Wreath

References

• Almost Plausible: Pumpkin
• Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery
• Almost Plausible: Chicken Noodle Soup
• United Parcel Service
• A Christmas Story
• Matilda
• Land of the Lost
• Harry Potter
  • Dursley Family
• Cinderella
• Folgers
• The Good Place
• Krampus
• Terry Crews
• Deus ex machina
• Her
• Almost Plausible: Zipper

Corrections

Thomas mentioned that in the film Her, the AI said it was talking to 180,000 other people. The actual number in the film is 8,316.

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
Hell’s mostly dinosaurs, if you think about it.

[Emily]
Makes sense.

[Shep]
And none of the dinosaurs even met Jesus.

[Thomas]
And you’re up to your eyes in bacteria.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Not to get, like, all religious education on you. But when Jesus died, he did descend into hell and give those in hell the opportunity to know him and raise them up with him in heaven. So the dinosaurs had their shot, is what I’m saying.

[Thomas]
But they didn’t speak Aramaic, so fuck them, I guess.

[Emily]
Surprisingly, the only dinosaurs to convert were raptors.

[Thomas]
Well, it’s because of the smart ones. They’re the intelligent ones. Right.

[Emily]
Yes, the raptors were raptured, is what I’m saying.

[Thomas]
Hey.

[Shep]
There it is.

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, story fans. Welcome to almost plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. We do that by choosing some everyday thing, pitching ideas where that thing is crucial to the story, and then working together to develop a movie plot. Who are we? Well, I’m Thomas J. Brown, and with me are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys,

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
The ordinary object we’ve chosen for this episode is a Wreath. While wreaths aren’t strictly associated with the advent, we do tend to see them much more often this time of year. Emily, Shep, do either of you decorate with a wreath?

[Shep]
I do not decorate with a Christmas wreath.

[Emily]
I am staring right now at a fake eucalyptus wreath. I have a pompom wreath. That is my everyday one. I have a Halloween one. I need to make a Thanksgiving one. I have a Valentine’s Day one. And I do have a Christmas one.

[Shep]
What would a Thanksgiving wreath look like?

[Emily]
It would be or orange and brown and yellow, and it would have a turkey in the middle.

[Shep]
Okay, so not just a bunch of wishbones woven together in a circle.

[Emily]
Oh, that sounds so much better than what I came up with. Let’s do that.

[Shep]
It doubles as a good Halloween wreath.

[Thomas]
Yeah. You just swap out the little things that are on it.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
You start with a base of bones.

[Emily]
Yeah. Base of bones.

[Shep]
Yes, as most good projects do.

[Thomas]
All right, well, we should start our pitch session. Emily, let’s hear from you first.

[Emily]
Oh, jeez. Really? Me? All right.

[Shep]
You’re so excited.

[Emily]
I’m so confident in myself.

[Shep]
I can’t wait to hear your pitches. You’re so excited about them.

[Emily]
All right, so I have: a young winemaker is trying to get more tourists to his struggling vineyard for the holidays, so he hires a local artisan to host a grapevine wreath making class. It’s a sweet rom-com, and perhaps there’ll be a little magic in the air.

[Shep]
I heard rom-com.

[Emily]
Yeah. Pitch number two. A florist known for her extravagant funeral wreaths has become disillusioned with her art. She wants to find a new meaning in her profession, so she seeks alternative wreath options. She meets a young jockey and becomes acquainted with the world of horse racing and somehow ends up involved with the mob.

[Thomas]
I thought this was going to be your serial killer’s pitch. Like, “She’s not selling enough funeral wreaths, so she starts killing people…”

[Emily]
Oh, that’s a good one. Nope. Here’s my serial killer. An angry Christmas elf goes on a rampage, killing all the mean parents with Christmas wreaths.

[Shep]
Killing them with Christmas wreaths, or the parents with Christmas wreaths are being killed.

[Emily]
Killing them physically with the Christmas wreath.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I think-

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
I imagine you have, like, a rope wreath that he uses to hang them. You have, like, a razor blade wreath that he slices their necks. You have, like, all different kinds of wreath.

[Shep]
I see. All the angry Christmas elves that go crazy and start murdering I’ve seen use candy canes. So a wreath is a nice change of pace.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, it’s a nice change of pace for a murdering, a Christmas murderer rampage.

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

[Shep]
All right. They never did figure out where the wreaths came from. No. Has that one been done?

[Thomas]
What is this, a crossover episode?

[Shep]
Here’s my pitch. The adult children of an aging matriarch are cleaning out her attic in preparation for moving her to a home, and they’re fighting over possible inheritance when they find a hair wreath they knew nothing about.

[Thomas]
Well, this is gross.

[Shep]
Well, this is a thing.

[Emily]
This is awesome. I am invested.

[Shep]
We have a hair wreath in my family. This is an actual heirloom.

[Emily]
It’s an actual thing. I was just reading a story about that.

[Thomas]
Shep, I’m sorry that we can’t be friends anymore.

[Shep]
So in my family’s case, it’s two of the families that married together, took cuttings of hair from the women of the families and wove them together into a wreath. And it’s like a thing that you can add to if you wanted to continue that tradition.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Although we never did.

[Emily]
That was in the book that I read. It was from her matriarch line all the way down to her of just hair cuttings that they wove together and created a bigger and bigger wreath.

[Thomas]
And then, if you want, you can hot glue on lots of little teeth. What the fuck, guys? What are we doing?

[Shep]
So you’ve seen it.

[Emily]
Yeah, it’s powerful magic.

[Thomas]
You add bones.

[Shep]
You use a base of wishbones woven together.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
When they find a hair wreath they knew nothing about, the matriarch explains how it was woven from hair clippings from two of their ancestral families who had been joined via marriage. She talks a bit about the person each lock was taken from, but her memories are fading. So I guess this is Chicken Soup, but with hair.

[Thomas]
All right, my pitches.

[Shep]
All right.

