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. Scene 165

   Sator, split across forward and inverted selves, tortures the Protagonist and shoots Kat, forcing the lie that hands Sator the algorithm's first section — the reversal that reveals the mission was always to lose, not win.

7. Just before
8. Scene 168

   The Protagonist steps out into a world running backward for the first time.

9. Scene 169

   He searches the recovered Saab for the hidden material, in vain.

10. Scene 170

    He drives against a tide of backward traffic, tracking a signal.

11. Scene 171

    This scene