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“Bert” Lance Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget, 1977
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it…That’s the trouble with government: Fixing things that aren’t broken and not fixing things that are broken.”
Thomas Bertram
BROKEN: BATHWATER EDITION is an eight-episode [~60 min] anthological yarn.
During an unprecedented drought in 19th-century New Mexico, worker Lick Stewart attempts to discover his late wife’s disturbing deathbed confession that might have reincarnated her as a miniature horse -- but the battle for the local resort town’s sole water source, between the government and the corrupt mayor, threatens the town’s fate and with it all remaining clues to Lick’s wife’s dark secret and harrowing past.
It is a yarn that both begins and ends with a BANG! That is, a literal KABOOM! in the form of a sabotaged hot water “Gas Geyser” boiler -- new technology of the times -- and a once-dormant volcano: Nature’s great equalizing machine.
It is a yarn that uses the classic American motto “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” as a panoramic lens to examine our ideological challenges via our most ideologically-celebrated era. It is a yarn that explores specific ideological “cracks” in our nation’s cornerstone: the tensions between the working class and the wealthy; progress and regression; labor and leisure; boredom and bereavement; as well as independence and eminent domain.
It is a yarn that blends farce, folklore, and history like The Great [Hulu] and the surreal with real, harrowing events like Atlanta [FX]. It is the Fargo [FX] of the Wild West.
Part-Spaghetti Western slapstick, part-epic revisionist drama, it is a yarn about the costs of the casual squandering of American natural bounty during westward expansion as well as the lengths we’re willing to go for community and the ones we love...
This is Broken: Bathwater Edition.
Welcome to Bathwater: a resort town in the New Mexico Territory offering hydropathic cures from Mount Taylor’s hot spring -- the only water source for hundreds of miles.
The evening LICK STEWART buries his wife, WINNIE, he discovers a miniature horse that he believes is her reincarnated. At the same time, SONG, Winnie’s healer, aids a clandestine group of TARRED-AND-FEATHERED LUDDITES in sabotaging a newly installed boiler in Helper’s Garden Hotel & Vaudeville: a time bomb that ticks with every drop of spent water…
The next morning, the new boiler is unveiled by MAYOR EDWARD GRANVILLE to tourists outside of Helper’s Garden. Inside, former welder turned barmaid “DEMIJOHN” JENNIE fixes a leak from a faucet while Song runs a bath in another suite for a strange guest (THE BOUNTY HUNTER), ticking the time bomb faster…
In town, Lick tells the pastor he thinks the miniature horse is his late wife. The pastor admits Winnie confessed a dark secret on her deathbed. What did she confess? “That’s between her and God and…Song,” is all the pastor reveals before -- KABOOM! -- the boiler explodes and lands on him. Lick decides to skip work to locate Song and learn Winnie’s secret.
Unfortunately, the bounty hunter has already found Song: his bounty. In exchange for their life, Song tries to offer a priceless bounty: the tarred-and-feathered Luddites’ leader, Ned Ludd. No dice. As the boiler blows, the bounty hunter strangles Song.
Amidst the boiler chaos, opium addict CHARLES QUIGLY re-breaks his back. He is mended by IRA, the Zuni stable hand, in the stables where he first meets Lick and Jennie. Jennie, a former welder, repairs the roof of Helper’s Garden and finds an odd clue: a tarry-handled wrench. She also cannot shake the image of Song looking troubled just before the boiler exploded and then went missing. Quigly joins Lick to find Song, but they fail. Though, strung-out Quigly thinks he sees a man (the bounty hunter) carrying, perhaps, a severed head (Song’s)…
In the boiler’s aftermath, mayoral candidate SAMUEL GOMPERS confronts Granville and is politically humiliated -- this rallies support for Gompers from the town’s “broken” workers (transplants formerly injured in factories, paid per able limb) who believe “progress” may displace them again. Deputy Mayor OTTO DUVAL tells the mayor that the boiler fiasco has threatened their plan to transform Bathwater into the most industrious city in the west. In order to realize his vision, Granville scapegoats the workers and vows to expel them...
But there is another hitch to the mayor’s plan: The U.S. GOVERNMENT is surveying the hot spring for eminent domain, and learns that Mount Taylor may be a dormant volcano, ready to blow if triggered -- a trigger like the depot of dynamite in the old mines belonging to the tarredand-feathered Luddites who plan to stop Bathwater’s industrialization at any cost…
LICK STEWART (30s) has a thick head in the way of those who are overly hopeful, who put all of their eggs in one basket, and assume that goodness lies in all people.