[Thomas]
A protected, endangered bird makes its nest in a wreath hanging on someone’s door. But, like, obviously in an area that doesn’t get snow, because otherwise, what would that bird be doing there? In the days leading up to Christmas, a serial killer leaves behind an intricate wreath hanging on the front door of each victim’s house. The wreaths contain elements of how each victim was killed, indicating that the murders were premeditated.

[Shep]
Emily?

[Emily]
You getting in on my action here?

[Shep]
Yeah. What the heck, man?

[Emily]
Wow. Wow.

[Thomas]
You don’t have a monopoly on murder, Emily.

[Shep]
Monopoly on Murder would be an excellent book title.

[Emily]
Oh, it would.

[Thomas]
Or podcast.

[Shep]
Or podcast. Yeah, or movie episode. When are we going to do board game?

[Emily]
Ooh.

[Shep]
Because I have a pitch.

[Thomas]
Well, we got to get that sweet, sweet Parker Brothers money. And then-

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
My final pitch. A dark comedy movie where a Christmas wreath ends up being a portal to a demonic parallel dimension, and an unsuspecting family gets sucked in.

[Shep]
I’m in. I’m on board.

[Thomas]
They then have to figure out-

[Shep]
You’ve struck gold. Oh, keep digging if you want, but-

[Thomas]
They then have to figure out how to escape and get back to their own dimension.

[Shep]
I love it.

[Thomas]
I do have more details for that last one if we want to hear them, but it sounds like Shep likes that one.

[Shep]
I like that one.

[Emily]
That is the pretty good one.

[Thomas]
Well, I know which one I don’t want to do. And that’s the hair one.

[Shep]
I’m on a “write what you know” kick right now.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So all of my pitches lately have been things that happen to me or my family.

[Thomas]
If I was going to write what I knew about wreaths, it would be like “I bought a wreath from Costco once. It had glitter on it. Never again.” An end of pitch.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
So we’re going into an alternate dimension and escaping the evils.

[Thomas]
All right, well, why don’t I tell you the other details that I have?

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
And we can see.

[Shep]
I’m on board with escaping this dimension.

[Thomas]
So late on Christmas Eve… although I’ve been thinking about this, and maybe we want to make it the day before Christmas Eve, there’s a knock on the door, and it turns out to be a person giving away wreaths.

[Shep]
Oh, if they’re free, then there’s no cost at all.

[Thomas]
Exactly. And he claims they’re unsold. And with Christmas being so close, no one’s going to buy these wreaths, so he’s just giving them away.

[Shep]
What? It’s the day before Christmas Eve. There’s still a whole day to sell them. I’m suspicious of this character.

[Thomas]
Maybe that’s a thing that the characters can bring up. But he’s like, maybe he’s got to leave town. He hasn’t sold his things. He’s got to go meet his family. Whatever it is.

[Shep]
He’s a wreath salesman that didn’t plan to stay up to Christmas selling wreaths. This story’s got more and more holes in it.

[Thomas]
Not just the ones in the wreath. Well, you’re smarter than these people whose door he knocks on because they don’t question it enough. He’s willing to give one to the family as a holiday gift. He points out that he’s already given away several to other neighbors on the block. He’s odd and kind of creepy, but who are they to look a gift horse in the mouth? So they accept the wreath. They hang it on their front door, they go back inside, they get ready for bed.

[Emily]
You know how you fix Shep’s problems with this?

[Thomas]
Mute him. Oh, sorry.

[Emily]
Well, there’s that.

[Shep]
What?

[Emily]
Is that the children answer the door and he gives the spiel to the children. And the parents are not involved in this portion of the story,

[Shep]
I was thinking the opposite. Like, one of the parents answers the door, and the children are there. And parents are like, “Hey, free wreath! Great!”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And the children are like, “This is hella suspicious. What are you doing?” But they can’t override their parent because their parents in charge.

[Thomas]
That’s good.

[Emily]
Actually yeah, I like that.

[Thomas]
Actually creates good tension later in the story where the kids are like, “Fucking see?”

[Shep]
I’m picturing, like, a six-year-old saying that.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“Fucking see?”

[Thomas]
Okay. Well, yeah. Now that’s canonical. At the stroke of midnight, the wreath, quote unquote, “activates”. It opens a portal that sucks the entire house into a parallel dimension. The noise wakes the children who think that it’s Santa Claus. They’re disappointed to see that it wasn’t him, and so they go back to bed. But on their way back, one of them looks out the window to see maybe it snowed. Instead, what they see is a fiery hellscape. They wake their parents, and thus begins the family’s adventure, trying to make it back to their own dimension. It turns out that each house with a wreath was also transported. So several of their neighbors are there as well. Unless we want the family to be on their own, in which case they’re the only ones with a wreath.

[Emily]
No, I want the other neighbors, but I want terrible things to be happening to them, and they’re all lost causes.

[Shep]
Right. So that’s how you establish stakes early on, is the neighbors are also there.

[Thomas]
Oh, good. Yeah, I like that.

[Shep]
And you have the bossy neighbor who runs the homeowner’s association, and she’s like, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Everybody line up, we’re going to (whatever).” And then, like, a pterodactyl swoops down and eats her and flies off. And that’s your intro. It was like, “Oh, holy crap.”

[Thomas]
One thing that I was thinking about is, does Satan have, like, a normal name? He’s got Beelzebub, Satan, the devil, like all these-

[Emily and Shep]
Lucifer.

[Thomas]
But if somebody introduced themselves as Lucifer, you’d be, “Uh, what?”

[Shep]
“You could call me Lou.”

[Thomas]
Ah, Lou.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay, that’s good, because I was thinking maybe instead of this being some really bad wreath salesman, it’s just like UPS-style delivery. And the guy comes up and he’s like, “Oh, I have a package here for you. You have to sign for it.” And then it’s from their uncle Lou.

[Emily]
I like that detail.

[Thomas]
And they’re like, “Do we have an uncle Lou? Whatever.” And so he has to sign for it. He’s signing the contract.

