The first two episodes of Season 2 of the podcast dropped on Monday and, wonder of wonders, this time the show actually does seem to feature Wolverine! Last season, those (like me) who were listening for Richard Armitage were left disappointed, as the show was all about tracking Wolverine — meaning that he was generally on the periphery and rarely heard through the spoken word. In interviews, he seemed surprised that he was in it only briefly, because I guess he was in the sound studio grunting and breathing and being tracked. Hmm. Not quite the same as having dialogue.
In any case, I’ve still got my Stitcher Premium subscription from the first season — expires on April 11 of course, so I’ll probably end up letting it renew so I can catch the whole season. I tuned in on Monday, while I was off sick from work. No real spoilers, but just to set up the story… It starts right up with Logan (Wolverine/Armitage) on the phone leaving a voice mail for lost love/ex-lover Maureen (Rachael Holmes), who seems to have gone missing. He goes to Louisiana to try to find her and there meets up with teenaged Marcus Baptiste (Rodney Henry) who has lost not only his mother, but in fact his whole village, and it looks like there are more disappearances of both mutants and humans. Weapon X, of course, is also in the picture, with Agent Sally Pierce (S2: Christina Bennett Lind) hot on Logan’s trail. Logan reluctantly teams up with Marcus, each of them adding something to the partnership.
I’m not quite as impressed with the sound this time. (I talked about the Season 1 sound here — beside the picture where Richard is biting someone’s leg!) Apparently, the studio is smaller, and maybe that is why the voices are a bit hard to hear sometimes and seem to be overlapped by the other sounds. The story seems pretty good, though, and looks to be a road trip/investigation, with both Logan and Marcus looking for something they’ve lost. Other than Wolverine/Logan himself, though, I’m not overly invested in the characters yet. We’ll see.
The Voice…
I’ve become a bit of a fan of audiobooks (surprisingly to me — but more on that in another post) and I particularly like Richard Armitage reading to me in his own natural accent, using various additional voices as required by the story. I can connect that voice and accent to the actor in my mind. Somewhat similarly, while watching Berlin Station, I can see that that American accent is coming out of RA’s mouth and so I can connect it the the actor. But the Logan American accent and voice is so gruff and deep that I just can’t understand that it’s RA! It is perfectly appropriate for Logan/Wolverine and RA has done an amazing job with that voice, but my brain just won’t make the connection beyond the character to the actor!
For comparison purposes (and gratuitous Armitage), have a listen to look at these:
1) 30-second clip of English accent with gratuitous windswept Armitage:
2) 22-second clip of American accent with gratuitous shirtless Armitage:
3) The S2 podcast trailer, featuring a deeper, gruffer, American accent with invisible Armitage:
I feel like this voice is pretty hard on RA’s throat, too, and wouldn’t really be sustainable as a long-term thing. You can really hear the the roughness in his voice in this interview by Bleeding Cool in the podcast studio. Richard comes into the room at around 21:30 and starts to answer questions with the others around 24:30.
Unlike last season, there is no Marvel After Show, so the interviews above will have to do. That podcast had extremely annoying hosts, but now and then provided some nuggets about the making of the show and also had one interview towards the end of the season with Richard Armitage.
I am looking forward to what next Monday’s episode will bring. If you’re interested and haven’t listened to season 1 yet, Wolverine: The Long Night is now available for free on the various podcast platforms. Episodes 1 and 2 of the second season, Wolverine: The Lost Trail, can be listened to at this point with a free trial on Stitcher Premium, and presumably the whole season will be free later in the year on other platforms. (Not sure if the two episodes are free anywhere else right now… chime in if you have the answer.)
I'm Feeling This 
Sue I am glad you are liking S2 w The Armitage in full Logan/Wolverine mode. This type of stuff is not my cup of tea although I will listen to the table interview since Richard is in it. I like behind the scenes stuff anyway.
Have you listened to The Convenient Marriage? This is the only one ☝️ I have finished and just loved loved loved!!
I finished Their Lost Daughters Book last weekend and thought it was ok a bit hokey
I thought it would be more suspenseful.
Hope you are feeling better!! Work had eased up a bit for you!! Great post and always love to hear Richards voice ❤️❤️❤️❤️😘😘😘😘
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Yeah the podcast is okay. We’ll see how it continues.
I love The Convenient Marriage, and Sylvester. But Venetia is my favourite of the 3 Heyer novels he narrated.
Their Lost Daughters wasn’t bad. I liked the other two better.
Feeling better each day. Yes, work is still intense, but I don’t feel like I’m drowning anymore. It feels good to be able to think enough to write a post. Thanks. Hope you’re doing well too.
