Mother’s Day

References

• Our Town
• The Joy Luck Club
• Tortilla Soup
• Serial Mom
• Tubi
• The Golden Girls
• Betty White
• Bea Arthur
• Estelle Getty
• The Stanley water bottle craze, explained
• The Godfather
• The Big Lebowski
• Parks and Recreation
  • Li’l Sebastian
• The Simpsons
  • Marge vs. the Monorail
• The Music Man
• Up
• Arrested Development
• Ponzi Scheme
• Dragnet
• Sneakers
• Agent Cody Banks
• Frankie Muniz
• Saved by the Bell
• Tiffani Amber Thiessen
• Bradley Cooper
• Erin Brockovich

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Thomas]
There needs to be enough demand. So this town has to already be increasing in popularity for some reason.

[Emily]
Mm hmm. It’s got the world’s largest lagume.

[Thomas]
Legume or lagoon?

[Emily]
Legume?

[Thomas]
I mean, either one is weird. So it doesn’t really matter.

[Emily]
Legume.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
Like a peanut or a green bean.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Lagume! It’s a lagoon, but it’s bean shaped.

[Intro music]

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

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
Mother’s Day is this upcoming Sunday, and we thought choosing Mother’s Day as the topic for our podcast would be a better gift for our moms than yet another homemade coupon book.

[Emily]
Wait. This is for our moms?

[Shep]
Oh, no.

[Thomas]
We are ready to make good on our promise of One Free Podcast Episode. So, Shep, why don’t you get us started with your pitches?

[Shep]
Okay. A mom receives a handmade present from her daughter for Mother’s Day, and it triggers a memory where she gave the same type of present to her mother on Mother’s Day. Suddenly, she’s back on that day and gets to spend one day with her now late mother, who she misses.

[Emily]
Does she turn into a kid again or she get to be an adult?

[Shep]
Yes. No, no, no. She’s back as a kid.

[Emily]
Nice.

[Shep]
But it’s like Our Town, where she can try to tell her mom that she’s from the future or whatever, but her mom doesn’t listen and doesn’t believe her. I’m sure her mom still loves her, but just thinks her daughter’s crazy and playing a game.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Kids making up kids stories.

[Shep]
Yep. Okay, here’s my other pitch. Young parents are arguing over which of the two of them has it better when they suddenly swap on Mother’s Day. You know, standard body swap movie shenanigans ensue.

[Thomas]
Always fun.

[Emily]
Always fun. And I like the idea of the dad and mom swap because it always shows how much work a mom really goes through.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And then the mom just gets to have fun.

[Shep]
No, they both have to learn how hard it is for the other person.

[Emily]
Yes, I know.

[Thomas]
All right, Emily, let’s hear your pitches.

[Emily]
Alright, so I’ve got a post apocalyptic world where children are raised in dormitories for certain jobs. One girl becomes pregnant and fights to keep her baby with her. This causes an uprising, and it becomes known as the Mother’s Day uprising.

[Shep]
Sorry, I’m just picturing the speech from Independence day. But it’s Mother’s Day.

[Emily]
Mother’s Day. That would be fantastic. So my second one is: a coven meets on Mother’s Day to increase their collective power. It’s a witch fest. Woman power. Rah rah. Yay.

[Shep]
And you’re pitching that to two guys.

[Thomas]
Oh, I’m totally imagining, like, Joy Luck Club or Tortilla Soup.

[Emily]
Yes. Something like that.

[Thomas]
But with witches.

[Emily]
Yeah, but with witches.

[Thomas]
What would you call that?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
The Joy Cauldron Club. So.

[Emily]
My third pitch is killings happen on Mother’s Day every year. All the victims are young men in their early twenties. Turns out it’s an angry mother who’s taking her maternal rage out on these men for the crimes of her thoughtless son.

[Thomas]
So a little bit like Serial Mom.

[Emily]
Is that what Serial Mom is about? I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen it.

[Thomas]
I mean, mom is a serial killer.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
That’s the connection that I was thinking of.

[Emily]
We could call it Mother’s Slay.

[Thomas]
Is that not already a thing? That’s pretty good.

[Emily]
It would be good. I don’t know if it’s a thing. Probably is.

[Thomas]
That feels like a Tubi original right there, just waiting to happen.

[Emily]
Sweet Tubi money.

[Thomas]
Hey, honestly, I don’t need Hulu or Netflix money. I just need money.

[Emily]
100%.

[Thomas]
I don’t care where it comes from. So if Tubi wants to sponsor our show, good. Great. All right, I have two pitches for you. The first is a heist film where three older women, all mothers themselves, use a Mother’s Day spa trip as a cover to rob a wealthy and unethical businessman who has been ruining their community for years.

[Shep]
All right, let’s do this one.

[Emily]
Yeah. I’m sold.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
I’m glad I didn’t have to follow this pitch.

[Emily]
You’re the winner this week.

[Thomas]
Well, I’ll throw out my other pitch just so that we have it, since I said I have two. The other pitch is: three sisters come together to visit their aged and sickly mom for one last Mother’s Day before her passing, which happens just a few days later. As they clean out her house, the women learn more about their mother as well as each other. It’s an emotionally taxing week, but one that leaves them changed for the better.

