Lost Cause - {Benevolent.} (Preview)

[uncensored] *Trigger Warning* Adult Language -Lost Cause. TITLE: THE PAGE WRITTEN BY: CC STONE FORMAT: PILOT TREATMENT / SCREENPLAY OUTLINE WITH DEVELOPMENTAL NOTES ================================================================================ CAST OF CHARACTERS ================================================================================ LILY TURNER A woman residing in her mid-to-late thirties, outwardly disheveled, possessing neither a baccalaureate degree nor formal background within the media and entertainment infrastructure. She is a functioning alcoholic subsisting purely on unemployment subsidies and entire delivery pizzas consumed in single sittings. Intellectually stranded, she constructs esoteric fan fiction, naps amid cascading floodwaters, and harbors an illicit, persistent infatuation with Seth Meyers. JOJO A youthful prodigy directly christened in homage to JoJo Siwa by a maternal figure steeped in the early 2000s cultural ether of "Dance Moms." Having accelerated through secondary school and undergraduate curricula at an anomalous velocity, she navigates life estranged from her midwestern, neo-conservative Mormon lineage, standing as a staunch LGBTQ ally while sparring with her mother over historical domestic hypocrisies. CECILE "CICI" BAKER A hyper-calculated Machiavellian operator within hospitality whose interest in artistic expression is an absolute void, entirely subordinated to the acquisition of executive hegemony. Armed with preliminary degrees in business, finance, and accountancy, she procured a doctorate in literature solely to satisfy the aesthetic mandates of the corporate recruiters. MERRILL A New York slumlord of singular incompetence, physical clumsiness, and profound credulity. An Indian immigrant bearing a thick accent, he maintains neither the wealth nor the administrative precision typically stereotyped, operating a precarious corner bodega subject to chronic municipal sanctions. Twice divorced, thrice wed, his third bride remains an enigma absent from living memory. SASCHA The Head Page and archetype of administrative dogmatism. Impeccably groomed, concise, hyper-effeminate, yet stubbornly, vociferously insisting upon his absolute heterosexuality despite seven openly homosexual siblings and entirely liberated parents. He adopts the cosmic role of an inquisitor dedicated to unearthing Lily's illegitimacy. EMMIT A predatory network senior executive insulated by inherited wealth, corporate impunity, and a private domestic butler. Cognizant of Lily's fabricated credentials, he attempts to leverage her vulnerability into coerced romance, perpetually skating on the razor's edge of absolute public denunciation by the ascendant cohort of junior pages. DEXTER (A.K.A. "DJ D.E. HYPNOTIK") An administrative wunderkind harboring delusions of sonic genius. As a disc jockey, his artistic palate is an absolute calamity; any coherence in his performances is an accidental byproduct of automated Spotify crossfade functions. He squanders his livelihood upon esoteric synthesizers he cannot operate, while his commercial tracks are synthesized by artificial intelligence. POLLY DUVOE A third-generation oligarchic heiress possessing arctic-blue eyes and totalitarian temperament. She performs the piccolo, boasts of donning developmental undergarments, actively disdains glacial ecology, and maneuvers social spheres elevated enough to secure admittance to Taylor Swift's nuptials. OREN The enigmatic institutional custodian, impeccably clad beyond the workplace, suspected of clandestine allegiances to an esoteric hip-hop cult. ================================================================================ SERIES NOTES ================================================================================ NOTE: Lily Turner is a fictional character that is not me. NOTE ON LOGLINE & DYNAMICS: The series fundamentally examines a nearly forty-year- old interloper entangled in bureaucratic absurdities with a constellation of socially arrested, hyper-credentialed youths at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Entering the program equipped with nothing beyond a high school equivalency credential, she must construct elaborate biographical illusions under constant peril of social and professional annihilation. ================================================================================ SCENE WORK ================================================================================ INT. LILY'S APARTMENT - LOWER EAST SIDE - NIGHT Darkness punctuated only by the necrotic, flickering luminescence of an ancient television receiver. The chamber is a chamber of horrors inside a converted tenement walk-up: exposed, calcified plumbing, water damage mapping serpentine sigils across crumbling plasterboard, and stacks of greasy corrugated pizza cartons reaching