In Treatment (2008–2010): Season 2, Episode 14 - Walter: Week Three - full transcript

Damn it, you're not listening to me.

Listen to me!

It doesn't matter!

We can't wait for the report.
We're gonna issue the recall.

All of it!

All right, Jace. Fine.

Yeah, you think you need
to protect your ass, that's fine.

Just -- call the Donaldsons and tell them
it was my call, all right?

Jesus.

In Treatment, S02E14
Walter: Week Three

Marie, is he off?



All right, uh, get me, get me Burt.

I'm sorry about this.
Bad enough I'm late, but --

Yeah, Burt? Yeah, Walter.

Uh... Listen, I'm sorry but they wouldn't
let me use my phone until I cleared customs.

Uh, I can't reach the Donaldsons.

No, but we're gonna go ahead
with the recall anyway.

I don't trust Jace on this.

No, or on anything else, really.

Well, okay.

Good, good, all right, uh,

Marie'll set up a meeting at,
uh, uh, 10:00 p.m.

Okay. Uh, Marie, did you get that last part?

Good. Okay, call Jace last, order food,

uh, any press, tell them
that we're working on a statement.



No, give me 40 minutes.

No calls, all right?

All right. Thanks.

Oh, what?

Yeah, I, I'll text Connie.

Oh, Jesus.

Do you need a moment, Walter?

Uh. Uff. Uh... Connie.

I'm not gone three days, all hell breaks loose.

You know, if it's an emergency, we can, uh,

- we can reschedule.
- We've already rescheduled.

I was supposed to be here at 6:00.

It's 8:00. No, it's after 8:00.

I'm really sorry. I...

And I appreciate you're seeing me later.

I know you must have a life outside of here.

No, no, it's fine. I had, I had an hour free.

If you understood, if you really
understood how loath I am to be late.

I'm really sorry. This isn't me at all.

Really, it's fine, I...

- Here.
- What's, what's this?

It's, uh, for your time.

- You're paying for the session in cash?
- No, it's not for the session.

I'll write a check for that. This is, uh,
this is just something extra for you.

That's really not necessary, Walter. Thank you.

Huh... well... someone, uh...

unimpeachable, huh? I like that.

- What do you mean?
- Well, I wasn't trying to bribe you,

I mean, I'm -- that's not the way I operate.

Although, I tell you, sometimes
it might be easier for me if I did.

I understand.

You were just trying to make up
for lost hours.

- I understand.
- Yeah, exactly, I...

I know you value your time
and I've wasted some of it.

It was generous of you to offer.
Thank you, Walter.

- But, uh, I --
- Well, that's good.

You're a straight shooter.

That's, uh, a rare thing these days,

someone who's dependable.

I had to come to a walk-up
in Brooklyn to find it, and --

Oh God... Marie, I said no calls,
for Christ's sake! Can't --

You sure?

Son of a -- bitch!

No, no. No, don't let him know
that you've reached me.

Just let him think I'm walking into it.

I'll call you from the car.

Just... just give me a half hour of peace.

Can you do that?... Thanks.

Unbelievable.

This little pisser -- Jace!

He's not even half my age

and somehow he thinks
he's gonna use this to bring me down.

He's so self-deluded, he actually thinks
they're gonna give him my job.

- Walter, you seem --
- It's my own fault.

In a way, I mean...

He was very bright, eager...

good schools. I brought him into the company.

But he's green.
He's in over his head, it, it's...

Walter, c-c-can you listen to me for a moment?

You seem like...

you seem like you're in the midst
of a breaking crisis here.

No, Paul, it's not breaking.

It's already broke.

We cull ingredients from all over the world:

China, uh, Brazil, Indonesia.

Somehow, something got into the pipeline.

Walter, whatever is, whatever is going on --

It could be contaminated milk powder

or bacteria from one of the factories.

It could be a cheap lubricant leaching
into the machinery --

Walter... You don't seem like you're able
to get away from this right now.

I think that it would be
a very good idea for us to reschedule.

Reschedule? When?

It's not gonna get any better
tomorrow or the day after.

Paul, I'm going into combat in an hour, and...

if I, if I, if I don't talk to you now,

it might be another month
before I get a chance.

It's off, okay?

Both of them.

- Okay?
- Okay.

- Uh, can I get a glass of water?
- Sure.

I hate this stuff.

Connie's always telling me
I should drink more of it.

So does my doctor, but...
I don't have time for it.

You... you don't have time to, to drink water?

Sometimes no, I don't.

And this week is a good thing anyway,
where I was.

You've been, you've been traveling?

I spent the last 44 out of 72 hours...

in an airplane.

And... the hours waiting for the six flights
were no barrel of laughs either.

So the trip was in response to the...

uh, to the crisis?

What?

Well, you were just saying how you have
suppliers all over the world, and...

I assumed that you were...

trying to track down
the source of, of, of the problem.

Oh. No.

No, uh... I wasn't flying for the company.

- You weren't?
- No, I flew to Rwanda to get Natalie.

Natalie?

