Flashlight

References

• Toy Story
• Ted
• Drop Dead Fred
• Fenn Treasure
• Buried
• Pitch Black
• They Live
• Sliders
• Rick and Morty
• A Bug’s Life
• Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
• Ghost Hunters
• Almost Plausible: Jelly Beans
• Men in Black
• Kryptonite
• Project Power
• Spelunking safety
• It
• ATLAS Stations
• The Grinch
• Timestalkers
• Stargate
• Portal
• Gulliver’s Travels
• Pikmin
• Gift of a Useless Man
• Futurama
  • Godfellas
• The Simpsons
  • The Genesis Tub
• South Park
  • The Simpsons Already Did It
• The Twilight Zone
  • The Little People
• Allegory of the Cave
• Warriors
• The Village
• Heaven’s Gate
• Jonestown
• Serenity
• Braveheart

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Emily]
Well, I mean, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a spelunking contest. That’s just where I took it. We could change it to some sort of, not exactly spelunking as the sport, but cave… what is the word for that? Where you go and search things?

[Thomas]
It’s called spelunking.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Like urban exploration?

[Emily]
But in a cave.

[Thomas]
So spelunking. Is there another word for it?

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary ideas and turn them into stories. We generally only think of flashlights as a tool, something to reach for in a time of need, but which otherwise sits unused and ignored. Well, not today. On this week’s episode, we’re putting flashlights in the limelight. We’ll start out with a pitch session to hear the ideas each of us came up with, and we’ll develop the one where we think flashlights will really shine.

[Shep]
(pain)

[Thomas]
Joining me to trip the light fantastic are my luminary co-hosts, Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
He’s always like this.

[Thomas]
Emily, I’ll pass the torch to you to get us started.

[Emily]
All right, so I have two pitches today. The first is a flashlight as a child’s imaginary friend. It’s their best friend growing up. They go on all sorts of adventures together, and as he grows older, it gets put in a drawer, doesn’t spend time with it anymore, forgets all about it. And one night, he’s over helping his mother, who’s now widowed, replacing fuses and finds the flashlight in her attic. And the memories flash before his eyes and he remembers all the good times, and it becomes his imaginary friend again. And they go on another adventure.

[Shep]
Except now he’s an adult.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
So it’s not Toy Story. What is the movie where the guy has the bear that comes alive?

[Thomas]
Ted.

[Emily]
Actually, the one that crossed my mind after I came up with it was Drop Dead Fred, but, yeah, basically similar-ish. Except for he has Ted his whole life and they grow together. He doesn’t forget about him and then rediscover him.

[Shep]
I actually have not seen the movie.

[Thomas]
Yeah, you don’t need to.

[Shep]
I didn’t think so.

[Emily]
Second pitch is a golden flashlight is the prize in a spelunking competition. Let’s make some scary, claustrophobic movie.

[Shep]
I have an idea. Let’s not. I’m claustrophobic.

[Emily]
I am also claustrophobic. So this is a way to work through that, get my psychological-

[Shep]
Oh, my gosh. Exposure therapy.

[Emily]
-health taken care of. Yeah.

[Thomas]
So is this like, you go spelunking, and then after you come back out, you’re awarded the flashlight? Or has somebody already put the flashlight way down in a cave and whoever gets to it first gets to keep it?

[Emily]
I like the second one.

[Thomas]
Maybe it’s one of those things where it’s like somebody will publish a thing online with cryptic clues. It’s like “I’ve hidden a golden flashlight somewhere. You have to solve this Riddle-

[Emily]
“To find which cave it is-

[Thomas]
“To get the next clue, to get the next clue,” and so on and so forth.

[Emily]
Like the treasure in the desert thing. Didn’t somebody find that?

[Thomas]
Yes. I think somebody is suing him because they figured it out. But he had removed the treasure or something. I forgot. I looked it up a while back because I was like, “Whatever happened with that?” People were, like, getting hurt because they were going out into the desert-

[Emily]
That’s right. And being stupid.

[Thomas]
And being stupid, right.

[Emily]
Yes. So we could do the same thing. But in caves.

[Shep]
Yeah, because caves are so much safer than deserts.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
No one’s ever died in a cave, I don’t think, so…

[Emily]
No, there aren’t several stories about that.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
You could have, like, one of the contestants really wants the treasure, the prize, and is killing off the other contestants. They think it’s some monster, but it’s just some guy, some crazy guy.

[Emily]
With a pickaxe.

[Thomas]
That got really dark.

[Shep]
That’s what happens in caves.

[Emily]
That’s why they need the golden flashlight. That’s what I have today.

[Thomas]
All right, I’ll go next. My first one… So, okay. My first three are all movies that already exist. I realized, I was like, “Oh, this is a good idea.” And I typed it up. And then as soon as I typed it up, I went, “Oh, no, that’s just this movie.” So the first one is that the main character is trapped somewhere dark, like a cave or something, and being in the dark is bad because of monsters or something. So basically, this is a cross between Buried and Pitch Black. My second idea was a magic flashlight that when you shine it on something, it reveals that thing’s true nature. So basically, They Live. The third one is every time you flip the switch, the beam opens a portal to another dimension. So it’s basically Sliders or Rick and Morty. So since those are all things that already exist, here are my real ideas. An absurdly powerful flashlight that can be used as a weapon. So I thought somebody invents a beam that’s just really bright to where, like, it’ll cook things or burn things or something like that.

[Emily]
Okay. I was going to say, is it really hot as well, and that’s part of how you can use it.

[Thomas]
Could be. Maybe that’s how it’s a weapon. Really puts out a ton of UV. I don’t know. Next idea. A flashlight that can be programmed to project any image you want onto a surface, but once you turn the light off, the image stays on that surface. So kind of like a way of painting an image onto a surface, using this special flashlight.

[Shep]
I can see manufacturing applications for this.

[Emily]
That would be amazing.

[Thomas]
Some teens get it, and they do really complicated graffiti, projection mapped graffiti. That actually would be really cool.

[Emily]
It’s just going to be dicks everywhere.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true.

[Shep]
Spoilers.

