Part 91: Blackwell Epiphany - Update 16

Update 16

After a few fairly emotional updates, let's take a bit of a step back today and have a bit of a shorter one. We won't get so many chances to take a breather as we hurtle towards the end of of Epiphany!

Michael Cooper



Last time, Joey and Rosa managed to help Peter become aware of his death, and then used Madeline's totem to zap him back to Michael's protective ghost circle.

Pete's safe and sound!
Safe as a dead guy can be, anyway.
Sorry. I know this is not exactly the reunion we expected after all this time. But you have no idea. I thought you were...
Well, I explained that already.

Fortunately, all seems to have gone according to plan! Despite feeling unwell (which is unusual for aware spirits, who usually claim to "feel nothing"), Peter's soul seems to be pretty much intact. Looks like the circle is doing it's job.



The next question is, has Madeline been able to discover anything?

It is interesting. This spirit is experiencing what would be considered nausea in a living person.
It figures. I never had a stomach virus in my life, until I died.

Well, we could have figured that out. Has she got anything more for us?

He is being pulled. There is the signature of another spirit at work.
A signature?
Yes. I can see it. It is faint, but I can see it. Only the power of this circle is stopping it from gaining a foothold. Unfortunately, it is too faint for me to see anything useful. And we dare not lower the circle.

I'll bet we need to chase up Heather as well. Makes sense from a gameplay mechanic, since we could have dealt with either of them first.

I need to examine another soul. One that is marked, like this one.
And by another soul, you mean Heather, don't you?
Heather? Is she involved in this?
We all are, Pete. We all are.
... This is all too much. First my sister and now...
It won't be much longer. One way or the other, we'll finish this.



With Peter now aware, he might be a little more helpful. Rosa tries speaking with him.

Oh. Hi. Rosangela, was it?
Yeah. That's me.
Mike's been telling me about you. So you've been doing this for a while, huh?
For about four years. These days, it's pretty much all we do.
I don't envy you. But... I'm glad.

Joey comes into the conversation as well.

You holding up okay, Peter?
It's funny. I keep thinking I should do some situps or something, but I guess that won't do any good.
I'm afraid it's too late for that.
I thought so. I mean, I've been standing still for hours. And I don't feel any muscle craps or pain in my lower back.
Who knew dying could be so good for me.

Looks like he's in good spirits. Unfortunately, he doesn't really know anything.

Michael Cooper



Much like Michael and Madeline earlier, Peter has a few things to say whenever we return to the Grace Church. It's actually a really nice touch whenever Gilbert does this in the game, and it makes the game world seem less static than usual.

And?
It's putting pressure on your lower spine.
Is this really the time for a fitness lecture?
You're no good to anyone if your back gives out.
... I'll try stretching.
Trust me. It will make all the difference.

Hahaha Personal fitness really is everything to Peter.



If we leave and return again, Michael and Peter are engaged in a more serious conversation.

Would you do it again?
Again?
The Grace Group. Knowing what you know now?
... I've had a good life, Michael. Was it worth... this? I can't say. But I lived the way I was meant to. I'm sure of that. What about you? Would you do it again?

Michael only needs a moment's contemplation to answer.

The man I was back then would have crawled into a bottle and never come out.

If we exit and come back another time, they have another bit of dialogue to share with us.



Several hours ago? I would have said no. But now? We have a plan. And we have the Bestower.
So you're telling me to... what? Have faith?
The old axioms sometimes work.

That's all they've got for us for now. Let's get to solving this. Now, we still haven't really figured out what's going on with Heather. If you recall, we did manage to track down her boss, Ray, to a bar called Vantini. We'll want to check that out eventually.



First, though, let's see if we can figure out what the deal is with the roof ghost, Tanya Corsey. Rosa quickly drops by the police station to see if Cory has any information for her on that front.

Tanya Corsey? What are you doing getting involved with her?
It's...
Complicated. Yeah. I get it. Durkin warned me you might get weird.

