Content

1. EXT. HUMAN BEACH · NIGHT

Moonlight. Surf. Four silhouettes crawl up the beach in perfect tactical formation, like the opening of a movie with a budget.

CHONKSY leads, heavy-lidded, tactical vest, clear water pack. NAVY SEAL, matte black, terrifying. SEABEAR, a giant white bear, on a black beach. Everyone has asked him to stop doing that.

CHONKSY (V.O.): Twenty-five minutes. That's how long a chonk lasts on land before he turns into jerky.

SEABEAR: (tapping his gauge) Mine says nine.

CHONKSY: Then you have nine.

SEABEAR: In Arctic Shelf, we have saying: nine is plenty.

CHONKSY: Is it?

SEABEAR: No. Is why we say it. Is coping.

NAVY SEAL army-crawls past them, stops, eats a sand flea, and keeps going.

CHONKSY: Did you just eat a bug?

NAVY SEAL: (chewing) It looked at me.

CHONKSY (V.O.): We're the best in the ocean at what we do.

SEABEAR's water pack springs a leak and sprays straight up like a whale spout.

SEABEAR: (not moving) …Is fine. Is just my life leaving.

CHONKSY (V.O.): What we do is steal movies.

2. INT. ACQUISITIONS COMMAND ROOM · CONTINUOUS

Glowing monitors. CHUMPY, fat, steel blue, heavy-lidded, sunk deep in the big chair, a bag of seaweed puffs on his belly like a shelf. SEAVER at a crayon blueprint. PLATRICK on the radio.

SEAVER: Three zones. The food room. The glowing rectangle. (darkly) And the green problem.

CHUMPY: The lawn.

SEAVER: Don't say its name. (beat) You know what they do on it? They pee on it. Then they water it. Then they sit on it.

CHUMPY: (mouth full) Humans are disgusting.

SEAVER: They wear dead cows on their feet.

PLATRICK: (into mic) Team One, you're… cool. Cool cool cool. Over.

CHONKSY (V.O., comms): What does that mean?

PLATRICK: I panicked. I'm a platypus. Nothing about me was planned.

CHUMPY's phone buzzes: MOM. He silences it. Buzz. Silence. Then every speaker in the room:

CHUMPY'S MOM (V.O., over the encrypted channel, full volume): CHUMPY. ARE YOU EATING.

On the monitors all three raiders freeze on the beach in horror.

SEAVER: That's a military-grade encrypted line.

CHUMPY: (chewing, resigned) She always knows.

SEAVER: How?

CHUMPY: I've never asked. I'm afraid of the answer and I'm afraid of her.

3. INT. HUMAN LIVING ROOM · NIGHT

TV glow. CHONKSY and SEABEAR slip in through the dog door. Huge HUMAN FEET thud past. The two freeze in the toy basket and become toys.

SEABEAR's toy pose is a full bodybuilder flex. A vein pulses in his forehead.

On the couch a CAT watches them, completely still, with the look of a landlord.

CHONKSY (V.O.): A dog wants to kill you. A cat wants you to know it could, and that it's choosing not to, and that you owe it.

The feet leave. CHONKSY lifts the DVD case off the footrest and reads the cover.

CHONKSY: (whisper) It's a heist movie.

SEABEAR: We are stealing heist movie… during heist.

CHONKSY: Yeah.

SEABEAR: Is very meta.

CHONKSY: Don't say meta in a human house. They'll hear it and make a podcast.

The CAT stands, walks to a glass on the side table, makes eye contact with CHONKSY and pushes it off. CRASH. Every light in the house comes on.

SEABEAR: (to the cat, sincerely hurt) Why.

The cat licks its own asshole, slowly, holding eye contact.

4. EXT. SURF · NIGHT

They explode out of the dog door. One bark, off screen.

ALL FOUR (a perfect chord): DOG!

NAVY SEAL dives into a wave holding the crate of DVDs overhead like a newborn lion king. CHONKSY leaps. SEABEAR's pack finally bursts.

