Lip Balm

References

• Can You Become Addicted to Carmex? Your Lip Balm Might Not Be What You Think
• American Idol
• Columbo
• Groucho Marx
• Harpo Marx
• Chico Marx
• Zeppo Marx
• Batman & Robin
• Poison Ivy
• Can fentanyl be absorbed through your skin?
• Naked Lunch
• Peter Weller
• The Simpsons
  • Bart on the Road
• Love Potion No. 9
• Polycule
• Zootopia
• Arsenic
• Flowers in the Attic
• Ricin
• Cyanide
• Stingray Phone Tracker
• Flock Safety
• Narcotics Anonymous

Corrections

Thomas said, “narcanon” when referring to a narcotics anonymous program. He was thinking of Narcotics Anonymous specifically, and very definitely did not intend to refer to Narconon, which is an arm of the Church of Scientology.

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Emily]
“The mayor’s daughter was at that rave!”

[Thomas]
That’s right. It’s always the mayor’s daughter.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Always the mayor’s daughter.

[Thomas]
But I feel like, I feel like that’s what people expect. So if, if it’s the Groucho Marx detective film, it’s got to be like the comptroller’s niece.

[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 eagerly wetting their lips to speak are Emily-

[Emily]
(sultry) Hey, guys!

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Uncomfortable to be here.

[Thomas]
On this episode, we’re going to create a movie plot that somehow revolves around Lip Balm. Do you guys use much lip balm?

[Emily]
All the time, all winter long.

[Shep]
Nope, never, never. I used to use Carmex when I was in school.

[Emily]
Don’t use Carmex. Carmex is addictive and is just a thing.

[Emily]
Yeah, it’s terrible. It’s terrible.

[Shep]
Yes, yep, you have to keep using it, otherwise your lips get chapped. So, kids, not even once.

[Emily]
Not even once.

[Shep]
Carmex isn’t sponsoring this episode, right?

[Thomas]
I’m somewhere in the middle. If my lips are dry, I’ll use it for several days.

[Emily]
That’s typically how I do it.

[Thomas]
All my lip balm and chapstick and stuff, it’s all so old because I use it so infrequently.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
When I was working at the TV station, I got a bunch of American Idol-branded lip balm.

[Emily]
Mm.

[Thomas]
I actually really like the flavor of it. I’ve no idea what the flavor is, but.

[Shep]
So, my dentist would give us vanilla chapstick in our dentist bag. Like, here is a toothbrush, here are some flossers, and some chapstick. I don’t know why chapstick, unless I’m applying it wrong, because I don’t think it goes on teeth.

[Emily]
I mean, not unless you’re in a beauty pageant.

[Thomas]
Maybe it wasn’t everyone who went to that dentist. Maybe it was only you. They’re like, “Oh, Shep’s coming in? Better put some chapstick in his bag.”

[Emily]
“This poor guy.”

[Thomas]
“He’ll appreciate it. He understands.” Well, speaking of only Shep, you’re going first.

[Shep]
Oh no!

[Thomas]
Let’s hear what you have for us for Lip Balm.

[Shep]
Okay. A locked room mystery, where the crucial clue is a tiny smear of lip balm on the rim of a glass. So, like you could have a tech billionaire who’s found dead in their climate-controlled, sterile, AI smart home. No signs of forced entry, no murder weapon, door logs are clean. He seems to have died from an allergic reaction, but to what? The only evidence that anyone else has been there at all was a single glass with a small smudge of cherry-flavored lip balm in the dishwasher. The dishwasher was set to automatically run overnight, but there was a brief power outage that reset it.

[Thomas]
How do they know it’s cherry-flavored? Does the detective taste it?

[Shep]
I imagine it smells like-

[Thomas]
And then the detective has to kiss everybody else in who’s all the suspects to see what flavor their lip balm is.

[Shep]
Now, I hadn’t pictured that, but you’re starting to sell me on it.

[Emily]
Well, now I’m just picturing Columbo going. “One more thing. Do you have any chapstick?”

[Shep]
I thought you’re gonna say “Just one more thing: a little smooch.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That would also- That would probably be better.

[Thomas]
“Things haven’t been so great with Mrs. Columbo lately.”

[Emily]
“You know, she takes these extravagant trips, and I just, I can’t retire because I can’t afford them.”

[Thomas]
Still driving that same car.

[Emily]
“This coat is 60 sixty years old.”

[Thomas]
“Oh, I stopped smoking the cigars a long time ago because when I couldn’t afford to buy new ones-“

[Shep]
Just holding it and never lighting it, like Groucho.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
Uh, now I’m picturing Groucho as a detective. That’s a whole-

[Thomas]
Oh, man. I want to see that.

[Emily]
Why didn’t they do a detective one?

[Thomas]
That’d be great.

[Emily]
Missed opportunity. All right, seance tomorrow night. Getting the gang back together.

[Shep]
All four.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
You need Zeppo.

[Emily]
You need Zeppo.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
He ties the room together.

[Emily]
He does.

[Shep]
Anyway, that’s all I have. What do you have, Emily?

[Emily]
Well I have a couple of pitches…

[Thomas]
That’s what we’re here for, so that’s good.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s the confidence-

[Thomas]
That’s convenient.

[Shep]
That really sells it.

[Emily]
I brought pitches with me today, boys!

[Shep]
Get your pitches here!

[Emily]
Uh-

[Shep]
Hey, batter, batter, batter, batter.

[Emily]
A serial killer whose weapon of choice is a toxic lip balm. Maybe some kind of dark magic is involved and that’s why he or she isn’t affected by it?

[Shep]
Now, Emily, when is the last time you saw Batman & Robin?

[Emily]
Yeah, I thought of that for a hot second. Yeah, I know Poison Ivy. Yeah she’s my inspo, okay I’m not gonna lie.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Look, that’s not why that movie didn’t do well, okay? It was- it has had nothing to do with that part of the film.

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s not- Yeah she, if anything she was one of the better parts of the movie. She’s kind of a banging Batman villain.

