Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Premise: In a [sort of] post-apocalyptic world, a young woman teams up with a truck driver to traverse through a robot wasteland to retrieve her brother, who has been taken by an evil CEO and used as the brains of his internet company.
About: This was the 320 million dollar big swing from the Russo Brothers for Netflix and they brought back their Avengers screenwriters, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, to help them write it. The movie is based on the iconic sci-fi art of Simon Stålenhag and stars Netflix superstar, Millie Bobby Brown, and worldwide superstar, Chris Pratt.
Writers: Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely
Details: 2 hours long

I’m going to be straight up with you. This review’s going to get ugly. So, before it does, let me cast some compliments on The Electric State. Hollywood is obsessed with IP to the point of making a generation of moviegoers bored out of their minds.

Kids these days – at least the ones I know – don’t watch movies. And why would they? Studio films don’t have any soul left in them and I suspect they don’t have many people making them who actually love movies. They’re just doing a job. And when everybody is just “doing a job,” you get really bland product.

So I respect the Russo Brothers for, at least, trying something new. This is tricky material here. It’s a weird world with weird rules and a hard-to-wrestle-down mythology. I love that they’re trying to explore uncharted territory.

But there’s the irony.

Within that exploration, they went back and based almost all of their choices on the very IP they’re running away from. So the most original big budget movie of the year feels like the most cliched.

I still want Hollywood making weird sci-fi movies. But they have to bring in the kind of talent who can guide those movies to strong places. I used to think the Russo Brothers were that talent. But I’m not sure anymore.

It’s the 90s. Errr….. sort of. Because in these 90s, there was a robot uprising. Except I lived through the 90s and I don’t remember any robot uprisings. So I’m not sure what “period” we’re setting this movie in. Anyway…

A young woman named Michelle lost her younger brother in this robot war. But several years later, the government has squashed the rebellion and now keeps all robots inside designated fenced-off areas.

One night, a robot appears in Michelle’s backyard, just like E.T. (and I mean *just* like E.T. – as in they steal the exact same shot from that movie) and the robot claims to be Michelle’s dead brother. Well, sort of. You see, for reasons that are never made clear, the robot can’t speak normally. He can only speak in pre-programmed soundbites. Every other robot can speak normally. But not this one. Kind of convenient since, if he could speak normally, he’d be able to tell Michelle where his real-life body was and that would’ve cut 90 minutes out of the movie.

Anyway, Michelle pairs up with the robot to travel across the country to find her brother. Along the way, she’s forced to utilize the help of a truck driver named Keats. Keats is a rebel in that he often teams up with robots, even though robots are bad! So he and Michelle go into the Restricted Zone, despite it being littered with violent robots and, what do you know, win them over.

An entire team of robots then joins the duo in attacking Sentre, the big bad internet company that is holding her brother and is also the primary entity keeping the robots down. Michelle wants her brother back and the robots want their life back. Final battle. The end.

This is a great time to remind everyone that writing screenplays is a series of creative choices. One of the reasons it’s so difficult is that if you make the wrong creative choice regarding a couple of the key pillars in the story, there’s no way to save the script. You’re done.

For example, if you create a really unlikable main character, that creative choice is going to be in our face every single scene.

The problem with The Electric State is that it gets nearly all of the key creative choices wrong, starting with the setting. It doesn’t make sense to create a period piece about a time that never happened. I’ve never seen a successful movie that’s done this and I have no idea why anyone would think it’s a good idea. Because what you’re doing is you’re saying, “Nothing matters because none of this really happened.” If you would’ve, simply, set this 5 years in the future, it would’ve solved so many problems with the script.

The next creative choice The Electric State screwed up was the tone. If there’s one good lesson that came out of the superhero era, it’s that you don’t betray the source material. The further you stray from it, the worse the movie usually gets. So, by turning Stålenhag’s dark art into a plucky fun action-adventure movie, the movie never stood a chance. That wasn’t the story that Stålenhag intended to tell. And you can see that in every frame of the movie, which is fighting itself, trying to turn a cat into a dog.

