Transcript

EP10 - One Year Later

From BETH'S DEAD · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 40 min · 6,788 words · 152 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "EP10 - One Year Later", an episode of BETH'S DEAD published December 27, 2025 (40 min, about 6,788 words). It mentions 12 people, works and ideas, including Compassion (compassionate lens), Making amends (12-step), Recovery (addiction recovery), AI chatbots, Internet anonymity.

What this episode is about

In the final installment of "Beth's Dead," the hosts reflect on their evolving thoughts and emotions surrounding a significant call from a year prior, grappling with feelings of empathy and doubt about the person they spoke to. As they discuss the contrasting emotions elicited by revisiting past episodes and the impact of accompanying music, they explore the complexities of forgiveness and sentimentality in the context of their shared experience.

Key takeaways

  • Manipulation is an art; even detectives can be duped. Instincts aren't always truth's best friend.
  • Music manipulates emotions; sentimental notes made spooky tales seem sweet. Listen closely.
  • Detachment is tough in podcasting; parasocial bonds snare even skeptics in a fictional web.
  • Closure wasn't planned; serendipity turned a tale of terror into unexpected empowerment.
  • In the digital age, invisibility stuns; finding an elusive public figure boggles the mind.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 15:00: Comment culture
  2. – 20:00: Rock bottom, Second Life

Notable quotes from "EP10 - One Year Later"

  • But I do think it kind of speaks to the greater internet culture also in general and comment culture where people do they're just behind this sense of anonymity and they're…
    about Comment culture · at
  • Really nice, but if there were like a space like that for people to I guess like Second Life or these games or something where people can kind of cosplay their feelings. Well, they're saying a lot of people are already starting to do.
    about Second Life · at
  • Him up more? It seemed like he was so spiraling out so much. I think in some ways we were a part of his rock bottom in some sort of way. It sounded like it sounded like the timing kind of all Yes. not helpful.
    about Rock bottom · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

Concepts & topics

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome back to Beth's Dead. This is episode 10, the final installment. Oh, wow. Um, this is a little bit different than the others because many many months have passed. Yes. Has a year passed?

Has a year passed? I don't think quite that much, but yeah, it's been a while since we had our big call and uh we're back to sort of we've been working on this project since then and putting it all together and now we're back to sort of talk about our thoughts on the whole thing. Yeah. And mine have gone through a journey over this year because like there was the right after and then we've I'll all relisten to all nine episodes a couple of times and I every time I go on the ride I have like my feelings change through it because truly I think we all left that call well I left that call feeling like I think I said I wanted to give him a hug. I believed every word he said. I want what's best for him. And I think Monica, we even joked about we wanted to be like,

"Don't worry." You know, like all is forgiven. Yeah. It's no big deal. But then you listen back to it and like it was it was a big deal. You know,

it was a big deal. Yeah. I have the exact same thing. And then when I get to that thing, I can't help but to believe every single word he says. But then I'm also like, am I a fool? And like one thing I'm going to ask you this actually at the end of that episode, the music that I made and put under it, I made right after we had talked to him. So I was in that feeling, right? And every time I hear it, I'm like, "Oh, this it almost feels like it's guiding too much." But then I'm like

the emotion like it's it's guiding the audience to feel like for the guy too cuz it feels sentimental and like not spooky for once sort of

and I'm like oh is that the wrong thing but I'm like ah that's kind of how I felt. It's this weird thing because then when I listen to earlier episodes I'm like [ __ ] that guy.

Yeah. I think that's really interesting about the music but it that's just true to our journey with it. It was spooky and creepy and we were weirded out and by the end there were

there were sweet feelings. Um I mean obviously I have a different perspective cuz I I didn't go through it the way you guys did. But yeah, when I was listening back I was like, "Yeah, this is a wild story. He's really being so manipulative." But the same thing happened to me when I got to the end and we were listening to him. I was like, "God, It it's it's hard to be a person. I believe him.

