The Magnus Protocol Reviews: “A New You”

“A New You” Is A Brutal Take On A Common Trope

“A New You” is, ultimately, a familiar trope played mostly as expected. But it’s also somehow a lot bleaker in its implications and uses the multi-media format of The Magnus Protocol to add subtle storytelling. This may be my favorite use of the “social media post” format.

But I have to give you warnings, dear reader. This episode is rife with content that some might find triggering—and you should be more cautious than usual. Not often does The Magnus franchise touch on suicidal ideation in its stories, but that’s the whole plot here. Not often does it touch on some form of domestic abuse—but that’s here, too. And, on top of that, it also heavily features “birth horror,” a specific type of body horror dealing with the act of having something living growing inside oneself. I cannot speak for any of these moments’ emotional or literal accuracy/respectfulness, but tread carefully.

For those willing to tread, this episode has one other somewhat unique aspect—at least for Magnus. It’s up to listener interpretation to discern what’s even happening in “A New You.” I, personally, interpret it as monsters from The Stranger (or maybe The Flesh or The Extinction) finding people who have been through terrible situations—perhaps with self-esteem or self-hatred problems—and convincing them to do this weird little ritual we only half-know the exact details of. And considering the social media stuff we get, it appears to be fairly widespread, with several hundred victims.

This Episode Feels Like A Key To The Overall Story

And this may actually be what’s causing The Magnus Protocol’s doubleganger subtheme. I said in my “Mixed Signals” review that I suspected it was just dimension hopping—though that’s obviously also happening—but this would make sense as a partial explanation. Maybe the two cause one another? It could even be that the almost-people monsters from “Give and Take” and “Running on Empty” are just these copies, instead of the leftover domain people I suspected. The Magnus Protocol is already a story about government conspiracies. It could be that the horror is more widespread in this universe but is just actively covered up.

As to the main characters—as we do always check in on them—I don’t have much say for “A New You.” The introduced plot points aren’t revelations, so much as confirmations. Martin and John not being alive in this universe isn’t surprising. It would make the plot way more complicated to have both the computer voices and those versions of them. What’s more interesting are the other names. Helen is dead, so unsure where that’s going. And Basira is alive in both realities, so I’m unsure which version of her this might be. Regarding Gwen’s recent traumas, it’s interesting seeing Alice help out. I didn’t expect the two of them to have an arc of being nicer to one another—but that does seem where this is going. I am certainly curious why Alice thinks the monsters are after her, let alone everyone else, as there hasn’t been much proof, but it does make me think that the action is going to ramp up soon.

And that’s the episode, really. “A New You” felt like a short listen because it had only a few plot points it wanted to present and did so well. Summing up is honestly going to sound much like the opening paragraph: “A New You” is a unique take on the “a copy of me is taking over my life” plotline that adds more internal struggles and an oceanic esthetic but ends exactly how you might expect. But I was certainly unsettled, I was certainly disturbed, and that’s ultimately what I want from a horror podcast—who cares if it was a little predictable in that endeavor?

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