Hahaha, looks like Cory is finally starting to get a bit stranged out by Rosa's seemingly random inquiries

Anyway, there's not much to tell. She slipped in her shower and hit her head on the tub. She fell unconscious and drowned. The coroner did an autopsy on her and found traces of whiskey and valium in her system - not a good combination.
She killed herself?
If you believe the tabloids, then yeah. But the coroner says no. There wasn't much in her system to actually kill her, but it was enough to make her a bit clumsy.
So it was just an accident.
So it would seem.

Well, that's something, at least. We might be able to use that to reach her.



Outside, Rosa has a similar reflection to when they met Frank Lyons in Convergence.

Because they need us. That's why. You ever watch this Tanya Corsey's show?
No. Her show was on in the morning, and I'm more of a night person these days.

Tanya Corsey



Even though Heather is the obvious priority right now, Joey and Rosa figure they should strike while the iron is hot after having learned a bit about Tanya. Besides, she had that note about Heather, so I suspect the two cases will end up feeding into each other anyway.

*sigh* I knew you'd get it. That's me. Tanya Corsey, host of the "Good Morning" show on channel 11.
Now all the mystery is gone.

Hopefully now she'll be more willing to answer our questions.

Do you know anything about a self-help organization called the Grace Group?
Grace Group? No, I don't. Sorry.
Do you know a Michael Cooper?
I don't. Sorry.

On the other hand, maybe she'll just be useless instead.

Does the name "Benjiro" ring any bells?
Benjiro? Is that Japanese?
I believe so.
Sorry. I don't know anyone named Benjiro.

You may have noticed that Tanya's theme is the same as Michael's theme. In some sense, it really serves as more of a "middle of the second day" ambient theme.

Do you know anyone named Ray?
Ray. Is that all you got?
I think Ray might be involved in prostitution. Ring any bells?
That's more of a late night news kind of story. I'm early morning.
We're all about the rainbows and sunshine.

This isn't going anywhere productive.



Joey decides to focus on her, instead.

Hah. You want to get to know the Real Tanya Corsey? The Tanya that you don't read about in the tabloids and magazines?
If you'll let me.
I barely know you, Mister Mallone. Although if you swing by more often, you might learn a thing or two.

Wait a minute, didn't Tanya have light brown hair in the photo of her? I guess she dyed it before dying or something. Or maybe that's just her "ghost colour"? Come to think of it, why is Joey cobalt blue while every other ghost is a kind of orange? It's not even a spirit guide thing because he was like that in the Flashback sequence too. I'm going off on a tangent here, though. Back to Tanya.

Come on. Tell me something about yourself. It must be nice for someone like you to be ASKED a question for once.
You've been doing nothing but ask questions since you came in here.
Huh. Fair point.

Unfortunately, she's still kind of evasive even dedpite us learning her name. I guess she's used to having to struggle to keep her private life to herself.



Let's see if we can figure out what the note is about.

No. No, I don't. Sorry.
Come on. That note on the floor? It has Heather written on it.
So? Like I told you. It has no meaning to me.
I don't know any Heather.

Unfortunately, asking about it only serves to make Tanya angry. Something involving Heather is definitely tied into Tanya's death, but how could that be? As far as I can tell, Heather must have died years and years ago, probably right back in the early-mid 90s. Tanya is only supposed to have died a year ago. Did Tanya perhaps have something to do with Heather's death? Did she interview the wrong person?

Well, Tanya. I have to get going, but I'll see you around.
Ta.

Looks like we'll need to do a bit more research to sort this case out.



Rosa digs up Tanya's obituary notice.

Tanya was the host of the "Good Morning" show. I remember hearing that they got a new host, but I didn't know this was the reason. Channel 11. I think their head office is in Penn Plaza. Can't hurt to ask around.

To the newsroom!!

