Year One Review – Part 2

Find the post for Part 1 here.

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Emily]
Previously on Almost Plausible.

[Shep]
The whole episode is previously on Almost Plausible.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s the theme.

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Welcome to part two of our year one review for Almost Plausible. If you haven’t listened to part one yet, you don’t have to listen to it first. But this special flows a bit better if you do, so we suggest it. We’ll kick off part two with Bowling Pin. This one, early on, starts off with the return of an old friend.

[Thomas]
I don’t know how this idea came to me, but I pictured it in my head and I liked it. So some people are spelunking, because you know how much we love spelunking on this show.

[Shep]
Caving? There’s another word for that. What is it called when you’re exploring a cave?

[Emily]
Spelunking. It’s called spelunking!

[Shep]
Oh, okay.

[Thomas]
Emily, we love you.

[Emily]
You know what’s funny is I forgot that I said that, and I was this close to shouting that over the clip.

[Thomas]
Just a couple of episodes back, we were talking about a couple of clips back, we were talking about Whiteboard and how we kind of painted ourselves into a corner and ended up having to backtrack. With Bowling Pin, right at the very end, we got ourselves into a tight spot. But there was some clever, I guess, writing, for lack of a better word, that got us out of it.

[Thomas]
How do they pass a note to the teller without him knowing about it. When would they have written this note?

[Emily]
Before they meet at the bowling alley bar.

[Shep]
They know they’re going to the bank.

[Thomas]
So they have a note that says, “This guy is robbing us. He has a gun. Call the police.” And so while they’re signing in, they give the note as part of the hand, the ID and the note.

[Emily]
I like that. I mean, that’s feasible.

[Thomas]
And so they go into the room. And so now the police can show up without the guy realizing it. And so as soon as he walks out, the cops are there.

[Shep]
How do they get their diamonds back?

[Thomas]
Well, I was just wondering, how do they even get out of there with diamonds in the first place? Because I feel like the police would want to talk to them.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
They would have other things besides just the diamonds in the safe deposit box.

[Shep]
Would they? What do they have else in there?

[Emily]
I don’t know. I was thinking maybe they would have valuable paperwork that people have in their safe deposit box in addition to the diamonds.

[Shep]
That’s their cover.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
What do they do with the diamonds? Where do they hide the diamonds?

[Thomas]
Wait a minute. If I am pretty damn sure the police are coming, especially if the teller reads the note and gives a knowing look that I know the police are going to be on their way. I just have to stall the guy for long enough. Let him walk out with 100% of the diamonds. The police will probably hand the diamonds back to me. If it’s been 15 years, no one’s going to immediately recognize, “Hey, these are those missing diamonds.”

[Shep]
And they just said that the guy is robbing them.

[Thomas]
Right. “This was in our safety deposit box.”

[Shep]
That’s hilarious. That the police are handing the diamonds to the two thieves at the end.

[Thomas]
Is that reasonable?

[Emily]
Would it be reasonable because they’ve stolen the diamonds from a whole other place? It’s been a long time.

[Thomas]
Insurance has already paid out on those diamonds, so it’s not like they’re still looking for them.

[Emily]
This is a safe deposit box in another part of the country from where they were actually stolen. So it’s not something that these police have ever actually investigated. So they wouldn’t think anything of it.

[Thomas]
Could they have a falsified receipt or something that they put in the safety deposit box?

[Emily]
Of course, they’d have a forged receipt.

[Thomas]
Because the police would want to look. “Well, how do we know that those are your diamonds?” “Come back to the safety deposit box. We have the paperwork for it.”

[Emily]
Along with all of their other paperwork that is not questioned because that’s stuff you keep.

[Thomas]
Their passports, their birth certificate, some family photos.

[Shep]
Oh, they’re diamond importers. That’s their job. That’s why they were overseas.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that was maybe their cover all along. So all that paperwork is already in there. They made all of that stuff before they even robbed the place.

[Shep]
Right. Because that was going to be their cover.

[Thomas]
And it is.

[Shep]
Because they’re competent!

[Emily and Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
I can’t believe we turned Bowling Pin into another container.

[Thomas]
That’s a good point. But see, this time it was okay because the Bowling Pin was the thing.

[Emily]
It’s an unconventional container, therefore it makes it central to the plot.

[Shep]
Yup. I do like competent characters in movies. This one was pretty fun.

[Emily]
I have to say that that had seeped into my brain so deeply now that when I watch movies with incompetent characters, I’m like, “These people are stupid. Why do I care what’s going on?”

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
“God damn it, Shep.”

[Shep]
I don’t want to say that all modern DC superhero movies are idiots, but, man, are they hard to watch.

[Emily]
Yeah. I agree.

[Thomas]
It really takes me out of the moment when people either don’t react at all or react in a way that is not how normal people would reasonably react in that situation.

[Shep]
Or not how that character would react.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Especially in movies that feels particularly lazy. TV, the speed of production is such that, all right. You got to give them a little slack, I guess. But with a movie, that screenplay has been done forever.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
There’s no excuses at that point.

[Shep]
All right. So our next episode was Zipper.

[Thomas]
Oh. God. This one.

[Shep]
This is one where we talked earlier about how sometimes you can completely see the scene in your mind.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
This was one of those scenes.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
In the worst possible way.

[Shep]
In the best, worst way.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I cannot tell you the thrills and joy it brings me when I meet somebody who’s listened to Zipper and talks about that scene.

[Thomas]
It’s the scene from the show.

[Shep]
It’s the scene yeah.

[Emily]
The scene.

[Thomas]
So somehow he gets out of the suit and she’s able to… oh, okay. What if she pretends to be asleep and he thinks she is?

[Emily]
She hears it unzipping.

[Thomas]
Yeah. She hears it unzipping. And now she’s kind of freaked out and doesn’t want to open her eyes.

[Shep]
Oh!

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And she hears rustling and then it’s quiet. And so now she’s like, “What the fuck do I do?”

[Shep]
This is great because she has anxiety and she didn’t take her antianxiety medicine.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And she’s now sleeping next to a guy who unzipped himself for some reason.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So does she… it kind of gets to a point where she can’t be laying there anymore. She’s got to jump up and do something about it.

[Emily]
She does hear the door this time, for sure.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
This is when you have the same sounds that woke her up previously and now she can associate them with, “Oh, this is him leaving.”

[Thomas]
So is he facing her again?

[Emily]
Yeah. They were spooning.

[Shep]
That’s so…!

[Thomas]
Oh man, that’s awful.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I don’t like that.

[Shep]
Write that down. That’s fucking great. Because the whole time you’re focusing on her and her subtle reactions to what she’s hearing. Meanwhile she’s being spooned the whole time.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s great. There’s so much going on in the audience’s mind based on just the sounds they’re hearing.

[Thomas]
Because they don’t know yet.

[Shep]
Yeah, I love it.

[Thomas]
It’s great. Love it.

[Shep]
Super creepy.

[Emily]
(Whispering) Soooo creepy.

[Shep]
We’re doing it right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I have goose flesh.

[Emily]
It’s so good. It’s so good.