toward the ceiling like urban ziggurats. LILY TURNER (late 30s) slumps within the ruins of a collapsed futon. Unwashed hair, attired in an oversized collegiate crewneck stained with tomato sauce. Beside her rests an exhausted cardboard cask of discount wine, its internal metallized bladder extracted and drained directly into her mouth like a profane libation. On her lap sits a glowing LAPTOP. The screen displays an eBay checkout portal: "LOT OF 12 AUTHENTIC ARCHAIC NATIVE AMERICAN FLINT ARROWHEADS - BUY IT NOW: $84.00." She clicks "CONFIRM PURCHASE" with her thumb without looking. Her phone buzzes. She swipes open Tinder, scoffs, closes it, and switches over to an illicit live broadcast of LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS. She stares with unvarnished, primal adoration at the screen. LILY (slurred, reverent) One day, Seth. One day our stars will align in the great firmament. She takes a swig of lukewarm Moscato, grimaces, and glances toward the hallway. INT. HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS Lily eases her door open by an inch. Outside apartment 3B, a brown paper bag from a neighbor's fresh Instacart delivery sits abandoned on the linoleum, topped by a sleek, recently mounted RING DOORBELL affixed beside the doorframe. Lily drops to her hands and knees. With serpentine precision, she crawls below the camera’s optical sensor, reaches up like an unseen phantom, and rips the entire Ring Doorbell camera directly from the masonry, pocketing it alongside a six-pack of craft lager lifted straight from the grocery parcel. INT. LILY'S APARTMENT - CONTINUOUS She retreats into her sanctum, bolting the lock. She deposits the second stolen camera into an overflowing junk drawer already housing an identical unit. V.O. The tenement is a closed feedback loop of futile replacements; an ongoing game of spiritual attrition. She pops a beer cap with her molars, sits back down at the terminal, and stumbles upon an open tab: She’s visibly inebriated, her glossy eyes squint at the screen. "THE NBCUNIVERSAL PAGE PROGRAM - APPLICATION SUBMISSION PORTAL." Driven by sudden spikes of spite, chemical bravado, and pervasive existential loathing, her fingers clatter across the keyboard, fabricating a litany of wild untruths. LILY “media literacy” V.O. I have watched twenty-two consecutive hours of prime-time television per diem since the collapse of the family boutique hospitality empire. Witness me. She smashes the "SUBMIT" button, stumbles into the bathroom, turns the shower valve onto boiling, sits on the porcelain lid fully clothed, and promptly passes out into complete blackness. The shower pan begins to fill. Water flows onto the dated tile. INT. LILY'S APARTMENT - MORNING 3 LOUD KNOCKS AT THE DOOR, UNFORGIVING AND HEAVY. A cacophony rattles the splintered wood of her entryway. Water covers the apartment floorboards like a rising tide. LILY jolts awake, soaked from the waist down, mascara drawn across her cheekbones, and still drunk. She wades through the deluge and unlatches the door chain; She forgets about the bolt lock; She unbolts the door, and leaves the second chain latched before opening the door Standing outside is her DOWNSTAIRS NEIGHBOR, apoplectic, flanked by MERRILL (50s), the landlord, wearing an ill-fitting polo shirt, stained apron from his perennially shuttered corner deli, and broken sandals. NEIGHBOR It is raining in my infant's crib, Lily! Raining yellow-brown! And –are those my organic heirloom tomatoes on your counter?! Lily casually kicks the door frame, adopting an air of seductive, bohemian indolence, fixing Merrill with a languid gaze. LILY Merrill. You look radiant in the morning light. Is that lumbar pain flaring again? These..are farm fresh from the union square farmer’s market…which I go to. Merrill blinks, bewildered, defenseless against her brand of clumsy charm. MERRILL (heavy Indian accent) IT IS SUNDAY. “FARMER’S MARKET?!” NO. LILY (Hungover) Shh. INT. LILY'S APARTMENT - SIX WEEKS LATER - DAY Six weeks later to the exact hour. A pristine, steaming, oversized pepperoni pizza sits open upon the milk-crate covered coffee table. Lily sits cross-legged, dressed in a GREY TRENCH COAT, a wifebeater and plaid men’s boxers chewing deliberately while gazing at a framed calendar of Seth Meyers hung above the radiator; it appears to be a custom calendar where it can be presumed the host is featured on all twelve months. LILY (lowly) …Yes. She shovels an oversized spoonful of CAPTAIN CRUNCH WITH BERRIES into her mouth without even entirely swallowing the bite of pizza. Her decrepit laptop emits a bleep. An incoming electronic dispatch arrives: AOL: YOU’VE GOT MAIL. [because she still has this] LILY SPAAAAAAM. A robotic voice reads: "OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE: NBCUNIVERSAL PAGE PROGRAM - ADMISSIONS DECISION." LILY (mouth full of