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. Scene 47

   The Protagonist begins surveilling Kat at her son's school gates — he commits to using her marriage against Sator, entering the upside-down world of the operation proper.

5. Scene 51

   Kat's appraisal-room scene with the forged Goya begins the relationship — with Kat, and by extension her son Max — that will carry the story's theme of what a parent will do to save a child.

6. Just before
7. Scene 54

   Kat pleads with Sator's driver to leave as a thug heads inside for the Protagonist.

8. Scene 55

   The Protagonist fights off Sator's thugs in the restaurant kitchen.

9. Scene 56

   Kat begs to leave as the fight continues inside.

10. Scene 57

    This scene