Nose

References

• The Shadow
• Pinocchio
• Roxanne
• Cyrano de Bergerac
• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
  • Mac and Charlie’s Movie Idea
• Dolph Lundgren
• Nip/Tuck
• Harry Potter
  • Voldemort
  • Severus Snape
• After Hours
• Shinya shokudô (Midnight Diner)
• The Silence of the Lambs (movie)
• The Silence of the Lambs (novel)
• Delicatessen
• Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
• The Pillow Book
• John Wayne Gacy
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
• Almost Plausible: Paper Bag
• Ratatouille
• Almost Plausible: BBQ Grill
• The Map of Tiny Perfect Things
• When Harry Met Sally…
• Irene Adler
• My Dinner with Andre
• André the Giant
• Ray’s Pizza
• Rule 34

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Thomas]
And she’s like, “What’s good is not what’s on the menu. Get this other off-menu thing,” you know. “Oh, Jose, give him the Deborah or,” you know, whatever.

[Shep]
“The Deborah.”

[Emily]
“Give him the Debbie, Jose.”

[Thomas]
She’s got her own burrito that he makes for her special.

[Emily]
Yeah, Jose, give him the old ‘Debbie’.

[Thomas]
No.

[Shep]
Not the Little Debbie, the BIG Debbie.

[Emily]
The Big Debbie.

[Thomas]
Give him the Full Debbie.

[Shep]
The Full Debbie!

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. Who knows what evil lurks in the nostrils of men? The Nose knows. Wait, I might be mixing up a couple of different sayings there.

[Shep]
It’s so good. Did we all look at like previous movies that are nose-oriented?

[Thomas]
Maybe. Maybe.

[Shep]
You got Pinocchio. You’ve got Roxanne. Cyrano De Bergerac.

[Thomas]
Right. Well, to help me keep things straight, I’m joined by Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
I am Thomas J. Brown. And what’s our ordinary object for this episode? Why, it’s as plain as the Nose on your face. We’ll start with a few pitches, pick one we like and develop it into a full-on movie plot. Let’s jump right in. So, Shep, why don’t you pick up the scent and lead us to the first pitch?

[Shep]
Okay, have you guys seen Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

[Emily]
I have not actually seen an entire episode.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I haven’t either.

[Shep]
There is an episode where I think Charlie and Mac come up with a movie pitch that is nose-oriented, which was the third thing I thought of when this topic came up.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
And it’s Dolph Lundgren as a scientist who can smell crime, before it happens. And also there’s full penetration sex. So-

[Thomas]
What?

[Shep]
We’ll, you know, we’ll include a clip to that scene on the website AlmostPlausible.com for this episode so you can see what I’m talking about. Unless I had a fever dream and imagined it, which is also possible when it comes to Always Sunny. It’s like, “Did I dream that or was that a real episode?”

[Thomas]
So either we’ll have a link to a clip or a correction, one or the other.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Either way, visit AlmostPlausible.com and find out which.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
So I need to know, when they talked about that pitch with Dolph Lundgren as a scientist, did they know he is one?

[Shep]
Yes, I think so- I can’t remember.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Again, like I’ve said, it’s been years and years.

[Emily]
So that was probably part of the joke, is that they knew he was one. The writers anyway, and that maybe the rest of the world is unaware of that fact.

[Shep]
Which is a tragedy because he’s so smart and he keeps playing these big strong dumb guys.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s like he speaks seven languages. He’s got a master’s degree in chemistry. Anyway, here is my pitch for this episode.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
A plastic surgeon who becomes infatuated with a client and makes small quote-unquote “mistakes” in her nose job so that she’ll have to keep coming back for fixes.

[Emily]
That sounds like an episode of Nip/Tuck. Like, I don’t remember.

[Thomas]
I was thinking that. Yeah.

[Emily]
Like there’s not an episode of Nick/Tuck like that. But it sounds like something that would have happened on Nick/Tuck.

[Thomas]
So how. How many times do you think this woman would come back if her surgeon keeps getting it wrong? Maybe it’s a small town, and he’s the only plastic surgeon.

[Shep]
Well, see, now this is a different pitch.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
It’s a Hollywood doctor and he’s moved to a small-town to like, he wants to live that country life or whatever, but he’s a plastic surgeon. But like he opens up a plastic surgeon clinic in a, you know, farming town.

[Thomas]
Right.

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

[Emily]
So I have a couple pitches. This one is the story of a man who has a sense of smell that’s closer to an animal’s. So he’s hired for undercover work in the city’s narcotics department.

[Thomas]
And can he smell the crimes before they happen? Or-

[Shep]
Hahaha.

[Emily]
The drugs. He’s a drug-sniffing human.

[Shep]
I like the idea of a human… drug-sniffing, a drug-sniffing human.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And of course, he gets addicted to cocaine.

[Emily]
Well, obviously.

[Shep]
Obviously. This one’s writing itself.

[Emily]
And the second one I have is: a child is born without a nose. And we see the story of his or her introduction to school and all of its challenges. Something like Wonder or Simon Birch, but without a nose.

[Shep]
Or Harry Potter because that’s, you know, Voldemort.

[Emily]
His snake nose. But he didn’t have a snake nose. He didn’t always not have a nose.

[Thomas]
Can you imagine if he did? Like everyone would know. “Oh, it’s that guy. Tom Riddle. Yeah, we remember him.”

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
“I’ve got a riddle for you, Tom. Where’s your nose?”

[Thomas]
Yeah. “Got your nose. Got your nose.”

[Shep]
Oh yeah.

[Thomas]
“Fuck off, guys, it’s not funny.” “Hey, did you hear? Tom Riddle doesn’t have a nose.” “Well, how does he smell?”

[Shep and Thomas]
“Terrible.”

[Emily]
All right, Thomas, what do you have for us?

[Thomas]
I have two pitches: A man with an incredibly sensitive sense of smell literally follows his nose through the alleys of a major city, visiting various restaurants, sampling culinary delights, and meeting a colorful cast of characters along the way. It’s After Hours meets Midnight Diner.

