$100 Bill

References

• It Follows
• D. B. Cooper
• D. B. Sweeney
• Wonderfalls
• Sweeney Todd
• Blank Check
• Milk Money
• Final Destination
• Strange Luck
• The X-Files

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Emily]
Are we sure D. B. Cooper isn’t D. B. Sweeney?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Well, I was just thinking, like, that would be pretty smart. Or maybe it was like- “Who are you?” “My name’s D. B. uh… Sweeney?”

[Shep]
There’s a poster for Sweeney Todd behind the other person.

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. And today we’ll be doing that for the hundredth time. Yes, this is the 100th episode of Almost Plausible. If you don’t count the bonus episodes or the three practice episodes that we recorded but never released, which we don’t. I’m Thomas J. Brown, and with me from the beginning are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey guys!

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here for the hundredth time.

[Thomas]
The ordinary object we’ve chosen for our 100th episode is a $100 Bill. Hopefully the pitches we’ve come up with are million-dollar ideas, and we’ll find out right now. Starting with Shep.

[Shep]
Starting with Shep?! Ho Ho. I see how it is. Okay, here is my pitch: A struggling single mom discovers a $100 bill that reappears in her pocket every day after she spends it.

[Shep]
But every time she uses it, the recipient suffers terrible misfortune. As the curse spirals out of control, she must find a way to break the cycle before it destroys everything she loves. I have more. Do you want me to read out the rest? Because it’s… I mean, it baked for too long in my brain because we- We were delayed a week for technical reasons.

[Thomas]
Well, I like this idea. So if it brings misfortune to the recipient, so she’s like giving it to her enemies.

[Shep]
Well, so at first, she’s spending it at a big box chain grocery store. Think Walmart.

[Thomas]
Sure, sure.

[Shep]
She’s spending it at Walmart because it’s cheap. She’d rather be spending it at the bodega closer to where she lives. She’s friends with the owner, and it’s not some faceless corporation.

[Thomas]
But they’re not going to break a hundred?

[Shep]
Well, the prices are higher.

[Emily]
So you’re not going to get as much.

[Shep]
She’s not.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
She wouldn’t get as much. So she shops at the faceless-

[Emily]
And the bodega doesn’t sell everything Walmart does.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So she’s spending it at Walmart or whatever. So first she, when she finds it, she looks around to see if someone has dropped it, but she doesn’t look very hard because she’s a struggling single mom. So there is that sense of guilt from the very first moment that she picks it up and puts it in her pocket. Doesn’t look too hard to find the actual owner. So she spends it at the grocery store, and then the next day, it’s there again in her pocket or on the counter or in her purse or wherever the writers decide is the place that visually, it would look good for it to reappear. So then she thinks, “Oh, did I spend it? Did I accidentally spend other money?” We know that it’s the same bill because her daughter doodles on it almost right away.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
She draws a little silly hat on, Benjamin Franklin, gives him an eye patch. And so when it keeps showing up, she knows it’s the same bill.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
So it shows up again. She’s like, “Oh, I must have. I must have not spent it. I must have accidentally spent other money.” And so she spends it again, and it shows up again. She’s like, “Oh, I have infinite money. Every day, this $100 bill is going to show up. And as a struggling single mom, this is like- this is a fortune. This is a blessing.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But then the big chain grocery store shuts down. They have, like a…

[Thomas]
Salmonella outbreak.

[Shep]
Yeah, they had. They have something.

[Thomas]
Something, right.

[Shep]
Right. So it shuts down. It’s. Which is unfortunate. But now she’s like feeling she has infinite money.

[Shep]
She can afford the more expensive bodega prices, and then it’s going to someone that she likes, some friend of hers, and it’s convenient and it’s closer and whatever. So she spends it there and then finds out the next day that the store was vandalized and the shop owner was injured trying to fight off the vandals. She feels guilt over spending this glitched $100 bill. So she decides to do something selfless and good with it and gives it to her friend’s charity fundraiser for a local shelter. The next day, she hears that the shelter’s roof collapsed and her friend was hospitalized. So now she’s beginning to suspect the bill. So she does an experiment. She goes to a chain coffee shop, Starbucks, and spends it and waits. And the barista who received the bill eventually slips and breaks her wrist. And now Maria is certain. Maria is the name of the main character. Did I say that?

[Thomas]
I mean, just now if. If not previously.

[Shep]
I named the character! That’s how long I sat with this. The characters have names. So she stops spending the bill. But after a few days, strange things start happening to her. Her car breaks down, one of her bosses threatens to fire- She has two jobs. I don’t know if I mentioned that.

