Season 20, Episode 9 “Shawn of the Bed”
“Shawn of the Bed”
Imogen Cuthbert voluntarily cradling Greta Hendricksen was a sight I’d never imagined. “He wasn’t trying to actually hurt me,” Greta kept whimpering, though nobody disputed that.
While the camera and sound teams kept working, diligent as bees, the rest of the crew—from G&E to the stunned matron at crafty—froze on the sidelines.
PB and Fortune hauled Shawn to video village, where Melange cupped his face, desperate to soothe him.
Troy fretted over Barnes, examining his cheek like a career dermatologist, as Zara demanded a call with network legal.
Meanwhile I was stuck hanging in my harness, knotted in the ropes and carabiners.
I fought for a glimpse of either Shawn or Barnes, but both were eclipsed from me no matter how I craned my neck.
An ambulance soon arrived to transport Barnes to the hospital per the show’s insurance requirements, and Fortune glumly took the bullet when Troy solicited volunteers to tag along and film with him.
After I was finally freed from my gear by a benevolent stunt guy, I intercepted Barnes at the waiting ambulance, his jaw already turning colors. “Are you okay?”
“Honestly, I’m amazed it took this long for someone to hit me.”
I bristled at the camera on my left, too aware whatever I said could be repurposed later in an editing suite. “If I talk to the kids before you’re back, what would you like me to say?”
“That your doe-eyed boyfriend sucker punched their old man?” he replied, an undeniable flash of satisfaction in his eyes. “Say I smacked into the cliff going down.”
Troy brushed my shoulder, pushing past me to climb beside Barnes. “Coming, Luke?”
“No,” Barnes answered before I could. “He hates hospitals.”
The ambulance set off, sirens blaring, only to be outdone by a far more piercing cry from Greta: “Shawn, wait! I can explain!”
I pivoted to find Zara ushering Shawn and Melange into a waiting sedan. Shawn hid under his hoodie, almost floating between the two women. Despite my lingering anger, I joined Greta and Imogen in pursuing them—unsure what to say but knowing I had to say something—except PB and Erika halted us.
“Zara booked him a flight for tonight,” Erika said. “They’re driving him to the crew hotel downtown in the meantime. Zara thought it might help if Melange rode with him.”
“No, I’ll go with him!” Greta protested, mud and tears staining her cheeks.
“He doesn’t want to talk to you,” PB said curtly before offering me a more sympathetic glance. “Either of you.”
“Me?!” I felt as if I’d been punched now. “What did I do?”
“He’s just ashamed. Understandably.”
“Zara also wondered if you’d show the PAs which stuff is his, Luke? Legal said he’s not allowed back in the house,” Erika added hesitantly, a new camera materializing to capture me from a wider angle, the better to commemorate my mortification in full frame.
“Like hell I’m packing his bags! He won’t even dignify me with a goodbye.”
Zara’s car drove past, and I caught his sunken face through the window.
“Yeah, run away, you coward!” I yelled, more hurt than I’d ever admit, knowing he could hear me and not caring who else did.
PB intervened, flinging his middle fingers in front of my face to ruin the footage on my behalf, but I swiped his hands away.
“Fucking immature child!” I shouted after the car.
“Luke, it’s over,” Imogen said wearily, Greta’s sobs as underscore. “Let it be over.”
Despite my pride, the pitiful sight of Erika and two production assistants awkwardly sifting through Shawn’s laundry was enough to make me help, stuffing his bag with sneakers, tank tops, and the bent sunglasses Greta damaged in Italy.
That operatic night in Cortona felt like years prior, when our most immediate concern had been an idiotic prank.
As I folded his clothes, I fantasized that I’d met Shawn elsewhere, in some other life.
Maybe I’d be finishing my PhD in the English department of some respectable New England college.
I’d leave a campus café, grabbing coffee before my seminar on Homoeroticism in 20th Century Fiction (why not?), and we’d collide at the door, books tumbling to the frosty ground.
Snow crenellating along his toboggan, he’d hand me The Mysteries of Pittsburgh while I retrieved his copy of Miss Julie and I’d ask what had him reading August Strindberg.
He’d tell me he was an actor in the MFA program, where the play was going up that weekend.
He’d invite me, and he’d be magnificent.
Over drinks afterward, I’d recount the banal saga of my youth, how I thought I’d be a pro football player and even been offered a reality show.
Except I’d said no. He’d then confess he’d almost auditioned for one but feared it would jeopardize his acting career, so he’d said no too.
