Pages

1. INT. CHONKSY'S APARTMENT · 3 AM

One lamp. A yellow legal pad. Crumpled paper balls everywhere, on the floor, on the couch, one floating near the ceiling. CHONKSY uses the sitcom method: one line, over and over.

He writes. Reads it.

CHONKSY: It's worse.

Crosses it out. Writes.

CHONKSY: It's worse.

Writes.

CHONKSY: It's better.

Squints. Flips back four pages.

CHONKSY: …It's the first one.

He tears the pad, crumples it, throws it. It floats slowly to the ceiling and joins the others up there.

DAWN. He has one page. He holds it up to the window light and looks at it the way people look at newborns.

CHONKSY: (quietly) Hi.

21. REMAKE CLIP: "SAD MEN"

A chonk remake of the ad-agency drama. The title sequence: a flat graphic silhouette of CHONKSY in a sharp suit falls past mid-century skyscrapers, through clouds, totally unbothered, lounging mid-fall with his paws behind his head. Retro strings.

CUT TO: an office. CHONKSY (as ad man) pitches a product to clients.

CHONKSY (as ad man): It's not a seaweed snack. (long pause, swirling a drink) It's… a feeling.

CLIENT (a lobster): What feeling?

CHONKSY (as ad man): (beat) Hunger.

2. INT. CHUMPY'S APARTMENT · DAY

CHUMPY at his kitchen table, producing for the first time in his life. A cracked shell tablet shows a pie chart he made himself.

CHUMPY: Budget. (pointing at slices) Snacks, sixty percent. Set, twenty. Camera, fifteen. Emotional support, five.

CHONKSY: We don't have a budget.

CHUMPY: This is the budget's vibe.

CHONKSY: Where's the money coming from?

CHUMPY: (beat) Next question.

CHONKSY: That's the apartment answer.

CHUMPY: It's a versatile answer.

3. INT. SEAVER'S WORKSHOP

Lumber, tools, a hard hat on a hook. CHONKSY hands SEAVER the pages. SEAVER puts on safety goggles to read them. He reads slowly, running a claw along the edges like he's checking a beam.

SEAVER: Structurally speaking…

Long pause. Longer. CHONKSY sweats.

SEAVER: …it's the first thing I've read that holds.

He takes the hard hat off its hook and puts it on with ceremony.

SEAVER: I'm in.

CHONKSY: You don't want to know what it's about?

SEAVER: I know what it's made of.

4. INT. CRAFT SERVICES · DAY

SEABEAR stirs a pot. CHONKSY explains in a whisper. SEABEAR stops stirring.

SEABEAR: In Arctic Shelf, we have saying. A bear who only eats other bears' fish… is not bear. (beat) Is raccoon.

CHONKSY: Is that a yes?

SEABEAR: (stirring again, firmly) I am not raccoon.

He hands CHONKSY a bowl.

SEABEAR: Also you are too thin to commit crime. Eat.

5. EXT. BACKLOT

SEA PANDA KID blocks their path, arms crossed, like a tiny mob boss.

SEA PANDA KID: I know what you're doing.

CHONKSY: We're not doing anything.

SEA PANDA KID: You're making something. (beat) I want in.

CHUMPY: Or what?

SEA PANDA KID: I'm FIFTEEN. Nobody can fire me. I don't have a job. (beat) That's leverage.

CHONKSY and CHUMPY look at each other. It is leverage.

CHUMPY: What's in the backpack?

SEA PANDA KID: That's need-to-know.

6. INT. ABANDONED WAREHOUSE · NIGHT

A cavernous empty warehouse. Work lights. A laundry cart rolls in pushed by PLATRICK. A tentacle lifts the laundry: INK climbs out.

INK: Hi.

SEA PANDA KID: (suspicious) She's an octopus.

INK: (already holding the camera, a light, a boom mic and a clapperboard in four different tentacles) I'm a crew.

PLATRICK puts on giant headphones. Platypus electroreception: he can hear everything. Through the mic, a faint fast heartbeat.

PLATRICK: (to himself) That's her heartbeat. (beat) It's going fast. (beat, panicking) Cool cool cool.

7. INT. WAREHOUSE · BUILDING

SEAVER builds a western saloon out of studio scrap, chewing planks into shape with grim joy. SEABEAR climbs a tall ladder for a stunt and leaps onto a pile of mattresses.

SEABEAR: (from the mattress) Again.

He does it again. And again. Nine times.

