Comb

References

• Caillou
• The Peanut Butter Solution
• Almost Plausible: Chicken Wings
• Chanticleer and the Fox
• Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
• Ambergris
• Bob’s Burgers
  • Ambergris
• Sweeney Todd
• Faerie Tale Theatre
  • Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
• Columbo
• The Goonies
• Almost Plausible: Foam
• The Gift of the Magi
• D. B. Cooper
• Cooper
• Gattaca
• A.I. Artificial Intelligence
• Saving Private Ryan
• Nathan Fillion
• Antiques Roadshow
• Scrimshaw
• The Adventures of Tintin
• Titanic
• Neptune
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Hamilton
• Newsies
• Simon Peter
• Archie
  • Veronica
  • Betty
  • Jughead
  • Josie
  • Sabrina
• Julie & Julia
• Single White Female
• Microfiche
• How I Met Your Mother

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Emily]
I want this be a rom-com. Okay, so new pitch.

[Thomas]
Okay, you gotta work a comb into it.

[Emily]
No, no, no. Forget Comb, this is what we’re doing.

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. I’m Thomas J. Brown, and joining me as usual are Emily-

[Emily]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
We often start out episodes by talking about the relationship we each have with the object in question. But the object for this episode is a Comb, and I think it’s pretty well known that I’m bald. So, let’s just skip the comb chatter and get right to the pitches. Shep, you’re up first.

[Emily]
Oh, you had hair at one point in time, right?

[Thomas]
I did have hair at one point, yes.

[Emily]
You’re not Caillou right?

[Thomas]
No, I had hair and now, I mean, I still have hair. I just shave it because otherwise it grows weird because of the balding. So-

[Emily]
Well, have you guys ever seen The Peanut Butter Solution?

[Shep]
You have talked about The Peanut Butter Solution.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I was gonna say we’ve talked about this.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, you gotta, you gotta see that, man. That’s some crazy shit right there. It’s balding and hair growth. It’s fever dream like no one but the Canadians can create.

[Shep]
Okay, so our topic is Hair this episode? Is that the case?

[Thomas]
And now I don’t have any. So, this is just an hour of dissecting my going bald. You know what? So, when I… I’ve told this story to other people, I don’t think I’ve ever told the story on the podcast before. But when I, there was one time I was at my parents’ house, and their couch is sort of in the middle of the living room. They have a really open floor plan type of thing. So, I was, like, sitting on the couch watching TV. My mom walks up behind me in apropos of nothing and goes, “You know you’re going bald, right?” And I was like, “What? No! Uh!” Because I wasn’t ready to hear it, I guess. And then, like, I started realizing “Oh, okay, I’ve got a bald spot like on my crown.” And then there was one time we were in Maui, and I was married at the time, and I told my wife, I’m like, “Hey, can you put sunscreen on my bald spot?” Because I don’t want to, you know, burn there. She goes “Oh yeah.” And she’s putting it, like, way, like all over the place. And I’m… I didn’t thing, but I’m thinking, like, “I don’t want it, like, all in my hair. Like, just in the bald spot.” And then we got home from that trip, and I saw photos of me from behind. And I was like, “Oh.”

[Shep]
“Oh.”

[Thomas]
“I see.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And so, then maybe a month or so, because I had been kind of thinking about it, so, about a month or so after we got back from that trip and I had seen that, I was like, “Okay, maybe it’s time to explore actually going through shaving my head.” And so, I went to, like, a barbershop where I knew they, I had heard, read online, like, yeah, they do good, like, head shaves and stuff like that. I went in there and the guy, I told him what I wanted and before he started, he goes “Now before I do anything, we’re same page about this. I’m going to take this razor. I’m going to shave all of the hair off of your head. You will not, you will be bald afterwords.” I said “Yeah that’s what I want.” He goes “Okay.” So, he shaves my head, and I walked out of there thinking like, “Nobody look at me.” And then, like, within two weeks, I was like, “This is great. Why didn’t I do this sooner?” It’s, I love it. It’s fantastic.

[Emily]
It looks good on you.

[Thomas]
Thank you. Yeah.

[Emily]
You’re one of those ones who can cover it.

[Shep]
I shaved my head when I was younger. I didn’t have a job. I lived in the outskirts of civilization.

[Emily]
Well, that sounds more horrifying than I thought originally.

[Shep]
It was, it was like, no one’s gonna see this, so it doesn’t matter. And I’m curious.

[Thomas]
And you forgot about School Picture Day.

[Shep]
No, it’s long out of school.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Well, it turns out I have, like, scars all over my head from various head injuries over my life.

[Emily]
Oh, no.

[Thomas]
But weirdly can’t remember for some reason.

[Shep]
Which I had forgotten about. So, my friend came into town and wanted to go out. So, we went to, like, a local restaurant, like the one restaurant in-

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Whatever small town that is. I can’t remember the name. And they gave me a free dessert. I’m like, “Oh, that’s, like, it’s not my birthday or anything. What, what was this for?” And my friend leans over and she’s like, “They think you have cancer.” Like, it’s so obvious. This isn’t right, what you’ve got going on.

[Emily]
No one would choose this.

[Shep]
No one would choose this on purpose. So, which concerns me because it’s, you know, it’s getting thin.

[Thomas]
Mm.

[Shep]
Like, oh, eh… So, anyway. My pitch is, what kind of comb is it? Like, is it, you know, a rooster’s comb was the first thing I thought of, but it’s like, we just did Chicken Wing.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
So.

[Thomas]
So, now this is the, this is Chanticleer’s story. This is a prequel.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
We see how Chanticleer became the-

[Shep]
Right. We’re doing them out of order. All right. So, in the future, much of humanity lives in hive-like megastructures-

[Thomas]
Spoilers.

[Shep]
Called honeycombs or “combs”.

[Thomas]
Mm.

[Shep]
People grow up, work, and live in the combs, and never leave. And then one day, a rumor goes around that everything outside this comb has gone silent. No signals, no shipments are coming in, nothing. Seems like this comb is the last thing in the world. And then the power goes out.

[Emily]
It’s just the comb they sacrificed.

