BANDO
Format
9:16 vertical
Genre
Psychological thriller
Season
30 episodes
Location
Fayetteville, GA
The story
BANDO
LOGLINE
SYNOPSIS
The Explorers are six creators in a cluttered studio apartment: JAY, who runs the camera and believes the footage will save them; RILEY, who runs the stream and has never had an experience she didn’t convert into an audience; NOAH, who says everything is fake and believes every word anybody tells him; AVA, whose brand is fearless and whose hands shake off-frame; DIEGO, the tech, who tapes over every camera he owns; and MIA, the researcher, who has a notebook, a folder on radicalization, and a message thread with someone she deletes before the trip. Their biggest hit — the Savannah asylum — was staged in a Waffle House parking lot with a fake 911 call. Their audience is bored. They need something real. Mia has a house that fell off the county records in 1994.
The house in the Fayetteville woods is not a ruin. It is maintained. The porch light comes on with no grid within four miles; the refrigerator hums; a table is set for six. Upstairs, behind the only locked door, are hundreds of files, a map of the county with blocks blacked out, a document titled THE NEW AMERICA PROJECT, and a drawer of Polaroids — including one of Jay, taken last month. They didn’t find this house. It collected them.
The lights die. Four figures walk out of the treeline. The gate slams. A jammer kills every phone — except Riley’s stream, which Diego has hardlined into the house’s own uplink: they can’t call out, and the whole world can see in. The chat calls 911 forty times and a tired, competent dispatcher marks it low priority, because this is the channel that faked the asylum. The viewer count doubles. Then THE JUDGE speaks through the ceiling, calm and warm, and the killing starts — and we never watch it. We watch the chat argue about squibs.
The Judge puts Noah’s confession to a live vote. Ten million people vote NO. He takes over their stream, their font, their overlay, and makes a reasonable case to the audience that he does the same work the Explorers do, only honestly. Mia — who wrote to him first — crosses over. Ava dies for a flag. Diego dies on a cross. And ETHAN, the twenty-one-year-old recruit who has looked away all night, turns the rifle. Jay and Riley run a burning house with a bomb timer nobody in the room set, past a basement where an FBI agent’s chains have been cut with bolt cutters no one had.
Morning: the news calls it an elaborate hoax gone wrong. Twelve million people watched four people die and are still arguing. Riley’s phone buzzes with a map of America and a dozen red dots. THERE ARE MORE HOUSES. One is twenty miles north. It’s her mother’s.
Casting List
The characters.
Age: 22
RILEY THOMAS
Role: SERIES LEAD — THE STREAM
Age: 23
JAY CARTER (JAYDEN)
Role: THE RIG — THE ONE WHO KEEPS FILMING
Age: 24
NOAH WALKER
Role: THE SKEPTIC — FIRST TO DIE
Age: 21
AVA SINCLAIR
Role: "FEARLESS" — THE BRAND
Age: 23
DIEGO RAMIREZ
Role: THE TECH
Age: 22
MIA RODRIGUEZ
Role: THE RESEARCHER — THE ONE WHO WROTE TO HIM FIRST
Age: 60
THE JUDGE
Role: THE ANTAGONIST
Age: 50s-60s
SILAS McGRAW
Role: THE CHAPLAIN
Age: 30s-40s
TUCKER
Role: THE AXE
Age: 40
THE SMILING MAN
Role: THE PRODUCER
Age: 21
ETHAN CALLOWAY
Role: THE RECRUIT WHO TURNS
Age: 40s-50s
COLE MATTHEWS
Role: THE MAN IN THE BASEMENT — SPECIAL AGENT, FBI (?)
Age: 40s
FAYETTE COUNTY DISPATCHER
Role: DAY PLAYER — THE REASONABLE DECISION
Featured role · SERIES LEAD — THE STREAM
RILEY THOMAS
CHARACTER PROFILE
Female, 22. Runs the channel’s livestream; the phone is a shield, a lifeline and a habit. Reads chat out loud like a doctor reading test results. Has never had an experience she didn’t immediately convert into an audience, and the season strips that from her one layer at a time until she is on the floor with the phone facedown against her chest. She is the one made to watch. She says the season’s thesis once — “We taught them not to believe us” — and never repeats it.
Her mother, Denise, works second shift at a distribution center off Old Dixie; Riley calls her on Sundays. In the finale she zooms into a map and sounds twelve years old for the first time all season: “That’s my mom’s house.” Ends the season with a splinted leg and a channel that is still live. Season Two lead.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 9 — "THERE'S SOMEONE IN THE HALLWAY"
Read for the role of RILEY THOMAS.
See The Character Script
BANDO
Season One ·Episode 9 — "THERE'S SOMEONE IN THE HALLWAY"
EPISODE 9
“THERE’S SOMEONE IN THE HALLWAY”
Runtime: 1:30 – Question: is the chat seeing something they
can’t?
PHONE — INT. MANSION — LOWER HALL — NIGHT
Riley walking backward, filming the group. Trying to keep the
energy up. It’s a professional instinct and it’s failing.
RILEY
Okay so update, there’s cameras,
there’s food, there’s power, and we
are all being extremely normal
about it —
Her phone buzzes hard in her hand. A comment, boosted to the
top by a hundred people hitting it at once.
> THERE’S SOMEONE IN THE HALLWAY
Riley stops.
RILEY
(small)
Which hallway.
She turns her phone around. Sweeps the hall behind her.
Empty. Wallpaper. A runner rug. A door at the end, shut.
> THERE’S SOMEONE IN THE HALLWAY
> behind you
> guys stop it thats not funny
> im not kidding I SAW A PERSON
> screen record it
RILEY
There’s nobody — look. Look, I’m
showing you. There’s nobody there.
AVA
(off, from the other room)
Riley?
RILEY
It’s fine. Chat’s messing with us.
She lowers the phone. Starts to walk toward the others.
Her phone buzzes again.
BUTTON: NOT THAT HALLWAY.
Episode 21 — “THE VOTE”
EPISODE 21
“THE VOTE”
Runtime: 2:15 – Question: what will they choose?
INT. TUNNEL — BEHIND THE WALL — CONTINUOUS
Riley has her phone in both hands. She’s whispering into it
and it’s the most desperate performance of her life.
RILEY
Hey. Hey. It’s me, it’s Riley,
listen to me — vote yes. I’m
begging you. Vote yes and share it
and get your friends to vote yes —
The bar is moving the wrong way.
RILEY (CONT’D)
(reading, and her face
changes)
No no no —
PHONE SCREEN — THE CHAT
The top comment, boosted, thousands of likes climbing in real
time. And it isn’t a troll. That’s what kills her.
> theyve lied to us for 3 years.
let him say it on camera.