SEABEAR: (at peace, sinking) Ahhhhh. Moist.

NAVY SEAL: (underwater, the one swear he's allowed per episode) …Fuck yes.

TITLE CARD: SEACHONKS

5. EXT. CHONK STUDIOS LOT · DAWN

Mockumentary. The jellyfish sign flickers on. A hermit crab pushes a prop cart. A tour group of tourist fish photographs a trash can.

CHONKSY (V.O.): Chonk Studios. Ninety years of entertainment. Zero original ideas. (beat) It's like a family business, if the family was a photocopier.

TOUR GUIDE (a sardine with a flag): On your left, the Archive, where every human movie in the ocean is sorted by hand. On your right, a trash can.

Flashes. The tourists photograph the trash can anyway.

TOURIST (a grouper): (reverent) Is this where they keep the originals?

TOUR GUIDE: (laughing too hard) Originals! Sir. Chonks can't direct.

The whole tour group laughs. A beat too long.

Pan along the long mural of chonk film history. One section in the middle has been painted over, badly, in grey. A crab on a ladder unrolls a giant SPACESHARKS banner over it.

CHONKSY (V.O.): We don't make movies. We re*make them. Better. *(beat) Wetter.

21. REMAKE CLIP: "BREAKING BADD"

Last year's mega-hit on a lot monitor. SEABEAR as a chemistry teacher, lab coat over his gold chain, cooking glowing blue kelp in a cardboard RV. The desert is painted. A wind machine blows the backdrop over.

SEABEAR (as teacher): Say my name.

RIVAL (a nervous grouper): …Seabear?

SEABEAR (as teacher): Is correct. (beat) Also, have you eaten?

RIVAL: No.

SEABEAR (as teacher): (handing him soup, terrifying) Then you are in the empire business now.

The painted desert falls on a crab. The crab, flat, gives a thumbs up. They used that take.

6. INT. THE ARCHIVE · DAY

SEAVER sorts the haul into three bins: BANGERS. MID. HUMANS BEING WEIRD.

He holds up a home-workout DVD. A human jogs in place.

SEAVER: Why would you run in place? (drops it in WEIRD) Run to a place. Run from a predator. Run toward food. What is this man running from?

CHUMPY: (O.S.) Himself.

SEAVER: (beat) …That's deep. (drops it in BANGERS)

A cooking show. BANGERS.

SEABEAR (O.S., from three buildings away): Thank you.

A wedding video. WEIRD. MID. WEIRD. He sits down.

SEAVER: They cried. Then they ate cake. Then they danced like they were being electrocuted. (beat) Structurally, that's three separate events and a medical emergency.

He checks the heist DVD's spine with a tiny level before reading the title.

SEAVER: Spine's sound. I've got an eye for good wood.

Silence. CHUMPY, chewing, slowly looks at the camera.

CHUMPY wanders in with a donut.

CHUMPY: Anything good?

SEAVER: Everything's good. (tossing it in a bin) Nothing's ours.

Neither hears it. CHUMPY eats the donut. SEAVER looks at the mural through the window for one second too long.

7. INT. THE ORCA'S OFFICE · DAY

THE ORCA in a fluffy bathrobe and slippers behind an enormous desk. A wall of DVD covers. An anxious OTTER ASSISTANT. THE ORCA throws a fish. Thunk, between three covers.

THE ORCA: Make all three.

ASSISTANT: They're… three different space movies.

THE ORCA: Then nobody can sue us, sweetheart. Steal from one guy, it's theft. Steal from everybody, it's culture. That's how we got the bagel.

ASSISTANT: We don't have bagels.

THE ORCA: That's how we'd get the bagel.

Fish. It hits two words on two covers.

THE ORCA: SPACE. (squints) SHARKS.

ASSISTANT: SPACESHARKS.

THE ORCA: (hand on heart) I just got a little hard.

ASSISTANT: Sir.

