Halle and Alison decide when they would be at a ten and praise queen Sarah Paulson while ruining 2020’s Run.

 

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

[AD BREAK]

 

[theme music]: If scary movies give you dread. Keep you up late night in bed, here’s a podcast that will help you ease your mind. We’ll explain the plot real nicely then we’ll talk about what’s frightening, so you never have to have a spooky time. It’s Ruined.

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh, hello. 

 

Alison Leiby: Hel lo. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Welcome to Ruined. My name is Halle. 

 

Alison Leiby: And my name is Alison. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And this is a podcast where we ruin a horror movie just for you. 

 

Alison Leiby: Just for you, Halle. What’s new? How are you? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Truly. Nothing. I’m okay. I’m. I have to finish filing for a tax extension, which I never had before. It somehow feels like a failure. Even though it’s like I don’t care. Like. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You get my money later. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I get it, you know? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. That’s another thing. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But also, like the place I’m filing through an accountant agency or a accountant place. So, like, I have to still give them all the information, so I have to, like. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Get the one piece of thing, but then I’ll be done, and then I’ll just do it like it. Just the most horrific process where I know they could just send me a bill and then I could just pay it. It’s like it just it’s humiliating. It’s like, you know, I’m an idiot, you know? I have nothing like I don’t know. Why are you doing this to me?

 

Alison Leiby: It like just this to me, all it does like I now, I no longer really do my taxes. I have like an accountant who like, handles everything, like from my business and then like, my personal taxes are basically just like I’m an employee of myself. And so like, they they do it all. But but when I used to have to, like, do my own, I was like, this is just showing me how stupid I am. I don’t need the government to get involved with how dumb I am. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And then when I whenever I’ve had this like different people that I go to Brass Taxes in New York, if you like, if you’re a creative person or work in any sort of creative means, it’s like extra help every time I talk to like, oh, do you have this? I’m like, you know, I don’t have it. 

 

Alison Leiby: You know, I don’t have that. I barely have the paperwork. I need to move through the world day to day and stay alive. Like.

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. This is by the grace of God. They’re not putting me in debtors prison. 

 

Alison Leiby: I know. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I’s be sent to Australia. It’s so hot down there, I’d burn.

 

Alison Leiby: I don’t want to go to Australia. It’s like Florida. 

 

Halle Kiefer: America’s Florida. Oh, no. The the globe–

 

Alison Leiby: The the globe’s Florida. 

 

Halle Kiefer: How are you doing, Alison? 

 

Alison Leiby: I’m good. I’m I’m comfortable right now because I, I’m not to brag. I forgot that last year when I was in Las Vegas, I took the hotel slippers. Just a little, like. Just like the little spa slippers that are in hotel rooms, like. And I always forget that those are there, and they’re just going to throw them away, like. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh, yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: Like they’re disposable. Like they are. I mean, they’re not because, like, they definitely don’t break down and they are all plastic or whatever, but like, I so like my friend and I both took them and like, I don’t love, like I don’t wear shoes in my home, obviously, but I don’t love like I have a pair of, like, L.L.Bean, like Sherpa moccasins, but that’s like too much of a shoe. Do you know what I mean? For a slipper. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Here, I’m going to show you what I wear around the house. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. See, that’s like this. The I’m wearing basically the non fuzzy. They’re non fuzzy slides but they have like just enough like padding and fabric on the sole for them to be like comfortable and not just like a flip flop. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Mm hmm. 

 

Alison Leiby: And they’re really just a delight to wear around the home. And I forgot about them. And then I found them in the closet and was like well this is, this is terrific. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I do feel like the first of all it’s all incredible. I do feel like the number one side of aging is enjoying life’s little pleasures. [laughter] I was like, well, that sounds like a real treat to have. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I have a cup of coffee. I’m like ooh, a cup of coffee. Treat me just right. But that’s also how that’s the only way to live, you know? 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, just like we have nothing else like there is. No.

 

Halle Kiefer: We definitely don’t it’s this and this podcast. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s like a nice candle. Yeah, that’s my week. Like that’s. [laughs]

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh, I’m going to light my nice candles. 

 

Alison Leiby: I know I’m going to after we get out. I should do that now actually. Well like it’s out of reach. So I’ll do. Oh. 

 

Halle Kiefer: When we’re living in the commune, which we’ve decided we are going to be in, we’re going to have to decide, like we’ll have to like Tuesday. You could light your candle, you know, because we are going to have competing candle fragrances–

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. We really it can’t be just like all different scents flooding the, the air of our commune. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh, no. Because, you know, we’ll have a ton of medical problem– 

 

Alison Leiby: 100%. We’re all going to be on oxygen. It’s the whole thing’s going to blow up the second you light a match. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Finally. [singing] Finally–

 

Alison Leiby: It’ll be cool to go out in a fiery inferno with a bunch of other older women. [laughs]

 

Halle Kiefer: I mean, isn’t isn’t the world simply that? Speaking of older women, it’s. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. Moms.

 

Halle Kiefer: Mommy, whether you are a mommy or just out there looking for a mommy, you know what I mean, wishing you an excellent mommy month. And we are, keeping it going with a movie that I, I didn’t I initially didn’t think of for this month because I had ruled it out in general due to its proximity to a real life story. And that movie is, of course, 2020s run. It is a psychological horror thriller film from Aneesh Chaganty and he also directed Searching, starring John Cho. Did we do Searching? I should look.

 

Alison Leiby: I’ve seen that movie, more of a thriller. Not a, not horror. And. It like it’s one of those things where you’re like, it is impressive that they do. It’s for those who haven’t seen it. It’s, it’s all strung together through digital footage, like the narrative is like done through phones and zooms and texts and video and voice memos and stuff. And it’s like there’s so much that it works for. But there’s always like when those those kinds of films, like there’s always a moment where you’re like, ooh, this is, really forced this part. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So yeah, I think it did you like, cut to like, a security camera? 

 

Alison Leiby: Security camera. 

 

Halle Kiefer: All right. I’ll allow it. Like fine. But it was effective. 

 

I thought it was good.

 

Halle Kiefer: I also give this review a lot of credit because of course, this movie is very similar to the real tale of Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s life. I mean, if anyone saw The Act. Yes. Starring the incredible Patricia Arquette. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Who I’m obsessed with, this is a very similar Munchausen by proxy. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Mother with, severe problems that are projected on to a child. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And so I kind of was like, haven’t we already seen it? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But I was lured in by what I needed, a movie about mothers under 90 minutes because I just ended up. I couldn’t do a two hour one that day. 

 

Alison Leiby: Sure. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And then two, Sarah Paulson, one of our preeminent lesbians. 

 

Alison Leiby: She is. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Who I always enjoyed. Probably the highlight of every, Ryan Murphy project that she’s a part of and famously, a fan of mommies herself. If I had to make any assumptions about the woman, and I will say the acting was great. It also stars, Kiera Allen, who I didn’t know as the daughter. She’s fabulous. So I would say, given that it is a oft told story, this is a thoroughly enjoyable little film. And Sarah Paulson is great. She should be in every horror project. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Because she has the perfect white woman, you know, like, it’s about. At any time, the mask will slip. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And the true person will emerge. 

 

Alison Leiby: I am surprised she has not done more horror features. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I mean, I guess she’s just been doing TV for so long.

 

Alison Leiby: Doing so much TV.