[Thomas]
A flashlight being used as a spotlight for bugs.

[Shep]
Are you talking about actual insects?

[Thomas]
Yes. It’s like a backyard scenario. And they’ve gotten a flashlight and they have it propped up and it’s A Night at the Opera.

[Shep]
Like in A Bug’s Life.

[Thomas]
Is that a scene from A Bug’s Life?

[Shep]
Is that a thing in A Bug’s Life?

[Emily]
Yeah. I think it’s a flashlight that they use.

[Shep]
The circus bugs.

[Emily]
No, isn’t it? It’s a firefly with a cup on his butt.

[Thomas]
That’s right. See, original idea this week.

[Shep]
I see. I see. Completely different.

[Emily]
Completely different.

[Thomas]
Totally different. My last idea is a flashlight being used as a signaling device in a Honey, I Shrunk the Kids type of situation.

[Shep]
I like that because from their perspective, it could look like a lighthouse.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
They have to figure out how to turn it on and off to get the attention of the big people, The normal sized people, I guess. They’re small.

[Emily]
Oh, you could do something where it’s almost like Ghost Hunters meets Honey, I Shrunk the Kids because Ghost Hunters use flashlights a lot to communicate with ghosts and spirits. So you have, like, a medium there trying to connect with the spirits of the house, and it’s really these super shrunk people.

[Thomas]
That’s funny. I like that.

[Emily]
That would be really cool. You could make it like a haunted house story. And then in the end, the reveal is that it’s been shrunk.

[Shep]
I like just the general small people living in big objects type stuff.

[Thomas]
We did just do that recently with Jelly Bean, though.

[Shep]
Oh, that’s right. That’s right. Sorry, I’ve already forgotten. I don’t listen to this podcast, so.

[Thomas]
Well, those are all my ideas. Shep, what do you have for us?

[Shep]
Almost the same ideas. So let’s go through them. Monsters in the dark, flashlight with dying batteries, I think is a standard. Flashlight that shows a slightly different world where its light lands, which is kind of basically the same thing that you said, except that I was thinking more of you could shine it on a wall, and in the other world, there isn’t a wall there. And when the light’s shining on it, you could walk through it. When the light’s not there, you can’t because there’s a wall. But other than that, basically the same. Flashlights that cause alterations. So a flashlight where you’re in the beam of light, you have to speak the truth. Or a flashlight where you’re in the beam, it affects your mental state. Like it makes you drunk, which could be used as a weapon against someone, just shine the light on them. And I guess that’s like the flashy thing from Men in Black. Would that count as a flashlight?

[Thomas]
I mean, it’s a light that flashes.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Could you make it to where different filters change the behavior? So, like, blue makes you drunk, red makes you sleepy.

[Shep]
Are those Kryptonite colors?

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
I was thinking that maybe everyone would have a different reaction to the light and you don’t know what it’s going to be until the first time you use it. Or maybe it’s different each time. I don’t know.

[Thomas]
It’s like, what was that movie that just came out a year or two ago where you take the pill and it gives you some sort of power, but you don’t know what it is until you take it.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. I don’t remember the name of that movie either.

[Thomas]
I don’t remember.

[Emily]
Isn’t that Jelly Beans?

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh, shit.

[Shep]
Oh, no. We’ll have to go back and edit Jelly Beans.

[Thomas]
Oh, no.

[Emily]
Oops.

[Thomas]
Wow.

[Shep]
Dang, are there any original ideas?

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
Sure doesn’t seem like it.

[Emily]
No there’s not.

[Shep]
Project Power.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s right. Well, what do we like?

[Shep]
Okay, which of these are original?

[Thomas]
Not many. I feel like we can sort of put three of our ideas altogether. Maybe there’s a spelunking competition, and it’s supposed to be this fun, normal thing, and it starts off great, but then people start dying mysteriously, so there’s some sort of unseen force in the dark that flashlights are important to be able to live, to survive, because that way you can’t be snuck up upon. What do you guys think about that?

[Shep]
I mean, these days you wouldn’t really go spelunking with flashlights necessarily.

[Emily]
I’d actually had that idea when I was doing it. And part of the spelunking competition either set in the past so that flashlights are basically your only option. Or part of the rules of this particular contest is you can only use flashlights, headlamps aren’t allowed or something like that.

[Shep]
Glow sticks aren’t allowed.

[Emily]
Yeah. Glow sticks.

[Shep]
Because this is a long running competition. It’s tradition that you only use flashlights.

[Thomas]
But I can’t imagine anybody involved in that hobby throwing away a possible safety thing for the sake of anything.

[Shep]
Oh, that’s a very good point.

[Emily]
That is a good point.

[Thomas]
Do we like this idea? It has issues. But do we like this idea enough to try to solve those issues, or do we want to explore a different idea?

[Emily]
Well, I mean, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a spelunking contest. That’s just where I took it. We could change it to some sort of, not exactly spelunking as the sport, but cave… what is the word for that? Where you go and search things?

[Thomas]
It’s called spelunking.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Like urban exploration?

[Emily]
But in a cave.

[Thomas]
So spelunking. Is there another word for it? Caving? Okay. It’s like, damn it. No, this is It. It’s a bunch of kids who go into storm drains. But-`

[Shep]
I thought when you said “This is it,” it was like, “This is the idea. We found it.” Oh, no, this is It.

[Thomas]
Stephen King’s It.

[Emily]
I was thinking of some sort of underground bunker. They go and find an old military bunker thing.

[Thomas]
I mean, it could be an urban exploration group. It would explain why they just have flashlights and cell phones and stuff.

[Emily]
Let’s not do spelunking. Let’s do urban exploration of some abandoned building town thing.

[Thomas]
It’s like, oh, it’s one of those missile silo places, like an Atlas station out in a field somewhere. And they’re like, “Yeah, I figured out how to get in there,” and they’re going to go explore it. And then as soon as you go underground, your cell phone stops working.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay. Do we like this?

[Shep]
Is this really what we’re going with? We’re going with the cave stuff after I said how much it bothered me?