[Shep]
So have you seen Silence of the Lambs? I guess I should say, have you read the book series that the movies are based on?

[Thomas]
No, I have not. Okay.

[Shep]
Because it’s more clear in the books that he kind of imagines himself sometimes as just being a giant nose, taking in the sense of the world. When you’re describing this, he’s like going through the alleys and taking in the sense. And then “midnight diner”, quote unquote. But it’s, you know, he’s feasting on people because it’s Hannibal Lecter.

[Emily]
Dinah the person. Not diner, the restaurant.

[Shep]
Diner, the movie where it’s the cannibals.

(Shep heard “Diner” but was thinking of Delicatessen)

[Thomas]
All right. It’s the guy from Perfume. The main character from Perfume.

[Shep]
Perfume! Perfume. Obviously Perfume.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Perfume: the Story of a Murder. It’s a great movie. If you’ve never seen it, it is weird and wild, and I really liked it.

[Emily]
Is it directed by the same guy who did The Pillow Book?

[Thomas]
You know, it wouldn’t surprise me if it were.

[Emily]
Because that, that feels like a movie he would direct.

[Thomas]
You know what? I propose, the next time we all get together, we do a double feature. My other pitch: a struggling birthday clown finds a vintage red nose at a flea market. When he puts it on, he becomes the funniest man alive and increasingly violent.

[Emily]
Oh, that one. That one. Let’s do that one.

[Shep]
It’s the former nose of… who’s the serial killer?

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah?

[Emily]
John Wayne Gacy.

[Thomas]
Yeah. All right, those are my pitches. Which one did we like the most? I think I know which one Emily liked the most.

[Emily]
I kind of like them all. I think they all have good merits. I would be happy with any of them. Although I did have a question on your first one with the “follows his nose through the alley and eats culinary delights”.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Would there, could there…

[Thomas]
Should there?

[Emily]
Should there? Yeah. Would there, could there, should there be a scene where he goes to like one of those really hyped up restaurants that like, supposed to be just amazing? And then because his nose is so great, his sense of taste would also be enhightened and it’s just garbage.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. I mean, maybe that’s how it starts. Maybe he goes there first. He’s got six months or a year of having this reservation. He’s been waiting and waiting. And finally, it’s his turn to go to this overhyped restaurant. And he goes and he’s like, “Oh, this actually sucks.”

[Emily]
Well, then he can smell like mold in the somewhere.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Like, it’s just everything about it is awful.

[Thomas]
The whole experience is terrible. And so that inspires him to leave. And he’s just wandering the streets. Hasn’t eaten yet.

[Shep]
And that’s just what causes him to kill people?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
That and the nose he bought at the flea market.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Right, right. The nose of a serial killer. This is all coming together.

[Emily]
No, see, he buys the nose first, then gets the super sense of smell, then kills people.

[Shep]
No, he has the super sense of smell and he buys the nose to like mask it.

[Emily]
Oh, okay.

[Thomas]
Ah, yeah. To mute the-

[Shep]
It’s like a filter.

[Thomas]
The stink of the world.

[Shep]
“The stink of the world.” There’s your subtitle.

[Thomas]
And then does he open a restaurant and he’s like, serving the people he’s murdered?

[Emily]
In meat pies.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, exactly. His name is Todd.

[Shep]
Which means death.

[Emily]
I did not know that.

[Shep]
Yeah. T O D.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Huh.

[Shep]
Death in German, I think.

[Thomas]
Did not know.

[Emily]
So why do we name people Todd?

[Shep]
Well, I mean, T O D D, it also means fox. So-

(Middle English, “todde” meaning “fox”)

[Thomas]
It’s short for Todathan, so-

[Emily]
I didn’t know.

[Shep]
Tonathan!

[Thomas]
All right, well, it sounds like we want to do my first idea. So I like this idea then, of him going to a restaurant, and it’s supposed to be a really great restaurant, and he can smell that it’s terrible.

[Shep]
I think that’s how we open it. So is he a food critic? Because he has this extraordinary sense. Like, he could use that ability for a living because he’s got to live with it anyway. Why would you spend time learning another skill when you were born with this?

[Emily]
Well, he works at the airport as-

[Shep]
A drug-sniffing human?

[Emily]
Drug sniffing.

[Shep]
That doesn’t pay as much.

[Thomas]
I could see him not wanting to do something with it because, you know, we joked earlier about the clown nose being a muting device.

[Shep]
Oh right, a filter.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Oh, it would just be too overwhelming.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
So in his off time from his job, he finds really good food, and that’s how he-

[Shep]
What is his job?

[Thomas]
Well, I don’t know.

[Emily]
It’s an office job.

[Thomas]
Oh, it’s probably a work-from-home job because he can control his environment, but if he goes out, it’s overwhelming. And it’s a little weird to sit in an office with a clothespin on your nose all day. Your co-workers don’t really cotton to that too well.

[Emily]
You can solve that by putting a Paper Bag over your face. Just saying.

[Shep]
Man, our Paper Bag episode is really good. Have you gone back and listened to it? It’s like-

[Thomas]
It’s been a while.

[Shep]
It’s real good.

[Thomas]
All right, well, I feel like we don’t necessarily need to know what his job is unless it comes into play.

[Shep]
I think that it should be important.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Because, how much of this ability, this sensory, the super sensory ability, is built into a self-identity?

[Emily]
Well, then I like-

[Shep]
Because if he grew up with it- Go ahead, Emily.

[Emily]
Well, then I like the idea that it’s a remote job.

[Shep]
Well, see, the reason I was thinking that he is a food critic is that this is what allows him (because his work is paying for it, and he can get quick reservations) to the supposed best restaurants. And that’s what he wants. He wants that, you know, really good food. He wants that really good experience. If he has to wait six months on a waiting list for a reservation like everyone else, why is he having to suffer that? He’s got this ability. He is Superman, and he’s waiting in line when he could just fly over.

