Doom Patrol (2019–…): Season 2, Episode 6 - Space Patrol - full transcript
Holy shit.
- They're dead.
- No!
No!
Oh, my God.
No!
Dorothy.
Rise and shine.
Dorothy?
Dorothy?
Chief, we got a live one.
Fresh off the knuckle.
What the hell were you thinking?
I'm thinking this
perfectly good touching stick
is my ticket
to being able to feel.
We agreed. No brutality.
And I agreed, but this finger
literally fell into my lap.
See I was waiting for Vic to man
up and get his lady friend back,
and out of nowhere
come these two bad guys.
So I'm like, "What would
a good person do?"
Stop the bad guys, right?
Which I proceeded to do.
It's important that before
I tell you about the car door,
you understand that
I'm basically a hero.
I don't give a damn, Cliff.
Dorothy's missing.
Table the finger
and help me find her.
Hang tight, little guy.
You're sure we weren't followed?
Not really.
The Bureau of Normalcy seems
to be everywhere these days.
I'm sorry my son sold us out.
Why are you apologizing?
You were trying to make amends.
And apparently, they'd all be
better off if I were dead.
Well, that may be true,
but I would be bereft.
- You're not coming home?
- I, uh, have a commitment...
in town.
- Really?
- Yes.
I need to purchase
street clothes...
for a rehearsal...
of Our Town...
by the Cloverton Players.
Community theater, huh?
Well, go ahead and say it.
I'm a vain, selfish person
who'd rather chase fame
than support you
in your time of need.
First, I'm not
in a time of need.
I'm in a time of regret
and self-loathing.
Second, I doubt it's fame
you're chasing
by joining
the Cloverton Players.
They're very well-reviewed
in the Cloverton Bugle.
Well, break a leg.
I hope you find
what you're looking for.
Right.
Oh.
Oops.
Well, I was going to tell you
to come back to bed, but...
looks like you beat me to it.
Mmm. Taking advantage
of the disabled.
Class act.
Let's stay in today.
I'm sorry, Vic.
But I live in the real world,
and us normals without
a S.T.A.R. Lab credit card
have to come up with rent,
buy food,
and pay off years
of medical stuff.
I get it. What kind
of medical stuff?
PT from botched
corrective surgeries,
pain meds, PTSD meds,
anxiety meds,
which, apparently,
are different from PTSD meds.
Sounds expensive.
Cost of doing business
with black ops.
But don't you worry.
I'll die long before
I have to pay it all off.
Hey.
Can I look inside of you?
- Ew.
- To see what's broken, I mean.
A hundred times "ew."
There's gotta be a better way
to ask that.
Look...
All this crap
you're dealing with
is because they ripped the tech
out of you, right?
- Right.
- Well, I happen to know
something about the line
where tech meets flesh.
If I could do a deep scan,
I could figure out how to
relieve some of your pain.
I'll show you mine
if you show me yours.
There's gotta be
a better way to say that.
You can scan my guts if...
you tell me about your PTSD.
All the gory details
you're too chicken shit
to share in group.
Maybe you should
go back to work.
You're such an asshole.
Okay. Deal.
- Deal?
- Yeah.
You're gonna tell my boss
I got a fever?
Mmm-hmm.
You're gonna cough up
a day's wages?
Are you gonna do the...
- other thing you do?
- Hmm.
- You like that thing, huh?
- I like that thing.
What the hell?
Yoo-hoo. Any pigtailed pains
in the ass down here?
Jane?
Oh, shit!
Oh, shit. Oh, shit!
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit!
Oh, shit.
Chief!
There's something wrong
with Jane.
- Where was she?
- The basement.
Was Dorothy with her?
No! Nobody cares
about Dorothy!
Jane was in the basement,
covered in this shit.
- Are you gonna help?
- She's breathing.
What the fuck happened?
- She was with Dorothy.
- That's not an answer!
This is Dorothy's doing.
But why?
Your daughter did this,
and that's all you got?
What about all this wax?
All you talk about is how
your dumb girl's
gonna end the world,
but you have no idea
how Jane ended up
in a fucking coma?
Hey, what's going on?
- Dorothy put Jane in a coma.
- Have you seen her?
Oh, no.
But there's something else
you should see.
Is it Dorothy playing dress-up
with Rita's skin?
No, no.
There's a spaceship outside.
Tell them I'm not here.
What?
Hey. Where do you think
you're going?
I need to find Dorothy.
Wait, Niles, slow down.
Do you know these guys?
In 1955, the Bureau
gave me funding
for my Immortus initiative,
which included sending
a research team into space.
- To do what?
- Research.
I lost contact with them
in the early '60s
and assumed they were dead.
Apparently, they're not.
And their timing
couldn't be worse.
What, so, I should just
send them away?
No!
Keep them here.
Don't ask me.
I don't fucking know.
Hello.
Welcome back... to Earth.
I'm Larry Trainor.
And you are...
Who are we?
- We are...
- - The Pioneers of the Uncharted.
Earth's best and brightest,
assembled by benevolent genius,
Niles Caulder.
To pilot the space vessel Icarus
on a three-generations
mission...
Into the deepest reaches
of the unknown.
Pioneers, roll call.
The name's Zip. Hotshot pilot,
nothing scares me.
- Except marriage.
- The name's Specs.
I'm the brains of the op
and a heartbreaker to boot.
And my name... is Moscow.
The Russian one!
And together we are...
- The Pioneers of the...
- Of the Uncharted. Got it.
Zip Callahan. Wow.
You made the back
of my kid's cereal box.
I always wondered
what happened to you.
Well, that is a long story.
So,
where is benevolent genius Niles Caulder?
He's, uh... He's a little
tied up at the moment.
Hey.
What are they doing?
There was a vote.
A funeral procession
seems appropriate.
But we don't know they're dead.
You saw what that thing
did to them.
Secretary, I'm gonna need you
to be, like,
10% more self-aware.
This is a construct.
Are you a construct, Jane?
You should be completely
ashamed of yourself.
What does death even mean here?
Personas disappear.
They go dormant for a while.
