Scrunchie

References

• Scrunchie
• Heathers
• Hot Tub Time Machine
• The Tuxedo
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers
• Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
• Sailor Moon
• Chonmage
• The Guyver
• Power Rangers Short Film – Joseph Kahn
• Harry Potter
• Village People
• A War of Conscience: Quakers in the Civil War
• Voltron
• Fast Chess
• Florence Nightingale
• Santa Monica Pier
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
• Kaiju

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Thomas]
The main bad guy makes himself slightly vulnerable. You know, he’s putting all of his energy in the front and none in the back. And so they teleport behind him and attack from behind.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And his shields are down because all that energy, you know, whatever.

[Emily]
So he teleports behind him, pulls the sword over him and cuts off his head.

[Thomas]
I thought you were gonna say, pulls his pants down.

[Shep]
That’s also what I thought.

[Thomas]
He dies of embarrassment.

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. A Scrunchie is a fabric-covered elastic hair tie. They were extremely popular in the 1980s and -90s, and they’re the subject of this episode. I’m Thomas J. Brown, and I’m joined by Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
Each of us has brought some story ideas for a movie about a Scrunchie. We’ll pitch those ideas to each other, pick one we like, and develop it into a full movie plot. I’ll get us started with my first pitch. This one’s pretty simple: A scrunchie that allows the wearer to change their appearance.

[Shep]
I love it. Let’s start. Let’s go.

[Thomas]
My second pitch: A man meets a woman at a party and they have a lively conversation, discovering they have several interests in common. At some point, the two lose track of each other, and the man eventually realizes she’s left. He didn’t even think to ask for her name or her phone number. All he has is her scrunchie, which maybe is rather distinctive? He decides to track the woman down, not only to return her scrunchie, but to ask her out on a date.

[Shep]
Why is it that all these things that I know should be romantic I just see as creepy now?

[Emily]
You’re dead inside?

[Shep]
He tracked her down to return her scrunchie, but, like, if she were that into him, she could have asked for his name and number at the party or given her name or number, but they didn’t.

[Thomas]
Well, that’s our writing problem we would need to solve if we chose this pitch.

[Shep]
This is one of those no-names, no-phones parties that’s been making the rounds.

[Thomas]
No, no, this takes place in the 80s, so they don’t have cell phones. Those are my pitches. Emily, what do you have for us?

[Emily]
I have a dark comedy about a ruthless, popular high school clique that signifies their leader with a red scrunchie. A misunderstood new student arrives in town, seduces one of the clique’s members, and they go on a rampage of death and destruction. Oh, yeah, that’s Heathers.

[Thomas]
A classic.

[Emily]
Alright, so for my real pitch, it’s: a daughter finds her mother’s scrunchie from her cheerleading days. She wears it for a throwback 90s spirit day at school. While at the pep rally for the basketball team’s recent win at regionals, she is magically transported back to the 1990s. Think Hot Tub Time Machine, but in the 90s.

[Thomas]
And for your serial killer pitch?

[Emily]
I got nothing this week. All right, Shep, what do you have for us?

[Shep]
Okay: A technologically advanced scrunchie designed for spy work is accidentally worn by a teenager. So kind of like the Jackie Chan movie The Tuxedo, except it’s a scrunchie.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Emily]
Mhm.

[Shep]
And maybe it allows the wearer to change their appearance, as Thomas had suggested.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I like that.

[Shep]
And maybe it, like, activates or stimulates parts of the brain with, like, electromagnetic flux. My second pitch: A scrunchie that takes you back to the 80s or 90s, when worn. Think Hot Tub Time Machine, but for the 80s or 90s and a scrunchie.

[Thomas]
It’s funny because I also had this idea and I was like, “Someone else will have this idea. I won’t bother writing it.”

[Shep]
My last pitch is: A group of high schoolers are each gifted with a different colored scrunchie that grants them powers Captain Planet or Mighty Morphin Power Rangers-style.

[Thomas]
Or Sailor Moon.

[Shep]
Or Sailor Moon!

[Emily]
I like this one. It’s very comforting and familiar.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I want to mix together your technologically advanced scrunchie with your group of high schoolers one.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So it’s a group of high schoolers that get technologically advanced scrunchies, and it’s like a mix of genders. I think that’d be funny.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I was thinking, you know, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. So it’s a bunch of- It’s like five girls. I… Thomas, you’re right. It’s… It’s Sailor Moon. And they wear scrunchies in their hair, but when they transform, they take off the scrunchie and they put it on their wrist. Like the Zord thing from Mighty Morphin-

[Emily]
Yeah, the communicator thing.

[Shep]
Yes, the communicator thing.

[Thomas]
Right. Right.

[Emily]
And one of them can change their appearance.

[Shep]
And one of them can change their appearance?

[Emily]
Yeah, one of the scrunchies can change one of the person’s appearance.

[Thomas]
It’s four girls and a dude. And when the dude does it, he becomes a girl version of himself. He has, like, long hair and a ponytail. And…

[Shep]
Where does the guy wear his scrunchie?

[Emily]
He has long hair normally.

[Shep]
Ah.

[Emily]
Normally he wears a man bun.

[Shep]
Okay, I gotcha. A man bun.

[Emily]
Yeah, he’s like the… He’s like the like hippie-dippy yogi guy of the high school.

[Shep]
I was thinking, he’s got it up like a samurai top knot.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, yeah, that could be it too.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I was thinking he just stretches it around his head like a headband. Well, where do they come from? Is there some- There’s got to be some dodgy company that they got, like, stolen from. Oh, I’m just thinking of The Guyver.

[Shep]
The Guyver. Oh. And now I’ve been transported back to the 80s.

[Emily]
I have no idea what you guys are talking about.

[Shep]
The Guyver is a bonkers, like, there is an anime and then there is two live-action movies.

[Thomas]
Yeah, but in The Guyver, the scientist from some horrible corporation, he steals this thing and he hides it and he’s killed because they’re trying to get it back. And some teenager finds it, and it ends up, like, imprinting on the teenager, and he becomes the guyver and it gives him, like, superpowers, basically, and it transforms his appearance.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Right. When he presses the back of his neck.

[Emily]
Oh, okay. That actually sounds really familiar.

