Based on a True Story (2023) s01e02 Episode Script

Ooh, hey. What about these?
Frootie Monsters?
Well, Mom says they're way too sugary.
Oh, she does?
Yeah, she's totally right.
I mean, 15 grams?
That's super bad for you.
Shh.
Oh, hey, you've you've
never had Pop-Tarts, right?
- No.
- Yeah, good.
'Cause they're even worse,
especially these chocolate ones.
Ooh, they're gonna taste great.
And oh.
Hang on, buddy.
Uh hello?
Hi, this is Nathan Bartlett.
I got your number from Sorrento Bath.
I was wondering if you could install
a toilet for us tomorrow.
Uh, tomorrow? Sure.
I could do around 12:00.
Yeah, 12:00. That works perfect.
Oh, hey, could you text me the address?
Sorry, I'm just with my son.
No problem. I'll see you tomorrow.
See you tomorrow.
Dad?
- Dad?
- Huh?
Can we get these too?
Uh, oh, yeah.
Yeah, they're very unhealthy.
Put 'em in.
You're the best.
Oh, my God. I'm so sorry about that.
Are you crazy?
More!
Hey.
I know who you are.
Who I am?
The serial killer.
The Westside Ripper.
All right.
This is a
this is a joke, right?
Don't worry. I'm not gonna turn you in.
I have a proposition for you.
First, the killing stops.
Anyone gets hurt or killed
or you try to hurt or kill me
or anyone I love, it triggers an email,
an automatic email to LAPD Homicide
telling them that you're
the Westside Ripper.
And to prove it, all they need to do
is match your DNA to
the bloodstained bootie
you left when you killed
Chloe Lake last week.
So you got two options.
You can make a run for it,
but you'll never see your kid again.
You'll be a fugitive until
they hunt you down and kill you.
Or option two.
We work together.
We
make a podcast.
A podcast?
About you and what you do.
You are a funny fucking dude.
Come on, man. Let's get out there.
Take one more step and
the cops will be here
before you get out of the water.
No one's gonna know it's you,
but you have to answer every
single question I ask you.
Why you do it, how
long you've done it
everything.
So those are your options.
Life in prison
or make a podcast.
What'll it be?
Hey, guys.
Man, yeah, check that out!
It's good, huh?
Hey. Hey!
Hey!
You got 48 hours!
That's all you got!
Fuck! Fuck!
You got one fucking job
to do, you fucking idiot!
Hey, hey. What happened?
- What did he say?
- You saw.
The fucking surfers came,
and he went into the water.
Well, why didn't you go after him?
- Into the ocean?
- Yes.
I just accused him of
being a serial killer.
Now we just ruined our
only negotiating position.
Now he knows that we know he's a killer.
Well, he could be out there
we don't know what he's gonna do next.
I gave him 48 hours.
Oh. Oh, did you?
You put a clock on the offer?
Oh, my God, I knew I
should've done this myself.
No, no, he can't ever
know you're involved ever.
- I know.
- That's the deal.
It's way too dangerous.
Did he at least admit he's the guy?
- No.
- Great. Another another win.
- Let's just be smart, okay?
Let's just stop and think here.
- Mm-hmm.
- We gotta go to the cops.
- No, stop. No, listen.
- We should we should
- No, we're not gonna
- No, this is stupid.
- We should go to the cops.
- Listen, listen.
We are not gonna
we don't need to think.
We don't need to go to the cops.
We need to play this out, okay?
We need we gave an offer.
He's gonna come back to us.
It's not a condo in Palms.
Babe, he could be out there
right now planning to kill us.
Yes, and then the cop
will get the email,
and his life will be over.
He loves his life, if
you haven't noticed.
I promise you, that
guy is gonna counter.
And what we need to do is what we do.
We need to be normal.
We need to go to work, go to our jobs,
like normal people.
This is work right hi!
Ryan, good to hear from you.
Hey. I need a little help.
I'm at 5302 Avondale.
Do you know this?
I I do know that one.
I didn't know they were open today.
It's beautiful. Hey,
are there any offers?
