Leap Day

References

• Brigadoon
• The Time Traveler’s Wife
• Mark Twain
• The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
• Inequality Inc.
• Brewster’s Millions
• It Could Happen to You
• Nicolas Cage
• Bridget Fonda
• Almost Plausible: Padlock
• Sad Keanu
• The Big Lebowski
• Mad World
• Jerry Maguire

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
But he still stops by that gas station because it’s near his work. But now it’s the opposite direction from where he lives. So he has to go out of his way to go there. But that’s what he’s familiar with. He’s in denial. He’s like, “I’m not going there to flirt with the girl that works at the gas station. I just like the donuts.”

[Emily]
They have smooth pumps.

[Shep]
Yeah, they have smooth pumps. That sounds so dirty when you say it.

[Emily]
Not everything I say is dirty.

[Shep]
Everything you say, you make dirty.

[Emily]
Not on purpose.

[Shep]
Subconsciously.

[Emily]
Probably.

[Shep]
They have “smooth pumps”…

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. We are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
F. Paul shepherd-

[Shep]
Happy to be here!

[Thomas]
And I’m Thomas J. Brown. In a couple of days, it will be February 29, and since that day only comes around once every four years, we decided to take advantage of this opportunity, which is why the movie plot we’re going to come up with on this episode will send were around Leap Day.

[Shep]
So there was a teacher that I knew at university who was born on a leap day.

[Thomas]
So they were like eight years old or-

[Shep]
Yes, I think he turned 16 while I was there. And, you know, we joked about him finally getting his driver’s license or whatever. He has since passed away. He did not make it to drinking age.

[Thomas]
Aw. How do people born on leap day… Do they just, the 28th?

[Shep]
Are you really asking?

[Thomas]
I’ve never really thought that much about it.

[Shep]
Yeah. Legally, it’s the day before.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Yeah. Because on the day before, it has been a year.

[Thomas]
Right! Yes, that makes sense. Well, I’ll pitch first. How about an updated Brigadoon where the town appears for 24 hours every leap day? So instead of having to wait 100 years, they get to come back every four years.

[Shep]
Almost every four years.

[Thomas]
Well, yeah, that’s true. All right, well, instead of rehashing IP that already exists.

[Shep]
What? Us?

[Thomas]
I have an original pitch. A man meets a beautiful and interesting woman. He asks her out for a drink. She suggests dinner, and they have a lovely time. They end up back at his place, but they don’t sleep together. Instead, they just talk until they fall asleep on the couch. He wakes up the next morning and she’s gone. But she left her backpack behind. He looks through it to see if he can find some ID to return her stuff, but more importantly, to get her phone number. He finds a few- It just struck me now, reading this out, how fucking creepy that is.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He finds a few things that leave him scratching his head. For example, a book checked out from a library that doesn’t exist and never has. Nothing in the bag helps him track her down. And eventually he puts the bag in a closet and forgets about it. On the next leap day, she shows up at his apartment. It turns out the woman lives in an alternate dimension that is similar but not quite the same as our own. She was born on leap day, and every four years, she wakes up in our dimension. They begin a relationship and work out how to stay close while only seeing each other once every four years.

[Shep]
So it’s the Time Traveler’s Husband.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, sure. That’s what I have. Emily, what do you have for us?

[Emily]
Oh, I clearly had way too much time out my hands and was very excited about this topic, so I have lots, so let’s just go with my very short ones. A leap day lottery, where the winner wins an obscenely high lottery prize. Leap day population culling every four years on leap.

[Shep]
Hold on. Slow down, slow down. I want to respond to these. A leap day lottery, where you have four years to buy a ticket.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So it builds up over four years, and then they draw.

[Emily]
It’d be crazy, right?

[Thomas]
And so is the main character is the guy who’s like, “Ah, there’s still plenty of time to buy a ticket.” He keeps putting it off and keeps putting it off, and then-

[Shep]
No, he bought the winning ticket four years ago, and he doesn’t remember where it is.

[Thomas]
Oh, and he can’t just remember where it is.

[Shep]
He’s since moved, and it’s like, “Did I put it in a book?”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Because you’ve only got six months to claim it.

[Emily]
Great.

[Thomas]
He plays the same numbers every time. It’s his lucky number, so he knows immediately when the numbers come up.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
“Those are my numbers.”

[Shep]
Right. Everybody calls him.

[Thomas]
Yeah, they announced there’s one winner. That’s even worse. People who know him know that he’s the winner because they know he plays those numbers-

[Emily]
They’re all congratulating him.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Throw him a big surprise party. Oh, that’s like. This one’s pretty good.

[Thomas]
I like this a lot.

[Shep]
All right, let’s go with this one.

[Thomas]
All right, Shep, what do you have for us?

[Shep]
Ha.

[Emily]
Wait, there’s a good one. We could do a retelling of the frog race story that Samuel Clemens wrote. Because, you know, I can remember names. Mark Twain. We could do a retelling of Mark Twain’s frog race story and call it the Leap Day Frog Race.

[Thomas]
Hey!

[Shep]
Is it just for the pun?

[Emily]
100%.

[Thomas]
You know, Emily, it’s funny because I have also been like Samuel Clemens and not been able to think of his pen name. It’s like, I know what his real name is.

[Emily]
Yeah. Samuel Clemens. Everyone knows Samuel Clemens.

[Shep]
All right.

[Emily]
All right, so here are my actual pitches.

[Thomas]
Okay. I will say before you read these, they’re going to have to be quite good to beat this lottery thing.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, apparently I should have just fleshed that one out.

[Shep]
Or we can do that. That’s-

[Emily]
Yeah, I mean-

[Thomas]
If only we had a podcast where that was what we did.

[Emily]
Like, that was the point.

[Thomas]
Okay, let’s hear these other ones.

[Emily]
A day in the life of a young woman just trying to make it through her life. She meets several everyday obstacles. She’s late for work. The dry cleaner loses or destroys her favorite dress. She realizes she’s missed an important deadline at work and loses a client. Oh, did I mention it’s leap day and it’s her birthday? Normally, having a birthday on the real date makes her exceedingly happy. But this year, things just aren’t going her way. And then she accidentally knocks a handsome stranger off his bike, and he breaks his arm. She insists on taking him to the hospital, and they end up spending the rest of the day together doing all those lovely rom-com things people do.

[Thomas]
Aw.

[Emily]
So there’s my rom-com. Yeah, it’s cute.

[Thomas]
So what’s the title of your rom-com?

[Emily]
Leap Day.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Leap Date.

[Emily]
Ooh, that’s good.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That’s better.

[Thomas]
There we go.

[Emily]
All right. And then here’s sort of my Brigadoon. For the last century, an isolated small town has been terrorized by an evil entity every February 29th. Every four years, the town folks have tried anything they could think of to appease the demon. They fought it. They set traps. They tried voluntary and forced sacrifices. The survivors of the first attack attempted to leave, but found they had become trapped by the forest surrounding them. Now, citizens just hunker down and pray they will be spared. But one young man doesn’t want to give in. He still wants to fight, and sets out to find a way to end the misery. And then should we do a drum roll for the serial killer one?