[Shep]
Ooh, I like that.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I imagine that Christmas is a time where people are more generous and generally feeling, like, more festive and stuff. So it’s a slow time for hell. And they’re trying to figure out how do we get more souls down here for the holidays.

[Shep]
Hell’s slow season. Oh, that’s great.

[Thomas]
So those are the details I have. We still like this idea?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Okay, so I imagine a family of four, couple parents, a couple of kids.

[Shep]
Sure. No objection.

[Thomas]
Okay. We should probably name them.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Or we could just call them mom, dad, daughter, son, that sort of thing. However we want to refer to them.

[Shep]
Who’s the perspective? Is it the kids perspective? If it’s the kids perspective, the parents are Mom and Dad.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Is this a children’s movie? Is this a children’s movie set in hell? In literal hell?

[Thomas]
I don’t imagine it’s a children’s movie.

[Emily]
We could still have it from their perspective, though, because that would be an interesting turn of events.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Why is this family being targeted? Are they particularly greedy?

[Shep]
I mean, they wanted a free wreath under suspicious circumstances and didn’t ask any follow up questions.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Or where they’re like, “I guess we’ll take it if you’re offering. I don’t see why we wouldn’t, but I mean.”

[Thomas]
Well, if it’s coming from their uncle Lou, who they don’t know.

[Shep]
Right. If it’s coming from someone, if it’s a package, then it’s not a free wreath with suspicious circumstances.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
It’s just a package that they’re receiving.

[Thomas]
I mean, I think in a similar vein to A Christmas Story where he wins the leg lamp and he’s just so excited about winning the prize that he doesn’t care that it’s kind of shit. It’s a similar thing where it’s like they’re just, “Oh, boy, a free thing!” They’re very stuff obsessed. So maybe that’s the thing, for them the holiday is not about spending time with people you care about and being thoughtful toward each other. It’s all about, like, what did you get me? What are you buying? The kids are maybe kind of bratty. “Oh. I didn’t get the specific toy or game or whatever that I wanted.” “Oh, you bought me an Android. I wanted an iPhone.”

[Shep]
So who is our perspective from? Is it one of the children? Are they innocent in all this, or are they greedy like everyone else?

[Thomas]
I mean, is the whole family greedy, or is there one person who…?

[Shep]
That’s what I’m asking.

[Emily]
Are we making a Matilda, where there’s one who sees everything clearly and they’re like, “What the hell’s wrong with you guys?”

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
And they’re like, “What the hell’s wrong with you?“

[Thomas]
I like that.

[Shep]
Okay, let’s make a Matilda.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Well, then I want to bring back the free wreath rather than a UPS package, because it works even better if they already have a wreath.

[Thomas]
Okay. Oh, yes.

[Shep]
And so that’s what the Matilda character is arguing. We need to give Matilda a different name.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Maddie. No. Damn. Lainey, Sarah.

[Emily]
Penny?

[Thomas]
Peaches. No.

[Emily]
Persephone.

[Shep]
I like Penny because it’s money.

[Thomas]
Oh, yes.

[Emily]
Oh, that’s a good one.

[Shep]
They named her after money.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Excellent.

[Emily]
All right.

[Shep]
And the son’s name is Buck.

[Thomas]
So good.

[Shep]
And they value him more than they value her.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
It works on multiple levels.

[Thomas]
This is very good.

[Emily]
This is great.

[Thomas]
All right, so there’s Mom, Dad, Penny, and Buck.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Okay. Excellent.

[Shep]
Is Buck older or younger than- I think Penny’s the youngest.

[Thomas]
Oh, do you? I was thinking it would be the other way around.

[Shep]
Yeah. I can go either way.

[Thomas]
I like her being older because then it’s almost like she’s got the lower value name. And so they went bigger with the kid, and they’ve clearly screwed something up with her.

[Emily]
She was a disappointment. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Right. So they’re focusing on him because she’s obviously a lost cause.

[Emily]
He’s the second chance. Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, he’s the second chance. Exactly.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Because these are obviously terrible people.

[Shep]
So how old are the kids?

[Emily]
Twelve and nine.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
So I think they should still sign for the wreath, though.

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s free. All they have to do is sign this form.

[Thomas]
Great. Yeah, it’s free.

[Shep]
But Penny could point out, “What are you even signing? Like, you don’t know.”

[Thomas]
Right. And maybe he’s like, “It’s the form for the free wreath. How dumb can you be? He just said what it is.”

[Shep]
Yeah, I imagine the salesman is named Lou.

[Thomas]
Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Shep]
They don’t know him, and he’s like, “Oh, I’m Lou.” And like, “Yeah, it’s Lou.”

[Thomas]
No, this is good. I like all this.

[Shep]
So we have one good scene at the beginning. I hope we have some more to pad out the runtime.

[Emily]
Well, we have the crazy neighbor lady getting eaten by a pterodactyl.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah. That’s also fun.

[Thomas]
Or a demon or something. Some-

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
I don’t know about- A pterodactyl in hell might be a little Land of the Lost.

[Shep]
I don’t know. Whatever. It’s-

[Emily]
A pterodactyl-like demon.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
I mean, how many pterodactyls were Christian?

[Thomas]
It’s true.

[Shep]
I imagine most of them ended up in hell.

[Emily]
That’s true.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And there were millions of years, so hell’s mostly dinosaurs, if you think about it.

[Emily]
Makes sense.

[Shep]
And none of the dinosaurs even met Jesus.

[Thomas]
And you’re up to your eyes in bacteria.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Not to get, like, all religious education on you. But when Jesus died, he did descend into hell and give those in hell the opportunity to know him and raise them up with him in heaven. So the dinosaurs had their shot, is what I’m saying.

[Thomas]
But they didn’t speak Aramaic, so fuck them, I guess.

[Emily]
Surprisingly, the only dinosaurs to convert were raptors.

[Thomas]
Well, it’s because of the smart ones. They’re the intelligent ones. Right.

[Emily]
Yes, the raptors were raptured, is what I’m saying.

[Thomas]
Hey.

[Shep]
There it is.

