PRIOR BAD ACTS
Format
9:16 vertical
Genre
Crime Drama and love story
Season
30 episodes
Location
Atlanta — Fulton County courthouse.
The story
PRIOR BAD ACTS
LOGLINE
SYNOPSIS
MALACHI “COUNT” RHODES never wanted the life. He wanted to eat. At thirteen he could count a shoebox of cash faster than a machine and never be off by a dollar; that is how he got the name. He was never the shooter. He was the mind — the kid who sat two warring sets down and showed them what the beef was costing in dollars until the shooting stopped. At seventeen, from the back seat of his friend Tee’s car, he watched a patrol officer let a package slide from his palm into the door pocket and “find” it thirty seconds later. Tee did seven years. Count said nothing, because a seventeen-year-old from Ashby Grove is not a witness. He is a co-defendant.
Two OGs pushed him out. WALTER “DEACON” PRUITT did it out of love. LUCIUS “PHARAOH” TATE did it out of arithmetic — Pharaoh paid the tuition, and Pharaoh does not give gifts. Three years into Rhodes Law, a storefront between a wing spot and a bail bondsman, Count carries every prior bad act of every dirty cop in his head. He never argues that the police are corrupt. He walks an officer through his own stop in the officer’s own words, brings in the rulebook, finds the one moment the officer broke procedure, and shows the jury it is the exact moment the evidence appeared. He never has to prove it. He only has to make twelve people unable to rule it out.
Case One is easy: a nineteen-year-old with drugs in a door pocket, and on the stand the same detective, RAYMOND KESSLER, who planted the package on Tee sixteen years ago. Count wins in six episodes — and in the hallway afterward cannot stop himself from correcting Kessler about a hat. Now the unit knows exactly who he is.
Case Two is a dog fight. Pharaoh’s nephew MARQUIS is shot dead and dies on the trauma-bay table of Count’s wife, RENEE — and before he goes, he tells her who sent the shooters. Two hours later a good young officer makes a clean stop, camera on, consent on video, and finds the murder weapon under the seat of TEE’s car. There is nothing to catch. Count runs his five moves in open court and reaches move four with nothing in his hands while ADA SIMONE PRESCOTT lets the silence sit. Bond denied. The prior comes in. Tee fires him. Kessler puts Count’s son on a curb for forty minutes as a message. A Bar grievance asks who paid for his law degree. Renee is offered a job in Charlotte and doesn’t tell him for a week, and when they fight he quotes her own words from 2014 back to her, exactly. She takes the children to her mother’s. There is a cold cup of coffee on the counter and no handoff.
Two people hold the keys. Tee’s alibi is that he was sitting in a detective’s car being paid — he has been Informant 1147 for nine years — and he would rather do life with his name than walk free without it. Renee has a dying boy’s last words, and repeating them in open court names Pharaoh out loud with her children four blocks from his shop. Count cannot ask her. The most romantic thing he does all season is not ask. She takes the stand anyway. Simone’s cross-examination is merciless and fair. Tee, stitched and in a sling after being cut in county, watches her do it and gives up his name to get his life. Not guilty, by an inch. Tee has to leave Ashby Grove that night. Pharaoh is arrested for ordering his own nephew’s murder, and in the last scene he gestures at the empty chair in the jail interview room: “You always said you wanted to represent somebody who actually did something. Sit down, Counselor.”
Casting List
The characters.
Age: 33 (and 16–17 in flashback)
MALACHI "COUNT" RHODES
Role: SERIES LEAD — DEFENSE ATTORNEY
Age: 33
RENEE RHODES
Role: CO-LEAD — TRAUMA NURSE, HIS WIFE
Age: 58
LUCIUS "PHARAOH" TATE
Role: THE OG WHO BOUGHT HIM — THE ANTAGONIST
Age: 36
ADA SIMONE PRESCOTT
Role: THE WORTHY OPPONENT
Age: 47
DETECTIVE RAYMOND KESSLER
Role: NARCOTICS — THE BADGE
Age: 35
TERRENCE "TEE" HOLLOWAY
Role: THE FRIEND WHO PAID — THE CLIENT IN CASE TWO
Age: 34
ANDRE "DRE" SIMMONS
Role: INVESTIGATOR — CHILDHOOD FRIEND
Age: 64
WALTER "DEACON" PRUITT
Role: THE OG WHO LOVED HIM
Age: 67
MISS EARLINE DOZIER
Role: OFFICE MANAGER
Age: 15
JOSIAH "JOJO" RHODES
Role: THEIR SON
Age: 8
NAOMI RHODES
Role: THEIR DAUGHTER
Age: 55
CHIEF DEPUTY DA GRANT HOLLIS
Role: THE DRAWER
Age: 70
JUDGE HARLAN T. BEAUMONT
Role: SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE — VOICE ONLY
Age: 27
OFFICER CODY RUSK
Role: THE CLEAN STOP (GUEST)
Age: 52
SERGEANT DALE BRANNIGAN
Role: THE PHOTO ARRAY (GUEST)
Age: 19
DARIUS "POP" WHITLOW
Role: THE CLIENT IN CASE ONE (GUEST)
Age: 22
MARQUIS TATE
Role: THE VICTIM (GUEST)
Featured role · SERIES LEAD — DEFENSE ATTORNEY
MALACHI "COUNT" RHODES
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black male, 33. Lean, still, watchful; dresses one notch better than he can afford because a Black defense lawyer in a cheap suit loses before he speaks. A father at eighteen. Photographic memory and a mathematician’s mind — he does not recall the past, he re-enters it. Carries a composition notebook he does not need. He is three men and the code-switching is scripted in every scene: in court, the King’s English better than the people born to it; at home, loose, funny, worn out (“Baby, I been talking since nine this morning. Let me sit here and be dumb for ten minutes”); on the block, exactly who he was, now with a statute behind every line.
His line: he will defend a man who actually did it and never lie to a court to do it. His flaw: he has to win the point — every point, at work, at dinner, in bed — and cannot let a wrong fact stand even when silence would save him. It is why he says “Hawks hat” to the detective who framed his friend, and why he quotes his wife’s own words from 2014 back to her as evidence. When he’s lying to himself he starts doing arithmetic out loud. The flashback version (Eps 1, 15) is a skinny seventeen-year-old in a Hawks cap in a back seat — same actor if he can play it, otherwise a separate teen casting.
Signature line: “Withdrawn. Nothing further.”
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 1 — "ELEVEN MINUTES"
Read for the role of MALACHI "COUNT" RHODES.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 1 — "ELEVEN MINUTES"
EPISODE 1 — “ELEVEN MINUTES”
INT. FULTON COUNTY COURTROOM – DAY
TIGHT VERTICAL. A young PATROL OFFICER on the stand,
sweating politely. Below frame, the hands of MALACHI
“COUNT” RHODES, 33, rest on a composition notebook he never
opens.
COUNT
Officer, you stopped Mr. Haynes at
9:14 p.m. Correct?
PATROL OFFICER
Correct.
COUNT
The precinct is two point one
miles from that corner. Six
minutes, generously. And the
booking sheet is stamped 9:31.
He lets the jury do it. Then does it for them, gently.
COUNT (CONT’D)
Nine fourteen to nine thirty-one
is seventeen minutes. The drive is
six. That leaves eleven, in a
patrol car, with your body camera
off.
PATROL OFFICER
I don’t know what you’re implying.
COUNT
I’m not implying. I’m subtracting.
