Turkey

References

• Almost Plausible – Turkey Baster
• Ocellated Turkey
• Free Birds
• Almost Plausible – Birdhouse
• Golden
• The Bear
• Feast of the Seven Fishes
• ThanksKilling
• Blood Freak
• 1995 Bagel Bites “Pizza in the morning, Pizza in the Evening” TV Commercial
• Pavo
• The Wizard of Oz
• Arrested Development
• Bambi
• The Princess and the Frog
• Logan’s Run
• Sesame Street – Goodbye Mr. Hooper
• Almost Plausible – Fire Extinguisher

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Thomas]
So what if there was, like, a really- one really smart turkey just surrounded by idiots?

[Shep]
That sounds awful. I would be miserable.

[Emily]
Isn’t that what it’s like to be here with us? That’s how Thomas feels, I mean. Not you, Shep.

[Shep]
So… Oh. What?

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. We’re just a couple of days away from Thanksgiving here in the United States, which, if you remember from last year, is one of my favorite holidays. The centerpiece of the traditional American Thanksgiving feast is a roasted Turkey, and that’s what we’ll be focusing our episode on today. I’m Thomas J. Brown, and seated around the Golden Bird with me are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
Now, do either of you remember what our theme was from last year’s Thanksgiving episode?

[Emily]
I do.

[Shep]
I do not.

[Thomas]
Emily, you said you do.

[Emily]
I do. It was Turkey Baster.

[Thomas]
That’s right.

[Shep]
What was it?

[Thomas]
We haven’t strayed too far.

[Emily]
I mean, there’s only so much we can do for Thanksgiving.

[Thomas]
It’s true. It’s true.

[Emily]
And we did just do Pumpkin.

[Thomas]
Right. That’s okay, though, because like I said, turkey is the big centerpiece of Thanksgiving. We were going to hit this one eventually, so why not now? Plus, I’m totally in the mood for Turkey. I’m ready for it, even now when we’re recording this, like a month, more than a month before Thanksgiving, I want turkey.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I basically just always want turkey all year round.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
I’m always ready for turkey.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
I almost bought a five-pound turkey breast from Costco today because I was thinking about it so much.

[Thomas]
I have done that before. Bought just the turkey breast and made that.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, I do that every once in a while just because I’m like, you know what? There’s no wrong time to eat turkey.

[Shep]
Yep. Correct.

[Thomas]
No, it’s so good. Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
Canadian Thanksgiving was recently, and I had mentioned in a friend group that it was Canadian Thanksgiving-

[Thomas]
That’s true.

[Emily]
And I was like, “Where’s my turkey?” And everyone’s like, “In Canada.” I was like, it is Thanksgiving somewhere in North America. We should all be eating turkey.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That’s an all of us celebration.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
We should come together and celebrate every Thanksgiving.

[Emily]
Yeah. Does Mexico have one? We’re going to need to research it, and if not, introduce it.

[Shep]
Let’s introduce it to Mexico.

[Thomas]
One thing that I was, when I was doing some research for this episode, one thing I found out was there are two types of turkeys that are indigenous to North America. There’s the one that we have here, and there’s one that they have in Mexico. And it looks so cool. Way cooler than our- looking than our turkeys are.

[Emily]
We’ll have to throw that up on social media to show people.

[Thomas]
Yeah. All right, well, Shep, let’s hear your pitches for turkey first.

[Shep]
All right. A domesticated turkey, Jake, falls for a wild turkey, Jenny. Hijinx ensue. It’s a turkey rom-com.

[Thomas]
Jenny. That’s good.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
I like it.

[Emily]
I like it.

[Shep]
Because Jenny is a name for a young female turkey, and Jake is a name for a young male turkey.

[Thomas]
Oh, I didn’t realize that.

[Emily]
I didn’t know that.

[Thomas]
That’s why Jennie-O is a brand of turkey products.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. Tom is adult male turkey. Hen is adult female turkey. There’s names for all the turkey types.

[Emily]
Wait, so adult female turkeys don’t get a cutesy name?

[Shep]
Hen. Hen. You don’t like Hen?

[Emily]
That’s not cute. That’s. No. How many other animals share that name? Chickens, peahens, all other birds.

[Shep]
All female birds. Yeah.

[Emily]
So when they’re young and sweet, they’re a Jenny, and then they turn old and bitter and they’re just a hen.

[Thomas]
So what kind of hijinks happen in this story?

[Shep]
Okay, so I’m figuring you have domesticated turkey. Jake, he’s living his best domesticated turkey life, and then like, through the fence outside the pen, he spots Jenny, the Wild turkey. He doesn’t have much time to gawk because Jenny’s a freedom fighter and she busts the pen open. And then in the ensuing panic, all the turkeys flee and they end up in the nearby woods where there are wild mountain lions and they are pretty pleased to discover this recent turkey breakout.

[Emily]
I bet!

[Thomas]
They’re like, “I am so thankful for this.”

[Shep]
Yes! So Jake and his family, including his conservative father Tom, are out of their depths and they’re struggling to survive. I was figuring, like, at one point they get captured by predators and the mom. Let’s call her Hannah instead of hen.

[Thomas]
There you go.

[Emily]
That’s better.

[Shep]
Hannah thinks it can all be resolved, that she can talk to the predator’s manager, work this all out.

[Thomas]
You’re not going to call her Karen?

[Shep]
Well, it didn’t occur to me, but. So Jake just wants to find Jenny. Tom wants the family to go back to the farm where they had food and they were comfortable.

[Thomas]
Is there time travel in this one?

[Shep]
Time travel?

[Thomas]
Yeah, it’s-

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, there’s that turkey movie.

