Address Unknown — maxpayne

The Address Unknown logo

Address Unknown is a TV show which originally aired in the early 1990's. Its story revolves around John, a man who is continuously tormented by a murderer named John Mirra.

Synopsis

The story is set in a fictional city called Noir York City – an obvious play on New York City. The main character, John, explores the city in constant paranoia, explaining that he feels like he's being watched. John is portrayed as a man who has been apparently framed for the murder of his girlfriend by a serial killer named John Mirra.

Plot

Transcript #1 (Episode airs in 2001, repeat broadcast)

Announcer: This week on Address Unknown...

Man: I don't want to go there. It's the last place I'd want to end up. But that's where I always end up anyway. Only, it's not me talking to the Pink Flamingo, but someone who looks the part down to the finest detail, except that he's evil. I'm hiding in the shadows, watching it all unfold.

[Breathing]

Man: The Flamingo speaks. It can speak here. It says:

Flamingo: .mirrorS arE morE fuN thaN televisioN [Backwards-speech played forwards]

Man: That's "Mirrors are more fun than television." Somehow I know this, just don't ask me how.

[Evil laugh in the background]

Man: And I — not me, but my double — nods and smirks at this like it was the funniest thing in the world.

[A painful-sounding scream starts in the background]

Man: And then something goes wrong. And suddenly they know I'm there, hiding behind them and they both turn to look at me with cold eyes. And the Flamingo speaks again:

Flamingo: .thE flesH oF falleN angelS [Backwards-speech played forwards]

Man: I have no idea what that means.

[A long scream starts in the background]

Man: And, that's when I always wake up to my own scream, in that bright-lillied white hospital room, strapped to my bed.

Transcript #2 (Episode airs in 2003, repeat broadcast)

Announcer: And now, Address Unknown.

John: I was trapped in a nightmare. My evil double had taken my girlfriend. Following him, I had somehow slipped into a twisted alternate reality, Noir York City. My double was John Mirra. He was the devil incarnate, a fallen angel.

Flamingo's voice: .thE flesH oF falleN angelS [Backwards-speech played forwards]

John: He was a serial killer. He had framed me for his murders. I was hiding in a cheap motel. One night, I woke to a knock at the door. Someone slipped a note under the door. It was a clue. I descended into a mystery, desperate to catch him, to find my girlfriend, to save her. A labyrinth of my double's making, from one grisly murder scene to the next.

Announcer: Address Unknown continues.

Transcript #3 (Episode airs in 2003, repeat broadcast)

Announcer: Welcome back to our Return to Sender marathon, two days and two nights of the 90's cult series, Address Unknown, all the episodes in a row, a real descent into madness.

John: I was lost in the streets of Noir York. The city had swallowed Mirra and my girlfriend. I was part of some elaborate game, complex for its own sake.

John Mirra: Ha! Ha! Ha! ha!

John: Every time I looked over my shoulder, I saw a shadow disappearing behind the corner, or the glint of binoculars in a window. They were spying on me, following my every move. When Mirra killed again, the map of the city changed.

[Gunshot]

[Long woman's scream]

Like a shifting glacier, a new crack appeared with every gunshot. I had abandoned all conventional methods of navigation. I was following the bloody signs he kept cleaving me, and he was watching me do it.

Announcer: The next episode of Address Unknown, right after the break in our Return to Sender marathon.

Transcript #4 (Episode airs in 2003, repeat broadcast)

Announcer: Address Unknown continues.

[Phone rings]

John: Wherever I went, the pay phones started to ring. Finally, I collected enough courage to answer one.

Girlfriend: John? You must run. He is coming after you. He wants to catch you. They are closing in. John, I love you. Don't give up. [She hangs up]

[John hangs up]

John: I wasn't going to give up on her. I could hear her voice in my head wherever I went, guiding me. I traced my double to a classy uptown nightclub. 'Pink Flamingo'. It was happy hour, they were serving Flamingo cocktails. Somehow the Flamingo was tied to my double. A stripper in the bar looked just like my girlfriend. Mirra's men had found me. I ran.

Doctor: Stop him! There he goes! Stop him! You can't escape! We're coming to take you away! You have nowhere to run!

John: Mirra was an influential figure in Noir York. His men chased me. They wore white uniforms. They looked so clean. They chased me in black vans with the logo of the Flamingo on them. I ran.

Transcript #5 (Episode airs in 2003, repeat broadcast)

John: Mirra's men had caught me. Their black van took me out of the city. The countryside was sickeningly pretty: The sun setting on a sweet summer day, rain sparkling on grass, birds in the trees, children playing. The Pink Bird Mental Institute. Mirra's men pretended to be hospital wardens.

Patient: The flesh. The flesh. I think I died. I think I'm dead. I don't know. I don't know. Death is coming. It's coming. They're here. They're here. Get away. Get away. I'm gonna hurt you. I'm gonna hurt you.

John: They said I was an escaped mental patient.

