Bowling Pin

References

• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• Bowling Alley Animations
• Free Guy
• Almost Plausible: Flashlight
• Mystery Men
• Killer Klowns from Outer Space
• Jean Claude van Damme
• Rocky
• Aladdin
• Jinn
• Hope Diamond
• National Treasure
• Hellraiser
  • Pinhead
• Janeane Garofalo
• I Dream of Jeannie
• Kingpin
• The Goonies
• Woody Harrelson
• Nokia 3310
• The Monkey’s Paw
• White House Bowling Alley
• Almost Plausible: Bread Maker
• The Blues Brothers
• Pawn Stars
• Honeypot
• The Boondock Saints
• Willem Dafoe
• James Bond
• Bearer Bonds
• Heat
• Die Hard

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Emily]
So these are the guys from Boondock Saints, right? Because I really like the actors. I wasn’t a fan of the movie, but I liked the actors and I just want them to do this together.

[Shep]
I think that those guys are too old now.

[Emily]
No, they’re not too old.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
So is Willem Defoe the pawn shop owner, then?

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary ideas and turn them into movies. On this week’s episode, we’ll be creating a movie where a bowling pin plays a crucial role in the story, hoping to bowl you over are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Howdy.

[Thomas]
And I’m Thomas J. Brown. Now, I’ve always enjoyed bowling. How about you guys?

[Emily]
I love bowling, but I am awful at it.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I’m not very good.

[Shep]
I actually can’t really bowl. My hand was crushed in a door when I was a teenager, and so I can’t- I don’t have much hand control.

[Thomas]
So your hand just does wild things and you’re like, “Oh, no!” It’s like Dr. Strangelove.

[Emily]
So if we ever have a bowling party, we will get you one of the ramps.

[Thomas]
Yeah. There you go.

[Shep]
I mean, we’ve had bowling parties. I bowled left handed, but I’m not lefthanded.

[Thomas]
All right, well, I’ll pitch first this week, so, you know, when you go bowling, there are those shitty animations that play on the TV when you get a strike or a spare or something like that. So our story takes place in that world with everyday people represented by bowling pins and the bowling balls or some kind of threatening species that could show up and attack at any moment.

[Shep]
Is this a horror themed-?

[Thomas]
I’m not sure.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
It could be like, an action thing. Action comedy, like Free Guy. My next idea, a bowling alley is closing its doors forever. So it holds a big final roll party and gives away all sorts of things as gifts to their patrons, including balls, shoes, and pins. Unbeknownst to everyone, a criminal was working as a maintenance man in the alley when he pulled a major heist. He hid the score, and its location was written down on a slip of paper, which he hid inside of a bowling pin. And of course, he marked the pin so he could easily find it later. He ended up getting caught and going to prison, but stayed silent on the whereabouts of the goods. Now he’s out of prison, but when he comes back to the bowling alley, he discovers that it has recently closed. Now he has to track down the bowling pin to recover his ill gotten fortune.

[Emily]
I like this because it’s very similar- not very, mildly similar to a pitch I have coming up.

[Thomas]
I don’t know how this idea came to me, but I pictured it in my head and I liked it. So some people are spelunking because you know how much we love spelunking on this show.

[Shep]
Caving? There’s another word for that. What is it called when you’re exploring a cave?

[Emily]
Spelunking. It’s called spelunking!

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
All right, so some people are spelunking and they come across a huge cavern. Nearly filling the cavern is a giant mountain of bowling pins. There are hundreds of thousands, at least. While they’re marveling over this, another pin drops down from a hole in the ceiling of the cavern. Where are the pins coming from and why?

[Shep]
I mean, obviously, all the bowling alleys are connected.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
This is what happens to the bowling pins when the machine pulls them off. This is where they go.

[Thomas]
They all just go there.

[Emily]
So it’s just brand new ones coming down each time.

[Thomas]
I like that idea. That’s great. I have a few other real short ones. A secret organization that meets in an abandoned bowling alley. And to get into the building, you have to show a special bowling pin lapel pin. So it’s sort of like-

[Shep]
Bowling pin.

[Emily]
Clever.

[Shep]
Hey, boo.

[Thomas]
A little speakeasy kind of thing. A vigilante who fights crime using bowling pins.

[Shep]
Wasn’t there from-

[Emily]
Mystery men.

[Shep]
Mystery Men. She had a bowling ball.

[Emily]
Would he be the nemesis of the bowling guy? Bowling ball lady?

[Thomas]
I mean, if there’s a second Mystery Men film, maybe that’s what we’re doing. We’re pitching a sequel to Mystery Men.

[Emily]
I mean, it’s been a thousand years since I’ve seen it, so I can make it totally different or exactly the same, because I don’t remember.

[Shep]
Oh, they would be rebooted as Mystery Women.

[Thomas]
There you go.

[Emily]
There you go.

[Shep]
It’s very similar. She’s the crossover character.

[Thomas]
Yeah. It’s way later. That group has sort of broken apart. They’ve all gone their own ways. And yeah, she’s starting up a new group. It’s good. My final idea, a movie similar to Killer Clowns from Outer Space, but with bowling pins. So the bowling pins come down from outer space and do something. I don’t know.

[Shep]
Until professional bowlers come out and take them all out.

[Thomas]
Right. Turns out, because bowling is such a popular thing here, everyone has the basic, necessary skills to attack the bowling pins from outer space.

[Emily]
I’m screwed.

[Thomas]
Those are all my ideas for this week. Who would like to go next?

[Shep]
I mean, I don’t have much.

[Thomas]
All right, well, let’s hear them.

[Shep]
Okay, so I was thinking maybe a bomb in a bowling pin that would detonate if it were struck. So because the bowling pins are random, it just comes down somewhere, like, “Is it going to be hit this time?”

[Thomas]
I think you could do a lot of great stuff behind the machines. The pinsetter machines where you can see the one pin moving around and it’s getting closer and closer to being put into the pin setter.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
I want this to star Jean-Claude Van Damme and have an epic fight scene back there with all of the machinery.

[Thomas]
Which are so dangerous.

[Emily]
Yes. Some guy at a local community college died because of one years ago.

[Shep]
Oh, Yikes.

[Thomas]
I don’t think people realize.

[Emily]
Yeah, it’s scary.

[Shep]
Okay, my other one is: imagine, like anthropomorphic bowling pins. So you have a tough guy bowling pin who refuses to take a dive and then refuses to fall when struck by the bowling ball.

[Thomas]
I’d love to see the look on the bowler’s face. Their ball just, like, bounces off the pin, and they’re just like, “What?”

[Shep]
Yeah. So messing up some bowling tournament or something.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But from the perspective of the bowling pin, he’s standing up. He’s not going to go down. It’s Rocky. That’s it for me.

[Emily]
All right, so a particularly hard strike cracks open the head pin and releases a genie. But not like the friendly blue kind. More like the actual djinn from the Middle Eastern lore kind. And three teenagers have to battle to save their town, their bowling alley, and their lives, by recapturing it and putting it back in the bowling pin bottle.

[Thomas]
I’d also like, at the end, if they capture it in something else, that’s not the bowling pin. Some other day object that seems harmless. It’s like, “Oh, this will be fine. No one will break this open.”

[Emily]
“No one will release it here.”

[Shep]
Right. Set up the sequel.

[Thomas]
Yeah, exactly. Then the after credits sequence. Is that then cracked open on the ground or whatever.

[Emily]
Then I have America’s oldest- no, this is the one that is similar-ish to yours, Thomas. America’s oldest bowling pin is discovered in a bowling alley in upstate New York. Out of curiosity, the museum curator runs it through an MRI. Yes, I know. This is very fictional. No one’s got access to MRIs for just randomly. Like, “Oh, I wonder what’s inside!”