CHONKSY: We got it on the first one.

SEABEAR: (climbing) I know. I just like it.

8. INT. WAREHOUSE · FIRST SHOT

Everything's ready. Camera rolling. Everyone looks at CHONKSY. He doesn't know how to say "Action." He's said a thousand lines and never that one.

CHUMPY: You just say it.

CHONKSY: It feels illegal.

CHUMPY: It is illegal.

Beat.

CHONKSY: (quietly) …Action.

Nobody moves.

CHONKSY: That's you, Seabear.

SEABEAR: (wiping his eyes) Oh! I'm sorry, I was so moved.

9. INT. WAREHOUSE · SHOOTING MONTAGE

Music. The boom is in the shot. SEA PANDA KID refuses to move it. INK's clapperboard claps SEAVER's nose. SEABEAR cries during his own stunt. PLATRICK shushes a passing ship. CHUMPY hands out snacks in a hard hat.

Then CHONKSY looks at the little monitor for the first time and sees what they just shot. He's quiet. It's the first new thing anyone in the city has seen in sixty years, and he's the first to see it.

10. INT. WAREHOUSE · LATE

Everyone's gone. PLATRICK and INK sit on an equipment case under one work light sharing a single pair of big headphones, listening to the day's audio. One of her tentacles has found his paw.

INK: You can hear my heartbeat through this?

PLATRICK: Cool cool cool… yes.

INK: What's it doing?

PLATRICK: (beat) …Cool stuff.

A tiny heart-shaped ink puff floats up and drifts through the work light.

11. INT. PRESS JUNKET · DAY

A SPACESHARKS backdrop. Flashbulbs. CHONKSY in a suit, smiling the smile. Reporters: a pufferfish, a crab, an eel with a tiny notepad.

REPORTER (eel): Chonksy. What's your process?

CHONKSY: (beat) I copy.

The reporters gasp and scribble like it's profound.

REPORTER (crab): (writing) "I… copy." (whisper) Genius.

12. INT. JUNKET GREEN ROOM · DAY

THE ORCA in a bathrobe over a suit, eating a shrimp ring alone.

THE ORCA: You look tired, sweetheart. (beat) Good. Tired means busy.

He squints at CHONKSY.

THE ORCA: …Busy with what?

CHONKSY: Lines.

THE ORCA: Whose?

CHONKSY: (beat) The movie's.

THE ORCA holds his gaze a little too long, then offers him the shrimp ring.

13. EXT. BACK ALLEY · NIGHT

CHUMPY jogs through the dark with a tall, wobbling stack of film cans, a sweatband on his head, gasping. A security searchlight sweeps the wall behind him. He is, technically, getting in shape.

His phone rings. MOM. He answers mid-jog.

CHUMPY: (panting) Mom. I'm… jogging.

Long silence on the line.

CHUMPY'S MOM (V.O.): …Are you in trouble?

22. THE CITY WATCHING: DENTIST & ELEVATOR

A DENTIST'S OFFICE. A seal patient, mouth clamped wide open, laughs helplessly at Sad Men on the ceiling TV. The sea-turtle DENTIST waits, drill raised.

DENTIST: (dry) Whenever you're ready.

AN ELEVATOR. Two strangers watch the Sad Men clip on the elevator screen: CHONKSY falling, unbothered. Ding. They both pretend they weren't watching.

15. INT. WAREHOUSE · WRAP

The set at night, empty. SEAVER stands with his paw on the saloon wall.

SEAVER: It's the first thing I've ever built that isn't a copy.

He doesn't let go for a while. CHUMPY brings him a donut. SEAVER takes it without letting go of the wall.

16. EXT. STUDIO LOT · 3 AM

SEAPHOLK stands alone under a streetlamp in the empty backlot. Eyes closed. Sonar rings pulse out across the lot, across the city. Far away, one warehouse window glows. The rings reach it.

His eyes open.

17. INT. SEA SI OFFICE · NIGHT

An open-plan office, one light on. THE WATCHER, a tired middle-aged walrus agent in a rumpled suit, wears headphones at his cubicle with a sad desk plant and a cold coffee. He's been assigned "ambient studio noise." He writes in his log.

THE WATCHER (V.O., reading his log): "Subject laughing. Possibly suspicious." (beat) "Possibly I'm lonely."

He waters the plant with his coffee.

