Zodiac k*ller Project (2025)

[bunniefuu]

[traffic roar]

[birdsong]

If we'd made the film,

there would've been a car here

probably in that

spot on the left

and it would've been a

California Highway Patrol car

but era-appropriate

so like a 1960s...

black cruiser with a white door

and a kind of...

badge on the side.

This would've all been

reenactment, obviously

which is how all these things

tend to start now.

Like, everything's got to have

that rhythm of drama...

even when it's documentary.

So inside the cruiser, we'd

have an actor playing Lyndon,

the cop at the center

of the story,

and he's just sitting there

minding his own business

when in pulls this other car.

And of all the spots in

the parking lot,

this car pulls up

right next to Lyndon's.

And so at first, Lyndon doesn't

necessarily think much of it.

but eventually he

looks over at the guy

and he sees

that the guy is

staring right at him.

And we'd have heard Lyndon's

inner monologue throughout this

which would've been

taken from the book.

I'll just read a

little bit of that now.

[ominous drone]

So he says:

'He did not drop his

eyes or turn away.'

'With his face

quivering in spasms,'

'and an unflinching

stare of hate,'

'I knew I was looking

into the eyes of death.'

So he describes it

in these almost...

biblical terms.

And obviously we'd have had

a close-up of these eyes...

if we could find an actor

with eyes menacing enough

to match that description

and probably cross-cutting

between that

and Lyndon's eyes,

and it's this kind of...

face-off situation

between these two men

in silence in this parking lot.

This feeling of

a growing tension

that has to break in some way.

And finally,

just when you think

that the worst could happen,

that this could...

rupture into violence...

Lyndon leaps into action.

I had it so clear in my mind:

this shot of Lyndon's hand,

lurching for the gearstick,

pulling it into reverse and

then he's out of there

and the hills are whirling

through the windows

as the car reverses out

of the parking lot

and g*ns it onto the highway.

And the tension breaks

but there's also this

sense of high drama

that has erupted

from this confrontation,

[drone escalates]

even if we don't necessarily

know what any of it

signifies...

yet.

[drone ends]

[distant, irritable car horn]

So we would've followed

Lyndon down the highway,

until he finds a place to

pull over and get his bearings

and then he would have

lowered his... sun visor

and pinned to the back of it

is the famous police sketch

of the Zodiac k*ller.

f*ck... it would've been good.

And from there we'd have

gone straight into

the title sequence,

which kind of

would've made itself.

All these things are basically

built to the same model now.

[urgent piano]

It's lots of layered imagery,

so you can never quite tell

what you're looking at...

bodies and landscapes,

all intermingled,

but in a very meaningful way.

What are we,

but products of the landscape?

[laughs]

But with a kind of disjointed,

scratchy aesthetic,

as though it's been made by

the serial k*ller themselves.

[evil circus music]

The same sorts of images

pop up again and again:

you got like...

you know...

birds taking flight

and a shadowy man...

walking away

and kind of

country-inflected music

but with a dark edge.

And everything's

vague and fluid,

like it's being viewed through

the fog of a dream.

Lots of tiny text...

that's almost

too small for human eyes,

I guess to make

it look cinematic.

And over the top of all this,

audio that starts to

tell the story of the case.

'You can see that this

does not look like grief...'

'... does not read as grief.'

And typically by the end,

it gets weirdly talky,

It is almost like you're

watching a trailer

for the film you're

already watching.

'It was the case that goes

to the heart of our democracy.'

'This is a m*rder which, unless

solved, won't be forgotten.'

It kind of sets up

everything and nothing.

All the soundbites are just

people saying things like:

'The things that went on...

were beyond the imagination.'

Or whatever.

Like, it doesn't really

tell you anything...

but at the same time,

it gives you the general vibe

in case you've got one

eye on your phone.

[steady rumble of highway]

So then we'd have

gone back to Lyndon

coming back down

the highway after this...

unsettling confrontation.

Maybe still stealing the

odd glance at the sketch.

And obviously, he's realizing

that he may have

just come into contact

with the most

wanted man in America.

But for all the adrenaline

of that moment,

he also managed to take down

the guy's license plate.

So right from the off, we're

getting this sense of Lyndon

as someone who's

calm in a crisis.

I should probably give some

general background on Lyndon.

[heavy truck]

So Lyndon was a California

Highway Patrol cop

for, I think, 30 years,

maybe longer.

And towards the end of his

life, he published this book,

about his lifelong quest

to bring the

Zodiac k*ller to justice,

starting that day

up at the rest stop.

It's called...

'The Zodiac k*ller Cover-Up'

a.k.a. 'The Silenced Badge'.

And it's got this

very distinctive cover

with this bright red

spider's web

with a little crosshair symbol

at the center

because that was the

Zodiac k*ller's trademark.

And I remember

seeing that cover

in thumbnail form on Amazon,

presumably after

the algorithm had

exhausted every other

true crime book on the market,

and just being

very drawn to it.

So I bought the book,

read it kind of

absentmindedly at first,

but I remember

being struck by how

incredibly cinematic

a lot of it was.

It feels like it's been

written in the mold

of a true crime documentary.

And so even though I'd

never really imagined

making a true crime doc,

working in documentary these

days, true crime's got this...

gravitational pull.

Eventually, you just...

give in to it.

[distant highway]

So I started trying to get

the rights to the book,

from Lyndon's family.

And it all seemed

to be going well.

We were deep into

contract negotiations

and starting pre-production.

I even went out to Vallejo

in the Bay Area, where it

all took place, and started...

scouting around for locations,

speaking to people I thought

might make good interviewees.

So I was actually out there,

working on it,

when I got the email to say

that Lyndon's family

had pulled out

and that we weren't

getting the rights to the book.

And I still don't know

entirely why...

whether it was a case of them

wanting more money or more...

control over the

finished product, or just...

someone else swooping in

promising to make it the next

Tiger King, or whatever.

[quiet room]

But it was honestly kind of

devastating, by that point,

because I really had

figured the whole thing out,

right down to the locations

for the re-enactments.

The way I was picturing it

the majority of the

investigation was going to be

based in Lyndon's home

or what we would've been

passing off as Lyndon's home,

where, unable to put this

confrontation at the rest

stop out of his mind,

he starts to mount this kind of

freelance investigation.