[Shep]
Nope, too much crying.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Let’s do a fun heist film.

[Emily]
Old lady heist.

[Shep]
Old lady heist!

[Thomas]
Let’s name these women right off the bat. Betty? Uh.

[Shep]
It’s just the characters from Golden Girls.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Betty, Bea, and… Estelle? What are some good old lady names?

[Shep]
Are they old ladies or are they just moms?

[Thomas]
I imagine them at least in their forties.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
But probably at most in, like, their sixties.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
So shoot for the middle? Fifties?

[Emily]
So, Jennifer, Jessica.

[Shep]
Yeah. Jennifer, Jessica, and Tiffany.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Actually, I really like that idea.

[Thomas]
All right, what do we need to know about Jennifer, Jessica, and Tiffany?

[Shep]
Who’s the ringleader?

[Thomas]
Well, Tiffany is the only one who doesn’t have a J-starting name, so it could be Tiffany. And the two J characters are the, like, the ones she brings into it.

[Shep]
Yep. See, I see Tiffany as so, like, an egomaniac. Tiffany’s brilliant. And she just has these two henchmen. She doesn’t care which is which. They both have J names. To her, they are identical.

[Emily]
So she’s constantly calling one the other name.

[Thomas]
I think that she should frequently refer to both of them at the same time so that she doesn’t have to differentiate. She’s just like, “Jen, Jess, both of you, ladies.” And then there’s a scene where she’s like, “Jennnnn. Hmm.”

[Shep]
Yeah, she never refers to one by their name. It’s just the both of you all the time. And then that’s your, you know, third act twist. “What’s my name?”

[Emily]
“Which one am I?”

[Shep]
“Which one am I?”

[Thomas]
They’re not even sisters, or related.

[Emily]
Nope.

[Thomas]
Maybe they’re not even the same race. Like, it wouldn’t be hard to tell them apart if she just bothered to learn.

[Shep]
You say that, but, like, I forget names all the time.

[Thomas]
Right, but they’re planning a heist together.

[Shep]
Right. I guess I don’t plan heists with people.

[Thomas]
Whew! Good. I’m not missing out on anything. This is all a test to find out.

[Shep]
Thomas doesn’t know about our heists, Emily.

[Emily]
Well, yeah. Cause if we told them, they wouldn’t be secret anymore.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
So I’m guessing that they are not, like, close friends. Like, Jennifer and Jessica are friends. They’re like the friend moms at, you know, the PTO meeting. And Tiffany, the, you know, the workaholic, scary mom that kind of shows up every other month, but she ends up wrangling them in. Maybe she’s the mom that never shows up. And then something happens that she’s like, “We cannot stand for this.” And then that’s what brings her in to, like, rally the rest of the parents to help destroy this businessman. But none of- No one’s interested. No one cares. Cause it’ll be good for the community, they think. But Jennifer and Jessica at the end of the meeting are like, “We’re on board” with their matching Stanley cups. And their…

[Shep]
See, I would go the other way where it’s one of the Js approaches Tiffany because they know Tiffany gets stuff done. She is the president of her HOA or whatever. She is some whatever in charge person. And so they see her kicking ass and taking names all the time. And so when they have a problem, they approach Tiffany. But Tiffany’s the Godfather, so they don’t realize what they’re getting themselves into when they approach her.

[Emily]
Cause one day…

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing.

[Emily]
Look at me. A girl quoting The Godfather.

[Thomas]
Tiffany’s like, “Do we know we can get at a horse’s head?”

[Shep]
Now, Tiffany would be able to get a horse’s head.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
She just wants someone to transport it.

[Thomas]
Right. She could get it today by 03:00 with nail polish. Hoof polish?

[Shep]
With braids.

[Thomas]
Yeah. There you go. Yeah, I like that. So, I mean, we probably need to figure out what this guy is doing. Or does it matter? For the purposes of what we’re doing in this episode, we just know he’s an unethical businessman and they’re trying to knock him down a peg. Is he trying to knock down the school to build a mall or something?

[Emily]
Why would he build a mall?

[Thomas]
That’s true. In 2024, why would he be building a mall? He’s building luxury condos.

[Emily]
Yeah. Luxury condos would be a good one. That could be one of the lines I think Tiffany could have is, like, “In what economy are we supporting these apartments? Like, this is- who’s making the money to live here?”

[Thomas]
Is it like, the old library? He wants to knock down the library. And-

[Shep]
Oh, is Jennifer or Jessica a librarian? Are they closing the library so they can knock it down? And this is crossing her bottom line.

[Emily]
I like that.

[Shep]
Like, she didn’t care when they were destroying other businesses, but now they’ve come for the library.

[Emily]
“We’re a public service. You can’t shut us down. It’s un-American.”

[Shep]
“They’re taking our books!”

[Emily]
“Taking our books.”

[Thomas]
There should be a conversation that Jennifer or Jessica, whoever works at the library, maybe they both do. Somebody says something about how the libraries don’t just have books, they have all these other resources.

[Emily]
They do. I’ve recently rediscovered the magic of the library, and I’m evangelicalizing everyone I know about it.

[Shep]
Good. Let’s put it in the movie.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay, so which between, Jennifer and Jessica, which is the librarian?