[Thomas]
See, but this is good, because then you can say whether it’s effective or not.

[Emily]
It’ll help you get through your fear.

[Shep]
You know that I have a heart problem, right?

[Thomas]
Is your heart problem just that you love too much?

[Emily]
It grew three sizes too big.

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s causing real issues.

[Thomas]
Okay, well, what else would we do if we’re not going to do that one? What else would we do?

[Shep]
Flashlights as weapons…

[Thomas]
Okay, so I like what you said about the flashlight showing another, like, a parallel dimension. I really like the example you had of you shine it on a wall, but there’s not a wall there in the parallel dimension. It reminds me of a movie I can’t think of off the top of my head the title, but it has Klaus Kinsky in it, and he’s like a time traveler, and at one point, he’s trying to break into a military base. So he travels back in time to before the military base existed, walks forward like 50ft, and then travels back to the present, and that’s how he gets past the fence. I was like “Oh, that’s pretty clever.”

(It was Timestalkers)

[Emily]
That’s smart.

[Thomas]
So I’ve always kind of liked that idea of using, in that case, time travel or in this case, an alternate dimension to your advantage, being able to move between those two states.

[Shep]
Yeah, but you can’t take the flashlight with you through, because as you move it closer, the beam gets smaller and smaller and smaller-

[Emily]
So someone has to stay on one side-

[Shep]
With the flashlight.

[Emily]
Shining so people can come in and out.

[Shep]
Yeah. So if someone knocks it, if a cat runs by and hits the flashlight and it’s no longer pointing at the wall, now you’re trapped on the other side.

[Thomas]
So maybe it’s like a Stargate situation where you have, like, a government program. They have the flashlight mounted on a special thing. They’re sending people through.

[Shep]
Now, when you’re through, are you through in this world or in the parallel world?

[Thomas]
What do you mean?

[Shep]
Well, if the flashlight is showing the parallel world, when you walk through it, are you in it?

[Thomas]
In the other world?

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Or are you still in your world?

[Thomas]
I imagine you’d be in the other world. Basically all it’s doing is throwing a portal on a wall.

[Shep]
I guess then now we’re back to Rick and Morty.

[Thomas]
Sort of. Except that there’s just two possible locations. There’s this one and the other one. Although it is like the game Portal sort of.

[Emily]
Is flashlight too hard?

[Thomas]
Flashlight will not defeat us.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Okay, everyone reacted positively to the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids idea.

[Emily]
I still like that one the best.

[Shep]
I like the small people living in a… Oh, here we go. Small people living in a world where you have this little coastal town where the lighthouse is a flashlight and this town is built up around it and everyone’s happy and whatever. But now the flashlight is getting dimmer. It’s getting dimmer over time. They don’t understand, because for them, who live very brief lives, the flashlights always been shining. And maybe they don’t even realize it at first because it’s getting dimmer so slowly, it’s not noticeable. But someone noticed, like in an old photograph, they compare the old photograph, the new photograph.

[Thomas]
Or maybe there’s, like, a big storm and a boat crashes and they’re like, “How could this happen? We have the thing.” And the survivors, like, “We couldn’t see the lighthouse.”

[Shep]
Or not even a storm. Just a foggy night.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Okay.

[Emily]
Yeah, we’re going somewhere here.

[Thomas]
I think this is different enough from Jelly Beans.

[Emily]
Yeah. There’s no giants. There’s no changing realms.

[Shep]
There’s no special superpowers.

[Emily]
This is just a world where people smaller than us exist.

[Thomas]
So it’s sort of a Gulliver’s Travels thing. There’s this world, there’s a country that exists somewhere where everyone’s just really tiny compared to us. And at some point, the flashlight ended up there and they built the town around it. Or they found the flashlight and moved it to the town or whatever, however they got it there.

[Shep]
Well, now I’m thinking of lots of parallels. It’s Pikmin. There’s a sci-fi short story where the guy crashes on a small planet that’s spinning really quickly and he’s paralyzed. But very small inhabitants of the planet keep him alive and communicate with them, and he talks to them and gives them ideas about technology and stuff. And builds up their civilization, basically.

(Alan Dean Foster’s “Gift of a Useless Man”)

[Emily]
Then there’s that episode of Futurama where Bender becomes God and he has little people build a universe on him.

[Shep]
Or there’s the episode of The Simpsons where they have little people. Or the episode of South Park.

[Thomas]
The Twilight Zone.

[Shep]
Yeah. Or Twilight Zone, where they talk about-

[Thomas]
I mean, if we just lean into there are no new ideas, then-

[Emily]
Well, like I said a while back, it’s Almost Plausible. Not Definitely Original.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Okay. How do we want our tiny persons story to differ?

[Thomas]
What happens in our tiny world? What is their goal? Obviously, the conflict is that the batteries are running low. Does somebody realize that’s what’s happening, and that begins an adventure for new batteries? Is that enough about the flashlight, though?

[Emily]
Well, if the flashlight is the source of something in their town, like the source of economy in some way, then, yeah.

[Thomas]
Maybe there’s this old guy in town who everyone thinks is crazy because he keeps talking about the Caretaker or something like that, this giant person who helps them out. And it’s like some kid. They’re an imaginary world. They don’t actually really exist in the real world. They’re all in some kid’s imagination. He’s like, put the flashlight, or she has put the flashlight in there. And so because they all live such short lives, nobody knows about the Caretaker except for one really old dude. Or maybe he remembers the stories and nobody else does. Or something along those lines.

[Shep]
Or there’s a secret organization that passes down that knowledge of the Caretaker.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So they have to try to bring the Caretaker. They have to somehow summon the Caretaker to fix the flashlight.

[Shep]
What if the Caretaker never comes? What if it turns out the Caretaker was a myth and the flashlight is just going to go out and they can’t change the batteries? They can’t. It’s impossible. They’re too small.

[Thomas]
I think that’s basically the story, right? You’ve got the people who are saying “The Caretaker will come,” and you’ve got the other faction of people who are saying “The Caretaker is not real. We need to figure this out ourselves.” And they’re arguing back and forth.

