Tenet · written by Christopher Nolan · 2020

Overhearing fragmented radio chatter about 'the hypocentre,' he closes on Sator's car.

Scene 174 of 275 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two

Sator

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:35 into a 2:28 film

The story so farBefore scene 174

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.

Scenes 1–17
The Protagonist in his zone of comfort — a skilled, anonymous field operative, competent and confident inside the Kiev operation.
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.
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.
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.
Scenes 145–158
The Tallinn ambush succeeds — he gets what the mission wanted, extracting the plutonium '241' from the armored convoy.
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.
Just before
Scene 171
The earlier firefight replays in reverse as Sator searches the BMW for the missing material.
Scene 172
He plants his phone's tracker inside the empty orange case by the roadside.
Scene 173
He pursues the fleeing Mercedes through reversed highway traffic.
Scene 174
This scene

174INT. /EXT. SAAB – CONTINUOUS

The Protagonist finds a clear lane and guns the engine, tracking the Mercedes as it pulls alongside the Audi, racing ‘forwards’, and Sator, orange case in hand, climbs from the Mercedes into the Audi...

The Audi pulls alongside the BMW – the Protagonist, sensing the moment, LOWERS HIS WINDOW... Sator lifts the orange case, BUT HIS EYES ARE ELSEWHERE –

Inside the Saab, the Protagonist hears BANGING – the BLACK METAL SHAPE ‘unwedges’ from where it’s been stuck down the side of a seat – ‘BOUNCING’ around the interior –

The Saab CUTS between the Audi and the BMW –

The orange case FLIES OUT OF SATOR’S HANDS – BOUNCES OFF THE SAAB’S WINDSHIELD, ‘LANDING’ IN THE BMW –

JUST AS THE BLACK METAL SHAPE JUMPS OUT OF THE SAAB AND INTO THE (FORWARD) PROTAGONIST’S LOWER HAND...

Sator, SEEING THIS, YANKS the wheel – CLIPS the Saab – the Protagonist STRUGGLES for control – but the Saab SPINS AND ROLLS DOWN THE HIGHWAY, COMING TO REST ON ITS ROOF.

The Protagonist, upside down in the car, regains consciousness... fuel leaks, pooling outside the window... he sees expensive shoes approach, then Sator’s face peering in at him. In his hand is a LIGHTER.

SATOR

I saw the hand-off. You made me

shoot her for nothing.

Sator tips his lighter to read his fitness tracker...

SATOR (CONT'D)

You did get my pulse above 130. No

one’s done that before. Not even

my wife.

Backing away, Sator DROPS the lighter, the fuel EXPLODES, THROWING THE CAR SIDEWAYS – BUT INSTEAD OF FULLY BLOOMING, THE FLAMES CONTRACT, SPARING THE PROTAGONIST WHO LIES THERE, FREEZING. HE PASSES OUT.

FADE IN: