STORY MAPS: TV Drama: The Structure of the One-Hour Television Pilot

by Daniel Calvisi

  44-45 CLIMAX (“C”): Olivia delivers a bombshell to Cyrus: Amanda Tanner just became her client! She’s taking on the President of the United States, her former lover. (End “C” story)

  CLIFFHANGER: How can she win against the President? Has Sully given her the strength to reveal the truth to the world about her own affair?

  MR. ROBOT PILOT “eps1.0_hellofriend.mov”

  Written By Sam Esmail

  Mr. Robot was a sleeper hit in the summer of 2015, giving a nice jolt of energy to a stagnating USA Network slate with perfect timing in a year of high-profile corporate hacks. I must admit, I was reluctant to give it a chance, considering the horribly on the nose title. But after many friends recommended it, I discovered a fantastic pilot that utilizes the “Teaser plus five” Story Map in every crucial way. It takes a lot of familiar parts and weaves them together into an expertly paced whole that leaves us hooked to watch more.

  The archetypes are nothing new. It’s part The Matrix, part Fight Club, with an anti-social hacker vigilante hero (who is a drug addict, of course) we’ve seen too many times in the last two decades. There’s a boardroom filled with a bunch of creepy rich guys in suits, a posse of menacing Men in Black, a mega-corporation known as “Evil Corp,” and there’s even a Ferris Wheel scene that some would say recalls The Third Man. Yet it feels fresh, because the details feel authentic as the story finds unique methods of turning the screws on our young, troubled protagonist. And it’s the humanity of the characters we discover within this dark, digital world that really makes it come alive.

  We care about Elliot from the first scene, when his monologue reveals crucial details about his character and his past, like his emotional isolation and his father’s death due to company malfeasance. This talky teaser needed a big ending, and it comes in the form of the police arriving to arrest the kiddy porn trafficker. We believe Elliot when he says he doesn’t care about money, and only an expert could have hacked the trafficker, thus making Elliot the perfect person for the mysterious Mr. Robot to recruit to erase the world’s credit card debt. It’s not until the extended Midpoint sequence that peaks in the E-Corp server farm that Elliot passes the first test that will make him Mr. Robot’s next cyber-soldier, and it takes until Act Four for Robot’s full plan of attack to be revealed. Still, Elliot’s not convinced he wants to join this underground army, not until the one person that he truly cares about is wronged. It’s E-Corp CEO Colby’s act of banishing Angela from the cyber-security team that pushes Elliot to hand over Colby’s IP address to the FBI just as Mr. Robot had instructed. This is Elliot’s Declaration of War, his “Going All In” and “All Is Lost” moment.

  This points out a key difference between Elliot and Mr. Robot, just one of the ways in which they make great Shadows of one another: Elliot acts locally and for personal reasons, whereas Robot acts in order to bring about a global revolution, not caring about collateral damage. The differences continue. According to him, Elliot’s father was a good man killed by a corrupt system. Robot’s father was a criminal that got caught, losing his son’s respect in the process. Elliot is a lone wolf who faces his targets, while Robot works in anonymity with a team. Elliot works inside the machine and Robot is off the grid. These two have many conflicts ahead of them, yet they are bound by purpose.

  Like all effective pilots, Mr. Robot lays a lot of track for future arcs. We are introduced to several characters with long-term potential. The E-Corp brass, Mr. Robot’s hacker crew, Shayla the dealer/girlfriend, Krista the therapist, Angela the best friend, Gideon the AllSafe boss who trusts Elliott enough to reveal a personal secret. The psychological angle adds another fun layer to keep us guessing. We follow the story through Elliot’s eyes and are privy to his thoughts via voiceover—can we trust what we are seeing when even he questions his reality?

  The opening and closing images of the mysterious boardroom cabal are bookends, but when the group is ultimately revealed to be led by Tyrell Wellick, Elliott breaks the fourth wall and pleads with us in voiceover: “Please tell me you’re seeing this, too.”

  MR. ROBOT

  Pilot ““eps1.0_hellofriend.mov”” (2015)

  Written by Sam Esmail / Directed by Niels Arden Oplev

  TEASER

  1 OPENING: V.O. from ELLIOT over images of shadowy men in a conference room. They are “the top 1% of the top 1%” who are secretly running the world. And he believes they’re following him.

  New York City. On a subway train, Elliot is being watched by men in dark suits.