[Shep]
Oh, they’re living in a dark place. They’re living in a dark place and they’re in the light beam. See, we’re back to monsters outside the light again. So they’re living in a dark place, but they’re safe in the light beam. But now the light beam is going out, and there’s a faction that’s saying “We need to leave. We need to find a place that has light because we’re not going to have light here anymore.” And there’s a faction that says, “We’ll survive. We’ve always survived. Something will happen, a miracle will occur, or the Caretaker will return. Sometimes the light has been dim in the past and it got brighter again. So you don’t know. Science doesn’t know everything.” And it’s all just the allegory of the cave where the ones that leave find out that they’re in a cave and there’s a whole world outside that has lots of light. Spoilers for the ending. Yeah.

[Thomas]
How old is the cave? I feel like if you haven’t read it by now. It reminds me a bit of Warrior Cats. That’s essentially the plot of, I think, the first book in the series. My kid was reading it at one point, I don’t know. But basically, like, food is running out. And there’s a group that says, “We need to go somewhere else to find the food. There’s this fabled better place.” And then there are the other ones who are like, “No, we couldn’t possibly do that.” But I like that idea.

[Emily]
I think it’s a solid idea.

[Thomas]
So their options are leave or stay? Wait for the Caretaker to fix their problems or be active participants in their own possibly demise or salvation? What is the plan that the pro-Caretaker people are proposing they do to bring the Caretaker there?

[Emily]
Are they sit and wait and have faith?

[Thomas]
Is it like a big prayer group?

[Emily]
Pray, chants.

[Thomas]
A ritual that they attempt to perform.

[Emily]
Are there three factions? One that’s like, “We just got to go. We have no other choice. We have to venture into the dark and hope for the best.” And then there’s another faction that’s like, “Well, we can figure out how to harness something to create a new light or a new-“

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah. There’s a group of people who- they’re like the pro-science group, and they are like, “Well, we can develop our own light source.”

[Shep]
But that’s heresy, because the one true light is the flashlight. So they haven’t developed any technology that creates light. “That’s trying to steal the power of the Caretaker. That doesn’t belong to us, that belongs to them. It’s their domain alone.”

[Thomas]
I assume they leave- do people leave and discover there’s a new, better world or a bigger, better world with lots of light?

[Shep]
The survivors of the journey, they leave the cave, see the sunrise.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Well, you’re going to have a few that stay.

[Shep]
You can have lots of people that stay.

[Emily]
What’s the consequence of staying?

[Shep]
We don’t find out. We don’t know.

[Emily]
They just stay in darkness, and that’s what we know.

[Shep]
We can only assume that the light is going to go out for them.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Yeah, we follow the group that leaves, and so we’re seeing it from their perspective.

[Emily]
And do they leave the closet drawer?

[Thomas]
Whatever it is. Yeah, they leave wherever they are. And-

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
What is the monster? It can’t be a cat. We just did that in Jelly Beans.

[Shep]
Damn it. Or do we not even find out what the monster is? I imagine the journey through the dark is a very short part of it.

[Thomas]
There’s no monster. That’s part of the theocracy.

[Emily]
There is no monster.

[Thomas]
It’s The Village.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
So we’re just saying what all of our ideas are now. There are no new ideas.

[Emily]
Almost Plausible. Not Definitely Original.

[Shep]
Yes. Keep drilling it into my head until I remember.

[Thomas]
Okay, look, the difference is that in The Village, they dress up like a monster to scare the kids. And in this one, they don’t do that. They just say there’s a monster and everyone believes them.

[Emily]
And in The Village, a lot of people knew that they were, in fact, in the village and were in on the secret. And in this one, nobody knows for sure what’s out there.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Except possibly the Secret Society of the Caretaker.

[Emily]
No, I want them to be true believers. I want them to be fully invested and believe in it because they’ve lost the people who made it up or whatever.

[Thomas]
Exactly. Yeah. Enough time has passed that the people who did know don’t know anymore. That secret never got handed down with everything else.

[Shep]
Okay, but why aren’t there people going out into the dark just to see what’s there for sure?

[Thomas]
Maybe they do and they never come back.

[Emily]
Yeah, I was going to say there have been and they’ve never returned.

[Shep]
If there’s a bigger, better world, wouldn’t you want people to know about it?

[Thomas]
Maybe somebody has come back from the bigger, better world and talks about it and nobody believes them.

[Emily]
I was thinking maybe it’s a case of where the darkness is the abyss to which you get flung if you commit heresy or sin. So you’re not welcome back anyway. So why would you return? They have abandoned you. You found this new world. You’re out there living the high life now without the crazy.

[Thomas]
Maybe part of the doctrine is what happens to you outside in the dark is that you get possessed by evil demons or something. So no one can ever come back. If you leave, that’s it.

[Emily]
And whatever comes back isn’t truly that person.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So the people that come back and say “There’s this whole world out here, you can actually leave this tiny town.” That’s just the lies of the demons that are possessing them to get you to go out into the dark.

[Emily]
To take more souls.

[Shep]
That’s pretty good.

[Thomas]
And of course, people would come back and say, “No, that’s all lies. You just come and see.” And they’re like, “See? Didn’t we say they would do that?

[Emily]
“Aren’t they trying to beckon you out?”

[Thomas]
And then eventually they give up and leave, and they’re like, “Okay, well,” and then they’re never seen or heard from again.

[Emily]
And that’s the faction that wants to leave. They’re starting to believe a close relative who’s come back and said that and then disappeared. And they’re like, “No, that was him. They’re wrong. I know that was him. He wasn’t a demon, and he made it. And we’re dying here. This is the only option we have.”

[Thomas]
Or is there a kid who sneaks out and sneaks back in? There’s, like a little hole in the wall that they can get through? So they know that they’re not actually being affected by anything in the dark. They haven’t come across any demons. I mean, you bring up a really good point. Like the people who end up leaving, why do they decide to leave? All right, well, let’s take a quick break to recharge our batteries.

[Shep]
These are some deep questions.

[Emily]
These are deep questions.

