Bluff City 18: Messy Business Pt. 3

Overview

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Episode Description

Citywide Film Festival 9.00pm Slot, Friday

Producing The Boardwalk, A Q&A Session

Description:

“Perhaps it’s time to take a break,” she said, and passing through the double doors I saw the light outside had changed - had come to dusk. The streetlights flickered all along the shore and men and women gathered up in coats and scarves were walking down beside the sea.  “It’s not for me,” I said, and shook my head. “Let’s get to work. I’ve never liked the beach.” She laughed and stepped outside. “It’s different here. The air is clear. The boardwalk has an end.” Behind us, in the dark, designers moved to fix the set, prepare another take. “Why did you leave?” I said. She took my hand, and pulled me through the lot toward the sand.

Opening Narration

Specialist Corson, start record: Article intake, file number 8504. Object: Um, it’s a car? You sent me a car. Let me see: It says- it says ‘Teardrop Coup’. C’mon, you know this isn’t the-. Alright, description: Um, two doors, four seats, it’s- it’s round. Like- I- uh- it has- it has really nice curves, uh, it’s a great powder blue, silver trim, cream interior. That’s what it’s called, right? The interior? There’s the stick in the middle, and pedals - I’m gonna say that it’s a manual.

Big trunk, there’s a spare tire in here- um, condition: I don’t see any scratches or anything. Let me pop the hood, get a look at the engine- yep, that’s an engine alright. Look, you know I don’t have the diagnostics for something like this, you’re gonna get what you’re gonna get unless you shell out for an expert.

[Alright, the tires: They look a little rough, actually. You know what? Now I’m down here, it looks like there’s some dirt and muck on the rear- carriage? on the undercarriage? Is that what it’s- Wait, there’s blood on this fucking thing, Mimona! You’re supposed to check for shit like this before you send it my way, you know my policy on unclassified blood! I’m doubling my invoice for this one - deal with it.

Price: Um, blue book says 7k, but with the wear and tear on this one, no way. Fifty… four hundred, maybe. Comments and analysis: Fire in hell, what do you want me to say? It’s a car. I think it probably hit someone, or drove through a crime scene, or maybe it is a crime scene. I’m not saying it’s a waste of my time but you know my speciality - crosstown ephemera - pencils, glassware, home movies- those little… canvas grocery bags. That’s my speciality, crosstown ephemera. Are cars ephemera? Like, maybe from a real bird’s eye view, maybe, I guess, and do not tell me to take my aerial form, okay- fuck you.

Next time, bring me a licence plate, bring me a… detachable faceplate from a stereo receiver, one of those cigarette lighter things, perfect. I can tell you who used that, I can tell you where they were going, I can tell you what brand they smoked - but a whole car? Fuck, you know this story. I am the knower of things hidden, secret and divine both. Not the knower of parking lot, subsection 4C. And before you say anything- no, it is a nice car, but it is not divine. It has been a long week, and things have been weird, so sorry for snapping - but please, next time, bring something like this to Bathin, maybe to Lee. Those folks? They know their chariots.

Music

This episode's main theme samples the second movement of Franz Schubert's Piano Trio in E flat Major, from a public domain mark 1.0 recording sourced from the European Archive via museopen. The dial tone heard in the opening and closing is from a recording by giddster, via freesound, licensed under a creative commons 0 license. 

Cast

• Austin Walker as GM
• Chris Andrews/Agent Ryder (Ali Acampora)
• Agent Heard/Robber Twig (Keith J Carberry)
• Maggie Darcy/Agent Seals (Janine Hawkins)
• Florence Slowly/Agent Page (Jack de Quidt)

Plot

Ryder pulls Page aside under the guise of helping Seals with Sleeves’ body. Page says that they “have to consider the possibility that [they] cannot trust Heard’s authority” and Ryder says that they can investigate “two things at once”.

Mike Truck pulls up a short way down the block to where the team is standing. He waves to them, calling out to Heard (using his cover name of Robber). Heard walks over to him before he can reach the team. Mike asks if Heard is moving out to the area and Heard agrees, and they discuss their love of the wetland area (“we have very positive feelings about wetlands and damp air”). Heard manages to get out of the conversation, and Mike returns to his partially-unfinished home. Heard tells the other agents not to trust Mike Truck.

The team discusses where they should head to next, and Heard suggests that Ryder should take Seals with her when she meets with Achilles Apollo. The team splits up, with Ryder and Seals taking the hire car service to meet with Apollo, and Heard and Page using Sleeves’ car to go to the Cultural Trust’s Film Office. Before they leave, Seals calls for the collection of Sleeves’ body by The Concern.

Ryder and Seals arrive at the Lounge bar to meet with Apollo. A marching band goes past the bar, effectively closing off the street outside. Ryder, comfortable in the quiet setting of the Lounge bar, writes Seals long letters in accordance to Lounge’s policy (Seals finds it “extremely weird” but goes along with it).

