Frog

References

• Poison Dart Frog
• Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia
  • The Psychedelic Toad
• Nine Lives
• Almost Plausible: Foam
• Ladyhawke
• Kiki’s Delivery Service
• Sabrina the Teenage Witch
• Almost Plausible: Comb
• Almost Plausible: Cranberry Sauce
• Almost Plausible: Bread Maker
• Abiogenesis
• Frog and Toad
• Almost Plausible: Wind Chimes
• Bluey
  • Onesies
  • The Sign
• Discworld
  • Discworld Witches
  • Granny Weatherwax
  • Wyrd Sisters
• Pushing Daisies
• Sweeps
• Taxidermy Frog Folk Art
• Macbeth
• Coleus scutellarioides
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Junior
• What is a Diopter in Cinematography?
• Fantasia
  • Sorcerer’s Apprentice
• Dunning–Kruger Effect
• American Pie
• X2: X-Men United
• Zendaya

Corrections

Thomas mentioned a video he watched about a man “who goes around trying all these crazy drugs.” The series he was thinking of is Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia, where Hamilton Morris (son of the famous documentarian Errol Morris) does indeed go around the world trying all sort of crazy drugs (and normal ones, too). The clip Thomas was thinking of (and slightly misremembering) was from the episode called The Psychadelic Toad. In the clip, it’s not Morris who has the reaction Thomas described, but another man—while Hamilton looks on before trying the drug himself. The clip is a bit troubling to watch, especially out of context, but if you want to see it you can find it here. What the clip doesn’t show is that the man recovers just fine, and afterward he has no regrets.

Several times throughout the show we misnamed a previous episode. We said things like “cranberry” and “cranberry bog,” when the actual title is “Cranberry Sauce.” We know Shep doesn’t listen to the podcast, but you’d think Thomas or Emily would have gotten it right! Actually, Emily pointed it out in the episode, but we wanted to call attention to it again here since we got it so consistently wrong.

Emily said that the “toe of frog” in Macbeth referred to a cutting from a plant and not an actual frog’s toe. Further research suggests this is likely not accurate. Frog’s Foot is a real horticultural name for Coleus scutellarioides, but Macbeth was written more than 200 years before that plant was in European cultivation. The idea that the witches are using secret code names for herbs seems to stem from Scott Cunningham’s Magical Herbalism, published in 1982.

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Thomas]
Well, I like the witch one. That’s the direction I’m voting for.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So-

[Emily]
What do you got, Shep? That’s it? That’s what you want?

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
What do I got? What? Did I not pitch? I can come up with a frog one. A frog and a toad are friends, and they go on adventures-

[Thomas]
They wear little waistcoats, and-

[Emily]
Mm.

[Shep]
Yes, they ride bicycles…

[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- (cough cough). Sorry, I had a frog in my throat.

[Shep]
Aha!

[Emily]
Ha ha ha.

[Thomas]
Anyway, I have with me Emily-

[Emily]
Hey guys!

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
So, how do you guys feel about frogs?

[Emily]
Uh, I don’t hate them. I kind of like them. They’re kind of cute.

[Shep]
There are frogs, what? What?

[Thomas]
Ambivalent then.

[Shep]
I’m ambivalent, they’re amphibian-

[Thomas]
Hey!

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I don’t know, whatever. Either there are people like Emily, apparently, who are like, “Oh, they’re cute.” And I just don’t see it.

[Emily]
They’re cute.

[Thomas]
Eh. I like the really colorful poison dart frogs.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, those are cool.

[Thomas]
They’re cool. They look neat. And some of them have very cool colorings.

[Shep]
They look like nothing to me.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true. They’re boring for Shep.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, you would die. Don’t lick any frogs.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Have you guys seen that video? There’s a guy who I think was like, I don’t remember the premise of the video series, I think it was, like, he was going around and trying all these crazy drugs. And one of the ones is he tries this like frog venom or whatever. And like, I think he almost dies in the video.

[Emily]
Oh, my god.

[Thomas]
It’s crazy. He turns like an insane shade of white from what I remember. And-

[Emily]
Oh.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Did you ever hear the myth that if you kiss a frog, it’ll pee? Is that ever a thing, you guys?

[Thomas]
That sounds familiar.

[Emily]
We used to pick them up as kids and then try to make other people kiss him. One kid I lived next door to, he would kiss it and it would pee. I think it was because he was squeezing its little bladder, but you know.

[Shep]
I think they just pee when you pick them up.

[Emily]
That is also a possibility.

[Thomas]
I think there are some animals that’ll do that as like-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
“Ah, put me down” type of reaction. So. Well, in case you hadn’t figured it out already, Frogs are the ordinary object that we’ll use for today’s episode. The three of us will work together to come up with a movie plot about a frog, or perhaps many frogs. But before we hop over to that, first we have to pitch some story ideas. And it’s my turn to pitch first. I have two ideas today: When someone notices that the crown prince vanishes every full moon, rumors spread through the kingdom that he’s a werewolf. The villagers are terrified. But how will they react when they learn he’s not turning into a wolf, but a frog?

[Emily]
And he has to be peed on by a princess to turn back into the prince.

[Thomas]
Oh, god. That took a bit of a turn I wasn’t expecting.

[Shep]
Can he control the turning into a frog? Does he want to turn to a frog?

[Thomas]
Ooh, that would make it a lot more useful.

[Shep]
Did he used to be a frog, and he got kissed and he turned back into a prince but, it, not completely? Also, he’s got a frog wife, and he goes back home every full moon. She’s like “Where have you been?”

[Thomas]
I like the idea that he used to be a frog and he became a prince and he was very excited. And then it turns out, like-

[Emily]
Being a person’s dumb.

[Thomas]
Yeah, there’s so many like responsibilities, and-

[Shep]
“I gotta wear pants every day? No no no no.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
You can’t just go outside and get food, you gotta pay for it or have somebody cook it.

[Thomas]
Everybody around him freaks out anytime eats little fly. That’s pretty funny. All right, my other idea: The ruthless CEO of a major company is cursed by a witch. He will die in twenty hours, and his soul will transfer into his pet frog. The CEO quickly amends his will, leaving his entire fortune, including his position as CEO, to the frog. The board thinks that he went nuts, and immediately the scheming and backstabbing begins. The frog learns what his co-workers really thought of him and eventually redeems himself by doing what little he can to help make things right. In the end, though, he’s still a frog.

[Emily]
So, he learns his lesson, but remains a frog.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
I like it.