And at first, he's just

laying it all out,

and I think we could have had

him literally laying it all out

across the table

and seeing if

the pieces fit together.

But as time goes on

and he becomes

more and more

immersed in this case,

we'd have filled the space

with more and more stuff:

pin boards and photocopies,

library books.

Anyway, he's got the

license plate number

so the first thing he does

is run a check on that

and comes back with the name:

George Russell Tucker.

Classic serial k*ller name.

Three names.

[laughs]

Apparently that's because

the media always uses

people's middle names after

they become serial K*llers,

so they don't get confused with

anyone else with the same name,

the same first and second name.

But as a result, the second

you say someone's middle name,

they sound like

a serial k*ller.

It works both ways.

And then, along with the name,

he gets a photograph

of the guy.

We'd have had, inevitably,

the moment where

the envelope arrives from the

DMV and he pulls out

the photocopy of

the driving license,

slides it alongside

the police sketch,

and needless to say,

the similarities are striking.

And again, we'd be hearing

Lyndon's words from the book,

which capture that sense

that he's kind of

approaching this

with a degree of skepticism

and it's only actually the

sheer weight of the evidence

that means he's duty bound

to look further.

[sinister drone]

So he says:

'The horn-rimmed glasses

were very prominent.'

'The shape of his hair...

'was nearly a perfect match.'

'A mad dog k*ller

was on the loose'

'and apparently living nearby.'

'Very close indeed.'

[drone eases]

It wouldn't have been me

reading all of this, obviously.

We'd have hired an actor with a

voice more similar to Lyndon's.

But actually, we probably would

have left it kind of ambiguous

as to whether it was an actor,

or Lyndon himself.

If you show a tape player the

first time you hear the voice,

you can kind of just let people

draw their own conclusions.

Apparently in the industry,

they call those shots...

'evocative B-roll'

You know, like those

standalone images

that sort of evoke a scene

without actually

showing much of it.

Like sometimes

they'll have people in them,

but they're always

just at the edge of frame

or kind of falling out of focus

in some improbable way.

'Bactors'.

That's what someone

told me they're called.

Because you can only

ever see their backs.

But I see why they do it:

it is almost like the more...

generic the image...

the more effective it is

as visual shorthand.

Like there was this other bit

of evidence against Tucker,

related to a boot print

that was found at one

of the Zodiac crime scenes,

and if that's the

only relevant detail,

you don't really need

the whole crime scene.

You just need that one shot

of the boot print...

in the mud.

Maybe even like a flashbulb...

like it's a crime scene

photograph being taken.

Did they use flashbulbs...

in the 60s?

We'd have gone with it anyway,

it's very dramatic.

Like, the big flash

of the bulb,

we see the boot print,

and maybe the bulb

falls to the ground

and smashes next

to the boot print.

You can see it, can't you?

[road rumbles steadily]

And then the next scene

would have been Lyndon

bringing his findings

to his superiors

or to the team leading the

Zodiac investigation in Vallejo

and they agree to

call Tucker in for questioning.

This is actually a library,

not a police station.

It's much easier to

film at a library

so we were gonna do

the exteriors

and some of the interiors here.

And the way this works in

the book is a little convoluted

because obviously this wasn't

Lyndon's jurisdiction.

I don't think he was

actually present

when Tucker was brought in

for questioning.

But dramatically,

we would have wanted him there.

So I think we would have at

least implied that he was there

without going so far

as to actually state it.

In fact, I always

imagined Lyndon

behind a two-way mirror

and that he would be

monitoring this interrogation

from the relative security

of the next room.

So they bring Tucker in

and they ask him for a series

of basic personal details:

full name, address...

But for our purposes, this

is just an excuse for Lyndon

to finally get like a real

close up look at the guy,

not in a moment of heightened

tension like at the rest area,

but now in a cool and collected

way, where he can actually

scrutinize the man who's

physically sat in front of him.

And at the same time,

we'd have tried to

fill in some of who

Tucker actually was.

As far as I could tell, there's

no actual footage of him,

unfortunately,

but

there's those 4 or 5 bits

of home movie footage

of American families

in suburbia of that era

that you see in

every documentary

because they can

stand in for...

the whole idea

of American childhood.

So that would have

done the job.

[laughs]

But the point here is that

Lyndon's actually getting

a real sense of the guy

and asking,

could this actually

be the Zodiac k*ller?

And of course, the answer

would have been yes

because we would've

staged this entirely to

confirm those suspicions

so all the classic

interrogative signifiers:

cigarette perched

on an ashtray,

reel-to-reel tape recorder,

ticking clock on the wall,

the interrogation lamp.

Do you picture an

interrogation lamp

like a desk lamp

or a hanging lamp?

A hanging lamp.

And they're always swinging.

[laughs]

Why are they swinging?

Is the implication

that it's got tense?

Someone's knocked the lamp.

The bad cop stood to his feet

and knocked the lamp

and it's gone swinging.

[laughs]

See, I'm not saying that having

seen a lot of these things

is all the training I would

have needed to make one,

but I do think it would have

got me pretty far.

[music pulses, like a

faulty air conditioner]

[slow, rhythmic

metallic thuds]

What happened next would

have taken things up a notch,

dramatically speaking.

But actually, it's kind of...

hard to know what I can

and can't talk about here.

Legally.

A lot of what I've

described thus far,

there's multiple sources for.

So like, the scene at the

beginning in the rest area...

Lyndon filed a police report

so some of the details of

that are in there.

He gave interviews

over the course of his life,

where he talked about it.

So there's these

various sources

diluting the extent to which

we're drawing from...

Lyndon's book

which obviously,

we don't have the rights to.

The tricky thing is when

you get to sections like this

where the book really

is the only source.

And so there's kind of a limit

to what I can say.

But without getting

into it too much,

essentially, Lyndon alleges

a kind of conspiracy

in which Tucker was able

to exert influence within the

Solano County Sheriff's Office

and basically get the

investigation shut down.

So this would have been a

kind of montage

where word is making its way

through the corridors of power.

You know, like...

phone call begets

phone call begets phone call

until it reaches

the highest authority,

the sheriff of the county.

