Ballot

References

• Isekai
• Christopher Guest
• Parks and Recreation
• Friendship imposter syndrome explains why you sometimes feel like your BFF hates you
• Almost Plausible: Nothing
• Friends
• What is stage business in theatre?
• Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• Gaslighting
• Speed
• Speed 2: Cruise Control
• Survivor
• The Sopranos

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
That’s her fear. Like, she’s in therapy to get better and, like, grow as a person. And eventually she’s like, in her mind, she’s like, eventually she is going to do these things. She hasn’t done it yet, but, like, she’s young. She’s got lots of time.

[Emily]
Stop listening to my recordings of therapy. Jeez!

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. We do that by starting out with a pitch session where we take turns campaigning for our story ideas. We take a vote, and once a story is elected, we develop it into a full movie plot.

[Emily]
That took me far too long to get.

[Thomas]
Today is election day here in the US so the ordinary object we chose is a Ballot. I’m Thomas J. Brown, and I’m joined by my running mates, Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
I’m happy to be here today.

[Thomas]
As far as who pitches first, at least for this episode, my name is first on the ballot.

[Shep]
I mean, alphabetically, it would be first.

[Thomas]
Depends.

[Emily]
Oh, if we went by last name.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
We go by first name. It’s me.

[Shep]
So what I’m hearing is I’m never first.

[Emily]
Nope. You are always the middle child, Shep.

[Shep]
Ugh!

[Thomas]
My first idea was an isekai-style story where somebody introduces voting to a European court, so they like, vote for king or something.

[Shep]
It’s weird to hear you use the word isekai. Who’s going to back voting in the European court? Like, the nobility is going to go, “Yes, we’re going to give up all our power and unilaterally decide that from now on, the government is going to change and the power is going to belong to the people.” See, I’m just world-building it out now. Like, this system would collapse because the peasants didn’t seize the power for themselves.

[Shep]
And they won’t appreciate it, they won’t hold onto it, and then the aristocracy are going to just take it over. Sorry, no.

[Thomas]
Okay, well, never mind that idea then.

[Shep]
Sorry. I’m saying “No. Stop. Stop, Shep.”

[Thomas]
Alright, my next idea is a small town in Middle America that decides to redesign its local election ballot after years of complaints. A volunteer committee of locals take on the task, and things spiral into chaos. I was imagining a sort of Christopher Guest-style feel for this one.

[Emily]
Yeah, I was thinking it sounds very Parks and Recs esque and designed by committee. A ballot designed by committee. That’s…

[Thomas]
So you know, it’s going to turn out great.

[Emily]
Yeah. In a movie designed by committee.

[Shep]
Oh, no.

[Thomas]
Uh oh. Finally, we have. In a coastal town, residents can vote daily to determine the next day’s weather by adjusting the dial on a mysterious old barometer. The system has worked well for years, but when livelihoods collide and rival factions form, the vote becomes a battleground, causing a storm no one voted for that threatens to tear the town apart.

[Emily]
Wait, why wouldn’t they just have it be 68 to 72 degrees daily with-

[Shep]
Look, the crops need the rain.

[Emily]
Yeah, well, I mean, it’s 68 degrees today because it’s raining. Tomorrow it’ll be 72 because there’s sunlight.

[Shep]
I think, Emily, that this story is an allegory for some other political system.

[Emily]
What? No.

[Shep]
Also magical reality, which is kind of our jam.

[Emily]
I do like that. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Those are mine. Let’s see, who’s the middle person? I guess we’ll do Shep.

[Shep]
Okay. I don’t know if I’ve pitched this before on the podcast or not. I’m pretty sure that Emily and I have talked about it before.

[Emily]
That’s where I’ve heard about it. I was like, “Doesn’t this already exist somewhere?”

[Shep]
You saw my note, and it was like, “I think I’ve seen this movie.” So it was you and another mutual friend of ours were talking about this idea that some people feel that their friends aren’t really friends with them and they’re just pretending, which was an idea so alien to me. I was like, “Oh, man, I’ve got an idea for a movie.” During a secluded dinner party, a group of friends is taken hostage by masked intruders who force them all into a brutal choice: They must unanimously vote for one among them to die, or they will all be executed at dawn.

[Shep]
So you have your ticking clock, and it’s basically people arguing for why they should be allowed to live, why they should be allowed to exist. It’s kind of like the idea that I pitched for the Nothing episode-

[Thomas]
Mmm.

[Shep]
Where someone wakes up and there’s someone in the room, and they’re like, “You’ve done nothing with your life, and we’re gonna kill you and harvest your organs and save other people, unless you can justify why you should live.” So this is that kind of movie. People are afraid that all of their friends would choose them if they were in this situation. I think that that is a thing that some people fear.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, I’m sure.

[Shep]
And that’s the kind of scary movie that you want.

[Emily]
This would be very intense and anxiety-inducing for someone like me.

[Shep]
Yes. So that’s the scary one out of the way. I have a funny one, which is: due to a misprint on the ballot, a regular random person is accidentally elected to the state supreme court, and… And then hijinks ensue.

[Emily]
They have to learn the law as they’re-

[Shep]
They have to learn the law and learn the ridiculous power that state supreme court justices wield. All right. That’s all I have. Emily, what do you have?

[Emily]
Okay, so here’s my one and only pitch: It’s a ballot box heist. A group of people want to rig the election on a popular talent show for purposes of winning at gambling stuff.

[Emily]
So they make a plan to steal the real ballot box and replace it with theirs. Before you ask why there are paper ballots for a reality talent show when they all use online and telephones, the answer is “Just because”.

[Thomas]
Oh, because in previous years there’s been like, hacking and all sorts of like, bots doing vote fixing, so-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yep. So that is. That is my pitch.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
What do we like? I’m either with Shep’s first one, the secluded dinner party, friends voting each other off the table, or your coastal town one.

[Thomas]
Yeah, those are the two that I like the best as well.

[Shep]
Same.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I think as soon as both of them were read, we all were like, “Oh, that’s a good one.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah. So what do we like?

[Emily]
I do like them both a lot. But I do like Shep’s a tiny bit more because of murder.

[Thomas]
Okay, I like them both.

[Shep]
Because of the murder.

[Thomas]
I’d be happy with either one, honestly. They’re both stories I want to pursue, so the only sadness is not being able to pursue both of them.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
So, secluded dinner party?

[Emily]
Secluded dinner party.

[Thomas]
How many people are in this friend group?

[Shep]
Six.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
Or is it seven? So- Oh, no. Because then there’s always-

[Thomas]
Oh.