[Thomas]
Makes sense.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And Lily, her daughter, gets sick, and she realizes that if she doesn’t spend the bill, the curse will turn on her. So she tries to destroy it. She buries it, she tears it up, she burns it. But every day the bill reappears, whole and unharmed, and she realizes the curse can’t be broken that way. So she needs to use the bill. But she wants to do the least harm. So she weaponizes the curse. She donates the bill to a campaign of a corrupt local politician she despises, handing it directly to him at a fundraising event. And soon after, that politician is embroiled in a scandal and forced to resign. And Maria feels a twisted sense of justice, but is struggling with the moral implications. Now, Lily, the daughter, is unaware of the curse and steals the $100 bill from her mom’s purse to buy a toy for her friend’s birthday or to give it to her friend in a birthday card. That’s a problem for the writers. Whatever reason, she takes it. And Maria panics when she realizes what is happening and races to stop her. But it’s too late. The toy store or the friend’s house or whatever catches fire and burns down. And Maria’s devastated. She’s like, “This is my fault. I didn’t stop this from happening. And innocent people are suffering.” And so she’s like, “The curse is never going to end.” So she leaves Lily, her daughter, with her ex husband, and finds an isolated spot and repeatedly gives the $100 bill to herself. Or symbolically buys something off of herself, a button or whatever, knowing that the curse will come down on the recipient, which is her. And she dies in a freak accident. And then in a post-credit scene, you can have the crumpled-up $100 bill blowing in the wind and then landing at the feet of some new unsuspecting person. Like what happened to her at the beginning.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Starting the cycle over again so the new person picks it up. “Oh, must be my lucky day.” But we know it’s not.

[Emily]
It’s like It Follows, but with money.

[Shep]
It’s like It Follows but with money. There’s the tagline.

[Thomas]
I love the idea of a movie poster, just like, “Hey, you know this other movie? Yeah. It’s basically that.”

[Emily]
“But it’s a little bit different.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
“It’s not sex, it’s money.”

[Shep]
“It’s not sex, it’s money.” Tagline number two. That’s it for me. Emily, what do you got?

[Emily]
I have one today because I was the cause of the technical issues. So I had a… My hands full. Bodies are found around the country with sequential $100 bills left on them. Each body has a $100 bill, and they go in sequence. Just.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
I want to make sure that I covered it.

[Shep]
I get it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s clear.

[Emily]
Okay. But their sequence isn’t in circulation yet, so a Federal agent has to track down the killer within the Treasury Department.

[Thomas]
It sounds like a Tom Clancy novel. I like that.

[Emily]
Doesn’t it?

[Thomas]
It’s a serial killer and it’s a serialized bill.

[Shep]
Because it’s serialized. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s good.

[Emily]
And then I had another one about D. B. Cooper, but I realized that- Not realize. Learned that all of the $200,000 that he stole were in $20 bills and…

[Shep]
I don’t know if you know this, Emily, but some movies have fictionalized components in them.

[Thomas]
And to be fair, you didn’t know that, and I didn’t know that till you told me that.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
I think most people probably don’t know that.

[Emily]
But there’s some Internet troll that’s going to just rant on Reddit forever.

[Thomas]
Good. Free press for us.

[Shep]
Yeah. Excellent. That’s. That’s only pro using that.

[Emily]
Well, that pitch was: a guy’s helping his grandfather clean out his house or whatever, or his mom, clean out her father’s house or what have you, and finds a couple $100 bills, and she’s like, “Oh, you can have them.” And he goes and spends it. And the FBI becomes aware once it gets back into the bank that it was one of D. B. Sweeney’s or-

[Shep]
D. B. Cooper’s.

[Emily]
Keep doing that. I’ve always do that. It was one of D. B. Cooper’s bills. And so they’re suspecting that his grandfather was D. B. Cooper or an accomplice.

[Shep]
The man who killed D. B. Cooper in the desert and buried his body.

[Thomas]
He was a serial killer who killed D. B. Cooper.

[Shep]
Yeah. D. B. Cooper successfully gets away and is like hitchhiking to civilization. Happens to be picked up by a serial killer.

[Emily]
Those are my pitches. Thomas, what do you got?

[Thomas]
You guys familiar with the show Wonderfalls?

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Yes, it is wonderful.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Criminal that it only got one season.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
So Ben Franklin, on the $100 bill, he can talk. Kind of like the coin in Wonderfalls or any of the.

[Shep]
Any of the many things. Everything that talks in Wonderfalls.

[Thomas]
Right. I don’t know what the plot is. I just like that idea.

[Shep]
And it’s voiced by the ghost of D. B. Cooper.

[Thomas]
There we go.

[Shep]
Played by D. B. Sweeney.

[Emily]
D. B. Sweeney, of course.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Perfect. Done.

[Emily]
Are we sure D. B. Cooper isn’t D. B. Sweeney?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Well, I was just thinking, like, that would be pretty smart. Or maybe it was like- “Who are you?” “My name’s D. B. uh… Sweeney?”

[Shep]
There’s a poster for Sweeney Todd behind the other person.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so my first full pitch: I have an 80s-style kids comedy where a boy is skateboarding around the city and somehow ends up in the basement of a building. He finds a ton of stacks of crisp $100 bills on a table, all neatly wrapped and stacked up. He grabs several stacks and heads home. He shows a couple of his friends and the next day they have a grand adventure in the city, funded by the ill-gotten cash. A few days later, two Secret Service agents knock on the kid’s door.

[Thomas]
It turns out that those were all counterfeit bills. They know the boy didn’t print the bills, but they need his help tracking down the people who did. The boy takes the agents to the building where he found them, but the basement is now completely empty. That night, a strange man breaks into the boy’s house and attempts to kill him. It looks grim for the boy and his family, but just then, the Secret Service agents who have been staking out the house bust in and save them. The strange man escapes, but the family is safe. Now we just need an ending.

[Shep]
And one of the Secret Service agents is a much older woman who makes out with the boy even though he’s 10, Blank Check-style. How did we ever think that was okay?

[Thomas]
Right?