Hence Lick’s problem. When the miniature horse appears on his porch draped with his late wife’s nightgown, Lick puts all his eggs into one basket: his wife has been reincarnated as a miniature horse as a punishment for what she confessed on her deathbed. If only that sabotaged boiler hadn’t killed the town pastor, Lick wouldn’t be haunted by one question: What the heck did Winnie confess?
But her confession will test Lick’s assumed goodness in people -- a confession that will only be uncovered by that goodness in people. He’ll also learn that, sometimes, badness is necessary for the sake of goodness to answer this question -- the last living piece of his wife.
Well, beside the miniature horse...
If WINIFRED “WINNIE” STEWART (30s) was indeed reincarnated as a miniature horse as punishment, then what did she do? Nothing. Her alleged reincarnation is a punishment by proxy...
Winnie was born to fallen members of society turned servants in Chicago, desperate to return to a refined life. She attended a vocational school to be a seamstress, and worked in Levi Strauss’s denim factory in Bathwater until she became sick with tuberculosis.
But before her death, she learned a dark secret: one that involved her parents, explains her infertility, and how she got that large hip-to-rib scar as a girl -- a factory accident she can’t recall...
THE “GOOD” PLAYERS. a.k.a. the protagonists
When the boiler explodes, CHARLES QUIGLY (20s) re-breaks his back and spends most of the season horizontal, strapped to the miniature horse. But Quigly will be key to discovering Winnie’s secret, having kept one himself -- one that resulted in the first breaking of his back in Boston as well as painful, “corrective” experiments by a eugenics doctor in an Indiana asylum. Quigly escaped the asylum but the doctor isn’t far behind -- he’s visiting Bathwater to gander a novel therapy for the imbecilic and perverted: the “climate cure.” Quigly will face his past, own his present, and even find love along the way...
“DEMIJOHN” JENNIE McCULLOCH (30s) was the best welder in Virginia until a fall left her with rebar pierced through her torso, now covered with a demijohn bottle-shaped crinolette; a fear of heights; and no daughter: Gracie (6) was thereafter adopted by wealthy parents. She is a barmaid until the boiler explodes and she gets a chance to weld again, leading her down a new path that includes a vital clue to Winnie’s secret. In short, Jennie has “true grit.” But her grit will be tested when her daughter arrives in town, brought by her adoptive parents to seek the alleged “climate cure” because she’s very sick...
Ear gilded in a cutlery factory accident, SAMUEL GOMPERS (30s) knows the plight of the laborer. Seeing such plight in Bathwater, he runs against corrupt incumbent Edward Granville -- but he must unify the “broken” working class first by leveraging their symbol of hope: Lick. Mythologized from real-life, Gompers becomes a key figure in America’s labor history, except it begins in Bathwater...
Socialite EDWARD GRANVILLE (50s) converted the bust mining town of Bathwater into a resort to capitalize on the trendy “climate cure.” When the drought hits, Bathwater’s sole water source becomes a commodity, offering Granville a chance to transform Bathwater into a major city and himself into a powerful figure. But two things stand in his way: (1) the U.S. government’s own “Manifest Destiny” and (2) mayoral opponent Samuel Gompers, who threatens his plan to sprawl Bathwater and rid the town of the “broken” workers. His only choice? Blackmail the government and hire a deranged bounty hunter to kill Gompers and his soon-to-be deputy mayor: Lick Stewart.
Ever since he was a street urchin, OTTO DUVAL (30s) conducted elaborate grifts -- that is, until socialite Edward Granville sniffed out one. Duval was left with two choices: prison or grift and fix exclusively for Granville. His latest grift? Infiltrate the inner circle of the nation’s most influential magnates and secure investments to turn Bathwater into the most prolific, industrious metropolis in the west. However, the deeper Duval goes into the grifts the more he loses the self beneath the fake beards and costumes. Perhaps it is Stockholm Syndrome, or something else, but when Duval begins to look for the face beneath the masks, he’ll wonder who he is to Granville: an extorted associate, a friend, or a loving companion -- a truth that, when it comes to matters of the broken heart, can only end in disaster.