[Shep]
We don’t count Gunther. He doesn’t count. It’s six.

[Emily]
No, when I was gonna say we can’t have seven, because there would easily be a majority.

[Shep]
Right. You want six to have a tie.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
So is this three couples. So when I originally had this idea, it was a couple as the main characters. One of them doesn’t even want to go to this party and is talked into it, and then they go.

[Thomas]
It could be one happily married couple, one unhappily married couple, and one couple who’s dating?

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Sure. Yep.

[Thomas]
But the unhappily married couple is hiding it; no one knows that they have problems yet.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And then what? A couple of intruders with guns and six people with not guns. Or do we need more intruders?

[Emily]
Three intruders.

[Thomas]
Three.

[Shep]
Three.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, that’s a good dynamic. You have three couples and three intruders.

[Thomas]
So do we ever find out the motivation behind the intruders?

[Emily]
Isn’t it always scarier when you don’t know why?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
So, no. I vote no.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
I think one of the friends is afraid that the whole thing is a setup and that-

[Emily]
They’re all in on it to kill her.

[Shep]
They’re all in it to kill them.

[Emily]
It’s a her. Come on.

[Shep]
Okay, then it’s a her. That’s our main character.

[Emily]
I’m not- Not to be sexist, but I think more women feel that way than men.

[Shep]
Oh, that’s fine, because I don’t feel that way. So-

[Thomas]
Yeah, I don’t.

[Shep]
Okay, so you’re right.

[Thomas]
Does someone die at the end? Or does one of the friend group die at the end? Or do they defeat the intruders?

[Shep]
Or do they all die.

[Thomas]
Hmm. In solidarity?

[Shep]
Because they were never gonna let go?

[Emily]
Or do we leave it ambiguous and let the audience decide-

[Thomas]
No.

[Shep]
No. No. Take a stand. I’m so tired of ambiguous endings. So how does this end? If we don’t want an ambiguous ending and we can change it later as we’re plotting out the story.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
But I think the main character should die at the end because it’s a horror movie and that’s the scariest ending.

[Emily]
That they all should die?

[Shep]
No.

[Emily]
Or should the one specific person die? Okay.

[Shep]
Just the one sp-

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Because remember, this is the fear we’re tapping into that some people think that their friends aren’t really their friends.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
So if that’s the fear we’re tapping into, her friends aren’t really her friends. This is all a big setup.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
That’s the scariest, most awful ending.

[Emily]
That is the scariest most awful ending.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
I’m having heart palpitations thinking about it.

[Thomas]
It’s already working.

[Emily]
Because I am that person.

[Thomas]
So the climax of the film is finding out that it was all a setup, and her friends really do all want to kill her?

[Shep]
Or do you want that to be a twist before the climax?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That’s what I was thinking, but I didn’t want you to shout at me and say “No twists.”

[Shep]
No, twists are fine. If it’s not at the end, it’s fine.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
You want the audience to see a twist and go, “Oh, that’s a good twist.”

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
And not go, “Oh, that doesn’t make any fucking sense.” So, yeah, you have that twist where it’s revealed that all the friends want her to die.

[Thomas]
And then there’s maybe like a chase type of thing. Like she’s trying to escape once she knows that that’s the truth.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah. And the masked intruders are other friends who, who are there. They’re part of the whole thing-

[Shep]
Oh, geez.

[Emily]
Who “couldn’t make the party”.

[Thomas]
Oh, so is that part of that reveal? So at the beginning of the film, you see the three masked intruders without masks back in the city waving people off. “We’ll take care of your dog (or whatever).” And so there’s some something that one of them says that comes up later. They have some turn of phrase they use, and then they say it later while they’re wearing the masks. And she’s like, “Wait a minute. That’s a pretty unique thing to say.”

[Shep]
If you’re in a disguise, are you going to say anything unique to give yourself away?

[Thomas]
I imagine that this is something that’s been going on for hours or maybe even over a day.

[Thomas]
So at the beginning, of course, you’re going to be disguising yourself, not talking, whatever, but presumably that personality mask that they’re putting on is slipping and fading away because they’re becoming more comfortable. Does that make sense?

[Emily]
I get what you’re saying. They’re getting worn down. I would think more that they would accidentally slip because the adrenaline’s picking up and they’re getting excited about what they’re about to do. And as they get closer to the frenzy of it all, their mask is slipping.

[Shep]
I thought that it would be revealed when she’s trying to escape and, like, knocks one of the masks off. So literally, the mask slips.

[Emily]
We could do both, because we could do it for audiences who are good at paying attention and remembering details, so that the masked person says something to where if you’re paying attention, you’re going to catch it and you’re going to know ahead of everybody else. But she doesn’t catch it.

[Shep]
Ah.

[Thomas]
Or not even a thing that they say, a thing that they do.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Some sort of business that that character has. By business, I mean, like the thing we see them doing on screen, not their job.

[Emily]
Yeah. Some kind of mannerism or something.

[Thomas]
Right. A mannerism. That’s probably a better-

[Emily]
Oh, I guess you’re not explaining it to me, you’re explaining it to the audience.

[Thomas]
No, no. Yes.

[Emily]
I forget there’s a group of people listening and it’s not just us talking.

[Shep]
I always forget that we’re recording these.

[Thomas]
But yeah. So I like that idea, Emily, of a little clue for attentive audience members that suggests that. But maybe one of the masked people… Maybe she has escaped or is hiding or is holed up somewhere.

[Thomas]
And so the plan that the group comes up with is: one of the masked people is going to take off their mask and be an ally and tell her, “I’m here to escape. Somebody was able to text me, I know what’s going on. I’m here to help you escape.” Whatever. So then she comes out, but then is immediately captured. And then that’s like, “Well, we may as well take the other masks off and reveal to you that it’s all of us,” and she has to re-escape. I’m not sure how she does that, but.

[Shep]
Or she dies at the end because it’s a scary movie.

[Emily]
No, she should die. I thought we did decide she was dying at the end.

[Thomas]
I meant re-escape before she is eventually killed.

[Emily]
Yeah, okay.

[Thomas]
So I kind of want to get a sense, I guess, of the overall plot. So do we like the idea of: It starts out in the city, we see the masked friends unmasked without realizing that those three later are going to come back to be bad guys. Or at least we see one of them.

[Shep]
Right. If we see three people and then we later-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
It’s gonna be too obvious.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I like the idea of it being like the main character and whoever she’s with, and then it’s her friend or sister, because that would make it even creepier.

