Hot Sauce

References

• Pineapple
• Cholula Hot Sauce
• Ghost Pepper
• Trinidad Scorpion Butch T Pepper
• The Simpsons
  • The Mysterious Voyage of Our Homer
• Wayne’s World 2
• Captain America
• Captain America: Civil War
• Hot Ones
• Capsaicin
• Dragonslayer
• Peter MacNicol
• One Chip Challenge
• Almost Plausible: Can Opener
• A Christmas Carol
• Steve McQueen
• Knives Out
• Wake Up Dead Man
• Jeremy Renner
• Glass Onion
• Chris Evans
• Ken
• The Medicine
• Neal Patrick Harris
• Doogie Howser, M.D.
• Jérémie Renier
• Nathan Fillion
• Almost Plausible: Eggnog
• Jean-Claude Van Damme
• Timothée Chalamet
• Hawkeye
• Dave
• Space Jam: A New Legacy
• Fortified House
• Drummond Castle

Corrections

Thomas stated that there is a fortified house on his ancestral land, but it turns out it’s actually a tower house. According to Ireland’s National Monuments Service, “the main difference between tower houses and fortified houses is the shift away from compact, tall, vertical structures to longer, more rectangular buildings with more elaborate ground plans.”

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Emily]
Now, when he’s questioning his choices, are they like, “Why would somebody want to ruin my career?” Or “Why is this even my career?” Or “How did I lose control of it to the point that someone hated me so much?”

[Shep]
Right. He’s like, “Oh, I’m the asshole.”

[Emily]
So like A Christmas Carol, but with hot sauce and no ghosts.

[Shep]
A Christmas Carol, but with hot sauce and no ghosts.

[Thomas]
Well, ghost peppers.

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. I’m Thomas J. Brown and spicing up this episode are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
Now, I am a big fan of our ordinary object for this episode, which is hot sauce. For me, it’s pretty much the spicier, the better. How do you two feel about hot sauce?

[Emily]
I like a good flavor, and spice is secondary to that.

[Shep]
I like a good flavor, but my genes are weak, and my children will not survive the winter. My mom loves hot sauce, so I grew up in a very hot-sauce-oriented household. But, no, I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t handle it as a child. I would eat the hot sauce that my mom has, and it would paralyze my vocal cords. Too hot for me. But I do like Cholula.

[Emily]
When I was pregnant, there was no such thing as too hot of a hot sauce. Just the spicier, the better it was. It was insane.

[Thomas]
Because you wanted that baby out.

[Emily]
I, no. I just craved the spice.

[Shep]
Well, I haven’t tried being pregnant, so.

[Emily]
Yeah, you should. It’s a wonderful miracle of experience.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Well, I do agree that flavor matters. I’ve definitely had some hot sauces that are basically just vinegar, which it’s like, what are we doing here?

[Emily]
Right? Just vinegar and cayenne.

[Thomas]
And cayenne.

[Emily]
It’s disgusting.

[Thomas]
Yeah, it’s, like, boring. I really love ghost pepper for that reason, because incredible flavor, very hot. Love it.

[Emily]
Yeah. Ghost pepper is one of my favorites, even though it’s a little too spicy for me without being pregnant, but it’s so delicious. And then the next one is surprisingly, scorpion peppers, I think are also super tasty. But, you know, good old-fashioned jalapeno gets the job done for me.

[Thomas]
And they’re very delicious. So. All right, well, I’m pitching first this week, and my first idea is a hot sauce so spicy that it temporarily transports you to another dimension. Although The Simpsons kind of have already done this, where Homer eats those raw or the spicy chilies.

[Shep]
Right. But it didn’t transport him to another dimension.

[Thomas]
No.

[Shep]
It just made him temporarily insane.

[Thomas]
Yeah, he did a sort of, like, walkabout.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Um, is that the one with Jim Morrison in the desert, or am I conflating things?

[Thomas]
No, that is Wayne’s World 2.

[Emily]
I am conflating things.

[Thomas]
So I don’t know. I like that idea that it, like, you physically go somewhere else. It just, like, vibrates, shifts you out of this plane, or, I don’t know. However we want to-

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
I like how your taste buds are what tether you to this plane of existence.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, no.

[Thomas]
Well, Shep, maybe the explanation there is that you’re not from this plane of existence originally.

[Shep]
It sure would explain a lot.

[Thomas]
Like, how you’ve been here for so goddamn long.

[Shep]
Shh! They don’t know that.

[Thomas]
My next idea is a young amateur chef wants to make a name for himself by winning a local hot sauce competition. His first attempt comes dead last. He decides he can win if he makes the hottest sauce. So after a ton of research, he develops an absurdly hot sauce, which comes in fifth place. He’s puzzled why he isn’t winning and eventually learns it’s not just about the heat, but the balance of heat and flavor. So, going back to what we were just talking about, it matters. It really does. My final idea is that Roger loves to cook, and he loves spicy food. He has spent years refining his own hot sauce and is happy to share the recipe with his friends. When Steve, one of Roger’s friends, uses the hot sauce recipe to win a hot sauce contest, they have a falling out.

[Emily]
Steve!

[Thomas]
Right?

[Shep]
Steve and Roger. Steve Rogers?

[Emily]
Steve Rogers.

[Shep]
Yeah. Captain America.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
So they have a civil war, is what you’re saying.

[Thomas]
They do. Yes. Yeah. Uh, Shep, let’s hear from you next.

[Shep]
Me? Okay. A celebrity food critic, famous for their scathing reviews, completely loses their sense of taste after a disastrous appearance on Hot Ones. Now their entire career is in jeopardy because how can they critique food that they can’t taste? And it’s revealed that one of their sauces on Hot Ones was intentionally tainted to ruin them. So they’re questioning their life choices that brought them to this point.