[Thomas]
His brother is an MRI technician, and he takes them along.

[Emily]
There you go. And they discover inside the wooden pin, there’s an unusual object, something important that has been lost to history. Some kind of treasure, Hope Diamond-esque thing. So basically, like-

[Shep]
A Genie bottle.

[Emily]
Basically, like National Treasure, but with a bowling pin. A serial killer uses a bowling pin to bash in his victim skulls. He’s known as Pinhead.

[Thomas]
Does he have a puzzle box that you have to solve?

[Emily]
Yeah, but I like the idea now that he instead uses parts of his victims’ bones in bowling pins.

[Shep]
Yeah. And his nemesis is Janeane Garofalo.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
It all ties together.

[Emily]
All ties together.

[Thomas]
And her character’s name should be Jeannie.

[Emily]
Jeannie.

[Thomas]
We got to get chains in there somehow. If you’re going to have Cenobites, you got to have chains. Pinobites?

[Emily]
Then finally, a bowling tournament movie. Basically a more serious Kingpin. That’s all I got.

[Thomas]
Alright, what sounds good to us? I like the genie one.

[Emily]
The genie one definitely feels like our Goonies.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I like the bomb in the bowling pin.

[Emily]
I like the bomb in the bowling pin. That sounds fun. I like the message or the location being hidden in the bowling pin. And he has to hunt down where the bowling pin got sold or whatever.

[Shep]
How would you even begin to find out where a particular bowling pin went?

[Thomas]
What I imagine is that there’s like a list of the prizes or something. And so he knows who got what and he just has to start going to people’s homes that have the bowling pin and start trying to track them down until he finds the ones with the mark on it.

[Emily]
Or does he start by saying, “What happened to the bowling pins? Did you sell them? Did they give all of them away?”

[Thomas]
Well, the place is closed, so there’s nobody to ask. Although I guess he would still potentially be able to get in touch with the owner.

[Emily]
Right. That’s what I want. They actually feel like the sale of those kind of things or the gifting of it would be easy to at least start on a path down.

[Thomas]
I guess if he’s written down, if he knows where it’s hidden, how has he forgotten? If he’s the only person who ever knew?

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
He has amnesia, but he does remember that the bowling pin… I don’t know.

[Emily]
Why did he have to write it down then? Maybe it’s a combination.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s it. There’s a combination lock of some sort, or maybe there’s literally a key inside of the bowling pin. So I was thinking about, that seems like a terrible place to put it, because bowling pins, they get roughed up a lot, they get worn out and replaced. But maybe it was one that was in the back. It was like a special one that they use for calibration or something, or it was just a decorative one that was in the back, but it got given away or sold or something like that as part of the… Oh, maybe the bowling alley closed down and they sold the bowling alley and all of its contents and then the new owner was like, “Well, we’re not doing a bowling alley,” so they sold all the stuff that was in there. So this big lot of bowling pins went somewhere else.

[Shep]
It has to be a special one, has to be like a display one so it wouldn’t get mixed in with all the others.

[Thomas]
It’s like signed by some famous bowler.

[Emily]
Yeah. Or-

[Shep]
Signed by Woody Harrelson.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, they shot a movie there and it’s signed by the famous A-list actors who were acting in the film that was shot there. And so they keep it in the back.

[Emily]
It would be in a display case.

[Thomas]
And that way it’s really obviously marked.

[Emily]
And that would be something that people would either want to buy or do a raffle for.

[Thomas]
I could see somebody acquiring it and then trying to sell it online. So now you have another way to… like another path for him to go down.

[Emily]
Yeah. He finds out who got it at the thing, but then that guy sold it on eBay.

[Shep]
So is this the one that we’re going with? Because we’re like going down this path.

[Thomas]
I think it’s more a matter of like, are the problems of this one solvable?

[Shep]
Yeah, I think they’re solvable. He finds out that the guy sold it online and he tracks down the winner of the auction. And that’s not the bowling pin, it’s a copy because he’s selling it for the signature and he just looked at the original and then drew another one. So you have that false path.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s good. All right, well, let’s real quick, the genie one. What would happen in that one?

[Shep]
Well they should really trap it in a Nokia at the end.

[Thomas]
No, we want a sequel.

[Shep]
Right. I’m just saying that’s what they should have done. They failed to do that.

[Thomas]
So what is the havoc is a genie is wreaking, and why?

[Emily]
Well, if we’re doing more like a djinn-style genie, they’re a lot like demons, essentially, traditionally. Some are subservient and grant wishes, but there’s always like a catch to it.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And then some are just straight up evil and fuck with you. So why not have this one be straight up evil and fuck with you? Or we could start out with that false premise of it’s a genie, I’m going to grant you your wishes and then monkey paw it.

[Thomas]
I mean, I like the monkey paw style genie. I think the reason I would go that direction, as opposed to just straight up evil, is that that’s better understood by Western audiences.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
People have an idea of like, oh, a genie grants wishes, maybe reluctantly, maybe in a really dicky type of way. But that’s what genies do. And so I think we kind of need to lean into that.

[Shep]
Yeah. So that when the bad things happen to them, we go, “Well, it’s kind of their fault because they made that wish”

[Thomas and Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
“That was ambiguously worded.”

[Emily]
They weren’t specific enough. Right.

[Thomas]
How do they resolve it at the end?

[Shep]
One of them should be a lawyer.

[Emily]
So they’re not kids. We’re thinking more adult size.

[Thomas]
Somebody’s dad is a lawyer.

[Emily]
Yeah. One of them is just very, figures out how to be extremely literal. Like, maybe they’re normally very literal and that’s why they’re part of this sort of loser bowling group.

[Thomas]
Maybe the wish is something like, “I wish we would never have found this pin.” And so it suddenly jumps back.

[Emily]
Does it reset the pin then at that point and trap it back in? Oh, and then you can set up your sequel.

[Shep]
And then sequel is also still a bowling pin.

[Thomas]
Okay. And then bomb in a bowling pin. What’s the story there?

[Shep]
I have no idea. Bomb in a bowling pin. Perhaps a terrorist.

[Thomas]
I mean, terrorism works, right? You want to strike fear in everyday situations?

[Shep]
Strike fear? Hey?

[Thomas]
Hey, I’m telling you, my brain just does it.

[Emily]
There is a bowling alley in the White House.

[Shep]
Is there still a bowling alley in the White House?

[Emily]
I’m pretty sure it’s still there.

[Shep]
They get rid of stuff all the time.

[Emily]
I feel like we would have heard about it if Trump had gotten rid of it. And I know for a fact Obama used it because there were videos of him and his family using it.

[Thomas]
Yes. Also, nobody knows what’s really in the White House. Like the average person. If you said there’s this, they would go, “Yeah, sure. Why not?”

[Emily]
There’s an Olympic size swimming pool and a shark tank.

[Shep]
In the basement, they have a mini golf.

[Emily]
There’s a pumpkin patch in the back.

[Thomas]
So is it a Kill the President movie or is it a terrorism movie? We’re going to get on a list for that statement. I got to say that a different way. Is it a movie where the plot is to harm an important leader of our country? There’s no way to say that.

[Shep]
I’d say no.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
That’s a logistic nightmare. Plus, they’ve just got the small bowling alley, so it’s easy to find all the bowling pins.

[Emily]
It’s only like two lanes or something.

[Shep]
Right. But if you know that there is a bowling pin bomb somewhere in the city, you don’t even know what bowling alley it is yet. How do you even begin to find… follow the clues as the terrorist keeps calling in to the police and leaving more cryptic messages.