But there's no evidence
we can even be killed.
Not unless you pull a Miranda
and throw yourself
into the well.
No.
There was a vote.
Dorothy.
Come out.
- Come out.
- Dorothy.
You little shit...
- Dorothy.
- Dorothy!
Dorothy.
I didn't do it.
It was the Candlemaker.
I'm sorry.
I'm leaving.
What the fuck?
What's going on?
Man, when the kid runs away,
she really runs away.
Damn it, Cliff, keep up.
There's no time to lose.
Pretty sure she's gone.
You and I are gonna
bring her back.
Here. Take this. We'll need it.
Uh, Chief, I'm sorry
your daughter ran away
to space!
But we've got a patient
on the table in there
who we might actually
be able to... Whoa!
You had a fucking spaceship
in this garage
the whole time?
When I lost contact
with the first ship,
I saw no reason
to use the second.
The fuck...
Make sure the airlock
shuts behind you, Cliff.
Things may be rusty.
- When did you build this?
- 1955,
pre-Sputnik.
Technically speaking,
I invented space travel.
Fuck! And 30 years later,
you still couldn't build me
a working hand.
I've always done the best I
could with what I get, Cliff.
And in the '50s, science still
hadn't mastered basic rocketry,
so I mixed my science with...
a little bit of borrowed magic.
You know what?
I think you can solo
this one, Chief.
I'm not in a rush
to get stranded in space
on your homebrew devil-ship.
Give me the apple, Cliff.
We need fuel.
Cliff, I need you.
Dorothy needs you.
In case I haven't been clear,
fuck Dorothy!
I'm Team Jane,
and I'd rather sit uselessly
by her side
than chase your brat
across the cosmos.
Listen to me, Cliff!
If you ever want
my help with your body
in the short time
that I have left,
you will shut your damned mouth
and retrieve my child.
Fuck it.
I'm going to space.
Of course. I'm fucking
going to space.
What the hell was she thinking?
Does she have any idea
what I've done for her?
She thinks she can hide from me.
I'll lock on to her coordinates.
She takes my ship to get away.
I built the damn thing!
She's too dangerous
to go traipsing around,
pretending that her actions
don't have any consequences!
No wonder she fucking ran.
All systems go, Chief.
Looks like the old dog's
got some new tricks.
What a whiz!
Seems our reunion
will have to wait.
Yeah. About the whole
benevolent genius thing...
I should probably warn you.
Oh, bust my chops, will ya?
I got you,
you smooth little pip.
Gravity.
What a treat!
We've been in space
for 65 years.
It's gotten... weird.
My real name
is Valentina Vostok.
Vostok?
The cosmonaut?
Your disappearance was the talk
of the Mercury Program.
And you must be Captain Trainor.
Your reputation in the
Air Force precedes you.
Preceded.
That was a long time ago.
You have a Negative Spirit?
Seems we have much to discuss.
- Isabel. Isabel Feathers.
- Gertrude.
Oh, no, thank you.
I... I've seen this play
so many times,
- I'm already off-book.
- Oh.
Wow. But isn't the script
still being written?
The script for Our Town? No.
I think Thornton Wilder
finished it quite some time ago.
I see where you're confused.
We're not doing Our Town.
We're doing Our Town!
Welcome to the
first readthrough of Our Town.
The script is woven from
first-person testimonies,
newspaper reports, journals,
and what we know in hindsight
about the day our town
was sucked into the ground.
Tonally, kind of, like,
The Laramie Project.
But more important.
We'll read through Act One,
"The Day the Monsters Attacked."
We'll cruise
right through Act Two,
"Life as a Series of Portraits,"
we'll break for lunch, and then
we'll tackle Act Three,
"What We Talk about When We
Talk About the Donkey."
Let's begin.
What part are you playing?
The Blob Lady.
Sixty-five years ago,
Niles Caulder assembled
a small team
for a top-secret project.
We were chasing a cosmic entity,
a teleporting rift that would
appear in the night sky.
The mission was to find
a pattern
in the cosmic radiation,
which Niles believed
was a source
of time-dilating power.
A key to immortality.
That puts your mission at 1955,
six years before my accident.
- Accident?
- Yeah.
Niles used your research
to send my X-15
straight into that
cosmic radiation. Hence...
- this.
- Then our mission
was a success.
- How fortunate.
- Fortunate?
- We sense you are angry.
- You sense correctly.
That rift ruined my life.
For us, it was a gift.
But we do recall
being upset for a time.
The rift kept moving.
The Pioneers chased it
deeper into space.
We lost contact with Earth,
but Niles had insisted
the mission was vital, so...
when we next caught up to it,
I went on a spacewalk
to take a sample.
When I touched the energy...
Well, you know the rest.
Not exactly,
because I was irradiated.
If I remove these bandages...
People die. Yes.
That happened to this body, too,
before we learnt to contain
the radiation within our skin.
We had to live
in our ship's airlock.
- It was a difficult five years.
- Five years?
Yes. I am embarrassed to say
it took five years to reach
harmony with my...
- spirit, as you call it.
- Five years.
You learned to master
that thing in five years.
How long did it take you?
Ah...
Well...
For us, the change happened
when there stopped being
an "I" and a "She."
The pass to infinite harmony
was to accept,
there is only now, "We."
Infinite harmony.
In five years.
How weird do you want me to get?
Mmm, just tell the truth.
Okay.
I was trying to save
an old friend,
a guy named Niles Caulder.
Then an omniscient bad guy
put a viral thought in my head.
What if I can't trust
my own dad?
Next thing, I was...
beating my old man to death.
- Holy shit.
- Yo, I'm skipping over
a pocket universe in a donkey,
a world-ending cult,
a world-saving cult,
a secret government branch
that housed a pack
of flesh-eating butts.
- Wait. Are you being
for real right now?
- For real.
- For real, for real.
- For real, for real?
Oh, God, I'm sorry.
I'm laughing at your PTSD.
Look, this is why
I can't do group.
Hold still. I'm trying
to get a good image.
- My bad, my bad.
- Come on.
Yo.
What is this?
What?
