SUMMARY
Set in the cocaine cowboy era of South Beach, Bad Patterns follows the beautiful Isabella—a cunning detective who can’t help but fall in love with the glamorous evil she fights to put behind bars.
MIAMI, 1980s
DRAMA, CRIME
SYNPOSIS
In the neon-lit streets of 1980s Miami, a charismatic detective, ISABELLA CRUZ leads a unit of hard charging drug enforcement agents, immersing viewers in a world of crime, passion, and danger, where her department’s pursuit of justice intertwines them with unexpected and forbidden loves.
She electrifies the screen along with her all star cast, including RICARDO VILLALOBOS, LILY DRISCOLL, JUAN PABLO FLORES, SKY MCCOY and JOHN MONTGOMERY.
Over the course of the series, we see how justice isn’t black and white. Righteous but tragic ISABELLA can’t help but fall for the sinfulness she combats. She finds that these cruel men have depth to them—and often better intentions than Miami’s (supposed) finest.
SEASON 1, EPISODE 1: WOMAN LIKE YOU (THE PILOT)
THIS SONG STARTS FADING IN TO A SWEEPING SHOT OF NIGHTTIME GLAMOROUS MIAMI
We start with an exterior helicopter shot of a beautiful Miami nightclub that’s pink, neon and filled to the brim. It’s obvious by the muffled music and the energy pulsing from the building, this is a good drunken night.
Then in one continuous take we swoop down and have a tracking shot walking through with two blonde women that get let in by the bouncer to the hallway, attractive couples and groups of people milling about and various doors as the music gets louder and you come out to the bar and the various levels of dance floors where we see toasts, intense dancing, and general light heartedness.
There should be some ironic shots of cops doing drugs, and drug dealers doing the opposite of that.
As we float through the floors, we’ve seen little vignettes of most of the first season’s characters—Isabella’s detective team and Ricardo’s cartel associates.
Finally, we rest our eyes on the middle of the dance floor as the song reaches its climax.
The stunning Isabella, and the dreamy Ricardo dancing as if they were one body. Completely in their own world, Isabella turns around and drinks in Ricardo’s eyes. She looks down to his lips and it feels like they’re the only two people in the world. But she realizes something and looks up at him suddenly.
Cut to black.
The episode starts 48 hours before, with Isabella waking up in a luxurious but empty Miami high rise apartment at 2AM.
The emptiness of her apartment reflects her recent move. It’s because of her recent promotion to lieutenant, giving her more responsibility beyond drug busts—now helping the french poodle crowd with high society crimes.
This promotion comes on the heels of breaking up an engagement six months before, to a boyfriend she had dated for four years. His energy business began to take off, and he was unable to convince Isabella to move with him to Dallas—she’s too tied up in her own career, and too close to her family.
Isabella has a unit filled with characters who are tempted by the drug lifestyle they bust, but a couple of straight shooters as well. The worst ones hide under the perceived morality of the cop uniform to mask their dark interiors.
Ricardo’s cartel buddies are suave but stone cold, except for a few sweethearts who might have to pay with their life. They all engage in violence to support their families.
The two groups cross paths throughout the season in a Romeo and Juliet kind of way.
Isabella misses her days on the adrenaline filled cocaine cowboy circuit, and feels generally unfulfilled. She grew up with a very Type A single mother so she’s hardwired to equate career success with validation, but it makes her unhappy. Isabella is being groomed by the Miami Police chief, Francesca to take over her job one day.
Ricardo is and up and coming star in the biggest cartel, run by his father, Carlos. He doesn’t want to pursue the life of a criminal, but it’s the family business. He dreams of owning a little seafood bar on an island and living a quiet life sailing and fishing.
The art heist in question is happening at a private gallery owned by one of Miami’s billionaires. Ricardo and his cartel are attempting to expand beyond their drug operation at the bequest of his father, and are beginning with the low hanging fruit of flipping expensive art to rich corrupt South Americans.
Isabella’s department has informants, one of which tips them off to the heist, which is happening at 4am.
THE ART HEIST GOES AWRY, RICARDOS CREW HAD BAD INFO
RICARDO AND ISABELLA COME FACE TO FACE AS SHE TRIES TO ARREST HIM, BUT HE HAS A MASK ON THAT ONLY SHOWS HIS EYES AND MOUTH
HE GETS A BULLET GRAZING ON HIS FOREARM AND FIGHTS HER OFF TO RUN AWAY
ONE OF HER YOUNG DETECTIVES ON THE JOB GETS BROKEN RIBS FROM SHOT TO VEST
ONE OF RICARDO’S HEIST BUDDIES GETS KILLED
NEXT DAY DOES MASSIVE DRUG SEIZURE BY ACCIDENT BECAUSE SHE CANT ESCAPE ALLURE OF DRUG TRADE
MEAT OF PILOT THAT INTRODUCES THE SUPPORTING CHARACTERS OF BOTH CREWS
TO CELEBRATE DRUG SEIZURE HER AND HER CREW GO OUT
RICARDO’S CREW MANAGED TO SNAG SOME VALUABLE JEWELS FROM THE HEIST AT LEAST, SO THEY ALSO GO OUT TO CELEBRATE
RICARDO’S CREW RUNS THE CLUB, SO HE HAS VIP TREATMENT AND ACCESS WHICH ISABELLA SEES AND IS INTRIGUED BY
THEY END UP FLIRTING AND DANCING
Pilot ends how it starts—Isabella dancing in the nightclub with Ricardo.
She stares at his lips as she realizes who he was. She looks down at his watch and she sees where her bullet grazed him earlier on the forearm.
She kisses him anyways after a long look at his eyes, and the episode ends.
FUTURE LOVE INTERESTS
John, another detective is in love with her and on the case of stopping Ricardo. He ends up killing Ricardo at the end of Season 1 and him and Isabella sleep together.
A screenwriter named Del hangs with her to learn about police in Miami for his screenplay.
Up and coming corrupt congressman in Miami, Jacob.
Interpol detective, Antoine who is investigating an international crime.
FUTURE PLOT POINTS & IDEAS
Her little brother, Emilio, gets in to drug dealing.
One of her male subordinates falls in love with one of Ricardo’s female subordinates and starts feeding her information that gets a cop killed.
One of Ricardo’s male subordinates falls in love with one of her female subordinates, and he feeds her information that gets him violently killed and tortured when his crew finds out he’s a rat.
Screenwriter Del writes great script that’s romantic and glamorous makes Isabella feel special about herself when she reads it but he rejects her advances saying it’s unprofessional, but really that he prefers the perfect version of her he can control.
Old grandma cartel villain who gives good advice to Ricardo, took over husbands business when widowed and well respected.
Corrupt nightclub owner.
Isabella’s little sister is a similar straight shooter tempted by a drug dealer at high school and not her boring boyfriend.
Ricardo is smart but not well read because his mom died when he was 12 and his dad didn’t care about his education.
Isabella doesn’t do drugs, only drinks.
BEHIND THE SCENES
This started off as an exercise to see how well Midjourney could generate cinematic images—art that looked as if someone took a DVD screengrab.
As with most things, I got carried away. While listening to the Kryptogram song I generated that first image of what would become Isabella. As the lyrics say, you could do anything with a woman like that, so I had no choice but to envision her as a star—a woman whom the world revolved around but still, it wasn't enough for her.
