Episode description[edit | edit source]
[Three sheets of letter size paper, pink, secured to a telephone pole in a column. Bluff City.]
THE ALBATROSS CASINO is OPENING SOON!
But! What if you DON’T KNOW ANYTHING? WOW!! What a missed OPPORTUNITY that would be ($$$)
If YOU pay ME i will TEACH you how to PLAY CASINO GAMES
BLACKJACK. POKER. MECHANICAL HORSE RACING.
No game too EASY. No game too DIFFICULT.
555-423-7431!!
CRAPS. SLOTS. PACHINKO.
No game too NEW. No game too OLD. I KNOW THEM ALL!
——
555-423-7431!! CALL me! And I will teach YOU!
I’ll teach FAST. You’ll learn FAST. And once you’ve got the games down:
SPECIAL TRICKS. New TACTICS
Ways to WIN the casino will have NIGHTMARES about
I’ll explain BETTING ODDS to you and I’ll do it CLEARLY
Because I KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!
You CAN’T GO WRONG
———
And MY credentials? GOOD QUESTION.
I am a SMART MAN with a LIBRARY CARD
Is an ACE high? Or LOW?
I have an ACADEMIC UNDERSTANDING of “spread BETTING”
The casino is COMING. Do NOT miss OUT ($$$) 555-423-7431!!
Contents[edit | edit source]
Opening[edit | edit source]
“
Bright lights, blue sea, big money. Organized crime, unemployment, pollution. Hard workers, happy tourists, live music. Struggling businesses, broken bridges, terrible corruption. When I say the name “Atlantic City”, which of those words jump to your mind? Is it a destination, a work in progress, a complete failure? It’s been called the Queen of Resorts and America’s Favorite Playground, but is it anything more than an old city in rapid decline? This is the debate that talking heads have been having for years. Well, I’m Julian H Bluff, and I’m here to end that debate once and for all. The only way I know how: by changing this town. I’m here to cut through the Gordian knot that is Atlantic City.
Sorry for all the drama, folks. As some of you already know, I’m a local boy turned actor turned entertainment impresario, and when I was invited here to speak at TED, well, you know I had to bring a little bit of theater to my Talk. The truth is, Atlantic City is all of those things right now. And I know firsthand from growing up in my grandma’s little mansion in Bluffington Beach that Atlantic City is a land of contrasts, but it’s also a city on the precipices of great change. And great change is always in need of an usher.
And that is where Bluff City Studios comes in. Movies, television, livestreaming. This is my gift to my hometown. In just a few years of operation, we have brought jobs back to this city. We’ve revitalized a district that was plagued with vandalism and antisocial behavior, and we’ve invested in new ventures that go beyond simple entertainment. But telling stories is at the heart of Bluff City Studios. Which is why I am so proud to announce that our next big feature is gonna be something like an origin story. Our own take on the first night the casinos opened in our little town. We’re calling it Grand Opening. It’s got everything you’d want in a picture. Mystery, comedy, crime, horses, and a whole lot of hard luck.”
Plot[edit | edit source]
It is thirty-six hours before the opening night of The Albatross, Bluff City’s first casino.
The episode opens on a tracking shot following Carly Nebraska through the still-being-finished casino as the Neil Sedaka version of ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’ plays. As she passes the people working they look away from her, pretending not to see her as they know that she is not supposed to be there.
Carly finally reaches her brother, Nash Nebraska, who is busy directing workers. Carly shows him the casino chips that are in the weekender- style bag she is carrying. Nash double-checks with her that everything is there, and Carly says that she didn’t bring them all, as they wouldn’t fit in her bag for one trip.
Nash takes them to his office, and says that he thought she would have asked people to help people move them, as he told her to bring them all. Carly is upset that Nash hasn’t thanked her for her work and Nash tries to make amends to her so that they don’t part on bad terms (“mom said we shouldn’t fight, and we shouldn’t”), reminding her that the opening of the casino is something they are doing together, as a family. Carly accepts his apology, saying that she was just feeling stressed and didn’t mean to be “sharp” with him. She leaves, telling Nash that she will get the remaining chips.
Instead of doing this, Carly calls her friend Herc Verandanza from the casino lobby payphone. She tells him about her discussion with Nash and points out the blue van in the loading bay to him, telling him that there is $500,000 in the van in casino chips. She tells him that because of the large amount of money, a small amount could go missing without anyone noticing (“like a tip”). Herc tells her that it being the first day of the casino people are unlikely to notice, but that if people do notice the discrepancy it’ll be easy to track down who stole the chips, and that she should be careful (“what, me? I’m always careful!”). She then goes through security using her own ID.
In the loading bay, Herc gets in the service elevator and takes it to The Crow’s Nest, where his friend Judy Waters is overseeing the finishing touches to the penthouse. He tells her that he is getting a lot of action on the 4pm horserace on the horse ‘The Duke of Monte Carlo’, and that he’s having second thoughts about the race, as if that horse does win he will have to do an enormous payout.
Herc says they need to find out where the people who have been putting bets on ‘The Duke of Monte Carlo’ have been getting their information, and tells her to talk to Jackie Sound and that if she needs any extra help that she should talk to Carly as she is “a good egg” (“I don’t need eggs, I need information”).
Jackie pulls Judy out into the hallway (“are you up for this? This is big”), and asks what she knows about horses (“anything”, says Judy). He tells her that he has fixed the next day’s 4pm race so that ‘The Archbishop’ will win, and that he’s fixed the odds to look like a long shot (“someone sets the odds and I know that someone’s someone”). Unfortunately, he has misremembered the name of the horse, and ‘The Archbishop’ (the horse name he says) is actually ‘The Duke of Monte Carlo’ (the horse Herc has been taking bets on). She asks if he’s spoken to the horse, and Jackie reassures her and tells her that he has (“very good vibe, very powerful horse. This is royalty!”).
Jackie finds Nash, who he has been coning out of various small amounts of money, at the afternoon staff mixer to tell him about the 4pm horse race. Jackie tells him that the horse that will win is number eight ‘Cinnamon Crisco’, purposefully giving him bad information so that Nash will lose a large amount of money to him. Nash, assured by Jackie, going “double all in” on Cinnamon Crisco (“wow, I’ve never seen anyone with guts like yours, you’ve got beautiful guts”).