[Emily]
Why a bowling pin, though, and not-

[Thomas]
Not just like a pipe bomb somewhere,

[Emily]
Yeah. Or… yeah.

[Thomas]
Because then we wouldn’t have this movie.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Good point. You know-

[Shep]
That would be some other episode.

[Emily]
100% of action movies are that way. “Why is this this way? Because we wanted to make this movie.”

[Thomas]
So we have hidden treasure, hidden bomb, hidden genie.

[Emily]
I personally like the hidden object treasure the best, and second best would be the bowling pin bomb, I think.

[Thomas]
The genie one feels a lot like Bread Maker.

[Emily]
Yeah. Any opinions Shep? None of them are speaking to you this week.

[Thomas]
Well, we went the furthest down the path of the hidden treasure one. So it feels like that’s the one that was inspiring us the most. Is that safe to say?

[Shep]
That one definitely is the bowling pin throughout.

[Emily]
Right. It’s very concentrated on the bowling pin.

[Thomas]
Well, the bomb one, you have bowling pin as container. I mean, I suppose you do with this one as well.

[Shep]
Right. But the bomb one, you wouldn’t even necessarily know that it’s a bowling pin at the beginning, whereas this one…

[Emily]
That would be like a second act reveal with the bomb one, I feel like.

[Shep]
Right. And with the genie, it starts with a bowling pin, but then the genie is out of the bowling pin. So the hidden treasure starts with the boiling pin and ends with the bowling pin.

[Thomas]
So I imagine that it would start out with the heist.

[Shep]
Would it start out with the highest or is that a reveal later? Because if you just start with the guy getting off the bus in town and going up to a convenience store and then him dropping his bag and going, “Oh shit,” like he expected it to be a bowling alley and it’s not. And so now it’s the mystery for the audience of who is this guy? What did he think was going to be here? Why is he upset that it’s a Quick Stop?

[Thomas]
Feels like a hipster bar would be more likely.

[Shep]
Yeah, that’s a good one.

[Emily]
Are they in the actual bowling alley building and just have gotten rid of everything?

[Thomas]
Yeah. They’ve pulled up the lanes to make tables. It’s bowling themed. There are lots of pins still in the building, but not that one.

[Shep]
That’s good because he can go in and get a drink.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And then he starts kind of looking at the pins, thinking, “Wait,” and asking questions.

[Shep]
Is it just one guy?

[Thomas]
It doesn’t have to be.

[Shep]
If it were two guys or two people, then you have them interacting with each other. So you have two people show up and they see that it’s a bar and they give each other a look and then go inside and get a booth and start making their plan of what do they do now.

[Thomas]
You have a plausible excuse for them to speak.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Is it the classic story of one is out of prison because he’s the one who got caught and the other one was out the whole time and he’s been waiting for him to get released?

[Shep]
No. If he was out the whole time, then he would have known, right?

[Emily]
He would have gotten it. Yeah. True.

[Shep]
They had to both be in prison and both just getting out. Although why they’re both just getting out at the same time? I don’t know.

[Thomas]
Well, I mean, maybe he has been out the whole time and he does know, but he knows the combination and the other guy has the key and that was to keep each other honest. We each have something that is necessary to get into wherever the treasure is. Keep calling it the treasure. It’s just stolen money or whatever.

[Shep]
I mean, if one of them is out and knows where the stolen goods are, but just doesn’t have the key, they have how many years to, I don’t know, learn lock picking?

[Thomas]
Maybe it’s in a safety deposit box in a bank.

[Emily]
Wouldn’t they have been able to link that to the one that went to prison? Because you have to show ID and-

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, right. If they don’t know who stole it. But clearly they do. Well, maybe he gets arrested for an unrelated crime.

[Emily]
He’s gotten the deposit box under an assumed name?

[Thomas]
I think it could be under his actual name.

[Emily]
Wouldn’t they check all of his assets when he goes to prison because he has to pay back the state for his trial and prison keep?

[Thomas]
I guess they probably could get into a safety deposit box.

[Emily]
If they know you have one. Maybe. Maybe not.

[Thomas]
I don’t know.

[Shep]
However, if it were just locked up somewhere and neither of them had access to that because they’re both in prison…

[Emily]
Well, because in Blue Brothers, one gets out before the other, but like only shortly before the other, right?

[Thomas]
I mean, we could even do it that way. They get out within a week of each other or something.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. They’re really good friends and they’re trustworthy thieves. They’re honorable thieves. So one waits for the other.

[Thomas]
Well, maybe he wasn’t even planning to wait. Maybe we find out later he was going to screw him over and he went to the building and was like, “Well, shit”. And so he doesn’t know what to do. And so he has to wait for the other guy to come out to have some bright idea. So he brings him there, and so then he can be sort of the audience surrogate in a way, in that this guy’s already figured out what happened. So he can say, “Yeah, they sold the place a year ago and turned it into this bar. And I asked about the pin, and they sold it” or something like that. What if they weren’t in prison? What if they just left the town or the country or something like that until the heat died down?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
What’s the statute of limitations?

[Thomas]
I’d have to look that up.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Well, it depends on what it’s for, but, yeah, that makes sense to me. I would buy that as an audience member because I don’t know shit about that kind of stuff, so.

[Thomas]
Because I do like the idea of both of them showing up at the same time and both of them being like, “What is this?”

[Shep]
Although I like what you’re suggesting that one of them knows a little bit more because like you said, you could have that person explaining it to the other person as the audience surrogate.

[Thomas]
Okay, we get both. They show up together. They kind of, like you said, give each other that look of what the fuck. They go inside, they get the table, they’re looking around. One of the guys, he says, “I’m going to find out what’s going on” or something like that, goes over to the bar. You don’t hear what he’s saying. You just see that he’s talking to the bartender. He comes back and then explains everything to the other guy.

[Shep]
What is the other guy doing during that time? You can’t just have his view of the other person talking to the bartender because you’re going to hear all that information in a second. You don’t need to see it explained twice. So he needs to be, like, exploring the building.

[Thomas and Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He’s trying to find where’s the back area, or where’s the storage.

[Shep]
Right. He knows where the back area was. There’s a door there. So maybe he checks to see if it’s locked. And then they both sit back down at the table and each fills in the other. And the audience still doesn’t know what they’re doing or what they’re looking for.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
I was thinking you could also introduce that sort of female interest. He goes to look in the back and she’s like, “Can I help you?”

[Shep]
Are they going to stay at the bar?

[Emily]
No, I guess not.

[Shep]
I mean, don’t get distracted.

[Emily]
Maybe he starts to get distracted and that’s part of the conversation. It’s like, “Don’t get distracted.”

[Shep]
I don’t want them to get distracted.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
I want to see competent people being competent, because that’s what I like to see in movies. They pulled off a heist successfully together. They know their stuff. They can follow a plan. So all of the roadblocks that come up in front of them aren’t their fault.

[Emily]
So the person who gets it and wants to sell it on eBay or whatever. Right?

[Thomas]
They either give to somebody as a gift, or they sell it to somebody. That person takes it to a pawn shop. The pawn shop sold it online.

[Shep]
They sold the original, or they sold a copy online.

[Thomas]
Maybe they’re a dodgy pawn shop.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Well, that’s what I was saying. So if they sold a copy online, what did they do with the original? Because the other guys are going to go follow the copy first, obviously, and discover it is, in fact, fake.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Maybe they still have the original. They kept it. They’re a fan of whatever movie or whatever person who signed it.

[Emily]
So they go back and rob the pawn shop?

[Shep]
He doesn’t have it at the pawn shop, he has it at his house. In fact, you can have things escalating here. They break into the house to get the bowling pin, but other family members are home. So now you have this increasing danger. How far are they willing to go to get back these stolen goods? Are they willing to kill for it? Is that how valuable it is? How dangerous are these characters?

