First Cut, the PILOT

THE FIRST CUT Written by Benjamin L. Hinnant PILOT WGA-w# 2004890 [email protected] FADE IN: EXT. WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - NIGHT CU: AN OPEN EYE. Lifeless. Accentuated OFFSCREEN by RED & BLUE siren lights and red blood spatter. We are greeted by a LOUISIANA DRAWL: CAMILLE (V.O.) Around my way, the meaning of life is summed up in who comes to bury you, who gathers together in your name after you’ve gone, and how they remember and eulogize you. SLOW-MO: A bright red FORD FIESTA parks at the corner of the intersection. HE steps out the car, hood of his black hoodie covering his head. “TRAYVON MARTIN 1995-2012” on his back. TITLE CARD: “THE FIRST CUT” The trunk pops open. The hoodie comes off and is replaced with a “MEDICAL EXAMINER” windbreaker and cap. He grabs the PELICAN CASE, shuts the trunk, and locks the car by remote. CAMILLE GALLIEN is our boy-next-door handsome protagonist, thirty, a “Louisiana Creole” of color. He rounds the corner onto Havenhurst. The Andalusia building is cordoned off with “CRIME SCENE” tape. CRIME SCENE TECHS operate on auto-pilot. END SLOW-MO Waving Camille over wearing matching “Medical Examiner” gear is EZEKIAL FOGG, white, sixty, silver-haired. CAMILLE Dr. Fogg. You’re everywhere. FOGG Yeah, I’m what you call hands-on. Forget every episode of CSI you’ve ever committed to memory. Tonight’s a crash course on what you’ll learn during your year here. What is your first objective at the crime scene? CAMILLE To inventory as much information related to the body as I can. FOGG Make sure the decedent is dead. 2. Fogg and Camille conduct a walk through, an overview of the entire crime scene. FORD SZARAGOSA, white, forties, senior death investigator, snaps photos with a crime scene CAMERA. SZARAGOSA Black Lives Matter, you. Are. Late. CAMILLE It’s LA. I can be fashionably late. SZARAGOSA Analyzing the body at the scene of the crime is an integral component to death investigations even before the first cut of a postmortem. As primary DI your job is to ascertain crime scene safety prior to setting foot on the scene itself to prevent injury or loss of life, Doctor. FOGG Szaragosa’s already established an entry and exit path to the body. An unidentified, white male. John Doe. Camille kneels and pulls back the sheet covering the BODY. The image before Camille is unnerving. But he’s used to it. CAMILLE He’s wearing a tux. Another black tie basic for getting laid in this town? Am I really checking vitals? FOGG You’ll be surprised what the human body can survive. Trust me, nothing about this job is TV-friendly. CAMILLE Heard of cable? Who called it in? FOGG A resident here. Actually called to complain the body was blocking the driveway’s entrance. Some set, huh? SZARAGOSA A determination of death’s needed before jurisdiction’s established. CAMILLE And you’re volunteering me? Fine. Camille grabs the dead man’s hand and feels. 3. CAMILLE (CONT'D) He hasn’t gone into rigor yet. SZARAGOSA Rigor mortis sets in three to four hours after time of death, lasts up to, give or take, thirty-six hours. CAMILLE Abrasions by the left ear extended across the back of the head. Same point of contact. Vascular damage. SZARAGOSA Consistent with blunt force trauma. Camille registers the wound pattern on the back of the head. CAMILLE (measures it) Five inches. He was struck by something strong. Hard. SZARAGOSA Like a wooden stake perhaps? CAMILLE A stake? If it were hard enough, sure. It could do the trick. I’d like to pronounce it. Homicide. SZARAGOSA And there it is. The magic word. FOGG Here’s what needs to be done before leaving. Note the location where death was confirmed. Obtain dispatch records. Interview family and witnesses as needed. Record any discrepancies between the scene and the body, inconsistencies involving trace evidence... CAMILLE (V.O.) I am a Forensic Pathology fellow. Every month out of the next twelve I will see four to ten homicides, sixty to a hundred natural deaths, twenty to thirty unnatural deaths, two to five pediatric postmortems, and eight to twelve suicides. CUT TO: 4. INT. GALLIEN HOUSE/LAFAYETTE, LOUISIANA - DAY A framed photo atop the fireplace mantle of a six-year old BOY OF COLOR, filled with adorable, wide-eyed innocence. CAMILLE (V.O.) It was my granpè who introduced me to death. He owned a funeral parlor back in my hometown. I was blessed with his name. A name I’ve had a constant love-hate relationship with once the bullying began. My parents taught me early on how race and class can divide us. And how the ignorant and overprivileged ridicule our names and our culture, before appropriating and