Snowflake

References

• Snowflake chart
  • A more comprehensive snowflake guide
• Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood
  • Snowflake Day!
• Dyatlov Pass
• Antz
• Largest Snowflake
• Heavy Rain
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
• “Honour thy father and thy mother”
• Dwayne Johnson
• Jason Momoa
• Steve Austin
• John Cena
• Peacemaker
• Alex P. Keaton
• Kiefer Sutherland
• Phonebooth
• Flashback
• Flatliners
• A Study in Scarlet
• Roanoke Colony
• Cocaine Bear
• Home Alone
• Rambo
• Handfasting
• Chasing the white dragon
• This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.
• Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Paracord Bracelet
• Frosty the Snowman

Corrections

Shep and Thomas accidentally refer to the game Heavy Rain as “Hard Rain.”

Thomas suggested the ATF would potentially bust the commune for growing illegal drugs. While the ATF might be involved in such a bust, it’s more likely the DEA would be the heading the raid.

Thomas said the “not your grandfather’s” ads were a Buick campaign, but it was actually an Oldsmobile campaign, and the correct quote is, “this is not your father’s Oldsmobile.”

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
And he tries to signal to his mom, maybe it’s like the string telephone, whatever, and he’s telling his mom, “You got to hide. You got to take cover.” And this is when they don’t believe him.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Because he’s tried this so many times, and this time it’s real. And they don’t listen to him. So he has to learn the lesson: Don’t always cry wolf.

[Thomas]
Can the bad guy be Lobo?

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
What? Lobo?

[Thomas]
Means wolf. He’s crying wolf. Well, the guy who’s coming is named Wolf.

[Shep]
(stuttering) It has to be, now!

[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 joining me, as ever, are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
Our ordinary object for this episode is Snowflake. And I’m curious, have either of you ever caught a snowflake on your tongue?

[Shep]
Yes. Obviously.

[Emily]
Yeah. Of course. I’m a child in America.

[Shep]
We live in the north.

[Thomas]
I grew up where there wasn’t snow. So it wasn’t until-

[Shep]
Oh, that’s right. You’re Hawaiian.

[Thomas]
Well, I’m not Hawaiian. Let’s be clear.

[Shep]
You’re from Hawaii.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
No, I was going to say he’s the people that went and ruined Hawaii.

[Thomas]
Right. So, snowflakes. What do we think? Do we love snowflakes?

[Shep]
I like the idea of snowflakes. I don’t like millions of snowflakes all at once.

[Emily]
I like the big fluffy ones

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That look kind of fuzzy that I know are going to melt almost immediately, and then they’ll go away. I’m done with snow.

[Thomas]
Those ones are called stellar dendrites.

[Emily]
Is that what those ones are called?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay, I didn’t know that.

[Shep]
Yeah. Those are the ones that you can catch and, like, see, that’s a snowflake, not a herd of snowflakes.

[Thomas]
Not a big clump of them. Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Well, it’s neat, too, to look at up close, those microscopic photos of them, where you’ll see, like, a plate style snowflake, but it’ll have little lumps on it, and it’s because it got tumbled around and additional moisture drops got on there and then froze. So it’s not like a smooth plate. It has those lumps from the extra little bits of water that got on there. So there’s all sorts of crazy shapes, way more than you would think, and certainly not what we were taught. What are like, a traditional- I mean, those exist, but they’re, like, one or two of several different kinds. Several years ago, I came across a really great, I think it was like just a JPEG or something along those lines, but it was showing the different shapes of snowflake you get and the temperatures and conditions that you need to create those. That was really cool.

[Shep]
All I’m thinking of is Thomas didn’t grow up with snow. Thomas wasn’t a child riding in the car at night when it’s snowing and his mom turns on-

[Emily]
Pretending it was Star Wars.

[Shep]
Yes. Jump to light speed!

[Emily]
Yeah, those are the best.

[Shep]
“Punch it, Chewy.” Yeah.

[Thomas]
I have, as an adult, done that.

[Shep]
It’s not the same.

[Thomas]
No, I’m sure it’s not.

[Shep]
When you’re a child, it’s true magic.

[Thomas]
I don’t remember how old I was, but the very first time my sister and I saw, or I should say, interacted with snow, I want to say we were at the Minneapolis airport and we were just there on a layover and it was like 20 degrees outside and there was the barest dusting of snow, but we were like, “Oh, boy, snow!” And this was before 9/11, so getting through security was a breeze. So we went out and spent, like, 30 seconds or 60 seconds, like, playing with the snow, and being like, “Okay, we did it. Great. Let’s go back inside because it’s freezing cold.” And yeah, that was our first interaction with snow.

[Shep]
Just enough to tick the checkbox.

[Thomas]
Right. Well, as I said, Snowflake is the object for this episode. I will pitch first this time. So my first pitch is: a child is cast in their school’s holiday pageant as a snowflake. They think the role is unimportant and feel slighted and overlooked by the adults running the show. How does their role turn out to be way more important than it seems?

[Shep]
I have no idea. I’ve got nothing.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I don’t know.

[Shep]
I was the tree in my school’s Christmas play and it wasn’t important. It was a tree. I was holding up a prop.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
But without the snowflake, they can’t have the winter dance. I’m like pulling out Daniel Tiger episodes or something,

[Thomas]
Well, along similar lines: an It’s a Wonderful Life-style movie about a single snowflake who thinks that he’s unimportant. He’s shown how the world would be different without him.

[Shep]
Yeah. Without him, that whole avalanche wouldn’t have started.

[Emily]
Right? Without him, the Dyatlov Pass hikers would have lived.

[Shep]
Too soon.

[Thomas]
Wow. Well, those are my pitches.

[Emily]
My brain went dark. Also that-

[Thomas]
Really? That’s a shock. That doesn’t normally happen.

[Emily]
The child as the snowflake is in fact an episode of Daniel Tiger.

[Thomas]
Is it really?

[Emily]
He’s the snowflake in a play.

[Thomas]
There are no new stories.

[Emily]
No new stories.

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

[Emily]
I have: an animated film about a snowflake who’s chosen to be the first flake to fall in the new year.

[Thomas]
OOH, I like that.

[Emily]
And he’s nervous about falling first and doesn’t know what to expect in the coming storm.

[Shep]
Are snowflakes people in this? Does he have a family? Does he have parents or are all snowflakes the same age? And he just has peers.

[Thomas]
Ooh. Yeah.

[Emily]
I like that more than he has just peers, and it’s not family.

[Thomas]
Kind of like how Antz handled it. Right?

[Emily]
Yeah, basically.

[Shep]
So who chooses him to be-? Are there administrators? Is there bureaucracy? What’s it like in the cloud?

[Emily]
I’m imagining there is bureaucracy. Like, maybe there’s some sort of, like, raindrops or something that are holding on into the cloud, and they’re like, “Okay, snow’s first.” And they all work together. I don’t know.

[Thomas]
That could actually be part of it. That there’s this unseen bureaucracy that they question. He gets a letter one day. “You’re the first one. You’ve been chosen to go first.”

