Beth's Dead, Sh*T Town and The Power of The Unknown

I’m expecting a dozen people or so will roll their eyes when they see this headline. The same dozen people that I keep texting to tell them to listen to the podcast Beth’s Dead.

If you spend any time on True Crime Reddit, you’ll see that Beth’s Dead has a lot of haters. And I do understand some of the criticism. The person who told me to listen to the show is someone with perfect taste. And she described it as a “good podcast to put on while cleaning the house.” If that person hadn’t been the one to tell me to listen to it, I would probably have jumped ship early on. The general criticism, that I agree with, is that the series takes a while to get to the point. When I sent it to the aforementioned 12 people, I added the caveat “give it a few episodes.” By later episodes, some of the beginning rambles come into clearer focus. I think it’s just the nature of the structure their story organically took.

But I think Beth’s Dead is a good podcast, and it has one hell of a twist.

Much of the other criticism comes from listeners disagreeing with the approach the podcasters take later on in the series, without giving away anything, I find this to be a personal choice. The series is deeply personal to the people who make it, and they have the right to navigate the situation in the way that feels best for them. Even if I disagreed with moments, I am a bystander. What’s interesting about the show is the journey. A byproduct of that is getting someone’s raw and unpolished reaction to things.

But this show, which I binged over the last few days, inspired some random thoughts for me. In some ways, it feels similar to S-Town, or Shit Town. S-Town was originally a limited series from the creators of Serial, now it lives as a season of Serial on podcast apps. S-Town is a podcast that I listen to over again every few years. Even though I vaguely remember the plot, the twist, and the ending. I find value in re-listening because the story is so much more than its bones, it has heartache and humor, it makes you uneasy. It’s messy and imperfect. It’s a journey.

Both Beth’s Dead and S-Town rely on the first person storytelling of their narrators. For this reason, despite their twists, they bring listeners deeper than most podcasts. Deeper than, say The Lunatics Radio Hour podcast does. ;-)

Beth’s Dead also got me thinking about “the unknown.” It’s not revolutionary to say so much of horror is stood up upon the back of the unknown. The Blair Witch Project isn’t as scary the second time you watch it (though it’s still a fantastic movie.) And with shows like S-Town and Beth’s Dead, you’d anticipate that once the twist is revealed, they no longer are interesting to listeners. But, again, I find myself coming back to S-Town again and again.

While I don’t think Beth’s Dead is as well crafted as S-Town, it doesn’t really matter. Both podcast series are moving, surprising and challenging in their own ways. The point of this post isn’t to compare creative projects and pit them against each other, it’s to try and work through my own feelings on these shows. Both podcasts are also fairly meta in different ways. They are forced to bring you behind the curtain because the main characters are the podcast hosts. As a podcaster, I find this to be fascinating. The first season of Serial also had a few quick meta moments. It’s humanizing.

All of these podcasts have left me introspective. Thinking about how I would have

I guess to conclude these shower thoughts, almost nothing is more unnerving than the power of the unknown. The twists and turns are what draws us in. But as someone who is a true crime addict, the elements that bring me back to something is the heart and humanity. I hope that 2026 brings even more projects like Beth’s Dead, stories that are both entertaining and human. Stories that put me on edge (for some reason, my kink) and make me feel something. I hope for more genre bending stories that make a point about something bigger.