[Thomas]
Well, I guess I wanted that long wait so that it heightens the disappointment when he actually gets to the restaurant. Because you’ve got to think, if he’s a food critic with this super smell, and he can smell just by walking in the door that this place is terrible, that’s a normal experience for him. He’s gone to a ton of fancy restaurants that he’s walked immediately out of.

[Shep]
Okay, but see, why would he continue to go to fancy restaurants if he keeps having this experience unless it were his job?

[Emily]
Because it’s only one out of every 10 that’s bad.

[Shep]
Well, we both know that it’s not only one out of every ten. Every- one out of every ten is really good. Actually good.

[Thomas]
I mean, I see what your point is.

[Emily]
I’m gonna let you two duke it out.

[Shep]
He could resent having this job and then regret not having pursued other avenues in life. He, like, fell into this job because of his ability.

[Thomas]
Right. He should have finished that CPA course that he took in college.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
He’s always wanted to be an accountant, but it was just too much.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Right. He started as a wine critic, then he moved into food critic. And then he’s like this famous food critic and he hates it because most of the time it’s not very good.

[Thomas]
So he’s basically the food critic in Ratatouille then. He just shits on everything constantly at the point where he is in his career, nothing’s good.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
It’s so rare.

[Shep]
Yeah, that’s the problem, it’s too rare. It’s like you got to cook it a little longer.

[Emily]
But what if he was more self-conscious than that? So he wasn’t so emboldened by his nose, but rather, because everything does suck, but he doesn’t want to be the bad guy because, you know, he still wants to be liked and everything. So he overcompensates and gives good reviews to restaurants that don’t really deserve it. And then this one is just the last straw.

[Thomas]
Well, then he’s bad at his job.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I don’t know. It just seems shitty to be the guy that’s always like, “This is shit.” So why would anybody be excited about having him come in the restaurant if everything’s shit? So it would be like, “Let’s not invite him. When he comes in, kick him out, because he’s just gonna poo poo on us.”

[Shep]
You’re right. He’s not the food critic from Ratatouille. He does like some of the restaurants, but it’s rare. But the ones he likes are really good, universally good. And when they get a good review and, like, people pack that restaurant, they have a wonderful experience. And so he often goes back to these old restaurants that he gave good reviews and they welcome him back because it’s always a good sign.

[Shep]
Until he goes back once, and then he can smell mold.

[Thomas]
Okay, got it. So he’s going to this restaurant for his job, this fancy restaurant. He doesn’t like it because it’s got, there’s mold or he can smell the rat poop or whatever it is. He’s frustrated. He decides, “I’m gonna go to one of the restaurants I like to make up for it,” where, like you said, if he walks in the door, they’ll kick someone out if they have to. Like, he gets a table no matter what, but for whatever reason, he can’t go the way that he normally goes. There’s a… It’s America. There’s a standoff, and he has to go around.

[Shep]
There’s a standoff.

[Emily]
I mean.

[Thomas]
I don’t know.

[Shep]
There’s just an arm standoff, off-screen.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
We see little bits of it.

[Emily]
Barricades.

[Shep]
Like, we hear sirens in the distance.

[Thomas]
All we need is a couple of lights flashing on a light stand just out of frame and a dude in an officer’s uniform saying, “I’m sorry, sir, you can’t go this way.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Done. That’s a standoff in our cheap movie here. So he has to go down some alleyway to go, like around or whatever. He has to go a block over. And he’s never gone that way before. And that’s what introduces him to this new hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop little restaurant he’s never heard of or been to?

[Shep]
Right. It’s like a taco joint.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s not the food that he normally partakes of.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But it smells really good.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And so instead of going to the- He doesn’t even make it to the restaurant that he was intending to go to. He gets drawn in to this hole-in-the-wall place that nobody knows. Oh, he ruins the restaurant because it’s so good. He writes an article about it and then people are flocking to it and they’re overwhelmed. This is a mom-and-pop place. They’re, like, not even in the restaurant game to, like, make money. They’re just there to cook good food for their friends-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And neighbors.

[Thomas]
For this neighborhood.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
This is a secret place just for them. And he ruins it by making it popular.

[Thomas]
But do we see that, or does this all just happen in one night?

[Shep]
Ah.

[Thomas]
Because that’s what I had imagined, is this is like over the course of a night, he’s like going around the city. Maybe at that taco stand or whatever, or maybe it’s like a little food truck or a food cart. And he’s just like, boggles his mind. Like, “How can- It’s a food cart. How can this food be good?” And yet he can tell, like from smelling things (because we’ve established that at the other restaurant), he can smell the mold, he can smell the rat poop. He can smell, you know, somebody went to the bathroom and didn’t wash their hands. Like he can smell all those things. So he gets there and we’re seeing that same style of editing where he’s sniffing and we get a close-up of something. He’s like, “Mm. Oh, that’s good.” And you can tell that everything’s clean. Everything’s, you know, the person takes care. They’re constantly wiping things down. He’s like, “How is this hot dog cart so clean and good smelling?”

[Shep]
It’s not just how clean everything is. He can smell how well the ingredients have been cooked.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
They’ve been perfectly, you know, seared or whatever. Cooked to perfection, “Grilled to perfection.” Oh, no.

[Thomas]
“Grilled-“, I was just gonna say. Yeah. And so maybe he meets another foodie there, someone who really likes food but doesn’t obviously have the nose thing that he has. But this guy knows some other good spots. He’s like, “Oh, if you like this, you’re gonna really love-“

[Shep]
Oh, this is the girl.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
This is the girl. Oh, no?

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
This is not their meet-cute? They’re not meeting cute at a meat cart?

[Emily]
No. This could be their meet-cute. But I wanted her to be the daughter of the family that owns the meat cart.

[Shep]
What?

[Emily]
Because when he’s like, “Oh, how could this be so wonderful?” She’s like, “Because we make it with love,” or some cheesy thing like that. And he says, you know, makes a comment about how cheesy that is. And then they get to talking. And then maybe she is a foodie on top of this, and she recommends other places. That was my line of thought. But-

[Shep]
My line of thought was, this is someone who’s going to go with him.

