Review: Wisecrack
Introducing to you all: the only podcast my husband has listened to with me top to bottom. Which is mostly the truth, and somewhat a lie. If you listen to the podcast in today’s review, you’ll understand what I mean by that.
When I started Wisecrack after seeing it in Podcast the Newsletter – I instantly knew I wanted my husband to listen to it. I knew I wanted the real-time camaraderie for this one, as many of my podcast friends had already listened to the whole series. It gripped me from the very first episode, and left me feeling a certain way with the end.
The premise is relatively simple. A true crime television producer, Jodi Tovay from the United States, dips into a comedy club to stay dry during the Edinborough Fringe festival. What she experiences is a stand-up routine built around a near home invasion, which happened after a brutal double homicide next door. What follows from this coincidental encounter spans nearly a decade of investigation into two individuals, a community, and the human condition itself.
True crime and comedy are awkward friends, two things that shouldn’t go together. We all know, however, that comedy is often a balm for tragedy. What Edd Hedges spun in this stand-up routine was an analysis of a few very human things, woven around very real and very difficult questions he didn’t want to ask himself. Through these episodes Tovay forces these questions he knows he has to answer. Not just for this project, but for himself. What makes this podcast different is as much of how the comedy is a true balm to itself, but also that the investigation isn’t actually into a murderer. It’s more looking into Edd himself, after Jodi stumbles upon how the stand-up set isn’t as true as he leads people to believe. After all, he says there are only three lies in the show, and then tells you he changed enough of the identifying details out of respect for those invovled.
As predictable as the arc ends up being, the reality is that Wisecrack deftly pulls back the curtain on what more true crime should be looking at. I speak from experience when I say this, when a tragedy like a violent murder happens– there are less obvious victims. Most people would agree that a man who would go on to be convicted of murder trying to break down your door after committing the fatal crime makes you a type of victim. If we made a heirarchy of victimhood list, which is gross, you'd be closer to the top.
What happens, though, when an entire community clams up around the whole memory? Those impacted on the edges, they get forgotten about. Should we forget about these others, though? The friends, neighbors, co-workers, who one day found out someone they saw and laughed with regularly was gone in a way so horrifying that remembering their memories feels wrong?
Chasing Edd’s truth in this podcast highlights a larger one that a lot of the true crime community ends up missing in their own obsessions. At first, I was a little leery of, as I usually am when someone spits true crime at me. Moreso when you twist comedy into it. Once I got into it, though, I should’ve remembered that this was a Tenderfoot TV true crime podcast, which tend to be extremely intentional true crime podcasts.
Wisecrack is more narrative than I anticipated, and feels like an un-hosted back and forth between Edd and Jodi. They know each other, they're getting to know each other, they have a relationship that is absolutely fascinating. It’s this push and pull of two people who want the truth but are equally nervous about what it will reveal. This personal narration around the main arc of the story gives it strength in storytelling like I haven’t listened to in a while. The tension isn’t from the drama of the crime, or the psychology of the perpetrator. The drama is much more human, and uncomfortable than we usually want to look at. Edd's story doesn't end without this event like those who lost their lives. He and his family, and the community around them, have to deal with it. It’s powerful, it’s funny, and it’s an exemplar of what good storytelling and investigation can tease out of a genre that feels more ready for clicks than honest reflection.
Wisecrack is a limited series that is fully out, ready for you to marathon each of the seven ish forty minute episodes. It is one of my favorite podcasts of 2025, and I really hope that my readers consider this one in the next few weeks. If you do, let me know. It’s so worth it.
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