rita was pressing as many charges as she could against Tyler, and selling off tools he needed to earn a living?
I’ll grant she makes a better caretaker than John did or Tyler would. But I wasn’t rooting for Tyler to take care of Momma, just to not be excommunicated, prosecuted, and broken. For her to use the full power of the estate to fuck Tyler over, after we all know John’s feelings on the matter … was disgusting. (Selling it all to Mr KKK no less.) I can’t bring myself around to Rita’s behavior being decent. And some of that falls on Brian.
Yeah that was *really *ugly. I can see why she didn’t call his friends. (Rita had no excuse.) I’m left torn between “fuck that guy” (for suicide alone, but that last call is way past), and “we have to forgive the mentally ill”. I think John was well crazier than your average suicide.[/spoiler]
God damn this show was such a downer!
I was discussing the podcast with some friends today, and the ethics of making John’s story known despite him not being able to consent. He did contact the This American Life reporter, but about another story, not about himself. But he also did love to talk, and I think he would be thrilled to become famous posthumously. I think he would also have loved for others to hear his opinions of Shittown and how bad it is and his thoughts about global warming and everything else.
I was trying to think of other people who were in similar situations, and had their life stories told after their deaths maybe despite what they might have wanted and I was having trouble thinking of any. The main analogues I can think of are artists or writers who had works released after their deaths, like Franz Kafka or Emily Dickinson or Henry Darger. In Kafka’s case it was against his express wishes. Someone releasing your work isn’t quite the same as telling your life story, but it can be just as personal.
No fucking way in hell John didn’t know what drinking cyanide would do. His last act was torturing that woman. I hope it was fun for him, and that she gets lots of therapy.
The thing that breaks my heart is knowing that the maze is dying.
What do you mean? That she was afraid that they would also call her to commit suicide over the phone?
I really don’t understand why John B didn’t make a will and why he called the councilwoman (I forgot her name and can’t find it right now) at such a time. It didn’t sound like they were that close. Perhaps he thought she wouldn’t care and so it wouldn’t bother her. OTOH, maybe he did know and was purposely abusing her. I don’t get it.
If he really wanted Tyler to have an inheritance, why didn’t he arrange it? Didn’t he know he had relatives that would be the automatic heirs otherwise? Why did he say he had gold bars if he really didn’t? I mean, I want some explanation for all this psychologically and I guess there isn’t any other than the mercury poisoning and that he was an “unbanked” sort of prepper, don’t trust the authorities type.
Hey, does anybody know what happened to Momma (Mary Grace)? Has Brian Reed or any other disinterested soul actually seen her? Sat down and talked to her? Made sure she’s okay?
Reed was on Mike Pesca’s podcast a few days ago and he talked about visiting her. I don’t remember whom she was living with. He said he saw flashes of John’s wit in her, tempered by dementia. 
Thank you, snoe. I wish that had been included in the podcast. It seemed to me that her interests were sort of lost in all the discussions of what might have happened to the gold. Like everybody else I guess, I was astounded that John B. had left specific instructions in the event of his suicide but hadn’t made any legal provisions for his mother.
I’m guessing that maybe the coucilwoman didn’t call anyone on the list because she’s just still traumatized by the whole experience and trying to not think about John and what happened as much as possible.
The irrationality of a lot of John’s actions I think have to do with his depression/mental illness. I’m guessing if you had asked him before he died about whether he had a will or if he should make one, he would say that it was important and that he should make one but then he’d soon start talking about global warming and how terrible everything is and just wouldn’t ever get around to the will. I would think it’d be hard to plan for the future when you think that the present and future are so bleak, and hardly think that anyone would care about you being gone.
The gold I’m not sure about. He could have talked about having some to sound more mysterious and get attention. Or he could have had some and hid it somewhere on his property. If there was gold that Tyler found he’s definitely not going to let everyone know. Probably the same if anyone else found it.
I think the mercury poisioning contributed to his strange actions, but mental illness also makes sense, this article goes into it.
I think John called Fay, the town clerk. Later, Fay told Brian Green that John said during his final call that the gold was hidden in the freezer in a towel.
No one ever followed up on this?
Are we doing open spoilers now? If so, the title should be changed to reflect that. I k ow it’s been a month, but there are 7 episodes and I don’t know how busy everyone has been, so I’m not prepared to say everyone’s had a chance to listen to the whole story yet.
Regarding the question about inheritance, [spoiler]speaking as someone with depression-related illnesses, I can easily imagine that, besides being scattered and unmotivated (except when something got under his skin) John may have though that making a will could be a trigger for his suicidality, or at least that NOT having a will meant there was an extra step involved in arranging his own death, and that having to stop and think about what it would take to take care of Tyler could be enough of a brake to make him rethink any such decision. I can also see it simply not being a brake at all when the depression hits hard.
I’ll also say that while I enjoyed the podcast immensely, my criticisms in post 25 notwithstanding, I think it may have payed some role in triggering a depressive episode in me. I’m not a huge fan of trigger/content warnings (except inasmuch as I typically look for movies and shows with a lot of them), but please think carefully about recommending the podcast to anyone you know has had suicidal ideation.[/spoiler]
They did to the extent possible.
It was stated at some point that the police arriving at the scene claimed that they did not find anything in the freezer.
My intent with with using the word ‘claimed’ is not to sound accusatory, but to also acknowledge that the possibility exists that a police officer finding a large amount of gold under those circumstances might not report it. If there indeed had been gold in that freezer at the time of his death it’s also plausible that Tyler or Fay took it before the police arrived, though it’s not clear how Tyler would have known to do so or why Fay would mention it later if she’d taken it.
I’m not sure what other follow-up is possible or expected.