[Shep]
What was the Ursula K. Le Guin story where they sacrificed a child to keep the power going? Those Who Walk Away from… something?

[Emily]
I vaguely know what you’re talking about.

[Thomas]
I have no idea what this is.

[Shep]
It doesn’t matter. That’s what I have. Emily, what do you have?

[Emily]
I have: after losing their mother, a young brother and sister move in with their father, whom they’ve barely spent time with since their parents’ divorce. Their father is a commercial fisherman in a small beach town in New England. While he’s out one day, the brother and sister find some old beach-combing supplies and decide to head out. They begin to build a special bond over the random trinkets they find onshore. One day, they have the biggest find of their lives, a handful of Spanish doubloons.

[Thomas]
I thought you were going to say they found a piece of ambergris.

[Emily]
Oh, that would be better. We can change it to that.

[Thomas]
Either way.

[Emily]
Honestly, because that’s more realistic.

[Shep]
Would they know what that is?

[Emily]
No, have you not seen that episode of Bob’s Burgers where they find the ambergris?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes, yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
So, it would be like that at first, where they’re like “What is this gross waxy thing?” “I don’t know, it smells good.” Gene’s like “It tastes good.” Anyway, next pitch: Just because everybody is anticipating this.

[Thomas]
Okay. All right.

[Emily]
So, I have to give the audience what they want. A hairdresser who is tired of their snobby rich clienteles decides to kill them with a specialized metal comb to stab through their skulls.

[Thomas]
Yeah, it’s probably one of those ones where, you know, there’s like the comb, and then it’s got that long-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Spike-

[Thomas]
Spike part, except it’s made of like titanium or something.

[Emily]
Yeah. yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
It’s the one for detangling, and they just (stabbing through skull sounds).

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
And then they hit a lever on the floor, and the chair forms a slide-

[Emily]
Yep, yep.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And they fall down-

[Thomas]
To the pie shop below.

[Shep]
The pie shop. Yes, yes.

[Emily]
Also loosely based off of a Grimm’s fairy tale series when I was a kid. It might have been the Shelley Duvall one-

[Shep]
Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
You know, where they had the live-action stories. It was Snow White, and she gives her all these different things to get- like a corset she pulls too tight and Snow White passes out. And then she coats a comb in poison and scratches her head.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
And that doesn’t last because they take the comb out. And then it’s not till the poison apple is ingested that she’s out for good.

[Shep]
Well, not for good, for good.

[Emily]
Well know, better, than the other two times.

[Thomas]
Till she gets sexually assaulted, then-

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
I mean, is kissing sexual assault?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. If you don’t get permis- Do you not know this? All the guys on here know that that’s not okay.

[Thomas]
Emily is just so lonely. She’s like, “I just want someone to kiss me, even if it means I’m asleep.”

[Emily]
That’s right, yeah, just, whatever, man. I just need-

[Thomas]
She goes out into parks and just like lays there like, “Maybe someone will come along.”

[Emily]
I’m not that desperate… yet.

[Thomas]
Yet.

[Shep]
I’m just picturing a movie where a woman is reenacting fairy tales trying to-

[Emily]
Find true love that way.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Oh my god.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
I want this be a rom-com. Okay, so new pitch.

[Thomas]
Okay, you gotta work a comb into it.

[Emily]
No, no, no. Forget Comb, this is what we’re doing. Thomas, what do you have?

[Thomas]
A lawyer delivers an old comb to Simon, telling-

[Shep]
Already named.

[Thomas]
Yeah-

[Shep]
All the creativity is blocked on this one.

[Thomas]
This super vague pitch I’m doing.

[Emily]
I love this complaint now is that they’re name named. They’re already named. You’ve taken all the joy out of it.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
From previously, like, “We don’t ever have names for these people!”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
We didn’t make up names for these people. That stays true whether we have names or you decided to make up a name yourself.

[Thomas]
A lawyer delivers an old comb to Simon, telling him it was left to him in the will of someone Simon either doesn’t remember or never knew. Simon is puzzled and sets out to discover what significance the comb has, if any, and why it was left to him.

[Shep]
Okay, I withdraw the objection about the name because you’ve just given us a puzzle. This is all puzzle.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
See, I thought if just let me get to the end, I figured you’d like it. See, that’s what I thought was so funny when you complained about the name is I’m like, but I left so many details out this time. Normally, I’ve written the whole story.

[Shep]
The only thing, the only clue we have is the name Simon.

[Thomas]
Right. So, that’s what I have just the one this week. Which one of these do we like? So, we have kind of three mysteries going, it seems, really.

[Emily]
We do, yeah.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And then a standard murder. Murder mystery. So, four mysteries, really.

[Emily]
Hey, that one doesn’t count. Come on, that’s just for the audience.

[Shep]
It’s not a mystery if we see the murderer.

[Emily]
It’s an episode of Columbo if we see the murderer.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I was gonna say it’s a how-catch’em, them, not a whodunit.

[Shep]
Yes, yes.

[Thomas]
All right, which one of these do we like?

[Shep]
I like all of them.

[Emily]
I like them all. I do. Yeah, I don’t know. I like them all about the same. Mine less than your two, but that’s because I have, you know, low self-confidence.

[Shep]
Alright, if you had to pick one that’s not yours?

[Emily]
Um…

[Shep]
Thomas, I’m going to ask you immediately after this, so-

[Thomas]
Yeah, I’m thinking about it.

[Emily]
Okay, I’m gonna go with Thomas’s just because it would be easier for me to work within sort of our real-world expectations.

[Shep]
Got it, Thomas?

[Thomas]
Hmm. This is a tough one for me to decide because, man, like, a beach story? I sure like that. And then, like, the honeycombs thing, like, I can picture what that looks like, and it looks so cool in my head. So, I love both of these. I think I’m a little bit, I’m definitely leaning more towards Shep’s. That’s the one I’m going to go with. Because I feel like it’s… I feel like the beach one… I don’t want to say it’s been done, but it’s like a little bit more…

[Emily]
Yeah, it’s-

[Thomas]
It’s like leaning more tropey than Shep’s one is.

