Rabbits - R U Playing?

Rabbits is a podcast written by Terry Miles and produced by Minnow eats Whale and the Public Radio Alliance. It is hosted by Carly Parker.

I remember when Rabbits first came out, sometime around TBT season two and the end of the first season of Tanis. Rabbits is the third podcast produced by PRA and is a sister show to Tanis but not The Black Tapes. The podcast is a mock-umentary revolving around Carly Parker, the host, looking for her missing friend, Yumiko Takata, who disappeared while playing an ARG called 9 or commonly 'rabbits.'

The plot of the show is actually easy to follow. one of Tanis's main faults is the complexity. so many actors, places, and locations flying around that's its hard to keep track of who's who in each episode. Rabbits has a smaller cast and that really helps to grasp the plot hooks that are thrown out each episode. Rabbits has many of the writing quirks of the other PRA podcasts their proclivity towards digression leads to some great pieces, such as the piece on the Garden of Arcadia or the monologue about The Secret, all wrapped tightly up into the bridge narrative. Another noticeable feature is their use of Pop culture and other fields. Old Video Games, MK Ultra, The Mandela Effect and other strange stories are name-dropped explained and referenced and the thick amount of intertextuality in the piece adds value. The writing still suffers from some of the problems of TBT and Tanis mostly the tendency for conversations with grumpy taciturn conspiracy nuts that makes getting info like pulling teeth and playing the pronoun game with edgy mystery men but besides moments like these Rabbits is a smooth ride.

TBT has Alex and Strand, Tanis has Nick and MK, and Rabbits has Carly and Jones. I like Carly character she is a bit more No-nonsense which is refreshing in the PRA landscape letting the crazies know that she means business and shes not drinking the kool-aid. Her interactions with Jones are more revealing. Throughout the game she had to make a lot of leaps of faith and put her trust in some crazy things. Not being sure if you can trust the source but that being the only lead is a powerful motivator. Throughout the podcast Carly is very honest about her feeling especially when personal details become involved. Jones is an interesting character. Most PRA podcasts involve the host acting as the Ingenue theheir companion explains the plot to them. Alex watchs Strands Tapes while Nick reads all the stuff that MK finds for him. Here Jones acts as am advisor teaching her about the game while also eventually revealing his knowledge of Yumiko. They both are fantastic actors and I appreciate the dynamics between the two. Once again a PRA power couple.

Some podcasts(mostly tanis) have a bad habit of drawing out the story. Rabbits is succinct and to the point. It plays their story in the 10 episodes then what gets down in most of the PRA catalogue. The ending was fantastic, where they find their mcguffin, this being her dear friend yumiko. The denouement ties up the story giving a skeptic view of the events living in the world post-9 the final part is fantastic and leaves the story on a perfect cliffhanger. Season Two is unfortunately never happening but the produced work now is a succinct work that provides what Pra does best, a mystery.

Overall I loved rabbits, its a great story. The episodes are about an hour long so I like to listen to them on hikes or on car rides. If your looking for a good mystery and adventure, this is the podcast for that. Highly recommended.