
Ep. 94
Missing Sock
28 January 2025
Runtime: 00:50:51
A pair of professional soccer players get magically zapped into a young soccer player's socks, and together they must figure out how to get the players back into their bodies.
References
- Missing Sock
- Achilles
- Curling
- Field Hockey
- Baby Shark
- Missing-Children Milk Carton
- The Man with One Red Shoe
- Gnomes (South Park)
- Almost Plausible: Can Opener
- Almost Plausible: Hot Dog
- Almost Plausible: Toilet Brush
- Mars Needs Moms
- Almost Plausible: Videocassette
- The Velveteen Rabbit
- Like Mike
- Michael Jordan
- Goodwill Industries
- The Man with Two Brains
- Freaky Friday
- List of films featuring fictional films
Transcript
[Intro music begins]
[Emily]
Batman and Tony Stark… Well, Tony Stark has a job. Batman just inherited his wealth.
[Shep]
Yeah, he’s the 1-percenter. And he goes around beating up mentally… what is it? Insane?
[Emily]
Mentally ill homeless people.
[Shep]
Yes.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Shep]
That’s not okay, right?
[Emily]
This is not okay.
[Shep]
Batman’s not okay.
[Emily]
He’s got problems. We should cancel him.
[Thomas]
Yeah. I was going to say. You hear that, Bruce? You’re canceled.
[Shep]
I didn’t say that. I’m not with them!
[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 never missing from our show are Emily-
[Emily]
Hey, guys.
[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.
[Shep]
He never gives us vacation.
[Thomas]
Missing one sock from a pair is such a common occurrence. That missing sock has its own full Wikipedia article.
[Emily]
I did not know that.
[Thomas]
Personally, I never notice if this happens to me because I have light socks and dark socks, and within those two color groups, all the socks look the same. But I know Shep has matched pairs of socks.
[Shep]
Yes, I have toe socks. And there’s a left sock and a right sock. So if one’s missing, it’s very clear.
[Thomas]
And I wouldn’t be surprised if Emily did as well. So-
[Emily]
Yeah, I do, but I don’t have an obsession with matching them. So I often wear, like tonight, two different colored socks. Same-style, same brand, but different colors.
[Thomas]
Well, have either of you been plagued by a single missing sock?
[Emily]
Yes, several times.
[Shep]
Single? No. Hundreds? Yes. I don’t know what is going on with my dryer or my old dryer, but it seemed like I had socks go missing all the time.
[Thomas]
Well, it looks like I’m the odd sock here, but despite that, Shep, you are pitching first.
[Shep]
All right, my pitch is: Superhero Achilles is living his best life, until one day when folding laundry, he discovers that his super suit is missing one sock. It’s not that big of a deal and most people wouldn’t even notice, but it does leave him with a small, unprotected part of his body. Wait, did someone steal his sock to expose this weak spot?
[Thomas]
I like the idea that he washes his super suit at like a laundromat.
[Shep]
You know, superheroing doesn’t pay. People think that it does, but you’re just famous. You’re not rich.
[Thomas]
Right. You get to drink for free, but like, you still got to pay rent.
[Emily]
Hmm.
[Shep]
You still got to put quarters in the laundromat machine.
[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.
[Shep]
The laundromat machine doesn’t care who you are.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Emily]
Well, that’s why Superman has a job, but Batman and Tony Stark… Well, Tony Stark has a job. Batman just inherited his wealth.
[Shep]
Yeah, he’s the 1-percenter. And he goes around beating up mentally… what is it? Insane?
[Emily]
Mentally ill homeless people.
[Shep]
Yes.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Shep]
That’s not okay, right?
[Emily]
This is not okay.
[Shep]
Batman’s not okay.
[Emily]
He’s got problems. We should cancel him.
[Thomas]
Yeah. I was going to say. You hear that, Bruce? You’re canceled.
[Shep]
I didn’t say that. I’m not with them! That’s all I have. Emily, what do you have?
[Emily]
All right, so the first one is a sweet, no show athletic sock has lost her mate. They were in the washer together, but she lost sight of her partner in the dryer and hasn’t seen him since. Thrown into the pile of unmatched socks, she begins her epic journey to find her love and return to the life they’ve always known. But along the way, she meets a wayward tube sock who hasn’t been worn since his partner disappeared three years ago. He keeps hanging on, dodging purge after purge, unsure he’ll find his missing half. Will they find their partners? Will they fall in love and live the life of a rogue pair? Or will they become victims to the demon sock eater, AKA, the dog?
[Shep]
Is that where the socks are disappearing, too? Wait, did the dog eat their partners?
[Thomas]
Oh…
[Shep]
I just have so many questions now.
[Emily]
Maybe. We don’t know. My next one is: a superstitious athlete has lost one of her favorite socks. They are, of course, her lucky socks, and she needs them for the next big sporting event. Will she be able to find the missing sock? Or will she let everyone down because she’s missing her most important lucky charm?
[Shep]
What is the sport?
[Emily]
I don’t know.
[Thomas]
Curling.
[Emily]
Yeah, or field hockey. Volleyball. Just soccer. There’s lots of sports that involve socks.
[Thomas]
Most of them.
[Shep]
It’s got to be _socc_er.
[Thomas]
Soccer.
[Emily]
Yeah. Alright. And my final pitch: Serial killer victims are found with one of their socks lodged in their throats and the other one missing, probably kept as a trophy by the deranged killer. Detectives struggle to find a connection and suspect until they get a lead from a local laundromat all the victims have been utilizing. They set up an undercover operation, but can they keep the young new detective safe?
[Shep]
How young is the new detective?
[Emily]
I dunno.
[Thomas]
♫ Baby Cop, Baby Cop. ♫
[Shep]
I started hearing Baby Cop in the sound of Baby Shark, so now I have to live with that in my head.
[Emily]
Okay, Thomas, what do you have for us?
[Thomas]
Well, my super obvious first thought was an animated film about a young sock who’s missing and trying to make his way back home.
[Emily]
Oh, perhaps he’s the sweetheart of the sock who lost her mate.
[Thomas]
Could be. Could be.
[Shep]
It’s a young missing sock, so of course it’s going to be on milk cartons.
[Thomas]
Yes.
[Emily]
Yep.
[Thomas]
So I also have an idea for a pitch where there’s a missing lucky sock. So one of a pair of lucky socks is missing and the person decides to wear mismatched socks, because surely half a pair of lucky socks is better than no lucky socks at all, right? However, this decision leads to hilarity. Kind of like The Man with One Red Shoe.
