What’s great about living in a family is that everyone sees everything differently. Also, that’s what’s awful about living in a family. We go behind closed doors with two families.

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• Prologue: When Heather Gay started taking steps away from Mormonism, she thought it was her secret. That her daughters had no idea. Until she talked to them about their mismatched memories. (17 minutes)
• Act One: In every house, behind every closed door, a private drama is unfolding. In the Rivera house, the drama comes in the form of a question: should they stay or should they go? This question winds its way around the house until someone finally answers it. (44 minutes)

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Shalom Auslander goes on vacation with his family, and suspects the beloved, chatty old man in the room next door is an imposter—and sets out to prove it. This and other stories about the pitfalls of making snap judgments about others.

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• Prologue: Amy Roberts thought it was obvious that she was an adult, not a kid, and she assumed the friendly man working at the children's museum knew it too. Unfortunately, the man had Amy pegged all wrong. And by the time she figured it out, it was too late for either of them to save face. Host Ira Glass talks to Amy about the embarrassing ordeal that taught her never to assume she knows what someone else is thinking. (8 minutes)
• Act One: While riding in a patrol car to research a novel, crime writer Richard Price witnessed a misunderstanding that, for many people, is pretty much accepted as an upsetting fact of life. Richard Price told this story, which he describes as a tale taken from real life and dramatized, onstage at The Moth in New York. (12 minutes)
• Act Two: There are situations where making judgments about people based on limited information is not only accepted but required. One of those situations is open adoption, where birth mothers actually choose the adoptive parents for their child. Producer Nancy Updike talks to a pregnant woman named Kim, going through the first stage of open adoption: reading dozens of letters from prospective parents, all of whom seem utterly capable and appealing. (6 minutes)
• Act Three: David Rakoff picks a fight with a hit Broadway show. (6 minutes)
• Act Four: Shalom Auslander tells the story of the time he went on vacation, pegged the guest in the room next door as an imposter, and devoted his holiday to trying to prove it. Shalom is the author of Feh: a Memoir. (22 minutes)

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America loves winners—now more than ever. But how do you get to a win in 2025 America? We watch someone trying to score a win in a game whose rules are being made up as she plays.

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• Prologue: Ira talks to producer Diane Wu about an informal survey she’s done with the staff of This American Life about a phrase Ira says a lot that includes the word “winners.” (8 minutes)
• Act One: Two people see one of President Trump’s first executive orders and get excited, and then get to work. (30 minutes)

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