Channel 11 News



Rosa and Joey emerge in the mostly-bare channel 11 newsroom. A white-haired man is using a computer, but other than that, there isn't a whole lot to see around here.

The local news is airing. They're talking about the weather. Again. It's pretty empty here tonight. I guess the weather even affects the media.
Late fifties? Seems pretty dedicated to his job. Probably eats more greasy food than he should.
Looks like he's got a bunch of news wire reports open. Oh, and Minesweeper.

Rosa and Joey exchange glances.

Joey never looks comfortable around technology. This place is no exception.
She's looking wistfully around the room. Probably thinking about the road not taken?



Rosa considers chatting with Joey, but quickly bites her tongue.



Instead, she decides to talk with the man.

Hm?
Hi. I'm Rosangela Blackwell. Do you work here?
Certainly do. Jim Peebles. Senior producer. How can I help you?

Senior producer, hey? That probably means he would have been familiar with Tanya Corsey. Rosa checks.

So what do you do here?
I'm the head producer for the Good Morning show. With Kathy Kardin?
Isn't that Tanya Corsey's old show?
Yes it is.

Excellent. Let's see if we can learn more about her from Jim. Rosa starts with some small talk.

It's pretty empty here tonight.
Heh. Well, look outside. The weather is horrible and almost everyone commutes to work. Nobody can get in, so we're running on a skeleton crew.



Pretty quickly, Rosa shifts gears and starts asking about Tanya.

Yes. Why do you ask?
I'm looking into her death.
Wasn't it an accident?
That's why I'm looking into it. Just to be sure.
Hm. Well, all right.



In her usual manic fashion, Rosa jumps from topic to topic as she works her way down our laundry list of clues.

That's not really the kind of thing our show reports on.
So I can't really help you. Sorry.
Can you tell me about yourself?
Me? What you see is what you get. Started working at a copywriter's desk about thirty years ago. Worked my way up to producer. Been here ever since.

Back to Tanya...

What else can you tell me about Tanya?
I liked her. Some anchors think they are the be-all and end-all, but not her. She knew we were all in this together, and worked well with all of us. That's how you make a news show. Everyone needs to help each other.
Can you tell me anything else about Tanya?
Well, like I said, we all miss her. There's nothing else to say.

This is all pleasant, but kind of superficial and not very useful.

Well, thanks for your time, Mr. Peebles. I might be back later.
Sure thing. I'm not going anywhere.

Perhaps if we could learn a bit more about Jim, we might be able to get him to speak to us on a more meaningful level.



Joey heads back to speak with Tanya. If Jim produced her show while she was alive, she should be able to help us learn about him.

What about him?
Oh, nothing. I was just wondering what you could tell me about him.
I don't spread gossip, Mister.
Except when I'm on the air.

Joey tries again.

You sure you can't tell me anything else about Jim?
If you want to get to know him, ask him yourself.

She's not exactly keen to talk about him. Considering she is happy to flirt with Joey almost irrespective of the question, it's strange that she clams up whenever we ask about Jim. Did something happen between them?

Now, wait a minute. That note from earlier - it was signed 'J'. It could just be a coincidence, but I have a bad feeling about this.



Rosa and Joey quickly swap thoughts on Jim.

Decent enough guy. Don't know enough about him yet. Works too hard, though.
Because he works late into the night? We can hardly judge him for that.
Huh.

I think we need to confront Jim about the note.



Fortunately, Rosa is willing to do so without having to solve some kind of wacky clue combining puzzle or anything.

And?
And your name begins with J. Did you write it?
Seriously?

Jim tries to brush us off, but Rosa is too clever for that nowadays.

You're in journalism. You know that any lead is worth following.
Well, sorry. I didn't write any note to Tanya. Not that I remember.
Can you think of any other J's who might have written that letter?
I can think of six who work in this office alone. I'm sure there are dozens more.

He sounds really perturbed here. I suppose we are kind of implying he had a hand in his former colleague's death, so he would be put out - but even so. He sounds kind of guilty to me.