And we'd throw in

a few interview moments

where people are like,

'oh, power in Vallejo...'

'it's all about...'

'who you know.'

Finally, Lyndon hears that word

has come down from the sheriff,

and obviously it's

not what he wants to hear.

I'll read the actual quote

from the book...

because it gives

you a sense of the

conspiratorial tone

of the thing.

[pages rustling]

The sheriff's message is:

[dramatic drone]

'Belay all such orders'

'and forget about

George Tucker completely.'

'I don't care who he is.'

'I am telling you to

destroy your notes'

'and burn your files.'

'I never want to hear

the man's name again.'

'Ever.'

[satanic choir roars]

[timpani drum roll]

[satanic choir roars]

[timpani drum roll]

[satanic choir roars]

[timpani drum roll]

[satanic choir roars]

[timpani hit]

[final timpani hit]

[drums and choir melt

away into drone]

[drone dissolves]

So that's good...

dramatic stuff, right?

I presume the 'burn your files'

thing was not literal

but obviously we'd have

had to make it literal.

That's too good to pass up on.

I'm imagining all this stuff

that we've seen earlier,

like the printout of Tucker's

name

or the Zodiac police sketch,

all of this stuff,

all of this key evidence

being swallowed up by flames

as we see the scale of the

perversion of justice at hand.

And through it all,

there's this sense that

you know

not only was Lyndon

on to something,

but he actually got

too close to the truth.

Alright, end of act one.

[traffic rumble, cars passing]

So the next sequence would

have been a kind of...

dust-settling moment.

Lyndon's off the case

and so by default,

he's back to the daily grind:

routine traffic stops,

seeing the normality - the

banality - of life in Vallejo.

Oh, wait, this is amazing.

[motorcycle revving]

[laughs]

But for him it's instilled with

a real sense of of anti-cl*max.

He's gone from being the cop

who's going to solve

the most high-profile m*rder

case in the world

to being the cop who

hands out parking tickets.

But the point would have been,

and maybe we'd have had some of

our interviewees spell it out:

that that banality is

really just a veneer,

masking something

more sinister.

And actually, getting people

to say that, doesn't really

take much work.

There's two things

people ever say about

the places where these

sorts of crimes happened.

Like, oh, it was idyllic.

'Waterloo was a great place.'

Kids played out in the street.

You didn't lock your doors.

'Kids rode their bikes.'

'It's just a very

quiet neighborhood.'

'It's a very isolated

little community.'

'It's a beautiful place...'

'but...'

But it had a dark side.

'... there's a dark side.'

And so that shift

would have led us

inexorably towards...

Tucker's house.

[eerie drone]

[airplane, faint birds]

I think we would have had it so

the first time he drives by,

it's almost by accident.

Like he's...

He is driving by on

one of these routine calls

He is driving by on

one of these routine calls

and happens to see Tucker...

maybe like...

emptying his trash or...

parking his car.

[car engine quietens]

[door lock clicks]

[drone fades]

And is reminded,

like, oh...

as long as I do nothing,

this guy is still

out in the world

potentially committing

further crimes.

[distant wind chimes]

But what's more, the way he

describes the house is like

this perfect villain's lair.

[pages rustling]

He says its...

'surrounded by an unusual

grove of whispering pines'

and that...

'no stranger's eye can pierce

its foreboding veil'.

And the sense would've been

that his suspicions were

really starting to

solidify here,

really just based

on seeing this...

f*cking creepy house.

It's intuition more

than anything else.

This isn't the actual

house, incidentally.

The actual house isn't

anywhere near spooky enough.

Anyway, I don't know if we

would've needed some moment

that it crossed into...

actually sinister.

Oh, in fact I tell you what

it would have been...

After a few days of staking

the place out,

Lyndon discovered these...

bits of graffiti

around the house.

Let me read

from the book again.

[pages rustling]

[eerie drone resumes]

'One day, I noticed

something very strange.'

'Someone had taken white paint'

'and painted an inverted

cross with arrows'

'on the telephone pole on

the right side of the house.'

'Then lo and behold,'

'on a concrete water cistern

to the left of the house,'

'was painted a large hatchet.'

And because he describes

finding these symbols

as though he's unearthing

some dark, occult mystery,

I always imagined them hidden

behind reeds, or something,

like Lyndon had to

pull back something

to see these ominous symbols

painted around

this creepy house.

[drone evaporates

into sound of the dusk]

Um...

I mean, there is a third one,

that we would have had to lose,

because the

third one depicts...

'two nude males engaged in

explicit h*m* activity'

and the photograph of this

in the book is...

to Lyndon, I think,

very sinister.

To a contemporary viewer,

I think, slightly less ominous

than the hatchet.

[laughs]

We probably would have

taken it out, in the interest

of trying to make

the theory convincing.

[eerie drone returns]

You can still deploy

someone just having a bad vibe

and living in a creepy house

but today's Netflix viewers

don't get as worked up about

someone being g*y, potentially.

Or bi, actually.

He doesn't say he was g*y.

He says that Tucker was bi.

Although adorably, he actually

says that he was 'AC/DC',

which is a wonderfully 1950s

way of putting it.

[drone evaporates]

[birdsong, distant road]

So next Lyndon

starts to build this...

crack team

assembled from across

Vallejo society

in order to aid his

investigation into Tucker

which is kind of amazing

for our purposes,

because that's already like

something out of a film.

And this group consists

of him, obviously,

and a few of his friends

from law enforcement,

from the California Highway

Patrol and other agencies,

as well as various people

from local government,

and then, weirdly,

Lyndon's minister...

a guy called Ernie,

who was the minister at the

local United Methodist Church.

And in my head, I pictured

them meeting in a diner,

somewhere unremarkable,

somewhere everyday,

where they can slowly

start to build

this case against Tucker.

And a few of them

are still alive,

so I was imagining

getting them down to the diner

and filming them...

getting out of their cars,

their boots coming

down on the tarmac,

[heavy footstep]

sitting them down in a booth

and getting them to

play the role of

the hot-shot detective.

You know what I mean?

I feel like all these

figures of authority,

the second you point

a camera at them,

they just know what to do.

You know, they

know the image of a cop

in a true crime show.

[heavy footstep]

And so without prompting,

they walk in the right way

and they talk about themselves

in the right way.

