This story really worked for me, so much so that it became the first 2014 episode I immediately re-listened to as soon as it ended. I agree that the woman/fox pairings were hard to follow on the first listen. I feel like I got a lot more out of it the second time around when I had a mental road map of the plot and characters.
There was a lot to love thematically about the story. I think the rage of the fox-women comes not so much from a cultural distinction as a class one. It's clear from the first half of the story that these women are in dire poverty, so much so that Jiresh and Iskree see prison gruel as an absolute feast, and gorge themselves on it during their imprisonment. It may very well be true that at the height of their civilization, this culture was not necessarily better than the one that replaced it, but whatever the past was, the present reality is that these are an impoverished, reviled, persecuted minority, slowly dying out on the desert's edge. And to add insult to injury, the graves of people that died only 50 years ago are being plundered and put on display for their betters to gawk at. Even today, it's controversial to display ancient human remains in a museum, and 50 years is hardly what I'd call "ancient". I can't imagine how I'd feel if that were *my* great-grandmother, and someone with not just a familial but a religious connection, as sainthood implies.
I know that the argument could also be made that preserving the sarcophagus and mummies in the museum *was* reverent, or at least well-intentioned, but I have mixed feelings about this. A couple years ago, I was in Munich, Germany and ended up at this cathedral where you can pay a couple of Euros to go down into the crypt. This particular crypt housed pretty much the entire royal line of Bavaria, which I was really excited about, because it included "Mad King Ludwig II", the guy who built crazy fairytale castles all over Bavaria, and one of my favorite Crazy People Of History. So I'm standing next to his sarcophagus, and I convince someone to take a picture of me "hanging out with Ludwig", and suddenly I'm struck with the absurdity and indignity of the whole thing. This guy's reward for being an Important, Revered Person is that a couple hundred years later, an American tourist will show up to take a smiley picture with his graveside for her Facebook wall. If a crazy lady and her fox had shown up right at that moment to chow down on Ludwig, while I don't think I deserved to die, maybe I would deserve to get scared shitless by history suddenly coming to life and demanding a little respect.
Given that, I loved how nuanced and ambiguous the ending was. It's a Pyrrhic victory for the fox-women, really. I liked the literal parallel between all-consuming rage, and the consumption of the bodies that they had set out to revere and protect to begin with. I can't imagine anything less reverent than saint-cannibalism. There's something really sad about it, that their choice was either to have their culture turned into a commodity for consumption by the majority, or to consume it themselves, and take everyone and everything to the grave with them.
Also: Lashawn, loved your intro!! I hope all the house-shuffling with the in-laws goes well.

Also also: Dave--The Ides--hahah, I see what you did there!