Uhhuh. And I still do. I still do. Me, too. I do think both things are true. And I also want to say, you know, through this whole thing, we're like laughing a lot. That's kind of how we get through life. You know, at the time this happened, it was terrifying. You know, I I sometimes am like, do we really express how um scary that time was? And I think you heard bits of it as we were making it and we were kind of like, are we putting this out there and making this guy want to come murder us or, you know, we had all these concerns putting it out? And I just want to say it's really interesting because I had a parasocial relationship with his dad.

Mhm. It actually took me like a while after recording that I would still like it would pop in my mind and I would think of like the villain I had created and then I'd be like wait it wasn't him. It was it's almost like my brain couldn't it took a while to catch up to the reality

to untangle it even almost impossible to and even to think about the dad now without having like negative feelings now I really do and I feel guilty that I even attributed all of this to this like completely oblivious person who's just living their life

but I had to undo my own parasocial relationship with a person through all of this and that person loomed large. It wasn't just those two weeks and then the detective called and it was over. We have been so paranoid about posting stuff or like I don't know leaving any sort of footprint. So this podcast I have felt so much safer in life even though I don't even think I realized what I was carrying.

Yeah. Eight years in I feel like this weight has been lifted and we could never have guessed where the podcast went. That was such a fun It was so f fun to like take it into a real sort of documentary style situation where we really just did not know where it was going to go.

Yeah. And I have to thank you, Monica, because, you know, we had talked about doing like one or two episodes about this back in the day

and then turning it into what it is without you kind of feeling like a safe person who's helping guide this. I don't think there's a world where we would have ever reached out to him. No.

Like, yeah. So this like sense of closure I have and also like it feels empowering to know the truth and it's also such a good lesson about just not believing your instincts like

find out what the truth is because in this case we were so wrong. The detective was wrong. Our private investigator was wrong.

Like multiple there were other people involved that were wrong. People smarter than us. Yeah. Yeah.

So, I just feel like even for the dad, even though I really hope he never knows about this,

I feel like it's good for us to know the truth for him. Even though, you know, one of the scary things that I don't know if we touched on and we couldn't really, and now it being wrapped up, some things we kind of honored the anonymity of the dad, right? Which I think is definitely the right thing to do. Um, but in trying to like make contact, it seemed almost impossible to get to the dad,

which that always really freaked me out. Like in this day and age, that seemed so wild to me.

And that he was public facing. Yeah. He seemed like so almost internet savvy or something that it was it seemed impossible to get to him. And thank God we didn't. Well, and now we know that like maybe he's not internet savvy.

Yeah, maybe it's the complete opposite. Yeah, we thought he was internet savvy because of what he did.

Yes, totally. We had written the story and it made it scarier. I mean, there were so many things like that about the dad. They got scarier when you attributed it to this thing he didn't actually do. I also want to say there are details about him. We, you know, before we found out who it really was that we have withheld, there's more to the emails, if you can believe it. There was more to like the threats, if you can believe it, that we weren't sharing out of kind of keeping

everybody safe. I think everybody safe. So, I think Yeah. But I also feel like this gave me so much closure. I think it gave you so much closure and it also was like a really cool process for us.

I have I feel like again we can't get into too much detail but there were multiple times in recording this podcast over two years where actions were going to be taken, certain people were going to be pulled in.

Yep. that at the time it was maybe frustrating that there was like a lag or waiting on people's schedules, but it was such a good lesson in trusting the creative process

because had those things happened, it would have been disastrous. And so, I think we can say that like there was a plan to basically confront the dad. And since it was so hard to get to him, Monica, you were going to confront him face to face.

Yeah, me and and somebody else I was we were gonna go. We were just going to go.

It was someone who knows the dock space well. So, we were sort of instructed like that's kind of how you do it. You like show up, which I guess made sense since we couldn't really get in touch with them any other way. And then that didn't end up working out with that person. And so then we pivoted. Thank God.

Thank God. Thank God. But I it was frustrating because I was taking so long and it's like, "Oh, I just want to get this out." And then that's happened multiple times. Like this show had to take the time it took. Even thinking about him and like his sobriety.