I’m not asking what happened in
those eleven minutes, Officer. I’m
only asking you to agree with me
that they exist.
PATROL OFFICER
…They exist.
COUNT
Thank you. Nothing further.
In the gallery, WALTER “DEACON” PRUITT, 64, one good suit,
smiles at his shoes.
INT. COURTHOUSE HALLWAY – CONTINUOUS
WALK-AND-TALK, two faces stacked in frame. ANDRE “DRE”
SIMMONS, 34, loud shirt, three files. Count eats a honey
bun. It is 3:40.
DRE
That man still doesn’t know he
lost. Okay.
(files)
Eviction, DUI, and a nineteen-
year-old with trafficking weight
in a door pocket. Prelim’s
tomorrow.
Count’s phone, on speaker: MISS EARLINE DOZIER, 67.
MISS EARLINE (V.O.)
I have one client who can’t pay
and one who won’t. Which one you
want to hear about first?
COUNT
The one who can’t.
MISS EARLINE (V.O.)
That’s all three of them, baby.
INT. MAGISTRATE COURTROOM – NEXT MORNING
Count beside DARIUS “POP” WHITLOW, 19, terrified. ADA
SIMONE PRESCOTT, 36, rises.
SIMONE
The State calls its arresting
officer.
The doors open. DETECTIVE RAYMOND KESSLER, 47, warm smile,
good watch.
THE FRAME LOCKS. SOUND DROPS OUT.
INT. GRAY BUICK REGAL – NIGHT (2010)
Sharper than the present. COUNT, 17, Hawks cap, back seat.
A PATROLMAN leans in the driver’s window. His LEFT HAND
opens. A plastic-wrapped package slides into the door
pocket. Nobody sees it but the boy in the back.
INT. MAGISTRATE COURTROOM – PRESENT
Kessler raises the same left hand. Same watch.
KESSLER
I swear to tell the truth.
Count’s face. Perfectly still.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · CO-LEAD — TRAUMA NURSE, HIS WIFE
RENEE RHODES
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black female, 33. Nights in the city’s busiest trauma bay; in from a twelve-hour shift at 5 a.m. as he knots his tie. Met Malachi at fourteen; the only person alive who has known all three of his voices and is not impressed by any of them. Funny, exact, and tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix. She is his first juror — he rehearses closings on her and she tells him which parts are true and which parts are him showing off. Anita Baker low on the radio; a slow dance in scrubs and shirtsleeves. “Green dress. Eighth grade dance. You told me I danced like a tax form.” / “You still do.”
Her line: what a dying patient tells her while she is keeping him alive is not ammunition, not even for her own family. Her ask: “I need you to forget something, Malachi. Just once.” She is offered a charge-nurse job in Charlotte — days, a yard, a school where nobody calls her son Lil Count — and sits on it for a week. Takes the children to her mother’s. Walks into Pharaoh’s barbershop in scrubs and closes his account herself. Cracks the State’s timeline with what she saw on the table. Then, unasked, takes the stand: “I would do almost anything for him. I wouldn’t lie for him. He wouldn’t let me. That’s why I married him.” The climax of the season is her cross-examination.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 27 — "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO ASK"
Read for the role of RENEE RHODES.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 27 — "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO ASK"
EPISODE 27 — “YOU’RE NOT GOING TO ASK”
INT. RENEE’S MOTHER’S KITCHEN – NIGHT
A different kitchen. Smaller. Renee at the table. Count in
the doorway with his hat in his hands like a boy calling on
a girl.
RENEE
Tee’s stable. Forty stitches. He’s
going to testify with his arm in a
sling.
COUNT
Thank you for taking care of him.
RENEE
It’s my job.
Silence. He knows what she carries. She knows he knows.
RENEE (CONT’D)
The defense starts tomorrow.
COUNT
Yes.
RENEE
You’re not going to ask me.
COUNT
No.
RENEE
Why not?
COUNT
Because it’s yours. And because I
would rather lose the case than be
the reason you did it.
She looks at him a long time. Fourteen years old, the boy
who listened all the way to the end of the sentence.
RENEE
That is why I’m going to.
He starts to speak. She holds up a hand.
RENEE (CONT’D)
Not for you. A boy died holding my
wrist, and the man who sent them
is going to walk while Tee does
life. I can’t carry that. And I’m
not doing it because you asked.
You didn’t.
(beat)
Go home. Get some sleep. You look
like a tax form.
CUT TO BLACK.
Episode 28 — “WHY ARE YOU HERE”
EPISODE 28 — “WHY ARE YOU HERE”
INT. SUPERIOR COURTROOM – DAY
Renee on the stand. Scrubs under her coat. In the gallery:
Deacon. Jojo. Naomi. And two of Pharaoh’s men, hats off,
watching.
Count stands. For the first time in the series he asks a
question he does not know the answer to.
COUNT
Mrs. Rhodes. Why are you here?
RENEE
Because a patient told me
something before he died, and an
innocent man is about to pay for
it.
COUNT
What did he tell you?
RENEE
He said, “It was my uncle. He sent
them.”
The gallery moves. Count does not look at Pharaoh’s men. He
looks at his wife.
COUNT
Nothing further.
SIMONE
(rising)
Mrs. Rhodes. You love your
husband.
RENEE
Yes.
SIMONE
You would do a great deal for him.
RENEE
Yes.
SIMONE
You’ve been living apart. His
practice is failing. He has a Bar
complaint. And you appear, at the
last possible moment, with the one
sentence that saves his case. You
understand how that looks.
RENEE
I do.
SIMONE
Is there anything you wouldn’t do
for him?
Count sits silent. He cannot protect her. He lets her be as
strong as she is.
RENEE
I wouldn’t lie for him. He
wouldn’t let me. That’s why I
married him.
Simone holds a beat. Then sits. It is the only cross she
has lost all season, and she lost it to the truth.
In the defense chair, Tee, sling and stitches, watches
Renee step down. He leans to Count.
TEE
(low)
Put me up.
COUNT
You sure?
TEE
She paid hers. I’ll pay mine.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · THE OG WHO BOUGHT HIM — THE ANTAGONIST
LUCIUS "PHARAOH" TATE
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black male, 58. Holds court from the back room of Tate’s Cuts, a barbershop he has owned since 1994. Soft-spoken, generous, patient in the way only truly dangerous men can afford to be. Pays for funerals, uniforms, light bills, and one law degree. Ashby Grove loves him, and Ashby Grove is not wrong to. He confuses ownership with love and cannot tell them apart. He needs to be thanked — he kept every tuition receipt “because he is sentimental.”
He had his own nephew killed and left the gun under Tee’s seat for an honest officer to find. No policeman had to do anything wrong; that is the genius of it and why Count can’t see it. Collects in escalating steps: advice, comfort, a lying witness, the receipts, Dre’s gambling debt, and one small question that gets Tee cut in county. Ends the season in county orange gesturing at an empty chair. Warmth is the weapon; never a raised voice.
Signature line: “Sit down, Counselor.”
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 21 — "THE CHAIR"
Read for the role of LUCIUS "PHARAOH" TATE.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 21 — "THE CHAIR"
EPISODE 21 — “THE CHAIR”
INT. TATE’S CUTS – DAY
The shop goes quiet. Renee, in scrubs, walks the length of
it into the back room and sits in Pharaoh’s chair. His
chair.
PHARAOH
Renee Baptiste. You never once set
foot in my shop.
RENEE
I never once needed to.
