7.21 Apocalypse by TW and AM (Part IV)

as retold by Bill C

AM: Hold on a shot of Lane gasping for air with the parademon's claw around his throat, then cut to a frontal shot of it forcing its head through the hole and growling some more. Lane drops his gun, his weapon hand disappears out of view for a couple of seconds, and when it reappears he starts punching the parademon in the face with it--finally shoving his fist into its mouth in mid-growl. He then manages to gasp, "Mackenzie--brakes--now!"
TW: Quick shot of Mackenzie jamming on the brakes, then a shot of the Humvee skidding to a stop. Lane manages to lean back in his seat, get his legs up, and actually kicks the parademon in the face; that and the rapid stop sends it sliding forward off the hood as we see Lane grab Mackenzie and pull him out of sight. Back to the Humvee's interior as Lane holds up one hand, his index finger now bearing a metal ring with a pin attached to it, and grins wickedly.
MR: Okay. That's pretty damn cool.
JG: I'm jealous again.
AM: Reverse shot through the windshield as the parademon leaps back onto the hood, then back to Lane and Mackenzie as a muted explosion suddenly cuts off the growling. Some squishy red and gray stuff, speckled with yellow, lands on Lane's shoulder.
ED: The General can't be stopped by one lousy space dog!
JG: Now I'm more jealous.
AM: If it makes you feel any better, John, I doubt anybody's going to remember this scene by the end of the episode.
JG: What do you mean? Lionel finally gets to man up for his woman?
AM: I was thinking of our...stellar...track record and commitment to quality, but yeah--that too.
JG+MR: You're kidding.
TW [pauses]: No, it's true. We'll get to it later.
AM: Lane and Mackenzie sit up in their seats. Lane brushes the goop off his shoulder. "Let's go, Mackenzie." Mackenzie starts the windshield wipers, clearing off the now bloodstained windshield, and we cut to a ground-level shot of the Humvee pulling out of frame with a massive ground battle going on in the distance behind it.
TW: And back to Lex and Hope's position, as we see a heavily battered suit of armor pick up what appears to be a short fat missile. Lex is loudly talking to it. "Remember, Colonel--one thousand feet, no farther!"
AM: The suit nods, and we hear an amplified man's voice. "Down its throat." It fires a set of boosters on its back and feet, and takes off straight up; the camera pans up to follow it, then cuts to Lex turning back to Hope and shouting into his headset. "General, the package is being delivered now! Clear the area!"
TW: Jump cut to a frontal shot of Colonel Miller's suit flying along, as four other suits fly in from out of frame on all sides and bracket it, followed by three helicopters. We see them basically start firing everything they've got towards the camera--guns, missiles, energy weapons--and they fly through a series of increasingly dense explosions.
MR: Shit, there goes the effects budget.
TW: Dawn's given us a bonus. Mainly because of the next episode.
MR: Why the next one?
TW: I don't want to talk about it. It's between me and Dawn.
MR: Huh? What, you slept with her to get mo--
[KK enters]
KK [angrily]: Fucking elitists!
AM [after a few seconds]: ...so, Kristin, how did the WGA meeting go?
KK: Shut up! I don't want to talk about it!
AM: Okaaay.
TW: So we cut to a side shot of Miller's escorts slowly being picked off or forced to withdraw by concentrated alien weapons fire, then to an HUD-view shot from inside his suit of the boom tube in midair. A targeting reticle appears and starts blinking along with the word "LAUNCH," accompanied by a warning buzzer, and then cut to a reverse shot of the suit as it launches the fat missile from its--
KK [smacks the tabletop and sits down in a huff]: How could they say that about my script?
TW: ...shoulder mount. Track to follow the missile as it accelerates, Miller's suit veering away hard out of the shot, and flies through a group of flying parademons, then reaches the boom tube just as a new group of parademons come out of it carrying a large metallic sphere on a tripod. It hits the--
KK: Bastards!
TW [sighs]: Okay, Kristin. What happened?
KK: I said I don't want to talk about it!
TW: All right...so the missile hits the sphere...
KK: They rejected my application--said the script was "childish"! Do you believe that shit? They actually said "childish" and "immature," the sons of bitches!