[Emily]
Yeah, she’s just-

[Shep]
Through the city.

[Emily]
She was just dropping off supplies, and she has a free night.

[Shep]
Well, then that’s an amazing coincidence that she happens to be there and happens to be the daughter of the person and not just some random person.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. I don’t have problems with these kind of coincidences because her family can’t leave the shop to go get the thing that they need. So this is her night off. And she’s like, “Ugh, I had plans, but okay.” And then comes and drops the shit off and then meets the guy.

[Shep]
So this is her night off. Her actual job is working at the previous restaurant that he just gave a poor review to.

[Thomas]
Right. Because that’s going to set up their falling out later in the film.

[Shep]
Right. Yes, because it’s just the same formula.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
No, I like the idea of, like, going through… See, the reason I want there to be two of them. So it’s not just him exploring the city on his own. Each one is trying to introduce the other to the next thing that they like.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Hmm. So it’s like The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, where they’re going around town and they find all the little great things that they like and sharing it with each other.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
The map of tiny perfect… Oh, is that a time loop thing?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Okay, that’s on my list. I haven’t seen it yet. Like, that sounds really familiar.

[Thomas]
And then it’s a little bit more like When Harry Met Sally-style, where they’re kind of together the whole movie, talking to each other and building that relationship.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So what did we decide? Is the person he meets the woman?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
The woman?

[Thomas]
The woman?

[Emily]
The woman.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So it’s Irene Adler.

[Emily]
I think Shep is right on this. This is their meet-cute.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
And she is just a foodie. Not another critic.

[Thomas]
So here’s a critical question then. Does she know who he is? She certainly knows of his work, but does she recognize him?

[Emily]
Is like, on his byline, include a photo of him?

[Thomas]
I think that’s what we need to figure out. Is it better for her to know all along?

[Shep]
And does he wear the clown nose in public?

[Thomas]
He has to, to keep out the stink of the world.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Or is this, how, this what their falling out is? Because, oh, maybe she was a restaurateur and he panned her restaurant, and that got her shut down.

[Emily]
That seems like a coincidence.

[Thomas]
Not if she’s a foodie. Because I feel like really, like, good chefs know where all, like, the good chefy spots are.

[Shep]
Oh, so what if he had a negative review for a restaurant for something that wasn’t their fault? They got a shipment of bad ingredients.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Interesting.

[Shep]
And that happened to be, I mean, this is coincidence again-

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
But it was like the time that he was reviewing that restaurant. And so they got a negative review and then people stopped going there and they went out of business. The margins on restaurants are very small, so it doesn’t take a lot.

[Emily]
Yes, they are.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
And it happened to be one of the restaurants that she really liked, so it wasn’t her restaurant, which would be an amazing coincidence, but because she’s a foodie and she liked this restaurant and then it got shut down. This just doesn’t answer the question, though. Does she know who he is or not? What causes them to even talk in the first place? She’s got to say something. He’s going to order something. And then she recommends, “Oh, get these other two sauces mixed together and that’s really good,” or whatever it is. Because she’s a foodie, she’s like, recommending a thing to what appears to be a fellow foodie.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Or even he asks the person at the stand, the food cart, “What would you recommend?”

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
And the guy’s like, “I dunno, it’s all good. It’s all good.” And she recom- she answers his question, and then that gets them talking.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Oh, maybe, maybe he’s like, looking at the menu, and maybe he asks, like you said, “What’s good?” And she’s like, “What’s good is not what’s on the menu. Get this other off-menu thing,” you know. “Oh, Jose, give him the Deborah or,” you know, whatever.

[Shep]
“The Deborah.”

[Emily]
“Give him the Debbie, Jose.”

[Thomas]
She’s got her own burrito that he makes for her special.

[Emily]
Yeah, Jose, give him the old ‘Debbie’.

[Thomas]
No.

[Shep]
Not the Little Debbie, the BIG Debbie.

[Emily]
The Big Debbie.

[Thomas]
Give him the Full Debbie.

[Shep]
The Full Debbie! This is giant. It’s like two tortillas next to each other rolled up…

[Thomas]
No, no, it’s a… It’s a normal-sized burrito. And he’s like, “Huh, I thought it was going to be bigger.”

[Shep]
It’s big in flavor. It’s big in flavor.

[Thomas]
Yes, exactly.

[Shep]
That’s good. You want it to be a small burrito so they have room for more food.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Shep]
So they can go to other places.

[Emily]
And they’re not showing wasting food where they eat two bites and throw it away.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah. All right, so they eat at this food stand, this, this taco truck, whatever it is, and then they’re chatting. They, of course, they’re both foodies. He probably keeps his cards close to his chest about his job because-

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Eh, you know, there are people like her who are going to be mad if they find out who he is. And also part of his job is secretly reviewing these restaurants. He doesn’t want people knowing who he is. Maybe he has a fake name.

[Shep]
So no photo on the byline.

[Emily]
Nope.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah, that answers that. So, how do they get to the next place? Does she say, “Well, if you loved the Full Deborah, you’re going to really love (whatever) these eclairs at this bakery that’s-“

[Shep]
It’s got to be his suggestion next because she recommended the Full Debbie.

[Emily]
Yeah, they go back and forth.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Oh, sure. Does he. Does he feel like he owes her one?

[Emily]
Sure.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So he takes her to a good coffee spot.

[Thomas]
Oh, maybe he’s like, “Oh, well, you, you made a great recommendation. I’ll give you a great recommendation.” And she’s like, “Well, then let’s go right now.”

[Shep]
Yes. Yep.

[Thomas]
And he’s like, “Okay, great.”

[Shep]
Yeah. He’s got nowhere to be.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
His plan for the evening was already ruined.

[Thomas]
Right. Okay. So is it a diner? Is it a coffee shop? Is it-?