[Thomas]
You know, when you started reading this, I thought, “This is great. Maybe we can, like, cross-promote with Hot Ones.” And then it was like, yeah, and then Hot Ones fucked them over. It was like, “Ooh, maybe… Maybe they won’t be so into this.”

[Shep]
My other idea is an alternative ancient world story where a potion master’s skeptical apprentice doesn’t believe in the miraculous and all-powerful hot sauce, until the potion master themself falls ill. And the apprentice has to venture forth looking for the right blend of chilies to brew the right hot sauce to cure their potion master. And so they travel, using hot sauce to cure illnesses and fight enemies along the way. But the key is the balance between flavor…

[Thomas]
Ah, there we go.

[Shep]
And hotness.

[Thomas]
I was gonna say, is this like, a cold world? Where people get chills, and so you have to warm them up by raising their internal temperature with hot sauce?

[Shep]
Right? It’s the Viking time, you know, where it’s overcast all the time, and it’s north and it’s cold, and everyone wears furs.

[Thomas]
Mm mm mm. Ah. You make people like hot soups and chilies and things so that their nose runs to help drain their sinuses.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
That alleviates the pressure. And-

[Shep]
I mean, hot sauce in real life is an anti-inflammatory.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, it has real medicinal value. Not as a joke, as a real thing.

[Thomas]
It’s pretty wild, some of the uses they found for capsaicin, so. I’m trying to think what this movie is that Shep’s second pitch reminds me of where it’s like, I think it was from, like, the seventies or eighties. And there’s a dude, he’s like the apprentice of a wizard, and then the wizard dies.

[Shep]
Dragonslayer!

[Thomas]
Is it Dragonslayer?

[Shep]
That is what it is. Ah. I just pitched Dragonslayer, kind of.

[Thomas]
Yeah, it is. You’re right.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Well, we get Peter MacNicol back and-

[Shep]
Oh, man. I really liked Dragonslayer when I was a kid.

[Thomas]
All right, Emily, let’s hear from you.

[Emily]
So I’ve got a few. A hot sauce that allows its demonic baker to possess anyone who consumes it. But the effects only last for a finite amount of time, and he is able to move from body to body, if he can get another person to consume it. What are his goals? I don’t know, but it’s an interesting premise. Second one is a little off the rails. A chef makes what is seen as the perfect hot sauce. Everyone loves it, but there’s one special ingredient no one is able to identify. An obsessed foodie begins stalking the chef, determined to find out what the secret ingredient is. He is shocked when he discovers that the chef is, in fact, a wizard from another dimension. And he’s using ogre’s blood to make the hot sauce and introduce a mind-controlling substance into our unsuspecting world.

[Shep]
And he uses a hot sauce so spicy, it temporarily transports him to another dimension.

[Emily]
There you go. And then I have Tabitha’s roommate, Trevor, dies in a frat initiation eating spicy foods. But she’s seen Trevor eat at least two of the One Chip Challenges in one day. So she begins looking into his death, and she’s pulled into the strange world of underground, illegal hot sauces, where unknown peppers are bred to be inhumanly hot.

[Shep]
Is this another sequel to Can Opener?

[Emily]
It could very well be.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. All right. Which idea is bringing the heat?

[Emily]
I like several of them.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And by several, I mean like four.

[Shep]
Which four? Let’s combine them.

[Emily]
No, we can’t combine them.

[Shep]
Challenge accepted.

[Emily]
I do like the food critic who loses his taste and questions his choices. Now, when he’s questioning his choices, are they like, “Why would somebody want to ruin my career?” Or “Why is this even my career?” Or “How did I lose control of it to the point that someone hated me so much?”

[Shep]
Right. He’s like, “Oh, I’m the asshole.”

[Emily]
So like A Christmas Carol, but with hot sauce and no ghosts.

[Shep]
A Christmas Carol, but with hot sauce and no ghosts.

[Thomas]
Well, ghost peppers.

[Shep]
And he drinks spirits. It’s all-

[Thomas]
There you go.

[Shep]
It’s all there.

[Thomas]
There you go.

[Emily]
I’m sold.

[Thomas]
Is the twist at the end of that that he did it to himself because his tongue was insured for like, $2 million or something?

[Shep]
Oh, geez.

[Emily]
That was his payout.

[Thomas]
Right. He had the realization long ago that “I fucking hate doing this.”

[Shep]
I mean, it would- See… Do you want the main character to be a good person or a bad person? If they’re a villain at the beginning, but go through an emotional character arc and become a good person, and then the resolution is that, “Oh, that’s right, your manager took out this insurance policy on your tongue because you’re a famous food critic, and that’s your moneymaker.”

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
And so you get this, you know, you can’t be a food critic anymore, but you do get $2 million, so, you know, wipe your tears with that.

[Thomas]
Yeah. But not after touching the spicy food. Because…

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
I also like the falling out story with Steph and Roger.

[Shep]
It’s gotta be something other than Roger, because if it’s Steve and Roger, it’s Steve Rogers. It’s Captain America.

[Thomas]
All right, so Steve and McQueen.

[Shep]
Thankfully, there’s no association there.

[Thomas]
All right, is there one of these that we want to go with or a couple we want to mush together?

[Shep]
Emily, what were the other ones that you were looking at?

[Emily]
So I liked that one. I liked the food critic one. And I had thought about the one with the roommate dying as being a part of the trilogy of our detective.

[Shep]
See, I kind of wish Can Opener were more directly food related, because if this were the trilogy, if this were the third one, it’s more directly food. Like hot dog is more directly food, and the can opener is just can opener. So kitchen gadget, food…

[Emily]
So we got to save the third one for another.

[Shep]
Something else.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, I agree.