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Sue I loved The Convenient Marriage he was phenomenal as the narrator and each character. I did the CD s which I think is the best way for me to listen in the car to and from work. I’m gonna look for Venetia on Cd via EBay
I got sent Lords of The North via audio files so
that would be on the computer.
I’m so glad your work has steadied some and you are feeling better! Hopefully that means more posts soon!!😘❤️❤️👍👏
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Lords of the North is awesome. I bought it online on MP3 disk which I can play in my car. Uhtred is a wonderful character.
I hope I’ll have time and brain power to post more. It’ll be nice to get back into that rhythm.
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According to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, you can be as gratuitous as you want to be. 🙂
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It’s good to be Canadian! 😀
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It’s funny, because in 2014 (well, 2012 but we didn’t see it till 2014, and apparently all of Into the Storm is ADR that took place much later when they did the script additions, so I’m not sure how to date that, so I’ll say 2014) I thought i would *never* get used to his American voice. Objectively he’d improved a lot since the previous outing (that BBC radio show where he read the dos Passos excerpt) but it just felt wrong to me. I think he wore me down, and he got better at the same time, to the point that I’m now enjoying his American voice and I thought it was great here. The main thing he seems to struggle with now is not so much pronunciation but dialect issues, i.e., he seems unsure about when he should drop or swallow a consonant (especially a closing consonant). And his native pronunciation seems to be very dedicated to pronouncing that percussive closing consonant, so maybe that’s just especially hard for him.
I agree with you that it’s completely out of his normal tessitura, but arguably that’s part of the whole “seeming American” thing. (iirc he said something similar during that LLL interview with the British sports guys). He has developed somewhat more resonance than he had at the beginning, but when you listen to a whole audiobook it’s noticeable that he’s mostly back up to his original baritone. I just listened to (finally) “The Murderer’s Son” though and I have real quibbles with audible’s sound reproduction — it doesn’t capture the resonance in his voice that Naxos did back in the day and I can’t imagine he’s the problem.
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Yeah, he really hadn’t mastered the accent in ITS, and it just didn’t sound natural to me. (I’ve never heard about the dos Passos excerpt he did.) He got better for sure over BS and O8 – I don’t think it’s just that we got used to it. I still notice little lilts of the British accent, but it’s pretty darn good now I think. But by the way, it just occurred to me that of course Logan is supposed to be Canadian, from Northern Alberta. Not sure if that influences the accent here or not. He does sound a lot like Jackman doing Logan, as far as I remember.
I have heard him talk about dropping his voice lower to sound more American. I think that the Logan voice is even lower than that though, to sound more bestial. As for Audible, I haven’t really noticed, maybe because in the car I’ve got him in stereo and I’ve got a bass-y sound in the car. Probably it’s a bit distorted. But I also think that when he’s just sitting relaxed, rather than up and projecting and/or being physical, his voice may not be quite so resonant.
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Good point about Logan being Canadian (although the only Albertans I know, who live in Edmonton, are not from Alberta, they’re from Toronto). I wouldn’t want him to just ape a stereotypical Canadian accent or diction. (And maybe that’s not written into the script either. “Eh?”).
Dos Passos: the excerpts can be found here: William Carlos Williams was also an American / grew up in the U.S.
https://www.richardarmitageonline.com/words-and-music/words-and-music-introduction.html
Good point about posture, too, that absolutely plays a role.
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The only person I know from Alberta is a gay guy who uses certain affectations when he speaks so not sure what a typical Northern Alberta accent would sound like. Even “eh” is fairly regional. It’s a big part of my speech (originally from Quebec), somewhat for my husband (Ontario), and hardly at all for my younger son (BC). And just for the record, I don’t know anyone who says “aboot” instead of “about”, as is often mimicked. (Maybe it’s an East Coast thing.)
Thanks for the links. They’re really good. I like them far more than the Classic Love Poems, which kind of left me underwhelmed. The American accent in the dos Passos poem is pitched much higher than what he’s doing now.
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“aboot” is Thunder Bay, no?
I think most of his poem reading has been better than Classic Love Poems, unfortunately.
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Maybe… I’ve driven through, but that’s about it.
Good to know I’m not the only one who thought that about the love poems!
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I think all of those unusual “o” sounds group around Lake Superior, but that’s just an off-the-cuff reaction. We have some of them in Wisconsin too, in that region, although not that one specifically.
I don’t really like love as a theme, but “To His Coy Mistress” is one of my favorite poems ever and he mangled it. Rushed through it rather than savoring it. I have other issues, too, but I think that was a quick one off for him and Audible and he was largely emotionally uninvolved.
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