[Shep]
We didn’t mention the Zipper is on his back. He’s not, like, zipping down his fly on his pants.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
There’s a Zipper on the back of his body-

[Thomas]
I can see it in my head. I can see the framing of her in bed and his arm over her and just that slow push in toward her face as the sound effects are happening. (wince)

[Emily]
I love it.

[Thomas]
On a positive note, Ryan Reynolds gets a mention in this episode.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yay. We’re going to have to make the big list of top references, and it’ll be 1. Ryan Reynolds 2. Midi-chlorians 3. Newsies.

[Thomas]
We should come up with like, a tag cloud or something like that.

[Shep]
So our next one was Fireworks, which was another of our young people having fun movies, which we did a lot. Did we just like these kind of movies when we were younger?

[Emily]
I think we’re of a generation where this was what we were sold as, “This is fun. This is-” It creates an instant, instant nostalgia. And we’re told you’re supposed to go on these grand adventures while you’re young and do crazy shit now.

[Shep]
Yeah. So Superbad, EuroTrip.

[Thomas]
Even American Pie is in that same vein.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
American Pie.

[Thomas]
This is a good example of that problem solving that we were talking about before.

[Shep]
What if one of the kids smokes and he smoked in the car and was keeping it out the window or whatever, but when he went to stub it out because there’s trash everywhere. It starts a fire while they’re in the pawn shop.

[Emily]
They come out to his car burning.

[Shep]
No, because it’s still got to be working enough for him to drive away.

[Emily]
For him to drive off.

[Thomas]
They come out and it’s full of smoke.

[Shep]
It’s full of smoke.

[Thomas]
And there’s a small fire. It’s like smoldering on the seat. It’s like because he has that shitty fabricky stuff, so it’s all, like, melted and shitty, and so it stinks of burnt plastic and smoke. And he’s like, pissed off. “Fuck you guys. Not giving you a ride. You’re on your own.” Would they smoke or would they just vape?

[Shep]
Oh, yeah, I forgot what year it is.

[Thomas]
Okay. Is there a different way that they can start the fire, or is there some other thing that’s-

[Shep]
They could just be playing with a lighter.

[Thomas]
He got it from the convenience store when they were there the first time.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
What did he get it for?

[Emily]
Because it looked cool.

[Thomas]
Maybe it’s got boobs on it. It’s one of those bikini lighters. You click the button and her top pops up or something like that. Some stupid novelty lighter.

[Shep]
So that’s why he keeps flicking- go ahead.

[Thomas]
And it doesn’t work. It never flames. He’s like, “Well, that’s okay. It’s not why I bought it.” No, maybe he’s upset that it doesn’t work. He keeps flicking it and he’s goofing off with it. So they finally walk away and it does light.

[Shep]
So he’s upset when he sees the fire. He’s like, “Oh, no, my lighter.”

[Thomas]
Is that reasonable? Does that work?

[Emily]
That works for me.

[Thomas]
I mean, I don’t love the lighter lighting itself.

[Emily]
Could he try it one last time? They’re like, “Come on.” And then he does it and it does light. We see it light, but he doesn’t.

[Thomas]
It’s going to be like a Zippo where there’s a top that closes. And so, yeah, he’s goofing around with it and they’re like, “Come on, leave that here. Let’s go.” And so he just tosses it into the car, thinking that the top has closed, but it pops open and then rubs against the seat. It’s very convenient. If that’s the one sin this movie has, I’m okay with it.

[Shep]
“The one.” Such optimism.

[Emily]
Then just make him a smoker and have one of them make a comment about “Why don’t you just vape?” And he’s like, “I’m old school.”

[Thomas]
“Because I can’t buy cigarettes and I steal these from my grandma” or whatever. That’s why he doesn’t vape. That works.

[Emily]
Yeah. Okay. So he’s smoking, sets the car on fire.

[Thomas]
It’s a bit roundabout in that that was where it started with smoking, but-

[Shep]
But we examined it and, like, “Why is he smoking?”

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
And not doing something else.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And then we had to come up with reasons because it’s not just we’re old and so we remember smoking as children.

[Thomas]
Yeah. But it’s true. Like, kids would be vaping these days. And that was one of the modern day problems that we had to face in this episode. Also, everybody would have cell phones. That was a big issue that we dealt with in this one.

[Emily]
Yeah. Modern technology makes things a lot harder.

[Thomas]
I do like, though, that by the end of the episode, we weren’t caring so much about all those little details. Even Shep.

[Shep]
Yeah, so this is the big finale. The kids are now… oh, maybe the guy comes out of the pawn shop and they see him pointing at them or whatever, and they’re like, “We got to get out of here immediately.” Maybe they noticed the family resemblance or that they all have the same last- it doesn’t matter. Or they all famously are related. It doesn’t matter. So they get rides from other strippers. This is the big finale. They show up at the party with not just three boxes of fireworks, but a car full of strippers.

[Thomas]
Their shift is over or something like that. So they show up back at the strip club where they don’t want to be because they’re trying to get to the party. This is backtracking for them. They’ve moved away from the direction they want to go. They run into the aunt who’s like, “What are you guys doing here? I thought you were going to that party.” And then the other strippers are like, “Oh, you’re going to a party?”

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
“That sounds great. Let’s go.” And they’re like, “All right, great.” Meanwhile, the cops are coming.

[Shep]
That’s why the strippers take off, because the cops harass them all the time.

[Thomas]
Yeah. They’re like, “Yeah, fuck the cops. Let’s go. We’ll totally give you a ride.” So they get out of there. They show up at the party. Does one of the strippers bring beer?

[Shep]
Sure, why not? Just to go over the top at the end.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
This is the big finale. They show up. They got the three boxes of the fireworks. The strippers jump out. And like, “We brought beer!” And it’s like, where did that come from? Doesn’t matter. Don’t think about it.

[Thomas]
So the bully texted an address earlier. They’re like, “When you get the fireworks, come to this address” because he knows about the party that they don’t know exists yet. The party has happened completely independent of them. So they show up at the address. There’s like a party in full swing. And they’re like, “What?” And so people are like, “Hey, they’re here. They’re here.” And they come in and they’re the fucking heroes. Everyone’s cheering for them. They’re like, “Yeah, they got the fireworks and strippers and beer.” They’re like, “Yeah, you guys are the fucking best. We should hang out.”

[Shep]
I should have mentioned that that was the big finale. I kept meaning to bring that up.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah.

[Emily]
That would have made it a whole lot more clear what was happening.

[Shep]
Because it goes completely farcical at the end, as a lot of great movies do.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
There’s no reason or explanation why the strippers would have just, like, beer in their car and no explanation is needed because it’s the big finale.

[Thomas]
I think especially if you think about the audience who this is targeted toward, which is teens. And yeah, these strippers are probably of age, so “I guess people who can buy beer just have it in their car. I don’t know.” But there’s no meaning, you know, they’ll just justify it in their mind. So yeah, we don’t have to explain it at all.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
I love also in that clip where you’re like, “It doesn’t matter,” and then you start explaining more like, “It doesn’t matter.”

[Emily]
“It doesn’t matter,”

[Shep]
I have to keep stopping myself.