[Shep]
Maybe you saw it, you know, 30 years ago.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Maybe I did see it when I was a child.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
That’s when I first saw it. So-

[Shep]
I was thinking, well, you said technologically advanced scrunchies, and I’m like, “Oh, it’s got to be like alien technology.”

[Emily]
So it’s from an alien.

[Shep]
Yes, exactly.

[Emily]
It’s always alien technology.

[Shep]
It’s always aliens. And it’s one group of aliens fighting another group of aliens using Earth as a proxy war.

[Thomas]
Mhm.

[Shep]
Like, it’s real dark when you think about it.

[Emily]
Right. It’s like that dark Power Rangers trailer they made. Have you seen that? With James Van Der Beek?

[Shep]
No.

[Emily]
Oh, you have it. It’s so good.

[Thomas]
So is that what we like, alien scrunchies?

[Emily]
Alien scrunchies.

[Thomas]
I mean, why are they scrunchies if they come from aliens?

[Shep]
Thomas is asking all the wrong questions.

[Emily]
Contrary to popular belief, aliens are not bald, gray, long-limbed things. They’re really hairy and they need to get that hair out of their eyes. So scrunchies are wildly popular in space.

[Thomas]
Ah, because, guys, I got it. The woman that invented scrunchies was an alien.

[Shep]
This explains everything.

[Thomas]
She was an outlaw who came to this planet to hide, and she had her scrunchie to help mask her alien appearance or whatever.

[Shep]
Right. Because it allows the wearer to change their appearance.

[Thomas]
But she was always wearing this grunchy, and people were like, “Hey, what’s up with that thing?”

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And so she was like, yeah, it’s a thing I invented. And then she produced a whole bunch of them that weren’t technologically advanced.

[Emily]
So she’d blend in better.

[Thomas]
Yeah, exactly.

[Emily]
This all makes sense to me. I buy it.

[Shep]
I don’t know if we could get her permission to use her in the story.

[Thomas]
Ah, you just do somebody like her. It’s a character that’s loosely based on her.

[Shep]
You still gotta pay likeness rates.

[Thomas]
Do you? That’s something for the writers and lawyers to work out.

[Shep]
That’s not something we usually say.

[Thomas]
Yeah, it’s a new one.

[Shep]
Yep. I was thinking they were already coincidentally wearing scrunchies. And those are where the aliens store their powers because they were already wearing them.

[Emily]
So just a random group of high schoolers.

[Shep]
Just a random group of high schoolers that all happen to be wearing scrunchies of different colors. So you can tell them apart for merchandising purposes.

[Emily]
Yeah, 100%.

[Thomas]
And so why do the aliens store the powers in those scrunchies? Because if I’m an alien, why would I hide it in a thing that someone could have? I want it to be something that I put in a box and bury in the woods so I know where it is and no one’s going to disturb it.

[Shep]
It depends on what your goal is.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
If it’s like that, it’s like the Horcrux from Harry Potter. Someone needs to have it. So that’s this. These are five aliens because they gotta be five for tradition.

[Thomas and Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And they are out of strength. They’ve been fighting this war for a long time. They’ve fled to Earth. And so they store their powers or themselves. Let’s say that they are putting themselves in five things that are the appropriate color that matches their power or whatever.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Great.

[Shep]
Because there are five different aliens.

[Thomas]
Okay. Yeah.

[Shep]
There are five different alien species that have all been fighting this hive mind, whatever, invading alien.

[Thomas]
And so they’re trying to hide from that aggressor.

[Shep]
Right. But they need help. They’re like, “Those things are coming and Earth is going to be caught in the crossfire. We need to prepare the people on this planet to fight back. But we’re out of strength. So we’re going to store our consciousness and powers in these scrunchies.”

[Thomas]
Oh. And so do they- Do they do something where they see, like, oh, God, this is just Power Rangers. But.

[Shep]
Everything is Power Rangers.

[Thomas]
The five teens are doing, like, a karate demonstration or something like that. So they’re like, “Oh, here are warriors of this planet. We can help these warriors.” They misunderstand. Or maybe they’re doing a dance recital.

[Shep]
I thought that the five teens were not friends and didn’t know each other.

[Emily]
Right. That’s what I was thinking. They don’t know each other and they kind of look for attributes that match their world and their power.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So the aliens are trying to diversify.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Okay. They’re trying to prepare the largest swath of the population to be prepared.

[Thomas]
So they think, “Oh, well, will pick this person who’s over here and they can get their community, you know, beefed up, and then somebody all the way in a different part of town can get their community beefed up” and…

[Shep]
Right. So we need a white, a black, an Asian…

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
A Native American.

[Shep]
A Native American, a construction worker. The Village People, Native American is not a job!

[Emily]
I know.

[Shep]
Like, cop, army guy, construction worker… Native Americans. Now what?

[Thomas]
All right. So how do these five teens come together as a group?

[Shep]
Initially, they wouldn’t. Each one is on their own.

[Thomas]
Uhuh.

[Shep]
Discovers that their scrunchie now has abilities and maybe talks to them and tries to teach them how to use these abilities.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And they can all have different reactions. Some think it’s cool. Some think it’s insane. Like, “Did I go crazy? Did someone spike my drink?”

[Thomas]
Sure. There’d be, like, one girl who thinks it’s awesome, and she’s posting about it on her Instagram or TikTok or whatever. And so maybe one or two of the other teens see that and they’re like, “Oh, my gosh.” They see the scrunchie, they make the connection.

[Emily]
And everybody else thinks it’s just like an act.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So I think they really come together when the first enemies show up. Because they all have to go out to fight.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Because that would be when they’re actually activated? Or they activated before?

[Thomas]
I guess it depends what you mean by activated. Like, I think they’re doing some sort of training-esque stuff.

[Emily]
Right. Okay.

[Thomas]
Like preparations, but if you’re talking about, like, Power Rangers-style, go from, like, street clothes to uniform.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
That would be, like, proper activation.

[Emily]
Right. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So that feels like end of the first act is when the first, like, an initial forward scouting alien ship comes.

[Shep]
Yeah, sure.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
A weak enemy that can be defeated by them even when they’re not all working together because they’re not a team yet.