Did something happen to her?

No, she didn't say so, but...

I knew that she was in trouble.

So... she didn't... ask you to come?

She didn't have to.
Look, Paul, she's, she's my daughter.

And until she went to Rwanda,

I had spoken with her every day of her life.

Wherever I was in the world,

I'd call her at bedtime
and tell her I loved her.

Before she could talk, I...

made these little clicking noises.

Then after she went to Rwanda,
we e-mailed every day.

Suddenly, a week ago, she...

writes her mother but not me.

Connie doesn't do e-mails

so I had to print the letters out for her.

And...

she was asking Connie if I was all right, if...

the company was really complicit
in this baby formula mess.

It was, it was crazy talk.

Mightn't she have just been concerned
for your welfare?

Well, Paul, don't you think
I know my own daughter?

That's not what I'm saying, Walter.

I, I, I'm just trying to understand why,
with your company in crisis,

you would chose to visit
your daughter in Rwanda.

The e-mails... her voice... wasn't her voice.

She would never doubt her father.

Now I'm, I'm not saying
she's being brainwashed, but

I knew she was hiding something,

and once I got there I found out I was right.

- What was she hiding?
- Well, to start with,

she cut all her hair off.

She'd always had this long, auburn hair,

like my mother's when she was that age.

Well... that's gone now.

Don't you think that's disturbing?

I can see why you might find it so, yes.

But... cutting hair, dyeing it weird colors...

lopping it off even, I mean, that's what,
that's what daughters do.

What else was different about her?

What was the same about her?

I didn't know who I was talking to.

She had no shoes.

She had given them away, it turns out.

She was so thin.

She had this child in her arms...

a little girl hanging in her arms
like a sack of potatoes.

Are you okay, Walter?

This is where she's living, Paul.

This is where my daughter has chosen
to live, some hellhole near Goma.

When she saw you, how did, how did she react?

I don't think I spoke right away.
I, I just stood there... looking at her.

Finally she got scared.

She said, "What is it? Mom? Is mom all right?"

And I said, "No, your mother's fine".
She said, "What are you doing here?"

And I said, "I've come to take you home.
Get your stuff."

And that didn't go down well?

No. At first she was...

distant.

"Dad, I can't leave right now.
I have to finish a procedure."

As if she'd got some
medical degree in the last month.

She said she'd meet me for dinner
in a few hours in the big tent.

Then she pointed
in the direction of some little shacks,

in case I wanted to lie down.

She was living in one of those shacks.

They looked like outhouses,
and she was sleeping there.

I can see how upsetting that...

that might have been for you.

I mean, you spent your life...

providing a good home for her, and...

this is how she chooses to live.

So, what happened to the dinner?

Well, I didn't wait for dinner.

I went back into the shack
and I took all her stuff and...

put it in the jeep.

I just...

I just wanted to take it back with me to
Kigali and at least have her clothes cleaned.

I wanted to go back
to the hotel that night and

take her to dinner
and maybe talk some sense into her.

The next thing I know, she's...

tearing across this field, screaming at me,

insane stuff, how I'm trying to control her,

how I, I don't respect her,

how she's worked so hard to build up
trust with these people, and now...

they're gonna think that she's
some neocolonialist like me.

And there was something about Connie
I'm not even gonna repeat.

I, I swear to god, Paul, it took
everything I had not to slap her.

Instead, I just said, "Don't you
ever speak about your mother like that."

Then...

she broke down and started to cry.

What did you do then?

I put my arms around her.

I said, "Natalie, we're going home."

And then...

she told me to go fuck myself.

She'd never said
anything like that to you before?

She broke my heart, Paul.

She broke my heart.

Why do you think she was so angry with you?

Oh... She made that pretty clear.

I got an e-mail from her
when I got back to the hotel.

It turns out that I'm
"domineering", "obsessive",

that I'm the "cause of all her anxieties",

that it's "impossible to thrive
or grow around me", and...

that's why she had to go away
and now I'm...

"ruining her only chance
to free herself from me".

Now you see why I went over there?

I sensed this was coming from earlier e-mails.

You know, hearing that e-mail makes me...

Can we talk about the way you...
came in here today?

Completely in charge on both phones...

handing me your bag...

not quite like I was a bellhop, but...

something like that.

- I'm sorry if I offended you.
- No, no, you didn't offend me, but...

it did catch my attention.

Walter, we both know that...

you are... an excellent... manager.

World class... right?

But in other roles where...

you're not entirely in control,

like, say, being a patient here or...

maybe when you went to see Natalie...

that's much less comfortable for you.

What, what are you saying?
I never tried to control Natalie,

- I gave her whatever she wanted.
- Of course.

You've given her everything.

And that's...

that's something that's hard
for other parents to do but...

not for you.

Do you think it's possible that...

what's hard for you is...

just... letting her be?

Letting her go?

Did you think that...

you felt her pulling away from you
in, in those e-mails?

And then, when you saw her
at the camp, did you...

did you get frightened?

Scared... of losing her
so that you felt you had to tell her

to pack up her things and come home?