[Emily]
Jessica. It’s the weaker name.

[Shep]
Okay, so Jennifer is the one who knows Tiffany.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So Jessica goes to Jennifer with, “Hey, they’re closing down the library.” And Jennifer goes, “Oh, I know someone you can talk to.”

[Thomas]
Smash cut to them having coffee, the three of them.

[Emily]
What is Tiffany and Jennifer’s relationship.

[Thomas]
Well, I liked your PTA idea. So it’s like, they could just have kids who go to the same school.

[Emily]
That sounds great.

[Thomas]
Or they had kids who went to the same school.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Their kids are older now.

[Emily]
Yeah. She remembers her from the elementary school PTO.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
She was a badass. She got stuff done. The carnival she ran was the best carnival they’d seen in 30 years.

[Thomas]
Oh, she had all sorts of community connections. Yeah.

[Emily]
There were pony rides and I kid you not, a goddamn rollercoaster.

[Shep]
This is where we get the pony head.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Li’l Sebastian?

[Shep]
So is Jennifer our main character? Is that who we’re seeing things from?

[Thomas]
I think so, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, that would make sense.

[Thomas]
Does it matter what Jennifer- Well, I think we can wait to find out what Jennifer does. Later in the film when we realize, gosh, we need someone who’s an insert job here. That’s what Jennifer does. How do they plan to take this guy down? Are they going to expose his dirty secret? Are they going to…? Maybe he hasn’t been ruining their community for years. Maybe he’s an outside developer who’s coming in, and so they’re just going to make this town too unattractive for him. It’s going to be too much trouble. So he leaves.

[Shep]
Does the developer have a name? Oh, it’s Steve. Nevermind.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
I was going to say, yeah, his name is Steve.

[Shep]
Okay. Steve has this business. Like, he goes in and develops these small towns.

[Thomas]
Ah.

[Shep]
This is not his first town. This is just one of many.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So in Tiffany’s research, she discovers his history. But he has to develop something. You know, he’s already made all of this investment. He can’t back out. He’s between a rock and a hard place. So they can’t just make the town unattractive to him because it’s too late.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
He’s already started. He’s already picked off the other businesses around the library.

[Thomas]
And he has investors.

[Shep]
Yes. He has investors who are with the mob. No. So he can’t back out. And they need to make him back out. But he can’t.

[Thomas]
I’m glad we made this more difficult to figure out. Well done, Shep.

[Shep]
Well, because otherwise-

[Thomas]
No, you’re right, though. It creates stakes for everybody, which makes sense. That’s what we want, and it gives him a reason why it’s so important.

[Shep]
And that’s why they keep escalating it.

[Thomas]
Yes, yes. It’s good storytelling.

[Emily]
I had the thought before you went into that idea of it being like one of those… Just a small town that has some sort of scenic beauty, an ocean town, mountain town, something like that. And the tourism board is really pining to get more tourists there to build the economy.

[Thomas]
Mm hmm.

[Emily]
And so he’s brought in by the tourism board. So there’s stakes for the town because the town’s fighting them too, even though he’s basically destroying whatever. But it doesn’t make sense with that storyline that you’re going with.

[Shep]
He sold the town on a monorail.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
He had a whole song about it.

[Thomas]
See, there’s this pool hall that the women are trying to save. I think that it does still work with this idea to an extent, in that you’re right, the city council views this as it will generate income. It will put a positive view on this town. Maybe it’s not just luxury condos. Maybe there’s first floor businesses or something. If I’m thinking about it from a commercial development perspective, there needs to be enough demand. So this town has to already be increasing in popularity for some reason.

[Emily]
Mm hmm. It’s got the world’s largest lagume.

[Thomas]
Legume or lagoon?

[Emily]
Legume?

[Thomas]
I mean, either one is weird. So it doesn’t really matter.

[Emily]
Legume.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
Like a peanut or a green bean.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Lagume! It’s a lagoon, but it’s bean shaped.

[Thomas]
Ah.

[Emily]
So the developer is making some kind of weird change to this already growing in popularity town.

[Thomas]
I mean, that’s an interesting point to look at, too, because it’s like this town is going to change no matter what.

[Emily]
Correct. But they don’t get to direct the nature of that change. So that’s upsetting.

[Thomas]
Right. It’s like some outside developer coming in and deciding what’s good for the town.

[Emily]
Right. And it may be taking away the natural charm that it’s had through- that drew people in in the first place.

[Thomas]
Maybe he’s consolidating a number of blocks. So it’s like a bunch of housing is going to be torn down. A bunch- The library is going to be torn down, the historic library, but it’s not on the register.

[Shep]
Right. The historic downtown is all going to change.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
All these locally owned small businesses are going to be replaced by chains.

[Thomas]
Right. There’s going to be a Whole Foods and a Starbucks and-

[Emily]
Hobby Lobby.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
The town council is happy they’re getting a Starbucks. They want a Starbucks. “We’re like a real town now.”

[Thomas]
More people will stop.

[Shep]
Right. They’re not realizing they’re losing the small town charm.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“But Vanessa already has a coffee stand. We don’t need a Starbucks.”

[Shep]
“Yeah, but it’s a Starbucks.”

[Emily]
“Makes us legitimate.”