[Shep]
Yep, no argument here.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Right, okay, so next one: a narcotics detective is scrambling to find the distributor/creator of a hot new party drug. The drug is absorbed through the skin of the lips via lip balm. But it has proven to be very dangerous as it has killed several young people already.

[Thomas]
We were just talking about how Carmex is addictive.

[Emily]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Yep. Well then I thought about like fentanyl-laced lip balm, like, that had all crossed- I basically, right now, and I think you’re on important board with me here, Shep, want to kill people with tainted lip balm.

[Shep]
Okay, fentanyl doesn’t actually, that’s not a real thing.

[Emily]
I know. I mean, you can overdose, but the amount you have to-

[Shep]
Right. It’s not a thing that you touch it and then it’s instantly absorbed through the skin, although that is a popular fear.

[Emily]
Anyway, Thomas, what do you have?

[Thomas]
Well, the first thing I thought of was Lip Balm as a delivery system for either drugs or poison. So-

[Emily]
Convergence!

[Thomas]
There we are.

[Shep]
Thomas, when’s the last time you saw Naked Lunch?

[Thomas]
Have I seen Naked Lunch? I must have seen it.

[Emily]
I have never seen it. I know of it.

[Shep]
So there is a recurring theme. So like the first hallucination, if it is a hallucination, the movie doesn’t make a lot of sense, but-

[Thomas]
That sounds about right.

[Shep]
When he gets arrested by the cops at the beginning for having this bug powder, and he’s like, “I use it to kill bugs.” And they’re like, “Well, prove it. Show us.” And he’s like, “I forgot to bring bugs with me.” And they bring out a bug and they put it in the bug, a giant, like, you know, shoebox size bug. Anyway, the bug talks through an anus on its back. And it’s like-

[Emily]
I definitely have not seen this movie.

[Shep]
“Rub some of that bug powder on my lips.” And then when he gets home later, because his wife’s addicted to it as a drug, and she says the same thing, “Rub some of that powder on my lips.” So that’s the first thing that came to mind when you’re like, a lip balm as a delivery system for either drugs or poison. Well, this was this was bug poison.

[Thomas]
Both.

[Shep]
That was also a drug.

[Thomas]
All right, so my hopefully slightly more original ideas. A new medicated lip balm has incredible healing properties, sealing cracked lips in hours instead of days. It’s all the rage until it starts sealing mouths shut entirely.

[Shep]
So, Thomas-

[Thomas]
Oh no.

[Shep]
When is the last time that you watched Naked Lunch? Because there is this monologue when they’re driving the car. Peter Weller is talking about, “Did I ever tell you the story about the guy who taught his asshole to talk?” And it ends with the asshole taking over and the person who taught it to talk waking up with like a gel on his mouth every morning until it seals up his mouth entirely.

[Emily]
So you’re saying our audience should just skip this episode and watch Naked Lunch.

[Shep]
Definitely do not watch Naked Lunch. It is not what you think it is. I remember, so there was a Simpsons episode where Bart has like a fake ID, and he’s like, “Now we can buy tickets to R-rated movies.” And the R-rated movie they buy a ticket to is Naked Lunch. And they come out, the boys, afterward, and Nelson goes, “I can think of at least two things wrong with that title.”

[Thomas]
All right, well, here’s my other idea: a magical reality rom-com about enchanted lip balm that makes whoever you kiss while wearing it fall in love with you. Now, Shep, what part of Naked Lunch is that from?

[Emily]
I was going to say, are you just baiting Shep at this point?

[Shep]
So Thomas.

[Thomas]
Uh-huh.

[Shep]
No.

[Thomas]
All right, that’s what I have. Which one of these do we like the most?

[Emily]
So we either have murder, drugs, or rom-com.

[Shep]
That’s every episode. So the magical reality rom-com where the enchanted lip balm that makes whoever you kiss while wearing it fall in love with you, but there was a kissing booth and someone swapped her lip balm with this. So everyone that came to the kissing booth that day is in love with the same girl. The whole town is in love with one girl.

[Emily]
Love Potion Number Nine.

[Shep]
So of these, I kind of like the lip balm as a delivery system for either drugs or poison or both. Like, there are these raves and people are putting on this drugged up lip balm and they’re getting high and they’re making out with everyone and everyone’s getting high. It’s this group thing. And then, you know, after one of these raves, there’s this group of people that have died and it was the lip balm was tainted with poison. And then it’s a murder mystery. And it’s like, “We’re not trying to kill your buzz, but people are dying.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Now, it would it be a serial killer, or is it like one person is trying to kill one other specific person, and there’s just collateral damage?

[Shep]
Which would make a better story? I mean, it could be someone, the fundamentalist group doesn’t like these parties-

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Emily]
Hm.

[Shep]
And wants to stifle them. “For their own good, we will poison a few of them to save the majority of them.”

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Shep]
Or it could be “Sandra broke up with me, so I’m going to poison her lip balm.”

[Thomas]
Right, one of these is the true direction that the story goes, and the others are ideas that are floated.

[Shep]
Red herrings. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Well, I like this idea that Shep has brought up. So.

[Emily]
Yeah, I think it’s a great-

[Thomas]
All right, let’s go with it then.

[Shep]
“This idea that Shep has brought up”, it’s a combination of your idea and Emily’s idea.

[Thomas]
That you brought up. So.

[Shep]
No part of it was my pitch.

[Emily]
We didn’t say you pitched it, we said you brought up the option-

[Shep]
It’s like, “Yeah, we just said that you said how good our ideas were-“

[Emily]
Exactly.

[Shep]
“And we agree with you.”

[Emily]
We agree that we’re amazing. I’m just-

[Shep]
All right, all right.

[Thomas]
Should we figure out what the actual story is? Like-

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
What actually happened? Which of our end points is the real one?

[Shep]
Do we want to start it now or do we want to-

[Thomas]
Hm.

[Shep]
Explore how the investigation would go and then decide as we…

[Thomas]
That’s true.