[Emily]
I think there’s a lot we could explore with this story. The next one is: a child sledding alone on a hill, sees the biggest snowflake falling from the sky. We’re talking, like, 20 inches. Biggest snowflake ever. And he loads it up on his sled and takes it home. It becomes lore of the local town, and he fights to keep it from melting before it can officially be recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records.

[Shep]
Just keep it in the freezer.

[Emily]
But his mom won’t let him keep it in the freezer because she’s got a goose in there.

[Thomas]
Yeah, the freezer is full.

[Emily]
And she’s like, “Yeah, you can keep it, but you got to figure out how to keep it cold.”

[Thomas]
It’s like having a pet. “And you’ve got to be responsible for your own snowflake.”

[Shep]
I mean, anyone’s freezer will do. It’s a world record snowflake. It only takes one person in the entire town to say, “Yeah, you can use my freezer, obviously.”

[Emily]
Okay, there’s a blackout. Okay, we start out he’s doing it that way. He’s keeping it in the freezer, and now there’s a blackout.

[Shep]
All right, now we’re talking. Now he’s only got three days to find a solution before it warms up enough. As long as nobody opens the freezer.

[Thomas]
It’s in the post-beginning of Guinness Book of World Records, but pre-freezer era.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay. Loosely based off of some minor research I did, the largest snowflake ever found was 15 inches in Montana in the 1890s.

[Thomas]
Oh, my god. And was one single flake?

[Emily]
One single snowflake the size of a frisbee.

[Thomas]
Wow.

[Emily]
That’s why I was like, that would just be a really cool story.

[Thomas]
And then on the way down it would take someone’s head off. Jeez.

[Emily]
That’s what my next pitch should have been. My final pitch is: ready, guys? I know the suspense is killing you.

[Shep]
Ha ha. You gave it away.

[Emily]
Young women are being killed, and the only thing connecting them is a unique paper snowflake left by the killer.

[Shep]
Each one is unique.

[Thomas]
It’s like that PS4 game.

[Shep]
Yes, it is exactly like that PS4 game.

[Thomas]
What is it called?

[Shep]
Are you thinking of- Was it Hard Rain?

[Thomas]
Hard Rain. That’s it.

[Shep]
I never played it. Is that the one where he leaves origami at the-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Those are all of my pictures.

[Thomas]
Pictures?

[Emily]
Pictures.

[Thomas]
Well, you painted some pretty pictures.

[Emily]
I did.

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

[Shep]
Okay: Tiny world.

[Thomas]
Yup. Great. Perfect. Lives on a snowflake. Exists on a snowflake.

[Emily]
Do they all have a similar shaped nose face, and is there a green one menacing them all?

[Shep]
Right. Who are you talking about? No. So it’s a cold droplet of water that they’re in that’s falling through the sky that’s on the verge of turning into a snowflake. And so if you start that catalyst, then the whole world will freeze. Will the world be destroyed if you do that, or will the world be destroyed if you don’t do that? I guess we already have that story elsewhere, so never mind. Here’s another one: people freezing to death. The killer is a non-corporeal frost spirit. So, like, you see a snowflake frost appear on a pane of glass or whatever, and that means that it’s nearby and it’s coming to get you.

[Emily]
I like that. It’s very Steve King.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s cool. Yeah.

[Emily]
How do you kill it? How do you stop it?

[Shep]
Yeah, exactly. Keep the fire roaring.

[Thomas]
Instead of The Mist, it’s The Frost.

[Shep]
Yes. My last one is: a burly survival expert, Snow Johnson, has to visit his parents for some reason, and they are complete hippies who named him Snowflake, which is his actual name.

[Emily]
I kind of like that. Is it The Rock? Is it Jason Momoa?

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Yes. One of those.

[Emily]
Jason Momoa.

[Shep]
One of those. Someone that you can picture is like being very conservative.

[Emily]
Okay, it’s neither of those.

[Shep]
Well, they are actors that can play a role.

[Thomas]
Okay. It’s Steve Austin.

[Shep]
Well.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh, sorry. Actors.

[Emily]
John Cena.

[Thomas]
There we go.

[Shep]
It’s Peacemaker all over again.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But you know how kids rebel against their parents?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So his parents were super hippies and so he’s super conservative.

[Emily]
So it’s Alex P. Keaton.

[Shep]
Yes. But as a burly survival expert. So maybe he’s engaged to a girl and is taking her to meet his parents, but she’s conservative like he is. So he doesn’t want to bridge those two worlds because his parents are going to call him Snowflake the whole weekend.

[Emily]
They use his full name, Snowflake.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
They never call him Snow. Snowy.

[Shep]
No.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, no.

[Emily]
Well, now I’m really curious about, like, does he go by Snow?

[Thomas]
I think he goes by Johnson. He tells people to call him Johnson or something like that. Right.

[Emily]
S. Johnson. He’s S. Johnson.

[Shep]
He doesn’t have to be Johnson. It could be-

[Thomas]
Whatever, but he gets people to refer to him by his last name. How does he guard this secret from everybody?

[Shep]
Nobody knows.

[Thomas]
How would nobody know? People would know. His employer would know.

[Emily]
Well, HR would know.

[Thomas]
Right. Why doesn’t he just legally change his name?

[Shep]
All right, no more questions from Thomas. Because his mother gave him that name and he loves his mother.

[Emily]
Yeah, because the Bible says, respect- honor your mother and father.

[Shep]
Yeah, there you go.

[Emily]
So he can’t legally change his name.

[Shep]
Good answer, Emily.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that is, that’s a great answer.

[Emily]
I like the idea of her, like, saying that at some point, him having that conversation, and he’s like-

[Thomas]
Yeah, “Just change your name.”

[Emily]
“Honor thy mother and father.”

[Shep]
Yeah, like it’s obvious.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
What are you talking about? Changed my name?

[Thomas]
What’s the resolution?

[Shep]
I have no idea. This has been done in other movies. There was Kiefer Sutherland where he’s an FBI agent or something.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Phone Booth.

[Emily]
I was like “Wait. That was the plot of Phone Booth?”

[Shep]
No.

[Thomas]
Not even a little.

[Emily]
I was like, I don’t remember that at all.

[Shep]
Flashback.

[Thomas]
Both started with a sound.

[Shep]
Right. It’s basically the same.

[Emily]
Flatliners.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Very good. Well done, Emily. Thank you for rounding it out. Well, I think of these, my favorite are Shep’s last two. So what would happen in the non-corporeal frost one? What’s the genre we’re going for here? Is this-

[Shep]
It’s horror. It’s horror, yeah.

[Emily]
Horror, it’s horror. Yeah.

[Shep]
They uncover some, some spirit, some something that was locked away in the frozen- maybe, maybe climate change.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
It thawed out whatever.

[Thomas]
There we go.

[Emily]
There you go.

[Shep]
Because why not throw that in there for no reason. And it’s just, it’s killing people.

[Emily]
Are they freezing, like, nitrogen style freezing where it’s like instant and they’re hard and they break or-

[Shep]
I don’t know if they break, but they definitely freeze solid. Or maybe it’s not nitrogen style. Like they have enough time to maybe scrawl a message. Part of a message. “Rache…”

[Emily]
They’re not like flash frozen.

