For Your Consideration: Selected Scenes from the Soon-to-be Critically Acclaimed 10 episode Miniseries Event:
True Detective, a Girl, and a Pizza Place
Protagonist:
Rustin Cohle, True Detective
Love Interest:
Beavis, Beavis and Butthead
Funny Guy:
Woody Boyd, Cheers
Best Friend:
Rita Morgan, Dexter
Badass:
Tobias Funke, Arrested Development
Mentor:
David Bowie, Venture Brothers
Wildcard:
Tina Belcher, Bob's Burgers
Primary Villain:
God, South Park
Secondary Villain:
Frank Reynolds, It's Always Sunny
Theme Song:
Run On, by Johnny Cash, set to a montage of pizza-making.
Description: A year after the events of True Detective, Rustin Cohle is looking for a change - he's looking for an escape. He decides to give up on sleuthing, settle down with his true love Beavis and open a pizzeria with longtime chum Rita Morgan and a wacky cast of co-workers and rivals. But just when his life finally seems to be going right, things take a left turn for the Emmy-worthy.
Scenes:
Episode 1, Opening SceneCold Open:
RUST and
TOBIAS are walking down a dimly lit street toward the
CHARCOALSA PIZZA FACTORY AND FUNATORIUM.
RUST:…and so, y’see, time…is like a flat pizza. And all of us - all of us - we’re just…gnawin desperately away at the edges, tryin to get to the middle, cuz we just KNOW there’s gotta be somethin, anything, better for us there. But the cheese is bland and the toppins are skimpy, and when we finally break through to the center…brother, there ain’t nothin there but a hole.
TOBIAS (confused): Is this a donut-themed pizza?
RUST: Naw, not the pizza…time. Space. Life. (emphasizing) The Center of…All Things. The Truth of It All. Hollow. Empty….Bereft.
TOBIAS: Well, I can’t say I agree with that kind of Negative Nancy attitude, but I hope that you and I can someday plug that hole together!
(both pause)
TOBIAS (awkwardly):…with the power of friendsh-
RUST (holds up hand): Hold up. Somethin’s amiss.
Both look down. A
PIZZA lies shattered, grotesque on the sidewalk next to the
CHARCOALSA entrance. Sauce is violently spattered on the nearby wall.
TOBIAS: Oh dear – well, let's look on the bright side: there’s another pizza-hungry consumer out there just waiting for us to fill their hole!
RUST: Naw. This wadn’t no accident. This is a sign. Someone…wanted us to see. Wanted the WORLD to see. To see his victory...over pizza.
RUST kneels, dips his pinkie into a pool of sauce, tastes it.
RUST: Still fresh. They can’t be far. (to himself) Man can only run so long, I reckon. Til time circles around to catch him again. Looks like I’m goin back to work.
TOBIAS: Splendid! A crime-solving adventure! We’ll be like Cagney and Lacey! Though my only good pantsuit was ruined in that accidental run-in with the Pride parade afterparty…oh yes, and what about Rita?
Both turn.
RITA’s bloody, mangled body hangs halfway out of the dumpster
RUST: Hey hey now buddy, one crime at a time. This ain’t TWO Detective!
Both laugh uproariously. Cut to opening credits.
Episode 2, Scene 8RUST and
BEAVIS sit in their living room. A glass of
SOME COOL WHISKEY YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF sits untouched in front of
RUST. The mid-afternoon sun casts deep shadows across the room, leaving
BEAVIS half in light, half in darkness. He wears a simple blue T-shirt with SYMBOLISM written across it.
RUST: …third one this week. He won’t stop. He’ll never stop until I stop him, or until my sanity has the courtesy to finally leave me alone.
BEAVIS: Yeah, yeah. Heh-heh. Go nuts! Nuts!
RUST stares intensely at nothing, contemplating.
BEAVIS picks his nose.
RUST: I have to do it. I have to find him.
BEAVIS (clearly reading from cue card): But Rust, when is it gonna be enough? (more naturally) Heh-heh. “Butt Rust”.
RUST: I don’t know. I don’t know if it’ll ever be enough. The deeper I get, the more lost I feel. But sometimes…sometimes I feel like losing myself…is the only way to find myself. Maybe it’s good to be lost.
BEAVIS: Yeah, yeah. Get lost.
RUST: You always have the best advice, Sweet Pea. (gets up, kisses Beavis on cheek). I’m gonna go out to the desert, smoke some peyote, dryhump a cactus. For enlightenment.
RUST puts on a jacket, leaves the room.
BEAVIS stares blankly for a moment, then produces and begins toying with a bloody lock of
RITA’s hair.
BEAVIS: D-mn, we’re smooth.
Episode 3, Scene 2RUST walks into the
CHARCOALSA PIZZERIA BAR.
PATRONS (together): RUST!