[Thomas]
Right. Where they travel back in time to try to stop Thanksgiving from becoming a holiday. Or is it trying to stop turkeys from becoming food?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Or. I forget.

[Emily]
They’re trying to stop turkeys from becoming the food for Thanksgiving, I think.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I’ve only seen it once, and it was-

[Thomas]
Same.

[Emily]
There’s a reason for that.

[Shep]
I am not familiar with this movie, and I’m okay with that.

[Thomas]
Well, we can dive more into the details of that if that’s the direction we go. That’s actually kind of similar to an idea that I had. Mine is also a rom-com about a sort of countryish person and a cityish person. Right? Paige, a single woman in her late 20s, returns to the small rural town where she grew up to have Thanksgiving with her parents. She never really fit in growing up, and as soon as she graduated from high school, she left for college and a life in the big city. While home, she gets talked into going on a turkey hunt. She doesn’t like the idea of killing an animal, but she wants to make her father proud. She comes across a turkey, raises the shotgun, winces, and then hears an unfamiliar voice. It turns out the turkey can talk. She learns that the turkey was once a human named Tom, but a spell turned him into a bird. If his name had been Jack, would he have been turned into a rabbit? Anyway, they form a sort of bond, and Paige agrees to help Tom. Now she must hide him from the townsfolk, figure out how to break the spell, and help him turn back into a human.

[Shep]
Was he cursed by a witch for stealing her treasure? Is he a prince, actually?

[Thomas]
Yeah. How’d you know?

[Emily]
Do we have a weird bird fetish? I like this one, just because I somehow accidentally bought a werewolf romance book and now-

[Thomas]
“Accidentally”.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
I understand.

[Emily]
Yeah, I still haven’t read it. And now I’m constantly bombarded with ads for werewolf romance, like TV shows, movies, books, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I want this to be that. But with a turkey.

[Shep]
A turkey/human rom-com.

[Emily]
Yeah. Turkey/human romance. Where there’s a pecking order. That’s how bad the werewolf romance is.

[Thomas]
I’m sure.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I have another pitch. It’s not a fun, happy, light hearted one. On the morning of Thanksgiving, our main character discovers the turkey has accidentally been left out and is now no longer safe to eat. They must venture out and find another bird, which proves difficult. Stores in their small town are sold out, if they’re open at all. They finally manage to find a small turkey and decide to spatchcock it so it will cook in time. In addition to all of this turkey drama is an undercurrent of family drama. Tensions mount throughout the day, and eventually there’s a big blowout between a couple of family members. That argument, combined with the unusually small bird and new cooking method, cause the turkey to become burned. The normally calm and quiet main character, who has been just barely holding it together this whole time, finally loses it, shocking everyone with their outburst. Not sure how this one should end. If we want, like, everyone kind of figures their shit out and makes up happy kind of ending or hopeful ending or just like, yep, they’re getting divorced, and the family’s falling apart, and someone’s going to jail, and the turkey’s ruined.

[Emily]
Or might I suggest family annihilation?

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
No. Like, at the end, he just. His outburst is family annihilation. He just kills everyone. The end.

[Thomas]
Oh, I see.

[Shep]
I don’t want to be too critical.

[Thomas]
No, though. That’s why we’re here.

[Shep]
But it does sound like every sitcom.

[Emily]
I was actually gonna ask, have you seen The Bear yet? Because there is a Christmas episode extremely similar to this, but instead of turkey-

[Thomas]
Oh, boy. You’re right. There is.

[Emily]
It’s the Feast of the Seven Fishes.

[Thomas]
Right. It’s a good episode.

[Emily]
It’s such a good episode.

[Thomas]
I mean, you could just say that about that about that show.

[Emily]
I never saw a bad episode of that show.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true. Those are my pitches. Emily, what do you have for us?

[Emily]
I only have one today, and I’m going to surprise you both. And it’s not going to be a serial killer, which is why I suggested family annihilation at the end of yours.

[Thomas]
Oh, okay.

[Shep]
It’s not a serial- There’s no death?

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
But it’s a turkey on Thanksgiving.

[Emily]
I know.

[Shep]
And you’re Emily.

[Emily]
I know. I went way out there.

[Thomas]
But see, Shep, they feed the turkey lots of, like, oats and grains, and so in that respect, it’s really killing the cereal that is fed to it.

[Emily]
No, I tried really hard to come up with them. But I kept thinking about ThanksKilling, and there’s another one where there’s a murderous turkey. And I just kept getting like, “No, I can’t. I’m just going to end up repitching those.” Not that you two have seen either of them.

[Thomas]
Definitely not.

[Emily]
So this one is not Thanksgiving related at all. So on theme for me. It’s time for the annual Forest Turkey Bowling Tournament. Bears, wolves, and cougars throw live turkeys at wooden pins. That’s the game. This year’s favorite team is Dwight the turkey and Roger the Bear. They are ready to make history and become five time champions. But things start to fall apart when Dwight disagrees with Roger’s throwing strategy. Now the championship and their friendship are on the line.

[Thomas]
Well, which one do we like?

[Emily]
I mean, we did a really good job with Birdhouse.

[Thomas]
Well, I was going to say the difference this time is that the turkey can talk, whereas last time, the bird couldn’t. But I guess he could when he was a man.

[Emily]
Right. Well, see, there’s the difference. He’s not a man in the evening and a bird in the morning.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Turkey in the morning, man in the evening. Something at dinner time.

[Shep]
Pizza. Pizza at dinnertime.

[Thomas]
Now all I can picture is our characters from Birdhouse. It’s, like, still shots. It’s like bird in the morning, man in the evening, pizza at dinner, and they’re both there, like, eating slices of pizza, and the bird’s got, like, a big piece of pizza in front of it. God, I hate to say this, but the two I like the most are the rom-coms.

