Pamphlet

References

• The Music Man
• The Simpsons
• Marge vs. the Monorail
• Men in Black
• Conspiracy Theory
• The Catcher in the Rye
• William Shakespeare
• The Winter’s Tale
• As You Like It
• Two Gentlemen of Verona
• Almost Plausible: Washing Machine
• Almost Plausible: Pockets
• Almost Plausible: Bread Maker
• Almost Plausible: Shampoo
• Almost Plausible: Pillows
• Almost Plausible: Tupperware
• Abby Howells
• Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
• Cosmopolitan
• Lampshade Hanging

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Thomas]
So maybe because Brian does this stand up thing, he has had that anxiety about going on stage. So he’s had to learn some sort of calming technique. So he teaches that to Laurel in the second act so that she can calm down. And then she uses that in the third act and it’s like, “Oh, hey, right. Brian was a nice guy. He helped me out.” Or he comes back to help her. I don’t know.

[Emily]
Yeah. She could even look at it like, “Hey, that was a cool thing he did. Everyone usually just tells me to get over it or just breathe or…”

[Thomas]
Right, right. “Just calm down.” “Oh, thanks. I’m feeling so much better now.”

[Emily]
Right. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

[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 I have with me Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
Now, in this show, we start with a pitch session where we each share some basic story ideas that we’ve come up with. Together, we pick one of those ideas and develop it into a movie plot that we hope is at least Almost Plausible.

[Shep]
Hey!

[Thomas]
Shep is pitching first today, and our theme is Pamphlet.

[Shep]
Oh.

[Thomas]
So, Shep, what pitches do you have for pamphlet?

[Shep]
I have one pitch.

[Thomas]
All right.

[Shep]
A shape-shifting pamphlet that can alter what appears on it is enticing people to take it someplace. When it is finally taken to its destination, there are other people with pamphlets. Turns out it’s an alien and it’s spawning season and the pamphlets are going home.

[Emily]
Interesting. It’s just aliens shape-shifting themselves. So you will take them to get it on.

[Shep]
Yep. And then at the end, it’s implied that like other- You see big kiosk full of pamphlets. Those are all alien egg pamphlets.

[Thomas]
Does somebody get inked at some point?

[Shep]
Ah, like a squid.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
But what do they do? Like, besides, like, what are… I have questions. I have follow-up questions. Prior to this shapeshifting and getting together with the other pamphlets to spawn, what were they doing? Were they just regular pamphlets chilling out and being pamphlets?

[Shep]
Yeah. It takes the appearance of pamphlets around it.

[Emily]
Okay, for what purpose?

[Shep]
That’s their life cycle.

[Emily]
It’s just their life cycle?

[Shep]
They spread out across the planet, living in kiosks everywhere.

[Emily]
Taking nutrients from us somehow.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
They feed on dead skin cells, so they need people to be tactile.

[Thomas]
Ah, right. They need people to handle them.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. Okay, I’m sold. Salmon pamphlets. Got it.

[Thomas]
Salmon pamphlets.

[Shep]
Yep, yep.

[Thomas]
All right, well, I have three pitches. The first: is in a small town, the discovery of a pamphlet announcing the arrival of something, a circus, a questionable traveling salesman, a monorail, et cetera.

[Shep]
Monorail?!

[Thomas]
Causes fervor. Emily, are you laughing at monorail or are you laughing at the Music Man reference? Okay, my second pitch: So you know how some hotels have giant racks of pamphlets, right, for local attractions? So I imagine a film that is tonally similar to Men in Black, where the main character learns that government agents use certain pamphlets, usually for the goofiest roadside attractions, to pass information to one another.

[Emily]
Oh, it’s like in Conspiracy Theory with Mel Gibson and the copy of Catcher in the Rye. And they used that to-

[Shep]
Yep, yep.

[Emily]
It was the weirdest conspiracy he had and turned out to be true.

[Thomas]
My final idea: an always the bridesmaid librarian accidentally gives a patron the romantic self-help pamphlet that she herself had been reading. The pamphlet causes the patron to think that she’s an expert at matters of heart. It’s a rom-com of comical misunderstandings that leads to true love.

[Shep]
Like the best true love always comes from misunderstanding.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s the key.

[Emily]
Of course. I think Shakespeare taught us that best in his play, A Winter’s Tale–

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Emily]
As You Have It, Two Gentlemen of Verona.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
All of them.

[Shep]
In his play, dot dot dot, all the plays. Well, if it’s in a play, it must be true.

[Emily]
100%.

[Thomas]
Those are what I have. Emily, let’s hear yours.

[Emily]
All right, I have two tonight. So. Nice, you know, rounded. I don’t know.

[Shep]
I have one, you have two. Thomas has three.

[Emily]
Yeah. So: Heather is depressed and lost in the city she just moved to. She’s handed a brightly colored pamphlet as she passes what appears to be an abandoned laundromat. She shoves it in her pocket as she rounds the next corner and realizes she’s finally found her building. While brewing her tea, she pulls out the pamphlet and reads it over. It appears to be some kind of metaphysical hippie cult. She laughs at all the silly cliches and absurd psychedelic images. A few days later, she walks by the same abandoned laundromat, but it’s not abandoned at all. There’s music and lights streaming out of it. She runs into a handsome stranger as she tries to stare into the grimy windows. She watches as he goes in and decides to follow him. She ends up joining the cult despite the fact that the handsome stranger she followed was gay. And it becomes a story of her life in a cult just before its demise.

[Shep]
The cult’s demise?

[Emily]
Yeah, the cult’s demise.

[Thomas]
When you started, after the first couple sentences, I was like, “Is this just trying to reference as many of our previous episodes as possible.” There’s like Laundromat, Pockets, or Washing Machine, pockets. Bread maker, Shampoo.

[Shep]
Pillow.

[Thomas]
Pillow. Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. Wow.

[Thomas]
You’ve been listening to the show, Emily?

