The truth. Old Seacow tells it, the war was sold with a remake, the first cut screens, and the pastry finally gets toasted. 22:00.
The whole secret crew, mid-break, in a circle around SEA PANDA KID. Someone finally asks.
SEAVER: What's in the backpack?
Everyone leans in. SEABEAR stops chewing. INK's eight arms stop moving. SEA PANDA KID sighs, puts the backpack down and slowly unzips it.
It's snacks. Just snacks. Normal snacks, neatly organized.
SEABEAR: …Just snacks?
SEA PANDA KID: I'm FIFTEEN.
He zips it back up with total dignity.
CHUMPY: (quietly, moved) He's a producer.
CHONKSY and CHUMPY at the bar. CHONKSY sets the film frame in front of OLD SEACOW: the manatee cowgirl, laughing.
CHONKSY: Can I get a mango?
OLD SEACOW doesn't look at the frame. She sips her smoothie. She sips again. For the first time in the series, the straw makes the empty-cup sound. SHHHRRRK.
She looks down into the empty cup like it betrayed her.
OLD SEACOW: (beat) …Mango's out of season.
She takes off her straw hat and sets it on the bar. Without it she looks like someone else, someone younger.
OLD SEACOW: I quit because they made me play the same girl in somebody else's story for forty years.
A glamorous old-time premiere: searchlight jellyfish, a red carpet, a crowd. ORCA WHALES in his velvet cape and FINCE AGILLSAN in his cowboy hat stand side by side, proud. YOUNG OLD SEACOW between them, radiant, the pineapple earring catching the light.
Pan to the back door of the theater. AGENTS carry the reels out and drop them into a burning barrel.
ORCA WHALES sees it over the crowd. He watches his film burn.
ORCA WHALES: (quietly, for the first time in his life) …More.
He means the opposite.
OLD SEACOW: The Long Reef showed the truth. We started the war. (beat) The treaty said stories were weapons. Then, the very next month, a ship full of human movies just happened to be found.
CHONKSY: The Big Haul.
OLD SEACOW: (putting her hat back on) Funny how nobody ever asks who sank it.
On the Shallows' TV, a "classic" plays on the Current: a glossy, heroic chonk war movie, a soldier in a shining helmet charging through ink clouds waving a golden-shell banner. It's the recut human war movie, and it's on the billboard CHONKSY stared at as a kid.
YOUNG CHONKSY in a crowd, staring up at the giant billboard: the heroic soldier pointing straight at him.
PRESENT. CHONKSY watches the same soldier on the bar TV.
CHONKSY: (flat) I went to war because of a remake.
He says it flatly. That's worse than yelling. CHUMPY puts a flipper on his shoulder. He doesn't say anything. That's the right thing.
A dim bar with military photos on the walls. Old chonk VETERANS, eyepatches and medals and missing whiskers, watch the war movie in silence. The heroic music swells.
One OLD WALRUS VETERAN stands up, walks to the TV and switches it off. Nobody stops him. Nobody says anything.
At the end of the bar, CHONKSY (he walked here after the Shallows) raises his glass to him. The walrus raises his back.
A bedsheet on the wall. The projector rattles. The crew sits on equipment cases. The first cut of their film plays. We don't see it, only their faces.
SEABEAR sobs openly.
SEABEAR: This is the most upset I have ever been. (sob) I love it.
SEA PANDA KID pretends something is in his eye. INK cries ink, and it's a lot of ink. The bedsheet slowly turns purple.
SEAVER: (quietly) It holds.
CHUMPY stands to give a speech. He's bad at speeches.
CHUMPY: I just want to say… (beat) To us. To ideas. To… (long pause) I had a third one. (beat) To the third one.
EVERYONE: To the third one!
SEAVER unveils his creation: an underwater toaster built from copper pipe, a glass bell jar and a glowing coil, valves hissing bubbles.
SEAVER: Structurally speaking, this should not work.
He flips the switch. It works. Everyone gasps.
CHUMPY pulls the foil packet from his vest: the pastry from the vault. He unwraps it reverently and lowers it into the bell jar like a sacred offering.
CHONKSY: Where'd you get that?
CHUMPY: (not looking at him) …Around.
It toasts. It pops. They split one pastry nine ways. INK takes eight crumbs, one per arm.
SEABEAR: (chewing slowly) Tastes like… sixty years.
CHUMPY: (eyes closed) Worth it.
Far away in the dark, a little red light on a tag in the wrapper on the floor blinks once.
INK's visa is expiring. She has to go back for a week. PLATRICK and INK hold paw and tentacle through a gap in the barbed-coral fence.
INK: Come back?
PLATRICK: I'm the one staying.
INK: Then wait?
PLATRICK: (beat) Cool cool… always.
INK: You said four cools.
PLATRICK: I mean all of them.
GOTTER in the doorway, lit from behind, finger raised.
GOTTER: They don't arrest the work. They burn it. (beat) Make copies. Hide them. Everywhere.
CHUMPY: I already did.
Everyone turns.
CHUMPY: I've been doing it since the space-shark thing. (beat) There's a drive in the freezer. And one in Seabear's soup pot.
SEABEAR: (horrified) My soup?
CHUMPY: It's waterproof. (beat) The drive. Not the soup.
CHONKSY: Why'd you save my line? The one the Orca deleted.
CHUMPY: (beat) Because it was yours.
Four seconds. The city glows.
CHUMPY: Also the drive was right next to my granola bar. It was very convenient.
CHONKSY: There it is.
THE ORCA slides a glossy poster across the desk: SPACESHARKS 2. There's only one duck left in the little pool.
THE ORCA: The lead. Forever. You'll be the face of copying for the rest of your life, sweetheart. (beat) That's job security.
CHONKSY looks at the poster. He doesn't touch it. He hesitates too long.
THE ORCA notices. He goes very still.
THE ORCA: (quietly) …Take your time.
He has never said that to anyone.
SEAPHOLK leans on the bar in his suit and sunglasses.
SEAPHOLK: Long time, Miss Seacow.
She stops mid-sip. The straw stays in her mouth. The smoothie stays perfectly still in her flipper. She doesn't put it down.
Not yet.
SEAPHOLK: I'll have the mango.
OLD SEACOW: (around the straw) Out of season.
A huge glowing map of New Chonk City. The blinking red tag light over Upper Kelpwood turns solid. Agent silhouettes lean in.
AGENT: They've made something.
SEAPHOLK: (beat) Now.
THE WATCHER's supervisor (a stern dolphin) drops a folder on his desk: STAKEOUT · UPPER KELPWOOD.
THE WATCHER lights up like a kid.
THE WATCHER: A stakeout? Like in the movies!
SUPERVISOR: Which movies?
THE WATCHER: (beat) …All of them.
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: whether it's any good (the creative stake). CLOCK: the warrant comes through in 48 hours. PRICE: the toaster gives them away.