[Emily]
Yeah. Rom-coms.

[Shep]
Yeah, we have a type.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So both of the rom-com ones are a lot like other movies, or in the case of mine, another pitch that we’ve done or another episode.

[Emily]
Do we want to come up with a rom-com from scratch? We do that once in a while. We like to- when we’ve got pitches we can’t decide on.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
See, I still like the idea of a wild turkey and a domesticated turkey being in a relationship because they’re opposites.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So if it were like, a turkey city and everyone was a turkey, then if you’ve seen domesticated turkeys, they all look the same. They’re all big, they’re all white. And wild turkeys have dark feathers. They’re smaller. They can’t fit in. They always stand out.

[Emily]
And then you get those fancy Mexican turkeys, which I did look up the picture of, and, oh, my God, they’re gorgeous.

[Thomas]
Right?

[Emily]
Like, what the hell? We could incorporate that into it, too. The fancy Mexican turkey.

[Thomas]
Is his name Pavo?

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
So I have now also looked up photos of Mexican turkeys, and I am colorblind-

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s right.

[Shep]
But these are colorful as fuck.

[Emily]
They are!

[Shep]
Like, even I can see how colorful they are.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s what I’m saying. I’m colorblind and even I can see.

[Emily]
You. So we should do a story of, like, this kind of a wild turkey who’s out of place completely. We could have a fancy, fancy turkey go into the city for the first time, and the all-white domesticated turkeys are like, “Whoa.”

[Thomas]
Here’s another idea. Turkeys are sort of traditionally thought of as being fucking stupid. So what if there was, like, a really- one really smart turkey just surrounded by idiots?

[Shep]
That sounds awful. I would be miserable.

[Emily]
Isn’t that what it’s like to be here with us? That’s how Thomas feels, I mean. Not you, Shep.

[Shep]
So… Oh. What?

[Thomas]
I thought you were going to get away with that, Emily.

[Emily]
I did too.

[Thomas]
I thought that was just going to breeze right by.

[Shep]
So the smart turkey is one of the domesticated turkeys?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
He’s just uncommonly smart.

[Shep]
All right. And then Mexican turkey gets caught up in a storm and gets blown off course and ends up in domesticated Turkey City.

[Thomas]
Okay. Blown off course. All that flying turkeys do.

[Shep]
Yes. Well, it’s a tornado, and it just picks him up off the ground, Wizard of Oz style. Drops him off in the land of Oz.

[Thomas]
I feel like it should go the other way then. A domesticated turkey should be taken to the colorful world of the Mexican turkeys, although they probably live in, like, scrub and desert, so the world isn’t very colorful. It’s just the turkeys.

[Emily]
Okay, so Mexican turkey ends up in Turkey town.

[Shep]
I think it would be funny to have the domesticated turkey end up in wild turkey country-

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
And, like, meets and befriends a wild turkey and wants to form a relationship with someone. And the wild turkey is like, trying to coach him on, you know, “Show off your colorful feathers,” and he can’t because he doesn’t have any.

[Thomas]
Okay, so it starts off in- What if it starts off on a farm? A turkey farm. And the uncommonly smart turkey who hates living there because no one can hold a conversation. He’s very clever. So he figures out a way to escape, and he’s tooling around in the forest, and he comes across the wild turkeys, whatever it is. And so that’s how they meet.

[Emily]
Yeah, well, yeah, he’s tooling around, doing his thing, and he gets chased by, like, a coyote or something.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
Or a house cat.

[Emily]
Yeah. Just so he runs even further out into the wild, and then the wild turkeys save him.

[Thomas]
I think he should be saved by the wild turkeys.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. Okay. He breaks out. He just lifts up the hook and takes it out of the eye and opens the door.

[Thomas]
Right? Yeah. It’s not hard.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
He’s just clever.

[Shep]
He’s like, “We’re free! Let’s go!” And none of the other turkeys go with him.

[Thomas]
Yeah. They all look up at him with that, like, (turkey noise) look on their face and then immediately turn around and go back to eating.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And he’s just like, “Whatever.”

[Shep]
But he’s still timid, so he grew up in captivity.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So he’s, like, keeps the pen in view as he’s exploring around, and then gets chased by the house cat or whatever and runs off in a panic and ends up in the woods.

[Emily]
Mmm.

[Shep]
And the wild turkeys find him and maybe chase off the house cat if it’s even still chasing him.

[Emily]
I like them chasing it off because I want to see them like-

[Thomas]
You want to see them be capable and-

[Emily]
Yeah, you want to see them be capable. And I also just want them to be like a street gang of wild turkeys that are like, “Get out of here, cat!” That energy is what I’m looking for.

[Shep]
Right. So the house cat has cornered the domesticated turkey and is stalking up on him, and, like, “It’s all over for you.”

[Thomas]
And then you just start hearing (wild turkey noises).

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right. And the wild turkey has come in Three Musketeers style.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
“You came to the wrong neighborhood, cat.” And so the roles are completely reversed instantly. So how do we turn this into a rom-com?

[Thomas]
Well-

[Shep]
So far, we’ve got Three Musketeers.

[Thomas]
One of the turkeys that saves him is female, or is the love interest, I guess.

[Shep]
Why is she still single?

[Emily]
Because she’s a strong, powerful turkey that doesn’t need no Tom to be telling her what to do.

[Shep]
Then why would she end up with the domesticated turkey?

[Emily]
She also has needs.

[Shep]
Okay, I have a- I have a spin. Our main character turkey. What’s the main character Turkey’s name?

[Emily]
What was the name you gave him?

[Thomas]
Jake?

[Shep]
Jake was the one that I used. It’s the young-

[Emily]
Jake. Then let’s just use Jake.

