Story Report - Everyone Is Lying to You

Summary

Too Many Tabs with Pearlmania500

Story Report: "Everyone Is Lying to You"

Date: September 10, 2025
Host: Pearlmania500 (Alex & Mrs. P)
Episode Focus: A deep-dive, spoiler-filled comedic breakdown of Everyone Is Lying To You, the tradwife murder mystery by Jo Piazza.

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Overview

In this lively episode of "Too Many Tabs," Alex and Mrs. P take listeners through their monthly "Story Report," where Mrs. P reads a book chosen by their Patreon and Instagram followers and delivers a detailed (and, as always, spoiler-heavy) summary and discussion. This edition centers on Everyone Is Lying To You by Jo Piazza—a satirical, twisty murder mystery set among influencer culture, tradwife aesthetics, and true crime beats. The hosts enthusiastically break down the book's plot, themes, and character dynamics, blending serious moments with their trademark banter and pointed cultural commentary.

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Main Points and Detailed Breakdown

1. Intro and Book Setup

(00:30–04:36)

• The Story Report format is explained: Mrs. P reads and summarizes a book, giving listeners a "CliffsNotes meets book club" experience.
• Everyone Is Lying To You wins the Patreon poll; pitched as a "tradwife murder mystery" featuring social media drama, old college friends, and a dead husband.
• Memorable quote:
  Alex: "Too many frauds and too many scammers that we wish weren't real." (00:35)

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2. Meet the Main Players & Setting

(04:36–12:51)

• Lizzie: East Coast magazine editor, feeling the nostalgia and pain of a lost friendship with college bestie Bex (now Rebecca).
• Rebecca/Bex: Former party girl, now a "Barefoot Mama" influencer with 1.2M followers and an Instagrammable tradwife life (six kids, farmhouse, cheese, bread, no shoes).
• Rebecca unexpectedly messages Lizzie after 15 years of silence, hinting she needs her help urgently:
  Mrs. P (voice of Becca): "Maybe tomorrow. Great. Life is crazy. I've been thinking about you a lot. I think you're the one person who can actually help me." (12:29)

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3. Dual Perspectives: Instagram vs Reality

(13:32–27:32)

• The novel alternates between Lizzie and Rebecca's points of view, a structure the hosts enjoy.
• Rebecca's world: Under the image, her influencer life is carefully crafted for sponsors. Her husband, Grayson, is distant, judgmental, and financially dependent on her content (yet undermines her).
• Alex cuts to the heart:
  Alex: "She should murder him with a gun. ... That man should be killed with a gun." (22:12)
• The reality of Rebecca's home: domestic violence, fake online persona, isolated living, and unhappy children.

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4. Plot Thickens: Reunion & Mom Bomb Conference

(27:32–43:52)

• Lizzie flies out to the "Mom Bomb" influencer convention for a promised exclusive story from Rebecca.
• Both women revisit their ingrained college rhythms, with tension over past ghosting.
• Side characters:
  • Single Dad Dan: The only influencer dad, a widower, surrounded by mom influencer drama.
  • Katie/Kiki: A mysterious normie friend, later revealed to be the kids' nanny.
• The influencer world is painted as full of secrets: fake marriages, manufactured drama, #fetishcontent masquerading as trad purity.
• Notable moment:
  Alex: "This is a business conference for women who command billions of dollars in advertising revenue," lampooning the patronizing men who invade these spaces. (70:12)

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5. Secrets, Lies, and Killer Twists

(43:52–116:54)

• The murder: Grayson is found dead in a suspected murder scene. Rebecca disappears, all fingers point to her.
  Mrs. P: "Rumors start to spread: Grayson Summers is dead." (74:24)
• Lizzie investigates at Rebecca's ranch, finds Polaroids revealing years of abuse and the real reason for the college ghosting.
• Shocking family secret: Grayson is not the biological father of five of the six kids—his best friend Marsden (a pro baseball player and evangelical) is.
  • IVF/fertility fraud, secrecy, and cover-up by the town doctor form a dark undercurrent.
• Marsden emerges as the true killer, driven by jealousy, evangelical fervor, and his own twisted sense of entitlement.
• Final confrontation: Rebecca, held captive, stages an escape with the help of friends; Olivia (PR fixer) helps execute a plan using AI-generated fake confessions, surveillance evidence, and old-fashioned moxie.
• Darkly comic, cathartic moment:
  Alex: "It killed all the right people... Especially a guy named Marsden. Oh my god. Wonderful. Grayson dead. It was paced really, really well. ...12 out of 10 favorite book you've ever covered on the show." (123:32)

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6. The Epilogue & Final Rebrandings

(119:00–124:44)

• Rebecca remarries (Single Dad Dan), is pregnant again, and sells the rights to her "dream wedding" for seven figures.
• Lizzie lands a lucrative true crime book deal.
• Villainous widow Veronica transforms into a "Christian cougar" and Reality TV star, having manipulated much of the mess to her advantage.
• Hints dropped about the abusive town doctor, with Veronica pushing for journalistic accountability in a possible sequel.
• Final twist: Veronica orchestrated key deceptions to protect herself and expose abuses, making her the unsung Machiavellian antihero.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Alex (On influencer realities):
  "Most tradwife, weirdly, is like, yeah, bizarre fetish content that most people aren't clocking." (16:30)
• Mrs. P (On the murder plan):
  "She said, if you ever lay your hands on me again, I promise you I will put you in an early grave." (79:02)
• Alex (On the podcast’s dynamic):
  "I'm married to the barefoot mama. ... Also dumb name. Because you—you cornered yourself into barefoot. Like, you can't wear shoes." (28:42)
• Mrs. P (Describing the climax):
  "Olivia takes the firearm out of her pocket and puts it in Marsden's hand and then the barrel in his mouth and pulls the trigger. Cut scene." (116:26)

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment / Topic Description | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:30–04:36 | Introduction; premise of Story Report & book selection | | 04:36–12:51 | Meet the characters: Lizzie, Rebecca/Bex, the college rift | | 13:32–27:32 | Instagram vs reality; Rebecca’s influencer world & Grayson’s abuse | | 27:32–43:52 | Reunion in the desert; Mom Bomb convention & influencer dynamics | | 43:52–74:24 | The murder, police involvement, and public/influencer reaction | | 74:24–116:54| Secret paternity, Marsden’s crime, Bex's escape, and aftermath | | 119:00–124:44 | Epilogue: Happy endings, rebrandings, and conspiracies revealed |

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Tone and Commentary

The episode is packed with irreverent humor, sharp cultural analysis, and genuine outrage at domestic abuse and influencer hypocrisy. Alex’s rants pepper the summary with cathartic enthusiasm (often fantasizing about fictional just desserts for male villains), while Mrs. P balances detail-rich recaps with knowing asides about mom culture, tradwife TikTok, and book club etiquette.

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For New Listeners

• The Story Report is perfect for anyone who loves juicy, spoiler-filled recaps, cringe/OTT influencer culture, or feminist murder mysteries.
• You do not need to read the book; the episode provides a full, entertaining narrative breakdown.
• Ideal for passive listening during chores, work, or long drives, especially for fans of contemporary satire and modern “true crime adjacent” fiction.

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Recap Verdict & Recommendations

• Alex: "12 out of 10 favorite book you've ever covered."
• Mrs. P: "So fun... the pacing was so good. Like those Netflix shows you just want to binge to the end."
• Highly recommended for fans of Gone Girl, modern domestic suspense, and satirical takes on social media and gender.

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Follow @Mrs.Pearlmania500 on Instagram for future book polls and participation in the Story Report.
Support the show at patreon.com/pearlmania500 for uncut episodes and after-parties.

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"Remember to smile." (Ending Theme)

Transcript

[Alex]

She has returned from the stacks. She has walked the halls and all of the shelves of the library. She has read the tomes and found the deep lore.

[Mrs. P]

She's snuggled up in a big chair with a blanket and a hot cup of tea.

[Alex]

And it was one of those, like really big cups of tea, like where you're like, is that soup or is that tea? And she has a report for us. A story report.

[Mrs. P]

Yay.

[Alex]

That's right. It's time for our monthly experience where Mrs. P reads a book and then explains to us the entire details. Details of that book right here on too many frauds and too many scammers that we wish weren't real. Too many cons and too many spammers. And we're starting to feel like we've got too many tabs. Open it.

[Mrs. P]

Too many tabs.

[Alex]

Remember to smile.

[Mrs. P]

So listen, welcome to the Story Report. I take over when it's Story Report time. I'm the boss.

[Alex]

Okay, but we got announcements.

[Mrs. P]

What are they?

[Alex]

Because the announcements are that to remind everybody that Story Report is an audio only edition of this podcast.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, that's true.

[Alex]

And that also we want to thank all of our listeners throughout time immemorial, but especially the people who join us on the Patreon for things like the after party vibing with the food idiot and more who really help support this podcast.

[Mrs. P]

Also, I'd like to thank all the people that got shirts and sweaters.

[Alex]

Yeah. Who bought the special quack monster sweater.

[Mrs. P]

It's getting chilly season and those sweaters and hoodies are going to be really cool.

[Alex]

You're really, really, really enjoy that. But today we are doing a story report on a book that people voted on because you put it up for a poll on the Patreon, right?

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And on Instagram.

[Alex]

And on Instagram. Okay. And you then combined them all together?

[Mrs. P]

Yes. I did math.

[Alex]

You did math and then you came up with this specific story is called.

[Mrs. P]

Everyone is lying to you. See the COVID of the book.

[Alex]

I see the COVID of the book.

[Mrs. P]

What's the COVID of the book?

[Alex]

Describe it for the listeners who's a buy first.

[Mrs. P]

Her name is Joe Piazza.

[Alex]

Okay, Joe Piazza. The COVID of the book is. It looks like a woman in a very traditional style dress.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex]

And there's a knife. Is that on a pizza?

[Mrs. P]

That's. I think that's a pie.

[Alex]

Oh, that is a pie. Yeah. It's a very tiny. You're. You're. You're showing me a very tiny image.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex]

Okay, that looks. Okay, that's a pie. From this side, you can see how I can think it was a pizza.

[Mrs. P]

It's a. It's. Pizzas are pie. People say pizza pie.

[Alex]

I know, but it looked like a. A pizza covered in olives. Anyway, it looks like a very traditional wife from, like, the 1950s with a knife.

[Mrs. P]

That's because this is a trad wife murder mystery.

[Guest]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

The people voted, and they said, trad wife murder mystery. Oh, hell yeah.

[Alex]

Okay. Okay, let's go.

[Mrs. P]

So I want to. Let's see. Okay, so if this is your first story report in these episodes, I read a book, and then I usually post the book in advance on Patreon and Instagram. Follow me on Instagram. Mrs. Pearlmania500. And that way you can read along if you like. Gives it that book club feel.

[Alex]

But you don't have to.

[Mrs. P]

You don't have to, because if you listen to this episode, that counts as an audiobook, I've decided. And you can mark it off on your story graph. Yep. That counts. I've decided.

[Alex]

Yep.

[Mrs. P]

But here's the thing. I'm gonna explain this book to Alex. This episode, spoiler filled. Okay. Of course I'm gonna spoil the book. And also, because these are time sensitive episodes, sometimes I leave stuff out.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. I'm sorry. I have to. So we can get through.

[Alex]

Things are. Things are cut for time. Things are also cut for explanation purposes and things like that, to kind of, you know, get it past. You're listening to kind of an entertaining Cliff Notes version.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Well, here's the thing. The way it was born.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

This whole series was born is because when I would finish a book, I would close my book and I would look at you, and I go, you'll never guess what I just read. And then I would quickly explain an entire book to you. By quickly, I mean it would take time, but quickly.

[Alex]

It should be like 45 minutes to 3.

[Mrs. P]

And I would, like, sit there and listen to me tell you this entire book.

[Alex]

And then eventually, one day after we started the podcast, you said, ooh, I can monetize this.

[Mrs. P]

That's not what I said. People will like this.

[Alex]

I think your exact words were, ooh, no, that's. We can put ads during it. Unless they join our [e-mail] I said.

[Mrs. P]

This will help people get into reading and get library books.

[Alex]

Okay. And for those of you who have listened to story reports before, you're like, why are you explaining this? We feel we have to explain this every single time. Because so many people are like, oh, oh, I was gonna listen, but then I really wanted to read the book so I could understand what was going on. Like, you don't have to.

[Mrs. P]

You don't have to. So with that being lazy, do about it. I don't care.

[Alex]

With that intro being done.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Now it's time for Mrs. P to regale us in this story of trad wife murder.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so the story opens with us meeting Lizzie, who is thinking to herself that she should have a better nighttime routine.

[Alex]

Lizzie needs a better nighttime routine.

[Mrs. P]

Like she should be meditating, doing skincare, maybe having a meaningful conversation with her husband. But what is she actually doing before bed?

[Alex]

Scrolling.

[Mrs. P]

She's scrolling on Instagram. On her phone.

[Alex]

That's terrible for you.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And we don't do that.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, we don't.

[Alex]

No, we don't do that.

[Mrs. P]

We don't do that.

[Alex]

You and I definitely don't scroll. Okay. You don't scroll on Instagram, and I definitely don't scroll on every form of social media at the same time. And also deciding that's the time to check my mentions just to see if I'm being every night.

[Mrs. P]

Even though it's bad for your mental health.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And you should stop doing it before I do like.

[Alex]

I do like that. This is her evening routine because I have a morning routine.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex]

Yeah. It's a wake. Wake up, potty time, eat and brush. Wake up, potty time, eat and brush. We learned that from Elmo.

[Mrs. P]

Thanks, Elmo.

[Alex]

Yep.

[Mrs. P]

So her husband, who's also in bed with her.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Peter. He looks over her shoulder and he's like, are you creeping on that girl you went to college with?

[Alex]

So this is Lizzie and Peter.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

So got it. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Lizzie is like, no. And he's like, I can see her chickens and her three legged goat from here. He's looking over her shoulder and she responds with that. Three Legged Goat has its own Instagram account with over 1.2 million followers. Tripod is their own influencer.

[Alex]

I. Okay, I'm already in.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And I'm already on Lizzie's side because do I. Do I often look at people who I know who are also on social media and go, hmm, wow, that's crazy. Yes.

[Mrs. P]

100% of the time he's like, what was her name again? Skanky Betsy. And Lizzie corrects him and she's like, her name in college was Slutty Bex, a nickname that she fully embraced, by the way. Lizzie is feeling nostalgic thinking about her fun college times with her best friend Becks. And Slutty Bex, Slutty Bex. But then feels immediate sadness and the sting of the way that their friendship ended over 15 years ago, which was Bex ghosting her without a word, really.

[Alex]

Beck's just vanished.

[Mrs. P]

Just ghost. Use ghosting. Okay, okay. So Lizzie looks at Bex's Instagram once or twice a week. She shouldn't be, but she knows. Like, she knows she shouldn't be, but she is not. Because here's the thing. It's like the person that's on Instagram who goes by the name Rebecca Summers actually at Foot at Barefoot Mama.

[Alex]

Okay, okay. At Barefoot Mama. Can I tell you that's such an Instagram thing. Yeah, that's such an instant. Because, like, I got out of social media completely in, I want to say, 2017, when I, like, I got that office job, I stopped doing standup, all that different stuff. And then TikTok blew up for me by accident.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And then you were like, you should have an Instagram. And I was like, I don't want to. You should have one. And then I was like, whatever, I'll have one, but I'm not going to use it that often. And then threads popped up. And then I get mad at people on threads, and then I follow back to their Instagram. I don't follow back. I'm not following them again. I get mad at them, and then I track down their Instagram, because on threads, it's real easy.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

There are times there's an Instagram button. You just hit it. And I'm always. I'm always flabbergasted.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

By their fucking stupid names. And so what's it. Barefoot what?

[Mrs. P]

Arfoot Mama.

[Alex]

At Barefoot Mama. I can already feel exactly what this account is like.

[Mrs. P]

In her new life, Rebecca lives on a renovated farmhouse out west where she raises heritage chickens, sheeps, goats, and cows. She doesn't wear shoes, and she, of course, makes her own cheese from the fresh milk that she milks from her cows and bakes all the bread.

[Alex]

I hate her.

[Mrs. P]

She looks beautiful, blonde and rich. They were not rich in college. They both had to work the cafeteria at school, and they rushed a sorority together as a bit. Like, they were just, like, it'd be funny if we rushed the sorority. They ended up getting in. But, like, it was a joke. That's not who they were.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah. The same way I kissed all those dudes. Yeah, it was a total joke. So it was a total. Guys were playing such a joke on each other.