 

Halle Kiefer: And I guess I understand, like if you are, if you are getting hired by Ryan Murphy, I’m sure you’re like, well, I gotta take these. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. While they’re coming or else, maybe I’m out. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But yes, she is fabulous on this. I think I would love to see her in more horror movies. Just someone who’s sort of like an Alison Williams, you know, where you’re like, oh, I hadn’t pictured you in a horror movie, but now I see you’re you’re frigid. Robotic continence is perfect both for Get Out and for M3GAN. 

 

Alison Leiby: M3GAN. Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Oh, she was in. Oh. We’ll also have to do Split and Glass. We. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Because, Sarah Paulson is also in Glass. She’s fabulous in that. And yeah, other than that, it’s mostly been TV. It looks like, which we support. So. Yeah. So we will get it started. We always like to have Alison watch the trailer, for all of our films. What did you think about the trailer for Run from 2020? 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, obviously, I can see how the story is lifted from the real events of Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s life. But very scary. There’s also, like I, in watching the trailer, realized there is a scene that I think is like a pivotal, like realization moment that is not in the trailer but has been served to me. You know how like movies and television shows are constantly clipped up on TikTok and you just see them out of context? I’ve seen a scene from this, and I was I was like, wonder what movie that is? And the comments were all like, what is this? [laughter] And so I have seen a scene from this film, on TikTok. Sarah Paulson isn’t in the scene. It’s featuring just, the young woman playing the daughter, realizing that she’s getting, like, dog pills or something like that. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes a classic moment.

 

Alison Leiby: Which is a bummer to have seen. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Mm hmm. 

 

Alison Leiby: But also, I know, like, I know that that kind of realization moment is going to be in this movie, whether I’ve seen that moment or not. So, you know, I’m very scared that also, when she’s trying to get on the Wi-Fi to look up her mom and like, the lights are out in the kitchen, but you can see that Sarah Paulson is there in the shadows. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh. That’s a good shot. 

 

Alison Leiby: Excellent. Terrifying. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And that, of course, brings us to our baseline scary. Alison, how scary you find the concept of being a mommy. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, obviously very terrible. I don’t want to do it. I have no–

 

Halle Kiefer: What’s the scariest thing about being a mommy? To you?

 

Alison Leiby: I think, like, how fraught it feels like with, like, so much can go wrong every second of every day. From the moment you get pregnant to the time you die. Like. Yeah. Like that’s I think that’s that’s like, that’s the thing that to me, like, like I get scared about something happening to Rizz, I do not think that pets and children are the same feelings like, don’t, mistake me there like, I like. This is such a small scale in comparison to like, what real parenting is, but like, sometimes I’m just like, oh, I left something out that, like, if he were to eat it, he would die. And I’m like, oh, I’m–

 

Halle Kiefer: Terrifying. 

 

Alison Leiby: Hearing that comes. And like, I think with a child, there’s just so much like it is just an evolving nightmare. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s what it feels like to me, which is why I’m not interested in doing it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. It’s. 

 

Alison Leiby: What about, you? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Seems like a lot. I feel like. Yeah, a lot of my, terror around being a mommy is. Absolutely. I’m so I’ve talked about on the podcast before. I’m sorry. I’m going to bring it up because it is my number one most irrational fear. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, yes, of course. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That is of course, is leaving a baby in a car. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. You have neither a baby nor a car. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So but there is something about the helplessness of children that is so terrifying. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And also, I think this is why this these kinds of stories about Munchausen and, you know, it’s not like people, people are both repulsed by and hate child abuse. And also it is so prevalent and is so obviously like something that we as human beings have to figure out how to address. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And I think, like, you know, this story, both the story this is based on and this movie is it’s so much about a parental figures inability to distinguish that a child is separate from them or separate from their idea of them, and how you know that exists in culture and all these different ways. And also when it becomes literal, like it’s like our their brains are literalizing something that every parent has to understand. Like, okay, when this child was a baby, it was kind of just like [both speaking] and now as this child is emerging and in this case, you know, about to go off to college, they’re becoming its own self. And what that triggers in a parent that has a profoundly broken concept of what their own self is and let alone their child. So there’s something about that that’s so scary. But yeah, I feel like most of my fears are mostly choking to death, leaving something out, you know, like those kinds of like you could do your best intentions, but you turn your back on a kid and it in chokes to death on a magnet. 

 

Alison Leiby: No it’s so scary. No.

 

Halle Kiefer: You know, what do you how do you move forward? And, with that in mind, would you like to guess the twist in the movie Run, Alison? 

 

[voice over]: Guess the twist. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, I like from knowing, you know, the reality of this Munchausen by proxy stories and like, I guess the obvious, like the obvious twist here is like, oh, she’s not paralyzed. She’s not sick. Like, this is all like she’s just been told I. Is there an extra level to this or is it that straightforward? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. There is an extra level to this.

 

Alison Leiby: I feel like that’s not her mom. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Wait what? 

 

Alison Leiby: That that’s not her mom. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Excellent, excellent guess. 

 

Alison Leiby: Which I think they’re like lead. That’s not like some huge surprise. I feel like the trailer kind of is leading you towards, like, who is this woman? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: So. And I’m going to guess. I’m going to guess that she. This woman killed her mom and stole her as a baby and has been lying to her about being sick and unable to walk. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Fabulous. Let us begin ruining Run. We open on a medical team trying to resuscitate a blue newborn. It’s a very intricate little puppet. They have, like, a little tiny doll. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That’s very vivid. Both, like, looks like it will come alive. And it also looks like it would talk. And we have, like, Rizzo the rat’s voice or something. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah yeah yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So very just this disturbing. We see Sarah Paulson lying in a hospital bed, praying a nurse arrives to take her down to see the baby. They arrive. We see the baby in one of those, baby. 

 

Alison Leiby: Incubator. 

 

Air cubes. Where, ox– What’s it called? 

 

Alison Leiby: Incubator?

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. Yeah. Incubator.

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. That’s right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Incubator from the Latin for baby cube. 

 

Alison Leiby: Baby cube. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And, she, of course, is thrilled to see the baby and says out loud, you know, is she okay? We see again. There’s a lot of really excellent shots where it’s like she asks that, and then we see the nurse behind her rubbing his hands together. He’s immediately nervous because the answer is baby is not really going to be okay. The baby is going to have a lot going on. And on the screen, just to give us a rundown, we see the definition of a bunch of medical terms arrhythmia and abnormal heart rate, hemochromatosis and excess accumulation of iron in the bloodstream, asthma, diabetes and paralysis. And we see, a group of parents meeting and we see sort of their handing back the Kleenex box. One woman’s crying, and we realize it’s a it’s a support group for parents whose kids are going off to college. Like, it’s sort of like, just like the beginning of the year. They’re entering their senior year. Everyone has a lot of feelings. So it’s like we’re having a meeting to talk about this. And one woman’s bursting into tears. I went to public school. They were doing this kind of meeting, but I think it’s nice knowing–

 

Alison Leiby: No my parents were like thank god you’re getting out of here. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But also I think like there might be some people who that change is hard. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So it’s nice that it’s just talk about it then, you know, sort of allow it to happen. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And so, you know, they’re handing back and box tissues. They had the tissue, of course, to Sarah Paulson. Her name is Diane. And they said, well, you know, Diane’s here. Her daughter also is a senior. She’s going off to college here. Diane, how are you feeling about it? And, of course, she says what you said, what she’s like. Well, let’s see, I watched after I had to care for my daughter. For the last 17 years, I have not been able to date. I have not been able to travel. I did not do anything myself. Yeah. So I’m really pretty goddamn great. And they all stare at her and the sobbing mom says, well, aren’t you worried about how Chloe is? And Diane doesn’t even want to let her say it, she’s like, brave, smart, capable. If there’s anyone you don’t to worry about, it’s Chloe. Speaking of Chloe is, waking up in her bed the next morning and we see her lift herself into her manual wheelchair. Here she is paraplegic, cannot walk, but, you know, as a manual wheelchair. And we also see their houses outfitted in different accouterment. She has an electronic chair that takes her down the stairs in the morning. You know, there’s guardrails on the toilet. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know, tub. But she’s, you know, has a full life. Yeah. We see her taking many, many pills every morning and applying ointment to her back. She’s a bunch of rashes on her back. She goes downstairs for breakfast. 