[Shep]
Spoilers!

[Emily]
Savvy young detective Aaron Chambers is preparing for what he thinks is the inevitable return of the leap day killer, a serial killer that has struck every leap day for the past 20 years. He’s convinced he has all the details ready this year to finally catch the killer. His sergeant, Lloyd Stevens, isn’t convinced there even is a leap day killer. He thinks it’s a cop version of the boogeyman, and he wants Aaron to concentrate on the very real and current murders on their board. Detective Chambers reluctantly follows orders, but while solving one crime, he may have unlocked the clues needed to prove and solve the leap day murders.

[Shep]
It’s his sergeant, Lloyd Stevens.

[Emily]
I named him that because-

[Shep]
I solved the case.

[Emily]
I named him that because he’s the obstacle.

[Shep]
Yeah, because he’s always out there killing.

[Thomas]
Yeah, it’s a killer who doesn’t want to be discovered.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Pretty good obstacle.

[Emily]
All right, those are my pitches.

[Shep]
All right, I have a pitch, and it’s also about Brigadoon! No, it’s not. I don’t have a Brigadoon pitch, you crazy people. Okay. Teenage boy visiting America. Let’s say he’s 17 years old-

[Thomas]
He’s 17 years, Emily. He said, “Let’s say-“

[Shep]
You! Okay, a teenage boy, visiting America, let’s say he’s 17 years old, meets a woman in her late twenty s at a party, and they hit it off. But as they spend more time together, her odd quirks come to the surface. She has a collection of handwritten correspondence, all written in cursive. She has a landline telephone, and she remembers phone numbers rather than saving them on a smartphone. And despite apparently having quite a bit of money, evident by her amazing apartment in New York City, she’s very frugal. She has a bunch of black and white photos, but no photos of herself. Eventually, she and the young man grow so close, she confesses: she is a leap year baby born in 1912. She only ages one year every four. That’s kind of why she’s chatting up this young guy. She wants the guy as young as possible, because all of her relationships, they die before she dies.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So could their May-December romance even work? Alas, things are even more doomed than she thought. He is a century leap baby, born in 100 ad. He only aged one year every hundred until the Gregorian calendar took away three four of all century leap years. He has only aged two years since then. It’s two right? 1600 and 1800?

[Thomas]
I think so.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Or three. 2000 was a-

[Emily]
2000 was one.

[Shep]
All right, so it’s three years since then.

[Emily]
So he’s 18.

[Shep]
So he’s 18.

[Emily]
That makes it so much. That fixes all of my questions.

[Shep]
I mean, he’s not 18. He’s 2000 and something years old.

[Emily]
Well, I know.

[Shep]
All right, so we’re doing the leap day lottery one.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Emily]
Clearly.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
I love how I worked so hard on all those other ones, and this was just my throwaway list of, like, okay, leap day lottery.

[Shep]
Yeah. We’ve all had this experience.

[Thomas]
Yes. So what are the broad strokes of this? We know he buys a lottery ticket. Just everybody buys a lottery ticket? Why wouldn’t you? It’s so preposterously large of an amount of money.

[Emily]
Yeah. It’s so huge. Everyone, sometime in the four years, decides “I’m going to buy my lottery ticket.”

[Thomas]
Is this a global event?

[Shep]
I don’t know if it could be global, because how do you deal with different currencies? But maybe.

[Emily]
That does make it obscenely high.

[Thomas]
Right. People must be able to choose their own numbers.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
If our character is choosing his own numbers.

[Shep]
You have to choose your own numbers.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
You can’t do quick picks.

[Thomas]
Good.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
What happens if somebody doesn’t win?

[Shep]
It rolls over. It’s just a regular lottery.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But because it’s only every four years and so many people play it, there’s virtually always multiple winners. How much is the pot? Let’s put a number on it. So I have a way to visualize. Is it $40 billion? Is it $400 billion?

[Emily]
I was going to say, I did learn recently that within the next, I think it’s ten to 15 years, there’s going to be a trillionaire.

[Shep]
What?

[Emily]
Yeah. And I heard it on TikTok, so who knows? But that we’re that close. So maybe it’s always been like a couple hundred billion for the last couple of leap years, and then this is the trillion dollar jackpot.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. So two things happen that have never happened before. It breaks the trillion dollar mark, and there is only one winner. There has never been one winner. There’s either been no winners or multiple winners. There’s never been a single winner.

[Emily]
I like that. Because then it’ll make the day even more outrageous for him trying to find it. So he’s moved and lost the ticket, or he doesn’t know where it is and he had moved at some point in the last four years.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It used to be on his fridge, and it would stay there for years and years until they finally drew the numbers and throw it away because it didn’t win. And then this time, he has since moved. Maybe his girlfriend, let’s make it his girlfriend and not a wife, because now he’s a trillionaire, potentially.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
This is going to change their dynamic. She’s a clean freak, and so she won’t let anything be stuck up on the fridge.

[Thomas]
And she didn’t clean off the stuff off of the fridge because she would have put it somewhere, filed it. She has her cleaning system, her organizational system.

[Shep]
Right. No, she has a photo album. So things that used to go on the fridge, mementos and things that he would put up, pictures of his nieces and nephews, whatever, they all go in the photo album. They’re photos.

[Thomas]
Right. But what was on the fridge, she didn’t file that stuff away. She made him clean it up.

[Shep]
Right. Because they were moving. Because they were getting together. They were moving together.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Oh, they’re moving in together. Okay.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So they blame each other. She says, “It’s your fault. You’re the one who took everything off the fridge.” And he says, “No, it’s your fault. You made me take everything off the fridge.”

[Shep]
I kind of want to jump ahead and ask how this ends.

[Thomas]
It’s a good question.

[Shep]
What are we going toward? What do we think would be a good ending?

[Emily]
I don’t know. Do we want the, “He’s a good guy and he deserves all that ridiculous money, so he wins it” and whatever. Or do we want the “Value of loved ones is more important than a trillion dollars” or-

[Shep]
I mean, a trillion dollars is a lot.

[Emily]
A lot of money.

[Shep]
Even for me.

[Emily]
I mean, I could live an obscene lifestyle and still give away majority of that money.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s a really good question. Like, what do we want for him?

[Shep]
Well, he has to get rid of the money because he gets harassed this whole movie.

[Thomas]
Oh, absolutely.

[Shep]
So he realizes, “If I have this money, I’m just going to be harassed for the rest of my life. Not only do I have to get rid of it, it has to be in a public way so that everyone knows I don’t have the money anymore.” So he’s got to establish a fund, a trust, a charity, something. He’s going to make the world a better place.

[Thomas]
If he finds the ticket in time.

[Shep]
If he finds the ticket. Yeah.

[Thomas]
The other thought that I had was, he wants the money. Everybody wants the money.

[Emily]
Of course.