[Thomas]
And then at some point later, maybe they, while they’re traveling there or when they get there, they talk about, “Oh, that’s too bad this couple is, you know, out of town. They would have loved to come.” So we establish this idea of they know two more people, but we sort of fool the audience. We lie to the audience and say, “Oh, but they’re not even in the state that are out of state” or whatever.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So the three people are her sister and then another couple. Is that correct?

[Emily]
Sure.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay. So they go- The main character doesn’t want to go to the party, ends up going to the party, gets talked into it by her boyfriend, goes to the party, and it’s fine. It’s awkward. They’re talking about stuff. “Did you make up with your sister? I know you guys had a big fight.” So backstory, backstory, exposition, exposition. And then when do the people come in? Do we want it to just happen, or do we want tension already?

[Emily]
Oh, tension already. Of course.

[Shep]
Okay, how do we establish that?

[Emily]
Yes. How do we establish tension?

[Thomas]
Are the masked intruders the mid-second act turning point?

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Oh, man. But see, everybody knows they’re coming. Everybody that’s seen the poster or watched the trailer knows they’re coming.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Which also builds tension in the audience because they’re waiting.

[Thomas]
Yeah. But I’ve seen movies where I know vaguely what the plot is, and it takes like 20 or 30 minutes to get there. And I’m like, jesus, let’s get the movie going already.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Right. If you could advertise it as just a tense dinner party, that would be great. To have that as a mid-second act twist where murderers come in. If you could advertise it without that, then it would be great. But the advertising is done completely independently from the filmmakers.

[Thomas]
I guess the question is, like, this movie is almost certainly never going to get made, so we can do whatever we want.

[Emily]
Then let’s make it the mid-second turning point, because I think that they should have this whole conversation. At first, it’s the awkward interaction, and then as the dinner progresses, it slowly becomes more in-depth. They play, maybe they play some games and that you just see this person feeling more and more awkward and left out, even though they are seemingly to the audience and to her, trying to include her in everything.

[Emily]
But really, it’s all very calculated to prey on that.

[Shep]
Okay. She feels superior to them because she sees fakeness all around her. This is why she thinks all of her friends don’t like her, that their friendships are fake, is she sees everything as fake. She sees the married couple that have been married for a while, and she’s like, “That’s fake happiness. They are not happy together. They want to get a divorce. And they’re just smiling and pretending that everything’s fine.” But she knows that they’re not happy together.

[Thomas]
And she’s right about that.

[Shep]
She’s right about that. And she’s also right that all of her friends hate her and wish she were dead. So she’s right. She’s smart and she’s right. It’s the best protagonist. Because everyone in the audience goes, “That’s me. That’s me. I’m smarter than everyone else. And that’s why they don’t like me.”

[Emily]
That’s not at all-

[Shep]
Oh, no. Is that not how it works?

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
See, you gotta explain it to me because I don’t get it.

[Emily]
No, no. It’s: I am entirely inferior to everyone I hang out with.

[Shep]
Ah.

[Emily]
Everyone is smarter than me.

[Shep]
Well, that’s the opposite of what I said.

[Emily]
Anything I say is stupid, or I’m trying to seem smarter than them so that they will look up to me, but then they see through it. So I’m actually stupider for even attempting that.

[Shep]
Ah. Oh, man. She has to tell a joke at some point, and nobody laughs. And it just goes silent, just for a moment. And then they go back to whatever they were conversing about.

[Thomas]
Oh, god. Oh, that’s so painful.

[Emily]
Yes, exactly. That is. That is gonna make a lot of the audience go, “Oh, fuck, that’s me.”

[Shep]
I want the audience to cringe themselves to death before the murderers even come into the frame.

[Emily]
Yes, yes.

[Thomas]
So does she know that the couple is having a problem?

[Emily]
I think she does. I think that’s one of those things where she’s-

[Thomas]
I mean, it could be both.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Like, she can see through some of the fakeness, and she is right about those things.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And so while she is technically correct that they all hate her, they’re all telling her, like, “Okay, so maybe those things are true, but if this were true, why the fuck would we have invited you?”

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
“Those things might be right, but that doesn’t mean that this one other thing is right, too.”

[Emily]
Right, right.

[Thomas]
And yet, no, it is. She’s actually right about that. It turns out.

[Emily]
Because that I honestly would say is my biggest fear is that if I, you know, I tell you these things and they’re like, “Yeah, sometimes you are, but we really love you.” I mean, no one’s ever “Actually said, yeah, sometimes you are.” But I think that’s what they think.

[Thomas]
It’s because we love you, Emily.

[Emily]
And it’s like, “We love you. We wouldn’t invite you. We wouldn’t include you if we didn’t like you. We are smarter than to keep you around for what dumb reason?”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“Because I’m in a relationship with Trevor and you like Trevor and you couldn’t invite Trevor without also inviting me. I get why I’m here. And it’s not because you like me. You like him.”

[Thomas]
So, is she a friend from college, and Trevor is the newest to the group, but she still feels that way?

[Shep]
Yeah, sure. I think that the reason that they don’t like her is that she says out loud all the things that they’re keeping secret that they all know, but you just don’t say.

[Emily]
Because she doesn’t have that filter. Yeah. I like this because part of why she is able to see those things, but not know for sure if it’s true, is, you know, childhood trauma.

[Emily]
She’s hyper vigilant, but she’s also like, I’m too hyper vigilant, and half the time I’m wrong and half the time I’m right. But she’s right this time. With these people.

[Thomas]
So is her thought process, like, these things should be addressed, like, these are causing problems, so you should address the problems, and then they won’t be problems anymore? You’ll ultimately be happier instead of prolonging this difficulty. Or is she just, like, on the spectrum and doesn’t have that filter?

[Shep]
I don’t know.

[Emily]
It’s either way.

[Shep]
It could go either way.

[Emily]
Yeah, because she could either be like, “I’ve been through a lot of therapy. I’m working on this, and I’m telling you, this is- You need to get this off the chest. You need to address it.” Or it could be definitely like, “I’m on the spectrum, or I have CPTSD,” that kind of thing.

[Shep]
I so sympathize with this person now. I don’t want to continue with the pitch, because this is awful. What happens to her is awful and unfair.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s why this is a horror movie.

[Emily]
This is why it’s scary.

[Shep]
It’s making me so uncomfortable just talking about.

[Thomas]
Then it’s working.

[Emily]
Exactly.

[Shep]
Oh no!

[Emily]
I don’t know. Which way do you guys want it to go? You’re normal. You have functioning brains.