[Thomas]
All right, so I guess we should work out the timeline, too. Is this Christmas Eve or is this the night before Christmas Eve? Because my thinking is, they wake up, like, the stroke of midnight, they get teleported to hell, and then they have 24 hours to escape for whatever reason, because it’s movie logic.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Mmhmm.

[Thomas]
And so that’ll get them back just in time for Christmas.

[Emily]
Sure.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
What is special about them getting home for Christmas? Is there something special to that for them? Or is it just convenient timing to establish an end date?

[Shep]
I think it’s convenient timing to establish an end date, especially if there’s some event or something that Penny wants to go to that the rest of the family doesn’t want to go to, handing out food at the soup kitchen or something like that, so that she can get to that.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Ooh, that’s good.

[Shep]
That’s your finale.

[Thomas]
I mean, maybe she goes to a catholic school because her parents are, like, “The nuns are strict, right?” And so in their mind, they’ll just send her off to catholic school to get shaped up or whatever.

[Emily]
Well, and it’s a status symbol because they can pay for private school.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, right. But they’re, like, chill, modern nuns. So yeah. They’re going to be at the soup kitchen handing out food for the homeless on Christmas morning. And Penny is super into this idea. It’s all about giving, and-

[Shep]
They’re not paying for her to go to private school. She got a scholarship.

[Emily]
Ah.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They were going to homeschool her, but she got a scholarship and they’re like, “Hey, it’s free.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So that’s how she got to go to school.

[Thomas]
Very good.

[Shep]
Buck is still being homeschooled.

[Thomas]
Wow, this family really sucks.

[Shep]
All I’m doing is thinking of Matilda and, like, how awful was that?

[Thomas]
Yeah. So this is great. She’s all about, like, wanting to give back, and the rest of them are all about, like, “What do I get? I want my presents.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Very materially focused.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
She’s trying to tell her parents about going to the soup kitchen to hand out food or whatever, and the dad’s like, “Oh, how much are they going to pay us?” “Nothing. We’re volunteering our time.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
“Volunteering?!”

[Thomas]
“Giving it away on Christmas? That should be, like time and a half. It’s holiday pay!”

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Is her family redeemed? Do they end up all going to the soup kitchen and volunteering?

[Shep]
No. She’s the only one that makes it out of hell. And they all stay there.

[Emily]
It is a nice divergence from the traditional Christmas story. They are not redeemed. They’re still horrible humans.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Do they come back? Because we can’t just leave Penny on her own. But-

[Shep]
No, she gets adopted by the nun at the catholic school.

[Thomas]
What kind of a tone do you want for the ending? Because I could totally see Penny choosing to save her family and bring them back because, like, well, they’re her family.

[Shep]
Ah…

[Thomas]
She loves them. They’re still horrible people. So it’s like she’s like this fucking saint.

[Shep]
Yeah, I could see that. They are horrible people, but they’re her family, so, yeah. So something happens at the end and she can choose to bring a family out. Although I think it would be funny if there were some other nice family that she chooses them to bring out instead. Just the shock on her parents’ faces as they fall into the lava.

[Emily]
Could they do something to sacrifice themselves so that she can get out? Because maybe they did learn some lesson, and they’re like, “We’re never going to be good people. You’re good people. You should go back.”

[Shep]
No.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
In fact, if she were climbing out ahead of them, they would have grabbed her to pull themselves up.

[Thomas]
I think they are irredeemably awful people.

[Emily]
OK.

[Shep]
Yeah. It’s Matilda’s family. It’s the Dursleys from Harry Potter.

[Thomas]
Yeah, exactly. In the original details that I have, it’s Christmas Eve, and so when they wake up in the middle of the night, they think Santa’s there. So what is the excuse… You know, there’s a big earthquake because the house is settling into hell. Or, gosh, it’s really warm in here. I’m going to turn down the thermostat. Or is there some reason why they wake up?

[Shep]
Oh, she’s still awake because she’s cleaning or something. Because it’s also Cinderella. This is all the stories all at once. And so when the clock strikes midnight, she’s still doing dishes and the whole house shakes. And so she notices immediately that they’re in hell and she wakes her parents up. That’s why all the families are out at the same time at the beginning.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Oh, so she doesn’t wake her parents up. The violent shaking of the house wakes them up, and they immediately blame her.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Clearly she did something wrong.

[Shep]
“What did you do?”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
The shaking knocks some dishes over and they shatter.

[Thomas]
Maybe it’s not even the shaking of the house. It’s that the dish hits the floor and the dad’s eyes spring open. It’s like a Folgers commercial. He’s like, “Ah!” You heard the dish break. “That costs us money!”

[Shep]
It’s the mom. She goes, “My china!”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So they’re all awake. It’s midnight. They’re in hell. They wake up the other families, any families that aren’t awake, she tells Buck to go ding dong ditch the houses to get him to go. Because otherwise he’s like, “Why should I?” And she’s like, “Oh, no, go ding dong ditch.” He’s like, “Okay!”

[Thomas]
Are the other families not just out?

[Shep]
Some of them might be, but some of them would have still been asleep or whatever. Okay, so now that we’ve established them in hell, what’s the plan? How do they know they have 24 hours to get out?

[Emily]
How do they figure out their circumstances in general?

[Thomas]
Is there a hell welcome committee? Like a demon that’s like, “Yep. File out of your homes. Come this way. Come this way.”

[Emily]
Like, in The Good Place.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So the demon welcoming committee shows up after the one woman gets already killed by some demon? Or does she get killed by the demon welcoming committee showing up, like they land on her?

[Thomas]
That’s pretty funny. I’d imagine, too, she could possibly be yelling at the demon welcoming committee. And then another demon swoops down and eats her, and he just turns back and goes, “Anyway.”

[Shep]
It shouldn’t say ‘anyway’. Shouldn’t even acknowledge that she was eaten at all.

[Thomas]
I’m trying to decide between that or him being like, “Yeah, that’ll happen here.”

[Shep]
No, “That’ll happen.” No, “That just happened.” No, none of that.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
No. “Anyway.” I’m so tired of that trope showing up in everything. Although it is hell, so maybe it’s fitting that it happens there.