[Thomas]
But then it quickly becomes known, as we said, because everybody knows he plays these numbers. He’s only anonymous for, like, a few days, and then everybody knows it’s him. And he, as we said, gets harassed. He very quickly learns, like, “Oh, this isn’t going to stop. This is awful. I don’t like this.” So what if he finds the ticket toward the end of the six month window, so he could get the money, but he makes a conscious decision to not get the money because he knows “If I don’t have the money and the six months is up, everyone will leave me alone.”

[Emily]
What does he tell people when they ask why he hasn’t?

[Thomas]
“I can’t find the ticket.”

[Emily]
Oh, he just is honest. So then they’re like a crazy-

[Thomas]
Oh, God. People would, like, break into his house and-

[Emily]
That’s what I’m saying.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And he can’t afford security because he doesn’t have the money.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So it’s just a regular house or a regular apartment. So, yeah, thieves break in, he gets kidnapped, he gets harassed on the street. Once the local news does a story on him, it came out that whoever bought the ticket, they bought it at this gas station. Here is the footage of him buying the winning ticket because the news is awful, and they’ll just ruin a life because it’s a good story.

[Emily]
Oh, 100%.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
Well, and then he has a couple friends or cousins or relatives that are like, “Oh, yeah, I know him.” And they identify him because they want that-

[Thomas]
Right. They want to-

[Emily]
Yeah. They’re fame remoras. They’re clinging on.

[Thomas]
So yeah, do we want him to get the money or not?

[Shep]
I want him to get the money and use it. But use it up.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
It’s Brewster’s Trillions.

[Emily]
They set up, like, a medical fund for-

[Thomas]
Oh, he sets up an anything, an everything fund.

[Emily]
All diabetics, free diabetes supplies for the rest of their lives.

[Thomas]
How much of him spending the money do we see?

[Emily]
Not a lot.

[Thomas]
Like, what is the actual end of the movie? What’s the climax of the film?

[Shep]
He’s got to meet someone who’s a real do gooder, and he puts them in charge of his new foundation to make the world a better place. If he bought up all the medical debt in the US, that’s only $88 billion. So $88 billion out of a trillion dollars still leaves almost a trillion dollars.

[Emily]
Plus, it’s still making interest, because you can’t just hold it in cash.

[Shep]
Ha.

[Thomas]
Yeah, it’s like the old joke. What’s the difference between a million and a billion? About a billion.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Does he buy stuff for himself, initially?

[Emily]
Of course.

[Thomas]
He buys a nice house and a nice car, and it’s just not making a dent in the money.

[Shep]
Oh. Does he stay with his girlfriend at the end?

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
No.

[Shep]
Does he stay with his girlfriend after he gets the money and he starts spending it?

[Emily]
For a time.

[Shep]
When does he leave the girlfriend?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
All right, we’re going to make it a rom-com because it’s us.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
We just lean into it.

[Shep]
So he’s got to meet some woman during this process. Like, maybe the person who sold him the ticket or something. She just works at the gas station. She’s not after his money.

[Emily]
Ooh. You know what this is turning into?

[Thomas]
It Could Happen to You?

[Emily]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
What is that?

[Emily]
Nicolas Cage and Bridget Fonda. He forgets his wallet at the police station because he’s a cop.

[Thomas]
And he’s like eating at a diner.

[Emily]
Yeah. And he gets, like, coffee and a donut or something, and then she gets mad at him because he’s going to stiff her, because he’s got to go, and he doesn’t have his wallet. So he’s like, “I got this winning lottery ticket,” and he doesn’t know because they haven’t drawn the numbers yet.

[Thomas]
Yeah. He says, “If it wins, I’ll give you half-“

[Emily]
“I’ll give you half.” Yeah.

[Thomas]
Anyway. Surprise, surprise. He wins.

[Shep]
It sounds like we’re making that. But it already exists.

[Thomas]
Well, but I like that idea of there’s a woman in his life, you know, there’s the barista or the girl at the gas station or whoever.

[Emily]
Yeah. He’s not promising her any money.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
They’re just friendly acquaintances that see each other on a regular basis. Like, she’s the barista in the lobby of Padlock.

[Shep]
Can’t be the barista. We already did that.

[Emily]
Well, I know, but I’m saying. Yeah.

[Shep]
She’s the mechanic that changes his oil every year.

[Thomas]
They need to see each other more often than that.

[Shep]
Yeah, probably.

[Emily]
Well, you should be getting your oil changed more than once a year.

[Thomas]
Well.

[Shep]
I still want her to work at the gas station. That’s the reason he always stops at that gas station and goes in and buys an apple fritter or whatever. It’s just so that he can talk to her.

[Emily]
Just say hi.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Is this gas station not convenient? Like, he’s not like, driving across town, but it’s definitely not near his house or near his work. He has to go out of his way.

[Emily]
It used to be.

[Shep]
Yeah, it used to be between his house and his work.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh, at the old apartment when he was buying the ticket.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Before he moved in with the girlfriend.

[Thomas]
Ah.

[Emily]
We’re already establishing early on that they are clearly not made for each other and that their relationship was not going to work no matter what.

[Shep]
Which they discovered after they moved in together and realized how incompatible they were.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
But he still stops by that gas station because it’s near his work. But now it’s the opposite direction from where he lives. So he has to go out of his way to go there. But that’s what he’s familiar with. He’s in denial. He’s like, “I’m not going there to flirt with the girl that works at the gas station. I just like the donuts.”

[Emily]
They have smooth pumps.

[Shep]
Yeah, they have smooth pumps. That sounds so dirty when you say it.

[Emily]
Not everything I say is dirty.

[Shep]
Everything you say, you make dirty.

[Emily]
Not on purpose.

[Shep]
Subconsciously.

[Emily]
Probably.

[Shep]
They have “smooth pumps”…

[Thomas]
So when does he break up with the incompatible girlfriend? Is it before he wins, so then she comes back when she knows he’s the winner and is trying to patch things up? Or is it, they’re still together, they’ve been fighting, but then all of a sudden she is almost a sort of sycophantic and just giving him whatever he wants because she’s like, “Oh, I need to keep him happy because he’s a trillionaire”?

[Emily]
We could go that way. It’s a safe route, for sure. But I was thinking maybe they’re both a little in denial about this because maybe they’re both like, “We’ve made this decision. We’re going to really stick it out.” They’re going to try maybe a bigger, better house, and they won’t need all these things, and it’s going to take all these obstacles out that they have, and they’ll really have time to spend with each other and do things, and really, then they’ll fall in love again.

[Shep]
Oh, they’ll have more time to spend together. And that’s how they really find out they’re not compatible.

[Thomas]
Yeah, it just makes things worse.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I would want her to be like, “Let’s have a clean break here.” And he’s like, “But what about the money?” And she’s like, “I don’t care. It’s not my money. It’s your money.” I don’t want her to be a bad guy. I just want them to-

[Shep]
Mmm.