[Shep]
Okay, so Jake has a turkey girlfriend back in the pen, and he keeps trying to tell her about all his passions. You know, he really likes astronomy and looking at the stars at night and whatever, and she’s not into it at all. So when he’s out and he’s with this other group, he wants to get back to the pen. He’s changed his mind. The wild, the wilderness is uncomfortable. He wants to go back home. But on the journey back home, he develops an interest in the wild turkey. Does she have a name?

[Thomas]
Is it not Jenny?

[Emily]
Yeah, let’s call her Jenny.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
Let’s keep your names. They were good.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
They were excellent names.

[Shep]
All right. So I think Jenny likes him, but he rebuffs her because he has a girl back home, and then by the time they get back home, he realizes that he’s not happy with his girl back home, whatever her name is. Hen or whatever. And they break up, and he goes back into the wild. That’s the ending.

[Emily]
Okay. I have questions about Hen, but I feel like she’s not important, so I’m not going to ask them. So they have nothing in common. Do they have any conversation at all? Why is he attracted to her? Is it just she’s the prettiest one in the pen?

[Shep]
I think that her stall was next to his stall. It’s more of a proximity thing.

[Emily]
Proximity and maybe a family arrangement kind of thing?

[Shep]
Does he even know his parents? Because it would be a different generation coming through.

[Emily]
That’s true, I guess.

[Shep]
Yeah, there’s plot holes in my original pitch. Forget that pitch. That one’s no good.

[Emily]
So he’s just loyal to the hen at home because that’s just who he is as a turkey.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
He’s a turkey of high moral value.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
He can’t dishonor her.

[Shep]
Right. Although he can break up with her as soon as he gets back.

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s fine. Or he could just not go back. No one would be the wiser. They would think he was dead and he could live happily ever after with the turkeys in the woods.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Like, that should be an argument one of the turkeys makes to him. “Why do you even have to go back?” Because he’s a turkey of principle.

[Shep]
No, he thinks he misses it.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Because in his mind, it was a much nicer place than it is.

[Emily]
Well, you had food at a given time every day.

[Shep]
Right. So, like, he’ll have memories of having these deep conversations with Hen about whatever, the stars, but it’s just him talking and her listening and going, “All right, okay.”

[Thomas]
Do the dumb turkeys even talk?

[Shep]
Oh, do they not?

[Thomas]
Honestly, I imagine them with the dumbest cartoon faces, like, googly eyes, like, just so fucking stupid. And he’s just very erudite and well spoken, and they’re all just there, like (turkey noises).

[Shep]
So they’re turkeys. And he’s basically a person in a turkey body.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He was cursed by a spell.

[Thomas]
And he’s trying to make the most of life. And, yeah, maybe there’s this girl that he likes or thinks is his girlfriend, but I love the idea of a flashback of that. And he’s waxing poetic, and she’s just there, like, her head bobbing around, like (turkey noises).

[Shep]
She’s just pecking the ground next to him.

[Thomas]
Right. Maybe he gets chased and escapes on his own initially, he doesn’t get saved by the wild turkeys yet, so that way he has time to experience inclement weather and hunger and sort of start to really miss those things and loneliness and start to miss those things that he didn’t have to experience back at the farm. And that establishes in his mind, “Oh, gosh, I’ve made a huge mistake. I need to get back to get these things back.” And then somehow he runs into the wild turkeys and they’re like, “Okay, yeah, we’ll help you get back if that’s what you really want.” And over the course of trying to get back, he goes from afraid of the wilderness to realizing, like, “Oh, actually, this is really cool. And there are beautiful things to be found out here. It’s not all just danger and-“

[Shep]
“Rain.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, right. Isn’t there a thing about turkeys drowning from looking up or something like that?

[Emily]
Yeah. It’s a myth, I believe.

[Thomas]
Right, but we’ve got to do something like that where he’s looking, he hears, like, the thunderstorm, and he’s like “Uhhh?”, looks up and water drops right down his throat. He’s like “(Cough cough) Oh, gosh.”

[Emily]
I think that would be fantastic.

[Thomas]
Maybe he’s at the farm and there’s a storm, and one of the birds is looking up and it’s just raining down that bird’s throat. And he just, like, pulls the bird under the awning and he’s like “(Sighs heavily).” Because I think that’s the idea, is like, that turkeys are so dumb that they could drown.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So it’s got to happen to one of the dumb turkeys.

[Shep]
I like the idea that he believes the myth.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
And so if you have that thunderstorm, the first one, while he’s in the pen, and he’s, like, trying to gather up the other turkeys so they don’t drown because otherwise they would all die.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
He’s, like, covering his head with his wing. “Don’t look up. Don’t look up.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Is part of his motivation for returning, not just like those happy memories of being warm because he’s surrounded by other turkeys and having food regularly dispensed, but also this idea of, like, they depend on him, they can’t do anything without him.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
He’s built it up in his brain that he’s this savior to these other turkeys and they’re going to die without him.

[Shep]
So if he doesn’t go back at the end, he’s basically leaving them to their own doom. Is that correct? Am I understanding that correctly?

[Emily]
That’s what he thinks in his brain, which is why part of his motivation in having to return is: they’ll die without him. And then he goes back and he sees that they’re fine.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Actually, that could be really, an actually really strong moment for him to feel okay with leaving is like, “Oh, no, everybody’s okay. Nothing bad happened. They’re all still alive. Nobody drowned.”

[Shep]
Right. There was that thunderstorm when he wasn’t there.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He wasn’t there to save them, and they’re all still fine.

[Thomas]
Maybe his girlfriend has, there’s somebody new in his box next to his girlfriend.

[Emily]
And she pecks along with him.