[Shep]
What is The Man with One Red Shoe?
[Emily]
It’s a Tom Hanks movie, right?
[Thomas]
Yep. Over the years, there have been many hypotheses about why socks go missing and where they go when they disappear. Well, it turns out that there are sock goblins that steal socks from your dryer and take them back to their underground lairs for “reasons”.
[Shep]
Profit.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Shep]
Step one, steal socks. Step two, …. Step three, profit.
[Thomas]
Pairs of socks are like twins, right? So perhaps the socks have a twin-like psychic connection with one another. When one goes missing or perhaps is kidnapped, the other sock uses that connection to track it down with help from the other garments. And my final idea: Maybe the wrap up to our Can Opener / Hot Dog trilogy? A sock goes missing and Richard Frank is hired to track it down.
[Shep]
Why is it so important? It was jewel-encrusted, and it went missing from a rapper’s after-party. And…
[Thomas]
Those are my pitches. Is there one of these that we like the most?
[Emily]
We actually have a lot of good ones.
[Thomas]
Well, considering we have so many good ones, you know, obviously we’ll pick the one we like the best, but the rest we should maybe sock away for a future…
[Shep]
(Pained groan)
[Emily]
Yep.
[Shep]
Boo!
[Thomas]
Any excuse to get Shep riled up. So.
[Emily]
Which ones do we like?
[Thomas]
I mean, I like your serial killer one. That one’s fun.
[Emily]
It is actually a pretty good one. What do you think, Shep? What do you like?
[Shep]
I am trying to, like, picture in my mind. Is it anthropomorphic socks or not? Is it people in the real world and socks are just objects? Or are the socks alive? And you started talking about your serial killer one while I was picturing this, and that turned into the socks are anthropomorphic in the serial killer one. And so they’re pulling the sock out, out, and it’s alive, and it’s the partner of one of the other socks. And like, the serial killer part of it doesn’t even enter into it. It’s like, “Oh, hooray. We found the missing pair of socks. We found the the other half.” It had been used in a horrific murder, and they’re just ignoring all of that part.
[Emily]
So it’s a world based on laundry being anthropomorphic, and then this just happens to be that there’s a serial killer abusing one sock and using it to commit crimes. But they don’t care about that. They care about where the sock went and how to recover it.
[Shep]
Right. Well, you said laundry is anthropomorphic, so now I’m picturing, like, all clothes are alive.
[Thomas]
Yeah, I like the idea that there’s a human detective and a garment Detective. That are paired up. And these aren’t just homicides, these are double murders.
[Shep]
Oh, so the… the sock in the throat has also died?
[Thomas]
Yes. They’re both dead.
[Emily]
Well, it suffocated.
[Thomas]
Yeah. And so they’ve both, they’ve suffocated on each other. And so the human cop and the laundry cop, the garment cop are both just like- “This is so- just twisted and disgusting.” Like-
[Shep]
Is it a double homicide or is it a murder-suicide?
[Emily]
Well, that could be what they first think.
[Thomas]
Right, the first one.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Emily]
And then as they go, they’re realizing it’s a double homicide.
[Thomas]
And there’s already tension between humans and garments in this world.
[Emily]
Right. Because humans need garments, and garments are like, “We’re alive. I don’t want to be in your smelly body.”
[Thomas]
And so this is ratcheting that up because, like, “Well, it must be a human. Who’s forcing garments into people’s mouths? It has to be someone with hands. It must be a human.”
[Shep]
It’s gloves. It’s a pair of gloves!
[Thomas]
Ah, there you go.
[Shep]
I’m also thinking of the lucky socks. Like the soccer player that’s wearing one lucky sock. When she had both lucky socks, they would, like, shout encouragement or maybe advice, as she’s playing. Like, she does really well because she’s got these sock coaches with her, encouraging her and guiding her all the time. And then she’s only got one, and then she’s trying to play the game, but it’s only one sock on its own.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Shep]
It’d be like if Thomas and I tried to do the podcast without Emily, it just would not work. And then she sees the other sock, and the opponent team has someone wearing it. Like it got mixed up in the locker room.
[Emily]
See, now I’ve made it harder. Thanks, Shep.
[Shep]
I’m also thinking of what happens to the socks when they disappear. I’m thinking there’s, like, extraterrestrials are coming and getting socks, and so socks don’t want to pass up the chance to be chosen and taken to another world.
[Thomas]
Mars Needs Socks.
[Shep]
(Laughing) Mars Needs Socks. All right. I have no idea which one of these we should go with. I am awash in a sea of ideas. I have paralysis of choice.
[Emily]
Who would have known Missing Sock was gonna be the one we’re like, “These are all good? It’s too hard.” It’s really too hard. Like, anthropomorphizing the socks for the serial killer-
[Thomas]
You know what that one feels a lot like is our Video Cassette episode.
[Emily]
Yeah, okay.
[Shep]
Ah.
[Thomas]
It’s like a similar feel to that.
[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, Good point. All right. Put that serial killer one on the back burner. Sock that one away. Keep reusing that, because I have no other puns for socks.
[Thomas]
Darn!
[Emily]
Oh, darn.
[Shep]
All right. If we, if we don’t have anthropomorphized garments-
[Thomas]
Mm.
[Shep]
That eliminates a lot of the ones that I have in my head.
[Emily]
We could still keep them with the sports one. I like the idea that they’ve got a connection and are alive for their human. Are they the only ones alive?
[Thomas]
That’s true. This could be like the only pair of socks that’s alive.
[Emily]
Because she’s imbued them with the human spirit because she loved them so much.
[Shep]
Those poor humans. She murdered them to take their spirit and put them in her socks.
[Emily]
I was gonna say, like, The Velveteen Rabbit.
[Thomas]
I could definitely see some weird kid’s movie where a popular female athlete wakes up as a pair of socks and some little girl who wants to play or who plays that same sport that the adult athlete plays is going to put the socks on and go play. And so she benefits from the expertise of the adult athlete.
[Shep]
She wakes up as a pair of socks?
[Emily]
Yep.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Shep]
She’s in both socks?
[Emily]
Yep.
[Thomas]
Oh, no. It’s got to be like her and her rival. Yeah. Okay, so it’s like-
[Shep]
Oh, no. It’s enemies-to-lovers.
[Emily]
Yes!
[Thomas]
No, it’s not. “Not everything has to be a romance!” You said that. So I’m just gonna say it’s soccer because. Why not?