[Thomas]
Oh, because I was going to say Frank shows up to investigate, and he tastes the hot sauce and it transports him to a different dimension. But if we don’t want to do that, then…

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Now you’ve got me thinking about the Knives Out movies because it’s a trilogy, because the third one’s coming out relatively soon.

[Shep]
Oh, I did not know that.

[Emily]
But there was a lot of talk about who was gonna be in it and everything.

[Shep]
See, now you got me looking at the Knives Out Three IMDb page, though.

[Emily]
Oh, sorry.

[Shep]
Jeremy Renner is in it.

[Emily]
I know.

[Shep]
Famous for his hot sauce in Glass Onion. Ties it back to this episode. All right, so who can Jeremy Renner play in one of these?

[Emily]
Well, Jeremy Renner, I think, would be a good, in Thomas’s second pitch, I could see him playing a chef.

[Shep]
Young amateur chef?

[Emily]
Surly, amateur chef. He could have just gotten out of the military. So he’s young in his career.

[Thomas]
It could just be Jeremy Renner as himself.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Making his hot sauce.

[Thomas]
Making his hot sauce.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
And his friend Steve Rogers steals the recipe.

[Shep]
It all ties together.

[Thomas]
Yeah. There’s like an LA Farmers Market that has, like, a hot sauce contest every year.

[Emily]
Oh, no, I’m liking this idea. Let’s keep rolling with this and just use Jeremy Renner as Jeremy Renner. And then you have Chris Evans being his antagonist.

[Thomas]
But you have Chris Evans playing a character. Not as Chris Evans.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Right. He’s playing Ransom, his character from Knives Out.

[Thomas]
He’s just like, super douchey, good-looking mister perfect.

[Emily]
Like, Malibu Ken kind of guy.

[Thomas]
Right. And he always wins. And Jeremy Renner’s like, “I’m taking that fucking guy down.”

[Emily]
I, not kidding, really love this idea the most right now.

[Shep]
I’m still thinking of the hot sauce so spicy it takes you to another world.

[Thomas]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
Combined with the wizard.

[Emily]
Yeah. I thought that was something we could do.

[Thomas]
And then does he shift into our world and then win a hot sauce competition?

[Shep]
I mean, he makes what is seen by everyone as the perfect hot sauce.

[Thomas]
There you go.

[Shep]
That’s the opening.

[Thomas]
So that’s who Jeremy Renner is going up against is-

[Shep]
I was gonna say this is the character that’s played by Chris Evans.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Mmm.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So do we get, like, an opening scene that’s like 20 years ago type of thing or 30 years ago type of thing where he gets his charge and is teleported to this world?

[Shep]
His charge?

[Thomas]
You know, his quest is given to him, assigned to him, whatever.

[Emily]
Hmm. He’s stuck because he can’t find the right ingredients or make it hot enough in our world, because it’s not-

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. So the wizard gets attacked. He’s an apprentice to this wizard. This is the story we’re doing? Because I am ready to go.

[Emily]
Go. I’m going. I’m there. Let’s do it.

[Shep]
This is Dragonslayer again!

[Thomas]
Yeah, but hold on.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
But with hot sauce.

[Thomas]
Look, as long as Peter MacNicol plays the wizard, I think we’re safe. It’s a cute little nod. And then we move on. It’s there for the people who know and appreciate. So the wizard gets attacked, he comes under attack, and the apprentice is going to help defend the wizard or cure the wizard or something like that. He drinks what he thinks is a hot sauce that’s going to give him special abilities, whatever. But it’s, accidentally he grabs the one that shifts him into a different dimension. He ends up in our world 10, 20 years ago, whatever it is. And so he’s, like, living here. I mean, we could keep him young if we want him to be played by Timothée Chalamet or somebody.

[Shep]
Is he the potion master’s skeptical apprentice?

[Thomas]
It seems like it, doesn’t it?

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah he is.

[Shep]
So that’s one from each of us.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Just.

[Thomas]
I like that.

[Shep]
Just so we’re clear.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Yeah. We blend them together, like a finely crafted hot sauce. And now we’ll ferment this idea in our minds.

[Emily]
And we’ll have the right balance of heat and flavor.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yes.

[Emily]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
Okay, so the wizard’s apprentice drinks the wrong hot sauce and ends up in our world.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
And is stuck here because they don’t have the right ingredients to get back to their world.

[Emily]
Yep. Correct.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
So ultimately, his goal is to get back to try to help the wizard. Right?

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Or just to get home.

[Shep]
Years are passing, but, I mean, hot sauce is all-powerful, so you get the right blend…

[Emily]
Oh. You can go back to the right moment in time.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Time and space are interconnected. I mean, as long as you’re already traveling through space, you might as well travel through time.

[Emily]
This is true.

[Shep]
It’s more efficient. But he didn’t pay attention in his lessons, so he’s having to rediscover hot sauce wizardry through the scientific method.

[Emily]
Every time a new pepper is discovered or bred, he’s online trying to get heaps and heaps and orders of it.

[Thomas]
So he’s always hanging out at the hot sauce contests to try the different ones, see what concoctions people have come up with.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right. Cause he remembers the flavor.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
Although as time is going by, it’s getting harder to remember.

[Thomas]
So is he old in our movie? In modern times? He’s an older person because he’s been here for 20 or 30 years.

[Emily]
Time expert, Shep, why don’t you help us out with this?

[Shep]
Yes. It’s an old man, and he’s played by Jeremy Renner.

[Emily]
All right.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
Done.

[Thomas]
So he’s currently 53. So.

[Shep]
Oh, he’s just a child. Never mind. He’s young. He’s only 53.

[Thomas]
When did his character come here?

[Emily]
20 years ago when he was in his early thirties.