[Thomas]
Because otherwise, you know, it’s, the audience is expecting him to be redeemed and turned back.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, no. I like it.

[Thomas]
So, no, we’re not doing that.

[Emily]
It’s, there’s that thing of yes, you’ve redeemed yourself and you’ve become a better person, but you’re still where you’re at-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
When you started doing that.

[Shep]
What was the movie, there was a CEO and he gets turned into a cat or his soul inhabits a cat, you know, what I’m talking about?

[Thomas]
Yeah, that sounds familiar.

[Shep]
What was that? Was that Kevin Spacey?

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
Am I imagining-

[Thomas]
No, yeah, yeah. Nine Lives, it’s called.

[Shep]
That’s right.

[Thomas]
All right, those are my pitches. Shep, what do you have for us?

[Shep]
Okay did you say it’s frog or fog?

[Thomas]
Frog with an R. Ribbit ribbit.

[Shep]
Okay, here’s my pitch: a woman is diagnosed with early onset dementia. She is told by her doctor she has maybe six months of clarity left. But she discovers that when the fog rolls in to her coastal town, when she’s out in the fog her memories come back. So she has to choose between living out in the fog with her memories but detached from reality, or letting her memories slip away. And also she has a pet frog or something.

[Thomas]
But when the fog rolls in, it becomes frogsquatch, and-

[Shep]
And he turns into a prince-

[Thomas]
Yes!

[Emily]
Giant prince.

[Shep]
But only when the fog rolls in on a full moon.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
A lot of stipulations.

[Shep]
Yes. That’s what I have-

[Thomas]
What was the movie where there’s the two lovers and they’re animals at opposite times of day?

[Shep]
Oh!

[Thomas]
Totally blanking on the title.

[Shep]
Yes, me too. It’s got that one guy…

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Ladyhawke.

[Thomas]
Ladyhawke.

[Emily]
Oh!

[Thomas]
That’s it. Yeah.

[Emily]
I never saw Ladyhawke, but I know of it.

[Shep]
Matthew Broderick.

[Emily]
That’s right.

[Thomas]
That’s right.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah. So, maybe it’s like a Ladyhawke where she turns into a frog and he turns into a prince and then-

[Shep]
Right. That’s what I have-

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Emily, what do you have?

[Emily]
All right, for my pitch, I want to revisit our favorite witches.

[Thomas]
Oh, okay.

[Shep]
Kiki?

[Thomas]
Okay, our second favorite witches.

[Emily]
Our second favorite witches.

[Thomas]
Oh, wait, Sabrina?

[Emily]
Uh…

[Thomas]
No, that was last episode.

[Emily]
Do we really like Sabrina that much?

[Thomas]
Which version?

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
All right, so in this story, Braden, the young sheriff-

[Thomas]
Okay, good. I’m hoping you have reread these recently because I have not.

[Emily]
Yeah, I have reread these recently.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
So, Braden was made sheriff during the Cranberry Bog episode.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Oh right because the old sheriff was killed-

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
By the cranberry bog monster.

[Thomas]
Yes. Yes.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yes, and the interim sheriff, Warren, was not a great fit for the town.

[Thomas]
He wasn’t even from the town, right?

[Emily]
No, no-

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
He wasn’t.

[Shep]
Right, “He’s not even from here!”

[Emily]
He wasn’t, and he wasn’t gonna be-. That’s right. So Braden and Violet are married. Violet is the Christian mom’s daughter.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
That makes sense because she was trying to ship them anyway, wasn’t she? Okay.

[Emily]
Yeah, she was trying to ship them they had possibly previously dated in between Bread Maker and Cranberry.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
So, they’re married and hoping to have a child, but having trouble conceiving. After trying conventional medical methods and failing, they pretty much give up. Shannon, Violet’s mother, sees how painful the infertility is for the couple, begins researching magical methods. Something Braden and Violet have decided not to try. Poppy, the original witch, gave them warnings about using magic to help themselves in such a way. Shannon tries anyway and mismanages her spell because she’s not a real witch and essentially releases a plague of frogs on the town. At first, it’s just annoying, but the problem continues to grow along with the size of the frogs.

[Thomas]
Uh-oh.

[Emily]
There may or may not be a battle with a giant frog. We can decide that later.

[Thomas]
(Whispering) Frogsquatch!

[Emily]
That is my pitch.

[Thomas]
Well, I like the witches, so-

[Shep]
I do like the witches.

[Emily]
We do love the witches.

[Shep]
Are you sure you don’t want to do the fog one?

[Thomas]
Maybe when Shannon, you know, does her spell, a fog rolls into town and that brings the frogs, the plague of frogs with it.

[Emily]
Yes, a fog of frogs.

[Thomas]
So, that way Shep can feel included.

[Emily]
Yeah. Just ribbits, ribbits. You know, I tell my kids that because they hate, uh, the phrase of me saying “It’s froggy out” instead of fog, you know, because it’s a dad joke.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
They hate it.

[Shep]
And you’re a mom, that’s not allowed.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s, well, that’s why they hate it.

[Emily]
That’s what- No, yeah, it’s because I’m a mom.

[Thomas]
Not because it’s a bad joke.

[Emily]
And they’re like-

[Thomas]
It’s because they’re very traditional gender roles, and-

[Emily]
So, my daughter was like, “No, we learned about this in science.” She knows that I know the real answer. She goes, “No, we learned about this in science. It’s water. Everyone knows it’s water.” And I said, “No, it’s billions of teeny, tiny frog eggs. They have to come from somewhere and they come in with the fog.”

[Shep]
What was it called what people used to believe that, like, frogs came from nothing like it would rain and then frogs would come out of the ground.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“Abiogenesis” something like that.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Something like that, yeah. But see, Emily’s not even suggesting that.

[Emily]
No, it’s just a floating mist of frog eggs.

[Shep]
Right, just like crabsquatch.

[Thomas]
Right. Well, I like the witch one. That’s the direction I’m voting for.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So-

[Emily]
What do you got, Shep? That’s it? That’s what you want?

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
What do I got? What? Did I not pitch? I can come up with a frog one. A frog and a toad are friends, and they go on adventures-

[Thomas]
They wear little waistcoats, and-

[Emily]
Mm.

[Shep]
Yes, they ride bicycles…

[Thomas]
Emily, the one thing now I will warn you right up front is: we’re going to be leaning on you a lot for…

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, that’s okay.

[Thomas]
Now, what happened again? Who was this again?

[Shep]
Yeah, what are the names?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Where are we?

[Emily]
I have the names written down of the ones that I think we’re gonna use.

