Neon (2023) s01e01 Episode Script

1
[crowd chanting] Santi! Santi!
Santi! Santi! Santi!
[announcer] Yo, Miami!
On the first leg of his world tour,
make some noise, y'all!
It's Santi!
[audience applauding and cheering]
["Exagerao" playing]
¿Estamos activos?
[singing]
De mi mente tú no sales ♪
Dejaste una huella ♪
La baby se pone psycho ♪
Si le bailo a ella ♪
Se que tú quieros perrear ♪
Y yo vi que andas sola ♪
Ese culo tú lo vas a tener que guardar ♪
Por que si tú me lo das
No te lo devuelvo ♪
Si te escondes, te busco en mi
Mente siempre te encuentro ♪
Tú dices que eres lowkey
Pero ese booty ♪
Exagerao ♪
Tú quieres un perreo pesao ♪
Santi ♪
- [song stops]
- [audience cheering]
Yo! Santi.
¡Esa vaina estuvo heavy!
[laughing]
Absolutely, so heavy.
- Honestly, the heaviest.
- I couldn't have done it
- without my corillo!
- [phone vibrates]
- Yo, Daddy Yankee! Dímelo, hermano.
- [Daddy Yankee] Santi.
Vi tu performance. Estáduro, bro.
- You're a star.
- [girls tittering]
- Hey, I gotta call you right back.
- Dale, papi.
Santi, we love you so much.
Let's all have sex,
together.
[girls giggling]
Santi, you can't. It's time.
Time for what?
["Remix" playing]
You ladies can head back with me.
- It's time. Come on.
- Ness!
What? We can share!
- We gotta go. We gotta go. Come on.
- No.
Come on, Santi, wake up.
- Wake up.
- [groaning]
- Wake up. It's time.
- Bro, wake up.
- You don't wanna miss this.
- Oh, I had the craziest dream.
Tell me everything before we forget.
- Why do you guys do this?
- [Felix] Ness,
I'm this young man's creative director,
and dreams are a creative director's clay,
if you will.
- Do you will?
- What?
- Do you will?
- Okay, Felix,
as this young man's manager,
shut the fuck up
and find a gas station
like I've asked you to do.
- Yes, sorry.
- Guys, we're so blessed.
I mean, we're moving to Miami.
Like, this is it.
Oh, my God, not this again.
I gotta get you there in under an hour,
to give us enough time
to move into the apartment, to eat,
and get at least
eight hours of beauty sleep
before the label meeting
- Shit!
- [man] with his viral hit,
- with over six million views and counting
- [screams]
- "Exagerao," by Fort Myers' own, Santi.
- [cheering]
- Let's go!
- Hey, bro, you're on the radio!
- ["Exagerao" playing]
- I'm starstruck.
Guys, this is it. This is destiny!
- [all cheering]
- ["Exagerao" playing on stereo]
- Yes!
- Yeah!
[Ness] Yes!
Frikitona, me lo puso de espaldas ♪
En 4K esas nalgas ♪
Ya me tiene loco esa falda ♪
No es el sol pero quiero que salga
Bandida ♪
A ti te gusta jugar a escondidas
Ni el pai, ni la mai, ni la tía ♪
Saben cómo eres tú
Tu cuando estás prendia ♪
Cuando salga el sol ♪
No me olvido de ti
Tú de mí no te olvidas ♪
Tú de mí no te olvidas ♪
[song stops]
It feels so good to finally
not be a tourist in Miami.
- [Ness laughs]
- Miami.
Oh, this is gonna be great.
- This is gonna be so great!
- I
Yo, we've been here five minutes,
already seen your cousin Sebastian's ads.
[chuckles]
He must be killing it
with all the fucked-up BBLs here.
A botched BBL wouldn't be
a dealbreaker for me.
It's like getting a discount
on bruised fruit.
Still tastes the same.
[in Spanish] Should we take him
out of the group?
But he's the best at what he does.
I know, I hate it.
[in English] Don't be bullies, cabrones.
- We're not bullying you.
- I can tell by your tone.
Yo, did
Did Mia's assistant confirm for tomorrow?