 

Alison Leiby: I cannot reach your back. I could barely take off my own bra. [laughs]

 

Halle Kiefer: My back, my back is none of my business. What’s going on back there? 

 

Alison Leiby: No, that’s for somebody else to deal with. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That’s for someone else to worry about. Not me thank you. At breakfast, we see Chloe test her blood sugar, and when it’s high, Diane goes to inject her with insulin. But we have this first moment of, you know, Chloe stops her, takes the syringe, and she injects herself with the insulin. So again, it’s like I am my own person. I am giving myself my medical care. But Diane, at least in that moment, is like, that’s fine. We see Diane help her with physical therapy. Like stretching out her legs. We see her use her asthma inhaler. We find out that Diane homeschools her, right? So Diane homeschools her daughter. But Diane is a substitute teacher, so Diane does go to the school. Chloe appears has never been to school. Right. Which makes sense, considering what we’re going to find out. It’s like, yeah, that would be hard to keep under your hat. You know what I mean? Like, if you if she was talking to other kids, you know. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We see her vomit once more throughout the day, take her inhaler, and, she hears her mom come to the door that afternoon. Chloe rushes to the door as her mom brings in the mail, and Diane says, I’ll tell you if there’s even one college letter, I will close my eyes. I won’t open it. I will give it to you. You don’t have to worry. 

 

Alison Leiby: God homeschooling a child for their whole life and then being like, go to college like, my God, what a huge culture shock for that child. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Huge. But understandably, Chloe is amped. She wants to freaking get into college. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah of course. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She’s ready to get out. It’s like, yeah, she has never been on a date. She’s never had friends, really, seemingly because I think even if you’re homeschooling and I don’t know much about it, I imagine there’s like playdates. You bring kids around other people just like to get them out of the house. 

 

Alison Leiby: I would think. 

 

Halle Kiefer: If you don’t, you got to, we see the Diane grows a bunch of their own produce, like, so she has, like, a plot of land. So she’s cooking, vegetables for dinner that she grew herself. Chloe’s blood sugar is a little low after dinner, so Diane gives her a chocolate as a treat, and Chloe wants to, but, you know, her mom gives her one. So, again, even that even the treats are controlled by my mom. After dinner, Chloe’s at her, the family laptop, family computer, which was a of of our era, you know, sort of like there’s a desktop in the living room so her mom’s watching TV. Chloe’s looking at videos of the college that she wants to go to. University of Washington. So.

 

Alison Leiby: In Saint Louis, or in Washington state?

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, in Washington state. So it’s in Seattle. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And so the implication is that they’re outside Seattle. So she’d be going somewhere close by. She’s not like she’s going to Harvard or anything, which I think also makes sense. Like. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh. You know why? Why? 

 

Alison Leiby: One thing at a time.

 

Exactly. Like, let’s start there. That seems great. So she’s watching like, move in videos with her mom’s, like, when’s the last time we went to the movies? We should hang out more. And again, it’s like. 

 

Alison Leiby: Hang out more?

 

Halle Kiefer: Mom, you got to have a friend, you know? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Chloe’s very. She’s like, she’s a computer gal. She’s building a printer for herself, but she can’t really figure out what’s going on. And she complains, like, you know, it’d be a lot easier for me to look this up if I had an iPhone and I could just look up things and really go up and down the stairs, and her mom’s like, oh, okay, I’ll get you a phone. Whatever. Of course, if you’re 17 now, you would already have a phone. You know.

 

Alison Leiby: 100%. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Would that also be bad for your mental health? 

 

Alison Leiby: Absolutely. Yes.

 

Halle Kiefer: At the end of the day, Chloe goes to bed and Diane retires to her own room to do what I presume she does every night drink wine and watch videos of baby Chloe and dread what will happen when her daughter leaves her control. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s probably what I would do. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You got to get on Match.com. I don’t know which one’s right for this woman, but you got to get out there. [both speaking] You got to leave. 

 

Alison Leiby: You got to meet some people. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like Bumble friends or whatever. Like you got to go to a, soccer coed. Soccer or whatever. The next day, Diane comes home after substitute teaching. She has groceries, and when she, she puts the groceries down and she goes back out to the car, Chloe goes through the bags. She’s grabbing a handful of chocolates to stash for later, like she would again. She would. It’s like. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I should be in control of when I get a treat. She finds–

 

Alison Leiby: I hide treats from myself in my house. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And you have to. 

 

Alison Leiby: And then I find a bag of Hershey Kisses in my liquor cabinet and I’m like, win win. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison, you’re 40 year old woman. You should not be Hershey’s Kisses. 

 

Alison Leiby: But like. 

 

Halle Kiefer: What is this, Easter at public school? Would–

 

Alison Leiby: I love a Hershey’s Kiss. Controversially.

 

Halle Kiefer: Wow. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard you say. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s like. It’s like, you know how, like, you crave, like, good pizza, but sometimes you’re like, I kind of want Domino’s. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Okay. Yes, I do know that. 

 

Alison Leiby: Like, I’m like, I don’t think it’s good chocolate. It’s made in a factory, but like, it’s all it’s plastic basically. But like I they are a treat for me. But like I will eat the whole bag and I will get sick like a dog. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Wow. Well, you know, that all adds up to me now that I know that you say it like that. Yeah. So she’s grabbing some delicious Hershey Kisses when she finds a prescription bottle that has her mother’s name on it, and she sees inside there, green and a green and clear pills. But again, it’s her mother’s medication. She is kind of, you know, wondering. But she puts it back. It’s none of our business. That night, Diane brings Chloe her medication and says, you know, I know the doctor switched over some of your medication recently. They just switched over one of the newer ones. So it’s the same pill. It just looks a little different. Of course, when Chloe sees it, it’s the green and clear pills, which were in a specifically a bottle for her mother. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And what I think makes this movie actually compelling is that they do seem to have some kind of good relationship, because in The Act, you. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer:  Gypsy Rose Blanchard’s never asking her mother about that pill bottle. This movie, Chloe still has a trust of her mother and says. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Well, I saw it when I went to go get some chocolate. I shouldn’t have been eating the chocolate, but I saw your name was on that pill bottle. It’s not for me. And so her mom’s like, well, you shouldn’t be eating the chocolate. I calibrate your meals so you don’t need more than one. And I have to go. I have to go. The principal ask me to substitute Pre-calc tomorrow, so I’m going to do that. Chloe, of course, is like. But your name is on it. And she’s. 

 

Alison Leiby: Substitute teaching. The daughters. Just not going to school? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, I guess not. I think we’re to believe because of her medical ailments. Like, she just it’s just easier for her. But it’s like if your mom’s at the school. That seems like that. 

 

Alison Leiby: And also like your mom’s your teacher. So now, like, if she’s teaching other kids, it means she’s not teaching. So you just don’t have school. When mom goes to teach more like, she’s. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like, gives her assignments. Like we see her, like, give her reading assignments and she just do it. She’s very smart. She’s. She’s building a printer, which does seem hard. 