[Emily]
Goonies, Crabsquatch (Foam).

[Thomas]
Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
There’s a lot there.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah, I forgot about Crabsquatch.

[Thomas]
So, it’s like that one feels more familiar. That’s what it is.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
It’s that one feel- at least feels more familiar and Shep’s doesn’t. And so, that’s a little more interesting right now to me.

[Emily]
Fair. That’s a good point.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
So, Shep, if you had to pick one that wasn’t yours.

[Shep]
Thomas’s! It’s all questions! Obviously, that’s what we’re gonna do. Like-

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
All right. His name doesn’t have to be Simon either, if you want to change it.

[Shep]
No, no, that’s the one thing. What kind of comb is it? Is it like an ivory comb?

[Thomas]
Ooh.

[Shep]
Is it a wooden comb? I need- it’s a jade. It’s an old Chinese ancient jade comb.

[Emily]
It’s got to be more than just a standard drugstore comb.

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s more than the “unbreakable” plastic, black plastic.

[Thomas]
Right. So, is it a, it’s a, like you said, ancient Chinese jade comb, and Simon is, like, a white red-headed dude. And so, he’s like, “What? What am I doing with this?”

[Shep]
Yes, I just I have more questions.

[Emily]
I have the answer to why a red-headed white guy gets this fancy-ass comb.

[Thomas]
Is it colonialism?

[Emily]
His grandparents are very poor, and one Christmas, they both really wanted to get the other a special gift…

[Thomas and Shep]
(Laughing)

[Thomas]
I mean, if this is a mystery story, do we need to work out the solution so that we know what we’re working toward?

[Emily]
Typically, that’s better because by the time we get to the end, we’re like, “Oh yeah, we have to solve the mystery.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So, we have tried to write mysteries before-

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
I mean, before the podcast, and have written ourselves into corners, you know, come up with mysteries that aren’t solvable.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Well, this one is very solvable, I think.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I think so, yeah.

[Emily]
There’s no murder that we know of.

[Shep]
I mean, did someone die? It was left to him in a will.

[Emily]
Yeah, somebody died, so was it murder? We don’t know. Are we going into a murder mystery? If we go into a murder mystery, then we’re gonna make it unsolvable. If we got the will, we get the name of the person who they don’t remember and don’t know. So, then they just have to look into the mystery of that person. Is it D.B. Cooper? Is he somehow-?

[Shep]
Or they don’t recognize the name because they knew that person under a different name.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
They didn’t know him as Obi-Wan Kenobi. They know them as Old Ben Kenobi.

[Emily]
Yeah, they didn’t know him as D.B. Cooper. They knew him as Uncle Dan Brown.

[Shep]
Yeah, and he wrote mystery novels, or-

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
He made barrels. Come on.

[Shep]
His family made barrels.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s where they got the name. But he left the family business suddenly by airplane.

[Thomas]
I mean, it could be a murder mystery in that the comb has some special property. It’s a key to a bigger treasure. It’s magical, whatever. And so, whoever murdered the previous holder of the comb, that’s where the murder mystery part kind of comes from. And maybe they’re coming after him as well.

[Emily]
Okay, what is the significance of the comb as it relates to Simon?

[Thomas]
I have no idea what the significance is. I hadn’t thought of anything for that.

[Shep]
That’s what we’re gonna do.

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s what we’re gonna do. It’s either going to be valuable treasure, valuable sentiment.

[Shep]
Yeah, is the comb itself valuable? Does it have intrinsic value?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Or does it lead to something with intrinsic value? Or is it sentimental value? It’s hard for it to be a sentimental value if Simon doesn’t recognize who it’s coming from.

[Emily]
Oh, it’s not sentimental to him, yet, until he solves the mystery. Or it ends with us knowing the sentimental value of it and him just being like, “I don’t know,” throw it in a drawer. And then we’re all like “Nooo!”

[Shep]
Yeah, we didn’t mention this, but Simon is bald. So, a balding. He shaves now, but-

[Thomas]
This takes place in a Gattaca universe, and the comb has got a hair, a single hair in it that he can get tested, and it changes his whole life based on the results.

[Shep]
Yeah, or it’s the AI universe where they clone a person-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But only for one day.

[Emily]
Oh my god.

[Thomas]
Yeah, the aliens clone a person for one day. Such a stupid ending, god.

[Shep]
Yes. Also, it was a hair clipping. It doesn’t have the root-

[Thomas]
Right. Right.

[Shep]
So, it wouldn’t have the DNA. Like, none of it works on any level. Also, it was how many thousands of years? It would have long degraded-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Even if it had the root and the DNA. None of it’s correct. All of it is wrong.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
So, whoever left it to him did not leave anything else in the will, just this one comb.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Now, is that true? Do we know that? Did a lawyer just show up with a comb and say, “So-and-so left it to you”?

[Thomas]
Well, that’s all that was left to Simon. There could have been other stuff. And-

[Emily]
Yeah, there could have been other things, but those aren’t important yet.

[Thomas]
Well, they could be. Yeah. Presumably, Simon would have questions for the lawyer and would be able to find out the name of the person.

[Emily]
Perhaps that’s all the lawyer can disclose, though, is “You’ve received-“

[Thomas]
Perhaps that’s all the lawyer knows.

[Emily]
“You have received this comb from this person. I know nothing else.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, the lawyer doesn’t know why Simon, if there was a relationship there of any kind, the lawyer’s just like, “Hey, man, I’m just executing the estate like I’m supposed to.”

[Emily]
Okay, let’s pick. Is it a magical mystical comb? A comb of many values that are concrete and intrinsic? Or is it a sentimental value? Or a mistake.

[Thomas]
Wrong Simon.

[Emily]
Yeah, which that had crossed my mind that it was the wrong Simon.

[Shep]
It’s, who’s the wrong Private Ryan in Saving Private Ryan?

[Thomas]
Oh, it’s Nathan Fillion.

[Shep]
Nathan Fillion, yeah. Thomas, what are your thoughts? Does the comb have value in itself or is it sentimental only?