[Emily]
Yeah. No new ideas. No new ideas. All right, my next one is actually my favorite one: Jeremy is a ghostwriter for conspiracy pamphlets. He started doing it when his cousin came to him with a wild theory about the government’s use of squirrels to hinder information dissemination by blowing up transformers with their tiny furry bodies. It was very poorly thought out, but Jeremy thought it was funny to write wild accusations and his cousin gave him 50 bucks. Soon his cousin’s crazy friends started hiring him to create pamphlets of their crazy ramblings. It’s good extra cash and fills the boredom of his days. One day, while researching a new conspiracy for an anonymous client who reached out online, Jeremy begins to think it isn’t so crazy and might actually be true. He’s then pulled into a crazy world of offbeat characters as he sets out to prove to himself the conspiracy can’t be true, but prepared to prove to the world that it is.

[Shep]
Like government agents using roadside attraction pamphlets.

[Thomas]
Yeah. All right, Is there one of these that we like the best? Or we can mush some of them together?

[Shep]
We can fold some of them together.

[Thomas]
Ah, yeah, yeah, It’s a conspiracy about alien pamphlets.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Well, you know I’m a sucker for a rom-com.

[Shep]
I like rom-coms. I don’t know if pamphlet is central enough. I mean, it is the inciting incident.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. She could start writing her own pamphlets because she’s read enough self-help books and she’s a librarian, so she has access to endless amounts of research on it.

[Thomas]
I mean, it could be the case that the library has an initiative where they’re trying to create some pamphlets, you know, for people. And so she’s just been given this task of like, “Oh, create some pamphlets that will help our patrons on whatever topics you can come up with.” And she’s like, “I don’t know.” And so she does a romance self-help one and accidentally gives it to this guy because she’s, you know, in the process of working on it. And then he misinterprets that as, like her hitting on him because he’s a dude and she’s at work, and that’s always how it is. So.

[Shep]
But see, when guys, when you’re actually hitting on guys, they have no idea.

[Thomas]
That’s true.

[Emily]
Wait, wait. But also, when you’re not hitting on guys, they often think you are hitting on them.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Are you being friendly? Then you’re hitting on them. All right, well, I kind of like this one more if she’s writing pamphlets and then that could be an ongoing thing through it.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, we could totally do that.

[Shep]
Okay. She didn’t choose romance as- or relationships as the pamphlet idea. One of her co-workers suggested it to her as a joke to be mean because she’s so bad at relationships, but because she doesn’t get humor, she thought that that was a good suggestion. So she, you know, reads a self-help book on relationships and writes up this pamphlet, this information pamphlet. I think that she doesn’t give it to someone accidentally. I think that they post them up and one of the patrons sees it and is like, “Oh, this is really interesting. Are there any more like this?” And so she’s like, “Oh, I have to make another one. I have to have to do this again. I have to read more self-help books and make up a new pamphlet for this person,” because it’s been requested and she’s trying to fill that request.

[Thomas]
Right. That’s a very librarian thing to do.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So I have a question. Is her pamphlet actually really helpful or is it so bad that it’s funny and she doesn’t realize how bad it is? She doesn’t have any relationship experience.

[Thomas]
How on the spectrum is she?

[Shep]
That’s the question. I can see a patron asking for more because they’re funny. And her misinterpreting it as-

[Emily]
As helpful.

[Shep]
Yes, which will be a heartbreaking reveal later in the movie. It’s the classic rom-com trope.

[Thomas]
Right. That’s what happens at the end of the second act when they need their fight.

[Shep]
Right. Yes.

[Thomas]
Oh, maybe he’s… Maybe he wants to be, like a stand up comedian, but he sucks at writing jokes. And he’s like, “This is really good.” But she doesn’t realize that that’s what it is. And so he never explains to her that that’s why he wants to, like, spend time with her and work on pamphlets or pick her brain or whatever. She’s just like, “Oh, my gosh, this guy asked me out.” And then later she finds out he’s using the stuff that we talk about as stand up material. “It’s funny to him. People are laughing at me. This thing that I’m taking seriously for my job.”

[Shep]
Or he asks her, not- So, she doesn’t think that he’s flirting with her because he asks if he can use this information at So and So Bar. Right. And she’s thinking, “Oh, he’s going to use it to ask someone out,” but he’s using it at their open mic night.

[Thomas]
Right. Not realizing it’s the local comedy bar or whatever.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
It’s not called the Laugh Factory.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
It’s called, like, the Brick Wall or something like that.

[Shep]
Right. And she asks about the Brick Wall because she’s never heard of this place. She doesn’t go out. And he’s like, “Oh, it’s this place, you should come.” He’s thinking, “I can get her to come on one of the nights that I’m doing comedy and maybe generate some positive laughter from someone that I know.” That could be another misunderstanding. She thinks that it’s a date.

[Emily]
Oh, and then it’s his stand up.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
That would have to be with the same time of that reveal that everyone’s taking her as a joke. Right?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Unless we. If we’re doing an enemies-to-lovers type of thing. This could be very early on, she thinks, “Oh, my gosh, I wrote this thing. It led to a date. This is great.” And then he leaves her table because it’s his turn at the stand up, and he starts reciting her material. And she’s like, “What a jerk. I hate him.” I mean, I know that wipes out a lot of our movie.

[Shep]
So then is he trying to win her back for a relationship or to get more material? If we do it too early, then it’s just for material and that’s no good.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, in these types of situations, it’s always like, “You spilled my coffee all over me.” And then you show up and it’s like, “Hey, the new person started and you’re working together,” and, oh, gosh, it’s the person I’ve spilled the coffee all over.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
You know, it’s always that sort of a coincidental, shoved together against their will type of thing. So, yeah, I just don’t see how we can get to him doing the stand up and them going on the date so late in the movie.

[Emily]
Well, he does the stand up without her knowing and it’s killing. So he keeps coming back to her for more material.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
So that’s how they’re building it up. And then the gal who was mean to her earlier kind of goads her into, you know, “I think he likes you. I think he keeps coming back to talk to you. I don’t think he’s really using these, you know, this to meet women. I think he’s trying to meet you” and there’s that misunderstanding.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I like the bitchy co-worker.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I mean, you do have a type, so.

