Haven't seen many people mention the very direct names of the Quantum Beak echo characters to their roles. Warlin Door could be heard as whirling door, whirling being a similar to spiral, spiral door....Also, Tim Breaker is one letter from time breaker, a loose description of Jack Joyce in QB. I also love the idea of Serene being Blessed in this world and at this point kinda hope that we do see Aiden Gillen return as Chester Blessed and Blessed organization being an echo of Monarch in some way.

Honestly the Alan Wake Musical is probably one of my favorite moments in gaming. Yes it's simply a shock to the player, yes the song is catchy, yes the idea of implementing a play within a play thematically is genius game design... ...but for me it's how much of the story is hidden right in front of you through this scene. It's the moment you see Alan's face at the end before the shift back to the dark place alone, where he has a smile on his face almost like he's enjoying this art (quite similar to Zane). Then realizing Alice was photographing him throughout the entire set piece and we are almost completely oblivious to it the first time being lost in the glory of his fame and stories around him he couldn't help but be obsessed with on the big screen. Contrast this with all of the echoes of his writing; that dark twisted version of himself that fueled his books and fame. Something he felt the world wanted more of so he fed into the spiral of the tale until it engulfed him whole at this point in the story. It's just really smart writing we don't see executed this well. Props to Remedy. Although I humbly think Dark Ocean Summoning is a better song. :)

I just realised something while replaying Control. So other than Alex Casey, James McCaffrey (Rest in Power) is also playing Zachariah Trench and "The Diver" version of Tom Zane, and it just hit me that they have the same initials. Trench Zachariah - T.Z. Tom Zane - T.Z And coincidentally it's only after Zachariah Trench died that Tom Zane is now being played by Illka Villi. So was "Zane the Poet" just Zachariah Trench playing the role from within The Oldest House as the still F.B.C Director, and using Alan as a means to stop the 2010 AWE, and then after Trench Died, thanks to Alan's writing, the real Zane was now released as a result of The Hiss and The Dark Presence merging together in Dr Hartmann, which also created an overlap between the Oceanview Motel with the Oceanview Hotel?

Remedy getting Aiden Gillen to play Chester Bless in Control 2 would be incredible.

Just watched this man I’m stoked for the Alan Wake 2 DLCs

@3:10:11 about that book review on the television in the diner by Ilmo: I thought it was really interesting because he's *literally* reviewing the book - very clinically, as *an object* rather than as a story. It's all about the grade of paper, the quality of the binding, the glossiness of the print, the weight and texture and so on. I was thinking about that, and I wonder if it reflects the lack of true creativity of the Dark Place. That's why it needs to consume *actual* art and artists. Even though this is purportedly Scratch's manuscript come to life, and scratch is Alan, Scratch is STILL essentially the driven by the essence of the Dark Place. It can't write a review for the book because it lacks the subjective understanding of creativity to do so. The review of the book as a completely lifeless object reflects that, perhaps. An alternative could have been to review the story in the most simplistic, shallow and mechanical terms, so that it is effectively meaningless and without any creative identity. [And on a more metatextual level, if the Dark Place is a commentary on how art can be manipulated, subverted and devalued in various ways, such as by editors, producers, marketers etc. (Barbara Jagger, for example, was described as an editor who eventually took so much control that Alan's voice was being eliminated), perhaps that book review is saying something about the cynical commodification of art that is unfortunately a necessary evil today.] I thought it was very clever, if that's what the writers were trying to do that review.

Drinking coffee through sugar cube is definitely an actual Finnish Thing although that would be something that you would most likely see in a period film set in the early 1900s. As in my grandparents were probably too young to partake in this habit. Put it in the same pile as the other conspicuous pieces of Finnish kitsch like Ahti speaking in badly translated Finnish proverbs, plates of karelian pastries on every single picnic table, all the cabins looking like they were mass produced in the 90s etc. Especially the last one - I swear I could SMELL the wood paneling when Saga stepped into the ranger's cabin at Cauldron Lake the first time, that's how commonly used it was.

3:08:46 unrelated to the video, this scene where alan pulls out his gun and shines the flashlight might be one of my favorite moments of the game. Its such a good callback to alan wake ones pose he does at the end of every chapter, it gripped me so hard and was honestly the final straw that broke the camels back for me, that this was my game of the year.

Just interesting to note, I think each time Alan reaches a murder site he sends something Saga needs for the overlap ritual to her - the Heart, the record and the deer skull?

1:55:43 Another thing Zane revealed to Alan by showing him he was still alive after Alan shot him, is that a bullet coming from the dark place cannot hurt him, and it's why Alan realized Saga's bullet of light created by Alice wouldn't kill him, which is what allowed Alan to come to the realisation that's it's a Spiral. Zane also leads Alan to the theatre where he sees Sam Lake Casey get the same Spiral realization. So maybe Zane has secretly been working with Alice the whole time.

Thanks for making this, i love long form analysis and this was very enlightening!