END OF EPISODE

PUNCH-UP INSERTS · EP 7

• Sc 1: At 3 AM, the line he's rewriting is revealed to be "Hi." Forty drafts of "Hi." The final one: "Hey."
• Sc 2: Chumpy's budget has a hidden slice labeled MOM. Chonksy: "What's 'Mom'?" Chumpy: "Contingency."
• Sc 3: Seaver after reading: "It holds." Beat. "Also I got wood." Silence. "From the vault. The wood. I got wood from the vault." It's worse.
• Sc 5: Sea Panda's leverage: "I'm FIFTEEN. If I get caught, I'm a victim. If you get caught, you're two grown chonks who recruited a child into a felony." Chonksy: "We didn't recruit you." Sea Panda: "(pulling a sad face for an imaginary jury) …Didn't you?"
• Sc 6: Ink meeting the crew. Seabear, careful and polite and accidentally racist: "You are very… articulate for octopus." Ink: "You're very articulate for a rug." Seabear: "(beat, delighted) I like her."
• Sc 8: After "Action," Seabear cries and keeps acting through it. The take is ruined and beautiful. Chonksy: "Cut." Seabear: "(sobbing) No, keep going, I am in it."
• Sc 9: Montage gag: the boom is in every shot. On the final shot it's finally out of frame, because Sea Panda fell asleep holding it, and the boom slowly lowers into Seabear's soup.
• Sc 11 (peak emptiness): At the press junket, a reporter: "Chonksy, you have everything. What's left?" A long pause on his face, the cameras flashing. "…Lunch." The reporters laugh. He doesn't.
• Sc 13: Chumpy jogging: "Mom, I'm jogging." Mom (V.O.): "Who's chasing you?" Chumpy: "Nobody!" Mom: "Then why are you jogging?"
• Sc 14 (heart): After Gotter says "Action," Chumpy whispers to Chonksy: "I told you you could." Chonksy: "You said that from a couch." Chumpy: "Best seat in the house."

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

• Desaturated, wordless. A long table in an empty tent. A row of soup bowls has stopped bubbling. One spoon sits in a full bowl.

1b. NOTE: SILENT COLD OPEN · Scene 1

• Play the 3 AM writing scene almost wordless: ninety seconds of pencil on kelp paper, crumpling, a paper ball that floats up to the ceiling and joins forty others up there like a sad mobile. Dawn. Keep only the final "…Hi."

31. INT. WAREHOUSE · SEABEAR'S NINTH STUNT · during Scene 7

• Seabear does a polar-bear belly flop through a sheet of ice. Then again. Nine takes. On the ninth, Chonksy, for the first time in his life, says it: "Cut." Everyone freezes. Seabear, climbing back up: "…But I like it." Chonksy: "I know. We have it. It's good. Cut."
• Seabear: "In Arctic Shelf, nobody tells you good and stop. They only say stop." He climbs down, moved. The director has arrived.

40. THE REHEARSAL · Scene 5, before the first day · Fielder

• Chonksy has never told anyone what to do. So, alone in the warehouse, he builds a full-size cardboard replica of the set and casts an inflatable pool-toy orca in a bathrobe as the boss, then rehearses saying "Action."
• "Action." "Action." "Action!" "Action?" Chumpy, holding a box painted like a camera: "That one was a question." "Directors can ask questions." "Not that one."
• On the fortieth take, the inflatable orca slowly deflates, folding forward onto the cardboard desk, as if it's bowing. Chonksy (moved): "…Thank you."

41. VISIONS ARE FREE · Scene 2, Chumpy's apartment · Rock

• Chumpy, horizontal on the couch, the sermon of his life: "Everybody's got a vision! My mom's got a vision! The guy who sells clams has a VISION! Visions are free! You know what costs? Getting OFF the couch!" (beat) "And I'm not getting off the couch. I'm the vision guy. Every crew needs a vision guy. On the couch. Believing."
• Long beat. Chumpy gets off the couch. It takes three tries. He rolls a cart toward the door. ★ heart beat, played silent

42. THE PROVERB · Scene 4, craft services · Norm Macdonald

• Seabear starts an Arctic Shelf proverb. It goes ninety seconds: a lonely walrus, a doctor, a long winter, a light in the window. The whole crew leans in. Seabear: "…And walrus says: 'I came because light was on.'" Silence.
• Chumpy: "That's from a tape." Seabear (wounded): "…Is Arctic Shelf tape." Even the proverbs are copies. Everyone in this ocean is doing someone else's bit.