'What I figured out at an

early age in the Bureau is...'

'you push it, and then...

you keep pushing.'

Even just the nicknames!

They all have these

clearly self-anointed nicknames

and about half of them

seem to be 'the bulldog'.

'What was your nickname?'

'The Bulldog'

'Bulldog'

'The Bulldogs'

It's like there's

no direction required.

[distant cars]

And I was imagining these

interviews as a springboard

for discussing each of the

killings in more detail.

[beep of reversing truck]

You know, someone ominously

references one of the crimes,

and we cut to the microfiche in

the archive, whizzing back to

[mechanism whirrs]

'July 4th, 1969'.

I think that actually is...

the date of one of

the Zodiac crimes.

This is how embedded

it is in my head.

And then they discuss

the facts of the crime

and how Tucker

might be implicated.

And meanwhile,

our 'evocative B-roll'

is going into overdrive.

All the classic staples:

the g*n...

rising up towards the camera,

shell casings

clattering to the ground,

crime scene tape...

stretching out into

the distance,

Or...

blood,

pooling on the ground.

Maybe a hand

reaching in to touch it,

as though to check

it's actually blood.

[car suspension rattles]

Plus all the actual police

photographs of the crime scene.

Which now

I feel like, even recently,

you could just show those,

and now everything's so jazzy.

Like, at the very least,

now they have to be placed

in a kind of 3D environment

or be falling in and

out of focus

with a bit of dust

dancing across their surface,

and the thing I increasingly

see now is

they've taken the crime

scene photograph and they've...

created a three-dimensional

image from it.

You know, it'll be like

a layered thing.

It's like you're moving

through the space

so you can be not just

at the place where a horrific,

brutal m*rder took place,

but actually traveling through

it, like on Google Street View.

It's probably good work

for some graphic

artist somewhere,

someone who knows

After Effects.

You must just...

forget what you're looking at.

[distant cars]

And so between

all of that, we'd...

fill in the general

contours of the case.

[intercom blip]

PRODUCER: Do you wanna

fill in some of that now?

Uh...

No.

PRODUCER: Okay.

[laughs]

No, not at all.

I feel like that's...

the only saving grace of not

getting to make the film,

is that we don't have to...

re-tell the story

of the Zodiac k*ller

for the thousandth time.

Anyway, they're

doing all this work

to link Tucker to

each of the crimes

but obviously, this is

all off the books

because Lyndon's been told

not to pursue the case.

So next, him and his team

have to take their theory

and get it in front of someone

higher up the chain of command.

He puts together a dossier

of his and

his colleagues' findings,

and then together

they go into these

centers of investigative power,

slam down the dossier,

and they think that's

all they need to show,

but instead, these agencies

just don't seem to care.

They have their own suspect,

their own theories of the case,

and they don't want

some outsider

telling them how

to do their job.

[door clicks shut]

So the main challenge

for Lyndon becomes

getting anyone to hear him out.

[car indicator ticks]

But then at the same time,

he kind of doesn't

want too many people

to hear him out,

because if you get too

many people on board,

it kind of ceases to be

your suspect anymore,

ceases to be your theory.

So much of what's making it

possible for me to talk about

Lyndon and his suspect

without the rights to the book,

is the fact that he wasn't

terribly discreet.

Like, he went on the radio

and talked about his suspect.

He gave interviews

to newspapers.

Like, in one sense, he really

would have been better

just keeping it to himself.

Like, it's not just the

quality of the evidence.

It's the...

exclusivity.

Like, did you watch The Jinx

when it went out?

[intercom blip]

PRODUCER: No.

The final episode of that

is unbelievable.

So for six episodes or

whatever, they've been pursuing

this guy called Robert Durst,

who is this eccentric heir

to a real estate fortune,

who's suspected

of murdering three people.

And he's interviewed in this

show and always kind of

dodges their questions

and skillfully evades

incriminating himself

right up until

this final episode,

where, at the end

of his final interview,

with the filmmakers

he goes to the bathroom

and unknowingly,

still wearing his microphone,

confesses to himself...

[rustling of clothes]

[groaning]

It's unbelievably chilling.

Just incredible television.

And the timing was just unreal.

I think Durst was arrested

the day before the airing,

and then in the finale,

you see exactly how and

why he was caught,

but it did beg the question:

how did this ever line up?

Because obviously

that interview was conducted

I think years before the

broadcast of the show,

and so whatever

the legality of it,

it would seem quite ethically

dubious if the filmmakers had

left this m*rder*r

to be walking the streets

for two years,

just in the interest of

holding back a big reveal

for their final episode.

And the story that they told

was that they hadn't

actually known

that they had

captured the confession.

That that tape

went unlistened to

for months or years

after it was recorded,

and that they realized

like a week before

the final episode was gonna

air, just in time to edit it in

and the fact that he was

therefore arrested

the day of the airing

or the day before or whatever,

is just a happy accident,

slash...

the greatest thing that's

ever happened to them

in their filmmaking lives.

[distant highway]

[uncertain drone]

But anyway,

in Lyndon's telling,

any secrecy is very

much foisted upon him

by the incompetence of

these various agencies,

and from that, he concludes

that if he's ever going to

bring Tucker to justice,

he's gonna have to

go it alone.

And there's a great...

caustic line about this

in the book.

Let me just find it.

[pages rustling]

He says:

'Do you think

I'm going to trust...'

'a bunch of

badge-toting clowns...'

'with additional information?'

'Not me.'

'Never again.'

I'm trying to keep

all these quotes brief

because I have to justify

each one to our lawyer,

but there's 400 pages of this.

[drone continues]

[like a choir holding

an uneasy note]

Anyway, under cover of night,

they begin pursuing Tucker,

tailing his car

wherever he goes,

arranging a series of shadowy

meetings with witnesses,

informants, people who know him

in one way or another.

They go through

his trash at one point

and try and find incriminating

evidence in there.

And ultimately,

they stage this...

show-stopping sting operation.

[drone fades]

[distant cars,

gentle birdsong]

Basically, they found out

Tucker was in AA,

and I'm not entirely

sure how, actually,

but the way I always imagined

it playing out was

they're tailing Tucker

around Northern California

one evening.