[Emily]
So that his stand up’s getting more successful, more laughs. Then he wants to show appreciation for her, inspiring him. So he invites her that time. And that’s when she finds out it’s all a laugh at her expense.

[Thomas]
But their relationship needs to be fairly developed by that point.

[Emily]
Right. Well, because, yeah, he’s coming in and then he likes her. She’s cute. Right? And they start to get along and she enjoys his company. Maybe isn’t necessarily romantic for her at first, but-

[Thomas]
No. Because she’s at work.

[Emily]
Well, yeah, she’s at work and I don’t know, she works with a total bitch and-

[Shep]
But she doesn’t-

[Emily]
Doesn’t get a lot of positive interaction. She doesn’t get that she’s a bitch?

[Shep]
She doesn’t know that her co-worker is a bitch. She thinks her co-worker is her best friend.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Because again, she doesn’t pick up on social cues.

[Emily]
So they’d have to date before but not reveal the comedy until later.

[Shep]
All right.

[Emily]
I think Thomas is right. You can’t have it be that late and have that be that awkward. “Oh, I thought it was a date, but I’m here to see your show.” But I don’t think she can go and see the comedy without it realizing she’s the joke. Because that would be the end of the movie. She goes, he laughs at her. She comes back to work and says, “Oh, he was an asshole. I’m not gonna talk to him again.” And then he comes to the premises and she has him escorted off. And they never communicate, ever again.

[Shep]
Right. Yeah, that wouldn’t work.

[Thomas]
Well, I think if they have developed their relationship up to that point, then he has more of an excuse to come back.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
It’s for her, it’s not for the material.

[Emily]
Yeah. So if we have that awkward interaction where she thinks it’s a date but it’s not really a date early on, he won’t have that development. I think you have to have the relationship developed first and have it known that she’s coming to see his comedy and not have it be like this awkward surprise.

[Shep]
How about he asks her to come on a night when he’s gonna do comedy. She thinks it’s a date. And so before he does comedy, like they’re at the club together with his friends and before he goes and does it, she talks about how she hasn’t been on a date in a long time. Or maybe she talks to his friends about that when he’s not there and they let him know “She thinks she’s on a date with you.” And he’s like, “Oh, that didn’t even occur to me.” But maybe he’s like, well, maybe he’s open to the idea of dating her.

[Emily]
Yeah, right.

[Shep]
It just hadn’t occurred to him yet because he didn’t see her that way until now. And then it’s like, “Oh, well, I can’t do my comedy now.” And so he doesn’t. And so it is, it ends up just being a date with a group of people. So then they can start having a relationship. So he doesn’t invite her to see his comedy and in fact now is keeping it a secret from her because he was using her material as a joke and now he’s starting to see her in a different light. But he had his friends record him for his YouTube channel for content.

[Emily]
Oh, of course.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And her co-worker finds it. And she is the one, of course, that reveals early on he was using your material as jokes in his comedy routine. By this point, he’s into her and he’s not using her for content, and he kind of regrets having done that. Even though he asked her if he could, he now realizes she misunderstood what he was asking, and so he doesn’t use that material.

[Thomas]
And in his mind, “Hey, I’m not doing this anymore, so it’s fine.”

[Emily and Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
“I learned my lesson. She doesn’t need to know.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“It would be awkward for all of us if I told her. So let’s just keep it a secret.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. I think that solves all of the issues that we brought up. We should name these people. Wait, we need a girl Steve. Have we done this before?

[Emily]
We’ve tried and we’ve never, like nailed down a girl Steve, I think we should stick with Tupperware and go with Shannon.

[Thomas]
Shannon. You know that works. So we have Shannon. And then who’s our main character? What’s her name? Laura.

[Emily]
How about Laurel? Seems very librarian-ish.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Laurel. Okay. And then he can be-

[Emily]
I was thinking Brian.

[Thomas]
Yeah, sure. Brian works.

[Shep]
Sure. Brian and Laurel.

[Thomas]
Sitting in a tree. C O M E D Y. No, wait.

[Emily]
And I kind of like the idea just because, you know, you want to throw in cameos, get some big names associated with it. Instead of her talking about how she hasn’t been on a date with his friends and then they pointing it out in him just choosing not to do his comedy. I think he should get bumped by a surprise drop-in comedian who-

[Shep]
Well, see, now that’s a coincidence.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And it’s also not his choice.

[Emily]
But not his choice. And not an uncommon thing in comedy clubs, especially if we put it in a large city like Chicago, New York, or LA.

[Thomas]
Yeah, it’s true.

[Emily]
The bigger names do just drop into these little clubs to like work up some material. And they bump some random dude.

[Shep]
I still want him to make a choice, so I still want it to be him and his friends, because it’s not a date. So it’s not just the two of them. It’s him and his friend and his friend’s girlfriend and her. So she’s thinking it’s a double date, and he’s thinking, “I’ve got three people at my table to laugh at my jokes.” But I like the idea of him getting bumped. Or I like the idea of someone getting bumped.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He finds out that she thinks it’s a date, and he’s like, “Oh, crap, what I do?”

[Emily]
And they were going to bump some other guy and he says-

[Shep]
Then we’re going to bump some other guy. And he’s like, “You can take my spot.”

[Emily]
Yeah, there you go.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Solves all the problems.

[Shep]
Shows that he’s a good guy.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So they have a good time. And he kind of is like, “Oh, I never thought about this. She’s pretty cute and actually quite funny.”

[Shep]
She doesn’t realize how funny she is.

[Emily]
Correct.

[Shep]
And maybe she’s not intentionally funny.

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
When she is unintentionally funny, surely everybody else reacts. Right? They must laugh.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
At her quote, unquote “joke”. So how does she take that?

[Emily]
Confused, I guess at first. Right?

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Since she doesn’t understand why it would be funny.

[Shep]
Right. She’s not offended, though.

[Emily]
No, she’s just confused. Like-

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
“Why are you laughing?” And they’re like-

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
They explain the joke to her.

[Shep]
I like the idea of her being autistic because I really like Abby Howells, who’s an autistic comedian who’s very funny. Maybe she doesn’t always get why things are funny, but it’s funny.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So how long do they date between… Well, I guess. When does that first date happen? Like, how soon into our story?