And under it:
> ^^^ this. they faked a 911 call.
people could have died
> finally accountability lmao
> im voting no as a BIT btw.
obviously this is staged
> voting no bc if its fake nothing
happens and if its real. idk.
content
> #BANDOVOTE trending
RILEY
(to the phone, and she’s
screaming in a whisper)
It’s not a bit. It’s not a bit,
it’s not a — he’s twenty-four,
he’s right there, I can see him —
JAY
Riley.
RILEY
They think it’s a bit —
INT. TUNNEL CHAMBER — CONTINUOUS
The bar locks.
> NO — 61%
And a man walks into the work lamp’s light.
Tall. Gaunt. The black robe. And a face, finally — sixty,
composed, unremarkable in a way that is far more frightening
than a monster would be. He looks like someone you’d let read
your file.
He looks at the camera the way a man looks at a jury.
BUTTON: THE JUDGE: (quietly) “The people have spoken.”
Featured role · THE RIG — THE ONE WHO KEEPS FILMING
JAY CARTER (JAYDEN)
CHARACTER PROFILE
Male, 23. Runs the camera and the analytics. Believes pointing a camera at a thing is the same as telling the truth about it. Taps his lens three times before he goes live — confidence, decision, performance — and in the last episode taps the air with no camera in his hand and doesn’t notice. The pleasure that crosses his face at two million concurrent is the ugliest thing he does. Survives, face a ruin, with the rig still recording on the floor pointed at the wall.
SIDES
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Episode 2 — "MID CONTENT"
Read for the role of JAY CARTER (JAYDEN).
See The Character Script
BANDO
Season One ·Episode 2 — "MID CONTENT"
EPISODE 2
“MID CONTENT”
Runtime: 1:45 – Question: why do these six need something
real?
INT. STUDIO APARTMENT — NIGHT
Cluttered. Six laptops, four monitors, takeout. On the big
monitor, footage of a dark hallway plays on loop — a shadow
crossing a doorway, then screaming, then a jump cut.
JAY CARTER, 23, watches the analytics under it. Views
climbing. Engagement flat.
JAY
They’re bored.
NOAH WALKER, 24, upside down on the couch, points at the
monitor with real affection.
NOAH
That shadow was me. That’s my
elbow. Four million views on my
elbow.
RILEY
(not looking up from her
phone)
Read the room, Noah.
NOAH
I’m just saying. Savannah did four
million and change and we made the
whole thing up in a Waffle House
parking lot.
Beat. A little proud of it. Nobody stops him.
NOAH (CONT’D)
We faked a 911 call and people were
crying in the comments. Actual
tears. Over my elbow.
AVA SINCLAIR, 21, without looking up:
AVA
And now they’re bored of your
elbow.
Riley starts reading comments out loud, flat, like a doctor
reading test results.
RILEY
“Mid.” “Seen scarier TikToks.”
“Y’all peaked at the asylum.”
“Fake.” “Fake.” “Fake.”
(she scrolls)
That’s twelve fakes in nine seconds. That’s a personal best.
JAY
So we stop giving them things to
call fake.
DIEGO RAMIREZ, 23, from behind a rig he’s rebuilding:
DIEGO
Or here’s a thought. We stop faking
things.
JAY
(sharp)
We do something real.
Silence. That word does something to the room.
Across from him, MIA RODRIGUEZ, 22, has not spoken. She has a
notebook open on her knees and she has been waiting for
exactly this sentence.
She drops it on the table.
BUTTON: MIA: “There’s a house that isn’t on any map.”
Episode 12 — “WE WERE INVITED”
EPISODE 12
“WE WERE INVITED”
Runtime: 1:45 – Question: did they find this house, or did it
collect them?
INT. LOCKED ROOM — CONTINUOUS
The floor is gone out from under all six of them at once.
RILEY
Are we in there? Are we all in
there —
She’s grabbing at the stack. Ava’s photo. Noah’s. Diego’s,
taken through a car window. Riley’s, from a livestream,
screenshot and printed.
Six photographs. No red X on any of them. Not yet.
NOAH
(very quietly)
This isn’t a place we found.
JAY
Mia.
MIA
Don’t.
JAY
How did you find this house.
MIA
I told you. A forum, I found a
thread, there was a —
JAY
Mia.
MIA
(and she believes this,
which is the horror of it)
I found it. I did the work. Nobody
handed me anything, Jay, I’m not
some — I’m not one of these people
who gets played, I know what that
looks like, I’ve spent four years
reading about what that looks like.
Beat.
AVA
Nobody said you got played.
Meanwhile — Riley’s phone. The chat has stopped joking.
Somebody has pulled a screenshot of the treeline out of the
stream and matched it against satellite imagery.
> satellite match. thats fayette
county rd 92 corridor
> posting coords now
> 33.4 deg N 84.4 deg W +/- someone
call it in
> CALLING IT IN NOW
> bro they faked a 911 call last
year. dispatch is gonna love this
Above them, the ceiling creaks. Once. A footstep, unhurried,
crossing from one side of the room above to the other.
Every head goes up.
They come down the stairs in a tight, silent line, and stop
in the kitchen doorway.
The table has been cleared and reset.
A plate. One plate, at the head of the table.
BUTTON: Steam is still coming off it.
Featured role · THE SKEPTIC — FIRST TO DIE
NOAH WALKER
CHARACTER PROFILE
Male, 24. The comic engine of the group and its conscience by accident. Proud that four million people watched his elbow in the Savannah footage. “I say everything’s fake and I believe every single word anybody tells me” — the truest thing he says all season, and it’s what gets him taken. On his knees under a work lamp with a camera on him, he confesses every staged scare, crying, apologizing to ten million people who vote NO. Eps 2–22, plus a memory V.O. in Ep 24. Needs real warmth; the audience has to grieve him.
SIDES
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Episode 10 — "THE ONLY LOCKED DOOR"
Read for the role of NOAH WALKER.
See The Character Script
BANDO
Season One ·Episode 10 — "THE ONLY LOCKED DOOR"
EPISODE 10
“THE ONLY LOCKED DOOR”
Runtime: 2:00 – Question: what’s behind the one door they’ve
locked?
INT. MANSION — UPSTAIRS HALL — NIGHT
Six doors. Five open onto ordinary rooms — beds made,
closets empty, everything dusted.
The sixth is locked.
MIA
Locks keep something in or somebody
out. There’s no third option.
NOAH
There’s a third option where we go
back to the van.
AVA
Nobody’s going to the van.
NOAH
(to the rig, deadpan, but
his voice is off)
Let the record show.
Diego crouches with a multi-tool. Works it. His hands are
good at this and everyone watches them because it’s easier
than looking at each other.
CLICK.
INT. LOCKED ROOM — CONTINUOUS
Different air in here. Dust, for the first time in the house.
Disturbed after a long time.
No furniture. Metal industrial shelving, floor to ceiling, on
all four walls.
Files. Hundreds. Manila, labeled in black marker in a small,
disciplined hand.