 

Alison Leiby: I could use a printer. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Chloe, says, you know but your name is on that bottle, and her mom says, you know, actually, it’s on there because that’s that’s actually receipt. It’s. They wrap the receipt around the bottle. You know, it’s, it’s that’s what it wait, because I ordered it. I placed the order. It wasn’t that for you. You know, unfortunately for Diane, you cannot raise a very a child to be smart and then also do stuff like this because this raises Chloe’s like, what are you talking about? You know, and because Diane is out of the picture the next day, Chloe uses her robot skills or, like, building skills to build like a claw arm to reach the top of the medicine cabinet for the green and clear pills. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Before she can take it down. And read the name on it. A car pulls into the gravel driveway. Chloe rushes over to the window and sees it’s the mail truck. So she’s thrilled. She makes her way downstairs. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Hurries the door and as she goes to the door, her mom is just opening it, mail in hand instantaneously. And it’s like, how did that happen so fast? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Behind her. Chloe can see that her mom’s car door, like the car is still on. The headlights are on. The door is open and the door is pinging. So her mom’s bolted out of her car to get the mail. Later, we see that Chloe has taken the pill bottle and hidden in her room and reads the medication name Trigoxin.

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She also says that it does say her name on the label and she’s reassured, of course Alison. When she peels it off, she finds the scratched off original label with her mother’s name. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oof! 

 

Halle Kiefer: That night, Diane appears in her daughter’s room doorway and says, you figured it out. So, of course, it’s like, oh, oh. But of course, she just means something regarding the printer. It’s like, oh, you’re so smart. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oy.

 

Halle Kiefer: She gives Chloe her pills, wishes her good night. And as soon as Diane leaves, Chloe spits out the pills and hides them. Wouldn’t you know it, Alison? That night, Chloe sneaks down to the family desktop after she assumes her mother goes to sleep and searches what Trigoxin is for and the internet is down. And that is the scene where we see Diane sitting in the dark of the kitchen, watching her daughter attempt to Google something in silence. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. It’s so scary. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And. There is nothing like I being cut off to the internet when you are this isolated is terrifying because it’s like, oh, so she. I guess you have a TV, but you know, your mother could get rid of that too. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s kind of like how people think that people in prison shouldn’t like, there’s this insane thing where, like, you shouldn’t have access to books or internet, and it’s like, that is just psychological torture. Like, that’s not making somebody better or like, that has nothing to do with anything other than–

 

Alison Leiby: That’s not rehabilitation. That’s not anything. That’s just that’s literal torture. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s so it’s it’s cruelty where we all live in a world in which the internet and information is available. So, as you can imagine, Chloe’s getting more and more frustrated, but seemingly again, like not wanting to presume the worst of her mother, but she’s too smart to not notice. Like there’s she cannot convince herself that this is, you know, it isn’t what it is. In the morning, you know, she comes to breakfast, Diane’s on the phone yelling at someone and Chloe says is that the internet, you know, and it turns out the internet isn’t just down in their neighborhood. It might be down to the end of the month. Alison. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, boy. 

 

Halle Kiefer: If that were to happen, people would burn down Spectrum. You know what I mean?

 

Alison Leiby: It would be chaos. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, people would be in the streets, rioting? 

 

Alison Leiby: Our internet goes down for like five minutes. I could hear people in my building, like, losing their fucking minds. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Just shrieking. But no when Diane hangs up. She says, well, how did you know about the internet? And Chloe says, well, I used it when you went to sleep. I came down. I was looking up how when my printer isn’t working, I think I need a new ink nozzle. I was trying to Google that. And Diane says well do. Do you. Do you need an ink? Nozzle? Chloe says  well I don’t know. The internet was down. Two can play at this game mother.

 

Alison Leiby: So, arch. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Diane goes outside the garden and, we see her collecting these big, just delicious red tomatoes and all the produce looks great. She’s doing a great job with the produce.

 

Alison Leiby: I mean. I wish I could be that person. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Chloe tries to call their pharmacy to ask what the pill is, basically, or what Trigoxin is, and the pharmacist recognizes the phone number. It says, oh, Diane. And then Chloe immediately hangs up. She doesn’t want her mother to somehow find out. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She then calls 411 and has a connect to basically the first alphabetical pharmacy in Seattle. Right. But then when they’re about to connect, they say, hey, just, you know, a $0.99 charge will be put on your bill. She’s realizing my mother will see that. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. And know that I was up to something else. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison Chloe then, calls a regular random number. And not only does this guy answer even though he’s arguing with his girlfriend Paula, but he stays on and agrees to Google the question of what the pill is, which I thought was what a strange man. But thank God she got him. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, yeah. That’s great. If somebody called me one, I wouldn’t have answered and two, I it would end up with me just yelling at them about how bad Google is. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh girl, you’d end up screaming, sorry. It’s Trigoxin with an R. Trigoxin. 

 

Alison Leiby: All right. 

 

And he said, okay, I’m googling Trigoxin. It’s a pill to treat heart failure. And she’s like, okay, relieved, but then realizes to ask what color are the pills? And we get a shot of. As she asks, we see Sarah Paulson picking a big fat red tomato at the garden, and the man on the phone says, Trigoxin. It looks like based on the photos it’s little red pills. So that is not the medication in the Trigoxin bottle. 

 

Alison Leiby: Bottle. 

 

Halle Kiefer: This is the proof Chloe needs that something is desperately wrong, right? She pops her top, she hangs up and she looks the pill and she says out loud, what the hell are you? At dinner, Chloe asks her mother, when’s the last time we saw a movie? And Diane, thrilled that her daughter wants to hang out with her, says, well, what do you want to see? They get ready to go, and Chloe empties her piggy bank, which is full of the medication. All of it. She’s not taking any of it that she has stopped taking. Right. So she is now off her medication for at least a couple days. She takes the pills with her. I was thinking she was going to O.D. at the movies and go to a hospital, which I actually think was the. Should have been what she did. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Because at least then if you’re out, if you’re taken to a facility, you could maybe have alone time and be like, here’s what’s going on, but maybe she’s not there yet. They go to the theater, and the movie they’re seeing is called Breakout. And the movie that’s coming soon is called Fake News. So I thought that was funny. And she sees across the street there’s a pet clinic and a pharmacy. So while the movie’s playing, Diane is wrapped. She’s loving breakout. It is a breakout hit of the year. 

 

Alison Leiby: I am glad that she’s seeing something she likes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And, you know, that is a place you go for magic. And I do think both both of them could use a touch of magic at this point. Chloe says to her mother during the movie, I’m going to go pee. Heads out. And of course, she, takes a hit of her inhaler for strength. And then she’s racing against time to go to the pharmacy. So she gets the pharmacy, and when she is there, there’s a comically long line. 

 

Alison Leiby: Of course. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Which to me seems like an M. Night Shyamalan decision, like something. Like he will just do like like I have, like a funny moment in this tense moment I thought I appreciated that and so she basically is like, fuck it. Sorry everyone. I’m paralyzed. Please feel bad for me. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s like. 

 

Alison Leiby: If you’re not going to use that. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You got to. 

 

Alison Leiby: To your advantage. Sometimes. If it’s not this time, what time is it? 

 

Halle Kiefer: And I know, obviously if you’re someone listening in a wheelchair, I don’t want you to feel like in any way you have to. At the same time, I think you’re allowed to do that whatever you want. 

 

Alison Leiby: I think so too. Absolutely.

