YMMV / The Edge of Sleep

• Complete Monster: The man known as the Trespasser is a Serial Rapist who has been kidnapping girls, raping them, and then killing them with a drug overdose to hide his involvement. When people start dying in their sleep, the Trespasser taunts his latest victim that her mother is likely dead, before stealing a gun, clearly intending to hurt whomever he pleases. After he kidnaps Katie, he attacks the hospital where the other survivors are, capturing Dave in the process. He then straps Dave onto a table, intending to kill him slowly with the medical tools, and when Dave befriends him, he agrees to take Dave with him as he drives down the coast after kidnapping more girls. However, he first decides to castrate Dave in order to make sure he has Katie all to himself. When the Trespasser is stopped, he insists that the girls were all "junkies" whom he didn't hurt and spends his final moments taunting Dave about the nightmares he'll have of their encounter.
• He Really Can Act: While there was almost no doubt about this in many of Markiplier's other projects, this podcast does show the extent of his range in a serious drama.
• Nightmare Fuel: With the premise of something managing to kill scores of people in their sleep, there is plenty to go around.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Dave's condition shows how much it wrecks his life even from an early age. As a boy, he and his parents worry if he'll be able to interact like normal kids when he can't so much as sleep when his mind is tormenting him like this. When he's older, he goes through sleep medications just to get a good night's rest.
    • The stress it causes his parents from trying to figure out what happened to him takes a toll on both of them. They're trying their best to help him while going from doctor to doctor and finding almost no answers for what is happening. And when he is a teenager, they see the extent of what will happen to him if he sees something violent. Seeing him hurt himself to the extent he did would worry any parent.
    • The stress of being worried about what Dave would do in his sleep is what caused his relationship with Katie to end the way it did. While they both clearly love each other, she couldn't deal with the stress and had to leave, causing Dave further distress as seen at the beginning of the series.
  • Katie's death. After all Dave's promises, he couldn't keep her safe. Ultimately, she knows she's at her absolute limit and can't go on, despite Dave's desperation to keep her alive. Linda has to pull him away to keep him from seeing her if she has to shoot her corpse. His last call to her as they board the plane shows the distress he's in, pained that he has to let her go even after they reconciled.
  • Mateo's death still hurts Dave, considering the effort he put into getting them all the way to the South Pacific. When Linda and Dave see the plane sinking, all Dave can remorsefully say to their rescuer is that he and Linda were the only ones left.

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