[Emily]
They use the counterfeit $100 bills to hire a prostitute to help his dad…

[Thomas]
Alright. And my other idea. An eccentric millionaire offers a large cash prize to whoever can deliver him a $100 bill with a specific serial number. Despite a worldwide search and an endless supply of fakes and counterfeit bills, the real bill remains lost. The US treasury confirms the bill was not among the ones they’ve destroyed. So the real bill must be out there somewhere. Three years after the contest is announced, Alan, our down-on-his-luck main character, loses his father to old age. There isn’t an inheritance to speak of. And lacking any siblings, Alan must go through his father’s belongings and get rid of everything on his own. He’s surprised to find out his dad had been keeping a storage unit. Inside the unit is even more junk, but also a coat rack with a faded leather jacket hanging on it, which Alan tries on. In the pocket, he finds a wallet which has an old driver’s license, some random receipts and coupons and… a $100 bill. The $100 bill. What happens next? What makes this bill so special? Is it evidence of a crime? Is the eccentric millionaire, D. B. Cooper? Was Alan’s dad involved?

[Shep]
It was the one single $100 bill-

[Thomas]
That’s right.

[Shep]
That D. B. Cooper stole.

[Thomas]
So does Alan get the cash prize? And before he can get to the millionaire, surely other people have to find out that he has the bill and go after him. Right? All right, which story do we like? I like Shep’s.

[Emily]
Yeah, me, too.

[Shep]
Shep’s is done. That’s the whole story.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s why I like it.

[Emily]
And episode over. Thanks, guys. See you next week.

[Shep]
Oh, what was I- There… I was thinking about some detail in mine earlier today and I was like, “I need to write that down.”

[Shep]
And then I didn’t. Oh, gosh.

[Thomas]
Well, maybe you’ll think of it as we go through.

[Shep]
I was thinking of an alternate ending.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
I don’t know if that was what it was though. Like she could get rid of it not by cursing herself, but by dropping it where someone else will pick it up. Oh, that was what it was because her daughter has stolen it.

[Shep]
When it reappears the next day, it reappears in the daughter’s room instead of on the counter or in her pocket or in her purse or wherever.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I think the counter works really well as like a visual.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So it appears like on the daughter’s nightstand or something. Indicating that it has passed to the daughter.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That was what it was. So at the end, she crumples it up and “accidentally” drops it and someone else that she knows is going to be cursed picks it up.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And again, it’s that moral quandary. Like, I can’t keep dealing with this curse. I just can’t. I don’t have it within me. So I’m choosing to curse someone else.

[Emily]
Like, It Follows, but with money.

[Thomas]
Clearly you can take it from other people. Yeah. So if you take it from someone else, whether they “lose it” or whatever, it becomes yours. But you have to take it from them. They can’t know that you’ve taken it. Right?

[Shep]
Well, I mean, no. They can know that you’ve taken it, but you’re not spending it. You’re not paying them for something.

[Thomas]
Ah, there’s not an exchange.

[Shep]
There’s not an exchange.

[Thomas]
So then I guess the daughter couldn’t give it to the friend. She’d have to, like, purchase something with it.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
But I like that idea.

[Shep]
But I mean, ignore the fact that she donates it to her friend and it still takes effect. Or she gives it to the politician.

[Thomas]
Well, but, I mean, maybe it’s not a donation. It’s like there’s a raffle. She spends it in a raffle.

[Shep]
How does she get rid of the politician?

[Thomas]
$100-a-plate dinner.

[Shep]
Okay. Yeah, there you go.

[Thomas]
I like both of the endings that you’ve come up with, and I think we should pick one so we know what we’re working toward.

[Shep]
I think it works better if she is choosing to pass the curse on to someone else. Because she is a mom, she has responsibility. She can’t just let herself die in a horrific accident, even though it would be very cinematic.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true.

[Shep]
We’ve all seen Final Destination.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So it keeps reappearing every time she spends it. But she hasn’t tried to just drop it or leave it somewhere before.

[Shep]
She has buried it.

[Emily]
But it came back.

[Shep]
And it came back. And she tore it up and threw it away and it came back, and she burned it.

[Emily]
And then it came back.

[Shep]
And it still came back.

[Emily]
But she hasn’t tried to just leave it somewhere.

[Shep]
She has not tried to just leave it somewhere that where someone else would pick it up.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Or maybe she tries to pass the curse to herself and it fails. Like she is in an accident but doesn’t die. So, I mean, you could do both endings. She tries one and it didn’t work, but she’s just horrifically injured. So she tries the other way, knowing that someone else will take the curse.

[Emily]
She leaves it as a tip for the… Nope. That would come back to her.

[Shep]
Can’t spend it.

[Emily]
Transmit it. Yeah. Yeah.

[Shep]
Gotta let it “fall out of your pocket”.

[Thomas]
So maybe when she tries to spend it on herself and she ends up injured, maybe that’s when her daughter takes it.

[Emily]
While she’s injured?

[Thomas]
While she’s injured. Yeah.

[Emily]
But I think having her daughter take it is the impetus for her trying to send it, because otherwise she’s-

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
She’s figured out the loophole of screwing over the bad guys.

[Shep]
Right. Like she’s doing it for justice.

[Emily]
Right. And she’s okay with that.

[Shep]
If she can just find enough villains to give this cursed money to every day, she’s making the world a better place.

[Emily]
She starts buying drugs with it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Well, yeah, she could buy drugs one time with it and get rid of, like, the neighborhood drug lord that lives down the street.