Yes, from what I remember,
I think, two offers,
around 8 million each.
Okay, great. Let's offer 8.2.
Wow. Really? Okay, wow. Are you sure?
Do you want to, like, take
a minute and think about it?
No, no. Let's do it. Right now.
No. Great. This is amazing.
Okay, I'm gonna let me
get to work on it right now
and, um, good luck.
Fingers crossed.
- Fingers crossed. Got to go.
- Ahh! Okay.
- Fingers crossed?
- Yeah.
- Who was that?
- No one. A buyer hopefully.
- A good-looking buyer.
- Oh, really?
Right now? Really?
- You never say "fingers crossed."
- I say it to everybody.
What, have you never seen
someone do fingers crossed?
Fingers crossed, fingers
crossed, fingers crossed.
I have no idea how you
can multitask right now.
Okay, babe, listen to me.
I know you're freaking out, okay?
It is all gonna be fine. Trust me.
He is gonna counter.
Coach.
Coach.
Coach!
Huh?
What do we do?
Oh, uh
Let's play Three Little Bears, okay?
Spread out. Spread out.
Good. Good.
Nathan.
Hey, we gotta fix this
crack on the court.
It's really fucked up here.
Yeah, um, Mason's
taking over this lesson.
Hey, handsome.
- Why?
- Because you have, uh,
detectives from LAPD
who'd like a word with you.
- How you doing?
- Good.
- Hi.
- Nathan Bartlett.
- Detective Peterson.
- Nice to meet you.
- Detective Burrell.
- Nice to meet you.
This place is pretty sweet, hmm?
Pools and mai tais.
Initiation must be pretty steep.
Yeah, it's it's ridiculous here.
Is there something I can help you with?
What you know about the Westside Ripper?
The uh, what?
The Westside Ripper. Serial killer.
Uh, well, I've read about him.
I mean, there was another
victim last week, right?
Yeah, Chloe Lake.
We were wondering if you knew her.
- Me?
- Mm.
- No.
- Oh.
How about now?
Her? Her.
Oh, right.
That's the bartender from Lucky's.
Yeah.
You're just now remembering her?
Well, you know, I'm
a coach here, it's LA.
You know, you meet a lot of people.
Yeah. It's LA.
It does look like you
were kind of friendly,
the way you were looking at her.
Yeah, I just didn't put it all together.
- She was killed?
- Yeah.
Trying to stop this guy
before he does it again.
Sure. Yeah, we gotta stop him.
Is there anything I can do to help you?
You remember her leaving the bar
the night she was killed?
- She with anyone?
- Uh, no.
I'm I'm not sure.
Well, if you remember anything,
or just want to comp
me a free spin class,
- give me a call, okay?
- Great.
- It's so nice to meet you. Thanks.
- Last thing.
Who's this guy?
We're trying to talk to everyone.
We haven't been able to ID him.
Yeah.
That's Matt Pierce.
He's a friend of mine.
You have his number?
- His number?
- Yeah.
Such a good boy, Duke.
So what are you proposing?
I'm saying that they gotta go somewhere,
but 'cause if you
move them from Venice,
they just go to Santa Monica.
You know what? You
should tweet that out.
Where's Nathan?
I don't know, he must've gotten held up.
Hey, Newsom says you can't regulate
public spaces, but that's the thing
then the homeless are just
gonna regulate it for you.
You can't say "the homeless."
It's not a zombie army.
- What? Can I say vagrant?
- No.
- Oh, my God.
- No. No.
No, you can't say vagrant.
Jesus fuck
Okay, what about hobo? Can I say hobo?
- It's unhoused. Mm-hmm.
- Mm.
- Can we change the subject?
- Yes.
So did you end up booking the trip?
- Hey.
- Hey.
Where the hell have you been?
The cops came to the club.
Wait. what?
We're gonna stop this now.
We're gonna stop this
whole insane thing.
Okay, let's come
over here for a second.
Well, just what happened?
They asked me if I knew the dead girl.
I panicked and said no.