[Emily]
Is one more dangerous than the other? Like, one’s willing to kill for it because one is focused on it so tightly that nothing else matters. “This is our payout. We’re done after this” kind of thing. And the other one’s like, “Yeah, but it’s not worth killing, right?”

[Shep]
I don’t know if I want that kind of tension between them because they’re a team, and it’s so tropey to have that inner team betrayal and stuff that I’ve seen a thousand times. I want them to be on the same page because I think I see that less often. So that’s what I would want to see more.

[Emily]
Well, then they have to be willing to kill for it.

[Thomas]
Is the pin actually at that location? At what point in the film should they get their hands on the pin?

[Shep]
These are good questions.

[Thomas]
It feels like not till the end.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Okay, so they break into the house, and the pin is there. They have their hands on the pin, but somehow they’re caught and they aren’t able to escape with the pin. They have to leave it behind for whatever reason. But now the pawn shop owner knows that somebody’s trying to steal this pin, so he moves it to a different location, maybe a more secure location.

[Emily]
Isn’t he curious as to why they would want this pin so bad? It’s just-

[Thomas]
Maybe they’re big Woody Harrelson fans as well.

[Emily]
Don’t get me wrong. I love Woody Harrelson very inappropriately, but-

[Thomas]
Enough to kill?!

[Emily]
I don’t think I would break into a house to steal a bowling pin he signed.

[Shep]
Could the pawn shop person even go to the police about this break in because they lied and have previously sold this item?

[Thomas]
It’s reasonable that they would call the police and report that.

[Emily]
But they shouldn’t be in possession of it because they very publicly sold it on eBay for lots of money.

[Shep]
Right. He has to sell it in an auction, but it can’t be eBay because how would they even track down the winner of that auction?

[Thomas]
I mean, it sounds like it’s not a super public auction.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
That was originally what we were trying to solve, and I don’t think he would think about that in that moment. I think he would think, “Oh, my house has been broken into.” What do you do when your house is broken into? You call the cops.

[Emily]
What if he’s like a TV, like a celebrity pawn shop owner, like Pawn Stars type.

[Shep]
On, like, local cable access.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He’s a small town celebrity.

[Emily]
So it would be known that he had sold this.

[Thomas]
What’s the goal of having this be known, though? Like, what are you trying to get to?

[Emily]
I thought that he couldn’t call the police. So he has to figure out the break in on his own.

[Shep]
Oh, he probably would think that the break in is the person who bought it from him discovered that it’s a fake.

[Thomas]
Right. Because if he did sell it on eBay, he’d have no idea who the person was.

[Shep and Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
But if it’s just someone else in that town.

[Thomas]
And he would feasibly have their address so he could go to their house and harass them.

[Emily]
Because he’s not a good person either.

[Thomas]
Clearly. We’ve established he’s shady.

[Shep]
Oh, the pawn shop guy has to discover that there’s something valuable hidden with the bowling pin because you need that antagonist.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So who’s our antagonist?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s not just the two guys trying to find the bowling pin to get the key to unlock the hidden cache, you need that additional conflict.

[Emily]
Did he know before or after the break in?

[Shep]
After.

[Emily]
That’s what I was trying to kind of get there with “Why would people break into steal a bowling pin? Why would that be a thing?”

[Shep]
Well, the bowling pin is valuable. That’s why he sold a replica of it and kept the original, because it has that value.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
He didn’t realize it has some other secret value, but he has to discover that somehow.

[Emily]
How is the key or combination hidden in the bowling pin? What is the mechanism of getting it out? Does part of it twist? Is there a plug at the bottom?

[Thomas]
Yeah, there’s probably some sort of thing at the bottom where if you… Oh, there’s like a threaded grommet thing. So you’d screw a thing in and then pull it out and it would pull out a core. A hidden core.

[Emily]
So he’s examining it to see, to make sure it’s the right one because he’s already made a dupe and sold it. Maybe he thinks the auction winner has come and stolen it. Maybe he’s worried they’ve swapped it so he’s, like, examining it and fiddling with it and then feels the click or whatever and is able to open it. And then that’s how he discovers the hidden key.

[Thomas]
What if he’s already found the key before the break in? They break in, they get the bowling pin, and he shows up while they’re standing there with the bowling pin in their hands and he’s like, “Oh, it’s not in there.”

[Shep]
You wouldn’t say that, though. If you’ve taken the key out, you don’t tell the armed people that have broken into your house. “Oh, that’s not where that is.” You let them take it, whatever they broke in.

[Thomas]
But he needs them because clearly they know what the key goes to.

[Emily]
Yeah. He has no idea what the key is for. That’s part of the reason he sold a fake one, other than he wanted to keep the original because it’s cool and make money at the same time. But he discovered the key, so he was like, “This is weird. I’m going to keep this and figure out that story.”

[Shep]
So why would he have sold a replica if he already found the hidden contents?

[Thomas]
Because, as you say, it still has value and he’s a shady guy.

[Shep]
Yes, but he knows that the hidden contents must have some other separate value. So he would sell the original to distance himself from it.

[Emily]
I think he would keep it because he’s shady and he’s like, “This is some shady shit that’s probably going to lead to a bigger payout.” So that’s why he would keep it and sell the replica, because he doesn’t want to separate himself from it.

[Shep]
Yeah. So why sell the replica at all?

[Emily]
To make money.

[Thomas]
No, he didn’t sell the replica. He has the replica there. He’s waiting for somebody to come and ask after it. He will give them the replica knowing it doesn’t have the key inside of it. And so when they come back…

[Shep]
See, he wouldn’t want to have to rely on them to come back if he’s waiting for them to show up, he’s got to catch them while he can. He can’t let them leave because they might not come back.

[Thomas]
It’s a good point. So it sounds like there’s no replica then.

[Shep]
So, yeah, there’s no replica.

[Thomas]
We don’t need a replica.

[Shep]
We don’t need a replica.

[Emily]
I thought we just wanted it for the red herring.

[Shep]
No, the valuable part of it is the hidden key. They want to catch whoever’s looking for that key so that they can discover what the key goes to. So they don’t want any red herrings to lead people away from them.

[Emily]
Okay, you’re making a good point now. I’m understanding the point now.

[Shep]
For them, the bowling pin is the bait.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They want people to know they have the bait, so they come to them to get it.

[Emily]
No, I get it now. I totally get it.

[Thomas]
So what is the plan for our brothers? They come into the pawn shop asking after the pin, and he realizes, “Oh, these are the guys who know about it.”

[Shep]
If his goal is to find out where the key goes, then he would have quite a lot of time to set up a plan for dealing with whoever shows up looking for the pin.

[Thomas]
So maybe he tells them to go to a location. “Oh, it’s at this warehouse.”

[Shep]
Why would he tell them to go somewhere he would arrange? Like, “Oh, yes, I still have that item.”

[Thomas]
That’s what I’m saying. He says, “Meet me at this place at this time.” But it’s a trap.

[Shep]
Well, they don’t know that it’s a trap.

[Thomas]
Right. Is it publicly displayed at the pawn shop? If it’s bait?

[Shep]
There would be a photo of it at the pawn shop.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That would make more sense because they wouldn’t want it to ever get stolen at their pawn shop.

[Shep]
Right. So they could find out that the pin ended up at this pawn shop. They go to the pawn shop, they see the photo of it. So then they ask, “Hey, do you guys still have that pin?” And the pawn shop guy’s like, “Oh, yeah, it’s in our storage facility. It wasn’t popular enough. No one asked for it, so it ended up in long term storage. But if you’re interested, if you want to buy it, then we can make arrangements.”

