I am not going in
Synopsis
A day at the beach, on the beach where the sand is black vinyl and the grooves run down to the water. Nothing happens. That is the joke.
Plot
This one runs on the mundane engine: the comedy is the towel that will not stay put, the queue for the shower, the man who wants to talk, the heat. The world is horrible and nobody in it ever comments on the world. All episode long, out over the sea, a tonearm the size of a crane comes down towards the water, and two women with cocktails chat with their backs to it. What he wants, out loud before the forty eighth second: nothing. For once Malios does not want to fix anything. He says it with his jacket on. What she wants is for him to take the jacket off.
Tag
After the credits, a secondary character from this episode, later and somewhere else.
An empty striped lounger on the black vinyl sand at dusk, with a folded jacket lying on it. The grooves in the sand move past underneath very slowly, carrying a single flip flop with them. The whole empty beach turns slowly with nobody on it and the loungers go round together.
Trivia and continuity
The guest is the lifeguard, a man in swimming trunks with a vintage speaker cone for a head, who takes the job with total seriousness and has never once been in the water. Eleven summers watching a sea he has not entered. He does not say it as a tragedy; he says it the way people say it is humid. The price: to pull somebody out when the beach starts turning, he goes in. And whoever goes in stays in. They leave changed and nobody says it: Malios does not swim, but he takes the jacket off and leaves it folded on the lounger.
Malios
Kenya
The cat