Episode 4. Swamps

Danger, abandonment, and uncertainty. Down here, that's what the South is all aboutThe road trip is coming to an end with two last stops: Jackson, Mississippi, and New Orleans, Louisiana. Each in its own way shows what a forgotten America looks like. Jackson is a city with almost no one left on its streets. New Orleans has people, but you would rather not run into some of them after dark.Danger, abandonment, and uncertainty: by now these feel like synonyms for the South. And against this backdrop Dan has one more thing to do before the trip is over. He has to vote for the next president of the United States.Producers: Polina Ivanova, Rita Medzhovich. Script: Elizaveta Simbirskaya. Editing: Vitaly Dedkov. Sound design: Nikita Chernat. Executive producer: Gulnaz RatuA Tolk studio production. tolk.studio

This time, the quiet locals send Dan and Jesse into alligator-infested swampsDescription. Dan and Jesse continue through Louisiana, passing one half-empty town after another. The locals do not say much. When they do, they complain about chemtrails, dismiss the climate crisis, and recommend the one attraction worth seeing around here: the swamps, with their alligators and plants that grow nowhere else.How do you turn down an offer like that?Produced by Tolk.Studio

On their way to Angola Prison, Dan and Jesse get pulled over and find themselves at risk of ending up behind barsDan and Jesse keep moving through the South, across Louisiana, towards Angola, the largest maximum-security prison in the United States. They are going to see its famous rodeo, where the riders are inmates and the audience pays for tickets.On the way, a police officer pulls them over. For a while it looks like the two of them might end up inside Angola in a different role.Producers: Polina Ivanova, Rita Medzhovich. Script: Elizaveta Simbirskaya. Editing: Vitaly Dedkov. Sound design: Nikita Chernat. Executive producer: Gulnaz RatuA Tolk studio production. tolk.studio

Dan and Jesse cross into what locals call the "land of death"Leaving Texas behind, Dan and Jesse drive into Louisiana. Grey fog hangs over the road, swamps stretch out on both sides. They have entered the stretch of the Mississippi known as Cancer Alley, where a small group of environmental activists has spent decades fighting to rein in the sulphur and oil plants that line the river.They meet Mike and Dustin, who talk about the attempts to intimidate and silence their group, about what the air and water here do to people, and about why, after years of lawsuits, protests and headlines, almost nothing has changed.Producers: Polina Ivanova, Rita Medzhovich. Script: Elizaveta Simbirskaya. Editing: Vitaly Dedkov. Sound design: Nikita Chernat. Executive producer: Gulnaz RatuA Tolk studio production. tolk.studio

We head to Texas, a state where outsiders aren't always welcome.Dan and Jesse start in Texas, a state where nearly all the land is private and strangers are treated with suspicion. Politics has run through this place for generations, and in an election month it runs hotter than usual.In the first episode they meet Texans who believe in conspiracies: that America is surrounded by enemies, that the country is being dismantled from inside. Dan has heard this kind of talk before, in Moscow, and the echo is unsettling: the same fear of the outside world, the same distrust of anyone who is not one of us. What are these people really afraid of?Producers: Polina Ivanova, Rita Medzhovich. Script: Elizaveta Simbirskaya. Editing: Vitaly Dedkov. Sound design: Nikita Chernat. Executive producer: Gulnaz RatuA Tolk studio production. tolk.studio

We're kicking off: conspiracy theories, the fight for democracy, and a forgotten worldTwo friends set out across the American South and record everything they meet on the way. Dan grew up between Baltimore and Moscow. Jesse is a Texan who works with refugees from Mexico and Venezuela. Both are sons of migrant families, and both know what the American Dream is supposed to look like.They drive into places most people avoid: roadside diners where strangers are not welcome, a prison that runs a rodeo with inmates, towns where activists have spent decades fighting the air they breathe. They want to know what the Dream means to people living in the most neglected and toxic corners of the country. Along the way, they meet the forgotten and their world, where conspiracy theories, the fight for democracy and plain survival sit side by side.Producers: Polina Ivanova, Rita Medzhovich. Script: Elizaveta Simbirskaya. Editing: Vitaly Dedkov. Sound design: Nikita Chernat. Executive producer: Gulnaz RatuA Tolk studio production. tolk.studio