[Shep]
Yeah. They’re not flash frozen.

[Emily]
“CROATOAN”!

[Shep]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
Is this happening to just some people in the woods? Like, it’s a group of friends who go out to a cabin, and the area is-

[Shep]
Bunch of teenagers having sex in a cabin in the woods, they deserve to die.

[Thomas]
Right. I mean. Well, one of them tried to sleep in a barn.

[Emily]
Well, yeah.

[Thomas]
The frost had nothing to do with that guy. He just froze to death because-

[Emily]
He just froze to death in the barn. So my vote is for the Snow Johnson one. Just because we haven’t done an action one in a while.

[Thomas]
Is it an action movie?

[Emily]
An action comedy.

[Shep]
Yeah, it could be an action movie.

[Thomas]
Actually. I like that idea a lot. Okay, I’m on board with that.

[Emily]
Because he’s a conservative. We could make him like a Seal Team Six kind of guy, going back.

[Thomas]
Right. And so he has to save the- somebody’s attacking or some non-corporeal frost demon is attacking the-

[Emily]
Just combine them.

[Thomas]
Oh, my God. And then someone’s like, “Why are you qualified?” And he’s like, “Yeah, I’m snow expert.”

[Shep]
(Pained booing)

[Emily]
Oh, even I thought that one was bad.

[Shep]
Wow. Not even Emily’s on board.

[Emily]
Not even Emily’s on board.

[Thomas]
He’s just a flake off the old block.

[Shep]
Boo.

[Thomas]
Keep going.

[Shep]
Boo. No boo. A flake off the old block isn’t even a phrase. What do you-

[Emily]
Shave off the old ice.

[Shep]
If it were a block of ice, it would be a chip. A chip off the old block. You don’t have to change the phrase. It works as-is. Anyway.

[Thomas]
Anyway.

[Shep]
So what is the premise that gets Snow to go back to where his parents are? Is he an FBI agent? Are we just doing Flashback again where he has to go pick up someone from the commune and take them to the FBI? Or is he taking his girlfriend or his fiancée there? Or, it’s an action comedy, so-

[Thomas]
So there needs to be some sort of a threat to the commune, I think. Or since it’s an action comedy, maybe he’s always trying to turn things into, like, action sequences, and everyone’s like, “What? That’s totally not necessary, man.”

[Shep]
I like that idea a lot. Early on, he tries to escalate something that isn’t anything and doesn’t go anywhere, and then later, when terrorists are invading the compound and he’s trying to escalate, people, like, “No, he cries wolf too many times.”

[Thomas]
Right. So we see at the very beginning that he’s a survival expert. So I think that’s how we’re introduced to him with an action sequence. He’s going through the forest and doing his survival training thing.

[Shep]
Oh, an avalanche. There’s an avalanche. And he survives the avalanche.

[Emily]
That’s good.

[Thomas]
It’s part of the survival school thing that he’s doing. So that’s how we introduce all of that. And then it’s the other guy saying, “Oh, have a great trip,” because we got to introduce what the story is. Right. So it’s him taking his fiancée back to meet his parents.

[Emily]
So he’s not going no contact with them. He’s not disowning his parents. Essentially, he’s still in contact with them.

[Shep]
Yeah. Honor your father and your mother. He calls them every month.

[Emily]
So he’s going to take the little misses to get their approval or just-

[Thomas]
Maybe just out of respect. It would be polite.

[Emily]
He can’t in good conscience marry her without his parents at least meeting her.

[Shep]
I mean, that sounds fine.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
We can always backtrack it later.

[Thomas]
Okay. Maybe the name came from his dad. So he really despises his dad or holds that against his dad, but he loves his mom. He’s a mama’s boy, and so he wants to bring the girl back to meet the mom. Unfortunately, the dad is part of the deal.

[Emily]
Because the mom was always somewhat reasonable. The dad was off his rails.

[Thomas]
Right. She’s in the commune because of him.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And she’s just sort of like, “Well, I love him. And it’s an interesting and fun lifestyle.” She’s not particularly liberal or particularly conservative.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
She just kind of goes with the flow. And I guess that’s fairly liberal.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Which is why she doesn’t have any problem in the commune.

[Thomas]
Right. Is he a leader, the dad in the commune? Or is he just a guy?

[Emily]
He’s not the leader, but I think he’s up there with, like, on the council or whatever.

[Thomas]
Right. Like maybe there’s a few guys who’ve been there just for 40 years and they’re like the three or four oldest members of the commune.

[Shep]
I think it would be better if the dad is not a leader because that’s one more thing that Snow despises about his father.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
His father is smart and he could be the leader, but he never takes the reins. And it just drives him crazy. Like he tries to respect his father, but man, his father makes it hard. But his father is go with the flow, like his mom is. He was one of the founders and chose not to be on the leading council or whatever.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s good.

[Shep]
Maybe it was even his idea.

[Emily]
That would work. Because my idea for the trouble that they’re getting into of why they’re going to- terrorists or whatever are attacking the commune is they’ve gotten into some shady business dealing unwittingly.

[Shep]
Oh, they’re growing pot for drug dealers.

[Emily]
Yeah. So they don’t realize that’s what they’re growing it for. They think they’re growing it for something else or like medicinal marijuana or something, turns out no, it’s an illegal grow operation.

[Shep]
Right. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Does the actual leader know this?

[Emily]
No, I think they all got duped.

[Shep]
Oh, I don’t know. Because if the dad’s not part of the council, then it could be the council have turned corporate and they are in it for all this money, whereas the commune is still a commune.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
And these four or three guys that are running things are just taking advantage of everyone.

[Thomas]
So is it not terrorists necessarily, but the mob or some other kind of shady people? Because-

[Shep]
Drug dealers! Drug dealers.

[Emily]
Yeah. Cartel.

[Thomas]
They can’t get a loan from a bank, but-

[Emily]
Right. Yeah. Okay, so they’ve made a shady deal with a cartel. They know what the real deal is. The dad doesn’t.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And the rest of the cult or whatever doesn’t either.

[Thomas]
Is it too coincidental to have Snow there when the bad guys show up, though?

[Shep]
Oh, you can make Snow the catalyst for the bad guy showing up because Snow will recognize for whatever reason, “This is a super strong strain,” or whatever.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“You can’t grow this.” Or maybe they’re growing poppy seeds or whatever.

[Thomas]
Or maybe he just connects the dots and realizes, like, what’s going on.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Or he’s like, “You guys do have permits and things for this,” or “The state laws require X, Y, and Z.” And he notices they don’t have all of those things.

[Thomas]
Right. He’s a law-and-order kind of guy.

[Shep]
So maybe he convinces his dad to take it up at the next communal.

[Thomas]
Right. Because if they get caught by the actual police or the ATF or whoever, they’re going to lose the whole commune. So you’ve got to do something. You got to make sure this is being done correctly.