[Shep]
That’s got to be the beginning of the second act, if the reveal is the end of the second act.

[Thomas]
That’s kind of what I was thinking.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. So by this point, he did ask her for material a couple of times.

[Thomas]
Right. So then what’s the mid-second act turning point? If it starts with them dating and ends with their breakup/fight.

[Shep]
I like the idea of them kissing because for her, that’s a big thing. She doesn’t have a lot of relationships.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
The whole point is she doesn’t have a lot of relationship experience.

[Thomas]
Right. Although traditional rom-com rules say that the kiss is the climax… of the film.

[Shep]
So which date is it that they go to the-

[Emily]
The first date.

[Shep]
No, the comedy club is the first one. Right, Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
How many dates are they on before the reveal?

[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, I think that’s kind of what we need to figure out.

[Shep]
Because Shannon’s gotta be messing with her all this time.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Like, on the third date, Shannon’s like, “He’s gonna expect you to have sex with him. It’s the third date. Those are the rules.”

[Emily]
And so like the first thing she tells him when he sees hers is, “I’m not having sex with you.”

[Thomas]
Oh, or maybe she’s super nervous the whole date and then she ends up, like, kissing him. Like, he doesn’t kiss her.

[Emily]
Trying to initiate something.

[Thomas]
Or she kisses him because she’s like, “This is what’s going to happen. So I can take control here. And…” And maybe he’s like, “Whoa, whoa. Like, we don’t. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

[Emily]
“I’m Mormon. How dare you?”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, I kind of like that better, to have her be like, “If this is supposed to happen, when is it going to happen? Okay, I’ll just initiate it.” If we’re guessing they’re dating on a weekly basis, at least six dates before the reveal.

[Shep]
Six!

[Emily]
Six weeks.

[Shep]
All right.

[Emily]
That’s enough time to build a pretty strong rapport.

[Thomas]
There are adults with jobs.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah. He works at a gas station.

[Shep]
I mean, I assumed that he was a waiter.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
He’s an aspiring comic.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
He works at that bar as a bartender.

[Shep]
That’s why he knows everyone there.

[Thomas]
Right. That’s why he doesn’t get bumped. They’re like, “Well, we’re not going to bump Brian. He works here. We’ll bump someone else.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Is six weeks enough time for him to stop using that material? Or I guess seven weeks? Is that enough time for him to stop using that material and feel like time has passed?

[Emily]
Well, how much time between him finding the first pamphlet and then actually inviting her out? Because he’s going to be using that material for a little while until it gets good. He’s got a tight-five now-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
So he’s going to invite her at that point to show her, you know, “This is what you’ve inspired. I got really good stuff out of it.” Thinking she’ll be proud of him. So he’s had few weeks before that he’s been using it and it’s been successful so that when he has that he kind of starts tapering it off.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Is so-

[Shep]
Are you asking how long after they meet before he asks her the whole first act?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
How long is the first act? Is the question, I think.

[Emily]
Six weeks.

[Shep]
Everything is six weeks.

[Emily]
Six weeks.

[Shep]
Six weeks is enough time. It’s not too much time. It’s just the right amount.

[Emily]
It’s more than a month.

[Shep]
It’s less than two months.

[Emily]
If we get 12 weeks in there, we’re talking in a three-month period from beginning to break up-

[Shep]
That’s too long. Right.

[Emily]
And then another six weeks for them to figure it out. We’re at… gotta get it to six months. It’s gotta be six month thing.

[Thomas]
So. The first act is six days, the second act is six weeks, and the third act is six months.

[Emily]
There you go.

[Thomas]
Is that?

[Shep]
So it’s six days before he accidentally invites her on a date. Is that correct? Am I understanding that correctly? That can’t be right.

[Thomas]
That’s definitely way too short.

[Shep]
That. Yeah. I think it’s six weeks at the beginning, six weeks in the middle.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I don’t know, I just feel like that’s a good amount of time. It’s not- You’re not like, “Wow, that happened so fast.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And you’re not like “That drug on forever” or “There’s no way it would have taken them that long to get to this point.”

[Shep]
I think that it would be funny if she’s interpreting it as “This is happening so fast,” and it’s like it’s 12 weeks.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
We’ve known each other all this time.

[Emily]
Right. Yeah. Because she doesn’t even register those first six weeks as building a relationship.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Well, they’ve been setting up their relationship for three months, but we promise our break won’t take quite that long. And when we come back, the rest of our story for Pamphlet.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. We figured out that they’ve been building this relationship for three months. We get to the end of the second act. How long is our third act now? And how does he win her back? Does he write a pamphlet professing his love? Does he do a surreptitious stand up set in the library?

[Shep]
That’s a great place for a stand up routine. Libraries. I don’t know why they don’t do that more often. Does Shannon have a redeeming arc or is she just a villain the whole time?

[Thomas]
I was thinking that either Shannon needs to get her comeuppance or Laurel needs to somehow overcome the misunderstanding that she has about the nature of Shannon’s relationship with her. And maybe that’s something Brian can help with.

[Emily]
Well, in the midst of their fighting, she could bring up. “Well, Shannon told me this” and he’s like, “What does Shannon know? She doesn’t even know you. She just picks on you all the time. I’ve seen her do it.”

[Shep]
“She doesn’t pick on me. She’s my best friend.”

[Emily]
“No, she’s not. She’s making fun of you.”

[Thomas]
Did Brian misunderstand? In the beginning, he saw Shannon making fun of Laurel and thought, “Oh, Laurel’s the kind of person who can take a joke and she’s like, self-effacing and stuff.” And so that’s why he thinks, “Oh, it’s fine to use this material.”

[Emily]
Maybe.

[Thomas]
But then later he realizes, like, “Oh, no, Shannon’s just a fucking bitch.”

[Shep]
Okay. Why does her friend… Why is her co-worker, not friend. Why is her co-worker such a bitch? Is she jealous of Laurel for some reason?