[Shep]
I mean, we could do it either way. You can solve a mystery. I mean, you can write a mystery by coming up with the ending first.

[Thomas]
Well, we know that we want elements of all of them.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Because, like you said, we want those red herrings. So yeah, let’s see which one is the most interesting and then we can pick later. So how many people die?

[Shep]
Five or six.

[Emily]
How many people make out at raves?

[Shep]
Five or six.

[Thomas]
And no one else.

[Emily]
Well five or six at a time.

[Thomas]
At a time.

[Shep]
Well, two at a time. Well, maybe three.

[Thomas]
Is it a whole polycule or just random people making out at a rave?

[Emily]
Just random people making out at a rave. Because if you go to rave with your polycule, not that I have any experience with this at all. Come on, you’re wanting some fresh blood right? You’re not gonna be making out with the same people you make out with at home.

[Thomas]
Maybe three of them are in a polycule, and-

[Emily]
Yeah we could do that.

[Thomas]
And then three strangers? There are three dates? Probably three people they met at the rave.

[Shep]
Who’s taking dates to the makeout rave?

[Emily]
Seriously, I just like five or six random strangers.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
Or you know, maybe a couple of friends, but just not, not one relationship.

[Thomas]
Well, I feel like if one of them is in a relationship or starting a relationship-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Or dating or whatever, then that can lend credence to that spurned lover storyline.

[Emily]
Yeah, so one of- any of them could be in relationships, but the people are not in one relationship together.

[Shep]
Right, they’re not all in one relationship, but there is one relationship.

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s what I meant to say. Yeah.

[Shep]
Two of them are a couple.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
One of them is a friend of that couple. The other three were unrelated people at the rave.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Hot people who happen to be close by.

[Shep]
Yep. So who’s investigating this?

[Thomas]
Groucho Marx, right?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Groucho Marx. That’s right. That’s right.

[Emily]
Harpo’s one of the victims that keeps coming back.

[Shep]
No, he’s one of the witnesses. And he won’t talk.

[Emily]
Chico’s just still dancing.

[Shep]
He doesn’t even know what happened.

[Emily]
He has no idea what’s going on.

[Thomas]
I feel like Chico would keep accidentally taking the drugs.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Or, well, he would take the drugs accidentally the first time, and then he’d be like going back for more.

[Emily]
Yep, that’s definitely Chico.

[Thomas]
“Make my lips feel good.”

[Emily]
Would that makes Zeppo the hard knock-

[Thomas]
Yeah, Zeppo’s the straight guy, right?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He’s the one who’s like trying to actually solve it.

[Emily]
He’s the captain. “When are you gonna get this solved?”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“The mayor’s daughter was at that rave!”

[Thomas]
That’s right. It’s always the mayor’s daughter.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Always the mayor’s daughter.

[Thomas]
But I feel like, I feel like that’s what people expect. So if, if it’s the Groucho Marx detective film, it’s got to be like the comptroller’s niece.

[Emily]
Ah yes.

[Shep]
The comptroller’s niece’s roommate.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Okay. What are we looking at for the detective? Is it a single detective? Team detective? Is it an ’80s buddies cop movie? Or just a single wildcard detective out there?

[Thomas]
Detectives come in pairs, don’t they?

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Generally, that’s usually safest that way.

[Thomas]
So.

[Shep]
So you got your old cop and you got your new cop.

[Emily]
Yeah yeah ’80s eighties cop movie. We’ve all seen Zootopia, right?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
One those was not a cop.

[Emily]
Yet.

[Thomas]
All right, so we have our pair of detectives.

[Shep]
Yeah, old experienced detective and then younger person who’s a new detective who’s maybe more hip on the drug scene.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
We want to go the trope route.

[Shep]
Why wouldn’t you?

[Emily]
Okay. Just asking.

[Shep]
Isn’t that how you normally would arrange your detectives? You have the experienced one and the inexperienced one. That’s how the inexperienced one gains experience.

[Emily]
You have the mildly racist, misogynistic man cop and the tough, hot shot woman cop. That’s another combo.

[Thomas]
Well, maybe we do the older cop is the woman. She’s just very straightforward. She knows her shit. And then you’ve got the young hot shot cop.

[Emily]
Who’s young and hot. Doesn’t like to wear a shirt.

[Shep]
And he gets shot at the end. Spoilers. He’s the young hot shot cop.

[Thomas]
Trying to think of a joke where a cannon breaks loose.

[Shep]
Are we going back to the Marx Brothers version of the-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Investigation?

[Thomas]
Yeah, right.

[Shep]
They ride the cannon down- because it’s set in San Francisco-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
So it’s got those steep hills.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay, so older experienced female cop.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
New younger male cop.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Emily]
I had envisioned a scene where people are taking the drug and for us to show its potency you’d have a guy put on the lip balm and go down on the gal, and so she gets high while he’s making her high.

[Shep]
Now, is she consenting to being drugged up in this way?

[Emily]
Yes. Or is he a sleazeball?

[Shep]
I mean, he could be a sleazeball. He could think, “I’m going to get her high-“

[Emily]
“I’m gonna blow her mind.”

[Thomas]
Hey!

[Shep]
“And then we’re gonna going to fuck.”

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
But it’s the poisoned lip balm.

[Thomas]
Hm.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
So she dies and he dies.

[Emily]
Not bad. Gets us that tantalizing R rating that makes young sixteen olds go, “We should sneak in that movie.”

[Shep]
So this is the second crime scene.

[Emily]
I almost… well that wouldn’t work though, he would have to die if she dies.

[Shep]
What is it that you want to happen?

[Emily]
Well, it just would be a good red herring if he became an immediate suspect, right? Because she’s dead. He has the lip balm. He killed her.

[Shep]
Ah, but he also died.

[Emily]
Yeah, but the only way it would work for her to die is for him to die as well.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So the suspect is his friend who gave him the lip balm.

[Emily]
Mm. Is that how they can get on the trail of the distribution line?

[Shep]
Maybe. They know it’s tied up with the drugged lip balm in some way.

[Emily]
Mm hmm. Right.