[Thomas]
Or 30 years ago when he’s in his early twenties.

[Emily]
Eh, I guess that makes more sense. Also gives him time to be more, like, jaded and surly.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
So if he came here 30 years ago, that would put him-

[Shep]
1994.

[Emily]
Arriving 1994, height of the grunge era.

[Shep]
It’s wonderful. It’s perfect.

[Thomas]
It is perfect because his debut film was in 1995.

[Emily]
Nice.

[Thomas]
So he just showed up in Hollywood, immediately started acting for work. And so that’s what he’s been doing for work, but in his spare time-

[Shep]
Ha, ha.

[Emily]
So it’s actually Jeremy Renner as Jeremy Renner.

[Shep]
Oh, as.

[Thomas]
It’s literally actually Jeremy Renner.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Okay, okay, I missed that part.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
That’s even better.

[Thomas]
Well, that’s what I was looking to see if that would work. And then we could kind of keep that other idea that we had all part of it. So I like this. This is great.

[Shep]
Well, see, now he’s torn because he has. He has a family now.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And a career.

[Shep]
And, well, I mean, acting is fine, but what he really wants to do is-

[Emily]
It’s wizardry.

[Shep]
Produce magic.

[Thomas]
Well, he always has that deep-seated guilt for having abandoned the wizard.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So. Okay, so he gets here in ’94. How much of him being here do we see in ’94? I don’t think we need to see very much. Like-

[Shep]
No, you just see his determination. “I’m gonna get back there as soon as possible” and then cut to 30 years later.

[Emily]
Just got a beach house, three kids, dog, wife, lucrative hot sauce career.

[Shep]
Right. Yes. Also, he’s an actor and a singer.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So this works really well, guys. He released his first EP in March of 2020. It is titled The Medicine.

[Shep]
Perfect. It’s all coming together.

[Emily]
How do we get this episode to his people?

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
So are we going to have him in a hot sauce competition? Like in a Malibu Farmers Market? Or, Santa Barbara Farmers Market.

[Shep]
Yeah, because he makes hot sauce as a hobby.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
His family sees him, like, he’s kind of obsessed with hot sauces, and they don’t get it.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But as long as he’s happy.

[Emily]
Comes back from a long shoot, and his wife’s like, “Oh, do you want to go for a swim?” “No, I’m going into the lab. I got to make more hot sauce.”

[Shep]
The lab. Got an array of peppers growing under hydroponics.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Is he still able to perform magic?

[Thomas]
If- assuming he gets the right ingredients, he can.

[Emily]
Okay, so does he only know hot sauce magic, or does he know other types of magic or alchemy?

[Thomas]
I feel like all of his magic is hot-sauce-based. Right?

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay, so he can’t do anything special without the hot sauce recipes.

[Thomas]
Right. He himself does not have magical powers or anything.

[Shep]
Right. He’s an alchemist, not a wizard. Did he bring any seeds with him? Did he have anything on him?

[Thomas]
Ooh. He must’ve. Right? There should be at least a few things that we can figure out. Like he has a little pouch that he always keeps with him. That’s part of his habit or whatever.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So if there’s anything that he needs that is truly impossible or he’s saving these seeds for just the right moment or whatever it is, then, yeah, we can have had him bring those.

[Emily]
Well, they can’t be the pepper seed. Oh, no. Cause we’ve decided it has to be the balance of flavor. Right?

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
So he has the peppers that are spicy enough.

[Thomas]
Right. You have to mix it with the correct ingredients to- It’s like you’ve got to draw the correct runes or say the right magic words together.

[Emily]
Mm.

[Thomas]
It’s the same sort of thing. You have to mix the correct ingredients in the right amounts and cook things.

[Emily]
In the right order.

[Thomas]
Exactly.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. So he does have the pepper seeds, but he’s running- because of how genetics work, the peppers are mutating because it’s been so long. So he’s got, like, one or two left of the original seedlings, and he’s not sure if they’ll work or if the new peppers are going to be just as potent because he has to still figure out the combination and order.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. Okay, I think it’s time to throw some conflict in here.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Excellent.

[Shep]
He wins the Malibu Farmers Market hot sauce competition because he makes really good hot sauce.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
Because he’s been doing it for 30 years. Well, more than 30.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He’s been doing it in this world for 30 years. But he was raised by this alchemist, so it’s really exceptionally good out-of-this-world flavor. Some jealous rivals break into his lab to steal his recipe or his ingredients or whatever, and they take the last of the seedlings that he needs.

[Thomas]
Yeah. That’s a great idea.

[Emily]
Who are the thieves? Are they just rival pepper companies?

[Thomas]
It’s got to be a company, right?

[Shep]
Or another celebrity that really coveted the prestigious Malibu Farmers Market hot sauce competition first-place trophy.

[Thomas]
That would be funny.

[Emily]
Chris Evans.

[Shep]
Well, that might be too close. I was thinking of Neil Patrick Harris.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, that would be a good one.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Emily]
That fits.

[Shep]
Who is also a fan of magic in real life. So maybe there’s something there.

[Thomas]
Oh, and he’s a believer.

[Shep]
He’s a Belieber?

[Thomas]
Yep. He knows the magic is real. Somehow. Jeremy Renner’s not the first person to come from this other dimension.

[Shep]
Ooh.

[Thomas]
So there’s, like, historical documents dating back thousands of years. Is there some, like, in Mexico or something, some sort of hot sauce goddess that could have been worshipped?

[Shep]
Sure, if that’s what we need for the story, then yes.

[Emily]
Yeah, absolutely.

[Thomas]
So Neil Patrick Harris knows all about this history. Somehow he came across that information and he’s been pursuing it. Why does he want it?

[Shep]
For the magic. For the actual real magic.