[Thomas]
He has some exorbitant price for it. Like, preposterously expensive. And he knows any normal person would be like, “It’s not worth $1,000. Forget that.”

[Shep]
Right. $10,000.

[Thomas]
Whatever it is. But they know “Eh, it’s fine. It’s a small price to pay to get the $5 million or whatever.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Okay, so they show up at the warehouse.

[Shep]
They show up the warehouse.

[Thomas]
It’s a trap. Is it just a pawn shop owner with a gun? Does he have some thugs?

[Shep]
Oh, no, he’s got to have a crew. You got to have the two brothers against an entire gang.

[Thomas]
And do they totally fall for it? They don’t realize… Or do they get to the warehouse and they’re like, “This is shady as shit.”

[Shep]
I think that they, because remember: competent. Competent, competent, competent.

[Thomas and Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
They would separate.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They wouldn’t both go in.

[Emily]
Where is the one who stays behind? Where is behind? Is behind in the car?

[Thomas]
He goes up in the catwalks with a sniper rifle. Do they get guns, though, or weapons of some kind to protect themselves? Or do they not realize? Do they not feel like this is shady as hell until they get there? “We should have brought guns.” I mean, if you’re meeting at, like, 8 p.m. at a storage facility by the docks or whatever, that seems really shady.

[Shep]
Yeah, but remember, competent. You don’t want these guys to ever go, “Oh, we should have done whatever.” So they must suspect that it’s a trap because they’re paranoid.

[Emily]
Yeah. They’re a little paranoid. And it is sketchy that he is asking so much for the bowling pin.

[Thomas]
Yeah, good point.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
They’re like, “No one loves Woody Harrelson that much.”

[Shep]
So how much explaining to the audience do you want to have? Because they could discuss the situation before they go.

[Thomas]
I think as soon as they walk out of the pawn shop, they’re like, “Well, that’s obviously a trap.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And then the other one’s like, “Yeah, $10,000? Clearly that’s a honey pot.”

[Emily]
So what do they decide? They’re clearly going to go, right?

[Shep]
They’re clearly going to go because there’s a chance that they have the pin, and that’s what they really need.

[Emily]
But they’re going to go about it a very intelligent way.

[Shep]
Right. They’re going to go about it, assuming that it is a trap. So what do they do? They can’t bring in other people because they don’t want to share that pot of $10 million.

[Thomas]
Are they in a position to show up at the facility but not make their presence known and just wait until the guys leave to see what they do with the pin? Do they put it back into the storage thing? Do they take it with them? Whatever. Because maybe the guy, he gets mad that they stood him up, but he’s not an idiot either. He has this whole plan, so he knows he needs to secure the pin. He can’t leave it at this location because he told them that’s where it was. So he thinks maybe they’re waiting to come later and steal it.

[Shep]
Right. Well, what they should do is immediately after leaving the pawn shop, go to that location because they know that the pawn shop guy is going to get his crew together and go to the location, but they just have the two of them and they’re ready to go immediately.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So they go and start observing the location and wait for the pawn shop guy and his crew to show up. And as soon as the crew shows up, they know they were right. So then they don’t go and show up at the time, and they just text the guy. Like “We thought about it, $10,000 is too much.” That’s their excuse for not showing up. But like you said, the pawn shop guy is also suspicious. So he’s going to get that text and go, “Oh, they figured out that it was a trap.” So what do you do then? What does he do then?

[Thomas]
As far as he knows, he doesn’t know they’re watching him.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So he could take it with him back to his house, thinking, “Well, they don’t know where I live, and I have a safe in my house” or something like that. So they could follow him to his house.

[Shep]
Well, how competent is the pawn shop guy? Because if I laid a trap for these guys and suspected they knew that it was a trap and I had a crew of guys with me, I’d send each of them out with a bowling pin, and they’d all go to a different location because there’s only two of these brothers that can’t follow us all.

[Emily]
Why does he have so many bowling pins there?

[Shep]
Because he had all this time to prepare. This isn’t a spur of the moment thing.

[Thomas]
Well, he probably bought a whole bunch of bowling pins from the alley when they closed.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So he just has a box of them in the storage unit there.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, that would make sense. He bought a ton of them and then there was the signed one. Okay, I get it. Why does he keep it, though, if it’s valuable? Because of the signature and because of the key in it, why is he actually keeping it in the storage locker with the rest of the garbage bowling pins?

[Thomas]
That’s where he’s going to spring the trap.

[Emily]
But I mean, would it just be there this whole time just sitting in the storage locker, or is he keeping it at his house and he’s going to bring in there?

[Shep]
Oh, so it’s not even there.

[Thomas]
That’s a good point. Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, that’s good. So he has it at home in a safe.

[Emily]
Anyway. It was never there.

[Shep]
Anyway, so it was never there.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So him sending all the guys out with bowling pins is just a precaution.

[Thomas]
So he doesn’t take a bowling pin with him.

[Emily]
Yeah, he does.

[Thomas]
I think he shouldn’t. I think that’s how they know to follow him. “Why didn’t he take one, too?”

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
That’s suspicious. If I were him, I would give all my guys dummy bowling pins and send them away. But I would take one, too. So why didn’t he take one? We can’t follow them all. We know he knows where it is. That could even be their reasoning. Maybe they don’t even think about the fact that he doesn’t take a pin. Or maybe he does take a pin. “We can’t follow them all and we know he knows where it is.” And it could be a situation, too, where they’re thinking, “Do I trust my crew with my giant gold bar and I give everyone, no do I take a fake gold bar and give the real one to somebody else, or do I keep the real one and give the fake one to somebody else as a decoy?” You got to think that he would take the real one.

[Shep]
Right. I like that.

[Thomas]
They could assume that he would take the real one because why would you ever let the real one out of your sight?

[Emily]
See, they in fact, would let the real one out of their sight because they’re a little bit competent to know that people would think that way.

[Thomas]
They have, clearly.

[Emily]
But he’s slightly less competent than them. So he’s not going to let this one go.

[Thomas]
Maybe it’s a combination of both. One of them says, you know, “I don’t think if it were me, I wouldn’t let the thing out of my sight.” And the other guy goes, “Yeah, and why didn’t he take a bowling pin, too?”

[Shep]
It doesn’t matter because they know he knows where the real one is.

[Thomas and Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
All of the distraction doesn’t work on them because even if the real one were one of the other ones, it doesn’t matter. They can’t follow them all.

[Emily]
He knows which one is the real one.

[Shep]
And he knows which one is the real one.

[Emily]
Even if he gave it to the other guy.

[Shep]
Exactly. So he is the key at that point.

[Thomas]
Did his team pull up and they’d which car is his? And one of them runs over and puts like an AirTag in the spare tire or something so they can just track the AirTag and they don’t have to follow him.

[Emily]
Could they have done that on their way out of the pawn shop? Because the guy is a little bit full of himself. So he’s got like some ridiculous vehicle plastered with his face on it.

[Thomas]
Yeah, if he’s got the TV show, right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
If it were me, I would assume that that was just some company van and not his personal vehicle.

[Emily]
True. Okay.

[Thomas]
There’s no guarantee he would show up in that one. But if you see which car he shows up in, then that’s probably the one he’s driving and one of them can run over real quick.

[Shep]
How expensive are AirTags?

[Emily]
$100 maybe?

[Shep]
Enough that you wouldn’t want to just tag every vehicle in a parking lot.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Okay, good to know.

[Thomas]
Could you buy like a super cheap Android phone and use Find My Phone?

[Shep]
They do make super cheap pay as you go phones.