[Shep]
So if the dad convinces the community at the meeting that they have to stop this particular grow operation and the leaders reluctantly agree because what can they do? He’s turned the whole commune against them. So they call the drug dealers and like, hey, “We have a problem. We’re going to be short this season.” And that’s when the drug dealers come. And it’s because Snow is there. So not a coincidence.

[Thomas]
Good.

[Emily]
Like it. What is the fiancée like while she’s there? Is she your typical blonde hair, blue eyed beauty queen?

[Thomas]
Yeah. I feel like she’s a lot like the mom, but slightly to the right politically.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Like, she’s fairly go with the flow and chill, but just a little more conservative.

[Shep]
Well, she was raised conservative.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So she is conservative and she hasn’t been exposed to all this.

So maybe she and the mom bond-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Over whatever communal activity is-

[Thomas]
Which Snow loves. That’s what he wants.

[Shep]
Right. So maybe she becomes a little less conservative, which maybe he’s not so much into.

[Emily]
I like the idea that she’s like, “I was talking to your mom about-” something sexual comes up, and he is just like, “Wait, what?” She’s like, “Yeah, I mean, we’ve never talked about this before.” And he’s like, “You shouldn’t be talking about it with my mom.”

[Shep]
Yeah. He doesn’t want to know what his mom’s opinion on anal is.

[Thomas]
We talked earlier about how Snow is trying to make mountains out of mole hills. What are some of those things? I mean, he kind of gets proven right with the permitting thing.

[Shep]
But maybe he sees danger everywhere because he’s that survival expert, but he sees it, like, when he’s in town. I think you said before that he was ex-military,

[Emily]
Yeah, I like the idea that it’s probably ex-military.

[Shep]
So he sees sketchy people coming into the bank. He has to go into the bank for some whatever reason. He’s, like, getting ready to tackle whomever and they’re just coming in to cash a check or whatever. They’re not actually a threat, but he sees it all the time.

[Thomas]
I love the idea that a guy comes in with a gun and he’s like, “Oh, my god, that guy has a gun.” And he’s like, “Yeah, because it’s a small town in Wyoming.”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
“Fucking everybody here has guns. It’s an open carry state.” I don’t know if Wyoming is an open carry state, but-

[Shep]
We’ll pick an open carry state to set the movie. That’s the problem for the writers.

[Thomas]
Right. I feel like he would see security flaws or potential holes around the compound or the commune.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
The compound. “There’s no perimeter fence?”

[Emily]
Right. So just anyone could come in.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
How are you keeping track of what’s being cut and what’s not? And how do you know people aren’t coming in from the woods and just taking what they want from this?

[Shep]
The commune people are like, “They can come in to take whatever they want.”

[Emily]
“We’ve got enough to share.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, exactly. “Put up at least a fence.”

[Thomas]
Does he shoot at some animal that’s trying to eat the crop and they’re like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
That’s not our thing.

[Shep]
Yes. Not just shoots, that kills. He kills the deer that was coming in and eating the crop because he’s protecting the crop. But they’re like, “We grow enough for the animals nearby, also. We’re living in tune with nature.”

[Thomas]
I want to see a scene where the deer is just, like, off its tit on opium, like-

[Emily]
Just like (sound of deer of its tit on opium).

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s Cocaine Bear. That would be good. If you have a drug addicted animal or whatever that you set up early, you can have it, come back later and it kicks one of the drug guys.

[Thomas]
Yeah, right. There’s a stag that’s just totally nuts, though, and comes back and like, yeah, gores a terrorist.

[Shep]
Right. Because he wasn’t in tune with nature.

[Thomas]
Right. So when does the terrorist attack happen? What’s the mid second act turning point? Is that the mid second act turning point? The terrorists show up or the bad guys show up?

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s got to be.

[Thomas]
Yeah. And so what’s the lowest low? They’re pinned down, they’re caught, they’re all corralled in the communal hall.

[Emily]
Wouldn’t it be them finding out that the council has kind of sold down the river?

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. So everyone is corralled together in the communal hall. They’re being held hostage there by the bad guys. And their leaders are not some of the hostages. They’re walking around freely with the bad guys because they’re part of that crew, essentially. And so now it’s up to Snow to get everybody out of there? Or have they- I mean, they would have immediately pointed out, like, “This guy, he’s the problem.”

[Shep]
Yeah. He’s not with everyone else. He’s not corralled with everyone else.

[Thomas]
So he gets separated.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
How does he get out of that situation? And presumably he comes back and helps free everyone. Why doesn’t he just go call the cops? Maybe the cops are dirty.

[Shep]
No, the commune is in the woods, there’s no cell signal.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
They don’t have phones.

[Thomas]
Yeah, right.

[Shep]
He literally can’t call the cops.

[Thomas]
That’s why he had to go into town earlier. He had to go use a phone or check his email or something.

[Shep]
Yeah. So he sees the drug dealers coming, right? They’re open carrying their semiautomatic weapons.

[Thomas]
Right, from the watchtower he built in a tree, because there wasn’t one.

[Shep]
Right. Because he’s paranoid.

[Thomas]
And then he goes up there to be alone because he knows no one will come bug him up there. And he’s just like “Ugh.” So that’s when he comes down to say, like, “Guys, trouble is coming,” and everyone’s like, “Okay, calm down.”

[Shep]
Oh, this is a watchtower he built when he was a kid.

[Thomas]
Very good.

[Shep]
He built it a long time ago because he was always like this.

[Emily]
I like that.

[Shep]
And so when he goes up there, it has mementos from his childhood.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. Good.

[Shep]
So he goes up there because he had a fight with his father, who never listens to him, and he finds, you know, knickknacks or something, something that he had made for his dad or maybe his dad had made for him, whatever, something like that. And so he’s reminiscing. And that’s when he sees these guys coming through the woods, and he tries to signal to his mom, maybe it’s like the string telephone, whatever, and he’s telling his mom, “You got to hide. You got to take cover.” And this is when they don’t believe him.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Because he’s tried this so many times, and this time it’s real. And they don’t listen to him. So he has to learn the lesson: Don’t always cry wolf.

[Thomas]
Can the bad guy be Lobo?

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
What? Lobo?

[Thomas]
Means wolf. He’s crying wolf. Well, the guy who’s coming is named Wolf.

[Shep]
(stuttering) It has to be, now! I like it if he’s just Lobo through the whole movie and you don’t explain it, it’s just a bonus. If you get it, then it’s great. Then if you don’t, nothing is lost. Oh, yes.

[Thomas]
So they take him away to tie him up, to execute him. They’re going to shove him in the back of an Escalade and drive him out of there.

[Shep]
Wait, who’s taking him away? The terrorists don’t know that he’s there.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
He’s up in a tree. The terrorists take everyone else and put them in the central hall, and he’s the only one who’s out.

[Thomas]
When they’re rounding everybody up, what’s he doing? Just sitting up there waiting?

[Shep]
No.

[Emily]
Planning and strategizing. He’s checking out how many there are.

[Thomas]
He has another little cache that he’s created in the past.

[Shep]
That’s all, like, improvised children’s toys.