WOODY: Mr Cohle! What’ll it be?
RUST (drawling): Tallboy’a Lone Star and a pint of ether laced with mescaline.
WOODY: Coming right up!
Episode 6, Scene 7BOWIE: You can’t give up now! Rust, you’re so terribly close. He’s…afraid of you. I feel it in my antennae.
RUST (quizzical look): Ok.
BOWIE (wist.ful): It reminds me of that time on the French Riviera when Jagger and I got ahold of some killer coke, truly transcendent stuff, and the second we heard that knock on the chateau door, I knew, I just knew in my soul it was those two dishy poolboys and they were all set to oops, change of subject, how’s that lovely Rita these days anyway?
RUST: …I think she…went on vacation? Can’t remember.
Episode 8, Scene 6RUST, WOODY, TOBIAS and
TINA stand around a massive wall covered in random sauce recipes, phone book pages, and children’s letters to Santa. A life-sized Noid doll looms over all like some judgmental god. Long strings of cheese connect documents together in a web of horrible truths.
RUST (pointing to random spot): And that’s where he’ll strike next. Right by where we found the…(choking up)…kid’s size pizza. (fights back tears, takes swig of whiskey, recovers). Oh yeah, and about a block down from where somebody beat Bowie to death with frozen breadsticks and wrote “METALLICA RULZ” on his corpse. Tragic, could barely collect any pizza evidence with all the attention.
WOODY: Makes sense, Mr. Cohle. We’ll find the next pizza there, no doubt about it. (squints) I can almost see it.
TINA (monotone): It’s like I’m there. Little Miss Wildcard is touching the dead crust. (pauses). …no I’m not.
Suddenly,
FRANK REYNOLDS bursts in, disheveled, excited, and definitely not sober.
FRANK: HA! HAHAHAHAHA! I’ve done it! They said it couldn’t be done! I’ve finally put hot dogs in a pizza crust! Next weekend at the Tri-State Pie-off you and your hoor co-owner are going down!
(Awkward pause)
TINA (puzzled): Pizza contest?
TOBIAS: Is this...do we still make…
WOODY: We’re not really making pizza anymore, Mr. Reynolds
RUST:…Kinda more of a narrative motif at this point.
TOBIAS (brightly): Or a MacGuffi-
FRANK (cuts him off, taken aback): Well, where’s that HOOR co-owner of yours, maybe I’ll give her a piece of my mind!
RUST, TOBIAS, WOODY, and
TINA look around, confused.
RUST: Rita is…um…
TOBIAS: (uncertainly) Did she…go back to college?
TINA (matter-of-fact): She went to beautician school to reconnect with her womanhood.
FRANK: Huh. Well, we’ll just see what they have to say to this down at Little Caesar’s! HAHAHA! (leaves)
RUST: Thanks for the reminder, Tina, Rita would’ve killed me if I forgot.
TINA: It’s why I’m here. Can I smell your jerkin?
RUST: What?
TINA: Nothing. If you were a horse what color would your mane be? Chestnut or dark chestnut?
RUST: What? Where are you goin with this?
TINA: Never mind. (to herself). Definitely dark chestnut. So fiery. (shivers delightedly).
EPISODE 10, Scene 4RUST: So, at last you’re here.
GOD:
No, Rust. I’ve always been here. At last you can see me.RUST: It was the monologues, wasn’t it? I knew I was monologuin my way to some kinda major breakthrough.
GOD:
Yes, Rust. Your witches' brew of weird drugs and half-baked philosophy has truly pierced the veil of what you mortals call reality. (winks at camera).
Now, was there something you wanted to ask me?RUST: You know youd-mned well what I want to know. Who’s the monster that’s been carving up those pies?
GOD:
Me.RUST (taken aback): You??
GOD:
Well, implicitly. I kinda do everything when you think about it. Agency is overrated.RUST: I see. But isn’t that kind of an ontologically reductionist resolution?
GOD:
I don’t know what that means.EPISODE 10, EpilogueWOODY staggers into
CHARCOALSA, carrying a badly injured
RUSTWOODY: You’re gonna be ok, Mr Cohle! D-mn him! D-mn that man!
RUST (with difficulty): I…knew it was him. I knew…even when it was God, I knew it was Papa John. No man…can give away…that many free pizzas without being shoulder-deep in the muck.
RUST gestures weakly.
WOODY follows his gaze and sees an uncooked pizza on the counter.
RUST: Oldest…story there is. Cheese…vs sauce.
WOODY: Well, there’s a lot more sauce, Mr Cohle, you always did go awful light on the cheese. And this has been moldin for awhile. Probably oughta throw it out before the health inspector comes around.
RUST: …you’re lookin at it the wrong way, Woody. (coughs up blood) In the beginning, that was only sauce. Y'ask me, I’d say the cheese…is winnin.
END CREDITS