[Thomas]
Shannon got assigned to do some other shitty pamphlet she didn’t want to do. She wanted the romantic self-help one because she thinks that she’s this-

[Shep]
No, she was the one that told Laurel to do it as a joke. That was part of her picking on Laurel.

[Emily]
Yeah. Maybe it’s just a case of Shannon being insecure and seeing that Laurel is unfazed by things and there’s that sort of jealousy of nothing touches her, she doesn’t… She doesn’t have a care in the world. It’s unfair. I’m here struggling and anxious all the time and she just shows up to work, does her job, and leaves and gets pats on the back and everybody loves her.

[Shep]
Right. She doesn’t realize that Laurel has crippling social anxiety.

[Emily]
Right. That she’s learned to mask to function in the world.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Does he see that in that six weeks leading up to the breakup? Like does, does she have an anxiety attack in front of him and he is able to calm her down and soothe her?

[Thomas]
As long as we see that established in the first act, then I think that’s something that we could bring back in the second and potentially again in the third.

[Emily]
In the third. Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Rules of three.

[Emily]
Because maybe Shannon finally does something in the third act that pushes her so far that she has a panic attack in the middle of the library.

[Thomas]
So maybe because Brian does this stand up thing, he has had that anxiety about going on stage. So he’s had to learn some sort of calming technique. So he teaches that to Laurel in the second act so that she can calm down. And then she uses that in the third act and it’s like, “Oh, hey, right. Brian was a nice guy. He helped me out.” Or he comes back to help her. I don’t know.

[Emily]
Yeah. She could even look at it like, “Hey, that was a cool thing he did. Everyone usually just tells me to get over it or just breathe or…”

[Thomas]
Right, right. “Just calm down.” “Oh, thanks. I’m feeling so much better now.”

[Emily]
Right. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

[Thomas]
Does Shannon get a redemption arc? Because she ended up writing a self-help pamphlet that helped her overcome, like, her or, like, realize her issues. Like she does to herself the things she tried to do to Laurel.

[Shep]
Is that Shannon’s redemption?

[Thomas]
Well, in that she becomes a nice person because she realizes, like, “Oh, I’ve been this horrible person because of this undiagnosed trauma I have,” or, I don’t know, whatever. Or she could get fired. Oh, she has to do the, like, toddler storytime. And everybody hates that. No one wants that job.

[Shep]
I mean, Laurel would happily do that job.

[Emily]
Oh yeah. Because she gets to do all the voices.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, that’s why the library administration prefers Laurel. She volunteers to do that. Nobody wants to do it. And Laurel’s like, “I’ll do it, I don’t care.” And she’s good at it.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So they like her more. They see her as somebody who’s like a go-getter or whatever. And that makes Shannon jealous.

[Emily]
Well. And because she does that and is like a go-getter, her proposals for the library seem to get accepted more. And Shannon has good ideas but poor presentation and just cannot get them to, like, accept any suggestions she has.

[Shep]
So all of Shannon’s jealousy is professional jealousy. Is this- Is that- Is that what I’m hearing?

[Emily]
Can it be a mix? I don’t want it to be because “Laurel’s so cute and pretty and boys love her, so I hate her.” Or is it, if there’s a little professional in there? And it’s about, “She seems so self-assured and confident and I try to do the same things and it doesn’t work for me.” So, yeah, I guess, professional. You’re right.

[Thomas]
Well, but then why would she insert herself into Laurel’s relationship?

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So it has to be more than just professional.

[Shep]
I think that Laurel is attractive-

[Emily]
Well, yeah.

[Shep]
And patrons ask her out, which she never picks up on. And no one’s asking Shannon out.

[Emily]
Does Shannon have a thing for brian in the beginning? Because then it’s very pointed in that when he asks her out, then she does insert herself further. Before, it’s just she likes to pick on her because she’s a bitch. And now it’s revenge because “I liked that guy and I was slowly working the long game to get him to ask me out.”

[Shep]
So are they going to be friends at the end or not? Is Shannon going to have a redemption or not? If she wants Laurel’s boyfriend, it’s going to be difficult for them to remain friends or become friends at the end.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
True.

[Shep]
So if Shannon is the way that she is because she doesn’t know, just how Laurel doesn’t know how to act in social situations, Shannon doesn’t know how to be friends with other women. She has a real problem. She tries, but all of her friends are like she is, and they’re always picking on each other. And so she thinks this is how women interact. And it’s the only way women can interact.

[Thomas]
Sure. And maybe. I mean, we definitely have a problem in our society of showing off and one-upsmanship and putting on this mask of “Oh, I’m so successful” and whatever. Even if that’s not true. And so she feels that keeping up with the Joneses need. And she looks at Laurel, and it’s like, “She’s pretty, and she, you know, is professionally successful. All these guys are asking her out. She seems to have it really together,” not realizing, as you said earlier, Emily, that that’s a mask to hide her social anxiety. And it’s how she just… She sort of shuts a lot of things out, and that’s how she copes with the world.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
But Shannon interprets that as a cool, easy breezy attitude.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Even when you’ve got patrons yelling at you or snotty kids running all over the place or whatever, she’s just always cool as a cucumber. Did we say initially that she coaxes Laurel toward Brian? “I think he’s trying to ask you-“

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So maybe she’s trying to create something that she can go, then run to the administration and be like, “Ah, Laurel’s dating a patron.”

[Shep]
Is that a rule in libraries?

[Thomas]
I don’t know.

[Shep]
You can’t date patrons in libraries?

[Emily]
Well, there goes my next dating plan. I’m gonna find a nice single librarian.

[Shep]
Shannon is jealous of what Laurel seems to be, but also recognizes that Laurel herself doesn’t seem to get social situations, context clues, and picks on her as a joke, suggests that she should do the romance and relationships pamphlet, which she does.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
And it turns out horrifically wrong, because all of Laurel’s knowledge of relationships has come from books. Maybe not even self-help books. Maybe romance novels.

[Emily]
Well, I was thinking just really crappy, like 80s, 90s romance, self-help, you know, like Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus-style things.

[Shep]
Right. Or she grew up reading Cosmo and thinks that was real.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Wait, what?