On the far wall, a map of Fayetteville with entire blocks
blacked out in marker.
JAY
(lifting the rig)
Are you getting this? Tell me the
stream’s up.
RILEY
(checking)
Stream’s up. Eight hundred
thousand.
NOAH
Eight hun–
RILEY
And climbing.
Mia is already at a shelf. She pulls a folder like she knows
the system. Opens it.
Handwritten pages. Aerial photographs of streets, circled in
red. And then a list.
Names. Ordinary names. Full addresses beside them.
Most of them have a line struck through.
BUTTON: MIA: (barely audible) “These are real people.”
Episode 20 — “CONFESSION”
EPISODE 20
“CONFESSION”
Runtime: 2:00 – Question: what will they make him say?
INT. TUNNEL CHAMBER — NIGHT
A wider room. A mounted camera on a tripod with a red light.
A single work lamp.
Noah on his knees under it, hands zip-tied. Blood at his
mouth.
Behind him, THE SMILING MAN — suit, forty, an expression of
perfect, unbroken pleasantness that never once reaches his
eyes.
Beside him, SILAS, who crouches down to Noah’s level like a
chaplain.
SILAS
(gently)
Nobody’s going to hurt you while
you’re talking, son. That’s a
promise and I keep them.
NOAH
I don’t — what do you want me to
say —
THE SMILING MAN
The truth. They’re watching. Two
million of them. They want to know
if you’ve ever lied to them.
Noah looks past the lamp, into the dark where his friends
are, where he can hear Riley saying his name.
SILAS
Confess, and you’re cleansed. It’s
not complicated and it’s not a
trick.
And here is the thing about Noah: he wants to be believed. He
always has. It’s the whole engine of him.
NOAH
(breaking)
Savannah was fake. The asylum. We
staged the whole thing, we scripted
the screaming, I called 911 from a
burner in a parking lot and we
filmed ourselves running out —
SILAS
Good. Keep going.
NOAH
Every scare. Every one. Three
years. Sometimes there’s a shadow
because I’m standing in the light
on purpose.
(and now he’s crying)
It’s my elbow. It’s always my elbow. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,
I’m sorry —
Silas puts a hand on his head, almost tender, and stands.
The Smiling Man turns to the camera. Adjusts his cuffs.
THE SMILING MAN
(warmly, to two million
people)
He’s confessed.
On Riley’s screen — the stream — a graphic overlay drops
into frame. Clean. Professional. Somebody built this in
advance.
BUTTON: SHOULD HE BE FORGIVEN? YES / NO — and the bar starts
moving.
Featured role · "FEARLESS" — THE BRAND
AVA SINCLAIR
CHARACTER PROFILE
Female, 21. Always goes first through the door and keeps her shaking hand out of frame. Genuinely pleased when told nobody can call for help. Her brand is fearlessness and it was never true — “I couldn’t stand being the one who couldn’t do anything.” Goes rigid against the door when the axe comes through it; is pulled backward out of frame without a scream in Ep 24, and her final honesty is heard, not seen, in Ep 25. Physical, funny, and the first person whose fear the audience sees.
SIDES
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Episode 5 — "GO LIVE"
Read for the role of AVA SINCLAIR.
See The Character Script
BANDO
Season One ·Episode 5 — "GO LIVE"
EPISODE 5
“GO LIVE”
Runtime: 2:00 – Question: how alone are they about to be?
INT. VAN — MOVING — NIGHT
Headlights, fog, Georgia pines. Six people crammed in with
equipment.
Jay flips the rig around to his own face.
JAY
Alright, Explorers. You know the
drill.
(he taps the lens — three)
Tonight we’re taking you somewhere that officially does not
exist.
> LIVE — 500,247 WATCHING
Riley reads the chat off her phone, performing it.
RILEY
“Drop the pin.” “Where are you.”
“This better not be another fake
ghost hunt.”
(she puts on a voice)
“Bet y’all won’t last an hour.”
AVA
(leaning into frame)
I’m staying all night.
NOAH
She’s staying forty minutes.
AVA
I’m staying all night, and when the
sun comes up I’m still gonna be
there, and Noah’s gonna be in the
van with the doors locked eating my
snacks.
Laughter. This is the last easy moment in the season and it
should play like one.
Riley scrolls. A comment goes by and she laughs at it out
loud.
> remember when yall faked the cops
last year LMAOOO
RILEY
(to camera, delighted)
We have never faked anything. Ever.
In our lives.
Diego, front seat, not participating, watching a laptop.
DIEGO
No towers. Not one. Nearest cell
infrastructure is eleven miles.
AVA
So if we get murdered, nobody can
call for help?
DIEGO
Correct.
AVA
(genuinely pleased)
Good.
Riley keeps scrolling. Something catches her thumb and stops
it.
A pinned comment. No profile picture. Account age, in small
gray text: 3 years.
> YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE COME BACK.
Riley reads it twice.
BUTTON: RILEY: (quietly, to no one) “Back?”
Episode 24 — “THE ACCOUNT”
EPISODE 24
“THE ACCOUNT”
Runtime: 1:45 – Question: what did Mia think she was doing?
INT. TUNNEL — DEAD END — NIGHT
Five people. One light between them now.
JAY
Say it.
MIA
It wasn’t like that.
AVA
Say what it was like, then.
And Mia does. And the confession is worse than the lie,
because she still doesn’t fully hear herself.
MIA
There was a researcher. Two years,
we talked almost every day.
Archives, county records, land
trusts — real work, good work. He
knew things nobody knows.
DIEGO
He.
MIA
He said I was different. He said
most people who go looking for this
stuff are — they’re cranks,
they’re marks, they want to be lied
- He said I wasn’t like them.
(and she’s crying now)
And I liked that. I liked it so much.
RILEY
Mia.
MIA
I sent him the coordinates. He
asked how many of us and I said six
and I told him your names because I
was proud of us —
AVA
You told him our names —
MIA
I’m the person who reads about
radicalization! I’ve got a folder
on it! I know how it works, I know
every single technique, that’s the
whole — that’s supposed to make
you safe —
NOAH (V.O.)
(memory, from Episode 2,
and it should hurt)
“I say everything’s fake and I
believe every single word anybody
tells me.”
Ava goes at her — grabs her jacket, slams her into stone.
AVA
Noah is dead —
MIA
I know.
AVA
Say his name. Say his —
And Ava is pulled backward out of frame.
Fast. Silent. Something we never see enter the shot.
BUTTON: Her light hits the floor and spins. She doesn’t
scream. That’s what tells us.
Featured role · THE TECH
DIEGO RAMIREZ
CHARACTER PROFILE
Latino male, 23. Rebuilds rigs, follows conduit with his fingers, finds the hardwired camera in the cabinet. Tells his nine-year-old sister to tape her laptop camera and walked in the front door of this house — his contradiction, and he says it out loud twice, the second time bound to a cross. He hardlines the stream into the house’s own uplink, which is why the world can watch and nobody can call out. He rigged the foundation charges for the intro shot; his gray case is the bomb. Dies in Ep 26.
