Trust Me Episode 1.01 Pilot - Before and After

Sitting by a pool in Vegas very hungover from the night before, we meet Mason McGuire, V.P. Art Director, and Conner, V.P. Copywriter, of Rothman, Greene & Mohr (RGM), a Chicago-based advertising agency. The two close friends are in Los Angeles to help with a shoot. When Mason complains of being nauseous, Conner, always the advocate for fun, reminds him they were drinking someone else's booze, which they didn't pay for, while everybody back in the office in Chicago thought they were working. Things could be worse. When Mason's phone rings, it's RGM. Noticing an attractive female across the pool, Conner tells him to not answer it before getting up to go for a swim. Nonetheless, after he jumps in, Mason answers. It's Gordon Benedict, the V.P. Account Director on RGM's Arc Mobile account.

Gordon tells him that he wants them to fly back to Chicago to work on the Arc Mobile account, asap. Their people have issues with Mason and Conner's boss, Stu Hoffman's, ideas for their campaign. There's not enough about texting, video and music. As he's served breakfast poolside and Conner hits on the aforementioned bikini-clad beauty, Mason tries to duck and dodge his way out of it. Then, Gordon goes to the big guns: the Arc people want to approve a pitch by October, which puts the launch of the campaign on the Super Bowl-every advertiser's dream. Mason is hooked, therefore Conner has no choice but to go back to Chicago, too.

Getting off the elevator back in RGM's office, Mason is worried because they have "nothing" for Arc. Untrue, says Conner, they have his idea: A gladiator slaying a lion with one hand and texting with the other. His name? Spartexticus. Mason isn't impressed.

They run into Stu Hoffman, V.P. Creative Director, who's surprised to see them. He wasn't told they were coming back from L.A. early to help him with his campaign. In fact, the fiery, confrontational Hoffman wasn't told his campaign was dead at all. When this information is finally revealed to him by Gordon with a lot of the staff present, he doesn't hide his feelings at all. He explodes into a cyclone of thrown furniture and curse words. He storms out of the conference room back to his office.

Gordon is left to try and pick up the pieces, but the crushing blows continue. He tells the group that if they don't impress Arc Mobile's people, the account might go into review. This tips off Mason and Conner, who've been around the block a time or two. There's no Super Bowl spot, is there? In a painstaking admission, Gordon confirms that. It was just a lie to get them to hurry back from L.A.

The dead, silent weight in the room is broken when Conner suggests someone go talk to Stu. He volunteers Mason because he says he's more persuasive. Mason counters and says he likes Conner more. They then resort to the age-old decision-making process: Rock, Paper, Scissors. Mason loses. Off to Stu's office. . .

. . .where he's currently using his office phone a punching bag while calling clients "idiots." Mason tries the soft approach-he tells Stu that he likes his campaign, but Gordon is afraid the account will get put in review and, should that review not go well, they could lose a $75 million account. Stu counters by likening Mason to a "pansy," but doesn't exactly use that word. Clients, he says slowly raising his voice, need to be scared of advertisers so they'll listen to them and not start coming up with their own ideas. If that happens, then all ad men are screwed. He belittles Mason for being "soft" and tells him that's not the way to climb up the ladder in the ad world. Now aware that niceties won't work, Mason gives it to Stu straight-he says he believes one doesn't have to be an asshole to do business. Stu scoffs, completely convinced his subordinate is wrong. None of the executives on the floors above them want softies; they want award-winning creatives like Stu running their business. He tells Mason to tell Gordon, his "girlfriend," that nobody else is to do work on the Arc account.

But it's too late for that. Tony Mink, Stu's boss, has already assigned teams to start putting pitches together. If his blood wasn't already boiling, it is now. Even though Mason happened to see Tony in the hallway on his way over and that's why he knows about the Arc deal, Stu sees it as him going above his head. He storms out of his office to find Tony and tells Mason to stay put.

As he stomps into Tony's office and slams the door, Sarah Krajicek-Hunter, a copywriter, walks in with a box of various office decorations and "homemaking" materials. It's her first day at RGM and she walks around the office, smiling as she reads the names off of each office door. She's expecting to see a temporary tag with her name on it on her office door, but is disappointed when she finds it hanging on a cubicle. Clearly, she's used to better. Looking stern and unhappy, she barely looks up when Tom and Hector, the junior creative team, welcome her as a "fellow cube dweller."