Did you used to have tech
fused to your spine?
Oh, yeah.
That old thing.
Yeah, there was a skeletal
support system
before they ripped it out.
Experimental weapons
ain't light.
One of these broken
attachment points is...
Leaking poison into my organs.
Uh-oh. You kind of sound
like my doctors.
It's kind of sexy.
You knew this?
Roni, this stuff could kill you.
No, Vic. This stuff
is killing me.
As in, doctors stumped
and chemicals classified.
I told you I'd die before I
pay off my bills, didn't I?
Jokes.
Nice defense.
I don't have many other options.
Okay, I'm hacking the military.
What?
If I can figure out
what's inside of you,
I can figure out
how to neutralize it.
Uh-uh. Don't you dare
make me your project.
I am not your
redemption story, okay?
And if you're so worried
about being a bad guy,
how about not hacking
the government on my behalf?
It's a small price to pay
for what I've done.
Oops.
Hacked the government.
Found your blueprints.
You fucker.
Okay, let's see.
Oh, big parts list.
Lot of sub-contractors.
Here we go.
Materials vendors.
Wait, wait, wait.
Does that say "S.T.A.R. Labs"?
And "Caulder Robotics."
You can't run away, Dorothy.
I don't want to talk to you.
You shouldn't be upset.
The beast was a child's thing.
You need a new friend.
A new protector.
Shut... up.
You don't even
sound like yourself.
Since when do you know
so many words?
As you grow up,
so do I.
This is all your fault.
I didn't want to hurt Jane.
Yes, Dorothy, you did.
You made a wish.
Go away.
Big-girl wishes
have big-girl consequences.
But never fear.
I'll always be by your side
if you need me.
I said, go away!
Hey.
Have you seen her before?
No.
Her station's deep.
Do you think
this is why she exists?
To mourn?
You think the girl expected
to bury two of us?
I'm just saying each of us
serves a purpose.
What does it mean
if Baby Doll's dead?
Less playtime,
more adulthood.
Maybe that's fucking normal.
But she's one of the only ones
who trusted men.
Who wanted their affection.
And look where it got her.
So, that's it?
We're just going
to destroy that part of us?
Forever?
If you got
a better plan, primary,
we're all ears.
Kay?
Do you know
what's going on out there?
I'm responsible for this.
I made us stay.
But now, I don't know
how to fix it.
Just tell me you're okay.
Tell me I didn't hurt you.
Please.
What am I supposed to do?
Knowing is your job.
So, you have no idea about
the off-market blueprints I sent over?
S.T.A.R. Labs
is a big company, son.
With lots of clients.
This seems pretty relevant
to your interests, Dad.
What's your angle on this?
- It shouldn't matter.
- I'm not gonna dig deeper
on classified military tech
without some context.
It's for this girl, okay?
It's her schematic, they ripped
this stuff out of...
A girl?
Vic, you buried the lede.
- Dad?
- I should have seen the signs.
Hacking secret documents,
poking around dark corners
of the military.
It's young love.
- Little fatherly advice?
- Pass.
Slow down.
Get to know this girl better.
People involved
with high-tech black ops...
Oh, really?
Says the man whose own company
sold tech to the same black ops.
Seriously.
How could you let this happen?
I'm gonna level with you, son.
That kind of money...
is what makes you possible.
Smooth little pip!
Oh, come here, you.
You old dog.
She is your family?
No.
But she may be the only
family I have left.
When you think of your family,
your spirit grows restless.
- We see it.
- Oh, yeah?
Maybe that's because my own son
just tried to imprison
both of us.
And my grandson
got shot in the gut.
Such a loving,
healthy family reunion.
Prompted, by the way,
by the spirit.
I wouldn't even know
my other son committed suicide
if this thing hadn't shown me.
What if it's trying
to tell you...
that you can release your
dead son from your conscience.
The past can chain us
to old wounds,
traumas from our youth.
There is relief
in letting the past go.
You don't know
what you're talking about.
And this Zen master bullshit
isn't helpful.
It's inhuman.
My son killed himself,
because he was obsessed
with his absentee father.
And if that's not worth
being tormented by,
I don't know what is.
This is my fault.
I was so desperate
to give Dorothy a family
before I'm...
gone.
I pushed Jane
before she was ready.
Jane's like a daughter to me,
Cliff, you must understand.
I just wanted Dorothy
to be normal.
Which made me a terrible father
and a bastard
and quite possibly responsible
for the world's end.
Is she really that dangerous?
I isolated her.
And in her terror, she spawned
imaginary creatures.
But as she got older...
the creatures became
more dangerous.
Even here...
left to her own devices,
she could unleash
a being so powerful
it would cleave
the Earth in two.
All it would take...
is for Dorothy to wish it so.
Please, Cliff.
Tell her...
all will be forgiven.
Tell her I love her.
Tell her anything.
Just get her back.
What you makin'?
A grave.
Do you need help?
No.
Can I sit here for a while?
And that's when I realized...
I could make them pay.
The ones who laughed at me,
called me freak,
goo girl,
Mrs. Melty.
Oh, they'd pay.
I'd suffocate them all...
under the weight...
of my rage!
Very nice work, everyone.
Um...
Very nice work, uh,
but we didn't get
all the way through it.
We didn't?
But more pages
and revisions coming soon.
This is beautiful work.
Important work.
Let's pick it up again tomorrow.
Hey, Gertrude,
nice job today.
Thanks.
I so love the humanity
that you brought
to the bee keeper.
I mean, who knew the attack
on Cloverton
killed so many bees?
The way you eulogized them, oh.
I could feel your pain.
Have you acted before?
Once or twice.
- Mmm.
- If I could offer one thought.
It's not a note,
simply an observation.
Sure.
- The Blob Lady.
- Mmm-hmm.
I wonder...
if she's more human.
Not quite so drive-in
picture monster.
After all,
villains think that they're the
heroes of their own stories.
Oh, no.
I thought I was playing that.
Shoot!
Like,
I even did a deep-dive
character bio
for background
because all the first-hand
accounts of the event
were so sketchy.
A biography.
Do tell.
