Last Hand

Logline: When a young, driven female blackjack dealer gets blackballed and then loses her job, she decides to reconcile with her father and enlist his help to win a blackjack tournament and seek revenge against the casino owner who wrongly put her dad in prison. A procedural as she goes undercover for the gaming commission each episode.

Main Characters - There are three main characters; KIMI (20s, smart, driven) a prodigy card counter with a temper and unusual skill to literary smell a cheater. Her father, FLIP (60s, dashing, master of disquise) was wrongly sent to prison when Kimi was young, but served his sentence silently to protect his family. BRAD (30s,) is the dashing gaming agent who gets thousands of complaints each month; mostly from gamblers who think the casinos are not playing fair.

The TONE can also be funny at times because of the two life-encrusted codgers, SAMMY and MORT (60s) who looked after Kimi for Flip along with Kimi's childhood friend, POKEY (20s) who got that name because she spends hours making herself look gorgeous and constantly wants to do a makeover on Kimi. It has the setting and procedural structure of CSI Las Vegas with the prodigy element of the Queen's Gambit. Series Summary - The first season is about the concept that Kimi is the best blackjack dealer and player and it is the thing that brings her back together with her father and gives her the strength to work uncover for Brad - all while struggling to own a run-down casino. In the second season, she spends more time working on gaming commission cases with Brad, and the romance increases. During the third season, she has to decide; to become a gaming agent and fight crime or continue to own a struggling casino. But there is a third option; return to her first love, dealing blackjack at a super casino and continue working uncover for Brad who has moved onto a new girlfriend. Pilot Synopsis - The pilot evolves around the things that have changed her life; losing her job and her dad getting out of prison and her anger toward the man who put him there. These incidents test her internal conflict of not wanting to be a gambler like her dad when she enters an exciting blackjack tournament. Although it appears that she has lost, there is a twist when she uncovers the casino's money laundering scheme and gets the admiration of Brad and his bosses at the gaming commission. The winner is disqualified, and she wins! The pilot ends with her dad having to skip town, but we know he'll be back; he's a master at disguises, and Kimi decides to use her winnings to buy her run-down casino and turn it into her dream job and agrees to do undercover work for the gaming commission. It has heartwarming bookends; the opening where her father is arrested and she loses her stuffed tiger and the ending - where her dad leaves a stuffed tiger in her car and she tosses it out the window into the arms of a little girl visiting her casino with her out of work mother who needs to eat at the cheap buffet. Season One Outline After the pilot, the conflict in each episode comes from Kimi's new life as a casino owner. There are problems with the gamblers that come to town with the objective to win at all cost, employee difficulties that are harder when the key ones are her two good friends, TOMMY and POKEY. Her dad returns often to help her out - both in running the casino and sniffing out cheaters and casinos not playing fair in Las Vegas. As a procedural, Last Hand, will have two exciting cases in each episode; something wrong at her casino and the latest case from the gaming commission. In the second episode, Brad gives Kimi her first case - a complaint that a dealer is "palming" chips when he does his payout. Sammy and Mort are ready to help out as decoys, and Pokey helps Kimi dress the part of party girl out for the night. Why Me? Why Now? I am an emerging screenwriter, a graduate of UCLA's advanced screenwriting program with a SciFi animation script being produced by BlackOrb.com. I was a Native American fellowship winner in 2023 - twice. and have worked in a writer’s room environment with my cohorts. The time for this is right - 80 percent of the adults in the US gamble and as many as 750,000 young people, ages 14 to 21 have a gambling addiction.

Pitch Deck - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx_8Ja4anZU7427aV5A98VQUPYtmdfWJc