[Emily]
Right. It’s a drone. There’s no actual alien in it.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. It’s like a robot.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
That’s good. I like that. Are they all drawn to it? Like, the scrunchies sort of recognize the signature of the- the energy signature of the robot, and they’re like, “Okay, you have to go fight this thing now.” But they’re all sort of also working against each other because they’re all like, “No, I’m supposed to fight this thing. What are you doing?”

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
“Get out of the way.”

[Emily]
I like that it creates some tension in the beginning before they realize everyone’s on the same team.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
The drones are technologically advanced. When it arrives, it connects to the Internet and sees like the Instagram post and recognizes “Oh, that’s one of our targets,” and goes to her.

[Thomas]
All right.

[Shep]
So she’s fighting because it came specifically for her. And maybe some of the others are close enough to read the energy signature or whatever. But I imagine at least one doesn’t come and fight. At least not in the first battle.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Maybe that’s our protagonist. That’s the one we follow. They’re afraid. They don’t want to fight. I mean, they’re not a warrior. Like, this is- This is an absurd thing to ask of a civilian to do. They’re not trained for this.

[Thomas]
So I’m imagining three women and two guys.

[Shep]
All right.

[Thomas]
And one of the guys is kind of a jock, but the other one’s a bit of a hippie, and he’s got the man bun thing and he doesn’t want to fight. He’s a pacifist.

[Shep]
He would still go to try and talk the situation down. He’s not going to fight. He’s going to help without fighting. I can imagine two of the others fighting the drone, and the drone ignoring the hippie guy, and they’re like, “Why aren’t you helping?” “I am helping in my own way.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“We can resolve this peacefully.” What is the lesson of this story?

[Thomas]
Yeah. I was just about to ask what happens with this guy if he’s a pacifist.

[Shep]
By the end, he’s a pass-a-fist.

[Thomas]
Hey.

[Emily]
Well, it’s the whole when it’s time to fight, you have to fight kind of thing.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Like the Quakers did that during the Civil War. They were very like, “No, no.” And then they got to a point where they’re like, “Hey, I will shoot you.”

[Thomas]
Well, I think maybe for him it’s that he sees other, like, actual civilians are being injured. You know, he doesn’t fight in that one battle.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
It’s not needed. But when the larger army comes, civilians are being injured, and he’s like, “Well, I have something I can do.”

[Emily]
Do the other ones figure out that if the five of them are together, there’s something special? You know, like they-

[Thomas]
Right, Right.

[Emily]
Not that they become the big Voltron-esque robot, but, you know, something happens that they can- They’re more powerful in the group.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Can they combine their power energies or play off of each other in some way that makes them stronger?

[Shep]
It’s gotta. It’s gotta.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right. They get a super boost or something with their powers.

[Thomas]
Is there a “with our powers combined” moment where they all five-

[Shep]
Oh, god, I have the dumbest idea.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
The more of them that are together, the stronger they become. So when all five are together, maybe they turn into a giant being, as is tradition.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But they’re still not strong enough to beat whatever the Big Bad is. And it turns out there is a sixth scrunchie that would form their weapon. So, like, one’s an arm, one’s the other arm, one’s a leg, one’s the other leg, one’s the body.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They all come together and they can fight as a big being, but they’re just using their fists. So who picked up the sixth scrunchie? A dog. You got to have the dog mascot.

[Thomas]
Somebody put it on the dog.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
I would buy it.

[Shep]
Where are we going with this story?

[Thomas]
I don’t know. I just think it’s fun.

[Emily]
It’s- Yeah, it’s- I think it’s just a fun-

[Thomas]
It’s just dumb fun.

[Shep]
I asked this earlier: What is the purpose? What is the point of this story? What is the lesson of the story?

[Thomas]
Teamwork seems to be a big one.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Teamwork. Sure.

[Emily]
Teamwork makes the dream work. I don’t know how to explain it, that, yeah, doesn’t sound kind of terrible, but like, sometimes just causes require a fight. If it’s justified, you can punch someone.

[Shep]
I mean-

[Thomas]
Well, I mean, they’re, they’re battling against a fascist force.

[Emily]
I mean, you can’t just let somebody come and stomp all over everything without attempting at the very least to stop them.

[Thomas]
The theme of the film is it’s okay to punch a Nazi.

[Shep]
Robot space Nazis.

[Emily]
Mm.

[Shep]
Okay. The lesson is you gotta come together and punch Nazis.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
So what are our five human characters? We have a jock, we have a pacifist.

[Thomas]
Mm.

[Shep]
Well, I don’t know anything about the three girls.

[Thomas]
Maybe one of the girls is really, like, bookish and nerdy.

[Shep]
Of course.

[Emily]
Yeah. Gotta have a nerd.

[Thomas]
And then there’s the popular influencer girl.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
She’s the one that gave away their position by posting it on Instagram, bringing nearly doom to the whole planet.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Oh, and then you’ve got the, the rebel girl.

[Shep]
The Goth.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
She gets the black scrunchie.

[Thomas]
No, she’s got the pink scrunchie, right?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Why would she wear it?

[Emily]
There’s that whole aesthetic in the early 2000s of black and pink for grunge Goth girls.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, we don’t have to give her the pink scrunchie. Red would also make sense. Like, see black and red, like a vampire-style.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Green, if she wanted, like, a nuclear biohazard type of look.

[Shep]
That was going to be my next question. Which is: who has what color and what are their powers?

[Thomas]
I mean, do we want these to be really on the nose?

[Shep]
If you look at all the popular ones in the past, they’re so on the nose. You think it’s too much. And yet…

[Thomas]
If it’s super on the nose, then I’d say the pacifist guy, his scrunchie is white. The Jock guy, his is probably blue.

[Emily]
Yeah. I was thinking blue for his.

[Thomas]
The nerdy girl is probably green. Popular girl is obviously pink. And then rebel girl is red or black.

[Emily]
Yeah, well, in the pacifist guy, I mean, white’s a good one, but I also was thinking like, brown.

[Thomas]
Or orange.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I would prefer orange over white, because white’s not really a color like the others.

[Thomas]
It’s true. Orange, you associate with a lot of, like, religious, like, pacifistic religions, like Sikhism and Hare Krishna and whatnot.

[Emily]
Right. Buddhism.

[Thomas]
Buddhism. Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Okay, that’s good.

