Sewing Machine

References

• I bought a (Working!) Victorian Sewing Machine 😯 | 1892 Singer Treadle
• Feed sack dress
• Joseph Marie Jacquard
• David Cronenberg
• New York Fashion Week
• Fantasia
• Brazil
  • Central Services/The Office
• The Typewriter
• Crafty Wartime Spies Put Codes Right Into Their Knitting
• Wanted
• Wanted
• Stuck on You
• Romeo and Juliet
• Singer Corporation
• WALL·E
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
  • Organ & Body Donations
• Molecular Gastronomy
• The Odd Couple
• Luddite
• Superman

Corrections

Thomas said the main theme from the movie Brazil featured a typewriter, but the song he was thinking of is called “The Office,” and is not the film’s main theme.

Shep said the song he was referring to that features a typewriter as an instrument is called “The Typewriter Song,” but it is actually just “The Typewriter.”

Emily said that in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, it was Lady Capulet who wants Juliet to wait two more years before getting married. It’s actually Lord Capulet who says this.

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Emily]
Juliet wasn’t going to marry Paris for another two years. You’re fine.

[Shep]
Yeah. You’re 12.

[Emily]
She’s 13, he’s 14.

[Shep]
Whatever.

[Emily]
Mrs. Capulet says, “Okay, she’s not ready to get married yet. She’s only 13. Give it two years.” She wants her to wait till she’s 15.

[Thomas]
Yeah. But Romeo’s got to get his dick wet now.

[Emily]
Well, yeah, because Roslyn doesn’t love him anymore. And by Roslyn doesn’t love him anymore, she didn’t notice him.

[Thomas]
Oh, my God. Is he the original incel?

[Shep]
Oh.

[Emily]
100%.

[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 today we’re going to create a movie plot about a Sewing Machine. With me, as always, are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here!

[Thomas]
For years I have been wanting to sew my own shirts, but I don’t currently have a sewing machine of my own. Do either of you sew?

[Shep]
So I grew up as a poor subsistence farmer, as you both know. So we had a sewing machine to make clothes, and because we did not have electricity, it was a treadle sewing machine. Do either of you have an experience with treadle sewing machines?

[Emily]
My mom has one in her living room for decoration.

[Shep]
It’s tough to get the rhythm right.

[Thomas]
I watched Bernadette Banner’s video where she got one and learned how to use it, and it seemed like quite a chore.

[Shep]
It was. That is correct.

[Emily]
I have an electronic sewing machine from the 80s.

[Shep]
Luxury!

[Emily]
Yeah. I do want a new one. But I like sewing. It’s a fun hobby. I’ve made all kinds of things. Quilts, dresses, squids. Just a variety of objects.

[Thomas]
I like the idea that you can just have an idea of, “Oh, I want to make this,” and then work out how you’re going to do it and do it.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
That seems cool.

[Emily]
It’s awesome.

[Shep]
It’s so easy to find a pattern and just cut out the cloth and pin it together and sew it. Like, it’s so easy, I can’t believe more people don’t do it. Although these days, cloth is so expensive compared to already finished clothes that it’s like it’s not worth it anymore. It used to be cheaper to make your own clothes, and now it’s not.

[Emily]
Yeah. Now it’s quite a bit more expensive.

[Shep]
Yes, but the clothes that you would make yourself would probably last longer than new clothes purchased these days.

[Thomas]
Mmm, that’s true.

[Shep]
Not to turn this into a rant against capitalism, but it seems like storebought clothes fall apart after three washings anymore.

[Thomas]
Bring back flower bags.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
All right, well, I’m going to pitch first today. My first one is in a future where most menial tasks are now performed by AI powered androids, production facilities run 24/7. For some reason, one of the robots gets downtime. Maybe it breaks, or there’s scheduled downtime in the factory, something like that. I don’t know, whatever it is. And it fills that downtime by creating some clothing of its own design. This ends up being a big deal, as people are surprised to learn that an android did something creative instead of just following its programming. Android rights activists point to it as proof that androids have thoughts and feelings and that the 24/7 factories are just the modern equivalent of sweatshops.

[Shep]
Now, we’ve done androids before, so in this one, I assume that the androids aren’t just people that have been uploaded and had their memories edited.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Like, the detective one was a person originally.

[Thomas]
Yeah. This would be like, some people coded this thing to do this job, and it, I don’t know, gained sentience or has opinions. I’m not sure.

[Shep]
I mean, we already have AI generating quote unquote “art”, although it is heavily sampled from existing art, so it’s not exactly creating its own thing.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So an android that is a tailor creating clothing does not seem unrealistic. That seems like that shouldn’t be a surprise. It should be the expected outcome.

[Thomas]
Well, it’s probably coming up with, like, its own brand-new designs of clothes. I don’t know. We can name him Jacquard. That would be a fun little nod to history. My next pitch, a David Cronenberg style film about a young, unknown fashion designer who somehow gets her hands on a sewing machine that can sew any two things together. At first, she uses it to make strange, seemingly impossible clothing styles. Eventually, she experiments with sewing cloth into living tissue, creating grotesque abominations that challenge and excite the eccentric design world.

[Emily]
That one! Let’s do that one.

[Thomas]
I knew you’d like that one.

[Shep]
You had me at a David Cronenberg style film.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
My last idea, a rom-com where Emma, an aspiring fashion designer living in New York City, has been down on her luck lately. She just lost her job and, unable to afford rent, must move into a smaller apartment. In the new apartment building, she meets Jake, a charismatic and surprisingly well-connected drifter. Over the course of the film, Jake helps Emma in countless ways. When her sewing machine breaks, he helps her get a new one. When she’s stuck in a creative rut, he exposes her to other cultures and ideas that spark her creativity. And most importantly, he manages to help get her designs in front of the right people, securing her a coveted spot at the New York fashion Week show.

