Iris

Binged the entire thing- this was very well done and kept my interest 100%!

Great story! Surprisingly not what I expected.

So glad that I heard about this podcast- it’s been a ride!

It's Black Swan meets The Craft! Set in Iris, a prestigious ballet academy in the middle of nowhere, scholarship student Isabella tries to fit in with the intensely ambitious and backbiting community of students and teachers there. She falls in with Charlotte, the manipulatively dangerous student body president, Kyle, the sweetest hanger on who is hoping to ride the coat tails of, McKenzie, the most ambitious and mercurially vicious ballerina of them all. You would think this would automatically make for a toxic mess and you would be correct. But there also is just enough of a friendly chemistry here to suggest that in different circumstances, these four could become good, supportive friends. Tragically, those circumstances are having nothing to do with Iris. Because the dean and the ballet instructor, under the excuse of prepping ballerinas to be ready for prestigious careers (or perhaps they even mean it) are only too happy to turn up the pressure by insulting, demeaning, threatening, and basically yanking the chains of these desperate, ambitious young women. It’s a horror story involving a magic ritual, so you already know it doesn’t end well. But it’s the carefully observed character dynamics and magnetic performances, spiraling into a taut climax, that had me on the edge of my seat.