[Mrs. P]

So she's talking to her husband again. They're still talking. And she's like, yeah, she wasn't, like, religious or anything like this when we were in college. She got really into the God stuff with her husband, and she's looking at the pictures of Bex. Here's the thing. She calls her Bex because that was her nickname in college.

[Alex]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

But to everybody else, she goes by Rebecca.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Know what I mean? So she's looking at these pictures of Bex and her six kids milking cows.

[Alex]

Six kids.

[Mrs. P]

And she gets a notification. While she's looking. She's looking at them. She gets a notification on Instagram, and it says, hey, Lizzy, is that you? And it's from Beck. She caught her. She caught her snooping. Caught.

[Alex]

Did she accidentally, like, the picture or something?

[Mrs. P]

No, the. The note, the inbox. Dm. She's like, I have totally been insta. Stalking you for a few months now. So I know it is. Hi. So that's from Bex to Lizzy.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

She's like, I've been stalking you. What?

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

My God, we're stalking each other.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And it's like, right away, she's like, that's crazy that it's crazy that you're messaging me right now. Yeah, it's nice to hear from you. But also, like, she immediately gets mad because she's like, oh, you've been stalking me, but you can't call. Oh, I'm sorry, what?

[Alex]

Mm.

[Mrs. P]

You ghosted me 15 years ago, but. Oh, but you're looking at my Instagram page.

[Alex]

I never changed my number, but you changed everything about yourself. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Wow. Wow. We were best friends. Like, why are you messaging me now? Okay. Like, it immediately goes to there. And she responds, but she's trying to play it cool. She's like, oh, my gosh, it is me. Oh, wow. This is such a blast from the past. How are you? What have you been up to when you know everything?

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Would you know everything?

[Alex]

Can I tell you? That's my favorite right now? Is. Is I. Every now and then when I travel to the. My hometown where I used to. Where I grew up.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And, like, I'll run into people from, like, high school, and they'll be like, oh, my God. And I'm like, oh, what have you been up to? Like, because I don't know. You know? And like. Well, I've been like, we know. Yeah, immediately, like, we know. Everyone knows. And I'm like, I don't. What are you talking. What do you mean everybody knows? Like, we all know.

[Guest]

Yeah, we all know.

[Alex]

We all know. It's doing great. And I'm like, okay, but that's. And your wife's hot now. We just found out you have a hot wife.

[Mrs. P]

Wow.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Real jerk about the whole thing.

[Alex]

Yeah. Sorry.

[Mrs. P]

So she's playing dumb. Like she doesn't know that she has, like, 11 million followers and is Internet famous.

[Alex]

Yeah, 11 million is beyond Internet famous. That is like that. That you should have articles. Multiple articles.

[Mrs. P]

So Beck. Becca responds, and she just writes. Oh, you know, just living. I love that they're having this, like.

[Alex]

Yeah, this is very passive aggressive.

[Mrs. P]

Not passive aggressive, like. What's the word? Like, they're trying to. Nonchalant off.

[Alex]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

They're trying to be, like, super nonchalant.

[Alex]

I feel like that's part of.

[Mrs. P]

Not passive aggression.

[Alex]

Yeah. Shalant away shall launch away.

[Mrs. P]

And so Lizzie, in a power move, is like. It's getting pretty late here, so it's been great to reconnect, but I gotta.

[Alex]

Go because she's on the east coast.

[Mrs. P]

She's on the east coast?

[Alex]

Yeah. And Becca is in Wyoming, I'm assuming. Wyoming.

[Mrs. P]

I wrote these notes and I just kept calling her Becca instead of Bex, so I apologize in advance.

[Alex]

It's fine.

[Mrs. P]

It just makes more sense.

[Alex]

It's fine.

[Mrs. P]

Like, Becks is totally a college nickname. Yeah, but Becca is the short of Rebecca in my mind.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Or Reba, but we're not going to get into that.

[Alex]

What? You go to Reba?

[Mrs. P]

Some people go from Rebecca to Reba.

[Alex]

Only one person gets to do that. A single mom works two jobs who loves her kids and never stops.

[Mrs. P]

And there's one thing Rebecca's not is.

[Alex]

A single mom with two kids works two jobs.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, two jobs.

[Alex]

She has two jobs. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So Becca responds. Oh, my God, I'm such a jerk for not realizing the time zone difference with you being in New York and all, but I really want to talk to you. It's important. Maybe tomorrow. Great. Life is crazy. Like, crazy crazy. I've been thinking about you a lot. I think you're the one person who can actually help me.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

End of chapter.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

A weird thing to say.

[Alex]

That's a really weird, weird way to open. To try to reconnect a friendship.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Also gonna throw it out there. That feels very. Hey, honey.

[Guest]

Yeah, that's.

[Alex]

That feels very mlm. Immediately.

[Mrs. P]

I just want to, like, get you in the down. Hey, girl.

[Alex]

How you been? I know we haven't talked forever. Oh, no, I get it. It's late. I'm gonna reach out to you tomorrow, though, so we can Talk. Because you're the only person.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

That can help.

[Alex]

That could help. Or also you're the only person who I know who could definitely love these say things by joining us at pearlmania500.net for the Patreonline.

[Mrs. P]

You should join. Sure.

[Alex]

Only downline. The only time you should be. Hey, hun.

[Mrs. P]

So in chapter two. We're gonna go to chapter two.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

It's actually Rebecca's perspective. So that's the whole book. It goes between Lizzy and Rebecca's perspective of what's happening. Okay.

[Alex]

It's been a while since you've done one of books like these.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

So used to read a lot of books that were like perspective jumping. Yeah, I like those.

[Mrs. P]

I know you do.

[Alex]

I like a perspective jump because it gives you, like the view of the better views.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So we're. We're Rebecca now. We're in Rebecca's mind.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And she's describing what it's like to be an influencer. Right. And she's like, there is a right way and a wrong way to be authentic. And that she's learned that she has to use the right tones and language when speaking, not only online, but also when speaking to her husband. And that she's always performing to everyone and she's very good at it. Her husband, his name is Grayson.

[Alex]

Okay. I hate him already. I hate him so much. I hate him so much. And let me guess, He's a Mormon. And his dad owned half a head. JetBlue at one point.

[Mrs. P]

Pretty close. So they. His fat. He grew up on a farm out in the west, if you will. And they got. They get married and they're gonna move back to the farm eventually. Okay. So a little. A little shot at the head. Right. They had met in San Francisco, though. But when Grayson was growing up, the farm had like a really good community. And there was a main street and grocery stores and doctor's offices and people around, like a lot of people. But a lot of farmers sold their farms to a lot of big corporate guys. So nobody really is around except for the churches.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's just describing what's happened to most of the middle of the country.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And what's really about to happen. Arkansas. Isn't that right? Soy boys.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. @ the church they're going to. Because Grayson grew up in this one church, so now she goes to that church.

[Alex]

That's how. That's how it works.

[Mrs. P]

So they suggested she start journaling. Okay. So I. The implication is that there were some Issues. And she went to the pastor and was like, I'm having issues within my marriage. And they were like, well, you have to submit to your husband. So if you have these problems, maybe you should start journaling. You know, that's. That's how you fix that stuff.

[Alex]

Write it down. Tell no one.

[Mrs. P]

They didn't. They didn't stipulate that part. So Becca starts writing her journal, but it's actually a blog.

[Alex]

She's a mommy blogger.

[Mrs. P]

She starts as a mommy blog. And she's writing a blog about her two kids. And then it goes really well. People really like her blog.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And she. Then she starts putting it on Instagram. And she's getting a lot of positive attention for all of her baking content because she's making fresh bread and croissants and eclairs from scratch in her beautiful rustic kitchen with grain that she harvested herself. And the Internet eats it up. Also babies. She talks about how the algorithm loves babies and pregnant bellies.

[Guest]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Alex]

Gross.

[Mrs. P]

So it's. It's very Ballerina farms. Yeah, yeah, it's completely ballerina farm.

[Alex]

It's her. It's her. Just shy of saying this is all fetish content. Yeah, I'm making fetish because most trad wife, weirdly, is like, yeah, bizarre fetish content that most people aren't clocking.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Like the whole thing with the weird collars.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, that was weird.

[Alex]

Yeah. There was like a whole. There was like a whole month where they all just started wearing dog collars out of nowhere.

[Mrs. P]

Purity collars. And you're like, I don't know. I don't know what that is.

[Alex]

He literally just called you a. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And then he sent you to work with dog food in your lunch bag.

[Alex]

Yeah, Different Tick tock. That's a different. We just combined four different TikTok. But also, I point out, she was wearing a dog collar.

[Mrs. P]

She was. So when she first started, she was taking her own pictures. Like, she'd make food and then take pictures of it, and then her kids out in the farm or whatever and the chickens. But not anymore. Now she has a professional photographer and someone who does all of her videos, her captions. She has a moderator, someone who's in charge of sponsors. They're on YouTube, TikTok, Discord, Pinterest, Telegram, and a few places she's never heard of, but her content coordinator says will be the next big thing.

[Alex]

Sounds about right.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So big business. She's running a big business.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. They make content all day every Thursday.

[Alex]

All day every Thursday.

[Mrs. P]

Every Thursday, once a week, they make all their content.

[Alex]

That's very funny. That's. For those of you guys who don't know, that's typically when we record the.

[Mrs. P]

Main show our stuff on Thursday, too.

[Alex]

Well, that's when we record the main show.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Everything else, I mean, right now we're recording this on a Wednesday.

[Guest]

Yep.

[Alex]

We try to record the after parties on Tuesdays and then I make tick tocks whenever.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And then Mr. Third is usually sending us the cuts for YouTube shorts from the main episodes. We usually get those on Saturdays or Sundays. And then we review and kind of poke around those.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

So we're. We don't. We don't. They don't really have. Beyond Mr. Third, though.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, we don't have all this yet.

[Alex]

We don't have all.

[Mrs. P]

Yet.

[Alex]

Yet.

[Mrs. P]

I'm. Listen, I'm gonna get chickens and this is going to pop up.

[Alex]

She's been trying to get these chickens.

[Mrs. P]

I'm going to get these chickens.

[Alex]

I. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

What?

[Alex]

Nothing. I'm just thinking about how much more land I would need to be between me and the chickens. Cuz, like, we have a small yard.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I don't want chickens in my yard.

[Mrs. P]

It's okay.

[Alex]

They would take care of the bugs, though.

[Mrs. P]

That's what I've been saying. Also, it's not your yard, it's my yard.

[Alex]

Oh, okay. I thought it was our yard, which meant that I get a say in it. No. No. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Nope.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So every Thursday, they wake up early to do all their content. And all the kids really hate it. Except for one. Her daughter Bella loves performing for cameras, which actually makes her mom super nervous. But all the other kids fucking hate it.

[Alex]

Yeah. Because all the other kids are normal.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

The kids are like, God, we fucking hate.

[Alex]

Well, because it's. The thing with kids is, like, at a certain age with all kids, if there's a specific day of the week where they have to do something, then that's gonna be the day they're gonna rebel against.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

They're gonna, like, this is the worst.

[Alex]

Yeah, it was the same thing. But like, I remember, like, when I was growing up, like, having to go to, like, church or something like that. You're like, oh, the reason you hate church is. Is it's boring. But also, it's every Sunday.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Can we do something else today? No.

[Mrs. P]

What about every sick. Every sesame place?

[Alex]

Every seven days, you do this every seven days.

[Mrs. P]

So lucky growing up, it was only every Sunday for you.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Because I went to Catholic school, so there's all Kinds of extra church peppered in there.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Lots of extra church.

[Alex]

I mean, there'd be other random things every now and then, but not like. But I remember the Catholic kids being like, we had this random Wednesday mass. I'm like, you have a Wednesday math.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Then you church is Sunday, and then.

[Mrs. P]

You got a saint holiday. Got to get in there for that.

[Alex]

This is why I love Henry vii. Henry came in, he was like, listen, I'm trying to come in a different lady and have it count. And they were like, we're. We're weirdly going to say no this time. And he was like, we're getting ready. We're getting rid of Wednesday mass. Getting rid of Wednesday mass. Priests can get married and they're going to stop molesting our kids. They're like, all of them. Most of them, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

She wakes up on Thursdays and the first thing they do is shoot, get ready with me. And this is a reel she makes. It's her most lucrative asset of the week. It includes seven sponsorship products that you might not even notice. And each product pays upward of $25,000 to be mentioned in her daily routine. The kids get up in the morning like they usually do with Kiki the nanny. She helps out. You'll never see Kiki on the socials. And Grayson hates that we have her, but she's still here.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Grayson told Rebecca over and over that his mom raised him and his seven siblings without help. So why can't she? He needs me to know that my lack of self reliance is a moral failing. And she says, well, his mom wasn't supporting the whole family and keeping the farm solvent while his dad flew all over the place desperately trying to get the next big investment to make them rich. So Kiki is here.

[Alex]

Wow.

[Mrs. P]

So that we're learning quickly that that's.

[Alex]

Very much a Hilarion Alec thing right there. That was very hilarious. Alec coded right there. I'm just like, right.

[Mrs. P]

Is that Rebecca makes all the money? Yeah.

[Alex]

No, you just said $25,000. And there's seven brand deals in it.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

In just thrill they make of the day.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Which is so greedy. That's so greedy. Because if you think about. If you just do the math, Rebecca's.

[Mrs. P]

Got a lot of kids she's got to pay for.

[Alex]

No, I understand that, but, like, you can feed 6 kids on 100k in a year. Like, you can do it. It's not gonna be great, but you can do it.

[Mrs. P]

So she's describing how, like, her husband doesn't like to be a part of any of this. The media, the content, or really hanging out with the kids at all.

[Alex]

Kill him.

[Mrs. P]

The content.

[Alex]

She. No, hold on real fast. She should murder him with a gun. I might be. I might be spoilering this book early about how we're gonna get rid of this, but I want you to know right now, that man should be killed with a gun. Oh. Oh, I don't like that. My wife makes 150. I see $175,000 on one Instagram reel with hidden brand deals. Oh, boo hoo, Grayson. Boo hoo. Go buy another fucking Stetson hat in Nashville while you go hit on. Hit on fucking bridesmaids, you bag of shit. I know how this goes. This book is very well written and it's very grounded in the real world. I can feel it already. Grayson's been cheating on her piece of shit. So my mom used to do. Oh, fuck your mom. Your mom raised you Grayson.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And she named you Grace.

[Alex]

She named you Grayson. You know why? Cuz she hates you. Yeah, because if she loved you, she would have named you Dick. Like Dick Grayson. A real superhero and a real man.

[Mrs. P]

So he hates being a part of the content and being around the kids.

[Alex]

Whatever does he like.

[Mrs. P]

But the content is where the money comes from, not his shitty investments.

[Alex]

His investments are dog shit. So she's the investment. Oh my God. As the guy sitting next to his investment trad wife, I want everyone to know she's the investment.

[Guest]

Yep.

[Alex]

The are you talking about? Oh, I need to get over here so I can make my crypto cow nft blow up.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Nope.

[Alex]

Kill him.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so she's getting the kids ready and baking a fresh sourdough for them. Which that part she actually likes doing because she is a baker. Like that's her whole thing. She loves baking.

[Alex]

Here's the thing. If I didn't live with you, I would believe that was fake.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

But I live with you. And so I understand, yes, there are.

[Mrs. P]

People that enjoy baking.

[Alex]

I understand this part of it. I also though I will say that I think she had her last three kids for content.

[Guest]

Yeah, I think.

[Alex]

I think the first three she actually wanted to have and I think the last three were for algorithmic boosts. I'm dead serious. I can, I can.

[Mrs. P]

How do you bring up Brittany dawn in this? So that was like her thing like making the breads. Okay, so she has a big cup of coffee. She chugs a big cup of coffee, to be clear, but then immediately starts the promo for her non caffeinated Coffee alternative that she has a low six figure brand deal with. And the caption on the Instagram post says, quote, I'm not a coffee drinker, but I crave my morning pick me up ritual. I sip my Dirt water in the mornings. Don't worry, it's super compatible with your intermittent fasting. It gives me the boost I need. And the benefits from superfood mushrooms that deliver immune support and focus. I like to dress it up with vanilla lively protein collagen for my skin.

[Alex]

Just keep going. What the fuck is Grayson's problem? Like, I don't understand. Like, Grayson, what the fuck is your problem?

[Mrs. P]

Also, it literally in the book is called Dirt Water.

[Alex]

I know, I understand. I was in it right there. Listen, we're in a world.