Yeah. We're good. 11:30.
Yes! And she knows
that all three of us are coming?
Uh-huh.
Just 'cause I don't have any experience,
doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing.
That's what that means.
- [phone beeps]
- [Santi] What?
"Thinking of the kids suffering in Africa
and countries around the world."
"I do this for y'all."
You have alerts on
for Javier Luna's Instagram?
You being jealous of Javier Luna,
one of my favorites.
Also, his origin story
is very fascinating.
I'm not jealous of Javier. I'm just asking
why does he have his alerts on?
I don't get why people compare us.
That guy is like
a reggaeton Machine Gun Kelly.
He doesn't even write his own music.
What's wrong with MGK?
You at least have alerts on
for my page, right?
Yeah.
How are you in charge
of my social media page
but you only have alerts on
for Javier Luna and not me?
Why do I need to have alerts on?
I post things. I'm the alert.
This is why
I should be in charge of socials.
- You in charge of socials?
- Yeah.
- Ness, you have two friends.
- Yeah, so do you.
[scoffs]
Who do you want running your Instagram?
Yo, Africa's not even a country.
It isn't, right?
Bueno mis niños, esto es lo que hay.
- [Irma] There it is. This is it.
- Ness.
[clears throat] Ness.
[chuckling] This is not
what was in the photos.
Relax, I got this.
This is not what was in the photos.
I know,
but the pictures are old, very old.
I had it updated since.
Right.
Did anybody die in here?
I'm definitely feeling
someone's ancestors.
It's not what we thought.
But this place is fine.
It comes furnished, I mean
It works.
Given this was a bait and switch,
obviously, we're gonna
need some sort of discount.
There's gonna be an extra charge
for the furniture.
That's the opposite of what I said.
Keep negotiating. You're doing great.
Extra. It has to be extra,
'cause I have to cover
the furniture rental, the lease.
I have to pay for the beds, the couch,
the table, the spoons.
- Spoons?
- [Santi] Look.
Even with the extra, guys,
I mean, this is fine. We're
We're in. It's a great deal.
Let's make it happen.
- It's a deal.
- Perfect.
Eh, mmm, we'll take care of the paperwork.
It's gonna be two days to process
and then you are in.
I thought that we were moving in today.
No, no, I didn't say today. I say two-day.
- No, but we need to be in today.
- No.
Can we please find another place?
Not that wouldn't blow our budget.
[sighs]
Okay, is there any way
that we can move in, maybe later
this afternoon or maybe tonight?
Because we don't have anywhere else to go.
No.
I feel like you didn't even think about
that. You just said "no," real quick.
- No.
- That was the same speed.
No. Two days.
[chuckles]
Come on, mami?
- Two days.
- Two days.
Guys, it's really not that big of a deal.
We can get a motel
until the place is ready.
I mean, that's one option,
but also it's kind of not.
Why?
We're already spending
way more than I thought on furniture,
and other than the money
I set aside for studio time,
we don't have extra.
We start spending, we start losing.
A motel means we lose,
I don't know, a bed.
Or spoons.
What about Sebastian?
I bet his place is sick,
he's got that botched
Brazilian booty bread.
Dude, there's no way
that I'm calling Sebby.
That's admitting defeat
before we even start.
Él es tu primo.
He wants to help.
He even offered you a job.
If I call him, he's gonna call my dad,
and start talking shit,
then my dad will call my tías and tíos
and say that I should've fucking
taken an office job just like them.
I don't want Sebby to know that I'm here.
So, what are we gonna do?
I vote that we go back home.
No. [sighs]
If we start driving back,
we can make it back in a couple of hours,
beat traffic.
[Santi] Big meeting tomorrow.
Get some sleep.
Everybody good?
[Ness] Yes, perfect. I love this.
Ness, you're tall. Wouldn't you rather
be somewhere spacious,
like the trunk, or the undercarriage?
[seat clicks]
Ow, what the fuck?
[Santi exhaling]
Santi, were you trying to
fuck the landlady earlier?
[birds chirping]
[groans]
Ow.
Ah.
["Kitipo" playing]
Ah
Damn it.