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Well, I like this outside force coming in and ruining the small town charm as the driving force. How are they going to stop this, though? I mean, are they successful? This guy has a sort of need to develop this town at this point. So do they just change his plans? Do they stop him altogether?

[Shep]
Oh. They get the library registered as a historic building. So he has to build around it. That’s their version of success. Like, he still builds his development. And in the middle is this historic library. Like the house from Up.

[Emily]
Tiffany, they convince him that it doesn’t fit with the charm of the town. It’s gonna aesthetically change it in a way that no longer makes it charming. It’s just another development in another town in America. It looks the same as everywhere else. And he’s like, “Yeah, that’s what I do. It’s, you know, I’ve got these materials lined up. I’m priced out. I know exactly what I’m spending.” And she’s like, “What if I can help you get the materials you need to fit our vision for your price?” And so maybe that’s how it resolves, is they end up working together and they build something that looks and feels like the town that they want it to be. And he doesn’t lose out on his monies.

[Shep]
I have a counterpoint.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Steve is the villain. They have to ruin him.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
There’s no compromise with villainy.

[Emily]
All right.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
So we are going to break his soul and his bank.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Okay. I don’t know which way we’re going. If we’re going 80s revenge, bad guy loses all of his money, you know?

[Shep]
No. Big businesses are evil. That’s what movies are about these days. Eat the rich, Emily. Eat them.

[Thomas]
All right, so these women need to take this guy down completely.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So what is the heist?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
We got to get to the heist because that’s the-

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
What are they stealing from him? The plans? And he’s only got the one copy, so they’ll destroy him and he can’t follow through?

[Shep]
The business records that show that all the previous developments eventually fail.

[Emily]
Ooh. They use asbestos and lead paint.

[Shep]
Where is he getting the materials that are currently banned?

[Emily]
There’s ways to get asbestos.

[Shep]
If you got to go out of your way to get it, not worth it.

[Thomas]
You want asbestos? I can get you asbestos by 03:00 this afternoon.

[Emily]
Or why did they fail in other communities? Let’s explore that idea.

[Shep]
Because they don’t fit the small towns, and so-

[Emily]
No one can afford the luxury condos.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
There’s not the income to support that lifestyle.

[Shep]
He doesn’t care. He cashes out and moves on.

[Thomas]
Right. It’s monorail. Right?

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Like selling the town on a thing they don’t need. That won’t help.

[Shep]
Or is it a legit heist? Like, he has all of his startup capital in his safe instead of a bank for some reason?

[Thomas]
I mean, I would say, like, land titles, but there would be sales records and things. It’s not like they could just steal those back. I mean, it feels like they need to expose him. Right? So he has to be doing something illegal.

[Shep]
Mmm.

[Emily]
Something nefarious.

[Thomas]
Engaging in some light treason.

[Emily]
It’s how he’s getting the asbestos.

[Thomas]
Right. Someone is paying him to get rid of it. He’s like, “Ah, it’s that much fewer building supplies I need to purchase.” I mean, is he laundering money? And they have some way of proving that because construction would be a great way.

[Emily]
Yeah, we did talk about him belonging to the mob.

[Shep]
Yeah, but I don’t want Tiffany, Jessica, and Jennifer to cross the mob.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
That’s a good point. These moms don’t need that kind of trouble.

[Thomas]
I mean, do we like money laundering? Does that work? Or is there something better? He’s running like a Ponzi scheme type of thing.

[Emily]
Mmm. I barely understand Ponzi schemes, so that sounds good to me. Because that’s all you’d have to say. And people are like, “Yeah, okay, he’s a bad guy.”

[Shep]
So what are they stealing in the heist?

[Thomas]
There’d have to be like a ledger or something along those lines.

[Shep]
Okay, the ledger that shows that he’s paying off the previous investors with the current whatever.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That’s the Ponzi scheme.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
He has to keep doing these developments to keep paying off previous investors.

[Thomas]
Right. Which explains the tremendous amount of pressure for him to build this. He has to get the money, you know, finalize the money from the investors and do the project to keep this thing going.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
He hasn’t figured out his escape plan from this trap he’s built for himself.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
He just needs to keep it going long enough for him to figure that out. I mean, how bad of a person do we want him to be? Does he know that he’s fleecing people? Is that his goal is to be fleecing people? Or is he like, “Eventually these things are going to take off and they will make money and I can stop doing what I recognize as a Ponzi scheme.”

[Emily]
No, because we want him to be bad and to be punished.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
There’s no other choice.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Okay. I agree with that.

[Shep]
Okay. Each development is bigger than the previous one.

[Thomas]
Ah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
He uses the success of the previous one to get more investors for the next one.

[Thomas]
What you would have to do in order to keep the Ponzi scheme going.

[Shep]
Right. He can cash out and flee with the money at any time.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
But he’s like, “Okay, one more. One more, and then I can quit.”

[Thomas]
And in fact, I think him trying to flee would be an excellent climax to the film, perhaps even in a Dragnet sort of way, where in that film, it seems like the bad guy manages to escape, and then the very end of the film is him being caught. So he even thinks, “Ah, I’ve gotten away with my suitcases of money” or whatever.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So, are there cops involved in this? I ask because if our trio is cooperating with the cops but also committing a heist, they’re committing a crime, but they’re allied with the police. That puts them in a precarious position.