[Shep]
So what are their powers?

[Emily]
The Jock guy has strength because he’s athletic.

[Shep]
That’s very on the nose.

[Emily]
Well, I mean.

[Shep]
He could have speed.

[Emily]
Yeah, it was- It’s strength or speed, I think, with him.

[Shep]
Oh, I want pacifist orange guy to have strength.

[Emily]
Yeah, that makes sense.

[Shep]
That makes sense.

[Emily]
Because he has a strong will to abstain.

[Shep]
Also, it’s really inconvenient when he’s not fighting.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Sure.

[Shep]
So what is the opposite that you could give the jock guy? He wants to fight, so let’s make him the shield. He can block.

[Emily]
Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Shep]
Also, his first instinct is to go and fight, and that leaves the rest of his team here undefended.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So that’s how they lose a battle at some point because they’re not working together as a team. They’re not sticking to their jobs. He wants to go and fight, but that’s not what his ability is. He has to learn to protect instead of attack.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I want one of them to be able to change their appearance.

[Thomas]
That should be the popular girl.

[Shep]
Well, it should be the popular girl.

[Emily]
I was thinking the popular girl should be able to read the situation, kind of make the connections to be like, “If you’re here and they’re there, we can go-” you know, come up with a game plan.

[Thomas]
So she’s kind of the leader.

[Emily]
Yeah, kind of. But she’s more of the “I can come up with the strategy.”

[Thomas]
So we’re trying to, like, basically fish out of water, everybody.

[Shep]
Yes!

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So then I think that makes perfect sense, Emily. Then the popular girl should be… She gets what she wants in that she’s the leader, but it’s more about, like, intelligence and strategy, and she’s not the center of attention.

[Emily]
Right. She doesn’t tell everyone what to do because she’s in charge. She tells everyone what to do because she can see where they’re best placed.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Ah.

[Emily]
Like a true leader.

[Shep]
She stays in the back and isn’t out in the front. She’s not the face of the team.

[Emily and Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
She’s the one behind being protected by the jock guy. That’s the jock guy and the popular girl as a pair. Behind the scenes. It’s the worst for both of them.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Perfect. Okay. Is that speed? Are we giving her speed or is that just intelligence?

[Thomas]
Yeah. I think speed in that, she, yeah, like you said, she reads the situation really fast. It’s almost like everything’s moving in slow motion. So the speed part is the slow motion, and then the intelligence is being able to anticipate what the enemy is going to do.

[Emily]
Yeah. It’s speed chess.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I just want to see her playing speed chess now.

[Emily]
I think at one point we do see her do it and she’s like, “Oh, my god, this is so much fun.”

[Thomas]
And so then we, like, for the goth rebel girl, it’s changing her appearance? Or, because I feel like part of the desire for somebody who dresses in a goth way is to sort of hide in the background or be less visible than she’s the- Something where she has to be, like, up front.

[Emily]
So what do you need up front when you’re fighting battles like this? You need strength. You need-

[Shep]
You need someone to draw aggro so that your DPS can deal damage. So we have dps, which is the pacifist guy.

[Thomas]
Shouldn’t the shield be tanking?

[Shep]
Yeah, yeah. But then he would be in the front.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Oh, rebel girl is the healer.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
Yep. Because she’s all independent and punk and whatever. And her job is basically-

[Emily]
To save these idiots.

[Shep]
Yeah. Florence Nightingale.

[Thomas]
Ah. So you said that one of the five doesn’t fight in the first battle, and I think that should be rebel girl. So the pacifist, he doesn’t physically fight, but he’s at the fight, so his presence is helping with the energy, the overall energy.

[Shep]
Yes, yes.

[Thomas]
But she’s not even there because she’s like, “(Pff) I couldn’t care less about this. This isn’t my problem.”

[Emily]
Right. “I’m not helping a bunch of conformists.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So the nerdy girl, she wants the intelligence, but what does she need?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
What is the opposite of what is outside of her comfort zone for her?

[Shep]
Oh, communication. Because she has trouble talking. So she has like psychic abilities. Telepathy.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So with her, the whole team is synced up so the leader can be transmitting orders to the rest of the team, but it needs the nerdy girl present.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And then does she have some sort of psionic attack that she does?

[Shep]
Sure.

[Thomas]
All right, so we have our five characters. We know what their first battle looks like- We’re going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we’ll jump into the second act and figure out the rest of our story for our Scrunchy superheroes.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. So they’ve had that first battle. We decided that the pacifist did not fight but was present. The rebel girl, our healer, was not present. So they need to get her into the group. How does that happen?

[Emily]
Do they know that she’s the healer? Or is that something they find out later? Or-

[Thomas]
I think they debrief after this first fight, and it’s like, the first time they’ve all met each other, so somehow they need to realize something’s wrong or something’s missing.

[Shep]
I put a little note here that the nerdy girl can also change her appearance, which is a psychic thing that she does.

[Thomas]
That makes sense.

[Shep]
I want to keep that ability.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So our Instagram girl is the one that gives away their location. She has the intelligence ability and she does the dumbest thing. It’s great.

[Thomas]
Well, that’s why they have a journey.

[Shep]
Right. Okay, what does she show off in her Instagram post?

[Emily]
Speed chess.

[Shep]
That’s what I was thinking.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
So she is wearing the scrunchie and starts to see positions and tactics.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And I don’t know why she’s passing through the chess portion of the beachfront, but it, like, seems so trivial to her. She’s trying to get her friend to stop playing and come with her. “Come shopping with me.”

[Emily]
Oh, no, they are shopping. They’re like in Venice beach kind of area.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
They’re checking out the vintage shops and then she sees a game and she can see- She has the scrunchie on and she can see what move they’re supposed to make. And she’s like, “He’s gonna do this, and then he should counter with this.” And then one of them doesn’t do the movie’s supposed to do, and she goes over and kind of takes over the game.

[Shep]
Is that even anyone that she knows?

[Emily]
No, it’s just two random dudes.

[Shep]
Oh, Thomas has an idea.

[Thomas]
I’ve seen stories on Instagram where there’s a chess person who’s trying to get people to play against them. So it could be like a chess influencer or whatever. Someone on ChessTok.