[Thomas]
Sharpened sticks and a slingshot and stuff.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And he’s like “Phhh…”

[Shep]
We’ve seen Home Alone.

[Thomas]
Right. So he goes back to his cache of weapons that he created as a kid, because he was never allowed to have them, so he had to hide them out in the woods. And this is all he has.

[Shep]
It all tracks so far.

[Emily]
Yup.

[Thomas]
So maybe he has a sling and a sling shot.

[Emily]
And a handmade bow and arrow type thing.

[Thomas]
I love the idea of having a handmade bow and arrow, and he goes to use it and immediately just completely falls apart, and he’s like, “Oh, right, this never worked. What was I thinking?”

[Shep]
That’s great if you have, like, the dramatic music swelling up as he goes to do his Rambo, and then it just snaps in his hands.

[Thomas]
Right. He’s got some really nice rocks that he’s collected. They’re just the right size and everything in shape for-

[Shep]
Stream polished, nice and smooth.

[Thomas]
Whatever makes them special. But I like that idea of him being again prepared, because that’s his whole jam.

[Shep]
They wouldn’t let him join the Boy Scouts.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And he’s been bitter about that his entire life.

[Thomas]
So he goes down and gets that stuff because he knows “I have this stuff.” Oh, after he kills the deer, they take his gun away. They’re like, “(disapproving noises)”.

[Shep]
Yeah. Yes.

[Thomas]
Or maybe he goes he goes “I’ll put it in my car.” So it’s locked in his car. But of course, now he can’t get to his car. It’s being blocked in by the bad guys, or there are bad guys between him and that.

[Shep]
Maybe that’s what he does first as he tries to get back to his car. So that’s why he gets the cache of weapons that’s by the lookout tower that he built, because that’s what’s there, and he needs that to get through just those guys to get to his car. But if he has a gun, it’s an unsilenced gun, and it has limited bullets, and he already used some on a deer.

[Emily]
Yes. But he saw some people in town earlier who have guns.

[Shep]
Right! So maybe this is a choice. He’s like, “I could leave right now. I could go and get help, or I could try and stop these guys-“

[Emily]
With these five bullets.

[Shep]
With these five bullets.

[Thomas]
Earlier in town. Does he meet some other survivalist type guys? And he’s like, “Oh, thank goodness, people who think like me.” And he has a conversation so later he can call in his own mini militia of, like, three or four guys to come help.

[Shep]
Oh, yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s great. So he needs a radio to contact these guys because there’s no phones.

[Emily]
Does he have a CB? Is he one of those guys? But it’s just in case.

[Thomas]
Yes, of course he does.

[Shep]
Now he’d have a ham radio because it needs a license.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. There you go. Yeah. And the other guy gave him his-

[Shep]
Call sign.

[Thomas]
Thank you. So now he has like a 15- or 20-minute window before they get there. Why is time important?

[Shep]
Well, how serious do you want the stakes? Because they could have rounded up all these people and put them in the central building and then lit the building on fire.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So I guess it kind of depends on what is their goal. Because if their goal is to get the opium they want or whatever it is, killing all of the workers seems like a stupid plan.

[Emily]
They’ve been compromised so they don’t want to-

[Thomas]
You kill them when they’re done with the work, you get the shipment. The only reason they’ve stopped is because Snow showed up and convinced everyone to stop. So now you just show up with guns and convince everyone, “Hey, keep working or we’ll kill you.”

[Shep]
So they’re not rounded up in the central hall. They’re out working in the field harvesting everything.

[Thomas]
I think initially they are in the central hall.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Maybe he sneaks down and hears what’s going on, and the guy kind of explains like, “All right, listen up. It’s work or die.”

[Shep]
And they know that as soon as they’re done harvesting, they’re all going to die anyway.

[Thomas]
Do they kill someone? Is there somebody who is like, “Hey, man, whatever. Chill out.” And then they’re just like, “No,” and shoot him. And everyone’s like, “Oh, these guys are for reals.”

[Shep]
I mean, that is the standard trope of how do you establish seriousness. Every film does that. Do we want to do that? Because every film does that. Because it does effectively establish these guys are going to murder people.

[Thomas]
Oh, maybe they kill the head of the commune for even letting this situation happen in the first place.

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s a good one. Because then they’re asserting dominance and we get rid of a bad guy.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true. The person they kill is less innocent.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I like that idea.

[Shep]
That’s even better. Because if there’s just one head guy, now there’s no head guy. So at the end, Snow’s dad can be that new head guy.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, I like that. And the head guy’s all cocky and thinks he’s fine because he’s been the one dealing with these bad guys the whole time. He’s kind of on their side.

[Emily]
He brought them into the fold and started the operation, so he clearly has good vibes with them.

[Thomas]
Right. In his mind, he’s part of their gang.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And Lobo is just like, “You’re nothing to me. You’re the problem.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“This shouldn’t have happened. It happened under your watch. Well, you fuck up, you die.”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I like that. So he sees that and is like, “Okay, definitely not going to try to interfere with this or interact with these guys.” So that’s when he goes to his car, he’s like, “Oh, obviously I need guns and backup.”

[Emily]
Is there some way that his mom and fiancée weren’t part of the roundup initially, so that they’re helping him too?

[Shep]
What could they be doing to help him?

[Emily]
I don’t know what they were. Well, I don’t know why they wouldn’t have been rounded up too.

[Thomas]
So presumably he’ll have taught his fiancée a bunch of stuff. So, I like for her to have saved the mom somehow, like they’re hiding somewhere, using the tactics he has taught her.

[Emily]
Well yeah, because he’s super paranoid and a survivalist.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
So of course he’s going to teach his fiancée some things for when he’s not there.

[Thomas]
And so, for whatever reason, they were on their way back from the outhouse, and-

[Emily]
They were picking wildflowers-

[Thomas]
They were away somewhere.

[Emily]
-For this weird marriage ceremony they were going to do.

[Thomas]
The hand fastener.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He thinks it’s a marriage ceremony, but it’s them having sex in a tent while the commune is around outside chanting.

[Emily]
And we established that at the end when they do that and he’s like, “No no no.”

[Shep]
No, he’s got to be more open minded by the end.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
He’s got to have grown as a character. So him fucking his fiancée in a tent in front of his family, that’s his character growth.

[Emily]
Totally normal.

[Shep]
Right. So they’re not captured for some contrived reason.

[Thomas]
Right. For whatever reason, those two were separate. And she does have that heightened sense of awareness because of him, maybe because of the excuse for them to not be captured, they’re in a position to see guys with guns pulling people out of tiny homes or something, and the mom is like, “We got to go help.” And the fiancée is like, “No fucking way. Those guys have guns. The correct thing to do in this situation is run away, and we can’t help him if we’re dead.”

[Emily]
Yeah. I just like the idea of them sort of helping him.

[Shep]
Here’s my problem. If his fiancée and his mom aren’t captured, why doesn’t he just take them and leave?

[Emily]
Dad is still captured.

[Shep]
He doesn’t like his dad. That’s the problem.

