An unnamed intelligence operative, recruited into a shadow war fought through time-inverted weapons and objects, teams with an enigmatic ally to stop a dying Russian oligarch from using technology gifted by a dying future to erase the present.

1. Scenes 1–17

   The Protagonist in his zone of comfort — a skilled, anonymous field operative, competent and confident inside the Kiev operation.

2. Scenes 18–20

   Broken by torture and 'killed,' he needs a new purpose; Fay offers one that transcends the nation-state loyalties that just got his team killed.

3. Scenes 21–32

   He enters the wholly unfamiliar situation of Tenet — the wind turbine, the password test, and Barbara's proof that time itself can run backward.

4. Scenes 33–144

   Mumbai, London, Oslo, and Amalfi — he adapts to the world of inverted physics and Sator's inner circle, paying costs (Kat's trust, his own safety) to get close to the target.

5. Scenes 145–158

   The Tallinn ambush succeeds — he gets what the mission wanted, extracting the plutonium '241' from the armored convoy.

6. Just before
7. Scene 163

   Dragged from the trunk, the Protagonist watches Sator march Kat, through a fence, toward a different freeport entrance.

8. Scene 164

   He is marched past the weapons table and through mysterious red doors.

9. Scene 165

   Split across forward and inverted selves, Sator tortures the Protagonist and shoots Kat with an inverted round to force the truth, before both Sators vanish into the turnstile machine.

10. Scene 166

    This scene