The other half of a payoff already on this site
The annotated cold open for this pilot already quotes two lines from this scene in its own payoff panel — the Engineer's line about the Lunar Lander, and Anatoly's closing "family of spies" speech. That panel makes its point efficiently in two sentences. This page exists for a different reason: to show the whole scene those two lines were pulled from, because the payoff isn't really about the Engineer, or about Anatoly. It's that all four residents planted in the cold open — the Engineer, the Writer, the Artist, and the Assassin — turn out to be exactly what they looked like they might be, in the same unbroken beat, none of them singled out for special treatment.
INT. SUSAN’S SEDAN – GATE – ARMY STORAGE DEPOT – NIGHT
Frankie slows the car before a massive electrified gate. The kind you’d find at a military base. Susan regards it from the passenger seat, curious. After a beat, the GATE GRINDS open.
EXT. ARMY STORAGE DEPOT – WEST VIRGINIA – NIGHT
Miles from civilization. Susan’s Sedan winds through an overgrown complex of abandoned buildings, enters a warehouse.
INT. WAREHOUSE TEN – ARMY STORAGE DEPOT – NIGHT
No lights. The cracked ceiling admits moonlight. The Sedan stops, headlights shining into the darkness.
Frankie and Susan get out to find a familiar figure waiting for them — Anatoly. Susan regards him in shock, she’s further surprised when Frankie runs over to him and they embrace warmly. Susan approaches, confused —
SUSAN
You helped her escape?
ANATOLY
I promised her father I would look after her, just as I would for you. Didn’t I tell you that story?
SUSAN
No. That’s one I haven’t heard.
Susan sees an odd shape lit by the sedan headlights. She recognizes the outline of a Lunar Lander, full-sized. Susan moves to it, passing a rusting old video camera, feet crunching on fake moon rocks. This is a movie set for NASA. Susan finds The Engineer standing beside the Lander.
THE ENGINEER
If they would’ve listened. We could’ve done it for real.
Susan looks back toward Anatoly and Frankie. What the hell?
INT. MISSION CONTROL SET – WAREHOUSE TEN – NIGHT
Another set. Vintage computers. Wall screens. TV Cameras. Long forgotten and abandoned to decay. Susan sits, watching The Assassin clean a .45 Automatic pistol, The Writer clicking at a typewriter, and The Artist creating fake news.1 Frankie sits beside Anatoly as he tells them a story —
ANATOLY
You may have heard about Operation Paperclip. After World War Two, it was a program to bring Nazi scientists to the United States. They built our space program. Got us to the moon.
THE ENGINEER
Eventually. With a little help.
Susan sees The Engineer nearby, trying on a space helmet.
ANATOLY
After the Berlin Wall came down, the CIA had a similar program. It was run by your father. He recruited Ex-Soviet Scientists, Military Officers, and Spies. After debriefing them, they were retrained for covert deployment. Problem was, many of them were still loyal to Moscow. Double agents. Over the last thirty years, they’ve infiltrated not only our National Government, but also private industry. Undermining our political system and foreign policy, working to destroy our democracy from within. For fifty years, they were in hiding.
FRANKIE
When you went looking for something to use against me —
SUSAN
That’s not what I was doing.
FRANKIE
When you found that code. You forced their hand. Now that I’m out, we’re going to find them.
SUSAN
(to Anatoly)
Are you? It’s been a little while since most of you were operational.
ANATOLY
We built the security networks of this country. Engineered the surveillance systems. Wrote the Propaganda. Planned and executed covert missions. Experience will be our force multiplier. And, Frankie.
(beat)
But we need someone on the inside.
Susan sees everybody’s looking at her. Uh-oh.
SUSAN
Me? You want me to go back to work? Undercover at the CIA? Hunting Russian double-agents? I don’t know how to do that.
FRANKIE
You’ve already done it. At Internal Affairs. The five years I spent in prison. That was thanks to you.
SUSAN
Is that your psychotic way of fishing for an apology?
Frankie shrugs. Anatoly settles them down.
ANATOLY
You’re doing this. Both of you. Together. It won’t be easy, but it’s in your blood. It’s who we are. Some people are born into a family of Doctors, or Construction Workers, or Teachers. Like it or not, we’re a family of spies.
SUSAN
Why couldn’t you sit on a park bench and feed the ducks, like everyone else’s Grandfather?
That’s right. Anatoly’s their Grandfather. Thanksgiving arguments at their house could take the world to DefCon One.
We go out on Susan. Considering her options. Or lack thereof.
-- END OF PILOT --
- 1
One clause, three payoffs. The Assassin's cardboard weapons from the cold open are a real .45 now. The Writer's cat-and-crossword bedroom is a working desk again. The Artist, who did nothing but sleep and snore in the cold open, turns out to run disinformation. The cold open planted four separate guns on four separate walls — this is the one line where all four fire in the same breath, none of them held back for a later episode that this unsold pilot never got to write.
Chekhov's Gun
What this excerpt doesn't show
The scene immediately before this one — Eli and a Russian operative named Maxim breaking into the now-empty nursing home, finding only a dead guard and Anatoly's abandoned guitar — is its own beat, working a different job (dread, not payoff), and is left out here so this excerpt stays focused on the one thing it's built to demonstrate.
Read the whole thing
This excerpt is the closing pages of a 60-page pilot. The full logline, genre, and comps are on the original post — Spec TV Pilot: “Catalyst” →
Related pages
- What Is Chekhov's Gun? — the setup-and-payoff discipline behind note 1.
- Catalyst: The Cold Open, Annotated — where all four residents are planted, four consecutive rooms, no explanation given.
About the author
Jesse Alexander is a screenwriter, showrunner, and narrative designer whose work spans film, television, games, and transmedia storytelling. Scribbler’s Toolbox collects practical frameworks developed from professional story development and production.