[Thomas]
Right, yeah. She’s in a dodgy neighborhood because she-

[Emily]
She’s a single mom.

[Thomas]
Single mom, low income, and maybe the guy’s kind of a menace or, like, he brings unsavory characters into the neighborhood.

[Emily]
Right. Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh.

[Thomas]
And so she’s like, “This isn’t just for me and my daughter.”

[Emily]
Right. “This is for everyone.”

[Thomas]
“This is for everyone who lives in this building.” And…

[Shep]
Yes, this is great. So what happens to the drug dealer is there is a drive-by shooting and he is shot and killed. But also, an innocent bystander, a little girl her daughter’s age-

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
Is caught in the crossfire and she’s like, “Oh, I can’t control this curse.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“Even if I try to aim it towards the bad guys, innocent people are caught in the crossfire.”

[Emily]
Yeah. And then she could be trying to figure out what she’s going to do with it. Then the girl steals it.

[Thomas]
Is the drive-by shooting, that’s the reason why she tries not to spend it?

[Shep]
So the way that I had originally pitched it, she tries not to spend it earlier when she realizes that it’s cursed, before she tries using the curse, she’s just like, “Let’s just not curse anyone. Let’s not spend it. Let’s not give in to temptation.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“But deliver us from evil.”

[Emily]
That makes sense.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Then after the drive by, she would be like, “Okay, I have to spend it or I have to get rid of it, but I can’t not spend it.”

[Shep]
She can’t spend it.

[Emily]
“But if I do spend it-“

[Shep]
No. That’s where she’s like, “I can’t spend it.”

[Emily]
No, but if she doesn’t spend it, bad things happen to her.

[Shep]
Right. That’s why she was then spending it to stop evil people.

[Emily]
Right. And now she’s at a point where she’s like, “I don’t know what to do. I. I can’t spend it.”

[Shep]
“I can’t destroy it and I can’t spend it and I can’t not spend it.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
You’re right. It is a no-win situation. There’s no way out.

[Emily]
And so while she’s kind of with meh-meh-meh with that, her daughter just…

[Shep]
Right. “Mommy didn’t spend this money today. I guess it’s free for me to take and use.”

[Thomas]
Does the daughter. The daughter must not know anything about it.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah. Would you tell your child you had a cursed $100 bill you’ve been spending around town?

[Thomas]
How old is the daughter?

[Shep]
Whatever age is the cutest.

[Emily]
Seven.

[Thomas]
Would a 7-year-old steal a $100 bill?

[Emily]
They might not. Well-

[Shep]
The 7-year-old might not even realize the significance. What were you saying, Emily?

[Emily]
That’s what I was going to say. A seven year old might not understand how much that is.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
This is the one time where I’m like, yeah, kids are stupid. They’re just going to take it and spend it and not know what’s going on.

[Thomas]
Well, I was thinking the daughter could be older, she could be like a young teen. And then instead of drawing something cutesy on it, maybe the serial number is like something memorable.

[Shep]
666.

[Thomas]
Right. 666-69-420.

[Shep]
See, I think that is a big stretch. Even if $100 keeps showing up. You’re memorizing the serial number? Remember, the audience has to do whatever it is to recognize the bill.

[Thomas]
That’s a good point. I mean, the daughter could still be a young teen and she could-

[Emily]
And still draw on it.

[Thomas]
She could draw the eye patch over and like a mustache and stuff.

[Emily]
Yeah, I still drew on money when I was a teenager. She could put a little thought bubble above Franklin’s head with something dirty.

[Shep]
She doesn’t like the Founding Fathers. She’s like, she writes the thought bubble “I love slaves.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, she’s got a little rubber stamp “Capitalism sucks.”

[Emily]
It’s something like that. Or maybe she’s a troubled teen and she’s been taking money out of her mom’s purse forever.

[Shep]
See, in my mind, she was too young to recognize the significance of the $100 bill.

[Emily]
I think it could work either way.

[Shep]
Yeah. In fact, she could have two daughters and… Whatever.

[Emily]
It’s gonna sound shitty, but I think we as a society or as people kind of would feel a little more sad for the seven year old to have the curse than a teenager. Like, we’d still be sad that that woman’s daughter is cursed.

[Shep]
Oh, no, I’ve met teenagers.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They are the worst.

[Emily]
Right. So if it’s a 7-year-old, like, “Oh my god, she didn’t even know that it was a $100s and what that how much money that was.”

[Thomas]
Right. She’s like, truly innocent.

[Emily]
“And she’s so cute.” Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
“She’s so innocent.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Whereas if it’s a teenager, it’s like “She’s just going to buy condoms and cigarettes with it. Let her die. Who cares?”

[Thomas]
Okay. So what is Maria’s lowest low?

[Emily]
Is it her getting hurt after trying to save her daughter?

[Shep]
Yeah, that would have to be it. Because her daughter is fine. Because she’s not cursed.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But her daughter’s friends are cursed or the store is cursed or whatever.

[Emily]
Oh, the daughter takes it to school to buy like a candy bar or something from a fundraiser and then the school’s condemned.

[Shep]
Oh, geez. Asbestos.

[Thomas]
There’s like black mold in the gym.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Well, anyway, yeah. So something happens and she sees the curse and it returns to her daughter’s room.