THE ORCA: Emotionally. Get out.

The assistant leaves.

THE ORCA: (softer) Leave the door open. (beat) So I can hear people.

He looks at a framed photo of two ducks.

THE ORCA: (to the photo) …Daddy's making a sequel.

8. INT. CHONKSY'S DRESSING ROOM · DAY

Bulbs, mountains of fan mail. CHONKSY in a robe reads a letter. CHUMPY lies on the couch eating CHONKSY's muffins, crumbs on his belly like a little beach.

CHONKSY: (reading) "Dear Chonksy. I've seen your remake of the human submarine movie forty-two times. Who are you, though?"

He opens a drawer packed with letters and adds it. The drawer won't close. He kicks it. It still won't close.

CHUMPY: That's a lot of "who are you."

CHONKSY: It's all of them.

CHUMPY: Mine just say "please stop calling the front desk" and one that says "I know what you did in the walk-in freezer."

CHONKSY: What'd you do in the walk-in freezer?

CHUMPY: (beat) Ate the cake for the Orca's birthday. It was shaped like him. I started with the face.

He takes another muffin and looks at it with grief.

CHUMPY: I should get in shape. Everybody here is so… shaped. I'm more of a… (gestures at himself) …a concept.

CHONKSY: You're eating my muffins.

CHUMPY: I'm eating them spiritually. Starting Tuesday. (beat) Not this one. The one after. Maybe March.

CHONKSY: What do you actually do here?

CHUMPY: Producer.

CHONKSY: What do you produce?

CHUMPY: Ideas. Vibes. Moral support. Gas. (beat) I produce the feeling that something is being produced.

CHONKSY: How do you afford your apartment?

CHUMPY: Next question.

CHONKSY: That was the only question.

CHUMPY: And I loved it. Next.

On the wall: a portrait of a young decorated chonk with a dark walrus mustache. Brass plaque: G. FOUNDER OF ACQUISITIONS.

CHONKSY picks up his script for the day. Flips through it. Closes it.

CHONKSY: (quietly) You ever read a line and know exactly how it should go, and it's not how it's written?

CHUMPY: (dreamy, staring at the ceiling) All the time. You'd write it better. You'd write the whole thing better. (beat) I'd produce it. (beat) From here. Lying down.

CHONKSY: You'd have to get up.

CHUMPY: For you? (beat) …I'd think about it very seriously.

Knock. A CRAB PA.

CRAB PA: Five minutes, Mr. Chonksy.

CHONKSY's face flips into professional mode, like a light switch.

CHUMPY: Whoa. Light switch.

CHONKSY: (standing) Job.

9. EXT. LOT · WALK TO SET · DAY

Walk-and-talk. Golf carts. Space-shark extras eating sandwiches. A crab picket line with signs (in post): CRABS ARE ACTORS TOO. LET US PLAY SOMETHING BESIDES "CRAB."

CHUMPY: Are the space sharks good guys or bad guys?

CHONKSY: Yes.

CHUMPY: That's not—

CHONKSY: They're from four different movies. One of them's a cop.

A CASTING DIRECTOR (a stoat-faced eel) passes, on a phone:

CASTING DIRECTOR: (into phone) No, we need an octopus, but not too octopus-y. More… four-armed. Can she tie two back? …Then find one who can.

CHONKSY watches him go. Files it.

Suddenly everyone on the lot stops and stands up straight: crabs, extras, a golf cart. GOTTER shuffles past: ancient, long grey walrus mustache, flat cap, cardigan heavy with medals, cane. He stops, raises a flipper to salute, and falls asleep mid-salute, standing. Snore bubble.

Nobody moves. Ten seconds. Fifteen. A space-shark extra's sandwich drips. A crab on the picket line lowers his sign out of respect.

GOTTER wakes, completes the salute, and shuffles on.

CHUMPY: (whisper) Gotter. He started Acquisitions. Before him all we had was the Big Haul.

CHONKSY: What was before the Big Haul?