[Thomas]
Yeah, I think that it should not have intrinsic value because then Simon might just… Simon might not look further into it like, “Oh, a solid gold comb? Cool, I’ll sell this.” And then “I don’t really care why-“

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
“This was given to me. I’m just glad that it was.” Whereas if it’s like-

[Emily]
“Given to me. I can pay off that car and go to France.”

[Thomas]
Right, whereas if it’s just like some comb, that might, like, you know, gnaw at his brain or whatever. And he’d be like, “But why? Why this? Why from this person?” And so, then he’d be more apt to look into it. So, I feel like the comb doesn’t have value in and of itself. It is just, like, the thing that gets him to start looking into the broader mystery.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
Okay, so I’m picturing just a typical drugstore, gray comb, black comb, what have you.

[Thomas]
Could be, yeah.

[Shep]
I don’t like that.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
I want the comb to have some value. Maybe it’s not, I mean, it’s not solid gold or whatever, but it is very old. It would have value to collectors.

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Like, you could find a buyer for this comb.

[Emily]
Does he go on Antiques Roadshow to get some info? I just think that would be fun.

[Thomas]
Yeah, and then that causes more problems because whoever murdered the grandfather now knows exactly where he is.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But I was thinking the comb itself has sentimental value. That’s how it ended up with this person-

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
That gave it to Simon. Maybe it was the first love of his grandfather. His grandfather gave her the comb, and she cherished it and remembered, but they didn’t end up together for whatever reason.

[Emily]
And she left it to Simon?

[Shep]
Well, maybe she didn’t have kids of her own.

[Emily]
He had the same name as his grandfather.

[Shep]
Looks just like him.

[Emily]
If she were twenty years younger…

[Shep]
If she were twenty years younger, she’d still be too old.

[Thomas]
So, I know that ivory is really sometimes you can sell it, but I know it’s really difficult.

[Emily]
It’s yeah, it’s really hard market even for antique ivory-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Because they don’t want to encourage that in any way whatsoever.

[Thomas]
So, could be an ivory comb. And so, it has, it’s obviously old, it has some intrinsic value, but maybe the, what it would, and perhaps even he’s, he initially thinks like, “Oh, well, ivory is valuable. I can sell this,” but, like, in order to do that, he has to have more provenance paperwork or something like that. And so, that’s what sets him down the path. And so, initially his thought is, “Oh, I’ll just hawk this thing because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Thomas]
And then in trying to get the correct paperwork, he learns more about its history and why actually it should matter to him.

[Shep]
Well, that was, my previous thought was, it has value, but it also has sentimental value. It has both, which is why at the end, he, like, chooses to keep it instead of auctioning it or whatever.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Shep]
Instead of it being difficult to auction because it’s ivory, he doesn’t auction it, even though it would be easy to auction. It’s… what are the old combs? Tortoiseshell? You know, something like that.

[Thomas]
I was thinking maybe it has some scrimshaw on it. It’s an old whalebone hair pick or something.

[Emily]
Whalebone would be kind of a- because those are collectors, you could auction.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Shep]
Right. So, who had the comb? Where did it come from? Like, if it’s, if we’re going that far back-

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
We’re going more than hundred years back. It didn’t come from his grandfather.

[Emily]
Well, it was passed down into, yeah, you would think he would know his grandfather.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Or recognize it.

[Shep]
Yeah, but it’s not coming from him.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s coming from the person his grandfather gave it to-

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
Was my original thought. But-

[Thomas]
Ah.

[Shep]
Was that not clear?

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
No, so it’s being returned to the family, is what you’re saying.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Okay, interesting.

[Shep]
That’s why he doesn’t know-

[Emily]
So, it could have been an heirloom that the grandfather had given away.

[Shep]
Ah, so it was an heirloom in the grandfather’s time.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It was already old and valuable.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So, why Simon? Is this the only living relative of the grandfather, the only descendant?

[Emily]
Maybe it’s not his grandfather. Maybe it’s like a- uncle or cousin three times removed and yes, it’s the only, like, person they can find of that family line.

[Thomas]
And the person who’s returning it doesn’t have any descendants of their own.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Or it’s an act of “This belongs in your family, not mine.”

[Thomas]
A reparation type of, yeah, yeah, restorative.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, she didn’t get it as a gift. She stole it. That’s why she’s returning it. That’s why it’s to Simon’s family and not to one of her descendants.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Did she steal it the night of his wedding to another woman?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Really?

[Shep]
Or she was in love with the woman and she stole her comb because they couldn’t be together.

[Emily]
I don’t know if you know how old grandparents are now.

[Shep]
I have no idea how time works and I never knew how time works. So, how old are grandparents?

[Emily]
Oh, you know, they were born in the ’70s, and no, I’m sorry, in the ’60s, a lot of grandparents now.

[Shep]
Yeah, how old is Simon?

[Emily]
Yeah, how old is Simon? Is he mid-20s, early 30s?

[Thomas]
At the least, yeah, I imagine him kind of in his late 20s, early 30s.

[Emily]
Okay. So, I Imagine him as I imagine all main male characters. Slender, kind of wiry, you know. A little bit muscular, not, not too muscular. Gray V-neck button-down sweater.

[Thomas]
Oh, he’s Tintin.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[Thomas]
He’s got a little white dog.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh, and his best friend, the Captain, can help him identify the scrimshaw. It’s all coming together.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Well, I like the idea of it being stolen. I think that adds an interesting wrinkle to the story.

[Emily]
Yeah, because that gives it a little more like, okay, why are they giving back to me?

[Thomas]
It definitely makes sense, yeah, of why this person he’s never heard of is giving it to him.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So, this must have happened sixty years ago or thereabouts, right?

[Shep]
Well, if he’s thirty and his parents are fifty and his grandparents are seventy-

[Thomas]
Well, I was thinking more about her age. If she’s passing away in like her 80s or 90s then it probably happened sixty or seventy years ago that it was stolen.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Is this like the Heart of the Ocean? Are we just writing Titanic?

[Shep]
Oh no!

[Emily]
No!

[Shep]
Shit.