[Shep]
They don’t know how. So here’s the second point of contact. That friend is looking at two manslaughter charges-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because he led to the death of two people.

[Emily]
He’s in a lot of trouble, that friend.

[Shep]
Yep. “We could help you out. We could talk to the DA, but you got tell us where you got that lip balm.”

[Emily]
“We could get it down to misdemeanor paraphernalia possession.”

[Shep]
“We could maybe get it down to,” you got phrase it just right.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
So does it turn out that it’s not even the lip balm that the friend gave him, that they got swapped around at some point? So the friend did give him drugged lip balm, but not the poisoned lip balm.

[Emily]
So the friend got two lip balms.

[Thomas]
Well, the friend who’s in trouble-

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Gave the dead guy the drugged lip balm.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
He’s like, “Hey, here’s some drugs.” And then at some point somehow, that lip balm gets swapped around for a different one that is poisoned.

[Shep]
So what are your, what are you picturing actually happened? Like, who is the perpetrator of this that has swapped the lip balm-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
In this instance?

[Thomas]
I’m not suggesting that it was like even an intentional swap. It’s just that like drug lip balm is going around. People are putting it on.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
He doesn’t take care to get the particular one back. He just gets a stick of lip balm and that’s the one that’s been poisoned.

[Shep]
Is it in stick form? I was picturing it in like the-

[Thomas]
Whatever, either, however it is.

[Emily]
I mean, either way, I think the pots are more practical for this if you’re gonna melt it down and distribute an illicit drug.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true.

[Shep]
Right, if it’s homemade-

[Thomas]
That’s a good point.

[Emily]
But you can buy the empty tubes and homemake it. My friends done it.

[Shep]
Right, but it’s easier to-

[Emily]
It is easier in the pots. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Whatever the delivery mechanism, pot or stick, that’s what’s like, there’s a bunch of them floating around. There’s a whole bunch-

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
And they’re all drugged, and one of them is poisoned.

[Emily]
Only one, not a handful?

[Thomas]
Well, I guess it depends.

[Emily]
Yeah, it depends on if we’re doing a targeted, like, one-off killing or, like-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
A mass murderer gets his jollies off of killing a bunch of people at a rave or concerts or whatever.

[Thomas]
So maybe initially the police think, “Oh, this is tainted-“

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Thomas]
Or “There’s too much drugs in it. People OD’d on this.” But then also it’s like, well, how did only six people OD on this? So maybe it’s not a bad batch. And then maybe they get the tox report back and it’s like, “Oh, there’s a normal amount of this drug in their system, but also-“

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Thomas]
“There’s this other thing that killed them.”

[Shep]
Arsenic.

[Thomas]
That’s what I was thinking. But arsenic kills slowly, doesn’t it?

[Emily]
I think it builds up over time.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Look, I’m not a scientist, so-

[Emily]
If I learned anything from that incestuous masterpiece of Flowers in the Attic, arsenic takes time.

[Shep]
If I Google fast-acting poisons, I think I’m gonna be on a list.

[Thomas]
Okay, ricin.

[Emily]
Okay, let me look it up because I’m already on that list.

[Thomas]
No, wait. Ricin’s to detect, isn’t it? Cyanide?

[Shep]
Ricin being hard to detect is an advantage in this situation.

[Thomas]
Well, for the killer, yes.

[Shep]
Yeah, for the killer, and also it makes it harder for the cops to track the poison down.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So. Or to even know that it’s poison.

[Emily]
Why not just cyanide?

[Shep]
It tastes of almonds.

[Thomas]
Almond-flavored lip balm.

[Emily]
Yeah, it’s marzipan-flavored lip balm.

[Shep]
I like the ricin idea. Ricin, like you could picture someone cultivating ricin for this purpose.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Whereas where are you getting-

[Thomas]
Cyanide.

[Shep]
Cyanide, yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true. All right.

[Shep]
“All right.” It was your idea.

[Emily]
It takes thirty-six to seventy-two hours for ricin to kill you. Whereas cyanide only takes up to thirty minutes.

[Shep]
Ah, dang.

[Thomas]
All right.

[Shep]
All right.

[Emily]
But I mean it’s easy to make ricin.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
This information is too readily available on the internet, Mayo Clinic.

[Shep]
Why does it have a recipe? Why does it have a story before the recipe?

[Thomas]
Grandma’s ricin recipe.

[Shep]
Grandma’s old-fashioned. Oh, no.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Sorry.

[Thomas]
Well, grandma grew up on a castor bean farm, so.

[Emily]
Yeah, right.

[Thomas]
Grandma grew up in the depression. You don’t just waste your ricin, okay?

[Emily]
Nope. It’s got a purpose, man.

[Shep]
You could use it to kill rats.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s got purposes.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
It’s got uses. So I think we shouldn’t get hung up on the reality that it’s, that it’s not fast acting.

[Thomas]
Sure. Yeah.

[Emily]
Right, right.

[Thomas]
Look, the only reason that came up is because you looked it up.

[Emily]
Mm hmm.

[Thomas]
None of us knew that prior to that, right?

[Emily]
Nope.

[Thomas]
So the average person won’t know.

[Emily]
100%

[Thomas]
I mean, we could also not name the poison. Let the writers figure it out. I don’t know.

[Shep]
Yeah. Yeah. So, bunch of deaths at rave one.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
The police investigate. They rule it off as a bad batch of that drugged lip balm and drop it.

[Shep]
Then there is the second set of deaths, which is not at a rave, but like at a, in a nightclub bathroom. And that’s the guy that accidentally kills himself and the girl he’s going down on.

[Emily]
Mhm.

[Shep]
And that’s when the police go, “Oh, maybe we should look into this more.” So maybe that’s when they test it for various poisons. like, “Oh, it was (writers fill in the blank) type of poison.”

[Thomas]
And so at that point, are they putting out some sort of a warning like, “Hey, if you’re using this lip balm drug, we’ve seen multiple deaths now from it. So maybe consider not doing the lip balm drug.”

