A Simple Game

11.21.24

This week’s Episode 311 is especially fun for me because it builds its plot around a game of bocce.

The notion that a simple game could have tremendous stakes has a long heritage in fantasy and horror.  I don’t have a categorical history of the trope at my fingertips, but a few examples include:

— The classic TWILIGHT ZONE episode “A Game of Pool,” in which Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters portray pool champions whose game will determine their fates in the afterlife;

— The famous Marvel Comic in which Nick Fury’s exploits are revealed to be the result of a game of chess between Dr. Doom and the Prime Mover;

— Episodes I wrote and/or produced of the Starz series DA VINCI’S DEMONS, in which the true Pope is revealed to be a prisoner playing Go with his captor;

— James Bond playing a round of golf with Auric Goldfinger for a bar of Nazi gold.

And for that matter, you could reasonably argue that the world economy is based on a series of high-stakes wagers, that every stock market boils down to a few guys betting on what will happen next. And the results can take down vast companies and collapse lives.

I first saw old men in the park playing bocce when I was on a foreign exchange program to France (where it was called “pétanque”). It could hardly seem more innocent – which adds to the edge when it might determine whom Agent Stoker has at his side in the coming apocalypse.

And it’s especially fun that this plot gave us the opportunity to bring back a couple of our old friends in the Stokerverse: the Passenger (masterfully played by Hugo Armstrong), and Valentine (brilliantly voiced by Rose Portillo). Add to that case the voices we hear again in Ep 310 – the returns of Leandro Cano as Prof. Simon Diaz, Marlene Forte as Thorn, and Orville Mendoza as Iglesias – and it’s an ominous Old Home Week today.

And next week AGENT STOKER has a surprise that’s totally unlike anything we’ve ever done! Join us for a Thanksgiving treat!

Bestest

Brian