Spotlight · written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy · 2015

Robby relays Baron's ask to the team; they debate dropping the PD-numbers story, and Robby assigns Mike to Garabedian and Sacha/Matt to MacLeish and the Porter case.

Scene 14 of 143 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Last scene of act one

Plot Point I
Save the Cat: Break into Two
Sacha
Mike
Robby
Matt

Act two

Begins 15 min into a 2:19 film

The story so farBefore scene 14

The Boston Globe's Spotlight team pries open the Catholic Church's decades-long cover-up of child abuse — one sealed record, one silenced victim at a time.

Scenes 4–10
Robby's Spotlight team operates comfortably inside its own routine, prospecting a modest police-corruption story under a departing editor's cover.
Just before
Scene 11
Marty asks about Eileen McNamara's Geoghan column and proposes suing the Church to unseal Garabedian's documents, stunning the room.
Scene 12
Ben and Robby digest Marty's gutsy first-day call to sue the Church, and Ben reveals Baron wants to meet with them both.
Scene 13
Marty tells Ben and Robby he wants Spotlight to drop its current story and dig into whether Cardinal Law knew about Geoghan.
Scene 14
This scene

14INT. GLOBE, SPOTLIGHT OFFICE - LATER

Mike, Sacha, Matt all working. Sacha on the phone.

SACHA (INTO PHONE)

I don’t know if he’s writing about

you but I will let him know you

called. Okay. Bye.

Sacha hangs up as Robby enters.

MIKE

Hey, how’d it go?

ROBBY

Okay. Baron wants us to scrub the

Geoghan case.

MIKE

That’s great. MATTY Didn’t we cover Geoghan?

ROBBY (CONT’D)

There’s a lawyer alleging Cardinal

Law knew about it.

SACHA

Mitch Garabedian, right? I covered

him at the courthouse.

ROBBY

Can you get to him?

SACHA

I only interviewed him once. He’s

kind of a character.

MIKE

I like characters. I’ll take him.

ROBBY

He’s yours. Also, we should talk to

the lawyer who repped the victims in

the Porter case. Eric MacLeish.

MATT

That guy was always on TV.

SACHA

The Porter case? Remind me?

MIKE

Father Porter, similar story,

molested dozens of kids in Fall

River about ten years ago.

MATT

So we’re dropping the Boston PD?

MIKE

I vote yes.

ROBBY

No, we’re just setting it aside for

now. I don’t need to tell you guys,

we need to be more discreet than

usual. Everybody’s gonna be

interested in this, not just the

Herald. I don’t want the Chancery

getting wind of this before we know

what we have.

MATT