Brought to you by... - 22: Martha Stewart in the Middle

Less than a decade after Martha Stewart left prison, she was in court again. It was a three-way fight between Martha, Macy's, and JCPenney that could have played out in a middle school cafeteria. And the fight raised an intriguing question: What exactly is a store? PLUS: One listener tells us why Scrubbing Bubbles was banned from her home.


CORRECTION: An earlier version of this episode misstated the current owner of bathroom cleaner Scrubbing Bubbles. It is S.C. Johnson & Son, not Johnson & Johnson.

Brought to you by... - 18: Resting Botox Face

Look a little angry? Accused of having a “resting bitch face”? Now, there’s a drug for that: Botox. The early joke about Botox was that it froze faces. But increasingly, people are seeking a different effect: actually altering their expressions, and maybe even their emotions. We trace the story from the discovery that the deadliest toxin on earth could make a face look less “troubled,” to a feminist professor’s Botox investigation that turns personal.

Brought to you by... - 14: Sears: There Was More For Your Life

Before Sears filed for bankruptcy, it was run by a reclusive billionaire who'd call into meetings from his mansion on a Florida island. It was one of the unusual ways Eddie Lampert ran the department store chain. He also stopped investing in the stores. The CEO had outwitted kidnappers, and many thought he was defying skeptics on Wall Street, too. This is the story of how Sears stayed alive so long, and how it all fell apart.