[Thomas and Shep]
Ehhhh….

[Thomas]
Yeah, I don’t- I don’t know.

[Shep]
That’s tough. We should hire some writers.

[Emily]
What if- What if she’s just anxious? We’ll just go with anxious and not make it this big, complex issue.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
That she just… Her anxiety makes her impulse control a little less effective. Meaning she will blurt out things, not thinking about it. And then, like, as soon as it’s out, she’s like, “Oh, shit, I shouldn’t have said that,” kind of a thing.

[Thomas]
I almost feel like that gives her friends a reason to not like her.

[Thomas]
Or at least that gives the audience an explanation of why her friends may not like her. And I think what we need to see as the audience is it’s all in her head.

[Emily]
Okay, so she doesn’t say the things out loud. Maybe she says the things to the boyfriend because she doesn’t have to say it to the married couple. “Oh, did you notice? They did this? They- I think they’re having trouble because she said (this) or he did (that).” And then the partner would be like, “You’re reading too much into this.”

[Shep]
“You see negativity all around you all the time.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“Why are you always like this?”

[Thomas]
Is he gaslighting her?

[Emily]
Well, I mean, he is, but we don’t know that.

[Thomas]
I mean, more than that. Like-

[Emily]
Is he purposefully doing it?

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Oh, I don’t know. Little column A, little column-

[Shep]
So you establish at the beginning that she loves him a lot and is afraid that they’ll break up. That’s one of her big fears. And that’s part of the reason she agrees to go to the party that she doesn’t want to go to is because he wants to go to it. And she wants to be the kind of person that would go to parties with her partner even when she doesn’t want to, to support them so they can have a good time. So that’s her fear. So when she’s sneakily saying stuff to him-

[Shep]
So like, “Hey, did you notice this? Did you notice this?” And he is like- “You see,” like he’s upset that she’s so negative all the time. She is afraid that he’s going to see that she’s always negative and break up with her. Like, in her mind, at this point in the party, this is the worst thing that could happen to her, is that he breaks up with her. So it seems like they’re going to break up. He’s like, “And this and this and this…” Like he’s building up to break up with her. And that’s when the masked people come in and interrupt her getting broken up with. So for a moment, she’s relieved even subconsciously-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That he didn’t break up with her.

[Emily]
And subconsciously, she’s like, “Trauma bonding.”

[Shep]
“Score.”

[Thomas]
“That’ll strengthen the relationship so much.”

[Emily]
It worked in Speed.

[Shep]
It didn’t. It famously did not work in Speed.

[Emily]
I’ve never seen Speed 2, so I don’t know.

[Thomas]
Yeah. They’re not together.

[Shep]
They’re not together in Speed 2.

[Thomas]
All right, well, we’re going to take a break here, and when we come back, we’ll figure out the rest of our Ballot-related story.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we are back. So the masked intruders have just shown up.

[Shep]
Finally.

[Thomas]
And I had an idea during the break.

[Shep]
Oh no. I- Okay.

[Emily]
You took a shower? That wasn’t that long a time.

[Thomas]
Did you have an idea, Shep, that you wanted to share?

[Shep]
Yes. I was- We were in the middle of talking about the masked people coming in. I wanted to set up the voting, but you have an idea. Go ahead.

[Thomas]
Oh, I have an idea. Okay. What if one of the masked people is not her sister, but her therapist?

[Shep]
Oh geez.

[Emily]
Oh, no.

[Thomas]
And so at the beginning of the film, it opens with her in therapy, setting up this weekend. “Ah. My friends have invited me to go to this thing, and I don’t know. I don’t really want to go.” And she’s, like, catastrophizing.

[Shep]
“They don’t really want me there.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“They’re just inviting me because of my boyfriend.”

[Thomas]
And her therapist is, like, bringing her back down to earth, like, calms her down and is like, “I think you should go. I think this would be good for you.”

[Emily]
Yeah. “This is really important.”

[Thomas]
Right. And maybe even gives her, like, an exercise to work on while she’s there. So we see her doing that. And then at some point after the masked intruders show up, she’s able to… Maybe they take all the cell phones, and so she finds a working landline at one point when she escapes or is locked up or something. But she can’t remember anyone’s phone number except her therapist. That’s the only number she knows by heart. And so she calls.

[Shep]
You all know your parents’ phone number.

[Thomas]
That’s true.

[Emily]
True.

[Shep]
It’s not the only number that you know she would.

[Thomas]
Maybe she tries that, though, and… Or maybe we. We know her parents are out of town or- I don’t know, whatever.

[Shep]
Those are.

[Thomas]
Like-

[Shep]
The other two people is her mom and dad.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Let’s make us the worst possible situation.

[Emily]
The family-

[Shep]
It’s all of her friends, her therapist, and her parents.

[Emily]
And her parents.

[Shep]
All want to kill her.

[Shep]
See, I would be on board with her therapist being there as one of the masked killers if she’s having a psychotic break and it’s not really happening, because that would explain the amazing coincidence that her therapist wants to murder her.

[Thomas]
I don’t know that it would be a coincidence. I think it’s just the case that this is a thoroughly awful person that everyone hates. Not an awful person, but a very hateable person.

[Shep]
Who? The main character?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I don’t think that she is hateable. I, see-

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
I think that’s the fear is that she’s- She thinks that she’s normal, but she also is afraid that everyone hates her. Like, that’s a rational. That’s a normal thing that people fear. Not awful people. Awful people don’t realize they’re awful.

[Thomas]
I don’t mean that she’s like, awful as in, like, oh, what a bad person she is.

[Thomas]
I just mean, like, for whatever reason, like-

[Emily]
They all are against her.

[Thomas]
The situation is already not real or realistic.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So, like, maybe there’s some curse on her, you know, whatever. It never has to be explained. It’s just that everybody actually hates her.

[Emily]
No, they just find her annoying. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Including her therapist. Like, nobody can stand her, and everyone’s just being polite because that’s the social contract.

[Emily]
Right. And the fear. It taps into the fear of, I’m not doing anything wrong, but they still hate me, and it’s showing.

[Thomas]
Right. Right.

[Emily]
She’s literally not doing anything wrong, and they still hate her enough to kill her. It’s just that psychological fear come true.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
See, I think that it goes over the line between “This is scary, but could plausibly happen” to “This is scary and also unrealistic”.

[Thomas]
So it’s a hat on a hat then.

[Shep]
It’s a hat on a hat.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
She’s at a dinner party, and all her friends, it comes out, that they hate her. And if they had to choose one of them to die, they choose her. That’s the fear. It doesn’t need anything else.