[Shep]
Oh, yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Chess masters that are like, “I look like I’m just a 16-year-old boy, but I’m actually-“

[Thomas]
Right. “But I’m ranked and very high.”

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And then absolutely dominating.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So it’s that. Oh, so it’s not even her Instagram, it’s someone else’s Instagram.

[Thomas]
No, yeah, yeah. There we go.

[Shep]
And so, yeah, they’re playing some whatever and she’s just passing by. She’s like, “Oh, you lost in 18 moves.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He’s like, “Oh, you think you can… Whatever, jump in.”

[Emily]
So how do we get them to realize they need the healer and convince her to join?

[Thomas]
Do they meet the healer after the first battle and before this next battle?

[Thomas]
And she doesn’t join them then, but then after the second battle, they need her because they’re getting their butts kicked.

[Thomas]
And so they convince her to join.

[Shep]
Okay. So they win the first battle against the scout because that is the weakest invader.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And they just barely win because they’re not all together.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
They lose the second battle.

[Thomas]
What does losing the battle entail? Because they can’t die.

[Shep]
They can’t die. They have to flee.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
Yeah. They retreat.

[Shep]
So it’s the chess game again. Popular girl is seeing all the moves and she’s trying to get people to do their part, and no one’s working together. And so the paths to victory are narrowing and narrowing, until she realizes there is no path to victory. And if we continue fighting, we will definitely lose. She also has the speed ability. So she somehow grabs everyone and flees with them.

[Thomas]
Hmm. Does she maybe somehow get the psychic girl to bamboozle the enemy temporarily so they can escape?

[Shep]
Sure.

[Thomas]
Using the psychic powers?

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Makes a mailbox look like them. And so it attacks the mailbox.

[Thomas]
The letters go flying everywhere.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
I like that.

[Shep]
Classic.

[Thomas]
So I like the visual of the popular girl seeing the moves.

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Thomas]
Like, we see what she sees, and she’s actually seeing moves on the chessboard, sort of in, like, ghost mode. Right? And then we see that again on the battlefield. We understand what that is. She’s like, oh, she’s seeing ahead. She’s seeing the possible moves. Maybe she’s seeing where, like, here’s where the healer should take care of this. And she’s like, “That’s not a thing.”

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
“Who’s the healer?” You know? And so she’s confused.

[Emily]
Yeah. Like the Jock, she sees the Jock guy get hurt and sees that there should be something to come and heal him quicker.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Maybe it’s not like a clear picture of the rebel girl.

[Emily]
Great.

[Shep]
Right. It’s-

[Thomas]
It’s a blurry-

[Shep]
It’s a blurry image because she doesn’t know what goes there yet.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, right. She just knows there should be something there. And it’s sort of a red fuzzy cloud. And again, that intelligence aspect allows her to know what the next step of the plan is.

[Shep]
Oh. So originally, at the beginning of the battle, they worked together because they realized they’re all on the same team.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
And so she has the Jock guy go and block a strike that would have hit one of the other people. He can take the hit, but he’ll be hurt. And then it’s that blurry image. So she had him get in the way of the attack, not realizing yet that she needed another piece to finish that.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And so then she realizes that she doesn’t know everything yet. And so you see, you know, question marks on her future vision. So she’s like, “Okay, ignore all those that have question marks because I don’t know what that is yet.” And that really narrows the possibility space down. But now people aren’t listening to her instructions because she just got one of them injured. They did what she said and still got hurt.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So why would they listen to her now? This is how they lose. Even though four of them are working together. Okay, I’m just clarifying the scene.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah. No, it makes sense.

[Shep]
So they flee.

[Thomas]
Yes. Is that the mid-second act turning point, or is the mid-second act turning point all five of them get together?

[Shep]
I mean, I’d like all five of them to get together as soon as possible so the movie can start.

[Thomas]
So maybe the second battle is the end of the first act then. And then that makes the beginning of the second act getting the rebel girl to join them and coming up with a plan. Maybe somehow training, working together.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
How long is the first act?

[Thomas]
Like, 20 minutes. I think it’s not that long.

[Shep]
We have them getting the scrunchies and abilities.

[Shep]
Well, okay, if we are having that loss be the end of the first act, then we don’t see them exploring their powers yet. That’s second-act stuff. That’s training montage stuff.

[Thomas]
Yeah, exactly. That’s training stuff.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
It’s getting better with their powers and becoming comfortable with them and knowing how to use them efficiently.

[Shep]
Right. Where do they flee? It’s gotta be to her parents’ cabin outside the city-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Where they can train in the woods and also watch the news as these invaders are showing up and making demands of Earth.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And they’re not there to stop them. But they, if they went, they would lose. So-

[Emily]
Because they don’t have the healer yet. She is a surly waitress at a coffee shop, and when they go in to order the drinks, the Jock guy kind of starts to feel better and doesn’t quite understand, like-

[Shep]
Oh, where are they during this then?

[Emily]
In the coffee shop.

[Shep]
Not, outside of town?

[Emily]
Yeah. Outside of town.

[Shep]
The healer is outside of town?

[Emily]
Yeah. She- She is a goth girl in a small-town working at a shitty coffee shop.

[Shep]
Why she is so far apart from the others? Or maybe you’re right. Maybe they are all far apart.

[Emily]
I thought that was originally what we had discussed, that they weren’t all together.

[Shep]
Right. Maybe they’re not even all from the same town.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Mean, if we’re gonna follow the way that these types of things always do it. They all go to the same high school.

[Emily]
Well, yeah. I mean, we. We could have it be that way. Like two of them go to the same school, kind of know each other, ish.

[Shep]
Which two?

[Emily]
Pacifist in the nerd.

[Thomas]
Oh, I was thinking popular girl and nerd girl. I was actually thinking the pacifist guy is just like some hippie dude.

[Shep]
Oh, maybe it’s his cabin in the woods.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, because he has a yoga retreat that he teaches.

[Shep]
Yes. Yep.

[Thomas]
That makes sense.

[Shep]
This is California near the beach he’s got- Yeah.

[Emily]
Wait, are these adults or teenagers?

[Thomas]
It’s both. I mean.

[Shep]
Well, they’re played by adults, so you.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But they are quote-unquote “high schoolers”.

[Emily]
So do we want them all from the same town, neighborhood?