[Shep]
Yeah. Spoilers.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
So Brian’s a comedian. He reads the pamphlets, thinks that this one is dead funny, and asks if he can use it at the bar. She misunderstands, thinking he wants to ask someone out at the bar, and she gives him permission. Later, he asks if she has any new pamphlets on some other subject or maybe more on this subject. And then she makes more pamphlets, which he then continues to use. He eventually asks her to come to watch him do his set at open mic night. Shannon convinces Laurel that it’s a date, but Laurel goes anyway. She’s like, “Oh, maybe I’m into this.” And talks to Brian’s friends at the bar while he’s not there and expresses her nervousness about being on a date. Maybe she hasn’t dated before. She doesn’t know how dates work.

[Thomas]
Right. That would give Brian even more incentive to kind of play along.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
“This is her first date ever?”

[Shep]
Right. “Let’s not ruin her night.”

[Thomas]
“Well, I don’t want to-” Yeah.

[Emily]
Well, like her first real date. She probably says something like, well, I’ve gone to movies with friends. In high school, we would go as a group.

[Shep]
See, I’m just picturing. It’s like, how old is Laurel?

[Emily]
At least 25.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
Let’s give her an MLS she’s 28.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Okay. 20 year old virgin. So she doesn’t understand how relationships and dates work. The last time she went out was in middle school. She went to a middle school dance. Brian’s friend finds him and tells him what’s going on. And also they find out that someone was going to get bumped. Brian volunteers to get bumped and not do his set. And now he’s dating Laurel and they’re going out on regular dates. And Shannon convinces Laurel that the third date’s coming up. “This is the sex date. You have to have sex.” And she’s like, “I haven’t done that before.”

[Emily]
“That’s what men expect, though.”

[Shep]
They expect sex. Yep. “Third date. That’s the rule. “

[Emily]
“And if you don’t put out, he’s not going to take you out anymore.”

[Shep]
Right. “Do you like going out with him? Well, then you gotta suck his cock.” Maybe not in those words, depending on the rating we’re going for.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So their date, Laurel initiates more intimacy, which comes out of nowhere for Brian. But he’s, you know, whatever. He’s a guy. I shouldn’t say that. That’s sexist of me.

[Emily]
He’s surprised, but not not into it.

[Shep]
Right. That seems like a lot of what he does is, “I didn’t expect this, but maybe I’m into it.” Even the dating to begin with.

[Emily]
You’re right.

[Thomas]
But does he let that happen, or does he sense that she’s really nervous and unsure?

[Shep]
Oh!

[Thomas]
I mean, he knows that she has no experience.

[Shep]
This is where she has a panic attack.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Ah, perfect.

[Shep]
We talked about this before. Where she has a panic attack. And this is where he gives her advice because he also has panic attacks. You know, he’s had them during his comedy routines. And then he’ll have to finish early and go off stage and go to the bathroom and rub, you know, run cold water over his hands and feel the water. So he takes her into the bathroom and he turns on the cold water, and he does like a kind of guided mindfulness meditation. “Feel the water flowing over your skin and relax your mind” and kind of talks her out of-

[Emily]
Yeah. Talks her down.

[Shep]
Right. And so we see her in the first act have a panic attack and not know how to deal with it and, like, pace back and forth.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And then this is the second act where she has a panic attack and he helps her through it.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Does she, like, give him a kiss on the cheek or something after he calms her down?

[Emily]
Yeah. Because then in that moment, she feels an intimacy with him.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And physically expresses it with a gentle peck on the cheek,

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Which is a lot for her because it’s just a natural movement for her.

[Thomas]
Right. And part of calming her down is Brian saying, like, “Let’s not do anything then.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“Like, I’m good.”

[Shep]
Yeah. “I could wait till you’re ready.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. “Take as much time. It’s fine.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Like, yeah.

[Shep]
“I’m an adult man and I have the Internet. I can handle all of my own needs.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. Now, is that our mid-second act turning point then?

[Shep]
Yes. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
That’s the mid-second act turning point. The end of the second act is when Shannon gets jealous enough of this relationship that seems to be getting more intimate and finds the YouTube video of Brian doing that routine earlier. Laurel has never seen his comedy, but mentions that he’s a comedian.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
And Shannon looks it up to find the routine because maybe she can tease Laurel about it or, you know, whatever. She’s looking it up specifically because she found out that Brian’s a comedian.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
And then she sees the routine. One of his top-rated ones. Most views.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Is he even funny? Maybe this guy sucks.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. She could tease him with like, “You are dating the worst comedian ever.”

[Shep]
Right. He was funny when he was using Laurel’s material. Shannon sees what he did and shows it to Laurel. Laurel realizes that the thing that she had written earnestly is being taken as a joke, and a room full of people are laughing at her, basically. And she is heartbroken. And why did Brian keep this a secret? And he tries to defend himself. He’s like, “I got permission. I got consent.” But no, she didn’t realize what she was giving permission for. And he tries to justify, you know, “I stopped, when I realized, I stopped using that material. I do different material now.”

[Emily]
“It’s not as good, but I’m not-“

[Shep]
It’s not as good. But it’s not enough. And they break up. And now they’re both heartbroken, and neither knows what to do and how to repair the situation. How do they repair the situation? See, I want it to end with Laurel doing a comedy routine at open mic night using her own material that people think is so funny. Plus, she has a deadpan, you know, like a deadpan delivery.

[Emily]
Deadpan delivery. I like the idea of her just, in her random research, writing things down and then they coming out funny because that’s just the way she words things, the way she picks up on things.

[Shep]
Right. Right. She’s on the spectrum, so she sees things a little differently.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Maybe Shannon stays a bad person, but somehow inspires Laurel to go and do the comedy.

[Shep]
See, I want Shannon to have a redeeming arc just because I think people are redeemable. And I think she just doesn’t know how to have a relationship with another woman, an adult friendship.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Laurel is mad not just at Brian, but at Shannon for showing this to her because she was happy.