[Thomas]
Presumably it would be the FBI who would be interested in this. Right?

[Shep]
Sure.

[Thomas]
So can they anonymously send something to the FBI?

[Shep]
Does the FBI know about them or not? Are the FBIs characters that they interact with or not?

[Thomas]
If they do interact with the FBI, it’s in a Sneakers sort of way where it’s like at the very end of the movie, they come in and they’re like, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

[Emily]
Mmm.

[Thomas]
“But it was ultimately good. So we’re gonna let you go.”

[Shep]
Right, well, they’re all moms. Cause it’s Mother’s Day.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Are they all still married, or is Jessica the librarian a single mom? And you can have a rom-com with her and the FBI agent.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
That is an option.

[Thomas]
I mean, wedge a rom-com in there? Sure, why not?

[Emily]
Is it wedging something so natural and so pure?

[Thomas]
Honestly, Hollywood loves this kind of thing, a romance where there doesn’t need to be one. So if it helps sell this story, then sure. Is it the Sneakers ending again? All Jessica wants is Agent Cody’s phone number or something?

[Shep]
Agent Cody?

[Thomas]
Yeah, Agent Cody Banks. He’s grown up now, and-

[Shep]
Oh, my gosh. All the main characters are former child stars.

[Thomas]
It would be funny to get Frankie Muniz as the, he’s too young for an old lady.

[Emily]
Hey, he’s 38. He’s not too old for a middle aged mother.

[Shep]
Yeah, if she’s 40. It’s not that big of a difference.

[Emily]
It’s not that weird at all. If she’s 42, it’s totally fine.

[Shep]
This is why they’re doing the heist. They’re getting the ledger. The FBI can’t get the ledger, but these ladies can.

[Emily]
Cause the guy’s smart enough not to have a second set of books on electronic devices. He literally has a second set of books, in a book.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Right. It’s in a safe in his office.

[Emily]
Can’t be hacked.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
That’s actually really smart. Do criminals still work that way?

[Shep]
Not dumb ones.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
So, what’s our agent’s name? Are you really sticking with Cody?

[Thomas]
No, it doesn’t-

[Emily]
Is he their age or not?

[Thomas]
I think he’s a little bit younger, but not dramatically so.

[Emily]
Then his name is Zach. No, nevermind. Can’t do that. Because there’s Tiffany, and Tiffani Amber Thiessen, Zack (Morris). It’s just. No, we’re not gonna do that.

[Shep]
Right, but he’s ending up with Jessica, not Tiffany.

[Emily]
Yeah, so I guess his name can’t be Slater. That way he won’t end up with Jesse.

[Thomas]
Right. He’s Agent Charlie Slater. AC Slater.

[Shep]
Oh, gosh.

[Emily]
Brad. How about his name is Brad?

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
What’s his last name? That he’d be agent something.

[Shep]
Cooper. Bradley Cooper.

[Emily]
For a whole second, I was like, “That’s a good name. Yeah, that works. Brad Cooper. That’s great.”

[Thomas]
“That’s got a good ring to it. That sounds natural.” Well, whatever his name is. So he works for the FBI. Do they know him earlier in the film or does he only show up toward the end?

[Shep]
He has to be investigating Steve, like, already.

[Thomas]
Uh huh.

[Emily]
Oh, that could be one of the things Tiffany finds out, like, super quick. Like when they first bring it in to her and she’s like, well, “Why don’t we ask the agent he’s investigating?” Because, you know, she knows things.

[Shep]
Right. She’s got connections.

[Thomas]
I think when they first bring her in, shes just heard this rumor that hes being investigated by the FBI.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
And then they can discover that, yes, that’s true. Or maybe that comes up. The rumor idea comes up at some point early on.

[Shep]
I’m trying to think if there’s a reason the FBI can be staking out Steve’s office. Because Tiffany and her minions can discover the stakeout car, and then Jessica can show up with coffee and muffins.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
From Vanessa’s.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
From Vanessa’s coffee. Yes. Good.

[Thomas]
Very good.

[Shep]
Tie that back in. So, imagine they can’t get the evidence. The FBI can’t get the evidence. They’re going to have to close the investigation, and that’s when the girls do the heist. Like, at first they think, “Oh, well, the FBI is going to solve our problems,” but then they don’t.

[Thomas]
So then maybe Tiffany doesn’t come into it until that point. So somehow Jennifer and Jessica discover this FBI connection, but they find out that they’re leaving. FBI is leaving town.

[Shep]
So I don’t want to put off Tiffany until the end, but we can have a gap there. So they approach Tiffany. Tiffany goes, “Oh, the FBI is investigating.” Like, that’s the end of their interaction. “Here’s the solution. You came to me with a problem. Here’s the solution.”

[Thomas]
“It’s already being handled.”

[Shep]
“It’s already being handled. The FBI is doing it.” And then the FBI drops the ball. And so that’s when they go back to Tiffany because she solved the problem before, so she’s not just coming in at the end. She was integral at the beginning.

[Thomas]
I like the characters that we’ve set up so far. I like the premise that we have. So let’s take a quick break, and when we come back, we’ll figure out the rest of this story for our Mother’s Day Heist.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. Shep, you had a question?