[Shep]
So Jake is real and not imaginary?

[Emily]
Well, how else would you actually get-? You’d have to play that real carefully to not have it be like, “Well, how did that happen if he’s not real to like…?”

[Thomas]
Yeah. Well, those are my pitches. Emily, what do you have for us?

[Emily]
The first one is a sewing machine that creates music as the operator makes something. The song is always different and seems to fit the item being made. Like it’s a ball gown, so the machine plays fancy ball music.

[Shep]
Magical reality.

[Emily]
Yeah. Magical reality.

[Shep]
I like it.

[Emily]
I don’t know what to do with it other than that. That is as far as I got with the idea, because I figured it would be really boring to do a Fantasia style movie with somebody sewing, even though I think that sounds fantastic.

[Shep]
Someone overhears the music, and they’re like, “Oh, you should be a musician.” And she’s like, “Oh, but it’s only what I sew.”

[Emily]
Ooh.

[Shep]
And so you have a concert where she’s sewing a dress in the concert. What’s the one where he’s typing on a typewriter? And that’s one of the instruments in the-

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Like the theme to Brazil.

[Emily]
Mmm.

[Shep]
So the song that I was thinking of with the typewriter in it is just called The Typewriter Song.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Oh, well, there we go.

[Shep]
No wonder I couldn’t think of the name.

[Emily]
All right. Second one is a quilting machine, which is a type of sewing machine, that sews cryptic messages into the squares of a person’s quilt. The person tries to suss out the mystery, to discover that the messages are clues to help solve the murder that has gone unsolved for decades.

[Thomas]
It’s very similar to, like, a real-life thing where people were sending messages to each other based on what they were sewing.

[Emily]
Really? I didn’t know about this.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
How did I not know about this?

[Thomas]
I think it was during one of the wars, and I’m not sure.

[Emily]
How smart.

[Shep]
Did either of you see the movie Wanted?

[Thomas]
Yes. Oh, yes.

[Shep]
So in the movie Wanted–

[Thomas]
That’s right. The loom.

[Shep]
It’s a loom, not a sewing machine, but it weaves names of people that are going to do evil.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Ooh.

[Shep]
And so it’s a secret society of assassins that go around eliminating these people.

[Thomas]
And curving bullets.

[Shep]
Yeah. Did either of you read the comics that it’s quote unquote “inspired” by?

[Thomas]
No.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
Because other than the title, it’s almost completely unrelated. I liked the comic quite a lot, and then the movie is just nothing.

[Emily]
Anyway, that is what I have you guys, so, Shep?

[Shep]
Here are my pitches. They are the shortest of the three of us.

[Emily]
Oh, no.

[Shep]
Yeah. Here’s the first one. Bob is a clumsy, neurotic tailor with a good heart. Alice is his uptight, domineering fashion designer boss. An accident sends them through the new experimental sewing machine, joining their bodies together right before the big fashion gala.

[Emily]
That’s so 80s.

[Shep]
It is very 80s.

[Emily]
I love it.

[Shep]
So they’re stuck side by side like conjoined twins. Do either of you remember the movie Stuck on You?

[Emily]
Yes, I do.

[Shep]
Early 2000s? Yeah.

[Emily]
That was the first thing that popped into my head.

[Thomas]
I feel like I’ve seen that. Who’s in that?

[Emily]
Matt Damon and-

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, yeah, I remember that.

[Emily]
Greg Kinnear. I knew it.

[Thomas]
That’s right.

[Shep]
Greg Kinnear. Here’s my second pitch. Star crossed romance between a sewing machine, which joins fabric, and scissors, which divides fabric.

[Thomas]
Oh, I like that.

[Shep]
So they’re anthropomorphic representations.

[Emily]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s Romeo and Juliet.

[Thomas]
Are they Romeo and Juliet, though? Because Romeo and Juliet, they weren’t exactly opposites. They were both horny teenagers.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
They’re both horny teenagers from wealthy families in charge of the city.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
They were just from different wealthy families.

[Shep]
Yeah. Romeo and Juliet is just terrible. If you read it as an adult, it’s like, “Oh, these stupid children.”

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. There’s actually a lot of academic work and critical theory on that, that is sort of the point of the play is that for the adults to be like, “Just talk to each other. Slow your shit down. Take a minute. Think it through.”

[Shep]
Right, you just met. You just now met.

[Emily]
You don’t have to get married right away. Juliet wasn’t going to marry Paris for another two years. You’re fine.

[Shep]
Yeah. You’re 12.

[Emily]
She’s 13, he’s 14.

[Shep]
Whatever.

[Emily]
Mrs. Capulet says, “Okay, she’s not ready to get married yet. She’s only 13. Give it two years.” She wants her to wait till she’s 15.

[Thomas]
Yeah. But Romeo’s got to get his dick wet now.

[Emily]
Well, yeah, because Roslyn doesn’t love him anymore. And by Roslyn doesn’t love him anymore, she didn’t notice him.

[Thomas]
Oh, my God. Is he the original incel?

[Shep]
Oh.

[Emily]
100%.

[Shep]
So to describe someone as being a real Romeo…

[Thomas]
Amazing. Yep.

[Shep]
All right, so which one of these are we going to go with? I like androids. I like David Cronenberg. I like rom-coms.

[Emily]
Yeah. Like rom-coms.

[Shep]
I like the sewing machine music. I guess, I like all the pitches. Okay. Don’t ask me. They’re all great. Ah, the sewing machine that plays music. It’s a Singer.

[Thomas]
Wow.

[Shep]
How did I not think of this?

[Thomas]
Wow.

[Emily]
Whoa.

[Thomas]
Well done.

[Emily]
Yeah. Excellent. Excellent job.