[Thomas]
Well, at any rate, they have some sort of method for tracking the guy. So they do that. One of them sneaks over hides the phone, like in his bumper or wherever he hides it. Oh, maybe that was a plan all along. One of them is waiting by the parking lot. One of them is waiting where they’ve got a good view of everything.

[Emily]
So these are the guys from Boondock Saints, right? Because I really like the actors. I wasn’t a fan of the movie, but I liked the actors and I just want them to do this together.

[Shep]
I think that those guys are too old now.

[Emily]
No, they’re not too old.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
So is Willem Defoe the pawn shop owner, then? Well, it’s time to take a break anyway, so let’s put a pin in this, and when we get back, we’ll figure out what their plan is.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. Emily has done some research during the break and discovered that AirTags are very cheap. Like $30, you said?

[Emily]
Yeah, about $30. Surprisingly cheap, I felt, because it was an Apple product that it had to be minimum $100.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah, I was thinking, like, $60 or $70 in my head. So $30? That’s not bad. Okay, so we decided they track the guy to his house, the pawn shop owner to his house. What is the plan when they get there? If he’s a pawn shop owner, I assume he has guns.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Of course he has guns. Not only is he a pawn shop owner, but he’s shady shit.

[Thomas]
Yeah. And he was just trying to spring a trap on these guys. Maybe they even saw that the guys had guns.

[Emily]
Now, are they the violent kind? Do they have guns? Do they not like guns? I feel like in that line of work, you have to have guns. You can’t really do that without it.

[Shep]
Remember, competent. If they can do their job and not draw extra heat on themselves by killing someone, then they’ll do it clean.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
These are gentlemen burglars.

[Shep]
I mean, they’re not gentlemen, but-

[Thomas]
Oh, so the tuxedos that we rented for them are not…?

[Shep]
It’s James Bond.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
No, they’re clean. They’re clean.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So, yeah, they want to get in and interrogate this guy, but this guy is expecting trouble.

[Emily]
So he’s expecting gun wielding, semi crazed people desperate to get a key, and they are coming in cool and calm.

[Thomas]
These guys are patient.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
They just spent a decade out of the country waiting for this. What’s another few days?

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
The guy doesn’t go home alone. He brings one of his crew back with him and makes the crew guy sit and stand watch all night because he’s paranoid. So they know where he lives. Cool. No rush. They know where he works. They know where he lives. They know where the storage unit is. They know all they need to know for now. So they wait a few days for him to stop having the guard hang out in front of his house.

[Emily]
Now is he deciding that they’ve moved on because they saw him as a threat, or is he deciding that they really weren’t interested, or is he still like “They’re planning something big”?

[Thomas]
I think he thinks that they’ve just moved on. Maybe they weren’t even the right guys. Maybe they were just idiots with too much money who thought they were going to buy this bowling pan and then backed out. “Maybe I pegged them wrong from the start” is his thought.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Nothing’s happened. They haven’t come back. It’s been a week. No big deal. So things kind of go back to normal for him. He’s letting his guard back down until one morning, he gets into his car, and they’re already there, and they have a gun. I don’t know.

[Emily]
I like the idea of maybe him letting down his guard, his crew member goes home and he just starts going about his days again and they break into the house.

[Thomas]
Oh, while he’s gone?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. Before interrogating him, they check the house. That’s good.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So they know there is the safe. They don’t find the pin anywhere in the house. And there’s a big safe where it feasibly could be.

[Emily]
Maybe they have to decide, do they want to break into the safe because that’s an option-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Or do they want to get the combination from the guy himself?

[Thomas]
I mean, if they get a combination from him. That’s a huge complication.

[Shep]
Right. Because he’ll know.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Cracking the safe is going to take a lot of time that they maybe don’t have. Or maybe that would be very risky for whatever reason. Maybe there’s-

[Emily]
Well, it’s just as risky because it takes a lot of time. He could come back.

[Thomas]
Yeah. He can come back in the middle of it.

[Emily]
He has a fairly consistent schedule, but it’s still sporadic enough that he could come back early if they don’t pick the right day for whatever reason.

[Thomas]
Nothing’s guaranteed.

[Shep]
Oh, he has his crew come by his house every day at some point during the day at a random time. Just come by and check and make sure everything… make sure the security alarm is still on. Make sure the safe is secure.

[Emily]
Because I like the idea of that conflict of, “Okay, what crime are we committing next?”

[Shep]
I like the idea of them safe cracking because it harkens back to what they did ten years ago. This is what they’re good at.

[Emily]
Right. I think ultimately they choose that one because it’s the lower risk, because if they go straight to him, there’s a possibility of violence and not being successful or whatever.

[Thomas]
It’s physically dangerous for them, and it could wind up with them having to cross the line they don’t want to cross if they don’t have to. So, yeah, the safe cracking, I think, is what they would likely choose.

[Shep]
Right. So they safe crack and they have that tension during that scene. Can they get into the safe and get out before the next time someone from the crew comes by?

[Thomas]
And somebody from their crew definitely comes by while they’re in the middle of it.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. So they have to reset the safe room and then hide and wait for the crew guy to leave before they can continue. So I assume that they crack the safe successfully. Is the bowling pin in the safe?

[Emily]
Are we at the end of the movie?

[Thomas]
It doesn’t feel like it.

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
This could be the mid second act turning point right here.

[Emily]
Right. If that’s the case, then it’s not there, right?

[Thomas]
Well, either it’s not there or it is there, but the key is not inside.

[Emily]
I like that.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So they get it, put everything back as best they can. Did they crack the safe in a destructive or a nondestructive manner?

[Emily]
I would say if they’re competent and they’re really good at this and they debated over the decision of what was the right way to do it, why it would take so much time and they have to care is that it’s not destructive.

[Thomas]
Okay, so they clean up their presence. They leave, they get back to Motel Six, wherever it is they’re staying.

[Shep]
They open up the bowling pin and it’s an AirTag. They’ve been tracked! Oh no!

[Thomas]
Yeah, but they open the pin and no key.

[Shep]
No key. So what’s there instead of a key?

[Thomas]
Oh, nothing.

[Shep]
Nothing? Not a note? Like, “I have your key”?

[Thomas]
Yeah, maybe there is. Maybe there’s a note that says something to the effect of, “I know what you’re looking for. Meet me-“

[Shep]
“I want a share.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, “I want a share.” That’s not bad, because then you have the tension of this guy who was trying to harm them in the first place, so they’ll never fully trust him.

[Emily]
No. Because he’s obviously going to kill them or double cross them in some way.

[Thomas]
He looks at the note, he’s like, “It’s another trap.” “Yeah, but we don’t have a choice.” So do they just show up at the pawn shop?

[Shep]
With the note?

[Thomas]
With the note and the bowling pin?

[Emily]
I want them to be that bold.

[Thomas]
Because they know.

[Shep]
They know.

[Thomas]
They know they’re safe.

[Emily]
And it’s going to catch him off guard completely.

[Shep]
It won’t, though. He left the note in the bowling pin.

[Thomas]
And he presumably is checking it every day, so he would know unless they immediately go from like, he hasn’t gone home yet.

[Shep]
Ah, it’s the same day.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Is that too risky? They know he has a crew. It might not be a good idea to show up at the pawn shop. You need neutral territory. “Meet us at the bowling al- At the bowling hipster cafe.”

[Emily]
Oh, maybe the note says to meet at the hipster cafe at a certain time and the guy just goes there every day and they didn’t notice that.

[Shep]
So, he was in the first scene, like in the background.

[Thomas]
Well, I imagine that he wouldn’t take the key out-

[Emily]
Until they’ve shown up.

[Thomas]
Until they’ve shown up.

[Emily]
Or until they didn’t show up at the-

[Thomas]
Well, yeah, right. Maybe the key is separate from- maybe he stores them separately, but he now keeps the key with him.