[Shep]
So, Poppy is the original witch.

[Emily]
Yes, she’s the Bread Maker witch.

[Shep]
She’s the Bread Maker witch, she runs a bakery.

[Emily]
Yeah. “Poppy’s Pastries and Potions”.

[Thomas]
That’s right. Yeah.

[Shep]
Right. She adopted someone, who did she adopt?

[Emily]
She adopted Iris-

[Shep]
Iris!

[Emily]
A runaway who came to town.

[Shep]
Yes, okay.

[Thomas]
And then Shannon was opposed to magic originally-

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
But then came around at the end of the Bread Maker episode?

[Emily]
Well, she still hasn’t fully come around. In the Cranberry episode, she was appalled that her daughter was training with Poppy and Iris.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
But as they got closer to the battle with the bog monster, she had been doing her own research and reading the books that her daughter had come home with.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And so, she does end up helping them and reluctantly accepting her daughter’s wishes.

[Thomas]
All right.

[Shep]
What was her vessel?

[Emily]
The daughter’s?

[Shep]
No no no, the mom’s.

[Emily]
They both had a blender. One was a stick blender and one was a regular blender.

[Thomas]
That’s right.

[Shep]
Oh, that’s right. Hers was the stick blender.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
That’s funny.

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s all coming back to me.

[Thomas]
If I remember correctly, Wind Chime was a prequel, wasn’t it?

[Emily]
Yes, yes.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
In Wind Chime, we had Maggie or Magnolia.

[Thomas]
That’s right.

[Emily]
Poppy was in trouble because she accidentally invited a Fae.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yep. Okay.

[Emily]
And I kind of was, my thoughts don’t include a lot from Wind Chime–

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
But we could bring things in. Like Magnolia could show up. The grandma can’t because she is dead, along with old sheriff, whose name was Gary.

[Shep]
What was the grandma’s name? It was another flower.

[Emily]
It was another flower you got me there. Don’t have that one.

[Thomas]
That much we remember.

[Shep]
Right. Because they have a naming scheme.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah, they’re all flowers. I want to say her name was Rose.

[Shep]
Oh yeah.

[Thomas]
That sounds correct.

[Shep]
I think you’re right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I’ve listened to this show. I remember some things.

[Thomas]
Famously, you haven’t.

[Shep]
That’s also true. I forgot that I don’t listen to it.

[Thomas]
All right. So, just from your pitch, I think we can sort of see the general shape of the story. I guess one of the big questions that I would have right off the bat is: do Braden and Violet eventually get pregnant?

[Emily]
Uh, that is an excellent question. And we could go one of two ways with that: we could go Onesie or we could go The Sign.

[Shep]
Obviously Onesie.

[Emily]
Yeah, I was thinking Onesie.

[Shep]
Obviously Onesie. Why would you even bring up The Sign?

[Emily]
I forgot it doesn’t exist.

[Shep]
It doesn’t exist. It almost exists.

[Emily]
For the audience who might not understand what we’re talking about, let me sort of fill you in: Bluey episodes.

[Thomas]
Yes, for the audience.

[Emily]
Famous- If anyone out there is a Bluey fan, the adults will note that in the episode Onesie, when Aunt Brandy comes to visit, she’s infertile. Clearly, that’s what’s going on. And it’s just, nothing, no one can do anything about it. And then in The Sign, they wrap up a lot of storylines in a nice pretty bow and make Brandy pregnant, which takes away from Onesie.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
So-

[Shep]
Kind of ruins the show entirely.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It just becomes a made-up fantasy and is no longer grounded in reality-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Like a proper cartoon dog show.

[Emily]
Join Shep and I on our side podcast about Bluey, where we rewrite The Sign and make it correct.

[Shep]
All you gotta do is change the last thirty seconds!

[Emily]
I know, and I know exactly how to change it.

[Shep]
It’s so good up to that point.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And then all episodes after that are ruined forever.

[Emily]
So, my thought is, no, they shouldn’t end up conceiving-

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
Because the magic can’t work that way.

[Shep]
My thought is they should have to give up the possibility of conceiving-

[Thomas]
Ooh.

[Shep]
To undo the magic.

[Emily]
That’s a good one.

[Thomas]
That’s really good. I like that.

[Emily]
That’s a tough choice. Yeah.

[Thomas]
You said it was Poppy who warned them against doing this in the first place?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So, is her warning, is it, is she thinking like, “Oh, that’s not how magic works, so don’t even try”? Or is it “Bad things will happen. You better not do it”?

[Emily]
Um, I think it’s, maybe not “Bad things will happen. You better not do it”. I think it’s closer to “That’s not how the magic works anyway”. Because I want, maybe she says something like, “I’ve never seen it work for anyone. It’s never worked for me. It never worked for my grandma.” Although, did it work for her grandma?

[Shep]
Never worked for her grandma? She had kids.

[Emily]
No, no, I just meant in general that, like, it’s very, it’s a very common trope with witches that you can’t do spells that you benefit from personally. So, you can’t, like, make yourself rich. You can’t get the winning lotto numbers, you know, those kind of things.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Did you ever read the Discworld series?

[Emily]
Parts of it.

[Shep]
So, famously there are witches in it. There’s a whole series, sub-series, of the books that it’s just about the witches, and-

[Thomas]
They’re good.

[Shep]
They’re very good. And the greatest witch, Weatherwax, uses magic sometimes but not often, but not permanently. So, like, she can use magic to grab a sword that someone is attacking her with and be unharmed for a while-

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
And then later she undoes it. I mean it’s kind of the point of that book is her sister, her twin sister, turned evil because she just kept maintaining the magic and you can’t do that. So, a fertility spell is asking for trouble-

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Because if you undo it what happens to the child when you’re undoing the magic that caused that person to come into being? That’s, you know, a very bad road to go down so don’t do this if you have to undo it later.

[Emily]
I think you could buy that. I think if you look at the magic they’ve used, most of it has been temporary-ish.

[Thomas]
I mean, I like that as a thing, but I’m not sure that that necessarily is necessary for this story because it’s not like the spell is successful and now they have this moral quandary. It’s that Shannon attempts a spell and doesn’t do the right spell.

[Emily]
Yeah, she messes it up. Much like Maggie’s friend Dandelion-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
From Wind Chimes.

[Shep]
What happened to Dandelion? I-

[Emily]
She wanted to be a witch.

[Shep]
Am just hearing about Dandelion for the first time right now.

[Emily]
Dandelion was your idea.