PHARAOH
I’m sorry about my nephew. I heard
you were with him.
RENEE
I was.
Pharaoh waits. She gives him nothing. Not one word of what
Marquis said. She only needs to know it.
RENEE (CONT’D)
Whatever my husband owes you, he
does not owe you my children. I
have been paying on his account
for sixteen years. Every time one
of your boys came through my
doors, I paid. Tuesday night I
paid again. We are even.
Pharaoh pulls up a stool. Sits below her.
PHARAOH
I’ve always admired you. You never
liked me and you never pretended.
RENEE
I told him about you the day I met
you.
PHARAOH
(smiling)
I know. He remembers everything.
She stands. Does not hurry.
CUT TO BLACK.
Episode 26 — “ONE SMALL QUESTION”
EPISODE 26 — “ONE SMALL QUESTION”
INT. TATE’S CUTS – BACK ROOM – DAY
Dre in the doorway. Pharaoh with his crossword.
PHARAOH
Andre. I never did hear a thank
you.
DRE
Thank you.
PHARAOH
Sit.
(idle)
Is Terrence going to testify?
DRE
I can’t talk about —
PHARAOH
It’s not a case. It’s a yes or no.
I worry about that boy. Standing
up in front of all those people.
It’s not privileged. It’s not evidence. It’s not hurting
anybody.
DRE
Count’s trying to get him to.
Thursday, if he does.
PHARAOH
(filling in a word)
See? That wasn’t anything.
INT. COUNTY JAIL – SHOWER BLOCK – NIGHT
Tee alone. Footsteps behind him. Three men. He never sees
the blade.
INT. TRAUMA BAY – NIGHT
Doors bang. A gurney. Renee looks down. Tee. Slashed across
the chest and arm, conscious, furious.
RENEE
Oh, no. No, no, no.
TEE
(through his teeth)
Tell your husband. Somebody knew.
INT. RHODES LAW – LATER
Dre on the phone, going gray as he listens. He hangs up. He
understands what he did.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · THE WORTHY OPPONENT
ADA SIMONE PRESCOTT
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black female, 36. Senior Assistant District Attorney. Spelman and Emory Law, daughter of a postal worker and a cafeteria manager; chose the prosecutor’s office because the only way to fix the machine is to have your hands on the controls. She and Count are the two best lawyers in the building and their scenes are the fastest in the show — overlapping rhythm, facts as percussion. She beats him at the bond hearing, on the suppression motion, and on the prior, clean. “Not every officer is Raymond Kessler, Counselor.”
Her flaw: she looks away — two years of doubts about Kessler filed under not-my-job. When she finds Varner’s time-stamped payment voucher in a file she had to ask for twice, she does not sign her boss’s certification; she discloses it in open court, then turns around and keeps prosecuting because she still believes Tee may have done it. Her cross-examination of Renee is merciless and fair. The audience should not be sure until the verdict which of them is going to win.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 25 — "CLERICAL ERROR"
Read for the role of ADA SIMONE PRESCOTT.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 25 — "CLERICAL ERROR"
EPISODE 25 — “CLERICAL ERROR”
INT. SUPERIOR COURTROOM – DAY
Simone stands with the certification. The signature line is
blank.
SIMONE
I can’t sign it, Your Honor.
Because it isn’t true.
She hands up the voucher. Hollis, in the first row, stops
being relaxed.
SIMONE (CONT’D)
The State is in possession of a
payment record placing the
defendant in the company of
Detective Varner between 10:50 and
11:15 on the night of the offense.
It is disclosed as of this moment.
JUDGE BEAUMONT (V.O.)
Ms. Prescott. Are you dismissing?
SIMONE
No, Your Honor.
Count looks up.
SIMONE (CONT’D)
The State will call Detective
Varner, who will testify that the
time on that voucher is a clerical
error. And the murder weapon was
still under his seat. The State
proceeds.
INT. COURTHOUSE HALLWAY – LATER
SIMONE
Don’t thank me.
COUNT
I wasn’t going to.
SIMONE
I still think he did it. I just
won’t win it dirty.
COUNT
Then we’re going to trial.
SIMONE
Yes we are.
INT. SUPERIOR COURTROOM – DAY ONE OF TRIAL
The gun on the table. The prior read aloud. And MARQUIS’S
MOTHER on the stand, in her church hat, describing her son.
The jury cannot look away from her. Count cannot cross her.
He does not try.
It is Simone’s day, and everyone in the room knows it.
CUT TO BLACK.
Episode 28 — “WHY ARE YOU HERE”
EPISODE 28 — “WHY ARE YOU HERE”
INT. SUPERIOR COURTROOM – DAY
Renee on the stand. Scrubs under her coat. In the gallery:
Deacon. Jojo. Naomi. And two of Pharaoh’s men, hats off,
watching.
Count stands. For the first time in the series he asks a
question he does not know the answer to.
COUNT
Mrs. Rhodes. Why are you here?
RENEE
Because a patient told me
something before he died, and an
innocent man is about to pay for
it.
COUNT
What did he tell you?
RENEE
He said, “It was my uncle. He sent
them.”
The gallery moves. Count does not look at Pharaoh’s men. He
looks at his wife.
COUNT
Nothing further.
SIMONE
(rising)
Mrs. Rhodes. You love your
husband.
RENEE
Yes.
SIMONE
You would do a great deal for him.
RENEE
Yes.
SIMONE
You’ve been living apart. His
practice is failing. He has a Bar
complaint. And you appear, at the
last possible moment, with the one
sentence that saves his case. You
understand how that looks.
RENEE
I do.
SIMONE
Is there anything you wouldn’t do
for him?
Count sits silent. He cannot protect her. He lets her be as
strong as she is.
RENEE
I wouldn’t lie for him. He
wouldn’t let me. That’s why I
married him.
Simone holds a beat. Then sits. It is the only cross she
has lost all season, and she lost it to the truth.
In the defense chair, Tee, sling and stitches, watches
Renee step down. He leans to Count.
TEE
(low)
Put me up.
COUNT
You sure?
TEE
She paid hers. I’ll pay mine.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · NARCOTICS — THE BADGE
DETECTIVE RAYMOND KESSLER
CHARACTER PROFILE
White male, 47. Decorated, well liked, a Little League coach with commendations on the wall; in 2010 a patrolman with a talent for “plain view.” Warm smile, a twenty-year anniversary watch on the left hand that once opened over a door pocket. Not a cartoon — believes every man he framed was guilty of something. His testimony is warm, clear and rehearsed; juries love him. His vanity is that he cannot resist correcting small details on the stand, and it is the habit Count destroys him with in Case One.
In Case Two he has learned: he never touches the evidence, he simply makes sure nobody looks where Tee really was, and he has Count’s fifteen-year-old put on a curb for forty minutes. “Tell your father Detective Kessler says hello.” Goes on paid leave and baits Count on the courthouse steps one more time: “See you around, Braves hat.”
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 5 — "FOUR SECONDS"
DETECTIVE RAYMOND KESSLER.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 5 — "FOUR SECONDS"
EPISODE 5 — “FOUR SECONDS”
INT. SUPERIOR COURTROOM – DAY
Jury trial. Kessler on the stand, comfortable. The bench is
above frame. We never see the judge.
COUNT
You walked up to the driver’s
side, put both hands on the door,
and asked for license and proof of
insurance. Correct?
KESSLER
Correct.
COUNT
And what did my client do when you
asked?
KESSLER
He went into the glove compartment
for his proof of insurance.