[Thomas]
And when we come back, maybe we’ll have an answer for you

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. So we were trying to figure out why people would leave this town in the first place.

[Shep]
I mean, if it’s oppressive…

[Emily]
Maybe you have a mix of banishment, and people like “This is oppressive. There has to be more out there.”

[Shep]
Or if they’re just curious.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Because the Secret Society, they’re positioning it like, “Hey, we’re protecting you.”

[Emily]
Of course. It’s always in your best interest.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That wouldn’t be a Secret Society, then that’s just society.

[Thomas]
I guess it’s not really a Secret Society. Right.

[Emily]
No, it’s like a theocracy.

[Shep]
So in this case, the Secret Society would be people that leave and come back.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. I think you’re right.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
So they know the truth, that it’s safe to go out into the dark. That’s the secret.

[Emily]
How do they convince people who are on the fence? So you have people who are like, “Yeah, I think I want to go with you, but I can’t trust that you’re not this demon, you’re not possessed by the evil outside.” How do they convince them? Do we have the old fashioned “Tell me something only I would know that no one else could possibly know”? Would the demon have access to that knowledge?

[Thomas]
Right. And if you’re possessed, it’s still you.

[Emily]
Yeah. Is it as simple as something from the outside coming back and showing them-

[Thomas]
Maybe somebody figures out that the leaders are bringing stuff in. They’re having things imported.

[Shep]
If they can bring stuff in, just bring in batteries and solve the problem.

[Thomas]
They can’t reach the flashlight. They don’t know it’s a flashlight. It’s just this light.

[Emily]
To change the battery, you have to remove either the top of the world or tip it to remove the bottom. You can’t just change the battery. You have to destroy your life in order to change the battery.

[Shep]
Also you’d be in darkness that whole time.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I don’t know if I like the idea of the leaders being just hypocrites.

[Emily]
I don’t like them being hypocrites. I want them to be true believers that they would never leave. They know that danger is real and true and that you are just demon-possessed when you come back. Because I feel like that blind faith is scarier in a way.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
What if everything they say is true?

[Emily]
We find out at the end. They, in fact, are monsters and they are possessed.

[Thomas]
Well, because then it becomes about getting to wherever the next source of light is. How did their people get there in the first place? What’s that story?

[Emily]
Where’s the next source of light? What does that look like? Are they in a crawl space under a house, and they getting out into the actual open air? And then now light comes and goes.

[Thomas]
So the light goes out and everyone is losing their shit. But as their eyes adjust to the dark, there’s a faint light in the distance that they’ve never noticed before because they’ve always been under a pool of light. Now it becomes about getting to that new light source while not being eaten by demons.

[Shep]
If you had people that did explore the dark, though, they would have noticed.

[Thomas]
But they’re not allowed back in.

[Shep]
Secretly secretly exploring the dark.

[Thomas]
But if the demons are real or the monsters are real, then those people would never have come back. They’ve been eaten.

[Shep]
Are the demons real?

[Thomas]
I don’t know.

[Emily]
There’s another prophecy that inside the darkness, there is another light. You just have to go far enough into the darkness to find it. And so they’ve come back and said, “No, this one is true. This is out here.”

[Shep]
Why would the Church keep that prophecy if what they want is people to stay in the flashlight, that has to be part of the Secret Society’s teachings.

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s what I was saying. Okay. I was thinking more in the Secret Society prophecy.

[Shep]
I say that the Secret Society knows that they can leave, and it doesn’t become an issue because they are just keeping it secret. They go out in the dark and they get resources or whatever, and so they’re all doing quite well, so they’re happy with the status quo. But then the flashlight starts dying and they all know the truth that they’ll have to leave.

[Emily]
Are they at a crossroads, then, where they have to decide whether they want to save just themselves or save everyone?

[Shep]
Yes. So it starts that they know the flashlight is going out and they’re going to have to eventually plan to leave. Now, they’ve known this for a long time because they have good records and the flashlight dies very slowly to them.

[Emily]
And they’ve been mapping the dimming.

[Shep]
Yeah, they have star charts, but it’s just the flashlight chart. The brightness of the flashlight over time.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Why do they have to leave? What is the danger or what is the problem?

[Shep]
Well, what are they using the light for? If demons don’t exist? Let’s pretend we’re in a world where demons don’t exist.

[Thomas]
Okay, done.

[Shep]
Then what is the light for? That’s where they live. They use it to see. They use it to get around. Are they using it to grow crops or something? Is that where their food comes from? Are these people solar powered?

[Emily]
I’m envisioning, maybe this is something we should discuss too, I’m envisioning the world as the light is the floor, essentially the ground, the Earth below them, and it shines up. So they really can’t see in the dark. They’re always in light. 24/7. What are they going to-

[Shep]
That’s why you can tell who the secret society people are because they have blindfolds in their house that they secretly wear when they’re alone-

[Emily]
Get used to the dark.

[Shep]
To get used to the dark. See, I was picturing it facing downward.

[Thomas]
Yeah, me too.

[Emily]
I mean, that does make a difference. Where is the light facing?

[Shep]
I’m basing it on the sun. That’s where my assumption or my presumption comes from.

[Thomas]
Does the audience know right away that that’s what’s going on?

[Shep]
That what’s going on?

[Thomas]
That it’s a flashlight and these are tiny people, or is that a later in the film revelation?

[Shep]
Good questions.

[Emily]
I can see it going both ways. It depends on how heavy we want the allegory to be. If we’re making it allegorical, then let’s just start out heavy and let everybody know. This is a flashlight world, and these are tiny people. And if it’s not such a thick allegory, then maybe we slowly come to realize that. And that is the final reveal.

[Shep]
It would be bonkers to be watching this and see normal sized people suddenly discovering that the light in the sky is a big giant flashlight because you wouldn’t think, “Oh, they’re small people.” You’d think “That’s a giant flashlight. Nothing else is on the scale of telling me that they’re tiny.”

[Emily]
That’s kind of cool. They have no night, so they always have a sun. There would be shadows, though.

[Shep]
So was the flashlight above them or below them?