Well, the way I see it,
the Blob Lady didn't
actually seem to enjoy
being so big.
Which means she probably
started off small.
But her dress was fancy, like...
she wanted to be seen.
There's a neediness there,
like a little girl trapped
in a woman's body
still desperately vying
for the approval of her father.
Mother.
Right. Of course,
it's the mother.
That lines up so much better.
Thank you.
So, the Blob Lady
has been craving attention
for so long,
she is terrified that
when people see what she is,
what she really is,
they are going to run screaming
because she is hideous
inside and out.
Just, like,
completely unlovable,
unlookable, unfuckable.
And then,
everything her mother
always said about her
would be proven true.
And the sick joke of it all,
is that her resentment
of her mother...
is the one thing keeping her
from what she was
always meant to do.
What is she meant to do?
Suck the entire world
into the folds of her
big, disgusting body.
Anyway, thank you.
I will work on that.
I'll see you tomorrow.
Well...
I've found my nemesis.
Come here,
you smooth little pip.
All right, hotshot,
you're a real whiz.
Hey. Hey, hey.
What's your deal?
I'm Zip, hotshot pilot.
Nothing scares him,
except marriage.
No, I know. I mean,
how are you so young?
You're not telling me
you have spirits in you, too?
The name's Specs.
I'm the brains of the op.
And a heartbreaker to boot.
How are you still alive?
They're not.
Zip and Specs
died a long time ago.
Come here,
you smooth little pip.
Gravity, what a treat.
What is this?
The bodies of Zip and Specs
were invaded by a benign spore
from a distant planet
some years ago.
The men you see
before you are husks,
autopiloted by some...
foreign plant matter.
Is it contagious?
We don't believe so.
In fact, we,
mostly she,
sense that bringing their
bodies into Earth's atmosphere
would kill the spores.
You came back to bury them?
We need to put
the past behind us,
if we are ever going
to travel farther.
Nothing scares me.
Bust my chops, will you?
Come here, you dog. Bust my chops...
I'm sorry I've been
so irritable.
Sounds like you've been
through hell.
We don't see it that way.
Even suffering
has its own meaning.
And there is always
beauty in meaning.
We have seen much.
And Earth is still the most
beautiful place in the galaxy.
Because it's a spinning orb
of constant suffering?
Yes.
Exactly.
Is Jane okay?
I have no idea.
Now I understand why
my dad is so scared of me.
I keep messing things up.
Daddy.
Jane.
The more I'm out here
in the world...
the more I'm sure
I'm a bad person.
I'm going to stay up here,
away from anyone I can hurt.
- Forever.
- Mmm.
I don't think
that's how oxygen works.
Cool rocks, though.
Who's it for?
Manny.
Your imaginary friend?
You wouldn't understand.
Try me.
My mom gave him to me.
He was the last piece
of her I had.
My daughter lost her mom, too.
When she was young.
Too young to remember much
of her at all, I'm guessing.
But from what I can tell,
she turned out to be
a really good person.
The truth is,
we're all struggling
to figure out
what kind of people we are.
Jane included.
She'll understand,
I promise you.
Sometimes a person hurts so bad,
all they can imagine is that
everyone wants
to hurt each other.
But that's not true.
You're not alone.
I know you want
to be alone right now.
But trust me, that'll pass.
Always does.
It's pretty.
Yeah.
I'm glad we came here.
Never again.
Dorothy...
you must promise me...
you will never make another wish
for as long as you live.
I promise.
Christ, that's sad.
My name is Zip,
hotshot pilot.
Name is Specs,
brains of our...
Any last words?
Yes.
If ever any fruit grows here,
don't eat it.
My name is Zip,
hotshot pilot.
Rest in peace, Pioneers.
I hope it was all...
painless.
Thank you for your help.
Now, it is time for us to leave.
Back to space?
Eventually.
First, we will see my old home.
How it has changed.
How we've been forgotten.
Then, maybe,
we'll be able to sever
our final bond to Earth.
And you?
I'm going to return
to my family.
But I'm not going to sever ties.
I'm going to mend them,
or die trying.
If you ever need a new
perspective on Earth,
I highly recommend space.
Is that what you want, buddy?
You know what?
Doesn't matter.
For as long as you're
in a human body,
we're going to act
like a human being.
And human beings need family.
♪ The sky breaks ♪
♪ Light reaches for me ♪
♪ I'm awake ♪
♪ For the first time ♪
♪ It's too late ♪
♪ I'm on the other side ♪
Why are you stopping?
What if he's in there?
He's in there.
He's always in there.
Well, then we'll beat the shit
out of him. All of us.
Come on.
Let's just get this over with.
Don't!
Don't do it.
I'm primary.
I'm responsible for all of us,
and I say we have to give
the broken ones time to mend.
We don't know anything.
We don't know how this happened.
We don't know how this works!
The one thing we do know
is that there's no
going back from here.
You seem to know
a lot about the well...
for someone who's never
been inside it.
- Miranda.
- The one and only.
I thought you killed yourself.
I did. I threw my battered body
down the well,
and in time, I was reborn...
as they shall be.
Sweet child...
Fierce protector...
It is time.
♪ This is where it all begins ♪
♪ My Genesis ♪
♪ This is where... ♪
It's okay.
It's just their
stations collapsing.
We won't need them anymore.
Now what?
If you'll kindly step aside
as primary...
I'll show you
what the girl wants.
Wow.
What are we all so angry about?
So,
her imaginary friends took out
two of Jane's imaginary selves.
Do we need to have
an imaginary intervention?
There's nothing funny about
a damaged mind, Cliff.
I fear Jane may
never be the same.
Be sure to secure Dorothy's
helmet before re-entry.
Thank you, Cliff.
I promise I'll never
ask another favor of you.
Hey, for what it's worth,
the kid,
she's all right.
She is special, isn't she?
She's all right.
But she deserves
to be safe, happy.
Even after you're gone.
And if that means
showing up for her
and acting like a real family,
then what the hell?
I'm in.
Let's go home.
That means the world
to me, Cliff...
but we're not going home.
What are you doing? Niles?