[Thomas]
What’s the conflict in that one?

[Shep]
She’s a shy seamstress.

[Thomas]
Mmhmm.

[Shep]
She doesn’t want to be a musician in front of people.

[Thomas]
So she needs to overcome her shyness. Why does she need to? I mean, what’s wrong with being shy?

[Shep]
Because everybody needs to be popular.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That’s the American way. All Hollywood movies are like that. Oh, you’re shy and introverted. Oh, that means you’re a loser. And you need to get rid of your glasses and let your hair down and take your braces off.

[Thomas]
You’re clearly broken here. Let us fix you.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
You don’t want to be the CEO? You’re clearly broken because you have no drive or motivation in your life.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I’m not seeing a conflict in this one so far.

[Shep]
All right, so forget that one.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Although I like it.

[Emily]
It’s cute.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I do like that premise. So, Shep, your comment about the AI creating new patterns shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. I mean, I think you’re right.

[Emily]
Yeah, it’s a good flaw.

[Shep]
I mean, there are lots of flaws in that one.

[Thomas]
Well, thanks.

[Shep]
Sorry. There’s a factory that just runs 24/7 by machine. Who is buying clothes? There are no jobs anymore. How does the economy work in this?

[Emily]
Oh, this isn’t one of those utopic futures where we didn’t do it just for economics. It’s just convenience. It’s WALL-E.

[Shep]
It’s WALL-E, so the planet is dead, and… Oh, there you go. It’s a post-apocalyptic movie. The factory has been running 24/7 because that’s what they were programmed to do.

[Thomas]
And then they run out of raw material.

[Shep]
They eventually run out of raw material because whatever robots are growing material, something went wrong with the climate over hundreds of years.

[Thomas]
Right. There’s no more cotton or flax or whatever.

[Shep]
Right. And so no more cloth gets delivered. And so the robots can’t make clothes anymore. And so the factory stops, and all of the robots go out into the world that is now empty of people.

[Thomas]
Do they? I imagine they all just sit at their consoles, except for the one robot who gets up and goes out and then eventually leads the robot revolution.

[Shep]
Oh, sure. You could do. Yeah, the robot revolution. To do what? All the humans are dead.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
To go outside.

[Shep]
Yeah. This is just WALL-E again, but I like WALL-E.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So.

[Thomas]
This is an interesting movie that has nothing to do with sewing machines other than the AI is itself the sewing machine.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So not that one.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
What were the other choices?

[Thomas]
So we have the David Cronenberg style one, the rom-com. I mean, I do like Bob and Alice getting sewn together. There’s-

[Emily]
It’s really cute.

[Thomas]
Is it? It’s a little gross.

[Emily]
Aren’t they going to end up together at the end?

[Thomas]
Yeah. Just the idea that two people got sewn together by a machine.

[Emily]
Hahaha.

[Shep]
Yes. But eighty s style, so it’s, like, not in a gross way.

[Thomas]
Haha.

[Emily]
It’s not painful.

[Shep]
Yeah. It’s not painful. It’s just inconvenient.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay, sure. Because you did say it’s an experimental sewing machine, and so it just fuses the materials together. It doesn’t actually have to pierce the material, it gives it higher tensile strength. That’s like what the engineer says. And then Bob and Alice are fighting over something, and they get fused together right down their sides.

[Shep]
Yeah, I like that. It’s fuse and not like a needle going through them, because then when they go to the doctor later, the doctor can be like, “There’s nothing I can do. You’re fused together.”

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
Otherwise, just get a seam ripper and take the stitches out and you’re fine. No, they are fused together.

[Emily]
I like it.

[Thomas]
It’s like he could perform surgery, but it would be really risky and it would leave a scar.

[Emily]
Well, they don’t know what to expect. Like, how far does the-. Well, I guess they have machines for that.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Never mind.

[Thomas]
I mean, they could do imaging.

[Emily]
So they do imaging. Yeah. And it’ll be dangerous because they can see that not only is their outsides fused, but parts of their insides are fused.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Their hearts have been fused…

[Shep]
Haha.

[Thomas]
No, wait. All right. Some sort of artery has been fused. I don’t know.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
They’re sharing vital organs, though.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
They can share a vital organ like a kidney or a spleen or liver-

[Thomas]
Right. Well, kidney, you can just get rid of the fused kidney, and then they both have a kidney. Except that she is an alcoholic in her past life because she’s a hard drinking CEO, right?

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
She has all those martini lunches. Oh, and Bob has donated a kidney to his brother, so they each only have one kidney.

[Emily]
Have one kidney.

[Thomas]
It’s stupid. I love it. Are we doing this? I feel like we’re doing this.

[Emily]
You’ve solved why do they have to stay together?

[Thomas]
And it’s a rom-com. Right. They hate each other at the beginning for whatever reason.

[Emily and Shep]
Of course.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
It’s so. Yeah.

[Emily]
Forced proximity rom-com. You can’t get more proximate to each other than attached.

[Shep]
Then sewn together. Oh, she’s an alcoholic. He’s teetotal.

[Thomas]
Of course. Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, and then she keeps drinking. And now he’s getting drunk because they have the shared circulatory system and he’s never been drunk before.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
It’s a whole new experience for him.

[Emily]
I want him to be like, “Stop it.” And she’s just like, “Shots. Shots.”

[Thomas]
And she would be.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Of course.

[Thomas]
Yeah. This is good. I like this.

[Emily]
All right, so what do we need to figure out for this?

[Shep]
Well, how do we resolve it at the end? Let’s look at that first before we go too far down into it.

[Emily]
Okay, well, obviously they’re going to get a kidney from somebody else. So they each have a functioning kidney. Like, she’ll be able to keep her broken alcoholic one, and he gets a brand new one.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
Because their assistant Madge got hit by a car while trying to bring something to Fashion Week for them. And they get Madge’s kidney and can be separated. I don’t know.