There we’d be, two people who said no. And then I felt guilty and stupid for even briefly imagining a life without my kids alongside a man who didn’t exist but who looked identical to a liar I’d barely known a month.
Troy arrived by taxi right as Imogen shepherded Greta into the kitchen for tea.
She’d yet to change out of her filthy clothes, staring catatonically as Troy gathered us.
“Barnes is fine,” he announced. “Nothing broken and cleared to compete. He’s just waiting on some prescriptions with Fortune.
Shawn, however, has obviously been removed due to our policy on violence. ”
“Physical violence,” PB corrected sourly. “Sorry, unsanctioned physical violence.”
“Not to ask the tacky question, but will this affect the next Trial?” Erika asked.
“Zara and I need to confer, but right now the bigger priority is fixing some narrative holes for the edit, since Shawn’s refusing to do a final confessional.
” Troy’s tone implied that of all Shawn’s missteps, this was the most profligate.
“We need everybody’s fresh reactions to tell the story.
Greta, can you give some play-by-play first? ”
We all just gaped at him. “You want to film confessionals now?” Imogen glared.
“I… I can’t talk about it today,” Greta stammered. “Plus, I look like a sasquatch.”
“No, you look perfect, exactly the hot take we want—”
“Fuck the condescension, Troy. She doesn’t want to talk. None of us do,” PB snapped.
Troy’s lips pursed, his voice losing its normal pluck. “You all signed contracts that outline fines for impeding filming, and I’ve been more than generous not enforcing those penalties.” He methodically eyed us, one by one. “Until now.”
“You’re threatening us?” I asked, my own temper fraying fast.
“I’m stating facts, and I doubt anybody wants a six-figure fine that would get you banned from this show.” He stared pointedly at Greta. “Or any show.”
Before we could protest, Greta brushed back her crusty bangs. “Okay. You’re the boss.”
“And that’s why you’re a professional.” He gestured for Greta to follow, but I nonetheless stopped her at the door, my concern clearly radiating.
She rolled her eyes. “Stop looking at me like I’m unexploded ammunition. I won’t ruin Shawn’s life any more than I already have. Hell, I’ll probably buy him another five seasons.”
“You really think you’re the best person to do that for him?”
“I’m the only one who can,” she answered emptily. “I’m the professional.”
Troy was still interrogating Greta in the confessional when Zara and Melange returned.
I remained at the kitchen island, ostensibly next in line for the executioner, but Melange offered me a reprieve.
“Spare yourself. I bought elf ears and a dozen rings at the airport, so I might as well get my Tolkien on while I can,” she sighed.
As she left, Zara grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge and sat beside me. “Quite a day.”
“I’ve seen better.”
She popped the can, the gentle fizz hissing. “Worse too.”
“You’ve got me there.”
She took a long drink, evaluating me. “So, Shawn’s screwed if he doesn’t give a final interview. The network will blacklist him for a year, if not more.”
I uneasily shifted on my bar stool. “Why are you telling me this?”
“I’d never encourage someone to go into reality television, but I don’t know what Shawn’s other career options look like… His flight leaves soon, and if he’s going to talk, it won’t be to a producer,” she said, car keys rustling anxiously in her fist.
“I can’t go on camera with him, not after what’s happened.”
But I never stood a chance against Zara.
“You’ll stand off camera, coax out a statement. Even if the editors omit the footage, his contract’s honored, and nobody will know you were there,” she assured, her sedan hugging the road to Queenstown, a cemetery of empty Diet Coke cans littering the back seat.
“Copy that,” I replied, adjusting my seat belt. “No offense, but I’m surprised you’re going to the mat for him. You’ve always struck me as a ‘chips fall where they may’ person.”
Her hands flexed on the steering wheel as she searched for the right words.
“Obviously, I don’t volunteer much about myself, but I didn’t start in unscripted TV.
I used to produce commercials, big ones, and while I might be uptight now, I wasn’t always.
I also wasn’t sober,” she said evenly. “Did you know when you film something, you copy footage to two hard drives? They can never be in the same place. In case of fire, an act of God, whatever. In 2010, I booked this massive holiday campaign for a major brand. Dozens of locations, millions of dollars.” She nudged the turn signal as we went right.
“Cocky wunderkind that I was, I took both drives to the wrap party. One drink became nine, and I lost them. Every bit of footage, gone.”
I thought of my own bad night of drinking but resisted the comparison. “It could have happened to anyone,” I said instead.