[Thomas]
It cracks me up every time.

[Shep]
So, for Cat Toy, we had another guest, Peter Wacks, which was great.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And we did- I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s play the clip.

[Peter]
Okay, so side idea: What was Churchill up to? I think he’d already gotten back from India. That was back in, like, 1890s that came back from India, I think? So what was Churchill up to? Because I’m thinking we can start a little bit of mash up here. We can bring in Churchill, maybe like, some of Her Majesty’s special guards and start to have some intrigue.

[Emily]
Could we involve the Freemasons in any way?

[Peter]
They’re kind of like ninjas. You know they’re in something because they’re not there.

[Thomas]
So from 1922 to 1924, he spent the first part of that near Cannes and was painting and writing. He was just, like, on vacation during that time, basically.

[Peter]
Yes.

[Shep]
At least that’s the cover story.

[Peter]
What a perfect cover.

[Emily]
Wow.

[Peter]
Thank you, history. You knew what we were going to want to do.

[Shep]
So how old is Indiana during this time? Because Churchill is 48.

[Peter]
You know, we’re putting way more thought into canon than producers actually do. In my experience, “I don’t know. Just write the thing.” Writers figure it out.

[Thomas]
Okay. We really did overthink certain elements of that story, but-

[Shep]
I think we thought them the right amount, which is some.

[Thomas]
Amazingly things worked out.

[Shep]
Yes, a lot of it worked out really well. It rewards thinking.

[Thomas]
Yeah. It’s one of those things where, like, if you didn’t know any of those facts, then the story would be enjoyable. And if you did know those facts, there’d be just a little extra edge of “Oh, nice. I like that.”

[Shep]
Yes. A little bonus thing.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Like on episodes of West Wing, this is an old reference, when they had what’s, the deaf woman?

[Thomas]
Oh, what is her name?

[Shep]
Marley. I didn’t know there was going to be a quiz. And it’s a reference that I’m bringing up. So she had a translator and he’s translating, but he wasn’t translating exactly what she was signing. And so if you knew sign language, you get a little extra joke there. It’s great. I like that kind of stuff.

[Thomas]
Yeah, for sure.

[Emily]
Yeah. I would like to point out that we sort of wrote an Indiana Jones movie and now there’s going to be a new Indiana Jones movie.

[Shep]
I’m not saying that we caused that to happen, but it’s an interesting coincidence that this sort of thing happens all the time.

[Thomas]
At least we got ours out there first.

[Emily]
That’s right.

[Shep]
Yes. This time.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So Padlock was our next episode.

[Shep]
Oh, Padlock was a rom-com.

[Emily]
Yeah. And I have to say about our rom-coms, Padlock is the only one so far that I forgot was ours. I was watching, like, some Hallmark Christmas movie or something the other day, and I was thinking, I was like, “Oh, what was that movie where they flirt and she’s at the barista?” And I was like, “Oh, wait, that’s not a real movie. That’s our Padlock episode.”

[Thomas]
That does happen to me every once in a while. I’m like, “What was that movie? Oh, it’s one that we came up with.” It’s not a thing I’ve seen. It’s a thing that only exists in my brain.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
But I really wanted to watch it. And then I was disappointed to realize that it wasn’t real.

[Shep]
You can always relisten to the episode.

[Emily]
This is true.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true. Unfortunately, sometimes we have a great idea that doesn’t get made. We had another one of those missed pitches in our Padlock episode.

[Shep]
Oh, man. Here’s a new pitch. Someone who padlocks their other personality. Like they’ve split Severance style.

[Thomas]
Interesting.

[Shep]
They have their normal, loving family dad personality, and then they have the cold-blooded killer personality. And when they put the lock on, they’re locking away their emotions. They have that cold blooded killer personality and maybe the lock breaks, so now they have to do a job. But they’re the family man dad trying to go out and be a hitman.

[Emily]
“How do I do this?”

[Shep]
I mean, it could have gone the other way, where it breaks, and then he is the cold-blooded killer when he’s home with his family. But I think it would be more interesting. I think it would be funny.

[Emily]
It’s more entertaining the other way.

[Thomas]
You do a Sliding Doors type of thing. You just cut back and forth between the two timelines.

[Shep]
So he’s got the split personalities and they just end up swapped?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So it’s the cold-blooded killer at home trying to pretend to be a happy family guy and then-

[Thomas]
He’s like burning pancakes. “I can’t fucking do this!”

[Emily]
Little girl comes in. “I need to potty.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That is a good one.

[Shep]
That was a good one.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And we didn’t do it because we had a rom-com.

[Emily]
We should go back and revisit some of these. Pick one and be like, “We’re going to do this story.”

[Shep]
If you’re listening to our episodes and you think we should have gone with a different pitch, leave it in the comments.

[Thomas]
Yeah, definitely let us know. I think that would be a really fun episode to do.

[Emily]
It would be.

[Shep]
We have another clip from Padlock.

[Emily]
But how do we instigate it between them? Like, she’s tried to text him a few times.

[Shep]
Oh, he goes to the coffee shop. She no longer works there.

[Thomas]
She can’t bear to work there anymore, watch him walk by every day.

[Emily]
Right. Watch him walk by with some other woman’s coffee in his hand.

[Shep]
It’s got to be another woman, it’s not just from a rival coffee shop.

[Emily]
Nope.

[Thomas]
So what has she been doing in the meantime while he’s been trying to get his career back on track and getting coffee from another shop? She quits this one coffee shop. What does she do?

[Emily]
Well, she was an illustrator, so she got a job as a graphic artist down the street.

[Shep]
Right. She was not pursuing her career. She was happy where she was because she got to see this guy every day that she liked. They did the opposite. They were doing the opposite lives. She was passing up opportunities to stay there to see him in the hopes that it would turn into a relationship at some point. And he was not turning it into a relationship to not miss opportunities at work, literal, exact opposites in their choices. And so without that potential relationship, she no longer passed up opportunities. An opportunity came up for illustration work or something. And so she quit her coffee job and went to do that. That’s great. You guys are really good at this.

[Thomas]
It’s like we’ve watched a few of these kind of movies before.

[Emily]
Right?

[Shep]
So what’s not in that clip is the whole set up to that. So that, me ranting for a minute there, is just me realizing that everything’s locking into place. Everything that we’ve previously talked about. It’s all, dovetails together. Yes. I was really, really pleased with how that one came together.

[Thomas]
It’s funny because that seems to happen in a bunch of them where I think we come up with a bunch of ideas, we throw a whole bunch of stuff out there. Sometimes seriously, sometimes as a joke. Sometimes we abandon it and then later realize, “No, wait, I want that again,” and sort of pull it out of the trash pile and yeah, really end up putting together some things where you get that pay off of a bunch of stuff that we have set up earlier, whether intentionally or not.

[Emily]
Yes. We appreciate the callback. And we know that when the gun’s on the table, it’s got to be fired. Maybe in the beginning we’re not intentionally setting it up for that, but we remember “We have that really good thing. Let’s bring that back in and tie it all together.” Weave it in-

[Shep]
Right. We just strewn guns all over. Some of them are going to go off later, and we’re going to go “See? That was intentional.”

