7.09 Collusion by TW and ED (Part X)

as retold by Bill C

MR: Tom, you do realize that after Chloe flying off into the sunset nobody's going to care about much of anything else?
TW: Yup. So we're going back to Lois.
ED: Yeah--wait. [looks at script] Dammit. Can't we move this?
TW: No, it pretty much has to go there.
ED: Just to make it official: that sucks. So we come back to Lois jogging across that playground we saw earlier and back to Chloe's Yaris...where she notices that a small dumpster has smashed through its roof and is now in the front seat.
AoT: Is nothing sacred, Tom?
AM [laughs, pumps a fist in the air]: Yes!
JG: You know, we can't really show that. Toyota's going to flip out.
MR: You can piss off the management, but you can't even annoy the corporate sponsors.
ED: Damn! Can we use a stunt windshield or something?
TW: Maybe we can just show the top of the car with the dumpster sticking out of it. Make people think it's the same car, when it's really an old junked Kia or a Hyundai...yeah. [makes notations in script]
AM: Hell, I'm willing to live with that. The illusion's good enough for me.
ED: Lois is still looking around for Chloe...Tom, we need to throw in a "Where'd she go?" here...
TW: Right.
ED: ...and she sets off towards the main street we saw a while back.
JG: And she gets hit by a car. The end.
TW: We cut to the same reverse shot of that street we saw a few scenes ago, only there aren't any construction workers running around. The equipment's still there, along with the barricade, but now there are a handful of various TV news vans parked at the barricade with cameras set up pointing towards the camera's POV. In the foreground, we see a couple of police officers run by with guns drawn...and there are sirens going off in the background.
MR: Bank robbery!
TW: Not quite. Into the scene wanders Lois, looking pretty surprised at the change in scenery. She runs up to one of the news vans, with a logo for the station KTMP on its side, and as she does that we pan around/past her to see what all the news crews are focusing on: an array of Metropolis P.D. vehicles, including a SWAT van, all parked in front of an older three-story building a hundred yards away.
MR: Hostage crisis! Nice!
JG: This late in the episode, though? This can't be good.
AoT: Going for the splashy-and-stupid?
TW: Well...kind of splashy, yeah.
MR: And stupid.
ED: Back to Lois now, people. She runs up to the KTMP van, which has some old bearded guy wielding a camera and tripod and a hot-but-not-as-hot-as-Lois reporter with a microphone. They're still setting up. "Hey! Hey, Evelyn!"
AM: "Hot, but not as hot as Lois." Can we get that girl from Vengeance back?
ED: The reporter, Evelyn, turns around and sees Lois. Annette, would you mind reading Evelyn's dialogue?
AoT: Sure. I've got nothing better [glares at TW] to do. "Hey, you're...Lois something?"
ED: "Lois Lane, Daily Planet. We met at one of Senator Kent's debates--what's going on?"
AoT: Evelyn points at the building surrounded by cops. "There was a robbery, some sort of high-speed chase through the middle of town. Ended up in there, they took some hostages."
MR: Damn, that's some exposition you can bash somebody's head in with.
TW: The lower floor of the building is almost all windows--one of which identifies it as the Ursa Internet Cafe. Through the windows, people can be seen crouched on the floor or against the walls except for three figures in dark clothing with hoods over their heads. Only one of them seems to be armed, though, with the standard AK-47.
JG: It's cheap, it's reliable, it's hackneyed...
TW: Bearded Cameraman nudges Evelyn, and points at a space behind one of the further-out police cars. "I think we can sneak over there with the camera, get a better shot."
AoT: "Let's do it!"
MR: I've seen this movie before...
AM: Yeah, me too. This is so cliched, guys...
TW: It's got a point. Evelyn and her cameraman go the long way around the other news vans, with Lois on their heels.
AoT: "Lois, what the hell are you doing?"
ED: "Hey, just my job is all I'm doing!"
JG [snickers]: That just hurts, Tom.
TW: Just as they get around the construction barricade, the biggest glass window in the building explodes outward. The hooded guy with the AK steps through the opening and stands in front of the building, then unloads a full clip into the nearest couple of vehicles. Gratuitous slo-mo, cops running for cover, Evelyn's cameraman trying to videotape the spectacle, yadda yadda yadda.
ED: Lois, being the intrepid reporter she is--
[AM throws a ball of paper at ED]
ED: What?
AM: Nothing.
ED: ...Lois ducks around a telephone pole and uses the distraction to run up behind an empty police car in the middle of the street. She peeks over the hood at the front of the building, just in time to see AK Guy start to reload his weapon. As he's doing that, another hooded guy jumps out the window and stands next to him; he then moves his hands into a shove-the-basketball position, and what looks like a ball of energy starts gathering between them--
MR [uncertain]: Tom, please tell me you're not ripping off Dragon Ball Z.
JG: Dragon what?
ED: Hey! This was my idea, dammit!
MR [to ED]: Erica, please tell me you're not ripping off Dragon Ball Z.
ED: You can't see his hair anyway! So there!
JG: Dragon what?
AoT: Don't worry about it. It's stupid.
TW: The guy is going "Yaaaargh!" while doing this, though. [pauses] My God, that is bad.
ED: Yeah, but he gets shot right after that, see?
MR: Okay, there goes the DBZ comparison.
ED: Yup. He gets shot in the chest and arm by a couple of cops who got close to the building, and he falls to his knees--but the ball of energy goes down with him, and it gets all distorted and shit.
TW: And we hit the really overdramatic music as the energy ball goes off like a bomb. The entire front of the cafe disappears in the explosion, those two cops go flying...I'm thinking we might go for an aerial shot of that too...
ED: Lois gets a nice zoom in as she freaks out when she sees the explosion spreading out, of course.
TW: ...and we cut to more gratuitous slo-mo of Lois hauling ass away from the police car as it in turn explodes and flies into the air in B-movie style.
JG: So you're going to distract Bryan Singer from the fact that you're writing out a character he wants to kill off...by blowing up a building?
TW: Well......yeah.
AoT: It could work, though.
JG: True.

Continued...