[Shep]
I think he should have the talk with her. But it’s, again, just him talking because she doesn’t respond at all.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And he’s like, “It’s not going to work out. We’re two different.”

[Thomas]
The wild turkeys drop him off, and they’re like, “Are you sure?” And he’s like, “Yeah.” And he goes in and he does, like, the final- He looks back and they look back. And so you think, I mean, you don’t think it because you know how movies work.

[Shep]
Right. You’ve seen a movie before.

[Thomas]
Right. I mean, if this is a kid’s movie, then maybe they haven’t.

[Shep]
I have an idea. He gets separated from the Wild turkeys. So originally, when they find him, his goal is to get back to the pen, but on the journey, at one point, for some reason, they get separated, and he’s trying to find the Wild turkeys again and finds the pen. And so you have that moment of, “Oh, this wasn’t what I was looking for right now, but this was what I was originally looking for, so I should be happy.” And so he goes, and he’s like, “Yay, I made it back.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“And good to see everyone.” And no one acknowledges him because they’re all turkeys, and he tries to talk to them and no one can talk back.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And it’s not like it was with the wild turkeys. And he tries to go back to his stall, and it’s not the same. It’s not the same. And he’s trying to recapture the magic that he found in the wild. And then the wild turkeys show up, like they have also found the pen and come up to say, “You made it, you’re back,” whatever. Or maybe the girl turkey is like, “Are you sure?” And he’s like, “No, get me out of here.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. Oh, he left- However it was that he got out, he left that door open, that little hatch open. And so the farmer realizes, “Oh, this isn’t secure enough anymore.” So, now, it’s not just a little hook through an eye hole. It’s a more complex lock that a turkey cannot manipulate. So he’s like, “Yeah, I know. I want to go. I’ll be right out.” And then he realizes, “Uhoh, I’m stuck in here.”

[Shep]
Well, then how is that resolved? Because the wild turkeys are also turkeys. If it’s something a turkey can’t open.

[Emily]
Oh, there should be a thing about- Because wild turkeys can, while they don’t fly. Right. They jump and they’re often found in branches. High branches in trees.

[Thomas]
Right. It’s just like really short flight type of-

[Emily]
Yeah. Like chickens. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right, exactly. Yeah.

[Emily]
They can go like, I think, six- or seven-feet up branches or something like that.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
Pretty high up. But domesticated turkeys are overweight and they can’t.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But he’s not overweight anymore because he’s just been in the woods and he’s been starving.

[Emily]
And-

[Thomas]
And exercising.

[Emily]
They were trying to teach him earlier.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
They were trying to teach him how to do that because they come down to save him from-

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
They’re on the branches when they come down and he’s like, “How did you get up there?” And they’re like, “Oh, you just flutter.” Yeah. So the resolution is she encourages him. “You can do this, you can do hard things.”

[Shep]
I like that a lot.

[Emily]
Yeah. And then that helps with- He can survive with the wild turkeys because that was part of the reason, also, in returning is that he’s not cut out to survive out there.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s perfect.

[Thomas]
All right, sounds like we have a pretty solid start to our story about a turkey. So let’s take a quick turkey snack break.

[Shep]
Now, you made me sad because I don’t have turkey here.

[Thomas]
I know. Neither do I. I’m sad. I shouldn’t have suggested it.

[Emily]
I only have deli meat turkey, and I want turkey turkey.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Well, let’s take a quick break, and when we come back, the rest of our story about a Turkey.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we are back. So we have a rough idea what happens to Jake. He gets out, he goes on this wild adventure, and he comes back, but then he leaves again because he realizes he wanted to be free after all. What are some of those second act details that we haven’t worked out?

[Shep]
The turkeys have to teach him how to live in the wild, how to forage for food, how to avoid predators.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They try to teach him how to fly, but he never learns until the very end.

[Thomas]
Right. There also have to be moments of him realizing that being out in the wild is so much better than he thought it could be.

[Emily]
Breathtaking views, delicious grubs.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. Stuff he’s never experienced.

[Emily]
Yeah. He’s used to eating feed, right?

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And maybe occasionally a millworm or something will come up. And now he’s eating, like, full on earthworms and big fat caterpillars.

[Thomas]
And he’s having really interesting, stimulating conversations with all of the turkeys, really.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He’s having conversations with all the turkeys, at the very least, which is more than he ever had.

[Emily]
And they’re all sort of introducing new philsophical kind of ideas to him. Nothing like intense.

[Shep]
I like the idea of them having, like, deep moral philosophy and try to talk to him about it. And he thinks that he’s got all these ideas, but they’re all very primitive because he didn’t have anyone to argue against this whole time.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And so they all know more than he does. They all have a deeper philosophy than he does. They could be very humbling.

[Emily]
Yeah. You could do a thing with, like, they crack open the log to get all of the maggots and things eating the log, and one of them shuts it before everything’s gone, and the one gets mad and is like, “Hey, I’m still eating.” And he’s like, “Yeah, but we got to leave this because they need to propagate and they’re helping to recycle this tree.” And he’s in this whole philosophical about “We can’t take more than we need just because we like it.” And then Jake is like, “Well, why wouldn’t you just eat till you’re full? I don’t understand.”

[Shep]
Right. Because that’s always how he’s lived his whole life.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s why he’s too heavy to fly. Part of their argument would be they need to be able to fly to avoid predators.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So it’s not just “We need to leave some to propagate.” There are multiple reasons to not just consume every food you find.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They have to have a run in with some predator or something. What do we want that to be?

[Thomas]
Well, you had said a cat earlier, and I wonder if it should be something else that’s like a recurring predator. So he escapes from it, but then it comes back later. That would help sort of retrigger his fear.