[Emily]
Really, that’s the part that is shocking to her. Maybe the bad thing that happens not to her friend, but to like the toy store she spent the money at and then seeing the daughter come back and she’s like, “Oh.”

[Shep]
Right. Oh, man. I just realized she… Oh, no. Because I have her scrambling to try and stop it, but it’s too late.

[Shep]
My thought just now was if the $100 bill isn’t on the counter one day she might think, “Oh, the curse has run its course and it’s over.”

[Thomas]
Yep, yep.

[Shep]
And she has that moment of relief and then finds out the toy store burned down and realizes, oh, her daughter has stolen it and spent it at the toy store yesterday. And that’s why that’s happening. And you know, 20 people died in the fire or whatever. The curse is escalating over time.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So I had just the same thought at the same time that you had that realization as well. And I was thinking perhaps a very impactful scene would be going from that moment of relief of like, “Oh my gosh, it’s finally over,” to her daughter running in the next day being like, “Mom, look, the $100s came back. It was on my thing,” and her being like, “Oh, no!”

[Shep]
That’s great. Her daughter runs out with $100 and “It came back in my room.” And then she hears like sirens, turns on the news, and… The toy store burned and it’s- the fire spread to an apartment building nearby. And…

[Thomas]
Right. It was in like the first floor.

[Shep]
Yeah, this is much worse than the previous curses.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
This is a real. Is this the lowest low? No. Then she tries to curse herself.

[Emily]
The lowest low is realizing that, yeah. I mean, seeing that it’s on her daughter’s nightstand, that makes her go and do the, try and curse herself. She doesn’t want her daughter to have it anymore.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
So then that, I would think would be her lowest low. What happens when she curses herself? Did we… Besides, she doesn’t die?

[Shep]
I was like, oh, she dies in a freak accident. Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, but we don’t want her to die. We want her to be maimed or something.

[Shep]
Right. Just horrifically burned.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Well, while Maria suffers from having cursed herself with the $100 bill, we are going to take a break.

[Break]

[Thomas]
Okay, we’re back from break. When we left off, we decided Maria should not die, but cursing herself would have some kind of significant negative outcome. So how is Maria gonna get rid of this cursed $100 bill if she’s laid up in the hospital?

[Shep]
Okay. She needs a friend. We need like an audience surrogate or something that she can talk to.

[Emily]
Right. Be her sister.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I was thinking that.

[Emily]
Best friend.

[Shep]
It’s her daughter’s friend’s mom. So we can reuse that same actress in the other scene.

[Emily]
Yeah. Does she explain and, when, does the daughter’s friend’s mom… Let’s call her Sophia.

[Shep]
Maria and Sophia?

[Emily]
And Sophia. Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay, just checking.

[Emily]
Yeah. Maria and Sophia. So does Sophia come and visit her at the hospital, and then Maria kind of explain it to her, and Sophia, like, believe. Not believe. Thinks she’s crazy. Worried about her friend’s sanity after the accident.

[Thomas]
Or is this the proof? Like Sophia, she’s told Sofia previously, Sophia doesn’t believe her, and now Sophia does.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Like, “Oh, my god, this is real.”

[Shep]
Right. I was thinking that this is who she’s bouncing ideas off with ahead of time, and maybe they together come up with the experiment at the coffee shop or whatever.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
So I’m picturing, now that you’ve put it this way, that Maria, in the hospital, is completely disabled and is not going to be able to go out and spend the money or get rid of it. And so Sophia takes it and crumples it up and leaves it somewhere because she’s like, “It’s passing the curse to someone else. But I’m also saving my friend.” It’s that moral ambiguity.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
She’s not saving herself, she’s saving her friend. And if she knows about the curse and Maria’s daughter shows up with an expensive gift for her daughter’s birthday…

[Emily]
Oh, she calls her or something. Yeah.

[Shep]
She’ll realize what has happened.

[Thomas]
Is there some place that Sophia could leave the money where she feels confident it will be picked up by someone, but at the same time, she’s not trying to just randomly get it to anyone. She’s like trying. She’s hoping a not-great person will pick it up.

[Emily]
Where do you find, without being super judgmental of a type of person-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Where do you leave it?

[Shep]
Right. I mean, it’s always a judgment call.

[Emily]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Because, I mean, you could be like a homeless encampment, but that’s…

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
They’re not necessarily bad people, and not everyone feels them that way. I don’t.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
So- But-

[Thomas]
I mean, there could be some character who has wronged her or Maria or some, you know, earlier in the film.

[Emily]
Yeah, we could have some douchebag, like, Tinder date type person who does terrible things, and then she just.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. He was a bad date, so he definitely deserves to be cursed forever.

[Emily]
No, no, no, no. He did bad things. He didn’t respect the “No”, he assaulted her.

[Thomas]
He stole money out of her wallet. Maybe she got her wallet stolen somewhere. She was like on the subway or in some part of town. She got pickpocketed and she’s like, “I know how to get rid of it.”

[Shep]
Ah.

[Thomas]
And so she like kind of has it like sticking, just sticking a little bit out of her jacket pocket so it’s visible.

[Emily]
Which makes it too easy. They can’t resist it.

[Thomas]
Right. She just wanders around until it gets stolen.

[Shep]
All right, what are we missing?

[Thomas]
Yeah. I don’t know.

[Shep]
I see.

[Thomas]
This is a… Yeah.

[Shep]
This is the problem with long pitches is it’s too much of the story is already there.