[Mrs. P]

I need to tell you, Joe Piazza, who wrote this book, she's from the Philly area. I think she's from Delco.

[Alex]

Joe, you're nailing it. Nailing it. I mean, right now, as you're reading this, I'm just getting madder and madder at her husband.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And like. Oh, yeah. Is there ethics involved in everything with what she's doing? Whether or not. Yeah, sure, sure. But her husband sucks.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So she's going over her offers.

[Alex]

Why do you have a nanny, sir? I am so mad. We're getting over the fact. Listen, this is a. This is a book. We're getting over the fact that she's probably evil.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Getting over that fact immediately.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Just because somebody's evil doesn't mean that they should put up with a bag of shit like Grayson, I hate. Leave him.

[Mrs. P]

So she's going off her over all of her spawn con and all the different things they have to do to the day, like, to the reader. And she's going over all of her hash. Like, her hashtags. Like, she has to hashtag traditional living baba. Because, like, her social media is meticulously created. The Persona is completely fake. Right. And she knows this. And, like, she's like, talking about how, like, it's so different than her real life. Like, this social media Persona that she's created is so different than their. Like, she shows, like, these dinners where it's her and all the kids, and if she can pull Grayson in the picture once in a while, they'll be there. And, like, they're eating this beautiful hearty beef stew that she made and Bubba. But like, in real life, like, the kids eat six separate dinners because fucking Tommy doesn't want chicken nuggets, but Tina wants Mac and cheese. And so she's making like all these different little meals. And Grayson never eats with them because he gets triggered by how noisy and chaotic six kids are. And so like he's never even there at dinner. But like, she's just talking about how like the. The life that she lives is completely different. Also, they sleep in different bedrooms and also that they don't put on social media. They have knockdown drag out fights where she has to hide bruises in her screams every day.

[Alex]

Kill him. Kill him.

[Mrs. P]

So let's get back to Lizzie's view.

[Alex]

Okay. Wait.

[Mrs. P]

Plot a murder.

[Alex]

Was that the end of chapter two?

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Okay, we're gonna take a break. Right?

[Mrs. P]

Okay, great.

[Alex]

We need. It's a perfect place to take a break.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

We have a complete setup now.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Grayson needs to die.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex]

I feel like you. Don't. Don't say it. I feel like killing Grayson's gonna be a big part of this. And I'm. I'm. I'm honestly, I'm in. I'm a hundred percent in. We'll be right back after these messages unless you join us on the Patreon. All right, we're back.

[Mrs. P]

So we're back. And we're in Lizzie's perspective, which is the friend.

[Alex]

The friend from back in the day. Got it.

[Mrs. P]

Lizzie's technically our main character.

[Alex]

Okay. Okay. Yes.

[Mrs. P]

Lizzie's the main character. Rebecca is the other person.

[Alex]

The trad wife influencer is the second character. Okay. The one that I completely relate to in a very odd way that I'm like.

[Mrs. P]

No, you don't relate to her. You've just been saying she should kill her spouse.

[Alex]

Yeah. If I acted like Grayson, you would have every right to murder me.

[Mrs. P]

That's true.

[Alex]

Okay. Because I'm married to the barefoot mama. Also dumb name. Because you. You cornered yourself into barefoot. Like you. You can't wear shoes.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Which is also a foot. We all know that's a foot.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. There's a whole website about.

[Alex]

But I'm saying it's like she has like multi layered fetishes in here.

[Mrs. P]

Money.

[Alex]

This is. I mean, it's just so fudgeing crazy.

[Mrs. P]

Money.

[Alex]

And then. And then while only toes. All while pretending that you're being pure. That's the part that's really fudged up about. It is like in every layer of. Especially with trad wife content, there's all of this like sub dom shit mixed in there.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

In this case, you already mentioned the pregnant belly. That's a whole fetish thing. People who. Working with dough and working with bread in general. There's like. There's like, weirdly, there is a weird thing with that. I mean, there's people who are super into, like, sitting on cakes, and then there is. Is this cake, and then. But then the whole thing with the feet, I'm like, you're just knocking. And then on top of that, she's a skinny blonde. So then you're playing into the whole racial aspect of it as well. That's crazy.

[Mrs. P]

So we're back at Lizzie's view Lizzie, and she's thinking about how all the things she's seen in Becca's life, they haven't spoken in 15 years, but she saw her castrate a goat potty tween to potty train her twins without diapers, give birth to her children in a tub on the floor of a restored barn, churn butter, deliver a baby lamb, give her kids haircuts that look amazing. Can't relate.

[Alex]

Really Can't I that one up. I gave her.

[Mrs. P]

Somebody gave the baby baby banks.

[Alex]

Somebody. Somebody was like, I can get one little extra part and then. Then to a little extra chunk out of there. Baby bangs and yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. So now our kid has Ellen DeGeneres in 2007 hair because I've been too afraid of taking scissors back to his head ever since.

[Mrs. P]

So in her Instagram, she gets another message from Becca, and she sees it, and she's like, let me finish my coffee and my wordle before I respond back. She's definitely playing cool. Lizzie is playing it cool.

[Alex]

Oh, my God. Oh, that's so funny.

[Mrs. P]

She's giving her the dating treatment for sure.

[Alex]

So. You know what's crazy? I was thinking about this a lot is with texting and things like that, like. Yeah, there is a lot of that. Like, how to stage it.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

But also, you didn't have that back in the day with letters, right? Yeah, because the letters all went out at one.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Like, the mailman came and cleared out the mailbox at, like, one or two, and it would. It would take two or three days to get there anyway.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

So it's like, it didn't matter. Like, you had time anyway. So nobody seemed as desperate because every letter was two days apart. @ least. At least. Or weeks or months, if not more.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And now it's like, now that we can be so instantaneous, we're like, oh, I don't want to come off as, like, oh.

[Mrs. P]

But also, if you don't respond within a reasonable time, I'm so mad.

[Alex]

Here's.

[Mrs. P]

And I am the worst about it.

[Alex]

Here's the thing. Oh. We found that out recently.

[Mrs. P]

What do you mean?

[Alex]

You got in the car and your phone connected to CarPlay.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And I saw how many notifications you have on text messages.

[Mrs. P]

Oh.

[Alex]

And it was in the hundreds. And it made me unlock my phone. It made me lose my mind.

[Mrs. P]

193 unread messages.

[Alex]

I want to die. I have zero unread now. Now, email's different. Email, who gives a shit? Because you have so much spam goes in there. But when it comes to texts.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I clear tech. In fact, I had a friend triple call me yesterday.

[Guest]

Okay.

[Alex]

Because they texted me. I didn't respond immediately because I was driving.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And. And I was driving a long distance. And so they text me and respond. And then they called me, and I was pulling into my destination. I was like, I can't talk to them right now. So I hung up the phone. Like, I did the, like, push to voicemail, like, immediately because I didn't want it to just be sitting there ringing in the car. And then he started calling me frantically because he's like, that never happens with you. He's like, whenever I text you right back.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Right. I'm like, yeah. Because I have my phone in my hand at all times. Like, that's just my job is phone.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

He's like, I know. So the fact that this happened, he's like, I thought you got kidnapped.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, I like that. We both think you're just on the verge.

[Alex]

And by friend, by the way, it was. His name was Dust.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex]

The man who made all of our music.

[Mrs. P]

I like that we. His name was Dusk. And I always assume you're getting kidnapped if we don't.

[Alex]

If I don't respond within 15 minutes.

[Mrs. P]

He and I are just both waiting for taken.

[Alex]

You know, like, it's a good. It's a good idea. And it'll probably be the government.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, it'll be the government, probably.

[Alex]

It's not so much taken as it is gonna be Schindler's List in my case. All right.

[Mrs. P]

Sent to El Salvador.

[Alex]

Lindsay is holding off sending off her.

[Mrs. P]

She responds, and she's like, hi, it's really. It's really early here. And Becca's. Or no, she says, hi, it's really early there. Like, she looks at the time zone and she's like, it must be really early where Becca is. And she's like, yeah, I get up at 5am so I can get grounded and have time before the kids are awake. And then we get up with the sun haha Farm life. And you know what? Honestly, same. I do. I do get up before the baby so I can go have some, like.

[Alex]

Well, everyone gets up before me. That's. That's true.

[Mrs. P]

No, no, but I, like, purposely get up before.

[Alex]

No, you like. You like the quiet.

[Mrs. P]

I need it.

[Alex]

You like to get up before the dog.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Because you're like, if you wake up and the dog gets up at the same time, you're like, no, get away from me. You, like, go back to bed because the dog is. The dog is our dog will stare you in the face.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And he's breakfast. Breakfast. And then I'm like, no. And then hold me. And you're like, it is 6:30 in the morning. I don't want to hold you.

[Mrs. P]

I need to have time alone before I start any day. So relate to that.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So she's like. Lizzie's like, I don't know why I'm pretending that I haven't seen this woman's cow's utters, but she's like, oh, like, you live on a farm, question mark.

[Alex]

So crazy.

[Mrs. P]

And Becca's like, yeah, it's just like a small farm. 125 acres. It's gorge. You'd love it.

[Alex]

That's so crazy. It's so. Lizzie, what are you doing?

[Mrs. P]

I love it. I love that she's playing. Like, she has no idea.

[Alex]

I think it's. But. But okay. You're giving this woman false hope.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Because that's actually weird in this situation because there's times where when people are like, oh, I don't. What do you do? And if it's somebody actually want to share it with, I get super excited to be like, oh, I get to try to, like, figure out how to explain the last five years of my life.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

This is gonna be great. And I'm really excited for it. And then to find out they've been lying and they knew the entire time, like, why did you make me do a whole dance?

[Mrs. P]

Why did you do that? So Becca says, I heard that you're the editor at Modern Woman. That's amazing.

[Alex]

Well, I didn't know that.

[Mrs. P]

That's awesome. Yeah. So Lizzie is a editor at Modern Woman, which is a magazine that is currently struggling.

[Alex]

Of course it is.

[Mrs. P]

And goes digital.

[Alex]

I was about to say, this is going to be that. Oh, my God. Oh, that's such a great extra layer, Jo. You're doing such a good job. The fact that it's a traditional journalist versus an influencer. Ciao.

[Mrs. P]

And so Becca's like, hey, I would love to fly you out to come out to the farm and do a profile on me for the magazine. There's a lot happening and I would feel most comfortable with you being here as the writer. You will get an exclusive. You can stay in our guest house and it's going to be big news. This is going to be. You're going to have an exclusive on this huge announcement I'm making.

[Alex]

I can't. I. Oh, my God. When was this book written?

[Mrs. P]

Like this year?

[Alex]

Was this, this. So, so the writer, Joe Piazza.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

She read the Ballerina Farms article and was like, what if it was a murder?

[Mrs. P]

I think that's what happened.

[Alex]

I need to know. I need. I know. I need the listeners to know. I kept turning to the camera, making a shocked face. And then I remembered that this is audio only. I was. Oh, my God. I was like, maybe she wrote this like last year and now we've learned more about the Ballerita Fan Farms. And she's. What a turnaround.

[Mrs. P]

What I think is. And I. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, because I remember reading up on the author and I'm pretty sure the author has a substack and she had been writing this story in chunks.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

On her subset.

[Alex]

And then it got printed again and.

[Mrs. P]

Then she made it into a book.

[Alex]

Book.

[Mrs. P]

That's what I think. So it was like, kind of like as it's happening.

[Alex]

I think it was. No, I think what it was. It was a sub stack. And then there also was like Vanity Fair or some major publication.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Where they had that like. And that was. Chunk of that was also the part from the book.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

But she wrote it in a way that made it sound much darker.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

At least that's what Valerie of Farms people claim. But the, The. The whole thing with that is. That's so.

[Mrs. P]

No, wait, I don't think I'm getting this across correctly. What I'm telling you is the author of this book wrote this book on substack over chunks of time.

[Alex]

I thought you're talking about the author of the Ballerina Farms article.

[Mrs. P]

No, the author of this book, I'm pretty sure has a substack that she wrote chapters of this book on her sub stack in short periods of time. So people are following along.

[Alex]

Got it.

[Mrs. P]

And then she smushed it all together and made a book of it. That's what I'm pretty sure happened.

[Alex]

Which is. But here's the thing. Can I tell you what's crazy?

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

That is how books used to get written Exactly. Back in the day, books used to be serialized. Serialized and published. Everything by Charles Dickinson. I think some books by Mark Twain, they weren't released as finished novels.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

They were released in newspapers, and you were supposed to buy the newspaper. And every Wednesday, there was the new chapter of A Christmas Carol or some like that. Like, that is how they read it, chapter by chapter to get you through, like, a season.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And they were like, oh, I'm gonna sell. This is.

[Mrs. P]

Chapters famously used ghosts to haunt the wealthy into behaving little. Just a little bit nicer.

[Alex]

Just a little bit nicer.

[Mrs. P]

Jesus Christ. So Liz is immediately, like, happy and excited at the. At this idea, but also fucking pissed that within any of this conversation, she hasn't mentioned the reason that they haven't spoken for more than a decade. There's no explanation, no apology, just, hey, do you want to fly out the other side of the country and do this thing? But she immediately books a ticket before she even asked her boss if it's cool.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

She's like, oh, no, that's a great opportunity.

[Alex]

Because also. Because also she's a journalist, and she's like, if I can get for it. She knows for her company, if they can get like, 2,000 likes on Instagram, that'll be the biggest thing they do.

[Guest]

Exactly.

[Alex]

Like, it's crazy for me right now because I follow so many publications, like major publications on Instagram and TikTok and stuff like that, and I see them posting their content, their original reporting, right? And it'll get, like, 200 likes. And then someone else, another content creator who has a platform, will come in and make a video about the story that they made that they spent all this money researching, and that will gobble up all the attention.

[Guest]

Yes.

[Alex]

It's crazy.

[Mrs. P]

Also, Liz, she's having this thought about how much she loves air travel without her kids, even in an economy. She's like, I can't wait to fly across the country alone, Honestly.

[Alex]

Yes, I get it. So I get it.

[Mrs. P]

Becca is going to meet Lizzie at this convent. It's a convention conference, okay. And there it's like this insane, luxurious resort in the desert where the rooms start at 2k a night, and it's somewhat close to Becca's ranch, and apparently she's gonna make a big announcement there. Also, this convention is called the Mom Bomb. Like, bomb. Like, you drop a Mom Bomb B O, M, B.

[Guest]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so it's the Mom Bomb Convention, and so very millennial. She's gonna meet her there.

[Alex]

This mom is da bomb.

[Mrs. P]

She's gonna girl boss it up.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And Liz has never heard of the Mom Bomb. Of course she hasn't, but apparently it's the number one conference for female influencers in the world. They go to panels and have breakout sessions and talk about growing their business, courting advertisers, reinvention marketing, and pivoting your personal brand.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Incredible.

[Mrs. P]

So the whole flight. Because, again, we're on this flight, in her mind, she's trying to picture, what is the reason for this big story? Like, what could it be? And one thing you know, immediately, she started researching Becca more than just, like, stalking her on Instagram. And she did research on the husband, Grayson, whose last name is Summers. Grayson Summers. And I guess Grayson Summers. People are talking about how he's considering a run for congress, and he's, like, considered a great candidate. He's got good hair, traditional values, a pretty wife, and a bunch of kids that live off the land. And so she's reading through all these different things and considering whether or not, like, this is the big thing or just, like, what. What is this whole thing? Like, she literally just got on the plane, and she has no idea what she's getting into. And then she's reading through the Mom Bomb, like, breakout sessions, like, the. The list of panels and everything. And she's like, I could do this. Like, how hard could it be? I could take this panel called Content Creation 101 and start monetizing. And the thing is, she's had a few bloody Marys on the plane, so she's, like, drunkenly thinking about becoming an influencer.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And I was like, yeah, I've seen that. Got it.

[Guest]

Got it.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Real quick, we're gonna go back to Rebecca, and she's having an internal dialogue about how everyone is lying to you, which, again, is name in the book. She is walking around Mom Bomb conference, and she's like, all these women, they're taking photos, schmoozing, brokering partnership deals, and she's like, they're all lying about something, if not everything. They all know each other's secrets, but they all keep each other's secrets for the good of their brands.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. So she sees this one lady named Mary Beth Kelsey or whatever, who currently has 3 million followers after finding true love when you least expect it after her divorce. But she's currently separated from her husband. But they're not announcing it until after their. Their vow renewal in Disney because Disney pays a lot for wedding influencers. And so, like, she's Basically, Rebecca's currently walking through the mom bomb conference and looking at each influencer and telling you the lies they're telling that she knows.