- [Felix] Come on, park.
- [Ness] We gotta move, we're running late.
[Felix] All right, hurry up.
Do you really need your fucking backpack?
Guys, we only have ten minutes.
Ness, I can help you with your makeup.
We're all looking a little tired
from last night.
I did my makeup already.
- Oh, I'm sure it's fine then.
- I could kill you.
So, look,
when Mia asks us to sign this record deal,
do I say yes right away?
Or do I pretend like I'm thinking
about it, and then be like,
- "Yeah, we'll sign."
- [Ness] Okay, no.
She's not offering us a record deal.
She might not even help us.
We have to prepare for everything.
The only thing I'm preparing for
is filling our oceanfront balcony
with hoes.
Sorry, shouldn't have said that.
I'm trying new things. It's Miami.
Don't expect her to offer us anything.
If she did, that would be great.
But we have a plan.
So remember the plan.
We have this meeting,
we parlay that into other meetings,
then we network with DJ
and industry types,
spend a little money
to promote on some playlists
once we figure out who's who,
build the hype, you record new music,
and then we start a bidding war
between the record labels.
Trust the plan.
So, trust the plan that has us
preparing for the meeting of our lives
in a gas station bathroom?
That is what I am here for. Music, plans.
Oh, um
It's not coming to mind
- what you're here for.
- I'm the creative director.
- The fuck?
- [Ness] I don't really
Stop it. We trust the plan, okay?
- That's why you're the captain.
- Ya tú sabe.
[Santi chuckles]
[in English] No.
Is this sensor or is it a switch?
- Wait, wee bit higher. Up there.
- No, hit it!
Don't hit it! Don't hit it!
["Bon Bon" playing]
Santi?
Ah! [laughing]
Ah, it's so good to finally meet you.
- It's a pleasure.
- [Mia laughs]
- And you must be Ness.
- Yes.
- Nice to meet you.
- You, too.
You must be Felix.
I love how you directed the video.
- It's a pleasure to finally connect.
- Okay.
We can't believe that we're meeting
with someone from the biggest
- reggaeton label in the game.
- Please.
- Oh!
- [all laughing]
Okay.
- Come on, let's go find our table.
- [Santi] Okay.
[softly] Calm down.
- [laughing]
- [Felix speaking indistinctly]
Okay, man, look, I just gotta say,
I am impressed with how you do it all.
I mean, you
You write, you produce, you perform.
You know how rare that is in this space?
You have a real ear for it.
Oh, and the video?
Loved how y'all did the video.
- It was just
- Thank you.
Of course.
Six million views is no joke.
I just love when people just go out there
and figure shit out.
That's what you're supposed to do.
So, now, I have to ask, where do you
see yourself going from here?
I mean, well, this might sound
kind of crazy to you, but I feel like
I can be the biggest reggaeton star
in the world.
Yeah, that doesn't sound crazy at all.
If you could call my parents
and tell them,
that would be great.
Yeah, I'll do it after I call mine.
I'll do it right after I call mine.
[all laughing]
You wanna be
the biggest reggaeton star in the world.
Me encanta, obviamente.
[in English] What's the next move?
Please tell me
it's not that you moved here,
take a few meetings with some labels
and were hoping they'd climb
over each other to [laughing]sign you.
[all laughing]
- No.
- No.
Okay, good.
Of course not, no, um
We have a really well-thought-out plan,
and it's, uh, like, multifaceted.
- [Santi] Mmm.
- Um
I could explain it to you.
It's just like
- Eh, I got you.
- Yeah.
It sounds intricate. I love that,
because not everybody has it figured out.
[both] Mmm.
See that guy there?
The waiter?
He's a musician, too.
He's really good.
We had a meeting here a couple months ago
at this exact same table.
But it didn't work out
the way he wanted it to.
So now, he's here
bringing people sandwiches.
So you specifically picked this restaurant
just to, like,
point out that guy's failures?
No. What I'm trying to tell you is,
that's every restaurant here.
That's the point.
I can't say this
without sounding just a little bit slimy,
but the music industry is tough.
There's so many things new artists
don't even know they don't even know.