SIDES
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Episode 8 — "THE RED LIGHT"
Read for the role of DIEGO RAMIREZ.
See The Character Script
BANDO
Season One ·Episode 8 — "THE RED LIGHT"
EPISODE 8
“THE RED LIGHT”
Runtime: 1:30 – Question: who is watching them?
INT. MANSION — KITCHEN — CONTINUOUS
Diego has stopped moving. He is staring at the cabinet above
the stove.
DIEGO
Hey. Everybody be normal for a
second.
AVA
What.
DIEGO
Be normal.
He opens the cabinet.
A camera. Small, professional, wired — not a nanny cam, not
a doorbell. Its lens reflects the whole room back at them.
The red light is on.
AVA
Guess the ghosts are watching us
too.
Nobody laughs. Diego’s face has changed in a way the others
haven’t caught up to yet. He is the only one in this house
who understands what he’s looking at.
DIEGO
(quiet)
That’s a hardwired unit. That’s not
battery. Somebody is paying a power
bill on this thing.
JAY
Diego. Breathe.
DIEGO
I spend nine hours a day telling my
little sister to cover her laptop
camera. I’ve got tape on every
device I own. I check the mirrors
in hotel bathrooms.
(he turns, slowly, and
finds the second one, in
the hall)
And I walked in the front door of this house.
Riley lifts her phone toward the hallway lens. Films it.
BUTTON: The lens turns. Smoothly. Following her.
Episode 14 — “SIGNAL”
EPISODE 14
“SIGNAL”
Runtime: 2:00 – Question: why isn’t anyone coming?
EXT. MANSION — FOUNDATION — NIGHT
Hands set a small hard-cased device against the brick. A row
of lights turns from red to green.
INT. MANSION — LIVING ROOM — CONTINUOUS
Six phones die at the same moment. Bars gone. SOS gone.
DIEGO
Jammer.
RILEY
My stream’s still up.
DIEGO
What?
RILEY
(showing him)
It’s up. It’s live. It’s two point
four.
Diego stares at it, and then he starts laughing, and it’s the
worst sound in the episode.
DIEGO
Because I hardlined you into their
line. We’re broadcasting on the
house’s own uplink.
NOAH
Meaning what?
DIEGO
Meaning we can’t call out. And the
whole world can see in.
AVA
So somebody watching calls the
police.
RILEY
Somebody’s already called the
police. Chat called the police
forty minutes ago.
INT. FAYETTE COUNTY DISPATCH — NIGHT
A dispatcher, mid-shift, headset on, five lines blinking. She
is not a villain. She is tired and she is competent and she
is about to make a completely reasonable decision.
DISPATCHER
Ma’am, I understand. Can you tell
me the name of the channel?
(she types it)
(and stops)
Yeah. Yeah, I know that channel.
She pulls up a call log. Scrolls. Last October: UNFOUNDED —
STAGED — INTERNET. Twelve entries under the same channel
name.
DISPATCHER (CONT’D)
(gently, to the caller)
Ma’am, we’ve taken about forty of
these tonight. These are the folks
who called in the asylum thing in
Savannah. That was a stunt. It was
on the news that it was a stunt.
(beat)
I’ll flag it. I’ll put it in the queue.
She marks it low priority. She isn’t wrong to. That’s the
point.
BUTTON: Back in the house — the viewer counter doesn’t drop.
It doubles.
Featured role · THE RESEARCHER — THE ONE WHO WROTE TO HIM FIRST
MIA RODRIGUEZ
CHARACTER PROFILE
Latina, 22. The quiet one with the notebook, handwriting so dense it looks like a symptom. Four years reading about radicalization, a folder on every technique, certain that knowing how it works makes her safe. Spent two years messaging a “researcher” who told her she wasn’t like the marks. She sent him the coordinates and their names because she was proud of them. She is not frightened in the file room; she is absorbed, and that difference has to be visible.
Her turn is the season’s most difficult performance: she does not make a sound for Ava, says “Maybe they’re right” calm and almost relieved, and lets the Judge’s hand rest on her shoulder. Last seen standing unrestrained in a burning doorway. No body. Season Two open thread.
SIDES
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Episode 3 — "THE HOUSE THAT ISN'T THERE"
Read for the role of MIA RODRIGUEZ.
See The Character Script
BANDO
Season One ·Episode 3 — "THE HOUSE THAT ISN'T THERE"
EPISODE 3
“THE HOUSE THAT ISN’T THERE”
Runtime: 1:45 – Question: is Mia telling them everything?
INT. STUDIO APARTMENT — CONTINUOUS
The notebook is open to a page of handwriting so dense it
looks like a symptom.
MIA
No deed. No permit. No tax record.
No ownership, no sale, no transfer,
going back as far as the county
digitized. There’s a driveway on a
1994 survey and then there isn’t.
NOAH
Houses don’t fall off records.
MIA
They do if somebody takes them off.
AVA
(already standing)
Okay. Yes. Obviously yes.
NOAH
Obviously no. You understand that
if a place got erased, somebody did
the erasing, and that somebody is a
person, and people are worse than
ghosts —
AVA
Listen to him.
NOAH
— I’m not scared. I’m correct.
JAY
Where is it?
MIA
Fayetteville. Forty minutes.
Jay taps his lens. Three times. Ritual.
JAY
We go tomorrow.
Riley is already opening the scheduler, already writing the
title card, already alive in a way she hasn’t been in months.
RILEY
(typing)
“The House That Isn’t There.”
That’s the title. That’s a hundred
thousand concurrent, minimum.
She stops. Looks up. Genuinely just curious.
RILEY (CONT’D)
Where’d you even find this, Mi?
Mia has been talking for four minutes without hesitating
once.
She hesitates now.
MIA
Forum.
BUTTON: Hold on Mia’s face one full second longer than the
scene needs.
Episode 24 — “THE ACCOUNT”
EPISODE 24
“THE ACCOUNT”
Runtime: 1:45 – Question: what did Mia think she was doing?
INT. TUNNEL — DEAD END — NIGHT
Five people. One light between them now.
JAY
Say it.
MIA
It wasn’t like that.
AVA
Say what it was like, then.
And Mia does. And the confession is worse than the lie,
because she still doesn’t fully hear herself.
MIA
There was a researcher. Two years,
we talked almost every day.
Archives, county records, land
trusts — real work, good work. He
knew things nobody knows.
DIEGO
He.
MIA
He said I was different. He said
most people who go looking for this
stuff are — they’re cranks,
they’re marks, they want to be lied
- He said I wasn’t like them.
(and she’s crying now)
And I liked that. I liked it so much.
RILEY
Mia.
