SEACHONKS Lost Art
Episode 04 · 22:00 · Escalation

The Ink Run

A plot: an operation into the Octopus Kingdom, where Chonksy finds a burned chonk-made film can.

B plot: Platrick meets Ink.

C plot: Seabear goes undercover.

Heart beat: Chonksy in front of an octopus mural that tells a real story (Scene 3).

Read the script →

COLD OPEN

1. EXT. BORDER TRENCH · NIGHT · A

  • Barbed coral, searchlight jellyfish. The team crawls in kelp camouflage.
  • One jellyfish guard is profoundly bored and sweeps his light across the same rock 40 times.
  • A helmet clanks. Chonksy's war flashback hits as one hard cut to a single frame of the Ep 2 trench, then back.
  • Button: Navy Seal, whispering: "I've never been this far east." Chonksy: "It's north." Navy Seal: "Above my pay grade."

2. FLASHBACK · BRIEFING, EARLIER THAT DAY · A/B

  • Gotter (awake, for once): "The octopuses hoard human media. They're collectors. It's very annoying."
  • Chumpy: "Why not just hit another human house?" Gotter: "The humans ran out of good movies in 1999."
  • Seaver's diagram of the octopus city is drawn as a single spiral. "Everything is a spiral. I hate it. Nothing is load-bearing."

ACT ONE

3. EXT. THE OCTOPUS KINGDOM · A · ♥ heart beat

  • Spiral shell towers covered in ink murals that move, telling stories that are clearly original.
  • Chonksy stops dead in front of one: a mural about an octopus grandmother teaching a child to write. Nobody copied this from anyone.
  • Seabear, gently pulling him along: "Is propaganda." Chonksy: "It's good." Seabear: "Is good propaganda."

4. EXT. OCTOPUS ALLEY · A

  • Guards carry eight batons each. Chonksy dives into a clay pot.
  • Guard, knocking on the pot: "Hello?" Chonksy: "…Pot." Guard: "Okay." He leaves. A second guard: "Was that a pot?" First guard: "It said it was."

5. EXT. OCTOPUS MARKET · C

  • Seabear's disguise is eight socks taped to his body. Nobody is fooled, except one very old octopus grandmother, who hugs him and calls him "my handsome son."
  • Seabear, emotional: "In Arctic Shelf we have saying: if a grandmother calls you son, you are son." He carries her groceries home. The mission waits.

6. INT. THE OCTOPUS ARCHIVE · A/B

  • A cathedral of stolen human media. The ancient octopus librarian shushes in eight directions at once.
  • Navy Seal sneezes. Eight "SHHH"s.

ACT TWO

7. INT. ARCHIVE STACKS · B

  • Platrick reaches for a VHS tape. So does Ink. Their hands, paw and tentacle, touch.
  • Ink: "You're a platypus." Platrick: "Cool cool… cool." Ink: "You lay eggs and have fur?" Platrick: "I'm… a lot." Ink: "I like a lot." A tiny heart-shaped puff of ink.

8. INT. COMMAND ROOM · B

  • Chumpy, on comms: "Platrick. Are you… flirting? Mid-op?" Platrick: "Cool cool cool no."
  • Ink, into Platrick's headset: "Hi." The command room goes silent. Seaver: "Structurally… that's a relationship."

9. INT. ARCHIVE, FORBIDDEN SECTION · A

  • Behind a locked grate is a half-melted film can. A faded octopus label reads WAR EVIDENCE: CHONK PROPAGANDA. Underneath, scratched into the metal: F. AGILLSAN.
  • Chonksy: "Chonks… made this?" The can is warm, as if it was burned yesterday, though it's been sixty years.

10. INT. ARCHIVE · A/B

  • Ink catches Chonksy holding the can. Instead of shouting, she whispers: "That one's sad. Take it. Nobody here should have it."
  • Chonksy: "Why help us?" Ink: "We get in trouble for copying. You get in trouble for making. Somebody should get to do it."

11. INT. ARCHIVE · ALARM · A/C

  • One of Seabear's socks falls off. Guard: "That octopus has seven legs." Seabear: "Was war."

ACT THREE

12. EXT. OCTOPUS STREETS · ESCAPE · A

  • An ink cloud explodes. Guards burst through it with eight batons each. Navy Seal fights all eight with one flipper and gets bonked eight times, in rhythm. Navy Seal: "Above my pay—" bonk "—grade—" bonk.
  • Seabear carries three crates and the grandmother's groceries.

13. EXT. BORDER FENCE · B

  • Platrick begs Ink to come. She can't. She presses an ink-drawn heart onto a scrap of kelp paper and slides it through the fence.

14. INT. ACQUISITIONS DEBRIEF · A

  • Gotter sees the burned can and is suddenly, terrifyingly wide awake. "Where did you get that?" Chonksy: "Lost and found." Gotter: "…Who else touched it?" Then he takes the can away.
  • Plant: Chonksy palms one frame of film before Gotter takes it.