Eventually they see his car

pull up outside a church.

Not this church,

but a church,

and this one would have done.

And so Lyndon's

maybe across the street,

watching Tucker as he

gets out of his car

and makes his way

into this church.

Um...

Eventually, maybe,

he sneaks in and realizes

that it's an AA meeting.

And so this is like

hitting paydirt,

because what do people do

at an AA meeting?

They confess.

And so immediately, Lyndon and

his team start discussing

how to get someone inside,

but also who to get inside,

because obviously

a lot of them are...

too high-profile, in one

way or another,

would be too easily

recognized by Tucker.

And so eventually,

all eyes fall on Ernie...

the minister.

And maybe we'd have set up

earlier in the film that

Ernie is a bit of a redundant

member of the group,

like it's nice to have him,

but he's not the big g*ns

of this investigative team.

But lo and behold,

now it falls to Ernie

to do what the others cannot.

So Ernie begins driving up

to the church every week,

takes his collar off...

[fabric slide]

I'm imagining the

dramatic scene of him

putting the collar

on the bedside table

to go out and deceive a man

he doesn't even know,

in a church.

And then at the end

of each meeting,

Ernie would record these tapes

reciting back everything

that Tucker had said.

And apparently

the tapes still exist,

so we would have played

them over this sequence.

Here's a quote from it.

This is Ernie on one

of these tapes, saying:

[unsettling drone]

'I felt like he was

trying to say,'

'I am a rotten S.O.B.'

'but I can't tell you

what I have done.'

'I've done things I'm not proud

of, and would never tell you.'

'Terrible things.'

'If only you knew.'

'But you will never know,'

'and I don't care anymore.'

'It's in the past now.'

[drone intensifies,

breathy and insistent]

[intercom blip]

PRODUCER: Imagine going

to an AA meeting...

... and then what you say

being published in a book.

[laughs, drone cuts out]

Well, yeah.

Not great.

Um...

You know, invading

the sanctity of an AA meeting

to listen in on

someone's confessions,

hoping they admit to

committing the Zodiac killings.

That's the thing, though.

If he did...

it's fine.

Right? If he did,

it's absolutely fine.

You could go much further.

It's only if he didn't, that

you start to feel a bit...

sweaty about it.

And I feel like that's what

we would have been

trading on with this.

You need people

to be fully convinced

going into this sequence, or it

just seems way beyond the pale.

I always think back

to that scene in...

Paradise Lost.

I think it's the second

Paradise Lost film, where...

It's like...

Have you seen Paradise Lost?

[intercom blip]

PRODUCER: No.

It was a trilogy of

documentaries about this...

miscarriage of justice where

these teenage boys were...

sent to prison for

the murders of some children

that they clearly

hadn't committed.

And in the second

of the three films,

they start sniffing

around the possibility

that the dad of

one of the dead kids

could have been responsible

for these deaths.

And in the interests of

exploring this idea,

they film him out in the woods

performing some sort of

commemorative ritual,

um...

which is admittedly...

incredibly weird and creepy

and the takeaway

of the scene is clearly:

oh my God,

this guy is guilty as sin.

And he wasn't.

He had nothing to do with it.

And I think even at the time,

they got a bit of stick for...

having kind of...

exploiting his grief

in this way,

um...

but if it had been him,

no one would have cared

about exploiting the grief.

If you're convinced it's

for the greater good,

there are very few

ethical lines

as far as...

HBO execs are concerned.

[distant cars]

So Tucker is saying all this

creepy stuff in these meetings,

but obviously he's

not about to confess

to being the Zodiac k*ller.

And so they realize they

need to go one step further.

They need something undeniable.

And what he

arrives at is...

this palm print.

Basically, after

one of the crimes,

the Zodiac k*ller himself

called the police

to report what he had done,

and they managed to get to

the phone booth that he used

quite quickly

and so they found on it,

a palm print

that was considered

to be definitively his.

And so Lyndon seizes upon this

as the ultimate test

of Tucker's guilt.

[insistent electronic music]

And so, from here, we'd have

been straight into our scheme,

and I think we'd have done it

a little bit like a heist film,

showing it step by step

and piece by piece,

before people have a chance to

make sense of what the plan is.

You feel it coming together

like this jigsaw puzzle,

until at the end,

the picture reveals itself.

So the first step is that

a friend of Lyndon's

bandaged Ernie's arm

into a cast,

and he wore this cast

every week at this AA meeting

where he was undercover,

getting Tucker used to the idea

of him in an arm cast.

And then Lyndon...

gives Ernie a g*n.

He arms him, with a revolver.

And I could just imagine

the inserts of all of this:

the g*n tucked into

the ceremonial robes...

Does a Methodist

minister wear robes?

We would've had him wear robes.

Just, that image of...

the g*n going into

the religious garb

and then maybe

the bandaged arm...

swinging back in front

to hide the g*n

and then the...

In fact, I have to hand this

one over to Lyndon

because the way he describes it

is so perfectly understated.

Let me find it.

[pages rustling]

He says:

'As March 1st, 1977,

approached,'

'our plan was

right on schedule.'

'I bought the

fishbowl required.'

[glass hit reverberates]

[like a revving engine]

I mean, as a cliffhanger...

just incredible.

If this was a series,

that's where you'd

put the episode break,

and then there's no way

people are stopping watching.

And so Lyndon

gives Ernie this fishbowl,

and he drives up the highway

to this fateful AA meeting.

He's sitting outside,

thinking about whether his

grand plan is going to work.

Eventually, he

sees Tucker arrive,

and so he gets out of the car,

walks to his trunk, pops

it open, and there it is:

[glass hit, resonates]

the fishbowl.

So he says,

could you carry this

into the meeting for me?

Because of my broken arm.

And I guess he explained

that he was gonna

give a presentation

to the group

and use the fishbowl as a prop.

And so this is our

make or break moment.

Is Tucker gonna reach

his hands into the trunk,

plant them on the sides

of this fishbowl,

leaving, presumably...

the platonic ideal

of two handprints

on the side of this glass bowl.

And lo and behold,

that's exactly what happens.

