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Tenet · written by Christopher Nolan · 2020
Scene 208 of 275 · ≈ 2 min on screen · Act two
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.
The Protagonist in his zone of comfort — a skilled, anonymous field operative, competent and confident inside the Kiev operation.
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.
He enters the wholly unfamiliar situation of Tenet — the wind turbine, the password test, and Barbara's proof that time itself can run backward.
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.
The Tallinn ambush succeeds — he gets what the mission wanted, extracting the plutonium '241' from the armored convoy.
He pays a heavy price for it — Kat is shot, the material is lost to Sator anyway, and he is left not knowing whether any of it mattered.
Priya's full reveal at the Oslo War Memorial — the algorithm was deliberately split and hidden, and Sator's 'theft' was meant to happen — reframes defeat as the synthesis insight that shapes the endgame.
Kat learns Sator's fitness tracker is a dead man's switch and that he is dying and choosing the moment of apocalypse — the full shape of the endgame locks in, forcing the two-front assault.
The Protagonist arrives at the forward staging camp.
Ives briefs Red team on the temporal pincer assault plan against Stalsk-12.
Kat and Mahir approach Sator's yacht by boat off Vietnam, watching her earlier self board with Max.
This scene
Ives gestures across the whole area on the schematic –
IVES
The entire area is radioactive, so
both teams wear full protection. To
distinguish teams, wear these –
A soldier starts passing out RED ARMBANDS...
INSERT CUT: Neil, in respirator, takes a BLUE ARMBAND, and, like the rest of the team, puts it on...
BACK TO RED-TEAM BRIEFING –
Ives points to each of the three elements in turn:
IVES (CONT'D)
Landing zone, LZ, well defended,
including ground-to-air ordinance.
We drop in, clear the LZ for Blue
team’s evacuation... We make our
way into the city proper... these
buildings are abandoned, but we
learned they have a turnstile in
this one... so expect a bi-temporal
response.
RED SOLDIER 1
They’ll have inverse ordinance?
IVES
Inverse, conventional, forwards
antagonists, inverted antagonists –
they have it all, and it can all
end you. Got it?
Ives goes back to the diagram –
IVES (CONT'D)
On the other side of the city, the
ground rises to the ridge above the
hypocentre.
Most of you will proceed up the
hill – a splinter unit will take a
tunnel from the city to the floor
of the hypocentre. Blue team
located an entrance here –
Ives points to the city’s edge. Then to the CAVERN.
IVES (CONT'D)
The bomb is in the rock high above
to trigger a collapse, sealing the
cavern.
RED SOLDIER 2
How do we defuse the bomb up there?
IVES
We don’t. The explosion takes place
as planned, exactly ten minutes
after our landing. Everything is
synchronized to that explosion.
Both teams have countdown watches –
ours counts down from ten at
landing, to zero at the explosion.
He holds up his wrist to display a BLOOD-RED ‘10’ –
IVES (CONT'D)
Blue team is the reverse –
INSERT CUT: a PREVIOUS BRIEFING (BLUE TEAM). NEIL watches as Wheeler holds up her wrist to show a VIVID-BLUE ‘10’ –
WHEELER
Ten at the explosion, to zero at
our extraction. If you are not at
the LZ by zero, you are not
leaving.
BACK TO RED-TEAM BRIEFING –
IVES
Our job is to fail to defuse the
bomb, while the splinter unit
achieves its task undetected.
RED SOLDIER 1
Which is?
IVES
Need to know. And you don’t. Any
other stupid questions? Right,
let’s get ready.
Everybody RISES. The Protagonist approaches Ives.
PROTAGONIST
I wanted to be on the first wave.
IVES
There is no first wave – Red team
and Blue team operate
simultaneously. Do not get on the
chopper if you can’t stop thinking
in linear terms. You want to be on
the team who lifts the contents of
that capsule?
PROTAGONIST
Absolutely.
IVES
That’s us. We’re the splinter unit.
PROTAGONIST
Just us?
IVES
No one who knows the contents of
that capsule can leave the field. I
thought we’d manage ourselves.