"I'm supposed to have a window," she says defiantly. She spots Stu coming out of Tony's office and bolts his way. Bad idea. Clearly, his meeting with Tony did not go well and, as she throws compliments and excitement his way, he ignores her. She continues talking away, saying he told her that she would get her own office when he hired her to be his partner. Doesn't matter much now. He slams his office door in her face without a word.

Stu then drops some news on Mason-as it turns out, yes, they are going to be doing more work on Arc Mobile. And by "they," Stu means Mason. He has two days to put together a pitch and, if he doesn't wow the Arc people, Stu is going to fire him. Flabbergasted, Mason tries to tell him doing that much work in two days is impossible, but Stu yells until he leaves.

Mason almost runs Sarah over as he leaves the office and closes the door behind him. They know each other, but it's been a while. Mason, aware that her name is now hyphenated, congratulates her on the wedding. She says thanks...then tells him she's now divorced. Mason tells her he wasn't aware that Tony was hiring anybody new; she asks who Tony is. It was Stu that hired her, but Tony is the Group Creative Director-the big boss. All things should go through him. Something is amiss. . .

When she tries to go into Stu's office, Mason stops her and suggests going elsewhere. He's a bit mad right now and it'd be better for her health if she didn't. He offers to show her around, but when she mumbles about going to HR to get her window office, he makes a quit exit and rushes to Conner's office to tell him of the latest developments.

Conner, never one to take anything too seriously, snaps an extremely unflattering photo of Mason with his phone as he bursts through the door. After he gets in a good laugh, Mason tells him that Stu just threatened to fire him. When Conner tells him not to worry about it, nobody's getting fired, he's taken aback at his partner's defense of the less-than-pleasant-Stu. Nevertheless, he's once again reassured by Conner, who tells him that Stu's been good to them by letting in on some cool projects, like the ten-day shoot they were just on in L.A. Mason counters, reminding him that the only reason they got to go to L.A. was because Stu screwed them out of pitching their campaign idea to Arc Mobile. Conner tries to make him feel better by saying they'll screw people out of cooler accounts when they become creative directors. For now, though, he assures him that nobody is getting fired. Or so he thinks until Mason drops a bomb. . .

. . .Sarah Krajicek-Hunter just got hired there. Finally, Conner is alarmed. She's an award-winning copywriter and there's only so much room at the company for creatives. When Mason offers to go introduce them, Conner refuses, saying he doesn't want to meet her while he's wearing the clothes he has on. Um. . .what?

Instead, he rushes towards the main doors, saying he's leaving for the day. He sputters out excuses-he's tired from the red eye flight, he's not comfortable in his outfit, he's cranky-and says they'll start fresh tomorrow. Mason has little choice but to watch him walk out.

Later that day, Sarah catches Hector and Tom sifting through the box she brought in earlier. Inside, they find a bunch of lotion and a CLEO-an advertising award-amongst other things. That's the final straw. If one thing wasn't certain before, it is now: Sarah knows how good she is at her profession, isn't modest about it, and isn't used to being treated with anything but reverence. She goes to Stu's door and, just as she's about to knock, Mason tells her once again to back off. This time, she doesn't and raps away. . .

. . .but nobody answers. She opens the door anyway and. . .shrieks! Mason runs in to find her standing over Stu's dead body.

The next morning, a downtrodden Conner walks into Stu's former office, takes a look around, lays down on the spot Stu died, and steals his desk chair. When Mason gets to the office, he finds Conner lying on the couch in his office completely demoralized. He then notices Stu's old chair, but doesn't give Conner a hard time about it. Clearly, his friend has bigger things running through his head, so he suggests getting to work to take his mind off of it all. Conner politely declines. He can't work in that environment, with Stu having just died and all. He does, however, have a little good news: Gordon bought them a couple more days before they have to present to Arc Mobile.

Following that little nugget, the shaken Conner displays his care for Mason, his best friend, in his own quirky way: he tells him to quit drinking coffee. Stu absorbed gross amounts of caffeine over the years and Conner doesn't want Mason to die, despite being reassured that he's in the best shape of his life. He refuses to quit coffee, but gets Conner off his back by saying he'll switch to half-caff.