[Emily]
Yeah, I think. Let’s pick that.

[Shep]
Yeah, I’m having trouble-

[Emily]
I think since two of you where it’s above, we’ll just stick with that. And my crazy. It’s below them and it’s this glowing ethereal-like hippie village is out the door.

[Shep]
Well, I was thinking more of why don’t they just cover it up if they need a quiet, dark place? Since it’s below them, that’s super easy. It’s just like putting a roof up. You just putting it below you. And then what’s the advantage of it being below you then?

[Emily]
I don’t know. I just, for some reason pictured it below them. All right. So it’s above them.

[Shep]
And it’s facing down.

[Emily]
Yeah. At an angle or straight?

[Thomas]
One of those.

[Emily]
I don’t think it actually matters, except for it gives you more space. If it’s at an angle, then you have more area.

[Shep]
I like it being at an angle, because then not all parts of the light are equal.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
You could be closer to the light or further from the light.

[Thomas]
So the Cathedral is right at the leading edge.

[Shep]
As it gets dimmer, is the light getting closer to the flashlight or is it just getting darker?

[Emily]
The beam does get smaller in a lot of them. Last flashlight I had was like a Maglite. It was bright white with fresh batteries. And then it becomes more amber as they go out and the beam gets smaller and smaller.

[Shep]
Well, as the beams getting smaller, then there’s going to be houses. There’s going to be people that live that’s now outside the beam of light.

[Emily]
Maybe that’s how it starts, with the discovery that it’s dimming, is that someone says “My grandfather used to be there” or something like that.

[Thomas]
So the movie starts in crisis. This is already a thing they’ve noticed that’s happening?

[Shep]
I’d say that the Secret Society has noticed that it’s happening.

[Thomas]
Well, then in that case, we can’t have anything, any part of the town outside of the beam.

[Emily]
Right. Yeah. Let’s not have anything outside the beam.

[Shep]
Or there are ruins outside of the town, not on the edge of town, but further out that perhaps they go to or the Secret Society goes to, because that used to be part of the beam that they still know, that they remember. But the Church tore down all those houses.

[Emily]
Because it was the Caretaker’s will.

[Shep]
Because it’s the Caretaker’s will. And they probably expelled those people that lived closest to the edge.

[Emily]
They were out there for a reason anyway. It was just, it’s destiny.

[Shep]
“The Caretaker’s will obviously is to put them in darkness. Who are we to argue?” So the light is going dim. I’m just trying to recap what we have so far. There’s tiny people living happily in a beam of light in otherwise darkness. And then it becomes more apparent that even the Church has noticed perhaps, that the light is getting dimmer. And all the Secret Society people know that they can just leave and it’s safe in the dark and they have to choose amongst themselves. “Do we try to save everyone or do we just leave? Do we try to save everyone?”

[Thomas]
If there’s anything that we’ve learned from the Pandemic, it’s that you can’t save everyone because many of them don’t want to be saved.

[Shep]
That’s true.

[Thomas]
They will vehemently disagree and they’ll just stay put.

[Emily]
Until the light is gone.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Not only will they just stay put, they’ll prevent the Secret Society people from leaving.

[Thomas]
Yeah. It’s against their religion.

[Emily]
Because they’re fighting for their own good.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They will make bonfires to keep the light and burn the heretics. Maybe if they burn enough heretics, the light will come back.

[Thomas]
It must be a sacrifice. The Caretaker demands a sacrifice.

[Shep]
That’s why they search all the houses to find-

[Thomas]
This is happening because people don’t believe. “Because people are sneaking out into the dark. You’re ruining this for the rest of us.

[Shep]
“You’re bringing darkness back with you. This is proof.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. That’s it.

[Shep]
So now what?

[Emily]
Yeah. So obviously it’s going to end with people staying.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
And we won’t know what ends up happening to them.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
I say that most people stay, and some of the Secret Society people are captured and perhaps killed.

[Thomas]
By the people who choose to stay.

[Shep]
By the people that choose to stay.

[Thomas]
Okay. Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay. Do one or two of them also decide to stay because they have to choose a loved one or something because they won’t go and they can’t go without them.

[Shep]
Maybe. I mean, we have a bunch of people.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Maybe one of our main characters decides to stay. They don’t want to, but they choose to.

[Emily]
And they’re hoping for the best, but they know-

[Thomas]
Maybe their plan is they’re going to stay because the light is clearly going to go out. They know it’s safe. And so once everything’s dark anyway, they can hopefully convince their family, like, “What do we have to lose? I know the way.” So that’s why they stay behind. But we never find out if that works out or not.

[Shep]
Well, the Church just started talking about taking poison if the light goes out entirely so that they’re not taken by demons. We don’t see any of that because the light’s still on because it’s dying very slowly. But there’s that risk. If they stay, everyone’s just going to kill themselves rather than risk being possessed by imaginary demons.

[Thomas]
Do we hint at that by all of the Church people wearing brand new Nike shoes?

[Shep]
Where are they getting Nikes from if they’re tiny?

[Thomas]
Nothing like a good 30-year-old cult joke.

[Shep]
No, it’s big Kool-Aid packets.

[Thomas]
Even further back.

[Shep]
So I guess we just fill in everything else with philosophical arguments about proof-versus-faith. So this is a very talky movie.

[Emily]
Yeah. It is a very talky movie.

[Shep]
Like, not a lot happens. It’s more of a rationality-versus-belief.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Does the town descend into chaos later in the film, like, late in the third act?

[Shep]
No, because they’re true believers. They’ll get together and they’ll sing their hymns around the bonfires of the burning bodies of the nonbelievers.

[Thomas]
At what point in the story do the nonbelievers leave?

[Shep]
At the end.

[Emily]
Soon as the bodies start burning.

[Shep]
Yeah, I don’t imagine there’s a long walk in the dark.

[Emily]
Yeah. I think it’s a much shorter walk than we are thinking.

[Shep]
Because, remember, the point of this is the flashlight.

[Thomas]
Right. So is the beginning of the third act, them trying to leave? And so the third act is them attempting to get out of the town?

