Pitfalls

A researcher pacing around in a newly-converted section of complex

***Pitfalls*** is the ninth main episode and eleventh overall installment in the Backrooms series. It was uploaded to YouTube on 2nd May 2022 and is to date the longest entry in the series at just over 14 minutes. The episode documents a seemingly routine expedition into the Backrooms that goes awry when the POV researcher, Marvin Leigh, falls down an opening in the floor.

## Plot

The video begins with Marvin Leigh walking into a room. He looks at the hazmat suits on the wall, then turns away. The camera is then put on a table and shows two male researchers get out of white doctor coats and into the hazmat suits. It then cuts to Marvin and Mark doing mic checks. Then it cuts again to Mark, Marv and an unnamed female researcher wandering throughout the Backrooms. Marv asks Mark something hard to make out, but Mark says, “sorry can you repeat that?” Marv repeats. Mark says something hard to make out. They then walk to a room full of strange pits in the floor. Marv looks down and says, “might be at an angle.” Mark proceeds to walk across the thin parts of ground that are around the pits. He makes it across. He opens at door at the other side and says, “Marvin, get the camera over here.” It then cuts to Marv trying to go across to join Mark, but a glitch in the space-time continuum causes him to fall. He looks around, then describes his surroundings to the researchers above him as "The same architecture, but the wallpaper... it's more green." He then hears someone yelling for help. He states that there is someone there, and proceeds to follow the yelling. He reaches the end of a hallway with a small opening under it. He examines it. He finds a suburban neighborhood, glowing with a red hue. As he is walking down the road, he hears the cry for help again coming from one of the houses. He walks into the said house, and sees a room with a blue carpet and inverted turn signs protruding from the ground. Reluctantly he goes through a doorway at the other end of the room. He finds a thin hallway and walks down it. Then he finds a room with two flattened corrugated cardboard boxes, some shoes and a chair inside. He says to the researchers that he thinks someone has been living down here. He proceeds down a hall. He then finds a large room with mist at his feet. Marvin calls out "Hello?" as an attempt to indicate to the lost person that help is here. He zooms in with the camera, and sees a strange dark figure. He says "That's not a person." to the other researchers. The researchers then ask what he sees. As the figure starts running towards him, he then yells “That is not a f\*\*king person!” He starts to run. The monster chases. He runs through everything he has explored so far, and quickly crawls under the wall, with the monster still in pursuit. He gets to the hole where he fell in. The other researchers send down a briefcase on a wire and pull him up.

## Trivia

* There are two unnamed figures in this episode who are not part of the expedition party - one is a silhouetted figure seen overlooking the threshold at the beginning of the video and another is a man in casual work wear seen pacing around in the observation room. When Mark is about to cross the pits, he tells Marvin and/or George Levy to "go notify Clyde". It is possible that "Clyde" is the identity either one of those figures. Possible identities for the first figure are vice-director Ivan Beck and Anthony Dawkins.
* The newly-converted section of the Backrooms just beyond the threshold can be seen under construction at the beginning of *Motion Detected* about 2 months prior.