Manhattan (2014–2015): Season 1, Episode 10 - The Understudy - full transcript

Previously on Manhattan...

What did I do?

Two more for me and the spy killer.

What do you want from me?

As we approach the finish line,

I will be stepping back
from day-to-day operations.

You will report to Charlie Isaacs.

Are you ready to start working?

You mean keep working
on implosion with Frank?

Tom... He touched me.

- You have to do something.
- Men will be men.



Was it normal?
What happened between us.

You fell asleep.

If you know who I am,
you know I've spent the last year

working on implosion.

I need detonators.

You don't know me.

- We've created a monster.
- A useful monster.

You remember, you knocked on my door.

And now, 50 of my guys
are working on your problem.

Our problem.

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You want me to wait? Ah...

I think you ain't gonna be staying here long.

- No, thank you.
- Thank you.



All personnel
must stop at the main gate checkpoint

for identification and passes

whenever leaving from
or arriving to Los Alamos.

- Can I help you?
- Is this PO Box 1663?

- You got a pass?
- No, but I got a letter from this postmark.

Ma'am, I recommend you get back in the cab.

Else you're looking at 40 miles
of hard road back to town.

My husband lived here. He died here, too.

I'm sorry. No one gets in
without a preauthorized pass.

His name was Sidney Liao.

I don't know anything about that.

I'm not leaving until someone explains
how my husband died

in the middle of a desert
solving physics equations.

Ma'am, you have my condolences, but...

No, turn me away,
and I'm sure I can find a reporter who won't.

Tell them I need to speak to Frank Winter.

Colonel Cox's office.

Oh, right away.

You know what Thomas Edison
used to do when he hit a brick wall?

He'd take naps.

We didn't hit a brick wall.
We hit the Grand Coulee Dam.

Good morning.

Dr. Glen Babbit, Mr. James Meeks,

may I present to you Grover and Earl, is it?

- What the hell was that?
- Apparently, we're taking in refugees.

The maintenance staff has opened
a franchise in our back room.

We're working in the broom closet now?

Well, at least one department's adding staff.

What happened to compartmentalization?

Yeah. No, we are meant
to speak in hushed tones

when the janitors are present.

Apparently, our particular secrets
no longer warrant safekeeping.

Frank's gonna tear them limb from limb.

On the bright side,
we now have a mop on the premises.

Well, you think Hitler's
got Werner Heisenberg

bunking up with a janitor?

Say what you like about the Third Reich,
they do respect hierarchy.

- Frank.
- We've got houseguests.

- Oh. So I heard.
- And you're not upset?

Would it make any difference if I were?

Anyway, you watch.

I'm gonna straighten out
this shockwave problem,

and the custodians will move
into Akley's office, or we will.

You're leaving already?

- Ah...
- We hardly knew you.

I have a meeting across town.

How long has it been
since your husband did that? Hmm?

What time is it?
If I'm late again, the girl's gonna quit.

You don't have to wear
so much makeup, you know?

You're beaucoup plus belle without it.

My mother always said,

"A woman should never leave the house
without lipstick unless it's in a coffin."

Come to dinner tonight.
I'm cooking, Coq au vin.

Will, um... Will Tom be there?

Chérie, love affairs are a reward
for putting up with our husbands.

All the more fun to do it
right in front of them.

We're not having an affair.

You don't have to feel guilty
for taking pleasure in life.

Well, it wasn't much of a pleasure
last time I had dinner at your house.

Your husband put his hands all over me.

What?

Practically assaulted me.

Why didn't you tell me?

I will kill him.

I will poison his dinner.

If I wanted to make a production out of it,
I would have told Charlie.

You don't want to know
what he would have done.

Right away, Doctor.

- In the utility room.
- Right behind you.

- What happened?
- There's been a contamination.

- A contamination?
- Can you lend a hand?

- Of course. What...
- Don't draw any blood.

Does this hurt?

Not a bit. It never does.

Has this happened before?

We need to get these clothes bagged
and out of here.

Yes, Doctor.

Put some gloves on first.

Morning. I brought the kid.

Come on.

My mother told me unwelcomed guests
should never show up empty-handed.

Thought you could use some help
with the contact dermatitis.

Yeah, number one hazard,

working with TNT.

Number one?

- So are we good for today?
- Not good.

But I'll accept your presents.

The war must be won.

We take 32 exploding bridgewire detonators.
We activate them simultaneously.

So you want to know
how to synchronize detonators.

Believe it or not, that's the easy part.

What we have to do is redirect
the shockwaves from those charges

into one perfectly symmetrical implosion.

Thirty British scientists
couldn't do it in a year.

They abandoned their implosion project.

The British are quitters.
Just look at your Revolutionary War.

Drop on three, two, one.

- See?
- What?