[Emily]
We’re Johnny Appleseed. It’s fine.

[Thomas]
Johnny Chekhovsgun? Well, after one rom-com episode, we decided to switch things up. And so with Washing Machine, what did we do? Oh, another rom-com.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
They’re so good.

[Shep]
This was one of my favorite clips, by the way. It was just a pristine Emily joke.

[Thomas]
For sure.

[Shep]
For sure.

[Thomas]
Okay. Do they have a fight? And if so, what do they fight about? What’s the impetus?

[Shep]
Maybe they’re talking about continuing to try to find their way off the island or stay on the island. Like, maybe one of them is happy on the island and one of them is not because it’s coming up on a year of their time there. I don’t know. Is that something worth fighting over?

[Thomas]
That’s why I ask. Is it even a fight?

[Emily]
It’s a tickle fight, and-

[Thomas]
Is it too coincidental that it’s exactly one year, or because we’re dealing with magic that’s excusable?

[Emily]
Because we’re dealing with magic it’s excusable, I believe.

[Thomas]
Somehow the conditions have to be recreated, right?

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
It’s What Women Want All over again.

[Emily]
The date needs to be the same. Time needs to be the same.

[Thomas]
Right. The same coincidental series of events happens because magic.

[Emily]
Well, it needs to be the fight because it needs to be the low point.

[Shep]
Oh, no, it’s not a fight. It’s the opposite of a fight.

[Thomas]
Oh, my god. Yes.

[Shep]
The first scene where they’re fighting over the washer, she jumps on top of the washer and is sitting on the lid to keep it closed so he can’t put his clothes in and he’s trying to get her off. And that’s when they’re shocked.

[Thomas]
He reaches over to grab the knob, and she grabs his hand to pull it off. They both get shocked, and as they pull back, that’s when they see they’re on the island and they’re looking around. So, yeah. Now, a year later, their hands are all over each other.

[Emily]
She’s on top of the washer. They’re making out. He’s trying to get her off.

[Thomas]
Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

[Shep]
Perfect.

[Thomas]
Love it.

[Shep]
My favorite zinger.

[Thomas]
This was a banner episode for Emily because later in the episode, we learned some pretty, um…

[Shep]
Oh yeah.

[Thomas]
Some pretty interesting details about the way her brain works.

[Emily]
I think another bonding moment where they fight but kind of make up is maybe she’s doing something semi dangerous that she shouldn’t be because she’s not athletic or strong enough to do it. Like climb a tree to get something or something like that. And he kind of freaks out on her, and is like-

[Thomas]
Or she’s turned her back on the ocean-

[Emily]
Yeah, something.

[Thomas]
Or is walking around barefoot in the shallows not realizing, “Whoa, hold on, you could step on something that’ll-“

[Shep]
“Kill you.”

[Thomas]
Poison you,” yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. And so he just freaks out and starts screaming at her and telling her that she’s being stupid and irresponsible, so she brings him, like, a mango later to make up for it, and is like, “Yeah, you were right.”

[Shep]
Wait, she’s bringing-?

[Thomas]
She apologizes to him?

[Shep]
Whoa whoa whoa. I think we’ve learned something about Emily here.

[Emily]
Wow. Apparently.

[Emily]
I’m a people pleaser. That’s all you need to know.

[Thomas]
I just love hearing the realization in your voice, too, in that moment of like, “Oh, wait, you’re right.”

[Shep]
Yeah. As she was saying that, I was confused, like, “What?”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“What happened?”

[Thomas]
It’s not the direction I thought the scene was going to go.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah. This podcast is just therapy for me.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I’m working through a lot of things with you guys.

[Thomas]
We support you, Emily-

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Thank you.

[Thomas]
And your journey through-

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Whatever this is.

[Shep]
So our next episode was a container again.

[Thomas]
Oh, goody.

[Shep]
Oh, goody. Our favorite type of episode.

[Emily]
But was it a rom-com?

[Shep]
Well…

[Thomas]
It was like a horror heist comedy.

[Shep]
There was one character that was romantic in it.

[Emily]
That is true.

[Thomas]
True. That’s true.

[Emily]
It does end with a wedding,

[Shep]
Yeah. This one was Tupperware.

[Thomas]
I’m just worried that makes Deborah too weak of a character. It’s very… Everything that she does to rescue herself happens to her. Not because of her.

[Shep]
No no no no no no no. You’re missing the scene that I didn’t tell you about.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Where Deborah convinces Trish to take that message and tell the bikers. So Deborah is taking her rescue into her own hands by convincing Trish to switch sides, because Trish is on the borderline, but she’s still afraid of Shannon and toeing the line even though she doesn’t want to.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And Deborah convinces her to finally-

[Thomas]
Because Deborah is a fantastic saleswoman.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
She’s using her skills.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Thomas]
I love that “You’re missing the scene I haven’t told you about.”

[Shep]
Yes. Also, how many times did I say no? This is classic Shep. Also, all of the villainesses, their names start with S. Like Steve’s name starts with S. Was that intentional?

[Thomas]
So, Shep, what you’re saying is-

[Shep]
Oh, no.

[Thomas]
People whose names start with S.

[Shep]
Can’t be trusted.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Don’t act so surprised.

[Thomas]
Well, trust plays a really big part in our next episode, which is Contact Lenses.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Are these actually aliens? Is this an alien invasion?

[Shep]
I say sure, because what’s the aliens’ motivation? The aliens’ motivation is to take over half the population and have them fight the other half because they don’t care which side wins.

[Thomas]
Right. Do the dirty work for them.

[Shep]
They just want to reduce the population enough so that they can come in later and take over the rest of the way.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Which makes it even worse, because even if they get a cure, maybe it’s too late.

[Emily]
The aliens are already approaching.

[Shep]
Yeah. The aliens are already here. They just need to wipe out the majority of the people.

[Thomas]
I guess that brings up the other question, which is what is the end of this movie?

[Emily]
Is there hope for humanity?

[Shep]
No. Oh, you mean in the movie?

[Emily]
Yeah. In the movie.

[Shep]
Also no.

[Shep]
Yeah. Truth hurts.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Sorry.

[Thomas]
I liked the idea of using know who to trust. And, I don’t know, just like when there was hope, we really managed to pull the rug out from under our people a number of times. They would get something so beneficial or they would make it to where they’re trying to go and they would be safe, but not really, actually. Even at the end, the final resolution is like-

[Shep]
Yeah, this is a good episode.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I see a lot of movies where there’s something so big happening that it feels like the climax. And there’s, like 30 minutes left in the movie. You’re like, “Where are you going to go from here?”

[Emily]
Right? What’s next?

[Thomas]
And I feel like with this one, we did a good job of that, building that tension and having those bigger losses and bigger wins. And really, when you got turned to the very absolute end, it feels like the big ending where everything truly, finally is on the line. Now, it’s no secret Shep has a delicate constitution.

[Shep]
Oh, no.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Contact Lenses. There were some-

[Shep]
Yes, it has a scene.

[Thomas]
It has a scene.