What the fuck are you...
No!
Fuck!
- They're dead.
- No!
No!
Oh, my God.
No!
Dorothy.
Rise and shine.
Dorothy?
Dorothy?
Chief, we got a live one.
Fresh off the knuckle.
What the hell were you thinking?
I'm thinking this
perfectly good touching stick
is my ticket
to being able to feel.
We agreed. No brutality.
And I agreed, but this finger
literally fell into my lap.
See I was waiting for Vic to man
up and get his lady friend back,
and out of nowhere
come these two bad guys.
So I'm like, "What would
a good person do?"
Stop the bad guys, right?
Which I proceeded to do.
It's important that before
I tell you about the car door,
you understand that
I'm basically a hero.
I don't give a damn, Cliff.
Dorothy's missing.
Table the finger
and help me find her.
Hang tight, little guy.
You're sure we weren't followed?
Not really.
The Bureau of Normalcy seems
to be everywhere these days.
I'm sorry my son sold us out.
Why are you apologizing?
You were trying to make amends.
And apparently, they'd all be
better off if I were dead.
Well, that may be true,
but I would be bereft.
- You're not coming home?
- I, uh, have a commitment...
in town.
- Really?
- Yes.
I need to purchase
street clothes...
for a rehearsal...
of Our Town...
by the Cloverton Players.
Community theater, huh?
Well, go ahead and say it.
I'm a vain, selfish person
who'd rather chase fame
than support you
in your time of need.
First, I'm not
in a time of need.
I'm in a time of regret
and self-loathing.
Second, I doubt it's fame
you're chasing
by joining
the Cloverton Players.
They're very well-reviewed
in the Cloverton Bugle.
Well, break a leg.
I hope you find
what you're looking for.
Right.
Oh.
Oops.
Well, I was going to tell you
to come back to bed, but...
looks like you beat me to it.
Mmm. Taking advantage
of the disabled.
Class act.
Let's stay in today.
I'm sorry, Vic.
But I live in the real world,
and us normals without
a S.T.A.R. Lab credit card
have to come up with rent,
buy food,
and pay off years
of medical stuff.
I get it. What kind
of medical stuff?
PT from botched
corrective surgeries,
pain meds, PTSD meds,
anxiety meds,
which, apparently,
are different from PTSD meds.
Sounds expensive.
Cost of doing business
with black ops.
But don't you worry.
I'll die long before
I have to pay it all off.
Hey.
Can I look inside of you?
- Ew.
- To see what's broken, I mean.
A hundred times "ew."
There's gotta be a better way
to ask that.
Look...
All this crap
you're dealing with
is because they ripped the tech
out of you, right?
- Right.
- Well, I happen to know
something about the line
where tech meets flesh.
If I could do a deep scan,
I could figure out how to
relieve some of your pain.
I'll show you mine
if you show me yours.
There's gotta be
a better way to say that.
You can scan my guts if...
you tell me about your PTSD.
All the gory details
you're too chicken shit
to share in group.
Maybe you should
go back to work.
You're such an asshole.
Okay. Deal.
- Deal?
- Yeah.
You're gonna tell my boss
I got a fever?
Mmm-hmm.
You're gonna cough up
a day's wages?
Are you gonna do the...
- other thing you do?
- Hmm.
- You like that thing, huh?
- I like that thing.
What the hell?
Yoo-hoo. Any pigtailed pains
in the ass down here?
Jane?
Oh, shit!
Oh, shit. Oh, shit!
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit!
Oh, shit.
Chief!
There's something wrong
with Jane.
- Where was she?
- The basement.
Was Dorothy with her?
No! Nobody cares
about Dorothy!
Jane was in the basement,
covered in this shit.
- Are you gonna help?
- She's breathing.
What the fuck happened?
- She was with Dorothy.
- That's not an answer!
This is Dorothy's doing.
But why?
Your daughter did this,
and that's all you got?
What about all this wax?
All you talk about is how
your dumb girl's
gonna end the world,
but you have no idea
how Jane ended up
in a fucking coma?
Hey, what's going on?
- Dorothy put Jane in a coma.
- Have you seen her?
Oh, no.
But there's something else
you should see.
Is it Dorothy playing dress-up
with Rita's skin?
No, no.
There's a spaceship outside.
Tell them I'm not here.
What?
Hey. Where do you think
you're going?
I need to find Dorothy.
Wait, Niles, slow down.
Do you know these guys?
In 1955, the Bureau
gave me funding
for my Immortus initiative,
which included sending
a research team into space.
- To do what?
- Research.
I lost contact with them
in the early '60s
and assumed they were dead.
Apparently, they're not.
And their timing
couldn't be worse.
What, so, I should just
send them away?
No!
Keep them here.
Don't ask me.
I don't fucking know.
Hello.
Welcome back... to Earth.
I'm Larry Trainor.
And you are...
Who are we?
- We are...
- - The Pioneers of the Uncharted.
Earth's best and brightest,
assembled by benevolent genius,
Niles Caulder.
To pilot the space vessel Icarus
on a three-generations
mission...
Into the deepest reaches
of the unknown.
Pioneers, roll call.
The name's Zip. Hotshot pilot,
nothing scares me.
- Except marriage.
- The name's Specs.
I'm the brains of the op
and a heartbreaker to boot.
And my name... is Moscow.
The Russian one!
And together we are...
- The Pioneers of the...
- Of the Uncharted. Got it.
Zip Callahan. Wow.
You made the back
of my kid's cereal box.
I always wondered
what happened to you.
Well, that is a long story.
So,
where is benevolent genius Niles Caulder?
He's, uh... He's a little
tied up at the moment.
Hey.
What are they doing?
There was a vote.
A funeral procession
seems appropriate.
But we don't know they're dead.
You saw what that thing
did to them.
Secretary, I'm gonna need you
to be, like,
10% more self-aware.
This is a construct.
Are you a construct, Jane?
You should be completely
ashamed of yourself.
What does death even mean here?
Personas disappear.
They go dormant for a while.
But there's no evidence
we can even be killed.