[Thomas]
Okay. I agree with that.

[Shep]
I kind of don’t want the three masked people to ever be revealed to be her friends or her sister or anything.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
They’re just three random people that randomly came.

[Shep]
To this location. And it’s just unlucky for this woman.

[Emily]
So her friends don’t want to kill her. There’s no twist.

[Shep]
Her friends do want to kill her if they had to make a choice. I think- So let’s get to the voting because this episode is about ballots.

[Emily]
It’s about ballots.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
So it’s a secret ballot.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Everyone has to write a name down, and nobody knows what everyone voted for. And then, I don’t know, Survivor-style. Are the killers reading out the names and tallying them up, like, who’s got how many?

[Thomas]
I guess so.

[Emily]
I do like them reading them out as part of the terror of it.

[Shep]
Yeah. Now let’s get to the unanimous vote part.

[Emily]
But would she ever agree? Does she-

[Shep]
This is what I’m saying. Does she have to agree to vote for herself, or is it unanimous in the sense of: everyone else has to agree? Because the argument could be made for fully unanimous, as in to save everyone else, she has to sacrifice herself, but also she’s the friend willing to sacrifice herself, and everyone else is still willing to sacrifice her? They’re all the bad people. She’s the only good person in the movie.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So it’s not that everyone hates her because she’s awful. Everyone hates her because she’s good and they’re awful.

[Emily]
Is it just going to be one vote, or are we going to have a couple votes?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
At least a few.

[Thomas]
They’ll have to be multiple votes.

[Emily]
Okay. So she’s always voting for herself, and they don’t know that. So the first time it’s very like-

[Emily]
Like everybody’s name’s in the hat or something like somehow like that.

[Shep]
I don’t think it would be just coincidentally everyone.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
It’s two or three or four.

[Emily]
Two for this. Yeah, yeah. And then her. But we don’t know. Nobody knows at first that she’s the one casting the vote for herself because she wants to save them.

[Emily]
And then it slowly become numbers closer and closer to her. And so that the final vote.

[Shep]
(Gasp!)

[Emily]
Go for it.

[Shep]
I hesitate to add a thing now, but we could establish the severity, the stakes of the situation, if there were originally seven friends at the party and one of them refuses to vote.

[Shep]
He’s not going to take part. This is bullshit. “If you’re here to murder us, then that’s what you’re going to do. You can’t put that blame on us. We’re not going to take it.” And they kill him.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
And so the rest understand you. You play along, or you just die immediately. You don’t even get to live until dawn.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
I like it. More murder. I’m on board. Man, our audience must think I am a sociopath.

[Shep]
How do they know?

[Emily]
How would they ever have guessed? So she keeps voting for herself.

[Shep]
She’s got to hesitate-

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
As the votes get more and more towards her.

[Emily]
More in her favor. Yeah. She’s gonna hesitate more, to where the final vote when they’re reading it off, we’ve kind of figured out she’s been voting for herself. And it’s kind of a… Will she, won’t she? Or-

[Shep]
I think we’re jumping ahead, so let’s back up a bit.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
The first vote, people have to start arguing, right?

[Thomas]
Right. Is there, there’s like, a discussion period where they’re allowed to talk strategy or-

[Emily]
Of course.

[Shep]
Of course.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, okay.

[Emily]
There’s always like “In a half an hour we vote.”

[Thomas]
Right. But there’s a vote every hour until either one of you dies or all of you die.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
At 6 am or whatever time they set.

[Shep]
Right. So people that got voted for are going to suspect who voted for them-

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
And they will start to argue. But the votes were a secret. So they’re trying to convince whoever voted for them not to vote for them. But they can’t know for sure who actually did it. But they have their suspicions.

[Thomas]
Right. Maybe the first time is sort of like defending yourself if you got voted for. But then, as the votes continue to happen, it’s more accusing. “You must be voting for me.” “I know you’re voting for me.”

[Shep]
Yes. So that first vote, they try to figure out who voted for them and make peace.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Like, apologize for whatever. But maybe they didn’t even know that that person did whatever. And so it’s like, now maybe the odds have increased that the votes will be- So I think it’s gotta be several votes, not for the main character. And the second vote goes the same, where it’s maybe down to two of the other characters, and then one vote for her, just one. The others maybe get two and three or whatever. So I think that at some point, it should be one other person gets all the votes and she only gets one vote.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
She’s preventing it from being unanimous. Now, is that her motivation? Like, if she’s always voting for herself, the only conclusion is that she’s the one that dies.

[Emily]
So the problem with this thinking is she’s convinced they would all do it in a heartbeat anyway. Or is she at this point not thinking that anymore?

[Shep]
I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out what her motivation is for voting for herself at a death ballot. What is her reason? The only reason that she could be doing that is if she’s such a good and selfless person that she is willing to die to save her friends.

[Emily]
I want her to be that person.

[Shep]
Then she could just say, “Vote for me and you’ll all live.” Which is kind of not what we want.

[Emily]
Correct.

[Shep]
So then the question becomes, if she doesn’t vote for herself, who does she vote for?

[Emily]
Okay. So the first round, she definitely votes for herself because she figures it’s not. There’s no way it’s going to be unanimous the first time. She takes the risk.

[Shep]
Right. She panics and can’t think of who to vote for.

[Emily]
She can’t think of who she would choose to die in this situation. So she writes her own name down. So the next couple times, she doesn’t write her name down. Okay, so there was a couple votes for Fred and a couple votes for Nora and a vote for Jonah. So-

[Shep]
Okay, I don’t know any of those names. But if you use, like, Ross and Rachel, then I can picture it. So, who is her boyfriend in this scenario?

[Emily]
Chandler.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
Because he’s the cutest.

[Shep]
So in the first vote, Chandler gets a vote. Not from her. She voted for herself.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
But he’s one of the people that gets a vote. And then someone else gets two votes. And then the rest are just spread around. So she’s like, “Well, I don’t want Chandler to die. I’m going to vote for this other person, Joey. Because I don’t want any of us to die. But if someone has to die, then that’s better than Chandler.” That’s how she votes the second round.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
But the second round, Chandler’s now got three votes. Like, the votes are consolidating.

[Emily]
Right. That’s why I was thinking in the second round it would be, she looks at who all has the votes. Whoever has the least votes or wasn’t voted for at all. Joey is who she votes for, knowing that that will save them to the next round because no one else is going to vote for- They didn’t vote for him last time. They’re going to- Not going to vote for him this time.