[Emily]
Oh, yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So because the three of them can pass and this is a checkpoint where people are killed, their cover is, “We brought this person to turn in to you.” And so they’re all taken in. “And they had all these extra eye drops, too, with them that should probably be destroyed as well.” So they all go in, and then maybe they aren’t given more than just one guard because it’s one woman and four of us. So the three of them or four of them overpower the one guard and make their escape.

[Shep]
Okay, maybe two guards. So they don’t say, “Hey, we have eye drops with us.” They just have backpacks with eye drops in it. And so they’re escorting, two of the guards are escorting the one uninfected woman into the area, which could be just a horrific blood everywhere. So she could be screaming and whatever. And maybe Sally is looking queasy because she’s trying to pass as infected, but she’s not. And so anyway, one of the guards is like, “What’s in the backpacks?” And opens one up, and it’s like, “Why do you have the eye drops? It doesn’t make any sense. What would you even need that for?” And that’s when they know their cover has been blown and they have to attack these guards.

[Emily]
They grabbed some guns and shoot some people. No?

[Shep]
If it’s loud, if it’s a gun…

[Emily]
That’s true. They steal some knives and slits and throats.

[Shep]
Right, but it’s two on one, times two.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So it’s not an instant-over fight. It’s a hard fight.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
So they can overpower the two guards and they can’t go back to the car because there’s more guards out there.

[Emily]
They have to crawl through the mass grave to get to the other side.

[Shep]
Oh, gross. But yes.

[Emily]
I love that you two are grossed out by this stuff.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. Fragile. I’m very fragile.

[Emily]
I’m the one that’s like, “Let’s make this as gross and creepy as possible.”

[Shep]
I brought it on myself at the beginning. I’m like, “Oh, yeah. And they kill lots of people. There’s blood everywhere.”

[Emily]
Then I just take it as-

[Shep]
And then Emily is like, hey, remember the Killing Fields? Yeah. They’re going to have to crawl through that gore to get away. Not as bad as the scene from Zipper, but-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Not great.

[Thomas]
Well, Shep, you’ll be pleased that there’s a nice palette cleanser coming. And that is another rom-com.

[Shep]
Is it? What’s the next episode?

[Emily]
It’s not a rom-com.

[Thomas]
Sort of. Okay. It’s a romance.

[Emily]
No, because Shep was very clear on this. There was not to be any romantic entanglements.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s right. Well, ignore me then.

[Shep]
Oh, it’s Mac & Cheese. I know what we’re talking about now.

[Emily]
It’s Mac & Cheese. It’s not a rom-com.

[Shep]
It’s not a romance. They’re children. Let children be children.

[Emily]
I got a lot of flak for that. This would be bildungsroman, is how you say it.

[Shep]
Is it how you say it?

[Emily]
Yeah, bildungsroman.

[Thomas]
I have no idea what you’re trying to say. What are you talking about? I feel so out of the loop here.

[Emily]
It’s a literary term for coming-of-age story.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
It’s German for formative years growing. (Bildung, meaning “education”, plus Roman, meaning “novel”)

[Shep]
Right. It’s not a rom-com. The main characters are a boy and a girl, but it’s a coming-of-age story.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He kisses her and she backs away. “What are you doing?”

[Shep]
Or maybe he tries to run away because he doesn’t know how to respond because he’s a kid. And she’s like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. And she won’t let him get away.

[Shep]
“We got to talk about this right now.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s good.

[Emily]
I like the idea that neither one of them wants the kiss necessarily. He thinks it’s the right moment. The sun is setting, there’s fireflies coming out.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And she reveals some deep secretive truth about herself. And he’s just like, “Oh, this is like-“

[Thomas]
He assumes it’s what she wants.

[Emily]
Yeah, because maybe she shares another really deep vulnerability with him. And he’s just like, “Oh, maybe she wants me to do this.” And he kisses her.

[Shep]
Oh, she talks about, because she’s a nerd, she talks about some scene in some book that she read that was like this, where the two romantic characters get together and there were fireflies and the sun was setting, and it was very romantic. And then he kisses her, and she’s like, “Whoa, I didn’t meet us!”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Right. Yeah. Maybe she’s like, “This is how I want my first kiss,” or something like that. And so he’s thinking, because she’s just talking out loud to her friend, and he’s like-

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
“Now, should I do that?” And he does, and she’s like, “Not you!”

[Thomas]
Poor guy.

[Emily]
And then he’s like “Oh!” And she’s like, “No, I don’t mean it that way. It’s just I want it to be-“

[Shep]
“Someone taller.”

[Emily]
No, she would never.

[Shep]
“I mean, that bully is pretty tall. I’m just saying.”

[Emily]
“He doesn’t seem to like me that much. For some reason, I’m attracted to that.”

[Shep]
“He’s such a bad boy.”

[Emily]
“I think I could fix him.”

[Emily]
I think we learned a little bit more about me in that episode, too. I reveal too much about myself here.

[Thomas]
One of the things I really like in that episode is moving it away from the idea of it being a rom-com, which I think is what Hollywood probably would have done because it is typical and easy. And this actually sort of explores some of those ideas that that kind of interaction between men and women is forced on us through movies, and to the point where that’s, like, become the expectation.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And so that’s what those characters are dealing with, is they have that cultural, societal expectation of, “Well, we’re a boy and a girl. And this feels like a romantic moment and we’re talking about kisses and stuff. So I guess that’s what I’m supposed to do. Even though I don’t maybe feel comfortable with this.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
We like each other, therefore it must be romantic because men and women can’t be friends. Right, Emily? Right, my friend Emily?

[Emily]
Right. Right, Shep. Impossible.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
I haven’t known both of you for 20 years without being romantically entangled.

[Thomas]
Another great thing that we do in this episode that goes against the grain, I suppose, is the idea of the role of the bully.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
My daughter recently went through what she decided was bullying, and I was like, “Well, it’s kind of teasing, but I get how you would feel it was bullying and-“

[Shep]
gasp Is the bully not a bully? Is the bully just teasing what he thinks is his friend? And his friend is being devastated by it, but he doesn’t recognize it because he doesn’t have that sort of awareness of the world. He doesn’t even realize how devastating what he’s saying is, because they’ve always been friends since they were younger.

[Thomas]
And he just thinks it sucks that we don’t hang out as much as we used to.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“You’re always hanging out with that weird chick.”

[Thomas]
He doesn’t realize he’s pushed his friend away. He just thinks, “My friend has pulled away from me for some reason.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And he’s always trying to give him a good-natured ribbing to show like, “Hey-“

[Shep and Thomas]
“We’re still friends.”

[Shep]
“See, we’re still joking.”

[Emily]
That could be. I know my children don’t react well to teasing and my siblings and I rib each other endlessly and sometimes they do it to them, thinking, “Oh, this is how I show affection.”

[Shep]
Right!

[Emily]
And they’re like, “Why are you being mean?”

[Shep]
That’s how the bully’s family is. That’s how his older brothers are. So that’s what he thinks is how you-

[Emily]
That’s how you show affection.

[Shep]
I get so excited re-explaining the plot that you guys have pitched. Like, this is not the first time that Emily will say something. I’m like, “Oh, yes, obviously.” And then I’ll say the whole thing. It’s like, “Yes, that is what Emily said. Correct, Shep.”

