i've finished s1 of midnight burger and man, i have some thoughts (so long i had to put a readmore on them).
what is caspar's whole deal with the diner? everyone has a story on how they found it (leif while spacehopping, gloria discovering on Craigslist [which is interesting but i'll get to that later] ava discovering it, presumably, while sciencing). going back, i don't think caspar ever really talks about how he found it, or even why he decided to stay (although i believe effie warns him that he might be running from something, which might be why he stayed). when ava goes through the time warp, she only hears a few moments of caspar's first day before it skips to leif's first day at the diner. at that point, caspar still doesn't know much about the diner but he seems far more comfortable in interacting in it (he slips into being a waiter immediately). and of course, from what we've heard, effie and zebulon don't seem to quite know how the diner works either. this makes me wonder if the diner is newer than originally thought, and perhaps caspar is actually the first employee. of course that couldn't exactly fit because iirc, effie and zebulon cannot see outside the diner so how would they know they were travelling through time and space? i guess that would mean that the diner is old enough to have had employees, who somehow disappeared before caspar arrived who might have been able to pass their knowledge onto effie and zebulon? but that would mean effie and zebulon would probably know more than they do, so maybe the radio is possibly a new installment to the diner (left by previous employees?)
are the radio and the diner even the same thing? the radio and the diner are somehow linked together, obviously, but effie and zebulon seem to have no control over where or when the diner goes, only that without them things would start falling apart (see: blackhole incident). it makes me wonder if despite being linked the diner has more sway in things. it's also always consistent that the diner shows up in a place where people need it (sometimes as a source of food, sometimes just to help problems). additionally, the diner seems to be able to seek out potential employees and draw them towards the diner (gloria). everyone was surprised when gloria showed up claiming that she saw their advert for a job interview, even though it was quite clear that none of them (including, iirc, zebulon & effie) ever put it up in the first place. i don't think it's a coincidence that leif showed up when he was looking for someplace new with Earth-people, or ava found the diner after she quit because she was trying to prove her scientific theories. i wonder if the diner is looking for a common quality in them and that's how it chooses its employees.
lastly: what's the deal with the radio? the vibes i'm getting are the effie & zebulon are just completely normal religious arkansas people, and that it's just the radio in the diner that's completely off-the-walls weird. originally i was thinking that effie & zebulon were like. preserved memories of people trapped inside a radio (maybe they were preserved before effie & zebulon ever had children, if the timewarp tunnel that ava had with the other arkansas people wasn't a completely different universe). but that's off the record now because i'm pretty sure memories can't get sick like effie did. which makes me wonder if effie & zebulon are in a pocket dimension of sorts? their time is like 1920s arkansas or whatever, which is moving at a much much slower pace than midnight burger. it'd explain how effie got sick (because their time is not static), plus how they don't have children, even though, in regular-world-time they definitely do have descendants (daniel & willow). and it'd explain why they think all science is witchcraft. if you were living in the 1920s, then the medical technology we have now would definitely seem to be witchcraft. the only thing i can't quite work out is the weird interference they had throughout season one, as well as how effie was able to locate leif. the first could be that whenever the diner radio lost connection with the pocket dimension effie & zebulon were in tried to fill their words with what the diner knew (which is why they would start quoting the book of the dead). i guess the diner being an entity of sorts could also explain how effie & zebulon managed to get into contact with leif when he was abducted, although what throws me off there is that if they're just normal people and the diner radio is actually controlling everything, then how would they have known about leif's radio? maybe the diner is capable of influencing them somewhat, or even maybe directing them a bit, but cannot outright control/tell anything to them. which makes me realize i am once again circling right back to religion: you know that one meme where it's like a guy who's being given divine information but because it's not in a language that they understand/can comprehend they circle right back around to being normal again? maybe that's the relationship that the diner, effie & zebulon have.