[Shep]
So is her intention to just extend the voting as long as possible?

[Emily]
When we want her to have that idea of, like, maybe someone can get a hold of the police. Maybe we can figure out an escape plan. If we can keep this going for a couple of hours, we can figure out how to get out of the situation.

[Shep]
Okay, I think that is an argument that you could make to the group. Like, “Hey, let’s all just vote for ourselves and then we could try and…”

[Emily]
Okay. In that situation, are the armed people there? When they’re having this discussion, they’re not leaving the room.

[Thomas]
But I can’t imagine they would leave the room. Yeah.

[Emily]
So they’re not going to have this open of a conversation with people with guns who just shot Gunther because he didn’t want to vote. They wouldn’t be able to openly discuss it.

[Shep]
How do they make a plan without letting their captors know what’s going on?

[Thomas]
They have to be able to just talk to each other.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
If the meat of the movie is this argument-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That you’re arguing that you should live even if it means someone else dies, then they have to be able to discuss it freely.

[Emily]
So they have to defend their reasonings for why they should survive. “I have this skill.” “I have that skill.”

[Shep]
Right. So if they are left alone to discuss it, then she could say “We should just vote for ourselves and extend the time,” so that later, as it’s getting closer to dawn, one of the others has to argue, “Look, nobody’s coming. Nobody’s going to rescue us.”

[Emily]
“We haven’t been able to get a phone.”

[Shep]
Right. “We do have to make a choice.”

[Emily]
Okay. Yeah. So for like the first two or three rounds of voting, it’s one for each person. Right?

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And then the gun, the armed people would come in and say, “No, this is not how this is going to work.”

[Shep]
No. The armed people can let them waste their time and then kill everyone at dawn.

[Emily]
Okay. You don’t think they would-

[Shep]
No, no, no.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
They want them all to die.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
I mean, you don’t know what their real motivations are-

[Emily]
This is true.

[Shep]
Because they are wearing masks and they’re talking with those voice manipulator things. You don’t know anything about them other than they are crazy people with guns who will murder people.

[Emily]
Okay. So my thinking for this, behind this is this part of the terror of the situation is making them choose someone. They don’t want to choose a friend to die. Right? Part of the terror of the situation is you have to.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
And part of that is saying there are rules, and you are breaking them by voting for yourself. That’s not an option. So that’s how the votes start to accumulate towards one person or another. Because we don’t know, they might kill them all at the end anyway.

[Shep]
Right, but that rule, you can’t vote for yourself. Okay, everyone, vote for the person on your right. Like immediately, that’s, that rule, it doesn’t matter.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I think what’s more likely to happen is after a few votes and they’re not getting anywhere, and anything that they try to do to escape or get a phone or something like that, it’s not working. So at least one person in that group is gonna be like, “Fuck this. They might kill us all, but they also might not. They might do what they say they’re gonna do.”

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
“Something else has to happen.”

[Emily]
Okay. Yeah.

[Thomas]
“Because time is ticking down.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“We only have a certain number of votes left to get this shit figured out.” So someone sort of, like, forces it. And then once that dam breaks…

[Emily]
Yeah. I guess that’s what I wanted to get was to a point where it’s forced.

[Thomas]
But I think it needs to be a decision made by someone in the group.

[Emily]
Okay. That works.

[Thomas]
Again, anonymously. Or maybe not. Maybe- Maybe it’s everyone’s voting for themselves. Everyone’s voting for themselves. And then the next vote, it’s like two votes for somebody, and the person’s like, “What the fuck? What happened?”

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
And then the other person who did it is like, “Look, we’ve got to change something. I’m sorry, but…” It could go either way.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I mean, that’s something for the writers to work out, whether that person reveals themself or not. But I think that’s how it moves forward.

[Emily]
No, I think they would. I think they would take ownership of it and be like- Because they would all be like, “It wasn’t me, wasn’t me, was me.” And then they’re gonna be like fuck it.

[Thomas]
Right. Because that whole discussion doesn’t go anywhere, and that person is trying to get a decision made.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So, yeah, I think you’re right. I think they would probably own it.

[Emily]
Because they’re under stress, they’re not thinking clearly.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
This isn’t calculated, planned beforehand. You know, in the moment, it’s going to be a lot more like “Uh… This is the best decision for my survival that I can make.”

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
Right. So factions have to form.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
In the friend group. Some of them have decided they’re going to vote for the oldest person because they’ve lived the longest already.

[Emily]
Some of them are going to vote for the person with the least valued job in society.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
I don’t know.

[Shep]
What is the least valued job?

[Emily]
English teacher. Tell me I’m wrong.

[Shep]
“We already speak English.”

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
“What are you even teaching?”

[Emily]
Well, I just, I want there to be… I want to put in that hypocritical conversation about your value being based in your career.

[Shep]
I think that’s good. So you have the group of old people who’ve decided that your value is what your job is.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And then there’s the group of young people that are voting for the oldest person.

[Emily]
“You’ve lived your life, it’s time to move on.”

[Shep]
Like there’s not an old person in the group.

[Emily]
Right, right. It’s just though. Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
There’s not like a bunch of 20-year-olds and then an 86-year-old.

[Emily]
And then a 70-year-old man.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Who’s married to a 26-year-old.

[Shep]
Because he’s wealthy, so he has value. So if those are the factions, how does everyone turn on the main character? How many votes do we get? Let’s say they come in at midnight, and dawn is going to be at 6 am.

[Emily]
So you had six votes.

[Thomas]
So six total.

[Shep]
So you get six votes. The first vote’s a free-for-all. The next two votes are in line while they’re trying to make their escape.

[Thomas]
That’s half their votes gone.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I think the first vote is the only one where they all vote for themselves.

[Shep]
Well, see, I think at the first vote, they don’t have time to talk about it yet.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right. That’s why it’s a free-for-all.

[Shep]
That’s why it’s a free-for-all. And then the second vote, the 1 am vote, is the first one where they vote for themselves.

[Emily]
Okay, so maybe they don’t do two votes that way. I mean, that would, that would explain why the guy at the third vote is like “Fuck this. We need to pick. We only have three more votes left.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
That’s three votes gone. They only have three votes left. And that third of the last three votes has to be all her. So really there’s only two votes for whatever else happens to happen.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
That’s why I don’t want it to be two votes where everyone votes for themselves, because otherwise we don’t get very much development of anything happening that the audience can see.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
We need those two votes to be the storytelling votes.

[Shep]
There’s seven votes if you start at midnight.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Yep, you’re right. I miscounted.