Oh, Jesus, can't a father
worry about his own daughter?

Of course he can.

But just look at...

how you responded for a moment.

In the midst of a major work crisis,
you read an e-mail

that she wrote to Connie, and without
stopping to think, you get on a plane

and you fly halfway around the world.

- Walter?
- Uh, it's all right.

These work, work pretty quick.

Xanax, it's...

Dr. Wells gave me the prescription.

Thank God he did.

Otherwise I'd never have been able to...

get out of that place.

Did you take a pill... after you saw Natalie?

No. Later.

I woke up in the middle of the night

in cold sweat.

I had a nightmare...

that Natalie was gone.

Then I looked around me and with the...

jetlag and the fatigue, I, I had
no idea where I was for a minute.

I thought I was...
back in my parents' house,

in Tommy's room,

with all his sports trophies and awards.

I, I just couldn't stay
in that room another second.

I had to get out of there.
I was having trouble breathing.

And then, I remembered the pills.

Do you think it's strange that you were...

that you were thinking about...

Tommy over there, in Africa?

He's been on my mind lately.

And, do you know when that started?

Has it been since Natalie left?

You said that you woke up and you felt
that you, you had to get out.

Hotels can be disorienting.

But losing Tommy was...

very painful for you, wasn't it?

My folks had the pain.

With all due respect,
when parents lose a child it kills them.

It's, it's really admirable that
you remained so close to your parents...

after that happened.

Like with the Donaldsons... as you've said...

after their son James died...

you became like a son to them.

The, uh, the good son,

the one everybody can depend on.

And then you had this dream, and...

you feel that you're suffocating in...

in Tommy's room.

What does this have to do with Natalie?

Maybe Natalie is trying to do something...

that you've never allowed yourself to do:

to separate from her parents.

For you to stay connected means
to never... stray.

Now, Natalie is trying to do something
in between, but you feel

that she's abandoning you...

the way Tommy did.

He died, Paul. Jesus!

- He didn't abandon me.
- I know.

But maybe that night in the hotel,

Natalie's separation from you...

felt... in some way...

- it felt like a death.
- God forbid. No!

There's no comparison here.

There's a big difference.

When a child dies, he's gone.

Isn't that exactly the nightmare that
woke you up, that Natalie was gone?

No, it, it, it wasn't the same.

I was trying to find her.

I knew that no matter how bad I felt,

I had to put myself aside
and think only of Natalie.

I took the pills, and somehow it passed and...

I dragged myself back to the hotel lobby

and I went online in the business center.

That's when I read her e-mails
and I realized...

I realized...

You realized what, Walter?
It's, it's, it's okay to have the

thought here, you can say whatever you like.

I realized that she didn't need me at all.

Or maybe that's just
what she needs to feel right now.

No. She's done with her old man. I'm...

I'm a booster rocket.

Oh, she's launched, like your boys, isn't
that what you said at our first session?

Did I? Well, I'm sure I also said
that Natalie was different.

Well, I have to agree with you, but

you did raise her with the freedom
to think for herself,

to question authority figures, to confront
the world of adults, to give her a --

You gave her an incredible gift.
Now she wants to use it.

- By telling me to go fuck myself?
- That's what you heard.

But before that, she wanted you
to talk things over with her.

- She invited you to dinner, no?
- She was just shining me on.

Possibly. Or possibly she really
wanted to talk to you.

But you felt like she was disrespecting you,
and you reacted to that.

You know, I think that...

for her whole life
she's been very aware of you,

and how you feel and what you think
and what she can do to make you happy.

Maybe part of the reason
she's so angry is because

maybe for the first time in her life she knows
that what she wants is not what you want.

And she's having a very hard time
reconciling herself to that fact.

She's having a hard time?

What about me?

- So how did you leave things with her?
- I didn't.

I woke up the next morning to a barrage
of incoming faxes, phone calls,

e-mails, outbreaks of diarrhea,

children in hospitals, possibly from formula
contaminated at one of our plants.

I'd gotten out in front of this!

I leave for a few days and...

it's like they were just waiting
for me to turn my back.

I'm, I'm, I'm sorry, Walter.

With the, with the late session,
I forgot to shut the...

Hello, this is Mr. Barnett's assistant, Marie.

It's urgent that he speaks with Burt.

If he calls me, I can patch him through.

Back to battle stations.

I'd better be going.

Uh, thank you, Paul.

26 messages.

- Will you be all right?
- Oh, yeah.

Uh, I'll be fine.
They can't get rid of me, Paul.

"Apr?s moi, le d?luge."

After you, the flood?

That's a lot of pressure.

Yeah. Well, the glue, Paul, the glue.

Just look what happened when I left.

Well, I guess...

my daughter can survive without me but...

the Donaldsons can't.

So, uh... Will I see you next week?

Yeah, and thanks again.

- You're welcome.
- All right.

Marie. Uh, call Burt and...

What do you mean you can't get him?

You just left me a message
he wants to speak with me.

What about the old man?

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