Not unless you pull a Miranda
and throw yourself
into the well.
No.
There was a vote.
Dorothy.
Come out.
- Come out.
- Dorothy.
You little shit...
- Dorothy.
- Dorothy!
Dorothy.
I didn't do it.
It was the Candlemaker.
I'm sorry.
I'm leaving.
What the fuck?
What's going on?
Man, when the kid runs away,
she really runs away.
Damn it, Cliff, keep up.
There's no time to lose.
Pretty sure she's gone.
You and I are gonna
bring her back.
Here. Take this. We'll need it.
Uh, Chief, I'm sorry
your daughter ran away
to space!
But we've got a patient
on the table in there
who we might actually
be able to... Whoa!
You had a fucking spaceship
in this garage
the whole time?
When I lost contact
with the first ship,
I saw no reason
to use the second.
The fuck...
Make sure the airlock
shuts behind you, Cliff.
Things may be rusty.
- When did you build this?
- 1955,
pre-Sputnik.
Technically speaking,
I invented space travel.
Fuck! And 30 years later,
you still couldn't build me
a working hand.
I've always done the best I
could with what I get, Cliff.
And in the '50s, science still
hadn't mastered basic rocketry,
so I mixed my science with...
a little bit of borrowed magic.
You know what?
I think you can solo
this one, Chief.
I'm not in a rush
to get stranded in space
on your homebrew devil-ship.
Give me the apple, Cliff.
We need fuel.
Cliff, I need you.
Dorothy needs you.
In case I haven't been clear,
fuck Dorothy!
I'm Team Jane,
and I'd rather sit uselessly
by her side
than chase your brat
across the cosmos.
Listen to me, Cliff!
If you ever want
my help with your body
in the short time
that I have left,
you will shut your damned mouth
and retrieve my child.
Fuck it.
I'm going to space.
Of course. I'm fucking
going to space.
What the hell was she thinking?
Does she have any idea
what I've done for her?
She thinks she can hide from me.
I'll lock on to her coordinates.
She takes my ship to get away.
I built the damn thing!
She's too dangerous
to go traipsing around,
pretending that her actions
don't have any consequences!
No wonder she fucking ran.
All systems go, Chief.
Looks like the old dog's
got some new tricks.
What a whiz!
Seems our reunion
will have to wait.
Yeah. About the whole
benevolent genius thing...
I should probably warn you.
Oh, bust my chops, will ya?
I got you,
you smooth little pip.
Gravity.
What a treat!
We've been in space
for 65 years.
It's gotten... weird.
My real name
is Valentina Vostok.
Vostok?
The cosmonaut?
Your disappearance was the talk
of the Mercury Program.
And you must be Captain Trainor.
Your reputation in the
Air Force precedes you.
Preceded.
That was a long time ago.
You have a Negative Spirit?
Seems we have much to discuss.
- Isabel. Isabel Feathers.
- Gertrude.
Oh, no, thank you.
I... I've seen this play
so many times,
- I'm already off-book.
- Oh.
Wow. But isn't the script
still being written?
The script for Our Town? No.
I think Thornton Wilder
finished it quite some time ago.
I see where you're confused.
We're not doing Our Town.
We're doing Our Town!
Welcome to the
first readthrough of Our Town.
The script is woven from
first-person testimonies,
newspaper reports, journals,
and what we know in hindsight
about the day our town
was sucked into the ground.
Tonally, kind of, like,
The Laramie Project.
But more important.
We'll read through Act One,
"The Day the Monsters Attacked."
We'll cruise
right through Act Two,
"Life as a Series of Portraits,"
we'll break for lunch, and then
we'll tackle Act Three,
"What We Talk about When We
Talk About the Donkey."
Let's begin.
What part are you playing?
The Blob Lady.
Sixty-five years ago,
Niles Caulder assembled
a small team
for a top-secret project.
We were chasing a cosmic entity,
a teleporting rift that would
appear in the night sky.
The mission was to find
a pattern
in the cosmic radiation,
which Niles believed
was a source
of time-dilating power.
A key to immortality.
That puts your mission at 1955,
six years before my accident.
- Accident?
- Yeah.
Niles used your research
to send my X-15
straight into that
cosmic radiation. Hence...
- this.
- Then our mission
was a success.
- How fortunate.
- Fortunate?
- We sense you are angry.
- You sense correctly.
That rift ruined my life.
For us, it was a gift.
But we do recall
being upset for a time.
The rift kept moving.
The Pioneers chased it
deeper into space.
We lost contact with Earth,
but Niles had insisted
the mission was vital, so...
when we next caught up to it,
I went on a spacewalk
to take a sample.
When I touched the energy...
Well, you know the rest.
Not exactly,
because I was irradiated.
If I remove these bandages...
People die. Yes.
That happened to this body, too,
before we learnt to contain
the radiation within our skin.
We had to live
in our ship's airlock.
- It was a difficult five years.
- Five years?
Yes. I am embarrassed to say
it took five years to reach
harmony with my...
- spirit, as you call it.
- Five years.
You learned to master
that thing in five years.
How long did it take you?
Ah...
Well...
For us, the change happened
when there stopped being
an "I" and a "She."
The pass to infinite harmony
was to accept,
there is only now, "We."
Infinite harmony.
In five years.
How weird do you want me to get?
Mmm, just tell the truth.
Okay.
I was trying to save
an old friend,
a guy named Niles Caulder.
Then an omniscient bad guy
put a viral thought in my head.
What if I can't trust
my own dad?
Next thing, I was...
beating my old man to death.
- Holy shit.
- Yo, I'm skipping over
a pocket universe in a donkey,
a world-ending cult,
a world-saving cult,
a secret government branch
that housed a pack
of flesh-eating butts.
- Wait. Are you being
for real right now?
- For real.
- For real, for real.
- For real, for real?
Oh, God, I'm sorry.
I'm laughing at your PTSD.
Look, this is why
I can't do group.
Hold still. I'm trying
to get a good image.
- My bad, my bad.
- Come on.
Yo.
What is this?
What?
Did you used to have tech
fused to your spine?
Oh, yeah.
