The Clean Room

Oddly enough I thought this was one of the most well structured episodes yet, having set up a seemingly high stakes mystery at the beginning and slowly working through the clues and history behind it. In a similar vein to some of the subjects I’ve discusses previously in this blog, the effects lead has on the body and mind has been a matter of interest for me. Believe it or not, I have done a surprising amount of research about lead poisoning and its consequences because of church mission trips to fix old houses and even more strangely, Dungeons and Dragons. Now, I can reveal just how much of a nerd I am by going into the proposed “anti-magical” properties of lead that some ancient cultures subscribed to, but to sum it up, lead has had a long history as a “blocker” of sorts. The people of the middle ages who believed this were surely not aware of its powers as an agonist, blocking the transmission of signals between neurotransmitters, but clearly as discussed in the episode itself there has been a long held belief that connects lead to sluggishness and the like. As a bit of a creative thought experiment of my own I began to ponder what the long term effects of using lead to restrain those with magical ability within a fantasy world and it lead (no pun intended) me down a pretty scary rabbit hole! As soon as the episode started I knew it would be discussing lead, but the way it was framed as a cataclysmic event and provided TONS of information about the history of the subject really had me hooked all the way through. I’m very much enjoying the various different subjects that this show is covering and as always I’m excited to see what’s next.