[Emily]
Because she didn’t give that back to anybody. She just dumped it in the ocean. We are not.

[Thomas]
She gave it back to Neptune.

[Shep]
So, fifty years ago, she stole this comb-

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
From one of Simon’s grandparents.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
Doesn’t matter who.

[Shep]
Doesn’t matter who, whichever would make the story more poignant, that’s the one.

[Thomas]
And so, out of a sense of perhaps guilt or something like that, they’re returning it? Or are they trying to send some kind of a message by doing this?

[Shep]
So, if she’s already passed, why didn’t she include a letter, like, explaining anything?

[Thomas]
It could be one of those things where she, like, had always intended to. Maybe the will even says “Comb and letter”, and he’s like, “And the letter?” the lawyer’s like, “There wasn’t one.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Or “We couldn’t find one addressed to you.”

[Emily]
The intent was to have a letter attached to it, but she could never sit down and bring herself to write it.

[Shep]
So, how does Simon learn the story? Because he has to learn it at some point.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Correct.

[Shep]
He’s got to track down her family.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And, like, maybe her descendants have heard the story from her. And so, he gets, he hears the story from them, like-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Her granddaughter. And then the two of them fall in love.

[Emily]
Fall in love and then she wears the comb on their wedding day, and-

[Shep]
No, she sold her hair to buy him a-

[Emily]
Watch fob. So, obviously he would track down. He has a name. So-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
His first thought is obviously track down the family. Right? She has no direct descendants.

[Shep]
Maybe his first thought is to contact other people in his family. Does he have any living relatives? He’s trying to find out why this got given to him. If he doesn’t have any relatives, then that’s a dead end. And I withdraw my suggestion.

[Thomas]
I guess if he does have relatives, we’d have to figure out why him specifically.

[Shep]
Yes. As I’m saying that, I’m like, well, then why him?

[Emily]
Well, he has no siblings or cousins. Or we could go the adopted route. This is how he finds out he’s adopted.

[Shep]
How does him being adopted enter into it?

[Emily]
Because he goes to ask, his family are like, “No, we have no idea anything about that.”

[Shep]
Oh, because it’s from his birth family.

[Emily]
Family. Yeah, the comb is-

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
From his birth family.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
And she figured out who he was and followed the tracks to him.

[Shep]
But didn’t give him any information.

[Emily]
No. Well, yeah, because she doesn’t want to upset him, but she wants the comb to go to the right place. It’s a stretch.

[Shep]
Thomas keeps looking like he’s gonna say something, so I’m not saying anything, waiting for Thomas to say something.

[Emily]
No, he’s like “I mean, you could go that way, but-“

[Thomas]
Well, I’m just thinking, like, if she doesn’t want to upset him-

[Emily]
Why does she send him the comb?

[Thomas]
Yeah, like, he’s gonna look into it potentially and find out.

[Shep]
Because she and his grandfather bonded over their love of puzzles. So, there’s this, she’s giving him this puzzle. And if he solves it, great. He’s like his grandfather. He deserves the comb. And the chocolate factory.

[Thomas]
All right, well, let’s take a break here and-

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
Oh, god, we haven’t even taken a break yet?

[Thomas]
And think about some of these difficult decisions that we need to make. And when we come back, we’ll be able to figure out what happens for Simon in our Comb story.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we are back. A lot of difficult decisions ahead. What have we come up with during the break?

[Shep]
I have so many thoughts. She’s the twin sister of Simon’s grandmother. They were both in love with Simon’s grandfather, but he chose her sister, not her. But they were all friends. So, she is, she is related to Simon. So, it’s not it’s not coming from nothing. And this was important because of something, I can’t remember now. There was a twist reveal of something. Maybe the twist reveal was that they were twins.

[Thomas]
One of the things that I’ve been thinking about this whole time is, like, what ultimately is this story leading to? I think we’ve been thinking about it as this is Simon’s story, and we’re going to see what happens to him, but maybe that’s not really the case. It’s actually the grandparents’ story, and we’re learning their story through Simon.

[Emily]
Well, now-

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
We’re just doing Titanic.

[Thomas]
No, stop it.

[Emily]
You brought it up first.

[Shep]
No, Titanic is doing us.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Yeah, there we go. And so, I wonder if it’s the case that the grandfather was, you know, he’s got these twin girls. He likes them both. And he had to choose one and ended up marrying the one woman, but always also still had feelings for the other woman. It could even be the case that they were having an affair, that she’s actually Simon’s grandmother for some reason. I mean, they’re all different ways that we could go with that. Or that Simon’s grandfather told her, like, “Hey, I can’t be with you, but I want you to have this comb. It’s, like, very special for whatever reason.” And she carried a torch for him her whole life, so she never got married and never had kids of her own.

[Shep]
Then, how does Simon? Who does Simon learn the story from?

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
He’s got learn it from someone.

[Thomas]
That’s true. That’s true. I guess it makes it- she could, I guess, always, she could have her own family. That doesn’t take anything away from the idea that she would give the comb back to Simon.

[Emily]
Right, because she’s giving it back to put it back in the hands of the family.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Right. I’m just trying to think of all the twists I can add. So, I, earlier I was saying that they all loved puzzles, and that’s why she’s giving Simon this, basically this puzzle. Maybe that was the, we don’t have the names for the grandparents. You didn’t even come up with names in your, in your pitch, Thomas.

[Emily]
Oh, my god.

[Shep]
So, maybe that was one of the ways that the grandfather was choosing between them is he came up with a puzzle. And she solved it, but gave the answer to her sister-

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Because she felt that her sister loved him more.

[Thomas]
So, it’s like Hamilton.

[Emily]
Yeah, I was gonna say, so she’s Angelica.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I don’t get those references.

[Thomas]
Yeah, Shep doesn’t watch musicals.

[Shep]
No.

[Emily]
That’s a shame.

[Thomas]
That’s why he hasn’t watched Newsies, the best movie ever made.

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s a musical and I don’t watch musicals. So, anyway, I’m sorry that if it’s a reference to something else, that was my idea that she gave the answer to her sister. But if that’s been done, then never mind.