[Shep]
Well, it’s news to me! Oh, Dandelion wanted to be a witch-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, her name wasn’t even Dandelion. She changed it.

[Emily]
Yeah, she, yeah, her name was Danny, but she changed it to be Dandelion and wanted people to call her Dandy or Dandelion. Yes.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And she tried to do a spell and it didn’t work.

[Shep]
Okay so I think that Shannon isn’t doing the spell wrong. Shannon doesn’t know the spell, because Poppy won’t help her.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
Poppy’s not gonna give her the spell for a thing that she’s like “Hey don’t do this,” but Shannon will do her own research and come up with a spell. She will create a spell.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right, a new spell that doesn’t exist.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
A new spell that doesn’t exist.

[Thomas]
And it doesn’t exist for a reason.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Well I mean it might exist, it might exist and she doesn’t know it, but what she comes up with is new and of course does not work for its intended purpose-

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
Because she’s not really a witch. She is but she isn’t. She’s not properly trained.

[Thomas]
Well, I think that’s actually something we should figure out is we’ve sort of seen a progression of Shannon moving more witchy as we go. Emily, how long after Cranberry do you feel like this takes place?

[Emily]
Um, I would say maybe five years because they were still pretty young-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
In Cranberry.

[Shep]
How, what was the time gap between Bread Maker and Cranberry–

[Emily]
Um, at least-

[Thomas]
It was short, wasn’t it?

[Emily]
At least two years.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s longer than I was thinking, but okay.

[Emily]
Because we made it that between Bread Maker and Cranberry because we had talked about pairing Bradon and Iris together. But-

[Thomas]
But she was sixteen.

[Emily]
In Bread Maker, she was around sixteen-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And he was the deputy.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So, he was a grown-ass man with a grown-ass job-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
As I pointed out.

[Thomas]
You saying that is reminding me of that conversation.

[Emily]
So, we had it to where they grew up together.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
They knew each other. And they, she had been of age in between Bread Maker and Cranberry Bog to where they could have briefly dated or shown an attraction to one another. I don’t think we ever actually came up with whether they did or not, but I think we built it up in Cranberry Sauce.

[Shep]
Cranberry Sauce?

[Emily]
Yeah, it was Cranberry Sauce, actually.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s right.

[Emily]
They made a sauce to banish the bog monster-

[Shep]
As you do.

[Emily]
Which is why, which is why I was like, but that one’s kind of a, it’s not really a permanent spell because they can’t kill the bog monster, I think we decided, they can just banish him underground for X amount of time.

[Shep]
So, it’s temporary.

[Emily]
Well, as long as the cranberries are continued to grow there.

[Thomas]
Right. So, the reason I ask is because I could see Shannon taking witch lessons or whatever. And so, she could be on a path toward becoming a witch.

[Shep]
But see, does she take witch lessons? Because she’s, she has that strong Christian background.

[Emily]
She does.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
I don’t think she, yeah.

[Shep]
She might not admit that she’s even interested in it, but she might read her daughter’s books and do self-study.

[Emily]
Which she did.

[Shep]
And in fact, Poppy can say “You should really come and learn properly, because a little magic is-“

[Emily]
Dangerous.

[Shep]
“Dangerous.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I feel like that would be a really good early scene.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Poppy and Shannon interacting, and Shannon does some tiny little magic thing that she’s done, you know, a hundred times. And Poppy’s like, “You know…” And then we get that, that establishing element of: Shannon is not a professional witch. She’s not a trained witch.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
She doesn’t think she needs it.

[Thomas]
Yeah. She’s read all the books.

[Shep]
She’s read the books. She’s done her own research.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
She doesn’t have the time. She would love to, but she just doesn’t have the time. This is what she’s telling Poppy.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But really, she would never.

[Thomas]
So, then when Braden and Violet, are they okay? I mean, they’re disappointed, obviously, but are they okay with that decision?

[Emily]
Well, yeah, they are upset and it’s hard on them, but also they’ve, you know, they know that they can live a full life without children. They could be auntie and uncle to somebody else, you know.

[Thomas]
Sure. But Shannon just cannot accept this.

[Emily]
Yeah, or, you know, they even discuss the possibility of fostering and adopting, you know, that kind of thing.

[Shep]
Right, she has an adopted friend, so-

[Emily]
Yeah, there are more options. It doesn’t have- their child doesn’t have to be blood related.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That’s kind of where they stand.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
They might not be ready for that yet because they’re still grieving the infertility, but they know that that’s a possibility in the future.

[Thomas]
So, it feels like then the end of the first act is when Shannon casts her spell?

[Emily]
Yes, because then we get the frogs coming in. Just like with Foam, just-

[Thomas]
Frogs or fog?

[Emily]
Froggy fog. So, I mean.

[Shep]
Come on, Thomas.

[Emily]
We just went over how fog is-

[Shep]
They don’t sound at all similar.

[Thomas]
Yeah, so then the frogs come. Do they start off like really tiny frogs?

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, you know, like those little tiny ones we have around here in the summer. They’re little guys.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
They make a loud noise, but they’re little, tiny guys.

[Thomas]
Oh my god, they’re so noisy.

[Emily]
And so, they would have kind of a lot, but nothing out of- nothing so crazy that they aren’t just annoyed by it, you know?

[Thomas]
So, it’d be the kind of thing where like they would show up and you’d look around and be like, “Gosh, there’s a lot of frogs this year.”

[Emily]
Yes. And then it slowly becomes like, are those frogs or cicadas? Is it like, do frogs have an emerging? And it could become deafening at some point as the population gets bigger.

[Thomas]
At what point does Poppy catch on that something’s afoot?

[Emily]
Oh, pretty early on.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Okay but why doesn’t she fix it right away?

[Emily]
She’s got know what the cause is, right? She can’t just fix everything without knowing where the problem started.

[Thomas]
Maybe she does an initial spell that at first it kind of looks like it’s working, you know, we’re seeing the frog population diminish, but it doesn’t ever fully go away. In fact, it just comes back the next day or something. And so, she’s like, oh, okay, that wasn’t what it was.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
So, she was thinking it was a traditional plague-of-frogs spell.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She just thought, you know, god was sending it to disprove her magical abilities.

[Thomas]
It’s one of those pranks from one of the neighboring towns’ witches.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
Trying to ruin the cranberry festival.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Because they have their pumpkin festival that they think is so good. And I hate to admit it, really is pretty good, but-

[Emily]
So, I think Thomas is right. Poppy tries at first. Thinking it’s just a natural thing. Like just, you know how sometimes it rains frogs in like parts of the world. You know, how it’s a Tuesday and it’s raining frogs. So, she just thinks it’s something like that, you know-

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
Like, overpopulation of frogs. We’ve killed too many of their predators. They’re just out of control. So, she does a spell for that. And it works a little bit, but it doesn’t work completely because that’s not the cause.