Exactly. I'm wondering if I mean just the timing aligned and he felt like he was in a place where he could speak with us and

and he wanted to. He felt like he was in a good place in recovery where he could give like a real amend

and you know a little bit more about that I think Monica like that we didn't talk to him about this but like this was probably something he truly did want to make amends for right cuz isn't that a big part of the process sort of this could be a looming thing for him that would be hard to shake

yeah in recovery obviously making amends is one of the steps but there is like sort of a caveat that sometimes you can't do it because it would cause more harm.

So, I'm sure he had to sort of file this into that category, but it did sound like when we

were able to talk to him that he had been hoping he could have this moment. Yes. Yes.

This is sort of random, but not really. I don't know if everyone's I mean we all have here but I don't know if our listeners have already watched Unknown Number or Unknown Caller

I forget the exact title but documentary on Netflix about a catfishing situation

wild ending but one of the main things I took from that was one of the characters in the in that doc says like basically like catfish ing is like abuse catching up with technology. That's not exactly what he said, but he is talking about a Munchowous situation, but he's like

with technology, people's badness kind of evolved to use this tool for their mental illness. Like, you know, it's like it's another outlet for mental illness or anger. I don't know. I just found that to be really interesting and um it applies here I think where like he was clearly struggling.

Mhm. Yes. And this podcast technology, this parasocial relationship and the comments section and all of these things allowed the mental illness to sort of like come out.

Yeah. Yeah. In a way, I was like, it's almost like that he wasn't even aware like the technology kind of led him down a path before us humans can catch up to it. M

you know I was so glad that it wasn't someone and this was like the version I had attributed to the dad

who I became convinced in doing this podcast like oh this was calculated going back through to the very beginning like it was all planned there was some endgame he was going to use Natasha and Anders to try to break up our marriage like all of these steps and to kind of find out it just happened and I truly believe him like as he said didn't just seem like he could be friends with us. We reminded him of actual friends

he had lost touch with I think in his addiction and I also find it like kind of beautiful that we wanted to get all these answers and he was like I don't remember

I don't have any and it ultimately it's like it doesn't there's actually mattering

it's so freeing the other thing I want to point out you bringing up unknown caller

and number I don't know what it is And there's some other recent catfish documentaries. There's the one about the football player. Remember, um, Mantto, I think is that how you pronounce it?

Yeah, that one. And even the like the Tegan and Sarah do, if anyone's seen that, where they never necessarily find exactly who it is in that one, but the other ones they do. And in these ones, the perpetrator is interviewed and they don't have remorse. M

and what's interesting is I think we might be in an outlier situation actually where this is not the normal way that this ends like he truly

seems like he has remorse and as I'm saying that I'm like I hope we're not going to get like a knock on the door or something. There's still a little bit of that. I like I like both of your faces. That makes me feel better.

Um but do you know what I mean? But it does seem like a bit of an outlier. Like this was

sort of a positive ending for us. where most of these other stories, they're not really positive. It's kind of like, well, that sucks. Like,

I don't know. But I do think it kind of speaks to the greater internet culture also in general and comment culture where people do they're just behind this um sense of anonymity and they're horrible. They're horrible to other people because it's so easy to forget that they're people. Like to me, that's more of what happened to him. like he really wasn't I mean in some ways he was very much thinking of you as people because you were acting as friends but there's a separation that happens where you're also just like

not real and in some ways you belong to him like I think we all we can all do that in these parasocial relationships or these like relationships with podcasters and stuff there can be a sense of entitlement

I've I've noticed it on my end too like if I'm listening to something and someone says something like that I wouldn't like if they were my friends.

Yeah. Yes. I'm kind of like, "Oh, why' they do that?" And it's like, I don't even know them.

Yeah. Yeah. I've had that as well. And the interesting thing is like it's also any which way the wind blows. It's like it could just be a day I'm grumpy and I happen to hear be hearing these people or like Andy, you and I have been in an argument about something and I'm hearing a podcaster and I'm going [snorts] that person I bet you know like I'm projecting my own stuff onto them or if it's something I don't like about me or if it's something I don't like about someone in my life

or attention I'm having in my life. It's so easy and that's exactly what this guy was doing. He was kind of working through, as he said, he was having suicidal ideiation.