[choir sings]

And I can only

imagine the triumph

of that moment, as this bowl

is carried into the meeting,

and we're caught up

on this wave of energy,

thrust into the building,

albeit obviously, that momentum

immediately interrupted

by a two-hour AA meeting

and whatever Ernie's

presentation was.

[choir is silenced,

driving beat continues]

My assumption is it would've

been some kind of metaphor,

like, take life

one day at a time,

like a goldfish.

Because of the short memory.

Maybe? I don't know.

Uh...

So, at the end of the meeting,

Ernie has Tucker carry the

fishbowl back to the car,

pops the trunk...

I'm imagining this...

this empty trunk of

this car opened up,

the little interior light

just perfectly illuminating

the spot where this

bowl is gonna go,

and presumably from there,

be whisked...

straight to whatever

expert is gonna

painstakingly extract

these palm prints,

which can then

be matched to the...

file print of the Zodiac k*ller

and the whole thing is

gonna be wrapped up

in this perfect, neat bow,

as soon as Tucker

places this bowl

back down into

the trunk of the car.

[glass reverberates

in anticipation]

But then...

Actually, let me read

the version in the book,

because Lyndon describes it in

such exquisitely tragic terms.

[music collapses into

thudding pulse]

'But then, for

some strange reason,'

'our suspect did

something totally bizarre.'

'After the bowl

was set securely...'

'in the trunk of Ernie's car,'

'Tucker slapped the bowl

with his palms'

'several times'

[glass hits, like

chiming bells]

'and then rubbed the bowl'

'several times as well.'

'Ernie said,'

'I could not believe

my eyes, Lyndon.'

'It was like he knew.'

[birdsong]

[bike whizzes by]

Pretty good, right?

And I think we would've

tried to play it

right down the middle of either

an intentional act of sabotage,

or just about plausibly,

an innocent action.

That's a fun knife edge.

Either it's like the wily

behavior of a serial k*ller,

or it's like your dad,

kind of

patting the sides of something

to show you how robust it is.

[glassy reverberations]

And I think by

sh**ting it slow motion,

we would have really extracted

every agonizing clap of

the hands against the bowl

and then that terrible,

dreadful rubbing of the sides.

Like this...

I could just imagine...

Oh god, I was so excited

about sh**ting this sequence.

The feeling of agonizing loss

in that moment.

[reverberations fall

away to nothing]

[car softly pulling up]

And so it's

that feeling of loss

that would've set the stage

for the final third

of the film,

which begins with

a real error of judgment

on Lyndon's part,

and that's that he agrees

to meet with another man

who's been on his own parallel

hunt for the Zodiac:

Robert Graysmith.

Will that land, do you think?

Or should I explain who he is?

So, Graysmith is the author

of the most successful book

about the Zodiac k*ller,

so successful, in fact,

that in Zodiac circles,

it's often just called

'the Yellow Book,'

like it's Macbeth or something,

because it's got this very

distinctive yellow cover

with 'Zodiac' written

down the center.

But at this point,

he's still chasing

the story down

and so him and Lyndon have been

speaking to the same sources,

following up on the same leads,

but it's only now,

at this low ebb,

that Lyndon agrees to meet,

figuring, I guess,

what do I have to lose?

And pretty soon

he gets his answer.

[distant cars]

I think we could have gone

pretty swiftly from that to...

Well, what I was imagining

was Lyndon wandering innocently

around his local bookstore

and then spying

in the new releases

or the bestsellers section,

this bright yellow...

Actually, I think the first

edition was black, but...

it's got that

crosshair symbol on it

and 'Zodiac'

in massive writing,

and so I was imagining him

feverishly searching

through the pages

to see if it

favors his suspect,

and instead, not only

does it present

an entirely different suspect,

but it also includes

some of the juiciest details

from Lyndon's story

almost as this, kind of,

funny aside.

And one of the main reasons

I was able to describe

the fishbowl story in such

detail a minute ago

is that the story got out

20 years before Lyndon

wrote his book,

which must have been...

annoying.

But then he can't

really make it about that

because that seems

sort of vain,

so the version in Lyndon's book

is all about how this was...

You know,

a threat to

his family's safety,

and how this was putting lives

in jeopardy and all this stuff.

Let me find the thing.

He says:

[disenchanted drone]

'Graysmith, a complete novice,'

'went on to disseminate...'

'sensitive investigative

findings to the entire world,'

'things which could place

my family members...'

'in a great deal of danger.'

So he frames it as an

ethical concern, essentially,

and we would have run

with that in the film, but...

but I think the real

violation was that...

not only was this book

hugely successful,

and made Graysmith

a very wealthy man,

it also made him...

the de facto authority.

[drone fades into distant cars]

It's very hard to be the

second true crime book,

or the second true crime film

about any given subject,

because as soon as

one is a hit,

that kind of sets

the terms by which

the thing is understood.

It assigns the guilt,

I think, more powerfully

really than even the...

law enforcement agencies

directly working on the case.

[distant, tinny melody]

Anyway, my plan

had been to bounce

straight from

the Graysmith stuff

into some of Lyndon's more

out-there detective work,

as he becomes

increasingly desperate

to get his own investigation

moving again.

[tinny tune grows louder]

I imagined it like that

classic cop movie thing

where they go back

to the drawing board,

start re-examining all the old

evidence to see if they can...

shake something loose.

So he'd be re-reading

interview transcripts,

going back and meeting

with witnesses again,

trying to see if there's

something that he missed

first time around.

[jolly melody continues]

There's an ice cream truck

just out of shot here.

But as Lyndon looks

closer and closer,

and obsesses over

every little detail,

we would've been trying

to build this sense of

kind of...

growing paranoia.

Like, maybe the leads start

off fairly reasonable,

like there was this thing about

him buying Tucker's old car,

the one that he'd been driving

that day at the rest stop.

Lyndon buys it, and he

searches through it,

looking for any old discarded

items that might...

have evidentiary value.

But as he starts to look

at each of these things closer,

there's kind of a

mania that sets in,

you know,

and in particular,

there was this whole thing

where he found a button,

in the car

and became convinced

that this button

had some sort of massive

significance to the case.

And so I think we could've

taken little things like that,

and used them to create

this sense that we're...

delving deeper and deeper

into Lyndon's...

psyche.

Like...

[paranoid drone]

We're falling down the

rabbit hole with him,

not knowing how deep it goes.