 

Halle Kiefer: Please. Come on. She gets to the pharmacist. Who who’s the one who answered the phone? So she knows Chloe and and Diane, and she said, could you please look up this pill? It’s under my mom’s name, but, of course, the pharmacist says well. It was under your mother’s name. It’s for her. I can’t look up somebody else’s medication. I can look up your medication. But that’s not. That’s obviously not what’s going on. Right. And so Chloe says, no, if you can look it up, it’s, it’s for a scavenger hunt. The pharmacist is like, well, I don’t know, but that’s enough to get her to actually look it up. And she says, oh, you know what? It was a scavenger hunt. It must be a trick question. 

 

[clip of Sharon Bajer]: Because your Mom doesn’t get these prescribed for herself. 

 

[clip of Kiera Allen]: Yes she does. I saw them, she had them in her bag. Her name–

 

[clip of Sharon Bajer]: She gets them for your dog. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison. They don’t have a dog.

 

Alison Leiby: Also normally when you have dog medication they put the dog’s name on it. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh that’s cute. Well so we find that like we, they share a pharmacy to the pet clinic next door. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And so I guess we’re to assume you could get it filled, which actually is pretty convenient. This is what small town America is all about. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And she says, yeah, this is a dog muscle relaxant. This is a muscle relaxant for animals. 

 

Alison Leiby: Sounds great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And before Chloe, popped a few of those with a glass of red wine. 

 

Alison Leiby: Chill out. 

 

Halle Kiefer: See a lot of people looking, before Chloe can answer. Diane bursts into the pharmacy and shouts in front of everybody. Chloe! Alison. If this was you, what would you do? 

 

[voice over]: What would you do? 

 

Alison Leiby: I would make a scene so bad in that pharmacy that they would need to call cops. And then I would hope that I could get separated from my mother enough to, like, talk to a police officer and be like, okay, there’s a lot of stuff going on, and I, like, need another adult to be, like on my side with this and like, sort it out. Like I would just be like, I would make myself throw up on the floor. I would scream, I would knock over a bunch of shit. Like, I would be like, I am not leaving and and hope I can get all of the other patrons of this pharmacy on my side so that they’re not just like, oh, go with your mom. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, and it is hard because it’s like, okay, in that situation call the cops. And it’s like, oh boy. Like putting the cops in this situation or many situations does not seem like a solution. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Also what is she gonna? All she could do is create some distance between her and her mother. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

Halle Kiefer: Chloe starts hyperventilating and panicking, and Diane leaps in a medical survival savior mode like, oh, this is a medical distress. I can run in and save her. She screams for everyone to get back, and she injects her daughter in the thigh with a sedative, so just stabs her with a syringe she had on hand. Again. Don’t love to see that, you know. 

 

Alison Leiby: No, that’s not great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Chloe passes out. Diane drives them home. At home. We see Diane in the shower and her back is covered in scars. And we don’t find out anything else about Diane’s backstory, but we do. We see this. So we know that there is a long backstory of why she is this person. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And again, I appreciate that you don’t have to explain everything. I see that I’m like, okay, yeah, that’s a damaged person who is entering a phase of life where she is slowly losing control of the only thing that she’s able to exert total control over her daughter. We see Diane on the phone, pacing around the kitchen with the pharmacy, saying, like, I’m really sorry. You know, the doctor switched for medication last week, and she’s been, I’m. I’m afraid she’s starting to have delusions. I really apologize. This is so out of character and I, we know each other. You know me. You know, I you know, and I’m. I was wondering if you could call Chloe even and just let her know, like, that’s obviously not the medication I gave her. And even if it was, I mean, even if it was it, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with it. It’d be fine. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s weird. Thing to include. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Diane then drops her hand and we see she’s not even on the phone. She’s just talking out loud. So Chloe thinks that she’s calling the pharmacy or thinks she’s carrying. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, God. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And she’s not even doing that. 

 

Alison Leiby: The level of of. I mean, it’s more than a grift, but the grift that this is is it’s so deep. 

 

Halle Kiefer: That night, we see her typing an email to Chloe’s doctor and saying, I am furious. My the medication switched is causing Chloe to become delusional. She’s obviously planting the seeds of she is so untrustworthy that I will be her. Not simply her medical care giver, but potentially I can be, you know. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s control is being given over to me in a new way. We also see her googling the phrase household neurotoxins, and I was like, if you’re going to call it kill your daughter, bitch, you should at least be on incognito mode. Yeah, you can look that up. 

 

Alison Leiby: No that’s bad. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Don’t just Google how she talks. 

 

Alison Leiby: And also yeah, she’s like been so on top of. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yes. 

 

Alison Leiby: All of her lies. This feels like such a huge miss. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And I guess maybe that’s what I think too is like she’s starting to spiral and she’s getting sloppy. 

 

Alison Leiby: Careless. Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison. Next day Chloe gets up and there’s a plate of food next to her bed. She panics, jumps in her wheelchair and goes to the door and it is locked from the outside. She’s locked into her bedroom. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She calls her mother, but there’s no response. And when she looks outside, her mother’s car is gone, so she’s been locked in her room for the day. Chloe, there’s not even. I mean, maybe there’s a bathroom connecting it, but I did see one, so I’m like, what’s the plan here? Yeah, but I guess we’re past plans and more, on to,  I’m locking my child–

 

Alison Leiby: Crisis. Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Chloe attempts to pick the doorknob, and she’s able to undo the lock, but when she goes to open it, we see that Diane has jerry rigged a garden rake across the door. So? So then Chloe cannot open it. So there’s a physical barrier outside the door now, right. But Chloe has the can do attitude that University of Washington would love to have. So she ties off her mini power cables and cords she has and lowers herself out the window. 

 

Alison Leiby: Wow. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s like, the overhang of the porch, you know, be like it’s two story with like a shingle–

 

Alison Leiby: So it’s like, yeah, yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So she also takes a mouthful of water that she keeps in her mouth, and we see her and she goes to the next window and she plugs in a soldering iron or a soldering iron that she had was building her printer with stabs, a soldering iron into the glass, and it superheat the glass and she spits the water in it, shatters the window, which I thought was cool. Kind of. I’m not exactly sure why you need to do all that, but it was genius. 

 

Alison Leiby: I guess. So there’s no shards since she’s not as. If she’s going in that window, like you would kind of need it to be. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Right, you would be able to open it and you can just drop all these. I don’t think she could have just dropped it onto the ground. And also then you wouldn’t have your wheelchair, you know, like. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, right. It’s like, okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She’s doing the best she can, right? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. I mean, that’s that’s some science at work. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She crawls in the window and she immediately starts having an asthma attack, and she has to haul herself down the hallway. And get to the door. Has to, like, drag herself and then get the rake off the outside of the door. Manages to barely get inside, takes a hit of her inhaler and goes, mother, which I appreciate it. 

 

Alison Leiby: I like that. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She then goes to the mechanical stair. Chair of course, to find out it has also been disabled, so she has to push her wheelchair down the stairs. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh my God. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Then essentially has to push herself down the stairs. And this poor bitch basically toppled down an entire flight of stairs. She lands flat on a rack and when she goes to sit up, she realizes she is now able to wiggle her big toe. So she has not been taking her medication, so she is slowly regaining movement in her feet. She can’t walk or anything, she can’t stand up there, but clearly. And she’s overjoyed. And also it’s proof. Like I was right. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like something I have been taking the medication. So she gets in her chair, she gets out of the driveway, she’s hauling ass down this. So it’s of course, they’re in the middle of the country. It’s a country road. There’s no one else around. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And we see Diane on her drive back, and she has a paper bag from the hardware store in the backseat. 

