Dos: After You

(CW: This podcast and post contain mentions of murder and death. There are also allusions to the Covid-19 pandemic, mostly through mentions of lockdown periods and the subsequent re-openings.)

Dos: After you is a bilingual LGBTQ+ horror and urban fantasy podcast, and is released in both English and Spanish. It’s written and produced by David Orión Pena, who also voices the main character of Deck.

Dos: After You is set in a 2020 which has also been hit by a pandemic, but it’s not the exact same world as the one we’re used to. At the beginning of the story, Europe is starting to re-open, and we meet Deck, who is leaving his home in Haarlem, in the Netherlands. It’s the beginning of a long journey that will take him to London, to find Sil.

Deck fell in love with Sil, but the thing is, Sil isn’t human. The very last line of episode one reveals what the true purpose behind Deck’s journey is. “Ah Sil, I can’t wait to kill you.” Deck is a murderer, that’s something he’ll openly admit to multiple times during his journey. He’s killed before, and he’ll kill again before meeting Sil, this isn’t new to him. And he’s on his way to murder Sil for what he did to him.

The ‘scam’ of episode one’s title comes from Deck’s thoughts about how modern romance stories are “just another capitalist scam”, which distract people from what’s really important. We start to put the details together about Deck and Sil’s unconventional love story, and how Deck is still picking up the pieces months after its ending, dealing with the regret he has of having met Sil.

From Amsterdam, Deck then travels by bus to Brussels, before travelling through Belgium to reach France. Along the way he makes recordings for Sil.

One thing that struck me while listening to the podcast was Deck’s planning, and his composure. It’s a long journey, and it gives him a lot of time to think – about himself, about the past and his time with Sil, and the future. He’s not in a hurry, either. Some of this is due to practicalities, such as bus tickets to Paris being too expensive; but in a stark contrast to all the talk of death and murder, he spends time in Brussels searching for a place that’s open where he can get fries. But even so, every episode we see him progress in his journey in one way or another. He’s a threat looming like a storm on the horizon, getting closer with every recording he makes, and fully aware of the damage he will do.

The story is mostly told by recordings by Deck, they’re not being sent to Sil, but he’s recording them as if he might be listening. We do meet some other characters along the way, but the focus is on Deck and his journey. Each episode is roughly between 5-7 minutes long, and available in both Spanish and English.

There are fourteen episodes currently available as of the beginning of November 2020, which are broken down into Arc I (episodes 1-7) and Arc II (episodes 8-14). The first episode of Arc III is due to be released on November 17th.

• Twitter: @dosafteryou
• Website: https://dosafteryou.com/
• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/dosafteryou