Our detonation waves are convex.

They need to be concave
to make implosion work.

You want all these tiny explosions
to turn themselves inside out?

- That's the goal?
- Yes.

Fish swim. Birds fly. Cows shit. All right?

They're each true to its nature.

An explosion goes, "Boom!"
The force of energy expands.

Right. So how do we reverse it?

- That's simple.
- Yeah?

Yeah. You can't.

Judge in his chambers?

- I have no idea where he is.
- Huh.

Well, I'm sure you'll be the first to know.

Could you pass that along, please?

- What is it?
- It's a parting gift from the little Dutch girl.

I just bumped into her in the yard.

You bumped into Helen, did you?

It's Frank's late-night toils.

Someone found them in the chem lab
and gave them to her.

Thought she was still with us.

Did you help Frank
with these calculations?

I had rehearsal. We open Friday night.

Has Fritz been doing
detonation specs for Frank?

Fritz has been waylaid
in metallurgy the last three days.

Remind me which classic
of the stage you're butchering this time.

Uh, Our Town.
I'm playing the William Holden role.

I thought you were just the understudy.

Everyone in the theater knows
the whole show rests on the understudy.

I apologize for the accommodations.

We're not really set up to entertain visitors.

You're not what I pictured.

Well...

He told me all about you.

- Who did?
- Sid.

He never mentioned a beard.

Anyway, I can't believe this is
what it took for us to meet, Dr. Winter.

What else did Sid tell you?

He talked about the others,
Jim, and Fritz, Glen, Helen.

Did he ever mention what
he was doing in the state of New Mexico?

I didn't even know he was in New Mexico.

Did he ever give you any messages
to pass along to associates or to friends?

Just our daughter.

After your husband's death,

did you receive any unusual visitors
or packages in the mail?

You're not Frank Winter, are you?

There's no one here by that name.

Your parents are watching your little girl?

Yes.

Well, I imagine
Gracie misses her mother very much.

Mrs. Liao,
you traveled a great distance to be here.

Your train leaves tomorrow,
all expenses paid.

When you get home to Oakland,
you will forget all about the past,

and you will focus
on your daughter's future instead.

I'm not going anywhere
until I know what happened to my husband.

And if you were to learn
that he died in a tragic car accident?

Did he?

Or that he sacrificed his life
on behalf of his country?

I need to see his death certificate
and any formal report from the Army.

You're confused, Mrs. Liao.

You think you want the facts,
but that's not why you're here.

You want a bedtime story
to bring home to your little girl.

- You want a fairy tale.
- Excuse me?

I spent a lot of time in China.
You're a tenacious people.

I could give you the brush-off,
but you'd just keep coming back.

This is your husband's file.

It was sealed by order of the War Department.

Your husband was not a hero. He was a spy.

He was shot dead while in the process
of stealing government secrets.

That's not possible.

You have a long trip
ahead of you tomorrow, Mrs. Liao.

Get some rest.

I'm sorry for your loss.

What about
a change in temperature?

Could that redirect the blast?

- Wave refraction might...
- Only the direction, not the speed.

Well, maybe we use
an anisotropic media.

We have to invert the blast, not just bend it.

Please don't.

Powdermen, we work with explosives.
We chew.

You as well?

Sure.

Good. Come on, Frank.

So...

Oh!

Christ.

Is it supposed to burn like that? It hurts.

So the two of you are friends? How?

What do you mean?

Well, he's a man. You're more like a boy.

Thanks.

He's a dinosaur. I'm a plagiarist.

I'm not sure friendship
was ever written in our cards.

Uh-huh.

He lifted one idea, but his paper was solid.

You think this one is smart?

For a boy.

Uh-huh.

Well, I'm done for the day.
You've wasted enough of my time.

We don't need your time, Lazar.
We need your workspace.

Try back tomorrow.

What are you doing?

Your belt is pinching me.

Yeah, we should stop.

- Why?
- Because it's wrong.

"Put to death what is earthly in you,

"sexual immorality,

"impurity,

"passion,

"evil desire."

You think I don't pay attention
in Bible study?

To the words maybe, but not the meaning.

Well, I just don't happen to think
desire is evil.

- If there is a God...
- If?

- He gave us genitals for a reason.
- Uh...

This isn't it.

You know, I am trying to understand
your point of view.

The least you could do is meet me halfway.

Fornication isn't halfway, Callie.

Why are you even with me anyway?

I am beginning to wonder.

What I think is...

I think it's a pretty good way
to rebel against your parents.

Going steady with the guy
who shot their friend.

As a matter of fact,
that's the thing I like the least about you.

Sid was my friend, too, you know.

- Callie, I'm sorry. I'm just...
- No.

Get out of here
before my father comes home,

or he's gonna be the one shooting.