[Thomas]
I think we do need some time where the families are trying to figure out what’s going on. So there are no demons around.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
They’re talking. They’re trying to figure it out. And so, yeah, I like the idea of the demon welcoming committee crushing her, because it’s totally unexpected. If you don’t know these characters, the neighbor characters very well, then you think, “Okay, here’s a leader.”

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Here’s somebody who’s going to help them get together. She’s like, “We’ll figure this out. There’s got to be someone we can talk to and figure out what’s going on. So everybody follow me.” She turns around and then splat.

[Shep]
Right. And the demon is like, “Welcome to hell.”

[Thomas]
Right. So the demons who come down on a big platform or something and they squish this woman, does blood spray out in all directions? And so now the neighbors are all covered in her blood?

[Emily]
100%. The more blood, the better.

[Shep]
What’s the rating we’re going for?

[Emily]
R.

[Thomas]
Well, apparently R.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Emily]
We’re doing the Krampus thing.

[Thomas]
It’s a Christmas black comedy, so. The demons show up. Is there some rule they’re required by the international or the inter… What would you call that? Heaven and hell? The inter whatever.

[Shep]
That’s a problem for the writers. Think of a word.

[Thomas]
The inter whatever accord that they’re required to give them 24 hours’ notice.

[Shep]
Oh, it’s on the paperwork that he signed.

[Thomas]
Maybe Penny is like, “Why would you bother to include that if you’re going to have us sign the paperwork?” “Look, kid, it’s out of my hands.”

[Emily]
You make a lawyer joke. “Well, I mean, we have a lot of lawyers. They always like to throw something in there. They think it’s funny. Most people don’t read it.”

[Thomas]
I think you’re going way too far. It’s just “The lawyers made us put it in there.” That’s the line. Because everyone’s like, “Ha ha, lawyers are scum.” Of course they’re lawyers in hell.

[Shep]
But they put in a clause that’s good for the people if the lawyers are all hell lawyers-

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s a good point. Well, that’s why I was thinking, like, there’s some sort of agreement that they have with heaven that they’re required to give 24 hours of repentance window.

[Emily]
That’s what purgatory actually is. It’s the purgatory clause.

[Thomas]
Yeah, perfect. And so immediately there’s some guy who’s like, “Okay, I repent! Jesus. I believe in Jesus.” And nothing happens. And the demons just sort of standing there like, “Yeah, it doesn’t work like that.” And then he outlines what the movie is about, like what the plot of the film is, what they need to do. Basically, he sets up the second act, is what I’m saying.

[Shep]
Yeah. They need to get to the one basin of holy water so they can baptize themselves.

[Thomas]
Right. Oh, sure. Because the lawyers aren’t in heaven. So the lawyers are like, “You’ve got to have this holy water basin so they can baptize themselves.” And hell’s just like, “Oh, that’s it? Okay. Yeah, no, we’ll totally do that.” And it’s up on some mountain. It’s surrounded by traps. It’s like, “You didn’t say we had to make it easily accessible. You just said we had to have it here and available.” So there’s some gantlet that everybody has to go through to try to get to the holy water basin.

[Shep]
Right. It’s technically possible to reach it.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
That was the rule.

[Emily]
So do we slowly see the other families die off and fail?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
For sure, yeah. Do any other families make it?

[Emily]
So part of me wants to say yes, and then the horrible family that Penny is part of sabotages them so that they fail and continue to rot in hell so that they can save themselves. But then, did we decide only Penny comes back, or is she going to save her family?

[Thomas]
I argued for and continue to argue for, she saves the family. Because I think that makes her an even better person.

[Emily]
Okay, well, then we can’t have them be that unredeemable that they purposely kill or sabotage another family so that they remain in hell.

[Shep]
See… Okay, here’s my argument. She makes it out. She is greeted by an angel, right? That’s what’s on the other side. And the angel’s going to take her back to earth, but she wants to bring her family with her. And the angel’s like, “Okay, you can choose to bring the family out, but you know that they’re bad people. So you are choosing to put bad people back on earth, and that’s a sin. So you’ll have to stay.” Because they’re irredeemable!

[Emily]
But then that’s an impossible choice for her.

[Shep]
Yeah!

[Emily]
She doesn’t deserve to rot in hell alone.

[Shep]
I agree.

[Emily]
But what happens if she does let them stay because they’re terrible? Isn’t that also a sin? And doesn’t that also mean she has to stay behind?

[Shep]
Why would terrible people being in hell be a sin? They are in hell as a result of their own choices. How is the father signing a form giving up the souls of his children? That doesn’t seem like it should be allowed.

[Emily]
He didn’t read the form. I mean, there was-

[Shep]
Someone else can’t sell your soul.

[Thomas]
These are Bible rules. So he owns his whole family?

[Emily]
This is true. This is a fact.

[Shep]
Damn it, Bible. Why are you so weird?

[Emily]
And it’s still real thin on whether women have a soul or not.

[Shep]
Let’s not open that can of worms.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Well, it’s more like being the patriarch of the family, he’s in charge of making those decisions about their souls.

[Emily]
Yeah. He’s the leader. He’s supposed to take charge of their souls. That’s a legitimate argument.

[Thomas]
So I feel like the framework we’ve sort of created is: you’re dead. You can either be in heaven or hell, and it depends on whether or not you reach this holy water. So we need a third option that Penny somehow figures out of going back to earth. So maybe that’s what it is. It’s not that she has to make this decision about staying in hell or leaving her family behind in hell. It’s ascend to heaven, where all of your needs will be met, and you will never know pain or suffering or anything like that. She’s like, “Well, obviously, I want my family to come with me.” And the angel is like, “What? No, of course not.”

[Emily]
But all of her needs are be met. Why does she need them? She has no need for them.

[Thomas]
Because that’s how good of a person she is.

[Shep]
Because otherwise, they’re in hell. Otherwise, they’re in hell. That’s why. She doesn’t need them for herself. She needs them to not be in hell.