 

Alison Leiby: Not great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And again, girl, you googled household neurotoxins and there’s a receipt from whatever Home Depot the next day they’re getting–

 

Alison Leiby: For whatever the fuck. Diabolical thing you bought to destroy your daughter’s life. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Chloe is wheeling down a country road. She ducks off the road as she hears a car coming around a turn, only to see it’s a mail truck. And basically, in order to get him to stop wheels directly in front of it screeches to a stop. And the mail man, whose name is Tom, runs out in a panic because he knows them for the route. 

 

Alison Leiby: Of course. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Like he’s really been doing this for years. Like what? What’s going on? And she says, I need your help. He wheels her to the side of the truck, and that’s when she sees her mother’s car pull up behind them. So the mother saw her in the road and sees her with Tom, the mailman, and she runs over. And this is just an acting tour de force from, Sarah Paulson next, like seven minutes are just her, like switching tactics. It’s like, how do you convince this guy to let them leave, you know? And she tells the mailman like, oh my God, you know, and meanwhile, before her mother get out of the car, Chloe says, I need your help, you know? And the mail man is no slouch. He understands, like something is going badly wrong. This would not, a teenager, would not be wheeling down the road unless she was escaping abuse like they–

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She’s running away. 

 

Alison Leiby: She’s not like a, rebellious teen. Like, this is. This is. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And honestly, most rebellious teens that it’s it’s the kind of stuff, unfortunately is happening at home. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So he gets up to talk to her and Diane screaming and yelling. Oh, my God, is my daughter hurt? What happened? And Tom says, Well Tom shouldn’t have said this he’s like, well, she says you you hurt her. And Diane says, she says, I hurt my own daughter, which I think that phrasing really speaks to Diane’s, like, at least like, oh, she like her idea of hers. Your daughter is different than her as a person. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And she says, you know, I’m sorry, Tom. She changed the doctor, change her medication. She’s been delusional. I don’t know what. She doesn’t even know what she’s saying. You know, I don’t know what she’s saying. But Tom’s, again, is reading it correctly. Blocks her from going to Chloe. And so Diane changes tactics. It’s like I’m supposed to trust that you, an adult man who is alone with my distraught, disabled, underage daughter? How am I to believe that you didn’t do something to her? We’ll see what 911 has to say about it. And she holds up the phone to call 911 then she holds to her ear and just stands there in silence. Tom says, I don’t think there’s a reception out here. She’s not actually calling. Right? So he’s like, I know that you are calling them. Finally, she changes tactic once again and says, you know, Tom, you know me, you know me. For years we have been through so much. You know, we’ve been through so much, people can’t even imagine it. And I just want you to just let me take her home. We can resolve this. And Tom says, I cannot let you do that. I, I, you know. 

 

Alison Leiby: Go Tom. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Unfortunately, things don’t go great for him, but he he was a real mensch in this moment. And he did the right thing. And Diane says, okay, then let me follow you to the hospital, which is like, okay. Tom says to Chloe, goes to Chloe and says, do you wanna go the hospital or police? And she says, police say I’m actually doing better than ever now. The medication, he helps her to the back of the mail truck and just as is about to shut it, we see Diane rear up behind him and stab him in the neck with a syringe. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he collapses. And we see, Diane lock eyes with her daughter. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s getting messy. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s getting real messy. It’s going to get messier. 

 

Alison Leiby: I bet. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And in that moment, we see there’s a gun in a box in the trunk of Diane’s car. Chekhov’s. Chekhov’s mommy. Alison, that brings me to my. My question. Next question. Who will survive this movie? 

 

[voice over]: Who will survive. 

 

Alison Leiby: I think Chloe is going to kill her mother. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Okay. How is she going to do it? How do you think she’ll do it? 

 

Alison Leiby: I think she’s going to shoot her. I think she’s going to get her hands on the gun. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I’m gonna say, put her head in the printer. Use the soldering iron again. But we already had the soldering iron. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But. Yes. Once you’ve introduced the gun, you know, we can only imagine there will be gunplay later in the film. 

 

[AD BREAK]

 

Halle Kiefer: Back in the house, we see that Chloe sits waiting for a mother in the basement. In the basement, of course. Ton of boxes. Relics of the past. Secrets to be discovered. And also some sort of, like, lab where her mother cooks up things which you don’t like to find out about a lab your mother has in the basement. 

 

Alison Leiby: No. Definitely not one that you didn’t know existed until you were forced down there. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Oh, yeah. If you knew about it, then it’s fine, do whatever you want. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s like mom loves chemistry. Like, fine, but, like, not a secret lab. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison. Chloe finds the acceptance letter from University of Washington, which, of course, her mother open and of course, was hiding from her. She got in and she goes apeshit finally, and is just screaming and tearing the place apart, throwing things over. Meanwhile, we see Diane literally dragging Tom the mailman’s body down a hallway. 

 

Alison Leiby: Great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I don’t know what she thinks you’re going to do with that. He does have an entire mail truck. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right? 

 

Halle Kiefer: I guess maybe if you put him in the truck, maybe they wouldn’t figure out how he died of a heart attack or something. 

 

Alison Leiby: Is he dead or just sedated? 

 

Halle Kiefer: He’s dead because there’s literally a trail of blood under his body and he’s immobile. So he. Because I thought, okay, she sedated him. Whatever. 

 

Alison Leiby: Just to buy herself some time. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But I guess, like, she’s not willing to risk it because now he actually he knows too much. And he did. You know, lie to the police all you want. Tom. Seems like somebody the cops would believe. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison. Chloe finds a box titled Diana Baronway. Again. Her mother’s name is Diane. She gets to, goes to pick it up. Only to realize that her wheelchair is literally chained to her mother’s work table. So she is physically cannot. She has to get up, crawl over, and opens the box to find a bunch of her baby stuff. She finds a photo of herself with a Post-It on it says Chloe B-day 2006, and when she takes out the post it, of course we can see that she’s running. So again, if seems like a toddler, but in her understanding she was that that was a birth injury, you know, like she cannot. So this is her years ago running legs, working like a dream. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Alison. We see her birth certificate. And I also am unfortunately, sad to tell you there is a death certificate. Is a death certificate for Chloe. 

 

Alison Leiby: What? 

 

Halle Kiefer: It says that she died when she was two hours and 11 minutes old. And in the same box, in case we weren’t, because I was like, oh, it’d be fun if she didn’t exist. That’s interesting. She’s a ghost.

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But as you predicted, we see a cut out because if you’re going to do something crazy, you got to cut out the newspaper article. 

 

Alison Leiby: Obviously. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Obviously it says newborn baby snatched from Stockton Hospital. And a photo of a sobbing couple talking to the press, begging them to please help find our infant. We, of course, cut back to that initial scene of Diane in the hospital, and her baby never made it, so she snatched another one and we see her looking through the glass at all the beautiful babies. And speaking of which, which am I going to snatch? 

 

Alison Leiby: Wasn’t there like security footage? 

 

Halle Kiefer: I think now there is, but I guess like but then it’s like, what, 2000 she’s already in. So it’s like, yeah, but in the early 2000s there would have been. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But I don’t know. I still think that it’s something that we don’t want to believe exists because it’s so shocking. So I wouldn’t be surprised, you know, like if you could do it just because it’s such a bizarre out of left field thing to do, that the hospital has other issues going on, like we have other things to planned through. And then that, like I said, sort of how also how Munchausen works, where it’s like. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Most of the time parents are genuinely wanting their kids to get well. So when someone doesn’t want that, it is in fact, that is the opposite with them. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes.