[Shep]
Yeah. How small is the town if they have a spa? If the spa trip heist requires a spa, it can’t be that small of a town.

[Thomas]
I think that they’re actually leaving the town. So it is a proper spa trip.

[Shep]
Oh!

[Thomas]
And they’re going to a bigger town where this guy’s main office is.

[Shep]
Ah.

[Thomas]
So they can break into his office in the big city. So them going to the big city is disguised as a spa trip.

[Shep]
I see. Okay.

[Emily]
That makes sense.

[Shep]
No further questions, your honor.

[Thomas]
I’m pleased I had an answer for you right away and didn’t get tripped up by something I hadn’t thought about.

[Emily]
Good planning, Thomas.

[Thomas]
It’s rare, but it happens from time to time.

[Shep]
So do we want to detail the heist, or is it just heist-movie heist? If you’ve seen a heist movie or a parody of a heist movie.

[Emily]
It’s in a room within a room, there’s a lock, and then there’s another lock, and then there’s a false lock and-

[Thomas]
Right. And they almost get caught and then.

[Shep]
Right. Or them all getting caught is part of the plan.

[Thomas]
Right, right, right. Yeah. I mean, I think that actually detailing a heist is probably beyond the scope of what we have time for.

[Emily]
Fair.

[Shep]
But we have seen heist movies. We know basically what the beats are going to be.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything interesting that we can add to this heist, considering who these people are, their skills, or lack thereof, the situation they find themselves in? Something funny we can add, a new approach to a heist, something that only these characters could bring to a heist.

[Emily]
No, but I do have a cute thing that probably has been done before.

[Thomas]
Well, let’s hear it.

[Emily]
So they have to get past some sort of security at some point, right?

[Shep]
Of course.

[Emily]
Some human security force.

[Thomas]
Naturally. Yeah. Yeah.

[Emily]
So, of course, Jennifer bakes delicious cookies that are laced with a sedative procured by Tiffany.

[Shep]
(Hiss) I don’t like the idea of poisoning innocent people.

[Emily]
Is that too far?

[Shep]
I think that that could have been, like, part of the plan where Tiffany is like, “Yeah, let’s just poison the guards.”

[Emily]
Oh, does Jennifer.

[Shep]
But-

[Emily]
Or Jessica.

[Shep]
Jessica would be like, “Ah, I didn’t sign up for poisoning people.”

[Thomas]
Well, also, it’s like if he eats one cookie, it’s the perfect amount, but if he eats two cookies, it’s lethal. So.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Well, there we go. We have a good conversation.

[Shep]
Okay, so does the heist… The heist doesn’t go well, but is that intentional or not? Because in a traditional heist movie, it seems to not go well. But that’s by design.

[Thomas]
But that’s usually with experts, expert criminals.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
They need to accomplish their goal, though.

[Shep]
Yes. They do need to accomplish the goal. That’s why I’m asking. So the heist doesn’t go well, but is it, like, purposefully and they accomplish their goal, or is it accidental and they accidentally accomplish their goal? Or they accomplish their goal despite everything going awry.

[Thomas]
Right. I think I like that. Where they have this idea, like, “Oh, well, we can do this thing” and then it doesn’t work, and that’s a setback. But they overcome that setback. Or some- something breaks early on, but then later they realize they can still use it for something unintended or something along those lines. And, I mean, some things do work properly. In fact, I think early on, something that they come up with goes just as planned. And so they have this early boost of confidence. “Ah, great. It’s working. We can do this.”

[Shep]
They have, like, a practice heist on something else.

[Thomas]
Sure. They would probably practice, and that can give us some second act, I don’t know, b-roll, basically. Some filler. They go somewhere and they’ve marked out with masking tape or chalk or something. Like, we’ve got the blueprints for his office, so we can, you know, 20 paces from the door and, oh, we’ve got the same model of safe that he has, so we can practice cracking the safe.

[Shep]
They get to the actual safe. And the combination is just written on a sticky note.

[Thomas]
Right. I was thinking about that for the guard. Like, they’re like, “How are we gonna get past the guard?” And they have this whole convoluted plan, and it turns out he’s just, like, sleeping at the desk.

[Emily]
Because he’s just shitty at his job.

[Thomas]
He’s just a minimum wage night guard or something. But I could see ultimately more and more things going wrong.

[Emily]
Mm hmm.

[Thomas]
And them sort of starting to panic a little bit because so many things are starting to go wrong, which causes more things to go wrong.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
But ultimately, it being successful. I think the only way they could do that, though, is they have to get the ledger out of the safe. Because the police are going to show up and they need officials to look at it.

[Shep]
I am just picturing a scene with Jessica and Brad, the FBI agent, where they’ve gotten the ledger out, and they think, “Great, we did really good.” And then Brad’s going through all the security footage and listing off all the crimes that they did and, like, estimating the years in prison that they’ll get.

[Emily]
Mmm.

[Shep]
And it’s getting longer and longer.

[Emily]
That is pretty funny.

[Shep]
But Jessica and Brad are very flirty. So it’s like, do they get together at the end or does he send her to prison?

[Thomas]
I don’t think he should send her to prison.

[Shep]
It would be a funny twist, but it might not be a fun twist.

