Epic: the Musical: the actual end this time seriously!

39. "I Can't Help But Wonder"

Animatic by Ximena Natzel.

The reunion of Odysseus with the son he's never known is...exactly what you'd expect.

I wish I had more to say here. I really did. But, it's a separated father and son meeting for the first time and having a cathartic moment as they wonder about each other's lives, what they must think about one another, what they hope and fear to see in each other, etc. It's emotional. It's poignant. But it also doesn't really build off of the preceding material. It doesn't engage with Odysseus' debatable monstrosity (if anything, him coming down and having a soft, sensitive heart-to-heart so quickly after "Odysseus" is kind of jarring). It also doesn't do anything with Telemachus, besides have him react more or less the same way to meeting his father that he earlier told us he would back in "Legendary."

The song is pretty enough. Musically, I think I might detect a hint of Undertale inspiration here, heh.

Now, there is one very, VERY interesting bit at the end of this piece. After his heartfelt reunion/introduction with Telemachus, and before going upstairs to where Penelope's been sheltering in her chambers, Odysseus senses a familiar, unseen presence.

He calls out to Athena in the same manner as his young self did in the "Warrior of the Mind" flashback, and this exchange happens:

Athena: "I can't help but wonder what this world could be if we all held each other with a bit more empathy. I can't help but feel like I led you astray, but if there's a world where we don't have to live this way..."

Odysseus: "If that world exists, it's far away from here. It's one I'll have to miss, as it's far beyond my years. You might live forever, so you can make it be, but I've just one endeavor; there's a girl I've got to see."

Athena: "...very well."​

Athena has been very different in almost every appearance of hers in the musical. I think I might know why. And I think Zeus essentially giving her a death and rebirth at the end of "God Games" may have been much more important than the mere meme-fodder it seemed in the moment.

Athena's bit aside, though? This song basically epitomizes what I meant when I said that the Ithaca Saga feels like the perfect ending for a completely different Odyssey musical. Odysseus' reunion with Telemachus doesn't address the former's "monster" aspect at all, as he switches off the murderous rage in a heartbeat as soon as all the suitors are dead and he and his son just...have a loving embrace, like Odysseus always imagined.

It feels weird using the term "stations of canon" to describe an Odyssey adaptation, but after the bold thematic departures Epic has been making up until now that's really the best description of this reunion scene.


40. "Would You Fall In Love With Me Again?"

Animatic by Nya Tyan.

The long awaited meeting between Odysseus and Penelope, introduced by the loudest, richest viola riff so far. We had the first one of these all the way back in the first song of the entire musical, and I feel like they've been getting louder and more distinct throughout the show.

Odysseus is different from the last time she saw him, she can immediately tell. I'm guessing he's taken a moment to wash the blood off of himself before coming up here, because she doesn't comment on that detail, but she does note that he's lighter, gaunter, and grimmer-looking.

Odysseus slowly, painfully, comes clean to her about how he's not the man she said goodbye to two decades ago. He confesses his accumulated sins and atrocities. Leaving carnage and death in his wake, with a musical callback to the Ocean Saga. Using his men like property whose lives he can spend and trade for his own selfish interest, with a musical callback to the Thunder Saga. Causing great pain to others in his quest to return home, with a musical callback to Calypso (ASTJERFKSGWJGJWEGFJQ). Now he's back, but will she have him? Is he still what she's been waiting for all this time?

As a test (really more of an object lesson, I think) Penelope asks him to move the bed from the master bedroom out of the building. Odysseus replies that this is impossible; he carved that bed out of the live olive tree that he and her first met under, and later built the palace around that. The only way to move that bed would be to tear up the entire root system. Penelope, overjoyed, replies that if he still remembers that much about their lives together, then he's still the man she married, and she's willing to deal with any changes he's undergone in the interest of their love. The only way he could stop being the man she loves is if he and she were completely uprooted and destroyed, and they're both alive, so.

Maybe she always saw him for the cold, selfish man he's proven himself to be over the course of the musical, and it never bothered her. Or maybe he really wasn't like that before the war (in retrospect, I think showing a few more glimpses of pre-war Odysseus so we can see how different he was - and if he was indeed different at all - might have helped the musical), and she's just willing to do whatever it takes to dig up whatever's left of who he once was. In any case, the way her voice gets higher, and higher, and higher, and then even higher in her final chain of "waiiiiiitiiiiiings" is the craziest vocal feat in this whole show. Seriously, they might have just saved the best for last as far as voice talent goes.

And, for all that I have issues with how the final third of Epic plays out, I can't listen to this song and not tear up. That's probably more a testament to the performances than it is to the writing, but I can't argue with the results. Effective is effective.

He's home. Whatever he did during the war, he knows that he's going to have to live with it, and with his wife's help he thinks he's up to the challenge. How applicable you think this should be to real life war criminals, well...like I said, I'm kind of confused about what Epic's intended message is.


I'll be trying to puzzle it out in a final analysis post.