[Alex]

That's so good.

[Mrs. P]

There's like. There's a breast milk influencer who talks all about breastfeeding and how she makes breast milk ice cream. There isn't.

[Alex]

What do you used to call them? The. The lactate. You. They had a word for them.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

When you. When we had the baby, and they were like the. The. The lactangelos or whatever.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, the lack of evangelicals or something.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Evangelicals about breastfeeding.

[Alex]

Yeah. Somebody had a word for him and you were like, me? Like, they came in like, can we talk to you about resting? You're like, no.

[Mrs. P]

Bye.

[Alex]

You're like, give me that formula and get the whole out.

[Mrs. P]

There's a Alaskan wilderness homesteading gal. Of course, there's a woman who lost 130 pounds by eating only meat. But Becca knows that she actually did Ozempic.

[Alex]

Of course. Yeah, I was gonna say, what type of ozempic is it?

[Mrs. P]

And she's really excited because she's meeting Liz there. But listen, before we meet Liz there, let's take a quick break.

[Alex]

Let's take a quick break. And I just want to say right now, I'm so into this. And. Oh, my God, this is. This is so good. I'm. We'll be right back. And we're back.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so she's still at the mom bomb convention, okay. Walking around, looking at all the different influencers.

[Alex]

And by she, you mean Becca.

[Mrs. P]

Becca. Okay, Rebecca. And she's thinking about how excited she is to see Lizzie, and she understands why Lizzie is being so cold with her, okay. And she hopes that she can sit down and explain everything that happened and apologize for ghosting her, but she doesn't want to come off as needy because she really needs Lizzie if all of this is going to go off without a hitch.

[Alex]

Big announcement, okay.

[Mrs. P]

As she's walking around looking for Lizzie, she runs into at single dad Dan, who is surrounded by ladies. He was invited a few years back when the founders were feeling inclusive. They later regretted it when they found out he was sleeping his way through. The hashtag fitness girlies, the hashtag organization moms, the hashtag wine moms. Who knows which group he's gonna get this year? The Jesus moms, the luxury fashion moms.

[Alex]

Who knows hashtags singledad Dan.

[Mrs. P]

Single dad Dan.

[Alex]

Can I tell you, I picture him?

[Mrs. P]

He's a widower.

[Alex]

He's a widower. That's fine. I picture him as Beck. Beck Bennett from snl.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex]

But with a mustache.

[Mrs. P]

He. His whole influencer shtick is that his wife passed away, but they had a lot of kids, so he is like a single dad raising kids.

[Alex]

Yeah, no, I know.

[Mrs. P]

That's praise for doing the bare minimum.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But he has. He has a ton of people in a team to help him work through everything. Yeah, you know, I know.

[Mrs. P]

Actually, I think he does have a team. He's like a potatrist by trade. I don't know. There's a whole backstory.

[Alex]

Okay. I'm skipping it. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

She decides that if she doesn't see Lizzie soon, she's going to head back to her room and just relax. And she has, like. So she knows so much is going to change tomorrow, the next day, that she wants to, like, be ready for it.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So she's like, I'm going to go take a hot shower. I'm going to go take a nap if I don't find Lizzie soon. So she goes outside to the pool area, and she's been wearing her sunglasses the whole time to hide the bruise on her eye. But it's nice that she's, like, talking about how when she walks outside, it's so bright and sunny in the pool that she's happy she had her sunglasses on. Her phone rings and she's hoping it's Lizzie to tell her where she might find her, but it's not. It's him, and he's not happy.

[Alex]

Him is Grayson. Grayson, who should be murdered.

[Mrs. P]

He's pat. He's pissed that she is at this convention because he thinks she should be home with the kids.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So he's just mad.

[Alex]

He's mad that she's supporting him financially.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, basically.

[Alex]

Oh, wow, wow, wow, wow.

[Mrs. P]

So I'm gonna read this next paragraph verbatim from the next chapter as we go back to Lizzie's view.

[Alex]

Can you take my hand real fast? I just want you to know something. If you ever get invited to a mom influencer convention.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I want you to go and I want you to stay an extra day.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, please.

[Alex]

Without me.

[Mrs. P]

Sure.

[Alex]

Okay. Because you should. You should be out. Yeah, you should be out.

[Mrs. P]

Spa day.

[Alex]

You should do things.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

You should leave the house. For the love of God, leave the fucking house.

[Mrs. P]

I do leave the house sometimes.

[Alex]

No, I know. That's what I'm saying, though. It's like I want it on record.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

On our audio podcast.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, got it.

[Alex]

That I want it on record. That I'M telling you, yeah, I get.

[Mrs. P]

To go do all the things I want to do. So this paragraph, this is the opening of this next chapter from Lizzie's perspective, right? It says, blippi is the last person you want to see in the midst of a day of drunken hangovers. I curse myself for having two bloody Marys on the plane as I cross through this immaculate lobby, only to be greeted by every parent's least favorite YouTube star.

[Alex]

Incredible. Incredible.

[Mrs. P]

Blippi Reed.

[Alex]

The fact that she. Everyone else is fake, like, as a made up influencer. And she's like, blippi, dude, yo, we stand. That is crazy.

[Mrs. P]

Goes and gets checked in. And it's funny because the lady behind the counter at the check in is like, telling Blippi to get out. Get going now. Get Blippi.

[Alex]

Go get Blippi. This is for single. This is for traditional moms.

[Mrs. P]

Well, I think, like, Blippi is like having a sponsorship deal because moms have kids, TV or something.

[Alex]

Oh. Like, he's there.

[Mrs. P]

He's like, outside of the check in, like, he's like a set of balloons on the way in. You know what I mean? Like, he's not in the conference.

[Alex]

Yeah, no, I understand. I get what you're saying.

[Mrs. P]

And she's like, get away from this.

[Alex]

Getting. Being hungover and seeing Blippi is honestly, that reads like a Hunter S. Thompson novel. I was hungover on bloody marriage from the plane, and Blippi was standing there in his orange and blues. He said. And I said, you back out of here, you weird ass pervert.

[Mrs. P]

What do you think you're a wiggle?

[Alex]

So in no way.

[Mrs. P]

In no way. So she gets checked in and they're like, yeah, but you can't go up to your room. And so you go to the other side of the conference to get your ring band. Oh, so that she has to go. She just wants to go take a hot shower.

[Alex]

This is 100% me at VidCon.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

This is like, as they're going through it, like, this is me at Vidcon last year. You're just describing it.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So she's like, I just want to go to my room. And like, no, you got to go check in and get your bet. Your welcome bag. And she does. She gets a welcome bag, which is embroidered and very classy, and it's full of T shirts, vitamins, skin care samplers, period panties, and other fun things.

[Alex]

Oh, great.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. So fun mom bomb. Anyway, she's walking through the conference and her sister calls her to check in and she's like, you got to take pictures of these ladies taking pictures of themselves. Her sister's like. Like, her sister's like, you are at a zoo. Take a picture of the animals.

[Alex]

Which for a while. There was a while there when. Tick tock. It was like, as. As Covid restrictions were lifting.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And tick tockers were being allowed outside.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

There was a huge influx of videos of tiktokers making videos.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And, like, taking selfies. Influencers. All that different stuff. Because they had, like, basically, like, 16 to 18 months where they had the run of the world.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Where they could be at an empty mall making weird content. And then as people started, like, peopling again, like, why is this person.

[Mrs. P]

Why is that person being weird?

[Alex]

Yeah. There's. Right now, there's a. There's this one influencer I keep seeing everywhere where, like, her whole thing is going to, like, clothing stores, like, Uniqlo and stuff like that. And, like, throwing the sticky thing at the mirror.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex]

And, like, shoving her thing in there and then starting to do dances, like, to annoy people.

[Guest]

Oh, God.

[Alex]

And I was like, I hate you. And. But here's what I did. You know, I did, y'. All. Second I saw it, I went in and I blocked her profile.

[Mrs. P]

Smart.

[Alex]

And that's what you should do. You should just don't engage with them. Don't tell them that you hate them. Don't do anything. Just block them and move on with your life.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. For sure. So she. Her sister's talking about how silly this whole thing is. And then she remembers that Lizzie has a group chat with all of her girlfriends in it. And when they all found out where she was going and who she was going to meet, they all sent, like, a myriad of questions, like, what does Becca smell like? What mascara does she uses? What's her secret meatloaf recipe, and blah, blah. And so, like, Lizzie's laughing at her, at herself, thinking about it, because in college, Becca smelled like clinic happy in Parliament life. And I was like, same, same babe, same.

[Alex]

Got it.

[Mrs. P]

We call Parliament light Slut butts.

[Alex]

Yeah. You would call them slut butts.

[Mrs. P]

I was like, let me get a box of slut butts.

[Alex]

Yep.

[Mrs. P]

You know what I liked about Parliament Lights?

[Alex]

I don't know.

[Mrs. P]

Do you want me to tell them?

[Alex]

No, don't. No, just. We're gonna leave that one. You know what? Some secrets need to remain inside this marriage. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

One day, Lizzie walks out of the pool. She walks out to the pool area. And as she walks out, she hears some Influencer girlies talking, talking. And she's like, they. She thinks she's better than us, but I heard that blah, blah, and like her husband, blah, blah, blah, and this whole thing. And so she hears these people talking, and then Rebecca walks up and she realizes that they're talking about Rebecca, and immediately they all switch and they're like, oh, my God. Hi, how are you? You look so great. And immediately Lizzie's like, frenemies. They're all frenemies.

[Alex]

Yeah, it's a me. It's a mean girl conference.

[Mrs. P]

Mean girl conference. Anyway, Becca grabs Liz and they get away, so she's like, I want to go talk to you. And Lizzie is having, like, this moment of nostalgia because, like, they kind of fall right into the same rhythm they had in college, right? They're having side jokes, this familiarity, but it's also really jarring because Bex is talking like nothing happened. And Lizzie's like, why the fuck did you ghost me? Like, why the fuck did you just abandon our friendship without a word type of situation? Right? They end up going back to Lizzie's room, which Becca's paying for, and they get order like a. They're gonna order drinks and just chill out and catch up. And it's a gorgeous room with a private mountain. I'm sorry, a private infinity pool on the outdoor patio. Oh, and it's got like a beautiful mountain view.

[Alex]

I keep forgetting this is a two thousand dollar a night hotel room. And I keep thinking picturing the hotel room I had at Vidcon, which was not nice.

[Mrs. P]

No, this is one of those Instagram influencers. Yeah, they want you to take the picture in the infinity pool. The whole thing.

[Alex]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Mrs. P]

So that when you text me, are you staying another day? I'm like, absolutely, I'm staying another day.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, do they have a Turkish spa? Oh, my God, yes.

[Alex]

Oh, my God. So I want to be hot and then dump cold water in my body.

[Mrs. P]

So they get room service and they get burgers and onion rings and ice cream sundaes and really big martinis and a bottle of wine. And they talk about. They just start reminiscing.

[Alex]

I have a question. Yeah, Real fast. Are onion rings less healthy than French fries or are they. Is like four onion rings the same as having a mess of French fries?

[Mrs. P]

I think they're the same.

[Alex]

Okay, but then why do people treat onion rings so terribly?

[Mrs. P]

Some people don't like onion rings.

[Alex]

No, no, no. I mean, like, people act like if you order onion rings, like you are. That you are personally Shooting a dietitian in the head.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

No, like, it's not that people don't like them. I'm saying that when people are.

[Mrs. P]

It's a deep fried vegetable.

[Alex]

That's what I'm saying is, like, I think onion rings are fine, if not better for you than French fries.

[Mrs. P]

I think I'd have to look at it nutritionally. Potatoes are really high in a lot of nutrients.

[Alex]

Oh, the potatoes. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. So potatoes get a bad rap for not being nutrient dense, but they are nutrient dense.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Onions are water dense.

[Alex]

I just always hear when somebody's like, I'm cheating on my diet. Like in this case, like, she chose onion rings as specific to be like, we're decadently breaking our diet.

[Guest]

Yes.

[Alex]

That is what that is being inserted as.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, for sure.

[Alex]

So I want to. Because I love an onion ring.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, I love an onion ring.

[Alex]

I ate onion rings at a tractor pool recently. Did some stuff to our bathroom afterwards.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Because I don't know what suffered the.

[Mrs. P]

Consequences of tractor pull. Onion rings.

[Alex]

I don't know what they fried them in.

[Mrs. P]

Who knows?

[Alex]

It might have been tractor oil. It might have been beef tallow. That might have been what beef tallow does to my body.

[Mrs. P]

So the reminiscent.

[Alex]

I'm a seed oil girly.

[Mrs. P]

You're a seed oil girly. She's telling her about this big announcement. She's like, I'm making this big announcement tomorrow at the convention. Her. She's being a little bit vague about it, but basically what the whole thing is is Rebecca is about to sign this huge fucking deal. It's a Martha Stewart of a deal. She's getting book deals. She's going to get a TV show. She's going to get this new Internet thing. Like, she is going to explode her business in a way she never has. And the main reason she never did it before is her husband didn't want her to do it. Her husband really was like, oh, you're a little Instagram. You're just posting your little pictures. You're again, posting your little pictures. Making a little bread.

[Alex]

Hold on. She's making like $200,000 a week.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And he's like, oh, your little side hustle.

[Alex]

And so, like, stupid little fucking Wyoming.

[Mrs. P]

Farm that if she gets these big deals, these Martha Stewart deals, cookbooks, interview shows, like, she's getting like this Kelly Clarkson interview show. Like, it's gonna be huge. He doesn't want that for her. He doesn't want her to have a taste of any of that freedom or success because then he can't lord it over her.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Situation.

[Alex]

Which she doesn't have anything to lord over her now.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

That's the thing that keeps getting me. He doesn't have anything to lord over her now.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I want him dead.

[Mrs. P]

So her husband doesn't know about the big deal. So this is the whole thing. She wants to have a story written about how awesome this is for Modern Woman magazine. She's going to announce it at the convention tomorrow. Her husband doesn't know, and he can't stop the train that's leaving the station. That's why she's doing it this way. Okay. Because she is, again, a victim of domestic violence in this situation who has been isolated from everyone in the world.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

And she. She needs to make sure this is really loud so that her husband can't take this away from her.

[Alex]

Yeah, got it.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so Grace. Grace Sen. I wrote here. Her husband acts like she just takes pictures of bread. In fact, she is the breadwinner.

[Alex]

Like, I just. When you start going over the numbers, I'm so mad. I'm so mad because I've met and I've seen so many dudes like this, and I'm like, buddy, this. This is a gift.

[Mrs. P]

This is a dream.

[Alex]

This is a gift.

[Mrs. P]

You want to be the stay at home dad?

[Alex]

This is. This is what you've always wanted. This is PlayStation 5 and cheese balls.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. No, it's. No, you don't. You don't want me to watch the kids. You're gonna hire a nanny. All right.

[Guest]

Yeah, I could.

[Mrs. P]

I could watch the kids.

[Alex]

I could watch. I mean, we could save a couple bucks. I could. Oh, okay. No, that's fine. Oh, yeah. Do you want me to run to the store and go pick up like. Like Taco Bell for everybody? Oh, you made sourdough bread for everybody, and you already cooked six different meals for the kids. Oh, no, that's fine.

[Mrs. P]

That's fine.

[Alex]

That's fine.

[Mrs. P]

You want me to just go lay down?

[Alex]

I'm gonna throw some out here. I. I got this shack I keep out back. I'll be there. You ring the bell whenever you want me to come into your house. Whenever you want to come into your house.

[Mrs. P]

So they get pretty drunk.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

All right. And they're. They're drunk.

[Guest]

Blah, blah, blah.

[Mrs. P]

And I guess at a certain point, Rebecca goes to the bathroom because then you got to pee when you're drunk real quick.

[Alex]

Are they like lime in the coconut drunk?

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex]

Practical magic drunk.

[Mrs. P]

They're almost there. They're not dancing, you know, because they're.

[Alex]

Still kind of like, there's still weirdness.

[Mrs. P]

There's still cats who just met almost. You know what I mean? Like, they're. They're. They're checking the territory as they can.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Because they don't. There's still this big thing between them.

[Alex]

Yeah. This is so funny, because I have a reveal as you. As you're telling us.

[Mrs. P]

And Beck goes to the bathroom. Lizzie picks up her phone. She's gonna, like, text her husband. But she accidentally grabs Becca's phone and she sees there's a text message, Right? And the text message says, you're not gonna get away with this, bitch. And she immediately puts the phone down to pretend she didn't see it. But she's also like, okay, so, like, I gotta go to bed. And Rebecca, to her credit, before she leaves the room, she's like, listen, I owe you a big explanation and an apology. You did not deserve what happened. And I promise tomorrow we will sit down and talk about everything. I will explain everything and apologize and, like, make this right.