[Emily]
Unless you want her to be a bad guy, that’s fine.

[Shep]
I don’t want her to be a bad guy, but a trillion dollars messes with you.

[Emily]
This is true.

[Shep]
So she’s not really a bad guy, but she’s in a situation, like, they know that they have problems and they’re in couples counseling already, and then he wins a trillion dollars. And so, I mean, she’s extra motivated to try and make it work.

[Emily]
And she sees it as the windfall that’s going to save them because now they don’t have to work so they don’t have that stress.

[Shep]
Right! So she keeps wanting to pursue her art career and doesn’t have the opportunity because she has to work to support him for whatever it is that he does. He’s a freelancer for something, and she has a regular steady job, so she supports him. So now it’s turned about like it’s time for him to support her as well. So she’s not like a bad guy.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
She’s due. She’s due. She put in the years, she’s taken care of him, he should take care of her as well.

[Thomas]
I’m not sure the chronological order of things. I’m thinking perhaps at the beginning of the film, we see him buying his ticket. Well, so did we decide that he waits until the March 1 before the drawing?

[Emily]
No, I think it’s the first March. The next day after the last drawing is the way I imagined it when you guys said that he bought it years ago and that’s how it got lost.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Because the question is, how long have they been together? Because the idea that I had was they know that moving in together is a big step and that it can mess with people’s relationships. Because now you’re getting all these new dynamics. So they make a commitment. They’re going to live together for a year. Their lease is for a year. They’re going to live together for that period of time. And if at the end of it, things are going great, cool. We’ll renew the lease on the apartment. We’ll renew the lease on the relationship. Everything’s great. But at the end of the year, if things aren’t working, well, you know what? We gave it an honest attempt and we didn’t let those things break us up arbitrarily. Like, we honestly gave it an attempt. And so partway through the year together, he becomes a trillionaire.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. That’s good.

[Thomas]
So then he has to buy the ticket before they move in together.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So do they even know each other when he buys the ticket?

[Shep]
No.

[Emily]
They’ve known each other.

[Shep]
Well, I was going to say they weren’t dating-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s what I was going to say, too.

[Shep]
While he bought the ticket because it was almost four years ago.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
If they’ve been dating for four years and they haven’t decided to get married or they’re just now deciding to move in together…

[Thomas]
So it’s like, they’ve been dating for like eight months or something like that? A year? How long do people date? I haven’t dated as an adult, so I don’t know how long people wait.

[Shep]
People don’t date anymore. That’s no longer a thing.

[Emily]
I might be too old for this question because I feel like you have to date for over a year before you decide to move in together.

[Shep]
Okay. Maybe they dated for a year.

[Emily]
At least a year.

[Shep]
They dated for a year and she’s like, “Okay, it’s time to either move in together or go our separate ways.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And so they move in together, and now it has been eight months since then.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
So it’s a year and eight months into their relationship. It’s coming up, a couple of months from now. it’s going to be the two year kind of deadline-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Where she’s like, “Are we going to get married? Or is this not going to go that way?”

[Emily]
Well, yeah, because if they’re in their mid-, early-mid-30s or even late-20s, she’s probably got an idea of “If in two years you don’t know, you want to marry me, I’m not wasting any more time.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Which also seems very fair.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Agreed.

[Thomas]
Absolutely. When they break up, does he give her like a billion dollars or something? Not as like, “Hey, I’m paying you off to exit this relationship.” But as like-

[Shep]
But no, “I’m paying you because I support- Your art is amazing, and I believe in you, and I’m going to invest in you, and you deserve it. And I’m sorry that I’m such an asshole. And I’m sorry that it didn’t work out.”

[Emily]
Yeah, maybe that could be part of the discussion. She’s like, “Are you paying me off?”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
But also she’s not saying no.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I like that. Where neither of them is the bad guy.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
They’re both good people. They both have good intentions. They tried to make it work.

[Emily]
But they do break up after he finds the ticket and gets the money.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Well, because I like that idea of, “Oh, great, now we can focus on us, and now we can have this bigger space so we’re not right on top of each other, driving each other nuts,” and they have all these things that they think are the problem-

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And they think that the money is going to be able to solve that. They can get a better couple’s therapist or whatever.

[Emily]
They can spend a month in the south of France and just… trying to think of not something dirty to say.

[Thomas]
Right. Ha.

[Shep]
It’s hard, isn’t it?

[Thomas]
Yeah, it is.

[Shep]
I could have said it’s difficult. I chose not to.

[Thomas]
How do they get together, though, this couple at the end?

[Shep]
Oh, they don’t. He, like, confesses, and she’s like, “Oh, I have a boyfriend.”

[Emily]
Sometimes that’s how life works.

[Thomas]
“I committed to living with my boyfriend for a year.”

[Emily]
If they move into a bigger house, obviously it’s going to be in a different area. Like a way different area. And he’s not going to be going to work because now he can work from home or whatever, so he’s not going to go to that gas station anymore. So they don’t see each other very much.

[Shep]
Right. There is a gap.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And maybe that’s one of the things that he realizes is how much he misses seeing this stranger, basically.

[Emily]
I like that rom-com logic where it’s like, “You know what used to make me feel good every couple days? Marie.”

[Thomas]
So when does this breakup happen? Is that the mid-second-act turning point?

[Shep]
No, the breakup is towards the end, where everything is getting resolved because the audience already knows he’s not going to end up with her.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They’ve tried to make it work, and it doesn’t work. And the more they try, the less it works.

[Thomas]
Ah.

[Shep]
So that’s part of all the resolutions. Oh, go ahead.

[Thomas]
He hires the gas station girl early on at some point to be, like, his personal assistant or something, to do something. So she’s around, he gets to hang out with her. And like you said, Emily, he’s trying not to admit to himself that he, like, likes her. Just like, “No, marie’s my friend. I like spending time with her. I want her to benefit from my wealth and stuff.” And then after the breakup, he realizes, like, “I like, like, like, I want to date her,” but they can’t. So then he fires her so that they can date because he’s not her boss anymore. Too hokey?

[Shep]
See, just him being her boss at any point… I like the idea of her being around, but I wish she weren’t his employee because that whole thing is problematic to me. He fires her so that they can date, but he just fired her. I mean, it seems like it’s not okay.

[Emily]
He has that power.

[Shep]
Yeah. He has that power dynamic. He has this position above her.

[Thomas]
That’s true. I mean, there’s always going to be a power imbalance because he’s a fucking trillionaire.

[Emily]
And I think we can make both of you guys happy here.

[Thomas]
Yeah, you can. Oh, we’re not doing that anymore?

[Shep]
Phrasing!

[Emily]
So instead of giving her a job, so she’s always around, he gives her some money right away because she works the night shift. He always sees her in the morning at the end of her shift, so she’s always tired and whatever. So he gives her some money and she gets to do what she wants to do, which happens to be landscape architecture or something, and he hires her firm. So now there’s no longer that dynamic…

[Shep]
(gasp)

[Emily]
You got something, Shep?