That old thing.
Yeah, there was a skeletal
support system
before they ripped it out.
Experimental weapons
ain't light.
One of these broken
attachment points is...
Leaking poison into my organs.
Uh-oh. You kind of sound
like my doctors.
It's kind of sexy.
You knew this?
Roni, this stuff could kill you.
No, Vic. This stuff
is killing me.
As in, doctors stumped
and chemicals classified.
I told you I'd die before I
pay off my bills, didn't I?
Jokes.
Nice defense.
I don't have many other options.
Okay, I'm hacking the military.
What?
If I can figure out
what's inside of you,
I can figure out
how to neutralize it.
Uh-uh. Don't you dare
make me your project.
I am not your
redemption story, okay?
And if you're so worried
about being a bad guy,
how about not hacking
the government on my behalf?
It's a small price to pay
for what I've done.
Oops.
Hacked the government.
Found your blueprints.
You fucker.
Okay, let's see.
Oh, big parts list.
Lot of sub-contractors.
Here we go.
Materials vendors.
Wait, wait, wait.
Does that say "S.T.A.R. Labs"?
And "Caulder Robotics."
You can't run away, Dorothy.
I don't want to talk to you.
You shouldn't be upset.
The beast was a child's thing.
You need a new friend.
A new protector.
Shut... up.
You don't even
sound like yourself.
Since when do you know
so many words?
As you grow up,
so do I.
This is all your fault.
I didn't want to hurt Jane.
Yes, Dorothy, you did.
You made a wish.
Go away.
Big-girl wishes
have big-girl consequences.
But never fear.
I'll always be by your side
if you need me.
I said, go away!
Hey.
Have you seen her before?
No.
Her station's deep.
Do you think
this is why she exists?
To mourn?
You think the girl expected
to bury two of us?
I'm just saying each of us
serves a purpose.
What does it mean
if Baby Doll's dead?
Less playtime,
more adulthood.
Maybe that's fucking normal.
But she's one of the only ones
who trusted men.
Who wanted their affection.
And look where it got her.
So, that's it?
We're just going
to destroy that part of us?
Forever?
If you got
a better plan, primary,
we're all ears.
Kay?
Do you know
what's going on out there?
I'm responsible for this.
I made us stay.
But now, I don't know
how to fix it.
Just tell me you're okay.
Tell me I didn't hurt you.
Please.
What am I supposed to do?
Knowing is your job.
So, you have no idea about
the off-market blueprints I sent over?
S.T.A.R. Labs
is a big company, son.
With lots of clients.
This seems pretty relevant
to your interests, Dad.
What's your angle on this?
- It shouldn't matter.
- I'm not gonna dig deeper
on classified military tech
without some context.
It's for this girl, okay?
It's her schematic, they ripped
this stuff out of...
A girl?
Vic, you buried the lede.
- Dad?
- I should have seen the signs.
Hacking secret documents,
poking around dark corners
of the military.
It's young love.
- Little fatherly advice?
- Pass.
Slow down.
Get to know this girl better.
People involved
with high-tech black ops...
Oh, really?
Says the man whose own company
sold tech to the same black ops.
Seriously.
How could you let this happen?
I'm gonna level with you, son.
That kind of money...
is what makes you possible.
Smooth little pip!
Oh, come here, you.
You old dog.
She is your family?
No.
But she may be the only
family I have left.
When you think of your family,
your spirit grows restless.
- We see it.
- Oh, yeah?
Maybe that's because my own son
just tried to imprison
both of us.
And my grandson
got shot in the gut.
Such a loving,
healthy family reunion.
Prompted, by the way,
by the spirit.
I wouldn't even know
my other son committed suicide
if this thing hadn't shown me.
What if it's trying
to tell you...
that you can release your
dead son from your conscience.
The past can chain us
to old wounds,
traumas from our youth.
There is relief
in letting the past go.
You don't know
what you're talking about.
And this Zen master bullshit
isn't helpful.
It's inhuman.
My son killed himself,
because he was obsessed
with his absentee father.
And if that's not worth
being tormented by,
I don't know what is.
This is my fault.
I was so desperate
to give Dorothy a family
before I'm...
gone.
I pushed Jane
before she was ready.
Jane's like a daughter to me,
Cliff, you must understand.
I just wanted Dorothy
to be normal.
Which made me a terrible father
and a bastard
and quite possibly responsible
for the world's end.
Is she really that dangerous?
I isolated her.
And in her terror, she spawned
imaginary creatures.
But as she got older...
the creatures became
more dangerous.
Even here...
left to her own devices,
she could unleash
a being so powerful
it would cleave
the Earth in two.
All it would take...
is for Dorothy to wish it so.
Please, Cliff.
Tell her...
all will be forgiven.
Tell her I love her.
Tell her anything.
Just get her back.
What you makin'?
A grave.
Do you need help?
No.
Can I sit here for a while?
And that's when I realized...
I could make them pay.
The ones who laughed at me,
called me freak,
goo girl,
Mrs. Melty.
Oh, they'd pay.
I'd suffocate them all...
under the weight...
of my rage!
Very nice work, everyone.
Um...
Very nice work, uh,
but we didn't get
all the way through it.
We didn't?
But more pages
and revisions coming soon.
This is beautiful work.
Important work.
Let's pick it up again tomorrow.
Hey, Gertrude,
nice job today.
Thanks.
I so love the humanity
that you brought
to the bee keeper.
I mean, who knew the attack
on Cloverton
killed so many bees?
The way you eulogized them, oh.
I could feel your pain.
Have you acted before?
Once or twice.
- Mmm.
- If I could offer one thought.
It's not a note,
simply an observation.
Sure.
- The Blob Lady.
- Mmm-hmm.
I wonder...
if she's more human.
Not quite so drive-in
picture monster.
After all,
villains think that they're the
heroes of their own stories.
Oh, no.
I thought I was playing that.
Shoot!
Like,
I even did a deep-dive
character bio
for background
because all the first-hand
accounts of the event
were so sketchy.
A biography.
Do tell.
Well, the way I see it,
the Blob Lady didn't
actually seem to enjoy
being so big.