This is awfully public.

Yes, that's why I wanted to meet here,

so there was no misunderstanding
my intentions.

I see.

Elodie, you have been a wonderful friend
at a time when I really needed one.

But whatever you think
is happening between us,

it needs to end.

I'm sorry.

Is this about what Tom did?

No.

This is about you and me.

Elodie.

I thought this dump
felt more cosmopolitan than usual.

Ida.

Hank.

- This is Abby Isaacs.
- Hello.

We're colleagues at the switchboard.

Mmm-hmm.

Pleased to meet you.

Does your husband know
you're out on the town with this minx?

I have half a mind to ditch my husband
and join them.

- Oh. Hey, I finally finished it.
- Hmm? Ah!

Only took me, what, 100 years?

- Well?
- I don't know.

I thought it would be racier.

He certainly set Europe on fire.

I thought that was Hitler.

What's the book about?

There's this guy named Meursault.
He's kind of a pill. His mother dies.

He shoots an Arab,
and he winds up in prison.

On.

It's about the fact that our lives are absurd.

There's no God. There's no morality.

And society invents rules
to keep us from happiness.

But every minute of every day,
you're free to decide who to be

and how to live.

So it's a comedy.

Sounds to me like the author never lived
in a town where you can't leave.

He lives in occupied Paris.

Anyway, you're free to walk away
from this hill any time you like.

I think the colonel might disagree.

Just because there may be a consequence
doesn't mean you have no choice.

Yeah, well, my choice
is to go to bed. Ida?

Would you like to join us?

I'm sorry?

Another time.

- Great to see you.
- Bye.

What was that about?

Well, they're bons vivants.

Usually, they trade partners
with the couple next door,

like an American square dance.

You're joking.

Abby, you've been in the switchboard
long enough to know

that everybody inside these fences
has a secret life.

You're no exception.

The difference is you're keeping the secret
even from yourself.

- Elodie...
- No.

Why shouldn't we enjoy ourselves
while we can?

Life is short,
and it's getting shorter all the time.

What does that mean?

That's why we're here, right?

So our husbands can invent
the end of the world.

You woke up early.

You got home late.

What's for breakfast?

Nothing.

Nothing?

I'm not hungry. Why would I eat?

Because that's what people do
in the morning.

"L'Etranger."

- L'Etranger.
- Oh.

I took four years of high school French.

What?

Nothing. Just... No.

You buy gossip magazines
for the photo spreads.

Suddenly, you're reading Baudelaire?

You're not building a radar system, are you?

What?

That's what you told me
when we first got here.

Is it true?

Abby, it's complicated.

Lying to your wife?

I can't tell you any more. I'm not allowed.

Of course you can.

In every single moment, we have a choice.

I'm protecting you.

By building some machine that could
wipe us all off the face of the Earth?

I'll make my own breakfast.

Why didn't you tell me

you did all these additional calculations
on the detonation specs?

Slipped my mind.

You're working with Charlie Isaacs,
aren't you?

You got him and Helen
feeding you calculations,

stealing Akley's resources
out from under his nose.

Jesus, Frank.

Isaacs came to me.

The plutonium at Site X
will never be pure enough.

Thin Man will predetonate.
It is doomed to fail.

And then they will be forced to help us
overcome the shockwave problem.

No. No, the minute the Army discovers
that Thin Man is useless,

they'll shut us down

and throw all their manpower
into trying to fix it.

So the plan is to put everybody around you
in jeopardy?

The plan is to prove implosion works
before the plutonium arrives.

And when I do that,
no one's gonna give a shit how I got there.

We hit the wall. It's a mile high,

but you're not gonna scale it
by standing on the shoulders of Thin Man.

I have to try.

- And the collateral damage?
- We won't get caught.

This entire Hill was built on secrets, Frank.

They're traded around like ration stamps.

When this falls apart, you'll face jail time.

But G-2 is already convinced
that I'm a Commie.

- I'll face the firing squad.
- Glen.

You put our fate, my fate,
in the hands of Charlie Isaacs.

I've come to trust him.

You've come to trust the little shit
that put the bull's-eye on my back,

a plagiarist,
a rat who steals from other scientists.

I guess that's why they call it the fog of war.

Liza, I'm glad I caught you.

Oh.

Your help yesterday was appreciated.

Every reason to believe the men will be fine.

Just glad I could help.

I hope it didn't scare you.

Those men work with explosives all the time.

The scrubbing was just to be certain
all the residue was off.

I understand.

I just wanted to make sure that
you were aware of patient confidentiality.

You really shouldn't mention this
to anyone outside the clinic.

Of course not.

Punching out?

Yes, I am.

Good night.

Liza, it's been a long day for all of us.

Should you and I maybe
have a drink to wash it down?