[Emily]
His mother loves his father,

[Shep]
Doesn’t matter. He’s the one with the car keys. He’s not going back for his dad. His mom has to be captured or his fiancée has to be captured or both.

[Thomas]
I think that we don’t know that they’re fine yet. He has no idea. He just assumes they’re with everybody.

[Emily]
Parallel story sort of thing.

[Thomas]
Right. We don’t even see what they’re doing, necessarily. Not at first. He goes to the hall, sees the guy get shot, goes to his car, radios for help, gets his gun, comes back to the hall. But everyone’s already out in the field now. So he goes out to the field and he’s trying to find his mom and his fiancée, and all he can find is his dad, and he’s like, “What the fuck?”

[Shep]
Why would he have gone to the hall without a gun?

[Thomas]
To see what’s going on. I don’t know.

[Shep]
He already knows there are guys with guns. He’s going to go get his gun first.

[Thomas]
Maybe he’s trying to do recon, get a sense of how many guys there are and what’s going on before he-

[Shep]
Yeah. How long does it take to go to the car and get a gun, though?

[Thomas]
I don’t imagine the car is like a 30 second walk away. I imagine it’s a few minutes at least away. Plus there are guys there.

[Shep]
Right. You’re not convinced me not to do it, though. You’re saying there’s this time pressure. It’s like, yeah, time to go get your gun. That’s the pressure. They have guns. Who knows what they could be doing. If you follow them and they start killing people, now you’re going to run to your car? Now you’re even farther from your car. It’s going to take even longer to go get your gun.

[Emily]
He’s very prepared and survivalist mode, so I think Shep is right. He would have gone and got the gun first.

[Shep]
I do like the idea of his fiancée and/or his mom helping him, but I think they should do it while they’re captured.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Maybe he has taught them some bird whistle language.

[Thomas]
Oh, he’s taught the fiancée tactical hand signals. Of course.

[Shep]
So that means she has to be able to see him though.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So why can she see him and the terrorists can’t?

[Emily]
He does a bird whistle. She knows it’s him because that’s their bird whistle. And so then she starts doing it so she knows that he can see her. She can’t see him, so she can send him hand signals.

[Shep]
How many guys are there?

[Emily]
How many guys are there?

[Shep]
What are their locations?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I’d like it if the mom also knows whatever secret thing he did with his fiancée because he did it with his mom when he was a kid and she was playing along with him.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
I was thinking there was something about when, in one of his caches, you see he’s got some sort of manual, like a Boy Scout manual or field tactics manual or something that his mom had snuck to him because his dad was the one that was super against him doing everything.

[Shep]
Right. And she’s go with the flow.

[Emily]
She’d go with the flow and she’s like, “But this is what interests him and we want him to grow as an individual and this is his individuality,” so yeah, she knows them too, because they used to communicate that way.

[Shep]
Right. It was their secret language that his dad didn’t know.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
That’s pretty good. I was going to say it would be funny if the fiancée is surprised that the mom is like, “Oh, wow,” make some comment on what she has signaled.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
She’s like, “How do you know?” And she’s like, “Look, there are only so many books to read here and-“

[Emily]
“He showed an interest and I didn’t want to lose my son.”

[Shep]
Yeah, I think it could be a surprise for the fiancée-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
If the fiancée and the mom act at the same time to do whatever.

[Thomas]
Oh yeah, that’s great.

[Shep]
Because the fiancée didn’t expect the mom to also know it.

[Thomas]
Well, this seems like a good time to take a break. So when we come back, we’ll figure out the rest of our story for Snowflake.

[Break]

[Thomas]
Alright, we are back. So everyone’s out working in the field. What happens? Does he have some sort of a GPS device or even like an AirTag, something like that? Something he could put on Lobo’s car in case Lobo gets away.

[Emily]
Yeah. He’s got an AirTag.

[Shep]
Why would he have an AirTag? Maybe he just takes his cell phone and drops it in his car and can use Find My Phone. Because he’s improvising. He’s improvising.

[Emily]
Okay. What’s he using to find his phone, though?

[Shep]
His fiancée’s phone.

[Emily]
Yeah. No, that makes sense.

[Thomas]
He knows that they’re outnumbered and outgunned. So his plan is to do the whole make your army seem bigger than it really is thing. And he knows the Survivalists know how to do that effectively. So they’re shooting and moving, they’re taking shots very carefully and strategically.

[Emily]
Have the Survivalists or anyone on the outside contacted the authorities?

[Thomas]
How much do they distrust the government?

[Emily]
He doesn’t distrust the government because he wants them to get permits and do all that good stuff.

[Shep]
Right. But he’s not the one making the call.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
It was the Survivalists. That’s why he’s so disappointed that they didn’t contact the government. “This is the time for that!”

[Thomas]
On the other hand, if the government shows up, the commune is in trouble.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s true. Okay.

[Shep]
But he wouldn’t be opposed to that.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He’d be like, “Good. Learn your lesson. Follow the rules.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true.

[Shep]
But again, he’s not the one that makes the call.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s the Survivalist guys, the other guys.

[Thomas]
Well, I guess we can decide whether or not they’ve called the authorities. But I like the idea that they manage to do enough damage in psychological warfare to the bad guys that they cut and run, and everyone’s like, “Oh, no, he got away.” And Snow was like, “Don’t worry about it.”

[Emily]
I like that they didn’t call. That he’s like, “Oh, so when are the cops coming?” And they’re like, “Why would we have called the cops?”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
He’s like, “What the fuck?” And he realizes they’re not his kind of a conservative.

[Shep]
Right. They’re living in the woods to get away from the government.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s a small town. There are only two cops. There are five of them.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah. One of them is a cop.

[Emily]
One of them is the sheriff.

[Shep]
He and the Survivalists appear to be enough people to drive off the drug dealers who have enough of a harvest. They’re going to cut their losses. Is this correct?

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
Am I understanding this so far?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay, so did they leave the hostages behind? They must have. They must have been in a hurry to leave so they couldn’t stop and kill everyone. Because killing people is not their goal. Getting the drugs is their goal.

[Emily]
Yeah. It’s more important to get the drugs so they can get the money.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Typical movie fashion would be they take one hostage.

[Shep]
The dad.

[Thomas]
It would have to be somebody important to Snow if we want to make this happen. It would be very funny if they didn’t kill the leader guy originally. And they’re like, “We’re going to take this guy in hostage,” and everyone’s like, “Okay, bye.” But I like him being killed earlier because it really sets those stakes.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Couldn’t this be the time where they lock them back up in the meeting hall and-

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Set it on fire?

[Shep]
Right. But they’re not sticking around to make sure that it burns down.

[Emily]
Yeah. They’re like “It’s going to burn. We’re good.”

[Shep]
“We’ve sent enough of a message anyway, whether they live or not, so don’t fuck with us.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Do they have enough time to round everybody up and get them back into the- If they have machine guns, why wouldn’t they just start mowing people down? If you’re being sniped from the woods and you can’t see your attackers and you don’t know how many there are, and it could be the DEA.

[Emily]
You do ask too many hard questions.