[Shep]
Yeah. I don’t know how organ donors work. Like, how do you get on the list? What’s the priority?

[Thomas]
They just had a Last Week Tonight where they talked about exactly this, and basically it’s the more money, the better odds.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, well, she’s rich, so good news.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
She’s rich and they’re an anomaly that’s been all over the news. So they’re on the top of the list.

[Thomas]
Oh, they’re national sweethearts, so everyone wants to save them.

[Emily]
Yeah, because they have a really successful run because they fight at first and things are terrible and they can’t work.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And then they have a really successful run for a while, and they keep getting interviewed and, like, “What’s it like now that you’re fused to another human? Has that changed your creative process? How has that changed your managerial process?” Just that stupid bullshit.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
“How do you guys do it?”

[Shep]
They can’t do it if they’re fused back-to-back or side-to-side, Stuck on You style.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
That could be their appeal in interviews. Like, “Oh, we can’t even hug, we can’t kiss. We can’t-“

[Emily]
And I want her to be like, “We’re going to use this.”

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
And she’s the one that pushes, like, “We’re going to do all the talk show circuits.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. As soon as she gets, like, a tiny taste that, like, “Oh, this is marketable?” Because at first it’s a disaster.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
This is going to ruin her image in the industry. Are they darlings of the non-binary community?

[Shep]
“What are your pronouns?”

[Thomas]
Which bathroom do they use?

[Shep]
Ha. Asking the real questions.

[Thomas]
Hashtag #2023-problems.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Which bathroom do they use? Does it matter? Is it, like, which one has to pee?

[Emily]
I assume that would be, like for them in their own personal choices, conversation between the two of them. In fact, that could be a whole scene where she’s like, “I have to pee.” And he’s like, “I’m not going in there.” And she’s like, “Well, I’m not going in there, and I’m the one who has to pee. It’s my bladder. I get to choose.”

[Thomas]
And then there’s a comedy scene where he’s, like, tied his tie around his eyes like a blindfold, and they’re shuffling into the women’s restroom. How do they sit on the toilet? In a toilet stall? They’d have to use the handicap stall because they’d need that extra room.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right. You got to bring a little stool in.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
You’d have to make sure it was on the side.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
The open side is the side the other person’s on, or they got to straddle backwards, which, hey, you got to do what you got to do.

[Thomas]
Oh, God. I don’t think we need to show any of this in the movie, but.

[Shep]
It depends on the target audience.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true.

[Shep]
I mean, you could show all of this.

[Emily]
I mean, I think it would be funny to have this be a whole big scene about how they use the bathroom.

[Thomas]
You really only need one scene early on with them figuring it out.

[Emily]
Yeah, just one early on.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, he’s just working that out. One bathroom trip, that’s it. Eats up ten minutes of the movie.

[Shep]
Ten minutes?!

[Thomas]
Ten minutes. Wow.

[Shep]
You showing the whole time that they’re-

[Emily]
The whole beat for beat, actual word for word.

[Shep]
Right. He’s got his eyes closed, and she’s like, “Plug your ears.” He’s like, “What? Why?”

[Thomas]
“I can’t go if you’re listening.”

[Shep]
Yeah. She finishes, and they go to exit, and he also washes his hands while she’s washing her hands.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
She’s like, “Why are you washing your hands?”

[Emily]
“I was in the stall.”

[Shep]
Yeah. You just wash your hands when you’re in the bathroom. It doesn’t mean you got stuff on your hands. It’s just a convenient time to wash your hands.

[Thomas]
How do they fall in love?

[Shep]
I mean, they are stuck spending a lot of time together. There’ll be times when she can’t get to sleep and she wants to talk to him.

[Thomas]
Clearly they’re going to go live in her apartment. Right?

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Because she’s got the nice place.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And she’s domineering. She makes all the decisions. One fun scene would be them on the couch watching a movie, and then they discover they have the same favorite cheesy Hallmark movie.

[Thomas]
Right. They have some things in common.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So, yeah, maybe their taste in films is similar. Or, I would love a scene where they’re cooking or something and he’s, like, tidying up while she’s cooking.

[Shep]
Ha.

[Emily]
Oh, and he adds a little different ingredient than she normally adds to the dish. And she’s like, “Oh, good call.”

[Thomas]
Right. I could totally see him just being, “I’m just helping out,” because that’s the kind of guy he is.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So the first time he does that, she’s got to yell at him because he’s messing with her recipe, because she’s not the kind of person that likes things different.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
She likes things exactly how she likes them and is not interested in pursuing any change, but he will just add a seasoning or whatever, and then it turns out better. And so she begrudgingly-

[Emily]
Well, yeah, she’s going to throw it all out because he’s messed it up and he’s like, “Just taste it.”

[Thomas]
“Just taste it. Just taste it.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
“There’s no sense wasting this food if it’s perfectly fine.”

[Emily]
“Taste it. If you really think it’s inedible, we’ll clear it off and I’ll order us in some Chinese.”

[Thomas]
It turns out they have the same favorite Chinese restaurant. Whew!

[Emily]
No, obviously he likes the disgusting Americanized greasy spoon down the street. And she likes the uppity gastro inspired-

[Shep]
Right. Where it’s not real food. It’s just a small decoration on a plate.

[Thomas]
Yeah. The molecular gastronomy.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Essence of Peking duck.

[Emily]
It’s The Odd Couple meets Stuck on You.

[Shep]
Yeah. As a rom-com.

[Thomas]
I was thinking for the recipe thing, he should put cinnamon on chicken because-

[Shep]
Is that a thing?

[Thomas]
It’s so good.

[Emily]
Nutmeg on hamburger is also really good.

[Thomas]
Ooh.