[Emily]
I want it to be like a coffee shop, just so they have more time to digest.

[Thomas]
Right. And plus, that’ll get them the caffeine to stay up for the rest of the night and go on their adventure.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
You want to do the caffeine later as it’s getting, you know, the evening…

[Thomas]
Ah. So they need.

[Emily]
Oh, so maybe dessert.

[Thomas]
This is dessert.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah. This is a gelato place in Little Italy.

[Emily]
Your food is so fancy.

[Shep]
Oh, it’s, it’s not a dessert place. It’s some other place and they happen to have a really good dessert.

[Thomas]
Mmm.

[Shep]
And that’s what he’s recommending. It’s like her recommendation, which is the secret thing.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I know what it is. It’s a convenience store run by, like, a Middle Eastern couple. And they have baklava that she makes at home in their apartment that she sells, you know, little boxes of baklava.

[Emily]
That sounds good to me.

[Thomas]
Or something like that, you know, where it’s just like something that some little old lady makes in her apartment and sells in their shop that has, not really, like, there’s food there. It’s like a bodega type of situation. Right?

[Emily]
Bodega or deli. Something like that. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right, exactly. But this is again, an off-menu item or like a thing that not many people know about.

[Shep]
Our friends know, the neighborhood knows.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Regulars know.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Shep]
They don’t need to put it on the menu. The people that it’s for already know.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
So they go and enjoy this wonderful dessert. She has an orgasm.

[Shep]
Right. Because it’s Harry Met Sally.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And then they go do an activity. Not food related.

[Thomas]
Right. They gotta, like, walk through the park to let their food settle.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Is this going to be a talkie movie? Are they just-

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
It’s just going to be mostly them having conversation. And it’s not-

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
This is My Dinner with Andre and My Dessert with Andre and My Second Dinner with Andre and then Coffee with Andre.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
His name is Andre. I don’t know if we’ve established that.

[Emily]
My Walk in the Park with Andre.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
My Carriage Ride Through Central Park with Andre.

[Thomas]
My Stereotypical New York Evening with Andre.

[Shep]
You’re joking. But I’m 100% on board. It’s also, he’s played by Andre the Giant. I don’t know if we mentioned that.

[Emily]
So we’re going back in time to-

[Thomas]
Oh, my god.

[Emily]
Oh, my god.

[Thomas]
I would have loved to have seen My Dinner with Andre (the Giant).

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
All right, so they get their dessert, and they’re walking through the park. Do we like that?

[Shep]
Sure.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
They’re having deep conversations, getting to know each other.

[Thomas]
So what are they talking about? It’s not all food talk, I imagine.

[Shep]
No.

[Emily]
Well, it would obviously start out all food talk.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
It would be cute if they did a thing where they were like, oh, best, you know, “Where’s the best (blah, blah, blah)?” “You say the best (blah, blah, blah).”

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
And then at one point they say the same thing for the, for whatever item.

[Shep]
Right. Problem for the writers.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
It’ll be pizza if this is New York. So-

[Thomas]
Yeah. Best clam slice on three.

[Shep]
Which of the Ray’s pizzas is the best Ray’s pizza?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Let’s settle it once and for all.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
The original Ray’s.

[Shep]
I mean, you can have your exposition here.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
You could learn more about his life because he’s telling her, and the audience.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
How hard it was growing up and smelling everything. Maybe she’s a super taster and that’s-

[Thomas]
Of course.

[Shep]
They have those two enhanced senses. But she has the advantage from his perspective. Like, she’s not exposed to something until she puts it in her mouth. Whereas he’s exposed to everything around him all the time.

[Thomas]
So this is great. Are they talking about their work at all?

[Shep]
That’s when they get to coffee.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
So they’re walking from dessert to coffee.

[Thomas]
Well, I was thinking instead of going specifically to coffee, they’re just sort of wandering in the park and he’s talking about having this, like, super sense of smell.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And she’s like, “That’s crazy. Like, what are you, a bloodhound? Like, come on.” He’s like, “No, no, I’m telling you right now.” She’s “Okay, what do you smell right now?” And so he’s describing some things and she’s like-

[Emily]
Like a duck fart in the pond.

[Thomas]
Right. Describing gross things. She’s like, “That sounds awful.” He’s like, “Well, it’s not all bad. I can smell (some food thing).” Right? That’s the next food thing they’re going to. He’s like, “Oh, I can smell that.”

[Shep]
Coffee! He can smell the roa-. He can smell the freshly brewed coffee.

[Thomas]
Okay, whatever it is, that’s the next thing. And they end up there. And she’s, “Okay, if it’s right over there, then we can go over there and see if you’re right. You can prove to me.”

[Shep]
Oh, this is a place that neither of them have been to.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
It’s a new place. Okay, I like that.

[Emily]
Well. And she’s worried about wasting her- See, I want to actually write the dialogues. That’s my problem. Because I, I’m thinking she wants, she doesn’t really want to waste his time or he doesn’t want to waste her-. Well, neither one wants to waste the other’s time. So after he says he can smell this like really amazing coffee with notes of nutmeg and cinnamon and one of, I would assume her would say something like, “Well, what do you got going on the rest of the night? Do you have to be somewhere? Do you have to be up in the morning? Let’s go!”

[Shep]
Oh. She could ask him about relationships because he’s complaining about how hard it is to live being able to smell everything. And then she’ll say something like, “That must make having relationships difficult.” You know, whatever. She’s really trying to figure out if he’s single. And then he could explain that he is single.

[Emily]
Because women smell terrible.

[Thomas]
Does she ask in that moment, “Well, how do I smell?”

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
She must.

[Emily]
Do you-

[Shep]
Well, unless you want to call back to this later.

[Emily]
I want to call back to it later. I want her to, the idea to form in her head, but also just like, I don’t really want to know because I don’t really know you.

[Thomas]
Ah, okay. So I think what we do is she wants to ask him that but doesn’t want to ask him directly. So that’s when she says, “Well, what do you smell right now?”