Then they showed me a photo
of me with the dead girl.
You need to stay calm
'cause you look crazy.
So they know I lied. They
know I'm hiding something.
And then they started
asking me about hello.
Hi.
- About Matt.
- What?
- Yeah.
- Fuck.
That shitty bar had cameras everywhere.
There's 100 photos of me
hanging out with a serial killer.
They asked me for his
fucking phone number.
All right, let's come here.
Look, they obviously don't
think you're the unsub,
- so we're good.
- The what?
The unidentified subject, all right?
You were able to
deflect, so that's good.
- How was I able to deflect?
I know the dead girl.
I know the killer.
That's not deflection.
- That's "come arrest me."
- Listen.
We're in the big leagues
now. We have stepped up.
There's gonna be pressure.
You remember what Billie Jean King said.
Please don't Billie Jean King me.
- I'm gonna do it.
- Don't, don't.
I'm gonna do it.
Pressure is a privilege.
We have never felt
pressure before because
- we've never been in the game.
- What game?
The game of life, man,
okay? The real game.
Not the game you and
I have been playing.
The real one where
people take fucking risks
and you might flame out,
but maybe, just maybe,
you might fucking soar
and get the life we've always dreamed of
and not have to stress
when the fucking InSinkErator breaks.
And you feel like you've
already failed your baby
when it hasn't even been born yet.
So come on. Let's do this.
- Don't throw it away yet.
- Throw it away?
We don't know where
the serial killer is.
We don't know what he's thinking.
All we do know is the
cops are up my ass.
I go down, that's aiding and abetting.
That's 30 years.
You want to come visit
me in San Quentin?
Midnight express me under the table?
- What is that?
- You know.
You look like you're sweeping.
I don't do that. Why would I do that?
- It doesn't matt
- Okay, just
- Mm. It's him.
- Shh.
Okay, okay, listen.
It's him. Stop, stop.
We got he's gonna counter.
Let's just hear what
he has to say, please.
Do not hang up. Are you ou
Tomorrow we go to the
cops, we turn him in,
we rejoin the human race.
That's what we're gonna do.
- No.
- I'm out.
How does it work?
So it's like a two-for-one.
First I do a story unboxing it,
and then I do a second
story trying on the bikinis.
All I know is, we get all
kinds of free shit showing up.
So you're opening boxes,
you're looking at them,
- you're talking about them.
- Trying them on.
- And that's it.
- And people are watching this.
Yes, it's a haul. It's like
- Theoretically.
- Unboxing.
Why is it that funny?
Hey, do you have a birth plan?
- A what?
- A birth plan.
You're dropping in, like, two months,
and you don't have a birth plan.
- Do I need one?
- You need to tell them,
like, what music you
want, what drugs you want,
and who's gonna go downtown
and who's gonna stay
up at the Paris end.
- Ew.
- I have a birth plan.
- Not even pregnant.
- Uh, Richard,
what were you saying
about the earlier?
- The school's
- The school's position
is that everyone has
unconscious racial bias
and the more we deny it
You doing okay here?
- So the more you deny it
- You miss us?
- The more biased you are.
- Yes.
- We miss you.
- I agree with that.
Only a true witch would
deny they're a witch.
Duke, oh, come here, boy.
- Oh.
- Guilty.
It's true.
You're such a good boy.
- Hey, uh, Nate.
- Hey.
- How's the club?
- Uh, club is great.
Oh, my gosh, last week I
did Live Ball with Mason.
- I love Mason.
- More Mason, please.
What about his, like,
teeny, little, tiny shorts?
Those are not regulation shorts.
- I love his butt.
- Right?
That butt launched 1,000 jerk-offs.
You should have him
coach more Live Ball.
- All the ladies and
gentlemen love him. - Mm-hmm.
Yeah, no, they, um
everybody seems to really
Actually, Nathan decided to step away
from the director role.
- Oh.
- You did? What?
- Oh.
- Uh, sorry. We didn't
No, no. Not sorry. He loves it.
He's working with the juniors, actually.
It's more satisfying
working with kids, so
That's totally. That's great.