COUNT
The glove compartment. Passenger
side. So he turned away from you.
KESSLER
Yes.
COUNT
Detective, is it regulation to
walk up on a vehicle, put both
hands on the car, and face the
suspect while you ask for
credentials?
KESSLER
(a beat)
No.
COUNT
Where does the academy teach you
to stand?
KESSLER
Behind the door post.
COUNT
And your hands?
KESSLER
Free.
COUNT
Free. Because a driver reaching
into a glove box is the most
dangerous second of the stop. Yet
you were at the window, leaning
in, both hands on the door.
Against policy. Against your own
training. Why did you do it that
day?
KESSLER
I don’t recall.
COUNT
When my client turned to retrieve
his insurance, he was no longer
looking at you. Where were your
hands?
KESSLER
On the door.
Count lets the block into the room. Just once.
COUNT
The door where you found the
crack. So when he turned his back,
that’s when you dropped it inside
that car.
SIMONE
Objection!
COUNT
Withdrawn. Nothing further.
He sits. PUSH IN on the jury: a retired bus driver, a young
teacher, a church lady. All three are looking at Kessler’s
hands.
Kessler is not looking at the jury. He is looking at Count.
Trying to place him.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · THE FRIEND WHO PAID — THE CLIENT IN CASE TWO
TERRENCE "TEE" HOLLOWAY
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black male, 35. It was Tee’s Regal in 2010 and Tee’s seven years. Went in loud and generous at nineteen, came out careful and quiet with a felony that closed every legitimate door; Pharaoh gave him work when nobody else would. Now charged with a murder he didn’t commit. “You watched. Then you went to college. I went upstate. Go ahead, Counselor. Make it right.” Fires his lawyer mid-season: “You’re not fighting for me. You’re fighting for you.”
The secret: the unit that framed him met him at the gate, and for nine years he has been Informant 1147. At the minute of the shooting he was in Detective Varner’s car being paid. His alibi is the police and he will not use it — “I’ll do the life. At least I’ll do it with my name.” He would rather be angry than sad. Cut in the county jail. Watches Renee take the stand and get torn at for a man she never much liked, and gives up his name to get his life. Walks out free and has to leave Ashby Grove that night.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 8 — "MAKE IT RIGHT"
Read for the role of TERRENCE "TEE" HOLLOWAY.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 8 — "MAKE IT RIGHT"
EPISODE 8 — “MAKE IT RIGHT”
INT. RHODES KITCHEN – 5 A.M.
The handoff. No music. Renee has not slept. Count has the
arrest report.
RENEE
Don’t take it.
COUNT
It’s Tee.
RENEE
I know who it is. It’s the one
account you can never close, and
you’ll spend everything we have
trying.
COUNT
They found the gun that killed
Pharaoh’s nephew under his seat.
He’s got a murder charge and a
public defender with two hundred
files.
RENEE
Malachi. I pronounced that boy.
He stops. She hands him his coffee.
RENEE (CONT’D)
Take it. I knew you would before I
asked.
INT. COUNTY JAIL – INTERVIEW ROOM – DAY
Tee in orange, back to the wall.
TEE
They send you or you volunteer?
COUNT
I volunteered.
TEE
‘Course you did.
(beat)
You watched. Then you went to
college. I went upstate. Go ahead,
Counselor. Make it right.
COUNT
Did you do it?
TEE
Would it matter?
COUNT
To me.
TEE
No. I didn’t.
COUNT
Where were you at 11:15?
Something closes in Tee’s face.
TEE
Driving.
INT. FUNERAL HOME – DAY
Pharaoh, in black, signs a check at the director’s desk.
Count in the doorway.
PHARAOH
The whole thing. Casket, flowers,
repast. My sister’s not paying a
dime.
(standing, embracing
him)
I heard you took Terrence. I’m
glad. That boy’s had a hard road.
He deserves somebody good.
COUNT
You know he didn’t do this.
PHARAOH
(a hand on his cheek)
I know you’ll find out who did.
CUT TO BLACK.
Episode 19 — “1147”
EPISODE 19 — “1147”
INT. COUNTY JAIL – INTERVIEW ROOM – DAY
Count slides the printout across.
COUNT
Ten fifty-one to eleven sixteen.
Your phone sat behind the precinct
annex. That’s not a card game.
That’s the lot where detectives
pay informants.
Tee doesn’t touch it.
COUNT (CONT’D)
They met you at the gate. Didn’t
they. 2017.
TEE
(a long time)
Inform or go back on a violation.
They had the paperwork typed.
COUNT
Nine years.
TEE
Every month. Detective Varner’s
car. That night too.
COUNT
Tee. That’s your alibi. You were
with the police when that boy was
shot. It’s coercion, everything
they got from you is tainted, I
can get you use immunity, there’s
a line of cases —
TEE
There you go.
COUNT
What?
TEE
Lawyering.
Count stops.
TEE (CONT’D)
Say it in there and I’m a snitch.
In here, on the block, everywhere.
I’ll do the life, Malachi. At
least I’ll do it with my name.
Count has nothing. No statute. No math.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · INVESTIGATOR — CHILDHOOD FRIEND
ANDRE "DRE" SIMMONS
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black male, 34. Loud shirts, a Charger, lemon pepper wings, three intake files under his arm in the hallway walk-and-talks where he and Count finish each other’s sentences. The front-seat passenger in 2010 who was looking at the other officer and saw nothing. Knows every porch, cousin and grudge in a ten-block radius, which makes him the best investigator in the county and a permanent risk. Wants to matter to something clean.
He gambles — small, steady, always about to stop. Pharaoh quietly buys the debt and Dre lets it be. Then Pharaoh asks him one small, unprivileged question — “Is Terrence going to testify?” — and Dre answers. That night Tee is cut. Dre hands in his keys at the end. Comic energy that turns into the season’s quietest guilt.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 3 — "TWO OCCUPANTS"
Read for the role of ANDRE "DRE" SIMMONS.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 3 — "TWO OCCUPANTS"
EPISODE 3 — “TWO OCCUPANTS”
INT. RHODES LAW – DAY
A storefront between a wing spot and a bail bondsman. Miss
Earline drops a yellowed folder on Count’s desk.
MISS EARLINE
State versus Terrence Holloway,
2010. I had to call a woman I
haven’t spoken to since her
husband’s funeral. You owe me
lunch and an apology to God.
COUNT
You’re the best clerk Fulton
County ever had.
MISS EARLINE
I know what I am. Read.
Count lays the old report beside Pop’s. Dre leans in.
DRE
“Subject made a furtive movement.
Narcotics recovered in plain view,
driver’s door.” That’s word for
word.
COUNT
Sixteen years apart. Look at the
occupants line.
DRE
“Two occupants. Holloway,
Terrence. Simmons, Andre.”
(beat)
That’s me. I was in the front.
COUNT
What did you see?
DRE
The other cop. He had his light in
my face the whole time. I never
saw Kessler’s hands.
COUNT
I did.
DRE
You ain’t in here.
COUNT
I’ve never been in here. They told
the skinny kid in the back to get
on home. One less juvenile to
process.
(beat)
That blank line is the only reason
I have a bar card.
DRE
So you can’t say you were there.
COUNT
I can’t say anything. I’m counsel.
Counsel is not a witness.
(standing)
Earline, draft a speedy trial
demand.
MISS EARLINE
On a trafficking case? Simone
Prescott will think you lost your
mind.