[Shep]
So they used up their ammo. They were being sniped from the woods, so they fired into the woods. Their guns are dry.

[Thomas]
But, like, why wouldn’t you just run? Just who cares about them? It doesn’t matter. The goal is to get the hell out of here and probably out of the country. They probably have a small plane waiting at a nearby airfield-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
In which case, the cell phone thing doesn’t help a lot. Now he’s got to put it in a pouch of drugs. Like, he sees that they’re loading up duffel bags full of opium, heroin, whatever, and he drops a cell phone in there.

[Shep]
Yes. So do they take a hostage with them?

[Thomas]
Why would they? What would be the goal? Human shield. “Follow us and we’ll kill this person”? Or do they just care about getting out of there? “Hey, half the guys we brought are dead. To protect ourselves…”

[Shep]
What would be the smart thing to do? Because they don’t know who’s shooting at them.

[Thomas]
I feel like a hostage is just work. Like, what would be the benefit of taking a hostage at that point?

[Shep]
Human shield.

[Thomas]
But taking them with you into the car? Like, I would just ditch them. I’m back at my car, throw them to the ground, hop in the car.

[Shep]
Yeah, that could be what they do. So that’s why they’re not stopped there because the survivalists start shooting through the hostages.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So they get back to their Jeep and they have all their loaded up duffels and they drive off. So then what’s Snow’s motivation for going after them?

[Thomas]
Does he bother? What is the actual climax here?

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Because I don’t feel like we’ve had a moment where the stakes are really high. Unless the hostages that they grab are the mom, the fiancée, the dad. Okay. So I feel like Snow’s arc is essentially respecting his dad.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
He stays a conservative person, but-

[Emily]
Reestablishing a relationship with his family.

[Thomas]
Yeah. And I think it’s a two-way street, right? The commune realizes, “Actually he was right. These guys just waltzed onto the property, took whatever they wanted, including-“

[Shep]
“Let’s get a lot of weapons and build a moat and a large fence.” What are we teaching people with this movie?

[Emily]
No! They’re going to go get the proper permits to grow legally.

[Shep]
And just grow weed. Just grow weed.

[Emily]
Just weed. Yeah.

[Shep]
You don’t want that crazy hopped up deer going after people. If he had munched on weed, he’d be a lot more mellow.

[Thomas]
The last shot, just that deer standing in the woods watching.

[Emily]
Chasing that white dragon.

[Shep]
Bloody horns.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
The shotgun still stuck into his horns.

[Shep]
Deer with a Shotgun. That’s the sequel.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So what is that big moment? It feels like it needs to be a showdown between Lobo and Snow, right?

[Shep]
Yes, absolutely. But why?

[Emily]
How?

[Shep]
Where? When?

[Thomas]
So what if … hrm.

[Shep]
Go ahead. There are no bad ideas. I mean, there are definitely bad ideas.

[Thomas]
I’m just trying to think, like, where does this necessarily take place? Because if it’s in an area where the weather is generally warmer, then perhaps the bad guys have an open-air vehicle of some sort. A convertible, a Jeep with the top down or whatever. So they need to take hostages with them into the vehicle as human shields. There’s no safety. They don’t have an Escalade where they can hide inside of it behind their tinted windows and stuff.

[Emily]
Why wouldn’t they have an Escalade? Even in a warm climate?

[Thomas]
That’s true. They just run the AC.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. Plus, more people can fit inside it.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
More room in the back for duffels of drugs.

[Emily]
Dark tinted windows no one can see.

[Shep]
So let’s get Escalade to sponsor this.

[Emily]
Yeah. Okay, Cadillac. Get on it.

[Thomas]
“Not your drug dealer’s Cadillac.” No, wait, it is your- Oh, that was a Buick campaign anyway. Is it too coincidental if he takes the mom, the fiancée? What if they see the mom doing tactical hand signals and they realize, “Oh, she’s helping them,” so they grab her that way. It’s not a coincidence. It’s like, “Oh, you, you’re the problem.”

[Shep]
Again, because of Snow.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Do they take the fiancée also? Does the fiancée go and join the mom? She’s like, “Fuck you guys.”

[Thomas]
Well, so I think those two and maybe the dad and a couple of other people I think those people are all near each other. Lobo sees the hand signals, or somebody sees the hand signals. They grab the mom they grab the fiancée because she’s right there. They grab another couple of people, probably not the dad, because that seems like all three of them would be a little too weird.

[Shep]
Right? Snow is just like, “Come on!”

[Thomas]
Yeah. So they drag them all back to the vehicles to get in, and then everybody starts, like, throwing their hostages down. And then Lobo, whoever he’s holding, whether it’s the mom, the fiancée, whoever’s like, “No, you’re coming too.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Does he need an excuse?

[Shep]
No, I think he likes the fiancée. I think he finds her attractive. She’s not like all the other dirty hippies. She stands out with her blonde hair and blue eyes.

[Thomas]
And not smelling of patchouli.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
And her nicely pressed pantsuit.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
I’m picturing her harvesting with a pantsuit. Yes.

[Thomas]
So he has to pursue. So is it just him, or is it him and the militia? Is it him and the dad? Him and the mom. That could be a funny moment where his parents are climbing into the car, and he’s like, “No. What are you doing?” They’re like, “Come on, we got to- put your seatbelts on, honey.” “Mom. All right, fine.” And then it ends up being a benefit later.

[Shep]
Is he taking his mom to a firefight?

[Thomas]
He doesn’t have time. She won’t get out. So I like the idea of the bad guys going to an airstrip, a small airstrip where there’s a plane. They get there, and they’re tossing the bags into the plane and shooting at Snows car. I think it would be funny if they hit the tire or something, and he, for whatever reason, he ends up crashing into something, and having the seatbelt helps. And she’s like, “I told you.” He’s like, “Yeah, thanks mom.”

[Shep]
He’s in his own Escalade, and so he can stop and talk about the safety features for 30 seconds.

[Thomas]
Yeah. She’s like, “There are so many cup holders back here.”

[Shep]
“And it’s so comfortable.”

[Thomas]
The dad’s, like, pushing buttons. “What are you doing?” Like, I”‘m playing with seat warmers.”

[Shep]
You make a joke, but I could easily see-

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
“Don’t really love the leather interior.” “It’s cruelty free.”

[Emily]
“It’s vegan leather, mom.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“It’s vegan leather. The animals donated this in their will.”

[Emily]
“The all died of natural causes.”

[Thomas]
I do like the idea of a cow having a will. There’s, like, a big hoofprint on it. Signed it and everything. The duck is the notary for the farm.

[Shep]
Right. No, the duck does the insurance.

[Thomas]
So does he make a deal with Lobo, or what happens? How is it- Did they get into a hand-to-hand fight? Like, how does he get the fiancée back safely?

[Shep]
Well, what kind of movie are we going for?

[Thomas]
Action comedy.

[Shep]
Well, then he’s got to get in a hand-to-hand fight with Lobo.

[Emily]
Yup. He’s got to fight Lobo.

[Shep]
That’s what he’s got to do.

[Thomas]
Is the plane slowly rotating, and they have to duck under the prop.