2:08:11 A hypothesis I have is that Cynthia was Zane's wife, but he fell in love with the character of Barbara Jagger, and because of the Cauldron Lake, the story about Tom The poet turned the Actress playing Barbara into Barbara herself as we meet her in Alan Wake 1, and that's why Cinthya is inlove with Zane, but because of the overlap she instead remembers him as his character and not the Filmmaker, and herself as his muse.

1:50:40 my interpretation is that Alan thinks Zane is showing him a Flashback montage to them writing Return, but what Zane did, exactly how he teleported them both on the couch with drink in their hand moments before, that's when they wrote Return, but Zane makes it look like a Flashback. So maybe it's both, it happened all in the moment.

the flickering light in the alice videos was a confirmation for me at the end that alice wasn't in nyc, she has been in the dark place the entire time leading you on this is also the first time i have heard literally anyone say "i thought we sing was alright i didn't like it at first" man i just got a million thoughts about the narrative pouring out as i get there, y'all said zane seemed really in tune with the dark place and it's my theory that zane, whoever and whatever zane is (his own person, a part of alan, whatever) is not trying to escape the dark place but is another element pushing alan to explore boundaries in his art, as Door said "there are so many people helping you/play your role" and zane is another part of that. on the zane note, i also don't think a doppleganger of alan shows up who happens to be scratch, alan IS scratch. wake wouldn't write, but his darker half eventually wins out, he gets drunk and high and that's where the bad side comes out. all of this holds together for me with that final movie reel of zane playing and finishing with "and CUT! now THAT'S drama!" as he goaded alan into shooting him for a supposed betrayal.

17:38 I DO think this is, if nothing else, a Dark Place version of the Sam Lake that appeared on the Harry Garret show. After Ahti gives you the keys to get you downstairs and you get the Lamp, you run into a room you have to put a light into to progress; if you don’t, however, or if you take the light back out, you’ll see props for the Harry Garret show laying around. I think the implication is that Alan molded Door’s “In Between” show based on his experiences with other talk shows, namely the “Harry Garret Show.” Would also explain why Sam Lake the *Actor* ends up appearing as well, since Sam Lake is an actor in the RCU (as confirmed by the Harry Garret show from AW1).

Is sam just doing the dance that "the arm"/ "the man from antoher place" did in the red room in twin peaks?

I think Estevez IS referring to the Hiss Invasion, because at the end of the AWE dlc, there is an AWE Event alert at Cauldron Lake and Langston says it's weird because it's coming from several years in the future. it's the same alert that's on the screen in the FBC Monitoring Station at Caludron Lake.

Totally just thought of this - the dark presence manifests those who give into fiction. Explains Mulligan and Thornton as they tried to hide from the truth of what transpired. Then there’s guys like the Old Gods learn how to harness their truth to create reality.

2:38:22 the line is something along the lines of 'the one with the tool makes two, tom.'

Sup guys, I'm new to the channel. Just wanted to say I'm really enjoying this format. Good stuff.

11:09 Oh, man I really thought about it. It makes so much sense to me, cause I recently replayed Quantum Break after completing AWII, and I was wondering about why Aiden Gillien isn't in Control nor AW.

The absolute best thing about this Alan Wake 2 meta-narrative and Sam Lake world building amid all the IP woes is seeing streamers high-fiving each other like: "YES, QUANTUM BREAK IS CANON NOW. IT'S CONFIRMED!" ❤

1:21:30 a very good observation about how scenes with Alan shooting or witnessing someone being shot build up, I didn’t think about it at all but it does seem very natural as an explanation of how he reaches his near-insane desperate state in the end (as long as Alan actually retains his memory of previous events)

Can confirm the creaming in the game+ fellas

I was reading one of the FBC notes (at the Whichfinder station) in the game and it talked about their hypotheses as to how fiction affects reality via the dark place. One way is the most obvious way is that "the fiction itself is the initiating force in its present timeline using the creator as a conduit". But the other way is interesting: The fiction reflects "events that have come to pass but that are not known to their later creator, whose act of creation becomes the catalyst for these past events after which they serve as the source of their own inspiration". That's interesting. So if Alan is inspired to write about a detective called Alex Casey, not knowing that there is a real person of the same name who has practically the same job, Alan's later fiction would, via the Dark Place, would start to filter back or leak back into the real Casey's life, essentially having the power to "retcon" their life. The fiction thus becomes the cause AND the record of past events in the real person's life. SO, could that also explain the Clicker? Zane in the dark place was inspired to write about Alan being afraid of the dark as a child, which we presume was true about Alan as a child. Most children are. Zane then wrote about Alan being given the Clicker (which he then gave to Alice) and kept in a shoebox. And through the Dark Place, this filtered back into the past, changing it and causing the Clicker and the Shoebox to become reality in the present. Thus, Zane's writing becomes simultaneously the cause and the record of the past. And finally, Logan in the real world slept in the shower and hit her head, and in the fictional reality, she had an accident and drowned. Is that another example of this? Is that what the FBC note is trying to say? It would help make a lot of Alan Wake one and two easier to understand.