[Shep]
I do.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
And you’ve tipped it over. He gives her some money as soon as he gets it. She sold him the ticket, and he likes her, and he has a crush on her.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And he’s like, that’s his excuse for giving her a million dollars or whatever. She uses it to do good in the world.

[Thomas]
Oh yeah.

[Shep]
She doesn’t spend it on herself. She establishes a charity or whatever to fight whatever problem. Homelessness or something. Something that she has talked to him about when he’s come in earlier in the movie.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Because earlier you can see scenes where there’s like homeless guys hanging out because it’s a gas station near downtown or whatever.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And she’s very kind and generous to them when she can be. And she kind of gets in trouble once in a while because the boss doesn’t want them lingering around.

[Shep]
Yes. She keeps giving them food.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Like, it’s got to be taken off after such amount of time. So she packs it up into a thing and gives it to the homeless people. And so more homeless people keep hanging around the gas station. So she gets in major trouble for doing this, but it’s like, “We’re just going to throw it away.” And the boss is like, “You should have just thrown it away.”

[Emily]
So we established that earlier. And then when he gives her the money, she does it to do good for her homeless friends.

[Shep]
Right. She starts a homeless shelter.

[Thomas]
So I like that he does that early on. We set that all up early on, but I think we don’t know. Like, he gives her the money, she’s like, “Great.” And then that comes that gap where they don’t see each other for, like, half the movie. And then later he finds out, oh, she didn’t spend the money on herself. She set up this homeless shelter.

[Shep]
Right. He stops by the gas station sometime to see her, but she, of course, doesn’t work there anymore.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. Like after a rough day of something, he goes to stop by to get a cruller that he always gets there because they have the best ones at this gas station, not to see her.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And then he’s disappointed when she’s not there. And then he remembers, “Well, yeah, why would she be here?”

[Shep]
He was just hoping that she would be, but of course she’s not.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And so he takes his cruller and his coffee, and he sits on the bench and he’s all depressed. It’s the sad Keanu meme. He takes one bite and then throws the rest- Oh, no. He gives the rest to the homeless guy.

[Thomas]
All right, let’s take a break, and when we come back, we’ll figure out the rest of our story for Leap Day.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back.

[Emily]
So I have an important question. How and where does he find the lost ticket?

[Shep]
It’s in a book. He’d put it in a book as a bookmark.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
At some point, someone says something that reminds him that he had borrowed this book from a friend and he never finished reading it.

[Emily]
He packed it.

[Shep]
Yeah. But as soon as they remind him of the book, he remembers that’s where the ticket is.

[Emily]
All right. I feel like that’s an important detail since we established earlier that he had lost it.

[Thomas]
If later the writers decide that there’s some more significant place for it to be, they can change that.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Right. Or if there’s, you know, product placement, we could do whatever.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
“Oh, I left it in the glove compartment of my KIA.” Whatever. So what are some of the bad things that happen to him between when he discovers that he has won the trillion dollar lottery and when he finds the ticket finally, because this is a big chunk of time.

[Emily]
Mmm. Well, obviously, there’s the break in and the ransacking of their apartment, which makes them feel both unsafe and whatnot.

[Shep]
Right. And they peed on the rug.

[Emily]
And it really tied the room together. And then, the crazy relatives, constant phone calls.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, for sure.

[Shep]
Or just showing up.

[Thomas]
Friends calling to ask if they can borrow money, or not even friends, like acquaintances, people he worked with two jobs ago.

[Shep]
Right. Co-workers, not friends.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
His boss.

[Shep]
Ha.

[Emily]
His boss is like, “Hey, so-“

[Thomas]
Does he have to go to the news station? Like, “I have to make an announcement that I don’t have the money yet. Stop asking me for money.” He’s like trying to get the word out.

[Shep]
Oh, he keeps trying to tell people, but people don’t believe him.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Right, it’s been months. Why wouldn’t you have the money?

[Emily]
“Why are you still coming to work?”

[Shep]
Is he a freelancer or not? I thought his girlfriend was supporting him financially.

[Emily]
then why does he go to the gas station?

[Thomas]
Because he used to work downtown.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Oh, he works at a startup. That’s why he doesn’t have any money.

[Emily]
That works.

[Shep]
Like, it’s going to take off one of these years.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s going to take off, he believes in-

[Thomas]
Oh, there’s got to be a meeting he’s in early on where the boss is pitching to VCs and he’s talking about how it’s a trillion dollar idea.

[Shep]
Haha! Yes. That makes it great for when his boss asks him for money later.

[Thomas]
Yes. Oh, another thing that has to happen is like, he’s at the grocery store and everybody recognizes him. He just like, there’s no privacy anymore. He can’t do anything. So there’s got to be something he enjoys going out and doing, playing basketball with his friends or something like that. And he can’t do it anymore. He’s just constantly being harassed by people.

[Emily]
I like this. He likes to do a pickup game-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And then he goes down one time, and there’s a lot more people than normal, and he’s having trouble getting in a game.

[Shep]
Oh, no. Everybody wants to be in his game with him on the same team.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And so there’s a big brawl that there aren’t games because people are fighting each other and he ends up having to leave.

[Shep]
Right. Yeah. They keep fighting in the background as he’s leaving.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, he goes to and buys coffee someplace and there’s like a tip jar or whatever, and he, you know, puts in a dollar and they’re like, “Just a dollar? You won a trillion dollars.” Or there’s a rumor that he always tips $1,000 or something absurd. He’s like, “I don’t have the money.”

[Thomas]
How does that relationship with the girl that worked at the gas station eventually come together? Because they don’t have a whole lot of time to get to know each other, to become a couple. I mean, we don’t have to see them be successful as a couple, I guess, we just have to see them start dating.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
No, he goes in after work, and it’s, like, very late at night. She works the night shift, and there’s not a lot of people there. And so they talk. So he buys the cruller or the donut, whatever it is, the fritter and a cup of coffee, and they both sit at the bench, and he talks about his problems. He talks about his day or whatever, and she commiserates. She gives him advice. She’s really good at advice. And so when he realizes he has all the money and his life is still falling apart, he tracks her down because he wants that advice again. And also, he wants to see her, but he’s in denial about that part.

[Thomas]
So when he goes to the gas station to see her and she’s, of course, not working there anymore, that’s why he’s going there, right, is to see her?

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So you said he gives the rest of the cruller to the homeless guy, who’s also like, he goes to the bench, and there’s a homeless guy sitting there on the bench with him or comes and sits down or whatever.

[Thomas]
Do they have a conversation? And that guy’s like, “Oh, hard day?” And he’s like, “Well, I may as well talk to somebody.”

[Shep]
Yeah. The homeless guy is like, “Oh, you’ve had a rough day. Why don’t you tell me about the rough day you’ve had.”

[Thomas]
But does he find out from the homeless guy, like, “Oh, Marie? Yeah, she opened up a shelter. Like, we all love Marie. She’s great.” Why would the homeless guy be there anymore, though? Wouldn’t they all be at the shelter?