[Thomas]
The root cause, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. So, I think one of them has to catch Shannon in the act. It could be Iris. Could be Poppy. I prefer it not be Violet. That could be revealed later. It could be Braden.

[Thomas]
Shep talked about the idea of Braden and Violet deciding to give up any possibility.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So, does Shannon’s spell start kind of working? I mean, it’s, if it’s the wrong spell, then it’s doing the wrong thing. But she probably wouldn’t stop, would she?

[Emily]
Does she tweak it? Like, it didn’t work right away.

[Thomas]
She, like, realizes what she did wrong.

[Emily]
Yeah, she thinks she realizes what she did wrong.

[Shep]
She thinks she realizes it.

[Emily]
Yeah, and that’s when the frogs come bigger.

[Thomas]
Yeah, exactly. Yep. Yep. And then at some point, does she get it right, and Violet becoming suddenly pregnant is how Poppy knows, like, “Wait a minute… Shannon!”

[Emily]
But I agree with Shep on this, that I don’t think we want to do that: she’s pregnant and they have to give up the pregnancy. I think it’s just the idea of they won’t be able to conceive. But “How do we convey that?” is a hard question.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Because the pregnancy is an easy boom. We know it’s working.

[Thomas]
Yeah. She’s pregnant with frogs, it turns out. And-

[Emily]
Yeah. She gives birth to a load of frogs.

[Thomas]
She thought she was pregnant. It’s just gas.

[Emily]
Yeah. She’s one of those gross frogs where they emerge from the-

[Thomas]
Nope, we don’t need to talk about that.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
That’s unpleasant.

[Emily]
You don’t wanna talk about the gross frog? They are disgusting, by the way.

[Thomas]
They’re all gross to me.

[Shep]
You said “It’s just gas” and it’s like “Oh it’s fog” comes out.

[Emily]
There you go.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Because that’s not a very visual thing.

[Emily]
Right. Yeah. How do we, how do we, I mean, other than having them take ovulation tests where they were always negative before at the beginning and then having them showing positive and them trying to work that out.

[Thomas]
I think that the easiest solution is at the beginning, they’re not staring down the barrel of “It’s never going to happen”. They have this difficult choice. “We’ve tried the simple things. Now it’s the hard, expensive stuff.” It’s complicated. It’s painful. It’s whatever.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
It’s like, “God, do we want to do that? How badly do we want this?” And they decide, not right now, and maybe not ever.

[Emily]
Yeah, if it’s meant to happen, it’ll happen, or we can make the decision later.

[Thomas]
Right. And so, the option still is on the table for them at the beginning. And Shannon is like, “Not good enough.”

[Emily]
“I need my grandbaby. Give it to Jesus.”

[Thomas]
She thinks she can solve it for them.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
This thing that they want. And then at the end of the movie, we learn, “Hey, there’s a solution. And it means taking that option off the table permanently. The only option you had left.” So, it’s definitely closing a door. And, you know, Poppy could even say that. I don’t know what that option is or why getting rid of it helps make the frogs go away, but.

[Shep]
Because you’re balancing it out!

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
You’re balancing it out. That’s what you do. Gotta take it from somewhere put it somewhere else.

[Thomas]
So, it’s like Pushing Daisies.

[Emily]
A little bit, yeah.

[Thomas]
If you bring someone back from the dead, and then somebody nearby has to die.

[Emily]
Yeah, that could also be an option. That could also be why Poppy’s like, “Yeah, this is why we don’t do that kind of magic, you know. There’s give and take.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“My grandmother died to save me.” Well, in ancient Egypt, frogs represented fertility because they would emerge when the delta flooded.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
So, it was, they knew it was fertile for planting now. And so, it was fertile for population.

[Shep]
So, we don’t want her to suddenly be pregnant because we don’t want to undo that at the end.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But it’s difficult to come up with, you know, how do we indicate that she might be pregnant if she’s not, or that the spell worked if she’s not, like, taking fertility tests.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
What if she just misses her period?

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
So, that it is up in the air.

[Shep]
It’s up in the air but it’s ambiguous.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, okay, I like that.

[Thomas]
And then do we make a point in the film of saying, like, no one ever knows?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
When she gets her period again later, it’s like, could have just been a delay.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Could have been that it worked and then it got swapped out. We never say one way or the other.

[Emily]
I think that’s the best way to go with it and leave it up to audience interpretation.

[Thomas]
Sure, sure, sure.

[Emily]
That way we’re not, you know, causing problems.

[Thomas]
We’re not murdering children.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Not in this episode.

[Emily]
No, no, we’ll do that later. I got a serial killer murdering children somewhere in this noggin of mine.

[Thomas]
I have no doubt. All right. Well, let’s take a break here and reset after thinking about whether or not we should murder children.

[Shep]
And we’re against it, for the record.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that was where we landed, for sure. Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we don’t want to murder kids.

[Shep]
We’re against it this time.

[Thomas]
This time, yeah. Save it for when we need more listens. Get that controversy going.

[Shep]
Yep. Ratings week.

[Thomas]
We’re going to have sweeps week with podcasts. Ah, but when we come back, we’ll figure out the rest of our Froggy episode.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right. We are back from our break. Rumor has it Emily has some thoughts.

[Emily]
I do have some thoughts because I don’t remember if I said this during the break or before the break, but in my research, frogs in Egypt were seen as representative of fertility because they’d come out with the delta flooded and it was good crops.

[Thomas]
Mm hmm.

[Emily]
It was also said that if you touched a frog, that you would become pregnant. That would increase your fertility.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Touched it with your hand or like emotionally?

[Emily]
Physically. You have to touch it physically.

[Shep]
Okay, gotcha gotcha gotcha.

[Emily]
That would be too easy because as we know from Frog and Toad, frogs have big hearts and are open to affection. So, the idea is that Shannon is thinking of ways to get her daughter to touch a frog and she figures out the spell where she grinds up the frog with her stick blender. And, yeah you know, whatever. It’s gross, but-

[Thomas]
Probably she’s using like a dried frog from the witch supply store or something.

[Emily]
Yeah, probably, or you know, one of those Mexican mariachi frogs. Um-

[Thomas]
Wait, what?

[Emily]
Do you not know about the shellacked Mexican mariachi frogs?

[Thomas]
No.

