A Bowling Alley, A Boxer, and A Bird (Pt 1)

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> Reviewed by Robert M.
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> I received a ticket for the Personal Submarine Experience (3 Person) as a prize for coming first in a work success drive and while I was excited about the prospect of seeing the beautiful underwater life of the Bluff City coast I have to say I was sorely disappointed I am not a man to hold back in my criticism and, I make no apology for that!!
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> In comparison to the buildings around it the Bluff City Boardwalk Scuba Shop looks like it belongs to another time every building is cleaner and neater. Except maybe the clam shop but I can tolerate that because the clams, are great! The Scuba suits for rental look safe and clean but they are mostly stored on the floor rather than on shelves or racks where they belong, and it's clear the shop's management is doing something other than managing, I can tell you that.
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> When I asked the attendant (Doyle) if he could help me with the ticket I won he had not heard of the program (but to his credit he helped me anyway and that is why I will not give the Scuba Shop one star). But when I asked him if he'd be accompanying me on the Submarine trip as a pilot he said that he could not swim (and that is why I will not give the Scuba Shop three stars).
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> Anyway in the end the submarines could only store two people each and were cramped and unpleasant and so one of our number had to go on a trip on their own and they said they had a terrible time when they got back. I did see some coral and I did see a seal though but when I got back the owner of the shop said that everybody sees coral and a seal. He said that it wasn't anything special.
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> **This week on Friends at the Table: A Bowling Alley, A Boxer, and A Bird** **Pt. 1**
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> Finnegan H., Owner of "The" Scuba Shop, Bluff City Boardwalk Responded:
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> Okay FIRST OF ALL g
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### Cold Open

As read by Millennium Alexander Black.

> *Welcome to Bluff City: Flickering neon reflecting off the waves, slot machine ring, boardwalk hustle, booming laughs from the corner spot.*
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> *Bluff City: Home of the lucky and their poor families too. A revving engine, the sounding of a harbour bell, a familiar wind, a gunshot round the way, the din of the casino floor, a bad plan misheard, America's favourite fling.*
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> *Bluff City: the light of a cigarette, the shape of a body or two, the red and blues of a patrol car and money man, money. They say there's a thousand highways you can take to reach this town, but there ain't no train to Bluff City.*
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> *One of them towns where there's a tale behind every hand of cards, a lie for every truth, a side gig for every payday.*
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> *How do you start a story like Bluff City? Like this: with a bowling alley, a boxer, and a bird.*
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### Music

A Bowling Alley, A Boxer, and A Bird, by Jack de Quidt

## Cast

* Sonny Veranda (Austin Walker)
* Finnegan Hands (Jack de Quidt)
* Tawny Buck (Janine Hawkins)
* Doyle MacKaye (Sylvia Clare)
* Jodie O’Brian (Andrew Lee Swan)

#### Supporting Characters

* Maggie Darcy (Janine Hawkins, Jack de Quidt)
* Achilles Apollo (Andrew Lee Swan)
* Walt Whitaker (Janine Hawkins)

## Plot

Honestly, it's always a wild fucking time in Bluff City.

A van approaches "The" Scuba Shop, slowly, through the crowds of tourists along the Boardwalk. Finnegan Hands, spotting the van, calls Doyle MacKaye out of the shop from where he is working on something to help him deal with whoever it is.

A woman gets out of the van, introducing herself as Maggie Darcy of the IRS. She is there to check over the Scuba Shop’s financial records as Finnegan has reported making several upgrades on his taxes the previous year. Finnegan stresses that there is “nothing… nothing… nothing… wrong” and sends Doyle to get the store’s books and copies of the receipts of the upgrades and new machinery, telling Doyle to get the binders labelled ‘accounts’ and not the red binders which he tells Maggie contain “customer information” that he cannot share due to “data protection”.

Doyle returns with the accounts books, receipts, and as Finnegan hands over the binders the inside of the binder breaks and the receipts spill across the floor.

A ship’s bell rings, transitioning into the ringing of a fight bell, moving the episode’s location and time to the night of a fight at The Splits: Doyle vs “Sweet” Bell Moran. The fight is just beginning and Doyle is playing to the crowd (“Sweet’s about to get a little sour over here!”). Sweets gets in a hit, and Doyle turns, laying him out easily with one hit.

Later, after the fight, Sonny Veranda approaches Doyle and his trainer Tawny Buck with the night’s take and hands Doyle his money. Doyle claims the fight was too easy and Sonny says he knows about a big guy coming in from “out of town”, suggesting that Doyle might find him to be a better opponent. He tells Doyle to come to the bowling alley the next night alone to talk more about it, and Doyle says he will.

Tawny is frustrated by the interaction, as she believes that Sonny will ask Doyle to take a dive. Doyle says that Sonny would never do that, and that even if Sonny did he would never throw a fight.

