CROWD DJ EDGAR GRETCHEN HONEY_NUTZ_2 JIMMY LINDSAY MARIAH NOCK_NOCK SAM SHITSTAIN VALET WOMAN YVETTE JIMMY You look nice. MARIAH Thanks. You, too. You got it right. For once. JIMMY I resent that. MARIAH I love weddings. GRETCHEN Ah! Damn it! The game was on that. GRETCHEN Coffee! JIMMY 29 days! Can you believe it? GRETCHEN Until our wedding. Right, that. Crazy. Coffee. Do we have any travel mugs? Got to get over to the event space, like, yesterday. JIMMY Got you something. GRETCHEN Fuck yeah! Give me. Shoes? Dope shoes. JIMMY Yeah. Not just any dope shoes. Dope wedding shoes. I got some as well. GRETCHEN Gretchen confused. JIMMY I've been reading up on some common wedding mistakes, and it turns out most people forget to break in their shoes. GRETCHEN So, you want me to wear these today? The one day my job requires me to walk around a bunch? Have you been there the whole time? EDGAR Mm-hmm. GRETCHEN Wow. I've gotten really good at tuning you out. EDGAR Why do you have to walk around a bunch today? GRETCHEN Oh, well, thank you for asking, Edgar! It's only the biggest event of my career. Sam and the boys are dropping a new joint, so I organized this fat listening party as their big comeback. Plus, I convinced them to throw Nock Nock a verse. Double plus, I built him as this big mystery guest to get all the hip hop writers thirsty AF to attend. Genius, huh? JIMMY Look at us. Just a couple of hotties, ready to get married. From the ankles down. GRETCHEN Xl is coming? Fuck. JIMMY What? EDGAR How stupid are you? JIMMY Who are you talking to? EDGAR Gretchen has a very important event tonight, and you don't even react, let alone volunteer to go. JIMMY Why are you talking to me like this? What's happening? EDGAR I don't know. Best I can figure, now that we're co-writers, I'm spontaneously reevaluating our relationship and realizing nah. JIMMY Nah? EDGAR Anyway, you and Gretchen, I have thoughts. You can be unsupportive to her now, but that will not fly once you're married. JIMMY I am incredibly supportive. EDGAR You guys are supposed to be creating a life together. The only way that works is if you take active interest in the parts of each other's lives that don't directly affect you. JIMMY Why would I do that? EDGAR Because otherwise you'll never really be a couple. You'll just be two people. JIMMY Let's get to work on the script. EDGAR Okay. GRETCHEN Mike, don't forget to not let me forget to text Sway in the Morning in the morning. I mean, tomorrow morning. Figure it out! Bye. LINDSAY Oh, what are you doing? GRETCHEN Boss shit. Walk with me. Can you believe this place? LINDSAY Yep. Real dope. GRETCHEN If tonight doesn't go flawlessly, Yvette is gonna have my ovaries on a platter. That woman plays like she's warm and caring, but that ho once fired a dude for getting ball cancer. LINDSAY Sure, but shouldn't you be doing wedding shit? It's 29 days away. GRETCHEN Why does everyone know that? LINDSAY Remember when you made us all download that wedding app 'cause it came with a coupon for Souplantation? GRETCHEN Oh, right. What the fuck? I never got my soup. Look, if I can do this, I can easily pull off getting married. LINDSAY What those words mean? GRETCHEN This job is not something I ever wanted, but now that I have it, I realize how important it is to me. So I'm gonna really try for once, really knock it out of the park. LINDSAY Huh? GRETCHEN Jimmy is my job in this metaphor. LINDSAY Oh! That's really smart! GRETCHEN Why are you dressed like that? LINDSAY My smart girl clothes? Well, I have a date tonight, and the guy's profile says he reads books. So. GRETCHEN Lindsay, you're not doing that thing where you try on a new identity for a man again, are you? LINDSAY What? I don't do that. GRETCHEN You spent last week at Burning Man with that dude you met on Raya. LINDSAY Don't bring Burner culture into this! GRETCHEN SAM Bitch, you are jumpy as hell. What's wrong