THE “BAD” PLAYERS. a.k.a. the antagonists
a.k.a. the wild card chaos-makers
What tale about the Wild West would be complete without the literal manifestation of America’s oh-so-glorious ideology for which we stand, one Nation under God? Speaking of manifestation, the government is manifesting its destiny in Bathwater through “eminent domain” -- a mandate that, unless Granville and Gompers can come to a truce, will obliterate the American Dream for everyone...
What does one say about a man who is both everywhere and nowhere, with no name other than “The Leopard” (40s), due to a blood disorder that spots his skin easily with bruises? And like the big cat, he’s deadly, thanks to magical hearing: he can tell where anyone was born within a hundred miles -- a trait that helps track, say, grifters in disguise, or certain thorny mayoral opponents. But it won’t help this mythical man track the equally mythical, radical anti-machinist Ned Ludd. Turns out, he’ll have to track this lucrative bounty the old-fashioned way, beginning with his only tangible lead linked to Ludd’s whereabouts: the late Winnie Stewart and her living husband Lick...
One can trace the origin of this clandestine union of TARREDAND-FEATHERED LUDDITES to 1779 when, as legend has it, a perturbed weaver in Leicester, England named Ned Ludd retaliated against his abusive employer by smashing factory stocking frames. Out of lore comes life: These individuals tar-and-feather themselves to mock the hierarchical institutions they terrorize and dismantle -- like Bathwater’s industrialization. The union was invited to Bathwater by Winnie Stewart for reasons Lick will discover, and is led by one particular Luddite who shares Winnie’s dark secret...
Like any pipe, relationships can strain and bust. At times, two sides may be in cahoots against the third to advance or salvage their dramatic need(s).
Our yarn functions like an eight-hour film. Both characters and the fate of Bathwater rise and fall over three acts, with Lick’s arc being the focus.
Lick learns the partial truth of Winnie’s secret and reaches his breaking point. He loses the miniature horse as he fights to save his friends and Bathwater. The volcano explodes.
Lick gets closer to his wife’s secret as his past catches up and his friends’ fates grow precarious.
Lick decides to pursue his wife’s secret at any cost.
Lick’s wife dies. He learns she confessed a dark secret that might have reincarnated her as a miniature horse as the boiler explodes.
Lick avenges his family and saves his friends as Bathwater is all but destroyed by the volcano.
Lick discovers the full truth of his wife’s secret and finds his purpose as he and the other “broken” workers rebuild Bathwater and start a new future.
This question drives the first four episodes. Character arcs entangle and are pushed to the brink while the town of Bathwater’s fate hangs in the balance.
The sabotaged boiler brings the main characters together. Lick Stewart meets the miniature horse and learns Winnie had a deathbed confession. The bounty hunter kills Lick’s only lead: Song. “Demijohn” Jennie finds a tarry clue while welding and Quigly rebreaks his back and possibly sees the bounty hunter with Song’s severed head. Mayor Granville and Otto Duval decide to rid the town of the workers in order to solidify key investments -- but the U.S. government’s threat of eminent domain and Samuel Gompers’s growing influence hinder their plan. The tarred-and-feathered Luddites prepare to destroy Bathwater from their hiding place in the abandoned mines inside Mount Taylor that is also a dormant volcano...
Lick loses his job and his home, including Winnie’s possessions inside that could offer a clue to her secret. Mayor Granville and Otto Duval sabotage their own army contract to scapegoat the workers and expel them, but Lick (via the U.S. government) finds a way to fill the contract at the last minute. Samuel Gompers takes an interest in Lick. Quigly and the magician’s assistant flirt. Lick and Quigly learn of Song’s murder -their only lead until “Demijohn” Jennie discovers a clue while welding in the new suburb. Jennie’s daughter, Gracie, arrives sick in Bathwater with her adoptive parents. The bounty hunter makes a connection between the sabotaged boilers, the mythical (and bountiful) Ned Ludd, and Winnie.
Lick learns that Winnie kept a metal box hidden somewhere in their house and often met with a tourist lady. “Demijohn” Jennie asks around about her daughter, raising suspicions from tourists. Quigly falls deeper in love with the magician’s assistant and comes into contact with the tarred-and-feathered Luddites: one being a former “broken” worker. The bounty hunter agrees to work for Mayor Granville and kill Samuel Gompers. Personal and emotional tensions rise between Mayor Granville and Otto Duval as they devise a new plan to evict the workers as potential investors begin arriving to town.