[Thomas]
But to do what? Like, what’s his goal?

[Shep]
To be a magician. To have power.

[Thomas]
See, what… He wants to do parlor tricks?

[Emily]
But for real.

[Shep]
Yeah. For real, for real. Instead of for pretend. For real life. That’s what he wants.

[Emily]
Like, this is the dialogue he’s telling him at the end when he’s like, “But why?”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So you could snap your fingers and make a flame. Yep. We have lighters. Like what?

[Thomas]
So are we playing this, like, Neil Patrick Harris is this, like, evil person, and then at the end you find out, like, he’s just kind of a goof?

[Shep]
He does play a lot of villains.

[Emily]
He does.

[Shep]
I’m trying to think of something that he was in where he wasn’t the villain. I mean, other than Doogie Howser. After Doogie Howser, he’s been playing against type as villain after villain.

[Emily]
So you’re saying that’s old hat and expected. So we have to reverse it and do the unexpected, expected.

[Thomas]
He could have a legitimate reason. Like, Jeremy Renner is trying to go back to his dimension. Maybe Neil Patrick Harris is trying to accomplish something in the real world that only magic could solve.

[Shep]
Mmm.

[Thomas]
So he has some benevolent reason he has to do this detestable thing.

[Shep]
Right. Because the right blend of hot sauce can also heal.

[Emily]
He’s trying to save our world.

[Shep]
Or he’s trying to save a specific person.

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Shep]
This whole idea is very silly.

[Emily]
And it’s enjoyable.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I love it.

[Shep]
Okay. But does it have the right blend of silliness and seriousness?

[Emily]
So who is he trying to save? That might bring that seriousness. Is it his husband? His children? Is it some other celebrity? Does he fail? Did he fail before, and he’s determined not to fail this time? And we blame an old celebrity death that hurt everybody really badly on Neil Patrick Harris.

[Thomas]
Well, maybe… Maybe his husband’s family has a genetic disease, and so the husband’s mom died from it and he wasn’t able to save her. And he knows someday his husband will die from it. It’s going to happen. Maybe the symptoms have already started. So he feels like a time pressure. It takes time to grow these peppers to make this hot sauce. “I’m on the clock. I’m already…” He already feels like he’s behind.

[Shep]
So he has these henchmen that really misunderstand him and think that he’s a villain, but he’s just trying to get his two friends to help him acquire these spices that he needs.

[Emily]
To save the man he loves.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
How goofy do we want to go with this? And how dumb are these henchmen?

[Shep]
Oh, yes. Fully all the way.

[Thomas]
Okay, so before they attack Jeremy Renner and steal his spices, they find and beat up Belgian actor Jérémie Renier, who is a real person.

[Emily]
They go to Belgium and beat him up? Or is he in the States filming on location?

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s filming something in LA. So they don’t have to go all the way to Brussels because that would be weird.

[Emily]
I just think it would be funny if they ended up in Brussels and Neil Patrick Harris is like, “But why? Why would you…?”

[Thomas]
They’re, like, submitting their expense reports, like, “Well, I’m not paying for these tickets.”

[Emily]
Okay, so Neil Patrick Harris has goons, and the goons are dumb. Are the goons minor celebrities, or are they just two dudes he knows?

[Thomas]
I think it would be funny if they’re minor celebrities.

[Shep]
I think it would be cheaper if there were just random people.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s true.

[Emily]
Okay, so they go and break into his after their failed attempt at the Belgian actor Jérémie Renier, and they steal the seedlings.

[Thomas]
All right, so Jeremy Renner needs to get these seedlings back. How does he get them back?

[Shep]
And even if he gets them back, it doesn’t solve the problem.

[Thomas]
Right. Well, if Neil Patrick Harris has done all of this research, maybe he has recipes, but not the ingredients.

[Shep]
Yes. Oh, I. Yeah, I thought. I assumed that the end result is that they would work together. That’s the real goal.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
But they don’t know that at the beginning.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
You know, he thinks Neil Patrick Harris has stolen from him and is a villain, maybe working for the people that attacked his teacher.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. Okay. I can see that. He’s like, “Oh, he’s doing nefarious things with this. He needs this for evil to take over this world.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
He was sent by the black wizard to take over this world. Whatever.

[Shep]
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Black wizard? Why does it got to be a black wizard?

[Thomas]
Perhaps there even is somebody who is sent by the evil wizard to chase after him.

[Shep]
Right, but they were sent 30 years ago.

[Emily]
And they got stuck somewhere else. Are they still in LA?

[Shep]
It’s some other celebrity. Who else has been active for 30 years?

[Thomas]
Well, I feel like it would be… They would just… Everybody would just write it off as, like, this is a crazy fan who tried to attack him. Because this could be somebody who was trying to hunt him down for the last 20 years, you know.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Because this could be an event that happened. We don’t have to see that. It would be an awfully huge coincidence. Oh, maybe. Maybe that’s the right kind of coincidence, though. A coincidence of timing. Because it’s like this guy finally gets close to him and attacks him. That happens early in the film. And so when the henchmen steal the seeds, a completely unrelated event, he thinks the two are connected. So, like, Neil Patrick Harris and the henchmen, they have no knowledge of this recent attack on Jeremy Renner by the evil wizard’s henchmen.

[Shep]
Uh, you know who else’s career started in 1994, just coincidentally? Nathan Fillion. I’m just throwing that out there. I don’t think he hardly ever plays the villain.

[Emily]
He’s always the hero.

[Thomas]
Even when the hero is the villain.

[Emily]
Mm hmm. I love it.

[Shep]
The problem is all these people don’t need a paycheck anymore, so.

[Emily]
I know. Well, this is our fantasy movie.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
We did this with the Christmas one, remember?