[Emily]
Like a coyote or a bobcat.

[Shep]
I wanted it to be a house cat because they’re so small and harmless.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. Especially compared to a wild turkey.

[Shep]
Right. But if we have him chased by a house cat at the beginning, and then he runs into a mountain lion or whatever, a wildcat later, when he thinks that he’s got a handle on the house cat, right, he’s all brave because the other turkeys chased that one off.

[Emily]
Mmm. So he knows that it’s not a real threat, it’s a pretend threat.

[Shep]
Right. But it turns out to be a real threat and they all run off. He’s like, “Yeah, let’s fight this guy. Fellas?”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He looks around, they’re gone, yeah. They’re all up in the tree.

[Shep]
Right. They’re all up in the tree.

[Emily]
They’re all up in the tree, and that’s when they maybe start the conversation about, “Why didn’t you just fly up with us?”

[Shep]
Right. He’s running from the cat and the cat’s chasing after him and they’re flying from branch to branch, going “Flap real hard. Come on, you can do it.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
How does he get away from the wildcat?

[Shep]
It chased him to a river and he runs under a log. And the cat jumps on top of the log to get around him, but the log then collapses into the water. The cat’s fine, but he swims to the other bank, but then glares at him across the water.

[Emily]
There you go.

[Thomas]
I like the idea of them sort of outsmarting it to show they’re not dumb. Or to reiterate that they’re not dumb.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. Because while they’re trying to make him fly, they’re guiding him towards the river, and they’re like, “Well, if you can’t fly, turn left, turn-“

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
You know, telling him which way to go.

[Thomas]
And then maybe one of them, or the love interest, catches its attention and runs into the log to get the mountain lion to-

[Emily]
Well, yeah, because his fat ass is just going to get stuck at the end.

[Shep]
(laughs)

[Thomas]
True. Perhaps it tips off of an overhang or something. So then she’s able to fly out of it and back up onto the ridge, and the mountain lion is clinging onto the log as it floats down the river. And he’s just, like, all wet and he’s got the wet fur look and he’s scowling up at them.

[Shep]
Angry cat. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So what are we going to do for our lowest low in this?

[Thomas]
Is that either where he gets separated from the wild turkeys, or is that him being back and realizing, “I don’t like this.”

[Shep]
I think that’s both. It’s lowest low when he gets separated from the wild turkeys. And then there’s that moment of where he thinks he’s going to be happy, and then he realizes that he’s just miserable. And I guess that’s the real lowest low, is that realization that he can’t go home again, he doesn’t fit in anymore.

[Thomas]
That creates a pretty short third act, and it feels a bit deus ex machina. Well, no, I guess if he flies out, then-

[Emily]
He flies out, he finds it in him. He’s worked out enough to lose the weight and build the muscle.

[Thomas]
Right. Yes.

[Shep]
So do you see him not gorging on the food because he eats some and then he stops and he looks around at all the other turkeys that can’t stop eating.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right. Their heads are just going on the ground like crazy or around the feeders like crazy.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And, yeah, we see him feeling like, whereas previously he was the cock of the walk, he was strutting around and talking and felt like he was all important and he felt like he had purpose. And now he’s sort of trudging around and sort of sitting on his own and looking out of the fence more and not feeling like he fits in and not feeling like he has purpose anymore. And so we can sort of see that.

[Shep]
So if you have him earlier, not barking orders, but, like, telling the other turkeys what to do, like, when it rains, he’s trying to get them all to come in. And then now he’s just silent and not engaging with the other turkeys. And maybe there’s another little rainstorm, and he sees that they do come in out of the rain on their own. He didn’t have to say anything.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He felt like he was helping this whole time and he was not really doing anything.

[Thomas]
Sure. Like he knows that a storm is coming. He sees, he hears the rumble of the thunder, and he’s like, “All right, everyone under the cover under the cover.” And he shooshes them all in there before it starts raining. But then at the end, it just starts raining. He doesn’t bother. It starts raining, and they all come running in as soon as it starts raining. And he’s like, “Oh, they’re fine.”

[Emily]
“You do know how to do that.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, “I didn’t need to do any of that.”

[Emily]
How does he get separated from the other turkeys? Is that like a turning point? Is it just by accident?

[Shep]
You have the recurring predator.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Oh, the predator separates him this time. Okay.

[Shep]
Or maybe they even lead the predator off because he still can’t fly.

[Emily]
Oh. And he’s trying to reunite with them, and then he finds the farm.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
I got you.

[Thomas]
I want to explore a little bit more about his relationship with the domesticated turkey and the Wild turkey. What does that transition look like? Do we see him out in the wild, feeling torn between the two?

[Shep]
Not initially. Initially, he just wants to get back to the pen for multiple reasons.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He’s more comfortable there. If there’s food there, he feels safer there. There aren’t cats there. And also, his girlfriend is there.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So he doesn’t acknowledge his feelings for- What was the wild Turkey’s name? Jenny.

[Emily]
Jenny.

[Shep]
He doesn’t acknowledge his feelings for Jenny, even though he starts to feel an attraction to her as they spend more time together and they hang out.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
And he really likes talking to her, talking with her, not talking to her, that it goes back and forth, and she tells him things that he didn’t know, and he’s like, “That’s really interesting.” And so he starts to feel close to her and then realizes, “Oh, wait, I have a girlfriend. I forgot.” So he tries to separate from her despite how he’s internally feeling.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So we see a little bit of that struggle within him.

[Emily]
Yeah. I was also thinking, part of the thing with Hen back home is he’s always talking about, “What if we got out of here one day? We could find a nice little spot to roost up over on the hill,”

[Shep]
“Start a family.”