[Emily]
And he put the note in after they didn’t show up. So since then, he has been going to the bar waiting for them to show up once they finally actually stole the pin.

[Thomas]
Or maybe he has something like, “Call me.”

[Shep]
Yeah, just call me.

[Emily]
Fine. I like an overcomplicated plot.

[Thomas]
No, we still have it. So he says, “Call me.” They do. He’s like, “All right, well, clearly we’re all on the same side now. Why don’t you come into the pawn shop and we’ll work it out?” And they’re like, “No, we’re not idiots. We’ll meet at this cafe in a public place. How about the bowling cafe or a park” or wherever we decide they want to meet. So they have to meet in public so that these guys can stay safe.

[Shep]
Yeah, I like the bowling bar.

[Emily]
I like the bowling bar.

[Shep]
Because you already have that set.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So just reuse it.

[Thomas]
Yes. So they meet there. So this is a mid second act turning point then is they’re joining forces with the bad guy?

[Shep]
You’ve got to be in the third act now.

[Emily]
Yeah. I thought the mid second turning point was realizing it was empty.

[Shep]
Yeah, there’s not much left here. The guy has the key.

[Thomas]
Okay, so the lowest low is they realize they have to join forces with this guy.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
They’ve literally run out of options. They have the pin. There’s no way for them to get the key.

[Emily]
Do competent thieves then double cross him, or are they content to just give him his cut?

[Shep]
Well, they would be content to give him his cut if it’s only a third.

[Thomas]
So he’s trying to argue 50/50.

[Shep]
Yeah, he’s trying to argue 50/50 because what he really wants is 100%.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
But he wants them to be at ease thinking that he only wants half.

[Emily]
He’s not a great guy. I think he would start out saying 50/50.

[Shep]
Yeah, he’s got to start out saying 50/50.

[Emily]
And they’re like, “There’s three of us.” And he’s like, “Yeah, but…”

[Shep]
“Without me, you have nothing. So with me, you have at least half.” So the moment they meet in the bar, they have to stick together. They don’t want him going and gathering his crew and he doesn’t want them talking behind his back. So from that point on, they have to go directly to wherever the key goes as a group. And the pawn shop guy has to figure out how to contact his crew and have them meet him at the target location. And they have to figure out how to get out of this situation with the pawn shop guy. But none of them can talk or get on their phones.

[Thomas]
Right. I imagine the brothers said, “Meet us at this cafe and come alone. If we see anybody, any of your crew, we walk.” So he agrees to that. But of course, that’s not what happens. He has one of his crew guys meet him there. But he’s like, “But just wait in the car.” Maybe even that guy knows where… Oh, he knows to follow them.

[Shep]
Right. And they would probably assume that he’s got a crew member watching.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So they go out in the back, which is where they parked. They just go out and immediately get in their car.

[Emily]
How does pawn shop owner signal?

[Shep]
Let’s figure that out.

[Emily]
All right.

[Shep]
That’s where the tension comes from.

[Emily]
Can’t uses phone. He’s on the opposite side of the building.

[Thomas]
Where is the treasure hidden, then? Or the money?

[Emily]
Do they take him to the actual location?

[Shep]
They have to. He won’t relinquish the key. He’ll put the key in whatever lock and turn it himself. But he’s not going to give it up.

[Emily]
Is it at the airport? The bus station?

[Thomas]
Is it a public place or a private place? It’s probably a private place if they stole the money from somewhere and hid it.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Is it like one of those fancy sports clubs where you would have lockers?

[Shep]
Lockers that have been sitting locked for 15 years.

[Emily]
I was just thinking that’s private enough.

[Shep]
Is it private enough?

[Emily]
Versus, like an airport or bus station.

[Thomas]
You’d never get away with one of those lockers being locked for a week.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Plus, I feel like you want something more secure than a locker.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
What if it’s the trunk of a car in a junkyard?

[Shep]
That’s risky.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Too risky. What if it’s in a storage locker in the facility that they went to?

[Thomas]
That’d be amazing.

[Emily]
And the guy’s like, “Are you fucking kidding me? It’s been here this whole fucking time?”

[Shep]
If it’s any place with a simple lock, then they could just pick the lock and they don’t need the key. So what place has a complicated lock or would have, like, a smart lock or an electronic lock, something that you can’t pick.

[Emily]
Well, since they’re not getting out of prison, we could use the safe deposit box. So they would have to be there because they have to show ID.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
So the guy couldn’t even get it if he knew it was a safe deposit box key.

[Thomas]
And of course he knows it’s a safety deposit box key. That’s how he knows there’s something valuable. Why would you hide a safety deposit box key in a bowling pin if it was just your birth certificate or something? It must be valuable.

[Shep]
What is it that’s valuable enough that fits in a safety deposit box?

[Thomas]
Maybe it’s gold.

[Emily]
Bonds.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Bearer bonds.

[Emily]
That’s what they did in Heat, right?

[Shep]
Is it bearer bonds in Heat? It was bearer bonds in Die Hard.

[Thomas]
Maybe it’s just like a scrapbook and so valuable to them.

[Emily]
A scrapbook of Woody Harrelson!

[Shep]
Rare stamps.

[Thomas]
Yeah. That could be. Some, like, Picasso sketch or something like that. Maybe it’s a piece of art that they stole from an art gallery. It’s a fairly small painting by some super famous artist, and it’s worth millions of dollars if they can fence it.

[Shep]
Well, then there is no statute of limitations on it.

[Thomas]
That’s true.

[Shep]
I mean, we could just say it’s diamonds. We know diamonds are worthless, but in movies, that’s always-

[Thomas]
That’s true. Yeah. Okay. I mean, it’s nice that they’re small, high value, lightweight.

[Shep and Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
They’re easy MacGuffins for movies. There’s a reason they’re in movies.

[Thomas]
And they look great on screen.

[Shep]
So they go to the bank with the guy, they go into the safety deposit room and they open it up. Now what?

[Thomas]
One of the crew has to know that they’re at the bank somehow so that you have that tension when they leave of the crew has shown up at the bank.

[Emily]
Oh, the AirTag thing. They found the AirTag, right? At some point on the car?

[Thomas]
If we want.

[Emily]
Yeah, they did. So when he goes to the meeting thinking this is a possibility that they’re going to get separated and he can’t signal the guy, can’t his phone, he can’t, blah, blah, blah, he’s got an AirTag on him. So the guy follows the AirTag to the bank.

[Shep]
That’s good, because that’s him using the same tactic that was used on him. Everybody’s competent. That’s what I like.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Well, are they all going to get caught or are our gentleman thieves going to be… are we rooting for them to succeed and retire, or are they going to be punished for their crime as well?

[Thomas]
I think it’s one of those kind of heist films where you want the quote unquote “hero thieves” to succeed.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
That’s how it feels to me anyway.

[Emily]
So then we have to figure out for them to make the money and have the pawn shop guy take the fall.

[Shep]
Right. That’s the classic. That’s how you deal with that.

[Emily]
That’s how you get rid of that problem.

[Shep]
So how do they do that?

[Thomas]
Let’s think about what the plan would be from both sides.

[Shep]
So the pawn shop guy’s plan is to have his crew waiting outside the bank and pick them up as they’re leaving and collect all of the diamonds.

[Thomas]
So they’ve split 50/50 in the room.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And the plan is as soon as they step outside, they’re captured, 100% of the diamonds go to the pawn shop guy, the crew “deals with” the brothers.

[Shep]
The loose ends.

[Thomas]
And I think that’s a reasonable plan for him to have.