[Shep]
Right.
[Thomas]
And they’re bitter rivals and they’re playing, and it’s a rainy game and they’re both like kind of up in each other’s business with the ball. And then lightning comes down and strikes. And when they wake up, they are each one of a pair of socks in this little girl’s room. And this little girl is going to go and play soccer. And she idolizes both of them. Maybe. I don’t know.
[Shep]
Or maybe they have a famous rivalry, and so there are posters of the two of them-
[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.
[Shep]
Playing against each other.
[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s good.
[Shep]
And people are fans of that rivalry and of both of them. Like, “How amazing would it be if they were on the same team?”
[Thomas]
And so they now need to be on the same team. They have to work together with this girl. What’s the goal? Do they somehow know that if they-
[Shep]
The goal is the net at the end of the field.
[Thomas]
Ah, okay, okay.
[Emily]
That’s how you get points.
[Thomas]
I see.
[Shep]
I’m not into sportsball.
[Thomas]
That’s the touchdown area. Right?
[Shep]
Yes.
[Emily]
Right, Right. Exactly.
[Thomas]
Because the goalie is allowed to touch the ball and then put it back down.
[Emily]
Yep.
[Shep]
You’re right. That’s why it’s called the touch-
[Thomas]
Okay, that’s right. Right, right. So how, like if the goal is that for these women to become humans again, if they have to work together to achieve that, how do they know that? And what reverses this curse?
[Emily]
More important question, because I had it in my head that this was like, Freaky Friday.
[Thomas]
Uh, huh.
[Emily]
So what are their bodies doing? Are they just slumped over on a couch?
[Shep]
No, because they were playing soccer during a lightning storm.
[Thomas]
They’re in comas.
[Shep]
They’re in comas.
[Emily]
Okay, fine.
[Thomas]
Because they got struck by lightning.
[Shep]
Right.
[Thomas]
So- Yeah, the socks are in their bodies for now.
[Emily]
Makes sense.
[Shep]
The socks are in their bodies. That’s great for the third act twist, when their bodies wake up and they realize, “Oh, it’s the spirit of the socks have taken over our bodies.”
[Thomas]
Yes.
[Shep]
But they’re sports socks. So they don’t talk or anything, but they want to go out and kick the football.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
Yeah. Right. They’re, they’ve, it’s sort of like them, but turned up to 11.
[Shep]
Yes.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
But they also don’t talk.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Shep]
Right.
[Thomas]
So they’re singularly focused on kicking the ball, scoring the goals to the point where like they’re not kicking the ball to their teammates, they’re stealing the ball from their own teammates.
[Emily]
Right.
[Thomas]
But they’re also like playing pretty well.
[Emily]
Oh, is the goal for them to get back to their bodies and be put on as socks so that they can transfer back?
[Shep]
If they get put on and that transfer them back, were they wearing these socks when they got struck by lightning? How do they end up in the other girl’s room?
[Emily]
Well, yeah, because it’s supposed-
[Shep]
It doesn’t make any sense.
[Emily]
No, because it’s supposed to be a missing sock. Right? Right now we just have them turning into one sock each. So they are the missing socks from the socks that they were wearing when they got struck by lightning. One of the socks-
[Shep]
Ah, because pairs of socks have psychic connections…
[Emily]
No, I was gonna say when they got struck by lightning. You know, sometimes, you know, you get kicked out of your shoes, they say?
[Thomas]
Right. It literally knocked their socks off.
[Emily]
Yeah, it literally knocks one of their socks off on each person so the other sock stays on them. And that… I don’t know. We figure that part out later. But the two socks that got knocked off are in the field. And somehow she was, like, at the game or something.
[Thomas]
Yeah. She’s like on the sidelines for some reason.
[Emily]
Yeah, yeah. And so she sees this happen. When they get pulled off and everybody leaves, she runs and grabs the socks because, “Oh, my god. What a souvenir from my two favorite players who just got struck by lightning.” Yes. That’s weird. But kids are weird.
[Shep]
Okay. My problem with that is this is a stadium with people in it, and no one else goes out to grab the socks? People would be fighting over the socks.
[Thomas]
It has to happen right in front of her. Right?
[Emily]
Right.
[Thomas]
Why doesn’t she get hit by lightning too though?
[Emily]
I don’t know. It’s a movie.
[Thomas]
Oh, maybe. Maybe her mom is like an EMT.
[Emily]
Yeah. And is volunteering for this game or, I don’t know.
[Thomas]
She’s working the game and so they get taken. Or yeah, maybe she’s not an EMT. Maybe she just works at the stadium and so she ends up picking up the socks and she’s like- “Well.” It does seem very weird. It’s just this is very Like Mike, you know?
[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.
[Shep]
I don’t know, Like Mike either.
[Emily]
He gets Michael Jordan’s shoes somehow.
[Thomas]
Yeah. I think they get like donated to a, like a Goodwill-type of situation or something. I don’t remember.
[Emily]
And they turn him into a great basketball player.
[Thomas]
Like an amazing basketball player. Yeah.
[Shep]
Ah, this is too much like that then.
[Emily]
It’s not at all the same story. Because ours is soccer and women.
[Shep]
I mean, even if we call it football instead of soccer, it still works as a pun.
[Emily]
Oh, yeah.
[Shep]
Gotta think of that International market.
[Emily]
I like the idea of them each being one of the socks from their feet because then they have a missing sock. Right? They are the missing socks. But how does the little girl get them?
[Thomas]
Well, that’s why I kind of like the idea that this girl has nothing to do with the stadium or what’s going on.
[Emily]
Hmm.
[Thomas]
That they aren’t the actual real socks. They are this girl’s socks.
[Emily]
Okay.
[Thomas]
And that makes it less like, Like Mike.
[Emily]
Okay. So she’s a big fan of football and these teams. So based off of when they play, right. Because they’re not always going to be playing each other. So she has socks for each team, but they’ve been missing for a while. Like one of each pair has been missing for a while.
[Thomas]
Because that’s how socks work.
[Emily]
Because she’s a kid and they’re socks.
[Thomas]
Well the sock gremlins took one of each of them.
[Emily]
Right.
[Shep]
You don’t want to know what the soccer gremlins are doing with them.
[Emily]
No.
[Thomas]
Step two. Whoo.
[Shep]
Yeah.
[Emily]
Step two is terrible. So when the two professional athletes get struck by lightning, they embody the socks that she has, one for each team, and then she puts them on because they’re her lucky socks. Even though they’re mismatched now. And then, that’s how they get, she gets their power.