with you? GRETCHEN Nothing. Walk with me. SHITSTAIN Oh, a walk and talk? Hell yeah. SAM You heard the track yet? GRETCHEN Ugh, no. Crap. I've been so busy. SAM For once, I believe you. SHITSTAIN Yeah, it's like an actual competent person planned this. Jeez, maybe you'll even be able to handle being married. GRETCHEN That's what I said! This is your room. I will check in later. HONEY NUTZ 2 I'm Honey Nutz. SAM She knows! YVETTE This RSVP list is so long, somebody's gonna call the fire marshal. I can't wait for the recap. GRETCHEN Y-You're not staying? YVETTE Forcing my staff to go on a team building retreat just so I can have the office to myself is my form of getting drunk at a listening party. Don't ever become a boss, Gretchen. It sucks! NOCK NOCK What it do? What it-? Oh, no. Where did all those doors go? GRETCHEN Your green room is over there. I'll check in soon. YVETTE I hope you understand the magnitude of this event. It's not just your ass on the line. I really want you to rise to the occasion, Gretchen. GRETCHEN I'll try. Got to fix that light! LINDSAY Hey! You have a face I've seen. Can I get a ride back to the office? YVETTE Um, sure. As long as you keep that shit off my leather seats. LINDSAY Oh, no. Don't worry. This is all going in my mouth. EDGAR And done with adult breastfeeding scene. Plus, I made a list of some great pub names. Ready? The Erstwhile Butler. JIMMY First of all, I don't have the mental bandwidth to stay attuned to Gretchen's every little mood shift. EDGAR Fine. Hogwash and Smeagan. That might be my favorite. JIMMY Secondly, it is precisely because Gretchen and I lead separate lives that we're such a successful couple. EDGAR The Blunt Governess. The Exchequer's Folly. JIMMY If we were to share every iota of our lives with each other, there would be nothing to talk about. EDGAR The Fox and Ferret. The Bullfrog's Ale-Wife. JIMMY Counter-instinctually, it is separation that draws us closer. EDGAR Farthings. JIMMY And that keen understanding of the human psyche is exactly why I am the one making mid-to-high six figures for a screenplay while you're here stuck pitching me pub names. EDGAR Hmm. JIMMY Where do you think you're going? EDGAR To go for a walk and find somewhere quiet to write the V-Day scene. Maybe the park. JIMMY But I was talking to you. EDGAR And I didn't like the way you were talking to me, so I am calmly removing myself from the situation. JIMMY Fine. We'll go write in the park. It'll give me a chance to break in my shoes. Edgar, I said fine. Wait for me. LINDSAY Which is why I'm wearing my smart girl outfit. Even though my friend said it was a bad idea. But what does she know? She and Jimmy are exactly the same. Most people have to change a little to make sure someone likes them. And anyway, who knows? I could read books. Whoa! No one's here! Which means the bosses aren't here. YVETTE Hmm. Well, I'm here. And I need to get to work. LINDSAY Let's do something fun like rolly chair races! Wee! Oh! Or leave fake love notes in people's offices. Really fuck some people up. YVETTE Lindsay, you're very amusing, but I truly need to get to work. LINDSAY Oh! I know! Let's raid the fridge for leftovers. YVETTE Who brings the best stuff? LINDSAY Well, I always go Colin first. YVETTE Yeah. LINDSAY Then Rebecca, Torshiro, that weird guy from accounting with the thing on his neck. YVETTE Ooh, yeah. Gross. NOCK NOCK Did your boy bring it, or what? GRETCHEN You absolutely brought it. I can't believe you were that good. NOCK NOCK Me neither. I guess working with my idols made me step up. Usually it's just me in the shower and Charles on the toilet running the beat. Oh, dang. I forgot to remind the sitter to crush Charles's medication in his Tuna Helper. GRETCHEN I'll let you get to that. NOCK NOCK Hey, Gretchen. Thanks for believing in me. JIMMY Let me explain something to you. To primitive people, the unknown like "Will the