Lick breaks into his house and finds Winnie’s metal box, but passes out when it begins to burn. The miniature horse rescues Lick from the fire. The asylum doctor comes to town and discovers Quigly. “Demijohn” Jennie saves her daughter before another tarred-and-feathered Luddites attack and is arrested. An enraged Otto Duval, humiliated by Mayor Granville, burns the workers’ neighborhood (including Lick’s house), displacing them all -- this gives Mayor Granville a newfound, confusing appreciation for him. The U.S. government informs Granville that Bathwater will be claimed under eminent domain. Granville and Gompers come to a truce to stop the government, but Granville double-crosses Gompers: The bounty hunter nearly kills Samuel Gompers and is injured by the tarred-and-feathered Luddites.
In the last four episodes, the closer Lick gets to the truth, the more he questions who Winnie was. Characters resolve their purposes and Bathwater’s fate is decided.
It is now days until the election. New workers expand Bathwater City. The “broken” workers live in the abandoned mines. Injured Samuel Gompers asks Lick to run as his deputy mayor, but Lick declines. Lick finds Winnie’s metal box again, containing a P.O. Box address and adoption papers for Song. Lick is captured by the tarred-and-feathered Luddites. Quigly experiences opium withdrawal and, seeking help for Gompers, is captured by the asylum doctor. “Demijohn” Jennie is sentenced to be hanged. Mayor Granville and Otto Duval’s confusing relationship intensifies as they seek a way to prevent the U.S. government from claiming Bathwater. The bounty hunter recuperates and believes Lick is Ned Ludd.
The tarred-and-feathered Luddites, seeing Winnie’s metal box, let Lick go. He learns that Winnie was an informant for the union. He decides to leave Bathwater but changes his mind when he learns Quigly will be lobotomized and “Demijohn” Jennie will be hanged. He attempts to rescue them but is intercepted by Winnie’s terrible parents who have come to town. Mayor Granville and Otto Duval complicate their relationship. From jail, Jennie earns her daughters trust. The bounty hunter boobytraps the Luddites’ dynamite depot in the mines and kidnaps Gracie as leverage to find Lick.
The doctor who treats Samuel Gompers also treated Winnie, and Lick learns his wife’s scar was from a surgery to remove her conjoined twin at birth. Lick decides to finish his wife’s work with the tarred-and-feathered, avenge his murdered adopted daughter, and save his friends and Bathwater. He confronts Winnie’s parents who confirm abandoning Winnie’s deformed sister. “Demijohn” Jennie is freed and nearly strangled by the bounty hunter when she tries to save her daughter. Quigly is rescued by the magician’s assistant and the asylum doctor is mistakenly lobotomized. The “broken” workers return to vote for Gompers and Mayor Granville is accidentally killed, devastating his lover Otto Duval.
Winnie’s parents identify Otto Duval as the grifter that robbed them of their social status. Lick fights Duval. “Demijohn” Jennie saves her daughter. Quigly saves the magician’s assistant from the bounty hunter who accidentally beheads himself fighting Quigly and his broken spyglass. The dynamite blows in the mines and triggers a volcanic eruption. Lava destroys Bathwater. Duval and the miniature horse fall into a fiery fissure: gone. Winnie’s parents are “dragged to hell” by indigenous ants. One tarred-and-feathered Luddite is revealed to be Winnie’s twin sister, concluding Winnie’s secret. The “broken” workers live on the new land made by the volcano and help the U.S. government build the land-grant college. Samuel Gompers becomes a leader in the Luddite union when Winnie’s sister stays with Lick, now the mayor.
BROKEN: BATHWATER EDITION’s surrealist and magical realist tone amplifies the Wild West mythology -- the characters find elements of this hyper-real world curious but accept the strangeness as otherwise “normal.” Special effects should be practical as much as possible to give a more immersive, classic, and tangible feel to the story. For example, a real horse with a “Dummy Quigly” or an animatronic horse with the real Quigly should be utilized. Conversely, effects like the hordes of killer Pyramid Ants that carry increasingly larger, more absurd objects across the season can be achieved with CGI. Effects like the Bounty Hunter’s magical hearing can be created in post-production. Overall, the tone -- including the depictions of violence -- can blend absurd comedy with poignant drama, akin to The Ballad of Buster Scruggs or the films of Martin McDonagh, like In Bruges and The Banshees
BROKEN’s unique brand that emphasizes both character and the ideological “cracks” in America’s cornerstone through the Wild West provides limitless possibilities for future seasons, all of which will be connected by the myth of Ned Ludd and the tarred-and-feathered Luddites.