Next up, the amount of borrowing in this movie is next-level embarrassing. From E.T. to Transformers to Guardians of the Galaxy to The Phantom Menace. It’s one movie after another where you recognize a character or a plot beat.

If you’re writing something and you’re constantly saying to yourself, “Yeah, it’ll be just like [that great movie]” and “Ooh, this character will be like that character from [that great movie.],” that’s BAD. Cause people are going to see those things and think of those movies, which are better by the way, than your movie. And the more you do that, the less your movie becomes your movie anyway. Instead, it becomes a pastiche of movies.

You get one clean rip off another famous movie and that’s it. But even then, you have to be careful. For example, you can’t base your hero off of John McClane in a terrorist action-thriller. The setup is too similar to Die Hard. But if you made a sci-fi movie about a cop on another planet, *that* character you can base on John McClane, because it’s a different genre and different setting.

What you don’t want to do is what Electric State did, which was make a sci-fi movie that borrowed from a bunch of other sci-fi movies.

On top of that, there was a whole lot of stuff in this script that didn’t make sense. Why couldn’t the E.T. robot – the one who says it’s got Michelle’s brother inside of it, speak when every other robot spoke?

How are we on a post-apocalyptic journey when the world is fine? Everything is running smoothly. Yet the movie is treating the journey like it’s happening in the “Quiet Place” universe.

And the movie didn’t even get the BASIC stuff right. The most basic thing you need out of a movie like this is to create an interesting unresolved dynamic between the two characters who are around each other the most – in this case, Michelle and Keats.

Yet I couldn’t tell you the first thing about their relationship. They have so little to actually discuss that they could’ve existed on their own separate journeys and nothing would’ve changed.

You have to build a compelling storyline into any character combination that has a lot of screen time together. There wasn’t a single issue between Michelle and Keats other than they occasionally annoyed each other. Compare that to Deadpool and Wolverine, who seemed to have generations of beef with each other that they had to bury in order to work together. That’s how you create a compelling unresolved relationship.

What happened to the Russo Brothers, by the way? I started to wonder if they were always this bad. But that Captain America sequel they directed was awesome. That was a great movie with great set pieces. And the two Avengers movies were good too.

But since then, they made The Gray Man, Cherry, and Citadel. And now this, their worst movie of all.

So, if this silly version of the story was so bad, what should they have done to fix it? Well, there was this sci-fi book published in 1972 called Roadside Picnic about how time stops and then when it starts again, humanity realizes that aliens came here and lived here for a long time before finally leaving. They’ve since left all these remnants and the book follows people who go looking for those remnants.

Just like Stålenhag’s work, it’s dark post-apocalyptic stuff and fits the same vibe as his drawings. I know the budget would’ve had to have been lower. But I’m positive the movie would’ve been better. Because even with 320 million, the Russos didn’t create one memorable set piece. Not one! In a big sci-fi action movie! That’s crazy. At least with the darker version, you could’ve explored better characters and thematic elements that connected with people. This was just silly garbage.

How bad are we talking here? Here’s how bad. If you told me you had Netflix and you wanted to know which movie you should watch tonight, The Electric State or that Meghan Fox is a robot Hand that Rocks the Cradle ripoff, I would tell you that you would have an infinitely more entertaining time watching the Meghan Fox movie.

[x] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Use previous great movies as inspiration. But don’t steal actual elements from them. For example, if you have a time machine in your script, don’t make it a car, cause people are going to think of Back to the Future. Be inspired by the broad strokes, never the key individual elements.

It uses an age-old tool to keep you invested in every scene, one that not many screenwriters depend on.

Outside of the Mega-Showdown, which is happening at the end of June – so everybody make sure you’re keeping up with your writing cause you’re going to want to have a script for that contest – I consider this month, Scene Showdown, to be the most important showdown of the year.

What: Scene Showdown
Rules: Scene must be 5 pages or less
When: Friday, March 28
Deadline: Thursday, March 27, 10pm Pacific Time
Submit: Script title, Genre, 50 words setting up the scene (optional), pdf of the scene
Where: carsonreeves3@gmail.com

Why?