[Shep]
Yeah, that’s true.

[Thomas]
It’s true.

[Emily]
We can’t afford any of those people.

[Thomas]
That’s true.

[Shep]
That’s right.

[Emily]
So Nathan Fillion is the-

[Shep]
Evil wizard’s henchman sent after Jeremy Renner.

[Thomas]
Like, why wouldn’t anything have happened previously if they’re both in Hollywood? If they’ve both been celebrities for 30 years.

[Shep]
Jeremy Renner left before he saw Nathan Fillion in the other dimension. So he doesn’t know.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And Nathan Fillion. Maybe the instructions were unclear.

[Emily]
Maybe he’s not a smart man.

[Thomas]
He’s been stalking Jérémie Renier for the last 20 years.

[Shep]
We got to tie it back into him a third time at some point later.

[Thomas]
This poor guy is just like, “Dude, LA is rough.” He goes back to Brussels and tells everyone. It’s a post-credits scene or a mid-credits scene where he’s back in Brussels and-

[Emily]
He’s talking to Jean-Claude Van Damme.

[Shep]
Yeah. His post-credit scene is him talking to Jean-Claude Van Damme and Jean-Claude Van Damme “Did they suspect?” And he goes, “No.” And he opens his hand and he’s got seedlings in it.

[Thomas]
Yep, perfect. Good.

[Thomas]
Is Jean-Claude Van Damme the evil wizard?

[Shep]
No. He’s been around too long.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true. That’s true.

[Shep]
So the bumbling goons have stolen his spices.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So we should clarify, because we’ve said a few different things. They sold spices. They sold seeds. They sold seedlings.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
What specifically did they steal?

[Shep]
Yes. All of that. Instructions unclear!

[Thomas]
I mean, that’s the conversation they have. “What are we supposed to take?” “I don’t know. Better grab it all.”

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay, perfect.

[Shep]
So, like, all that’s left is two seeds that had rolled into a crack in the table. And it’s like, maybe they can germinate, but the odds are not great. So you set that up then so that when Jeremy Renner is off tracking down the bad guys, and at the end, the spices are lost for whatever reason, and it’s the lowest low, it turns out his wife had planted the seeds and they germinated and are growing into seedlings. So not all is lost.

[Thomas]
Okay. Let’s take a break here, and when we come back, we will figure out the rest of our story for hot sauce.

[Break]

[Thomas]
We’re back. We have just the barest idea of what it is we’re doing. So I think it would be helpful to nail down the overall plot and kind of the timeline of the film. What happens when. So we know that the movie starts in an alternate dimension 30 years in the past. We have a younger actor playing our character, our main character, I assume.

[Shep]
It’s all AI. Just, he’s got footage of him at that age so we can face swap on someone.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Emily]
I like the idea of having it be Timothée Chalamet, because they look nothing alike.

[Thomas]
Plus, this is our fantasy movie, and I want to meet Timothée Chalamet, so, good excuse to hang out with him.

[Shep]
It turns out Jeremy Renner is just disguise magic.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And he looks like Timothée Chalamet, who has not aged a day in the ensuing 30 years.

[Emily]
But that would be weird. So.

[Shep]
Does his wife know that he’s really Timothée Chalamet underneath?

[Emily]
So is he doubling up his career? Moonlighting both as Timothée Chalamet and Jeremy Renner?

[Shep]
No, the actual Timothée Chalamet. That’s just coincidence. You know how sometimes people look alike.

[Emily]
Yeah. Yeah. There’s only so many genetic codes in the world for faces.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Shep]
Exactly. Yep.

[Thomas]
Well, this is a- We’re in a parallel timeline, right?

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, that’s true.

[Thomas]
A parallel universe. So somewhere there’s a Jeremy Renner look-alike who does a great business in Akron as a-

[Emily]
An insurance salesman.

[Thomas]
Oh, no, I was going to say he dresses up as Hawkeye and goes to kids’ parties.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
It’s Dave. You know, he looks just like the president.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So we have this opening scene to sort of establish the hot sauce magic. And there’s the wizard and the apprentice. And the apprentice is kind of slacking off, and he’s not really paying attention.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And the wizard is attacked. And the apprentice tries to help him, but drinks the wrong hot sauce, thus sending him to our time. He arrives in 1994, hard cut to present day. Turns out he has gotten a job as an actor. He is successful actor Jeremy Renner, who in his spare time makes hot sauce. Everyone thinks it’s an obsessive hobby, but really, he’s trying to make his way back to save the wizard, who was his-

[Shep]
His teacher.

[Thomas]
His mentor. Yeah. So that’s how the film starts. We know that his spices and whatnot get stolen. At what point does that happen? Is that fairly early?

[Shep]
After he wins the… What did we say?

[Thomas]
The Malibu Farmers Market hot sauce competition, the annual-

[Shep]
The Malibu Farmers Market hot sauce competition.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Is this the mid-second-act turning point then? All of his stuff gets stolen?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So it feels like he’s making good progress.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Or what’s the conflict up to that point, though? I guess.

[Shep]
Maybe the conflict is he doesn’t know what to do once he gets it right. Because he has this connection. He has this family.

[Thomas]
Oh, sure, sure.

[Shep]
He’s got this career. He’s got this whole life. He’s spent more time in this dimension than he ever spent in the previous dimension.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He was in his twenties then and he spent 30 years here. So this is now his home. Now, he’s still looking for the right recipe because that was his goal. That’s been his lifelong goal. And he hasn’t abandoned that. He does want to go back and help his mentor, but maybe not to stay there. So it’s becoming a dilemma. Like, “If I get the right recipe and I can go back, can I come back here or am I risking giving up my whole life here?”