[Thomas]
I think what we’re missing is more third act stuff. Like, the third act is them trying to get rid of it.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So we need to see a number of attempts and maybe that’s how Maria ends up getting injured. Right? Like, she becomes so desperate during the third act. Like the two of them are trying some different things. Nothing’s quite working. Maybe they haven’t quite figured out the rules of passing it on. They know it can be passed on, but they haven’t figured out how to do it yet.

[Shep]
Oh, man. I’m just picturing, like, they donate it to a church or something, and then something horrific happens at the church and it shows up again. They can’t donate it. They can’t spend it.

[Thomas]
Right, right. They’re like, “Oh, maybe an act of selflessness will cure the curse.” But no.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
The church is struck by lightning and the steeple falls onto the roof, which instantly collapses and it impales the priest. I don’t know.

[Shep]
Okay. How else can they try to get rid of it?

[Thomas]
So they know they can’t spend it. They learn they can’t donate it. They already know you can’t destroy it. What else would you try to do? Maybe you can’t just leave it out. You can’t intentionally, quote, unquote, “lose” it. Right. Like if you leave it on the ground…

[Emily]
But that’s how she got it. But it was unintentional, you’re saying, when she got it.

[Thomas]
Right. Like perhaps the person who had it before her genuinely it fell out of their pocket and they didn’t know. So, like, intention matters. Right?

[Emily]
Like, they hadn’t gotten as far in the curse as she has. They didn’t maybe even notice the curse yet.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true. Maybe they just kept spending it and they were like “Sweet. Free money.” They didn’t even notice that it was the same $100 bill. They never made the connection that bad things were happening and then it fell out of their car or their pocket or something like that. They lost it. Genuinely lost it.

[Emily]
But her daughter gets it because she stole it.

[Thomas]
Because she took it. Exactly.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Without Maria knowing. How does Maria get it back from the daughter? Or is it still the daughter’s bill for the rest of the movie?

[Shep]
I mean, it shows up in the daughter’s room. She could just take it.

[Emily]
That’s what I thought.

[Shep]
The same way the daughter took it from her off the counter.

[Emily]
Yeah. She takes it, but does she have to spend it for it to become hers again?

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
Because her daughter had to spend it.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Oof.

[Emily]
So does this create another dilemma?

[Thomas]
That’s an added complication.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
It’s not just enough to have it taken, it has to be taken and spent.

[Shep]
Taken and spent in the same day before it resets.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Because that’s what she did. She spent it the day that she found it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So then when she finds it in her daughter’s room and she takes possession of it, she does or does not spend it. Oh, she doesn’t spend it. And then something bad happens to her daughter, and she realizes, you know, just the act of stealing it wasn’t enough for it to come back to her.

[Thomas]
Oh, right. Yeah. Right. She takes it from the daughter when the daughter comes out and is like, “Look, mom, the bill came back,” she takes it from the daughter, but doesn’t spend it. Shows up in the daughter’s room the next morning and… Yeah. Something bad happens to the daughter. Not terrible.

[Emily]
No, no. But just something. Her bed breaks. Her water bed leaks. Who knows?

[Shep]
I was like, “Her water broke?” Her daughter’s been pregnant this entire time.

[Thomas]
Did we not mention that?

[Shep]
You said she was seven. We meant seven months pregnant.

[Thomas]
Right, right, right. She loses a toy, a favored toy, something like that.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Or it breaks.

[Emily]
So her and Sophia are mulling over it with drinks or coffee or whatever, and Sophia is like, “Well, maybe you have to spend it. You can’t just take it.”

[Shep]
Right. So you can’t just drop it where someone will take it if they’re not going to spend it.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Oh.

[Shep]
You need to have it end up with someone who’s going to spend it right away.

[Thomas]
Yeah. This raises the stakes because if you intentionally drop it somewhere and it doesn’t get spent, you didn’t spend it.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Bad thing happens to you.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
So there’s a risk involved.

[Shep]
Yes. It’s a gamble.

[Thomas]
Yeah. If Maria is incapacitated and Sophia takes the bill to try to get it pickpocketed, is it now Sophia’s bill? She hasn’t spent it.

[Emily]
Mm.

[Shep]
She hasn’t spent it, so it’s not her bill yet.

[Thomas]
This could kill Maria.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
This is like, the stakes have gotten pretty high in this climax here.

[Emily]
Isn’t that what you want?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So I’m saying it’s great. Like, we keep ratcheting this up.

[Emily]
So how does she get rid of it? Like, we were on the fence of like, does she just go and let it get pickpocketed? Does she drop it somewhere where a terrible person is, she knows will just instantly take it and spend it?

[Shep]
Maybe they’re mugged early on in the movie. And so she goes to that same neighborhood.

[Emily]
Pretends to take it out of the atm.

[Shep]
Do ATMs give $100 bills. I thought they only give twenties. This is D. B. Cooper all over again.

[Thomas]
I don’t think the criminal is stopping being like, “Wait a minute.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
We could have news stories all throughout the film of the Subway Bandit strikes again.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Something like that.

[Shep]
Do you have to not know that it was taken? Like we talked about that. But that’s real difficult.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I mean, I guess, like, what are the specific rules? Just another person has to spend it? If I hand it to you, not in exchange for anything… We’ve already established donations don’t work. So how is that different to a donation?

[Shep]
Right. So the donations were cursing the recipients.