15. INT. CHONKSY'S APARTMENT · A

  • He holds the frame up to the lamp: a young manatee cowgirl in a cowboy hat.

16. INT. CHONKSY'S APARTMENT · A/B

  • Chumpy comes over with snacks, sees the frame, and goes pale. He says nothing for too long.
  • Chumpy: "We should… get in shape. Tomorrow." Chonksy: "That's not what you were going to say." Chumpy: "It's what I'm saying."

TAG

17. INT. PLATRICK'S APARTMENT · B

  • Platrick stares at Ink's heart. He wants to answer, but he has no ink, so he draws a heart in ketchup. It dissolves instantly in the water. "…Cool."

ON THE CURRENT

21. REMAKE CLIP: "THE OFFICE (NEW CHONK CITY BRANCH)" · slot: after Scene 2

  • The remake of the office mockumentary. Seabear plays the intense assistant to the regional manager and earnestly takes notes in a binder labeled THREATS. Chonksy gives the camera a long, deadpan look. He's a natural at the glance.

22. THE CITY WATCHING: SMUGGLED SCREENING · slot: under Scene 6

  • Deep in the Octopus Kingdom, a family of octopuses huddles around a bootleg TV in a closet, secretly watching a contraband chonk remake. They mouth the lines with eight arms each, gesturing along. Even the enemy loves the copies.

SHOWRUNNER PASS · WORLD-TRUE (new scenes)

Tests: true to the world, funny, interesting. See WORLD.md.

31. INT. HALL OF RECORDS · NIGHT · after Scene 14

  • (The first domino.) Gotter requests a sixty-year-old file: AGILLSAN, F. The clerk is a sea slug. Lifting the stamp takes ten seconds. Bringing it down takes thirty. Gotter's eye twitches the whole time. Ka…………chunk.
  • She hands the slip to a remora, the city's interoffice mail, who swims it across town and suctions onto the belly of a Sea SI dolphin agent. The agent peels it off, reads the name, and smiles (dolphins always smile). He opens a new folder: GOTTER.
  • The remora floats there, waiting for a tip. It doesn't get one.

32. RUNNER: INK'S CLOCK · Ink and Platrick's date

  • Octopuses live about a year or two. Ink: "I'm fourteen months." Platrick: "Cool cool cool." Ink: "That's middle-aged for me." Platrick: "…Cool." (beat) "…Cool?"
  • She has three hearts. "One for you. Two for backup." He doesn't laugh. He does the math. Silent heart beat: he puts a hand on her arm, and the arm, which has its own brain, holds his hand back.

COMEDY PASS · STAKES & LAUGHS

Engines from Seinfeld, Bernie Mac, Gillis, Rock, Farley and the bench. See COMEDY_PASS.md.

STAKES: the war. If they're caught across the border, it's the Octopus War again. CLOCK: patrol shift change, 20 minutes. PRICE: Gotter flags himself requesting the file.

40. THE SPECIES DRAFT · Current News cutaway · Chappelle

  • The Treaty's annual broadcast: disputed species get "drafted" by the Octopus Kingdom or New Chonk City. Live from a podium with draft-night pomp.
  • Commissioner: "With the first pick, the Octopus Kingdom selects… the cuttlefish." (polite applause) "Obviously." "New Chonk City selects… the walrus." (roar) "Big get. Big, big get."
  • "With the next pick…" (gravely) "…the platypus." Octopus table: "Pass." Chonk table: "Pass." The platypus delegation is one guy, Platrick, in a suit, under the spotlight. Nobody picks him. Third round. Fourth. He's still standing. Platrick: "cool cool cool."
  • (A freshwater immigrant in a salt city, and both sides agree on exactly one thing.)

41. THE DISGUISE · Scene 1, border trench · Farley

  • Chumpy's octopus disguise is four rubber tentacles strapped around his belly. One falls off. The octopus guard shines a light on it. Guard: "…Rough molt?" Chumpy: "…Yeah." Guard: "Octopuses don't molt." Chumpy (sweating, all in): "I'm the first."
  • Ink, deadpan, saves it: "He's my cousin. From the shallows." The guard winces with sympathy and waves them through. (In-world prejudice, for once, working in their favor.)

42. "I'VE GOT OCTOPUS FRIENDS" · Scene 5, octopus market · Gillis

  • Chonksy, the war veteran, is trying very hard. Chonksy: "I've got a lot of octopus friends." Vendor: "Name one." Chonksy: "…Ink." Ink: "I'm standing right here." Chonksy: "And she's great." (to the vendor, too loud) "SHE'S GREAT." He buys eleven of something to make up for it. He doesn't know what it is. It's alive.