Bright Falls Episodes 1-6 Complete Alan Wake Prequel

The Alan Wake Prequel - Bright Falls This is a story of a Reporter who travels to Bright Falls to interview Dr Hartman just days before the Arrival and Alice.

This is the complete series edited together into 1 short movie.

00:00 Chapter 1 Oh Deer
05:02 Chapter 2 Time flies
11:46 Chapter 3 Lights out
16:54 Chapter 4 Local flavor
20:30 Chapter 5 Of the record
25:07 Chapter 6 Clearcut

It helps to re-watch the series in the context of the final outcome, so let’s focus on where we end up first. We know by fifth episode that Jake is blacking out and doing crazy violent things. We know by the final episode that he’s lost the struggle against these urges. No mater how you interpret anything else in Bright Falls, I think those few ideas are fairly clear.

Jake is corrupted by the darkness. Jake struggles to fight or escape the inner darkness. Jake eventually loses to the darkness.

Although it may be frustrating to think about, there are only two types of questions in Bright Falls – ones that are answered, and ones that aren’t. Any time you do enigmatic science fiction like this, there are going to be unanswered bits and as an audience you have to just accept that. In six episodes, there’s only so much of a scope for your narrative.

The above explanation about Jake brings up a lot of questions about the nature of the darkness. Those types of things can only be loosely speculated; most are out of the scope of the story. While this would normally be infuriating, the series has a perfect out in Alan Wake. We know the story of Alan Wake will go much deeper into “What is the darkness?” and in a way Bright Falls was created to make us want to know that. In the mean time, think of it like this -There’s something evil at work in the town of Bright Falls. A dark presence is corrupting people. Bright Falls is the story of one such individual.

With that in mind, we can start asking the right kind of questions. When did the darkness take Jake? At what point did he turn? Was it gradual or was there a breaking point? In order to answer these questions, we’re going to have to form some kind of time line. That’s where things start to get a little more complicated.

The first image in the entire series is Jake being pulled out of the lake. Even after the series is complete, this is one of the biggest mysteries. I’ve been assured by the creators that although elusive, the answer is buried somewhere within the series. At first I thought it Emil. Remember that Jake seems to be in Bright Falls to get some information on the doctor. Emil acts very strangely around him. Something’s up. As you can see from an enhanced version of the opening shot, Emil would probably look a lot weirder in a wet suit so I’ve got another idea.

In my original post about episode four, I speculated that Jake was trying to get a new headlight or similar part. We never hear what he’s ordering, only that he’ll have to wait for it. He ends up buying duct tape, so I assumed this was his Plan B. That doesn’t make a ton of sense though, because he has the duct tape at the counter before he’s ordering. He doesnt know about the delay yet. If you rewatch the scene, he’s holding a small slip of paper. Behind the man at the counter, there are shelves full of pill bottles. I think we can confirm that Jake is trying to order his medication. Believe it or not though, Jake’s reaction to the shipment delay isn’t the most important thing in the frame. Check out this sketchball:

I believe that’s the man known as Smith Mott, played by James August. He’s one of the few characters I could never account for in my repeated study of the credits.

Bright Falls teases us with the body bag image right at the beginning of the series, but that isn’t where the timeline actually begins. This is a glimpse of what will be happening at the end of episode four. At the end of the episode, Jake makes his way out of the body bag wearing his grey shirt and no shoes. Although he makes a rather humorous attempt to dress up when he visits Hartman again (nice blazer Jake, I’m sure you’ll fool him) the grey shirt and lost shoes are his attire for the rest of the series.
I”ll assume you’re with me on the idea that scene 1 of episode 1 is the same scene as at the end of episode four. Episode four shows more of that scene – Jake gets out of the body bag, as seen in the right side of image above, and runs into the woods. Wet, night time, grey shirt, no shoes. Episode five begins during the day, with Jake finally making it to the road. While some think this is a different day or time, the creators have confirmed that episode five starts the morning after episode four’s evening ends.

So it’s the very next morning. Jake is dry, the sun is up, and he’s found his way back to the car. He spent all night wandering around trying to find his way back. When he reaches the road, he finds some broken glass as well as his car. This scene requires careful study, and even then there’s no hard answer.