[Emily]
Mm.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So you can’t just give it to someone, otherwise you’re cursing them by handing it over.

[Thomas]
And it transfers to the daughter because the daughter took it.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Of her own free will.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
She took it without it being offered.

[Emily]
You’re right.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
So maybe that’s it. That’s the rule.

[Thomas]
Maria picked it up off the ground. No one offered it to her.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So, yeah, it has to be taken without being offered, and you can’t be placing it out in exchange for something.

[Emily]
Right. So putting it to be pickpocketed or dropping it would work.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Like if you put it on the sidewalk and walk away, does that count? If I put it on the sidewalk and walk away and Shep comes up without realizing I’ve done that, and he sees it and he goes, “Ooh, $100 bill.” And picks it up and spends it.

[Shep]
As I always do.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I gotta say the “Ooh, $100 bill” as well. It’s all part of the routine.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
I guess the problem with that comes from: Wouldn’t she have tried that earlier when she was trying to do the, you know, cut it up, tear it up, burn it, bury it.

[Shep]
No, because then someone would pick it up and they’d get the curse. She’s trying to get rid of the curse. She knows if she drops it, someone else will pick it up and be cursed like she was.

[Emily]
But now she’s incapacitated, and Sophia makes the decision.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Well, I don’t know. I think they make it together. It’s like, “Maria, this is going to kill you.”

[Emily]
Okay. Yeah. Because she’s already seen that her daughter took it, and she can’t-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
So now she’s like, “I can’t have this within reach of my loved ones.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. “Either your daughter’s going to be killed by this consequences of it, or you’re going to die and your daughter will be alone.”

[Emily]
Right. Okay.

[Thomas]
“But either way, this sucks for your family. This has to go away.”

[Emily]
“This is the only way we can do it.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right. Justifying it. Justifying it mentally.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“It’s fine if I pass the curse to someone else.”

[Thomas]
I mean, they can recognize that, like, this is bad. This sucks.

[Emily]
Right. They’re not justifying it. They’re just like, “This is what we have to do. This is the… This is where we’re at.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s literally justifying it. It’s like, “Oh, I don’t want to, but we gotta.”

[Emily]
Oh. I always think of justifying as changing it into the right thing. Like, unequivocally the right thing.

[Thomas]
You’re thinking that it is just.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Just and right.

[Emily]
Because “just” is in the word.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
I meant that it was equally spaced. The letters.

[Emily]
That makes more sense.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I think that’s a good explanation of why she has not tried this before.

[Emily]
Okay, so then, yes, let’s make it that easy.

[Shep]
See, I’d like it if she gets mugged and if it’s the same people that mugged her at the beginning.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Right. Hmm.

[Shep]
Because then she could be looking at them in the eyes and hold her hands up and they go through her pockets and they find the $100 bill and, and they take it and she doesn’t say anything and they laugh at her and whoop and holler and run off with that money. And she’s like, “I didn’t curse them. They chose to take it.” She’s justifying it.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
“And they were bad people.”

[Shep]
“And they were “bad” people.”

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
In quotation marks because, I mean, they are mugging people, but they’re down on their luck. They’re-

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Oh, they’re victims of capitalism.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So-

[Shep]
They’re victims of capitalism.

[Emily]
You can find empathy and… And sympathy for anyone.

[Shep]
This whole thing is an allegory for capitalism.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s a cursed $100 bill.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
It’s… Nothing’s more allegorical. It seems like it’s a good thing at the beginning and it turns out to have a horrific curse.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Yep, I’m on board. Who, who came up with this pitch? It’s great.

[Emily]
What a brilliant mind.

[Shep]
I’m just saying late-stage capitalism is bad. I hope this movie makes lots of money.

[Thomas]
Is there anything else to talk about in this pitch?

[Shep]
I mean, is there anything to add to the beginning of the story? We just sort of glossed over it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
We just, like, we just continued the pitch at the end.

[Emily]
Well, I mean, it’s the normal “I can’t pay the bills, I need to buy groceries, my kid needs new shoes,” all of that stuff.

[Thomas]
Sure, there’s gonna be that to set up the struggle.

[Shep]
Right. And they were mugged at the beginning. As we established, those muggers come back at the end.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So she had saved up what little money she had from her two jobs and then gets mugged on her way to buy food.

[Thomas]
Or whatever the… Maybe there’s some, something special that she’s going to buy.

[Emily]
Maybe her and Sophia were just gonna go out for an evening for once.

[Shep]
An evening? They have kids.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Those evenings are over!

[Emily]
That’s why it’s special. They managed to get a sitter who didn’t charge, and they were like, “I’ve got, you know, 50 bucks each. We can go and get a drink and have-“

[Thomas]
Right. It’s Manhattan. They can, they can each have a drink.

[Emily]
A drink. Right, right. But, you know, it’s. It’s their treat to themselves because they work so hard, and they’re always-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
It’s just. This is their one timeout in forever, and then they get mugged.

[Shep]
I mean, if they can afford to go out, then she’s not really struggling then. You know what I mean?

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
You know what I’m saying?

[Emily]
I. Yeah, I get what you’re saying, but I’m saying that sometimes, even when you are struggling, you scrimp and you save a little bit to have one nice thing for yourself once a year, maybe.

[Shep]
Okay, I guess I grew up even poorer than you.

[Emily]
I. You said she was down on her luck. You weren’t like, she’s destitute. Struggling is not destitute.