Because if you can’t write a good scene, you can’t write a good script. All a scene is is a mini-feature screenplay. It’s got its setup, its conflict, its resolution. So you have to be able to master the small-form version of telling a story if you expect to be able to master the long-form version of it (aka a screenplay).

I chose Companion for a scene to feature because I knew it came from the same people who made Barbarian, and Barbarian had some good ass scene-writing in it. So I knew we’d learn something about scene-writing today.  And we did!

First of all, this is a really good movie. It will easily make my 2025 Best Movies of the Year list. Unfortunately, it’s a very difficult movie to talk about without spoiling its many surprises. So I would encourage you to watch this movie first then come back to this post. Cause I’m going to spoil a lot.

The movie follows a regular dude named Josh who takes his new girlfriend, Iris, to meet his best friends at a secluded mansion in the wilderness. The friends are Eli, a proudly pudgy dude who’s in a relationship with the gorgeous Patrick. And there’s catwalk modelesque Kat, who’s in a situationship with the owner of the house, 40-something Russian “businessman,” Sergey. A weird group for sure!

Once everyone is situated, Iris goes down to get some sun by the lake and Sergey follows. Sergey starts getting handsy. Then he starts to force himself on her, telling her things like, “This is what you are. Just go with it.” And Iris flips out and cuts Sergey up with a knife, killing him.

When she walks inside, dazed and drenched in blood, everyone flips out.  But then Josh says, “Iris go to sleep,” and she shuts down. That’s when we learn that Iris is a companion robot. She’s not real. We also learn that Josh and Kat planned all this. It was a setup so they could steal Sergey’s money.

What’s interesting about this script is that it doesn’t have a lot of traditional dramatic scenes, such as the scene I highlighted Tuesday in “Vanished.” There are a few in the late second act and third act.  But many of its better scenes are exposition scenes, which is rare. The reason why is because there are so many reveals in the script. And in order to get to those reveals, we must go through a considerable amount of exposition to understand what’s happened.

For example, when Josh wakes Iris back up, he tells her that she’s a robot, something she didn’t know. She responds by saying that’s not possible because she has all these memories. She even has the memory of when they met. Josh explains why all that is not true, telling her about her programming, even explaining that their introduction was just a “meet cute” option on a computer (she bumped into him at the supermarket produce section and he accidentally sent all the oranges tumbling to the floor).

“Reveal” scenes depend on both the exposition and the reveal itself to be interesting.  Nobody wants to sit through information that isn’t fun to listen to.  Drew Hanock is a master at making sure everything he’s revealing is fun to listen to.

The closest we get to a traditionally dramatic scene in the first half of the script is when Sergey tries to sexually assault Iris. But I actually thought Hancock sped through that scene too fast. That was a moment where you could really play with the suspense. It wasn’t a bad scene but Albert Hitchcock would not have been impressed.

Instead, many scenes in Companion hinge on the “reveal,” a template where new information emerges—either enlightening and fun to uncover, impactful to the plot, or both.

To be honest, this is more “gimmicky” than writing traditional dramatic scenes because it doesn’t require you to understand dramatic writing. Revealing information can be done in a basic linear manner and, therefore, is easy to pull off.

However, the art of the reveal is in how and when the reveals are layered into the story. Because you can reveal something in a boring way or you can reveal something in a clever way. And if you’re weaving all these reveals in in a way that tells me you’ve thought endlessly about your plot, that’s just as difficult as writing a traditionally dramatic scene.

I’ll give you an example (spoilers).

The original plan to use Iris to kill Sergey was thought up by Josh and Kat. Eli and Patrick knew nothing about it. That way, Josh and Kat get all of Sergey’s money. But since the killing, Iris has escaped from the house, forcing Josh and Kat to bring Eli and Patrick in on what they did.

It’s, again, an exposition scene. Because we’re going over what Kat and Josh planned, why they planned it, etc. Also, there’s plot-related exposition. We get the plot advancement of Josh offering Eli a third of the cut if he helps them capture Iris.