Still, we don't really have any kind of evidence or anything like that. Looks like we'll have to leave this one on the backburner for now. Time to follow up on the Heather case instead.


Tomorrow we'll make our way to Vantini and see if we can figure out who Ray was and what he might know about Heather's death. Hopefully we'll be able to figure out how her case and Tanya's pair up. See you all tomorrow!





So, it's time to talk a bit about Alex Silva, the police commissioner. Again, this seems like it should be a spoiler, but it's not - because she isn't going to feature in this game at all. Other than the poster of her at the police station, and the couple of lines of dialogue during the epilogue scene of Deception, Silva doesn't actually feature of a character in any of the Blackwell games.

Now, this seems a bit unusual. If you recall, some fairly obvious seeds were planted in Deception that Silva was going to be a higher-up member of Gavin's cult. Her name had been mentioned all the way back in Convergence, so Gilbert obviously had long-term plans for her. She was running for mayor, and then became a police commissioner. Who was she?

Alex Silva is, indeed, a member of Gavin's cult

Gilbert confirms that the character of Silva is still around, and is still a member of Gavin's cult. However, as you may have noticed, we've basically not had anything to do with that cult in this game. They may yet prove to be responsible for the souls we've seen being torn apart, but at this stage, we haven't got any reason to think that's the case. If you recall, Rosa swore at the end of Deception to do whatever she could to track them down - and claimed it would bring meaning to her life to do so - but she doesn't seem to actually be doing that at all.

This is because Gilbert decided to cut that sub-plot from the series. You might remember that I mentioned earlier that there was a plan for two more games to come after Deception - a fifth game, and then Epiphany. The fifth game was to feature Rosa's struggles against Gavin's cult of spiritual vampires. Gilbert cut it for two reasons - first, because he was keen to get the series finally finished, but primarily it was because he didn't think the subplot was interesting enough to sustain another game. He'd already spent half of Deception on the cult, and had done most of the interesting things he wanted to with it. He didn't see any reason to revisit the issue when there wasn't much left to do with it.

That meant that the character of Alex Silva kind of fell to the wayside. That wasn't always the plan, however. When Gilbert first decided to drop the fifth game, he tried to shoehorn Silva into Epiphany instead. He figured that she had been so heavily foreshadowed in the previous games that he needed to deliver her in some capacity.

Originally, the scene where Cory and Durkin interrogate Rosa about Lia's death played out quite differently. Instead, Rosa would be summoned into Silva's office, where she would find out that Silva had been watching her from afar for years. She knew all about The Deacon, all about The Countess, and in fact had instructed the police to leave Rosa alone so she could deal with those situations. Furthermore, she'd even manipulated situations so Rosa would discover how to solve them. And now she was offering Rosa a chance to work with the police.

There was only one problem - Gilbert hated the character. He thought the players would find it insulting that everything they had achieved so far was due to Silva's behind-the-scenes interference. He had real trouble writing any decent dialogue for her.

Gilbert also couldn't figure out himself whether Silva was going to actually be a "good guy" or a "bad guy". She was obviously working with the cult, but was she perhaps looking to overthrow them from within? Was she just looking for power for her own sake? What were her motivations? Eventually, Gilbert decided that he hated the character so much that he was just going to remove her and focus on Epiphany instead. He left her picture in the police station as an homage to her character, but that's all.

There is actually a deleted scene you can watch in Epiphany if you have the commentary enabled, where you can see the bare bones of the scene where Rosa meets Silva. Honestly, I don't think it's as bad as Gilbert does, but given that I really love the interaction between Cory and Durkin, I think what we ended up with was better anyway. And I'm more than happy to skip over the Gavin's cult follow-up story. One thing you can definitely say in Gilbert's favour - almost every decision he made over the course of the series to cut or change content led to a markedly better product. Silva's removal is just somewhat more visible an omission than most of his others.