[Thomas]
So Penny’s compromise is not ascending to heaven, where all of my needs and desires will be met, but just going back to earth with my family, I mean, that’s a personal hell for her. But then she’s not dead.

[Shep]
Yeah. Although the angel could be like, “You know, they’re just going to end back up here.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“You’re not saving them for long.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, I think there needs to be a little bit more open-endedness to it, where Penny feels like, “Well, I have time to try to change that,” you know?

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Does Penny go to heaven without her family at the end of the third act or the middle of the third act, and things are great, and she’s like, “Okay, but where’s my family?” And she ends up, like, going and talking to God and being like, “What the hell, man?”

[Shep]
Are we going to have God in our movie? Because how is God going to be portrayed?

[Emily]
Terry Crews.

[Thomas]
100% agree. So.

[Shep]
Terry Crews! He elevates every movie he’s in.

[Emily]
So, yes, now she has to meet God because we have to have Terry Crews in there.

[Thomas]
He’s, like, eating a yogurt. Because I like that it’s not just the promise of the glory of heaven. It’s actually experiencing it. You’re there. Everything’s great.

[Emily]
She knows what she’s giving up.

[Thomas]
Yeah, exactly. And so it becomes this selfless act, and God is very happy about that. Oh, man, she’s got to see her grandmother or something, who she misses.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I’m getting more and more sold on this.

[Thomas]
All right. It sounds like we’ve got a pretty good beginning and ending to our film about a Wreath. So let’s take a quick break, and when we come back, we need to flesh out some of those details in the middle.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. I really like the story that we have so far. I think it has a fun setup and an interesting and redeeming (for Penny anyway), ending. What are the trials and tribulations that her family and all of their neighbors go through in hell?

[Shep]
And also, does it have enough wreath in it?

[Thomas]
I mean, the wreath is the inciting incident. So if nothing else, at least-

[Shep]
All right.

[Thomas]
Does the dad grab the wreath and bring it with them? And he’s like, “What?”

[Shep]
Oh, is their home back on earth, if their whole home got taken to hell?

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, that’s a good point.

[Emily]
You don’t think God could resurrect their house?

[Thomas]
What about all the other houses in the neighborhood? Are there just empty lots now?

[Emily]
They’re just gone. Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah. How do they explain what happened to everyone?

[Thomas]
I say we try to avoid ever having to explain it.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
All right, you’ve convinced me.

[Thomas]
Is one of their parents a realtor? And so they’re very excited at all these properties they can now try to sell.

[Shep]
Do any of the other families make it out of hell, or is it just-

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s true. We never answered that.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah.

[Thomas]
I mean, it doesn’t feel like it. Like Penny has made a special deal with God. So either the families stay in hell or go to heaven, whether they make it to the holy water or not.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So, no, I don’t think anybody comes back.

[Shep]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Just her family and their house.

[Emily]
And we don’t necessarily know exactly why because those are other movies for another time.

[Thomas]
Yeah. We didn’t follow them.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
We followed this family.

[Emily]
We might see a couple of reasons why some of them didn’t make it, but-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
I want her to have one friend. One friend in the neighborhood about the same age, and he makes it to heaven. So she has a friend there as well.

[Thomas]
Okay, so his whole family doesn’t make.

[Shep]
Right. His parents were wonderful, and they don’t deserve to be in hell, but they died in hell, so maybe they even sacrificed themselves to make sure he gets to the holy water basin. They’re just the opposite of Penny’s family entirely. They’re all good.

[Thomas]
So we see them working together as a family.

[Shep]
Right. As a team.

[Emily]
Mmm.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Because that’s what the gantlet is designed for.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
You have to use all of your individual strengths together as a team.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
So is Penny sort of tricking her family into working together?

[Shep]
Ha ha.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Because she knows what they’re good at.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And we established that with the ding dong ditch thing.

[Shep]
We need to come up with clever things that she could do to convince her family to do whatever to work as a-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So we need. So this is where, really, the writers come into it.

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s what I was just going to say. Right.

[Shep]
Because we have the bones of it and they have been woven into a wreath.

[Emily]
Tied together by hair.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
No, stop it. I agree that we don’t need to work out every step of the gantlet.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
That’s a writer’s thing. We know the gantlet exists, but I feel like there are some other things we should try to work out in the second act. Like what’s the mid second act turning point. What’s the lowest low? That sort of stuff.

[Emily]
Wasn’t the lowest low, her interaction with God and being told-

[Shep]
I figure that’s the third act. The lowest low, in the second act, it’s got to be some point where they think they can’t possibly get to the basin anymore.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Is one of the elements in the gantlet a clock? But the clock is fake, so you think you have less time than you do. It’s a trick. You have to realize somehow that it’s a trick.

[Emily]
It’s a daylight savings thing.

[Shep]
Of course they do daylight saving in hell.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s where it belongs.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
It’s got to be something like that where it’s like-

[Thomas]
But not in a deus ex machina type of way.

[Emily]
Right. It’s just in a way that they’re, like, trying to figure it out, because it doesn’t quite make sense. It’s not an hour ahead or an hour.

[Shep]
An hour ahead would work. Right? And that makes them think they don’t have enough time.

[Emily]
They think they’re down to their last few minutes because it’s going to hit that time. Because the clock’s an hour ahead.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I was going to say. But don’t forget that this is two days before Christmas. But nobody set the clock back. They have daylight saving time, and this clock is still set an hour ahead. Somehow somebody realizes that. I don’t know how.

[Shep]
Is it one of their clocks or is it a clock in hell?

[Thomas]
It’s got to be a clock in hell, because that’s the whole point of that clock, is to trick you so that you give up.

[Shep]
Right. So hell just has daylight saving time year round. It never gets set back.

[Thomas]
So is there a little thing on- Is it digital clock? There’s a little thing that says DST?

[Emily]
Yeah. There’s something, really small DST somewhere.

[Thomas]
Right. You have to notice, you have to realize.

[Shep]
Right. Because hell has to follow the rules. So they had to let you know that it’s set on DST.

