INCREMENT VICE - EPISODE #1: "She came along the alley and up the back stairs the way she always used to..."

A mystery in which the mystery isn’t the point.

A detective story in which the detective seems incapable of remembering all but the most basic facts (and even those require scribbled entries into his pocket notebook).

A film noir set not at night but mostly beneath the milkspilt murk of L.A. County’s smogwhite daylight.

Inherent Vice is a film that deceptively uses its hardboiled detective fiction framework as a method of inquiry into something far deeper, and far more serious, than a plot to kidnap a real estate developer. It tricks us into settling in for a noir about a man solving a mystery, and instead presents us with a man confronting a melancholy truth: everything—lives, eras, and loves—comes to an end.

And so it is with endings that Increment Vice begins. Together with guest Blake Howard, our host Travis Woods dives deep into the film’s opening scene, zigzagging from such topics as Joan Didion to End Of The ‘60s movies to romantic breakups, from the (maybe?) illusory nature of Vice character Sortilège all the way to the wry, smirking warmth at the heart of Paul Thomas Anderson’s heartbreaking, hilarious film.

Blake Howard is a writer, a podcaster, and the editor-in-chief & co-founder of Australian film blog Graffiti With Punctuation. He is the creator of One Heat Minute Productions and the producer of Increment Vice.