[Thomas]
I mean, everything’s been done, right? So-

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
I mean, it wasn’t a puzzle that Angelica gave her sister the answer to.

[Thomas]
There we go.

[Emily]
She just was like, “Here’s this man.”

[Thomas]
Just stepped back.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Or maybe her sister stole the answer from her, and that’s why she stole the comb.

[Thomas]
So, now we can have the comb be some other thing? Like, it has a greater significance than just, “Oh, your grandfather owned this comb.”

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Thomas]
So, it’s like, “Okay, you’re going to take the man, but I’m going to take the key to the fortune” or whatever.

[Shep]
Oh, they’re twins. So, she pretended to be her sister to be with him just for one night, and he gave her the comb, thinking it was her sister.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
So, she’s essentially stealing it, but her sister had no idea. So, no one in Simon’s family knows this story.

[Thomas]
Does everybody wonder where the comb went?

[Shep]
I mean, Simon’s grandfather might wonder where the comb went, but Simon’s grandfather’s… Let’s give them names. Simon’s grandfather, also called Simon. No confusion there. What was, was it Peter that’s called, that was originally called Simon in the Bible?

[Emily]
Yes, because he called him Simon Peter, because there are two Simons, right?

[Shep]
Yep. Okay, so his grandfather’s name was Peter, and we don’t explain it or call attention to it.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s just a thing. You might get it or you might not. What are the two sisters named?

[Thomas]
Veronica-

[Shep]
And Betty?

[Emily]
I mean, we have established that Peter would most likely be a redhead.

[Shep]
You know, this is all starting to come together.

[Thomas]
And then the lawyer’s name is Jughead and then when Simon goes to talk to Betty’s relative or her descendants is that Josie? She’s got a lot of, she’s a cat lady.

[Emily]
She got, like, a cat lady, yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
But her life partner, Sabrina-

[Shep]
Hahah.

[Emily]
Grows a lot of herbs and really into Wicca.

[Shep]
So, how much of this can we use without getting sued?

[Emily]
Okay, old lady names.

[Thomas]
I mean Betty and Veronica-

[Emily]
Yeah, Betty and Veronica are fine.

[Shep]
But they’re twins. I mean, it’s placeholder names.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
The writers would come up with new names anyway-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So, it doesn’t matter. Just for us to know. So, it’s Betty and Veronica, and Betty solves it, and Veronica doesn’t. Am I understanding this correctly?

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Betty marries. Yeah.

[Thomas]
No, Veronica marries.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
Veronica marries Peter.

[Thomas]
Because the bad guy and Betty is the good guy. So yeah, I think the big thing we probably should figure out is like where is the story leading, like, what is-

[Emily]
What is the discovery?

[Shep]
What is the goal?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
What is the-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
At what point does he drop the Heart of the Ocean off the side of the ship?

[Thomas]
Well because we’re, originally we said that he saw that this thing, this comb, had intrinsic value and he was going to sell it-

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Thomas]
And by the end of the story, we want him not to sell it. We want him to keep it. So, we’ve got to figure out what is it that he discovers that creates that change in him and does he learn something about himself? Is this his story? Is it someone else’s story?

[Emily]
Oh, that’s what we were talking about. Is it his story versus the love story?

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s the, it’s, you have the parallel stories of his grandfather and him.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
It’s Julie & Julia, except Peter and Simon.

[Emily]
Hmm. Okay.

[Shep]
I mean, we could have Betty and Veronica be friends instead of sisters, but in the dark, he couldn’t tell them apart.

[Thomas]
She Single White Female‘d him?

[Shep]
She Single White Female‘d him. Let’s get that movie in there. Anyway, Simon can give the comb to Betty’s granddaughter at the end.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Because they’ve formed a relationship because they’re not related.

[Thomas]
Is there another woman in Simon’s life that he’s unsure about? Are they, like, going through a rough patch or something so there’s like a little bit more mirroring where it’s like oh there’s kind of someone he’s on the outs with but he’s not sure but he’s lonely but then he meets Betty’s granddaughter-

[Shep]
I, see, I… No, I don’t like that.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
That’s too similar. I want it to be different.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
So, the grandfather has two women-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And Simon has no women.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
He’s got a crush on someone-

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
But has not asked them out.

[Thomas]
Or maybe he, I don’t want to say he’s been friend zoned because it’s, he has but it’s his own fault, right? Like-

[Shep]
The term “friend zone” has this negative connotation that it shouldn’t have. Being friends is great. Like-

[Emily]
Yes, sometimes you need to choose to be friends than something else.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
But I mean, my point is that, like, he has been pursuing her romantically and she’s not interested in him, but he has not accepted that, is I guess what I’m going for.

[Shep]
Oh, god. I don’t like Simon then.

[Emily]
What if she has been pursuing and he friend zones her?

[Shep]
Just be honest and communicate.

[Emily]
No!

[Thomas]
But then-

[Emily]
No!

[Thomas]
We wouldn’t have a movie.

[Emily]
I refuse!

[Thomas]
The movie wouldn’t be ninety minutes it would be five minutes.

[Emily]
I’m allowed to have a crush on that guy and then just hope that he will one day notice me and-

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Take off my glasses and pull my ponytail down.

[Shep]
Yes, you can have all that and also not be creepy and pursue someone who has already told you no.

[Thomas]
Well, I don’t think, he’s not, I don’t think he’s being creepy about it, he’s just, has this unrequited love for her or not love but, you know, feelings for her and-

[Shep]
He’s got a crush-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
On her.

[Thomas]
And he hasn’t come to terms with like “Hey bro, it’s not happening.” I think that it’s the case that he’s, maybe he’s known this woman for a while and he’s had a crush on her for a long time without pursuing it at all for whatever reason and then he, kind of, recently has asked her out for something and it didn’t go well. Either she rejected him outright or they went on a date, or a couple dates, and it was just like, “Eh, it’s not-“

[Emily]
Just didn’t feel it, right?