[Thomas]
But they can be sneaky about it as long as they technically meet the requirement.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
It’s funny because not only does it stand for Daylight Saving Time, it’s also Demon Standard Time.

[Shep]
Yes. Perfect.

[Thomas]
That’s good. If it says demon standard time and then they work out that it hasn’t been 24 hours or, you know, there’s still time, they can keep going.

[Emily]
Ooh. Does the dad have some sort of, like, shitty Rolex or knockoff Rolex that he stole from somebody or found somewhere that does, in fact, have the correct time?

[Shep]
I’d like it if it’s a knockoff Rolex that doesn’t work very well. And when he sees the clock after they’ve been in hell for a while, he realizes his watch is wrong.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So he resets it to whatever the clock said. That’s the only clue you need because Penny can go, “You changed your watch. So the clock was wrong. It didn’t match. So it’s daylight saving time.”

[Emily]
There you go.

[Thomas]
Oh, and they’re lagging behind all the other families because all the other families are, of course, going to work together. They’re going to set aside their differences. But these three idiots can’t possibly work together. And poor Penny is stuck with them. All the other families have either died or whatever, or give up, or maybe that’s the last thing. Everyone else has either made it or died, and they’re the last ones. And they see this clock and it’s like, time’s up. So they think they’re stuck there forever. And then that’s when he goes, “Oh, my gosh, my watch is off by, like, an hour and three minutes now.”

[Shep]
Now, you don’t say that then. You do that much earlier.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
And Penny’s the one that remembers that he adjusted his watch when he saw the clock when they first saw it.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
Otherwise, you’re just spelling it out for the audience.

[Thomas]
No, that’s a good point.

[Shep]
Although how dumb are audiences now? I think that we underestimate audience intelligence.

[Emily]
I agree.

[Shep]
I think most modern movies are just dumbing it down too much.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So let’s not dumb it down all the way. So he sees that it’s off early on, and he adjusts his watch, and then much later, the time is up and they’re giving up, and they’re depressed, although the clock strikes midnight or whatever. And where are the demons to come and drag them to hell now that they’ve lost? There are no demons. Why didn’t they show up? And that’s when Penny realizes that time isn’t up yet.

[Thomas]
I like that.

[Emily]
So what keeps the family from going…? So to get to heaven, they have to get to the holy water and baptize themselves. Right?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So sorry. It’s the lowest low where they think that they’re stuck there forever. That moment of like, “Oh, no, the time is up.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
That was the original question was “What was the lowest low?”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That was it.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
I thought that we had answered it.

[Thomas]
I just wanted to make sure that we know where we are, because very shortly after that, I feel like that’s kind of the last major obstacle. And then they get to the holy water, or they’re on that last leg. So how come she gets it and they don’t?

[Emily]
Yeah. Is it that they don’t do it or that it doesn’t work for them? Or when they get there, do they find that there’s only enough for one?

[Shep]
I think that the last part of it is climbing up a thing. I know I talked about this earlier, where they are the type of people that would have grabbed Penny if she were ahead of them and pulled her to try to pull themselves up, but they’re just pulling her down, so they’re pulling each other down, so none of them can climb up.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
They’re all fighting against each other.

[Emily]
How does she get loose to get up there?

[Shep]
The only way she could get loose and get up there is if she abandoned her family and climbed up separately from them. Oh. Some other family that got there first had spilled some of the holy water, and so there’s, like, just drops of it on the ground. So she picks up, she touches a drop, and she’s like, “It’s here. We don’t have to climb up. Like, stop fighting each other.” But when she touches it, she touched the holy water, and so she goes to heaven immediately.

[Thomas]
It feels a bit deus ex machina, but we also don’t want her to intentionally leave her family behind.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Right. I’m trying to think of a way that you could have her be baptized and go up without her family. That’s the whole crux of it.

[Thomas]
Oh, so there’s a little puddle of it. We see earlier. One of the families is, like, throwing it on themselves or something. It’s splashing all over, and so there’s a little puddle of it, and they all run up, and they’re pulling on each other, and they’re trying to climb up. And she walks up and steps in it, and hears this little splash. And she looks down, and she sees that she stepped in a puddle. No, Emily, you don’t like this?

[Emily]
No, I like the accidental immersion, but I want to combine it with Shep’s.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
They’re going to pull her down.

[Thomas]
Ah!

[Emily]
She’s going to be ahead of them and they’re going to pull her down and she lands in the puddle there.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
That’s very good. We sort of see her floating, like, from her perspective. We’re sort of over her shoulder, floating up away from them as they don’t even know that she’s ascending.

[Emily]
No, they’re still fighting each other, trying to get up.

[Thomas]
They’re fighting over each other. It’s starting to sort of fade and shimmer away, and she’s calling to them, but of course, they don’t hear her anymore. She’s a spirit ascending. And then everything kind of goes white. And then we fade from white to now, like, a long shot of her standing in heaven. And that’s when she finds out how wonderful everything is. Is her grandmother there to greet her? Is that the first person she sees?

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[Shep]
Wonderful.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And then she sees her friend from down the street and asks, where’s your family? How’d you get here? And he tells his little sad story about how they sacrificed themselves for him. Oh. And then it kind of mirrors that his parents did it for him intentionally.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
Her parents did it for her accidentally.

[Shep]
Yeah. So he could go, “Where are- Where’s your family?” And she’s like, “Oh, a similar story.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
And actually, I like that idea that it’s not some angel, some random angel who’s introducing her to heaven, it’s her grandmother. Because she would already have that really close connection and feel comfortable talking to her about difficult stuff and say, like, “They weren’t great, but they’re my family. I don’t like that they’re not here. I think it’s unfair that any of this happened.”

[Emily]
Can the grandmother absolutely insult the child that is hers? “Like my daughter or son, (whichever is her child), is the absolute worst. They are where they belong.” I don’t know.

[Shep]
I think that the mother or the grandmother never approved of, like, the husband. She’s like, “I knew that he would be the ruination of my daughter.”