[Thomas]
I mean, it could also be the case that the girl made a wish to play like both of them.
[Emily]
Right.
[Thomas]
Oh, and then that gives you the end of the second act falling out where the socks, the athletes in the socks get mad at the girl because they find out. “Wait, you did this to us?”
[Shep]
Ah.
[Emily]
Yeah. Do they actually talk to the little girl?
[Thomas]
Yes, but I think it’s like telepathically. Like, because she’s wearing the socks, they can talk to her.
[Emily]
Okay.
[Thomas]
No one else hears it.
[Shep]
Do y’all remember the movie The Man with Two Brains?
[Emily]
Yes!
[Shep]
Steve Martin.
[Emily]
No, I totally know this movie.
[Shep]
He can hear a brain in a jar and no one else can hear it.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Shep]
And it’s never explained.
[Emily]
Nope.
[Shep]
It’s just a thing that happens. So, yeah, I like the idea of them telepathically speaking with her, but only she can hear them and it doesn’t make actual sound. So it could all be just in her mind. So it’s her birthday, and she’s watching the game and she wishes, and then they’re struck by lightning, and then she imagines or really their spirits inhabiting her socks because she has one sock for each team. And she doesn’t, like, get their powers. But they can coach her now.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Emily]
Yeah, they coach her into being a better age-appropriate soccer player.
[Shep]
Right. At first they disagree on what she should do, and so each of them is coaching her. Sometimes opposite actions.
[Thomas]
Yeah. There’s that initial period where she plays worse than she used to because there’s the conflicting advice.
[Shep]
Yes.
[Emily]
Right.
[Thomas]
“No, do this,” “No go there,” “No.” And then she misses the kick that she easily made earlier in the film.
[Shep]
Right. Oh, yeah. You have that whole first act where you see her as a kid playing soccer with her friends.
[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, that’s how it opens. It opens at a soccer- We need an action opening. So it’s at a soccer game for her little league team.
[Shep]
Right. Well, with all the dramatic music of, like, a really super intense game.
[Thomas]
Right, Right. Oh, yeah. It’s shot like a full-on sports movie.
[Shep]
Yeah. Because it is a sports movie!
[Thomas]
So is there a girl on her team that she’s very competitive with? Or, there’s a rival team.
[Emily]
Yeah. I like that. There’s a rival team.
[Thomas]
So what’s going on with the kids sort of mirrors what’s going on with the adults in a way.
[Emily]
Right. And I want to say, but I don’t know if it’s kind of too silly, but the two girls on, the younger girls, kind of live in the same neighborhood, used to be friends, go to the same school, but they got on different teams and now they’ve- Their friendship has been ruined and they’re just bitter rivals. It’s like the reverse enemies-to-lovers.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Emily]
It’s friends-to-enemies.
[Thomas]
Now, does that relationship get repaired at the end of the film?
[Emily]
Yeah, I was gonna say, then we have that to repair later. And as the two socks learn to work together and help her become the better player, we can see how she learns from that, how to be friends with that girl again.
[Thomas]
Ah, so, so we don’t actually see their relationship repaired, but we see, like, the beginnings of that. So we see some good sportsmanship.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
The one girl gets hurt or something, and then our main character goes over and helps her out.
[Emily]
Right. Or she makes a really good shot and, you know, instead of like getting angry to her, she’s like, “Great job. That was crazy.” You know, something like that.
[Shep]
That’s just mind games.
[Emily]
Come on, we’re trying to build the idea that girls can be friends and don’t have to compete with each other.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Shep]
But they are literally on other teams. They have to compete. That’s the whole point of sports!
[Thomas]
But afterward, they can share orange slices.
[Emily]
Yes, they can share orange slices and gossip about, I don’t know, the crazy moms on the sideline drinking wine.
[Shep]
The crazy incident of “Did you see that lightning strike at the (whatever) game?”
[Emily]
Right.
[Shep]
“I can’t believe it. I’m wearing a sock from each team.” “Oh, so am i.” Does the other girl also have, does she hear the voices of the-
[Emily]
No, just ours.
[Thomas]
No, I think it’s just our. Our main character.
[Emily]
Because that would be too much coincidence that they both wished for and the lightning struck.
[Shep]
If it really happened.
[Thomas]
We’ll take a break here, and when we come back, we’ll finish the rest of our story.
[Break]
[Thomas]
Okay, we are back. Let’s kind of nail down the overall plot, and then we can start diving into some of those specifics. It starts at the soccer game for our main character and her rival. Their teams are playing against each other, and of course, we can’t have our main character win. Her team has to lose. But she does get a good shot because we need to- We’ll come back to that later on. Right? And then she’s watching the game with the two adult rivals, and she makes a wish to be able to play like them.
[Shep]
The game where they’re playing, I had already forgotten. And then you’re like, “She’s watching the game with these two people,” and I’m, like, picturing the three of them on a couch watching the game.
[Thomas]
And lightning strikes and knocks out the two women. And the next morning, the girl puts her socks on, or she can’t find one or the other of a complete pair of each of those team’s socks. So she’s just like, “Fine, I’ll just do one of each.”
[Emily]
Mmm.
[Thomas]
Puts them on and discovers she’s hearing the voices of our two adult soccer player characters in her head.
[Emily]
Yeah. So that could give you a little moment of her just in complete panic and confusion and then not knowing where it’s coming from, how it’s happening. I’m not sure how she takes the socks off to figure it out, but-
[Thomas]
Probably, she’s, like, sitting on her bed and puts the socks on and hears them. And then she, like, jumps up and they’re both like, “Ah, you’re stepping on us.” And so she pulls the socks off and then doesn’t hear them anymore.
[Shep]
I think that that might have a problem because you put socks on one at a time. Or at least I do. I don’t want to speak for you. So why didn’t they speak when she was putting the first sock on? My solution is: Or my proposal is they wake up before she does and they can talk to each other. Maybe they’re both in the sock drawer. Although if she chooses them later, she already has to be wearing both of them before she can hear them, is what I’m thinking.
[Thomas]
Ah. Sleeps with the socks on.
[Shep]
No.
[Emily]
Yeah, she’s one of those weird people.
[Shep]
No, you don’t keep wearing the socks the next day.
[Emily]
Children do.
[Shep]
Gross!
[Emily]
Yeah. They’re gross.
[Shep]
Children are gross.
[Thomas]
It’s true.
