Seafire

1. INT. ACQUISITIONS WAR ROOM · NIGHT

A holographic map glows over the table: a sunken human film-studio warehouse the size of a city block. The team gathers: CHONKSY, SEABEAR, NAVY SEAL, CHUMPY in his headset.

SEAVER: Biggest haul in Acquisitions history. Forty thousand titles. Some still in shrink-wrap.

SEABEAR: (whisper) Shrink-wrap.

CHONKSY: Where's Gotter?

SEAVER: Sick.

CHONKSY: Who found the target?

SEAVER: Anonymous tip.

CHONKSY notices it. Files it. Lets it go.

The camera holds on "anonymous tip" a beat longer than it should. The audience doesn't let it go.

2. INT. LOCKER ROOM · SUITING UP

A heroic suit-up montage: slow motion, drums, buckles snapping. NAVY SEAL loads gear. SEABEAR polishes his chain. CHONKSY tapes his fedora on.

CHUMPY pulls his tactical vest around his belly and pulls the strap. And it closes. Click.

Everyone stops.

CHUMPY: (staring down) …It closes.

Slow applause from the whole team. NAVY SEAL salutes. SEABEAR wipes a tear.

SEABEAR: The jogging.

CHUMPY: (emotional) The jogging.

3. INT. SUNKEN WAREHOUSE · NIGHT

They swim through a breach in the wall into endless aisles of film, tapes and DVDs stretching into the murk. Awe.

SEABEAR finds a complete box set of a human cooking show and holds it like a newborn.

SEABEAR: (trembling) My heroes.

NAVY SEAL finds a box of the same heist movie from Ep 1. Forty copies.

NAVY SEAL: We already have this.

CHONKSY: We'll always have that one.

4. INT. SUNKEN WAREHOUSE · NORTH WALL

CHONKSY: (idly) Why are we blowing the north wall?

NAVY SEAL, for the first time in the series, answers, fully and brilliantly: water pressure differentials, load paths through the old steel frame, current flow through the breach to carry the silt away from the stacks, extraction timing to the second. Ninety seconds, flawless, with gestures.

Total silence.

SEAVER (V.O., comms, emotional): …Structurally… I love you.

NAVY SEAL: (beat) Arf.

5. INT. CHONKSY'S APARTMENT · MEANWHILE

His front door explodes off its hinges. SEA SI AGENTS (grey dolphins in suits) and SEA MOSSAD AGENTS (harbor seals in black tactical gear) flood in. Flashlights sweep the couch, the desk, the shelf.

SMASH CUT: the warehouse. CHONKSY laughs at something SEABEAR said.

6. MATCHED CUTS

Warehouse: crates lifted, triumphant music. Apartment: drawers pulled, silence.

Warehouse: SEABEAR hugs a crate. Apartment: an agent bags a napkin.

Warehouse: CHONKSY reads a title, delighted. Apartment: an agent reads a page of CHONKSY's script, frowns and drops it in a bin.

21. THE CITY WATCHING: CURRENT NEWS

In diners and store windows all over the city, Current News is on. The PUFFERFISH ANCHOR reads:

PUFFERFISH ANCHOR: Officials describe tonight's activity in Upper Kelpwood as a routine… (inflating) …fire… (inflating) …safety… (fully round) …in—

POP. Spines everywhere.

His co-anchor, the SWORDFISH, keeps reading without looking over.

SWORDFISH ANCHOR: —spection. In sports…

7. INT. CHONKSY'S APARTMENT · SEAFIRE

An agent opens a canister. Green SEAFIRE, fire that burns underwater, spills onto the pile: the legal pads, the reels, the laptop, the napkin book. Twelve years of napkins curl and glow green. One floats up, burning, and we can almost read it before it's gone.

8. INT. CHUMPY'S APARTMENT

Two SEA MOSSAD seals toss it: snacks everywhere, a hot-tub brochure. One picks up a framed photo from the dresser, turns it toward himself and freezes. We see only the back of the frame.

AGENT 1: …Oh. Oh no.

AGENT 2: What?

AGENT 1 turns the photo so AGENT 2 can see. AGENT 2 goes pale. They quietly put everything back: they re-fold a blanket, straighten the snacks, and fluff a pillow.

AGENT 2: (whisper) Do we leave a note?

AGENT 1: We were never here.

9. INT. WAREHOUSE · COMMS

CHONKSY: (beaming, rare) We got everything.

CHUMPY (V.O.): (beaming) Everything.

The best moment of their careers. Hold it. Let it be good for three seconds.

10. EXT. BORDER CHECKPOINT · NIGHT

INK, coming back early, is stopped at the gate. Octopus border guards open her bag: reels of raw footage. They march her back across the line.

PLATRICK (V.O., comms): Ink? (beat) …Ink?

No answer. Static.

11. INT. APARTMENT HALLWAY · NIGHT

The elevator dings. CHONKSY and CHUMPY step out with crates of the greatest haul ever. The hallway is full of green smoke. Both their doors are smashed in.

A crate slips from CHUMPY's flippers. DVDs scatter across the floor. Nobody picks them up.

12. INT. HALLWAY

SEAPHOLK steps out of the smoke holding something between two fingers of his flipper: an empty crumpled foil pastry wrapper.

SEAPHOLK: We built it for a beaver. (beat) We got a chonk with a sweet tooth.