Now, time to work. . .right after Conner takes a nap. Now that he's off coffee, he's got a terrible caffeine withdrawal headache. Mason rolls his eyes and heads to Tony's office, who immediately offers to take him out to chat and buy him a cup of coffee. As they walk the streets of Chicago, Tony likens having Stu around the last seven years to not having cartilage in his back. Constantly, with every decision he made, Stu would be there irritating and grinding away at him like two vertebra mashing against each other. Then he drops the point of this little chat: He's promoting Mason to Creative Director. Mason can't believe it and is already sensing the repercussions with Conner. He also seems unsure of Tony's choice. One of the first things out of his mouth is, "What about Conner?" Well, as Tony puts it, Conner is like his old partner, who never really loved being in the ad business. He eventually left and became a novelist. Mason is more like himself, who lives and dies by what goes on in the ad world. He's dedicated to the industry.

But couldn't Tony just promote both of them?

No, Mason's his guy, even though becoming Creative Director could slice a rift in between him and his partner. He's the adult of the duo. Tony promises to do him a favor, instead. He'll hold off on sending out the company-wide memo announcing his promotion to give him time to drop the news on Conner. He'll have to do that fast, though; there are eight other creative groups chomping at the bit, waiting for them to screw up so they can steal their accounts. If they lose Arc Mobile, the entire Mink group will be broken up.

In light of this conversation, Mason might be the only "good guy" in the entire advertising universe.

Later that day, Mason and Conner brainstorm for Arc Mobile, but are getting nowhere. Conner refuses to put serious work in at first, using the whole death excuse again. Mason is still trying to find ways to drop his promotion news on him, but can't figure out how. Finally, after bickering like the married couple they've become, Conner shakes it off and wants to get to work. . .

They attempt to start riffing off of each other, but it's slow going at first. Conner is still stuck on his Spartexticus idea and Mason isn't completely sold. As they start brainstorming, though, two things become apparent: maybe this isn't such a bad idea and it's clear that the two of them make a really, really good team. As they add a Neanderthal character to their idea, Mason struggles to complete the thought with a tagline. Conner picks up the slack and thinks of something, just as someone delivers the mail. Uh-oh. He reads the office memo about Mason's promotion and walks out of the room sulking, telling his "boss" to put the campaign together himself.

Back in Tony's office, Denise Rayner, the CEO and Tony's boss, sends her condolences over the phone. She says she'll do anything to help his group get through the tough time. As it turns out, others have offered to do the same-Simon Cochran, a creative director with another group, has offered to help with the Arc Mobile account. Tony is sweet as pie thanking Denise before hanging up, but he knows what's really going on. And he spells it out quite clearly-and loudly-to his group, who was sitting in on the call.

Cochran wants the account and is trying to fiendishly sneak his way in, and Raynor is letting him. In no uncertain terms, Tony tells everyone to forget any social plans they might've had-including going to Stu's memorial service. They're going to honor his memory by working their asses off to prevent Cochran from stealing the Arc Mobile account. Now. . .where's Conner? Mason doesn't know and Tony makes it clear that he needs to find him and put him to work.

Back in his office, Mason struggles to come up with an idea by himself. He attempts getting in contact with Conner by texting him, but his friend ignores it as he sits drinking alone at a bar.

Later, Tom and Hector present their commercial idea to Mason, but it comes without a tagline. The two junior creatives clearly have issues with taglines because they're "old school," but this is unacceptable to Mason. Taglines are what clients like, regardless of their feelings of them. Get back to work.

After Mason walks away, Sarah, who has been listening the whole time, pops up from her cube and points out that they do have tagline, as it turns out, it's just buried in their announcer copy. She circles it on their script-"Way beyond the call"-but is every ounce of frosty when she does it. This would be a sweet moment of a seasoned veteran teaching the new guys the ropes, but her condescension crossing over into disgust prevents this. Nonetheless, they now have a tagline to which to write.

That night, Sarah walks into Mason's office as he leaves yet another message for Conner, who has yet to contact him. She's a copywriter who needs an art director who can put her RGM idea into pictures and she's currently partnerless. When Mason shoots back that he's currently partnerless, she snaps into sweet mode to try and get him to work with her. Nope, that's not going to work. He has a partner, he's just misplaced at the moment. Besides, Tony said rough ideas were okay with no visuals. Sarah knows that's a bunch of crap-creative directors always want visuals because presentations go so much more smoothly with them-but there's nothing Mason can do for her. He tells her not to worry about it as he walks out with beautiful storyboards for Hector and Tom's idea. That's odd. Didn't he just say that wasn't necessary? Following closely in his wake, Sarah finds out that Tony wanted to put some, some polished visuals in front of focus groups. Apparently, she didn't get that memo.