[ice cream melody

plays on eerily]

[a thudding pulse,

music warps and distorts]

But because Lyndon was such

a lone wolf by this point,

almost by definition,

this is where we have...

the fewest sources

outside of his book.

So people just have to...

take my word for it

that there would've been...

you know...

some great

twists and turns here.

Like, have I even...

I haven't even mentioned...

the building yet, have I?

Basically, there would've been

a key scene here,

where there's an expl*si*n,

uh...

with narrative significance.

[pulse slows]

[pulse continues,

a muffled thud]

But the purpose of all

this would've been

getting Lyndon to a more

reckless state of mind,

where he's ready to make

the kinds of rash decisions

that he wouldn't

have made a few years earlier,

or half an hour earlier,

for our purposes.

And again I can't get

into the intricate...

plot mechanics of this,

but basically in a bizarre

twist of fate,

Lyndon finds himself presented

with the opportunity...

for him and his wife...

to go to dinner with

Tucker and his wife

as friends.

Like, they've fallen into

the same social circle

through this very strange

series of events

and now, the situation is such

that it could make

sense for them to...

essentially double date.

So Lyndon writes in the book

about them preparing

to go to dinner

with Tucker and his wife,

and he writes about it

like they're preparing

for a military operation.

[pages rustling]

So he says:

[buzzing tone, like

a live wire]

'The evening before

this arranged dinner,'

'I retrieved my

.38 five-shot...'

'Centennial Smith and

Wesson hammerless,'

'cleaned and lubricated it,'

'and loaded it

with high-velocity,'

'light-grain hollow points.'

'Next, I checked my small...'

'palm-sized .22

Magnum Derringer,'

'the dynamite stick,

which holds two b*ll*ts.'

'I called my wife into

the kitchen and asked her,'

'do you remember how to load

and sh**t the Derringer?'

And so, with the g*ns

tucked into the...

the pocket of Lyndon's

jeans and his wife's purse,

they set out...

for a date with justice.

[intercom blip]

PRODUCER: I think

'double date with justice'.

A double date with justice.

[laughs]

See, this is why it's a bit...

bittersweet doing this.

Like, this is the fun

of this genre, right?

Getting to that point where

things that would have seemed

impossibly outlandish

at the outset

now start to seem

perfectly reasonable.

Like, you watched

Making a m*rder*r, right?

[dark-edged country music]

That first season, even

though it was built around this

very dramatic story of this...

possible miscarriage

of justice,

the actual content of the show

was pretty restrained.

Most of what you were

looking at was just...

grainy interrogation footage

and shots of people

standing about in courtrooms.

But then they made

a second season,

and you can just feel

this inevitable slide

into sensationalism,

from the off-- from episode

one of season two,

they are taking a mannequin,

putting a wig on it,

and covering it in red paint

to simulate blood splatter.

'I wanted to re-enact it.'

And you look back

at the previous season

where it was all basically

men in dusty suits

sitting around discussing

legal precedent,

[heavy thud]

and you think,

how did we get here?

Like, the bounds of

rational behavior

are just ever-expanding.

[quiet room]

So if you accepted

Lyndon and his team

searching through

Tucker's trash,

then why wouldn't

you accept them...

eavesdropping on

the AA meeting?

And if you accept them

eavesdropping on the AA meeting

then why wouldn't you

accept the whole...

fishbowl caper?

And yeah, here we are,

at a steakhouse,

with the Zodiac k*ller.

[jangled thuds, like a piano

thrown down a staircase]

So this is

the actual steakhouse

that they went to,

up in Winters, California,

and I think from the moment

they would've met,

we would have had this

question of recognition.

Like, does Tucker remember

Lyndon from the rest stop?

Or did he somehow

sense his presence...

at the police interrogation?

To what extent

does this man know

that this meeting

is not a first encounter,

it's the culmination

of years of police work.

[discordant pulse continues]

So in the book, Lyndon writes:

'The next hour...'

'was one of the most

bizarre in my entire life.'

'Staring straight out

at about a 30-degree angle,'

'Tucker appeared to be

in another dimension,'

[knife carving]

'some kind of Twilight Zone.'

[moist scrape]

And in the context

of all of the suspicions

that we would have built up

by this point in the film,

I think Tucker just

seeming kind of detached

would have become a kind of

absorbent surface,

for anything we wanted

to throw at it.

And that's even before the...

the drive home.

[thudding pulse continues]

[cars passing outside]

So they're driving back along

the I-80, down to Vallejo,

and I was imagining this as

already a tense scenario:

the road stretching out

before them,

and we're packed

into this tight space

with our hero

and our villain.

And then that tension

would have ratcheted up

even higher

once Tucker takes

an unexpected turn

off the highway and onto

this little side road called

Cherry Glen Road.

[intermittent

percussive strikes]

And I think if we'd charted

that rising tension effectively

it would have

all felt inevitable.

We would've felt Lyndon's hand

reaching into his pocket

to grab the g*n

before he even did it.

We'd have seen the Derringer

coming out of the purse

a split second

before it's on screen.

[pulse darkens]

And the audience is becoming

convinced that this is it.

This is the moment

where all of the latent threat

and violence of the film

is about to

suddenly burst forth.

[a high note emerges

from the dirge]

And we're pushing the tension

as far as it will go,

but we know it can only sustain

for so long before it has to...

break....

somehow.

[high note soars,

pulse thuds like a heartbeat]

[percussive strikes

splinter into feedback]

[disparate sounds merge

into a wall of noise]

But instead...

[music dissolves into

rumble of road]

nothing happens.

They return home.

They're dropped off.

The air clears.

But now there's no mistaking

who has the upper hand.

You know, like

Like so many Zodiac

victims before them,

he's showing them

that they're at his mercy.

[intercom blip]

PRODUCER:

By driving home.

[laughs]

Yeah, but on an

unconventional route!

See, if we'd

done it right, though,

you wouldn't be

thinking like that.

You haven't seen enough

of these things,

but when they work,

you just kind of go with it.

The internal logic of the film

just pulls you through.

And I think we'd have got the

audience there by this point

and then we would've been

on the home straight.

We're at an hour and 15 now.

So next, we

would have gone to...

the letter.

