Pilot -- Lawless - Bullets Over Euphoria

Drama - New Series, 49 pages
Crime, Drama

Posted by Tom S. Parker

Written by Tom S. Parker and Jim Jennewein

Viewed by: 16 Members
Uploaded: Jan 23, 2013
Latest Draft: Feb 12, 2014

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Comments on Pilot -- Lawless

When the city of Euphoria goes broke and has to fire its police force, crime runs rampant and citizens live in fear. Until a desperate stranger arrives in town whom they hope will be their defender... provided he works for minimum wage and buys his own bullets.

Episode Synopsis

(Winner of the 2013 Sundance "Table Read My Screenplay Competition, TV Category.") Brad Eckstrom's investigation into the theft of his valuable baseball leads him into a deadly confrontation with the local crime boss.

Character DrivenCrimeEnsemble CastLaw EnforcementMystery

Time Period: PresentStory Location: USASpecial Effects: Minimal SFXTarget Audience: Adult

The Pitch

Brad Eckstrom, 32, ex-Marine Special Forces, comes to the town of Euphoria to retrieve his dead grandfather’s valuable baseball (autographed by Lou Gehrig) from a bank safe deposit box. Just as he’s about to leave, two robbers burst in with shotguns. But Brad’s not intimidated by a couple of armed men. He’s faced far worse in Iraq. He gives chase in his car, calls 911 and tells DEE DEE, the chatty dispatcher, that he’ll stay on the robbers’ tail until the cops show. That’d be a problem, she says says. Since the town went bankrupt, the cops walked off the job. “Let the robbers go,” says the operator, “whatever they took is not worth getting yourself killed.”

Brad’s not backing down, with manic intensity he pursues the thieves’ pick-up. He crashes, the robbers getting away. He wakes in the hospital to see the town MAYOR and the 911 dispatcher Dee Dee standing there with a proposition. The town is really freaked they don’t have police protection, the mayor has checked out Brad’s background with Brad’s father who lives in the area ... and they want to offer the job of police chief to Brad, minimum wage, of course. Brad’s having none of it. “I’ve been a lot of things, but being a cop isn’t one of ‘em.” He says he’s going to track down the guys who stole his ball, get it back and then he’s leaving town. Since Brad’s car is totalled, the mayor gives him an idle police cruiser to get around in. Brad takes the deal, making it clear he’s not taking the job, and as soon as he gets the ball back, he’s outta there. Fine, fine, the mayor says, but he knows that if the townspeople see Brad driving the police cruiser around they’ll give him kudos for solving the no cops problem.

Brad starts investigating the crime, crossing paths with the rich stew of characters we’ll have in the series. A main character is Brad’s father RORY, 72, a hard-as-nails, demanding former military man who moved to town a few years ago with his forth wife. Father and son have lots of issues -- mainly because Rory tried to mold his son into a carbon copy of himself. Rory suspects there are dark forces at work, principally VAL SARAFIAN. Sarafian envisions himself as the Steve Jobs of crime. Be it drugs, women, gambling, car theft or weapons trafficking, Sarafian finds the Euphoria area a perfect place to base his operations. He’s only eighty miles from a major city, but far enough away so that the sparse force of underpaid cops will be easy to bribe.
Another dangerous adversary is Archie Wyatt, the former chief of police. Despite Brad’s insistence that he’s not there to stay, the former chief sees him as an enemy out to take his job.

As Brad gets closer to solving the crime, he starts to get under the skin of the corrupt forces in town. At first they thought he was just a guy they could scare off, but they soon realize Brad doesn’t scare easily. Sarafian sends his thugs after him, but Brad, being skilled in hand-to-hand combat, takes them all down. Finally, one of Wyatt’s former deputies comes to Brad with a deal. The deputy has found out where the robbers are. If Brad helps him take down the thieves, Brad will get his ball back and then he can leave town -- so the deputy can become the new chief.

Brad and the deputy storm the robbers’ hideout -- but it’s a trick. The robbers and the deputy are in cahoots and have lured Brad there to kill him. In a tense scene, Brad turns the tables on the three, convincing the robbers that the deputy is going to kill them after they kill Brad. Gunshots explode, the robbers are killed and the deputy is captured.

In the denouement, Brad agrees to become the new chief of police. Minimum wage, no benefits, plus he has to buy his own bullets. And all the bad guys, including Wyatt and Sarafian, are sharpening their knives to get him.