[Emily]
Oh man, when I was in high school, my band teacher came back from a Mexico trip and he had one with a sombrero playing a trumpet. It was shellacked and it was, like, standing up.

[Thomas]
I see. So, in the US, we do that to squirrels-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And in Mexico, they do it to frogs.

[Emily]
In Mexico, they did it to frogs.

[Thomas]
Got it, got it.

[Emily]
Mexican mariachi frogs. I kind of loved it. That might be part of where my love for taxidermy comes from.

[Shep]
Yeah, I started to do an internet search on that, and it auto completed “mariachi frogs” so it’s a very popular term.

[Emily]
It’s a very popular tourist trinket to come home with.

[Thomas]
I like that Emily saw that and went, “Wait, taxidermy can be funny?”

[Emily]
Yeah. Oh man, the taxidermy I want to buy. I always get jealous when I see somebody with a good taxidermied animal.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
All right, so when she’s making the potion that she thinks is gonna work-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
The reason she ends up adding the frog is because of the witches in Macbeth, because they use toe of frog.

[Thomas]
Oh, okay.

[Emily]
But apparently in my research, that is a misunderstanding that modern audiences have. The “toe of frog” actually refers to a leafy plant called the frog’s foot, and you’re supposed to do a clipping of it, or if it’s a frilled frog’s foot, you, just a toe of it.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
Not an actual frog’s foot.

[Thomas]
Interesting.

[Emily]
And so, that’s part of where that misunderstanding comes from. And then again, while I was researching this, I actually have two frogs- three frog’s foot plants upstairs in my house right now.

[Thomas]
You are very witchy.

[Emily]
I know, isn’t it just kismet here? My, uh, my frog’s feet are named Tillamook, Laura, and Wybie. Just in case you need to know my plants’ names.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, from when we come over-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Be respectful toward your plants.

[Emily]
Yes. And the frog’s foot is a Coleus plant. But anyway, that’s where she’s misunderstanding. She needs to put Coleus in-

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
And she puts an actual frog in. And that-

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
Brings the frogs versus making this potion or whatever-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
She decides.

[Shep]
Is it a potion or a spell?`

[Emily]
That’s a spell. So.

[Shep]
So, nobody has to drink it-

[Emily]
No, nobody has to drink it. She just has to make it and then do some stuff with it to finish the spell. You know, like spread it on some bread and yeah-

[Thomas]
Toast and yeah.

[Emily]
Spread it on some toast. Flip it upside down in the cranberry bog. I think you killed Shep. I think he is just absolutely disturbed by the idea of a frog jam sandwich.

[Thomas]
And then Violet comes in and goes, “Mm, avocado toast,” and-

[Shep]
Ha ha. Because it’s green.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Because it’s green, because it has frog in it.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I was thinking it wasn’t Violet it was Braden.

[Thomas]
Braden.

[Emily]
Braden.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
He gets all bloated. What’s- he gets pregnancy symptoms.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay you’ve convinced me.

[Thomas]
Yeah. He’s like, “My breasts feel so tender.”

[Emily]
“My breasts are tender and heavy.”

[Shep]
Yeah, join the club.

[Emily]
Actually, I really love this. I’m wished up on it.

[Thomas]
Yeah, no, I think this is funny. I like it. So, to be clear, like, no one had to eat it for it to work.

[Emily]
No, no, maybe no.

[Thomas]
He just happened to eat it.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Now does Shannon- Does Shannon think she has successfully discarded of it and doesn’t realize he’s eaten it? Or he eats it and she’s like, “I just won’t say anything.”

[Emily]
I think she’s- I, ooh, I think sees him eat it and is like “Uhhh….”

[Shep]
She’s like “That’s probably fine.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
“That’s probably not a big deal.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. It’s probably going to help.

[Shep]
But then as he gets pregnancy symptoms she’s like “Uh oh.”

[Emily]
Oh, and then she would think that it would work. That’s why she does it again because she, he’s getting pregnancy symptoms.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Right.

[Emily]
So, she’s thinking-

[Thomas]
“I just had the wrong target.”

[Emily]
Yeah, “Oh, she does have to eat it. I’ll just have to figure out a way to get her to eat it.” And then that’s when she could miss her period and make it seem like it’s working.

[Thomas]
So, then, does Shannon make a change to her spell recipe between the two versions?

[Emily]
Yes, but we have to have a reason for that.

[Thomas]
Yeah, the writers can figure that out.

[Emily]
Unless Shep has an idea.

[Shep]
I don’t know if she needs to eat it. Like, it was a spell, that was the purpose, and Braden eating it was not intended-

[Emily]
It was an accident. Okay.

[Shep]
And so, his pregnancy symptoms are a side effect, not part of the spell. So you don’t need to have her also eat it.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
She can just miss her period and the mom thinks “Okay, the spell worked.” Sure, Braden is also pregnant but that’s fine.

[Emily]
It’s fine. Double the babies.

[Shep]
Yes. Now, we know he’s, he can’t really be pregnant-

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So, them undoing the spell at the end, we’re not erasing a child from existence because of course he is not pregnant.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right, he just had gas.

[Shep]
He’s just having these symptoms.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes. But it is funny that he has the symptoms. And he can, like, could be rapid pregnancy, like-

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
You know, he is fully nine months at the end.

[Emily]
Just Arnold Schwarzeneggering it out.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Yes yep yep yep.

[Thomas]
All right, so how does Poppy figure it out, that it’s Shannon? And then what does she do? Because typically with these, we have, like, a big bad that they have to fight.

[Emily]
Well, they’re gonna have to fight a giant frog. Right?

[Shep]
Now, think of the special effects budget. Are you sure they gotta fight a giant frog?

[Thomas]
We’ll just film it with a frog really close to the camera.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
And then-

[Emily]
You know, sixty’s style.

[Thomas]
Get a diopter lens, problem solved.

[Shep]
Now they wouldn’t necessarily have to fight it directly. There could just be a “giant frog” in air quotes, like, coming and they have to stop it before that so they’re inside, and the, you know, the glass is shaking and things are moving, you can hear it outside-

[Emily]
Right, they hear it coming.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But they don’t see it, so you don’t have to film it, it’s just sound.

[Thomas]
You hear a deep RIBBIT.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So, if Shannon’s initial spell brought the tiny frogs-

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Thomas]
The second spell causes the frogs to grow. Is there a third spell that she does to try to undo what’s going on when she realizes, “Oh gosh, it’s my fault?”

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And that’s how she gets the giant frog.

[Shep]
That’s the sequence.