[Shep]
Right. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Because they all love Marie, and the shelter is so great. And the person handing out the free food at the gas station isn’t there anymore.

[Emily]
So maybe it’s not a homeless guy. Maybe it’s the new gas station attendant.

[Shep]
Oh. So he always, they have this routine. He goes in, and he buys the donut and the coffee, and she asks him if he needs to talk, right? So they are kind of friends, and so she has someone take over her till, and she goes and talks, but so when this time, he goes and buys it, whatever, and “It’s $4,” whatever. And he pays, and that’s it. They don’t ask him if he needs to talk or whatever. The routine is broken. I forget where I was going with this.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I was bringing this up for a reason.

[Emily]
Does the new attendant tell him what’s going on with Marie? Is that where you’re going with it? Because that was the last kind of suggestion I made before you started down that path.

[Shep]
Maybe so, yeah, that’s my idea. That the other attendant should tell him what happened to Marie.

[Emily]
Well, yeah, because you were setting up that there’s another attendant there who sees the interactions with him and Marie all the time and takes over.

[Thomas]
If there’s a second attendant while she’s working, then that’s, you know, Jeff or whoever. And so, like, he also knows Jeff. They’re acquainted. He doesn’t really care about Jeff at all. But they know each other. They are aware of each other’s existence and names and whatnot. They’re polite to each other.

[Shep]
Everybody knows his name. He’s a trillionaire.

[Thomas]
Well…

[Emily]
Well, maybe Jeff’s a little bitter this time, because he does come in all the time when he’s working with Marie, and he also helps him sometimes. And he didn’t get any money.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Well, Jeff didn’t sell him the ticket, so…

[Emily]
This is true.

[Thomas]
That’s where he goes and leaves a dollar tip. And Jeff is just like, “Really?”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Well, see, now, that’s after he has the trillions of dollars.

[Thomas]
That’s true. So he leaves a tip, a $100 tip or something, and Jeff’s like, “Only a hundred? I heard you tip a thousand.” And he’s like, “What’s your Venmo?”

[Emily]
Obviously he’s got this money, so he’s going to be on some philanthropy boards or at least being courted by a bunch of places.

[Thomas]
I mean, this could be at a point where he is starting to give that money away. So, yeah, he is attending more of these kinds of things.

[Emily]
And she’s honored at an event that an organization in the city puts on.

[Thomas]
She could also be like, maybe there’s an event where people are getting investors together with people who need investors. And so she could be there trying to court investors, and he’s there, too. And we don’t have them connect up financially. We don’t want money to get involved in their relationship more than it already has. That way, you don’t create that power dynamic that we’re trying to avoid.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
But they run into each other, and they’re like, “Oh, my gosh.” Does he say, “Oh, I stopped by the gas station, but of course you’re not there.”

[Emily]
Yeah, that could totally be his awkward flirting with her.

[Shep]
She’s like, “Yeah, I’ve been kind of busy with the charitable foundation that I started.”

[Emily]
So he’s now to the point where he wants to give it away. And now she’s working in the charitable world, so now he’s going to ask her advice on how to do that.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So if she has a billion dollars to start her soup kitchen, what is she seeking out new investors for?

[Emily]
That’s why I wanted her to be honored at an event.

[Shep]
Right. But why would he be at the gala? Or how would he even find out about it?

[Emily]
He has an obscene amount of money, and the people running the gala are trying to get him to give them more money,

[Shep]
Right. But he gets a thousand of those offers every day. Like, “Hey, there’s this big gala going on in Chicago and New York, and…”

[Thomas]
Well, I think that everybody knows where her money came from. That’s not a secret. And so if she’s being honored because she’s doing all this great stuff, I could see him getting an invite, because everyone’s like, “She couldn’t have done this without your benevolence, so you should be here, too.”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
But, Shep, you bring up a great point that he gets a thousand of those invitations every day, so how come that one makes it through?

[Shep]
He’s got to have a personal assistant at this point.

[Thomas]
Right. And so that person sees that that’s what it is and is like, “Oh, this one is special.” That makes sense.

[Shep]
See, I can see how miserable he is during this whole interaction where his day is filled up with these events. He’s got all this money, but his personal assistant is also filling all his time with all these things that he asked for.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yes.

[Shep]
It didn’t come from nothing, but he thought, “Helping people, that will make me feel better.” Whatever. He feels so empty all the time.

[Emily]
But this is tedious.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And it’s talking to the same business leader assholes every event who really are just doing it for a show and not genuine feelings.

[Shep]
He complains about the food at the $10,000 plate dinners. “For as much as we’re paying, do you think they would spring for some quality?”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Whatever.

[Thomas]
Does he experience change? What is that change if he does, is this his story?

[Shep]
I mean, he experiences a lot of change. He sees the lack of money as the obstacle between him and happiness. So he’s unhappy in his relationship, he’s unhappy in his job. He’s unhappy with his life and his lack of opportunities. And then he gets all this money, and he’s still unhappy because money doesn’t make you happy. That’s the lesson in every movie.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So everything that he was blaming on lack of money is wrong or to him is wrong.

[Thomas]
So what is the lesson that he learns? Not just that money can’t buy happiness, but what is that thing?

[Shep]
Except it clearly does. At the end, you know, he’s gave.. What was her name? Marie. A billion dollars or whatever. When you say, I said a million dollars earlier and you said a billion dollars, and I’m like, “Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. A billion dollars.” And then I thought, well, that’s like, one 10th of 1% of the amount that he won.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That would be rounded off.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So maybe the lesson is that money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy it for other people. Like, you can buy happiness for other people, or you can… Something along those lines, right?

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Sharing the wealth makes everything better for everyone.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So is the end of the first act is when he wins, the mid-second-act turning point is when he breaks up with the girlfriend. The lowest low is that he’s lonely and money has not solved his problems. And then the third act is him trying to get with Marie.

[Shep]
I think that he is still with the girlfriend while he is miserable.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
And money has not solved his problems because it’s also his relationship has not improved.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Right. That there’s no thing in his life that has been improved by this.

[Shep]
Right. Well, he doesn’t have to go to his terrible job every day, so that’s better.

[Thomas]
Well.

[Emily]
Only superficial things have been improved.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
I could totally see that scene, too, where he’s, like, at some ball. And we don’t hear the diegetic sound. We just hear the sort of somber music. And the camera is, like, slowly trucking back away from him. And the girlfriend is there, like, there are people talking to him, and the girlfriend is there interacting with them, and he’s just sort of, like, staring off into the middle distance, just zoning out. Because this is just not his scene.

[Shep]
Mad World is playing over the soundtrack.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
Right. But the girlfriend’s into it.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
She’s smiling. She’s laughing.

[Emily]
She’s selling art left and right. What are- Yeah.

[Thomas]
So when does the breakup happen? Is that part of the climax is breaking up with the girlfriend and running to Marie and establishing their relationship?

