2. Obsession

October 26, 2018·21 min·1 clip

Mark plays a white tape he finds in Thurman's desk and immediately feels physically ill — while Betz's dog may or may not have been growling at the TV.

The episode opens with Mark arriving at the Mueller house in Benton, New Hampshire after a long drive in Tamara's car. The house is cluttered and worn, with stacked newspapers and dirty shag carpet. Mark struggles to explain his podcast at the door and is nearly turned away until he says the phrase Ota Keita, a phrase he has heard himself say in sleep-talking recordings connected to the white tapes, and which causes Betz to immediately change her tone. Inside, Betz introduces herself and her dog Verner and describes Thurman as a funny, church-going, hardworking man who became increasingly obsessed with Video Palace, eventually driving there weekly from New Hampshire. She notes that Thurman began talking in his sleep during the last two to three years before his disappearance, often repeating Ota Keita in a strange voice. The final night she saw him, he chose a Video Palace trip over a church Easter dinner they had committed to, she put her foot down, he apologized, got in his car, and never came back. Betz explains that her son Shane later pushed her to have Thurman declared dead to collect life insurance, leading to harassment from insurance investigators. She says she still believes in her heart that Thurman is alive. Betz leads Mark into Thurman's preserved den, pointing out its floor-to-ceiling organization of VHS tapes, foreign film sections, children's videos, 16mm reels, laser discs, and projection equipment. She reflects that film collectors had been calling for years trying to buy the collection, including one aggressive caller named Jacob or Jake who she believes may be Jacob Manders. While Betz steps away to take medication, Mark finds an opened envelope on Thurman's desk containing a white tape. He plays it briefly on the VCR, records the audio, and immediately feels nauseous. He stops the tape, takes the envelope, and exits the den. He encounters Betz in the hallway and she agrees to let him borrow it. Shane Mueller arrives unexpectedly, realizes Mark is a stranger in his father's den holding what may be one of Thurman's tapes, and confronts him angrily. Shane demands the tape back and grabs it, but Mark escapes to the car and drives away with the tape. Back home, Mark plays Tamara the recording and tells her what happened. Tamara is more concerned about him getting hurt than impressed by the tape. She then plays him a recording she made on her phone of scratching and clicking sounds outside their apartment door — sounds that persisted for 15 minutes while she was alone. Mark notes that the unexplained sounds at their door occurred at the same time he was watching the white tape at the Mueller house.

As heard by us

A quiet investigation where tape collections and private grief start to feel like the same trap.

The episode follows Mark Cambria’s search for Video Palace from a porch visit in Benton, New Hampshire into a far lonelier place: a widow, a long-shuttered room full of tapes, and the uneasy feeling that one question may be too many.

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Why you'd press play

A hunt for a vanished film collector and a white tape that feels wrong.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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