COUNT
Good. I want them in front of a
jury before anybody tells Kessler
to stop talking.
INT. COUNTY JAIL – INTERVIEW ROOM – DAY
Pop, in orange, knee bouncing.
POP
The lady DA said three years.
Three and I’m home for my baby’s
first day of school.
COUNT
You didn’t do it.
POP
So? My cousin didn’t do his
neither. He got twelve.
(beat)
I want the three, Mr. Rhodes. Tell
her I’ll take it.
Count looks at him and sees Tee at nineteen.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · THE OG WHO LOVED HIM
WALTER "DEACON" PRUITT
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black male, 64. Thirty years in the life, eleven inside, now runs the Saturday food pantry at Greater Hope Baptist and means every word. One good suit, back row of the gallery, watching Count in court. He was the first adult to notice the quiet boy counting money was doing algebra for fun and told him once a week for five years: “You the one that can leave, so leave.” Wants to die having gotten one thing right; Count is that thing. Gets Count rehired when Tee fires him.
His silence: he did eleven years for something he didn’t do while the statement that cleared him sat in a prosecutor’s drawer, and he has never told Count the whole story. He tells it late (Ep 23) and it hands Count the paper trap. Dominoes, fried whiting, the Book of James. Gravity and warmth.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 14 — "THE OFFER"
Read for the role of WALTER "DEACON" PRUITT.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 14 — "THE OFFER"
EPISODE 14 — “THE OFFER”
INT. COUNTY JAIL – VISITING ROOM – DAY
Deacon across the glass from Tee. One good suit.
DEACON
He’s the only one in this county
who’ll bleed for you.
TEE
He’s losing.
DEACON
He’s losing because he’s fighting
cops and there ain’t a cop to
fight. He’ll figure it out. Or you
can take the public defender and
eleven years of my life will’ve
taught you nothing.
Tee looks at him a long time.
INT. TATE’S CUTS – BACK ROOM – DAY
Pharaoh pours coffee. Count looks like a man who has not
slept in a week.
PHARAOH
Terrence took you back. Good. Now
let me help.
COUNT
You’ve helped.
PHARAOH
Not like this. There’s a card game
on Langhorn. Runs late. Man named
Big Mo will say Terrence was at
the table from ten till two. He’ll
say it on a Bible.
COUNT
Was he?
PHARAOH
(smiling)
Does it matter? You said yourself
the boy didn’t do it.
Count should say no. He has said no to this man before. He
is tired, he is losing, and it would work.
He does not say no. He lets Pharaoh finish his coffee.
CUT TO BLACK.
Episode 23 — “ELEVEN YEARS”
EPISODE 23 — “ELEVEN YEARS”
INT. GREATER HOPE BAPTIST – FOOD PANTRY – DAY
Deacon bags cans. Count bags beside him, badly.
DEACON
You never asked what I did my
eleven for.
COUNT
You said it didn’t matter.
DEACON
Because I didn’t do it. A woman
seen the whole thing. Gave a
statement the first week. That
paper sat in the prosecutor’s file
eleven years. Found out at my
parole hearing.
He pulls a worn envelope from his coat.
DEACON (CONT’D)
That’s the statement. I kept the
paper. Don’t ask me why.
Count takes it. The math face.
COUNT
They don’t plant. They don’t
write. They just don’t hand it
over. Varner’s voucher is in a
file downtown right now with Tee’s
name and a time on it.
DEACON
And you can’t cross a prosecutor.
COUNT
No. But I can make one sign.
INT. RHODES HOUSE – LIVING ROOM – NIGHT
Empty house. Count at the laptop. The envelope beside it.
His phone, face down.
INSERT – THE SCREEN
“THE STATE SHALL CERTIFY, IN WRITING AND UNDER SIGNATURE,
THAT IT POSSESSES NO INFORMATION REGARDING THE DEFENDANT’S
WHEREABOUTS AT THE TIME OF THE OFFENSE…”
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · OFFICE MANAGER
MISS EARLINE DOZIER
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black female, 67. Retired after thirty-one years as a Superior Court deputy clerk; knows every judge’s mood, every bailiff’s birthday, and which filing window will take a motion at 4:58. Runs Rhodes Law like a courtroom calendar and is the only person who can tell Count to go home. Peppermints, gospel radio, profanity-free before lunch, and no patience for Dre’s shirts. The comic engine of the office and its conscience — and she has been covering the rent and won’t say how, because she buried a son Count’s age.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 3 — "TWO OCCUPANTS"
Read for the role of MISS EARLINE DOZIER.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 3 — "TWO OCCUPANTS"
EPISODE 3 — “TWO OCCUPANTS”
INT. RHODES LAW – DAY
A storefront between a wing spot and a bail bondsman. Miss
Earline drops a yellowed folder on Count’s desk.
MISS EARLINE
State versus Terrence Holloway,
2010. I had to call a woman I
haven’t spoken to since her
husband’s funeral. You owe me
lunch and an apology to God.
COUNT
You’re the best clerk Fulton
County ever had.
MISS EARLINE
I know what I am. Read.
Count lays the old report beside Pop’s. Dre leans in.
DRE
“Subject made a furtive movement.
Narcotics recovered in plain view,
driver’s door.” That’s word for
word.
COUNT
Sixteen years apart. Look at the
occupants line.
DRE
“Two occupants. Holloway,
Terrence. Simmons, Andre.”
(beat)
That’s me. I was in the front.
COUNT
What did you see?
DRE
The other cop. He had his light in
my face the whole time. I never
saw Kessler’s hands.
COUNT
I did.
DRE
You ain’t in here.
COUNT
I’ve never been in here. They told
the skinny kid in the back to get
on home. One less juvenile to
process.
(beat)
That blank line is the only reason
I have a bar card.
DRE
So you can’t say you were there.
COUNT
I can’t say anything. I’m counsel.
Counsel is not a witness.
(standing)
Earline, draft a speedy trial
demand.
MISS EARLINE
On a trafficking case? Simone
Prescott will think you lost your
mind.
COUNT
Good. I want them in front of a
jury before anybody tells Kessler
to stop talking.
INT. COUNTY JAIL – INTERVIEW ROOM – DAY
Pop, in orange, knee bouncing.
POP
The lady DA said three years.
Three and I’m home for my baby’s
first day of school.
COUNT
You didn’t do it.
POP
So? My cousin didn’t do his
neither. He got twelve.
(beat)
I want the three, Mr. Rhodes. Tell
her I’ll take it.
Count looks at him and sees Tee at nineteen.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · THEIR SON
JOSIAH "JOJO" RHODES
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black male, 15 (to play 15). Hoodie, sketchbook, a gifted illustrator, bored by safety. The exact age his father was when the streets started paying. Has grown up on the legend of Count as the old heads tell it at the barbershop and finds that man more interesting than the tired lawyer who checks his homework. Has his father’s hatred of the police and none of his father’s control; knows exactly what he’s been taught to say during a stop and knows he’ll say something else. Put on a curb for forty minutes by Kessler as a message. Watches his parents in that courtroom and leaves a new drawing on the desk — not COUNT. DAD.
SIDES
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Episode 2 — "FOR MY NOTES"
Read for the role of JOSIAH "JOJO" RHODES.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 2 — "FOR MY NOTES"
EPISODE 2 — “FOR MY NOTES”
INT. MAGISTRATE COURTROOM – DAY
Count at the podium. Friendly. Almost slow.
COUNT
Detective, just so I have it right
for my notes. You approached on
the passenger side —
KESSLER
Driver’s side.
