Script Project limps toward the end

I figured it would get harder to recruit submissions for the LA Observed Script Project as the story got longer and more layered, but producer Eric Estrin has been keeping it going. Now, the end is near.

I’m not sure who’s had it rougher these past few weeks -- “Right of Way’s” tarnished hero Mayor Russell Napolitano or the Script Project contributors who’ve been pushing his story toward its suspenseful conclusion.

Ever since confronting The Order’s creepy Prefect Duvane, whom he unwisely slugged in full view of the cult’s security cameras, Napolitano has been running from police across Hollywood and back again, through menacing streets and abandoned subway tunnels, refusing to face their trumped-up murder charges until he can prove he’s been framed.

This week, he was finally apprehended by a sheriff’s department S.W.A.T. team, dumped in a cell to await arraignment, and then sprung in the middle of the night for reasons we don’t yet understand by his reluctant cohort, suspended LAPD detective Deland.

It’s all in a day’s work for Napolitano, who’s already lost his good friend to a horrific murder, had his girlfriend betray him for money, and been beaten up twice, carjacked, and publicly humiliated by the media frenzy over his fall from grace.

The 20-odd writers (emphasis on odd) who’ve piled the weight of the world onto Napolitano’s weary shoulders have done themselves no favors either. The yarn they’ve woven has at least a loose thread for every contributor and no overall plan for stitching them all together.

It was fun creating this mess, but getting Napolitano out of it is another story.

Estrin tells all at his Script Notes blog.