  2-7 CATALYST: At a coffee shop, Elliot meets with the OWNER. He shows him evidence of the child pornography he hacked from the man’s private servers. The man thinks Elliot wants money, but Elliot’s intentions are for justice; the police arrive to take the man into custody and Elliot walks away.

  ACT ONE

  7 A DRUNK (whom we will meet later) on the subway speaks to Elliot, tells him it’s “an exciting time in the world right now.” Elliot ignores him.

  8 Elliot reports to his job at Allsafe cyber-security firm, where his boss GIDEON is angry that their client is still getting hacked. (“A” Story: Elliot, Mr. Robot and E-Corp) Elliot’s best friend from childhood, ANGELA, 20s, a junior account exec, got him the job here. (“C” Story: Elliot and Angela)

  9 Angela is upset that Elliot didn’t attend her birthday party at a bar the night before. Flash to Elliot standing outside the bar, scared. He has social phobia, and doesn’t like being touched.

  10 Elliot can’t stand Angela’s boyfriend, OLLIE. Ollie can’t understand why Elliot doesn’t like him.

  11-15 Elliot talks to his therapist KRISTA. (“B” Story: Krista and her boyfriend) He doesn’t tell her that he did some hacking and found out she’s dating a guy named Michael Hansen with no internet footprint, which makes Elliot suspicious. Elliot gives a passionate monologue about why he hates society, but it turns out to be in his head; he never said it aloud. When Krista asks him if he’s still seeing the “men in black,” he lies to her and says no.

  15-17 At Allsafe, Ollie asks Elliot to lunch, but Elliot says no. Elliot hacked Ollie and knows he’s cheating on Angela.

  18-19 INCITING INCIDENT: The execs from their biggest client, E-CORP, arrive. Elliot calls them “Evil Corp.” TERRY COLBY, the CTO, is a douche with a Blackberry, but his younger right-hand man TYRELL WELLICK seems to genuinely be tech-savvy. TURN: Tyrell seems to be fascinated by Elliot. But why?

  20-21 Elliot comes home to a drab, empty apartment. His only company is his fish “Qwerty.” Later, Elliot cries, then he snorts a measured amount of morphine. His sexy drug dealer, SHAYLA, comes over to deliver some pills. She offers him ecstasy.

  ACT TWO

  22-24 AFTERMATH: Elliot lies awake in bed with a naked Shayla sleeping next to him. He goes out alone to the streets to do some work. FIRST TRIAL/FIRST CASUALTY: Elliot tracks Michael Hansen and Krista on a date. He tricks Michael into giving him his cell phone number, so he can hack him. He notices Michael is mean to his little dog, “Flipper.” (Dog setup)

  25-30 MIDPOINT: Angela calls Elliot from work because E-Corp has just suffered a massive hack. He comes in to try to stop the quickly spreading virus, but he can’t do it from the office. Gideon flies him to E-Corp’s HQ so he can work in E-Corp’s server farm. Elliot saves the day with some brilliant coding.

  30 TURN: The anonymous hackers left a signature, “fsociety,” with the message “LEAVE ME HERE.”

  31 DECISION: Elliot leaves the malicious code in the E-Corp mainframe and reconfigures it so only he has access to the server.

  ACT THREE

  32 AFTERMATH: On the corporate jet home, Gideon shares a secret with Elliot: he’s gay. Gideon says that he can talk to Elliot, more than the others. Gideon is worried that they might lose E-Corp as a client, which is 80% of their business. Elliot promises him that he will find the hackers.

  35-40 SHADOW SHOWDOWN: On the subway, the drunk reveals himself as “MR. ROBOT,” the one who put the root virus code on the E-Corp se
rver. He tells Elliot a story about his father, a petty thief who lost his respect when he got caught and went to jail. Mr. Robot takes Elliot to his secret tech room in Coney Island, introducing him to his team of eccentric TECHIES. Elliot is scared to join them.

  ACT FOUR

  41-42 Angela shows up at Elliot’s apartment for a movie night. She sees Shayla still in Elliot’s bed and says she’s happy that he’s “dating.” He is embarrassed.

  42-48 ASSUMPTION OF POWER: Elliot gathers evidence online, making up a file to give to the police to turn in “fsociety.” On the Ferris Wheel on Coney Island, Mr. Robot pitches Elliot his grand scheme to erase all of E-Corp’s files, and, by extension, all of the debt owed to them by the common man. He calls it the biggest incident of wealth redistribution in history. Their first target will be Terry Colby. Elliot must give the FBI Colby’s IP address so it looks like he did the hack, and it will set in motion a revolution. Elliot does not agree to do it.