Market reports,
securing guest features and producers,
media promotions, tour scheduling. It's
I say that to say we have people
to do all that shit for you.
All you worry about
is make some good music.
Great, that's what I do.
Plus, there's upfront money, too.
Mmm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, there are a lot of uncertainties
with being an independent artist.
But with being an independent artist,
what you do know, uh,
is nothing happens without your say-so.
[chuckles] And I mean, yeah,
that is a hell of a lot more work,
but I don't see that as a bad thing.
Why would working harder
be a bad thing, you know?
Also, that is nothing to say of how
whatever money you make
goes directly to you.
[cell phone vibrating]
Can't argue with that.
Oh, shit.
I'm so sorry,
Um, I actually have to go.
- Wait. [laughs]
- [Mia] Shit.
You're leaving? Right now?
[Mia] Yeah, I'm sorry.
My, uh, label is throwing
this huge beach club event tonight
and I have to call all the artists.
[laughs]
Sounds fun.
Yes, it will be. Thank you guys
so much for lunch. This was great.
Yes, hi. Uh-huh.
You cannot bring him.
She didn't offer us a deal.
Didn't invite us to the party.
Didn't even offer to pay for lunch.
Don't do that.
All I'm saying is it feels a lot like
Mia showed up feeling one way about us
and then you started
spraying your Ness mist everywhere,
then she left feeling a different way.
Who tells someone about a party,
but doesn't invite them to it?
Someone trying to send us a message.
Someone covered
- in Ness mist.
- Stop saying that.
- It's gross.
- For real,
what was going on back there?
You started to go off script.
I'm the manager, right?
I have to make sure
that we make smart decisions.
It didn't all the way feel like that.
It felt like there was some subtext
that Mia for sure noticed.
So you thought we had a good plan before,
but now you don't?
Diablo, it took one lunch meeting for you
to trust somebody more than us.
I did not mean it like that.
I'm just saying that
Mia, she started to say that
our whole plan out here is shitty.
- That didn't set off bells in your head?
- That's literally
what they do, it's a power game.
She wants us to think we need her.
If I wasn't in this group,
I would think it's hilarious
how fucked we are.
It took us one lunch meeting
for Ness to lose us
our multimillion dollar record deal.
There was no deal!
There was a deal. And you fucked it!
[both scream]
You know what? Fuck it.
We gotta go to this party.
- The one Mia didn't invite us to?
- [Ness] Yeah.
We show her we're not
some fucking loser wannabes.
Ness, the three of us
currently live in a 2009 Toyota Corolla.
Mmm-hmm. I'm gonna find that party
and go there,
and I'm going to get "Exagerao"
played there.
It won't be listed online.
It's an industry event,
not a college job fair.
- Found it.
- Oh.
How did you find that?
Went to the label's site,
found an employee registry,
went to Instagram,
looked for pictures, names.
Then I checked if anyone had posted it,
'cause everybody posts everything.
Wait.
Pérate.
[in English] Doesn't make sense.
It'll feel weird
to show up there uninvited, like
No, it's a straight-up bad idea.
At best, Mia is on the fence about a deal.
If we show up to a party
we're not even supposed to know about,
she'll think we're stalking her.
- It'll ruin our chance.
- No. We should go.
Picture it. We are at the beach.
Industry big shots
- are listening to your song
- Yes.
Yes, easy for you to say
'cause it's not your song.
What if it doesn't go well?
Then I'm a joke.
But you won't be.
Because you are gonna show them
what I've known since I was 12 years old.
And that is that you are a star.
This is the moment
that we moved to Miami for.
We're supposed to be there.
Hey.
Going to this party?
It's our destiny.
[chuckles]
- Yeah!
- Now you're talking.
["EstáCabrón Ser Yo" playing]
[woman cheers]
- Time to work your charm.
- I got this.
You got this. You're a big, strong man.
Listen, you probably get this every night,
but it's just like,
literally just me
and my beautiful friends
Santi? Love your video, man.
[singing] Ese butty estáexagerao ♪
[Santi laughing]
[in English] Come right in.
Wait. Stop right there.
We just gotta not be too conspicuous
and blend in.