[Emily]
Yeah. 100%.
[Thomas]
It’s true.
[Shep]
Put that on a T-shirt. Okay. Can they communicate with her right away?
[Thomas]
I think she needs to be wearing them.
[Shep]
No, no, no. I mean, when they have the ability to speak, can she hear them immediately?
[Thomas]
I would assume so. But do you have some idea that it’s more convenient if they don’t?
[Shep]
I’m just trying to figure out how she gets both the socks on without hearing them.
[Thomas]
I mean, they’re not chattering the entire time. I think she pulls one on, and she hears the person talking, and she kind of looks around and it’s like-
[Emily]
Make sure the radio is not on. Turns the TV off or something. She pulls it on and then hears the voice. And then she’s like, “Alexa, stop.”
[Shep]
Or because there’s a news story about these two soccer rivals who have been hospitalized and are in comas, they’re showing interview footage of the two of them. The TV’s on while she’s getting ready for the day.
[Thomas]
Right, this is big news.
[Shep]
Right. They’re talking with each other, but she doesn’t notice that it’s her socks. She thinks it’s something going on in the interview that she’s not really paying attention to. It’s the second screen thing.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Shep]
It’s just on in the background.
[Thomas]
That works.
[Emily]
Yeah. And then she keeps hearing it as she goes on with her day, leaves her room to go eat breakfast, or-
[Shep]
Right. She turns the TV off and she can still hear it. And then she looks at the remote and looks at the TV.
[Emily]
She does that, “Hello?”
[Thomas]
Right.
[Emily]
And they’re having the conversation. Like, “Oh, my god. Do you think she can hear us?” Are we getting too in the weeds with this?
[Thomas]
Maybe.
[Emily]
She puts on the socks. She can hear them talking. Let’s move past it.
[Shep]
I say that they were knocked out from the lightning strike and they are not awake immediately.
[Emily]
Okay.
[Shep]
And it’s during the day that they both wake up and can talk to each other. And she’s already wearing them. She’s already at school or whatever. So she’s in class when they wake up and they can start talking to each other.
[Thomas]
Okay.
[Shep]
Each of the team’s mascots is something anthropomorphic so that you can animate the mascot on the sock and the socks can be talking to each other with the voices of the athletes.
[Thomas]
Yep. That’s good.
[Shep]
So you have her disrupt the class, because that is the standard thing you do in this type of movie because no one else can hear it except for her.
[Emily]
Yep.
[Shep]
So she’s reacting to the thing that only she can hear.
[Thomas]
And then one of her classes is PE.
[Shep]
Right. This is the first time that they try to coach her because she’s playing soccer and they still have their rivalry going.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Shep]
They’re like, “I bet I can coach her better than you can.”
[Thomas]
Now, they can’t affect her physically. They can’t jerk her feet in any direction.
[Shep]
Right.
[Thomas]
But they can confuse her and literally trip her up in that respect.
[Emily]
Right.
[Shep]
Right. She’s trying to follow the instructions.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
Right, right, right.
[Emily]
One says “Flank this way.” The other one says, “Flank that way.” And she’s like, “What?”
[Shep]
Right. Yes.
[Thomas]
Okay. She disrupts the class, gets sent to the principal’s office while she’s waiting to see the principal. That’s when she’s sort of, like, having a conversation with the socks and figures out what’s going on.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Shep]
She wouldn’t get sent to the principal’s office because that’s not a thing you see in movies anymore.
[Emily]
Isn’t it?
[Shep]
She would get sent to the nurse’s office because she’s insane.
[Thomas]
She needs time on her own, away from anybody, to talk to the socks and realize what’s going on so that she will actually listen to them during PE.
[Shep]
Right. But she also has to be able to go back to class and continue out the rest of the school day and not be in trouble.
[Thomas]
Right. And if the nurse thinks she’s insane, they’re not going to send her back to the class. If she goes to the principal’s office, she’ll get a demerit or detention or something and then get sent back to the class.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Shep]
Ah, see. I mean, it’s not like the nurse is sitting by your bedside when you’re in the nurse’s office. The nurse has other things to do.
[Emily]
Schools don’t have nurses anymore.
[Shep]
Do they? Because when I was a teacher, the school did have a nurse. Although I realizing that was almost 20 years ago. Oh, geez. I’m old!
[Emily]
And wasn’t that in a foreign country?
[Shep]
Yeah?
[Emily]
I’m saying in America, they don’t have nurses as often as they used to, if at all in schools. And it’s been that way for a while.
[Thomas]
They do have a lot of school counselors though. Right?
[Emily]
Okay.
[Shep]
Ah, there we go.
[Thomas]
So there we go.
[Shep]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
Get sent to the counselor’s office.
[Shep]
Yes. Because she’s disrupting class and that is a thing for the counselor to deal with.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Emily]
Yes.
[Thomas]
Yes.
[Shep]
It’s not an immediate punishment thing. It’s “Go and express your feelings and get all of that out of your system so you can stop disrupting class for the other students.”
[Thomas]
Right. Yeah.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
Okay.
[Emily]
And the counselor gets called out for something else. Some other disturbance.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Shep]
Another student.
[Thomas]
Active shooter or-
[Shep]
Yeah.
[Emily]
Yes.
[Shep]
The active shooter. Too soon.
[Emily]
Too soon.
[Thomas]
Every day is too soon.
[Shep]
Yes! Yes!
[Thomas]
That’s the point.
[Emily]
True.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Shep]
So whenever this airs, that statement is correct. It was too soon, Thomas.
[Emily]
So she’s left alone in the beanbag to talk to her socks.
[Thomas]
Yes, basically, yes. So she goes to PE. She should be able to make the shot. We’ve seen her make the shot at the beginning of the film, and she misses it.
[Emily]
Yeah. And this is a PE soccer game, so it’s not even, like, important.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Emily]
Of course she’s gonna dominate it because she’s a great soccer player and she doesn’t.
[Thomas]
And so does the other girl rub it in her face?
[Shep]
What other girl?
[Emily]
Her rival. Because they go to the same school.
[Thomas]
The youth rival.
[Shep]
The youth rival is on another team, but they go to the same school? Who are the teams for? Is it not the school team?
[Thomas]
No.
[Emily]
No, it was like, a little league-style.
[Shep]
Okay, so her rival, who’s on a different team goes to her school. And in fact, they have PE together.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
I mean, they’re the same age, so maybe they’re in the same class.
[Emily]
And they were friends because we, remember, we had established that earlier in our conversation.