[Shep]
What?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I’m learning a lot.

[Emily]
What would their big challenge be?

[Shep]
She’s pregnant.

[Thomas]
That would be challenging.

[Emily]
We’re just going to go all on.

[Shep]
Yeah, not from him. She got an artificial insemination.

[Emily]
Yeah, she was pregnant before.

[Shep]
Right. She was already pregnant before. This is messing up-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Why was she drinking so much when she’s pregnant?

[Emily]
Because you didn’t know she was pregnant yet.

[Shep]
But if it’s artificial insemination, then she did know.

[Thomas]
Okay. It could be his. And that’s just part of the merge was like, some of his sperm got over there.

[Shep]
Oh, yes!

[Thomas]
And so, like, they’re both surprised.

[Shep]
Yes. That’s great. Because it’s awful.

[Emily]
I love it.

[Shep]
So it’s like all the possible bad things happen to them.

[Emily]
When do they find out she’s pregnant? Like, how far into the movie?

[Shep]
Right. She thinks she’s hungover. That’s why she’s sick in the morning.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. And then she’s peeing all the time. And he makes a comment about “God you’re peeing a lot. Do you have diabetes? Are you giving me diabetes?” He blames her for a fake health thing. Turns out he’s made her pregnant.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. So she blames him.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes, he blames her and makes her go to the doctor, and that’s when they find out.

[Thomas]
Right. Yes.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
The doctor’s like, “You two again. Now what?”

[Shep]
Does he say “You two again?” or just “You again?”

[Emily]
It just “you”.

[Thomas]
That’s good. Yeah, just “you”. Yeah, that’s good. So what is the situation that causes them to initially be stuck together? Presumably there’s some third-party engineer who has this sewing machine.

[Shep]
Right. Some mad scientist that has invented this to seamlessly sew clothes together. That’s the selling point.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. No seams.

[Shep]
It’s fusing the fabrics.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
No seams. It’s threadless. It’s revolutionary. It can handle any size thing that you put in.

[Thomas]
And then somehow they’re next to each other. Are they fighting over something?

[Shep]
Right. They’ve got to be fighting because they fight nonstop at the beginning.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
How high up in the company is he? Is he just a grunt? And she’s the CEO. Is it a fairly small company and he just works there?

[Shep]
I mean, it’s better if he’s a grunt and she’s a CEO to make them further apart.

[Thomas]
Right. So then why would they be fighting before they’re connected?

[Shep]
Oh, maybe they’re fighting over the sewing machine because she’s all in on the new technology and he’s a traditional tailor.

[Thomas]
Sure. So she’s already bought into this.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
And he’s found out about it, so he’s going to go give her a piece of his mind because this is going to ruin-

[Shep]
Oh, he’s going to vandalize the machine. He’s going to destroy it.

[Thomas]
In the classic lineage of tailors past.

[Shep]
Right. And so they fight, they struggle, they fall into it, and zip, they’re stuck together.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s good. I like that.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Okay. I guess the clothes they’re wearing also fuse. So they’ve got, like, whatever they were wearing just becomes one garment on them now.

[Emily]
Do they have to wear the same outfit the whole movie or-?

[Thomas]
No, no.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
I mean, that’s one of the things they would do early on, is create new outfits for themselves.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Because he’s the tailor.

[Shep]
They’re both fashion people. Right, right.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
She has a good eye. He can make it happen.

[Thomas]
That could be actually an early, like, “All right, you’re not so bad,” kind of moment. Oh, yeah. She sketches something up, and she’s like, “Could you make this?” He’s like, “Of course.”

[Emily]
See, that would be good. Because when he adds the ingredient to the food later on, it can be a callback to him saying, “Well, you didn’t screw up the design” or whatever.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Right.

[Emily]
“You did something good. And I made it work. I’m going to do something good and you’re going to make it work” kind of thing.

[Thomas]
Sure. Well, this seams like a good time to take a break.

[Shep]
(Pained groan)

[Thomas]
So when we come back, we’ll figure out the rest of our story for Sewing Machine.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we are back. So there’s a big fashion gala at the beginning of the film. Oh. It’s maybe like a preview. And- I don’t know how New York fashion week works, but maybe there’s some sort of, like, a big preview thing. And so all the different fashion houses have to put on-

[Emily]
That is fashion week.

[Thomas]
But it’s like, to decide who gets to be on the big stage. Right.

[Emily]
Oh, okay.

[Thomas]
So it’s like all the different houses are doing, like, a little mini thing, and then there’s some panel of people who decide, “Yeah, you get to be part of the big show.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And so it’s like, right before their preview show, this happens.

[Emily]
Yes. That makes sense.

[Thomas]
Oh. And the judges could not care less about the stuff on the catwalk. They’re like, “This thing you’re wearing is interesting.”

[Shep]
Haha.

[Thomas]
“Tell us about this. Where are the seams? This is incredible.” Is this crazy, experimental inventor guy, is he selling these machines to all the fashion houses or just this one?

[Shep]
It’s gotta be just this one.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
She got a line on it from some sketchy relative of hers who knows this guy who’s built this thing in his garage.

[Thomas]
Ooh. What if, to add a little more conflict, what if the crazy inventor guy is a person that went to high school with her, has always had a crush on her, and that’s why he came to her first, because he wants to impress her with this machine, thinking it might lead to something.

[Shep]
That’s great.

[Thomas]
And the machine is genuinely a cool thing for the industry. So she’s interested in the machine, but could not care less about him. And so now when those two are together, he’s, like, upset, and so is he trying to find a way to separate them.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
I like everything about this, because now he can be the villain, and now you have a villain.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah.

[Shep]
So I like that he interprets everything that she’s saying as romantic interest in him. When she’s really interested in his machine. She’s really interested in his equipment.