[Shep]
I think there has to be a little bit of a gap between when he breaks up, when he tries to establish a relationship with Marie.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I’m just trying to think about that, like, rising tension in the third act. Like, what are the negative things that happen to him?

[Shep]
I think he breaks up with the girlfriend before he meets up with Marie because it’s just another thing that’s making him miserable. And he thinks, “Oh, if I fix this, if I get out of this relationship that’s not working for me, then I’ll be happy.” He keeps trying to change the external things in his life.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“I moved houses. I got out of that job. I drive a nicer car now.” And he’s just miserable, miserable, miserable. So he breaks up with his girlfriend.

[Thomas]
So when does that happen? Because I was kind of thinking, like, I like that idea of them still being together at the end of the second act, so that his lowest low is, “Everything should be good. So why aren’t I happy?” So what kicks off that change in him where he starts trying to take steps to change his life in a different way? Because I feel like that’s the work he’s doing in the third act is he tried to change the things that he thought were making him unhappy, and that didn’t work out. So now he needs to reexamine his life and change other things. And so that can start- Or early on, one of the things he can change is ending that relationship. But what is the impetus for him deciding to make those changes? Because I feel like that scene we talked about where he’s just at the whatever gala ball thing, not the one that’s honoring Marie, but the one where he’s bored.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
It’s her world, not his. So if that’s the lowest low, then we turn around from there. What spurs him to make that change? That isn’t seeing Marie?

[Shep]
Right. It’s not seeing Marie, because I want him to realize that he’s not happy in that relationship, separate from his new crush on Marie.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Well, renewed crush.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because I want that to come to conclusion because they gave it two years or whatever and it didn’t work out, and he’s not happy, and he’s never going to be happy. They don’t have enough overlap, and she’s really interesting because her world is so different from his world, but they have nothing in common. They have nothing to ever talk about. She’s always talking about art stuff, and he doesn’t get any of her references, and he wants to talk about nerd stuff, and she doesn’t get any of his references. They don’t watch the same shows. They don’t listen to the same music.

[Thomas]
Is it enough for us to say that there is some, something that the writers will figure out that is the impetus for him to start changing? We know what his path is at this point.

[Shep]
Oh, he bought the business. He bought the startup that he used to work for. And with that huge influx of cash, it’s now a successful business. So he gets invited back to his university to give a lecture on being a successful, whatever, nerd businessman. And he’s one of four people that are on this panel, and they talk about hard work and whatever and dedication, and it gets to him, and he’s like, “What are you all talking about? This only is successful because I came in with a huge amount of money, and that’s how it worked. And I only have the money because of chance. It’s all chance. Everything in life is just random chance. And no matter how hard you work, you can never get ahead just with hard work. It takes incredible good luck, and it’s the opposite of what everyone else is saying, and it’s just very depressing.” And he realizes he’s super depressed. So he has all this money, but he doesn’t feel like he earned it because he didn’t earn it, and so he has no satisfaction in it. Anyway, the writers can put a really good monologue there.

[Emily]
Yeah. And then he has that dawning realization that he could do more with the money. So he will? In the middle of the really good monologue the writers write?

[Shep]
Right. It’s one of those things where he can stand up and run out of the room and nobody stops him because that’s how it works in the real world.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Emily]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yep. So how does he end up with Marie? How does that relationship develop? They, like, reestablish a connection at the gala. He makes sure to get her contact info, because he’s like, “Hey, I could use your advice on something.” Maybe, do they leave from the gala and go back to the coffee shop? And so they’re wearing their, like-

[Shep]
Sitting on the bench.

[Thomas]
Sitting on the bench.

[Shep]
Next to them is a homeless person.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Jeff just rolls his eyes when they walk in.

[Shep]
Oh. While they’re at the gala. Like, she’s already been honored, whatever. And so they’re down-

[Thomas]
This is the reception afterward.

[Shep]
Right. And she sees that he is miserable, and she says the same thing that she always says is, “Do you need to talk?” And so they sit down. Maybe they sit down at a bench at the gala, and it’s the same dynamic as when she worked at the gas station and he kept going to her for advice, except now they’re wearing tuxedos or whatever.

[Emily]
Love it.

[Shep]
And he sees that she’s happy and, like, didn’t the money make her happy? “How come it worked for you and it’s not working for me?”

[Thomas]
Yeah. So then is that the beg- That must be the beginning of them spending more time together.

[Shep]
Yeah. Or maybe she invites him to come to one of her many soup kitchens. She’s now established in 17 states. She’s expanding across the country.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So she invites him to come and spend time with her and see what she sees. And she sees all the direct good that she’s doing and how that makes her happy.

[Emily]
I feel like that’s a good, like, he has the idea, but he doesn’t know how to really make it work or what to do. And then when he meets her again, he’s like, “You could help me. You’ve already been successful at this.”

[Shep]
“You complete me.”

[Thomas]
She’s like, “You had me at ‘Hello, here’s $1 billion.'”

[Shep]
Ha. Yeah. She already likes him when he is poor.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That’s why she’s offering to talk when he comes in.

[Emily]
But it’s really just friendly for her. Right?

[Shep]
Is it?

[Emily]
Is she pining after him a little?

[Shep]
I mean, she knows he’s in a relationship, so she can’t really pursue him.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
This is true.

[Shep]
Even if she has a crush on him.

[Thomas]
So when they see each other at the gala, they’re talking a bit, kind of catching up a little. And it’s her idea to leave and go get the coffee. She’s like, “Hey, do you want to go talk?” Right. Harkening back to how she would always ask him that.

[Emily]
Yes. And then does he just spill his guts and overshare like he always does?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Like, he always does, because that’s who he is and he’s finally comfortable with someone. He can get it all out. Stuff that he doesn’t even say to his couple’s counselor.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Before he wins the lottery, when they are talking, does he ever ask her how she’s doing? Or does she ever talk about her thoughts and feelings? Is it a two way street, or is it just-

[Shep]
I mean, obviously it sounds like it should be a two way street is what you’re saying.

[Thomas]
It should be, but, if it’s not, that gives him that opportunity at the end of the movie to finally ask her, “How are you feeling? What are you thinking?” Whatever. And she’s like “Well, I’m glad you asked.” And she can say, like, “I like you. I’ve always liked you.”

[Emily]
And then she word vomits all over him.

[Shep]
I hate this idea. And I will expand on why, because I think you’re right that it should be a two way thing. I mean, I get the idea that now the roles are reversed and she can whatever, but I think it would be better, in a realistic way if he asks about her day and her problems because he knows what’s going on in her life. So you can establish that he knows about her life when he asks, “Oh, how did that work out with (whatever the problem) that your brother was having?” And so they have this back and forth that he doesn’t have with his girlfriend. So you can establish that he stops at this gas station and has this long conversation and then goes home and doesn’t ask the same questions to his girlfriend. But she also, her questions to him are like, “Oh, how was your day?” Whatever. Very surface level. And he’s like, “Oh, it’s fine.”