- Everybody likes kids.
- He's loving it.
- Yeah.
- I got fired.
Well, okay, that's not
exactly how it went down.
No, they fired my ass.
- Wait.
- Uh
Apparently, I'm a middle-aged fuck.
Mm.
And Mason's got big dick energy.
That is bullshit 'cause
you've got big dick energy.
- Yes.
- You've got huge dick energy.
- You've got a massive penis.
- Yes. Yes.
- You can see it from here.
- Tripod.
- Yeah, buddy.
- It's a big one.
- Don't ever forget that.
- We talk about your dick sometimes. It's huge.
- Come on.
- Do you?
- I do.
- Fuck them.
- You know what? Fuck them.
- Fuck them.
- Fuck them.
- Fuck that small dick club.
And you know what?
You're, like, the best coach ever.
Yeah, you're a good friend.
We'll fucking quit, buddy.
- Yes.
- We're gonna all quit.
Yes, we should quit right now.
- We're gonna all quit.
- I mean, he'll quit.
Guys, guys, I'm cool. Honestly.
I mean, you know me.
I always land on my feet.
You loser.
You fucking loser.
Oh, you fucking loser.
Ooh, good job, baby.
There we go. Mm, mm.
He's literally a ten, right?
I mean, so Simon just doesn't even care?
He's just busy just having
sex with your bikini waxer?
I have a little story to tell you.
So I actually went to
her the other day, right?
And I kept, like,
sliding down the chair.
Just to, like, really
get her face in it.
- You know?
- Oh, my God.
Like, clean my house.
- That's
- Reasonable.
- Very visual. Yeah.
- Yeah.
- I mean, look at this one.
- Wow.
There's something about his arms.
They're not, like, white
and flabby like Simon's.
Honestly, it's not even
about the amazing sex.
It's like, Simon is a trust fund baby.
- Yeah.
- Right?
You know we don't even own this house?
- His parents just gave it to us.
- Wow.
And Carlos, he's he's a go-getter.
I mean, he has those three gyms in LA.
He wants to open a fourth in New York.
He's pitching that TV show, you know?
And it's like, he's ambitious.
He takes risks.
Just really sexy.
Yeah, no, I get that.
Look at this one.
Hey.
How you doing?
Hey, I, uh
I got you a chocolate
croissant from the counter.
I'm not here for croissants.
Oh, you sure? Man, they're so good.
Mmm.
Hey, you ever read "Harry Potter"?
- What?
- "Harry Potter."
I've been reading them to Ollie.
The first three books are amazing.
And then suddenly,
bam. "Goblet of Fire."
What the fuck?
752 fucking pages?
It's exhausting.
And if you give up, then
you're a shitty dad, right?
And then I realized
"Goblet of Fire" isn't a book.
It's a test.
A test to all the fathers of the world.
A test of our dedication.
A test of our commitment.
The fuck you talking about?
And as I was reading
"Goblet of Fire" last night,
it struck me.
You took a while to call me back.
Maybe you aren't really
committed to your proposal.
Maybe you'll cut and run,
throw me under the bus.
Maybe you're a dad who won't
finish "Goblet of Fire."
The police came to my work.
Oh, yeah?
They have footage of me with Chloe Lake.
They have footage of
the two of us together.
I'm fully in no matter what.
What about you?
Are you in or out?
- Hey.
- Hi.
Hey, is, uh is Nate okay?
He seemed kind of down last night.
Uh, yeah, no, he's he's fine.
He's I think last night
he had a little too much red.
I love him. You know that.
He's one of my oldest
friends, but I don't know.
Last few years, he's
kind of shut himself off.
He hardly talks to any of us.
Yeah, no, he just kind
of keeps a lot inside,
but he's he's good.
We're he's good. We're good.
- Okay.
- Thank you.
I do need to talk to you
about one other thing.
Um, I'm sorry.
But I have to take you off Palisades.
What? No, no, no, no.
I need that listing.
The owners wanted you off or
they're taking it elsewhere.
Okay, the price tag is way too high.