COUNT
Driver’s side. Thank you. And you
stood back by the rear door —
KESSLER
(smiling)
No, sir. I walked right up. Hands
on the door, eye level. I like to
talk to people like people.
COUNT
Both hands?
KESSLER
Both hands. Nothing to hide.
COUNT
And you asked for —
KESSLER
License and proof of insurance. He
went in the glove box for it.
COUNT
That’s very clear. Thank you,
Detective. Nothing further.
Simone watches Count sit. She does not like how easy that
was.
INT. COURTHOUSE HALLWAY – MOMENTS LATER
SIMONE
You had him on the stand under
oath and you asked him for
directions.
COUNT
I asked him for details.
SIMONE
You don’t do anything by accident,
Rhodes. What do you know?
COUNT
That he enjoys correcting people.
He walks. She clocks it.
INT. RHODES KITCHEN – 5 A.M.
The handoff. RENEE RHODES, 33, in from a twelve-hour night
shift, keys still in hand. Count knotting his tie. He hands
her the coffee he made. She fixes his collar. Anita Baker,
low.
COUNT
Green dress. Eighth grade dance.
You told me I danced like a tax
form.
RENEE
You still do.
COUNT
Prove it.
She does. Eight bars, scrubs and shirtsleeves, in the
kitchen light. Then he’s gone and she’s asleep on her feet.
This is what there is to lose.
INT. RHODES KITCHEN – THAT NIGHT
Renee, up again, bone tired. JOJO, 15, hoodie, already at
the door. NAOMI, 8, doing cards at the table.
JOJO
It’s four blocks.
COUNT
It’s dark.
JOJO
You was outside at thirteen.
COUNT
And that is exactly why you are
inside at fifteen.
JOJO
That’s not an answer. That’s a
closing argument.
Jojo goes upstairs, loud about it.
RENEE
He already knows who you were,
Malachi. He just doesn’t know it
from you.
NAOMI
(not looking up)
That car came by again.
COUNT
What car, baby?
NAOMI
Gray one. It came by Tuesday at
dinner and today when I got off
the bus. GV 4471.
Count goes very still. She has it too.
COUNT
Say the tag again.
NAOMI
GV 4471. Why?
COUNT
(to Renee, low)
That’s a county tag.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · THEIR DAUGHTER
NAOMI RHODES
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black girl, 8 (to play 8). She has the memory: license plates, conversations, what a grown-up said in March that they now claim they never said. To her it’s a game — card games she always wins, her father’s notebooks, counting things. Recites the plate of a car that passed the house twice and Count goes very still. She never solves a case; her memory exists to frighten her father, because he knows what she doesn’t: it is never being able to put anything down. Tells the truth at the worst possible moment.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 2 — "FOR MY NOTES"
Read for the role of NAOMI RHODES.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 2 — "FOR MY NOTES"
EPISODE 2 — “FOR MY NOTES”
INT. MAGISTRATE COURTROOM – DAY
Count at the podium. Friendly. Almost slow.
COUNT
Detective, just so I have it right
for my notes. You approached on
the passenger side —
KESSLER
Driver’s side.
COUNT
Driver’s side. Thank you. And you
stood back by the rear door —
KESSLER
(smiling)
No, sir. I walked right up. Hands
on the door, eye level. I like to
talk to people like people.
COUNT
Both hands?
KESSLER
Both hands. Nothing to hide.
COUNT
And you asked for —
KESSLER
License and proof of insurance. He
went in the glove box for it.
COUNT
That’s very clear. Thank you,
Detective. Nothing further.
Simone watches Count sit. She does not like how easy that
was.
INT. COURTHOUSE HALLWAY – MOMENTS LATER
SIMONE
You had him on the stand under
oath and you asked him for
directions.
COUNT
I asked him for details.
SIMONE
You don’t do anything by accident,
Rhodes. What do you know?
COUNT
That he enjoys correcting people.
He walks. She clocks it.
INT. RHODES KITCHEN – 5 A.M.
The handoff. RENEE RHODES, 33, in from a twelve-hour night
shift, keys still in hand. Count knotting his tie. He hands
her the coffee he made. She fixes his collar. Anita Baker,
low.
COUNT
Green dress. Eighth grade dance.
You told me I danced like a tax
form.
RENEE
You still do.
COUNT
Prove it.
She does. Eight bars, scrubs and shirtsleeves, in the
kitchen light. Then he’s gone and she’s asleep on her feet.
This is what there is to lose.
INT. RHODES KITCHEN – THAT NIGHT
Renee, up again, bone tired. JOJO, 15, hoodie, already at
the door. NAOMI, 8, doing cards at the table.
JOJO
It’s four blocks.
COUNT
It’s dark.
JOJO
You was outside at thirteen.
COUNT
And that is exactly why you are
inside at fifteen.
JOJO
That’s not an answer. That’s a
closing argument.
Jojo goes upstairs, loud about it.
RENEE
He already knows who you were,
Malachi. He just doesn’t know it
from you.
NAOMI
(not looking up)
That car came by again.
COUNT
What car, baby?
NAOMI
Gray one. It came by Tuesday at
dinner and today when I got off
the bus. GV 4471.
Count goes very still. She has it too.
COUNT
Say the tag again.
NAOMI
GV 4471. Why?
COUNT
(to Renee, low)
That’s a county tag.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · THE DRAWER
CHIEF DEPUTY DA GRANT HOLLIS
CHARACTER PROFILE
White male, 55. Prescott’s boss and the office’s real operator. Courtly, funny, a mentor to half the young lawyers in the building. Has never framed anyone and never would; simply decided years ago that disclosing what the office knows about the unit would unwind hundreds of convictions, so the findings stay in a drawer. Never signs anything himself — always has a younger lawyer put her name on the page. Slides the certification across the desk to Simone in Ep 24 and, for the first time, one of them refuses. Golf, Georgia football, loyalty.
SIDES
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Episode 24 — "THE PEN"
Read for the role of CHIEF DEPUTY DA GRANT HOLLIS.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 24 — "THE PEN"
EPISODE 24 — “THE PEN”
INT. COURTHOUSE HALLWAY – DAY
WALK-AND-TALK. Simone reads as she moves.
SIMONE
This is a stunt.
COUNT
It’s a yes-or-no question. If
there’s nothing in the drawer, it
costs you a pen.
SIMONE
You’ve tried three theories and
lost three motions. Now you’re
fishing.
COUNT
Then sign it.
She stops. He doesn’t.
INT. DA’S OFFICE – RECORDS ROOM – NIGHT
Simone with a file box she had to ask for twice. Inside: a
payment voucher. “CI 1147. Controlled debrief. Det. M.
Varner.” The date is the night of the murder. The time is
10:50 PM to 11:15 PM.
She reads it standing up. Then sits down.
INT. HOLLIS’S OFFICE – NIGHT
CHIEF DEPUTY DA GRANT HOLLIS, 55, slides the certification
across the desk. A pen on top.
HOLLIS
It’s a nuisance motion. Sign it
and go home.
SIMONE
You’re not signing it?
HOLLIS
I never sign anything. It’s your
case.
(beat)
You want my job someday. This is
the job.
The voucher in her bag. Two hundred cases on that unit’s
word. Simone looks at the signature line.
She picks up the pen.
CUT TO BLACK.