CHUMPY: (too fast) The Great Flop. Everybody knows. Chonks tried to make movies and it was so bad they had to stop. Somebody's whole family drowned in a plot hole.

CHONKSY: That's not real.

CHUMPY: It's in the textbooks.

Over his shoulder, GOTTER nods, at CHUMPY. CHUMPY nods back, small. CHONKSY sees it and files it.

10. INT. SPACESHARKS SET · DAY

A cardboard spaceship, bubble-machine stars, a kelp green screen, puppet sharks on poles. CHONKSY in a silver suit and fishbowl helmet. BLUE as captain. RED eating the control panel. THE SHARL floats by the camera as technical advisor.

THE SHARL: Note. In space, sharks do not swim.

DIRECTOR (a stressed flounder, both eyes on one side, so he can only look left): What do they do?

THE SHARL: They vibe.

DIRECTOR: And you know this how?

THE SHARL: [PAUSE FOR LAUGH].

Nothing. A bubble pops. THE SHARL writes in its notebook: "Tough room. Primitive species."

PROP MASTER: (to RED) That was the only control panel.

RED: (mouth full) Bet.

PROP MASTER: Why do you do that?

RED: (swallowing) My therapist says I'm "seeking texture."

BLUE: (whispering to herself) This is fine. Everything is fine. I'm a captain. Captains are fine. Captains don't throw up in their helmets. (throws up a little in her helmet) …Captains are fine.

A shark puppet's pole snaps. The shark drifts sideways into frame and bumps CHONKSY's helmet. He doesn't break.

CHONKSY (as space hero): Not today.

The crew bursts into applause. It's the best take of the day. Somebody whistles. Someone's crying. The flounder director, facing left, gives a thumbs up to a wall.

CHONKSY smiles, then the smile fades. Hold on his eyes for one beat: he's somewhere else. It wasn't his line.

11. INT. CRAFT SERVICES TENT · DAY

SEABEAR in an apron at an enormous pot, filming himself on a phone propped against it. A tiny CRAB GRIP tries to walk past without taking a plate.

SEABEAR: Stop.

The grip stops.

SEABEAR: In Arctic Shelf, we have saying. The fish you do not eat today… eats you tomorrow. In your sleep. (beat) Through the butt.

PLATRICK: That's not a saying.

SEABEAR: Is now. Is on the internet now. (to the grip, deadly) Have you eaten?

GRIP: …No?

SEABEAR: (gently placing a bowl in his claws) You have now. (beat) You twelve-legged little shit. I love you. Eat.

GRIP: I have ten legs.

SEABEAR: (beat) You have whatever I say.

His phone's view counter ticks up. He frowns. It ticks faster.

PLATRICK: People like it when you're upset.

SEABEAR: I am always upset.

PLATRICK: That's the brand.

CHUMPY takes three plates and a fourth for later.

SEABEAR: Chumpy. You are producer of my heart.

CHUMPY: And my hips.

12. INT. DUBBING STAGE · DAY

A big monitor plays the human original, actors in silhouette. GIL, the pufferfish dub director, in headphones.

GIL: Remember, people. We don't speak human. We translate the vibe.

On screen, two humans kiss, long and slow. Everyone stares.

SEABEAR: Why do they put their mouths together?

BLUE: I think they're… sharing food?

SEABEAR: (impressed) Is very efficient.

GIL: Translate it.

SEABEAR: (into the mic, tenderly) I am giving you my lunch.

GIL: (inflating a little) …Beautiful. (inflating more) Ah. Ah, that's, ahem, that's just my thing that happens. (fully round) Moving on, moving ON.

Everyone looks away politely. RED doesn't.

On screen a human cries one perfect tear. BLUE does it perfectly: one tear, the exact timing. Everyone is uncomfortable.

GIL: Too good. Do it worse.

BLUE: I can't do it worse!

CHONKSY steps to his mic. On screen a human pauses before his line, the pause people take when they're inventing it. CHONKSY rewinds. Watches the pause. Rewinds again.