[Thomas]
Yes. And she could even be flirting with him a little bit to drive down the price.

[Emily]
Oh, obviously.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So at the end of the movie, has he found a way to separate them? And do they separate or do they stay stuck together?

[Shep]
They have to separate because it’s a movie.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Oh, well, when we have their forced bullshit breakup, that’s when they separate.

[Shep]
Yes. As is rom-com tradition.

[Thomas]
Right. Rom-com law, actually, I believe.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
Is it even a fight, or is it, they didn’t talk to each other about how they feel, and so they go in for the surgery, and he wakes up first and just leaves. And so when she wakes up, he’s already gone, and so they don’t get to talk.

[Thomas]
I mean, if she’s domineering and he’s neurotic, then I could see a situation where. Okay. Oh, man. I can’t believe I’m gonna. This is. This is like Shep saying, “Maybe we should have a coincidence”. So-

[Shep]
Oh, no.

[Thomas]
This is the equivalent for me. I could actually see him not trying to defend himself. It’s always like one person gets mad and walks away, and the other person doesn’t try to stop them. I could actually see if he is sort of like a more… What’s the opposite of domineering, submissive type of person? That he wouldn’t try to stop her.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He would just sort of be, “Oh, okay. I guess she’s made up her mind.”

[Shep]
So he’s got to talk to the inventor guy at some point where she can’t hear the conversation.

[Emily]
How early in the timing is this conversation going to happen?

[Shep]
This is towards the end where the inventor guy makes it clear that he and the fashion designer boss are going to be romantically intertwined, and so they don’t need the tailor anymore.

[Thomas]
Does he just straight up lie to Bob?

[Shep]
Is it a lie, or does he not understand the situation? And he’s saying what his fantasy is, what his interpretation is.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Right. They had a whole conversation before he came along about how they were going to get together. Yeah. I think he believes, erroneously, that they’re going to get together.

[Shep]
Right. And so inventor guy is talking to Bob, like, “Be a good guy. Don’t make a scene. Don’t cause problems.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“You’ve already caused enough problems. You impregnated my girlfriend.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. He could totally say my girlfriend.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah, but where’s the inventor guy been all this time? How pregnant is she? Are we going to do the full nine months?

[Shep]
Yeah. They got to separate. Okay. They’ve got to separate before she gives birth-

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So that he can come back at the birth.

[Emily]
It’s the big, triumphant-

[Shep]
That’s the-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yes. We’ve seen rom-coms,

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Reunion at the family.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay. I like that. Because then he thinks that she’s already got this guy that he didn’t know about. So the inventor guy has told him they’re together and he’s like, “Oh, she never mentioned that in the four and a half to six months that we’ve been together with her pregnancy cravings on the couch, watching sobbing rom-coms,” and he’s just heartbroken a little. Has he fallen in love with her at this point?

[Thomas]
Yeah. I think so. If you look at a lot of the rom-coms, they’ve both like each other by this point.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
And so that’s why they feel so slighted when the bullshit breakup happens.

[Shep]
So why doesn’t she pursue him and have the conversation and clear things up? It’s got to be the inventor guy talks to her and spins a different story.

[Thomas]
I mean, I almost feel like we need them to be having a fight about something, and then he can be like, “Well, now we’re separated, so you can have your apartment back,” because she was frustrated about that before. “You can have your space back, you can have your life back. Everything the way you wanted it can be yours again. You don’t have to worry about me.”

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. She makes that recipe again without the spices that he adds to it and is disappointed in how it tastes.

[Thomas]
So she adds the spices. She realizes that she’s missing that.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
It could be a simple argument over something to do with the baby because she’s still pregnant, they’re still expecting a baby together. He’s not going to just ditch out on it, especially since he kind of had the weird experience of being pregnant, too.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Not exactly the same, but more than most men get. And so it could be something baby related where she’s saying something about getting it into the fancy school. She’s got to do all these things. She needs his college transcripts and his portfolio to submit to the preschool review board so that they can get on the waitlist for this really prestigious preschool. And he’s like, “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re going to do this to a child?” And they get into a fight that way. She’s like, “I just want the best for our kid’s life. Give them every advantage possible.” “I want our kid to be a kid and have normal days. Ride a bicycle, not learn French.”

[Shep]
“I want my kid to be a kid.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Is he trying to point out that she grew up without all of those things? And, look, she’s super successful.

[Emily]
Yeah, maybe,

[Thomas]
“You’re smart, you’re beautiful, you’re successful, and you didn’t have any of that. Those things aren’t necessary. They’re just super, super stressful for a five-year-old.”

[Emily]
“But think how much further in life I would be if I had had those things.”

[Shep]
“You think I’m beautiful?”

[Emily]
Ha.

[Shep]
“That’s all I heard.”

[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, is this a problem for the writers?

[Shep]
Yes, it’s a problem for the writers. We know that they have a fight of some kind.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
It has to do with the baby, I think, and how they’re going to raise it, because that’s the most logical thing.

[Thomas]
It could have to do with everything, you know.

[Shep]
Or if they’re even going to keep it. If they’re even going to have the baby.

[Thomas]
Mmm.

[Emily]
Why wouldn’t they have the baby?

[Thomas]
Yeah. I mean, that could be a conversation that they have.

[Shep]
I mean, yeah. She’s got this whole career going on right now.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
She doesn’t have time for a baby.

[Thomas]
This wasn’t part of the plan.

[Shep]
This wasn’t part of the- Getting sewn together wasn’t part of the plan!

[Emily]
This is part of the conversation they have while they’re still attached together, though, like post attachment is the argument about the baby.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
They’ve already decided to keep it and now they’re arguing about the logistics of how that’s going to work.

[Thomas]
I was thinking that while they’re attached, they have to keep it, because for whatever reason.