[Alex]

That's so crazy.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So she's like, listen, this is not the right time. I know that. But you deserve to have the right time. And I'm gonna make that time available for you, and we can really hash this out.

[Alex]

Yeah. Because we shouldn't be drunk and crying. Because we're gonna be drunk and we're gonna be crying a lot.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

It's gonna be crying, screaming, throwing off, Up.

[Alex]

Okay, Got it, got it, got it.

[Mrs. P]

So can I tell you?

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I love Bex.

[Mrs. P]

I know.

[Alex]

I understand why she's.

[Mrs. P]

I have someone in my life that if this happened, I would scream, cry, throwing up. But I was like, ugh.

[Alex]

Well, so here's me. Here's my reveal.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

When I went to VidCon last year.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I met up with an old friend of mine who listens to the show.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And, like, I did stand up with it. All these different things. And, like, we caught up. Like, I was supposed to go to an after party at vidcon and go hang out with all these influencers.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And the whole time I'm sitting with him and, like, all these influencers and content creators. Like, why aren't you here? We're doing karaoke. Oh, my God. This. And they were like, name dropping people in inside the thing. These people I just met, I'm like. I literally just like, didn't respond to any of them because I was hanging out my old buddy.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And like, we sat at a Buca Di Beppo.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, did you get the big meatball?

[Alex]

We got the big meatball. We ordered too much food.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, that's part of.

[Alex]

Yeah, we had a great time just eating too much food and just chilling and like, just like, catching up on old times and then like, putting things into perspective for each other. I'd be like, yeah, man. I just remember, like, this thing happened and that being crazy. Oh, well, did you not hear about these three other events that led to that exact moment?

[Mrs. P]

Oh, yeah. You learned a lot of backlore that you didn't know.

[Alex]

Oh, my God, he was a monster. Like, that's the type of thing. It was literally me going like, oh, I'm not good at reading people and being like, yeah, man. Yeah, dude, you have faith in people in a way that I just don't. But anyway, it was very much, much that. And so, like, this is. This is very funny for me. This whole book is hilarious for me. Will they murder Grayson? Go on.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so Bex leaves the room to go to bed, but she doesn't actually go to bed. She text messages at SingleDad Dan to come over. Bex is the one that started all those rumors about him that. That he went and had sex with all the fitness influencers. She also planted a rumor, I guess last year that he was part of an orgy and she got the idea from these Mormon influencers who got caught soft swinging on TikTok.

[Alex]

My God. This is the. Why is. Was this book like, did they. Did they just target your algo?

[Mrs. P]

I think so.

[Alex]

Is this just your algorithm?

[Guest]

The book?

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, that's why it was so funny.

[Alex]

Wait, so she lied and told everybody that that single dad Dan is a big old slut, so they'll stay away from him so that way she can get it?

[Mrs. P]

No, but exactly. No but exactly that.

[Alex]

All right, Bex is smart. So single dad dad Dan should murder Grayson.

[Mrs. P]

So Bex is through the perspective, telling us the story of how she met Grayson. So when she just got out of college, she moved to San Francisco to work for a tech company. She wanted to save up money to start her own business. She had this idea of starting a high end pastry store that did online ordering, and then she was going to expand it to be like a global. It's very crumble cookie. It's very. There's this chocolate chip one that Cookie started that in New York. That like. It's this idea of like really beautiful pastries you take pictures of online. You can order them through Grubhub or whatever.

[Alex]

You know what okay. What's Edible Arrangements?

[Mrs. P]

Yes.

[Alex]

Edible arrangements is actually very, very similar in that way where the guy who did it. The. The. The secret sauce, is not the food itself. It is actually the platform and the ease of access to being able to use it. And that was her idea.

[Mrs. P]

That was her idea. She wanted to build out a pastry store and then build an app around it. And so this was her big idea because, again, baking has her passion. She. There's a lot of backstory about how when she was growing up, baking food was her one escape from her mother and her. Her father wasn't in the picture, but, like, her mother was not great to be around. So, like, baking is, like, her thing.

[Alex]

Okay. Is this a book about how you're gonna murder me?

[Mrs. P]

No. So she met Grayson at a wine vineyard while she was out with one of her girlfriends. She was working in tech, right. And she was super busy, never got any days off. And so one. Her one girlfriend convinced her, like, let's go out, get really wine drunk. So they go to this vineyard. It's her one day off a week or whatever. And she meets this guy. He's super handsome. He has great manners. She talks about how she used to. Used to have a lot of friends, but then Grayson slowly convinced her to push them all away, and she didn't see them all the time. And like, you, you start to hear about how, like, she really fell in love with this guy, and he slowly, slowly isolated her from these people so.

[Alex]

That way he could abuse her and control her.

[Mrs. P]

So next morning, Lizzie is eating breakfast and texting Becca Bex about how, like, where they gonna meet up in the conference, and she's not getting any response. She assumes a hangover because she currently has one herself.

[Alex]

Lindsay should stop drinking, by the way.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Because she's constantly like. I feel like she doesn't drink a lot.

[Mrs. P]

I think that's the whole thing, is that she never drinks. And so now that she's around alcohol, because she's a mom. A loose.

[Alex]

And she's a loose mom. I don't want to say loose mom.

[Mrs. P]

She's a mom on the loose.

[Alex]

Mom on the loose. On the changes. The entire sex.

[Mrs. P]

A mom on the loose. You had two bloody Marys and got sick.

[Alex]

You know what I mean? And so you're talking to a guy who had four shots of fireball on Friday.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

How'd that go?

[Alex]

Well, the next day, you were like, you're watching the baby. You promised.

[Mrs. P]

You promised.

[Alex]

You promised full day of baby so you could hang. I was like, I did make that promise, and I hate that man who.

[Mrs. P]

Made that promise, so.

[Alex]

And I. And I. I watched. I almost threw up while watching a lot of Thompson's Tank Engine.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, you did. So she gets a wave of pain, like, emotional pain, because all this. The not responding and the silence reminds her of what happened last time. Yeah. Yeah. And who Becca really is in her mind, because, like, again, she's, like. She seems so cool and fun and, like, we have all this, like, immediate connection. But I know who she is and this person that convinced her to spend. Oh, pardon me. So here's what happened. The day that she got ghosted, Becca had convinced her. You need to fly out to California to visit me. I haven't seen you in so long. I want you to meet my new boyfriend. You're gonna love him. He's so cool. And so Liz spent the last of her money, bought a plane ticket, flew to California to meet Becca, and Becca didn't answer the door. She didn't show up at the airport. She took a cab to Becca's apartment. She knocked on her door. She never showed up. She went to Becca's job. She looked for her there. She never showed up. She called. She called. She called. She never answered her.

[Alex]

And she thought her friend might be dead or something.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, she did go. She, like, called the police. It was, like, the whole thing. And then eventually, she got an email from Becca that was incredibly mean and cruel and, like, imprinted in her brain. And so, like, that. That was. The ghosting was, like.

[Alex]

Got it.

[Mrs. P]

I flew all the way out here to support my friend, and then you literally ghosted me.

[Alex]

You called me, and then you ghosted me in a weird way. And then you were mean about it.

[Mrs. P]

You were mean about it. I also spent all my money.

[Alex]

I also. Okay, can I call a shot right here?

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Just because I feel it in the book.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

It was secretly. Grayson.

[Mrs. P]

Well, I don't. I'm not gonna give anything away.

[Alex]

Okay. But I'm just calling my shot.

[Guest]

Yeah, that.

[Alex]

That was because I'm gonna tell you right now, Grayson.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I. I want him dead.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so she heads down to the. To the conference, where she leaves a room. She's gonna go down the conference and just get a vibe. Get a vibe check. She interacts with a lot of the mom influencers, including a chicken influencer called a head influencer. Henfluencer. They're the next big thing. Everybody's talking about it. Chicken influencers. Next big thing. She.

[Alex]

Well, when egg prices were way up, they were. They were on the rise.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And now egg prices back down.

[Mrs. P]

Back. No, no, the egg places are still up.

[Alex]

I thought they. I thought they finally came down.

[Mrs. P]

No, they're still pretty high.

[Alex]

But the president said they came down.

[Mrs. P]

Don't listen to that guy. So while she's, like, talking to all these weirdos and interacting with them, she's. She finds one normie lady whose name is Katie, and Katie is there trying to pitch her app. She's an app developer. And while she sits down at this table with Katie, and they're about to, like, watch this presentation, and at this point, Liz is just, like, waiting for Rebecca, but also just, like, wants to get this. As a journalist, she wants to know what's happening here so she can write about it. So she's like, I guess I'll sit in for whatever this is.

[Alex]

Yeah. At the end of the day, you can still write some stories. You make some content.

[Mrs. P]

Make some content.

[Alex]

Make some content.

[Mrs. P]

Make some content. So she meets Olivia Jackson Jackson. Olivia Jackson is Rebecca's manager. Basically, Olivia introduced her. She's like, oh, are you Lizzie? And she's like, yeah. How do you know that? She's like, becca told me you were coming. And, like, baba. And so Olivia Jackson is very Olivia Pope coded. Do you know who Olivia Pope is?

[Alex]

That is from a TV show that Scandal.

[Guest]

Yes.

[Alex]

Okay. I've never watched Scandal, so.

[Mrs. P]

But the listeners will understand. No, I understand that they will very Olivia Pope coded. Except for older, very fashionable, and, I believe, a lesbian.

[Alex]

Okay. Okay. But is that a PR Person? Is Olivia Pope pr.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, she's a PR person.

[Alex]

Okay. Got it.

[Mrs. P]

So this is, like, a PR Manager.

[Alex]

She's very powerful, but it's also, like, a fixer.

[Mrs. P]

Yes, a fixer.

[Alex]

That's what I needed to know. I don't know who Olivia Pope is.

[Mrs. P]

I think we need to go back and watch this show.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So all while this is happening, I have set the scene. This guy Marsden. That's right. A man named Marsden is going to do a presentation at this event. Okay. There is no video. He is giving me a crazy look. Marsden is best friends with who? Grayson. And he's here to also pitch an app. And so he's on the stage, and he starts off, hey, ladies. I have heard that you have been busy, little bees, that you mothers control 85% of the household purchases and have this spending power of upward of 2.4 trillion. I know a little bit about that spending. My wife be shopping. Lol. This is how he's starting his. His pitch.

[Alex]

I want him Dead, too.

[Mrs. P]

Stone cold silence in the room.

[Alex]

I want him murdered.

[Mrs. P]

Except for the tradwife table, who is clapping for him. The trad wife table. They're like, yay. Marzin is still yapping, but a lot of the room isn't really paying attention.

[Guest]

They.

[Mrs. P]

They're zoning out on him. They're on their phones. They're on their laptops. So he starts speaking louder. Do you want to know? Do you want to know why I'm here today? I am here for you all. All of you are doing God's work. Motherhood is the highest vocation for a woman to aspire to. I know that a lot of you were raised in a world that told you to climb the corporate ladder, but y', all, that just makes women miserable. You all want to have your babies and live a good life while your husband takes care of you. Am I right?

[Alex]

This is literally a women's job conference.

[Mrs. P]

Silence.

[Alex]

They're there at their women jobs silence.

[Mrs. P]

Katie, who is sitting next to Liz, is like, this dude is a fucking idiot. This is a business conference for women who command billions of dollars in advertising revenue. He keeps going. You all chose to quit your jobs and focus on the most important thing in the world, being a wife and mother. A woman from the crowd yells back at him. No, we didn't. We are running companies. Another one chimes in. Sure, you may be doing your little side hustle and posting your cute little videos, but your true dedication is to your husbands and those little angels. And that's where my new, innovative app comes in. It's called Stay for all of you. Stay at Home moms. This app will have everything to help you keep staying and momming. All of the sudden, a waffle flies at his head, and then 20 more pastries go flying up to the stage, and he can't dodge all of them. Also, this is very clearly Harrison Bucker.

[Alex]

Oh, yes, Right. Yes.

[Guest]

Yes.

[Alex]

Okay. Yes. Yes. Can I tell you something? The other day, he missed. He missed the field goal.

[Guest]

He did.

[Alex]

It cost him the game.

[Mrs. P]

Perfect.

[Alex]

And everyone said it went wide, right? And I was like, that's not the call. You should have said, ah. And unfortunately, Harrison Bucker went far right. Oh, shouldn't have gone far right. Harrison Bucker.

[Mrs. P]

And now he is covered in pastries, and he's dumbfounded, and he's like, why? Why are you all mad? I am honoring you and venerating your motherhood. To which another lady from the other side of the room yells to the stage, you are a condescending prick. I made Three times my husband's salary last year. And now he works for me in my company. Which is your dream.

[Alex]

And he still almost my reality. Yeah, it's very close to my reality.

[Mrs. P]

He's still getting pelted by donuts. And he has like donut cream running down his face.

[Alex]

I wish. I want to live in a world where Harrison Bucker gets smack. Gets cream pied.

[Mrs. P]

Hey, wait.

[Alex]

Hey, Harrison Bucker cream pie time.

[Mrs. P]

So as this is happening, the doors to the auditorium swing open and it's the cops. So the cops come fumbling in and they're like, is Rebecca Summers here? We are looking for Ms. Summers. So the police go right up to Olivia and they're like, Mrs. I don't remember Olivia's last name, but we need you to come up with us right now to the station so we can ask you from some questions. And she looks the cop dead in the eyes and she goes, absolutely not. And she gets up and walks out. Lol. Because she's a lawyer.

[Alex]

Yeah. Yeah. She's like, no, I don't fucking.

[Mrs. P]

You better get us.

[Alex]

And also. But also. But also, this isn't a big city cop.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

This is some small town somewhere. This is a resort town.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Which means they have like a small local sheriff.

[Mrs. P]

Make me.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Got a warrant. Nope. I'm not saying nothing.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

She leaves.

[Alex]

Yeah. I love her.

[Mrs. P]

Livy. Lizzie starts immediately checking her phone from Becks because again, they're asking for Rebecca, and there's no updates from Rebecca this whole time. So she opens her Instagram. She's like, maybe she posted something. And she did. She posted a picture of herself last night sitting on the balcony with Lizzie. And it said hashtag catching up with old friends. And she actually tagged Liz in it. And now Liz has thousands and thousands of new followers. Right? So all the influencers in this room are going crazy right now because this is. This is content drama.

[Alex]

Because also this is. She is the top of the pyramid.

[Mrs. P]

She's the top of the pyramid.

[Alex]

Okay?

[Mrs. P]

And so they're all posting about this. They're on Twitter, they're on Instagram, because again, the police are idiots and they didn't tell them to leave. So they're all together gossiping and talking, and they're making content about this. So the whispers are starting to spread throughout the room.

[Alex]

They burst into a conference and go, we are the police here for the.

[Mrs. P]

Specific famous person, popular, beautiful woman that you all want to get and somehow hate love at the same time.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

Whispers start to spread like wildfire through the Room. Grayson Summers is dead.

[Guest]

Yay.

[Alex]

Yay. I love this book. I love this book. I love this book.

[Mrs. P]

One of the girly pops in the room's cousins is a cop in the town, and he said that they found what looks like a murder scene at the Summers ranch.

[Alex]

Oh. And that's right. And it's close.

[Mrs. P]

It's close. It's within driving distance.

[Alex]

Oh, my God.

[Mrs. P]

Suddenly, Liz has all these people turn, stop, and look at her, and they're like, you. You were with Rebecca last night. We all know that you were the last one to see her. Right. What would you guys talk about?

[Guest]

Bubba?

[Mrs. P]

Eventually, the cops. Meanwhile, the Instagram girlies are faster than the cops. The cops are like, we need you to come down and interviewed. We knew you. We know you're the last one that saw her. And, like, you know, you don't know that. And she's like, we saw the Instagram. She tagged you in it.

[Alex]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so. So now we're back in the mind of Beck.

[Alex]

Okay. Real fast.

[Mrs. P]

Go ahead. Take a break.

[Alex]

We're going to take a break.

[Mrs. P]

Okay.

[Alex]

Because I've gotten what I've been asking for for an hour and 15 minutes.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Which is the death of the evil Grayson. Number one. Okay.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And number two, I think. I think we need to take a minute.

[Mrs. P]

We need to.