Eli looks at him and says, “You mean a fourth of the cut,” motioning to Patrick. “Are you crazy, no way. A third of the cut,” Josh says. Eli argues back that if he’s coming in, it will be a four way split. As that argument heats up, Eli turns to Patrick and says, “Patrick, go to sleep,” and Patrick goes into sleep mode.

That’s our reveal. It turns out Patrick is a companion robot as well.

Do you see how writer Drew Hancock did that? Most writers would’ve brought that reveal out in a less dramatic way. Maybe late at night when Eli and Patrick are in bed and Patrick is annoying him, wanting to talk, Eli then says, “Patrick go to sleep,” and we get our reveal there.

But it’s a way less dramatic version of the reveal. And that’s how you know you’re a good “reveal” scene writer. You’re dishing out these reveals during intense plot moments – in this case, when discussing the percentage split of 12 million dollars. The whole reason Eli fought Josh on the split was not because he wanted it split four ways, but because he was terrified that his robot would find out that he was a robot (since Josh was treating him as one, not bringing him in on the cut).

So the lesson here is that I’d rather you become great at traditionally dramatic scene-writing. It’s a way more valuable skill. But if you’re writing a script where you’re keeping a lot of information from the reader, you can definitely write a strong screenplay with “reveal” scene-writing.

Companion also reminded me that screenplays are very context-heavy. Scenes don’t live off on their own islands. If you can write a scene that requires zero story context, it probably isn’t the best scene for your movie. A good scene should always be pulling in earlier setups from your script, which is why, in Scene Showdown, I give you the option to set your scene up (the only time you shouldn’t need this is if you enter the first scene of your script).

Still, Companion is one of those rare screenplays where literally no scene works without the knowledge of all the other scenes. That’s something we’re SUPPOSED to do in every script we write. But we never completely do it. And this script did.  Impressive!

Ironically, it’s the reason why it bombed at the box office. There’s just no way to sell this movie without massively spoiling its awesomeness. However, I have no doubt that Companion will make a killing in digital rentals and when it’s later released on Netflix. It will for sure become a cult classic and it deserves it!

Mickey 17 for the win!

Unfortunately, I’ve got too much work on my plate and, therefore, cannot write up a script review today. But I wanted to leave you with a brief reminder about the most important thing in screenwriting.

Have any idea what it is?

It’s CONCEPT.

And Mickey 17 is proof of that.

Hold up, many of you are saying, Mickey 17 just bombed at the box office. Why would this movie be proof of anything positive?

Are you ready for this?

I’m about to blow your mind.

The fact that it bombed is exactly why concept is so important in screenwriting (I know this was originally a novel but it was essentially written as a vehicle to get a movie adaptation, aka a screenplay).

You see, the most important component to making a studio movie (and even most indie movies) is POTENTIAL. Does the film have a shot at grabbing a huge paying audience? If the answer is yes, a script/novel/treatment/pitch will move up the ladder.

What’s the most proven way to create something with potential? A big concept. And Mickey 17 is a big concept. Nobody can argue that. Studio execs are willing to fall on these swords if they’re big ideas. Because it means they were gunning for the right thing – a movie that makes money.

When they get in trouble is when they push movies without clear concepts (or low concepts) and they bomb. Stuff like Megalopolis, Babylon, and Beau is Afraid.  Greenlighting those movies will get you fired.

But people WILL READ SOMETHING LIKE MICKEY 17 because when they hear that concept, they know it has potential. They also know that high concept material doesn’t need to be perfectly executed to perform well. Say hello to M3GAN or Us.

Always come up with the best and biggest concept you can. If you do that, you have a fighting chance as a screenwriter. If you don’t, breaking into this profession is nearly impossible.

Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Premise: Ten years after she disappeared as a teen, Violet, now 25, turns up with no
memory of what happened to her, but as her family welcomes her home, it quickly
becomes apparent that the past cannot be forgiven or forgotten.
About: These two writers first hit the trades ten years ago with a script called Mayday 109. The logline was, “The story of how a young World War 2 Navy commander saved a group of men after their ship was destroyed by the Japanese. That man? John F. Kennedy.”  They then went on to write Keeper of the Diary, about the attempt by Anne Frank’s father to sell her diary. This is their first high profile script I know about that is completely fictional.
Writers: Samuel Franco & Evan Kilgore
Details: 104 pages

Casey Affleck for Michael?