[Emily]
Oh, okay.

[Thomas]
But then, now that they can be separated and are, she’s like “Uh…”

[Emily]
Well, because if they had. It would literally kill him. Because somehow women aborting fetuses is harmful to men.

[Shep]
Hoho.

[Emily]
So obviously he would die if they did it.

[Shep]
Oh, there’s. So there’s real issues of bodily autonomy going on in this movie that I didn’t even consider.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Really.

[Emily]
That’s just what it is. They asked the doctor, and it’s like, “Well, if you abort the fetus, he’ll die.”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And just zero explanation after that.

[Shep]
“What?” And he just shrugs? “It’s science.”

[Thomas]
What are we missing in this story?

[Shep]
What happens to the villain at the end?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
That’s a good question.

[Shep]
Let’s give the villain a name. Let’s call him Chad.

[Thomas]
Steve!

[Shep]
Ah, Steve.

[Emily]
Steve! What happens to Steve? Well, because it fuses things together.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. He’s got to be fused to something that’s classic comeuppance.

[Emily]
Oh, I was gonna go even crazier ending is he is kidnapped by Russian government for defense purposes because he can fuse any material together. And so they want to use him to build superweapons.

[Thomas]
That feels like there’s a weird existential threat at the end of the film that kind of comes out of left field.

[Shep]
Okay. I want to do a classic trope. Steve has an assistant who is in love with him-

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. There you go.

[Emily]
Oh, yes.

[Shep]
That he is not attracted to at all, as is tradition.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So at the end, they get fused together.

[Emily]
And her glasses fall off, and her hair comes out of its ponytail, and he’s like, “Amanda, you’re beautiful.”

[Shep]
No, no, it’s a villain comeuppance.

[Thomas]
Right. He’s supposed to be punished.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, that’s right.

[Shep]
The punishment is he doesn’t want to be with her.

[Thomas]
Counterpoint. What if he gets fused to a dozen rats?

[Shep]
Haha.

[Emily]
What would be wrong with his assistant? It’s just he just doesn’t like her. Is everything else about her normal and fine?

[Shep]
Yeah, he’s not into her at all.

[Emily]
Okay. He’s just not into her.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s not fat. She’s not visibly dorky. She’s not limping. She doesn’t have a speech impediment. She’s just a normal human woman.

[Shep]
Right. But she’s not-

[Emily]
That he just doesn’t like.

[Shep]
Yeah. He’s only got eyes for the fashion designer. He’s only got eyes for Alice. And this isn’t Alice.

[Emily]
Okay, so is she keeping the baby? Are we going that route?

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s a movie. Yeah/

[Emily]
Because it’s rom-com and that’s how that goes. Okay.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
So the triumphant ending is him coming into the delivery room just as the baby is being born. Right?

[Shep]
Sure. Or her after it’s born in the recovery room.

[Thomas]
Yeah. You got to have the fake out ending where it’s like, “Oh, is he going to be there? Oh, he wasn’t there. I guess he actually really doesn’t care.” And then he shows up.

[Emily]
Oh. No one’s heard from him either. She’s like, “Did you text Bob?” And they’re “Like, we’ve texted, we’ve called.”

[Shep]
I think this is where Steve comes into it and interferes with Bob getting to the hospital in time. This is where Steve ends up fused. Because you have your villain fight before your triumphant reunion.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
But has Steve already had the fight with Alice? Are- They are on the outs already, right? And this is his last-ditch effort to show Alice that Bob doesn’t care and that Steve’s going to be there for her. She’s got to choose Steve.

[Thomas]
I think so. I think that’s why Steve is having the fight with Bob, is to, “If I can’t have her, no one can,” type of thing or get rid of this guy. “He has ruined things. He has turned her against me. So I need to retaliate.”

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Is he trying to fuse Bob to the assistant?

[Emily]
Maybe just to something stationary so that he can’t escape, because that’s, like, the best. Instead of handcuffing somebody, you just, like, fuse them to the bed. I mean, come on, how are they escaping that they’re attached to the wall?

[Shep]
I’m trying to picture how the scene is going.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
And I think Bob needs to get fused to something, at least temporarily, because of how the scene, of how this type of scene would traditionally go.

[Emily]
Mmhmm. Right.

[Shep]
Steve has to appear to win at some point to fake out people that have never seen a movie before.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Or people like me who are like, “Ooh, what’s the delicious turn going to be that I know is coming?”

[Shep]
So Bob is fused to something or gets his hands fused together or something like that, but still manages to come out of the machine and fight Steve and triumph and then rush to- That’s why he can’t answer the phone. His hands are fused together.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Are his hands fused together around a pole or something, instead of being handcuffed to something?

[Shep]
Right. How does he get out of that?

[Emily]
Sheer force of will.

[Thomas]
Oh, god.

[Shep]
No. Because he’s going to the hospital anyway. And so after the triumphant scene at the end, you can have him with his hands bandaged, implying that the doctors have separated his hands.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
It was not a big deal.

[Emily]
Yeah. Because he’s fused to himself. It’s no problem.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
I mean, you could have him get to the hospital. And his hands are still fused. And he goes to hug her and he’s got to, like, put his hands over her.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah. And then at the denoutment, you see that they’ve been separated. Does the assistant, because the assistant has to be there. Does she help break him out?

[Thomas]
That’s what I was wondering, actually. Does she unfuse his hands? And-

[Shep]
She can’t unfuse his hands. His hands have got to be fused for the ending.

[Emily]
Yeah, but she could get a hacksaw and saw that weird fence post in the middle of the room off. So that he can-

[Shep]
That’s a lot of hacksawing. Unless it’s a very small post.

[Emily]
Yeah, it’s just a little chain link fence post. What’s that, 20 minutes? That’s fine.

[Shep]
Haha.