Doctor: Diagnosis: Paranoid Schizophrenic. You are insane, psychotic. You have to eat plenty of pills to get better.

John: They lied that I had killed my girlfriend. John Mirra came to mock me in the bathroom mirror.

John Mirra: [Evil laugh]

John: The flamingo was with him.

Flamingo: .mirrorS arE morE fuN thaN televisioN [Backwards-speech played forwards]

John: Mirra claimed my girlfriend had turned evil, joined him.

Flamingo: .shE haS dyeD heR haiR reD [Backwards-speech played forwards]

[Frustrated scream]

John: I smashed the mirror. I'd kill them all.

Announcer: Stay tuned as Address Unknown continues.

Transcript #6 (Episode airs in 2003, repeat broadcast)

Announcer: Address Unknown continues.

[John breathing heavily]

Doctor: You have a tumor in your brain. It's making you mad. We're forced to operate... [Whir of drill] aggressively.

John: The fake doctors were trying to confuse me, saying I was John Mirra, pumping me full of drugs.

[He steals the drill from the doctor]

Doctor 1: No, no, none of that! Give it back! He's loose! He has the drill! Restrain him! No! No! Ahh! [Sound of drill being used]

Doctor 2: All right now! Easy... Easy, just hand it over, there's a good boy! [Whir of drill] Hey! Stay back! No! Aghh! [Sound of drill being used]

John: I was in charge, but still woozy from the drugs. I had to escape. I couldn't let them stop me.

Patient: Death is coming! It's coming! He's coming! Get away! Get away! Aghh! [Sound of drill being used]

Other patient: The flesh! The flesh! Aghh! [Sound of drill being used]

Transcript #7 (Final episode. Airs in 2003, repeat broadcast)

Announcer: The mind-bending finale in our Return to Sender marathon. The last episode of Address Unknown ever.

John: The poet Pool, in his poem "Somebody's been wearing my face again" wrote: 'In this hall of mirrors/Built by liars, I am a pale reflection of myself.' I had escaped from the Pink Bird Mental Institute. I was lost in Noir York City. I couldn't find my way back home. John Mirra had made me a killer.

[Phone rings]

John: I had become him, John Mirra, maybe I had always been him.

[He picks up the phone]

John Mirra: John Mirra?

John: Yes. This is he.

John Mirra: This is John Mirra. Welcome to the next level.

[Panicked Gasps]

Behind the scenes

Sam Lake, the character model for Max Payne in the first game, was used as the character model for John.
The lyrics of the ending song to Max Payne 2, "Late Goodbye", read: "Till' in the John mirror you stare at yourself grown old and weak." This is a likely reference to Address Unknown.
Address Unknown appears to be a homage to the early 90's television show, Twin Peaks. Although the setting is vastly different, (with Twin Peaks taking place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest and Address Unknown set in Noir York City), there are several direct references. The first Address Unknown episode in Max Payne is the most obvious, with the Pink Flamingo character talking in the same backwards-recorded speech as the Man from Another Place character in Twin Peaks, and a few of the visuals that are shown on the in-game television directly reference one of the locales in Twin Peaks: the otherworldly realm known as the "Red Room". Both Twin Peaks and Address Unknown also have a reoccurring theme of doppelgängers, something that Sam Lake included a lot more of in his next game, Alan Wake (which had many Twin Peaks references in it as well). Additionally, in the chapter, "A Linear Sequence of Scares" in Max Payne 2, Max's opening internal monologue mentions that the Address Unknown Funhouse had been closed soon after the show's cancellation, mirroring Twin Peaks fate with the latter originally ending on an unresolved cliffhanger (the ending to both shows are also fairly similar). Later on in the chapter, after descending in an elevator, Max arrives in a room with a chevron floor pattern taken directly from the aforementioned "Red room".

Trivia

in the blog This House of Dreams, the writer documents her moving to an old house in the town of Ordinary. In it she finds a shoebox, with photos of Thomas Zane and his lover, as well as pages with typed poems by Zane, as well as anotations made by him and his lover. In one of these, appears the House of Mirrors poem. The poem is credited to Pool. this may indicate that either the show also exists in the universe shared by Alan Wake, Quantum Break and Control. Or that, if Pool is a fictional character in the Max Payne universe, then he may be a real poet in the Alan Wake universe, the same way Alex Casey is Max Payne in the Alan Wake universe.
There is also an abandoned funhouse based on Address Unknown out on Coney Island, which is also Mona Sax's hideout. Many lines from the TV show can be heard inside the place. The funhouse is eventually destroyed.
The climax of the story can be heard from two Cleaner commandos in the Address Unknown funhouse. One Cleaner states: "He's in the John and he looks in the mirror, so it's like John Mirra, and he's the killer himself".
In The Signal DLC for the Remedy game, Alan Wake, there is a reference to Address Unknown that can be found after Alan Wake first receives the flashlight and pistol, when he can then look in the far left stall of the Oh Deer Diner's bathroom and see the words 'Mirra was here' written on the wall above the toilet.