[Thomas]
It consolidates all the frogs into one giant frog?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It does!

[Thomas]
It does work.

[Shep]
There are fewer frogs now-

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
There’s only one. Oh, that’s such a good visual of a giant frog made of tiny frogs, but the special effects budget is blown!

[Emily]
But by this time, the franchise has made enough money that we can up it.

[Thomas]
Ah, there you go. There you go.

[Shep]
Look they’re not going to keep making these unless they’re profitable. You want, you want profitable horror, can’t do any special effects.

[Emily]
But it’s Hollywood and we got to throw extra money at it because we need more of that story just over and over and over again. Anyway.

[Shep]
Anyway.

[Emily]
How Poppy figures it out… We have not established where anyone lives in this town, right?

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
So, we get to make that up now.

[Shep]
We know Poppy lives outside of town.

[Thomas]
I was just say, uh.

[Emily]
Yeah, Shannon also lives outside of town on a pond.

[Shep]
Well… Did we not say where Shannon lives? I thought she lived in town, I thought that was-

[Emily]
Oh, no, you’re right. You’re right. We did specify that she lives in town.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Because I was thinking we could have her have a pond on the property and that’s where the frogs, Poppy follows the frogs.

[Shep]
Yes, we do that but not with Shannon, we do that with Braden.

[Emily]
Mm.

[Thomas]
Ah, yes.

[Shep]
Who we haven’t established where he lives.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
And also, he is going into labor, so this is where your big final, you know, conflict is. You have several, everything comes together at the end.

[Emily]
Converging at once.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes. So, they’re trying to fix Braden who’s going into apparent labor even though he can’t possibly be pregnant.

[Thomas]
So, does Violet call Poppy to fix whatever’s going on with Braden? And then, in, when she shows up, that’s when she kind of puts it all together? That “Shannon, what have you been doing?”

[Shep]
No.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Here’s what I want to do: I mean, we could, that’s fine-

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
But here’s an alternative:

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
Poppy figures it out right away. She is smart and experienced, but she has said over and over and over that Shannon needs to learn.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
And she’s not learning.

[Emily]
So, this is gonna be her lesson.

[Thomas]
Trial by fire.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I like that.

[Shep]
So, she knows what’s going on and maybe she helps… who’s her adopted-

[Thomas]
Iris?

[Emily]
Iris.

[Shep]
Iris. Is Iris there? We haven’t-

[Emily]
Yeah, we haven’t really talked about Iris, but I would like to incorporate her.

[Thomas]
She’s at Witch College.

[Shep]
She’s at which college?

[Thomas]
Or whatever.

[Emily]
She could be gone. Well, originally, I was thinking Iris could be in there, but she would be a minor character, much like Poppy. And I just figured you’d see her. She’d interact in some ways. Maybe help Poppy figure it out, and then show up at the end because they need all the witches.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I think we have her as if we need her there, she’s available. If not, a simple one line at the beginning of the movie puts her wherever else.

[Shep]
Look, that actress has won an Oscar between Cranberry and now so she’s not going to be in this one. She can do a cameo-

[Thomas]
Yeah, we got to save the money for the VFX budget.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right. She’ll do a phone call and then a cameo and that’s it.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
We’ve only got her for the afternoon.

[Emily]
So, Poppy figures it out right away.

[Shep]
Poppy figures it out right away, doesn’t stop it.

[Emily]
Doesn’t stop it. Shannon’s gotta learn.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
This will be a good lesson for her. It’s not gonna get out of hand.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
It gets out of hand.

[Thomas]
Of course.

[Shep]
I mean, I don’t think that it does get completely out of hand.

[Emily]
No, it doesn’t get completely, like, Poppy’s still like, “This is controllable. She can learn. She can fix this.” But Braden is the wild card that she wasn’t expecting. And that’s why she has to get involved to help at the end.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
I think that that is also within her calculations.

[Emily]
Do you think she’s figured that out?

[Shep]
What she is waiting for is Shannon asking for help.

[Emily]
Ah, Shannon!

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
Shannon needs to ask for the help.

[Shep]
She is completely ready. She is the, you know, wizard apprentice, Fantasia scene-

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
She’s the wizard. She can step in and stop this at any time but she’s not gonna unless you ask her to, because that’s the lesson Shannon needs to learn is to ask for help.

[Emily]
Well, and I think we’ve established in the other two movies that Shannon is very one-track mind, and she doesn’t consider anything else, and very “I’m gonna do it myself.”

[Shep]
Yes, she, as we famously say, “does her own research”-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And is very confident.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Now, she’s not right.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
But she is confident.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And that, for her, that’s enough.

[Emily]
I mean confidence and correctness, it’s the same thing.

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s the Dunning Kruger, she is fully Dunning Kruger.

[Emily]
Yeah. Okay, so now we’re at the last bit, right?

[Thomas]
Yeah, we’re in Act Three, definitely.

[Emily]
So, is the lowest low that he’s going into labor and the frog is approaching?

[Thomas]
Yeah, the giant frog is approaching and-

[Emily]
This is when she has to ask for help.

[Shep]
Oh, is, uh, is Violet there?

[Emily]
Where would Violet be if not with her pregnant husband? She go on a girls’ weekend with Iris?

[Shep]
Yeah, she’s just off screen. This is the American Pie movie where you just have the dad and none of the other characters.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So, you just have Shannon.

[Thomas]
I was say, it’s like, I think it was X-Men 2, where it was, like, they had so many characters that they just, like, locked half of them in a cave for the whole movie. So, like, I don’t know. We don’t know what to do with these people. Just lock them in a room.

[Emily]
Let’s just lock them in a room.

[Thomas]
We’ll deal with them later.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Well, Violet has to be there because they have to make that choice together.

[Thomas]
Ah, yeah.

[Shep]
Right. Right right right. That’s, that, that’s- Okay, so, Violet figures out that her mom has done this, right?

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s the lowest low. She figures it out at the end of Act Two and calls Poppy, who says, “No.”

[Emily]
“Your mother-“

[Thomas]
“I’m not going to help you.” I don’t think she says “Your mother has to ask” because that’s handing over the answer.

[Emily]
Okay just-

[Thomas]
She’s just like, “Poppy, we need your help.” And Poppy’s like, “No.”

[Emily]
“Can you not help us?” And she’s like, “Oh no, I can help you. Just no.”

[Thomas]
Shep appears unconvinced.

[Shep]
Okay but then why does Poppy show up later?

[Thomas]
Because Shannon asks.

[Emily]
Because Shannon asks.