[Thomas]
Right. Well.

[Shep]
Or he does the estimate of all the years that they would get in prison, and then he goes, “Well, of course that’s what would happen if we found the security tapes, which we didn’t,” because it’s a movie.

[Thomas]
Mmm. So if they trip an alarm that they don’t realize they’ve tripped, the security guard will call, probably the police.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Like, how does the FBI get involved?

[Shep]
Hmm.

[Emily]
Are they staking out the building for some reason? On a Sunday?

[Shep]
They might not even be staking it out. They’re just at their office in town, and they get a call that police are on the way to this building that they’ve been keeping an eye on. They’re cooperating with the local police, so the police let them know.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And so they also go to the building.

[Thomas]
Right. “Something’s happening at the business of the guy you’re investigating.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, you’d want to go check it out and make sure that they’re not-

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
It’s not going to mess up your case.

[Thomas]
The trouble there, though, is that you have a security guard and a bunch of police who know what happened. The FBI can’t really sweep it under the rug.

[Shep]
Do they know what happened? If you’re a criminal and the police show up, and they’re like, “Hey, we got a call from your security guard.” Do you go, “Oh, yes. Come on in. Let me show you my security tapes, and you’ll know who has come and gone from this building.” No, you go, “Sorry, false alarm. Stay out.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
I’m picturing that the girls tripped the alarm and got captured by these guys. And they’re, like, tied to chairs in his office, and the police are outside the building, but they can’t come in. What were you gonna say, Thomas?

[Thomas]
What if the women see something that would trip an alarm and manage to avoid that? What they don’t realize is they have, quite a while ago, tripped a silent alarm that they didn’t know about. But that doesn’t alert the police or anybody. It just alerts Steve. Steve knows that someone has gone into his office. There’s, like, a separate alarm that he has set up that just quietly lets him know he’s got, like a, you know, a Nest camera or something. A Ring camera I mean. What are those other ones? Whatever the brand is, he has a Ring camera that saw movement.

[Shep]
Whoever’s sponsoring the movie, that’s the brand.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah. And texted him. And so he comes in and catches them and. Yeah. Ties them up, whatever. And so either while they’re tied up or just as he’s escaping, one of them hobbles her chair over and trips the alarm that they saw and avoided earlier, which then brings police to them.

[Emily]
This works for me.

[Thomas]
Especially if the women have previously been vocally against him. He’s kidnapped his detractors.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And then that allows them to search his office so that they can get into the safe and get the ledger. So it’s a little of both. Right? They didn’t intend to be captured, so it wasn’t part of the plan.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
But then they got captured by Steve. But then their plan changes because of that. So now they do need to get captured by the police. One thing I think that we’ve pretty thoroughly glossed over is how do they find out that he’s running a Ponzi scheme and has this ledger in his office? Tiffany’s resourceful, but damn.

[Shep]
Tiffany is the godfather. She’s got connections. She’s got forensic accountants on speed dial. Why is she in this tiny town? Don’t worry about it.

[Thomas]
Do her and Brad exchange a knowing glance of, like, “Oh, I recognize you”? I mean, certainly part of her research would be looking into the previous developments.

[Emily]
Right. And she could find something fishy-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And say, “I have a feeling.” They might not definitively know at first.

[Thomas]
So there maybe is a mini heist early on where they do something to get proof or to confirm their suspicions. I think one tricky thing is he’s gonna want to minimize who knows about the Ponzi scheme.

[Emily]
Correct.

[Thomas]
So who else knows? Somebody else has to know. Because if it’s only him that knows, they’re screwed. There’s no way to know- WE are screwed. There’s no way for them to find out. So we need someone else who knows.

[Emily]
So I was thinking, like, in the lines of a mini heist, there could be where they run into him at some sort of town meeting, whatever. They plan to be there on purpose. It’s not just a coincidence that they’re in the same spot. Like, they plan this and they steal his phone. You know, flirty, whatever they need to do to distract him while another one looks through the phone. I don’t know how they unlock it. I don’t know how he doesn’t pay attention to them taking it, other than that’s part of Tiffany’s special skill set. And they find some text or something, file that points- that confirms their suspicion enough for them to want to go forward with the big heist.

[Shep]
I think that kind of heist, that kind of sleight of hand, doesn’t fall into the skill set of our main characters. Whereas they could just call people in the previous towns where he’s had developments and say, “Hey, how many people are going to these new stores?”

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And go, these numbers don’t add up. Like, he’s giving a presentation about how much money he’s making. But where’s that money coming from? It doesn’t make any sense. And there’s no sleight of hand involved. And they don’t have to make face to face contact with him, necessarily. It’s just them investigating with his own presentation. Like, he’s like, “I did developments in these towns, and here’s how much money I’ve made.”

[Thomas]
Right, so they just Erin Brockovich this thing. They do the hard legwork.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
They’re smart.

[Thomas]
They do the research. Yeah.

[Shep]
Sorry. I’m picturing them doing, like, the legwork, going to some town, whatever. They’ve got their kids with them in the minivan.

[Emily]
I do like the idea of them having their kids with them. And they have to stop in at all these places and talk to people. And the kids want, “Can I get an ice cream?” And they’re just collecting more and more things. Cause kids.