It doesn't really matter, though. Mason stands on the other side of a two-way mirror and watches as a focus group tears the "Way Beyond the Call" idea to the ground. None of the people in the group like it and, perhaps more importantly, all of them say they wouldn't remember anything from the commercial. Back to the drawing board.

Or maybe not. . .

Conner catches Mason rummaging through Stu's old storyboards in hopes of stumbling across an idea. They have it out, finally.

Conner says he's been carrying Mason for seven years and now the new creative director can't even write a cell phone commercial. . .

Mason counters saying it's the other way around-he's carried Conner so long that now the only person he cares about is himself. . .

Really? Because every time Stu told him to get a new partner, he defended Mason and said he wasn't a hack even though, apparently, he is. . .

Well, Tony, Stu's boss, seems to disagree with that statement and maybe, just maybe, if Conner wasn't so selfish and self-centered he could've gotten promoted, too. . .

Conner begins walking out and Mason continues. Another person who worked in the office used to throw hissy fits and then storm out of rooms, too. His name was Stu.

Conner drops the final blow:

"I guess that must mean that you'll be going through my garbage looking for ideas to save your ass next."

Mason has nothing to say, so in the most mature move in the history of advertising, he draws a picture of a hand flipping the bird and flashes it to Conner, who walks out with one simple word. "Hack."

In her internal creative review, where presenters either have to kill or be killed by higher ups and their competition, Sarah puts on a show with her thumbs due to the lack of her visuals to go with her tagline: "Let Your Thumbs Do The Talking." Her presentation is met with absolute silence. All CEO Rayner has to say is, "Thank you."

A the British, smarmy Cochran goes next as Sarah sits down and shoots Mason a murderous look. He, of course, pulls out storyboards, visuals, the whole nine yards and wows the crowd. Damn it.

Outside, Mason apologizes to Tony, but is surprised at his reaction. Why is he apologizing? Sure, Rayner said she was going to recommend Cochran's pitch, but she also said they were going to present Tom and Hector's. Then, he gets a little more heated with his next words. Mason is going to go present the idea himself, without Tony, and he'd better do well otherwise his boss is going to be on the streets and he's going to be working for "Simon Cockroach." Oh, and he'd better bring Conner-he's a better presenter.

Downstairs, Sarah finds Conner looking through her ideas for the Arc Mobile campaign. Not startled when she announces herself like Tom and Hector had been before, Conner compliments her on her work without realizing who she is. Once he does, he defends his territory by assuring her that he has a bunch of awards, too. She's still frustrated by her creative review upstairs and complains that Mason recommended three pitches over hers, making her feel stupid. Conner reassures her-everybody knows how good she is (He then slips in a, "So, did anybody mention me?"). Always the modest one, she takes this compliment in stride and says she's probably one of the best writers in Chicago. She wins awards on every project she works on. . .except shampoo. She just doesn't get shampoo. Nonetheless, she doesn't think Mason realizes how good she is. Conner, still mad at his partner, tries to turn Sarah against him. Of course Mason realizes the level of her talent, but he doesn't want to give her any help because he's threatened by her; he thinks she'll eventually try to make a play for his job. Sarah, who's much too intelligent to fall for this, asks Conner why he's partners with Mason if he's so cutthroat. Before he can make up another lie, Mason walks in.

Conner does the first thing he can think of-he dives under Sarah's desk. Mason comes around looking for him so he can give him his plane ticket to tomorrow's presentation and asks Sarah if she's seen him. Pinched and poked beneath her desk, she says, nope, haven't seen him.

Grateful, Conner pops back up after Mason leaves and, in a subtly flirtatious way, makes his escape.

The following day, Mason sits alone in the airport. Conner is nowhere to be found and, to make matters worse, Gordon lets him know that there was only one seat in first class left and he gave it to Cochran.

Instead of going to work, Conner is at Stu's memorial service listening to all of the speakers struggling to find nice things to say about him. He hesitates a moment, then decides to take the podium. . .

Back in the office, Sarah is busy destroying her homemade storyboard for Arc Mobile when Amy, another art director, approaches her. She and Sarah are now partners on "the best account in the agency"-shampoo!! Sarah looks at her in horror.