For the rest of this month, we’re going to be on a hunt. We’re going to be looking for scenes we can feature here on the site to work as inspiration for Scene Showdown. If you’re late to the party on Scene Showdown, here are the submission details.

What: Scene Showdown
Rules: Scene must be 5 pages or less
When: Friday, March 28
Deadline: Thursday, March 27, 10pm Pacific Time
Submit: Script title, Genre, 50 words setting up the scene (optional), pdf of the scene
Where: carsonreeves3@gmail.com

The fact that I couldn’t find a single scene from Sunday night’s episode of White Lotus, a show that hails from the best writer in television, is a reminder of just how difficult writing scenes is. I don’t think screenwriters think about it nearly enough. They think about their overall story then piece together a series of 1-2 page moments that, eventually, lead them to the conclusion of that story. But they don’t construct individual scenes unto themselves, scenes that have clear beginnings, middles, and ends.

It’s an epidemic and has become so common that I don’t think most writers even know how to write a scene anymore. I really don’t.

But I still go into every script hoping they do because I know that I’m going to have a much more enjoyable experience if they’re great scene-writers. So, let’s check it out!

Recently separated 36 year-old Michael Miller is going camping with his 14 year-old daughter, Violet. It’s going to be the last time they spend together for a while, as Violent will be going to live with her mom, Joanne.

Late at night, on the drive back from camping, Michael is stopped by a cop for speeding. The cop checks both Michael’s and Violet’s IDs, then request Violet get out of the car. Michael freaks out and tries to stop him but the cop threatens him with a gun. The cop then arrests Violet for distributing drugs, detains her in his car, and drives away. Michael tries to follow the cop but loses him.

When he finally makes it to the local police station, they say they don’t know this cop. After a few calls to other departments, they realize that the cop who picked Violet up was a fraud. Violet has been kidnapped.

Cut to 10 years later and Michael gets a shocking call. His daughter has been picked up in Mexico. Michael and Joanne head down there and retrieve their daughter, who has amnesia brought on by PTSD. The cops say to give her time. Her memory will come back.

(Things start getting spoilery from here on out)

When they get back to the U.S., a female detective named Manuela Garcia is assigned to cross the t’s and dot the i’s on the case. But she’s immediately suspicious that something is off regarding Violet. She’s particularly skeptical of the Mexcian cops, who refuse to send over the DNA test.

So Manuela goes down to Mexico to ask some questions. She immediately confirms that her suspicions were correct. This chick is definitely not Violet. But then who is she? And, more importantly, what happened to the real Violet? Manuela heads back to the U.S. to answer that question once and for all. But neither she, nor we, are prepared for what she discovers.

Okay, I got good news for you. WE’VE GOT SCENE WRITERS!

We get a fairly good one right away and then a really good one afterwards. That is the scene I’m pasting here. The setup is that this car has been riding Michael’s ass at night for a long time. Finally, Michael gets pissed and speeds away from it. As soon as he does, cop lights appear on the car, indicating it’s a cop, and he pulls them over.

This scene is an example of how classical situations can result in great scenes. Cops pulling you over create an immediate baseline of conflict that you can take in a lot of different directions in the scene. The trick with familiar scenarios is to build in your own unique details.

For example, this wasn’t a normal “cop pullover” scene. The cop baited them into breaking the law. It tricked them. So, already, we’re (the reader) more heated than we would usually be in this scenario because we know this cop is a snake.

From there, we have our clear beginning, middle, and end. To find your beginning, middle, and end, find the goal. That’s where you build your scene from. The goal doesn’t need to come from you hero. It can come from the villain. That’s the case here. The villain, the cop, wants the girl. That’s his goal. Now he just needs to execute his plan.

The middle of every story is your conflict section. It’s no fun if the person with the goal achieves that goal easily. There’s got to be pushback. We get that here in Michael and Violet resisting (and freaking out).