- I've been telling them.
- Maybe.
But you had it for six weeks
and it didn't move.
Do you have anything
else in the pipeline?
Yeah, of course. Always.
I, um in fact, I met a
buyer last week at Palisades
and he just put in a big
cash offer on Avondale.
- That sold.
- What?
They accepted an offer this morning.
Some family from out of state.
Okay, well, this this
my guy's very motivated,
and I have more options to show him.
Okay, great.
But in the meanwhile,
why don't you go back
to the apartment space?
- Huh?
- Apartments?
You're so good in that world.
You're definitely not gonna eat that?
May I?
Here you go.
So thank you so much.
You're welcome.
I love your shoes.
So, uh, who have you told
about your allegation?
- No one.
- Ava?
No one. Why would Ava doesn't know.
- Nobody knows.
- Hmm.
Well, how'd you come up with it?
I mean, it's pretty crazy.
Really? You want me to go through it?
Yeah.
The blood, the scratches,
you followed the girl out of the bar.
Hmm, still, I mean, it's kind of a leap.
Like the girl you killed in Pomona.
I looked it up.
I bet you there's a shit
ton of forensics all over
the Westside Ripper
murders that lead to you,
so we could pretend
this isn't happening,
but it's happening.
And we need to deal with it.
And you came up with
all of this by yourself.
Are you in or out?
I'm not asking again.
All right, buddy.
I'm gonna give you some advice,
because I really like you,
and because it's really hard
to make friends in LA, right?
I would strongly urge you to drop this.
Because, Nathan, this
will not end well for you.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow,
but eventually.
I guarantee it.
You know?
There's a lot of easier ways
to save your shitty marriage, my friend.
You're a fucking monster.
I'm the monster?
Fuck you.
You know how long
Dahmer lasted in county?
I give you six months, asshole.
Why don't you sit down, Nathan?
All right, I'm in.
On one condition.
You and I still throw.
Excuse me? What?
- Good night.
- Don't stay too late.
He's in.
- What? What do you mean?
- He's in.
I called him. I met with him.
You met with him?
Yeah, at the diner on Pico.
He's totally in.
We start in a few days.
Oh, my God. Are you serious?
Holy shit!
Wait, so he countered
like I thought he would?
That's so hot. Mm!
- I cannot believe you did that.
- That's how I do, baby.
That is so impressive. Mm.
Oh, my God, that really makes me want
to fuck you hard right now.
- Yeah, literally right now.
- Right now?
- Immediately.
- Is anyone here?
I mean, I don't know
if I can in this dress.
- Is anybody here?
- No, we're the only ones here.
- That is so hot.
- Is it bad for the baby?
No, no, the baby likes
it. The baby likes it.
The baby says smack my ass, actually.
- Yeah.
- Mm-hmm. Over there.
- Take me over there.
- Smack your ass over there.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Get get oh!
Check, check. Check one. Check, one-two.
Okay, hey, he confirmed for 1:00, right?
- You're meeting him at 1:00 p.m.
- Yes.
And the place is secure, right?
No one's gonna walk in on us?
No, no, no. It's an empty warehouse.
We're not renting it out for six months.
It's perfect.
Um, can you just not
forget to press record?
- Really?
- When you're
Is that what you do? Press record?
- Thanks.
- Listen, I'm just nervous.
I'm nervous. I'm so excited.
We haven't been nervous in years.
- I know.
- I'm so excited. Oh!
- I love you.
- I love you.
- Testing one, two, three.
- It's been tested.
I know. Is it too loud?
- It's fine.
- Testing. Test
The true crime genre
has never been hotter.
"Murder Junkies" just sold
to Audioboom for $20 million.
And our own podcast,
"A Lipinski Original:
Sisters in Crime," sold for $60 million.
And do we sell merch? Yes.
Absolutely.
But as we sit here and we learn
how to fully monetize our podcast,
I don't want us to ever forget
that we're really here for the victims.
We are their advocates.
We are their voice.
We will never stop fighting for justice.
We need to talk.
Nice shot, Dad!