[Emily]
Great.

[Thomas]
Realizing, like we’re standing next to each other, we’ve just been talking about the way people smell. So, like, it’s sort of like a coded way for her to say, like, well, how do I smell? And he is not an idiot. He realizes what she’s doing. He’s not going to answer that question necessarily. And that’s when he’s like, “Oh, I smell this great coffee over there.” She just sort of lets it go. But then later they can come back to it.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, It’s a nice call back later. Oh, it could even be when they’re reuniting after the falling out. And he describes her smelling like gardenias or whatever.

[Shep]
Right. Almond shampoo.

[Thomas]
Does he find her with his nose? Do they physically split up? And he realizes what a fool he’s been. He tracks her down by her smell. Is that how this movie ends?

[Emily]
Well, she is his own personal brand of heroin.

[Shep]
Because he’s a drug-sniffing human.

[Thomas]
Yeah, she is his nose candy. So-

[Shep]
Is her name Candy? And you just never call attention to it.

[Thomas]
There we go. Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
So, is it coffee that they do next, or do we need more food? And then coffee is the next thing after that.

[Shep]
Maybe the plan was to go to this one place.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
And so these little places that they’re going are just like little stops and they’re saving room because they’re going to this one place that’s, that’s further away. So the coffee is the ne- is the last stop before whatever restaurant where they’re going to have dinner.

[Thomas]
Okay. So this is some other little snack thing.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
That he just happens to smell. He’s like, “Oh, I haven’t smelled that before.” And they go and check it out.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Pretzel. Pretzel cart.

[Thomas]
Freshly baked bread. Who’s baking bread at 10 o’clock at night?

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
And they go and it’s… Yeah, a freshly baked bread cart in Central Park. How weird. So they go to this other food place.

[Shep]
Isn’t this the coffee place? You’re adding another food place? I thought this was the coffee place.

[Thomas]
Well, I thought they would have food, dessert food, coffee, big meal.

[Shep]
Food truck. Dessert.

[Thomas]
Snack.

[Shep]
Snack, coffee, dinner.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Dinner. Yeah. Break up at dinner?

[Shep]
I was going to break up at coffee. I thought coffee was the next thing.

[Thomas]
I don’t know that we’re that far into the film.

[Shep]
Depends on how much time you spend on the exposition conversations.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. I mean, you could spend some time getting from the food cart to the bodega and then them having conversations with the little old lady who makes the dessert and people around and like, you could get a, not just a slice of life, but, you know, get to see like the neighborhoods and meet interesting people. And to have that be part of the story. I still like there being another thing in between the bodega and coffee. Like, just one more thing to really establish their attraction.

[Thomas]
Yeah. If they’re going to coffee, I like that he uses that other thing as his escape from the ‘how do I smell’ conversation. Although if she smells nice to him, I don’t know why he would be afraid to answer the question.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Ah, maybe… Okay, because she has not directly asked the question, he is like, “Is she asking me how she smells? I don’t want to assume and then have her not have asked that question. And now I’m like, ‘Oh, you smell good, baby.'” You know, like- Like they’re both, like kind of feeling each other out. Like, is this person single? What do they think of me? So neither one is yet willing to commit to such a direct piece of conversation.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Because people are cowards.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
100%. Have you met people?

[Shep]
No, I’m afraid.

[Thomas]
So that’s his out, is he smells something he’s never smelled before, and it smells great. And she seems like she’d probably appreciate the pretzels or the bread or the whatever it is, midnight bagels.

[Shep]
Midnight bagels.

[Thomas]
But wherever they end up, they enjoy the food and then they move on to the walking to the coffee shop. Is that the plan?

[Emily]
Yeah. Meet more characters.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Because you say a colorful cast of characters along the way. So we have to have several stops to meet these colorful people.

[Thomas]
Right. There’s probably some crazy guy in the park.

[Emily]
Oh, this is just true.

[Thomas]
He shows up a couple times. I’m not sure that’s what I had in mind for colorful, but.

[Emily]
Yeah. It’s a big city. Come on.

[Shep]
You have a crazy woman in the park shouting something that turns out to be prophetic.

[Thomas]
Yeah, you got some guy in the park who’s trying to, like, sell him a rose for her or something.

[Shep]
That’s good because they can talk about how roses smell.

[Thomas]
Right. All right, well, let’s take a break here, and when we come back, we’ll find out what happens for Andre and Candy. I guess we’ve named them?

[Emily]
Those are their names.

[Thomas]
In our story about a Nose.

[Break]

[Thomas]
We are back. We’ve left our characters on their way to a coffee shop. Or perhaps they’re just arriving at a coffee shop. We have Andre and Candy, we’ve decided are their names.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
I mean, the writers can change the names later, but for this conversation, yeah, we know what the actual names are.

[Thomas]
Right. Right. But for our purposes today. Yeah.

[Emily]
Obviously.

[Thomas]
So they had their little snack. They were just walking the park. They had their snack. Now they’re at the coffee shop. And, Shep, you had said earlier you wanted this to be the scene where they split up.

[Shep]
This is the scene where she realizes who he is, maybe because of the conversation they’re having. Like he put his guard down. They’ve known each other well enough now.

[Thomas]
It’s been going well.

[Shep]
Right. And so they’re sitting at the coffee shop and she’s maybe she’s doing the “What can you smell?” thing again. Because now they’re indoors at this place. And he’s like, “Oh, I smell this and this and this.” And like, gives a clinical layout of the coffee shop. He knows what kind of beans they’re roasting. He knows how well they’re roasted. He knows how clean the shop is.

[Emily]
Can you smell the other couples and what’s going on with them? Like, he knows that she’s pregnant and she’s about to tell him.

[Shep]
Right. She’s ovulating, you know. And she’s like, “Oh, you’re really good at this.” And he’s like, “Well, yeah, one of the first places I reviewed was a coffee shop, actually,” and talks about his, his career. And then it dawns on her: He’s that guy.