[Thomas]
I mean, not neighborhood, but I think they’re all from, you know, Southern California, around LA, the Valley, OC, that sort of general area, so that they could reasonably come together in a day, in less than a day, in a matter of hours, they could get to each other.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Okay, so they don’t all go to the same high school.

[Thomas]
No, I think just a couple of them do.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Okay, so the nerdy girl and the popular girl go to the same high school. The jock guy goes to a different high school. The pacifist guy just has his yoga studio. And then the rebel girl doesn’t go to high school. She’s like, she’s lying to her parents or she’s dropped out or she ran away from home or something along those lines.

[Shep]
Oh, she ran away from home. This is her found family.

[Thomas]
The pacifist guy is the oldest among them and he’s in his early 20s.

[Shep]
Okay, so he’s not a high schooler, he’s just hanging out with high school girls.

[Emily]
Yeah. He’s just a creepy dude hanging out with some high school chicks.

[Shep]
This is so much worse.

[Emily]
He can be 17, have been graduated because he was homeschooled, and he just works at his parents’ yoga studio.

[Shep]
Okay. I’m more okay with that than him being in his 20s.

[Emily]
And then he doesn’t run necessarily yoga retreats, but his parents do, and that’s where the cabin is.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
So how do they meet the healer? Because that’s kind of an important moment. Right?

[Shep]
Right. I like the idea of the jock feeling better. I’m just trying to figure out how you would do that without it being a massive coincidence.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Right, right.

[Shep]
I mean, it could be that they’re driving. Maybe they’re driving on their way out of town. And he’s like, “We should stop and eat before we leave the city.” You know, if we’re fleeing, then it’s not a good idea to stop for any reason. But I’m saying the instinct is to stop because they can kind of sense each other. They don’t realize that’s what that is yet, though. And he’s hurt and so his instinct is stronger and says, we need to stop and go to this diner. They’re passing through the area and he senses her and he’s injured. And so his instincts are telling him to stop immediately and go in there and get healed. And he doesn’t know why he’s feeling that way. He’s justifying it. “Well, we should eat before we leave the city.”

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
He thinks he’s hungry.

[Emily]
Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say he just thinks he’s hungry.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Well, the other thought I had is that because the popular girl knows there’s something missing she could explain to the nerdy girl, like, “Hey, I had this sense that we need another person. Can you use your psychic abilities to scan for someone?”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And then she’s maybe their, like, psychic gps and she’s kind of, “I think, turn right here and…”

[Emily]
She gets him to that town and he’s like, “Let’s just stop and eat.”

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, that’s good.

[Emily]
So that they all kind of have to put the pieces together together.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I like that.

[Shep]
Have we seen the rebel girl? Has the audience seen her yet? Or is she a mystery?

[Thomas]
Yeah. It kind of feels like she’d be a mystery, right?

[Shep]
Right, so like we see her as a waitress first and she’s wearing the scrunchie. So an observant audience member will be wise to what’s happening immediately, maybe even before the characters are.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, and maybe so she comes up to the table to, like, you know, “Welcome to Joe’s Diner” or whatever, and maybe the jock guy kind of like perks up in his seat. He’s like, “Oh, I’m feeling better already.” And you think it’s because he’s attracted to her and, like, that’s the, the way he does the read.

[Emily]
The vibe. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s the vibe, but-

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
And she’s just like, “Whatever.”

[Thomas]
Right. “Same shit, different day.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So that’s a- part of that’s a problem for the writers.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
This is them all getting together and they’re on their way to the cabin.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So they convince her to come with them.

[Emily]
They lure her with black coffee and clove cigarettes.

[Shep]
She has black coffee at the diner.

[Thomas]
I mean, it could be the kind of thing where she’s on the verge of being fired anyway.

[Emily]
Right. She also like everyone else, they sense each other. She also kind of gets that, like she’s going to be fired anyway. She’s. She’s tired of this town and what she’s doing because she’s vagrant, essentially at this point.

[Shep]
Right. Because she ran away. So she’s just going to keep running.

[Emily]
Right. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Or maybe she feels like the cops are closing in on finding her. Like she knows her family’s looking for her and so she decides. “Cabin in the woods? That’s better than where the cops keep coming in and having lunch.”

[Shep]
There are cops in the diner at the time.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay. Now they’re all in the cabin in the woods. They can begin their training montage.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
And really understand their powers. This is where she discovers she’s a healer.

[Thomas]
What does the alien invader, what is the… it? What is it doing while they’re training for presumably days, weeks? Like, is it rampaging through LA?

[Shep]
What is its purpose? Is it just here for our resources?

[Thomas]
I mean, is it just here to attack the alien spirits that are in the scrunchies?

[Shep]
I think that they were pursuing the alien spirits, but now that they’ve discovered this planet full of people and resources, it is a fortuitous encounter for the alien invaders.

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Shep]
And they’re like, “Well, while we’re here.”

[Emily]
Yeah. Originally it’s like, “Let’s get in, get out, move on.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And then there’s some high council or whatever that’s like, “Oh, we do need these things and we could use that.” It’s like little grocery store, they found a bodega and they just-

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
They need a little bit of everything.

[Shep]
So they’re going to take everything.

[Thomas]
Some milk, some baloney. Is this one enemy or is this a group of enemies that have come?

[Shep]
Okay, so it was the scout at first, which might be one, and this is the front line, which is- or is the forerunners. So it could be two or three.

[Thomas]
Three is pretty normal, right? It’s traditional.

[Shep]
Okay, let’s say even in the second battle they defeated one of the three, and that left the other two.

[Thomas]
Hmm. Now, defeated, do they kill it or is it just gravely injured? So it can’t explore, it can’t fight, it’s just healing.

[Shep]
I mean, how evil are the invaders? They could just destroy their comrade because it’s too injured to be worth repairing if they’re all mechanical, as you suggested earlier.

[Emily]
Yeah. They scrap it for parts.

[Shep]
Sure.

[Thomas]
Oh, sure. To repair themselves.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. This is how you can tell these two apart later when the other aliens arrive. Because these two have parts of that third one welded onto them.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
The rest of the invading armada is coming. They’re on the way.

[Thomas]
So have they been given orders from the coming armada to just hang out, wait for us to get there?