[Thomas]
Right and so he’s sort of in this like, he’s, he’s, hasn’t come to terms with it yet. He’s still, he’s had this, carried this torch for her for so long and so he’s like “Ah but maybe, maybe something can change,” and it’s like, it’s not gonna, and he just has to realize that. So, that’s his big change is by the end of the movie he’s like “Yeah, okay, obviously it’s not work out.”

[Shep]
So, he is Betty.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
He’s not Peter. He’s Betty.

[Thomas]
Yes, yeah.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
So, that’s the parallel. Okay. Because Betty eventually came to terms-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That, that Peter wasn’t going to go after her.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And that’s why she stole the comb.

[Thomas]
And so, she starts her own family and moves on and yeah yeah-

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Maybe she stole the comb before she came to those terms.

[Shep]
Yeah, yes.

[Thomas]
So, that’s sort of, like, a subplot that’s going on in Simon’s life and then he gets this comb and is pursuing the history of, like, “Where did this come from and why am I getting it and what’s going on here?” And so, he has the, Betty’s name from the lawyer and obviously she’s passed away but there’s maybe a obituary that says there’s going to be a service or send flowers here or something along those lines that directs him to the family?

[Shep]
So, the will is already executed before the service. Is this-?

[Thomas]
Oh yeah, yeah, I see what you’re saying.

[Shep]
I think you have more of a, of a story if the, the service has already happened. But he can look through newspaper microfiche or whatever and find the announcement of the service and go to that business or that location and get the information from them. Like, he’s actively pursuing it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And it’s not just he happens to see in the newspaper that there’s a service for this person with the same name.

[Thomas]
Well, no, I don’t think he happens to see it, like, he’s looking for it and finds that information.

[Shep]
Right. I mean, you could just search, you do an internet search for that and find the newspaper article. Like I’ve, I’ve seen that in my life.

[Thomas]
I have a google alert for my name and there are apparently a ton of Thomas J. Browns out there and all the time I’m seeing obituaries and notices and sometimes they are years old where it’s like, “Oh, this person passed away and here’s their service,” and I’m like “Oh, that was a couple of years ago that happened” or something like that so-

[Shep]
Yes. So, that information is still out there.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
So, he can find that even after the service and then track them down. So, that’s how he does his detective work and finds Betty’s granddaughter who doesn’t have a name. Unless you want to give her a name right now? You’ve run out of Archie characters.

[Thomas]
Yeah. It was my sister who read Archie much more than I did so-

[Shep]
Ah.

[Thomas]
If we’re gonna ship Simon and Betty’s granddaughter, we should probably name her. Sarah.

[Shep]
Gertie.

[Thomas]
Gertie.

[Shep]
She ended up with the old lady name.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They’re coming around.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Oh, yeah, so, Simon is like “Gertie, man, okay, well,” and he’s, like, expecting some older woman and it’s this, like, attractive woman his age and he’s like “Oh!” What does she go by that’s not Gertie? Or maybe that is her nickname, her given name is Geraldine or something and she goes by Gertie. I guess it’d be Gertrude.

[Emily]
She could go by Trudy if she was Gertrude.

[Shep]
Yeah, Trudy.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Trudy, Gert, Gia, Gigi…

[Thomas]
Oh, Gigi, there you go.

[Emily]
Gigi’s good.

[Shep]
I like Gigi. And he doesn’t, he writes it down as “G.G.”, just the two letters. So, we see when she calls him later on his phone, it’s just G, period, G, period.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s good.

[Shep]
Don’t call attention to it.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
It’s just there. Okay, so we don’t have any story of the two of them-

[Thomas]
No.

[Shep]
Spending any time together.

[Thomas]
Well, this is where that happens, I guess.

[Shep]
Yeah, so he tracks the comb down to this family and goes to this location and meets Gigi for the first time and asks her about her grandmother or about this woman that he didn’t know but received this comb from. Does Gigi know the story of the comb? Or does she join Simon in his investigation and, you know, her mother or her father knew more of the story?

[Thomas]
Yeah, I think it needs to be the latter because otherwise this part of the movie happens way too fast.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And then that gives them an excuse to spend time together as sort of peers-

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Where it’s like oh, what an interesting thing that they both are looking into.

[Shep]
Yes. What is Gigi’s interest in this? She didn’t receive the comb. Like, what is her reason to be also investigating? Maybe she’s looking into the family history. She always wanted to learn more about the family, and nobody talks about this stuff, so she has no idea, and so, she is seizing on this opportunity to get some of those stories out of her ancestors.

[Thomas]
Well, and this could be a big thing too. Like, Simon getting this comb is a surprise to her whole family. And so, she’s like, “Oh, good. We were wondering who the hell you were and why she’s giving you this comb.” And, you know, I feel like once the Betty/Veronica schism happened, neither of them talked about the other anymore. They kind of-

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Moved on with their lives. So, they don’t realize that there’s that connection, or at least the people we’re focusing on don’t realize it’s that connection. And maybe even the parents, those middle generation, doesn’t know.

[Shep]
Right! So, both of the grandparents can be dead. All three of those can be dead, but you still have someone from that generation, a mutual friend-

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Shep]
They eventually track down, and they know the story-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because they saw it happen.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So, that’s the penultimate.

[Thomas]
So, that’s our Jughead.

[Shep]
That’s our Jughead. That’s the name of the movie. “That’s Our Jughead!”

[Thomas]
But, yeah, I like that. So, they got to go through a few different family members. And along the way, they’re both learning things about Betty and- And maybe he’s even going to his parents, like, “Why? Do, you know, what’s up with this? Like, why am I getting this?” If his parents are alive, why is he getting it specifically?

[Shep]
Thomas, why are you bringing up these questions now? We’re almost done with the episode. All right. So, in the future, much of humanity lives in hive-like megastructures.

[Thomas]
I mean, it could be the case that his parents are dead.

[Shep]
It could be.

[Thomas]
I’m just thinking, like, right now we’re really focused on Betty, and we’re not going to learn about his grandparents at all, even though it’s coming back around. But maybe he knows what he needs to know about his grandparents. And there’s just this one experience that they had, this one relationship that Peter had that Simon doesn’t know about because Peter never talked about it. And this is how he finds out about it.