[Emily]
All right. And he closed a restau- he… not himself closed it, but-

[Thomas]
A review of his caused a restaurant to drop in popularity, thereby causing it to close.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And she really liked that restaurant.

[Emily]
And that was it. That’s the reason she’s upset with him is because she really loved that place and it wasn’t like a friend’s or cousin’s place or-

[Thomas]
Right. And it was a good restaurant. I was thinking, you know, we had said earlier that, oh, the meat was bad, or some ingredient was off, and they were-

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
They had that, and he could tell, and so that’s why he wrote this bad review. Does she know more about that, though? This is why I was thinking it was her restaurant, because she’s like, “It was that company. It was the company that delivered the clams.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
“Delivered bad clams to a dozen restaurants in town. But you didn’t go to the other 11 restaurants. You went to that one. And you blamed them when it wasn’t their fault.”

[Emily]
“And you didn’t see that they rejected them and they were just sitting there until they could dispose of them properly.”

[Thomas]
Right. “You just assumed.”

[Emily]
“You just know everything because you’re a man.”

[Shep]
Well, that could be one of the things they talk about. When she discovers what his job is, she’s like, “How can you judge a place after only going to it once?” Right?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“You’re trying to judge a movie from a single frame.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. Oh, that’s good.

[Shep]
“It’s not enough information.”

[Emily]
Does he argue, though, that because he can smell that the ingredients are inferior or that the sanitizer’s dead or stuff like that is how he knows-

[Thomas]
They haven’t changed their grease in three weeks.

[Shep]
Right. “If I come back a week later, it’ll just be, they haven’t changed their grease in four weeks.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
That just adds flavor, makes the chips taste better.

[Shep]
It makes the chips taste like fish.

[Thomas]
Yeah, it does.

[Shep]
Stop cooking the fish in the same grease you cook the fries.

[Thomas]
Unless you’re a fish and chip place.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And that’s, like, the only acceptable time.

[Shep]
Right. Yes.

[Thomas]
So she kind of leading him on with her questions. Like, these are not just questions she would ask of any food critic. These are questions she wants to ask of him specifically because it was his review, and she knows a little bit more. Like, maybe she- Not that it was a friend of hers that owned the restaurant, but she was friendly with the owners because she was a regular at that place.

[Shep]
Right. Like, he was friendly with the baklava lady.

[Thomas]
Exactly. And so as things were slowing down and she was still going there because she was a regular. She’s chatting with the owner, and the owner’s like, “Ah, it’s been so rough since that review. And, you know, he mentions the bad clams. We weren’t even serving clams, you know, that night, because they were bad.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So she knows more because she’s had a conversation.

[Shep]
Right. But he could smell that there were bad clams, and that tainted his review.

[Thomas]
Right. Yes.

[Shep]
So I think that when she realizes he’s a food critic, she’s, like, leading him to, “Hey, did you ever go to this one restaurant?” And he’s like, “Oh, yes, I went. And it was a bad experience. They had bad clams. I could smell the bad clams through the kitchen door. That’s how bad they were. I could barely choke down my food before I left. It was an awful experience, and I never went back.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And then they can fight about how he’s judging stuff based on a tiny, tiny little experience. And he could try to defend himself. Like, “Look, if the employees don’t wash their hands, if I don’t smell soap on their hands when they come to the table, I don’t think that’s going to be different. That’s endemic of a way they’re running the restaurant.”

[Thomas]
The great thing about this conversation is they’re both right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Yes, but he did judge it based on the smell of the clams, and they weren’t serving the clams.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So he is, he is right in general, but wrong on that instance. Even though the clams did ruin his dinner that night, just by their presence.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
He should have come back another- maybe it was hard to get into the restaurant and so he couldn’t just come back the next night or whatever.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
If this takes place in New York, he doesn’t have time to go back to restaurants.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Right. There’s so many. So it was just unlucky. It’s just unlucky.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Sometimes things are lucky and sometimes things are unlucky.

[Thomas]
So how does this argument resolve? Who storms out?

[Shep]
It’s got to be her.

[Emily]
Mm, obviously.

[Thomas]
That’s what I was thinking. Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. She is not accepting his defenses because he’s, he was wrong on that one restaurant.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
And he doesn’t necessarily think it’s that big of a deal because if they were as high quality or as good as she says it is, then they still would have kept the support.

[Thomas]
He talks about other restaurants where he’s given bad reviews, and they- They’re still in business years later.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Which makes no sense. They’re terrible.

[Thomas]
“And I’ve gone back, and they are bad. I thought I must have been missing something.”

[Shep]
It’s mob fronts for laundering money.

[Emily]
Hahaha.

[Thomas]
“I could smell the money counters.”

[Shep]
“And the cocaine.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. So she storms out. Does he go after her? Like, we’ve established that he thinks most people smell bad, and if she doesn’t smell bad to him, that is noteworthy or perhaps noseworthy.

[Shep]
Haha.

[Thomas]
So is he trying to save this? Because one of the things we always complain about is when someone says something and the other person just goes, “Oh, oh, well.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
It’s like, no, fight for it.

[Emily]
Yeah. And I think he’s enamored with her enough to be like, “No, I, we can’t just end it like this.” Also, he’s feels a little bad for insulting her. Maybe he said something in a way that he didn’t intend it, that came across as an insult to her.

[Thomas]
So she storms out, he chases after her, and he’s like, “Wait, wait, wait.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, here’s why they separate. He chases after her, but she is still angry. So she reaches into her purse and pulls out some pepper spray, which she knows, because he’s a super smeller, is gonna fuck him up real bad. Way worse than a normal person.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So, she could ruin his whole career. She could end his sense of smell. So he’s like, “Okay, fine.” This is why he lets her go, because she’s still mad.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That makes sense.

[Shep]
So how do they get back together? We know that they are going to get back together.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Where does she go? She’s not going to the restaurant anymore.

[Thomas]
No.

[Shep]
But he has to be able to find her. He’s going to, he can follow her scent, which is creepy, but…

[Emily]
It is what it is.