GIL: Chonksy? Your line?

CHONKSY: Sorry. (still watching) I was watching him decide.

GIL: Decide what?

CHONKSY: What to say.

Silence. GIL deflates slowly, with a sad whistling sound.

GIL: …We don't do that here.

13. INT. SPACESHARKS SET · PICKUP · DAY

DORIS, the crab script supervisor in reading glasses, follows along in the script with one claw.

CHONKSY (as space hero): We go to the stars… together.

The script says "now." His version is better. Everyone feels it. DORIS's claw freezes on the page. A long, terrible silence, like someone ripped ass in church.

DORIS: …Line?

CHONKSY: (eyes down) Sorry. Habit.

CHUMPY: (from video village, delighted, too loud) Was that a choice?

CHONKSY: No.

CHUMPY: (softer, to himself, beaming) That was a choice.

DORIS's walkie crackles.

THE ORCA (V.O.): Did somebody… write?

EVERYONE: NO.

THE ORCA (V.O.): Because it sounded like somebody fucking wrote.

EVERYONE: NO.

THE ORCA (V.O.): …I'm gonna go lie down in my pool.

Take two. CHONKSY says it exactly as written. Everyone exhales together. CHONKSY's eyes stay down.

14. INT. SOUNDSTAGE · WRAP PARTY · NIGHT

Streamers. A kelp cake shaped like a space shark, its face already eaten (CHUMPY). RED on a chair does "the Great Flop" as an ancient chonk director.

RED (as old director): ACTION! (beat) Wait, what were we doing? (gasp) Ooh. A shell! (beat) Who's in charge? (points at herself) Me? (falls off the chair)

Huge laughs.

RED: CHONKS CAN'T DIRECT!

THE ROOM: (chanting, drunk) CHONKS! CAN'T! DIRECT! CHONKS! CAN'T! DIRECT!

SEABEAR laughs so hard he cries, then grabs a crab by the shirt.

SEABEAR: You saw nothing.

CRAB: I saw everything.

SEABEAR: (beat) …You saw beautiful thing. Is different.

On a TV in the corner, CURRENT NEWS: the PUFFERFISH ANCHOR reports the SPACESHARKS teaser and inflates. A bleep arrives half a second late over a word he didn't say.

CHUMPY gets cake on his face laughing.

In the middle of the party, center frame, the most famous chonk in the ocean holds a drink, adored and toasted, his face on the cake.

CHONKSY is the only one not laughing.

Hold. Four seconds. The chant goes on around him like weather.

CHUMPY sees it. Keeps laughing, softer. Then stops.

22. THE CITY WATCHING · NIGHT

Intercut with the party, all over New Chonk City, the Breaking Badd rerun plays.

A DINER: a fry-cook fish mouths every line while flipping kelp patties, then spits in one. It's for a regular.

A LIVING ROOM: a family of otters. GRANDPA OTTER, arms crossed:

GRANDPA OTTER: It was better the first time.

OTTER KID: You saw the first time?

GRANDPA OTTER: (long beat) …Nobody saw the first time. (beat) That's how you know it was better.

An ELECTRONICS STORE WINDOW: a wall of TVs, a crowd of fish on the sidewalk, a tiny HERMIT CRAB saying every line a half-second early. A fish next to him:

FISH: Can you not.

HERMIT CRAB: (a half-second early) "Can you not."

16. INT. UPPER KELPWOOD LOBBY · NIGHT

Art deco and a jellyfish chandelier. RAYMOND, the lobster doorman, beams at CHONKSY.

RAYMOND: Mr. Chonksy! Lovely evening.

He turns to CHUMPY. His face goes flat.

RAYMOND: Mr. Chumpy.

CHUMPY: Gerald.

RAYMOND: My name is Raymond.

CHUMPY: And yet.

The elevator closes on RAYMOND's narrowed eyes. Inside the elevator:

CHONKSY: Why do you call him Gerald?