As Apollo sits down, he stops, having recognised Seals as being at the bowling alley in ‘A Bowling Alley, A Boxer, and A Bird’, and references Seals being in the IRS. Ryder presses him for more details on how he is involved with the Blake Blossum case (“investigators are given a mission and they involve themselves”). Apollo reluctantly agrees to tell her, showing her the film reel of Blake’s final film, ‘The Tunnel’. He explains that multiple people want the film, and that he had been sent to get it from the teardrop coup where it had been impounded by the Cultural Trust. He is torn, as he promised the film to both Gale Green and the Whitaker Syndicate. His plan was to give Gale the car and give the Whitaker Syndicate the film, so that neither will know he was in contact with the other group regarding the film, but now he is conflicted as Ryder is “giving [him] another opportunity to change [his] mind”. Seals says that she can create a situation where he will not be blamed for the film going to Gale.

Meanwhile, Heard and Page enter the Film Office as additional floats of a pig and a cow join the floating businessman. Page suggests that they should split up (“much will be gained via separation”), and Heard says that they should stick together and say that they are members of the Cultural Trust.

Heard approaches the reception desk and says that he is “Robert Wig” from the main office of the Cultural Trust. The receptionist says that they expected others from the main office and directs them upstairs to join “the others”. Once upstairs, they are directed towards one of the viewing rooms. Instead, Heard tells Page to decide where they go as “this is [her] first big shot mission”, and she says that they should go to look through their personnel files to look for further information on Blake Blossum. They pass the viewing room on the way where a group of sixteen people are smoking and watching confiscated vacation slides to review them.

They enter the personnel file room. Page quickly heads to look for information on Hector before Heard can familiarise himself with the filing cabinet layout to realise what she’s doing. On the bottom of his file it says ‘for additional, see Blake Blossum file’. When looking at Blake’s file, she discovers that Hector Hu was collaborating with Blake, and that Blake’s last film, The Tunnel, was explicitly made in collaboration with Hector. Heard reads Blake’s file, discovering that he arrived in Blough City a year ago and quickly rose to prominence as a director, which the Cultural Trust believed was due to the influence of someone in the Concern (by “providing funding and expertise”) and also Gale Green.

Hector, Gale, and Blake had been spreading word about Blake’s final film that would convince people to either leave Blough City or change it into something unrecognisable from the Cultural Trust’s vision for the city. Page does not tell Heard that she was looking in Hector’s file, so he remains unaware of Hector’s connection to Blake.

Above them, they hear hail begin to slam down onto Blough City. The parade continues, with the floats protecting the people underneath and undamaged by the hail.

Meanwhile, in the Lounge, Seals proposes that Apollo fakes being robbed, thus explaining to the Whittaker Syndicate why he doesn’t have the tape (“there’s places we can hit you that won’t do lasting damage”). Apollo says they would need to “go bigger” in order to sell the ruse to the Whittakers, and they discuss this (“no kidneys, no joints, there are certain parts of the head that are okay-”) while Ryder writes a letter detailing her offer to help bring Apollo over to Bluff City and set him up there.

Apollo agrees, and Ryder calls Finnegan Hands to arrange a temporary safe house at Finnegan’s place until they can get Apollo to Bluff City. As soon as Finnegan hears that Apollo is getting a way out of Blough City he expresses a very keen interest in also getting out of Blough and Ryder agrees to help him also get out of Blough (“I’ll help you however I can”). Apollo gives Ryder the Blake Blossum film and she can feel it moving in her hands for a moment before it stops.

The team meets back up outside the Citywide Film Festival. People are already arriving by the time they arrive. The Courtyard is filled with a huge crowd of people with umbrellas to protect them from the hail. The Christmas music from the parade can be heard as the parade goes past. Ryder and Page spot an infinity symbol on one of the floats, and a passer-by tells them that they should join up to the “endless jubilee”, and they realise that this is the Blough City analogue to Omega Love. Ryder grins, happy to see the sense of community in the parade that she hadn’t yet seen in Blough City.

The team head to Gale’s office, where she is practising her welcoming speech and finishing her preparations. She asks if Apollo sent them and Ryder says that he did, handing the teardrop coup keys and the film hidden inside a note that says “just nod and smile” (so that Heard will not realise that Ryder is giving Gale the film). Gale nods and smiles, asking after Apollo (“he’s always been a great ally to the arts”). Heard senses that subterfuge is happening but does not see Ryder hand off the film.

Gale offers to give them seats at the Festival, leading them upstairs of the second floor of the church to a small temporary balcony. They watch the beginning of the festival - Gale Green’s introductory speech (“it’s not just newsreels and war films any more”), a few of Gale’s own films, a few films from other filmmakers (thirty minutes of traffic, film of the parade, 1950s exploitation films) before Gale finally introduces Blake’s film, gesturing towards them.

They turn to see Hector Hu sitting in the back corner of the balcony with them. He hits the button on the projector to start Blake’s film.

It is “immediately entrancing” - the footage moves from the edge of the Thicket into a tunnel at the edge of the desert, slowly walking into the darkness until the footage is completely dark. The audience begins to get tense and scared. When they look at back at the projector it looks and sounds like bugs moving around. The footage finally reaches the light, changing into being inside a car and then being in another place entirely - a boardwalk in an unfamiliar place, bright and cheerful. A boombox plays, people laugh, kids flirting, old people on vacation, “grimy in this really intriguing way”.

The team realise from the footage that the world shown there is too harsh to be Bluff City, but a third place that is unknown to them. The camera pans to Hector Hu, who says that he is going to give them a tour of a place called “Bluffington”, telling the audience that it is “the real world”.

They realise that the Concern would not want the public to know that this third place exists, and that the Concern would undoubtedly want them to destroy the film.