[Thomas]
What was Shannon’s intention? Was Shannon trying to protect Laurel? So it wasn’t, she wasn’t doing it as like a, “Oh, look at your boyfriend.” It was like, “Uh, are we sure about Brian? He’s using your stuff.”

[Shep]
Ooh, that didn’t occur to me. I just thought that she was like, “Oh, my gosh, this is hilarious. This is the pamphlet that you wrote.”

[Emily]
Does this send her into a spiral? Into the panic attack after she confronts Brian and Shannon somehow witnesses it? Or is there for that?

[Thomas]
I think we need to save that last attack, though.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
We can really only do three.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
We need to set up the one at the beginning, and we need to have the second act one. Something definitely does need to kind of push her over the edge, though, so she can have that one. I mean, is that essentially the climax? How does Brian-

[Emily]
Woo her. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Win her back?

[Emily]
How do you come back from that? Men, who know what it’s like to be humiliated by other men?

[Shep]
What?

[Thomas]
Yeah. Wait a minute. What are you implying about us?

[Shep]
Who? What?

[Emily]
No, no, I just meant. I just meant because you’re, you guys aren’t women who have gone through that sort of humiliation by a man that you trust and have feelings for. You obviously are the ones to answer that question of how he comes back from it. It was a joke that I should know what would make her happy. But I have no success in relationships. So-

[Shep]
Okay, let’s establish that he always goes to the library on a certain day at a certain time.

[Thomas]
Yep. I was thinking the same thing.

[Emily]
Because it’s his day off.

[Shep]
Because it’s between two things that he does on Tuesdays. And so this is like his routine. And so that’s why he’s always in there. That’s why he saw the pamphlets on the wall and kept seeing them and asked for more. And so at the end, maybe he still comes in on that day, or maybe he comes in on a day after they’ve broken up and doesn’t interact with-

[Thomas]
See, I’m not sure I agree that he comes back in. I think he’s keeping his distance.

[Shep]
Well, that’s what I’m saying. He comes back in after a time, but he doesn’t go and interact with Laurel because he’s keeping his distance from her. This was part of his routine before he knew her. And there isn’t another library on the path between his mindfulness meditation course that he does in the afternoon and the bar or his home or whatever he goes after that. This is part of his circuit that he does. He’s a creature of habit. Maybe he’s on the spectrum, too.

[Thomas]
But if we let him come back to the library, that gives Laurel an opportunity to interact with him if she wants to. And we want to create a sense of longing in her because that’ll help him later.

[Shep]
Right. Well, if his routine is always coming in and talking to her specifically, because, as we said at the beginning, she’s popular among the patrons. So he always would, you know, get in her line and talk to her about stuff if she were available.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And now he comes in and doesn’t. He gets in Shannon’s line or whatever.

[Thomas]
It’s tough because, I don’t know, like, if I were in Laurel’s position and this sort of happened, and I saw, you know, this person that I had had a falling out with go into someone else’s line, it would feel like a slight. Like, they definitely don’t want to talk to me, but I’m not on the spectrum in the same way that Laurel is.

[Shep]
Oh.

[Thomas]
So will she interpret it that way? I don’t know.

[Shep]
Here’s what happened. The first time he comes in, he gets in her line again because he wants to apologize again and try to make amends. When he gets all the way through the line up to where she is, she goes on break. She waits for him to get up there and goes on break and doesn’t talk to him at all. It’s like, “Shannon, please take over.” And Shannon, because she is a named character, can say something.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And we can have someone in the film respond to- She could tease Brian about whatever. And so Brian gets the message. “She doesn’t want to talk to me. I can’t make this right.” And so the next time he comes in, he doesn’t get in her line. He gets in another line.

[Thomas]
He uses the self-checkout.

[Shep]
Right. Or something. And so now Laurel is sad because previously she’s like, “If I changed my mind, I could talk to him.”

[Emily]
Right. “I have that opportunity.”

[Shep]
Right. “And now I don’t because he’s not talking to me anymore. So it really is over.”

[Emily]
I think he should come in a couple of times and have her be like, you know, that one interaction. And then maybe another time he does go to the other line and everything, but he looks forlorn and, like, kind of glances at her, but also doesn’t, because he doesn’t. He got the message. So then he just stops coming. And that’s where the longing comes from, is that he did come back after. And she was like, “If I change my mind, he’s here on Tuesdays. We can figure it out.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
But if he just stops coming altogether.

[Shep]
“Then I would have to call him, and that’s a deal breaker.”

[Emily]
That is right. That is too much anxiety.

[Shep]
That’s the line too far.

[Emily]
Also, then she has that feeling of- Because she doesn’t quite understand social cues.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Right. We’ve established that. So she has that question of, “Did I do this wrong? Because now he’s changing his whole life.”

[Shep]
Right. But who is she asking that to? Because it’s got to be Shannon. They’ve got to be actual friends.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
I know that Shannon is the villain, but-

[Emily]
How do we make them friends? Does she get a little more-

[Shep]
This is where it all comes out. This is Shannon’s jealousy and Laurel’s confession that she doesn’t know if she’ll ever have a relationship again. She didn’t know how she got into this relationship. She doesn’t know how relationships work, obviously, because her thoughts on relationships were literally a joke that everyone laughed at. And so both of their insecurities are coming out. And it’s just the two women.

[Emily]
Do they have that conversation at a slow point in the library on the day he doesn’t show up as expected? And she kind of gets in a bad mood, but doesn’t understand why she’s in a bad mood because it doesn’t make sense. Nothing has changed about her day other than his absence. And Shannon makes a comment about, “Yeah, he’s not coming back. You made sure he got that message.” And she’s like, “What do you mean? What message? What did I do?” Then they have that whole come to Jesus girl talk there at the counter.

[Shep]
Right. No, I wouldn’t do it at the counter. I would do it in the bathroom because she’s having a panic attack again. Oh, no. Panic attack’s too early. I was going to say she goes to the bathroom to run the cold water over her hands. When do we have that third one?

[Emily]
Is it too early at this point now?

[Thomas]
Is that too early? I don’t- It may not be too early.

[Emily]
I think we’ve filled it in enough with the visits that it’s now not too early.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
All right, well, then this is when that happens. She runs to the bathroom and Shannon runs after her.