[Emily]
Math is hard.

[Shep]
So free-for-all. Yourself. Yourself. This gives us four votes left. The last one is all for her.

[Shep]
That gives us three for development.

[Emily]
Perfect.

[Shep]
So the fourth vote is the one where a faction has formed secretly, and everyone has voted for themselves except for these three people, that all vote for- Are they voting for the oldest person or the one with the least value first?

[Emily]
I think least value because I feel like that brings in the argument later for them to be like, “Well, you’re older than us, so first one in, first one out.”

[Thomas]
So this 4th vote, everyone is supposed to vote for themselves.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Yes, because they’ve been trying to get a signal out.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They’ve, you know.

[Thomas]
Yeah. And between the votes, we’re seeing discussion of, like, “How are we going to get out of this?”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I have an idea.

[Emily]
It won’t change the outcome, but that whole idea of hope for somebody getting out here and the argument for let’s just keep delaying, delaying because somebody might come is that one of them could have a smartwatch and get a text, try to get a text out through that. You know, they have spotty coverage, and their smartwatch has its own phone number signal thing. You know.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And the- for whatever reason, maybe they had it in a different spot or whatever. They weren’t wearing it.

[Thomas]
It could be up in their room charging.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And so they didn’t have it on them when their phones got taken.

[Emily]
Yeah. So they have it. So they, they get out a text. They try to make a call first. Because that would be the smart thing to do in this situation. That’s a time when you use your phone to call people.

[Shep]
What? Phones can call people?

[Emily]
I know, right?

[Shep]
Who are they going to call, that’s going to answer. That’s the real question.

[Emily]
Well, it’s like at midnight and you’re… Somebody’s calling you at midnight, you’re not going to be like, “Hey.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
I mean.

[Shep]
If you’re at a party and you’re held hostage and you got to pick someone to die, don’t call me.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because I’ll be asleep and I don’t answer my phone anyway.

[Emily]
Well, I mean.

[Shep]
It’s always on silent. So I won’t even know you called until I hear the news, three days later.

[Emily]
To be fair, also don’t call me because I will be asleep. My ringer will be on full blast, but I won’t hear it because I’m dead asleep. So, Thomas, we’ll call you because I know you’re a light sleeper.

[Thomas]
(Sigh)

[Shep]
Right. Look, listen to that sigh of resignation. He knows.

[Thomas]
The annoying thing is, I probably would be like, “What the fuck?” And look at my phone. And if I saw it was one of you guys, I’d be like, “Ah, this might be something important.” And then probably would answer it.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“Why else would they be calling me at 2 in the fucking morning?”

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
If you get a phone call from me, it’s an emergency because why would I call?

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Ever?

[Thomas]
Exactly.

[Emily]
That’s what I was saying. That’s who they call. They call the person who’s like, “Why would this person ever call me?” But they don’t answer. So the whole point is they make the call first, thinking it would be the fastest way to get help.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And it doesn’t either go through or it’s broken because. Okay, they call 911 because that would make the most sense. So clearly they don’t have a… They have a spotty signal. Right, because it doesn’t go through.

[Thomas]
It could be the case too, where it’s like they’ve got one bar that’s like fiddly back and forth-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And so they try to make the call, and it doesn’t work, and they go back down, and they tell the group another vote, whatever, and someone’s like, “Well, can you send a text? A text might-“

[Emily]
Because the text will-

[Thomas]
It’s way more likely to.

[Emily]
Keep trying.

[Thomas]
Yeah, exactly.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
There’s a likelihood that that’ll go through. So then they go back up and they try to send the text and… Yeah.

[Emily]
I’m thinking too hard about this because I don’t want to argue with you two.

[Shep]
No, you’re thinking the right amount about it.

[Emily]
But that way, some- They have that little, little glimmer of hope that they can get help before this.

[Thomas]
And then does the watch get discovered and taken away? So they have no idea whether the message got out or not?

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Right. And that could be one of the arguments.

[Shep]
Like, “We don’t even know if the message got out.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“So do you want to risk that? That it didn’t get out and we’re all going to die if we don’t choose someone?”

[Emily]
Exactly. That was where I was going with that.

[Thomas]
So I guess with that argument out there in the world, does she realize she needs to sacrifice herself or somebody needs to sacrifice herself and she’s willing to do it?

[Emily]
And then that’s why they all vote for her?

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
It is not a “We hate you. We want you to die. We’re totally willing to give you up,” kind of thing. It’s like, “If you’re sure about this, we will do it.”

[Shep]
Well, see, that brings up the question again: Is she willing to die for her friends? Or does she make the argument like she’s trying to convince everyone that they should vote for the one person that her faction is all voting for- And she makes such a convincing argument that everyone changes their vote to her. Like, isn’t that the kind of movie we’re making?

[Emily]
Yeah, true.

[Shep]
Like, her anxiety is that everyone’s going to vote for her.

[Emily]
Okay. And then she brings it to fruition.

[Shep]
Her hope originally is that they get rescued.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And then her secondary hope is that they don’t choose her. And they do. They do choose her. It is her worst fear.

[Emily]
But so is she… Does she not… Does she vote for someone else? And it’s just, there’s-

[Thomas]
I think the rule is unanimous means everybody against one.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
So that one person can vote for someone else, but it means everyone else was against you. That’s what the killers are looking for.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Okay, but we have three votes to play with, right?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So how do they go? Is this in the last voting session that everyone turns on her? Or does it almost turn on her in the second-to-last voting session? And so she has an hour to try and convince them not to vote for her?

[Emily]
Is she panicked? Is she panicked and still, you know, clinging to that, somebody got that message, somebody’s coming? Or-

[Shep]
That’s the argument I would certainly make if it were four votes for me in the previous voting.

[Emily]
Well, yeah, I was going to say, and/or is she saying, “We’re going to get rescued. But let’s all vote for Peter here just in case.”

[Thomas]
Everyone’s like, “That was a very logical and impassioned argument. So we will vote for you. You’re right. And we’re gonna vote for you.”

[Emily]
“Clearly, you mean we vote for you because you’ve made this argument, not on behalf of someone else who is not making this conscious choice.”

[Thomas]
Right. Well, she stuck her neck out. And…

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So how many vote for her in the second-to-last vote?

[Thomas]
How many votes are available? Not counting hers, five?

[Emily]
Five.

[Thomas]
So three?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And one of them’s her boyfriend, potentially.

[Emily]
Ooh.

[Thomas]
So he’s allied with a different couple.