He was working through stuff in these relationships with me from the safety of like not having to be vulnerable.

Yes. And in a weird way, like I think that there's something kind of beautiful about that. Like, and not not with me, obviously. I know what you mean though, like if there are spaces on the internet. I mean, I don't know. I know Reddit is a cess poolool and everyone likes to like people are just

if you're in like the puppies Reddit is really nice, but if there were like a space like that for people to I mean, I guess like Second Life or these games or something where people can kind of cosplay their feelings. Well, they're saying a lot of people are already starting to do that with some of the AI chat bots, which is weird because you're not even doing it with a person, but you are forming a relationship. But yeah, that gets into a whole other weird territory.

That does because those bots are trained to say what like the person wants to hear.

Yeah. I mean, it's like they're improvisers. They're Yes. Anding stuff, which can be really dangerous when it's mental health stuff, as we've seen. So, it's not as authentic as like a random podcaster who thinks that you're someone you're not.

You do sound a little pro catfish people right now. No, no. I'm just saying like I one question I we didn't ask him is like did this help him or did it [ __ ] him up more? It seemed like he was so spiraling out so much. I think in some ways we were a part of his rock bottom in some sort of way. It sounded like it sounded like the timing kind of all

Yes. not helpful. I have a question that I thought when I was listening back when he said he started like he sent in the letter

the Beth question the Beth email. Yeah. The email to be put on air. Yeah. Like he said he had a friend who had experienced that and he was kind of like I guess wondering what your advice would be on it.

Yeah. And so instead of saying like this happened to my friend, what do you think? He just became first person. Yeah.

And I was like, huh, if we ended it there, is that wrong? How do you mean the problem is he kept up the conversation, right? and then created this whole thing and lured you in and whatever. But is it wrong on its own,

right? To seek out I mean that's something I think and you obviously did this and synced like got questions and it's

we talked about this then actually cuz sink launched like you know during this time and I was kind of nervous for you.

Yeah. naturally. Um I'm very protective of you and I feel like we ultimately thought, look, if it's helping someone else to maybe hear this, what's the harm, right?

As long as you're not then doing what I did. But he also, it's interesting because he had started it with Natasha and Anders.

He was playing more Yeah. more than one character. But you what you say is almost like it's kind of the joke like uh my friend was wondering if it's okay to right

and like is that okay to provide some cover for yourself and in this particular situation where you're reaching out to a public podcast it's like yeah sure maybe you don't want to identify yourself like

yeah I can kind of understand that but he abused the system of course of course of course no yeah and then he got then it became everything we just heard but it on its own. It's just interesting to think like, oh, I might

I might have done that, right? And then you can like sort of I mean, I can't really see how you go that far down the line, but I don't know. It's just like baby steps. It starts happening.

Yes. Completely. I lied once. There was like right after I graduated college. I was out for like a couple more years and I was trying to contact like big record producers and like could I find an internship and all this stuff. We're living in New York and I reached out to maybe the manager of like one of my favorite favorite producers and I said I was a college student working on a paper [snorts] and could I interview him? Yeah.

And then like 6 months later I got a response. It's like yeah sure here's his email. Send him questions. I'm like oh [ __ ] now I got to send questions and like do I pretend that I'm a college student? And I did just send questions and I was like, "What a missed opportunity because I'd lied in the first place." Sort of like I didn't I didn't keep going with that.

Well, also I just don't know where that endame was. Yeah. You didn't have kind of a

Yeah. But it was like contact and I was like this is this maybe I can make contact this way.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, that was like such a different version of you. I mean it's also look it's also savvy and smart like especially in these creative industries where it is impossible to make contact with people you do have I mean think about all the acting resumes the special skills section is just all lies unicycle fluent Italian you know what's interesting about that I I feel like we talked about it when you did that

and I was like it's truly harmless because the thing is people are much more likely to respond to a college student, which you had been.