sun come up tomorrow?" and "Why did a woolly mammoth just crush my uncle Thag?" was so unfathomably terrifying that they would make up myths to give a false order to what seemed like a capricious, entropic world. And this same type of magical thinking is why certain couple do everything together. Tammy and Bernard both of to his dermatologist appointment because they think the combined force of their love and devotion will keep it from being melanoma. But it won't. You know what will keep it from being, metaphorically speaking, melanoma? Being fucking interesting. Remaining interesting as individuals will stave off the malignancy that is romantic complacency, not thirstily doing everything together like Charles and Camilla, or The Property Brothers. EDGAR You can admit you're scared to get married. JIMMY What? I'm not scared. EDGAR It's okay, Jimmy. I no longer look up to you, so you have no height from which to fall. JIMMY Ah, I understand what's happening. You're pushing me away before I get married and you're left out in the cold. EDGAR I didn't ask for this to happen. It just did. Like when Neo saw the Matrix, I now see you as my equal. JIMMY Well, stop it. JIMMY See? This illustrates my point perfectly. This is something that Gretchen would absolutely lose her shit over. But if she were here, experiencing what I experience, what would there be to say? "Ooh, that was cool." "I agree." "Should we just give up and die now?" "Sure." EDGAR That was cool. JIMMY Yeah, it really was. EDGAR And if you were together, you could've both experienced it. It would become part of the fabric of your relationship as opposed to something that just happened to you. JIMMY Let's keep walking. I need to break in my shoes. SAM Bitch, you're making me dizzy! Just go ahead and tell us what you fucked up! GRETCHEN Ugh. I was trying to think of a profesh way to say this, but, uh. Ooh, you guys suck ass on the track. No, that is unfair. You guys are very okay on it, but Nock Nock's verse is so good, he makes you guys sound like you suck ass. SAM Don't even start. SHITSTAIN I didn't say anything. GRETCHEN What's going on? SHITSTAIN I told him Nock Nock murdered us. We got to find something else to play tonight. SAM We're playing that damn track! GRETCHEN Do you really want to risk getting embarrassed? SAM I am an established artist with a worldwide fanbase. HONEY NUTZ 2 Mm. SAM Our okayest shit is worth more than that yellow-toothed redneck's entire life! HONEY NUTZ 2 Come on, now! SAM Would you rather buy an amateur's best still-life, or a napkin scribble-scrabble by Picasso? Would you rather eat your Aunt Diane's Boeuf Bourguignon or a plate of scrambled eggs by Ludo Lefebvre? SHITSTAIN I got a version of the song without Nock Nock. SAM Great. We'll go with that. HONEY NUTZ 2 I mean, that's probably the safer option, right? Yeah. Yeah. NOCK NOCK So I did a good job and I'm being punished for it? GRETCHEN I didn't say punished. More like, they want to nullify the existence of your verse forever in a constructive way. NOCK NOCK You're playing that track tonight. GRETCHEN But I just told you I can't. NOCK NOCK Nah, you told me your dinosaur clients are sad I murdered them. GRETCHEN Wow, I thought Sam and the boys were your heroes. NOCK NOCK Sure, but everybody's heroes got to fall off at some point. I'm the future of hip hop, whether they like it or not. Play my shit, Gretchen. That's why I'm here. If you don't, I won't be here, or anywhere. I mean, I'll always be somewhere 'cause matter can't ever truly disappear. But I won't be with you. Feel me? LINDSAY So after disc gold on the playa, while I was being treated by the medic for the scorpion bite, I had this feeling of acceptance. I fucking hated every minute of being in the desert with a bunch of dirty assholes, but I could learn to love it for the right person. YVETTE You can't force love. LINDSAY But I want it now! I