[Shep]
“That’s just scare tactics.”

[Thomas]
Exactly.

[Emily]
“Come on, you never want us to have any fun. We can’t snort coke. We can’t shoot heroin. We can’t smoke fentanyl. Now we can’t use lip balm?”

[Shep]
“This is from the same people that told us one marijuana joint would give us a heart attack.”

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Shep]
So.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“Don’t know if I can trust them about this supposedly poisoned lip balm.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Does the lip balm have a drug name? Or are we just going to keep calling it lip balm? It’s lip balm, B-O-M-B.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
Is it just one poisoned pot?

[Emily]
Well, I think that’s where it depends on whether it’s a mass murderer who wants to kill as many people as possible, then it would be several pots.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right, but if it is a targeted attack.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
If it’s a targeted, then it’s just the one pot.

[Shep]
So it could be just the one pot up to this point, because it was one pot at the rave.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
And then, know, people took pots home afterward. And so it was still out in the wild.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And the guy who went down on the girl, that wasn’t his pot. He used his friend’s. So his friend still had it.

[Thomas]
Ah, and so his friend was at the nightclub and still has it in his possession.

[Shep]
Yes, he was at the rave. He took it home. His friend used it at the nightclub and died. He still has it in his possession, but he’s afraid of the cops. The cops are going to blame all this on him.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
He just knows it. He’s got a record.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
So he has to dispose of it in some way.

[Thomas]
Yeah, and then that takes it to a different set of victims at a third crime scene?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Sure. How many of the crime scenes do we want? How many of these like act one, act two?

[Emily]
I mean, one crime scene per act seems convenient.

[Shep]
Okay, we’ll stop at three. The tainted pot is still at crime scene three.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
Because the investigation has to go backward to find out who put this out there.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right. So when they find the third one, are they going, “Oh my gosh, this is a serial killer on the loose” or something like that? They keep killing people. They keep putting these tainted pots out there. Or is that is that like their initial thought?

[Emily]
Could be the young person’s, the young cop’s-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Initial thought is to, you know, go for the-

[Thomas]
The spectacle.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
But then the older cop is like, “Well, hold on.”

[Emily]
“I mean, there’s lots of options. There’s lots of reasons this happened. Yeah. We can’t get stuck on one. Yeah, we’ll explore that. I’m not saying it’s not a good idea to look into that, but my years of experience have taught me that it’s very rarely that glamorous.”

[Thomas]
In fact, I like the idea then that it is just a revenge killing. One person was targeted because that’s the least glamorous of our ideas.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And it validates what the older experienced cop was saying. Like, “See, this isn’t some sexy spectacle thing. It’s just person A upset at person B.”

[Emily]
As the majority of murders go.

[Thomas]
A revenge killing for whatever reason.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
All right, well, let’s take a break here. And when we come back, we’ll figure out all the rest of the details in this sort of a murder mystery involving Lip Balm.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we are back. We have our lip balm murder mystery happening here. The detectives have just found the third crime scene. And this time, they actually have the tainted pot. It’s left at the crime scene. So now they can take it into evidence and stop these killings and start to figure out what happened. Are we ready to figure out what happened? Do we want to pick a lane? I know we had a few different ideas out there.

[Emily]
I’m ready for Shep to reveal who the murderer is and be shocked-

[Shep]
Hahaha.

[Emily]
When he reveals all the clues left along the way that should have pointed to the obvious.

[Shep]
Oh man.

[Emily]
No pressure, Shep.

[Shep]
I don’t know. So they go to the first crime scene, six deaths, and they investigate it as possible drug overdose or possible poison because of the nature of how they died.

[Thomas]
Like a mass poisoning.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
So what could have happened that just poisoned these people? Some of whom knew each other.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
You know, you have the couple and you have their friend.

[Thomas]
Mm hmm.

[Shep]
And okay, maybe they were poisoned before they came.

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Shep]
They had dinner before this or whatever. Try to follow their movements back. Investigate. Go to their apartment. And you see that investigation happening. And they’re like, “We don’t have a lot of leads, right? The couple and the friend are all dead, so we can’t interview the ones that aren’t here.” And then the second incident at the nightclub. They go to that. Like, “Ah, this is another incident. He’s got the lip balm on his lips.” So it’s probably something in that lip balm He doesn’t have a pot of it on him, though. So where did he get it? Where did it come from? We know how fast the lip balm acts, how quickly the poison kills. So he must have put it on here at the nightclub. Interview people. Interview the bartender, who, of course, you know, in murder mysteries has memorized the faces of everyone.

[Emily]
Yeah, absolutely.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That has ever been there.

[Thomas]
And who they were with.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
He’s moving boxes from-

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
The storeroom to the bar.

[Thomas]
That’s right.

[Shep]
“He came in at 10:07 maybe 10:08-“

[Emily]
“Had a tall blonde with him.”

[Thomas]
“Didn’t tip well.”

[Shep]
They find out that he was there with a friend and the friend is missing. And like, “Oh, maybe the friend put the poisoned lip balm on and we’ll find his body somewhere. We don’t know who he is, but we can start tracking down this guy’s acquaintances because we know who the dead guy is and see if one of his acquaintances is missing” and that’s their suspect. Well, he, meanwhile, how does he get rid of the lip balm? Just throw it away? Throw it in the trash? Wipe his fingerprints off it and put it in a dumpster? I’m asking, or is this the problem for the writers?

[Thomas]
It might be a problem for the writers. We know he gets rid of it, but it still is in circulation somehow. So-

[Shep]
I mean, puts in a dumpster, homeless guy takes it out, knows that it’s drugs, you know, puts it on his gums.

[Thomas]
Sure, it’s got the little bomb logo on it.

[Shep]
Yep. And then dies in an alley.

[Emily]
Mm.

[Thomas]
I mean, the guy could just, as he’s walking out of the nightclub, toss it down an alley.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Because he sees the cops rolling up and he’s like, “Rut-ro.”

[Shep]
Yep. That’s great.

