History Recap / TheMagnusArchivesSeasonOne

* ConvenientlyAnOrphan: This operates in reverse for most of the residents of Ivy Meadows; the state paid for them to stay in the care home since they had no family, friends or funds to support them in their old age -- which means there were no relatives to get suspicious when things started to go wrong, or to question what happened to the twenty-two people for whom there are no transfer records and who apparently 'got lost in the system'. The same goes for many employees, as they were immigrant workers who were undocumented and thus unlikely to be missed.

* NeverSuicide: Ivo's father's death was ruled a suicide, as he was in a locked room, there was no sign of another person, and he was suffering from advancing and untreated schizophrenia. The coroner does note that there was no sign of anything he could have used to make the killing wounds, however, [[spoiler:and comments he made and later episodes make it pretty clear he was murdered by [[HumanoidAbomination Michael]].]]

* SomebodyNamedNobody: Each of the students has the Unidentifiable Person placeholder name for the culture they're supposed to have come from: Erika Mustermann, Jan Novak, Piotr and Pavel Petrov, John Doe, Fulan al-Fulani and Juan Pérez. Jon is a little dissappointed that Dr. Elliott did not pick up on this.

Julia is the daughter of infamous serial killer Robert Montauk, who is known to have killed at least forty people in the five years he was active. Julia has always lived in York Road in Dartford. At age 7, Julia hears sounds in the night and finds the back door left open and her mother's pendant, which has an abstract hand and closed eye design, left on the kitchen table. Julia wakes up her father, who becomes concerned and turns on the water, which flows dark and brackish. The kitchen light burns out and Robert sends Julia back to bed before leaving. In the morning, Robert tells Julia that her mother is gone. Although it wasn't discovered until later, Robert never filed a missing person report for his wife despite being a police officer. Julia also notes that she doesn't think her father killed her mother because of how disraught he was by her disappearance. Robert starts spending a lot of time in the shed in the back yard, which starts to smell like canned meat. One night Robert comes into Julia's room while he thinks she is sleeping, wearing stained clothes and smelling of blood and brackish water, and he promises to always protect Julia. Robert becomes perpetually injured and bloodstains often appear around the house, but Julia assumes they're her father's and becomes adept at cleaning them out. Robert tells Julia that he's been moved to the night shift, though he actually quit the police force. At age 10, Julia, now having been given permission to answer the phone and taught how to talk to someone on it, takes a call from someone calling themselves Detective Rayner, sounding old and possibly German and wanting to speak to Robert. Robert tells him "no" "not already" and "do it yourself" before saying he would do something soon, before spending the rest of the day in the shed. In the present, Julia mentions that she doesn't know what her father did with the bodies, which were never recovered, but admits she hadn't told the police about her father's photographs. In the past Julia notices film canisters starting to pile up, and Robert tells her that he's learning photography but doesn't trust anyone to develop the photos. Julia suggests he set up his own dark room to develop them himself, an idea which he loves and carries out. Robert always keeps the dark room locked until one day leaving the key in the lock. Julia enters and sees photographs of faces of people she doesn't know, with symbols drawn on the faces. Julia later asks Robert about the photographs, and he hugs her and apologizes. At 2:47AM that night, Julia gets up for water but gets brackish water from the tap, then she sees the streetlights outside burning out one by one. She hears knocking at the door which gradually changes to sound like wet meat slapping against the door. Julia calls the police just before the door breaks and she hears growling. Julia flees outside towards the shed, which now glows with blue light. She goes inside and sees Robert with a cut open corpse, holding a knife and the dead person's heart, as well as many hearts in jars on shelves. Robert chants and all the hearts beat in time with him as whatever broke through the door gets closer. Robert stabs the heart and the entity disappears along with the blue light. The police arrive and Robert runs after apologizing to Julia, who notices that the corpse has a pendant matching her mother's. Robert is soon captured by the police.

Trevor is a homeless man in Manchester. His father kills his mother while drunk in 1956, which was ruled an accident. His father dies of his alcoholism four months later. Trevor and his brother Nigel spend some time in the system but since they keep getting separated they run away to live on the streets. In the present, Trevor explains that vampires are more like animals than humans. They don't speak since there's no room in their mouth and throat for anything but their tongue, but can clearly communicate in some nonverbal way. Contrary to popular belief, they can go out in sunlight and don't convert their prey to vampires as there's too few of them for that to be the case. Trevor mentions that he doesn't know how vampires dispose of their victims' bodies. In the autumn of 1959, Trevor and Nigel meet a creature calling itself Sylvia [=McDonald=], which offers them a place to stay. The brothers are put in seperate rooms but Trevor becomes uneasy and goes to Nigel's room where the two agree to sneak out. Their plan is interrupted by [=McDonald=], which attacks Nigel as Trevor hides under the bed. Revealing shark-like teeth, [=McDonald=] tears out Nigel's throat and uses its proboscis-like tongue to drain his blood. Once finished, it lies on the floor to digest and Trevor stabs it with Nigel's penknife, bursting its belly before setting it on fire with a candle, noting that it must have been quite dry as it burned quickly. Trevor runs away as the house burns. In June 1968, Trevor has convinced himself that his brother's death had nothing to do with the supernatural, but the trauma and grief made it seem that way. Trevor learns otherwise when begging for money and a man named Robert Arden communicates nonverbally with him, and Trevor realizes that it's a vampire. Trevor follows it and its victim to its lair and attacks it before it can kill her. Arden bites into Trevor's neck but recoils, something Trevor credits to heroin in his body, as he has been addicted for some time. Arden's would-be victim attacks it with a kitchen knife before Trevor impales it with an improvised stake. The woman flees and Trevor burns the vampire. In 1982 Trevor kills a man named Alard Dupont, but he turns out to be a real human and not a vampire, although Trevor doesn't feel too bad because Dupont was a violent criminal. In the present, Trevor tells Martin, who is overseeing the recording, that he needs some sleep before continuing. Martin sends him to the break room where he dies of the lung cancer he knew would take him soon.