[Shep]
Yep. And they’re mothers.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
And this is the Mother’s Day episode, so got a really draw a line under that.

[Thomas]
How does Steve get caught in the end?

[Shep]
I thought that he got caught red handed with three women tied up in his office.

[Thomas]
I guess it depends on whether we want that false escape. So he could tie them up and leave. “I’ve got all my cash. I’ll go get on a plane. I will go to a country that doesn’t have an extradition treaty and live the rest of my life. By the time they get discovered. Eh, I’ll be out of here.”

[Shep]
Right, then he wakes up with the pony head in his bed.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Tiffany is not letting him go. Why is he leaving them tied up in his office? What is his plan? That’s- the plan is just to escape right then.

[Thomas]
If this development was always going to be his last development, then he’s been planning this exit from the country anyway.

[Shep]
Right. But he needs the setup of the development to get the investor money to come in. If the development is canceled, he doesn’t get that money coming in. He’s got nothing to make his escape with.

[Thomas]
Well, he has. Yeah, that’s a good point.

[Shep]
Like, maybe he could have some of the investors lined up. He could have some of the money.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s not the big amount, the prize that he was going for.

[Thomas]
But the options are go down with some or just go down for this crime. Then he’d rather take the little bit that he has and hightail it.

[Shep]
Yeah. How much of a criminal is he, though? Like, he’s fleeing the country anyway. Why not just kill them? Why not just kill these three women that have ruined his plan? I’m not saying, I’m not pro murder. I’m just saying if he is already a villain, why isn’t he being villainous in this instance.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
It’s Mother’s Day and they’re moms. So he just can’t bring himself to do it.

[Shep]
So that he’s not that villainous.

[Emily]
Is that a problem, that he’s not that villainous?

[Shep]
Kind of.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, I might be willing to steal, but I certainly wouldn’t be willing to murder, especially considering it’s entirely unnecessary. If he has them tied up to chairs and thinks “They can’t do anything to stop me now.”

[Shep]
Okay, so his plan is to leave them tied up in his office and flee the country.

[Thomas]
That’s what we’re saying at the moment, but, I mean, we can certainly change that. Oh, and he’s taken the ledger with him so they don’t have to search his office. He’s taken all the evidence.

[Shep]
Ah.

[Emily]
Well, of course he would.

[Thomas]
Right. Why would you leave that behind? And is the key piece of evidence the FBI have been wanting. They have already been building a case against him. They just don’t have any concrete evidence until now. Also, the kidnapping three women in his office thing.

[Emily]
Yeah. That whole thing. Minor detail.

[Shep]
All right, so that’s how the crime is wrapped up. Do Jessica and Brad get together? That’s the real question.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I’m trying to figure out how their relationship would work. He’s not local.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He doesn’t live in this tiny town.

[Emily]
You’re thinking too hard about it.

[Thomas]
Does the town realize what they’ve done? Good or bad, right? Like, what is the town’s reaction to this? Many people in the town wanted this development to happen.

[Shep]
Not Vanessa, though.

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
At the end of the film or I guess, in the denouement. Like, what happens? What do these three women want and what do they have at the end of the film? The library is protected? Maybe they’ll, they… Maybe early on, one of the things they try is to get the library on the National Register of Historic Places. But they realize that application is going to take too long. Even if it’s successful, a library building will be demolished before that application will be seen and considered. So they have to do the whole heist thing. But at the end of the film, it’s a year on or however long. And the application has gone through. And we’re seeing the dedication ceremony of, “Oh, we’re putting the plaque on the building. And now this building will be here forever.”

[Emily]
That would be a cute denouement. And then he could come back. Brad could come back and be there for her for that event. So they clearly are having a long distance thing.

[Thomas]
And Brad has retired or something.

[Shep]
No, he’s young. He’s at his peak.

[Thomas]
He’s running for sheriff of this town.

[Shep]
And you can set up earlier, because Jessica’s got kids. She’s a mom.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s the Mother’s Day.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Shep]
So you could set up that Brad spent too much time on his career and never settled down and started a family.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
And he regrets that until, like, here comes, like, a pre-made family. Prefab.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Prefam?

[Shep]
So you can see the kids at the end. They’re happy to see Brad.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because they get along well.

[Thomas]
What does Jennifer want?

[Shep]
Oh, that’s right. That’s our main character.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, she wishes she were a strong, powerful woman like Tiffany. And so at the end, Tiffany has kind of taken her as her protege.

[Thomas]
Is Tiffany running for mayor or something?

[Shep]
Nothing so official.

[Thomas]
Jennifer’s running for mayor and Tiffany’s her campaign manager.

[Shep]
Right. Because that’s another connection for Tiffany.

[Thomas]
Yes, that’s right.

[Shep]
That totally fits with her character of being in the shadows.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Yeah. Right. She’s gotta maintain that low profile, what with her being in the witness protection pr- I mean. Uh uh. Uh. Oh.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about Mother’s Day. Did we hit the mother lode, or was it an episode that only a mother could love? 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. Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there, and in here, happy Mother’s Day Emily.

[Emily]
Thank you.

[Thomas]
If you’re looking for a last minute gift idea for your mom, maybe you can suggest she join Emily, Shep, and I on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]