The highlight of this scene is something we don’t often talk about in scenes which is REVELATIONS. Revelations are great ways to pump up a scene, especially one that’s already cooking, like this one. The cop makes Violet get out of the car instead of Michael and then arrests her for drug-dealing (something that was vaguely set up in an earlier scene). We don’t know WHAT’S HAPPENING here.  This was not expected.  Which is why we’re so charged up.

That leads to the final act of the scene – the ending. This is the climax, where Michael tries to fight back, demanding answers. But the cop is able to hurry out of there and Michael isn’t able to get back on the road fast enough to follow him.

Really good scene.

As for the rest of the script, it’s good! The problem this particular story poses for writers is that, usually, all the best stuff happens in the first act. The girl goes missing. We cut to 10 years later where she reappears.

But then where is the story engine from that point on? Why would we keep reading? To see Michael, Joanne, and Violet have a series of awkward conversations for 90 minutes? You need something to drive the story. Kilgore and Franco achieve that by shifting the goal over to Detective Manuela.

She takes the reins and becomes the story engine – first looking to confirm that this is Violet and then trying to figure out what happened to Violent. In that sense, it’s a very well-written screenplay.

[major hints at spoiler below]

The climax of Vanished is the biggest whopper on this year’s Black List. I haven’t read 80% of the scripts yet but I know that’s the case. Cause this ending is a big swing. Does it work? It does! But is it perfect? No. It’s ALMOST there but not quite. If it got there, I would give this an impressive. But it was still darn close. And I appreciate the creative swing with the ultra twist ending. :)

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: A simple way to improve your scene-writing is to set up stuff BEFORE THE SCENE.  Then pay it off in the scene. One of the things you see happen in this scene is that Michael’s car won’t start. That ends up being the reason the cop gets away from him. This was set up a couple of times in earlier scenes. That this car was not top quality and was definitely on the unpredictable end. That setup allowed for the climax of the scene to be even more exciting.

REMEMBER THAT SCENE SHOWDOWN IS AT THE END OF THE MONTH. SUBMISSION DETAILS BELOW!

What: Scene Showdown
Rules: Scene must be 5 pages or less
When: Friday, March 28
Deadline: Thursday, March 27, 10pm Pacific Time
Submit: Script title, Genre, 50 words setting up the scene (optional), pdf of the scene
Where: carsonreeves3@gmail.com

A big reason I’m tracking White Lotus on the site every Monday is to see if Mike White can pull it off. Three straight seasons of a great show. It’s hard to do. And last week was the first time I spotted a loose piece of thread on the shirt.

One of the ways you can tell when writing is going bad is when it loses purpose. Things are happening on screen but you’re not entirely sure why they were included. With good writing, every scene, every moment, adds something to the story, whether it be the plot or something important about the character we didn’t know before. And it all falls under the umbrella of a story that’s building towards a conclusion.

I didn’t get a sense of that last week. That whole “get high and go watch a snake show” sequence (two characters leave the hotel to watch a local snake show), felt like a bad outtake from a rejected Hangover sequel. It was the opposite of purposeful. I had no idea why it was in the story and that usually indicates that the writer is trying to fill up time. That’s when you know you’re in trouble – when you’re just filling up pages so that the episode or movie can be long enough.

I’m sure Mike White has a different interpretation of why he included that sequence but there’s no question the last episode was the worst of the first three. So I went into this one hoping it was a one-off issue.

Was it?

Well, guys…

I’m getting worried. My White Lotus BVDs need a cleanin’.

Something I wanted to do with this episode was identify a great scene so I could share it with you here as inspiration for Scene Showdown. Mike White is a great scene-writer. So color me WTF’d when I got to the end of the episode without seeing a single good scene.

Almost every single moment in the script is a scene snippet as part of a larger sequence. One of the plotlines of this episode was that the loopy Ratliff family goes on a giant yacht courtesy of a girl Saxson met at the hotel. The whole yacht plotline was random and unfocused. We’d see the dad, Timothy, drinking and mumbling to himself. We’d see Saxson encouraging his little brother, Lochlan, to talk to girls. We’d see mom, Victoria, complain about her social anxiety.