pizza) Ha-Ha.Yah, Okay. She clicks. Text flashes: "CONGRATULATIONS. WE ARE PLEASED TO OFFER YOU A SEAT IN THE UPCOMING PAGE CLASS AT 30 ROCKEFELLER PLAZA." [or whatever it would actually say] Lily raises a towering glass of whole cow's milk to her lips. Her eyes widen. LILY PFSSSHHHHT! UHHH== (Not a spit take, just whole milk spilling out of her mouth full of pizza and milk and rolling down her chin as she falls into a hypnotic stupor) She Swallows and wipes the milk from her chin with the sleeves of the OVERSIZED GREY TRENCH COAT. Suddenly, a spark, and then a shorting sound he laptop bursts into smoke, then catching on fire–thinking quickly, but also drunkenly, she pours from the half pint of milk onto the computer to put it out, leaving a milky, smoky debris. LILY GODDAMN IT, DELL. YOU SAID “LIFETIME WARRANTY.” The laptop, she realizes has been left plugged into a socket; Suddenly Across the building, the hum of refrigeration collapses. Every light in the entire tenement dies simultaneously with a wub. In the dark: LILY (O.S.) Oops. F– [TITLE CARD] “THE PAGES” ================================================================================ META/ ENTER THE MULTIVERSE WRITERS' ROOM. DAY ================================================================================ WRITER 1: Okay, so this is basically a 40-year-old having shenanigans with a bunch of high-achieving, socially inept kids at The Rock, and no one knows why she’s there because she’s not qualified at all. WRITER 2: Yeah, basically. Like, at all. But she has to make up elaborate lies about her background after her friends warn her that if she tells anyone else she got into the program on a GED, they’d hunt and kill her for her skin. WRITER 1: Yeah, I’ll bet. WRITER 2: Yeah. But the first season antagonist... oh, what’s his name? WRITER 1: Emmit. WRITER 2: No, the other one. WRITER 1: Sascha— WRITER 2: Oh yeah, him for sure. WRITER 1: What about that Polly chick? WRITER 2: Like, definitely annoying and probably all evil, but also almost a non-factor. WRITER 1: Correct. WRITER 2: Alright, so this undercover gay guy makes it his main mission to figure her out, or what? WRITER 1: Yeah, he’s gonna try and see what is "off" about her. WRITER 2: Classic villain. WRITER 1: Super classic. WRITER 2: Okay, what about the other villain? WRITER 1: Oh, Emmit? WRITER 2: Yeah, what’s his problem? WRITER 1: Oh, I think he knows her secret, but he’s trying to low-key coerce her into, like, dating him or something because he’s creepy. But these Gen Z alpha pages would totally hashtag-MeToo him. WRITER 2: They probably already have. WRITER 1: Correct. They should. He’s not right. WRITER 2: Okay. But he’s an executive and he has a butler. WRITER 1: What’s the butler’s name? WRITER 2: Not important. WRITER 1: I can respect that. But if it’s technically an NBC show sub-30 Rock, you would have to be careful about how you put that. WRITER 2: Yeah, way careful. But also insinuation is key. It doesn’t always have to be how you word it so much as... WRITER 1: Hint hint. WRITER 2: Eggplant, eggplant. WRITER 1: Peacock, peacock. WRITER 2: Exactly. WRITER 1: Alright. So what’s up with that pilot? WRITER 2: Oh, I don’t know. So far we've got drunk ordering Native American artifacts on eBay, probably swiping on Tinder, low-key checking out Seth Meyers… The writer’s voice fades into LILY’S over a montage of the fallout. LILY V.O. (writing in her blog or something, idk) …and drinking boxed wine directly out of the bladder, stealing a Ring doorbell camera from your neighbors (and their Instacart order), and then at some point applying to be an NBC page before blacking out half-dressed in the shower... only to wake up to your downstairs neighbors banging on the door because, yes, you’ve flooded their apartment AGAIN. Only to reveal that, even worse than them being mad (and they can see the leftovers of their Instacart order right behind you); The landlord has used this as an excuse to pester you about the rent during daylight hours so you cannot trick him again... or that’s what he thinks anyway, because you will trick him again, and then entirely forget about your whole night. MUSIC CUE: Oh, what a night. Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. V.O. …Until six weeks later... exactly six weeks later to the day, you get a small note from NBC congratulating you on your acceptance into the page program, while thinking over a large pepperoni pizza almost out loud about groping Seth Meyers, to which you will respond with the most opulent whole cow’s milk spit take into your computer screen—which is plugged into a horrible wall socket, and so it shorts out your entire computer, and also causes the whole building to lose power. WRITER 1: Wow. Whole cow’s milk, huh? WRITER 2: Yeah. {Enter The Multiverse} The Complex Collective © [The Festival Project ™ ] Unstoppable.Co