want someone to love me. I'm ready. I'll do whatever it takes, even if I have to change my name, my hair, the date on my birth certificate. I'll leave out all the bad details of me- like that time I got an STD from that tall season four American Idol loser. YVETTE Sanjaya? LINDSAY No, Chlamydia. YVETTE LINDSAY What? I don't have it anymore. YVETTE Stop looking for who to be because guess what? You already are her. LINDSAY I'm who? Mm. YVETTE You good with this? LINDSAY Oh, hell yeah! WOMAN JIMMY Hi! Oh, no. You're doing your intense meth-lady smoking thing. Is everything all right? Where are you? GRETCHEN Oh, God. No, it's not okay. I'm hiding in this weird lifty thingy, because it turns out that Nock Nock is a really good rapper and he made the boys look bad, so now they're demanding that I play the version without him. But Nock Nock knows that he murdered them, so he's demanding that I play his version. And our marriage depends on me being able to work this out. JIMMY Huh? GRETCHEN It's a metaphor, Jimmy! No matter what I do here, I piss someone off. JIMMY Did you just say Nock Nock's a really good rapper? GRETCHEN This is a serious crisis! What should I do? JIMMY Oh, okay. Well, le-let's think. Perhaps there's someone nearby whose entire vocation revolves around handling crises? Oh, look there's one. Ha! GRETCHEN Damn it. Thanks for answering. I just needed to vent. JIMMY Anytime. EDGAR You should be with her. She's gonna do something dumb. JIMMY Edgar, she told me her problem, I listened and solved it. We had our separate experiences, then came together in the end, just like I said. We don't need to be together to be together. EDGAR Then why did you lead us here? JIMMY Look, when we came across that zoo opera, all I wanted was to see Gretchen smile, but when I turned around all I saw was your dumb face. Sorry. I supposed you don't want me saying those kind of things to you anymore. EDGAR Nah, it's okay. It's kind of a dumb face sometimes. JIMMY Anyways, now that we're here, it would be silly not to go in, right? EDGAR I think it would mean a lot to her. Yes. DJ What version am I playing? GRETCHEN Play that one. JIMMY Gretchen! Gretchen! This is the first time I've seen her walk with purpose. It's quite sexy. EDGAR I'm glad we came. JIMMY Me, too. Thank you. SAM Okay, okay, okay, everybody. CROWD SAM We appreciate y'all coming out to hear our new shit! SHITSTAIN Reboot! HONEY NUTZ 2 I'm Honey Nutz! SAM But first, let me introduce to you the mystery artist y'all been waiting on. Give it up for my dude, Nock Nock. CROWD SAM Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll be hearing his shit very soon. NOCK NOCK Very soon! Like right now. SAM Actually, less soon than that. EDGAR Hey, so what'd she say when you confronted her about the pills? JIMMY Nothing. I didn't ask her. EDGAR Why not? JIMMY Because we don't do that. EDGAR Jimmy, she's taking more and more, and some of the really weird stuff. JIMMY She's fine. This isn't old depressed Gretchen. She's up and about. She cares about her job for once. She's fine. SAM Check out our new joint, featuring a beat from DJ Squirt Squirt. "Don't Be Jealous!" HONEY NUTZ 2 "Don't Be Jealous." SAM Yo, hit it, DJ. Drop that track. HONEY NUTZ 2 Which version you think he's playing? NOCK NOCK Me. JIMMY Where'd she go? CROWD LINDSAY YVETTE Stop. Stop. LINDSAY It was fun handing out in the bosses' office. YVETTE Huh? LINDSAY That was really nice. I know this is kind of fast, but would you want to get together sometime to maybe eat each other's pussies again? YVETTE No one's ever put it quite that way, but yeah. I think I do. LINDSAY Ooh. YVETTE Huh? LINDSAY You have some lipstick. YVETTE Are those mine? Keep them. Yes, this is- What? Well, is there a fire or not? LINDSAY What's wrong? YVETTE Sorry, I need to handle this. VALET Good night, Miss Thompson. YVETTE Mm-hmm. Yeah. LINDSAY Miss Thompson? Yvette Thomp.