But WHERE WERE THE SCENES!???

Scenes require structure. They require a beginning, a middle, and an end. They require someone who wants something, then that goal is complicated by conflict, then they either get what they want or they don’t.

The closest thing we got to that was Chelsea sitting her perpetually antagonistic older boyfriend, Rick, down and asking why he’s acted so weird the whole trip and why he’s demanding to take a side trip to Bangkok tomorrow (that’s the goal for the scene. She wants to know what’s up with him). He hems and haws, not wanting to tell her (that’s our conflict). But she pushes and, finally, he relents, telling her (spoiler) that the owner of this hotel killed his father. And he wants revenge.

While it’s the most “scene-y” scene in the episode, it isn’t a very good scene. The last three episodes have so heavily hinted at why Rick is here that the reveal isn’t surprising. Which means that *we* don’t benefit from the scene. Only Chelsea does. She’s now caught up with us. But how is that entertaining to the viewer? It isn’t.

Mike White is playing a dangerous game of what I call “swimming in sequences.” Sequences are, basically, long scenes. The argument for them is this: instead of coming up with a perfect beginning, middle, and end for a scene every two minutes, why not create a larger sequence – one with a bunch of scene snippets – and use that to create your beginning, middle, and end.

And when you’re on top of your sequence writing – when you deftly outline their beginning, middle, and end – they can work. Just like scenes work. But because sequences are so much longer, it’s easier to get lost in them. And the next thing you know, you’ve got 6-7 scene snippets, but because they’re not tightly constructed enough, the sequence feels loose and unconfident.

Which is exactly how this boat sequence felt. Where was the goal of the sequence? Without that, you’re screwed. Cause now nobody in the audience knows what we need from this boat ride! If you gave us SOME KIND of entry point, I would’ve been okay with that. For example, Saxson likes this French prostitute woman who invited them on the boat – the one who’s currently the girlfriend of the man who owns the boat. Okay, so give Saxon the goal of trying to have sex with her.

That’s actually a pretty strong entry point into the sequence – to try to have sex with the woman who’s beholden to the boat’s owner. Lot of potential conflict there. Lots of potential danger in the fallout. But we don’t get anything close to that.

I think back to the original season of The White Lotus, and they had these great scenes, like when Shane (the entitled rich newlywed) would challenge Armond (the hotel manager) about him screwing up their room booking. Armond, who would privately realize Shane was right but refuse to admit it, would have these marathon scenes with Shane where he would dance around saying sorry and look for ways to fix the problem that Shane was never satisfied with.

I liked those scenes so much, I highlighted one in my dialogue book.

We’re not getting enough of that this season and that’s usually an indication that the writer has lost the plot. They’re not really sure what the show/season is about. They’re not really sure what each individual character’s storyline is. They’re not really sure where they are in the season. When that happens, you throw in these big chunks of story that can eat up time in an episode (sequences) and you just, sort of, have stuff happen in them, like Saxson and Lochlan hitting on some Thai wives for 3 minutes.

It’s lacking definition and I’m legitimately worried. Cause I love this show so much. But I also know how hard it is to write an extended story well. Sometimes I believe that all writing is just a house of cards and that if a writer is forced to write for long enough, the story will fall apart. Which is why the first movie in a franchise is awesome. Second movie, not so much. Third movie, getting worse.

Same thing with TV. Each season seems to get a little sloppier. Until we reach that final season, where the show starts to get back on track. The reason for that is, the show has purpose again. It’s going to end at the end of the season. So the writer can now write towards a goal, instead of being stuck out in the ocean clinging to any piece of conflict or unresolved relationship issue he can find.

But the good news is, you can manage this problem if you understand its pitfalls, which I’ve just laid out for you. Structure is everything. The more you move away from it, the more trouble you’ll find yourself in. Create strong beginnings, middles, and ends to scenes. Definitely create strong beginnings, middles, and ends to sequences. As long as you’re doing that, you’re giving yourself a chance. :)