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S01E01 SC7 EXT. LOCATION #3 AGLIONBY CAMPUS GROUNDS – DAY 483 AFTERNOON
[AERIAL SHOT FOCUSING IN, COMING TO EYE LEVEL AND PANNING – SINGLE SHOT COLD OPEN AFTER COMMERCIAL BREAK: Aglionby Academy in perfect spring bloom on a sunny afternoon, lush glimpses of ivy twining against brick, shouts of laughter from white-teethed boys with swoopy hair and no acne, embroidered ravens and lacrosse sticks running in and out of camera shot. We follow the camera down a cobbled pathway, Aglionby boys dodging in front of our view, to the student parking lot – bright flashes of silver and blinding white metal - until we get to RICHARD GANSEY THE THIRD, ADAM PARRISH and RONAN LYNCH huddled around a violently orange CAMARO.
The camera looks over GANSEY’s shoulder to the focus of the boys’ attention: BATTERED LEATHER NOTEBOOK – SEE B-ROLL FOOTAGE.]
GANSEY
So of course, if you follow the course of the ley lines and match them against [RIFLES THROUGH NOTEBOOK, PULLS OUT MARKED UP MAP OF WEST VIRGINIA] the underground reservoir system –
ADAM
Of course –
RONAN
No, it’s fucking obvious, look. [MIMICKING GANSEY] Glendower came over on a boat and he clearly took the underground river system to get to ass-fuck Henrietta –
ADAM
It’s a perfect vacation spot, he wanted the view –
GANSEY [LAUGHING]
No, look, see –
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S02E12 SC69 EXT. LOCATION #7 WHITE MITSUBISHI FIELD – DAY 237 SUNSET
[OPEN ON SHOT OF LIT CIGARETTE, MOUTH, DRAG, SMOKE, PULL OUT – CAR INTERIOR. THREE CAMERAS – BACKSEAT DIRECTED AT REARVIEW CAMERA REFLECTION, FORWARD OUTSIDE CAR FACING IN THROUGH DRIVER SIDE WINDOW, OUTSIDE CAR DIRECTED AT PASSENGER WING WINDOW REFLECTION: RONAN LYNCH and JOSEPH KAVINSKY are in the passenger and driver’s seat respectively of a white Mitsubishi with bloody handprints along the side, X marking the spot, lit by the orange glow of the setting sun, identical to CAMARO ORANGE].
KAVINSKY
Don’t let it know you’re there. It’ll change on you if you do. You’ve gotta be in and out, Lynch.
RONAN
In and out.
KAVINSKY
Like a motherfucking thief.
[CAMERA 1 TRACKS BACKWARD, SHOT WIDENING TO TAKE IN EXPANSE OF THE FIELD OF WHITE MITSUBISHIS PAINTED ORANGE BY THE SETTING SUN. CAMERA 3 MOVES INTO THE CAR AND CLOSES IN ON KAVINSKY’S SMOLDERING CIGARETTE STUB ON THE DASHBOARD.
SCENE ENDS.]
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OUTTAKE
Kavinsky sorts through the ashes in the cupholder until he finds a stub still long enough to be serviceable. Ronan watches his fingers, ash under the nails, as he flicks open the lighter, swearing when the stub doesn’t catch.
“Fuck this scene, man,” Kavinsky sneers, flicking the useless stub onto the dashboard and rooting around in the glove compartment for a pill. He pulls out a cherry red handgun, considers it thoughtfully, sticks it into his mouth and closes his eyes.
Ronan, alarmed, yanks the toyishly-red gun out of Kavinsky’s mouth and hands, throws it out of the window for good measure.
“What the shit -” he starts, but Kavinsky just shrugs violently.
“I’m a fucking goner after this anyway. Counting down my scenes, 1, 2, motherfucking 3 and then boom! Out with a god damn bang.”
Ronan could feel his skin coursing electric. Did he -? He couldn’t ask. He couldn’t even think the words.
“We all die,” Ronan points out helpfully, but Kavinsky only laughs nastily.
“Not you. Motherfucker. You get to live forever.”
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Click to read: Season 2 Finale Review: Fire dragons, mystical forests and missing mothers, oh my!
Click to read: Burying your gays: How the Raven Cycle failed its fans by killing off Kavinsky
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S04E12 SC51 EXT. LOCATION #9 BARNS SHED ROOFTOP – DAY 28 EVENING
[WIDESHOT – RONAN LYNCH AND DECLAN LYNCH STANDING SIDE BY SIDE ON THE ROOFTOP, SURROUNDED BY GLOWING FIREFLIES. CAMERA 1 ZOOMS IN AT EYE LEVEL. THE BROTHERS ARE THE SAME HEIGHT, IN THE SAME LIGHT, SEEING EYE TO EYE.]
