Among the Stars and Bones · Ungodly Hour Productions

New Years Prequel Act 2

January 10, 2024·59 min·4 clips

Riggs calls Gordon's all-in bluff by explaining she spotted his breathing tell the entire evening — including the one hand where he deliberately faked it to set her up.

1. Among the Stars and Bones 'New Years Prequel Act 2' is set on December 31st, 2210, aboard the Herodotus ship en route to planet Teffin, giving the audience a portrait of the crew before the mission's events begin. 2. The episode features the full ensemble including Kathy Winters (Jordan Cobb), Harry Kowalski (Sam Rather-Wynne), Janine Hattersley (Lucille Valentine), Lieutenant Laura Riggs (Lindsay Dorcas), Adrienne Barnes (Julia Eve), Gordon Price (Graham Rowett), Dr. Celia Piniella (Shakira Searle), and Ben Kelleher (Chris Magilton). 3. The episode's function is to establish who everyone was before — the relationships, rivalries, and unspoken feelings that the main series' events will eventually cost. 4. The evening begins with a 'Lost in Translation' Proximan linguistics game whose game-runner Remy is hospitalized with dehydration, leaving the group to argue over the correct interpretation of a Proximan phrase until the professor who wrote the textbook is drafted in to settle it. 5. Jensen, an engineer who introduces herself as coming to the party for 'new faces' after her team was cooped up most of the trip, becomes a connecting figure across different social groups throughout the evening. 6. The Proximan phrase that stumps the group — about the relationship between space and those who travel through it — is eventually translated by the professor as 'the apprehension of space when you are within its current,' with 'apprehension' cutting both ways: known and being known by. 7. Harry Kowalski is introduced as a new tech team member socially trapped by Harris's unwanted conversation until Jensen engineers an escape for him using a fake interpersonal crisis as cover. 8. Harry and Kathy, both anxious around people, spend most of the evening in each other's orbit, eventually finding themselves in an impromptu swing-dance lesson on the party floor that Kathy initiated on impulse. 9. The poker game escalates across the evening as Gordon Price systematically needles Lieutenant Riggs about her uncle General Riggs's alleged war crimes during a recent labor dispute, her family's five-generation military dynasty, and her career choices — testing where her limits are. 10. Riggs absorbs the provocation and on the final hand calls Gordon's all-in, explaining she had identified his breathing tell from the first hand and that his 'fake tell' on this hand was slightly contrived — enough to confirm her read was right. 11. Gordon concedes gracefully, acknowledges she earned his respect, and departs with a warning: 'If we're ever playing for keeps, you'll never see me coming.' Riggs later reflects that this will make him 'a subtly more deferential pain in the ass' rather than less of one. 12. At 11:56, Barnes and Celia sit in a quiet corner, Barnes admitting she thinks she might be getting too old for this life while Celia acknowledges being 'a little over it' — but neither ready to stop. 13. Their New Year's toast — 'to another year on the road together' — covers the mission ahead, their friendship, and the hope that everyone comes home safely, delivered over a twelve-year single malt. 14. After midnight, Harry and Kathy slow dance as Janine requests a quieter song. Kathy tells Harry she knows he is as anxious around people as she is — and that under 'special circumstances' she finds she can be present, the special circumstance being him. 15. Kathy says under her breath 'Could fall for you so easily' and when Harry asks what she said, answers 'I'll tell you another time,' ending their scene as the episode's most tender moment. 16. Ben Kelleher, who spent much of the evening in quiet conversation with Jensen the engineer, is encouraged by Celia to 'go and take part' at the start of the episode and ends the night noticeably lighter, telling Celia it was 'a surprisingly good night.' 17. Celia's parting line to Ben — 'life is better with other people around, even a curmudgeon like me knows that' — functions as the episode's thesis, given what the audience knows about the mission's events ahead. 18. The episode is structured around the party's natural rhythms — game, poker, dancing, countdown, aftermath — without a traditional plot arc, letting character interactions accumulate weight through ensemble detail. 19. Listeners who enjoy character-focused ensemble stories, workplace relationship dynamics, and science fiction that uses leisure to reveal who people fundamentally are will find this episode rewarding. 20. Listeners who need plot advancement or are unfamiliar with the main series' events will find this episode enjoyable as a standalone character piece but will miss the significance of knowing which of these characters survive.

As heard by us

A New Year's Eve card game turns into tense, dry banter, with a song at the end.

This New Year's Eve special turns a card game into a slow pressure cooker, and the fun is in how long everyone keeps circling the same argument over the hand.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Play it for a New Year's Eve card game that turns into a running argument over the hand.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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