[Thomas]
And this hot sauce that he’s created that won the contest, is this, like, he feels like he’s on the right track? He’s getting really close, and so now it feels like the hot sauce he’s been trying to create is within reach. And so he’s having these existential crises.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He’s got to be getting some of his powers back as the hot sauce gets closer and closer to perfection.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Because it’s 30 years of experimentation, and there was some foundation of knowledge. He does know some things.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
So maybe one of the ways he was successful was via hot sauce.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He used some hot sauce magic to land a major acting career.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
But it doesn’t have to be that. It could have been like, charm spell, whatever.

[Thomas]
Right, right. He finds a studio exec who really likes taco salads, and he says, “Oh, you should try this hot sauce on your taco salad.” Or he gets a job in the kitchen, makes the taco salads, puts the hot sauce on it. That seems more likely. And then as the guy’s eating it, he looks up and sees Jeremy Renner, and he’s like, “You’d be perfect in my movie.”

[Shep]
Because it’s a charm sauce.

[Thomas]
Right. All right. So then the mid-second-act turning point then is everything gets stolen by some goons. So maybe we’ll jump ahead. We find out at some point, or he finds out at some point that those goons are working for Neil Patrick Harris. He initially believes that they are in an antagonistic relationship, but they’re both trying to… Are they both trying to find the same recipe? Like, maybe it’s not a curative recipe that Neil Patrick Harris is looking for. Maybe he’s looking for a time travel recipe or something like that.

[Emily]
Where would he want to travel?

[Thomas]
To save the mother. Maybe the medicine exists now, but didn’t then. So he’s going to take the medicine back in time with him to save the mother.

[Shep]
Sorry. I just pictured him going back in time and dressing up like a doctor to administer the medicine.

[Thomas]
Yep. That’s his plan.

[Shep]
Yeah, he knows all the lingo.

[Thomas]
At what point does Jeremy Renner figure out that the goons are attached to NPH? Is that the beginning of the third act? I mean, what is the lowest low for Renner?

[Shep]
The lowest low has to be the destruction of the ingredients. So the goons get the spices, the seedlings, the peppers. And NPH wastes no time trying to brew the hot sauce. And hot on his trail is Jeremy Renner. So the goons are trying to hold him back, keep him out of NPH’s lab. And NPH is trying to brew the very delicate recipe. Jeremy Renner breaks in, the recipe is ruined. The ingredients are ruined for both of them. That’s the lowest low. They’ve both lost.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So then they team up and work together over the course of the third act?

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And then that’s where those seeds that Renner’s wife planted come into play.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Because that lowest low is, that’s it. All of the magic is, or, you know, the peppers he brought with him and the seeds for the peppers he brought with him, they’re all gone. That was the last of it. But it turns out, no, it wasn’t. He just didn’t know about those other seeds.

[Shep]
I mean, he has some related plants because, like Emily has pointed out previously, they’ve mutated over time.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And that’s what gives his hot sauce that special flavor. So he has those plants. And so him and NPH are trying to bring brainstorm. Like, maybe they can unmutate it or mutate it back. Like, we cross-breed it, try to get it back.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Maybe they attempt that and none of that works.

[Thomas]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
How much of his family knows about Jeremy Renner’s history as a wizard?

[Thomas]
Maybe it’s like a bedtime story he’s told his kids, but they just think it’s a thing he made up. Like, I don’t think anyone knows that it’s a real thing.

[Shep]
So his wife doesn’t know?

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
He didn’t tell his wife? How strong is that marriage then?

[Thomas]
Ha.

[Shep]
I have a doubt.

[Thomas]
I mean, she has no reason to question him.

[Shep]
I think that he just would have told her.

[Emily]
But he would have come off as a crazy person.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
How would he have proven- he didn’t have the stuff to make him magical at that point? How would he have proven to her that-

[Shep]
You gotta take it on faith. “Stick with me and someday I’ll show you magic.”

[Emily]
Yeah, I’ve heard that line before.

[Shep]
Yeah, but this time it works.

[Thomas]
Is he currently married?

[Shep]
Oh, no. It’s going to ruin the whole story if he’s not married and doesn’t have kids.

[Emily]
He does have children. I don’t think he’s currently married.

[Thomas]
I mean, this is already a fictitious- because we see that all the time where there’s, like, an actor playing themself, and then they have a spouse who’s not their real-life spouse, so that’s not unheard of to do, so.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Yes. Right. It’s not a deal breaker.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, we’ve all seen Space Jam.

[Shep]
Uhh.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So where are these other seeds planted? These ones that end up saving the day? Does the wife have a garden?

[Shep]
Were they intentionally planted or were they accidentally, you know, fell on some soil and sprouted?

[Thomas]
She could have grabbed some seeds to plant for herself. Like, “He always uses all the peppers for his hot sauce. And I want to jar some peppers or make a dish that uses those peppers” or something like that. So she just grabs a few seeds. I mean, how he doesn’t notice a pepper plant growing in the garden in his yard…

[Emily]
Well, he’s busy chasing down Neil Patrick Harris. He’s not hanging out in his wife’s garden very often. Or he’s in his lab.

[Thomas]
She has her hobbies. He has his.

[Emily]
Yes, she has this beautiful little white picket fence that separates her garden from the rest of the beautifully manicured lawn overlooking the beach.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Oh, see, this is why I say it should be an unintentional, like, contaminated planting. Like it wasn’t supposed to be there. And the wife sees it as a weed and she’s gonna dig it up and get rid of it. So you have an extra tension there. Is it gonna be discovered before she weeds it out?

[Thomas]
So how do they find it then?

[Shep]
The kid finds it.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
His kid, his daughter.

[Thomas]
She’s just munching on a pepper. “I love these.” “Where did you get that?”

[Shep]
Or she picks a flower off of it and gives it to her dad.