[Thomas]
Yep.
[Emily]
And that’s why they were friends, because they went to the same school. They live in the same neighborhood. But then they got put on separate soccer teams, and both were the stars of their soccer teams, and little egos got in the way, and now they’re no longer friends. Okay. Now that we have all that straightened up, let’s get back to the socks helping the girl and her gaining more skills and learning valuable life lessons about friendship along the way.
[Thomas]
So the socks, they realize that defeat sucked and they know they could do better.
[Emily]
Yeah. Because they want to be winners, too.
[Thomas]
Right. So does the girl tell the socks, “Hey, you two need to get it together”?
[Emily]
I guess the audience can’t see my shrug. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Sure.
[Thomas]
Because they need to start working together-
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
As the second act ramps up, the training begins. And-
[Emily]
Right. And then the second act turning point is something’s got to happen, obviously.
[Thomas]
Is it- So do we want the adults bodies to wake up? Because that could be a good mid-second act turning point, potentially.
[Emily]
Yeah. What do they do? Do we… Because they got struck by lightning and they were in a coma, you would expect that there would be possibly be some brain damage or something. Right?
[Shep]
Right.
[Emily]
So they’re completely quiet. They’re not moving quickly or- So they put them in physical therapy. They put them in speech therapy. But they’re on the news all the time still. Because we want to watch this triumphant journey of them going from superstars to the lowest low to becoming superstars again. So then the socks see this, and now their goal has changed from- Well, I guess it hasn’t changed, has it? Because their whole goal was, “How do we become ourselves again?”
[Thomas]
How do they become their selves again?
[Shep]
Ah, I have an idea. And it’s so stupid. And relies so much on coincidence.
[Thomas]
If this is a kids film, it’s probably okay.
[Shep]
(Pained) Oh.
[Emily]
So stupid, it just might work.
[Shep]
No. It’s just stupid! Okay. There is a soccer tournament, and the winning team gets to meet these superstar soccer players. That’s her plan to get to them to get their socks to their bodies.
[Shep]
I don’t know how she thinks just getting the socks to them will get them back in their bodies. Don’t worry about it. It’s a kids movie. But that’s why she needs to get them to coach her to be better so that she can win the tournament. And that’s also why they have to work together to make her better. Because otherwise, what is their motivation for working together?
[Emily]
Right.
[Thomas]
Yeah, good point.
[Emily]
Other than just becoming enamored with this cute little girl.
[Shep]
Right. Which they aren’t. Because as we’ve previously established, children are monsters.
[Emily]
Disgusting monsters. I like the idea that she points out, like some Freaky Friday-type movie, and is like, “Well, they fixed it by doing this.” So she’s like, “Maybe if I get you back to your bodies, you’ll become yourselves again.”
[Thomas]
She’s going to wear the socks to the meet and greet, shuffle her feet across the carpet in the room, and static electricity touch both of them to zap their personalities back into their bodies.
[Shep]
Yes. That is 100% the correct answer.
[Emily]
“Electricity got you into this problem. It’ll get you out of it.”
[Shep]
Yep.
[Thomas]
Yep.
[Shep]
In fact, you can see her watching a Freaky Friday-type movie at the very beginning, very early on, where there is, you know, struck by lightning, whatever. And that’s the solution in the movie. So like, she comes up with the solution. Like she didn’t come up with it. She’s like, “I’ve seen it.”
[Thomas]
Right.
[Shep]
And she’s like, “Here’s the documentary evidence.”
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Shep]
And it’s, you know, Freaky Lightning.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Shep]
Whatever it is, the audience knows what it’s really referencing. It’s not a real movie, but it’s a movie within the movie.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Emily]
Right.
[Thomas]
Oh, that means we get to go on that Wikipedia page of movies within movies.
[Emily]
Nice.
[Shep]
Hooray! I like this idea a lot. Especially if it doesn’t work out. Because that’s always how it works in movies.
[Thomas]
Right. So that’s the end of the second act, is it doesn’t work?
[Shep]
So she makes the charge and goes to like zap them and her rival kid grabs her arm or something and she gets zapped. So the personalities are shuffled around.
[Thomas]
Oh, does one of the personalities go into the other girl’s socks?
[Shep]
Yeah. Maybe she goes into one of her own socks. And then the two girls. Oh, the two girls end up in the two socks. And the two women are now in the bodies of the two girls.
[Thomas]
Ooh, just go deeper with it.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
Interesting. I mean, we could make it so that basically the adults are in the girls bodies and the girls in the adults bodies.
[Shep]
Ah.
[Thomas]
That way nobody’s in a sock.
[Shep]
But the name of the episode…
[Thomas]
Well, but that’s how it started was because of the sock.
[Emily]
I mean, we did a whole act and a half of missing socks.
[Shep]
All right, so the kids are in the adults, bo-. So now it’s Freaky Friday.
[Thomas]
More or less. Yeah. Actually, I think that what should happen is one of the adults stays in our main character’s sock and one of the adults goes into the rival girl’s sock and… And then the sock Adult women in the socks, they miss each other and therefore they are still “missing socks”.
[Shep]
(Pained groan) I like it.
[Emily]
I like this idea because soccer can end with a tie, so that way we can set it up so it ends in a tie. So no one is better than the other. They both played equally well. And that’s when the two girls can start to repair their relationship because they recognize each other as equals versus rivals.
[Shep]
How do we get the women back in their bodies?
[Thomas]
So if the static electricity thing did work to transfer their soul or spirit or consciousness, whatever we want to say it is, then they need to do that again, they need to some, for some reason, arrange to be with these soccer players again.
[Shep]
Yes.
[Thomas]
And then the girls need to work together to zap their personalities back. So the third act difficulty is: It looks good. They’re gonna get to go to the stadium. They’re gonna get to meet the players. The third act, the late third act difficulty is: they’re each in the room with the wrong player.
[Emily]
Oh, yeah.
[Thomas]
And so somehow they have to, like, swap around, and they have to work together to do it.
[Shep]
Yep.
[Emily]
Yep. That works.
[Thomas]
And then when the- When the one player moves from our main character to her rival, now that’s how their relationship starts to get patched. Because the young girl rival is now hearing this voice, and she comes to our main character and is like, “So I thought you were crazy before, but now I see what’s going on because it’s happening to me” or something like that. Like, they start to bond over this shared experience.
[Shep]
Right. She could even have teased her for being crazy earlier before she found out.