[Emily]
Yeah. So the second act is then trying to convince people to go.

[Thomas]
Right. So they decide to leave. So the end of the second act, the lowest low is the Church shuts down the town. “No one can go. And if you attempt to leave, we will kill you.”

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
I say that the lowest, lowest. The Church capturing the ones that they know are in the Secret Society and planning to perhaps sacrifice them.

[Thomas]
Yeah, well, they’re not so secret anymore, right? They’re trying to get people to come with them.

[Shep]
Right. That was their mistake.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah. So now they’ve gathered them and they are burning them as a stake. And the few who were convinced or didn’t speak out, or it’s go time now, they’re distracted by this.

[Thomas]
Is there a jailer who is on their side and lets them out or helps them escape?

[Shep]
Or maybe they’re in jail and the outside people are trying to break them out of the jail so that they can all leave. They’re convinced, they’re ready to go. They’re ready to take the gamble in the darkness because there’s no evidence otherwise. So do they break them out of jail or do they fail and leave them behind?

[Emily]
My dark instinct is they fail and leave them behind.

[Shep]
Yeah, obviously.

[Thomas]
It definitely makes the theocracy a lot worse.

[Emily]
Right. It drives home that point.

[Shep]
But they’re not doing it because they’re evil. They’re not doing it because they’re bad. They’re doing it because they truly believe “These people brought the darkness back with them. And if we eliminate this darkness, the light will shine again. It will. It will. You have to trust me.”

[Thomas]
Are they believing in the face of contrary evidence? In that case, I think it is a form of evil that intransigence, that blind faith.

[Shep]
Well, they don’t know that it won’t come back until they burn a few nonbelievers.

[Emily]
You know, I’m thinking my favorite character in movies is the believer in Serenity. He is a true believer. They call him that, right? It’s great because he’s not actually evil. Like, he’s not doing it out of malice or hatred. He’s just a believer. And this is what has to happen in order for it to go right.

[Shep]
Right. He’s trying to make better worlds that he himself cannot-

[Emily]
Yeah. Can never be a part of.

[Thomas]
So I think the lowest low is the public execution of the person who was jailed that they couldn’t break out.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
The leader or maybe not the leader of the Secret Society, the one that went public with “There is a way we can go into the dark.”

[Emily]
The most vocal. Yeah. Yeah.

[Shep]
Maybe the rest of the Secret Society is still secret. This one person went public and has the big debate with the leader of the Church that darkness is safe. “It’s not your enemy. It’s just a lack of light.”

[Thomas]
It’s a big shock when they’re like, “Yes, I’ve gone outside. I’ve been in the dark,” and everyone’s like, “Oh, my goodness.”

[Shep]
Right. “Then you’re clearly possessed by a demon by your own admission.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Clearly possessed by a demon. That’s why the light has gotten dimmer.

[Thomas]
So, yeah, the other Secret Society people try to break them out, they fail. The person is publicly executed and they see that.

[Shep]
Do they see that, or are they using that time to make their exit while the rest of the town is distracted by this horrific occurrence in the town square?

[Thomas]
I think we can do both. It’s like the execution scene from Braveheart, right? All his compatriots are in the crowd, but I think they leave at some point before he d- I don’t remember. It’s been a while since I’ve seen Braveheart.

[Shep]
So then you have the third act of them going through the darkness?

[Thomas]
I think the third act is still trying to leave the city.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Okay. The person who went public, maybe they were the leader, and the tunnel to get out is in their house, which is now being occupied by the police or whatever, who are looking for evidence of the rest of the Secret Society.

[Shep]
The tunnel to get out. What does the outside of this town look like?

[Emily]
Are there walls?

[Thomas]
I assume there’s a big wall to keep out the demons.

[Emily]
That would make sense.

[Shep]
Oh, they put up a wall when that light got dimmer to hide the houses that were still out there.

[Thomas]
People don’t even know.

[Shep]
The people these days don’t even know. But when they first put up the wall, they were doing it to keep out the darkness. And also it hides the houses.

[Emily]
There you go. So now we have a tunnel. Guarded.

[Thomas]
So they have to figure out how to escape from the city.

[Shep]
Do they go over the wall? Do they climb the wall? How on-the-nose are the allegories in this? I’m just curious.

[Thomas]
Would there be a gate?

[Shep]
No. Why would there be a gate?

[Emily]
Gate only invites the darkness in.

[Shep]
Oh, yes, there is a gate for sending people out to exile. There must be a one-way gate.

[Emily]
Yeah, you’re right. There’s got to be an exit.

[Thomas]
We’re getting pretty close to our time. So what final things do we need to figure out?

[Emily]
I mean, they obviously escape.

[Thomas]
Right? They definitely escape.

[Emily]
We don’t need to see the city going to chaos or do its thing because we don’t want to know what happens to them. Right. We’re just going to follow this group.

[Shep]
Ignorance is bliss.

[Thomas]
So the light is getting dimmer and dimmer and it’s happening faster and faster as the movie goes on. So not everyone is a true believer and not everyone is a Secret Society person, right?

[Emily]
Right. You have inbetweeners. Yeah.

[Thomas]
You have a bunch of normal people, right. So as we’re getting toward the end of the film, is there essentially like you have the believers are working overtime to pray and whatever? Do you have people who are openly revolting and they eventually break the gate open and a whole bunch of them leave as the light is getting darker and darker and darker and practically pitch black?

[Shep]
I’d say that we don’t see what happens to the city.

[Thomas]
It’s implied, though, that as they’re leaving, it’s going to continue to go into darkness.

[Emily]
And that’s all we know, I think.

[Thomas]
But do they get a larger group of people and they basically just walk out the gate?

[Shep]
What if the leader had come forward, the Secret Society leader had come forward to say “The lights going out, safe to go in the dark. Also, here’s how you can make torches, which is a forbidden technology.”

[Thomas]
And that’s why they burn them instead of kick ’em out. Normally they would just boot ’em out the gate, but they’re like, “Oh, well, since you like torches so much, we’ll show you why it’s a forbidden technology.”