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Because that act is another act manslaughter. He committed a further crime in his panic. Never panic!

[Thomas]
Just have a plan already.

[Emily]
Mhm.

[Thomas]
Look, if you’re going to break the law, be smart about it is what we’re saying, right?

[Emily]
That’s right.

[Shep]
He didn’t plan on killing anyone, so he didn’t have, you know, a scenario.

[Thomas]
Amateur!

[Shep]
Amateur.

[Thomas]
So here’s a thought that I had. What if like a single application of the lip balm is not enough to kill you? It’ll get you high, maybe get you feeling kind of weak, but it won’t kill you. So the friend who ditches the lip balm in the alley, he has put a single application on because he knows it’s drugs and he uses it. The people at the rave, they were trying to get super high. They were reapplying all night. The guy in the bathroom, he put it on himself, went down on girl put it on himself some more. Like he’s like trying to put on enough for both of them.

[Shep]
Sorry, I’m picturing it like him applying it to her.

[Thomas]
I mean, maybe he did, right? Like- Although then how would the friend get it back?

[Shep]
You’re right. So he can’t be reapplying it if he doesn’t have the pot.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Shep]
Well, that’s a dilemma because I like this idea, but how do you do it with the scenario we’ve already laid out? Hmm.

[Thomas]
I mean, it could be the case… This is a little contrived, maybe, it could be the case that he uses it first and the friend is in the bathroom like, “Bro, give me the stuff back.” And so he ends up handing it back under the stall door. So like it’s too late for them. It’s going to kill them now because of how much he’s used. And the friend hasn’t used any yet, but now he has the pot back. So now he can apply it.

[Shep]
I mean, it is, it’s kind of contrived. Also, if you’re going, if you’re in the middle of going down on a woman and your friend’s saying fucking anything, are you listening to that?

[Emily]
I know.

[Shep]
Or are you ignoring him until you’ve finished your business?

[Thomas]
Well, but maybe that’s why he capitulates. He is ignoring it and the friend is like, “Dude.” And he’s like pounding on the door and stuff. And so he’s like, “Oh, fine,” and-

[Emily]
He’s pounding on the door he’s not hearing the woman going out of her mind with pleasure or is the friend not very good at it?

[Thomas]
Oh, he knows what’s going on in there. He’s probably not very good at it.

[Shep]
That’s why he needs the assist from the drugs.

[Thomas]
Ah, yeah. Yeah. It’s the secret weapon. He’s done this before using the lip balm, the untainted lip balm, the actual drug one.

[Shep]
Right, right.

[Thomas]
And some woman had a great reaction. And he’s like, “Oh, yeah, I’m totally going to do that again.”

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s his secret weapon.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He’s like, “I’m amazing* at this.”

[Thomas]
Right. Asterisk.

[Shep]
Asterisk.

[Thomas]
So how do they, how do the detectives figure out the truth? Do we like the idea of the spurned lover or whatever, that it’s a single person trying to kill another single person?

[Emily]
I like a single person trying to kill another single person.

[Shep]
Yes, same, but I don’t like the spurned lover.

[Emily]
Same.

[Thomas]
Yeah, whatever the reason is.

[Shep]
I want there to be a legitimate reason. “He raped me.”

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
“And so I want him to die.”

[Emily]
“He killed my sister in a drug-fueled car accident.” Maybe we don’t have to go with the rape?

[Thomas]
Something violent and terrible, though.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Something where you want to sympathize with the killer.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah okay, yeah.

[Thomas]
If we want to bring in the- we talked about having religious people who are trying to shut down the raves and stuff like that, it could be that the target was a priest who had abused some altar boy or something. And so this is how they were going to get revenge on him because this priest is a terrible person. And so he goes out and does drugs and hooks up with people that raves yeah and stuff like that.

[Emily]
Attends raves and-

[Thomas]
And so that, again, creates that red herring clue of like, “Oh, well, we know there’s this really fundamentalist religious group that hates these raves.” And so maybe it’s a thing where they were trying to poison people and this priest accidentally got it.

[Shep]
So it’s a fundamentalist group that hates raves and also a priest that attends raves. Am I understanding it correctly?

[Thomas]
You know how it is. Every accusation is an admission.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
I mean, maybe that’s too convoluted, so-

[Shep]
I want to go back to Emily’s previous idea where someone did something while they were high on drugs, and that is the person that the killer wants to kill. And if there is collateral, it’s fine because they’re also drug users.

[Thomas]
Hm.

[Shep]
So in their mind, it makes it okay. Like, “I need to kill this guy, but if it catches a few strays, that’s fine because they’re all equally potentially as dangerous as this guy,” in the killer’s mind.

[Thomas]
So it’s like, this guy who was tweaking out or high on some drug, he perpetrated a home invasion that killed the sister, the girlfriend, the wife, the whatever. And so now this guy is getting revenge for that death. But also, drugs are the problem. So if other drug users die-

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
This person’s not worried about it.

[Emily]
Drugs caused this, yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
“Oh well.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So we still have the fundamentalist group that is talking about how all of these drug people should be wiped out. That’s why they’re a suspect. That’s why they are investigated.

[Thomas]
And maybe they’re very vocally like, “Yeah, this was a good thing.”

[Shep]
Yes, that’s their sermon on Sunday.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“God is coming down and punishing these evildoers.”

[Thomas]
Do they have a castor plant in their church garden?

[Shep]
That’s- The writers haven’t decided on what the poison is yet.

[Emily]
Yeah, that we decided though it’s up for grabs later.

[Thomas]
All right, what else do we need to figure out?

[Shep]
The cops recover the tainted pot-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
At the third crime scene, whatever that is. Now, if the friend had just thrown it down the alley, his fingerprints would be on it.

[Emily]
Right, that’s how they would pick him up.

[Shep]
Even if he hadn’t, like even if he wiped his fingerprints off, they could interview him and put it on the table and say, “We found your fingerprints on this.” Because it’s, that’s fine, that’s-

[Thomas]
Right, cops are allowed to lie about anything. It’s, there are no rules. It’s ridiculous.