CHUMPY: He looks at me like I don't live here.

CHONKSY: How do you live here?

CHUMPY: (beat) …Gerald knows.

17. INT. CHONKSY'S APARTMENT · NIGHT

The stolen heist movie plays in the dark. CHONKSY rewinds to the human pausing before his line. Pause. Rewind. Pause. He mouths a different line. His own.

He writes it on a napkin. He takes a thick book off the shelf. It's stuffed with hundreds of napkins, years of them, some stained, some with coffee rings, one with a lipstick kiss nobody explains.

He slides the new one in. Closes it. Puts it back.

He sits in the dark, the most famous face in the ocean, looking at a book of napkins nobody will ever read.

CHONKSY: (to himself) …That's crazy.

He means nothing by it. Yet.

18. INT. DARK SPACESHARKS SET · NIGHT

Empty soundstage. One work light. THE SHARL floats alone by the cardboard spaceship, looking up through the roof hatch at stars shimmering beyond the water. It flickers.

THE SHARL: (whisper, sincere) [PAUSE FOR LAUGH].

Nobody laughs. It nods anyway.

THE SHARL: …They're getting closer.

It reaches for the light switch. Click. Black. Then, in the dark:

THE SHARL (V.O.): (tiny) …Also somebody ate the face off the cake. Primitive species.

END OF EPISODE

30. FLASH-FORWARD: THE NAPKIN · before Scene 1

• Six wordless seconds, desaturated. A kelp-paper napkin burns with seafire, the green fire only the state is allowed to light. It drifts down an apartment hallway, trailing silver bubbles. There's a soup-bowl ring on it and one line in Chonksy's handwriting we can't read yet. Hard cut to the moonlit beach.

31. RUNNER BEGINS: BALANCE THE BALL · during the store-window crowd, Scene 22

• A sea-pup in the crowd recognizes him and tosses a ball. Chonksy, the most famous actor in the ocean, catches it on his nose without thinking. The crowd roars. He holds it there, smiling, dead behind the eyes, for exactly as long as a seal is supposed to. He's a performing seal doing someone else's trick, and the whole season is in that shot.
• The small fish (pale blue, lunchbox) is in the crowd. It doesn't clap. It's looking at the TV.

40. THE IMPROVISATION CLAUSE · Scene 8, dressing room · Seinfeld

• Business Affairs, an eel in a cardigan, reads Chonksy his contract renewal while the makeup crab works.
• Eel: "Clause nine. Improvisation. Changing a line. Any line. Any word." Chonksy: "Any word?" Eel: "Including 'the.'" (beat) "Especially 'the.' You change 'the shark' to 'a shark,' now it's a shark. Which shark? Nobody knows. Panic in the theater. Fish trampled."
• Penalty: the Archive, for life. Through the window we see the Archive's sorters: chonks who changed words, sorting forever. One waves. It's a slow wave.
• He signs. The pen is a squid, who inks the signature himself and says "Congrats."
• This makes Scene 12 ("now" → "together") a felony. The laugh sets the stakes.

41. THE NAVY SEAL'S DEBRIEF · Scene 2, command room · Gillis

• Navy Seal (flat, like describing a roof job): "Humans were asleep. Big one, little one, dog. Dog woke up. Dog looked at me. I looked at the dog." (beat) "And we both understood. Neither of us is allowed on the couch." (beat) "Took the DVD. Left the dog. Above my pay grade. Arf."
• Gotter is asleep mid-salute.

42. THE GREENLIGHT SERMON · Scene 7, the Orca's office · Rock

• The Orca (fish in hand, preaching): "There's a difference between a movie and a remake. A movie, you gotta think. A remake? The thinking's DONE. Some human, years ago, sat in a room sweating, crying, drinking, and you know what we pay that human?" (throws the fish) "NOTHING. That's not stealing. That's the business."
• Chonksy: "What if we paid them?" The Orca: "With what? They live in the AIR."