[Emily]
“Start a family.” Right. Yeah. And so while he’s out with the wild turkeys, when he sees the beautiful landscape or whatever, he’s like, “This would be the perfect nest for us.” He has those thoughts kind of initially before he’s starting to grow more and more with Jenny. He grows on her first because he’s unique.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
He’s interesting.

[Thomas]
It could also be the case that, like, all of the other turkeys she’s with, the male turkeys are her family or her brothers.

[Emily]
I thought about that, too. Most of them would be her brothers. I was thinking, yes. They could have mentioned at some point because I’m imagining this is like spring, summer. Right? So they are talking about when the fall comes where they’re going to head for mating season, essentially. And she’s talking about, “This is my year. I’m going to find my guy.” And then she kind of builds a relationship with him.

[Thomas]
Or maybe the, the guys that she’s with are ribbing her about. “Ah, you gotta find someone.” And she’s like, “All right, all right.”

[Emily]
Yeah. And she can explain to the domesticated turkey, she’s like, well, “We have to meet the other families. That’s how we- Yeah, I can’t marry these dudes.”

[Thomas]
I had two thoughts. One was, you had mentioned, Shep, earlier that Jake likes looking up at the stars, and he’s trying to get Hen interested know looking at the stars. And so at some point, it’s one of the evenings when he’s out with the wild turkeys, and things are calm and things have been good, and he and Jenny are looking up at the stars, and not only does she also have an interest in the stars, she actually knows constellations and is pointing them out, and he’s just like, “What? Oh, my gosh.”

[Emily]
“I just like that they twinkled.”

[Thomas]
Right. He didn’t know any of that. And she’s like, “Oh, yeah, they form shapes,” and points out constellations.

[Shep]
Are they real constellations or did she make up constellations? She’s like, “Oh-“

[Thomas]
They’re real constellations in Turkey lore.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
Turkey constellations.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“There’s the grub.”

[Emily]
Yeah, “There’s the-” Yeah.

[Thomas]
“There’s the stick.”

[Emily]
“That’s the big Tom. That’s the little Tom.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, there you go. I also like a scene where the wild turkeys, at the end, when the wild turkeys make it back to the farm, they’re talking to him through the fence. Or maybe they’re perched on top of the fence, whatever it is. And they’re asking, they’re like, “Oh, so this is where you lived?” Because he’s been talking about this great place where there’s all this food and he’s got his girlfriend Hen, and all this stuff.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And the love interest turkey is like, “Oh, where’s Hen? I want to meet her.” And he points out hen. And it’s like “Her?” Because every time we say Hen, it makes me think of Egg. “What’s so great about Hen? She has the most beautiful waddles,” and then it’s just like a slow motion shot of her head. Like the waddles are going back and forth.

[Shep]
With the music playing in the background and sparkly effect.

[Thomas]
Right. And it’s got, like, the star filter.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Soft. Yeah, soft focus.

[Shep]
I like that we can both see the same thing.

[Thomas]
Yeah. And her eyes are just (turkey noises), her tongue’s, like, flopping around in her beak. Yeah, that’s funny. What else? I still feel like the third act is pretty thin. It’s kind of like they show up and help him leave. And, I mean, I think traditionally what you would have is the mountain lion shows up again.

[Emily]
I was going to say, should there be another predator attack? And there’s a bloodbath and they all die.

[Shep]
Oh, Golly, there’s the Emily I know.

[Thomas]
I think if we were going to do that, what would happen is he’s on the inside and the wild turkeys are on the outside, and all of a sudden, the mountain lion shows up to attack the wild turkeys, and he has to escape from the pen to help the wild turkeys.

[Shep]
Now, my question would be, why are the wild turkeys suddenly incompetent if they’ve been escaping from this predator this whole time?

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Repeatedly.

[Thomas]
It’s a surprise attack.

[Emily]
I was going to say, are they incompetent or are they just- It’s a surprise attack. They’re in unfamiliar territory, and they only know how to, like, the tools and stuff are like, they think they’ll work a certain way, and they don’t. And so that’s not so much incompetence. It’s just their skills don’t translate to this arena.

[Shep]
Okay. If we have the predator come back for this finale, it has to be resolved permanently because that’s how movies work.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
So how do we kill this predator? Via turkeys?

[Thomas]
Right. Jake specifically has to take some action that causes it. He doesn’t have to kill the mountain lion himself, but he has to cause it to be killed or trapped by the farmer and taken out of the area or whatever. Is there a scene earlier in the movie, somewhere in the second act where things are going well, and Jake is realizing that he’s like, “These are my people. This is great. I love life out in the wild.” And then the mountain lion catches and kills one of the turkeys in their group, and he’s like, “Never mind, I want to go home.”

[Shep]
That’s pretty heavy.

[Emily]
It’s not unheard of in these kind of movies for there to be a scene of death that you accept.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
I mean, yeah, Bambi.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Hell, even Princess and the Frog has a saddest death in Disney, I swear, is that one.

[Shep]
It establishes stakes.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, it could be like the old grizzled guy or-

[Thomas]
It could be any of them, really.

[Emily]
Even literally anyone.

[Thomas]
And I think that they definitely have to talk about it. He’s freaking out.

[Shep]
Right. He wants to get back to the farm where there’s no death at all.

[Thomas]
Right. Oh, and maybe there’s a turkey myth about where everybody goes, like, in Logan’s Run. Right?

[Emily]
Oh.

[Thomas]
Because all of a sudden, all the other. Well, maybe they don’t know that. Maybe. How long does it take for a turkey to-

[Emily]
Don’t know. Couple years, maybe?

[Thomas]
I don’t know, because otherwise you would see turkeys disappearing all the time. Although they’re all so stupid.

[Emily]
Yeah. Don’t look up how long before they slaughter turkeys.