[Shep]
There are no rules. So they could get a confession out of him. No, they promise leniency if he “helps their actual investigation,” which is the source of the poison. Not that they’re actually going to help him, but that’s what they promise him.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
So they can find out where he got it, which was the rave. Oh, shit, that gives us a dead end.

[Thomas]
Does it?

[Shep]
They’re back at the rave.

[Emily]
Yeah, but now they have new-

[Thomas]
Yeah, they didn’t look closely enough at the rave.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
They just assumed it was an OD.

[Emily]
Yeah, you would think if the original target was at the rave, you would want them back there.

[Thomas]
I actually wonder if getting back to the rave is the mid-second act turning point.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Because now the real investigation begins. Now they’re looking at that church group going, “Maybe what they’re saying is a confession, a public confession, and not just a really shitty thing to say.” And then it turns out, “No, it’s just a really shitty thing to say. They’re just horrible people.”

[Shep]
Also, like, the killer could have gone to that church and confessed during confession, which would be kept secret. And I don’t know if that gives us anything.

[Thomas]
I don’t know. But at any rate, like, I don’t think it’s a dead end. I think it gives them an opportunity to go back and find new evidence or more carefully review what they’ve collected or find some “Oh across the alleyway from the where the rave warehouse is, there’s another warehouse that has security cameras. And we never bothered to look at those, so I guess now we should. Or-” you know, whatever.

[Shep]
If there’s an ATM and the ATM has a camera-

[Thomas]
Right, right. Cell phone records, whatever it is.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Turns out the FBI is operating a Stingray in the area, so they have… I don’t know.

[Shep]
I don’t think you need Stingray anymore. I think you could just get the cell phone records.

[Thomas]
That’s true. Fleek, Fleck? Who the fuck’s the one that’s spying on everybody with their license plate readers?

[Shep]
I don’t know.

[Thomas]
Whatever that company is. (Flock Safety)

[Shep]
Right. The point is we’re all under surveillance all the time.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Privacy is an illusion.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. So they find out who else went to the rave.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They start tracking people down. Is there a big drug bust?

[Thomas]
That would maybe be guess number one is that it was drugged at the factory. Because they still don’t know for sure it’s just one pot. They’ve only recovered one pot. So maybe they figure out who the dealer is and they bust the dealer. They get all the other pots from the dealer. And it turns out, nah they’re all clean.

[Shep]
I mean, the dealer would definitely want to cooperate because they don’t want some murder charges.

[Thomas]
Right. They’re going down for dealing. Now, we can add murder to this or…

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But what does that give them other than “Look, this pot is different. The label is different. It is not my pot. It came from some other source.”

[Thomas]
I’d be careful about that. If I- Okay, if I’m the bad guy, the actual murderer, I’m going to go buy a real pot and then taint it.

[Shep]
Yeah. Oh, you’re right. Yes, you’re absolutely right. I retract everything I said. “No, no, no, no.”

[Thomas]
Is that the first time you’ve “no-no-no”-ed yourself? I think we’ve reached peak no-no-no at this point.

[Shep]
Oh, no! I can never do it again. So then what does the dealer get them?

[Thomas]
Yeah, the dealer needs to give them something to move the story forward.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
But I don’t know what that would be.

[Shep]
Customer list?

[Emily]
Customer list or like you know, an odd customer. Church looking lady came in here looking for some-

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Well, the person would have to have purchased it before the rave.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Which would stand out a bit.

[Shep]
I mean, if there’s an upcoming rave, I imagine there’s a lot of purchases. Maybe it does something to your lips. Chaps your lips or something. And so this guy comes in and he’s suspicious because he’s clearly not using this.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
So why is he buying it?

[Thomas]
But if it’s a party drug, I could see it… It could just be some guy. This is the first time he’s buying it. He’s heard about it.

[Thomas]
Although you’d think somebody in that position would probably buy it at the rave, not ahead of time.

[Shep]
And he only bought one because normally they’re sold in packs of three or six or whatever.

[Thomas]
I mean, if multiple people can use one pot.

[Shep]
I’m trying to think of ways to make this guy stand out.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I know.

[Shep]
This is tough.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Writing is hard.

[Thomas]
Writing is hard.

[Emily]
It is so hard.

[Thomas]
Well, then let’s let the writers figure this out. And let’s say there is something that we or the writers come up with at some point that causes this person to stand out.

[Thomas]
The drug dealer points them in that direction, the detectives in that direction. And so do the detectives go to that person next?

[Shep]
I mean, if this is our finale, then, then yeah.

[Thomas]
Or they collect a few pieces of evidence that all point to one person or help them put together a profile of who to find?

[Shep]
Yes? You say it like it’s a question, but-

[Shep]
So what happens when they track this person down?

[Thomas]
Yeah, this feels like not a very climactic ending.

[Shep]
I mean, you could have the younger detective talk about all the conspiracy theories that they’re coming up with, the cabal of shadowy figures that are behind this serial murder. And in the end, it’s just one guy. And it’s not very climactic. And the older detective, the experienced detective, could have told them-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“It’s not going to be what you’re picturing. It’s just going to be probably one guy.”

[Thomas]
That’s what she’s saying the whole movie.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
She keeps trying to temper his expectations. He wants something big. “Oh, this is going to be a huge collar.” And she’s like, “Well.”

[Shep]
Yeah. He’s so excited to go and like interview the conservative group. It’s like he’s certain that they’re behind it. So if it’s not a satisfying collar, what is the satisfying end to the movie? We can’t do “the guy kills himself” because that’s done a lot.

[Thomas]
Yeah, this is a good question.

[Shep]
Yep. This kind of thing happens every time we do a murder mystery where the ending is real hard. Everything has to lead up to this point and everything has to come together and that’s real difficult to do in an hour.