On the podium, Conner sets the record straight-Stu played it off like he was a hard worker and dedicated, but it was only an act. He played that part because he was selfish. He died angry and alone because he scared everyone away. Conner then thanks Stu-he thanks him for showing him that there's more to life than work. Now, it's time for him to get to that meeting.

On the plane, Mason talks to Cochran about showing a united front while at Arc Mobile. He doesn't want it to get bogged down by a creative department pissing contest. Therefore, he thinks they should only pitch one idea-Cochran's idea. Of course, his adversary agrees. He was willing to steal the account in the face of resistance; of course he has no problem taking it with the permission of a rival group's weak-willed creative director.

At Arc Mobile headquarters in San Diego, Conner sprints through the halls trying to evade building security. He's looking for the pitch meeting, but doesn't have much luck. The guards catch him before he finds the correct conference room.

Meanwhile, Cochran pitches his idea to Peter Derby, the Arc Mobile exec who has the final say on the campaign. It involves the song "Freedom" by George Michael and the tagline, "Arc Mobile: Let Freedom Ring." Derby sits quietly after he finishes and Gordon applauds the effort. He then calls on Mason to present his idea, who declines. The recommendation sent from RGM is clearly superior to any other idea. . .

Back in Chicago, Sarah is back at DDB, her old agency. She's looking to get her old job back. RGM wasn't what she thought it was going to be. She's met with some unfortunate news from her old boss: her job is no longer available. But why? Has it been filled? Nope just not available. Being who she is, she pushes for more information. Why is her old job, which has not been filled yet, no longer available?

Well, because she's kind of a pain in the ass. Her old boss tells her she's high maintenance, abrasive, arrogant, she always thinks guys are hitting on her, and she's argumentative. He admits, she's a good writer, but there are a lot of good writers in Chicago. He's going to hire one he doesn't hate. Sarah, used to being in control, is destroyed and on the verge of tears.

In San Diego, Cochran asks Derby for a reaction. The room is stuffy with expectation. . .

Derby: "I think I'm bored."

He thinks Cochran's idea is too safe, too old-fashioned. It didn't make him nervous. He was hoping to hear something that would convince him that they could motivate people to open new contracts with them and switch from other cell phone carriers. Derby gets up from the table just as Conner sprints by the glass door. Inspired, Mason pops up to present an idea.

He begins struggling through the Spartexticus pitch, then quits. Derby is right-what they've presented is crap. It's not motivating. What motivates people is fear. Fear of failure, fear of being laughed at, fear of ending up alone. Arc Mobile needs to convince people that it can give them freedom from fear. And, just like that, Mason is rolling, coming up with a pitch as he goes.

With Cochran and his crew looking on with unabashed hatred, Mason pitches a commercial idea that seems to parallel his current situation:

A guy is in a big meeting. . .he doesn't have the big idea and is getting killed. . .nobody's helping him. . .he begins imagining what his life will be like when he fails. . .all of his worst fears come true: divorce, foreclosure, homelessness. . .when, suddenly, the man has an idea as he begs for change on a street corner and grabs a bike-he finally has the big idea!. . .he's not going to make it before the original meeting ends. . .instead, he texts his ideas to the people there. . .he saves the day, then BOOM! He's hit by a bus. . .but doesn't die. Instead he falls into Mike Ditka's arms�or Beyonce's. Whatever, Derby gets the idea.

Silence.

Then Derby starts laughing because, wow, that makes him nervous. But what's the tagline?

Uh-oh. Mason has no idea. Then his cell phone buzzes. It's Conner tesxting.

"What can you do with one hand?"

There's the tagline.

Derby loves it.

Outside, Conner and Mason share a drink in a park. Conner compliments Mason for his smarts: little did Cochran know that Mason set him up. Derby is known for never taking recommendations and, with Cochran presenting the "only" idea they had, it was bound to fail, allowing Mason to swoop in and save the day. Brilliant.

Conner finally congratulates Mason for his promotion and says it's now clear why he was chosen. Mason tells him he asked Tony to promote both of them. That's all well and good, but Conner makes him promise one thing: despite his promotion, the two of them have to remain partners. They need each other. Mason asks him about the hack thing and, of course, he said he never said that. When Mason says they aren't going with Spartexticus because he came up with his own idea, Conner is impressed. Still, he does reiterate the fact that Derby loved his tagline.

Mason, true to form, expresses his gratitude for his best friend in his reaction:

"You're an asshole."