# CASE TWO, FOURTH MOVEMENT: THE
DOG FIGHT
Featured role · SUPERIOR COURT JUDGE — VOICE ONLY
JUDGE HARLAN T. BEAUMONT
CHARACTER PROFILE
Male, 70, voice only. Dry, old Georgia, impatient with theater and privately fond of Count because Count is always prepared. Heard from above the frame and never seen — in a vertical courtroom the bench is the top of the screen and power speaks from there. “Sustained.” “Withdrawn.” Recurring voice-over sessions across both cases.
SIDES
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Episode 10 — "THE BOOK"
Read for the role of JUDGE HARLAN T. BEAUMONT.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 10 — "THE BOOK"
EPISODE 10 — “THE BOOK”
INT. SUPERIOR COURTROOM – DAY
Suppression hearing. Rusk on the stand, nervous, honest.
COUNT
You approached the driver’s side.
RUSK
Yes, sir.
COUNT
Where did you stand?
RUSK
Behind the door post.
COUNT
Hands?
RUSK
Free, sir. On my belt.
COUNT
And before you searched?
RUSK
I asked for consent. He gave it.
It’s on my camera.
COUNT
Officer, where does the academy
teach you to —
RUSK
Behind the door post, sir. Hands
free. Ask for consent. Camera on.
The room hears it. Count is at move four with nothing in
his hands. The silence goes on too long. Simone lets it.
SIMONE
(finally, gently)
Not every officer is Raymond
Kessler, Counselor.
JUDGE BEAUMONT (V.O.)
Anything further, Mr. Rhodes?
COUNT
…No, Your Honor.
JUDGE BEAUMONT (V.O.)
Motion denied.
INT. COURTHOUSE STAIRWELL – LATER
Count alone. Hands on the rail. He looks at them like they
belong to someone else.
CUT TO BLACK.
Episode 29 — “THE NOTE”
EPISODE 29 — “THE NOTE”
INT. SUPERIOR COURTROOM – DAY
Tee on the stand. His one good jacket over the sling.
TEE
Informant 1147. Nine years. That
night I was in Detective Varner’s
car from ten fifty till eleven
fifteen, behind the annex, getting
paid. She wrote the voucher. I
watched her write it.
(to the jury)
I’d rather do life with my name
than say that. But a woman who
don’t even like me got up here and
told the truth. So.
INT. SUPERIOR COURTROOM – THREE DAYS LATER
JUDGE BEAUMONT (V.O.)
The jury has sent a note. They are
deadlocked. I’m sending them back.
INT. RHODES KITCHEN – 5 A.M.
The handoff. For the first time in weeks, she is in the
kitchen, in scrubs. He is in yesterday’s shirt. Neither
knows how it ends. He makes her coffee. She fixes his
collar.
RENEE
Remember what you said the day you
passed the bar. “We’re never going
to be poor again.”
He knows the exact words. They were “We’re never going to
be scared again.” He opens his mouth.
He lets it stand.
RENEE (CONT’D)
(seeing it)
…Malachi.
COUNT
That’s what I said.
It is the smallest moment in the season and the biggest.
INT. SUPERIOR COURTROOM – DAY
JUDGE BEAUMONT (V.O.)
Madam Foreperson?
FOREPERSON (O.S.)
Not guilty.
Tee folds in half. Count’s hand on his back. In the gallery
Renee closes her eyes. Simone, across the aisle, nods once.
By an inch.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · THE CLEAN STOP (GUEST)
OFFICER CODY RUSK
CHARACTER PROFILE
White male, 27. The arresting officer in Case Two and the reason Count’s method fails. A good cop: stood behind the door post with his hands free, kept his body camera on, asked for consent and got it on video, and found a murder weapon under the seat. He is telling the truth. His weakness is certainty — he cannot imagine that a clean stop could still put the wrong man in prison. Eps 7, 10; the cross-examination where Count reaches move four with nothing in his hands.
SIDES
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Episode 7 — "TWO BULLETS"
Read for the role of OFFICER CODY RUSK.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 7 — "TWO BULLETS"
EPISODE 7 — “TWO BULLETS”
INT. TRAUMA BAY – NIGHT
A gurney slams in. Renee is a different woman here. Total
command.
RENEE
Two GSWs, chest and flank. Two
large bores, call the OR. Name?
PARAMEDIC
Tate. Marquis Tate.
She knows the name. Her hands don’t stop. MARQUIS, 22,
grabs her wrist. Terrified. Lucid.
MARQUIS
Miss Renee. You Count’s wife.
RENEE
Don’t talk, baby.
MARQUIS
It was my uncle. He sent them.
Somebody seen me talking to that
lady detective and my own uncle
sent them.
The monitor changes its mind. Everything goes fast.
INT. TRAUMA BAY – LATER
Quiet. Renee pulls the sheet up over Marquis Tate’s face.
RENEE
Time of death, 11:52.
She stands there with his blood on her gloves and his
sentence in her head.
EXT. MLK DRIVE – NIGHT
A cruiser lights up an old Cutlass. OFFICER CODY RUSK, 27,
body camera on, walks up and stops behind the door post.
Hands free. By the book.
RUSK
Evening. Tag light’s out. License
and insurance?
The driver hands them over. Calm. Careful.
RUSK (CONT’D)
Mind if I take a look in the
vehicle?
DRIVER
Go ahead. Ain’t nothing in it.
Rusk looks. Under the seat, in a rag: a pistol. Still warm.
RUSK
(into radio)
Dispatch, I’ve got a weapon. Step
out of the car for me, sir.
The driver steps into the light. TEE.
CUT TO BLACK.
Episode 10 — “THE BOOK”
EPISODE 10 — “THE BOOK”
INT. SUPERIOR COURTROOM – DAY
Suppression hearing. Rusk on the stand, nervous, honest.
COUNT
You approached the driver’s side.
RUSK
Yes, sir.
COUNT
Where did you stand?
RUSK
Behind the door post.
COUNT
Hands?
RUSK
Free, sir. On my belt.
COUNT
And before you searched?
RUSK
I asked for consent. He gave it.
It’s on my camera.
COUNT
Officer, where does the academy
teach you to —
RUSK
Behind the door post, sir. Hands
free. Ask for consent. Camera on.
The room hears it. Count is at move four with nothing in
his hands. The silence goes on too long. Simone lets it.
SIMONE
(finally, gently)
Not every officer is Raymond
Kessler, Counselor.
JUDGE BEAUMONT (V.O.)
Anything further, Mr. Rhodes?
COUNT
…No, Your Honor.
JUDGE BEAUMONT (V.O.)
Motion denied.
INT. COURTHOUSE STAIRWELL – LATER
Count alone. Hands on the rail. He looks at them like they
belong to someone else.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · THE PHOTO ARRAY (GUEST)
SERGEANT DALE BRANNIGAN
CHARACTER PROFILE
White male, 52. Ran the six-pack photo array that produced the eyewitness identification of Tee. Has never planted anything himself. He nudges. Count proves the array was suggestive and the ID is thrown out — his one early win in Case Two. One episode (Ep 11) on the stand.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 11 — "SIX-PACK"
Read for the role of SERGEANT DALE BRANNIGAN.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 11 — "SIX-PACK"
EPISODE 11 — “SIX-PACK”
INT. SUPERIOR COURTROOM – DAY
Count, quieter now. On the stand, SERGEANT DALE BRANNIGAN,
COUNT
You showed the witness six
photographs.
BRANNIGAN
Standard array.
COUNT
Five men in white t-shirts. One in
a black hoodie. Which one was my
client?