[Alex]

To really focus.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Lock in.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And then really get down to the baseline of this trad. Wife murder. I. That was the most satisfying p. In my life.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Because I was like. I was just peeing. I was like, grace is dead. Grayson is dead. Grace is instead. All right, so tell me.

[Mrs. P]

We're back.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. This chapter, we're from Beck's perspective again.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And.

[Alex]

And back's alive.

[Mrs. P]

Back's alive.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

She's reminiscing in her mind about. In the beginning of her relationship with Grayson, he was so supportive. He's the one that suggested she leave her tech job and open a bakery. She was like, listen, I don't have enough money. I have a lot of student debt. I can't get a loan for this. And he was like, listen, I'll be your financial backer. I know you'll be successful. The bakery was a huge success in San Francisco, and Grayson became immediately upset because she was so busy all the time. Right. Because she's running a bakery, and if anyone ever worked at a bakery. You up really early?

[Alex]

Yeah, it's like 4:00am You're.

[Mrs. P]

You leave late. It's like a. It takes a lot of time.

[Alex]

I know people who Ran bakery. It was always their dream to run bakeries.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And it, like, they did well, but it physically almost broke them.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Because it's a lot of literally backbreaking labor and the hours are crazy. Yeah. That's why. Also, like, a lot of bakeries close at, like, 3.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

They're like, we've been here since 3am yeah.

[Alex]

Because they have to start baking stuff. So that way, when you show up.

[Mrs. P]

That'S how it takes to make a croissant.

[Alex]

Oh, my God. So long.

[Mrs. P]

So the bakery sees success. Grayson gets immediately upset because she's so busy all the time. Lizzie was planning to visit, and so she was excited to show her the bakery and introduce her to Grayson. The San Francisco Gazette wrote an article about the bakery, and in the article, she was quoted as saying something like, I hope to be one of the biggest bakers in San Francisco. And after the article was published, like, the article gets published, she's at work with all of her employees, and they're all celebrating this because it's obviously gonna bring more.

[Alex]

More.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, More people.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And so they stayed at work to celebrate and have champagne. Also, Grayson doesn't drink. I need to point that out. I forgot to put that in here.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Because he's like this Christian guy.

[Alex]

Yeah, he's Mormon coded.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, he's Mormon coded. And so they stay, have some champagne. She gets a little drunk, and she goes back to the apartment, and Grayson is there and he's pissed the fuck off. He tells her that she was supposed to come home and make dinner, but instead she got drunk like a fucking slut. That she is. He was screaming that she didn't even mention him in the article. Oh, she's so big. She's gonna be the biggest baker in San Francisco. You're just a dumb slut. You didn't have any money. I had to back this. You couldn't even say anything about me. You shout me out, huh? And so it's a whole you would be nothing without me situation real fast.

[Alex]

Just remind everybody he's dead.

[Mrs. P]

He's dead.

[Alex]

Good.

[Mrs. P]

He proceeds to physically beat the out of her.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. He picks her up and throws her in their bedroom closet and locks it the door. And she ends up passing out from pain. And she's, like, screaming and banging the door, like, let me out. But she knows that no one can hear her. And even if they could, they wouldn't do anything because he owns the, like, condo building that they live in.

[Alex]

Oh, wow.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So she wakes up the next day and she's actually tucked in bed. She's already in bed. And he's being very apologetic. He blames having gotten drunken last night and that this is the reason he doesn't drink, because he gets so angry and. And he had drinks with Marsden, who was ribbing him about the article about his girlfriend and blah, blah, blah. And so he just got so mad. He didn't mean for it to happen. It'll never happen again, yada, yada.

[Alex]

And she is classic abuser show.

[Mrs. P]

And she's like, listen, you need to leave. I need to think about this and, like, recover. Can you call the bakery and tell them I'm sick? I need you to go get me some fucking Vicodin and some soft food. He. He likes. Almost popped her eye out of the socket. Like, she really, really hurt. Leave the food and pills outside the door and leave me alone. And she says to him, like, if you ever lay your hands on me again, I promise you I will put you in an early grave. Right. And he didn't hit her again for years. He found much more cruel and effective ways to hurt her and break her until recently. And then when he hit her again, she. She's thinking to herself, I kept my promise and provided him that early grave.

[Alex]

Okay?

[Mrs. P]

So she. Okay, wait, hold on.

[Guest]

I gotta.

[Mrs. P]

I gotta move my stuff now.

[Guest]

We.

[Mrs. P]

That the early grave. This is our Rebecca. Chapter's over, and we're back to Liz.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And Liz gets a text message from Bex. And she doesn't tell the police. And all it says is next to the bed and the keys to the ranch are in her hotel room.

[Alex]

In Liz's hotel room.

[Mrs. P]

Wow. So now she's in journalistic discovery.

[Alex]

Okay, Real fast, though. That is an insane thing to write. It's just next to the bed.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Because, I mean, unless it may be, like, sitting on the. Like on the nightstand.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Because if it's in, like, the. Like, there's almost like, hotel beds are never up against the wall. There's always two sides to a bed.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

So it's like, which. Right or left?

[Mrs. P]

No, no, no. I. Well, here's the thing. She has. She. She gets the text message, and then she finds the keys to the ranch house.

[Alex]

I understand that.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I'm. But I'm saying though, is. Yeah, if you're like, text me. Okay. Again, I'm a stupid man.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And you text me next to the bed, I'll be like, which side?

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And I'm just, like, looking around like, what. What am I looking for?

[Mrs. P]

That's very True.

[Alex]

That's what I mean.

[Mrs. P]

But Lizzie is a woman, and so she immediately is like, okay, I will figure this out effectively and find the thing you want me to find.

[Alex]

Yeah, I. I would be like, oh, did you mean this television remote for my tv? Oh, you meant the clock radio that some asshole set to 5:30 in the morning last time they stayed here and never undid it.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, my God.

[Alex]

That happened to me twice on the road.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, my God.

[Alex]

To the point now where I unplug hotel clocks.

[Mrs. P]

So she's. She's in journalistic discovery mode, and she wants to figure out what's going on. Going on. So she goes and she actually rents a car, and she's gonna drive out to the ranch so she can look around.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

She drives to the house, and she. So, like, she's. She gets in the house to the ranch house, and it's beautiful. It's huge. And she's seen it on the Internet, so she knows what it looks like. And it's really weird for her to have been there in person, but she's like. It's crazy because it's so beautiful. And then as she's walking through, like, opening doors and looking around, trying to find the bedroom room, she finds the real house there. It's like. There's, like, a stage house. And then in the ranch, in the back, is the real house where they actually live. Where they actually live.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

That. You can clearly see that six kids live here.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Also, where are the kids?

[Alex]

Oh, yeah. Where are the kids?

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, exactly. Where are the kids? Because if Grayson is dead and Bex is missing, where are the kids?

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

There's six of them. A lot of them.

[Alex]

So also, where are the cops?

[Mrs. P]

They're not there.

[Alex]

If Grayson is dead, why aren't the cops at the house?

[Mrs. P]

They're not. We're talking about middle of nowhere.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Wyoming cops.

[Alex]

All right?

[Mrs. P]

So she gets. She goes into this room. She's seeing, like, all the kids, bedrooms. Everything's a mess. She finds. What's it called? Beck's bedroom. And she. On her bedside table, she's looking around her bedside table, and there's a book. And on the book, she sees the book, and she's like, oh, my God. That's the book I gave her in college. See, that's how you set up a plan. She knew that that was the book. That was the thing she needed to grab. So she grabs the book, and she's, like, looking at it, and she hears a noise. A pickup truck just pulled up outside, and someone is coming in the house and she hears them coming up the stairs. And she's like, what the. So she runs and hides in the bathroom that's in this lady's bedroom. And she's like, I don't know who to call. So she texts Becca and is like, I'm in your house and someone is in here. No, obviously no answer. Then she's like, okay, let. She gets. Goes in her email and finds Olivia's number. The Matt PR manager. And she texts her and Olivia's like, get out of the fucking house. I'll leave now. I'll drive to meet you. I'll be there in an hour. Hour. Meet me at the, like, edge of the house, like by the gas station or whatever. Yeah, because there's so much property. You know what I mean? As this is happening, the person is in the bedroom and they're clearly scrambling around like a squirrel looking for something. And as Liz is trying to be quiet, she of course makes too much noise. And then the person starts to try to open the bathroom door, and Liz decides she has to try to get out. So she climbs out the window and she climbs down a trellis and the whole thing. And then she gets in her car and drives away.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

While she gets to the book. When she gets to her car and she drives to a safe distance outside, like the property gates in the line, she opens the book. And inside the book are two Polaroids. Both Polaroids are pictures of Rebecca's badly beaten face. One was recent because it's dated on the bottom.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So one's recent and the other is from September 9th, many years ago. And she remembers that date because that's the weekend that she went flew out to visit her. And she realizes that this is probably why Bex disappeared. And that's why she was out outside of her apartment banging on the door for hours and ran around the city looking for her.

[Alex]

Is this kind of Gone Girl?

[Mrs. P]

It's got Gone Girl energy.

[Alex]

Is this gone? I've never saw a Gone girl.

[Mrs. P]

You've never seen Gone Girl?

[Alex]

I've lived with you this whole time. Time. I've never read Gone Girl. I just. It just feels very gone. I don't know anything like Gone Girl. I would.

[Mrs. P]

Seeing your reaction to this, I feel like we should probably watch Gone Girl.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

You would like it. So we're back at Becca's perspective, and she's actually hiding in a motel right now. She's wearing a brown wig and she's on the Internet scrolling, just watching how everybody's responding you know, keeping eyes on all the things.

[Alex]

Is she on her. Is she on a finsta or is she in the official.

[Mrs. P]

I think she's on her finsta and she's reading all the comments because people are going nuts. It's like, hashtag, save Grayson, hashtag, where are the kids? Because everybody's assuming Rebecca did this, right? And she's like, people are nuts. They think I put my kids in danger. And we learned that once Grayson's money ran dry, he started relying on Becca's money. And once he had to rely on Becca's money, he became very possessive of it. So before that, he didn't care. He was like, oh, your little bread money that you take pictures of. Bread.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

But once he was relying on the money, he's like, I want account access. I need the numbers.

[Alex]

Sorry. So that's hilarious. Hilarious. Hilarious. Hilarious. Sorry.

[Mrs. P]

So she starts siphoning off cash. Basically, she'd be like, oh, I need to pay this person in cash. And because they had ranch hands that you pay in cash, he didn't think of anything of it. So she would always pay photographers in cash. She'd pay private chefs in cash. Like, whatever. Every time she'd pay somebody in cash, she'd overcharge it and then take a. She'd skim from the top.

[Alex]

Yeah, he's charging 15. You pull out 20.

[Guest]

Exactly.

[Alex]

I got it.

[Mrs. P]

So she starts siphoning off cash to build an emergency fund, and that's what her and the kids are living off of right now. She is not with the kids. She is alone in this motel. Okay. We also hear about what happened after that original incident. From her perspective, he did get her pain pills, but the thing that she didn't understand or know at the time is that she really liked those pills. And she ended up getting pretty messed up on the pills and just kind of staying in a daze for weeks. And at a certain point, he came in and was like, your friend keeps texting you. And he showed her the text, and, like, they're the end of the line text. Not that. Hey, I'm worried about you. Hey, are you okay? It was that, you know what yourself, don't ever fucking call me again texts. And that's what Grayson showed her. And she's like, okay, like, just delete the text. And she basically was just like, she does get off the drugs, cleans herself up, but she's so embarrassed about not have her having ever responded that the time that she never responded, she was just like, you know what? Liz doesn't deserve to have such a shitty friend. It's better if I never text her. You know what I mean?

[Alex]

Gotcha.

[Mrs. P]

It's just so long at that point. It would be weird.

[Alex]

So where the email come from that.

[Mrs. P]

We'll get to that later.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So it was Grayson.

[Alex]

I know it. I know it was him because he's a bad person and he deserved to die.

[Mrs. P]

So Grayson is like, you seem really fast.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Yes, he deserved to die and I hope he burns in hell.

[Mrs. P]

So Grayson is like, you really seem sad about all this stuff going on. And like the bakery is becoming like really overwhelming and it's not doing as good as it used to because I.

[Alex]

Punched you in the face and then got you addicted to pills.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. So like, maybe we should move back to my family's farm in Wyoming or wherever. And so we could like, we. And she's like, at this time, she's like, this will be a really good new, brand new start. He promised he's not going to behave this way again. We're talking about getting married and having kids. Kids. And he wants to have a lot of kids. And this is something they agree on. She also wanted to have a lot of kids. And so they do. They move to the big farm.

[Alex]

Crazy thing to sign up for without having done one.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Because listen, once you do one, then decide how many you want to have.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. You gotta have one.

[Alex]

That's. That's our. Can I say this is. I think this is our pearl, man. This is one of our ancestral tenants.

[Guest]

Oh, yeah.

[Alex]

One of our pearls of wisdom right here. You. You can think you want to have a lot of kids.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

But have one first.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

If you want to have. Kill children at all.

[Mrs. P]

Run it. Two years.

[Alex]

Run. Yeah. Have run one.

[Mrs. P]

Two years.

[Alex]

Two years. 18 months. Two years.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And around then you'll know.

[Mrs. P]

You'll know.

[Alex]

You'll know.

[Mrs. P]

They'll try to trick you with their cute little toes.

[Alex]

They do try to trick you with their cute little toes.

[Mrs. P]

Oh my God, look at them little toes. Me. We get more little toes.

[Alex]

But don't go into it being like, I want four or five. That's crazy. Cuz you haven't experienced one pregnancy yet.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Much less one new. And for a guy, one newborn.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And what that does to your brain and what you have to sacrifice for that.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, exactly.

[Alex]

Because one is a lot.

[Mrs. P]

It's a lot.

[Alex]

Six is insane.

[Mrs. P]

It's crazy.

[Alex]

Eight is enough.

[Mrs. P]

Whoa. Okay. So they go to the farm, they get married. It's a whole thing. They start wanting to have babies, and it didn't work right. The baby's not coming. So they went to specialists, they went to holistic practitioners, they did non invasive fertility treatments, pills, acupuncture, injections, and prayer. Grayson specifically said, we need prayer. So she starts going to Grayson's church that he grew up in. And she also, at this time, kind of becomes obsessed with her health. And this is actually a through line that is very, very real. And how the crunchy to alt right pipeline exists for women online is she gets obsessed with her health because she wants to get pregnant and she feels like she doesn't want to eat toxic and she wants to eat clean and blah, blah. And like, this will help create a healthy environment for a baby. And she's like blaming herself and all of her things on why this isn't happening. And so it's processed foods with a problem and seed oils and vaccines, like the whole thing.

[Alex]

Meanwhile, it's Grayson's balls. Is it Grayson's balls?

[Mrs. P]

So they go to a lot of prayer groups and she started seeing this new physician. It's actually the same physician that delivered Grayson when he was a baby, Dr. Carmichael. And he assures her that this is so normal that Grayson's mother took a full year to get pregnant. And she asked him about ivf and he said, that is absolutely unnecessary. It is also a sin. IVF is a sin.

[Alex]

One of those. Okay.

[Mrs. P]

So they end up doing these fertility treatments with this doctor, which again includes all the same stuff I mentioned before, but also intrauterine insemination. And within this, all this work they're doing with the doctor, six months later, she gets pregnant. Okay, so back to Lizzie. Lizzie and Olivia have met up and they're sharing info after she escaped the house. Right? And we find out that Olivia moved out here because she saw where the market was going. She was working in tech in Cali, and she realized that like all the tech guys think that they're running the joint, but without their influencers, they don't have anything to sell. And she realized that there's this gold mine that, like these, these women, these mom fluencers are the gold mine, the three legged goats. Instagram pays Rebecca's mortgage. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, she's like this. She knew. So Olivia is like this savant of Internet stuff and like you said, a fixer. So she suggests that Liz write the first article for Modern Woman about the whole situation that's going on right now about her friend who they reconnected after years, who's gone missing. She's a good person. There seems to have been domestic violence, blah, blah. And she writes this article in, like, 24 hours, sends it to her boss at Modern Woman, and it gets immediately posted and goes pretty viral, which is.

[Alex]

Crazy because she is implicated in it. Yeah, like, that's the part that's crazy, is like, here's my image of the last. The last time we've seen this woman.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And it's me.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And then I suddenly have. I suddenly have evidence that she was domestically abused by her now deceased husband, who we believe was murdered.

[Mrs. P]

What?

[Alex]

That's just a crazy thing.

[Mrs. P]

Allegedly. Just right. Allegedly in there.

[Alex]

Oh, there you go. This button.