[Thomas]
That’s what Poppy’s waiting for.

[Shep]
But why would Shannon ask if Violet already asked and was told “No”?

[Thomas]
You know Shannon. She thinks she’s special or different or whatever. She’s like-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
“I can convince her. I’ll make her see reason.”

[Shep]
I think Violet, instead of asking Poppy, wants Shannon to ask Poppy. She’s been trying to convince Shannon to ask, and Shannon’s been refusing.

[Emily]
Violet would be in on the whole “Shannon, you need to get a formal education in this. You can’t just be winging it.”

[Shep]
Right. Yes.

[Emily]
Because she’s apprenticed with Poppy.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And she knows… Yeah, she knows the rules and knows what needs to happen. Like, she sees her mom has power and could absolutely do the things, but she needs the, she needs to learn and have the discipline.

[Shep]
Right. So, Violet is not asking Poppy for help. Violet is trying to convince Shannon to ask Poppy for help-

[Thomas]
Has Poppy already talked to Violet? Like, “Hey, just heads up, this is going on, and your mom is responsible.”

[Emily]
No…

[Shep]
Maybe she didn’t say it as explicitly as that-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But maybe she has said, she’s given hints about it. Like, they’re leaving, they’re going to go ahead to Braden’s pond front cabin, whatever it is, and Violet is packing up some materials because they’re going to do stuff, you know, she’s got her homework whatever and Poppy is like “Oh, take some (blank blank) with you.” She’s like “What’s this for?” She’s like, “Ah, it’s part of your homework. You’ll figure it out.” And it turns out to be the things that they need in the undoing spell. So, Poppy knows and she’s giving hints to Violet but not coming out and telling her-

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Because the whole point is being responsible.

[Emily]
I can dig that.

[Thomas]
So, does Poppy get involved at the end?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
So, like, Violet finally convinces, you know, Braden is in contractions and-

[Emily]
Poor Braden.

[Shep]
The frog is coming, and Violet is like “You need to call Poppy now!” And Shannon’s like “Okay, fine,” and she calls and she’s like “I have a lot to explain and not a lot of time,” and Poppy is like “Open the door,” and she’s already there.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
She’s already standing out there.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So, at this point, they gather all the things they need for the spell, the undoing spell.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And is this like halfway through the third act is when this is happening?

[Shep]
It’s got to be because you gotta have your climax before you have your-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Sad ending.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
It would sure be helpful for us to figure out what it is they have to give up.

[Emily]
Yeah, well, that’s my thought is: if this is the moment they’re gathering all the stuff for the spell, does it not work? Or does Poppy have to reveal, or Shannon figure out, that in order for it to work, we need this thing that will render you infertile permanently?

[Shep]
Now, Poppy won’t give her the answer directly, but she might tell her where to look. She’s got those books.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So, she’s like “Look up (blank).” She’s got some reference to something and so Shannon’s like “Okay, no problem. Now that I know the answer I can do it all.” And she turns to the thing and reads it out. She’s, like, “Oh, here’s the things that you need: it’s this and this and also the price,” and that’s the permanent infertility, and she’s like “Oh, like, I’ll do that.” And the other two are like “That’s not how this works.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Like, you can’t do it-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because you’re casting the spell and you have to cast the spell because you started it so-

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah.

[Shep]
He can’t cast it and also pay the price so it needs to be someone else-

[Emily]
So, does Poppy offer up?

[Shep]
No!

[Emily]
No, okay.

[Shep]
No.

[Emily]
I’m just, just throwing that out there. So, it has to be Violet.

[Shep]
It has to be Violet.

[Emily]
And they have to make that decision.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Is Braden like “I could sure go for never being pregnant again”? And they’re like, “Sorry, buddy. It’s not what we’re working with.” So, then, does Shannon have to do this spell on her own? Or do we get the three witches together again and use their combined power?

[Shep]
It’s got to be the three of them together.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right? They’re all there.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So, the climactic spell, when they cast it, what is the visual that goes along with that? Does the giant frog split into tiny little frogs and they all hop away? And-

[Emily]
I kind of like that.

[Shep]
They turn into fog.

[Emily]
Yes!

[Shep]
And blow away on the wind.

[Emily]
And it just (wind noises) to be redeposited elsewhere, because it is, in fact, froggy out.

[Thomas]
I mean, that works for me.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
That’s canon now.

[Thomas]
Anything else we need to work out for this story?

[Shep]
What’s the post credit scene? They’re talking about adopting.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Is Iris fully adopted by Poppy? She was a teenager when she showed up.

[Emily]
Yeah. We can make that canon. We could throw that in there. Because see, the beauty of this not having actually been made yet is we can go and change that.

[Thomas]
That’s true.

[Shep]
Right. So, you could have Violet and Iris talking on the phone-

[Emily]
Of course, because we can’t afford Iris anymore.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Because Iris is played by Zendaya.

[Shep]
Right, so-

[Thomas]
Good thing we got her before she was famous.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So, Violet is talking about adopting and Iris is like “That’s great. I was adopted,” which we hadn’t, like, fully said yet. And then Violet can be like “Okay I’m going to put your mom back on the phone,” and hand it to Poppy.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I like that. That’s sweet. I feel confident with this one.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
I think we always knock it out of the park with our witches.

[Shep]
This is our third one so it’s the end of the trilogy.

[Emily]
Number four.

[Thomas]
It’s our fourth one.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. We don’t count.

[Shep]
Well, we have a prequel-

[Emily]
We don’t count the prequel. That’s right.

[Shep]
The prequel is separate.

[Emily]
Yep, yep. Next one will be a reboot, right?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Where we’re just going to remake the first one again.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And change nothing. “This one will be live action so it’s different.”

[Thomas]
It’ll be a musical.

[Shep]
Oh gosh.

[Emily]
So, having that adoption conversation at the end really does tie it together nicely as a trilogy.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yep. Ties a bow on it.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Frog. Was it finer than frog hair? Or are we as mad as a box of frogs?

[Shep]
What?!

[Emily]
Who says that?

[Shep]
Where do you get these phrases?

[Emily]
No!

[Thomas]
Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. There are links to all of those at AlmostPlausible.com, where you’ll also find our complete catalog of previous episodes. Each of those includes a full episode transcript, as well as links to the references we make. There’s even additional information about the three of us and ways you can support the show. Emily, Shep, and I hope you’ll be back for the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Shep]
I did search “mad as a box of frogs” and I got to “mad as a b” and it auto completed “box of frogs”, so, fine, it is a common phrase.