MIA
I sent him the coordinates. He
asked how many of us and I said six
and I told him your names because I
was proud of us —
AVA
You told him our names —
MIA
I’m the person who reads about
radicalization! I’ve got a folder
on it! I know how it works, I know
every single technique, that’s the
whole — that’s supposed to make
you safe —
NOAH (V.O.)
(memory, from Episode 2,
and it should hurt)
“I say everything’s fake and I
believe every single word anybody
tells me.”
Ava goes at her — grabs her jacket, slams her into stone.
AVA
Noah is dead —
MIA
I know.
AVA
Say his name. Say his —
And Ava is pulled backward out of frame.
Fast. Silent. Something we never see enter the shot.
BUTTON: Her light hits the floor and spins. She doesn’t
scream. That’s what tells us.
Featured role · THE ANTAGONIST
THE JUDGE
CHARACTER PROFILE
Male, 60. Tall, gaunt, a long black robe, and a face — when we finally see it — that is composed and unremarkable in a way far more frightening than a monster. He looks like someone you’d let read your file. A former small-county judge, twelve years on a bench, who now runs a cell of a decentralized movement and recruits the never-needed. Heard first through ceiling speakers: calm, warm, unhurried, never angry. Everything he does he does like a man calling a meeting to order.
The role lives or dies on Ep 23, where he sits in the Explorers’ own channel graphics and makes a case to ten million people that is reasonable. If he’s a villain, the show fails; he must be persuasive. Never confirmed dead.
Signature line: “The people have spoken.”
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 23 — "THEY HAVE THE STREAM"
Read for the role of THE JUDGE.
See The Character Script
BANDO
Season One ·Episode 23 — "THEY HAVE THE STREAM"
EPISODE 23
“THEY HAVE THE STREAM”
Runtime: 2:00 – Question: what is he going to do with ten
million people?
INT. TUNNEL — MONITOR ALCOVE — NIGHT
The Judge, framed by their own channel graphics. He has their
overlay. He has their font. He is sitting in a chair like a
man doing an interview.
THE JUDGE
(to ten million people)
Good evening. My name doesn’t
matter. I want to talk to you about
these six.
(he opens a folder)
Jayden Carter. Twenty-three. Believes that pointing a camera
at a thing is the same as telling the truth about it.
INT. TUNNEL — BEHIND THE WALL
Jay’s face going gray.
THE JUDGE (V.O.)
Riley Thomas. Twenty-two. Has never
in her adult life had an experience
she didn’t immediately convert into
an audience.
RILEY
(barely)
Turn it off.
DIEGO
It’s not ours to turn off.
THE JUDGE (V.O.)
Your mother is named Denise. She
works second shift at a
distribution center off Old Dixie.
You call her on Sundays. I’m not
going to touch her. I want you to
understand that I could, and that
the reason I won’t is a choice I’m
making, and that’s the difference
between us.
(a pause)
Now. About the accusation that I’m a monster.
He leans forward. And here is the thing that has to land, or
none of it does: he is reasonable.
THE JUDGE (CONT’D)
These six have spent three years
manufacturing fear and selling it.
They stage terror. They monetize
humiliation. They decide, every
week, what several million people
are going to believe happened in a
building. And when they got tired
of it, they went looking for
something real to feed you.
(beat)
I do the same work they do. I’m simply not lying about the
consequences.
The chat, and it is the worst thing in the episode:
> ok but hes kind of not wrong tho
> HELLO?? he just KILLED someone
> im just saying they DID fake a
911 call
> this is the best writing on the
platform fr
THE JUDGE
And one more thing, before the sun
comes up.
(and he says it kindly)
One of them wrote to me first.
INT. TUNNEL — BEHIND THE WALL
Riley’s head turns.
BUTTON: She looks at Mia. Everybody looks at Mia.
Episode 28 — “THIS ISN’T JUSTICE”
EPISODE 28
“THIS ISN’T JUSTICE”
Runtime: 2:15 – Question: which way does he go?
INT. TUNNEL CHAMBER — NIGHT
Jay and Riley on their knees. Riley’s leg is wrong below the
knee, dark and soaked. Jay’s face is a ruin. His rig is on
the floor five feet away, still recording, pointed at the
wall.
Ethan raises the rifle.
THE JUDGE
Ethan.
JAY
(and it’s not a plea, it’s
just true)
You looked away. Every time. All
night. You’re the only one in this
house who’s looked away.
TUCKER
Shut him up.
ETHAN
(quiet)
I was nineteen.
THE JUDGE
Ethan.
ETHAN
He said I’d be needed.
(the rifle is shaking)
I’ve been needed four times now and every time it’s this.
THE JUDGE
(and he is still calm,
still reasonable, and
that’s what does it)
Doubt is the world talking. Put it
down and be the hand.
ETHAN
This isn’t justice.
He turns and fires.
Tucker goes down hard, surprised, one hand still on the axe.
Then everything comes apart at once — muzzle flash strobing
the tunnel, stone dust, Silas shouting scripture, the Judge’s
voice cutting through it giving orders like a man calling a
meeting to order.
Ethan drags Jay upright by the collar and shoves a knife into
his hands.
ETHAN
Her legs. Cut her legs free. GO —
Jay gets Riley up. She screams. She goes.
They run the tunnel back the way they came, and they pass the
basement, and Jay’s light swings across the far wall.
The chains are cut. Clean. Bolt cutters.
Cole Matthews is gone.
RILEY
(gasping)
Where is he — where’s the —
And in the corner: Diego’s gray case. Open.
Timer running. Four minutes and dropping.
BUTTON: Nobody in this room set it.
Featured role · THE CHAPLAIN
SILAS McGRAW
CHARACTER PROFILE
Male, 50s–60s. A Bible tucked under one arm; looks in at the trapped kids through a broken window with something like sympathy. Crouches to Noah’s level like a chaplain, hums a hymn during a killing, hands Mia a hot cup and tells her she’ll sleep tonight. “Do they think they’re good people?” / “Every one of them. That’s how you know it’s working.” — said entirely sincerely. Kindness as the instrument.
Signature line: “Found you.”
SIDES
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Episode 20 — "CONFESSION"
Read for the role of SILAS McGRAW.
See The Character Script
BANDO
Season One ·Episode 20 — "CONFESSION"
EPISODE 20
“CONFESSION”
Runtime: 2:00 – Question: what will they make him say?
INT. TUNNEL CHAMBER — NIGHT
A wider room. A mounted camera on a tripod with a red light.
A single work lamp.
Noah on his knees under it, hands zip-tied. Blood at his
mouth.
Behind him, THE SMILING MAN — suit, forty, an expression of
perfect, unbroken pleasantness that never once reaches his
eyes.
Beside him, SILAS, who crouches down to Noah’s level like a
chaplain.
SILAS
(gently)
Nobody’s going to hurt you while
you’re talking, son. That’s a
promise and I keep them.