[Shep]
Yeah. So-

[Thomas]
So what’s the brothers plan? Because do they suspect that the crew is going to be there, or is that a last minute surprise they have to deal with? A last little bit of tension for them to overcome.

[Shep]
They think it might be a possibility. They don’t know for sure, but it might happen. They know for sure that they’re going to be with the pawn shop guy.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So they make plans around that.

[Thomas]
They’re positive he’s going to try to screw them, but they’re not 100% sure how. So they’re in the room, presumably they split 50/50 as well?

[Shep]
The brothers?

[Thomas]
Right. Is that the first part of their plan is “We’ll split it with him and then get it back from him somehow,” or are they going to accept that as loss or-

[Shep]
I think that they’re going to just accept that as loss because they could use that he’s got these stolen diamonds on him.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So if they can get the cops to pick them up out of the bank and the pawn shop guy has stolen diamonds and they don’t, then- and if they can get the crew as well, who are going to be armed.

[Thomas]
So if I’m one of the brothers and I suspect this guy is going to try to screw me, the bank is a safe place. I’m not leaving the bank with him. I’m not leaving the bank before him. “You have your diamonds. Get out of here. I’m just going to sit and talk to a loan officer for a while” or whatever. I’m going to kill time at the bank for as long as I can.

[Shep]
I mean, why would the crew not just park outside and wait?

[Thomas]
So what I was going to say is maybe while they’re in the bank, they call the police to report that diamonds are there or the-

[Emily]
Is there a way for them to get him to draw his gun in the bank so they can make it look as if he’s trying to rob the bank?

[Thomas]
I had that thought earlier. I couldn’t figure out, if he’s a competent person why would he draw his gun in the bank?

[Emily]
He would not.

[Shep]
He wouldn’t, they drop a note off at a teller that says, “Prepare all the cash. I have a gun.” Don’t have him draw the gun. Just have him have the gun.

[Emily]
Yeah. Because he’s not going to go anywhere without it.

[Shep]
Well, if he’s robbing the bank, then they don’t need to have him have the diamonds to have him take the fall.

[Emily]
Right. That’s what I was thinking. Then they can get their full payout and they get rid of him and the crew waiting as the getaway car.

[Thomas]
How do they pass a note to the teller without him knowing about it. When would they have written this note?

[Emily]
Before they meet at the bowling alley bar.

[Shep]
They know they’re going to the bank.

[Thomas]
So they have a note that says, “This guy is robbing us. He has a gun. Call the police.” And so while they’re signing in, they give the note as part of the hand, the ID and the note.

[Emily]
I like that. I mean, that’s feasible.

[Thomas]
And so they go into the room. And so now the police can show up without the guy realizing it. And so as soon as he walks out, the cops are there.

[Shep]
How do they get their diamonds back?

[Thomas]
Well, I was just wondering, how do they even get out of there with diamonds in the first place? Because I feel like the police would want to talk to them.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
They would have other things besides just the diamonds in the safe deposit box.

[Shep]
Would they? What do they have else in there?

[Emily]
I don’t know. I was thinking maybe they would have valuable paperwork that people have in their safe deposit box in addition to the diamonds.

[Shep]
That’s their cover.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
What do they do with the diamonds? Where do they hide the diamonds?

[Thomas]
Wait a minute. If I am pretty damn sure the police are coming, especially if the teller reads the note and gives a knowing look that I know the police are going to be on their way. I just have to stall the guy for long enough. Let him walk out with 100% of the diamonds. The police will probably hand the diamonds back to me. If it’s been 15 years, no one’s going to immediately recognize, “Hey, these are those missing diamonds.”

[Shep]
And they just said that the guy is robbing them.

[Thomas]
Right. “This was in our safety deposit box.”

[Shep]
That’s hilarious. That the police are handing the diamonds to the two thieves at the end.

[Thomas]
Is that reasonable?

[Emily]
Would it be reasonable because they’ve stolen the diamonds from a whole other place? It’s been a long time.

[Thomas]
Insurance has already paid out on those diamonds, so it’s not like they’re still looking for them.

[Emily]
This is a safe deposit box in another part of the country from where they were actually stolen. So it’s not something that these police have ever actually investigated. So they wouldn’t think anything of it.

[Thomas]
Could they have a falsified receipt or something that they put in the safety deposit box?

[Emily]
Of course, they’d have a forged receipt.

[Thomas]
Because the police would want to look. “Well, how do we know that those are your diamonds?” “Come back to the city deposit box. We have the paperwork for it.”

[Emily]
Along with all of their other paperwork that is not questioned because that’s stuff you keep.

[Thomas]
Their passports, their birth certificate, some family photos.

[Shep]
Oh, they’re diamond importers. That’s their job. That’s why they were overseas.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that was maybe their cover all along. So all that paperwork is already in there. They made all of that stuff before they even robbed the place.

[Shep]
Right. Because that was going to be their cover.

[Thomas]
And it is.

[Shep]
Because they’re competent!

[Emily and Thomas]
Right.

[Thomas]
All right. Do we have it? Did we solve this?

[Shep]
I think that we did. What happens to the crew? I wanted the crew to get caught also.

[Thomas]
Actually, that’s a good point. They still have to get out of there without the crew following them.

[Emily]
Well, okay. Aren’t they being interviewed by the police? Wouldn’t they say, “He came in this car with these people, but he didn’t want to bring attention by bringing all of them into the bank with us.” Wouldn’t he just point that out?

[Thomas]
How do you prove that, though? They could say something about “We think the crew is outside. We don’t feel safe. Can you take us somewhere?” But again, the crew just has to follow the police to wherever they take these guys.

[Shep]
Or they just asked the cops to go and knock on the window of the van and the crew panics and speeds off.

[Emily]
Because the crew is not competent.

[Thomas]
Yes, they see a cop walking and looking right at their van and they’re like, “Dude, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

[Shep]
I mean, imagine that the cop knocks on their window and then they speed off and then copy it in and-

[Emily]
It can be the pawn shops van that has the shit painted all over it.

[Shep]
It’s got his face on it.

[Thomas]
All right, so I feel like we’ve wrapped it all up with the bow. Is there anything we’re missing? What do they do with the diamonds? Do we get a denouement where they’ve, like, bought a bowling alley somewhere?

[Shep]
That was their retirement plan?

[Thomas]
I don’t know.

[Shep]
I mean, you set up at some point earlier what their plan was for their retirement and then so you have the post credit scene of them in whatever situation they had previously said.

[Thomas]
I would do that as the denouement at the end before the credits. So you see, like, they got away. They got what they wanted. Okay. Is that everything?

[Shep]
I think that’s everything.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s show. Did we roll a strike or was it a gutter ball? You can let us know via email or social media. Links to those can be found on our website AlmostPlausible.com Have you left a five star review for us on Apple podcasts yet?

[Emily]
thenegusayo has and they said, “Extremely creative premise. Recently discovered this show and been really loving it! It’s well edited and the hosts have great banter, yes-anding and playing off each other comedically and creatively. Great for lovers of storytelling, improv, and creative movie ideas and pitches. Would recommend”

[Thomas]
If you leave us a five star review on Apple podcasts, we’ll read it on a future episode. And speaking of the future, Emily, Shep and I will see you next week on another episode of almost plausible.

[Outro music]

[Emily]
Where else do you get your Woody Harrelson memorabilia?

[Shep]
I mean, I just follow Woody Harrelson around. He leaves it behind all over the place.

[Thomas]
That’s what all that garbage is in your house.

[Shep]
He chewed that gum and he just threw it away.

[Emily]
Are you going to use the DNA to clone him?

[Shep]
To make my own Woody Harrelson.

[Thomas]
What makes you think he hasn’t already done that.

[Emily]
Why aren’t you’re sharing?