[Thomas]
And maybe Shannon even helps lampshade that, like, “Oh, you have this under control. That’s so great.” Because she saw in the first act that Laurel did not have that under control.

[Shep]
Did she see that? Because if part of her jealousy is that she always thought that Laurel was cool as a cucumber-

[Thomas]
That’s a good point.

[Shep]
This is the first time she’s seeing her have a panic attack and do something.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I know. You’re right.

[Shep]
She doesn’t realize that this is much better than it was before.

[Emily]
Right. But even to somebody who, who’s not witnessed it before, even if you’re not having a crazy panic attack, seeing someone go through even a mild one-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
For someone who doesn’t have them is still like, “What the fuck is going on?” You know? And then Laurel can lampshade it with, “It used to be worse,” you know, as they kind of talked. “But then Brian showed me this, and it really helps. And-“

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So now Shannon is going to help Laurel reconnect with Brian or help Brian reconnect with Laurel?

[Thomas]
Does Shannon convince Laurel to go and do an open mic?

[Shep]
That’s what I was thinking. Because they know that he always goes on open mic night.

[Thomas]
Right. That’s the one place she knows he’ll be. He’ll be at open mic night.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And why isn’t she just calling him?

[Emily]
Because that’s too hard.

[Shep]
Because it’s a movie.

[Emily]
Have you tried to call a person of the opposite sex that you have feelings for?

[Shep]
I don’t call anyone.

[Emily]
See?

[Shep]
That’s not what phones are for anymore.

[Emily]
Exactly.

[Shep]
So anyway, Shannon and Laurel go to the bar. Laurel does a stand up routine. Maybe Shannon ends up sitting at the table with Brian’s friend who doesn’t have a girlfriend. Let’s take that girlfriend out from the earlier scene. Oh, but then it has to be a double date.

[Thomas]
They were just on a date. It was Brian and his friend and his friend’s date.

[Shep]
That’s why she thought it was, especially thought it was a date, because the other person’s clearly on a date.

[Thomas]
Right. It’s their first date.

[Shep]
It’s their first date. She’s like, “Oh, mine too.” So Brian’s friend and his date, they’re talking about how it’s their first date.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And Laurel also says it’s her first date, thinking, “This is my first date ever.”

[Emily]
Ever.

[Shep]
And she’s thinking it’s their first date ever. “So this is normal. People don’t have dates until their late 20s. That’s fine. That’s perfectly fine.”

[Thomas]
I mean, that helps put her more at ease, even.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So, at the end, I don’t know if Shannon would convince Laurel of this or if Laurel just does it on her own. Is Laurel’s set about the movie essentially, like, dating this guy? Is it- Is she trying to win Brian back with her set, or does it accidentally win Brian back because she’s, like, poking fun at herself and the situation?

[Emily]
I think she’s trying to win him back.

[Shep]
Or she’s making fun of him like she feels he was making fun of her.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
But it ends up being very funny.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
But also, like, her emotions come out about, like, “He was super nice, and I really liked him, and I really valued what we had” and blah, blah, blah. And so there’s, like, also a moment of sweetness to it, which she then accidentally punctuates with a big callback or something that sends the crowd into stitches.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
“But there was clearly something wrong with him because he was taking relationship advice from me.”

[Thomas]
Right. Oh. Or does she get up on stage and pan him and it’s not very funny, and everyone’s like, “Wow, this is uncomfortable.” And then he’s next. His set is next. And he gets up and has this really sweet-

[Emily]
Monologue about how he was an and he ruined this perfectly fine relationship he had with this beautiful girl.

[Shep]
This Comedy Night’s doesn’t have a lot of comedy in it.

[Thomas]
Everyone’s booing them like, “You guys suck. This isn’t funny.”

[Shep]
I think her set should be funny.

[Thomas]
Okay. I mean, if we establish earlier that she is unintentionally funny.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And maybe we see that in the library as well. Patrons are always like, they like her because she’s friendly and funny and…

[Emily]
Oh, and the kids love her when she does story hour because she’s hilarious.

[Thomas]
Right. Oh, yeah. If she does voices during story hour, she’s got to do voices during the stand up set.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yep. This is another movie where I want to watch it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
“What are the writers going to come up with?”

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Pamphlet. Does it deserve three cheers, or is it not worth the paper it’s written on? Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. Links to all of those can be found at AlmostPlausible.com. Have you left a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else that has podcast ratings? It takes just a few seconds to do and it helps us out a lot. You don’t even have to write a review if you don’t want to. Just leaving a rating helps us out tremendously. With that said, if you do write a review along with your five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, we’ll read it on the show at some point in the future. Emily, Shep, and I will be back again soon on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Emily]
How do you ask people out in real life now? Because you can’t… You can’t ask them at work.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
You can’t follow them to their car. You can’t show up in their house in the middle of the night. Like, how does it work now?

[Shep]
You try to get next to them in line at the grocery store, which is neutral territory.

[Thomas]
Yeah, unless they work at the grocery store.

[Shep]
No, no, no.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
They can’t work there.

[Thomas]
What if you like the girl that works at the grocery store?

[Shep]
Uh…

[Emily]
Then you have to run into her at the library.

[Thomas]
Right. I saw just today there was a graph that was like how people meet each other. And it was like all these lines that were all on various levels. And it was like “through family”, “through work”, “through (whatever)”, all the different ways that you meet people. And then as time went on along the X axis, eventually they all kind of sharply dipped down to almost zero and “online” was like, whoosh. Like this huge steep curve up. And so online is apparently how you meet people now.

[Emily]
No, it’s not. I’ve thought about joining a church, specifically to meet a man, but then I realized I would be with a church man.

[Thomas]
All right.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
It’s the same reason I don’t want to meet a woman at a bar that she’s a bar person.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Like, I don’t. It’s not my thing.

[Shep]
If only there was some way you could meet people perhaps online where you could filter out your interests.

[Thomas]
Where do all the hot nerdy girls hang out? At home.

[Shep]
Right. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh fuck.

[Shep]
Yep.