about the repetition of the ending of Control on AW2, isnt that part of Initiation? I mean in Control we find the pages of Alan Wake writting Initiation, giving a hero wisdom to survive the enemy and helping him escape. Casey, Jesse and Saga; Casey(fictional?) goes through the loops of getting killed and look for the writter, shot Zane in the face and being part of a fictional film that changes his perspective. Jesse has the nightmare were she is just a worker on the FBC, to escape she shots Trench in the face and goes find Darling/Polaris wich changes his perspective And well Saga has the to fight the dark possesion and shot Alan in the face, wich I dont think it changes her perspective that much, I think that happends when she asumes her profiling power is magic

I'm ready for this

I have a theory about Zane. If in the first game Alan, inspired by the mementos in the lodge, created the character of tom the poet to be his guide, perhaps Scratch mirrored this and created tom the filmmaker in Alan wake 2 to help/be HIS guide?

Theory: all the remedy multiverse games are TV shows in the MGS 4 universe

This place, where Alan finds Nightingales body reminds me of the Foundation of the Oldest House. Maybe there is some loose connection.

IDEA: Alice is playable in Alan Wake 3 and you use a camera to fight the Shadows. Ok, follow up: She has a “Dark Room” in The Dark Place where she creates her art, how she can freeze and create scenes. OR, an assist mechanic, where she can blast Taken so Alan can shoot them. Like it’d be SO fun to see how a different artist utilizes and is affected by The Dark Place, and it definitely seems like Alan and Alice will be working together in the sequel.

the one thing that kinda bugged me or erked me about we sing was how it just popped up. imagine seeing posters of a musical in the dark place then a chapter later or something like that you get it

1. I believe that Zane changed hinself into a movie star/director in order to "play" the part of Alan to get out. NG+ confirms this theory even more 2. Zane is afraid of the FBC because they would stop Alan from writing ans/or arrest them 3. Casey never met the Bookers, he stayed outside with Tim Breaker during that part. 4. Ed Booker was definitely taken by the FBC 5. Jaako and Ilmo are...surprisingly, the same actor. Seems to push even further toward (along with the are you fictional? Question) the differences between actors and characters. 6. I feel like Pat Maine's radio show makes things happen. It IS a form of art. Tapio mentioning that there would be rain actually caused it to occur.

When Estevez is referring to the problems at HQ she IS referring to the Hiss Incursion. It was still going on at the end of Control and there's a Manuscript page from Estevez's PoV that says "Ever since The Oldest House went dark." She's gotten no new information since then which means that she doesn't know about Jesse at all. I find it interesting that somehow Darling wound up in TDP. The Current rumor is that the multiplayer game Remedy are making are squads going into new zones of the Oldest House which sounds cool asf to me. I believe that the shifting from one Alan's perspective to the other through the TV is explained by The Dark Place acting like a dream does in that it shifts from one event to another with seemingly nothing connecting them directly.

Overpass? Overview? Matt, you need to get Overit!

12:22 maybe Estevez was not refering to the oldest house, but the Lake House at Cauldron lake, as the FBC's "small HQ" at the sight?

57:40 thanks for the Say Anything reference 🙏🏼

I think Night Springs and Lake House will be set before the point of no return for both characters and not post-game content, they’re chapters in the loop that are needed for the full picture. I can see Night Springs as Alan’s DLC as Mr Door mentions Night Springs towards the game’s ending, it will probably be accessed through a TV set with Door and Sheriff Breaker involved. The other I think will allow Saga to go through that restricted FBC gate in Cauldron Lake and access the Lake House, which Agent Estevez mentioned as well and this way they can tease Control 2 and give us more clues to complete the final case files. Then with both DLC completed the ending will be different again and give a more complete picture or probably a larger mystery for Alan Wake 3, knowing Sam Lake so far

It's Jesse for sure. The subtitles have the name Jesse.

1:55:00 Could this mean that Darling's "Dynamite" music video was filmed by Zane?

This game is sooo much fun afterwards, when you still keep putting pieces together. So much satisfactory

1:13 That’s correct. Lol

bruce sounds cool haha

Nice

Pump action shotgun isn't as good as it seems to be sadly. I tried to use it on NG+ when I maxed it but when enemies used to die to 1 shotgun + few pistol rounds they started to die to 2 or even 3 shotgun shells with pump action even with all the upgrades. Went back to double barrel after a few tries. Not really practical or ammo efficient, it's better upgrade double barrel's reload speed.

you sexy mothers are backkk. been waiting for this one. I feel like I understand so little I don't want to say anything official about 2 until I've heard other smarter people talk about it XD also what are yall drinking?

Max Payyyyne

2:05:09 What if I compare you to Seth Rogan, Jordan, since your laugh is practically the same?

Why Jordan kinda... 👀

Good video, really enjoyed your analysis but not loving We Sing is an instant thumbs down.

🔦