I Hey, I went to college. Do you know what I mean? Like, but being like, "Hey, I'm 3 years out of college. I'm working at a glass store."

Yeah. I did end up actually working with him though, which is kind of odd. Wow.

Not through that though. No, no, this is like 20 years later. And no, not comfortable to share that story with him.

Interesting. But also, that's funny because it's like, well, yeah, he's probably going to be more receptive to hearing from a college student in the same way that our guy is probably like, well, they're probably more likely to answer this if I'm a young woman. Yes. I mean, I know without a doubt, I never expected to get this kind of closure out of it. In fact, I was very nervous. We were opening a whole other can of worms. There were multiple times throughout this that we were like,

do we pull the plug on this? this is our life. You know, we were very excited about it and we felt really bad like we had already taken up some of of your time which is valuable but just straight up scared. Yes. You know,

understandably. Me too. Me too. At one at some point I was like, "Oh god." Like

Well, you also like when we were talking about you going Yeah. to find him. That really freaked me out cuz I was like this person when you know

you don't know how volatile they are and like what I don't know all we know about this person is bad stuff. So like it was

that was very that was getting scary for me where I was like God are we really I'm really going to do this? I am not equipped to do this. I have no skills. But here we are.

Yeah. I was like, damn, she's brave. I am I am glad we didn't have to do that. Well, ob for a million reasons why. But yeah,

um but if I had knocked on the door and what happened with us happened, it would have probably still felt the same. I probably still would have felt like maybe even more so in some ways, like this is really a real person in front of me.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's really why we really felt like we needed to see him. That was a big part of one of the, you know, final episodes where it was like, "Oh, maybe we can't see him." It was like, "No, we we have to."

Yeah. Yes. And I It's funny because the two days before Andy, and you we used to call you psychic Andy.

You had this nagging feeling like, "What if we got the wrong guy?" Oh, I was just so worried about

you were joking about it being his wife and stuff and which would have been crazy, but I the two days like leading up to that had just been and obviously when it happened, it happened very fast and we just made the call to do it. But we knew we were putting the emails out there and like we really actually might make contact with this person. And I was just going through the list, some of which we couldn't share, of all of the reasons why it was this guy. And so the shock was so real for me. And then I also reflecting back when this happened, I knew that there was an adult son.

and um just lightly looking into things I that would have made me so much more scared in a way if it were this adult son who didn't have some you know I was kind of comforted by this person has a full life they have a lot to lose and it's just kind of it was the idea of the like incel in the basement who is obsessed and that was a scarier proposition and then it's funny that it was such a relief once we spoke to the person and it's just another like you know humans are complicated and you can't just make this like broadstroke brush judgment of someone and I was guilty of that with the dad and the son at different times like it's such a good lesson for me you know we're all complicated people our behavior at different times depending on what we're going through is going to look very different and you were very vocal about leading with compassion through this whole thing which at times was super annoying.

I know. I know. But I'm really glad for it. We That's the truth. Like you must approach things through a compassionate lens. I think so. The compassion obviously is helpful for the recipient, but it's it's for you because it releases your anger and your fear. It's just like seeing another person and understanding like understanding that life is complicated and people are complicated and I I think it I think it is better for your own brain and not even for the other person really. We've been dealing with a person um who is going through a complicated time.

Yeah. Yeah. with addiction and it's very easy to get kind of blinded by their current behavior or I don't know when you take a moment and Andy and I are constantly doing this like almost every time that we talk about this situation we have to remind ourselves like we can see why they are here

and our heart goes out to them it's not easy. We know like they don't want to be in this situation and they can't control it

and it makes it easier personal. That's the other thing that is so hard with addiction because the wreckage that it causes feels extremely personal and often is directed in a very personal way. And so to have some awareness that like it's really not about me at all does by the way

for anyone like it doesn't mean you have to stick around for it and in fact you shouldn't right

um but it will just bring you peace. Yes. Yes. I totally agree. You know the it's not about you. That's one of the like four agreements you know.