[Emily]
Yeah. I want, because we’ve established she has this fear of him not being happy with her for one reason or another, maybe part of their discussion on the drive up there about her career, where she’s at with it, why she isn’t trying harder for something more. Because he’s ambitious and driven. And that’s part of her problem.

[Thomas]
Mm.

[Emily]
Is that’s why she’s always negative, and being around other ambitious people, or, should rub off on her.

[Shep]
Right. She’s afraid to fail, so she doesn’t try.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So she’s the least value person in the group?

[Emily]
Yeah. I was thinking that the whole time that she would be the least value person in the whole group. And so that faction that’s kind of talking that way, you know, they’re not going to point fingers the first time they make that argument.

[Thomas]
Right, right, right.

[Emily]
They’re going to be like, “Everybody knows.” Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. And then she finds out her boyfriend is like, “Yeah, you’re right.” And kind of throws her under the bus that way.

[Thomas]
Well, and if he’s a bit of an outsider, because if this is a bunch of college friends and then also him, his concern immediately is, “Oh, shit, I’m the one that’s the easiest for them to all choose.” And so when it doesn’t go that way, he’s like, “I’ve got to find allies and a victim.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Well, and I think he agrees with that mentality, too. Like, we established that, too.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
I don’t, so I don’t know if he decided to vote for her or if he joined a faction and they decided to vote for her. He’s going along with the faction.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I like the reveal that she knows he voted for her, and that can come up in the last argument. Now it’s just all out there, and everyone knows. It was a secret ballot, and now some of the votes are known, and so people can just be honest and give their honest opinion, and it all comes out. She is not driven. Like, leaving her alive is pointless. She’s not going to do anything with her life.

[Emily]
Yes. Yes.

[Shep]
Therefore, if anyone here should die, it should be her.

[Emily]
Should be her.

[Shep]
That’s her fear. Like, she’s in therapy to get better and, like, grow as a person. And eventually she’s like, in her mind, she’s like, eventually she is going to do these things. She hasn’t done it yet, but, like, she’s young. She’s got lots of time.

[Emily]
Stop listening to my recordings of therapy. Jeez!

[Shep]
So her, her argument is that, like, she still has time, but their argument is, if she were going to start, it would have started already. She hasn’t. And so her worst fears are realized in the final vote, where everyone is now open and honest and just voting for her directly.

[Thomas]
So then those middle votes, is she the first person that gets two votes?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And she’s always under threat at every vote until she is voted unanimously against her?

[Emily]
I think she should always have at least two votes, except for in the first two rounds where they all vote for themselves.

[Thomas]
Right, right. I mean, the first time that that doesn’t go that way.

[Emily]
Yeah. I think she should have at least two.

[Shep]
Okay, so the first faction that formed is voting for her. Is that correct?

[Emily]
Right. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
That last vote, is it six votes for her or five for her and one for probably her boyfriend?

[Shep]
I think in the last vote, because it’s the last vote, they don’t have them write down anything. They have them say the name of who they’re voting for. It is no longer a secret ballot. It is the final ballot. And now there’s a pressure because it has to be unanimous. So as it’s going around, as soon as that first person says her name, if the second person doesn’t say her name, then it could be her or whoever the second person says.

[Thomas]
Right. The first person to say a different name kills them all.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So basically, the first person to vote decides the vote. See, that’s why I think it should be a secret ballot, because then she can vote for herself, and you can have six votes for Katie or whatever her name is. And they all look at-

[Shep]
Katie’s fine.

[Thomas]
They all look at her, and she’s like, “Fuck you guys. That’s why I voted for me, for myself. Because fuck you.”

[Shep]
So is this a triumphant victory for her, dying in defiance?

[Thomas]
It’s certainly a Pyrrhic victory.

[Emily]
I mean, she’s not in her best mental state at the moment, so I guess she’s going down on her own terms by voting for herself in the final vote.

[Shep]
See, I thought that it could be a vocal vote, because you can have a couple holdouts-

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Until that vote, and then it gets to them, and it is either they vote for Katie or everyone dies. They don’t want to vote for her.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. Because the one of them is actually her friend, you know, I mean, they’re all actually her friend-

[Shep]
Wow.

[Emily]
But one of them is a real holdout for her friend.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Sobbing as she says the name.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Because I don’t want to die. I don’t want all of us to die.

[Shep]
Right. “Please understand, Katie.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“Please forgive me, Katie.”

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Okay, I like that.

[Shep]
So do we see them kill Katie?

[Emily]
No, no.

[Shep]
Do we see any of the aftermath of how the friends react to having basically murdered their friend?

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
Or is it just gun to the head, cut to black?

[Emily]
I think that. I vote for that.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, if we’re seeing everything through Katie, then-

[Emily]
Doesn’t matter.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s it. That’s the end of the movie.

[Shep]
Sopranos ending.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what happens to them. Doesn’t matter if they all died.

[Shep]
Doesn’t matter to Katie what happens to them.

[Emily]
Exactly. Because we are Katie. We are Katie.

[Thomas]
So with that in mind, does that mean we never, the audience is never privy to anything that Katie is not privy to?

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Everything is through her perspective, or at least from the room that she’s in.

[Emily]
I think so.

[Thomas]
When she goes off to the bedroom, we only see her in the bedroom. We don’t see what’s happening when she’s gone. Assuming she’s the one who’s sending the text message.

[Shep]
That’s good because they could argue that they just have her word for it that a text message even got sent.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
She is asking them to hold out hope when they don’t even know for sure that anything is happening.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. Okay.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
I like that.

[Shep]
I like that. So that it’s always from her perspective.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And then we don’t. That way we don’t see the first faction forming. We just see it revealed through the votes.

[Shep]
Yes. Yes.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s really good.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Ballot. Was it a landslide victory, or did we split the ticket? 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. If you enjoy our show, we hope you’ll give us a vote of confidence by telling someone about the podcast. The most effective way for us to grow our audience is through a grassroots campaign. So practice your stump speech, rally the base, and toe the podcast line.

[Shep]
There’s so much more effort into the end tag than in the rest of the episode.

[Thomas]
Emily, Shep, and I put it to a vote, and the result was unanimous. We will return on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Shep]
It’s a unanimous vote. And that was in the episode.

[Thomas]
I know.

[Shep]
But you had written that ahead of time.

[Thomas]
I had. And so I was looking ahead, like, “Oh, what am I going to read for the outro?” I was like, “Er.” Like, “Oh, well, I’m going to keep it.”

[Shep]
Yeah. Unanimous vote has a very different meaning now.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Outro music]