The Plot Sickens

This week marks one year of The Plot Sickens! To celebrate, we're reviewing Irreplaceable You (2018), a film about love, loss, and trying to prepare for the future after a terminal diagnosis. We discuss support groups, anticipatory grief, and the very real desire to know the people we love will be okay when we're gone.

Thank you for joining us for a year of movies, laughter, honesty, and heartfelt conversations about what cancer stories get right—and wrong. We are eternally grateful!

This week on The Plot Sickens, Vanessa and Deltra discuss The Farewell — the heartfelt film inspired by a true story about a family who chooses to withhold a terminal cancer diagnosis from their beloved Nai Nai.

Together, they unpack the ethics of hiding a diagnosis, the emotional weight of anticipatory grief, and the complicated ways families try to protect the people they love.

Plus: the return of the snack rating.

This week, we review Other People—and it hit hard.

With a powerful performance by Molly Shannon, the film explores the reality of cancer from treatment to hospice in a way that feels raw and deeply human. We break down what it gets right—and why this one stays with you.

Releasing near Mother’s Day, this episode comes with a heads up: it’s an emotional one.

This week on The Plot Sickens, we dive into The Room Next Door—a visually stunning, quietly poetic film about terminal illness and choice. It left us with one big question: what would you do if someone asked you to be in the room next door ? From an MBC perspective, we break down what hit, what missed, and the reality of dignity at the end of life.

Trigger warning: discussions of end-of-life choice

It’s Deltra’s first time watching Steel Magnolias, and it brings up a lot. As two people living with metastatic breast cancer, we talk through illness, grief, and humor—and what it feels like when the person who is sick isn’t really the center of their own story.

As Ouiser would say, “If you don’t have anything nice to say… come sit by us.”

This week on The Plot Sickens, we’re discussing Me Before You—a film that opens the door to a deeper conversation about love, disability, autonomy, and end-of-life choice.

We unpack this story through a personal lens. Deltra shares her perspective as a Death Doula, and together we explore the balance between valuing lives with disability and supporting a patient’s right to choose—especially when it comes to dignity and suffering.

Trigger Warning: This episode includes discussion of end-of-life decision-making and Medical Aid in Dying (MAID).

Expect tears, big feelings, and an honest conversation that stays with you.

This week on The Plot Sickens, we tackle the 1990 rom-com Don’t Tell Her It’s Me—(also known as The Boyfriend School),a story about a cancer survivor reinventing himself for love with a new identity, a questionable mullet, and possibly the worst toupee in movie history. We break down the film’s makeover message, survivorship, and why the real villain of this movie might just be the hair.

In honor of Black History Month, we’re discussing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks — the story of the woman whose cancer cells changed medicine forever, without her knowledge or consent.

As two women living with metastatic breast cancer, we reflect on medical racism, informed consent, ownership of our bodies, and what it means to be more than a diagnosis.

Henrietta Lacks helped save millions of lives. The least we can do is say her name. And as Deltra reminds us — don’t forget to thank a Black woman.

This week, The Plot Sickens revisits Philadelphia—a rewatch that hit us much harder than expected. While the story centers on AIDS, its themes of illness, fear, and stigma felt deeply familiar.

An emotional look back at a film that captures its time—and still has something to say now.

In this episode of The Plot Sickens, Vanessa finally gets her wish and brings one of her all-time favorite films, Fried Green Tomatoes, to the pod. Deltra is watching it for the first time — and falls instantly in love.

We talk chosen family, aging, caregiving, coded queer love, community justice, and Ruth’s cancer, all through the lens of two people living with metastatic breast cancer. Warm, funny, and deeply human, this episode explores why this movie still hits so hard — and why Vanessa has been waiting a minute to review it.

TOWANDA forever!