Astral

Astral is the second episode of the first season of Living Free. Written and Directed by it's star, Mike Barkhoff, it also features Ron Gomes and Dylan Van Hauen. It is set to release on September 24th, 2021.

Plot
Mike struggles to relax and turns to binge eating, and, in the midst of doing both actions, sits up in excitement. He quickly notifies Ron Gomes of this idea, to attempt to astral project to reconnect with his filmmaking roots and become heavily inspired.

Succeeding to do so, Mike exhibits a blue lit room where he sees himself struggling to be creative. He confronts his astral self and has a brief argument, before realizing he is ungrateful and a bad friend, taking much for granted. Mike exits the astral world.

Production
With the rest of the series, Barkhoff wrote the script in two days. This episode was one of the first and last to be filmed due to Barkhoff's solo performance being the core of the episode. Barkhoff got inspired by the film "Insidious" for the plot.

This was the only episode to feature a deleted scene, save for production issues cutting scenes in Episodes 5 and 7. The deleted scene ties the episode's finale into Episode 4's plot. Barkhoff decided to cut it to make the episode feel more 'focused and crafted'.

Reception
The episode was met with unanimous praise, and holds a 10/10 rating on IMDb from early reviewers, a total of 20 scores. Alfred Clarke called the episode 'a tribute to comedy and film blended brilliantly'. Ron Gomes, prior to filming his scene, complimented the script as being 'very funny'.