The hit show hailed as the one which kicked off mainstream audio drama returns for a long-awaited second season. Can it live up to the hype?
Warning: the following contains spoilers for all episodes of Limetown Seasons 1 and 2
Limetown Season Two had a lot to achieve. After bursting onto the audio drama (or audio fiction if you prefer – but that’s another article) scene in 2015 it quickly became the go-to audio drama, often referenced in “best of” lists and Reddit recommendation posts.
Launching in the wake of true-crime giant “Serial”, Limetown Season One presented itself as a real life investigative podcast with no credits alerting the listener that they were listening to an audio drama. However, dig a little deeper under the surface and it was a masterclass of immersive storytelling, with a killer mystery to boot.
With a full cast of over 27 professional actors in the pilot episode alone, sourced with the assistance of a casting director, it was clear that creators Zach Akers and Skip Brontie were approaching the audio drama genre in a totally different way than many creators previously had.
Quickly reaching the top of the iTunes charts Limetown could arguably be listed as the audio drama which first got the attention of mainstream audiences – leading to big players such as Marvel now launching their own audio drama podcasts.
And then – radio silence. Season One abruptly ended on a cliffhanger, with protagonist Lia Haddock abducted by unknown antagonists. At first the lack of new episodes played into the fictional world created by Akers and Brontie – it made sense that there were no new episodes as Lia had been kidnapped and her company American Public Radio (APR) were scrambling behind the scenes to find out what had happened.
Yet over time the cult fandom that Limetown had amassed began to get impatient at the lack of updates. A year passed. When the Limetown creators posted to say that their next project would be a musical audio drama and that Limetown Season 2 had been delayed due to the creators working on a TV adaption of the podcast and book deal many fans voiced their disapproval.
In the hiatus between seasons I wondered what paths the creators might take when bringing back the show. Would they focus on a new mystery, or have Lia dig deeper into the background behind the formation of Limetown? Would a new APR reporter pick up the story?
In actuality the writers took threads lightly established last season and used these to expand the world of Limetown.
The central mystery of what happened at Limetown was replaced with the mystery who is new lead character Charlie Latimore, voiced by Kate Eastman, and what she knows. Her identity, shifting allegiances and interactions with a mysterious interrogator (Henry Leyva) are a key part of Limetown Season 2. Eastman’s performance is fantastic, and you constantly find yourself second-guessing where Charlie is going to go next – both literally (this season has more globe-trotting than the first, in what seems like a conscious effort to expand to world build) and psychologically.
The fake “documentary” approach of Season One has been dropped for a more conventional storytelling approach. Though much of the story is told through Charlie’s recordings, played back to her by the interrogator, there is no “in-world” reason or explanation for us hearing their interactions.
Despite this it still feels like Limetown and this is due to the core element of the Limetown story being retained from the first season. The structure each episode remains an interview with Charlie replacing Lia in interviewing various characters, slowly piecing together what has happened.
Limetown itself is replaced by “The Bridge”, another research facility where futuristic tech allows inhabitants to read the thoughts of others. The futuristic tech implant from Season 1 is now updated to a contact lense. We learn about what happened to Lia’s uncle Emil, after he was spirited out of Limetown before the town was burned to the ground, and this season digs into what makes him tick, and what it would feel like to be the only person in the world who can read the thoughts of others without need of an implant.
The story is uncovered slowly, and though Season One was linear in it’s story, Season Two’s use of the tape recordings (recorded by Charlie and other characters pre-Limetown) means it feels a little “Westworld” as we jump around different time frames.
In the background, the sound design remains fantastic – for example creaking floorboards are heard when a character is described walking along a dock front. As in Season 1 the score by Martin D Fowler is understated and supports the action rather than overpowering it. A sense of creepy foreboding hangs throughout the season, as we approach the truth of the tragedy that occurred at The Bridge.
Throughout the season the key question remains: What happened to Lia Haddock? At the end of the finale we are left with frustratingly few answers on this front. Charlie presents Emil Haddock (revealed to be the interrogator who has captured her) with two scenarios – either Lia has been taken away and he will never find her, or Charlie has killed her. The battle of wills between Charlie and Emil is an engaging listen, but at the end I felt unfulfilled after several references to Lia in previous episodes. Given that in Season One, Lia’s relationship to Emil was a key emotional anchor for the character, it seems like a wasted opportunity not to have them reunited, especially after Lia uncovers Emil’s involvement in the Limetown experiment. One could argue that Lia’s story was done, having exposed the conspiracy at the end of the first season. Yet the constant references, and meeting character like her mother and finally her uncle it seemed like the show was leading to a point which then never materialised.
TL;DR: Limetown Season Two remains a professional and genre-defining audio drama but cannot quite reach the highs of the first season.
Joel Davidge 