[party music playing]
Holy fuck. Is that Jon Z?
[Ness] Oh, shit.
[laughs]
And is that Brray?
Nah. Everyone is at this party.
I gotta go talk to them, Ness.
What? No,
that's the opposite of what I said.
- It's my destiny!
- No. [sputters]
I don't think he knows
what conspicuous means.
[Ness groans]
Santi?
Mia.
[Mia laughs]
- How did you
- What's up? We figured it out.
- You did.
- You said earlier
you're most interested
in people who figure things out.
So Ness, she figured some stuff out
and here we are.
- Here you are.
- [Ness] Here we are.
[Mia] Mmm-hmm.
What's new with you?
- Nothing since today.
- Good.
[Brray] Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo!
¿Qué es lo que es?
Que lo que, que lo what, que lo sheesh.
¿Estamos activos o no estamos activos?
[in English] I wanna introduce to you
the next big thing in reggaeton.
My friend, mi hermano,
con ustedes, Javier Luna!
["Cuando llego" playing]
[singing] A la hora que yo llego
Prendo el party ♪
Calentando to'as las calles
flow Miami ♪
El billete te lo traigo
En el maletín ♪
Tú me mira y se te cae el jean. ♪
We signed Javier Luna
couple of months ago.
He's great, right?
I never heard of him.
You know, that could be you up there.
All right, guys, have fun.
I'm gonna go out and mingle.
You guys are really here.
What kind of look was that?
Was that like,
"I respect your hustle" look
or was that, "you super overstepped" look?
That was good. That was a good look.
No, it was bad.
I'm gonna get a drink.
Yo.
I need to know something.
You started pushing being independent
at the meeting,
sort of out of nowhere, and honestly,
I look around at this party
and it doesn't seem that terrible.
Signing a deal with Mia,
if it's a good one,
is the best thing.
- Right.
- And I hope that
she does offer it.
And I hope that we didn't actually
fuck it up today. I just [laughs]
You clearly vibed with her.
Right? And professionally,
she is the better version
of what I'm supposed to be,
and I don't know,
I bet everything on this too,
and I just kept seeing this thing
in my head of me getting pushed out.
Of course, I think she's cool
and she knows her shit,
but, like, you're like
my fucking sister, bro.
I'm still at home working for my parents
if it's not for you.
You see things that I don't,
in people, in situations, in myself.
So, I mean, what are you seeing right now?
Dímelo, ¿qué tú quieres hacer?
You wanna go?
What are you feeling?
I guess I'm feeling like,
I mean, it is a party,
and we are in Miami.
And there are a lot of cuties here
we can talk to.
Throw on your Ness swag
and go bag yourself a cutie, okay?
- You want me to wingman you?
- No, I do not.
[continues singing]
[crowd cheering and applauding]
Uh, Mr. Z, Mr. Brray.
I mean, I don't even know
what to call you.
Papi, just call me Bambi, Bambini,
Bamburrio, Bamvicio,
el alma de la fiesta, or Brray, bro.
A'ight, I'mma just
stick with Brray. [laughs]
Yo, listen, I just wanna say that, like,
I'm a huge fan of your work
and I think that you guys
are just incredible, man.
Where do I know you from, bro?
I'm a reggaeton artist. My name is Santi.
Oh, yeah
El video ese de "Exagerao."
- "Exagerao."
- [in English] That's a banger, bro.
- You got real talent.
- Thank you, bro. You, too.
["Adrenalina" playing]
["Exagerao" playing]
Oh, my God.
[all] It's destiny!
[laughing]
Yo! It's his song! It's his song!
[both laughing]
[Santi] Ay.
[Felix screams]
We're getting a record deal, baby!
[all] Whoo!
- [Santi groans]
- [Felix sighs]
[cell phone chimes]
[cell phone clicks]
What's up?
It was a good look, guys.
[Ness chuckles]
[keys clacking]
[telephone ringing]
Oscar Morales's office.
No, this is his assistant, Mia.
Okay, I'll pass that message along.
Okay, bye.
[Oscar] Mia, my coffee, please!
And where's my dry-cleaning?
It just got here.