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The Odyssey · written by Christopher Nolan · 2026
Scene 150 of 199 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two
Twenty years after leaving for the Trojan War, Odysseus fights his way home across a hostile sea only to find his kingdom overrun — and must return in disguise to reclaim his wife, his son, and his throne from the suitors laying siege to his house.
Ithaca frozen in a decade of waiting: Penelope weaving, the suitors feasting, Telemachus unheard.
Telemachus needs proof of his father's fate; Penelope needs the throne secured before the suitors force her hand.
Telemachus sails from Ithaca in secret, crossing into the unfamiliar world beyond his mother's house.
Odysseus's remembered ordeal — Troy, the Cyclops, Circe, Hades, Charybdis — paid for in men, ships, and years, while Telemachus searches the courts of Sparta.
Odysseus makes landfall on Ithaca at last, alone but alive — what he wanted, stripped of everything else.
Odysseus washes ashore on a foggy beach and Athena reveals to him that he has finally reached Ithaca.
Blind Eumaeus, now guarding his farm from a band of hungry raiders led by Irus, cautiously offers them Zeus's hospitality while distrusting them.
Telemachus takes his leave of Menelaus and Helen, still without solid news of his father.
This scene
Odysseus, HOODED AND CLOAKED AS A BEGGAR, walks up the road, tasting the air of home, CONTENTED. Heading towards some PLUMES OF SMOKE.
TELEMACHUS (V.O.)
I hope to meet him one day.
Recognizing, in the distance, his pig farm, he SMILES...
As he comes CLOSER he sees Eumaeus, with a YOUNG FARMHAND, tending to one of several LARGE BONFIRES. Odysseus smiles at the sight of his old friend. As he approaches HE CALLS OUT --
ODYSSEUS
Where are your watchdogs, old man?!
Eumaeus, BRUISED and BLOODY, turns TEARFUL, sightless eyes towards Odysseus...
EUMAEUS
I'm burning their bodies.
Odysseus's SMILE FALLS. The battered old man gathers his dignity...
EUMAEUS (CONT'D)
Can Zeus offer you food and drink, stranger?
Eumaeus sends off his Farmhand. Odysseus looks, APPALLED. EUMAEUS IS ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE...
ODYSSEUS
Were you attacked?
Eumaeus nods. Odysseus WATCHES the young Farmhand walking to the farmhouse...
ODYSSEUS (CONT'D)
The dogs saved your farmhands.
Eumaeus shakes his head...
EUMAEUS
We burned his brothers first.
Odysseus looks at the other fires with SUPPRESSED RAGE.
ODYSSEUS
What's happened to Ithaca?
EUMAEUS
Darkness. Zeus's law smashed to pieces. A kingdom without a king since my master died.
ODYSSEUS
Who was your master?
EUMAEUS
Odysseus.
ODYSSEUS
Odysseus? Hero of the Trojan War? He's not dead --
EUMAEUS
DON'T!!
Eumaeus turns on Odysseus, FLAILING BLINDLY AT HIM --
EUMAEUS (CONT'D)
BEGGARS GIVING FALSE HOPE! NO MORE! NO MORE!
Odysseus GENTLY holds Eumaeus's arms, EMBRACING HIM AS HE COLLAPSES -- Odysseus CALLS OUT TO THE FARMHAND to help...