The midpoint. Chumpy's secret Thursday dinners, the vault revealed, and the season turns from getting content to making it. 22:00.
A chonk remake of the prestige mob drama. A therapist's office. SEABEAR as a crime boss in a silk shirt and gold chain, crying into a tissue. A SEAHORSE THERAPIST with a notepad.
THERAPIST: The ducks left your pool. What do you think the ducks represent?
SEABEAR (as boss): (sobbing) …Ducks.
THERAPIST: Just ducks?
SEABEAR (as boss): They were my ducks.
Out the window two ducks fly away. A sad saxophone plays.
A run-down building. CHUMPY climbs six flights with two big bags of takeout and a little cake box, stopping on every landing to breathe. A nosy HERMIT CRAB NEIGHBOR pokes out of her door.
HERMIT CRAB: Every Thursday. Who ARE you?
CHUMPY: Producer.
HERMIT CRAB: Of what?
CHUMPY: (wheezing, climbing) Thursdays.
Small and crammed: framed photos of old raids, dusty medals, a film projector under a sheet. GOTTER asleep in his armchair, snoring, the TV playing The Soapranos.
CHUMPY quietly sets the table for two, like he's done it a hundred times. Chopsticks just so.
GOTTER stirs. In his sleep he mouths the next line of the remake perfectly, a half-second ahead.
GOTTER: (waking) Chumpy. Is it Thursday?
CHUMPY: It's always Thursday when I come.
GOTTER: (moved) …That's beautiful.
He falls back asleep. CHUMPY eats his own dumplings and waits. He's not in a hurry.
CHONKSY tails CHUMPY Academy style: fedora taped on, hiding behind a lamppost much thinner than he is, completely visible from every angle.
A SEAHORSE walks by and stops.
SEAHORSE: I can see you.
CHONKSY: No you can't.
SEAHORSE: You're wider than the pole.
CHONKSY: It's a technique.
The seahorse leaves. CHONKSY steps out, revealing he was also standing in a puddle of light.
GOTTER and CHUMPY play Go Fish at the little table. GOTTER openly cheats, peeking at CHUMPY's cards in the reflection of a spoon. CHUMPY sees it and lets him.
GOTTER: Got any sevens?
CHUMPY: (handing over a seven he very clearly has) Go fish. (beat) Oh wait. Here.
GOTTER: (triumphant) HA.
It's the tenderest thing on the show so far, and it's two guys playing Go Fish.
Knock knock. CHUMPY freezes. GOTTER opens the door. CHONKSY, fedora taped to his head.
GOTTER: (squinting) The famous one.
CHONKSY: Hi.
GOTTER: Sit. Eat. (beat) You're too thin to be trusted.
CHUMPY: (to CHONKSY, betrayed) You followed me?
CHONKSY: You walk very slowly.
CHUMPY: I was carrying cake!
Three of them now. CHONKSY sets the strip of film on the table next to the dumplings: the manatee cowgirl.
GOTTER looks at it. His flipper starts to tremble, and it doesn't stop.
GOTTER speaks, but not to CHONKSY. He turns to CHUMPY.
GOTTER: I've spent thirty years deciding who to tell.
CHUMPY: Tell what?
GOTTER: I picked you because you don't want anything.
CHUMPY: I want lots of things.
GOTTER: Not the dangerous things.
CHUMPY: I want a hot tub.
GOTTER: (pointing at him) Exactly.
CHONKSY: (quietly) Tell what?
Film grain. Sixty years ago. A western town built on a reef, a wooden saloon facade, a painted desert backdrop. A YOUNG GOTTER (mustache still dark, clipboard, megaphone) as assistant director. Beside him, in a director's chair, FINCE AGILLSAN: a lanky, weathered old seal in a cowboy hat who speaks very, very slowly.
FINCE AGILLSAN: We'll… wait… for the light.
YOUNG GOTTER: How long?
FINCE AGILLSAN: …As long… as it takes.
SUPER: "6 HOURS LATER." YOUNG GOTTER is visibly older. A sunbeam finally hits the saloon.
FINCE AGILLSAN: (beat) …Worth it.
ORCA WHALES sweeps through in a velvet cape and beret, operatic.
ORCA WHALES: MORE! Everything MORE! (pointing at a rock) That rock should be BIGGER.
CUT TO: the same rock, now enormous.
The First Wave crew celebrates on the saloon set: lanterns, dancing, a band. At the center, a YOUNG MANATEE STAR with a pineapple earring throws her head back laughing. YOUNG GOTTER raises a glass. He is happier than we will ever see him again.
Grim AGENTS in dark suits and sunglasses (grey dolphins) wrap chains around a massive round vault door on the seafloor and snap a padlock shut. YOUNG GOTTER stands to the side holding his cap.
GOTTER (V.O., present): They said originals were weapons. (beat) They were right. That's why they were good.
GOTTER: The Great Flop is a lie. Chonks could direct. Chonks were great. The vault is real.
CHONKSY: Why tell us now?
GOTTER: Because I'm old. (beat) And the only thing I ever made was a program for stealing.
Silence. He picks up the strip of film and looks at the cowgirl.
GOTTER: She had the best laugh in the ocean.
CHUMPY: Who is she?
GOTTER: (beat) Ask for the mango.
Neither of them gets it. Yet.
CHONKSY and CHUMPY on the edge of their building's roof. The city glows.
CHONKSY: You're in the know?
CHUMPY: I'm more of an ideas guy.
CHONKSY: How long have you been bringing him dinner?
CHUMPY: Six years.
CHONKSY: Why?
CHUMPY: (beat) …Nobody else did.
Four seconds. No joke.
CHUMPY: Also he has the good dumpling place on speed dial and he never eats his.
CHONKSY: There it is.
PLATRICK walks very casually beside a figure in one long trench coat and fedora: obviously INK, with eight tentacles visible under the hem and big amber eyes under the brim. A club BOUNCER (a stern walrus) blocks the door.
BOUNCER: Eight legs, ma'am?
INK: (deep voice) …Tall.
BOUNCER: (beat) Fair.
He lets them in. PLATRICK looks back at the camera, amazed.
INK sees the glowing jellyfish sign for the first time.
INK: You only copy?
PLATRICK: We're very good at it.
INK: Back home, you go to jail for copying.
PLATRICK: Here you go to jail for making.
INK: (beat) Your country is so weird.
PLATRICK: Cool cool cool. Yes.
He opens the napkin book on the table. Twelve years of lines in his handwriting. He turns the pages slowly. We see his face decide.
A forgotten shipping container half-buried in silt, wrapped in iron chains, overgrown with kelp and barnacles. One cold beam of light from far above. A small fish swims toward it, thinks better of it, and swims away.
GOTTER alone. He reaches under his bed and pulls out an old wooden clapperboard. He wipes the dust off with his cardigan sleeve. The painted letters are faded. He opens and closes it, very softly: clack.
GOTTER: (whisper) Scene one.
He falls asleep sitting up, holding it.
END OF EPISODE
Tests: true to the world, funny, interesting. See WORLD.md.
Engines from Seinfeld, Bernie Mac, Gillis, Rock, Farley and the bench. See COMEDY_PASS.md.
STAKES: Gotter's freedom and the vault's location. CLOCK: a flounder is logging every Thursday. PRICE: Gotter.