[Thomas]
Right. Because she caught her talking to her socks or something.
[Shep]
Right.
[Emily]
Yep.
[Shep]
And in fact exposed her for talking to her socks to the whole class or the whole school.
[Thomas]
Oh, of course. Yeah.
[Shep]
Really embarrassed her in front of everyone.
[Thomas]
So how do we get them back in front of these professional soccer players?
[Shep]
Do we need to get them back in front of them? Or can we have the accidental static shock happen earlier? The reason I’m asking is how did she come up with that idea? I know I said it’s in the movie that she saw, but if we don’t have that as a coincidence, then perhaps she played- So they had the tournament, and whoever wins gets to meet these women. But that’s the game that ends in a tie. So they’re both going to get to go. But at the end of that game when they go around and they’re shaking the opponent’s hand, the two of them shake hands first. And that’s when they static shock. And that’s when one of the socks gets transferred over.
[Emily]
Yep, yep.
[Shep]
So it’s earlier. And also this is like, “Oh, here’s how you solve the problem. It’s static shock. You just gotta zap the person and it’ll go back.”
[Thomas]
And so the static shock is a thing that the rival girl has intentionally done to our main character.
[Shep]
(Laughs)
[Thomas]
To kind of be a jerk.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
She’s like, “Oh, I’m gonna do this thing.”
[Shep]
Right. And it bites her in the butt.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Shep]
That’s good.
[Thomas]
It now draws her into this, this dilemma.
[Shep]
Yes.
[Thomas]
Okay, but so then how do they get in front of the professional players at the end?
[Emily]
They have a tie and people just decide, “Yeah, both teams can go.” So then they both end up doing that.
[Shep]
Right. But this is where each one is in the, in front of the wrong, that, each of their teams gets randomly assigned to one of the two professional players. And it’s the wrong one.
[Thomas]
When does that first transference happen?
[Emily]
In second act.
[Thomas]
So then what is the third act?
[Emily]
Wouldn’t that be the mid-second act turning point is the moving it.
[Thomas]
That would be a very good one. I agree. So then that’s not the championship game then. So- Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yep.
[Shep]
Oh, yes. Thomas is absolutely right. I see everything that you’re saying now.
[Thomas]
Yes. So they play a game. It ends in a tie just because it does.
[Emily]
Right.
[Thomas]
Not because anyone has organized that.
[Emily]
No.
[Thomas]
They’re all shaking hands.
[Emily]
Yep.
[Shep]
It doesn’t even have to end in a tie because this isn’t the championship game.
[Thomas]
Oh, you’re right.
[Shep]
This is just a game.
[Thomas]
No, it shouldn’t end in a tie.
[Shep]
It shouldn’t end in a tie. She should lose.
[Thomas]
Yes.
[Emily]
Right.
[Thomas]
So then they’re shaking hands. The girl causes the zap. She gets the thing transferred. That’s the mid-second act turning point. We should circle back to the lowest low. But the end of the film is they have to force a tie between their teams. They have to work together.
[Shep]
Their rival teams.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Shep]
Yes.
[Thomas]
To force a tie between their rival teams so that they will both go to this game where they can each zap the personalities back into the adult players. Okay. Love it. So what is the lowest low, then?
[Shep]
The lowest low is she gets exposed at school for talking to her socks. And now everyone thinks she’s crazy. She’s not good at soccer anymore. That’s clear. And that was like her one best attribute. And so she’s not a good sports player and she’s insane.
[Thomas]
But I think that that needs, if that’s going to happen, that needs to come before the mid-second act turning point where the other girl gets brought in. Because the other girl is the one who is causing her to be exposed.
[Shep]
Right. You want to have the lowest low after-
[Thomas]
The lowest low comes at the end of the second act.
[Emily]
Could the lowest low be that the two women players aren’t recovering as well as they had hoped by that point? So there is talk of them not being at the meet and greet.
[Thomas]
I mean, other ideas are that they’re trying to force a tie and they don’t. One team wins because there are other players on the team.
[Emily]
Right, Right.
[Thomas]
So someone, you know, one of them is trying to throw the game and another player comes along and…
[Emily]
Picks up the slack.
[Thomas]
Yeah. Ends up making a goal.
[Emily]
It’s the first time that player gets to make a goal because the star player has taken a step back.
[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, it needs to be like an all-hope-is-lost kind of moment. So I like the idea that the players are not going to be, the adult players, are not going to be at the meet and greet.
[Shep]
I like that idea more than them not being able to force a tie.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Shep]
Forcing a tie, that’s the triumphant moment.
[Thomas]
Yeah. It’s the big high right before this big low.
[Shep]
Right.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Shep]
The big low.
[Thomas]
Is they get there and the players aren’t there.
[Shep]
Oh, I don’t know if, if you put it off to that point. I think that they make an announcement that the players aren’t going to be there. Because they have woken up for their comas, but they have not recovered. They’re both in physical therapy, but they’re not very responsive. And so they’re like, “Oh, I think we have to cancel that meet and greet.” So, like, “Oh, all the kids are going to be real disappointed” or whatever. But then you can have, they’re doing physical therapy outside or whatever, and they see a soccer ball and their body takes over and they start not just moving, but vigorously playing soccer.
[Thomas]
Yeah. So the meet and greet does get canceled.
[Shep]
It temporarily gets cancelled.
[Thomas]
Right. Because we need to delay them meeting the players until the very end of the film.
[Shep]
Right.
[Thomas]
Yeah. Okay, I like that.
[Emily]
Do they spend the third act then trying to figure out how they can sneak into the hospital or meet up with them?
[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s a good point. What is the third act in this case?
[Shep]
Right. The third act is the two girls hanging out with each other, each with the sock of a professional player, all lamenting that maybe this is their life now.
[Emily]
Well, I would say that they’re not ready to give up and the four of them are trying to come up with more ideas to get to meet them.
[Thomas]
Right. Because as far as they know, the meet and greet is canceled.
[Emily]
Right.
[Thomas]
They don’t know that it will come back later and it’ll be okay.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Shep]
I thought of a problem, and if I say it, we’ll all know it.
[Thomas]
Okay.
[Emily]
Then don’t say it. It doesn’t exist.
[Shep]
Here’s the problem: If you’re an adult and you get transferred, your consciousness gets transferred into a sock, but you can communicate with someone, why don’t you just contact your family? You know how to log into your email. You just tell this person to log into your email and send an email from your account to your, your family or your manager or someone who can help you.