NOAH
I don’t — what do you want me to
say —
THE SMILING MAN
The truth. They’re watching. Two
million of them. They want to know
if you’ve ever lied to them.
Noah looks past the lamp, into the dark where his friends
are, where he can hear Riley saying his name.
SILAS
Confess, and you’re cleansed. It’s
not complicated and it’s not a
trick.
And here is the thing about Noah: he wants to be believed. He
always has. It’s the whole engine of him.
NOAH
(breaking)
Savannah was fake. The asylum. We
staged the whole thing, we scripted
the screaming, I called 911 from a
burner in a parking lot and we
filmed ourselves running out —
SILAS
Good. Keep going.
NOAH
Every scare. Every one. Three
years. Sometimes there’s a shadow
because I’m standing in the light
on purpose.
(and now he’s crying)
It’s my elbow. It’s always my elbow. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,
I’m sorry —
Silas puts a hand on his head, almost tender, and stands.
The Smiling Man turns to the camera. Adjusts his cuffs.
THE SMILING MAN
(warmly, to two million
people)
He’s confessed.
On Riley’s screen — the stream — a graphic overlay drops
into frame. Clean. Professional. Somebody built this in
advance.
BUTTON: SHOULD HE BE FORGIVEN? YES / NO — and the bar starts
moving.
Episode 27 — “TWO DOORS”
EPISODE 27
“TWO DOORS”
Runtime: 2:00 – Question: is anyone in this house on their
side?
INTERCUT. TWO ROOMS.
A — INT. UPSTAIRS ROOM — NIGHT
Mia, alone with Silas. He hands her a cup of something hot.
She takes it with both hands.
SILAS
You’ll sleep tonight. First time in
a while, I expect.
MIA
(and she believes it)
Yes.
B — INT. MONITOR ROOM — NIGHT
ETHAN CALLOWAY, 21, alone at a bank of screens. Their channel
is playing on one of them. Ava’s death is looping on another,
muted.
He isn’t watching either. He’s watching a third screen: a
low-res recruitment video, years old. A younger Judge in a
folding chair, talking to a camera in someone’s basement.
THE JUDGE (ON SCREEN, YOUNGER)
You’re not broken. You’re not
stupid. You’ve just never once been
needed. Come and be needed.
Ethan mouths along with it. He knows it by heart. He was
nineteen.
A —
MIA
Can I ask you something? The men
who did the — the ones in the
photographs. The circled ones.
SILAS
Ask.
MIA
Do they think they’re good people?
SILAS
(entirely sincerely)
Every one of them. That’s how you
know it’s working.
Mia’s face. The first crack, and it’s too late.
B —
The door opens behind Ethan. He doesn’t turn.
THE JUDGE
Ethan.
ETHAN
Sir.
THE JUDGE
You’ve been loyal a long time.
Longer than most.
(a hand on his shoulder —
the same hand, the same
gesture)
Tonight you’ll prove it. There are two left. Deliver
judgment.
BUTTON: On the monitor in front of Ethan, the muted loop
restarts. Ava. Again. He can see his own reflection over it.
Featured role · THE AXE
TUCKER
CHARACTER PROFILE
Male, 30s–40s. The one who puts the axe through the door and says “Knock knock” cheerfully; hoists Diego’s cross into the floor with the grunt of a man doing chores; amused that Diego is “still doing the show.” Physical, unbothered, the only member of the cell who visibly enjoys it. Shot by Ethan in Ep 28, one hand still on the axe.
SIDES
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Episode 26 — "MAYBE THEY'RE RIGHT"
Read for the role of TUCKER.
See The Character Script
BANDO
Season One ·Episode 26 — "MAYBE THEY'RE RIGHT"
EPISODE 26
“MAYBE THEY’RE RIGHT”
Runtime: 2:15 – Question: is she gone?
INT. TUNNEL CHAMBER — LATER
A crude cross against the wall, and Diego bound to it. Tucker
hoists it upright into a hole in the floor with the grunt of
a man doing chores.
Diego is not begging. He’s talking fast, at Jay, at Riley, at
anyone.
DIEGO
The van — Jay, listen — the
charges in the basement, I rigged
the foundation charges for the
intro shot, the timer’s in the gray
case —
TUCKER
(amused)
He’s still doing the show.
DIEGO
(and this is his
contradiction, paid off)
I told my sister to tape her
camera. Nine years old. I taped her
camera myself.
(beat, and it breaks him)
And I walked in the front door.
The Judge takes a torch from Silas. Turns to the lens.
THE JUDGE
Let this be the last lesson of the
night.
He hands it to Tucker. We cut before the fire and stay on
faces.
And in the firelight, Mia says it. Quiet. Almost relieved.
Like something she’s been carrying finally set down.
MIA
Maybe they’re right.
RILEY
(head snapping around)
What did you just say.
MIA
(and she is calm, which is
the terror of it)
We lied. For three years, we lied
to ten million people for money,
and tonight we needed them and they
didn’t come, and they didn’t come
because of us.
JAY
Mia, snap out of —
MIA
He didn’t do that, Jay. We did
that. And I keep waiting to find
the part where we’re the good ones
and I can’t find it.
(she takes a step backward)
Maybe we’re the ones who need to be erased.
She takes another step. Toward them.
The Judge does not celebrate. He doesn’t smile. He rests a
hand on her shoulder the way a man welcomes someone home from
a long trip.
BUTTON: She doesn’t move it.
Episode 28 — “THIS ISN’T JUSTICE”
EPISODE 28
“THIS ISN’T JUSTICE”
Runtime: 2:15 – Question: which way does he go?
INT. TUNNEL CHAMBER — NIGHT
Jay and Riley on their knees. Riley’s leg is wrong below the
knee, dark and soaked. Jay’s face is a ruin. His rig is on
the floor five feet away, still recording, pointed at the
wall.
Ethan raises the rifle.
THE JUDGE
Ethan.
JAY
(and it’s not a plea, it’s
just true)
You looked away. Every time. All
night. You’re the only one in this
house who’s looked away.
TUCKER
Shut him up.
ETHAN
(quiet)
I was nineteen.
THE JUDGE
Ethan.
ETHAN
He said I’d be needed.
(the rifle is shaking)
I’ve been needed four times now and every time it’s this.
THE JUDGE
(and he is still calm,
still reasonable, and
that’s what does it)
Doubt is the world talking. Put it
down and be the hand.
ETHAN
This isn’t justice.
He turns and fires.
Tucker goes down hard, surprised, one hand still on the axe.
Then everything comes apart at once — muzzle flash strobing
the tunnel, stone dust, Silas shouting scripture, the Judge’s
voice cutting through it giving orders like a man calling a
meeting to order.
Ethan drags Jay upright by the collar and shoves a knife into
his hands.
ETHAN
Her legs. Cut her legs free. GO —
Jay gets Riley up. She screams. She goes.