[Shep]
She’s got two jobs just to make ends meet. New York is expensive!

[Emily]
This is true.

[Shep]
Why is she still living in New York? She’d. She’d love to leave, but she can’t afford to leave. She can’t afford to stay.

[Thomas]
It doesn’t have to be New York.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Wherever.

[Emily]
Fine. Then she’s gonna go buy groceries and gets mugged and just make it even more depressing and sad.

[Thomas]
Well, that’s why I was thinking it could be like, it’s something special for her daughter. So then she gets the $100s. She finds the $100s and is like, “Oh, I can go get the thing after all.” But then the store, the Walmart where she buys it burns down or whatever we decided bad thing happens there.

[Shep]
Right. Can’t burn down because the, the toy store burns down.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Shep]
So it’s got to be the-

[Thomas]
There’s an active shooter situation or whatever.

[Shep]
That’s. Well, that’s the drug dealer.

[Thomas]
Oh, right, right, right.

[Emily]
We’re not escalating that far that quickly. They are. The building is condemned because of rats.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Plague of rats. I like that.

[Shep]
Yeah. What did I say? Massive health code violation. That’s what I had said in the pitch.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Massive health code violation.

[Thomas]
Listeria outbreak in the food court.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
There you go.

[Shep]
Food court?

[Emily]
The deli.

[Thomas]
The deli counter. Okay, fine.

[Shep]
Ah, gotcha, Gotcha.

[Thomas]
Was there any other early movie stuff we wanted to figure out?

[Shep]
We didn’t talk about the bodega very much.

[Emily]
It’s a bodega. What do we need to talk about?

[Shep]
Well, I was like this, she’s friends with the owner.

[Emily]
Ahmed? Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Were they just friend friends or like friends~?

[Shep]
What. What are you trying to imply? Look, she needed baby formula, and she was going to get it however she had to.

[Thomas]
I mean, I think that of the… Certainly she feels guilty about all of the times that she spends the money and people are injured or whatever, but I think this is one where she feels particularly guilty because this is like someone she knows and cares about. Someone who’s also a small business owner who’s struggling, you know, like, he’s not well off either.

[Shep]
Right. Right. She feels less guilt, definitely, spending it at the big supermarket chain store.

[Thomas]
Right. That’s more of like a, “Ooh, whoops.”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Whereas this is like a, “Oh, my gosh, what can I do?”

[Shep]
Right. But she didn’t know. She didn’t know.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And also, what can she do? She can’t pay for repairs or whatever.

[Thomas]
No.

[Shep]
She doesn’t have any real money. She only has the cursed money.

[Thomas]
When the curse gets passed on. So when they no longer have this $100 bill in their possession, is there some sort of benefit that comes along with that? Apart from you don’t have to deal with this cursed money anymore? Is there like a little bit of good luck or is it just, it’s done, it’s over. Phew.

[Shep]
I think it’s just. It’s done.

[Emily]
Done.

[Shep]
It’s over.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because otherwise, you’re rewarding them for passing on the curse.

[Thomas]
Hmm. Yeah, that’s a good point.

[Shep]
But again, that’s that moral ambiguity. So maybe it would be good to have a little bit of luck to offset all the terrible luck that they’ve gone through with the curse. So, I don’t know.

[Emily]
I think it’s better if it’s just, “It’s over, we’ve survived it and life goes back to normal, as crappy as it was. It’s not, I’m not ‘killing people’ crappy.”

[Shep]
You don’t want Maria to make a miraculous recovery in the hospital and be all better because the curse is passed on, so she-

[Emily]
She doesn’t die. How about that?

[Shep]
I’ll meet you halfway. She doesn’t die.

[Emily]
That’s her good luck. She doesn’t die. She will have thousands of dollars in medical bills to put her further into desperation.

[Shep]
Oh. The car that hit her happened to be a Lexus, and the person is well off. So-

[Thomas]
And they were found to be at fault.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Silver linings.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a $100 bill.

[Thomas]
Did we put our money where our mouths are or is it not worth the paper it’s printed on? Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. Links to all of those can be found at AlmostPlausible.com. Maybe this is your first episode or maybe you’ve been listening from day one. Either way, we want to thank you for being a part of our crew. Emily, Shep, and I hope that you’ll continue to join us as we forge ahead with more new episodes of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Thomas]
What we need to do is just find some tangential thing to talk about for 10 minutes and I can put that at the end of the credits sequence.

[Shep]
D. B. Sweeney!

[Thomas]
You know.

[Shep]
D. B. Sweeney is such a good actor. And… And Strange Luck was a great show. You talk about Wonderfalls being criminally underrated and canceled after one season. Strange Luck didn’t even get a full season.

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
When was this?

[Emily]
It was in 1993 or -4ish? It was at least a season after X-files because we watched it with my dad. Like, we all watched it as a family. And it was like, I think five episodes.

[Emily]
We watched it every week and then it just wasn’t on again. We’re like, “What happened to Strange Luck?”

[Shep]
Yeah, okay. It did get 17 episodes, which was not the full season, and it was canceled for low ratings.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Which is a shame because it was great and bizarre.

[Emily]
Was it ’93 or ’94?

[Shep]
It was ’95. You were getting warmer and warmer.

[Emily]
Oh, so close. 1993 to 1997 were just, it’s one giant year and it was a really good year.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.