THE SHOULDER SEASON

• Dual-protagonist engine: Combines the brutal authenticity of a veteran’s reintegration arc (à la Reacher) with the icy maneuvering of a power-hungry strategist (House of Cards, Scandal).
• Hyper-local realism meets high-stakes politics: Set against the backdrop of real-life environmental contamination and political corruption in Suffolk County.
• Raw, poetic tone: East Coast noir with a lyrical undercurrent—gritty but haunting, fast-paced but emotionally rich.
• Themes: Addiction and recovery, public service vs. personal trauma, the corrosive effects of ambition, the toxic legacy of fathers.
• Narrative Style: Christopher Vogler’s Hero’s Journey across eight tightly structured episodes, each escalating F-M’s and Julianne’s descent into—and emergence from—their own personal hells.

THE SHOULDER SEASON opens in the Hamptons during the desolate weeks before the tourists and seasonal residents arrive. 

At the center of our story is Francis Michael “F-M” Andretti, a war hero, drowning in pain, pills, and ghosts.  After violently stopping a sexual assault, F-M becomes an unlikely folk hero. Julianne Lombardi—daughter of a just-deceased political kingmaker—sees him as the perfect pawn to challenge the state senate majority leader from the other party in an election she will rig. She sets hm up to lose. However, she's soon forced to reckon with her own past sins and losses, and the possibility that F-M may be her last shot at redemption.

As F-M grapples with addiction, grief, and the brutal memories of war—including a mysterious trauma involving a shark attack and wounded SEAL teammates—he’s drawn into a high-stakes political game laced with environmental cover-ups, family betrayals, and power plays that threaten to tear him, and his Long Island hometown, apart.

Based in part on actual events, including a nuclear disaster on Long Island's east end, and the series creator's time as the Chief of Staff of one of the largest county political committees in the nation.