A harrowing immigration story about astronomy, astrology, extraterrestrial myths of the southwestern landscape, and American xenophobia, like “Yellow Peril,” during the construction of the Lowell astronomical observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1896.
A trio of famous female gunslingers -- Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, and Belle Starr -- are commissioned by P.T. Barnum to capture the last elusive, imported red camel before wealthy businessmen kill it. This edition explores zoological extinction, trophy-hunting culture, celebrity, identity, and gender, and even the invention of the airplane.
Two rival families of prospectors hunt for the legendary lost treasure of Colonel George A. Custer along the Bighorn River while trying to survive each other’s distrust and Bigfoot. This edition explores zoology, capitalism, and the concept of “neighborly.”
A freed slave and his wife infiltrate the Southwest dressed as Rebs while hunting the traveling Quack who poisoned his children (and town) with a toxic elixir. This edition explores the myth of the Black Confederate soldier, the history of crossdressing, and the rise of Big Pharma.
Detectives track Crow Indian serial killer John “Liver-Eating” Johnson through Montana, exploring biodiversity, forensics, criminal justice, masculinity, and diaspora.
In the final season, Ned Ludd’s true identity will be revealed -- and it will be someone who appears in every season, thanks to the Fountain of Youth. As the frontier era ends and the Fountain of Youth is destroyed by corporate expansion, Ned Ludd spends his final, aging years tracking the still-living Otto Duval, disguised as a man named Harry Longabaugh, a.k.a. “The Sundance Kid,” who survived the death of Butch Cassidy’s gang. Duval will meet his demise in Nevada amidst construction of the Hoover Dam. This edition explores climate change, capitalist destruction of ecosystems, as well as aging, and memory loss.
All images from free trials of Shutterstock unless otherwise noted below:
“Depiction of Ned Ludd, Leader of Luddites.” Created: Published in May 1812 by Messrs. Walker and Knight, Sweetings Alley, Royal Exchange; see British Museum reference. This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1927, and if not then due to lack of notice or renewal. | Exploding boiler: Image from page 162 of “Steam boiler explosions, in theory and in practice;” (1887). Authors: Thurston, Robert Henry, 1839-1903 Subjects: Steam-boiler explosions.
Publisher: New York, J. Wiley & sons | “Benjamin Waddy Maughan’s Patent Geyser.” Mortimer & Smith’s Hardware Trade Journal. | “Sketch Pipes System” [FILE #: 120191044] for the “Conflict Triangle;” and “Charles Quigly strapped to the back of the miniature horse” (comprised of two images: “Happy Birthday” [FILE #: 80788587], “Hand drawing image pony galloping” [FILE #: 169476123], “Collection of vector illustrations of a toothbrush. Hand-drawn sketches. Vintage style engraving. Set of wooden toothbrushes” [FILE #: 465258113], and “Vintage image knot” [FILE #: 129181804]); “Horde of killer Pyramid Ants carrying wolf carcass” (comprised of “Mountain illustration, drawing, engraving, ink, line art, vector” [FILE #: 335609596], “Stagecoach illustration, drawing, engraving, ink, line art, vector” [FILE #: 277503272], “Gray wolf set. Gray wolf. A predatory beast. Wild forest animal. Vector Engraved hand drawn Vintage old sketch for stamp, t-shirt or typography or badge” [FILE #: 421076325], and “Ant, vintage illustration” [FILE #: 298404998]); and Historische Ansichten des Vesuv/ Vesuvio/ Vesuvius, Golf von Neapel, Kampanien, Italien, Europa [FILE #: 47801653] courtesy of Adobe Stock. “Peculiar boiler explosion, Orleans, France, Victorian 19th Century stock illustration” courtesy of iStock by Getty Images; “1894 US Presidential Seal,” [public domain] scanned from the 1909 edition of Heraldry in America by Eugene Zieber, page 106.