  Elliot researches debt, disparity of wealth, and makes up one of his data CDs, unsure if he will use it.

  50-54 INTEGRATION (A & C): Elliot sits in a big meeting at Allsafe led by Terry Colby. When Angela makes one small mistake, Terry has her unceremoniously removed from the room, shocking Elliot. DECLARATION OF WAR: Elliot gives the FBI the report with Colby’s IP address. (Elliot goes “ALL IN” and “ALL IS LOST.”)

  ACT FIVE

  55 AFTERMATH: It’s been 19 days and nothing has happened. Elliot turns to Krista’s deadbeat boyfriend, Michael.

  56-58 CLIMAX (“B”): Elliot blackmails Michael, demanding that he break up with Krista, tonight, and come clean to her about his wife and affairs. Elliot also takes Flipper. (Dog payoff) (End “B” Story)

  60 CLIMAX (“C”): Elliot confronts Angela, who’s been avoiding him. She tells him not to stick up for her like he did in the meeting, says “Let me lose.” He hugs her, maybe for the first time, and they share a moment. (End “C” Story)

  62 CLIMAX (“A”): Terry Colby has been arrested! Mr. Robot’s plan worked. But Elliot’s celebration is cut short when he is thrown into a car by MEN IN BLACK.

  64 EPILOGUE: Elliot is brought to the conference room where the group of BUSINESS MEN in suits gather (the 1% of the 1% glimpsed in the Opening montage). Their leader is Tyrell Wellick. Elliot turns to us.

  ELLIOT (V.O.)

  Please tell me you’re seeing

  this.

  TRUE DETECTIVE PILOT

  “THE LONG BRIGHT DARK”

  Written By Nic Pizzolatto

  In early 2013, the television landscape was rocked by the debut of True Detective, an epic 8-episode drama from HBO that blurred the line between television and cinema more than ever. It was a serial killer crime procedural -- as familiar a genre as they come -- but the execution was so unique and at such a high level of craft that the series immediately established itself with viewers and critics alike as one of the great achievements in the modern era of television drama.

  From the start, the series broke with convention. One writer, one director, for all eight episodes. Two big movie stars in the lead roles. Three separate time periods, spanning 17 years. A focus on character over plot, with a "literary" (to borrow a term from the original pitch document) approach that incorporated complex philosophical theories with multiple story threads and a rich off-screen world. Episodes would often end on an ambiguous note, with a teasing element left merely in subtext. In fact, key elements were often introduced, not to pop up again for another two or three episodes. There was a trust in the audience that they would not only watch closely but analyze the content, discuss it online and wait for the convergence of all of these threads in a slam-bang climax.

  With the long time frame and the extensive cross-cutting between 1995 and 2012, narrative structure in True Detective was a huge undertaking. The pilot episode, "The Long Bright Dark," needed to clearly establish the framing device of the 2012 interviews with the seamless interweaving of the 1995 murder investigation (while hinting at events in 2002, a third time period to come), show the theme in action with the defining characteristics of our two leads as they drove the story forward, drop a few details of the sprawling criminal case while teasing others, and fit it all into a tight five act structure with cliffhanger endings for each act. I should note that my original map was only four acts in total, but I chose to define a short Act Four as a “bridge act” since this section feels like a separate movement, followed by a slightly longer Act Five. I suggest you watch the episode with the map in front of you, as it is quite complex.

  We will not discuss season two of True Detective. It’s best left alone.

  TRUE DETECTIVE

  Pilot “The Long Bright Dark” (2014)

  Written by Nic Pizzolatto / Directed by Cary Fukunaga

  ACT ONE

  1 [OPENING TITLES SEQUENCE]

  2-4 FRAMING DEVICE (Interviews in 2012) established as we watch two men being interviewed by the same duo of police officers (“A” story: Hart and Cohle’s partnership):

  MARTIN HART (Rustin’s Dynamic Ally and Shadow) talks about his former partner, Rustin Cohle, who was known as an odd sort, from Texas; they called him the “Tax Man.” They’d only worked together for four months before they caught the case of Dora Lange and the kids in the woods, in 1995.

  RUSTIN COHLE looks worse for wear. Refuses to stop smoking in the interview room. They caught the case on January 3, 1995, his daughter’s birthday...