Which means she probably
started off small.
But her dress was fancy, like...
she wanted to be seen.
There's a neediness there,
like a little girl trapped
in a woman's body
still desperately vying
for the approval of her father.
Mother.
Right. Of course,
it's the mother.
That lines up so much better.
Thank you.
So, the Blob Lady
has been craving attention
for so long,
she is terrified that
when people see what she is,
what she really is,
they are going to run screaming
because she is hideous
inside and out.
Just, like,
completely unlovable,
unlookable, unfuckable.
And then,
everything her mother
always said about her
would be proven true.
And the sick joke of it all,
is that her resentment
of her mother...
is the one thing keeping her
from what she was
always meant to do.
What is she meant to do?
Suck the entire world
into the folds of her
big, disgusting body.
Anyway, thank you.
I will work on that.
I'll see you tomorrow.
Well...
I've found my nemesis.
Come here,
you smooth little pip.
All right, hotshot,
you're a real whiz.
Hey. Hey, hey.
What's your deal?
I'm Zip, hotshot pilot.
Nothing scares him,
except marriage.
No, I know. I mean,
how are you so young?
You're not telling me
you have spirits in you, too?
The name's Specs.
I'm the brains of the op.
And a heartbreaker to boot.
How are you still alive?
They're not.
Zip and Specs
died a long time ago.
Come here,
you smooth little pip.
Gravity, what a treat.
What is this?
The bodies of Zip and Specs
were invaded by a benign spore
from a distant planet
some years ago.
The men you see
before you are husks,
autopiloted by some...
foreign plant matter.
Is it contagious?
We don't believe so.
In fact, we,
mostly she,
sense that bringing their
bodies into Earth's atmosphere
would kill the spores.
You came back to bury them?
We need to put
the past behind us,
if we are ever going
to travel farther.
Nothing scares me.
Bust my chops, will you?
Come here, you dog. Bust my chops...
I'm sorry I've been
so irritable.
Sounds like you've been
through hell.
We don't see it that way.
Even suffering
has its own meaning.
And there is always
beauty in meaning.
We have seen much.
And Earth is still the most
beautiful place in the galaxy.
Because it's a spinning orb
of constant suffering?
Yes.
Exactly.
Is Jane okay?
I have no idea.
Now I understand why
my dad is so scared of me.
I keep messing things up.
Daddy.
Jane.
The more I'm out here
in the world...
the more I'm sure
I'm a bad person.
I'm going to stay up here,
away from anyone I can hurt.
- Forever.
- Mmm.
I don't think
that's how oxygen works.
Cool rocks, though.
Who's it for?
Manny.
Your imaginary friend?
You wouldn't understand.
Try me.
My mom gave him to me.
He was the last piece
of her I had.
My daughter lost her mom, too.
When she was young.
Too young to remember much
of her at all, I'm guessing.
But from what I can tell,
she turned out to be
a really good person.
The truth is,
we're all struggling
to figure out
what kind of people we are.
Jane included.
She'll understand,
I promise you.
Sometimes a person hurts so bad,
all they can imagine is that
everyone wants
to hurt each other.
But that's not true.
You're not alone.
I know you want
to be alone right now.
But trust me, that'll pass.
Always does.
It's pretty.
Yeah.
I'm glad we came here.
Never again.
Dorothy...
you must promise me...
you will never make another wish
for as long as you live.
I promise.
Christ, that's sad.
My name is Zip,
hotshot pilot.
Name is Specs,
brains of our...
Any last words?
Yes.
If ever any fruit grows here,
don't eat it.
My name is Zip,
hotshot pilot.
Rest in peace, Pioneers.
I hope it was all...
painless.
Thank you for your help.
Now, it is time for us to leave.
Back to space?
Eventually.
First, we will see my old home.
How it has changed.
How we've been forgotten.
Then, maybe,
we'll be able to sever
our final bond to Earth.
And you?
I'm going to return
to my family.
But I'm not going to sever ties.
I'm going to mend them,
or die trying.
If you ever need a new
perspective on Earth,
I highly recommend space.
Is that what you want, buddy?
You know what?
Doesn't matter.
For as long as you're
in a human body,
we're going to act
like a human being.
And human beings need family.
♪ The sky breaks ♪
♪ Light reaches for me ♪
♪ I'm awake ♪
♪ For the first time ♪
♪ It's too late ♪
♪ I'm on the other side ♪
Why are you stopping?
What if he's in there?
He's in there.
He's always in there.
Well, then we'll beat the shit
out of him. All of us.
Come on.
Let's just get this over with.
Don't!
Don't do it.
I'm primary.
I'm responsible for all of us,
and I say we have to give
the broken ones time to mend.
We don't know anything.
We don't know how this happened.
We don't know how this works!
The one thing we do know
is that there's no
going back from here.
You seem to know
a lot about the well...
for someone who's never
been inside it.
- Miranda.
- The one and only.
I thought you killed yourself.
I did. I threw my battered body
down the well,
and in time, I was reborn...
as they shall be.
Sweet child...
Fierce protector...
It is time.
♪ This is where it all begins ♪
♪ My Genesis ♪
♪ This is where... ♪
It's okay.
It's just their
stations collapsing.
We won't need them anymore.
Now what?
If you'll kindly step aside
as primary...
I'll show you
what the girl wants.
Wow.
What are we all so angry about?
So,
her imaginary friends took out
two of Jane's imaginary selves.
Do we need to have
an imaginary intervention?
There's nothing funny about
a damaged mind, Cliff.
I fear Jane may
never be the same.
Be sure to secure Dorothy's
helmet before re-entry.
Thank you, Cliff.
I promise I'll never
ask another favor of you.
Hey, for what it's worth,
the kid,
she's all right.
She is special, isn't she?
She's all right.
But she deserves
to be safe, happy.
Even after you're gone.
And if that means
showing up for her
and acting like a real family,
then what the hell?
I'm in.
Let's go home.
That means the world
to me, Cliff...
but we're not going home.
What are you doing? Niles?
What the fuck are you...
No!
Fuck!