colonizing them. Never giving our traditions nor our language the respect they deserve. Which is why it’s taken me this long to make amends with the familial history behind my name. PULL BACK TO REVEAL: A multitude of vintage pictures over the fireplace personalizing the walls of the front room. A FAMILY history ranging from infant to elder representing African, Spanish, European and Native American hybridism is displayed. CAMILLE (V.O.) I come from a line of free Creoles of color, as my kinfolk were called back in the day. French, African, Spanish and Native ancestral bloods who migrated here from the French colonies in the Caribbean and West Africa during the Spanish rule in Louisiana. My elders were artists, doctors, tailors, educators, hair- dressers, and cooks. They owned property and maintained boarding houses. They also owned slaves. I know my history. Any man who hasn’t owned his past is doomed to get owned. Knowledge is our best weapon against a movement driven by hatred and threatened by the history we carry in our minds, our bodies, and in our spirits. It’s what keeps me woke as fuck. Why I take a knee. And why my black life matters. And if empowering myself makes anyone mad they should ask themselves why. CUT TO: 5. INT. MOREHOUSE COLLEGE/AUDITORIUM/ATLANTA, GA - DAY CAMILLE, eighteen, dressed in his MAROON BLAZER with other BLACK FRESHMEN. Heads bowed, hands joined in silent prayer. CAMILLE (V.O.) Faith healing is a dying tradition, which sadly skipped my generation. My papa inherited the Gift from his mother, Granmè Prevella Delphine. With it, a respect for human life. “Healing is more intoxicating than the sweetness of a first kiss”, my papa says. Takes me back to when I kissed my first boy, Hero Jean. We were both twelve back then. CUT TO: EXT. MOREHOUSE COLLEGE/ATLANTA, GA - DAY CAMILLE and MOREHOUSE FRESHMEN march single file through the main gates of campus during the Parents Parting Ceremony. CAMILLE (V.O.) Hero’s dad, Dr. Henri Jean, my former pediatrician whom I secretly crushed on, mocked faith healing ‘cause it wasn’t backed by science. CUT TO: INT. MOREHOUSE COLLEGE/AUDITORIUM/ATLANTA, GA - DAY CAMILLE, twenty-one, sits with his GRADUATING CLASS wearing caps and gowns. FAMILIES are in their seats as names are called to collect diplomas. Camille spots his family taking photos and videos in the audience: His parents PATRICE and EUPROSINE, and older brother CAYENNE, in his Naval uniform. CAMILLE (V.O.) That didn’t stop people who could afford real doctors from traveling to see my papa. Dr. Jean died that summer after we graduated high school. He willed his body to a medical school in another state. To give students there a chance to perform their first cut. Sadly, Hero and I lost touch. His loss. CUT TO: 6. EXT. MOREHOUSE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE/ATLANTA, GA - DAY Gross Anatomy. First-year medical student CAMILLE expertly performs his first cut on a human body. And then faints. CAMILLE (V.O.) Dreaming big is what made me the bad-ass papi loco I am today. By repurposing the negativity from my life and into my dreams, I could rebuild my Self. As a lawyer, an actor, astronaut, even a superhero. CUT TO: EXT. SHUTTLE BUS (MOVING)/ATLANTA, GA - EVENING CAMILLE on a CAMPUS SHUTTLE BUS being re-routed by POLICE. A car with a bullet-riddled windshield and a BLACK MAN’s lifeless body slumped over the wheel in the street is treated as an afterthought. POLICE mill about joking with each other. CAMILLE (V.O.) Especially when reality reminds me how disposable I am. Well, almost. CUT TO: INT. MOREHOUSE DORM/ATLANTA, GA - NIGHT CHEERS and TEARS echo throughout the halls. CAMILLE and other STUDENTS witness BARACK OBAMA become the President on TV. CAMILLE (V.O.) I ultimately chose doctor. Because I used to be afraid of dead people. Especially the ones in my granpè’s funeral parlor. And too many of us are being taken before our time. CUT TO: INT. HOSPITAL OFFICE WAITING ROOM/LOS ANGELES, CA - DAY FACES are buried in CELLPHONES in the reception area. Except CAMILLE. He’s in his ill-fitting, Sunday best on a budget. ALVES (O.S.) Dr. Camille Gallien? CUT TO: 7. INT. HOSPITAL OFFICE - DAY DR. WINTER ALVES, white, fifties, offers CAMILLE a choice of seats inside. She sits behind her desk reviewing his resume. ALVES I’m Dr. Winter Alves. Director of Lochner Gannon Memorial Hospital’s Department of Pathology. I’m also the interim deputy medical examiner for the LA County Coroners Office. You’re here for the post-residency training in forensics. We reviewed your resume: Bachelor’s in English, Morehouse.

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