[clunking keys]

Basically, as a

sort of last resort,

Lyndon wrote a letter

to the president,

and it's quite somber,

quite serious,

all about duty and honor.

[noble drone]

He says:

'Mr. President,'

'after a devoted and dedicated

32 years of investigation,'

'into the infamous

Zodiac k*ller case,'

'I am in fact writing

my last letter of appeal.'

'My request is

not really about me.'

So he does that maneuver you

see in a lot of these things,

which is that he reframes it...

as being...

really about the victims,

and their families.

About seeking closure for them.

[distant cars]

And, you know...

Sure.

But...

as true crime's got bigger and

bigger and people have got...

like maybe...

10% more squeamish about it,

that little disclaimer

has become

even more ubiquitous.

Like, did you watch that

Netflix Dahmer show?

I've never seen anything

with such an outsized

sense of its own

moral righteousness.

It's like ten episodes long,

and the first nine

episodes are just...

Jeffrey Dahmer drilling

into people's skulls,

and then the tenth episode

is this lecture, about how...

we shouldn't really focus on...

Jeffrey Dahmer drilling

into people's skulls...

'Just when you thought folks

couldn't stoop any lower.'

'It's sick.'

Obviously they do

the final grid.

That's when you know these

shows really care, right?

When they end with a

photo grid of all the victims.

Eight and a half cumulative

hours of violent gore,

and now a single passport photo

of each of the victims

to remind us

what really matters.

[intercom blip]

PRODUCER:

You watched it though.

Yeah, it was good.

Evan Peters.

[steady rumble of car]

So Lyndon sent his letter,

and then it would have been

a case of waiting

to see if it's going to lead

to anything at all.

And so I figured we'd have him

drive out to the

outskirts of town,

where he finally

has time to reflect

on everything he's

given over to this,

on all the years lost

to the pursuit of Tucker,

that could all be for naught

if nothing comes of it.

[car passes]

[laughs]

It's just so beautiful.

Uh...

We would've shot a less...

distractingly beautiful sunset

for the actual thing, but...

good job,

nonetheless,

camera team.

[distant cars]

And then finally,

the word comes back

from the FBI

that they're not going

to take up the case.

And Lyndon writes quite

strikingly about it

in the book,

as almost like,

the end of hope,

where he says:

'So now I tell the world

there is no justice,'

'there is no integrity,'

'and there are no existing laws

that morality can supersede.'

'There is no agency

and not one individual'

'who will step forward

to intervene'

'in this noble

cause of justice.'

[metal sings in the wind]

[distant cracks...]

[perhaps fireworks...]

I definitely haven't quite...

made my peace...

with this.

With not getting

to make the film.

Like, obviously, I'm happy

with what we've done instead,

but how many people

are ever going to watch this?

Realistically.

[birdsong]

So in this final stretch,

the question would have become,

what is the closure

that the audience now needs?

Once it becomes clear that

Lyndon isn't going

to definitively prove

that Tucker was

the Zodiac k*ller.

Not least because

he wasn't, obviously.

But, that's...

parenthetical.

[intercom blip]

PRODUCER:

Like, he definitely wasn't?

I mean...

no?

I mean, maybe.

But no, probably not.

But yeah, either way...

we know now that Lyndon isn't

gonna get it over the line,

at least in a legal sense.

And so the stakes

become much more about

the internal drama of the film

and the ending that

the film demands.

And, the book

doesn't necessarily

offer an obvious one, but

I think that the closest one

I found in it, and how I was

planning to end the film...

was with this party

at Tucker's house.

Basically, Tucker threw

a summer barbecue

and invited Lyndon

and his wife.

And so they drive up

there, they go inside,

and he describes Tucker...

at the bar, mixing c*ck,

which is a wonderfully...

innocent action.

I don't know if we'd

try and like...

make that seem more

sinister in some way.

Maybe he's mixing

blood red c*ck.

The book's description of this

encounter is fairly minimal.

He says:

'He looked at my wife

and said, thank you,'

'but never made the slightest

eye contact with me.'

'It was very awkward,'

'but I extended my arm

for a handshake...'

'and felt like

a complete idiot.'

So in Lyndon's own telling,

it's an emasculating moment,

but I think it could've been

made into the moment we needed

of Lyndon finally holding

his own against Tucker.

And in particular, the thing he

says about eye contact...

that he never made

the slightest eye contact,

even when they're

shaking hands,

because eye contact was

how we began down this road...

They were in these adjoining

cars, they locked eyes...

and then Lyndon feels

that he lost face

by letting himself be

stared down by this stranger...

I think this could've

been the moment

where he reverses the dynamic:

[redemptive drone]

Where he goes in for

the handshake with Tucker,

realizes he doesn't want

to meet his eyeline,

but he just holds him there.

Maybe he won't let his hand go,

until Tucker...

raises his eyes to Lyndon's,

in acknowledgment,

and there's a sense

that even if

he knows he's never going

to see Tucker put away,

he's forced Tucker to recognize

that he is a worthy match.

That's actually quite

good, isn't it?

[laughs]

And I think it would have been

a good cue for us to

swerve towards

a larger takeaway.

[soft waves]

You know, what is it in all

of us that makes us want to...

revisit these terrible crimes?

Why can't we let the past

be in the past?

And I think we'd be building

a rhythm up by this point.

It's almost becoming

like a montage

as we revisit these

little moments from the film.

We'd have little snapshots of

each crime scene,

and interviewees coming

back to the fore to...

give their final thought.

We'd re-run our

'evocative B-roll' of...

b*llet casings,

dropping to the floor and...

the paperwork consumed by fire.

And the sense you get

is that there's something

tying all of this together,

as though...

everything we've

seen thus far was...

speaking ultimately

to the same idea,

something sort of universal...

something profound

and open-ended.

[soothing tones continue]

And you can kind of...

you know, at that point,

re-wrap...

this lack of a conclusion

as almost a moral virtue.

That actually, it would be

simplistic to have an ending,

to give an easy answer,

because, what is life,

if not accepting

the chaos of reality,

and the mysteries

at the heart

of human existence?

[music reaches closing note]

It's funny, you

build up the rhythm...

and the feel of closure...

and you almost just get it.

[meaningful drone]