Antonio starts by saying that he lied his way into telling his story to the archive, since they typically don't take stories about dreams, but he believes it to be critical that the person who reviews the stories reads his story. Antonio begins having a recurring dream around 2006 shortly after a nervous breakdown that resulted in him breaking up with his boyfriend, Graham, and moving out. Staying over at a friend's house, Antonio has a dream of a hellscape London filled with black tendrils that grow into people in various ways. Antonio follows some tendrils into his old workplace where he sees his former line manager suspended from the neck by the tendrils. Antonio contacts his former colleagues after this and learns that the manager hanged himself after losing a custody battle. As Antonio continues to have the dream he realizes he is seeing how people have died or will die. He tries reading books on esoteric dreaming while working in a magic shop but can't figure anything out. Antonio starts to see his father in his dream with the tendrils going into his chest. Antonio makes lots of efforts to keep his father alive and healthy but he dies of a heart attack on December 31st, 2014, ten days after Antonio saw him in the dream. Later, on March 12th, 2015, Antonio sees a dark red light flowing through the tendrils and thinks he can see faces and shadows as well. He follows the veins to a building called The Magnus Institute where the veins go into a room labelled 'Archive'. He sees a woman behind a desk wrapped in the tendrils with an expression of fear as the light pours into her. Two days later, he goes to the real Magnus Institute to give his story in the hopes that the woman who works there will be warned of her coming death and can possibly avoid it.

Carlos has arachnophobia, a deep fear of spiders. He decides to move to a city flat after realzing that there are probably hundreds or thousands of spiders in his garden which will likely try to get into his house in the colder weather. After moving, Carlos adopts an old cat named Major Tom to help get rid of spiders. Carlos' apartment building becomes infested with small, silvery worms which results in an increased spider population in the building. One night in early 2015, Carlos finds a spider in his kitchen that scares him more than other spiders have. He leaves Major Tom alone with the spider for a few hours, but Major Tom doesn't kill the spider. After an hour of panicking, Carlos kills the spider by throwing a mug of coffee at it, then waits until the morning to clean up and finds the spider's remains. Major Tom starts spending most of his time away from the flat. A week later, Carlos sees a spider on his TV's screen, and believes that it's somehow the same spider he encountered in the kitchen. After another hour of panicking, Carlos stomps the spider, killing it and destroying the TV in the process. Carlos burns the shoe he stomped the spider with. Two weeks later, Carlos sees the spider back again, now on the wall over his bed. Carlos remembers the traumatizing event that caused him to develop arachnophobia, a day in 1991 when he, at six years old, accidentally crushed a spider and broke open its egg sac, causing thousands of underdeveloped spiders to crawl all over him. Carlos believes that the spider haunting him is the same spider from that incident. Carlos kills the spider again with his bare hand before spending hours washing it. Carlos decides to move again, gives Major Tom to a family on the ground floor of the building who he had already starting living with, and decides to visit a doctor as he suspects he may have psychosis.

* MultiArmedAndDangerous: Jared give himself a few modifications.

* CallForward: Several.
** Dominic mentions that one of the woodcut images had a Lichtenberg figure sprawled across it that looked exactly like the scars his childhood friend Michael Crew got from being struck by lightning. This incident and the connection to the book is explained later in the series.
** When Gerard [[spoiler:burns ''Ex Altiora'']] and goes to pick up the still smoldering trash can, Dominic warns him it will still be hot; Gerard just shrugs and says he's had worse. This references the events in future episode 'First Aid', which happened earlier that year.
** This episode introduces Mary Kaey [[spoiler:and her strange relationship with death thanks to a different Leitner.]]

* KillItWithFire: [[spoiler:Gerard Kaey disposed of ''Ex Altiora'' by burning it in Dominic's trash can.]]
* TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday: Dominic pays a visit to Mary Kaey and her bookstore Pinhole Books; this is despite the fact that [[spoiler:Mary had died and the store had been closed years before]].