BRANNIGAN
That’s just what we had on file.
COUNT
And your report says you told the
witness, quote, “Take your time,
he’s in there.”
BRANNIGAN
That’s a figure of speech.
COUNT
It’s a confession, Sergeant.
JUDGE BEAUMONT (V.O.)
The identification is suppressed.
In the back row Deacon lets out a breath. One back.
INT. RHODES LAW – THAT NIGHT
Dre drops two envelopes on the desk.
DRE
Ballistics. Perfect match. And the
phone. Tee’s cell hit the same
sector as the shooting at 11:10.
COUNT
Same sector is two square miles.
DRE
Same sector is what the jury’s
gonna hear.
Count pins the phone report to the wall next to the others.
The wall is getting full.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · THE CLIENT IN CASE ONE (GUEST)
DARIUS "POP" WHITLOW
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black male, 19. Warehouse worker with a baby on the way and a cousin who works for the wrong people. He did not do this one — trafficking weight found in a door pocket during a traffic stop — and he is scared enough to take any plea offered. Count’s hardest job is keeping him from pleading guilty to a crime that never happened. When Count looks at him he sees Tee at nineteen. Eps 1–6, terrified and grateful.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 3 — "TWO OCCUPANTS"
Read for the role of DARIUS "POP" WHITLOW.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 3 — "TWO OCCUPANTS"
EPISODE 3 — “TWO OCCUPANTS”
INT. RHODES LAW – DAY
A storefront between a wing spot and a bail bondsman. Miss
Earline drops a yellowed folder on Count’s desk.
MISS EARLINE
State versus Terrence Holloway,
2010. I had to call a woman I
haven’t spoken to since her
husband’s funeral. You owe me
lunch and an apology to God.
COUNT
You’re the best clerk Fulton
County ever had.
MISS EARLINE
I know what I am. Read.
Count lays the old report beside Pop’s. Dre leans in.
DRE
“Subject made a furtive movement.
Narcotics recovered in plain view,
driver’s door.” That’s word for
word.
COUNT
Sixteen years apart. Look at the
occupants line.
DRE
“Two occupants. Holloway,
Terrence. Simmons, Andre.”
(beat)
That’s me. I was in the front.
COUNT
What did you see?
DRE
The other cop. He had his light in
my face the whole time. I never
saw Kessler’s hands.
COUNT
I did.
DRE
You ain’t in here.
COUNT
I’ve never been in here. They told
the skinny kid in the back to get
on home. One less juvenile to
process.
(beat)
That blank line is the only reason
I have a bar card.
DRE
So you can’t say you were there.
COUNT
I can’t say anything. I’m counsel.
Counsel is not a witness.
(standing)
Earline, draft a speedy trial
demand.
MISS EARLINE
On a trafficking case? Simone
Prescott will think you lost your
mind.
COUNT
Good. I want them in front of a
jury before anybody tells Kessler
to stop talking.
INT. COUNTY JAIL – INTERVIEW ROOM – DAY
Pop, in orange, knee bouncing.
POP
The lady DA said three years.
Three and I’m home for my baby’s
first day of school.
COUNT
You didn’t do it.
POP
So? My cousin didn’t do his
neither. He got twelve.
(beat)
I want the three, Mr. Rhodes. Tell
her I’ll take it.
Count looks at him and sees Tee at nineteen.
CUT TO BLACK.
Episode 4 — “BAD MATH”
EPISODE 4 — “BAD MATH”
INT. COUNTY JAIL – INTERVIEW ROOM – CONTINUOUS
Count closes the notebook. Loosens the tie. The voice drops
into the block.
COUNT
Aight. Run me the numbers, Pop.
POP
What?
COUNT
You take the three. You home in
three. With a trafficking felony.
Warehouse gonna hold your spot?
POP
…Nah.
COUNT
Apartment in your name?
POP
Nah.
COUNT
So that’s not three years. That’s
every year after. You signing up
to be broke in front of your
daughter till she grown, for
something a man put in your door.
(beat)
That’s bad math, bruh.
POP
And if we lose?
COUNT
(back to court voice,
quiet)
Then I will have failed you, and
I’ll say so to your face. But I
have read that detective’s
testimony four times, and I do not
intend to lose.
Pop nods. Barely.
INT. TATE’S CUTS – BARBERSHOP – DAY
Clippers, Bobby Womack. JOJO in a chair, sketchbook on his
knee. An OLD HEAD holds court.
OLD HEAD
Two sets, shooting every night.
And this skinny boy sits both
sides down with a notebook. Shows
’em week by week what the beef
cost. In dollars! Shooting stopped
by Friday.
JOJO
That was my dad?
OLD HEAD
That was Count. Your daddy’s some
lawyer. Count was somebody.
Laughter. Jojo writes COUNT in block letters, shading it
like a tag.
From the back room doorway, LUCIUS “PHARAOH” TATE, 58, soft
cardigan, watches the boy draw.
PHARAOH
(to the barber)
That one’s on the house.
He crosses. Looks at the sketch. Genuinely admires it.
PHARAOH (CONT’D)
You got your father’s hands. He
used to count my money with those
hands.
(a pat on the shoulder)
Tell him I said hello. Tell him I
been meaning to call.
Jojo beams. He has no idea what he is carrying home.
CUT TO BLACK.
Featured role · THE VICTIM (GUEST)
MARQUIS TATE
CHARACTER PROFILE
Black male, 22. Pharaoh’s nephew. A fool, by his uncle’s description, but a likable one, who got scared and talked to a detective. One scene (Ep 7): on Renee’s trauma table with two bullets in him, he grabs her wrist. “It was my uncle. He sent them.” Everything in Case Two turns on those seven words. One day; must land the line while dying convincingly.
SIDES
Audition sides
Episode 7 — "TWO BULLETS"
Read for the role of MARQUIS TATE.
See The Character Script
PRIOR BAD ACTS
Season One ·Episode 7 — "TWO BULLETS"
EPISODE 7 — “TWO BULLETS”
INT. TRAUMA BAY – NIGHT
A gurney slams in. Renee is a different woman here. Total
command.
RENEE
Two GSWs, chest and flank. Two
large bores, call the OR. Name?
PARAMEDIC
Tate. Marquis Tate.
She knows the name. Her hands don’t stop. MARQUIS, 22,
grabs her wrist. Terrified. Lucid.
MARQUIS
Miss Renee. You Count’s wife.
RENEE
Don’t talk, baby.
MARQUIS
It was my uncle. He sent them.
Somebody seen me talking to that
lady detective and my own uncle
sent them.
The monitor changes its mind. Everything goes fast.
INT. TRAUMA BAY – LATER
Quiet. Renee pulls the sheet up over Marquis Tate’s face.
RENEE
Time of death, 11:52.
She stands there with his blood on her gloves and his
sentence in her head.
EXT. MLK DRIVE – NIGHT
A cruiser lights up an old Cutlass. OFFICER CODY RUSK, 27,
body camera on, walks up and stops behind the door post.
Hands free. By the book.
RUSK
Evening. Tag light’s out. License
and insurance?
The driver hands them over. Calm. Careful.
RUSK (CONT’D)
Mind if I take a look in the
vehicle?
DRIVER
Go ahead. Ain’t nothing in it.
Rusk looks. Under the seat, in a rag: a pistol. Still warm.
RUSK
(into radio)
Dispatch, I’ve got a weapon. Step
out of the car for me, sir.
The driver steps into the light. TEE.
CUT TO BLACK.