[Thomas]
Mmm. Yeah. And of course, he recognizes it.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Okay, how does this movie end? Does Jeremy Renner make his potion, his hot sauce? And does Neil Patrick Harris make his hot sauce?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
They both succeed?

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
We have a happy ending.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Okay. Works for me.

[Shep]
Neil Patrick Harris has to succeed to have the scene where he’s wearing the doctor’s uniform.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
What if, because Jeremy Renner has previously had this existential crisis, there are only enough peppers to make one bottle, and it’s either the time travel hot sauce or the interdimensional travel hot sauce, but you can’t do both?

[Shep]
Just grow more peppers.

[Thomas]
Well, that’s true.

[Shep]
It’s not a limited resource. What was limited is, you didn’t have the recipe before, but now you got the recipe. Just make both. Just make both. In fact, make three. So that Neil Patrick Harris can time travel and Jeremy Renner can dimension travel and then dimension travel back.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Or Jeremy Renner had the recipe for dimension travel, but didn’t use it because he discovered it after 20 years.

[Thomas]
Ah, there you go.

[Shep]
So he’s been trying to do the time travel one for ten years so that he could go back to the moment when he left.

[Thomas]
Right. Because he needs to do both.

[Shep]
He needs to do both. And that’s what Neil Patrick Harris has been working on. So they work together to perfect that part of the recipe. They both use it. And Jeremy Renner also uses the dimensional traveling, goes back to save his mentor. His mentor’s like, “Don’t worry about it. I mean, you’ve grown into a fine man. And that was all I ever wanted. So just seeing you is enough to know that I succeeded. (dying noise)”

[Emily]
And he was his father, right? That’s revealed at the end as well.

[Shep]
The person attacking his mentor was his father? Is that what you’re…?

[Emily]
No, the mentor was his father.

[Shep]
Meh. So he goes to the other world, meets his mentor again, who he hasn’t seen in 30 years. Does he save his mentor or not?

[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, does he come after the mentor is mortally wounded, or does he arrive before the attack?

[Emily]
What would be the point of him taking all that time for time travel if he didn’t get there before the attack? If he was so bad at the time travel piece?

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. There’s got to be some, something at the beginning that doesn’t quite make sense. Either the wizard is weirdly prepared with exactly the right thing he needs to defend some something. I mean, obviously it doesn’t work in the end. Or he just seems, like, oddly at peace with the idea that the attackers are here or something like that. Something that once you see the end of the film, it recontextualizes that, and you’re like, “Oh, he knew” because Jeremy Renner had come back and told him “You’re about to be attacked by the evil wizard.”

[Shep]
Right. Oddly composed in the face of death is Dragonslayer again. Just saying. Just pointing that out. So Jeremy Renner comes back before the attack, informs his mentor, makes preparations. Well, if it’s Jerry Renner, you gotta have an action scene. This is where you can show off him fighting the bad guys, saving his mentor. But it’s predestination. So he’s like, “I have all these abilities because I’ve been training for 30 years and I did that because I drank the wrong potion. So give me the potions like this. I’ll drink the wrong one and go to the other world.” So he tells his mentor everything. His mentor gives the young version of him the wrong potion on purpose.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He drinks it. He goes to the other world.

[Thomas]
And then adult Jeremy Renner grabs a bow and arrow and helps defend the-

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
The whatever they’re in.

[Shep]
Right. The little wizard’s castle, wizard’s tower.

[Thomas]
Yeah, the mini castle. A fortified home is what it would be.

[Shep]
Whatever set is already built that we can get for cheap.

[Thomas]
Right. I’m just thinking there’s a fortified home on my ancestral land in Scotland that I’d love to have an excuse to go inside of. So. It actually might be open to the public now. I’m not sure. So did they successfully fend off the attackers or not?

[Shep]
Yes. But then his mentor is like, “Yeah, you can’t stay. You’re an old man now. Go away. I’ll look for some new young kid to train. Your training is done.”

[Thomas]
Right. “You made the time travel potion. You made the interdimensional potion.”

[Shep]
Right. “Congratulations. You graduated.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. “You’re not my apprentice anymore. Go home.”

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
“Go be with your wife and child.”

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
So. Oh, yeah. So the- In the beginning of the film, then. So the wizard comes in and he says, “We’re about to be attacked. You’re gonna need these supplies.” And he hands him the things he needs to take with him.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
No context of why he needs those supplies. Just, “Here, hold these.” Or maybe he says, “Hold these for me and drink this,” or something like that. And so, yeah, we see at the end, oh, it was all part of the plan. Okay, I like that. So then he does come back and do him and NPH hang out and talk about how it worked? Do they just give each other a look? Do they not interact at the end of the film? Ah, it’s a year later-

[Shep]
It’s the next-

[Thomas]
And it’s the next annual Malibu Farmers Market hot sauce competition. And head to head, it’s Jeremy Renner and NPH. The judges can’t decide.

[Shep]
No. No. They both lose to some third contender, and that’s your setup-

[Thomas]
Oh, yes. They lose to Jérémie Renier.

[Shep]
Yeah. Yep.

[Thomas]
Jeremy Renner’s like, “Yeah, I won again.” And they’re like, “No, no.”

[Shep]
Yeah. Something that you’ve set up earlier.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That’s the stinger.

[Thomas]
I like that. Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s show about Hot Sauce. Did we bring the heat or were we lost in the sauce? Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. Links to all of those can be found at AlmostPlausible.com where you can also find complete transcripts for every episode, as well as links to the many references we make. Emily, Shep, and I are eagerly anticipating the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Shep]
And using hot sauce to cure illnesses and fight Emil- enemies along, blech.

[Emily]
“Fight Emily’s along the way”? I get it. I see where you’re going with that.