[Shep]
So maybe there are normal characters that we meet throughout. We haven’t gone through any of what the specific characters are. We’re missing a lot of stuff. It’s just the talking. So we meet some normal characters that aren’t true believers but aren’t in the Secret Society that perhaps could have been convinced with more time if the Church weren’t so oppressive. And perhaps at the end, you have this mother looking up at the light and considering how much darker it’s getting or has gotten, perhaps starts putting a torch together. We don’t see anything more than that. We just see her preparing for the coming darkness. And is that to leave? Is that to stay? We don’t know. But she has a family, so she’s going to prepare either way.

[Emily]
I have a really hokey ending.

[Thomas]
Okay, let’s hear it.

[Emily]
So as the group escapes and gets out of wherever the darkness is outside of that into the natural light. It’s still dark because it’s nighttime, but the sun’s coming and there’s a glow in the distance. The sun is slowly rising and it’s getting brighter.

[Thomas]
Maybe somehow, for whatever reason, they’ve never been out at night.

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking is they get out there and the people who they’ve convinced that don’t know there is light are like, “It’s still dark, there’s no end to the darkness” and they’re like, “No no no” and then the sun starts to rise.

[Shep]
According to their records, there is a super bright, the brightest flashlight in, the world has ever seen, in the sky. “You get to this landmark. Once you reach here, you’ll be able to see it” and they reach there and there is no light because it’s dark. And then they’re just, “It’s over. We lost. We gambled and we lost. We went out into the darkness and there’s nothing. There’s tiny pinpricks of light. But that’s not enough.

[Emily]
“We can’t survive on this.”

[Thomas]
They turn around and start trudging back to the city.

[Shep]
“What if demons are real?” What if they get out there, and, I’m not saying that demons are real. I’m saying they are saying, “What if demons are real?” Because they were confident, they were brave until they got to the landmark and there wasn’t light. For them, this is proof that it was a lie. So maybe some of them turn back.

[Thomas]
I think many of them or all of them turn back and they start trudging back, and that’s when they notice-

[Shep]
I wouldn’t say many of them.

[Emily]
You think just some of them?

[Shep]
Some of them might be convinced that this isn’t even the right landmark. They have to go further. I mean, the records are sketchy and it’s hard to see. “Is this even the right thing? Because in the drawing, there’s a big thing here, but we only have our little torches and we can only see the base of it.”

[Emily]
You’re right.

[Thomas]
But I don’t think the people who turn to go back actually go back. I think they start going back, and that’s when the sun is rising. So they’re like, “Well, you were wrong. We’re going to head back and they start walking back.”

[Shep]
How quickly does the sun rise?

[Thomas]
I don’t know. How quickly does the sun rise?

[Emily]
Surprisingly fast.

[Shep]
Not instantly.

[Emily]
Faster than it you think it should.

[Thomas]
They’re walking and they’re trudging along and they sort of are starting to sense that something is different and they’re kind of looking around and it’s getting brighter slowly.

[Emily]
Because you have that pre-dawn light.

[Shep]
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. If there were pre-dawn light even then that would be a hint that there is a brighter light and they just need to keep going in that direction, perhaps. From their perspective, they think that that light is close and it’s just over the hill.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Well, that’s why I was thinking everyone turns around to trudge back, and then-

[Shep]
You say everyone will turn back, and I say not everyone will turn back. There’s zero chance that everyone’s going to go, “Oh, we were wrong.”

[Emily]
I’m with Shep on this. You have some who are like, “No, let’s wait here. Something’s got to be different. Let’s regroup figure it out.” And some are like, “No, we just need to go further.”

[Thomas]
Okay. We follow everyone who turns back.

[Emily]
There we go.

[Thomas]
And as they’re going back, and then they start to notice this light, and so some of them, one of them, I don’t know, turns around and runs back because now they realize, “Oh, my gosh, they found it” or something. And that’s when they see that it’s real, they see the light is there, and then they call everybody back.

[Shep]
I think that’s too hokey for me.

[Emily]
I did say it was hokey.

[Thomas]
Well, how does it end? Because we’re out of time.

[Emily]
Hokey ending.

[Shep]
So maybe there’s a hill between the flashlight and the exit of the cave so the light from the exit wouldn’t make it all the way to the flashlight city, because there’s that hill there. So they have to go over. They have to climb that, to them, their perspective, this mountain to get over it. So to go back it’s another long grueling climb and it takes a while to get up to the top and when they do, maybe they look back and now they can see a little bit of that pre-dawn light. They can’t be sure if it’s there or if they’re imagining it but it looks like there might be a light in that direction.

[Emily]
Is it enough to make them turn back and keep going?

[Thomas]
If they’ve had to climb back up, they stopped at the top to rest before they go back down and someone says, “Does it seem like there’s light?” And they’re like, “You just want there to be light. You think you’re seeing a light.”

[Emily and Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And then they’re like, “No, I’m pretty sure there’s light” and then they realize there is light.

[Shep]
Or maybe they think it’s a reflection of the flashlight somehow when they’re up here.

[Thomas]
Can they see the city from where they are on top of this mountain?

[Shep]
Yeah, I figure from at the top they can see both. They can see the dimming flashlight city and they can see the exit that’s now getting brighter.

[Emily]
Do we see the difference of the one getting brighter and the one getting dimmer?

[Shep]
Oh, yeah, let’s do that.

[Thomas]
All right. Well, on that I think we’ll wrap it up. Maybe not as many details as we would have liked, but I think overall there’s a story there.

[Shep]
We have zero named characters. We haven’t articulated any of the arguments for faith or-

[Emily]
We have an outline.

[Thomas]
We’re not philosophers. It’s not our job. That’s someone else’s problem. We’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s show. Are you carrying a torch for this episode or would you rather put it to the torch.

[Shep]
Too soon.

[Thomas]
You can let us know via email or social media. Links to those can be found on our website AlmostPlausible.com If you haven’t already, please take a moment to subscribe to the show. New episodes come out every Tuesday and they’re free. So what do you have to lose? Thank you for listening. Emily, Shep, and I will see you back here next week for another episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]