Tawny returns to the bowling alley the next day to have lunch and to see Jodie while she is working undercover and to try to get some information on Sonny’s plan so that she can go into the situation prepared. Jodie doesn’t know about anything about it, claiming to not have any knowledge of the underground boxing at all as she does not work late, and is shocked that illegal boxing is taking place. Tawny is frustrated by this, and Jodie agrees to break into Sonny’s office while he is on a smoke break to try and find information on Sonny’s plans.

When Sonny takes his next smoke break, Jodie heads to Sonny’s office. On his desk, she finds a blueprint for The Gilded Menagerie Casino, where he has circled the secret entrance (which is underwater, small enough that a scuba diver could get in), as well as information that the Whitaker family is coming. Jodie realises that he is trying to organise a double cross of both his family and the Whitaker family. Jodie takes pictures of the blueprints with her cell phone and texts them to Tawny.

While Jodie is in his office, Sonny calls Finnegan to discuss his plan. Finnegan answers while he is picking up the receipts to hand to Maggie. Finnegan quickly excuses himself, stepping out of "The" Scuba Shop to talk. They go over Sonny’s plan to get the Whitaker family to give him money in exchange for his family’s bird, but he needs Finnegan to go underwater to get the bird from the casino’s secret underwater entrance. Finnegan says that he is proud of Sonny for taking charge of the plan, and Sonny says that it feels good to be doing something for himself rather than having something just given to him.

After this, Finnegan goes to Tawny’s gym to see how Doyle and Tawny are going with training for the fight. Tawny is positive about Doyle’s progress. While there, they got onto the subject of Sonny. Tawny asks what Sonny wants Finnegan to do, and Finnegan says that Sonny wants him to steal a bird and to check in on Doyle. Tawny is startled that Sonny wants him to steal a bird, and Finnegan tells her that it’s not totally clear to him.

Finnegan tells her that he has a problem, because he has told Sonny that he can get any bird, which he cannot, and asks for Tawny’s help in finding a bird that looks like the real bird. Another complication is that he currently does not know what the real bird looks like, as it is so rare that he cannot find any photos of it. Doyle says that he has a friend that works for the Bluff City Zoo who could help out.

Sonny texts Finnegan an extremely pixelated photo of the bird, which he shows to Tawny. Tawny says that this does not help, as the photo looks like “a fucking oyster with marinara sauce on it”. Finnegan and Doyle try to convince Tawny to help, and Tawny says that she will look into it.

Doyle, Tawny and Jodie head to the zoo to see Van McLaren about the bird after zoo opening hours. Tawny shows him the photo, and asks her questions about the bird. Tawny has no further information about the bird, and so Van tries to brainstorm what they could use to replace the bird. Jodie suggests they could paint a bird similar in size to what they need, and Doyle says that rare birds are always big “that’s why they’re rare”.

Van leads them to the aviary. They look at the birds and choose the toucan to steal. Finnegan texts “how’s the [pigeon emoji] going?” and Doyle texts back a 100 emoji. Van asks if he would be getting the bird back, and Doyle says he will. Van agrees to give them with five birds. Doyle and Jodie both say they cannot house the birds, and so Tawny reluctantly leaves with five birds - a toucan, a robin, an oreal, and two doves. Van says he needs them back in one week and Doyle says he will (“when have I let you down? Don’t answer that”).

Tawny and Jodie meet with Maggie at the local IRS office. Maggie says Tawny looks tired, and Tawny explains her part in the recent bird theft. Maggie slowly clarifies the situation, and asks where they were stolen from. Tawny says that technically they are not stolen, as they are on loan from the zoo, and that she took them on behalf of Finnegan, which she believes is connected to the Finnegan’s new improvements on his shop.

They discuss who else was involved in the bird theft, and Jodie reveals to Maggie that illegal boxing is happening at The Split. Maggie directs them to deliver the birds to Finnegan and that she will watch the delivery and they will “follow the string” to connect it to the illegal boxing ring, and that she will rendezvous with them in three days.

The night after the birds have been taken, Sonny speaks to Doyle and Finnegan at the bowling alley over cheese fries. Sonny tells them that if Doyle wins, they will get the Whittaker’s money and return the bird so that no one knows it was stolen, and if they lose then the Whittaker’s take the bird, and keeps the Whittaker’s money and his family will kill the Whittaker family for taking the bird.

Finnegan stresses that he wants the real bird, and the three argue until the Whittaker family and their fighter, Achilles Apollo, arrive. Whitaker and Apollo sit down with them, and Sonny rushes to get Whitaker whiskey from his private stash. Whitaker and Apollo do not have positive things to say about Bluff City.

Sonny stresses to Whitaker and Apollo that the fight will be a success before rushing off again before returning with a briefcase. He gives Whitaker the briefcase, which contains Sonny’s life savings (a couple hundred thousand dollars in cash), as a way of sweetening the deal he is attempting to make with them.

Meanwhile, inside of the vault in The Gilded Menagerie, a clicking sound is heard from the outside of the vault. A clawed foot of a bird steps onto some cash, displaying large talons. The bird is “much, much bigger than we thought it was going to be”. The footage cuts to black.