[Mrs. P]

I can't reveal my sources.

[Alex]

Can't reveal my sources.

[Mrs. P]

I can't put my sources up on screen to show what.

[Alex]

Even though. Even though. Here's. Here's the Polaroid with the handwritten.

[Mrs. P]

So there's this other influencer. Her name is Veronica Smith.

[Alex]

I hate her, whoever she is. Immediately. I already. I'm anti. Veronica Smith.

[Mrs. P]

Veronica Smith.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

Veronica Smith is Marsden's wife.

[Alex]

Called it. Called it instantly.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, who invites Liz to a secret dinner? Okay, so this secret dinner is like a big, long chapter, basically. It's like in the middle of the desert. They take dune buggies out there. It's like a beautiful lighting situation in the canyon.

[Alex]

Nope.

[Mrs. P]

There's a crazy dust storm.

[Alex]

Yep.

[Mrs. P]

They all have to rush back to the hotel for safety.

[Alex]

Nope.

[Mrs. P]

Somebody falls off a cliff.

[Alex]

Yep.

[Mrs. P]

They survive.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

When they get back to the hotel, the power is out because again, huge dust storm. Katie, who's with Liz. I forgot to mention this. Katie is with Liz when they go to the secret dinner.

[Alex]

Who the hell's Katie?

[Mrs. P]

Remember, she's the girl that was, like, the one normie who's trying to sell.

[Alex]

Oh, the app girl. Okay, got it.

[Mrs. P]

She also had been invited completely off.

[Alex]

Guard by using her name.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And Katie was like, who the fuck is Katie? That actually got me mad. I'm sorry.

[Mrs. P]

Katie's cool, dude.

[Alex]

Okay. Okay. Got it.

[Mrs. P]

Her app is cool. It's like, it helps moms organize stuff. And, like, the way she described it is like an app that's like sling. That helps moms write out all the tasks, how to do them, all the numbers associated with them, so that they can log their. I'm gonna say dumbass husband into them, and he can find the pediatrician's phone number, name, make the fucking appointment, take the kid. And so it's a way to delegate tasks to your husband.

[Alex]

Oh, it's a train. It's a training manual app for your husband on how to.

[Mrs. P]

Katie's app makes a lot of sense. When I was reading it.

[Alex]

Katie's app sounds fucking baller.

[Mrs. P]

I would sign up for it.

[Alex]

Can I say real fast, Can I say something? It's part of it is also from as being the husband and being a father. There are times where I don't have confidence in my own ability. And that's really where the scarediness comes from, is there's times where it comes to things like giving medicine. It's not until I've done it the third time. The third time. Like, you've done this enough, bud. Picking out food for him.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Like, just making food. Like, making the meal. There's been times where I'm like, when he was on Gerber, it was easy. I knew. I knew how to do the Gerber. But now he's do I give you do it. I can't feed you PDB and J3 days in a row. And you're like, yes, you can. It's fine. I'm like, he needs to have roughage. He doesn't. He's a baby. Ask your mom. You ate hot dogs every day until you're in sixth grade.

[Mrs. P]

There is a point with toddlers where a calorie is a calorie.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And we just got to get calories in.

[Alex]

Yes. And that's. And that is the thing I finally gotten to now. But there was a bit there.

[Mrs. P]

He eats so well when he goes to childcare.

[Alex]

Oh, I know. But also what I'm saying, though, is, is there was a time there where there's certain things like that where I was completely paranoid that. That I would be doing the wrong thing. Not that I didn't want to do it. It's just like, I'm not confident in my ability.

[Mrs. P]

So in this.

[Alex]

I love this, honestly.

[Mrs. P]

She could write out the menu and all the menu ideas. Like, you put a cup of sliced strawberries, a thing of Mac and cheese, and some grilled chicken bites. And like, this is what dinner is.

[Alex]

Microwave grilled chicken bites for 45 seconds. Follow the instructions on the package.

[Mrs. P]

Use damp paper towel so it doesn't get too crispy.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I'm saying, like, all that different stuff.

[Mrs. P]

Follow instructions on packets app from Katie. It'd be a super success.

[Alex]

Joe should build this app. She's the author.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, yeah, that's true. Joe, build this app.

[Alex]

Yeah. So what's the name of the app? And you remember what it's called in the.

[Mrs. P]

I don't Remember what it's called?

[Alex]

I bet has a good name.

[Mrs. P]

It's probably got a good name.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Not like, stay for stay at home moms.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Marsden.

[Alex]

So it does also just sound like Google Tasks.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

But it'll probably be aesthetically pleasing and cute. Cutesy.

[Alex]

You know, it has that. Like, that. That. That. That pink shade you like.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, Millennial pink.

[Alex]

Yeah, that millennial pink shade with, like, sparkles in it.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Then I'm clicking through.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So Katie, who's with Liz, they're dune bugging back to the hotel. They get their powers out, and Katie's freaking out, but, like, in a way above the level of how you probably should be freaking out. And the elevators are out. So Katie runs to the stairs, and Liz is following her because this is a very extreme reaction to power being out. And we find out that Katie, when she gets back to her room, has been hiding the six kids because Katie is Kiki, the nanny. Yes.

[Alex]

That. You boomed. Me. I just got boomed with that. We're gonna take a break. Oh, my God.

[Mrs. P]

So we're back.

[Alex]

We are back.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, Becca. We're back to Becca's perspective. Okay. Liz is at the hotel with Katie, AKA Kiki. All the kids are in the hotel room with Katie, who's no power. Yeah, exactly. That's why she went running, because the kids are scared. They're crying.

[Alex]

How. Okay, this is crazy. Six children in one hotel room.

[Mrs. P]

It's a big hotel room.

[Alex]

It was like a giant. Oh, it's a giant suite.

[Mrs. P]

It's a big suite, like, with the whole living room set up. Yeah. You know the ones.

[Alex]

Yeah. No, no, I get it. I get it. Six in there. It's still pretty crazy.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So Becca. We're back to Becca's perspective, and she's thinking about how she might not have found out the truly worst thing Grayson ever did to her if it wasn't for a sponsorship deal she did once. So basically, she's like, yes, he physically abuses me. Yes, he mentally abuses me and financially abuses me. He's done all these. And he cuts her down. He tells her all the time she's worthless.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

So, like, she is constantly being abused, but if it wasn't for this one sponsorship deal, she wouldn't have found out. Out the actual worst thing he ever did to her. So she did this deal with a genealogy brand once to promote those DNA kits.

[Alex]

Okay. And I.

[Mrs. P]

Wait, let me finish.

[Alex]

I had a feeling about this. I had a feeling the way you described it earlier. Let me finish the checkoffs.

[Mrs. P]

Come the brand wanted to do a deal with her and the kids, and she agreed to only do one with her oldest, Alice. But the red line was that they were never going to post any of the children's info online, but they were going to talk about having it done. When she got the results back, everything seemed pretty normal. Except when she was on the part where, like. Oh, where. You know how, like when you go into those websites, you can see other.

[Alex]

People that you might be related to, your relatives, cousins. When we did with the dog, when we found out, like, how.

[Mrs. P]

That's right.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

We did the DNA test for our dog. Yeah, we adopted him. We wanted to know what kind he was.

[Alex]

Yeah. Because he's a mix. And then we found out exactly what type of mix he was. And then we found out all of his cousins because his dad was a big old slut.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Running around Louisiana.

[Mrs. P]

Just whatever.

[Alex]

He was just getting whatever he wants.

[Mrs. P]

So everything seems pretty normal. Except for when she clicked on the button that was like, who you might be, who you're related to. That's also on the website. Website, right. She was relate. The Alice was related to Veronica Smith's kids. And this is interesting because Veronica Smith had also gotten the same brand deal. They all get the same brand deals. So she goes a little crazy and she's like, what the is going on? And so she's like, I need to secretly test all my kids. So she online orders all the tests for all the other kids, and all of them, except for one, is related to Marsdale in. And she's like, what? How the did this happen? And so she logs in, she like, breaks into Grayson's email and she's going through the emails that he used to have with Dr. Carmichael. She goes back all the years ago, and she reads through them and she sees that she was never the problem that you were. Right. Grayson was shooting blanks the whole time.

[Alex]

I know it.

[Mrs. P]

And in the emails, Dr. Carmichael suggests that they use a family donor, like they could use Grayson's dad. And she vomits in her mouth thinking about that. But he says, listen, we don't need a full donor. I can mix your sperm with another donor, and those sperm will help yours be stronger. So we find out that Grayson and Marston and the doctor consistently inspired to never let Rebecca know this, ever. It's like they were never going to tell her that they did this. And this is also the reason that Grayson always insisted she have home births, even when she was in danger, because he didn't want the kids to have Medical records with their blood test because it would say that they weren't tied directly to him. And the whole thing is like. I think after her second birth, they were, like, dangerous. Like, she should have been in the. The hospital.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

For that many. And he just kept putting her in danger because he didn't want the kid's blood type to be on record.

[Alex]

So this is nuts.

[Mrs. P]

Also, she thinks.

[Alex]

I. I just realized. Give me. I thought it was going to be the doctors.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I thought. Because the way he described it with the. You know, my mom had this. His mom had the same problems. And I was like, that's old Dr. Cumbutters just throwing it around.

[Mrs. P]

Around here was a Law and Order episode.

[Alex]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Hold on. McAfee. What? I just got a McAfee notice. I don't care. So the other thing is, the youngest kid also is not related to Grayson, but still does not have his DNA. And she thinks that that actually might be single dad dance. Lol.

[Alex]

Good for her.

[Mrs. P]

Because I was like, nice, nice, nice.

[Alex]

That one had to have been confusing for Grayson.

[Mrs. P]

No, she. She does. She talks about how he was like, wait, what? You're pregnant?

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And like, they. She says that, like, they're intimate once in a while, but, like, they sleep in separate bedrooms.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Hate each other.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And so, like, he was like. He just assumed that. Like, I get. Sure.

[Guest]

I guess.

[Mrs. P]

Like, he. But also, if he admitted that it wasn't like, it was like a whole thing.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So it was, like, immaculate.

[Alex]

That might. But that might have also been, like, one of her early trials. Traps to try to catch them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So she's going through these emails and she's deep in the email game, and she also finds other emails. Grayson had been sending emails to Veronica for years, and it turns out he's super obsessed with her. Like, like, super horny emails. And unfun fact is, in one of them, he's like, I remember when I first saw you at church, you were so hot. I just want to do. Do blah, blah, blah to you. And she was 10 the first time he saw her at church.

[Alex]

Oh, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Super unfun.

[Alex]

We gotta put a lot of content warnings in the beginning of this one.

[Mrs. P]

Sorry, guys.

[Alex]

It's okay.

[Mrs. P]

She's fully grossed out by that. But she also, like, she. She's grossed out by the age thing for sure. But she doesn't care that he is, like, horny for Veronica. Like, she is so checked out of this marriage. Yeah.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

She's not like, oh, I can't believe you like another woman. And she's like, I don't. I don't care.

[Alex]

Yeah, well, he is. He wants to be a Republican congressman. Right. So this checks all the boxes.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, all of them. So in this, she goes. She's in the deleted file, right? She's back in the deleted file because.

[Alex]

He'S too stupid to empty that.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And she finds the email that he wrote to Lizzie all those years ago.

[Alex]

Am I. Y'. All. Can I. Am I not able to read patterns into stories? Am I not able to read a pattern into a story?

[Mrs. P]

Do you want me to read the email?

[Alex]

No, I think we all know he wrote. He was just a huge jerk to her, telling her to fuck off and all that stuff. Right.

[Mrs. P]

It just said. It just basically said, you shouldn't have come out here. I didn't even ask you to come. I should have been more firm with the fact that we've grown apart. I don't want to see you get your own life. You're obsessed with me. I'm actually a little scared of you.

[Alex]

Distance. Distance. Distance. Yeah, I got. I got it. Got it, got it, got it.

[Mrs. P]

So while all this is happening, Becca makes this plan to escape Grayson with the kids. First, she's like, I gotta meet with Marston and confront him. And she's gonna try to secretly record him admitting to what he did.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

It doesn't go well.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

He basically is like, you. I'll kill you if you ever say anything. And.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And then she. In a separate timeline, she confronts Grayson with the information over breakfast one day when the kids are all out.

[Alex]

By the way, I'm now picturing Josh, Holly, and Harrison Bucker.

[Guest]

Yes.

[Alex]

Because that is if y'. All. Y' all just Google a picture of Josh. Because they took pictures together. Yeah, because you know the. It's the Kansas City Chiefs.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And Josh. Holly's. Missouri. Is Missouri senator.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And they do, like, really weird monster truck, like, man rally. MLM. Man rallies and shit like that. Check that shit out. It's fucking insane for sure. But this is the two of them, except, like, double failures.

[Mrs. P]

So she confronts Grayson at breakfast when the kids aren't home, and he freaks out and attacks her and, like, starts hitting her. This time, she kicks him in the dick.

[Alex]

Good for her.

[Mrs. P]

And then when he. When he rolls on the ground, she grabs a knife.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

She threatens him till he leaves the house. And she says, if you come back, I'm gonna chop you the fuck up.

[Alex]

This should be a movie.

[Mrs. P]

This should be a.

[Alex]

This is a good Movie.

[Mrs. P]

This is a good movie.

[Alex]

This is. This should be a movie or a six episode HBO series.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So now we're back in the present day.

[Alex]

Don't put it on Paramount.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Barry Rice. Barry Weiss will ruin it.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So back to the present day. Bex is in that motel room and she hears a knock on the door. And she thinks it's this lady that she knows that's been helping her out and. But it's not. It's Marsden, and he has a gun.

[Alex]

Marston has a gun and he's gonna.

[Mrs. P]

He's threatening her and he kidnaps her. Basically just like, punches her and grabs her and throws her in his truck. And he's like, get in the truck. I'm gonna fucking destroy you. And she knows he isn't lying because she watched him kill Grayson.

[Alex]

Twist. What a twist. I like a twist. That's a good twist because I really thought Bex did it.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I really did think she was justified.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I thought she was weird to cover it up the way she did.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

But now that we know that it was Marston. That Marston was the secret shooter.

[Guest]

Yep.

[Alex]

And the secret shooter. Get it? Get it. Because we're talking about ropes and bullets.

[Mrs. P]

So he's driving, okay. And she's still fighting with him. At a certain point, she, like, grabs the wheel of the truck to swerve the truck and like, like, tries to roll out the door.

[Alex]

See, this is how I know that she doesn't follow the trad wife content. Well, yeah, because a lot of tradwife content teaches you how to escape being kidnapped in like, a weird way, because they're always like, you need to be. You're gonna get kidnapped.

[Mrs. P]

Your kids are gonna kidnap.

[Alex]

This is gonna happen. You gotta block the seatbelt this way. And then you do this and you smash out the taillight and you wave your. You wave your torn shirt through the window and blah, like all this stuff signals. Hand signals and all this stuff.

[Mrs. P]

No, she just like, jams the wheel, opens the door, tries to fling herself out the side, basically.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And then he's like, you fucking asshole. And then he says worse words. And then he, like, runs around the side to, like, grab her and get her back in the truck, you know? And within the time of, like, him running around, this is the moment she uses to pull out the cell phone, which is a burner phone she's had. She pulls out the cell phone she has in her pocket and dials the last number that she called and puts it back in her pocket. And that Last phone call was actually to Katie, who's with the kids. Right.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

And so here's how Bex did it. She set up a camera in the barn where the. Like, the one barn where the guys always hang out because they both hate hanging out with their kids and their wives. So they always, like, hang out the barn, smoke cigars, shoot guns. You know, guy stuff.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And she puts a camera in the barn, and then she forwards an email to Marsden of those emails center, Veronica. And so she's, like, trying to push Marsden to go confront Grayson because she wants them on camera admitting to what they did. Because she's confronted both of them now at this point. Yeah, they both know that she knows.

[Alex]

They know that she knows, and she.

[Mrs. P]

Wants to get them in the same room mad at each other so they'll say what happened.

[Alex]

So as they're screaming because they're stupid.

[Mrs. P]

Because they're stupid.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

That's what she did. What she accidentally caught on camera is Marsden beating this and then murdering Grayson.

[Alex]

Yep.

[Mrs. P]

Got it. So, yeah, and then he gets done beating him up. He looks up and he sees the little red light from the camera, and he goes. And he takes the camera down, and that's when the screen goes dark.

[Alex]

But it's a ring cam that's already recorded everything.

[Guest]

Exactly.

[Mrs. P]

Exactly. It's in a cloud.