* InnocuouslyImportantEpisode: While this is the case with a lot of early episodes, this is a particular example. What at first listen sounds like just another Statement Of The Week is actually the first appearance of [[spoiler: Not!Them, the primary antagonist of season two and a major presence for the rest of the podcast.]]

* WindowWatcher: Amy confesses that this is her hobby; she goes out of her way to clarify that there was nothing sexual in her interest in 'people watching,' as she insists on calling it, but she does at least lampshade how creepy her interest must sound. She does not enjoy being on the receiving end of it from [[spoiler:Not-Graham.]]

* WindowWatcher: Amy confesses that this is her hobby. She does not enjoy being on the receiving end of it from [[spoiler:Not-Graham.]]

* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler: It's not clear which of the two sisters was giving the MadnessMantra below. Aleana was apparently saying something some distance behind Laura in the minutes before she was rescued, and her earlier behavior was rather callous. On the other hand, Laura's testimony is extremely contradictory to what the rescue workers discovered, indicating that her perception of events was rather warped. The voice in the recording is soft enough that it could easily be Aleana some distance off or Laura simply whispering.]]
* {{Claustrophobia}}: Laura tries to make her way through a tunnel that gets tighter and tighter until she can no longer go forward. [[spoiler:When she tries to go back, she finds a solid wall of rock behind her.]]

--> [[spoiler:"Take her, not me. Take her, not me. Take her, not me. Take her, not me. Take her, not me. Take her, not me.]]

* UnreliableNarrator: Trevor's sanity is called into question throughout the episode, due to being an alcoholic tramp and former heroin abuser.

* YouAreNotAlone: Just as Naomi feels hopelessly lost, she seems to hear the voice of her dead fianc&eacute, Evan, pointing her way.

* TheFourLoves: Seemingly what saved Ms. Herne from her impending death.
* YouAreNotAlone: Just as Naomi feels hopelessly lost, she seems to hear [[spoiler:the voice of her dead fiancé Evan]] pointing her way.

* ConvenientlyAnOrphan: This operates in reverse for the residents of Ivy Meadows; the government pays for them to stay in the care home since they have no family or friends to support them in their old age -- which in turn means there are no relatives to get suspicious when things start to go wrong. The same goes for many employees, as they were immigrant workers who were undocumented and thus unlikely to be missed.

Jonathan Sims starts a tape, explaining to his boss Elias Boucharde that his attempts to record some statements digitally weren't working, so he tried an old magnetic tape recorder out of desperation. As part of the test, he reads out a fragmentary statement given by someone only referred to as Jacob:

Later, as Jon prepares to record the first statement, a sudden sound startles him. He goes off to check, leaving the tape running, and a whispering voice can be heard, reciting the words, "Vigilo. Audio. Opperior." The voice fades as Jon comes backmuttering about cheap shelving, and shuts down the tape recorder to start again.

Mark doesn't believe in the supernatural and has only come to tell his story because his girlfriend, Katherine, told him to. Kathy graduates from university in 2014 and moves in with her friend Natalie Ennis, who is very religious. Mark doesn't get along with Natalie since they have nothing in common. In late October of 2014, Natalie's mother dies and as a result Natalie loses her faith for a few months until she finds a new congregation, with whom she spends most of her time, including nights. On nights she is home, she sings in a foreign language all night. Kathy starts to hear things move in Natalie's room when Natalie isn't home. The lightbulbs start going out, and Mark discovers that they're not broken, but rather Natalie had been slightly unscrewing them so they wouldn't turn on. One evening, Kathy comes to Mark's home in a panic, and tells her that Natalie had given her a dinner of what seemed to be overcooked spinach, before they both expressed a desire to move out. Natalie told her that she was going to a new home and family, who had been waiting for 300 years and would soon be collected by Mr. Pitch, and invited Natalie to join her. Realizing that Natalie was talking about her church, Kathy declined saying that she wasn't interested in Christianity, but Natalie replied "No, but you're a natural for Them. You're worshipping as we speak." This scared Kathy enough to run to Mark. Mark decides to tell Natalie to back off, and upon entering her bedroom finds that the furniture, wallpaper, and carpets had all been moved over the window. Mark finds a piece of paper with the name "Hither Green Dissenters" and a symbol resembling a closed eye. Mark looks up the name and finds a Hither Green Chapel in a graveyard in Lewisham. Mark goes to the chapel and finds it to be abandoned, with boarded windows but the doors open. Looking inside, Mark sees broken pews and other debris. Mark's flashlight dies and he loses the batteries when he takes them out to adjust them. Feeling around in the darkness for the batteries, Mark notices the floor seems smooth and clean, without the debris he had seen before. Mark hears singing from many voices, seeming to say "Ny-Ålesund". Mark tries to feel for a wall but despite the chapel's small size he feels around for a minute before finding a rusted metal grate. Feeling over it, Mark feels leathery fingers grab him, causing him to leap backwards. Mark feels his phone in his pocket, having forgotten he had it, and turns on its light as the singing becomes louder, finding himself back in the same wrecked chapel. Mark files a missing person report for Natalie.