 

Halle Kiefer: Imagine it is just so bureaucratically difficult to it would take so much longer because of that. But yeah, she got snatched. And of course, Chloe is understanding this for the first time and she breaks down weeping. At the top of the stairs, we see the light turn on and Diane starts to descend into the basement. Maybe this is Sarah Paulson’s time to shine. 

 

Alison Leiby: Here we go. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Chloe says. So you’re not my real mom and Diane says, of course I’m your real mother. Of course I am. And Chloe holds up the newspaper clippings, says, then who are these people? Diane screams. I saved you from them. No one in the universe loves their kid as much as I do. Everything I do is for you. Look great. And Chloe says. Wait, was I ever actually sick? And Diane, of course, is not trying to answer that because the answer is no. And the idea is like, what am I? Name one time when I wasn’t a good mom to you. Chloe’s like, can, I actually walk. Can my heart actually beat normally or could I actually not be covered in rashes if she says you poisoned me and Diane like she can’t even stand to hear, she clamps her hand over Chloe’s mouth. She says, I protected you, I protected you. And then, of course, Chloe looks down and sees Tom the mail man’s blood on her mother’s clothes and Diane says, no, he’s just sleeping. He’s fine. He’s just sleeping. 

 

Alison Leiby: He’s taking a bloody nap. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Dreaming about all that mail he’s going to deliver. 

 

Alison Leiby: He loves mail. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Diane holds out her hand and says, everything I did was for you, Chloe. And Chloe’s like, you didn’t do this for me. You did this for you. Which, like, again, you cannot raise a child to be smart and not have them be like, bitch what are you. What are you doing? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Unfortunately. Alison. Diane storms into the other room and it brings out some sort of medical apparatus. And I don’t know what it’s called, but it looks like a machine for when you have to be intubated. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And, say, if you were so completely un, disconnected from, yourself that you have to be intubated, and how would you get to that place? Well, your mom would go to the stovetop and pour paint thinner into a pot and start cooking it down, which is. I mean. 

 

Alison Leiby: Wouldn’t the fumes from doing that? Kill them both. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know, you think. 

 

Alison Leiby: I don’t know anything about paint thinner, but it certainly seems like. It’s pretty dangerous to cook with. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah you shouldn’t cook it in an open pot with people in the house. I think we can all agree on that. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. Yes.

 

Halle Kiefer: Chloe screams please don’t do something bad. And we see Diane dip a syringe into the hot paint thinner, and pull it a syringe full of it. Chloe’s screaming and she’s trying to back up like scoot back across the floor. She says, I do not want to die. Please. And Diane’s sobbing. She’s like, don’t say that. I would never, ever do that. Chloe’s able to get into a closet and kick the door close and is able to, like, lock the door from the inside. And so Diane’s begging her from the outside. It’s like.

 

[clip of Sarah Paulson]: I’m not going to hurt you. This is going to make you forget all of this. And when you wake up, I’ll be right by your side. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And you’ll be my baby forever. Oh, in that case, let me open that door. Back up. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh, boy. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We see Chloe look up, and there are just shelves of medications, all sort of medical supplies. And she starts to get an idea and Diane falls silent, when she hears Chloe rattling around. So then Diane starts running around to find keys to open it from the outside. And Chloe finds a bottle of organophosphate and it says on it if ingested call 911 immediately. Diane finds the keys, opens the door and she bursts in. Chloe screams you need me and drinks the organic phosphate, which both of us had the idea of either O.D. at the movies or make the pharmacy go to the hospital, get something, and she had the right idea. She’s trying to do–

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, yeah yeah right. She’s taking some more measured steps, and we were both at a ten already. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Exactly. And now she’s at a ten, and she’s going to drink something to force either kill her or force her mother to take the hospital. Diane of course screams, looking around for something to give her. But it’s too late. Chloe starts coughing up blood. Alison. Sometime later, we see Chloe open her eyes in the hospital bed. She is functional. She is, intubated though. And she, she is so weak she cannot move to press the call button. So she’s alive. So she’s cognizant she knows that she’s had. 

 

Alison Leiby: She, okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She knows what’s happening but is, is in a state where she cannot say anything.

 

Alison Leiby: Physically. Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Fortunately the doctors really smart enough to, like, take Diane in a room and be like, you know, so we’ve she stabilized. We think she’s going to be okay. You know, we’re looking at her extensive medical records and boy, we’ve really noticed some discrepancies here. For example, she changed her doctor six times in the last year, which I checked doing like medication shopping or like, yeah, that doctor sort of knowing something, you have to keep moving because like doctors will notice in all these stories, it’s like a dot. Even the Gypsy Rose Blanchard like a doctor noticed and did try to report it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But it’s such a high standard because of like what it is. I don’t know. You think there’d be. I’m sure there are more things in place now than, you know, when that happened to her. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But these doctors are like, yeah, something bad is wrong here. And so her mother, like, watches her through the window of her room and then kind of waves and starts to leave. So I think her mom’s like, I will bounce if I have to. Finally, when her mother’s not watching her, Chloe’s able to hit the call button and the nurse gives her a purple crayon and some paper to write on. And the nurse is, like, so chatty and nice. Like she’s like, oh, sorry, I can’t give you a pen. Hospital rules you know you might kill yourself. So I got I got your crayon and just take your time. You know you’re in no rush. Like just talking to her, but of course, she’s barely. It’s barely legible, so she’s trying to draw an M. Of course. Alison, just when she get’s through M, there’s a code blue and the nurse has to rush out somebody’s flatlining, crash or whatever. And of course, we see Chloe’s panicking because she knows basically I’m gonna be alone in this fucking room. And we cut to the machine. We see her, her blood pressure start to spike, and then suddenly she flatlines. But of course, she’s not flatlining. Her mother has yanked out the cords and is is starting to steal Chloe from the hospital. And while. While the doctors are distracted. Her mother was able to get Chloe into a wheelchair and is wheeling down the hallway, which is full of patients doctors, but Chloe is still so weak. 

 

Alison Leiby: That she can’t even like call out.

 

Halle Kiefer: So. Yeah, so she’s looking at everyone. But again, no, you’re in a hospital. Like nobody’s really interacting with her in that way. 

 

Alison Leiby: And also you’re not going to look at like a child being wheeled by their parent and assume that, like, that’s bad. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. You don’t know the whole backstory. You haven’t seen the movie Run yet. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The nurse gets back and sees Chloe gone and even calls and he’s like, did somebody move? The patient was like, that’s obviously not what happened. They would have told you. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And also the her cords are everywhere and the machine’s flatlining. And someone says no, why what happened. And she looks at the paper and it says the word mom and the nurse realizes, oh, I fucked up. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We then hear over the intercom

 

Hard to guess that yeah.

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We hear of the intercom security being called to the south wing, and I think they shot this last sequence in LAX because, like, it looks like it looks like an airport, but just like, there’s, like a fake little, you know, like, check in desk. And then they needed a set of stairs and escalators, right? 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And, so they’re running to, you know, the security’s running to apparently that’s the exit I mentioned they’re going towards, you know, the parking garage they’re running over. And as her mother runs to the, escalators, we also see the elevators. Luckily, the elevators are out. They’re not functioning. So her mother starts to panic. It’s like, well, how are we going to get her down? You know, Chloe sees in this moment a sign that says University of Washington Medical Campus. And she says, fuck this, I’m going to college. I’m not I’m not fucking doing this anymore. So she throws on the wheelchair breaks so her mother can’t push her. Dianne loses it on her, of course, and as Diane watches, Chloe moves her legs and begins to stand up. And she says, her mother. I don’t need you. And her mother takes out her gun and points it at her daughter and says, you will pull. 