[Shep]
That’s not very long.

[Emily]
No, it’s much shorter than I thought it was.

[Thomas]
Well, how long is it?

[Emily]
14 to 16 weeks.

[Thomas]
Okay. So, feasibly, then, they would never have met any of the previous turkeys.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So they can’t have that Logan’s Run myth.

[Thomas]
Right. But you don’t need anything like that. Like, death is just not a thing they understand.

[Emily]
Right. It’s just one day there’s a turkey and-

[Thomas]
And they would all be killed together.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So he’s never seen anyone die.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So the death in the wild is the first time he’s experiencing that at.

[Thomas]
Yeah. That would really freak him out.

[Shep]
Oh, I can imagine him, like, “Well, are we going to wait for Tom?” It’s like, “No, we’re not waiting for Tom. Tom is gone.” Like, “Yeah, but how is he going to find us if we leave?”

[Thomas]
Yeah, you get that Big Bird, Mr. Hooper moment.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Sorry to make everybody cry.

[Emily]
No, too soon.

[Thomas]
Too soon?

[Shep]
How long ago was that?

[Thomas]
It’s like 30 to 40 years ago.

[Emily]
Too soon.

[Shep]
1982.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
It was 41 years ago.

[Thomas]
So it’s 41 years ago. Honestly, though, you’re not wrong. It is always too soon. That clip, if you want to cry. My God. We never did figure out, though, in the third act, like, what he does. I mean, he does something. The mountain lion comes back.

[Emily]
Drops a hay bale on him.

[Thomas]
Sure. I guess one question we could answer is, does that final battle happen at the farm, or is it after he escapes?

[Shep]
In the woods?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I like it happening at the farm because then that gives the wild turkeys the disadvantage of not knowing it. It’s low ground.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
They can’t get to the high ground. There’s no trees around.

[Thomas]
Oh, and we could establish something right at the beginning. Maybe the farmer puts out traps because there’s been a mountain lion in the area or something like that.

[Shep]
There could even be signs. Beware of mountain lion. Keep your eye out for these, whatever traps here. But he can’t read.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So we, the audience, see it. We know what’s going on.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So I like the idea of the wild turkeys are trying to coach him into flying out. Like, he’s thin. He’s been working out, he’s motivated, but he can’t do it. He still can’t do it.

[Thomas]
It’s a mental block at this point?

[Shep]
It’s a mental block.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
And then the wildcat shows up. Then he can do it. Then he can get out to save them because they saved him.

[Thomas]
Right. Oh, and maybe it calls back to the log thing earlier. He knows he can go into the trap, and he’ll be able to just go out the other side. But when the mountain lion comes into the trap, it’ll snap shut. Or however it works. It’s our own fictional universe. We can have some sort of fake mountain lion trap.

[Shep]
I like the idea of him dropping a hay bale on the- like, if there’s one on the edge of the upper part of a barn.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So he can fly up there to land on it, but then it doesn’t fall right away because he’s lighter now.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s like, “Oh, I should have eaten more. Oh, but then I couldn’t fly up here.”

[Emily]
Well, then does one of the other wild turkeys come and help?

[Shep]
Or maybe she does.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. They should work together for sure.

[Emily]
Yeah, we got to trauma bond these turkeys.

[Thomas]
So there’s, like, a bunch of different things they try to stop the mountain lion or scare it off or whatever. And then he has to have seen the trap work in the first act so that he can be like, “Oh, I know what we can do.”

[Emily]
Yeah. And the first act didn’t catch a mountain lion that caught something-

[Thomas]
No, it caused something else.

[Emily]
Like the family dog. Or something.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
It doesn’t kill it, it just traps it. Right?

[Shep]
What kind of trap is this that catches mountain lions.

[Emily]
It’s like a raccoon trap, but mountain lion sized.

[Thomas]
Scaled up, and it’s open on both ends so that our turkey can fly through.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh. In fact, when it snaps shut, because the mountain lion is right on his tail, and when it snaps shut, he almost gets- Barely makes it out before the thing slams down. Why is he afraid of the cat at the beginning, the house cat? If he has no concept of death, then why would he have fear?

[Shep]
Can the other animals talk to him?

[Thomas]
Sure. Yeah. The other, like, the cat and the dog that live on the farm, they’re not stupid. Maybe the dog’s job is to scare off other wild animals. I don’t know.

[Shep]
Right. The dog comes around to patrol, and he, like, tries to catch the dog in conversation.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He’s like, “I’m on patrol. I can’t stop and talk.”

[Thomas]
He’s like, “I only have a minute.” And the dog’s looking around suspiciously the whole time. He’s like, “What are you… What are you doing?” And then he explains, like, “There are things out here. They want to hurt you.” He can have a concept of hurt and pain.

[Shep]
The dog has to help him build a rocket to go to the moon.

[Thomas]
Do we feel like we have our bases covered here? We have a complete story.

[Emily]
I feel like it’s pretty complete.

[Shep]
I mean, you got to have more scenes in the middle when he’s in the wild where he’s discovering all the wild stuff.

[Thomas]
Absolutely. Yeah.

[Shep]
The beauty of the wild.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
But we know that that’s there.

[Emily]
We don’t need to go into the mundane details-

[Shep]
Right. All right. That’s a job for the writers.

[Emily]
Of the rolling hills, the giant trees and the mountain peaks at sunrise.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. Let the writers write the montage.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Turkey. Did you gobble it up or are you considering quitting us cold turkey? 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 have a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Emily, Shep, and I want to thank you for being a listener. And we’ll see you again on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Shep]
I’m so hungry for turkey now.

[Emily]
I want a big old turkey leg.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I knew that’s how this was going to go, too.

[Shep]
Yep.