[Thomas]
I’ve noticed I do the same thing as well. Usually when Emily comes up with something, Emily really is the backbone of this show.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And then we just repeat what she says.

[Emily]
Well, I was going to say it’s because I’m a woman, so clearly the idea cannot come from me.

[Thomas]
Right. We’re just making sure that all the men who listen stay on board.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Like, “Don’t worry. A man said these words also.”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
You have to mansplain to me again what I told you so that other men will be like, “Yeah!”

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s right.

[Shep]
Oh no, I’m a cliche.

[Emily]
I never take it in that tone ever. I take it as-

[Thomas]
Honestly. I think it’s just that we get excited.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
That you got excited and you want to reiterate it in your own words so that you’re processing it equally.

[Thomas]
Yeah. It’s us working through it because we know we’re going to build on it and yeah. Shit. Did I just do what we were just talking about?

[Shep]
Yes. Excellent example, Thomas.

[Thomas]
Alright, let’s take a quick break here. And when we come back, we will finish reviewing our first year of Almost Plausible.

[Break]

[Thomas]
We are back. What is the next episode?

[Shep]
The next episode was Post-it Notes and it was like, this is our true crime podcast episode.

[Thomas]
Yeah. We’ve got to do something in the zeitgeist.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
I want the main character also to have, like, a girlfriend or wife who starts to suspect him because he’s starting to act weird, right? And he’s been arrested.

[Thomas]
The Post-it Note has his handwriting.

[Emily]
And it has his handwriting, and she’s just like, “I can’t believe I… We’ve known each other for so long. We share a bed. How did I not see this?” And she’s convinced because the police have convinced her, so she’s moved out.

[Shep]
No, she’s into it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
She listens to so much true crime podcasts.

[Shep]
Yes. So she’s like, wants to plan the next murder with him. And he’s like, “I’m not a killer.” She’s like “It’s okay.”

[Thomas]
She’s like doing interviews with her favorite true crime podcasts.

[Emily]
Right. She’s like “You’re my own personal Ted Bundy.”

[Shep]
That’s great.

[Thomas]
“Babe we’re going to be famous.”

[Shep]
“What’s this ‘we’?” Because at some point, he gets out of his house to try and stop things, and so the police know that he’s gone missing. That’s when she’s doing interviews with true crime podcasters, because this is surely confirmation of his guilt that he has fled.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
I want to watch this now.

[Emily]
I do, too.

[Shep]
I’m convinced.

[Shep]
I still feel that way. I still want to watch it.

[Thomas]
That’s so true of a lot of our episodes.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
So I don’t know how popular in terms of downloads our next episode is, but somebody I was talking to recently who has been listening to our show, she said this was her favorite episode and that is the Space Jam Sequel. No, but ours is good.

[Emily]
Ours is good.

[Thomas]
Certainly better than the actual one.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
I was going to say some sort of like collar, electric collar or, it’s the only way they get food is to perform.

[Emily]
Something like that.

[Shep]
(Distressed noises)

[Emily]
You act like you’ve never seen a Looney Tunes cartoon Shep. They’re full of violence and mayhem.

[Shep]
Yeah. I would like, and I know this is out there, I would like there not to be any slavery in the sequel. That’s my opinion. I’m coming out against slavery.

[Emily]
That’s a bold choice for you.

[Thomas]
What does it say about Emily and I, white people, whose go to was like, “Yeah, we’ll just throw some casual slavery in there. It’s fine.”

[Shep]
“We’ll put collars on them and force them to-“

[Thomas]
Yeah. Shep, it’s not slavery. It’s just indentured servitude.

[Emily]
There you go.

[Thomas]
So it’s fine. It’s totally different.

[Emily]
I think we might need to be reiterating that slavery is bad.

[Thomas]
Yeah. In this day and age? It might be worth mentioning.

[Emily]
I think that might be a lesson people need to learn. And if it’s through cartoon violence, so be it.

[Thomas]
Well, we’ll have it as an option that we would prefer not to use.

[Shep]
“We’ll keep slavery as an option,” says Thomas.

[Thomas]
Put it on a t-shirt.

[Emily]
We’re going to hell.

[Shep]
Yeah. I’m not going to wear that shirt.

[Emily]
I can’t.

[Shep]
But they did talk about being slaves in the original Space Jam. Like, that didn’t come out of nowhere.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
That was a thing. And rewatching the original Space Jam recently, in order to do this episode, those scenes really stuck out to me. It’s like, “Oh, all this slavery stuff makes me uncomfortable.”

[Thomas]
I will say I feel like I bought back my slavery comments with what I think was a clever realization about the nature of some of the characters on the show or in the movie.

[Shep]
Well, here’s where you have if you want to plug a bunch of other Warner Brothers properties, this is where you do it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They’re teleporting randomly. They need to teleport randomly until they get back to their universe. You don’t just put all of those random properties in the audience. That’s… Oh, God, the sequel was so dumb!

[Emily]
That does make more sense, because then, like you said, they can go visit Batman, Wonder Woman, whatever.

[Shep]
Right. Here’s another thing. Why didn’t Superman help them in the sequel? Helping people is his jam.

[Thomas]
You may even say it’s his… jam. No, you said it. Yeah, that would be really great, too. Like, oh, they have to put together a team of aliens and Superman’s there, and they’re like, “What are you doing with the alien team?” Like, “Oh, yeah. He’s technically not from Earth. Dang it.”

[Thomas]
I’m just pleased I thought of that. And yet another episode with Ryan Reynolds.

[Shep]
Yes. What’s our Ryan Reynolds count? We need to get a ding going.

[Emily]
We also included Paul Rudd.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
I don’t know where he stands in our references.

[Thomas]
He doesn’t get quite as many mentions, but we do like him.

[Emily]
We do.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Paul Rudd is welcome to join the show as well. I’m just throwing that out there, Mr. Rudd. I’m single.

[Thomas]
String was an interesting episode.

[Shep]
String was an interesting episode.

[Emily]
I kind of really loved String. I thought it was neat that it was sort of this futuristic alternate reality, but also sweet in a way.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It was another one where we did a lot of thinking about the things that go into it, not just going with our first instinct and whatever. We’re actually pausing and going, “Well, wait a minute, why would they do this? How would they do this? Where does this leave?” And we move things around.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And took another pretty strong stance.

[Thomas]
How long has humanity been able to sever the strings?

[Emily]
Two generations.

[Shep]
Yeah, fairly recent.

[Thomas]
So it’s like kind of like World War II-ish, postwar.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. It was a postwar development.

[Shep]
Invented by the Nazis because they were severing everyone’s string. So it’s also kind of got that history.

[Thomas]
Right. So it was invented in the 30s or 40s, around that period of time. Had this really negative connotation. So immediately after the war, there was strong string intactivism.

[Shep]
That’s glorious.

[Thomas]
And then more modern sensibilities are like, “Well, yeah, the Nazis used it in a really shit way, but they were forcing that on other people. And-“

[Shep]
Are we going to be “yay, Nazis” in this?