Oh and I don't really know the other ones. I'm not like a huge I think it's helpful. You know, it's something it's a self-help thing everyone can dip their toe into once in a while, but the it's not about you is so helpful in life. And honestly, this situation it wasn't about me. Like he maybe was is like I don't even know if he was obsessed with me, you know?

Was he I do think he was. One thing I don't think I told you guys that just popped in my head.

Yeah. Once we found out it was him, you know, we did have the honeymoon phase of like, oh, such closure and everything.

I spent an afternoon one day, I don't know if it was a week, two weeks later, digging on the internet looking for court documentation about like why was he arrested and what were his charges? And I paid money to request documents of like some government site. Like I really went into it and I'm using variations of his name and everything like I was like I do need to know like but is this guy a bad guy? But I never found anything compelling. But I did have that instinct still like I still couldn't shake it completely.

Yeah. But can you now? No, not completely. But I'm 90% there. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I do really wish the best for him. And that's another thing I kind of wanted to speak to. We promised him that we would alter his voice and it is still very compelling but I don't know if it's as compelling if you can hear

the human in it which it's undeniable. That's all I want to say like and I think to all three of us it was undeniable when we heard him speak.

Yeah. was so tricky, I think, for us, Andy, me and you, when we first got on and it was immediately this human and he was like nice to us and we, you know, and and we were trying very hard on purpose to keep it kind of like tight and asking the questions and um when I listened back, I was like, "Oh my god, we're so cold." Like I felt like we were being so cold towards him, which is which is fine. Um,

I felt like you guys had to kind of be that way cuz we also didn't know where it was going to go.

You guys had me the kind of main victim as a fly on the wall watching. And so I think you didn't want to do what your instinct was and be like, "Oh my god, like it's all fine." You know, whatever.

Like we're [snorts] sorry. We're honestly wor on behalf of me. Yeah, I think that was like I think that you really had no choice. Also, we were worked up ahead of time cuz we were like, "This guy is internet savvy."

Oh, yeah. We assumed he said he can't I've never used out of it. Yeah. But really, he was just in his car. Oh, yeah. He was in his car when he did this.

Even when he like turned on the camera, I believe it was facing the other way. And I was like, "Of course it's facing the other way." Like, you're gonna pretend you can't figure out how to turn it around. Like we were just like calling [ __ ] on everything.

There was also a world where the camera was going to turn around and it was like his dick.

No. Okay. Okay. I did not. Jeez. That's like I actually think you're being serious right now, which is what's like blowing my

I mean after all of this like what if that was you know it wasn't. So but there's like

that's possible. And do you have that thought? Are you having that thought now or had you had that thought back then? Honest

I had had that thought back then. Oh my god. I have ne I had never last of my worries was a dick dick shot.

I'm sorry to see I feel bad that even I hope he doesn't hear any of this but I'm like I can't

Well, he didn't do that. So it's not it's not his crazy brain. I'm Monica goes [gasps] I I have to be honest. We were expecting to see your dad's dick. In some ways, you took it like way further than he ever did in those like mountains of emails he sent.

Well, but you don't know. You just don't know. You're right. You're right. Of course you don't know. Yeah. That's a good point, I guess.

But also that it was so cinematic. Like obviously this is not on video and that definitely would never ever be shown us seeing him and stuff but it was v it was so moviees to be like waiting for the phone to him to pick up and then he does and then it's facing the other way

in a truck or car or something like Yes. Like the anticipation was so intense. Yeah.

Yeah. Like you can't script it. You can't I know. and it wasn't him and then he was really lovely and I do really hope I hope he's doing well. I I I I sent one more email to him after.

Okay, that was just like very short but just I really appreciate you talking to us and I really hope you got some closure from it too and I hope you are doing well and continue to

Did he respond? We we sent we sent the same maybe we all sent we all sent it maybe or we separately sent kind of same emails

cuz right after I was like Elizabeth's been having like an emotional affair with him ever since more emails. What if there was another entire cycle of emails back and forth?

