As fans of both dystopian movies and classic coming-of-age novels about four spunky girls in New England, we imagined what it might be like if we stumbled across a few pages of treatment scripts for the CW’s planned “Dystopian” version of Little Women.
Scene 1
JO comes in to the hovercraft, wearing a tinfoil hat, holding a crossbow, looking ashamed. MEG, BETH, AMY — each also in tinfoil caps — crowd around her.
MEG: Jo, where did you get the crossbow? We have so little money.
JO slowly takes off hat, revealing shorn head.
BETH: Oh Jo, your hair, your hair, your one beauty, the single thick braid that was so symbolically valuable to the rebels! Jo dear, how could you? Even worse, your curly crop was such a fine, fine layer of protection against the robot syndicates’ mind-reading devices.
JO: Oh, don’t be silly, my dear little pet, I’ve still got my trusty tinfoil cap. I’m completely fine and fit, and hair grows back, after all. Now, um, just give me the code and all will be right as rain.
BETH: The code? Jo, what are you speaking of?
JO: Yes, yes my pet, hand me the code! To the secret anti-robot underground network headquarters in the old shed, the one Marmee and Papa March are part of —
AMY: Jo, we vowed never to speak of that shed…
JO: [in robotic voice] I must have the code. I must have the code. I must have the code.
MEG: Oh, dear, dear. Jo my love, why do you always get into such absurd little scrapes? You really are a ridiculous tomboy. Get the deprogrammer, Amy.
AMY: Why must I always deprogram Jo? She doesn’t even like me.
____
Scene 2
AMY approaches on tiptoes, and throws something into a massive incinerator, bubbling with lava from a recent meteor hit.
JO: Amy, was that my manuscript-screen?
AMY: Why no, Jo! It wasn’t anything like that, cross my heart. Why would I ever be so naughty?
JO: It was! I can tell by the way it’s glowing in the lava. You double-crossing little thief!
AMY teeters on the edge of the lava pit of doom, Jo crosses her arms, AMY falls into the lavapit of doom, JO reaches down and pulls her out, but not before she’s half melted.
AMY: Darn it, Jo, I’m going to be half-cyborg now, there’s no other way. No one will know whose side I’m on. They will have to call me Darth Amy and make me a double-agent, and I shall never rest easy again, fearing a knife in the dark.
JO: Well, at least you’re not a zombie like poor, angelic Beth has become. Be thankful to Him for these small, tender mercies, my little Amy. We must stick together and no longer betray each other, even when you become half-cyborg.
____
Scene 3
JO and LAURIE are out with their crossbows.
JO: Laurie, remember that we must spare undead Beth if we see her, for I shall weep otherwise. But anyone else, of course, we ought to decapitate.
LAURIE: Dammit Jo, you know I must speak to you of my heart. I love you as a man loves a woman — or a zombie loves brains, or a robot loves world domination, or a cannibal loves human meat, or illegal arms traders love a desolate desert wasteland, or Darth Amy loves pickled limes.
JO: Oh, Laurie, it simply cannot be. I’ll never think of you as anything but a dear old chum, a playfellow.
LAURIE: And a comrade in arms in the waning rebel biker gang efforts against the Enemy, I hope?
JO: Ah, such a thing goes without saying, Teddy dear. But I’m afraid my type is more Peeta, less Gayle. More bookish and less rebel-playboy type. However, do look to Darth Amy, my boy. She does seem fetching with her new exoskeleton, does she not?
LAURIE: But Darth Amy is half-robot. I could never love her as I love you.
JO: You must try to overcome that prejudice, Teddy boy. For the future of the planet. For robot-human relations. And most importantly to make sure she’s not a spy for the other side.
LAURIE: Alright then, I’ll take Amy on my vacation to the Mars Colony and let her taste a little bit of culture and peace.
LAURIE leaves. JO weeps bitterly while simultaneously dispatching Zombies with her crossbow and her bare fists.
Oh, I always longed to go to Mars. A girl like me, fine and cultured and generally superior, ought to go to Mars. Darth Amy and Laurie will fly off together and I’ll be alone, just killing Zombies and dismantling cyborgs. What have I done?
Rusty spaceship pulls up, with a chubby old, poorly-clad ASTRONAUT BHAER in it.
ASTRONAUT BHAER: Hello, Miss Jo. Your zombie-keeling technique is terrible. And your martial arts skeels are also lacking entirely. What idiot trained you, might I enquire?
JO: I think I’m in love. (sighs) Let’s fly away. Can we go to Mars?
ASTRONAUT BHAER: I cannot afford Mars right now, but how does a lonely garret in the heart of post nuclear-fallout Manhattan sit on those cute zombie-gnawed ears? We’ll have a view of an exceptionally large lava pit of doom.
JO: How delightful that sounds, Fritz, you dear beloved bear of a man. Take me there at once!