[Thomas]
No no no.

[Shep]
Okay. Just making sure.

[Thomas]
So to be clear, Almost Plausible is anti-slavery and anti-Nazi.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
100%.

[Shep]
Glad we got that on the record.

[Thomas]
String, does that one have Ryan Reynolds? Why, yes, of course it does. Another sort of out there episode is the Shampoo episode.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
I actually forgot about Shampoo until tonight.

[Thomas]
Is this our first body swap episode?

[Shep]
Gender bending episode, not body swapping episode.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s true. You’re right.

[Emily]
No, because technically, Zipper involves sort of body swapping, gender bending.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. So we don’t even have original ideas from our earlier ideas.

[Thomas]
What I really liked about this show, and this clip in particular, is just seeing really convincing character development and change.

[Shep]
All right, well, I think we have it. I don’t think we’re missing anything unless you want some sort of dramatic climax.

[Thomas]
Well, I mean, do we have her convinced is my only question.

[Shep]
Well, if we jump forward for a month and they’re moving it sure sounds like they’re convinced. If they’re moving their stuff into the same moving van.

[Thomas]
I almost don’t like that. I want a more ambiguous ending. But I like those kind of open endings personally.

[Emily]
Do you want them to just be walking home after the restaurant and have her be like, “It was nice that you joined me.”

[Thomas]
Right. It’s like not a happy ending. It’s like a nice ending.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Shep it sounds like you have an idea.

[Shep]
I have an idea and I’m going to tell it to you. And you can go, “No, that’s a bad idea.” And I don’t care.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
I’m going to say it anyway. He’s got three months of trying to be an influencer in the other life. And so she starts talking about whatever. She’s telling him about her day or whatever. And she starts talking about a new product. And he’s like, “Oh,” and he has opinions about it because he tried it.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And he’s like, “Well try this other one. It’s smoother on the skin” or whatever. Fucking I don’t know.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And she’s like, “What are you…?” And he’s like, “Oh, yeah, but also this one.” Now they’re going down the aisle of like beauty products and he’s got opinions on fucking everything.

[Thomas]
Okay, so I love this. They’re walking home and she’s not convinced. She’s happy that he joined them for brunch. He’s said he wants to go with her, but that’s still a month away. “How do I know you’re not going to change your mind?” And he’s like, “You’re right. It’s going to take time. Tell me about your day. Tell me about what’s going on in your life. What’s something new in your life? Tell me about something new in your life.” She’s like, “Well, I tried out this new moisturizer.” And he’s like, “Oh yeah, that one.” And so then he knows about it, like you said. So he has all the opinions. And they’re maybe going past a department store or something. They’re going past somewhere that sells a bunch of things. And he goes, “Actually, come here,” and pulls her into the store and is showing her all the different things. And she’s like, “How do you know all this?” And that is obviously very outside of the way that he would normally act.

[Shep]
One of the things that he has to say is when he’s recommending different products for her, he’s like, “Oh, and I have some shampoo you absolutely have to try.” And that’s it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Then you have that jump forward later. She’s convinced. And then you just see in the moving van is a big bulk box of that shampoo. Don’t call attention to it. Just let it be there.

[Thomas]
That’s funny.

[Emily]
I like that.

[Shep]
Yeah, that was a good episode.

[Thomas]
So next is Chalk. Now, without looking, can anybody remember what that episode is about?

[Shep]
Yes, that’s the one where he goes into the imaginary world.

[Thomas]
Yeah, there you go.

[Emily]
Don’t remember how we had it end. Did we have it end on a good note or-

[Shep]
Didn’t he become a famous artist or something?

[Thomas]
I don’t remember. But I do remember that writing is hard.

[Emily]
So hard.

[Shep]
Writing is hard.

[Thomas]
So the conflict that we’re up against right now is that if we want to stick with that original idea we were talking about where Charles gets sort of a redemption arc, maybe, Charles needs to somehow find out that James is innocent. So how do we do that? So perhaps William is trying to seek absolution.

[Emily]
He’s found Jesus?

[Thomas]
Well maybe he’s been sentenced to death. He’s committed other crimes; he’s sentenced to death. And so now he’s trying to, last minute, clear his good name in the eyes of the Lord. And so he confesses to the priest who comes to hear his final confession about this. And the priest looks into it and realizes, “Oh yeah, this guy is totally innocent.” Or maybe just goes and tells the officials that, “Hey, this person has confessed to this crime, which matches what the original guy that we put in jail was saying 10 years ago.”

[Shep]
So you’re having the priest tell officials what was told to him in confession. Am I understanding that correctly?

[Thomas]
After the guy is killed, does the priest have any requirement to maintain that?

[Shep]
After he’s killed, why would the officials believe the word of a priest? He could be making it up. He could have been paid off.

[Emily]
He could be acting on behalf of William and saying “He has requested that I inform him to inform you this is how he wants to clear his conscience this is how he wants to pay his penance.” That’s the only way that he would have the ability to tell the authorities.

[Shep]
OK, what crime did William commit that got him sentenced to execution where our main character who is in jail for murder isn’t being executed?

[Thomas]
Double murder.

[Emily]
Can William be dying from like syphilis or something and not sentenced to death?

[Thomas]
Oh, okay.

[Shep]
But why are people believing the confessions of a dying person? They could be saying anything, they have nothing to lose.

[Emily]
Because people weren’t as cynical back then?

[Thomas]
So there was never a murder weapon that was found because William ran out with the knife in his hand and he gets outside and realizes he has it. So he ditches it. He hides it somewhere. And it’s still there. He’s never moved it from that hiding spot. So he’s able to say this is where that murder weapon is.

[Shep]
OK, that’s good. Now there’s actual evidence. I don’t know how good the forensics were in the 1890s.

[Thomas]
But I mean, if they’re willing to throw a man in jail on no evidence…

[Emily]
I mean they didn’t even have a murder weapon.

[Shep]
See you were very convincing earlier, Thomas, when you’re talking about if it were me in charge, I would never admit to wrongdoing.

[Thomas]
Right. I mean, we spent half the podcast just working on how to get James out of prison, believably.

[Shep]
Which is just going to be a 30 second segment of the actual movie. That’s the care that we put into each one of these pitches.

[Emily]
I can think of three episodes that were very broad-strokes.

[Shep]
Yeah, writing is hard. You’re right.

[Emily]
I like how sometimes the story dictates whether it’s going to be broad stroke or very detail oriented.

[Thomas]
I think writing gets really hard when you’re trying to write characters that are believable and who are competent and not just do the lazy stereotypical thing because it’s easy. We want to do the thing that’s more difficult because it’s more interesting.

[Shep]
Yes, agreed.

[Thomas]
Speaking of interesting, our 34th episode was Fire Extinguisher. A container of sorts, I guess. But a very fun episode because we switched things up a little bit.

[Shep]
I say we make the children’s book first and then have it adapted into a movie.

[Thomas]
Yeah. That’s basically how Hollywood works now.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
I’m serious about making a children’s novel, Raccoon on the Moon.

[Emily]
We should make the children’s book Raccoon on the Moon. So let’s skip this one and pick a different one.