They run the tunnel back the way they came, and they pass the
basement, and Jay’s light swings across the far wall.
The chains are cut. Clean. Bolt cutters.
Cole Matthews is gone.
RILEY
(gasping)
Where is he — where’s the —
And in the corner: Diego’s gray case. Open.
Timer running. Four minutes and dropping.
BUTTON: Nobody in this room set it.
Featured role · THE PRODUCER
THE SMILING MAN
CHARACTER PROFILE
Male, 40. Suit. An expression of perfect, unbroken pleasantness that never once reaches his eyes. Runs Noah’s on-camera confession and turns to two million people to announce it, adjusting his cuffs. The vote graphic that drops onto the stream was built in advance — this is his department. Two scenes, no raised voice, must be unsettling standing still.
SIDES
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Episode 20 — "CONFESSION"
Read for the role of THE SMILING MAN.
See The Character Script
BANDO
Season One ·Episode 20 — "CONFESSION"
EPISODE 20
“CONFESSION”
Runtime: 2:00 – Question: what will they make him say?
INT. TUNNEL CHAMBER — NIGHT
A wider room. A mounted camera on a tripod with a red light.
A single work lamp.
Noah on his knees under it, hands zip-tied. Blood at his
mouth.
Behind him, THE SMILING MAN — suit, forty, an expression of
perfect, unbroken pleasantness that never once reaches his
eyes.
Beside him, SILAS, who crouches down to Noah’s level like a
chaplain.
SILAS
(gently)
Nobody’s going to hurt you while
you’re talking, son. That’s a
promise and I keep them.
NOAH
I don’t — what do you want me to
say —
THE SMILING MAN
The truth. They’re watching. Two
million of them. They want to know
if you’ve ever lied to them.
Noah looks past the lamp, into the dark where his friends
are, where he can hear Riley saying his name.
SILAS
Confess, and you’re cleansed. It’s
not complicated and it’s not a
trick.
And here is the thing about Noah: he wants to be believed. He
always has. It’s the whole engine of him.
NOAH
(breaking)
Savannah was fake. The asylum. We
staged the whole thing, we scripted
the screaming, I called 911 from a
burner in a parking lot and we
filmed ourselves running out —
SILAS
Good. Keep going.
NOAH
Every scare. Every one. Three
years. Sometimes there’s a shadow
because I’m standing in the light
on purpose.
(and now he’s crying)
It’s my elbow. It’s always my elbow. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,
I’m sorry —
Silas puts a hand on his head, almost tender, and stands.
The Smiling Man turns to the camera. Adjusts his cuffs.
THE SMILING MAN
(warmly, to two million
people)
He’s confessed.
On Riley’s screen — the stream — a graphic overlay drops
into frame. Clean. Professional. Somebody built this in
advance.
BUTTON: SHOULD HE BE FORGIVEN? YES / NO — and the bar starts
moving.
Featured role · THE RECRUIT WHO TURNS
ETHAN CALLOWAY
CHARACTER PROFILE
Male, 21. The youngest in the cell; holds a rifle like it’s heavy and watches the other three instead of the house. Recruited at nineteen by a video he still mouths along to: “You’ve just never once been needed. Come and be needed.” He has been needed four times now and every time it’s this. Told to deliver judgment on the last two, he says “This isn’t justice” and fires the other way — then extends the bomb timer instead of stopping it, because there is a wall upstairs with fifty faces on it. “Don’t thank me. Just survive.” Likely dies in the house; not confirmed.
SIDES
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Episode 28 — "THIS ISN'T JUSTICE"
Read for the role of ETHAN CALLOWAY.
See The Character Script
BANDO
Season One ·Episode 28 — "THIS ISN'T JUSTICE"
EPISODE 28
“THIS ISN’T JUSTICE”
Runtime: 2:15 – Question: which way does he go?
INT. TUNNEL CHAMBER — NIGHT
Jay and Riley on their knees. Riley’s leg is wrong below the
knee, dark and soaked. Jay’s face is a ruin. His rig is on
the floor five feet away, still recording, pointed at the
wall.
Ethan raises the rifle.
THE JUDGE
Ethan.
JAY
(and it’s not a plea, it’s
just true)
You looked away. Every time. All
night. You’re the only one in this
house who’s looked away.
TUCKER
Shut him up.
ETHAN
(quiet)
I was nineteen.
THE JUDGE
Ethan.
ETHAN
He said I’d be needed.
(the rifle is shaking)
I’ve been needed four times now and every time it’s this.
THE JUDGE
(and he is still calm,
still reasonable, and
that’s what does it)
Doubt is the world talking. Put it
down and be the hand.
ETHAN
This isn’t justice.
He turns and fires.
Tucker goes down hard, surprised, one hand still on the axe.
Then everything comes apart at once — muzzle flash strobing
the tunnel, stone dust, Silas shouting scripture, the Judge’s
voice cutting through it giving orders like a man calling a
meeting to order.
Ethan drags Jay upright by the collar and shoves a knife into
his hands.
ETHAN
Her legs. Cut her legs free. GO —
Jay gets Riley up. She screams. She goes.
They run the tunnel back the way they came, and they pass the
basement, and Jay’s light swings across the far wall.
The chains are cut. Clean. Bolt cutters.
Cole Matthews is gone.
RILEY
(gasping)
Where is he — where’s the —
And in the corner: Diego’s gray case. Open.
Timer running. Four minutes and dropping.
BUTTON: Nobody in this room set it.
Episode 29 — “FOUR MINUTES”
EPISODE 29
“FOUR MINUTES”
Runtime: 2:00 – Question: do they get out?
INT. BASEMENT — CONTINUOUS
Ethan slams the door behind him, bleeding from somewhere
under his jacket. He goes straight to the case and starts
working the timer — not stopping it. Extending it. Thirty
seconds. Forty.
JAY
You’re coming with us.
ETHAN
There’s a room upstairs with
everybody’s face on the wall.
That’s fifty people. That has to go
with the house.
RILEY
Ethan —
ETHAN
(without looking up)
Don’t thank me. Just survive.
That’s the whole thing. That’s all
of it.
INT. MANSION — GROUND FLOOR — CONTINUOUS
Jay takes Riley’s weight and they go up through a house
that’s already burning somewhere behind them. Smoke coming
down the stairs like water. The Judge’s voice somewhere in
it, unhurried, patient, still not shouting.
THE JUDGE (O.S.)
You can go. There’s no version of
this where you go anywhere.
Jay kicks the front door.
EXT. MANSION — DAWN
They fall down the porch steps into wet grass and run for the
treeline with everything they have left, which isn’t much.
The house goes up behind them — a low enormous punch of
sound, windows going out all at once, the roofline lifting.
They hit the ground at the treeline. Riley rolls onto her
back and looks at it.
And in the front doorway, standing inside the fire, is Mia.