JG: This was the script for Bounty, right? Where you had Clark all hopped up on RedK?
AoT: And he was beating people up for their clothes?
MR: And destroying a BBQ joint with heat vision?
ED: And hooking up with Lobo for an ambiguously gay boys' night out?
[TW covers his mouth with his hand, trying to keep from laughing]
AM: What'd they say about killing off Bruce Wayne's parents?
KK [scowls]: They actually liked that part! But the review committee said that it didn't make up for the, what'd they say, "staggeringly below-average composition of the rest of the story." What kind of bullshit is that?
[TW covers his mouth with both hands]
ED [helpfully]: I kind of liked the BBQ joint part.
KK: I can't believe this! That was a good script!
AoT: You can't appeal or something like that?
KK: That's not the point! Why would they reject the script after making people like the guys who wrote Painkiller Jane members, for God's--
[TW starts laughing uproariously]
KK [pauses]: Okay, fine. Laugh it up, Tom!
TW [still laughing]: I'm...doing...my best-- [falls out of his chair]
[KK scowls at TW]
AM [to herself]: Circle of suckage...okay. While Tom's indisposed...the missile hits the sphere and we immediately cut to a shot of the boom tube as it, the sphere, the parademons, and everything in its immediate vicinity are suddenly enveloped in a growing white sphere of energy. The sphere grows to envelop the entire screen, and then we cut to a radar image of the area as a Missile Command-style red circle appears over Alaska and then fades away. And then we hear Chloe's voice...
MR: Game over, man! Game over!
AM: I like it, but no. "High energy discharge in vicinity of Fairbanks, Alaska."
ED: That sounds more like a Chlone.
AM: It is. We pull back from the image, which we see to be a large wall monitor, as a Chlone in black turns from it to look past the camera's POV. "Possible nuclear origin. Casualty probability high."
MR: Wait, hold it. You just nuked Lex again!
KK [sourly]: There's already a precedent for it. [yells at TW] STOP! LAUGHING!
TW [gasps for air]: Okay....okay....done now. [gets back into his chair]
AM: As the Chlone speaks, the camera pans across the interior of the Fortress of Sullivan--
JG: Chloe-cave.
AM: Fortress of Sullivan.
JG: Chloe-cave.
AM: Shut up. Anyway, it pans across the room to center on the real Chloe, sitting at a large glass desk, hands crossed under her chin. She's intently focused on the offscreen display, brow furrowed in thought.
MR: If a tree falls in the forest--
[KK lightly smacks MR in the back of the head]
AM: Thank you. The Chlone speaks again: "Shall I feed the incoming satellite data to Simulation Twelve?"
JG: What, Chloe's doing a WarGames ripoff in the Chloe-cave?
TW: Sort of.
MR [trying to sound like a computer]: "Greetings, Chloe. Shall we play a game?"
AM: Only in hi-def. It'll be clear later. Chloe answers herself: "No, feed it to Simulation Two. Add any further data gathered from LuthorCorp's systems."

MR: Okay, wouldn't Lex have figured out a way to lock Chloe out of all that by now?
TW: If he was thinking about it, maybe. But with his hometown being nuked and the threat of alien annihilation, well, he's been a little busy.
MR: Oh, come on! Lex forgets about Chloe and gets nuked twice? That's bullshit!
ED: Third time should be the charm, then!
MR: Shut up!
TW: Actually, this time Lex isn't nuked.
MR: Huh?
TW: We cut from Chloe to the previous establishing shot from the snowy plain of Fairbanks...only the huge pipeline is heavily damaged and multiple parts of it are in flames. In the background, most of Fairbanks itself is covered in a cloud of smoke. Cut from that to an aerial shot of the center of the city, which is now basically a huge crater; rapid pan over to an airfield, to Lex's transport, and then zoom in on Lex and Hope as they're picking themselves up off the ground.
AoT: Shouldn't they be glowing in the dark?
MR: Oh, screw that!
AM: No, they're both fine. Though for the eagle-eyed the transport itself appears to have suffered some minor damage and Hope's console has fallen over, they're okay. Anyway, they get up and both stare off-camera; the camera pans around them until we have a reverse shot of them staring into the devastated city. Some dramatic music swells, and we go to commercials.

Continued...