[Shep]
Or we make the children’s novel in this one and say, “Okay. And then the movie version is the adaptation of that.”

[Emily]
Okay, let’s do that.

[Thomas]
The original premise of this show was that we were not going to be only doing movies, that we could also do other forms of media. So we could just do that for this episode.

[Emily]
Let’s do it.

[Shep]
Let’s take everyday objects and turn them into things.

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into children’s books.

[Shep]
There we go.

[Thomas]
There we go.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I am on board.

[Emily]
That makes my serial killer pitch a little bit different.

[Shep]
You had all the clips of me saying “children’s novel” over and over and over again.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I was going to say I love Shep saying “children’s novel”. My favorite part.

[Emily]
I mean, to a child, it is a novel.

[Shep]
No, children read novels. I read Watership Down when I was in kindergarten. Is that not everyone else’s experience?

[Thomas]
I’m really disappointed, though. After we finished recording that episode, we started to look up Raccoon on the Moon and discovered that that idea exists all over the place.

[Shep]
That title exists.

[Thomas]
That title.

[Shep]
All of six children’s books with that.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because it rhymes. And I get it. I get it. But it was a really good story, really cute story. And if we had another title, hint, hint, audience, if you could think of a better title, leave it in the comments.

[Thomas]
Well, the last episode I want to take a look at on today’s show is Candy Corn. Which, boy, was that a real departure for us.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
Oh, Candy Corn awakened something in me that I cannot turn off.

[Shep]
Writing for that was so fun.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that was the first time in a long time, I think all three of us sat down and actually wrote something creative like that. A thing that we all have enjoyed doing in the past and just really haven’t had time as adults to do. And so this was a fun assignment for us to be able to do that again.

[Shep]
Right. Because this podcast is a creative outlet, but it’s not the same as setting up a story with a setup and a payoff just all on our own.

[Thomas]
To really shake that up, we decided to record the podcast in a slightly different location.

[Shep]
(Pained groan)

[SPEAKER 1, MALE, IDENTIFIED AS THOMAS J████ BROWN]
Alright, it’s right over here, guys. And watch your step.

[SPEAKER 2, MALE, IDENTIFIED AS F███████ PAUL SHEPARD]
This is some bullshit.

[BROWN]
I tripped on that last time. Look, so I’ve got the fire going already and everything. It’s nice and warm.

[SHEPARD]
You have a fire going unattended in the woods? Are you insane?

[BROWN]
Alright Smokey. Did the woods burn down?

[SPEAKER 3, FEMALE, IDENTIFIED AS EMILY ██████ (REDACTED DUE TO ██████’S ASSOCIATION WITH ██████)]
Where are we sitting?

[BROWN]
Oh, you know, I remembered to bring all the recording equipment and I did not remember to bring chairs, so that is a good point.

[EMILY]
So we have to sit on what?

[SHEPARD]
The rocks?

[EMILY]
The logs, sticks, leaves?

[BROWN]
The leaves are probably the cleanest, so that’s what I’m going to pick.

[EMILY]
Fine. Did you at least bring marshmallows?

[BROWN]
I did. I brought some s’mores stuff and this episode’s theme, candy corn. You guys like candy corn, right?

[EMILY]
I do.

[SHEPARD]
No.

[EMILY]
What?

[BROWN]
Oh.

[SHEPARD]
I hate everything about this. I liked candy corn until this moment.

[EMILY]
Come on. It’s candy corn.

[SHEPARD]
It’s candy corn at night in the woods.

[BROWN]
Well, I thought, you know, for our Halloween episode about candy corn, we could do something special and record where we’ve got some cool diegitic sound.

[SHEPARD]
Yeah, when you said “We’re going to go someplace special,” I thought a cabin. You know, walls, a roof.

[EMILY]
This is nice. It’s cozy. There’s a fire, there’s marshmallows. I have beer. Where’s your sense of adventure, Shep?

[SHEPARD]
I hate the woods.

[EMILY]
Just drink enough beer and you will forget we’re in the woods. What’s that sound?

[BROWN]
What sound?

[EMILY]
I don’t know. You guys didn’t hear that?

[BROWN]
I think you’re hearing things. Don’t freak Shep out, alright?

[SHEPARD]
Hilarious.

[BROWN]
He’s going to leave, and we need him here to do the episode.

[EMILY]
No. For reals. I’m not making it up. I wouldn’t do that. I know he’s uncomfortable in the woods and doesn’t-

[SHEPARD]
You absolutely would. Oh, you know what that sound was? It was the serial killer from this episode. That’s what we heard.

[Thomas]
We survived.

[Emily]
We totally survived.

[Thomas]
We didn’t burn the forest down.

[Emily]
Nobody died.

[Shep]
Yeah, I for real did grow up in the woods, and I don’t like them. That’s why I moved to the city.

[Thomas]
That was definitely a fun episode, though, for a whole bunch of reasons.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
It was so much fun.

[Shep]
Yeah. We should write more.

[Thomas]
Yeah, we should.

[Emily]
Yeah, we should.

[Thomas]
Well, I think we’re definitely going to be doing more episodes like that in the future. Not a lot more, but more certainly. Maybe we’ll make it a Halloween tradition. Well, that’s the first 35 episodes. Hopefully you all liked them. We certainly have had a great time making this show.

[Emily]
This is my favorite day of the week when we get together and do this.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I’m really glad that this is a thing that we joked about on a Zoom call once and then decided to actually pursue because I’ve been having a blast doing this with you guys.

[Shep]
Agreed.

[Emily]
Yeah, I 100% agree.

[Shep]
And so which of these episodes was your favorite? Leave a note in the comments.

[Emily]
Yeah. Give us some reviews, interact with our Facebook, Instagram. Maybe I’ll make a TikTok here.

[Shep]
I really am seriously curious which episode is people’s favorite, because it should be Paper Bag, which is the best episode.

[Emily]
Yeah. I mean, Paper Bag is great, but Padlock has that sweet cuddle up on the couch kind of feel.

[Thomas]
And apparently Paperclip is super relatable to people.

[Shep]
But Penny is also really good.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. Also, Zipper sticks with you. You’ll never forget Zipper.

[Shep]
Don’t start with Zipper. Ease into it.

[Thomas]
I was talking to somebody recently who started with Candy Corn, and they were like, “That’s not how they should normally is, is it?” I’m like, “No, not at all.” “Okay. That’s what I thought.”

[Emily]
No, that is also not a good one to start with.

[Shep]
Well, this was fun.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Wise, I think you’ve gathered we would love to hear your thoughts about Almost Plausible. Is it your favorite podcast or just your second favorite podcast?

[Emily]
We can’t all be Morbid.

[Thomas]
We can’t all be This American Life we can’t all be Radiolab.

[Emily]
We can’t all be Superduperstitious.

[Thomas]
We can’t all be My Brother, My Brother and Me.

[Shep]
I’ve heard of that one.

[Emily]
We can’t all be Wine and Crime.

[Thomas]
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 Whether you’re new to the show or you’ve been here from the first pitch, we want to thank you for listening. Emily, Shep, and I, will return for another year of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]