 

Alison Leiby: I got a gun in a hospital is like a wild thing. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And I couldn’t be happier to see Sarah Paulson do it. Honestly. 

 

Alison Leiby: If anyone’s going to. 

 

Halle Kiefer: She’s chewing as as Tik-Tok might say. So she points her gun. Luckily, security has arrived and she waves her gun at them, screaming, we’re going home. Of course, security shoots her in the shoulder. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Which would have stopped her enough, but she falls backwards and she falls down the longest, steepest flight of stairs I have ever seen. And it’s in slow motion. And then you hear her head thud against the steps. And then. And then security runs down, you hear her head thud again. And finally we get the shot of Chloe seeing her mother’s broken body. On the floor next, you know, we’re following a car winding through a forest to a penitentiary. The guards know Chloe. It seems like she’s been coming here. It looks like it’s a few years later. 

 

Alison Leiby: Okay. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know, so she’s a little more done. My. Look, I’m thinking this is after college. Like, she ended up going. Now she has a job. They greet her, she’s in the wheelchair still, but she gets up and she walks through security. So she wanted to walk to her mother, basically. But she’s in a wheelchair most of the time. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, if you didn’t walk for sixteen years, like the muscle, like you don’t just, like, suddenly be like, I walk around now, like I it would be a slow process. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And we hear her talking to her mother, you know, in voiceover as we sort of pan down the hallway at the prison. And she says, you know. 

 

[clip of Kiera Allen]: My walk’s gotten better. Trainer says it may improve or it may not, but I’m happy either way. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And he’s learning to walk, at the same time, which is really cute. She walks like Godzilla, which I really been loving. She spent Christmas with all of her grandparents. But I think she likes mine more. R is good. He hates his job, but we’re trying to work that out. And last week, I got to put legs on a seven year old which as someone with, prosthetics in my family. I’m immediately like, oh, she went to prosthetics. What a great job for her. 

 

Alison Leiby: Oh that’s so great. I love that.

 

Halle Kiefer: With someone who had all this medical trauma it’s a great place to put it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And it’s a lot like a engineer’s mind. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes, exactly. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Which I love for her, her character. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s so great. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And she’s talking to Diane, who is awake and listening, but not obviously not there and cannot speak. Right. And but alive and Chloe says you know, it was really good to see you, mom. I think it’s time for me to go. But before I do it, as you watch, Chloe sort of reaches up something into her mouth and she pulls out a packet of three pills the green and clear pills, the dog muscle relaxant, and she says, I love you, mom. Now open wide. And I think the implication that she has been giving her mother this for the last however many years to keep her mother paralyzed. 

 

Alison Leiby: Wow. 

 

Halle Kiefer: The end. 

 

Alison Leiby: Wow. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: That’s fun. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It’s really fun. What are some fatal mistakes you think were made in the movie run? 

 

[voice over]: Fatal mistakes. 

 

Alison Leiby: I mean, stealing a baby and poisoning them for their entire life so that, you can care for a ill person who is not actually ill. Pretty big. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah, it’s. I think that’s. It was hard. It’s hard to balance the tone of something like this because of how monstrous this is. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And also now that it’s kind of more in known in public culture. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: But I think they did a really good job of this. Like, this worked perfectly because she had total control. And now that she is approaching this, that things start to immediately fall apart because you cannot treat another human being like this. You cannot control someone in this kind of punishing way. The biggest mistake of all is thinking the illusion. The hubris, overwinning, pride of man. I think that you have, any kind of control whatsoever. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. And. Yeah. And I guess, like, Chloe could have, like, tried to, but, you know, she was trying to tell people along the way, like, once she discovered what was like, she did everything right. Like. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: She was curious, investigative, like, knew how to cover her tracks. Like, she. She did a good job. But again, I would have done what? You know, we would have both. Been at a ten.

 

Halle Kiefer: Absolutely. I mean, I don’t think so. 

 

Alison Leiby: Have you seen Sharp Objects? 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know, I started it, but I couldn’t finish it. I liked it. I’ll be honest. It’s so grim. I think I just wasn’t in the mood for it. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is pretty grim.

 

Halle Kiefer: I also these are. This is my opinion. It’s one of these many shows that I think should have just been a feature. I think a lot of things didn’t have to be, but I know–

 

Alison Leiby: It’s a good one. It’s good. Well, also the book is great and really short. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So yeah. Yeah, I’m trying to remember if I read that one. I mean, I know I read Gone Girl. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah, I read it in like a day. 

 

Halle Kiefer: It seems like a perfect beach read. How many episodes is it? Eight. Okay, I could do that. Eight. Yeah. 

 

Alison Leiby: It’s like. Yeah, it should have been a feature, but I will say, like the final episode where things all come together is excellently done. And I feel like Patricia Clarkson lives in the Sarah Paulson world of, like, chilling, like horrifying white woman. But then also good at comedy and it’s like rude. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I know they’ve got it all. She’s really got all. 

 

Alison Leiby: She really has. She’s got it all. 

 

Halle Kiefer: And then where would you place Run on the spooky scale? Alison. 

 

[voice over]: A spooky scale. 

 

Alison Leiby: I feel like I mean, the what it’s about is so horrific. But also it feels like it dips into it is thrillery in ways because you’re like uncovering something. I think a six. This feels like a six to me. What about you? 

 

Halle Kiefer: Okay. Yeah, it was definitely scarier than I thought it was going to be because I thought, again, like, how to make it fresh with something. 

 

Alison Leiby: Right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know, we visited so many times. I’m gonna go to five. I it was very satisfying. And I do find Munchausen and medical, anything medical I find terrifying. And. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: You know, obviously the abuse of children. Horrific. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: So yeah, I’m gonna go with a five. I feel like that seems right. 

 

Alison Leiby: Feels right. 

 

Halle Kiefer: All right, well, everybody, thank you so much for listening. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yes. 

 

Halle Kiefer: We really appreciate it. And also, I just wanna say we just got an email with a very cordial wedding invitation inviting us to somebody’s wedding, which is, like, so sweet. 

 

Alison Leiby: That is so sweet. 

 

Halle Kiefer: I will say it is in a different state that either is live, so we probably will be able to make it. But that is so sweet and we really appreciate, you inviting us. And that’s really kind and honest to God. I go to bed at nine and I don’t drink anymore, so I wouldn’t even be much fun at a reception. I wish, I wish I you got me ten years ago. 

 

Alison Leiby: Yeah. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Thank you. That’s very sweet. And, until next time, we cordially invite you to please keep it spooky. 

 

Alison Leiby: Keep it. Mommy. 

 

Halle Kiefer: Keep it. Mommy.

 

Alison Leiby: Don’t forget to follow us at Ruined podcasts and Crooked Media on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok for show updates. And if you’re just as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Ruined is a Radio Point and Crooked Media production, we’re your writers and hosts Halle Kiefer and Alison Leiby. This show is executive produced by Alex Bach, Sabrina Fonfeder and Houston Snyder, and recorded and edited by Kat Iossa. From Crooked Media our executive producer is Kendra James with production and promotional support from Ari Schwartz, Kyle Seglin, Julia Beach, Caroline Dunphy, and Ewa Okulate.

 

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