[Alex]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mrs. P]

So Bex didn't know who to call, so she called Olivia, the fixer. And Olivia is like, listen, we gotta pivot. We gotta pivot. She's like, this happened. You're implicated. You ordered recording devices on Amazon before this happened. You. You can't just go to the cops with this. You're implicated. What we gotta do is get your story out first, because what. First story wins? So Olivia.

[Alex]

I love this book.

[Mrs. P]

Olivia comes up with the plan. Do we know anybody that we contact to get the story out? She's like, I have this friend who is very detached from me. Not close with.

[Alex]

Wait, he's been dead the whole time?

[Mrs. P]

No, no, no. He was murdered during the. When they were drinking and eating onion rings. That's when all this took place.

[Alex]

Oh, I thought. Okay, okay. So the. The big announcement was not the COVID No, I thought the big announcement was.

[Mrs. P]

The COVID No, the big announcement is.

[Alex]

Not the COVID Okay, the time. Okay. Now, the timelines. I.

[Mrs. P]

They.

[Alex]

She was invited for something nice.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And for this thing. And now I can get. I can get my independence.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And you're gonna write it. My friend's gonna write an article about me. A modern woman.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And then they get drunk while. And that was also a secondary coverage. I'm not gonna be there while this shit's gonna happen between Marsden and Grayson.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Marsden murders Grayson.

[Mrs. P]

I need this on tape because her and Olivia are going to say, like, if you don't. Like, if you don't let me get my Martha Stewart book deal on TV deal. Yeah, I'm gonna tell everybody that these aren't your fucking kids.

[Alex]

Yes. Yes.

[Mrs. P]

And destroy your run for senate and destroy everything about it.

[Alex]

So she was building a blackmail file.

[Mrs. P]

She was building a black.

[Alex]

Turned into to a murder. Yeah. And so everything went sideways while they were eating onion rings.

[Mrs. P]

Exactly.

[Alex]

Oh, my God. I really want onion rings.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, we should probably get onion. I mean, I can't eat them, but you can get them.

[Alex]

Can we do a food idiot about onion rings?

[Mrs. P]

Oh, they're. They're kind of a pain to make.

[Alex]

I know.

[Mrs. P]

Remember during the pandemic when I made blooming onions at home?

[Alex]

I do.

[Mrs. P]

That was such a good time.

[Alex]

Maybe you should explain to everybody how to make a blooming onion.

[Mrs. P]

Maybe I could.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Okay. So this Liz is involved. Katie goes and finds Liz. Okay, so Katie gets the voicemail that's all gobbledygook except for Beck screaming, no, Marsden.

[Guest]

No.

[Mrs. P]

Get off of me. So she hears the voicemail on the burner phone that she has from Becca and then goes and finds Liz and says, I just got this voicemail from Bex, and she's in trouble. And Liz is like, let's call the police. And Katie's like, no, they're all in bed with Marsden. Even more in bed than they were with Grayson because he gets them all free tickets to the World Series. I forgot to mention, Marston is a professional baseball player.

[Alex]

Got it, got it, got it, got it.

[Guest]

So he.

[Alex]

So he just is Harrison Buck.

[Mrs. P]

He's Harrison Buck.

[Alex]

He just changes the baseball instead of football.

[Mrs. P]

Exactly.

[Alex]

Love this great book.

[Mrs. P]

So, Marsden. Okay, back to Becca. Marsden. They're in the ranch house.

[Alex]

They're in the ranch.

[Mrs. P]

And Marsden is currently getting Becca all dressed up in her best prairie dresses and forcing her to put on makeup. And she thinks he is going to sexually assault me. And she's kind of bracing herself for impact. Yeah, because she knows she has to keep herself alive as long as possible because she's hoping that Katie and Liz or Olivia will come find her when they get the voicemail.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, right. Turns out that's not what's happening. He dresses her up, gets her all pretty, and then walks her to the barn where that all that happened. And basically, he. He does the villain thing where he explains what he's gonna do.

[Alex]

Monologues.

[Mrs. P]

He monologues. And what he did was he used her voice from Instagram and created an AI confession of her voice in which she confesses to killing her husband and being suicidal and all this stuff. And he's going to have her commit suicide and then have this AI confession leak of this is why I did it. And the thing is, is Marston is best friends with Grayson. Right. When they had the kids, they had all of the responsibility go towards Marston and Veronica. So they're gonna take the kids.

[Alex]

Oh, and Marston in the will and all that stuff.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, yeah. And Marston loves this because they're his kids. And he says, I will rightfully raise my children the way that God intended. This is God's plan for me to make this happen.

[Alex]

Yo. Make this a movie. This is. I can see all of this happening like crazy.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Just keep what's her name away from it.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Who?

[Alex]

The one. The. Blake Lively.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, Blake Lively. Stay out of this.

[Alex]

Stay out of this one. You're gonna make it too much about, like, fun dresses.

[Mrs. P]

Get out of here. Get out of here.

[Alex]

Get going. Get on.

[Mrs. P]

Get. Go on, get Olivia, Liz are on their way to the ranch. They're in a car.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Olivia has a gun. So it's the whole thing about there. Have the gun. So they get there just in time, obviously. They get to the barn and they. They're looking in and they see them up on, like, the rafter thing. And then again, and they see it, and they're like, oh, my God. And they see as the moment she falls, she has a rope tied around her neck. And the thing is, is fucking Rebecca on the way down, she kicks Marston as hard as she can because he's up there with her.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

And he did not expect this. So he flies off the fucking rail up there, off the rafter, off the rafter. And he lands poorly from the loft area.

[Alex]

Oh.

[Mrs. P]

And Olivia runs all the way up as fast as she can with the knife in her hand, and she starts cutting the rope. And she's screaming to Liz, you're gonna have to catch her. And she falls. And Liz less catches as much as softens the blood.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

Because she falls on her Marsden is laying on the ground broken. It's clear his back is broken. His eyes are fluttering open. And Olivia looks at Rebecca and is like, do you want to do it? And she's like, you do it. And Olivia takes the Firearm out of her pocket and puts it in Marston's hand and then the barrel in his mouth and pulls the trigger. Cut scene.

[Alex]

I love this. Okay, I'm sorry. This is. I heard murder mystery. Not. This is murder porn. This is great.

[Mrs. P]

Okay, so cuts to the next chapter. Now, every chapter has been Liz, Rebecca. Liz Rebecca. This isn't. This is a. Veronica. Veronica. Veronica Smith, Marsden's wife. This is her perspective.

[Alex]

Okay, cuts.

[Mrs. P]

Of Veronica being interviewed by the cops about her husband's death. The detective is like, did you know that Grayson had hundreds of pictures of you under his bed? She's like, no. I knew he was inappropriate because of those emails, but I loved my husband, and I would never engage with any conversations with him ever. I never responded to any of those emails. And when Marsden found out about those disgusting emails, he flew into a rage. Detective, do you think he killed himself because he felt guilty for killing Grayson? Yes, I truly do. He was a God fearing man, and the guilt would have eaten him alive. Do you know whose gun it was? It was definitely his. He had dozens of unlicensed firearms because he always was worried the government was going to come take away his rights. Rights. I recognized that gun right away, and it was one of his favorites.

[Alex]

I love this.

[Mrs. P]

That's the end of the book, yo.

[Alex]

Yeah. Oh, my God.

[Mrs. P]

There is an epilogue, which I don't usually get into, but I think you're gonna like the epilogue a lot. So we gotta go into it.

[Alex]

Okay. Okay, well, let's go into the epilogue.

[Mrs. P]

Do you want to take a break first?

[Alex]

Yeah, we're gonna take a quick little break. We go to the epilogue, and then we're gonna give our final thoughts on this. Because, y', all, this has been so such a journey. And honestly, I have. I have a. I have a big thing to say about this. Be right back after this 500 net to join our Patreon. But here we are with the epilogue of this entire incredible story.

[Mrs. P]

So Rebecca just sold a million dollar rights to her dream wedding because she's getting married to single dad Dan Brady. Bunch it up.

[Alex]

We love him.

[Mrs. P]

Also, she's pregnant again.

[Alex]

Yay. Lucky number seven.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah. Plus she has all his kids too now. Yay. Olivia brokered a seven figure deal for Lizzie to write a true crime book about Bex's exclusive story.

[Alex]

Yay.

[Mrs. P]

And now they're all at Rebecca's wedding. Right? So this is where it's taking place.

[Alex]

Okay.

[Mrs. P]

Rebecca. They're at Rebecca's wedding. Everyone's there, including Veronica, who has rebranded into widow Content. And is going to be part. Part of the new season of the Real Housewives of the Wild west girl. And she's doing a full rebrand. So she's not trad wife like polka dot dress anymore. Yeah, she's dressing real sexy like a real housewife. And she's like, dating. She's doing dating Content.

[Alex]

She's Christian cougar.

[Mrs. P]

Yeah, she's Christian cougar.

[Alex]

Love it.

[Mrs. P]

So during the wedding, Veronica goes up to Liz, and she's like, beautiful toast.

[Guest]

Oh.

[Mrs. P]

Because Liz is the maid of honor, of course. And so Veronica is like, listen, I have a new idea. I have an idea for your next book. Do you know who Dr. Carmichael is? And she says, no. Well, he's the doctor that we all go to, or used to. He did awful things to all of us. I always wanted a baby girl. I dreamed of it every day. And everyone knew, including my husband, that I wanted a little girl. And it happened. I got pregnant with girls multiple times. And then I would go in for my checkup, and I would always miscarry soon after. Marsden only wanted boys. I think he and Dr. Carmichael did that to me on purpose. Ask Bex what he did to her. I know what it is, but you should uncover his awful truth. And then we cut to Veronica's pov.

[Alex]

Oh.

[Mrs. P]

Where we. Like, it's her point of view. She. Here's the thing. She wants to. She wants to drop a mustard seed, a kernel to plant this idea into Liz's mind. Because she wants Dr. Carmichael held accountable for what he did to a lot of women in this area.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

But also, she is kind of. We're playing back about Veronica. Someone who we didn't really know a lot about, but she was a Machiavellian character this whole time with Marsden, she. She knew what was going on. A lot of the time he just considered her a dumb woman. So he didn't pay her anymore her any mind. He didn't pay her any attention. So she was constantly watching and planning and all this stuff. So we find out that she was at the barn that night of the murder. And. Oh, I forgot to tell you this, but somebody cut off Grayson's hand. She's the one that did it. She went and got the ax and cut off Grayson's hand and put it in Rebecca's freezer to try to frame her. Right? So, like, there's this whole thing, and she is the one that planted the pictures of herself under the Grayson's bed. She's also the one that was in the house that day, Lizzie was in the bathroom because she was in there trying to plant those things. And also, she knew that there was probably a cloud recording of what happened at the barn, so she was looking for where that would be.

[Alex]

Oh.

[Mrs. P]

Veronica was a mastermind, this whole thing. And I just need you to know that.

[Alex]

That's so good. I. Can I tell you, I love that. I love that if I made it into the movie, I would weirdly leave it out. I would have the implications. Like, the person at the door, all those different things. I would never reveal it and then be like, no, you need to read the book. It was all Veronica.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Like, doing this, like, really, really weird. Or like, leave it in the director's cut.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Like, just make it a weird thing where it's like. And then. But here's the thing, too, is I would, like. I would. I would. This is how. What a psycho I would be.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I wouldn't tell the actress that we're doing it. I would tell the actress all these different things that actually, Veronica is the mastermind.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And then I'm like. Like, we're never putting it in the movie.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, my God.

[Alex]

And she'll be like, what? And so she plays it right. Right. But like, no.

[Mrs. P]

Wow. You're evil.

[Alex]

Yeah.

[Mrs. P]

It would only be on this book.

[Alex]

10 out of 10 favorite. Actually, 12 out of 10.

[Mrs. P]

12 out of 10 favorite book you've.

[Alex]

Ever covered on the show.

[Mrs. P]

Oh, really?

[Alex]

Favorite book you've ever.

[Mrs. P]

Number one on the list.

[Alex]

This is a number one. Because first thing, it is my life.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Second thing, it is, except we are.

[Mrs. P]

Not murdering our spouses. We love each other.

[Alex]

Yeah, sure. But second thing is. Well, it killed all the right people.

[Mrs. P]

People.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

It killed all the right people.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Especially a guy named Marsden. Oh, my God. Wonderful. Grayson Dead. Like, I was just. It was paced really, really well. I like the. The reveals of all the different characters. I like that actually has a happy ending. Like, the epilogue actually truly does give you, like, an actual happy ending, which is so rare in books. I like that it wrapped up well. That everything, like, made the sense. There didn't seem to be too much stuff where you're like, what? Huh? Huh? Well, okay. Yeah, sure. I can tell that you're, like, putting these things together. Nobody felt stupid.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

That's the one thing I'll say is, like, nobody felt dumb to be able to get through because some of the. Sometimes you've covered some of these stories on some of your story reports in the past. Certain characters, like, have to be an idiot yeah. To be able to get through that chapter.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And this is one where also it's a modern tale. And so I like the fact that it was a modern tale with social media, with smartphones, with all that different stuff, but it blended well. Because a lot of times to do a tale like this, you have to set it pre smartphones.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And this did a really, really good job of using the tools of today.

[Guest]

Yep.

[Alex]

And putting those together. And also being a good job of being a story that clearly exists in both 2004 and 2025.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Right. Because it has this really good mix of her being, like, you know, becoming 2004. Like 2011.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Like being a blogger.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Understanding the apps before everyone else understands the apps. Like, no, no. It's about being a bakery. But is this other type of thing, like being in the tech. Being a woman in the tech world? There's so many beats that Joe Piazza. Piazza. Piazza, however, would pronounce it wrote in this that I think were incredibly smart, incredibly poignant, and it also kind of the craziest part.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

This is as close to a Law and Order story that we're ever gonna get.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

Because it feels very ripped from the headlines. But also massage. So it's like, it seems familiar because there's a lot of beat points in there that are familiar of having a Harrison Bucker story, having a ballerina farm situation, having the mommy bloggers, having the Mormon stuff, having all this different things, like, kind of sprinkled in there and the apps and everything where they all are real and now.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

But also it's its own thing.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

And so I really, like, really fun.

[Mrs. P]

To read this while we were down the shore.

[Alex]

Yeah. I bet it felt very cathartic.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

I remember as you're reading it, you were having a good time.

[Guest]

Yeah.

[Alex]

So I just.

[Mrs. P]

I was like, don't talk to me. I'm busy.

[Alex]

What were your thoughts on the book?

[Mrs. P]

Oh, I loved it. The pacing was so good. I like a book where you, like, when you get into it, you can just, like, zoom through it at a certain level. Yeah.

[Alex]

Like, you know what it feels like. This felt like a book. Like when you're watching a Netflix show or you're watching a show on streaming and you reach for the remote to hit skip credits versus letting it run into the next one.

[Guest]

Yes.

[Mrs. P]

Next. Like, it's like in 13 seconds, it'll play, and I'm like, no, player.

[Alex]

No, no. Play now. Play it.

[Mrs. P]

Play it right now.

[Alex]

I already know. You don't need to catch me up.

[Mrs. P]

Don't catch me up.

[Alex]

I don't need to catch up.

[Mrs. P]

Skip that.

[Alex]

Skip that. Last time on no, no, we already know. I. I just watched.

[Mrs. P]

I have to agree with you that it was so fun that it's so current. Like, when I got to like the Marsden, Harrison Bucker stuff, I was cackling. I was like, this is such good writing.

[Alex]

I'm very glad that you said it because second, you said it. I put it all together. I could just kind of see it. And it's very American eagle, cowboy bullshit and everything in there. And so, yeah, this is.

[Mrs. P]

It was so fun.

[Alex]

This is so good. And this was such an incredible time.

[Mrs. P]

And I apologize that we're a little late on this one, but I hope it was worth it.

[Alex]

I think it was.

[Mrs. P]

And you had a good time listening. And listen, I will be posting next month's book soon on Patreon and on my Instagram @ Mrs. Pearlmania500. Check it out on your. From your library or whatever else way you find books.

[Alex]

Yep. And you're gonna hear this right now. And this is the only place you can hear it, which is on audio on both our Patreon and on wherever you listen to our apps. So Spotify, itunes, all those other different fun things. Thank you guys so much. Remember to like, subscribe, comment, all those fun things down below. And here we go with the classic theme. Too many frogs and too many scammers that we wish weren't real. Too many cons and too many spammers, and we're starting to feel like we got too many tabs, open it too.

[Mrs. P]

Many times.

[Alex]

Remember to smile.