[Shep]
I think they are making first contact. So you can see the humans fighting back and losing. Because it is a completely one-sided fight. The humans don’t have the abilities to approach doing damage to these mechanical invaders. So it has to be this team of teenagers that go and fight.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
They can’t leave it off for the adults to solve because they just don’t have the ability.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So this is why they have to train and come back. Because otherwise let the adults figure it out.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Let the government handle this.

[Thomas]
We have a military for a reason.

[Emily and Shep]
Right.

[Shep]
Well, you see the military fight and lose.

[Thomas]
Yep. Against just two of them.

[Shep]
Yes, against just two of them. And there’s many, many more coming.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So I am imagining the popular girl watching the news and analyzing it and going, “No, you should have done this and this.” And she gets so frustrated because the military is doing everything wrong.

[Thomas]
They’re not working together.

[Shep]
Even they’re working together, they’re still losing.

[Thomas]
So is there just like some neighborhood in LA where the alien ship has just like landed and crunched a bunch of houses and the military’s there and it’s just like devastation in this one area? Because it’s like, awfully convenient if they just like, “Oh, they land in a big field and…”

[Shep]
Well, we established that this is near the ocean, which is most of the planet.

[Emily]
Mm.

[Shep]
So I figured that they had come down in the ocean and then advanced toward land, which will also be easier for the special effects budget.

[Thomas]
Okay, right. Oh, it’s got to be near Santa Monica, right? To get the pier.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. So you get the pier.

[Shep]
Also, you can set off a nuclear weapon in the ocean and not ruin the country. So-

[Emily]
So it could be near San Diego where the giant navy base is with the nuclear wessels.

[Shep]
But this is why there isn’t a squashed neighborhood.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Because that would be very dark.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s enough to have an unconquerable alien invading armada. We don’t need to see a bunch of squished people.

[Thomas]
All right. So what’s the mid-second act turning point? Do they defeat the two invaders?

[Shep]
They have to defeat the two. Those two. And it has to not matter.

[Thomas]
Because I feel like the lowest low is that the armada shows up.

[Shep]
The lowest low is not the armada showing up, but like the head evil alien guy shows up. The one they really can’t defeat.

[Thomas]
Mm. Yeah.

[Shep]
Because he’s too strong. So even if they defeat these two and some of the armada that has showed up, they can’t defeat this guy.

[Thomas]
So what’s the mid-second act turning point?

[Shep]
The mid-second act turning point…

[Thomas]
Because the lowest low will be the end of the second act.

[Shep]
Right, Right.

[Thomas]
The beginning of the second act is we decided them getting together, all five of them.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Right. What all is going on in the second act? They’re in the cabin in the woods training. The aliens are making first contact with Earth. The Earthlings try to fight back and fail and eventually surrender, I guess?

[Emily]
Surrender or are held hostage.

[Shep]
I mean surrender so that the fighting will stop and these aliens won’t completely obliterate the Earth.

[Thomas]
I mean, it feels like battling the two aliens and winning would potentially be a turning point. It’s certainly a turning point for them as a group.

[Thomas]
Oh, I think maybe what it is is just before the mid-second act turning point, there is that third battle where they defeat those two. They’re celebrating. And then the mid-second act turning point is the armada shows up.

[Shep]
Okay. They did their training in the woods. They came back and defeated the two that they couldn’t defeat before. Because now there’s five of them.

[Thomas]
And they’re all working together in sync.

[Shep]
And they’re working together. They defeat those two which had defeated the military. So the military contacts this team.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And this brings me back to my earlier question. I know I had originally suggested this, but we haven’t said anything about it. Do the scrunchies have the intelligence of the aliens that inhabited them? Can we get exposition from the scrunchies? That’s what I’m asking.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
I mean, yeah.

[Thomas]
And this could be a good opportunity for those alien conscience, consciouses, consciousnesses…

[Shep]
Consciousnesses?

[Thomas]
The alien spirits to reveal themselves. Maybe they have gotten enough energy from the life force of the teens or whatever.

[Emily]
Well, yeah, because now they’re together, there’s more strength and power and it’s flowing into there.

[Thomas]
Oh, sure. The group cohesion has increased the energy of the powers.

[Emily]
Yeah. Because part of the powers of the scrunchies and the aliens inside is the, them being drawn together and gathering each other. And so then when they’re together and they learn to coordinate and feed off of the other’s powers, then it fully activates the scrunchies.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay, so now they boot up and they’re on and they can start talking.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So this is where we have our exposition about the alien armada. Especially if we don’t know that it’s an armada yet.

[Shep]
Here’s the revelation that it wasn’t just these three robots. They are just the front runners.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And there’s an actual armada behind them on the way. So what seemed like a victory is just a temporary respite in the fighting.

[Thomas]
Right. Humanity is celebrating.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
However.

[Shep]
Prematurely.

[Emily]
Are these robots Kaiju?

[Shep]
The invading robots? I imagined that they were.

[Emily]
Yeah. Okay.

[Shep]
And they’re growing larger in size.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
So the scout is small and then these two are larger. And then the final general is gigantic.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
So if the humans surrender to these invaders because they’re like “Uh, five high school teenagers, are definitely not going to be enough to fight thousands of these invaders,” and they order the teens to not fight because they’ve decided to surrender. Part of that surrender would be giving up the scrunchies to the invaders. Maybe this is the lowest low.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because the team is going to break up just after they got together. They’re being ordered to give up their newfound abilities.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
And also be enslaved by these invading alien robots. Like, it’s all bad.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Obviously they don’t, because it wouldn’t be a movie.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Right. This is where the rebel girl gives her speech, like, “We can’t give in to authority when you know that it’s wrong. You have to fight back. You have to do the right thing. You have to punch Nazis when you see Nazis.”

[Thomas]
So they go out and they buy scrunchies that look the same and that’s what they turn in. Or you had mentioned the dog with the scrunchie. Maybe the real scrunchies do get turned in. And so now the aliens have the scrunchies, but somehow the dog’s power allows it to slip past all of the aliens, collect the scrunchies. The dog has human intelligence or superhuman intelligence and can speak. And it’s a superpowered dog, so it slips into the alien ship, it collects all the scrunchies, it brings them back.

[Shep]
What is the dog’s scrunchie color? Brown?