DECLAN
This is the most useful thing you’ve ever dreamt. You should name it.
RONAN
I have. ORBMASTER. All caps.
DECLAN
Technically you’re the orbmaster, though, right? And that’s just an orb.
RONAN
Anyone who holds it becomes an ORBMASTER. You’re an ORBMASTER right now. There, keep it in your pocket. D.C. ORBMASTER.
DECLAN [SCUFFING RONAN’S HEAD]
You’re such a little asshole.
[CAMERA CATCHES ON IDENTICAL SMILES BEFORE TRACKING BACKWARDS, PANNING UP INTO AN AERIAL SHOT. SCENE ENDS.]
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OUTTAKE
Declan shakes out his shoulders, closes his eyes, sighs. “Mother Mary, it’s been a long day.”
Ronan twists his mouth. He doesn’t know how long this will be allowed, how much time they’ll be given before – before everything starts again. He can feel it even now, that this lull is just the quiet before the climax. He doesn’t know what he’s going to lose.
His skin itches.
Ronan says: “Matthew’s going to eat everything before we get back down.”
Declan is quiet.
Ronan is quiet.
No one is watching. It’s just them.
It’s just them.
“Thank you,” Declan says finally.
Ronan is mystified. He’s never heard his brother say thank you in his life. He tries to roll back the film, see if he can spot a single scene, but there’s only this.
“Well, that’s fucking unprecedented.”
Declan turns towards Ronan, looking thoroughly unimpressed, looking achingly familiar. Ronan doesn’t know if he’ll see him again.
Declan says, slowly, quietly, like he’s worried someone will hear, “Thank you for writing Matthew out of the story too.”
Ronan looks at him.
Declan looks back.
“Fuck,” Ronan says, “Fuck. You too?”
Declan frowns, the same frown that he’s aimed at Ronan with unerring precision over the breakfast table, across a church pew, from a chair beside his hospital bed, that same frown he has bestowed upon Ronan for their entire lives.
Declan says: “Everyone, Ronan. All of us.”
Ronan closes his eyes. Rearranges his entire fucking life. He can’t breathe. His skin is too tight. He is being watched. Distantly, he can hear Declan saying shit, Ronan, what the fuck, sit down and at length, he opens his eyes again and finds that he is, in fact, sitting down and Declan is kneeling in front of him, looking like Ronan is on his deathbed.
Declan says: “You didn’t know?”
Ronan snarls, “No, I didn’t know that you fucking knew. Jesus Mary. Everyone? Does everyone know?”
Declan, somehow, frowns deeper. “I think,” he starts, stops, starts again, “I don’t think everyone does. I don’t know how they don’t realize, though. It’s not exactly subtle.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Ronan leans forward, grasps at Declan’s wrist, pleads, “I tried to get you out, I really did.”
Declan cups Ronan’s face with his hands, “I know, I know. That was a fucking great season. But I had to come back. You know I did. I couldn’t leave you here. I’ve been trying to get us out for so long, Ronan, you have to believe me.”
He did.
“I wondered. I wondered if you knew, the way you’d look at the camera.” Ronan gasps. He thinks he might be having a panic attack.
“Stop having a panic attack, you have a big scene coming up.” Declan admonishes.
Ronan does not have a panic attack. It’s a very near thing.
“Of course I fucking knew, the way they killed dad off and had you find him. Cinematic as all fuck. Character development. And then Mom couldn’t cope and I guess they didn’t know what to do with her, so she wrote herself out the only way she could think of. I got away with so much. Being a minor character. No backstory beyond your perspective.”
The most lines Declan has ever had. They would probably cut this scene, hard stop at the brothers’ emotional resolution. It was all getting a bit fourth wall.
Ronan feels vaguely hysterical.
“Shit. Shit. It’s the fucking series finale. Am I getting killed off? Is this fucking it?”
Declan considers this. He looks ludicrous, sitting cross-legged now on the shed rooftop in his suit and loosened tie. Ronan feels ludicrous.
“No,” he says finally, “I don’t think so. Bad optics. Fan pushback. And there’s the whole thing with Gansey.”
Before Ronan can ask what thing with Gansey, Declan leans forward suddenly, grabs at Ronan’s wrists, pleads: “Please just come with me.”
Ronan laughs shakily, tries for casual and mocking, “Recycling lines?”
Declan can only shake his head, hold onto Ronan’s wrists tighter, “Please. Please just write yourself out and come with me. Let it all go to hell. Finales are never satisfying, please.”
Ronan can’t. There are so many reasons that he couldn’t. “I have to see it through, you know that.”
Declan sits back. For a long time, they sit together, the brothers Lynch.
“This is the last scene we’ll get together,” Declan says.
“I know.”
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Click to read: Network in talks for Raven Cycle spin-off
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