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THE PROXY

Five-Part Limited Series
~30 minutes per episode
Written by Dan Lawless

Series Structure

The exact same narrative as the feature film, divided where the story naturally breathes. Five episodes, each roughly thirty minutes. The series format allows the intercut structure — Chicago and Los Angeles, the living and the dead, the spoken voice and the written one — to develop at the pace of its characters rather than the pace of a single sitting.

Episode Breakdown

Episode 1: "The Signal"

~30 minutes

Leo's morning. The razor, the tremor, the suit taken in for the third time. The parallel lives — Leo in Chicago, Caroline in LA, Elias in his cubicle and his apartment. The group chat. Bruno's steakhouse and Leo's diagnosis revealed to the boys. Elias goes home and starts finishing everything. The birthday. The phone calls. The last month of normal before everything changes.

Episode 2: "The Discovery"

~30 minutes

Elias found on the kitchen floor. The Macallan 18 intact beside him. The apartment cleanup — four friends boxing up a life. Marcus notices the modification dates. The fight between Leo and Rick. "Fuck you, Leo." The green flannel dropped at his feet. Leo, alone in the apartment: "I'm scared." The voicemail Rick doesn't return. Leo calls Caroline.

Episode 3: "The Room"

~30 minutes

Leo flies to LA. Caroline reads all five screenplays in one night — on her couch, then on the floor, scripts spread around her, notebook filling with questions she hasn't written in a decade. The 5:47 AM phone call. The Canon Drive café. The negotiation — legal architecture meets institutional authority. Still Land's ghost. The production begins to build.

Episode 4: "The Decline"

~30 minutes

Leo manages from the Peninsula Hotel while his body fails. Ben Cahill's restructured third act — Caroline fires him, but his notes survive on Jonathan's desk. Thanksgiving: the Nexus office and Rick's dining room, two worlds intercut. The empty chair. Leo alone with the Apex. The eleven-page lab scene films. The set goes quiet. Caroline finds Leo still in his suite.

Episode 5: "The Anchor"

~30 minutes

The boys fly to LA. Christmas morning at the Courtyard Marriott — Marcus's spreadsheet reveals they were Elias's collaborators all along. Taking Leo home. Caroline turns down Shaw Creative. The office above the dog groomer. Jenny becomes her partner. The FedEx from Marcus arrives. This is the room where the next thing happens.

Series Note

Each episode ends where the narrative naturally pauses — not where conventional television structure demands a cliffhanger. The result is the same story, with the same ending, told in movements rather than acts. The thirty-minute format respects the material's refusal to rush: no episode needs to fill an hour, and no scene needs to justify its length to a runtime.