[Emily]
She’s fused to the bad guy already at this point, and she’s got nothing but time.

[Shep]
She can’t be fused to the bad guy, yet, she tries to save the bad guy when he gets knocked into the machine.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
That’s what she dives in after him. That’s how they get fused together. I do like the idea of her rescuing Bob. It’s Superman 1 style.

[Thomas]
I mean, I think that if, if Bob is actually… If his hands are or his arms are completely around something, there’s not really any way for him to escape. But it’s possible that his hands got fused together. Steve caused his hands to be fused together so that he could not fight.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, his hands are fused together, but, like, one arm is through one of those wheels. Like a valve.

[Emily]
Like for a fire hydrant thing.

[Shep]
Yes. And so later, she disconnects that whole wheel from the wall. And so he’s fighting, and he’s got, over his shoulder, he’s got a big metal circle.

[Thomas]
He could actually use that to his advantage. He could swing and it would come down his arm and hit Steve.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Steve hoisted by his own petard.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
So they keep the kid, they name it Jacquard. Um, they have a successful business together. I mean, I assume they go on to great success.

[Emily]
Of course.

[Thomas]
And-

[Emily]
Yes, absolutely.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Do they continue to have seamless clothing or do they destroy the machine?

[Emily]
They don’t have seamless clothing because part of the artistry of making garments is that seam, that thread, and how it goes in. Like, this is all Bob’s arguments.

[Thomas]
Sure. I mean, they could have more interesting types of seams and joins and weaves and things like that.

[Emily]
Yeah. They do more interesting stitching.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
He’s like, we can use the stitching in a way to enhance.

[Thomas]
It’s part of the fashion.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
It’s not just function, it’s form as well. Shep, you look unconvinced.

[Shep]
I am unconvinced because this seems like the historical arguments against progress, that the old way is always better. I think that these are arguments that should happen in the movie, but probably at the beginning.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
And they keep the machine.

[Emily]
So do they just incorporate both?

[Shep]
Oh, yes.

[Emily]
And he uses elaborate stitching and embroidery with the seamless seams. Okay.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That’s how they’re successful. Bringing the two together.

[Shep]
Right. Bringing the two together. There it is. That’s the tagline.

[Thomas]
And then at the end, somebody asks if they’re going to get hitched, but it sounds like they said stitched. And they’re like, “What?”

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
If they’re still using Steve’s machine, is he rich now? Or is that, “Don’t ask questions. Don’t worry about it.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“Don’t think about it.”

[Emily]
Did he file the patent before he showed it to her?

[Shep]
Yes, obviously. No, of course he did.

[Emily]
No, he’s Steve. He’s not smart enough to have done that,

[Shep]
He’s smart enough to invent a fusing machine?

[Emily]
But he’s so eager to impress her that he’s like, “I’m going to show her before I file the patent.”

[Thomas]
No, he didn’t file a patent, because when you file a patent, you have to disclose how the technology works. And he doesn’t want to disclose how the technology works because he’s the only one who knows. And so he has a monopoly on that technology for the time being.

[Emily]
Also, it’s to prevent the military industrial complex to also have it, because fusing of various materials would be highly sought after. And he’s got some morals. He’s against war.

[Shep]
Do we see that him and his assistant, now that they’re fused together, doing similar interviews the way that Alice and Bob did at the beginning?

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s old hat. People fused together.

[Emily]
Yeah. They don’t care. Or if they do do interviews like that. She does all the talking, and he just rolls his eyes at everything she says.

[Thomas]
I mean, I imagine it would be like, pointless morning talk shows, and it’s all like, gossipy and stuff.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And he’s like, “I invented a machine that stitches any two materials. Why aren’t we talking about that?”

[Emily]
How come they don’t get separated right away? Like, we now know that they can do it. Right, because they’ve invented some way to separate the other couple.

[Thomas]
Mmm.

[Shep]
The other couple needed organs donated. And they were rich. Or she was rich. Neither Steve nor his assistant are rich. Also, they were fused differently. They’re fused belly to belly.

[Emily]
A lot more organs that have to be separated.

[Shep]
Lot more organs.

[Emily]
They could be separated, but he would lose his penis.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So. So they… They could be separated, but they can’t coordinate to operate the separation device because of how they’re fused. They’re fused at some weird angle. They’re always falling over. Maybe that’s… Yeah, they’re not, they’re not popular, not because being two people being fused is old hat, but because they’re not fused in a way that’s cute.

[Emily]
They’re just grotesquely stuck together.

[Thomas]
So nobody wants to see it. Yeah.

[Shep]
I like that idea that they’re at an angle.

[Thomas]
Anything else?

[Shep]
I think we got it. I mean-

[Thomas]
I think we got it.

[Emily]
We have it.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s very tropey 80s style silly movie.

[Thomas]
Sure. But as people who grew up watching those kind of movies, I think we all really enjoy that, so…

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Why don’t they make those kind of movies anymore?

[Thomas]
I don’t know.

[Shep]
Well, it’s because we don’t have rentals, we don’t have the long tail economy.

[Emily]
That’s right.

[Shep]
Everything is on streaming now, and so if it doesn’t make all its money in the theater, it’s a failure.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So we did this to ourselves.

[Thomas]
It’s true. Well, we would love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Sewing Machine. Do we have it all stitched up, or was this topic just too tough of a needle to thread?

[Shep]
(Pained groan)

[Thomas]
Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. Links to all of those can be found at AlmostPlausible.com. If you’re a fan of Almost Plausible, we hope you’ll tell people about the show. Word of mouth is some of the most effective marketing there is, and we would be honored if you talk about our podcast with your friends, family, co-workers and complete strangers. Whatever. Perhaps you’ll even plan a listening party to introduce everyone to Emily, Shep, and I, when we release the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]