[Emily]
Your body is in a coma and they just think a crazy person hacked their email and it’s a sick, cruel joke and they don’t believe them and they do nothing.
[Shep]
See, your family is mean.
[Emily]
Like, that’s what a manager I think would think.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Emily]
I don’t think that they would believe them. The email was really from them.
[Shep]
Right. But they’re not going to even look into it?
[Emily]
No. They are clearly in a coma. They are hooked up to machines. They’re in a hospital. They’re not moving or responding because I’m assuming that’s the point in which they would be sending the email.
[Shep]
Right. Then you don’t send it to your manager. You send it to your friend who believes in crystal magic because she’ll believe you for sure.
[Emily]
What a coincidence, they have a hippie friend who believes in crystal magic.
[Shep]
Okay. Do you, Emily, have a hippie friend that believes in crystal magic? Yes or no?
[Emily]
I wouldn’t call them a friend.
[Shep]
Thomas, do you know anyone?
[Thomas]
Yes, yes, yes.
[Shep]
Okay, so we all know someone who believes in the supernatural and whatever. And if you’re in a situation where something supernatural is going on, you could tell them and have them help you. And in fact, maybe they do do that. But it’s not her manager that has access to her body.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Emily]
It’s the hippie friend.
[Shep]
It’s her friend who goes and, like, picks up these two girls and is driving them around. But, like, doesn’t have access to get into their room in the hospital.
[Thomas]
So that’s the beginning of the third act is someone’s like, “Man, it’s too bad you can’t just like email someone or call someone.”
[Emily]
Do they have the same hippie friend or is that too much of a coincidence?
[Thomas]
Oh, that’s too much of a coincidence. I mean, is that too late for you, Shep?
[Shep]
In what way?
[Thomas]
In that, like they don’t immediately reach out to this person.
[Emily]
Because they don’t immediately think about it.
[Thomas]
Oh no, they do immediately reach out to their hippie crystal believing friend who’s on a retreat. So they’re, they’re doing a digital detox for the week that the film is taking place.
[Emily]
Yep.
[Thomas]
Every day, “Have they replied yet? Have they gotten in touch with us?” “No, no, we haven’t heard anything.” And then that person can come later in the film and be like, “Oh my god, I knew something was going on. I could tell from your aura on TV” or whatever they say.
[Shep]
It’s amazing that TV cameras can pick up auras.
[Thomas]
Truly. And so then, then the third act is trying to solve that problem of getting them all back in the same room together?
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Shep]
All right, so the hippie friend figures out a way to get the girls in the room with the two patients. That’s a problem for the writers.
[Thomas]
Sure.
[Shep]
Since we know what the bones are.
[Thomas]
It could even be just with one of them. They transfer her back and now that she is back in her body, “I need to go talk to my rival and yes, these two 10 year old girls need to come with me” or whatever.
[Shep]
There’s so much stuff I could pile on here because in addition to contacting the hippie friend, they try to contact her manager who blocks her account, changes her password so that she can’t get into it anymore.
[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.
[Emily]
I like that.
[Shep]
And maybe she was already having problems with this manager.
[Thomas]
Oh. So part of the finale is she fires the manager? Yeah.
[Shep]
Yes, because you need that villain.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Shep]
Because if it’s a kid’s movie, you need that black and white, good versus evil.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
Yeah. Right.
[Shep]
So maybe the manager already had a motivation for not helping her recover for some reason. Whatever the reason doesn’t really matter. So that’s the first girl that wakes up. Right? Wouldn’t that make sense?
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Shep]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
I mean, is that. I feel like that’s it. Right?
[Emily]
Yeah. This feels like enough to me.
[Shep]
Yeah.
[Emily]
They wake up, they become friends. Well, we know they’re friends. She fires the manager and then they, like, do something at the end in some game where they show that their friends, they’re no longer rivals or-
[Shep]
They’re still rivals.
[Emily]
More sportsmanlike rivals than they had been in the past.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Shep]
Right. Yes. Friendship and cooperation!
[Emily]
Yep.
[Shep]
I’m on board. That’s the message.
[Thomas]
Yes.
[Shep]
I see. I’m just picturing that final game of the adult professional soccer players.
[Thomas]
Aha.
[Shep]
Now that they’ve worked with each other for so long, they kind of know how the other one thinks. So when they play against each other again, it’s going to be even more intense because each one is going to anticipate exactly what the other one’s going to do.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Shep]
They’re going to leave their teams in the dust and just be against each other, and it’s going to be as fast as lightning.
[Thomas]
The climax of the film is the game, the adult game?
[Shep]
Sure. And in the stands, you have the two children sitting next to each other watching the game together.
[Thomas]
Oh, no. They gotta be on the sidelines because it’s a movie.
[Emily]
Yeah. Well. And they’ve earned it. They helped those women get back into their bodies.
[Thomas]
Right.
[Shep]
All right. That’s all we need. It ends where it began.
[Thomas]
Yeah.
[Emily]
At the very end, we don’t even see who wins. We just know the game is over and they shake hands or hug or something.
[Thomas]
Oh, sure. There’s like one of them gets knocked over and it’s like pretty rough. And the other girl runs over.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
The other woman runs over and helps her up.
[Emily]
Yeah. There you go.
[Thomas]
And they’re like, “All right, cool, good, thanks.” And they keep playing. And then like, like you said, we don’t see the end. The camera just sort of is like pulling out of the stadium as the game is continuing.
[Emily]
Yeah.
[Shep]
Yeah.
[Thomas]
Is that a big enough moment though?
[Shep]
You just see the stands, and then everyone stands up and cheers all at once. And it’s like, what did they see? We don’t know. And then you roll credits.
[Thomas]
Sure.
[Emily]
Yep.
[Thomas]
We’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about Missing Socks. Did it knock your socks off or was it more of a wet sock?
[Shep]
Gross.
[Emily]
Those are the worst.
[Thomas]
Yeah, very gross.
[Shep]
Wet socks are as bad as children.
[Thomas]
Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. Links to all of those can be found at AlmostPlausible.com if you have a few seconds to spare, you would really help us out by giving Almost Plausible a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere else that has podcast ratings. You don’t even have to write anything. Just leaving a rating helps us out a lot. Now if you do write a review along with your five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, we’ll read that review on the show at some point in the future. Be sure not to miss Emily, Shep, and I, on the next episode of Almost Plausible.
[Outro music]
[Shep]
♫ Baby Cop. Do dooo. ♫
[Thomas]
Ha.