[Thomas]
I think oftentimes in these situations, it’s one of those things where there’s a lot of tension that’s building for whatever reason. Either the audience knows who the killer is and they’re about to escape. And so we know, “Oh gosh, the detectives are running out of time.” Or for whatever reason, there’s some sort of outside pressure. You know, I think it’s why the chief is always like, “You only have 24 hours left and then I’m taking you off the case,” right? There’s some sort of pressure. And so I think that’s kind of how like oftentimes these things create that excitement because it is literally just like connecting some dots and arresting a guy. So how do you make that exciting?

[Shep]
The young detective is going off on his own and investigating it at night. He’s going to nightclubs. He’s using the drug himself. And that’s like, that could be poison, my dude. You could be killing yourself in your pursuit of your shadowy cabal conspiracy.

[Thomas]
It would be very interesting to have the older detective have to arrest the younger detective.

[Shep]
Ohoho.

[Thomas]
Like he’s using this drug a whole bunch and she’s like, “Bro, you can’t do that.”

[Shep]
Okay, but would a detective arrest another detective-

[Thomas]
Well.

[Shep]
Or would they just say, “Look, you gotta get clean?”

[Thomas]
Right. Turns out the arresting another cop paperwork is so much more. It’s just, can’t be bothered.

[Shep]
So he sobers up and he goes to Addicts Anonymous, and it’s at the church where the fundamentalist group has their sermons.

[Thomas]
We never really established what the actual cause was. It could be somebody from that fundamentalist group who’s acting in a lone capacity. That’s part of why they have that “Drug users are the enemy” mentality. So they found this group who’s publicly saying, “All these people who use drugs are terrible.” And this like, “Yes, I agree with this already. This fits my worldview.” And so they’ve joined that group.

[Shep]
Ah, they got radicalized.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And so maybe in like a church support group that’s come up, what happened to them, their past. And they decide to do something about it. But they’re not acting on behalf of the church group. So when they investigate the church group, it’s like, “Well, they’re, what they’re saying publicly is pretty awful, but there’s no conspiracy here.” And then it turns out, “Oh, wait, there is one person here who has done something that has caused these deaths.”

[Shep]
So, it was someone from that group?

[Thomas]
Yes, but not acting on behalf of the group. They’re just getting their own personal revenge.

[Shep]
So, how did they catch them again?

[Thomas]
I don’t know.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
It’s that middle bit we haven’t figured out where the drug dealer gives them something that points them in the right direction.

[Shep]
Or, let’s throw all that away.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Let’s do a new thing.

[Thomas]
I mean, that’s fine too.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It was someone who’s going to the like get sober group at that church who hears, you know, people stand up and they talk about the horrible things that they did when they were high. And that’s why they gotta get sober. And someone says something that was like, that’s probably not okay. That should be a crime. They should be punished for that. And they could have even like already been through the jail system and gotten out. And this person has decided, that’s not enough. This person needs to die. They’re already dipping their toe back into drugs. So they follow them. They stalk them. Like, oh, they’re doing this lip balm thing. They’re going to these raves and then coming to the addicts meeting and pretending they haven’t done drugs, when I saw them doing drugs. They’re lying!

[Thomas]
What if the target that they’re going after isn’t actually doing drugs? So if there’s enough distance between our killer and the intended victim, they could think the intended victim, this person who’s gone through jail, is getting back into drugs. Oh, it’s history repeating itself. They’re going to do some horrible thing again. And really what they’re doing is “Hey there’s this narconon program that’s really helping me out.” They’re trying to get other drug users to stop doing drugs.

[Shep]
They’re at raves handing out water.

[Thomas]
Right. And so the person is like, “Oh they rave. There’s all this lip balm here. They’re doing drugs,” whatever. And so they see the person using normal balm and they assume that it’s the drug lip balm. And so that’s their whole plan. Or they just assume the person is doing drugs and they’re like, “Oh, this lip balm a very popular party drug. It’s really easy to get. I can taint it and I can be like, ‘Hey, don’t you want to use some of this?’ And they’ll say, ‘Yes.'” Or I don’t know, whatever. Like, maybe there’s a particular person they see them hanging out with who’s one of our original six victims. Because he’s like really trying. He feels like he’s got an in with this group. He’s, he’s almost got this group to agreeing to come to church and give this narconon or whatever it is type of program a try.

[Shep]
So it’s just more of a tragedy.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
The whole reason that even occurred to me was you talked about the younger cop doing some of the drug and then going to sober up. I was like, they’re going to the meetings. Maybe they even know the guy from the meetings.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I mean, not his last name.

[Thomas]
Right. And so is there some something where the, all the pieces finally click for the young cop and he realizes, “Wait a minute, it’s Steve from the meeting.”

[Shep]
Does he know or does he realize when they get there to arrest him, they see him? He’s like, “Oh, I know this guy.” In fact, they can interview him, the actual perpetrator-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Earlier for some reason. And he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say that he recognizes him because it’s anonymous.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So he doesn’t say anything to his partner. And then when like suspicion comes back toward that guy, he’s conflicted.

[Thomas]
Hmm. And, you know, we set it up in such a way that the audience is like, “Is he let this dude go?”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Like, you’re not sure until the end.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And maybe he’s not even entirely sure.

[Shep]
Yep. That’s more satisfying.

[Thomas]
Yes, that gives you a good climax. I agree. Any other details that we need to work out?

[Shep]
Oh, tons.

[Emily]
So many.

[Shep]
We haven’t even decided the type of poison.

[Thomas]
Right now, I mean.

[Shep]
No, no, that’s no problems for us to figure out.

[Thomas]
Okay, okay.

[Shep]
Everything that remains is a problem for the writers.

[Thomas]
Perfect. Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about Lip Balm Was it lip-smackingly good? Or did we just pay lip service to the topic? 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. You and I both know how much you love Almost Plausible, but don’t you think it’s time to let the rest of the world know it too? You can do that by leaving us a five-star rating on whichever podcatcher you use. As bonus, if you include a written review along with your five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, we’ll read it on a future episode. Emily, Shep, and I are foaming at the- No, that’s not right. We’re wet with anticip- whoa. No, don’t want to say that. You know what, just listen to the next episode of Almost Plausible, OK?

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