[Thomas]
Yeah, sure. It’s a rainbow-colored scrunchie.

[Shep]
And the dog’s ability is, let’s say teleportation.

[Thomas]
Could be yellow. We don’t have- Oh, yeah, that’s good. We haven’t used yellow yet.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. Brown or yellow. Yellow would also be good. Teleportation is how they get to battles in the television spinoff.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
But it’s also how the dog gets in and retrieves the scrunchies.

[Thomas]
The dog does need more than dog intelligence, so it’s got to be teleportation, and at the very least, human intelligence, if not superhuman intelligence.

[Shep]
Does it need intelligence or can its scrunchie, which has intelligence, guide it?

[Thomas]
Ah, yes, yes.

[Shep]
And it’s a dog.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
And it’s just doing fetch. It’s just fetching.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because he’s a good boy.

[Emily]
Such a good boy.

[Shep]
Such a good boy.

[Thomas]
So sidebar. What kind of dog is it?

[Emily]
Golden retriever, obviously.

[Shep]
I mean, that is the obvious. I would prefer it to just be a mutt.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Corgi.

[Shep]
No. No corgi. No recognizable breed.

[Emily]
Yeah, I know.

[Shep]
Just a mutt.

[Emily]
Just a mutt.

[Shep]
As the American way.

[Thomas]
Okay, so the dog teleports in, gets the scrunchies, teleports out, and brings the scrunchies to the teens.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
So this is the beginning of the third act now. Right? Because the lowest low was giving up powers and, oh, the teens have to be imprisoned on the ship. Right?

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
And so the dog teleports to each of their individual cells or whatever and gives them their scrunchie, and then they start the final battle from within the ship.

[Shep]
Ooh. So the, the aliens are- This is such a dumb idea. I don’t know why my brain is this way.

[Thomas]
It’s not like this is a serious movie.

[Shep]
It’s not.

[Thomas]
So-

[Shep]
It’s very silly. So the aliens’ representative is negotiating the final details of the surrender of the humans. And it’s the, you know, signing the surrender document ceremony. And when the humans go to sign it, like there’s a huge explosion in the alien ship, which again is in the ocean.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And this is the teens fighting back from the inside. Like, “We’re not going to fight. We prefer to live in peace.” They go to sign and then kaboom.

[Thomas]
So this is like a signing event that is happening on land.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And so then is there, like, pandemonium on land that’s happening because they realize something’s going on?

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s gotta.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And so while. While all the pandemonium is happening, does the dog teleport in and pee on the surrender document?

[Shep]
Of course!

[Thomas]
Okay, good.

[Shep]
Great, great symbolism.

[Thomas]
And then teleports away again. Like, that’s all. It just pops in for a second, pees on it, and then teleports away.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
So there are all six of them now fighting together. So they are at peak strength.

[Shep]
Yes. Well then we now can’t have the lowest low we must have already had that.

[Thomas]
Yes. The lowest low was getting captured, having the scrunchies taken away.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
There is no hope for humanity.

[Shep]
So it’s not fighting the main invader.

[Thomas]
I think that there was an initial encounter that led to the lowest low.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
The main invader guy kicked their butts or something and…

[Shep]
Ah, so they were ordered to surrender and then they didn’t, and they went and fought anyway and just got smacked down.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
They got hit so hard they fell into their respective pieces. They stopped being the big giant entity.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. And then there was some particular attack that happened that they had no defense for. They, they couldn’t escape from whatever that caused that. So that when he goes to do that again at the end of the movie, the popular girl remembers it. She’s got her slow-mo vision. She goes, “This is that same attack.” And then they use the dog to teleport themselves out of the way of the attack.

[Shep]
Ah, okay.

[Thomas]
Maybe the- In order to do the big attack, the main bad guy makes himself slightly vulnerable. You know, he’s putting all of his energy in the front and none in the back. And so they teleport behind him and attack from behind.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And his shields are down because all that energy, you know, whatever.

[Emily]
So he teleports behind him, pulls the sword over him and cuts off his head.

[Thomas]
I thought you were gonna say, pulls his pants down.

[Shep]
That’s also what I thought.

[Thomas]
He dies of embarrassment.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
The specific attack couldn’t be left up to the writers, I feel.

[Emily and Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
But that idea of, because now they have that sixth power, they’re at peak energy. They have that teleport ability, they’ve seen the big bad’s big attack and they can put all those pieces together to defeat that guy.

[Shep]
Right. Because the best defense is to not be hit in the first place.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And then do the other aliens surrender because their general or emperor or whatever has been defeated or-

[Shep]
Or is it like the trope where when you cut off the head, all the drones stop functioning?

[Thomas]
Right. I mean, it could be that he is a biological, and all the others are drones and he has been controlling them.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And so yeah, if you kill him, there’s no one controlling them anymore.

[Shep]
All right. What are we missing?

[Thomas]
I think we’ve got it.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
We got it. We just need the post-credit scene where there’s a reveal that there’s an even bigger bad out there.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Set up that sequel.

[Emily]
Well, we’ve already established the scrunchies talk, right?

[Shep]
Yes. We didn’t get into it much, but, yeah, the scrunchies talk.

[Emily]
But yes, the scrunchies talk. So that the post-credit scene is the scrunchies saying, “We got another planet in trouble.”

[Thomas]
I was gonna say there’s the evil queen who lives on the moon, who has some… Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Scrunchie.

[Shep]
About five, six scrunchies!

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
A pack of scrunchies. A six-pack of scrunchies. A multicolor six-pack of scrunchies.

[Thomas]
I think we know what our first product is gonna be. Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about Scrunchies. Do we have it all tied up or did it curl your hair? 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. We hope you’ll take a moment right now to give Almost Plausible a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you listen that has podcast ratings. If you happen to leave a written 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 return for the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Shep]
Wasn’t there only one girl on the original Power Rangers?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
In the original Japanese version? Yeah.

[Shep]
Right. And so when they transform in the American version, one of the girls is not wearing a skirt like the other.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Okay. So I didn’t dream that, that was a real thing.

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
No, I, that’s what I remember.

[Emily]
Only the Pink Ranger has a skirt and the Yellow Ranger wears pants. And it’s not at all racist that the Yellow Ranger was an Asian woman.

[Shep]
Why would it be?