[Shep]
Oh, wait, earlier we said that Peter doesn’t even know about the comb being stolen because he thought he gave it to Veronica, which turned out to be Betty.

[Thomas]
Mm hmm. That was when they were twins.

[Shep]
Yes, but, you know, she put on a wig, black wig. Yeah, if she’s, if they’re not twins, then she just stole it at some later point. Anyway, they could go back and forth between the two families-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Tracking down details. At one point, they have to take a trip. This is when they’re going to see, you know, Grandpa Jughead or whatever. And so, they share a hotel room. It’s got twin beds. They’re not sleeping together.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
We got curtain down the middle.

[Shep]
They’re not enemies. They’re not, you know. But this is time that they could spend talking to each other about things other than this thing they’re investigating and learn about each other’s lives and their shared interests.

[Thomas]
Hmm, yeah.

[Shep]
Whatever those are. Problem for the writers.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So, you just have these, these times that they’re spending together that aren’t about finding out the history of the comb so that at the end there could be an attraction between them-

[Thomas]
Uh-huh.

[Shep]
That doesn’t happen overnight.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Sure.

[Thomas]
I feel like that connection doesn’t… The connection of the two families doesn’t come until the end, though. So, I don’t feel like he can be bouncing back and forth, or they can be bouncing back and forth, getting information about each of their families. Unless it’s, somehow, he learns… I guess it depends on whether his family realizes the comb is missing or not. Because if they do, he could contact his parents and be like, “Hey, I got this thing from this person. Does anybody know?” And they could be like, “Oh, my god, the comb. It’s back.” But then I feel like they’re involved. So, I don’t like him having a family.

[Shep]
I think you’re right that they shouldn’t be bouncing back and forth. However, it could be they, you know, he’s going up her family tree-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Getting more of the story with each generation. And then as they’re looking into Betty, who they can’t interview because she’s passed on-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They find photos of her. And there is one where she’s with Veronica. And he goes, “I think I recognize her.” And that’s where it’s tied to his family, is it’s that he sees a photo of his grandmother with this other woman that he doesn’t know. And so, it’s like, “Oh, there’s a connection.” So, they go, they don’t go back and forth between two families. They’re going up her family. And then they go to his family just once to continue the investigation. And then someone from his family is like, “I don’t know, but ask so-and-so from Riverdale-“

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“They might know.”

[Thomas]
And then is that how they get put onto Jughead?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Okay. And so, what is the big ultimate.. “climax” is maybe not even the right word, but like, what is the culmination of the film? What are we working toward? Is it just finding out the truth of the story? Like, finally piecing the whole thing together?

[Shep]
It’s to find the Heart of the Ocean. Sorry, I’m so reminded of how dumb the end of Titanic was, because the whole point of them interviewing her was to find out what happened to the jewel. And then at the end, they don’t even ask her about it. They’re like, “Great, thanks for telling us the story.” And they leave. It’s like, did you forget what you got here, her here for? Like, doesn’t make any sense.

[Thomas]
“Look, we only had an, you know, two hours scheduled with her, and it’s up, so we got to move on.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“We got to go.”

[Shep]
“Sorry, no more time for questions. So, I guess we couldn’t find out.” So, dumb. Anyway.

[Thomas]
I’m just trying to think about like these kinds of stories where you get that peek into the past. How do they often go? I feel like there’s usually maybe some piece that’s held back from the audience because we’re sort of discovering this along with him, right? So, it’s piecing that story together for us as well. So, is that-

[Shep]
Oh.

[Thomas]
The satisfying ending is we finally know the whole thing and everything falls into place?

[Shep]
Earlier, you talked about, like, he didn’t have the provenance to sell it. So, maybe that’s the reason he’s looking into why it was given to him, because he found out whatever it is, it’s an antique that has value to collectors and he would like to sell it, but he can’t. And so, he’s doing this research into it to find out where it came from and whatever to try and get that information-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
To get that history of it so that he can sell it. Like, that’s his goal for the majority of the film. And then when he finds the history of it, instead of selling it, he gives it to Betty’s granddaughter. Who, did we name her? I can’t remember.

[Thomas]
Gigi.

[Shep]
Gigi!

[Emily]
Gigi.

[Shep]
Gigi.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes, we had a big conversation about it.

[Emily]
Yeah, Gertrude, Gigi.

[Shep]
Right, right, right.

[Thomas]
Does he give it to Gigi? That feels very fast. They’ve known each other for like a week by the time the movie ends.

[Shep]
No, they kiss and get married immediately. Have you not seen a romance?

[Emily]
Yeah, I’m with him. Yeah.

[Thomas]
All right.

[Shep]
Or you have a flash forward at the end where she’s, they’re getting married and she’s wearing it.

[Thomas]
Ah, ah. This whole movie has been a story being told to Peter and, excuse me-

[Shep]
Oh!

[Thomas]
Simon and Gigi’s grandkids.

[Shep]
That’s How I Met Your Mother?

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
That’s what we’re doing?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, there we go.

[Shep]
Oh, jeez.

[Emily]
It’s got a better ending.

[Shep]
Couldn’t be a worse one.

[Thomas]
They all live in a big honeycomb structure in the future.

[Shep]
That’s right. That’s right. Look, the power has gone out and they’re passing time telling stories.

[Thomas]
Do we have our story? I feel like we got it pretty well figured out at this point.

[Shep]
I mean, I don’t even know what kind of story it is anymore. Is it a rom-com?

[Thomas]
I don’t know.

[Shep]
Is it just a rom?

[Emily]
Eh.

[Thomas]
I think it’s like a romance drama type of-

[Emily]
Yeah. Rama?

[Thomas]
Rama.

[Shep]
Oh, rama. Yep. Okay.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Comb. Did we go through it with a fine-toothed comb, or did it leave you tearing your hair out? 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. Our second favorite people in the world are the ones who listen to this show. Our favorite people. Are the ones who tell others about Almost Plausible. Regardless of whether you’re one of our favorites or one of our second favorites, be sure to join Emily, Shep, and I for the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]