13. INT. HALLWAY

SEAPHOLK explains like a patient teacher.

SEAPHOLK: Every package was tagged. Everybody who finds the vault takes the pastry. (beat) The beaver bait was the decoy. The pastry was the trap. Then we waited for you to make something worth burning.

CHONKSY: The tip.

SEAPHOLK: Ours. (beat) Three real reels in that vault. Eleven of ours.

He leans in for the second punch.

SEAPHOLK: Your favorite chonk comedian? The legal pad, the pastry? (beat) Human. A clip from a few years ago. We dubbed it.

CHUMPY looks at CHONKSY. He can't speak. CHONKSY can't look at him.

14. INT. GOTTER'S APARTMENT · NIGHT

Empty. The medals are gone, the photos gone, faded rectangles on the walls. A beam of light through dust. On the lone armchair: the old wooden clapperboard and a tweed flat cap.

SEAPHOLK (V.O.): He retired.

15. INT. CHONKSY'S APARTMENT

Scorched and stripped. Small black cameras with red lights are mounted in every corner, all aimed at the couch. CHONKSY sits on it, small, staring ahead.

SEAPHOLK (V.O.): Twenty-four hours. (beat) Think of it as an audience.

PUNCH-UP INSERTS · EP 9

• Sc 2: The vest closes. Chumpy, emotional: "I'd like to thank my mom, the jogging, and the stress." Seabear: "Is always the stress."
• Sc 3: Seabear finds an adult film in the warehouse. He studies the cover with deep confusion. "Why is plumber so happy?" Navy Seal takes it, files it in the crate, says nothing.
• Sc 4: After Navy Seal's brilliant monologue, Chonksy: "Why didn't you ever say anything before?" Navy Seal: "Nobody asked the right question." Beat. "Also my pay grade went up. Tuesday."
• Sc 5: During the apartment raid a Sea Mossad seal finds Chonksy's fan-mail drawer and reads one: "'Who are you, though?'" He pockets it. He's a fan.
• Sc 7 (heart, the burning): No jokes. Only the sound of the napkin book burning, and one napkin floating up with a coffee ring and a lipstick kiss, and we still don't know whose.
• Sc 8: The agents in Chumpy's apartment after the photo: "Do we leave a note?" "We were never here." Then one of them steals a snack. The other slaps it out of his flipper: "Do you want to die?"
• Sc 12: Seapholk's line gets a sharper follow-up: "We built it for a beaver. We got a chonk with a sweet tooth. (beat) Your kind always reaches for the sugar."
• Sc 13 (heart, Chumpy): After the reveal, Chumpy finally speaks, small: "I did this." Chonksy doesn't answer. It's the first time all season he doesn't have an answer for Chumpy.

30. THE NAPKIN, ASSEMBLED · during Scene 7

• As the seafire burns, the season's flash-forwards arrive in order: the napkin, the fedora, the coil, the bowls, the red light. The audience realizes they've been watching tonight all season.

31. INT. CURRENT NEWS · EDITORIAL MEETING · before Scene 21

• Midnight. Editors around a whiteboard choose the word live. "'Raid'?" "Too strong." "'Visit'?" "Too warm." "'Incident'?" "Implies something happened." "'Routine fire safety inspection'?" Silence. "…Book it."
• Fire safety is the joke: the only people allowed to light fire are the people who just lit it.
• The pufferfish anchor in the corner is already inflating. Editor: "Breathe, Gary." Pufferfish: "It's Doug." Editor: "Breathe, Doug." (Gary is the half-asleep dolphin. Every institution has a Gary.)

32. INT. SEA SI INTERVIEW ROOM

• The Sea SI interviews crabs on molt week, when the shell is soft. Doris, pink and helpless under a bare bulb. Seapholk (smiling, because he can't not): "You heard him change the line in Episode Three. You didn't report it." Doris (trembling): "It was better." Seapholk pings her with sonar and reads her pulse. It's true. She thinks it was better. He writes something down.
• Smash cut: Doris, shell grown back, in the Archive, sorting HUMANS BEING WEIRD. A home-workout DVD. She studies it and files it under WEIRD. She'll be here the rest of the season. She leaves the room sideways.

40. I'VE NEVER SEEN A POP-TART · Sea SI interview room · Tim Robinson / Farley

• Chumpy, frosting on his face, crumbs falling out of his vest. Chumpy: "Never seen one. Don't know what it is. Is it a hat?" Seapholk (smiling) pings him with sonar: "It's in your stomach, Chumpy. I can see it." Chumpy: "…That's a different one." Seapholk: "There are two?" Chumpy (realizing): "…No comment."
• He commits harder: "I'm allergic to pastry." "You're eating one right now." He is. A third one, from the vest. He keeps eating it.
• Then the real stake: Seapholk: "Give me Chonksy and you go home." Chumpy, mouth full, stops chewing. Swallows. "…I'd do it again." He never gives up Chonksy. The only time in his life Chumpy has been defiant, he does it with frosting on his face.

41. "OCEAN." (LAST TIME) · Scene 14, Gotter's apartment · Bernie Mac

• Agents walk Gotter out in his bathrobe. In the doorway he turns to the lens. Gotter: "Ocean." Long pause. He doesn't say anything else. He nods at us, once. They walk him out. The camera stays on the empty armchair. ★ heart beat