Well, I've been in contact too. Yeah. Listen, I do feel like season two. I feel like this is so insane because this is how I felt about Beth, but I'm like I would like to know how he's doing in 5 years. I do feel this like I was very nervous after that because, you know, when asked about his sobriety, he was very honest and said it's been hard, but he's 3 years in and it sounds like he's like getting his feet on the ground

and that's a very tender time. Yes. And I was my hope is that us reaching out and talking to him in our follow-up email would make him go, "Okay, I have closure. That's behind me. I can now focus on my life and not have

those thoughts swirling." But I was also very worried that this was like going to kick up if he were in some sort of like self-esteem spiral or

I know I worried about this as well. I'd hate for this to have sent him like backwards.

Yes. I hope he um is doing good out there because we are. Have you guys ever listened to I think it was called The Mystery Show. Mm-m.

It was a podcast a long long time ago and it was just a few ep it was like short a few some episodes and it was this girl hosting it who basically people would write in like little they're like little mysteries like this person you know found someone's coin and it was engraved.

Oh, I do remember that. Yes. It was such a beautiful podcast. It was so cool. Oh, that's cool. And in some ways, this whole journey sort of reminded me of that. It was like, yeah, there's just this just like little everyone has these little life mysteries like who was that? What happened with that person? What is this? And we got to like figure it out.

Yeah. It's so satisfying. It is. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing is there's the satisfaction and then there's this kind of beautiful feeling of like I have that like heart swell feeling of humanity and you know like life is beautiful type feeling which I was not expecting to be part of this

and we might not have had at I mean honestly chances are that's not where this was going to end honestly.

Yes. Even had we confronted whoever it turned out to be, whether it was the dad who we thought it was or this guy, there is so many other ways this could have ended that Yeah,

that's why it is hopeful because it was it was a happy ending. It was a really like a nice human person on the other end treating us like humans and us doing the same at after all of this two-way parasocial stuff going on. It ended up being all these humans in a room, so to speak. And it is hopeful. It is hopeful that especially just like with the world that maybe if you can just get people in a room

Yeah. Yeah. Yes. it can it can be okay. That's right. And also a good reminder just speaking of the world

like we are all a product of our circumstances. We are all where we are you know because of the specificity of our own lives and bringing compassion into that and remembering that yeah

is so important. Yeah. I hope everyone enjoyed it and got something from it and um hopefully maybe we'll see you again soon for some mystery number two. Who knows? Oo,

thank you, Monica. Yeah, thank you both for taking us on this. This was it was such a dream come true parasoially for me to work with you two. Again, that wild interweaving of that is is another bizarre layer to all of this.

Yes. I'm just getting a feeling you're going to walk out here and text him like, "We made it. They didn't figure it out."

Yeah. He's some guy that you hired. Yeah. It was you the whole time. He's just some guy you hired.

Oh my god. That just got me so scared. Yeah. No, it um this was a very special project for me. So, I'm I'm grateful to both of you.

Amazing. All right. Bye. Bye. Beststead is presented by armchair experts Monica Padman and nobody's listening right. It is produced and edited by Andy Rosen, Elizabeth Lame and Monica Padman. Additional engineering by Rob Hollis. Music and sound by Andy Rosen.

Hey, hey hey.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "EP10 - One Year Later"?

Elizabeth Lame (Host), Andy Rosen (Host), Monica Padman (Host), Rob Hollis (Guest).

What is "EP10 - One Year Later" about?

In the final installment of "Beth's Dead," the hosts reflect on their evolving thoughts and emotions surrounding a significant call from a year prior, grappling with feelings of empathy and doubt about the person they spoke to. As they discuss the contrasting emotions elicited by revisiting past episodes and the impact of accompanying music, they explore the complexities of forgiveness and…

What is mentioned in this BETH'S DEAD episode?

12 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Compassion (compassionate lens), Making amends (12-step), Recovery (addiction recovery), AI chatbots, Internet anonymity, Comment culture. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "EP10 - One Year Later"?

The episode runs 40 min; the transcript is about 6,788 words in 152 timestamped sections.

More from BETH'S DEAD

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.