[Emily]
It’s not that bad.

[Thomas]
Bad. I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s a classic. So they both ran out of ammo.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. How many guns did the terrorists have? Because how are they out of guns entirely?

[Emily]
If they have that plane there, then they have some extra ammo.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And firearms.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
I mean, it would be stupid not to.

[Thomas]
If their goal is to get out of there as quickly as possible with as much drugs as possible, you got a couple of guys loading the duffel bags in as quickly as they can. Lobo is firing at Snow, holding the fiancée hostage somehow as a human shield, presumably. Lobo runs out of ammo. The other two guys are- maybe they’ve already run out early. We saw them run out earlier. So he’s holding the fiancée as a human shield, and he’s yelling whatever at Snow. And Snow says, “Tell you what, let’s do this man to man.” He goes, “I’ll throw my gun away. We can fight like men.” And for whatever reason, Lobo agrees. That doesn’t seem-

[Emily]
He’s machismo. Of course he does.

[Shep]
I don’t know. He’s smart. He’s smart.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He’s leading a drug cartel or at least this group, this cell.

[Thomas]
He would go get on the plane and grab one of the plane guns.

[Shep]
So the plane guns have to be eliminated as a thing.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So Snow has got to take, like, a grenade and throw it through the open door on the plane and blow the whole plane up. Because you know how movie grenades are.

[Thomas]
So they have not called the police because they don’t trust the government. And he’s like, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Of course call the police.”

[Shep]
He can’t call the police because he used his phone to be the GPS.

[Emily]
He can’t. So he’s trying to tell everybody else to and they keep saying no.

[Thomas]
So they finally agree, and then how does-

[Shep]
Or maybe they don’t agree. He’s got to get off the radio because he sees his fiancée being held hostage and he has to go rescue her. So he’s yelling at them to call the police, and he slams down the radio. So whether or not they call is not established until the police show up at the end.

[Thomas]
So he uses the ham radio to talk to the mini militia.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Tells them, “I’m at the airstrip. Call the police and send them here.”

[Emily]
And they’re more inclined to agree to that because it’s not bringing the police to them.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah, good point.

[Emily]
So they’re like, “Fine, compromise.”

[Thomas]
They’re like, “Man, I don’t know.” He’s like, “Just do it,” and slams the radio down, goes- Yeah, okay. I like that.

[Shep]
Right? So then you have the shoot-out with the guys as they’re running out of ammo. Lobo is telling them to grab duffels and get on the plane. And so then it’s just Lobo and the fiancée facing off against Snow. And that’s when Snow takes out the plane somehow. He’s good at throwing. Did he play ball with his dad? Is like, the one-

[Thomas]
He still has his sling. So he puts the grenade in the sling and slings it right into-

[Shep]
Times it just right.

[Thomas]
Get it into the door.

[Shep]
Yeah, that’s great.

[Thomas]
A thing we establish at the beginning.

[Shep]
Yes. See, it pays off later. So Lobo is, like, devastated. Why does he not kill the fiancée right then? Because his whole plan is going up in flames. His whole crew is dead, all the drugs are gone. This guy, this bastard ruined everything for him.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Does he, in a fit of rage, accidentally let her go? Because this guy’s ruined everything. And he’s just like.. No? I just mean physically let her go. Not like actively thinking “She’s free to go.” Just like-

[Shep]
Or does this plane explosion blow them apart?

[Emily]
Well, the distraction of the explosion would be enough for her to get some leverage on Lobo, wouldn’t it? She knows it’s coming.

[Thomas]
Actually, I like that idea a lot. She’s competent enough to know to take advantage of the explosion and get herself out of that situation. She is a strong and intelligent individual with agency. So she gets away on her own, and he maybe tells her, “Go to the car. My parents in the car,” or something like that. And then he takes on Lobo on his own? So how does their fight end? I don’t like the idea of the cops showing up to end it.

[Shep]
No no no, because the cops that show up is one cop car.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because they got an anonymous tip. So they’re not bringing the calvary.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They’re just going to send out one patrol car. So the cops show up after it’s over.

[Emily]
Snow’s got to be able to pin him down and win the fight.

[Thomas]
Does he tie him up?

[Shep]
Knocks him out with a punch, and he stays knocked out, because it’s Hollywood, and that’s how Hollywood knockouts work.

[Thomas]
Shep is ready for this story to be over. He’s like “Fuck reality. I’m done.”

[Emily]
I was going to say he magically has some sort of zip tie in the trunk of his car and so he brings out his zip tie.

[Thomas]
Guys. I know what it is. He’s got one of those paracord bracelets.

[Emily]
Of course he would!

[Thomas]
He just unravels the paracord and uses that to tie the guy up.

[Shep]
What is this? Oh, my gosh. I started to type it in, and it autocompleted paracord bracelet.

[Emily]
I have one. Yeah. So of course he has one.

[Thomas]
Oh. And it’s a gift from his fiancée before they go on the trip.

[Emily]
Yeah, she made it for him.

[Shep]
It’s a survival tool. Why would he not already have one? Maybe he already has one and now he has two.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Well, at any rate, I like that idea.

[Shep]
Yes. Agreed. Now that I know this is a thing.

[Thomas]
And then that’s it, right? Everything wraps up the way we’ve sort of previously discussed. The cops arrest Lobo. The commune realizes, “Maybe we need to take this a little bit more seriously.” The dad is like, “Okay, we’re not-” He kind of steps up into that leadership position, is like, “We’re not doing the opium anymore, but we’ll do… The weed market is just getting started in this state.”

[Shep]
Right. They just legalized it. So-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Does the dad actually take the leadership role, or does he refuse the leadership role again? Because that’s how he is. The dad didn’t grow. Snow grew. But the dad is an old man.

[Thomas]
But isn’t Snow’s growth to respect the dad? Wouldn’t he respect the dad more if the dad-

[Emily]
But shouldn’t he respect his dad as his dad? As he is?

[Shep]
Right. Yes, exactly. So he expects that his dad will take that leadership role now that there’s a vacuum and the dad refuses again, because he doesn’t want that in his life. He’s not that guy.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He will help guide the new leader, which is someone else that we established, some younger guy, but he’s not going to take it himself. And Snow accepts it this time because Snow has grown to accept his father the way that he is, not the way that he wished he were.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay. Is there anything else?

[Shep]
Yes. Snow and his fiancée fuck in that tent surrounded by the hippies chanting.

[Emily]
They have their communal wedding ceremony.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s show. Was it unique or did we flake out on you? And if you have a better pitch for Snowflake, 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

[Emily]
And if we like them enough, we’ll read them on a future episode.

[Thomas]
It’s time for us to hurry on our way. But don’t you cry. Emily, Shep, and I will be back again someday on another episode of Almost Plausible.

[Emily]
I just realized what you were doing.

[Outro music]

[Shep]
I would really like some pitches to come in to read on future episodes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I think it would be fun if they did that.

[Shep]
Because then we could recall previous episodes way back, like, “Oh, here are some pitches for Snowflake. And so and so said in…”