Not trapped. Not running. Standing with her hands at her
sides, watching them go.
RILEY
(a whisper, destroyed)
Mia. Mia —
Mia doesn’t move.
BUTTON: The doorframe comes down. When the smoke clears
there’s nobody in it.
Featured role · THE MAN IN THE BASEMENT — SPECIAL AGENT, FBI (?)
COLE MATTHEWS
CHARACTER PROFILE
Male, 40s–50s, to read older. Chained to a basement wall; beard down his chest, one eye swollen shut, a suit that was a suit once, legs that haven’t been right for a long time. Voice like a hinge. Asks the kids what year it is and takes the question seriously. Explains the cell, the Judge, and the wall of faces in short pushes that each cost him air. “Don’t come back.” His chains are later found cut clean with bolt cutters nobody had. Either never FBI or let out from inside — the Season Two engine. Eps 17–19 and the empty wall in 28.
SIDES
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Episode 18 — "THREE YEARS"
Read for the role of COLE MATTHEWS.
See The Character Script
BANDO
Season One ·Episode 18 — "THREE YEARS"
EPISODE 18
“THREE YEARS”
Runtime: 2:00 – Question: who chose them?
INT. BASEMENT — CONTINUOUS
Cole talks in short pushes. Everything costs him air.
COLE
This isn’t a cult. Don’t call it
that in front of him, he hates it.
It’s a cell. There are others.
DIEGO
Others where?
COLE
Everywhere. That’s the design.
Small, unaffiliated, no chain of
command anybody can roll up. They
recruit for a decade and they move
once.
Jay is filming. Of course he’s filming.
JAY
Who is he? The voice on the
speakers.
COLE
He was somebody’s judge. Small
county, up north. Twelve years on a
bench. Then he wasn’t.
Mia has picked up a folder off the floor — there are folders
down here too — and she’s gone very still over a photograph.
Diego takes it from her.
A crowd photo. Wide. Chaos and flags and a wall of bodies
going up scaffolding. And two faces circled in the same
disciplined red marker from upstairs.
Diego knows exactly what he’s looking at. Everybody in the
room does. It takes him a second to be willing to say it.
DIEGO
That’s January sixth.
Nobody argues. Nobody explains it. Nobody gives a speech.
COLE
(flat)
Some of them went to prison. Some
of them didn’t. Some of them came
here and started building something
that made that day look like a
rehearsal.
He shifts against the chains and looks at all six of them
properly for the first time.
COLE (CONT’D)
They didn’t find you.
JAY
What?
COLE
There’s a wall upstairs. Two floors
up, east side. Your faces have been
on it since before the leaves came
in.
(beat)
Somebody in your group brought you here.
The camera pans, slowly, across five faces turning to look at
each other.
BUTTON: Mia is the only one who doesn’t look around.
Episode 19 — “THE TUNNEL”
EPISODE 19
“THE TUNNEL”
Runtime: 1:45 – Question: can they get out under the house?
INT. BASEMENT — SUPPLY TUNNEL MOUTH — NIGHT
A rusted grate, pried off. Beyond it, hand-cut stone going
back into black.
COLE
Supply run. Comes out in the trees
past the fence line. That’s how
they move things without
headlights.
AVA
Why didn’t you use it?
COLE
(without self-pity)
I did.
He gestures at his legs. They are not right and haven’t been
for a long time.
JAY
We’ll bring people back.
COLE
(and he means it)
Don’t come back.
INT. TUNNEL — CONTINUOUS
Single file. Roots hanging low enough to touch faces. Water
somewhere. The air gets colder the further in they go.
Diego’s light forward. Riley’s phone backward, still
streaming, chat scrolling.
> 1.9 mil
> wait the stream is UNDERGROUND
how is the stream underground
> thats how you know its fake
Mia falls behind. Her light is on the wall.
Symbols scratched into the stone, over and over — stars,
crosses, a flag rendered in three lines. And a phrase
repeated at intervals like a mile marker.
She traces one with two fingers. She isn’t afraid of it.
She’s reading it.
MIA
(to herself)
They did this by hand. Somebody sat
down here with a nail for hours.
NOAH
(from up ahead)
Mia. Move.
Behind them, back toward the basement: a metallic CLANG. The
grate.
Everyone freezes and turns.
Six lights count each other.
Five faces.
BUTTON: RILEY: “Where’s Noah?”
Featured role · DAY PLAYER — THE REASONABLE DECISION
FAYETTE COUNTY DISPATCHER
CHARACTER PROFILE
Female, 40s. Mid-shift, headset on, five lines blinking. Not a villain — tired, competent, and about to make a completely reasonable decision: she knows the channel, pulls up twelve prior entries marked UNFOUNDED — STAGED — INTERNET, and marks the call low priority. One scene (Ep 14). She isn’t wrong to. That’s the point.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 14 — "SIGNAL"
Read for the role of FAYETTE COUNTY DISPATCHER.
See The Character Script
BANDO
Season One ·Episode 14 — "SIGNAL"
EPISODE 14
“SIGNAL”
Runtime: 2:00 – Question: why isn’t anyone coming?
EXT. MANSION — FOUNDATION — NIGHT
Hands set a small hard-cased device against the brick. A row
of lights turns from red to green.
INT. MANSION — LIVING ROOM — CONTINUOUS
Six phones die at the same moment. Bars gone. SOS gone.
DIEGO
Jammer.
RILEY
My stream’s still up.
DIEGO
What?
RILEY
(showing him)
It’s up. It’s live. It’s two point
four.
Diego stares at it, and then he starts laughing, and it’s the
worst sound in the episode.
DIEGO
Because I hardlined you into their
line. We’re broadcasting on the
house’s own uplink.
NOAH
Meaning what?
DIEGO
Meaning we can’t call out. And the
whole world can see in.
AVA
So somebody watching calls the
police.
RILEY
Somebody’s already called the
police. Chat called the police
forty minutes ago.
INT. FAYETTE COUNTY DISPATCH — NIGHT
A dispatcher, mid-shift, headset on, five lines blinking. She
is not a villain. She is tired and she is competent and she
is about to make a completely reasonable decision.
DISPATCHER
Ma’am, I understand. Can you tell
me the name of the channel?
(she types it)
(and stops)
Yeah. Yeah, I know that channel.
She pulls up a call log. Scrolls. Last October: UNFOUNDED —
STAGED — INTERNET. Twelve entries under the same channel
name.
DISPATCHER (CONT’D)
(gently, to the caller)
Ma’am, we’ve taken about forty of
these tonight. These are the folks
who called in the asylum thing in
Savannah. That was a stunt. It was
on the news that it was a stunt.
(beat)
I’ll flag it. I’ll put it in the queue.
She marks it low priority. She isn’t wrong to. That’s the
point.
BUTTON: Back in the house — the viewer counter doesn’t drop.
It doubles.