[Emily]
“They’re where they belong. You and i, we belong here. We’re better people.”

[Shep]
Oh, uh…

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“We’re the chosen people, and they’re lesser beings.”

[Thomas]
“Cool, Grandma. I’m going to go over here now.”

[Shep]
Yeah. Okay. So in Christian mythology, you lose your memories in heaven, right? There are no tears shed in heaven. You all know this, right?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I didn’t know you lost your memories.

[Thomas]
I’m not familiar with this.

[Shep]
How else do you live in heaven without regrets?

[Emily]
Oh. Because the pure joy and elation of being joined in the body of God just makes it all not seem like it’s important.

[Thomas]
Right. You’re just so excited to be with God.

[Shep]
So I imagine there’s an arch or something that you can go through to wipe out your bad memories so you don’t have any sadness left in you at all. That’s an option when you get there. And in her case, it will wipe out all of her memories of her family because she only has bad memories of them.

[Thomas]
Is the grandmother suggesting that she do that?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Oh, wait, has the grandmother gone through it?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because then she’d have no bad memories of her son-in-law.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
That solves the problem of “We’re better people.”

[Thomas]
That keeps her sort of. I’m not sure how I want to phrase this. It prevents her from being complicit in any way where she can just sort of be like, “Look, if that’s where they are, then that must be where they’re supposed to be.” She’s just sort of like, “I don’t know, because I don’t remember this.”

[Shep]
Right. That could also be a part of it. Like, she doesn’t remember her son-in-law at all. That means all of her memories of him were bad.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Shep]
And so Penny can see what would happen to her if she went through the memory erasing arch, because she can see the effect that it had on her grandma. Her grandma’s happy. She’s in heaven. Everything’s wonderful. Her granddaughter is here. She remembers her granddaughter. She doesn’t remember much from her family, but she remembers her granddaughter, which is also really good because we know she’s gone through the arch. So her memories of her granddaughter must be good memories.

[Thomas]
I just imagined this, like, angel car wash type of thing, washing away the bad memories.

[Shep]
It’s got those spinning-

[Thomas]
Yeah. Brushes.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So at some point, she has to get an audience with God somehow.

[Shep]
I mean, it’s heaven. You can do whatever.

[Emily]
Yeah. God’s not that exclusive. You can, I would hope in heaven you could go talk to him whenever.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Open door policy.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
The thing about God is he’s omnipresent, so he is everywhere all the time.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
No waiting, no lines.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
No waiting, no lines. He’s with everyone who wants to see him always.

[Thomas]
Yeah. It’s like, in Her, he’s having a conversation with the AI on the phone, and at one point, he asks, because it feels like it’s just the two of them talking. And she’s like, “Oh, no. I’m talking to, like, 180,000 other people simultaneously.”

[Shep]
Ah.

[Thomas]
It’s like, “Oh, no, it’s not just you. There are a ton of other people I’m talking to right now, but it feels like it’s just you and I,” and being God, of course, he can handle that.

[Emily]
Right. And being God, of course, it would always feel like it’s just you and him.

[Thomas]
Right. So they have that conversation, and he grants her the second chance for herself and her family.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
But he points out, “You’re giving up everything we have here.”

[Shep]
“Also, you’re risking coming here.”

[Thomas]
Right. “You’re already here, but that might change.”

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
“I can’t guarantee you’ll be here again. And hell has given you the opportunity. They only have to give you the opportunity once. They’ve fulfilled their contract with your soul. So if you end up there again, you will not get the gantlet opportunity again.”

[Shep]
So that sets up the sequel. So this sounds like a nice, wholesome movie. Are we forgetting that the entire middle part is horrific deaths in hell as they try to run the gantlet and fail?

[Emily]
No.

[Thomas]
Well, we’re quickly reminded of that when they get back to earth and all those other houses are gone and all those other families are still dead.

[Emily]
And the police are in the streets trying to figure out what’s happening.

[Thomas]
Yeah. So they wake up on Christmas morning.

[Shep]
Do they remember? Does her family that was in hell remember?

[Thomas]
Ooh.

[Shep]
Or have they forgotten?

[Thomas]
They kind of need to forget, huh.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Maybe that’s something that God says. He’s like, maybe they’ve kind of started to work together… no because she leaves them fighting over each other.

[Emily]
No, they shouldn’t have started working together.

[Thomas]
I mean, I guess in hell, they did work together, but it was through her tricking them, and it was a very reluctant-

[Emily]
Yeah,

[Thomas]
Or it was like,” look, I managed to open this door. You guys are here. I guess you can come in, but you better thank me, because I’m the one who did it.”

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
It’s still very selfish in that respect. And so maybe her argument is, “Look, they started working together a little bit,” and he’s like, “Okay, but they’re not going to remember any of that. Any improvements, whatever minute improvements they made along the gantlet, they will forget those things.”

[Emily]
Will she get to remember?

[Shep]
I think she has to remember because she’s our perspective character and we remember.

[Thomas]
Right. Yeah. So they wake up on Christmas morning and it’s, oh, boy, presents. It’s back to business as usual. Where are all the other houses?

[Shep]
The parents come down and the son is down there replacing the tags on the presents so that it’s his name.

[Thomas]
All right, well, I feel like we’ve got a pretty good story here.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
I’m happy with this.

[Shep]
If we had more time, we could go through the middle part and come up with some nice, juicy gantlet challenges.

[Thomas]
For sure. Yeah.

[Emily]
Blood spurting, bone breaking, decapitations.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
All the worst horrific things that you can put in a movie for entertainment value.

[Emily]
A demon unzipping his skin.

[Thomas]
Oh.

[Shep]
No. A demon cutting his hair off and weaving it into a wreath.

[Emily]
Making a wreath

[Thomas]
Yeah. Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Wreath. Did the show come full circle, or should we just bow out?

[Shep]
(Pained groans)

[Emily]
That one’s a stretch.

[Shep]
It’s so- Yeah.

[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 Happy holidays from Emily, Shep, and I. All we want for Christmas is for you to join us on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]