[Thomas]
I think it’s the other way around. He goes home. He tries to have that with his girlfriend.

[Shep]
Ooh!

[Thomas]
He says, “How was your day?” And she’s like, “Oh, it was great.” Never asks him about his day, how he’s thinking or feeling. It’s one way with his girlfriend, and it’s two way with Marie.

[Shep]
Yep, that’s better.

[Emily]
Perfect.

[Shep]
You fixed it.

[Thomas]
Is this relationship earned? Do we feel like they’ve earned being together?

[Shep]
Oh, who confesses to the other? Does he confess to her or does she confess to him?

[Thomas]
I think he has to confess to her, right? Because that relationship is the big thing that’s going to make him happy. It’s not the money. It’s this. That’s his big change, right?

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Like, he’s been lying to himself, this whole movie about what will make him happy. He’s been lying to himself about his feelings for Marie the whole time. He’s been lying to himself about how the money is going to fix this relationship that he knows is failing, but he won’t admit to himself.

[Shep]
I think that from a character arc perspective, it would be good if he realizes and makes that change and is honest with himself. But I think from a realistic perspective, he’s still in denial about how he feels and in fact, will try to push Marie away as a subconscious thing. Like, he doesn’t believe that she likes him, so he’s going to push her away as a test because he’s neurotic and insane and can’t accept love.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And so she finally yells at him, like, “Of course I like you.” He’s mad at her or whatever. “Why are you spending all this time with me? You have all these things to do.” She, like, maybe complains about how busy she is, and he’s like, “Well, then you stop spending time with me and go do your thing.” And she’s like, “I like you. I like spending time with you. I’m happy when I see you.”

[Shep]
But then that’s her confessing to him, and we don’t have his character arc.

[Emily]
It’s true. Okay, so-

[Shep]
I don’t know. I don’t know. How do you-

[Emily]
How do you want him to tell her he likes her? Does he need a grand, sweeping gesture? Can it be just a simple, “What are you doing next Saturday?”

[Shep]
Oh, he’s got to have the realization somewhere else. Maybe he’s talking to Jeff at the gas station again.

[Emily]
He does actually like the crullers there, though.

[Shep]
I think he goes there for something else now. He realizes the crullers aren’t very good.

[Thomas]
Well, it was never about their crullers.

[Shep]
Right. It wasn’t.

[Emily]
But she’s not there anymore. So why is he harassing Jeff?

[Shep]
Well, I was just thinking of who else we’ve introduced, what characters we’ve introduced.

[Emily]
No, I think it should be Jeff. Yeah. There’s reasons to stop by that gas station. It’s a gas station.

[Thomas]
Well, what’s the scene you have in mind, Shep?

[Shep]
I don’t know. I was just saying, you know, they have a conversation where someone points out to him how obvious it is to everyone how happy he is. He’s talking about how miserable he is, and Jeff is like, “I’ve only seen you happy when you came in all the time. But that’s when Marie was here. Obviously, Marie makes you happy.” That’s the logical. But again, that’s him not realizing it. It’s him being told. ‘Tell, don’t show,’ that’s what they say, right?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s what we’re supposed to do.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
I feel like at this point, I’m not sure of, like, not in, like, I doubt it. And just, like, I don’t know. I don’t-

[Emily]
I think it’s earned, because we’ve established that they’ve had this routine for a few years where he comes in after work, they share each other’s lives for 10-15 minutes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right. He’s known her longer than he’s known, or longer than he’s been with his girlfriend because he bought the ticket from her almost four years ago.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Or it was four years ago because it’s leap year. That was the name of the episode. I remember now. Leap day. So he’s not been with Marie, but has had this relationship with Marie for longer than his girlfriend.

[Emily]
Yeah. So they already have, like, inside jokes. They have all these little things.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
They have quirks together, and we don’t have to see it, but they both thought about each other while they were not together.

[Shep]
Right. When he’s coming in, before he comes in, Jeff can see him, and he’s, like, ribbing Marie. “Oh, look, your boyfriend’s here.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And she’s like, “He has a girlfriend.” Like, don’t make that joke in front of him because she’ll be embarrassed.

[Thomas]
So we never figured out how does he overcome that doubt of his? How does he admit to himself or to her or whatever? But it doesn’t have to be the protagonist’s story. It could be Marie’s story. She could be the one who experiences change.

[Emily]
Yeah. We could always see her as sort of timid and whatnot.

[Shep]
Right. We see that earlier in the conversation with Jeff. She’s like, “Stop. Don’t say that in front of him.” To make me have to own up to how I behave when he’s around type thing. And then she is the one that confesses at the end.

[Thomas]
And actually, maybe it’s both of them, you know. What he learns is what we talked about earlier, that sharing your wealth or doing those acts of service is what makes him fulfilled and happy. And so it doesn’t mean that he has to learn his lesson at the very end of the movie. He could learn it during that third act. So he’s learned his lesson, and we need a little bit more time for her to complete her character arc. And then when they both do, that’s what allows them to be together. They’re holding themselves back from each other.

[Emily]
Mmhmm.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Did we get it? I think we got it.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
And writers can fill in some grand romantic gesture or whatever, something not realistic, something you only see in movies.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Put that, tack that on at the end.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about Leap Day. Was it a red letter day, or does it require a leap of faith? 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’ll also find complete transcripts for every episode, as well as links to the references we make on the show. Emily, Shep, and I, thank you for listening, and we’ll catch you again on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Emily]
That kind of money, if you gave everybody a share of it in the US, that’s a lot of money for everybody.

[Shep]
Is it? How much is it?

[Emily]
I think it’s a lot of money? I might be making that up. I don’t do well with math, and we know how I do with science.

[Thomas]
Well, there’s the whole thing about, like, if 1 second is $1, then a million is like eleven and a half days or something like that. And then a billion is like 30 years. It’s so, so much money.

[Shep]
Okay, I’ve done some math.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
And I don’t know if it’s correct. Thousand, million, billion. It’s not. Hold on. Thousand, million…

[Emily]
Yeah, it’s still a lot.

[Shep]
Billion, trillion. No, I did it wrong. Math is hard.

[Emily]
See?

[Shep]
Thousands, millions, billions, trillions. Okay. There’s 330 something million people in the US. So if he had a trillion dollars and he divided it by 300 million, then every person gets $3,000.

[Emily]
Not $3 million?

[Shep]
Which is not $3 million.

[Emily]
You sure?

[Thomas]
Yeah. No, it is. It’s about $3,000.

[Emily]
Why did my math come out as $3 million?

[Shep]
Wishful thinking?

[Emily]
I might have only done 30,000. No, I still come up with $3 million. I’m bad at math. I told you.

[Thomas]
Thousand…

[Emily]
I believe you over me.

[Thomas]
Billion, billion, trillion.

[Shep]
Yeah. I’ve had to do it over and over and over again because I’m like, “It feels like it should be more.” I mean, $3,000 for every american is not nothing, but it’s also not a lot.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So maybe it’s Canada.