[Shep]
It is what it is. Oh, it’s a callback to things being lucky or things being unlucky.

[Shep]
So they both go to a separate place. They’re both commiserating with friends or whatever. Because they thought there was this potential for something. But then they had this really fundamental disagreement. And he didn’t apologize. That’s the problem. Not that he was wrong. He wasn’t sorry that he was wrong. He tried to defend himself and say, “Oh, it’s okay, it’s all right. Like, I can’t do everything. And sometimes mistakes…” “No, say you’re sorry. You took this restaurant from me that I liked. You did that. You ruined the restaurant and you ruined a little piece of my life. Be sorry. Say you’re sorry.” And he wouldn’t. And so-

[Thomas]
Is he not claiming responsibility? He’s saying, my words don’t have consequences to that extent.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, he’s like, “Oh, I’m just one food critic.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Like maybe he has low self-esteem and doesn’t realize how impactful his reviews are. And she’s trying to impress upon him that it matters. It matters. Every little review matters. And his reviews matter. They matter to everyone. They matter to the restaurant. They matter to the neighborhood.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah. Well, then you can bring in the cast of characters too and be like, it mattered that you did this. It mattered that you did that.

[Shep]
Yep. They go their separate ways. She goes to some place that her friend has and she can complain to her friend at her place of business.

[Thomas]
She texts her friend, “Meet me at the wine bar.”

[Shep]
Yeah, sure, whatever. And maybe. Okay, did they know about the coffee place? Did he know about the coffee place? Is he friendly with the, the barista at the coffee place or not?

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
So after she storms out, the barista, who’s his friend, can, like, explain to him where he went wrong. Like, she’s mad that the restaurant is closed, but she’s mad at you because you weren’t sorry. And explains, like, “Here’s how you messed up, guy.” And he’s like, “Oh, I get it now, but it’s too late. Like, we didn’t exchange cell phone numbers because why would we?”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
We were walking together to the thing. And so, alas, it was a missed opportunity, but, oh, well. And so he’s still going to the restaurant because he wanted to do that earlier. And on the way to the restaurant, he passes whatever business, whatever, you know, wine bar, whatever, that she’s at. And he can smell that she’s in there because he can smell her shampoo or whatever we established earlier that he was too shy to tell her.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So he goes in. It’s like just coincidence. Sometimes there’s good luck. And this is one of those times. And now that he knows what he should have done, he goes in to apologize. But she’s there with her friend now. So the friend’s like, “Oh, this is the guy like, that you were just talking about that you were upset that things didn’t work out with.” She doesn’t say all that, but, like, she gets it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s it. This is how they get back together. He goes in to apologize.

[Thomas]
So when he gets to the wine bar, what’s her reaction? She’s like, “Are you following me? How creepy.”

[Shep]
And then he could talk about the scent of her shampoo.

[Thomas]
Oh, right. Because he never answered her question earlier.

[Shep]
Right. But so you have to have the conversation with her and her friend first, where she calms down enough and her friend points out, “You’re real upset that this thing didn’t work out with this guy that you just met. Like-“

[Thomas]
Three hours ago.

[Shep]
Right. “But, like, it seemed like you’re upset that it didn’t work out rather than upset at him. So maybe you actually like him.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. Like, she was like, she’d gotten her hopes up. She was imagining that things were going to go a certain way, and she was very frustrated that that’s not what happened.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
It turned out this guy was a jerk or whatever.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
But like you said, she’s not mad at him.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
She is mad at him, but she’s more mad in a way she’s not acknowledging, that her imagined relationship with him is now not happening.

[Shep]
Right. So he can come in, and she’s calmed down enough to allow him to explain without running off.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And he’s, you know, “I could smell your-“

[Thomas]
“Fear.” Oh, it’s a different…

[Shep]
“I could smell the mix of shampoo and (whatever).”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“So I knew you were in here, and I was walking by to the restaurant where you knew I was going. So, like, I wasn’t following you. I was on this road.”

[Thomas]
Maybe he blames her. “Oh, sure. You come to the wine bar that’s two blocks away from the restaurant you know I’m going to.”

[Shep]
And she’s like, “You are doing it again, where you’re justifying your actions. You just have an excuse for everything.” And he goes, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I messed up.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. So the writers can make that good, and then…

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Make his apology seem, like, really good and genuine and, like, he gets it.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And then they go to dinner.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
How food porny is this? Like, are we seeing the food that they’re eating?

[Shep]
How food porny do you want it to be? It can be as food porny-

[Emily]
I think it should be food porny.

[Thomas]
I think it should be kind of food porny because he’s talking about what he smells. And so we, I think, we’re seeing that and we’re watching, like, when they go somewhere, he’s describing, you know, like, for example, in the coffee shop, he’s describing it. And we’re seeing these, like, really artistic shots of, like, the beans being ground and the steamed milk and all that sort of stuff.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Anything else that we want to add to our story before we wrap it up?

[Shep]
There’s so much room for conversation in this movie. There’s so much space for dialogue.

[Emily]
There is. There’s a lot of space for dialogue, and it would be really fun to sit down and write it.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
But that’s the job of the writers.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
Yes, but the skeleton is complete. And it smells like bones.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Mmhm.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Nose. Did we have our noses to the grindstone, or did this one make you hold your nose? You can tell us by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. There are links to all of those at AlmostPlausible.com, where you’ll also find transcripts for every episode, links to the references we make, more information about the three of us, and ways that you can support the show. Join Emily, Shep, and I, as we follow our noses to the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Shep]
Are we bullies? Is this why Voldemort turned out the way that he did?

[Emily]
No, that was Snape.

[Thomas]
Snape? Voldemor turned out the way he did because of Snape?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Because Snape didn’t love him back?

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
It’s a more interesting story than the one she wrote.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
True. I think there’s fan fiction about that somewhere.

[Thomas]
There must be. Rule 34, right?

[Emily and Shep]
Yep.