  5-8 INCITING INCIDENT (1995): Cohle and Hart show up to the crime scene, the ritualistic slaying of a young woman. Naked corpse is tied to a tree, wearing antlers, with tattoos, possibly Satanic. Cohle takes meticulous notes and makes drawings in his big ledger, which is how he got the nickname Tax Man. (“B” story: The Dora Lange murder.)

  (2012) Back to the interviews, Hart expounds on the different kinds of cops (THEME: What makes a “true detective”). Cohle was very smart, quiet, but “past a certain age, a man without a family can be a bad thing.” Cohle lives alone in a tiny bare apartment, sleeps on a mattress on the floor, surrounded by stacks of books on serial killers and police work.

  10 (1995) Cohle studies sculptures left at the crime scene: bundles of sticks tied together in a triangular pattern, hanging from the tree. He comes up with a theory on the killer, a “metapsychotic” who will kill again. Hart thinks Cohle is jumping to conclusions, warns against bending the narrative to support an assumption.

  12 Hart awkwardly invites Cohle to his home for dinner. Hart’s wife has been insisting on the invitation.

  14 TURN: Cohle shows up at Hart’s house that night, drunk. COMPELLING CRISIS: The “family man” forced to team up with the “unstable single guy.”

  ACT TWO

  14-18 AFTERMATH: In the car after the crime scene, Hart and Cohle clash over religion and the nature of humanity. Hart regrets his attempt to get Cohle to open up.

  18-21 At police HQ, Hart vouches for Cohle to his CAPTAIN. Hart will remain the lead on the case, and lead a debriefing at a press conference tomorrow.

  22-26 FIRST TRIAL: Cohle on his own at night, questioning hookers about the victim. Cohle asks a PROSTITUTE to get him pills so he can sleep. FIRST CASUALTY: Cole is a mess, possibly a drug addict.

  28 MIDPOINT: The victim is ID’d: Dora Kelly Lange, a former prostitute (as Cohle predicted and Hart doubted).

  30-34 NEW COMPLICATIONS: They find no evidence at the morgue. They argue again. Cohle tells Hart, “I don’t sleep, I just dream.” They are told about a little girl that went missing years ago named Marie Fonteneau. (Setup for later episodes: the first victim.)

  34-35 TURN: At a black church, Cohle shows his ledger to the PASTOR, who recognizes the stick sculptures. HINT AT MORE/NEW CHALLENGE: His grandma used to call them “Devil’s Nets.” Occult items.

  ACT THREE

  35-36 AFTERMATH (1995): They talk to SHERIFF TATE, a pompous ass, about the Fonteneau case and another girl who was chased through the forest by a man she called the “green-eared spagh
etti monster.” (Setup for later episodes: the killer’s facial scars.)

  38 Hart and Cohle talk to Dora Lange’s ex-husband CHARLIE in jail. The last time he saw her, she was high and talking nonsense, like she “met a King.” (Setup for later episodes: the killer known as the “Yellow King.”)

  40 ASSUMPTION OF POWER (“B”) (2012): Cohle surprises the cops when he tells them he knows that they’re on the case of the recent murder in Lake Charles.

  41-47 SHADOW SHOWDOWN (1995): Dinner at Hart’s home with his wife MAGGIE and two young girls. Hart takes pity on drunk Cohle and offers to create a reason for him to duck out after ten minutes. At the dinner table, Cohle reveals to Maggie that he had a daughter that died, which led to the breakup of his marriage. Hart gives Cohle the opportunity to leave as they had planned, but Cohle stays. Hart steams.

  48 ASSUMPTION OF POWER (“A”) (2012): Hart reveals that he stopped talking to Cohle in 2002. The reasons for their falling-out were private, not related to the Dora Lange case. (Setup for later episodes: the incident that led to their breakup.) Even so, he makes it clear to the detectives that Cohle was a good cop.

  ACT FOUR

  49-50 DECLARATION OF WAR (1995): In the HQ, Cohle hits a fellow cop, showing no fear. The others think Cohle’s a former Internal Affairs rat.

  50-52 INTEGRATION (“A” & “B”): The cops meet REVEREND TUTTLE, who mentions the creation of a special division to focus on anti-Christian crimes, angering Cohle. ALL IS LOST: Hart tells Cohle that he pissed off the wrong guy—Tuttle is first cousin of Louisiana Governor Tuttle! Hart warns Cohle to watch his ass, as powerful people are now tracking them.

  ACT FIVE

  53 Hart and Cohle visit Marie Fonteneau’s AUNT and UNCLE, who looked after Marie when her parents dropped out of the picture.