Oh, that's so kind of you, Doctor. Um...

I really must get dinner on the table, but...

You know, a wife's work is never done.

- Another time.
- Another time.

G34, please step out of line.

Sorry. You'd think that's a number
I could commit to memory.

Is there some kind of problem?
My pass is up to date.

- You're coming with me.
- Why?

It's just you, Private Dunlavey?
No MPs to hold me down this time?

- Sit down.
- Is this how things go around here?

You get me arrested for no reason.

You put a couple of quiet bullets in me.
You get another promotion.

I just want to talk.

I have nothing to say to you.

You can't tell anyone I told you this,
and hardly anyone knows.

Sid Liao's wife is here on the Hill.

Annie's here?

Have you seen her?

Not myself, but I thought you might want to.

Where is she?

She's being questioned by the authorities,
but she'll be released and sent off soon.

I hear she'll be on the workers' bus out
this afternoon.

Why are you doing this?

"Let us lie down in our shame,
and let our disgrace cover us."

Do you have to do that right now?

Uh-huh.

What are you doing anyway?

Air pockets, drilling them out,
filling them back in.

You're drilling into TNT?

Uh-huh.

- Dispersion relations.
- What?

- You reference them in your paper.
- My paper?

All right, just think
about a wave deep in the ocean.

It's convex until it moves into shore.

Then it turns in on itself, and it forms a tube.

The shallow ground, it works just like a lens.

The shape of the wave
actually begins to invert.

So we need to slow down
the middle of the shockwave.

Yeah, then flatten and invert them.

We use a charge as our shallow ground.

- Is that possible?
- It's like the Munroe effect.

A Navy man at the turn of the century
invented incendiary warheads.

Bazooka rockets.

He called them shaped charges.

But a nuclear core is no rocket.
It's 1,000 times more sensitive.

We just have to find a way
to perfectly mold the shockwaves.

We could vary the burn rates.

Can you make that happen?

Baratol burns slower than TNT,
and I can blend to any speed you want.

Then we would
just flip the shockwaves inside out

and bend them
into a single symmetrical implosion wave.

Jesus, Frank.

Hey, Annie.

Are you okay?

I'm so sorry about Sid.

I wanted to call, but...

- They wouldn't allow you.
- Not even a letter.

Jim, what is this place?
What the hell was Sid doing here?

I can't talk about it.

That's what Sid always said.

You know what else he told me?
That he was coming home.

He died for his country.

They told me he was a spy, Jim.

He wasn't. He never would have done that.

We were married six years.
You think I don't know that?

I'm sorry, Annie.

Would you deliver a message
to Frank Winter for me?

Of course.

Tell him that...

Tell him it's very kind of him
to send the money,

but I don't want another dime
that comes out of this place.

Frank's been sending money?

Every month, ever since it happened.

Tell him he has nothing to feel guilty about.

Why would Frank feel guilty?

Because he brought Sid here
in the first place.

I'm glad you're here. Last time I talked to Sid,

he told me that he was being transferred
to some other secret location.

We all were. The Army changed its mind.

Next stop Santa Fe.

- Take care of yourself.
- You, too, Annie.

I'll get Crosley working
on manufacturing specs

for the aluminum pusher.

Fritz and Meeks can measure
the baratol burn rate.

Helen and I will get our guys
onto the modeling calculations.

This is good.

Yesterday, you said it wasn't possible.

Well, yesterday, it wasn't. Today, it is.

Don't be smart, boy. I was right both times.

Any idea what he said?

Something about friendship?

Good day.

Ma'am.

Hi.

Could you give this to PFC Dunlavey?

You another one of his adoring fans?

We're in Bible study together.

Hey. spy killer.

A pretty girl left this for you.
Said she thought you'd want it back.

Ah!

- Already finished?
- Mmm-hmm.

What is it?

Do you know why I learned French?

Because it was important to my mother.

Every August, Charlie and I spend
our vacation at the Chatham Inn,

the same place that I've been summering
since I was a little girl.

It never occurred to me to go someplace new.

Well, you deserve to see the world.

My whole life I have been exactly the person
everyone expected me to be.

I don't even know what I want.

What do you want right now?

Lenses.

Explosive lenses, shaped charges.
That's how we do it.

How do you control the speed?

By varying the burn rates.

With baratol. Oh, my God!

- Charlie's fine.
- You idiot!

Liza?

It's all poisoned.

What, our clothes?

Everything, our dinner plates, our silverware.

It's all radioactive.

I work with radium.

Trace elements have followed me home
from every lab I've ever worked in.

- There's nothing to worry about.
- It's in Callie's room.

It's on her shoes.

It's on her toothbrush.

Don't be absurd.

Liza, Liza, Liza, stop. Stop.

I think it's in the air, maybe the water.

This place is poisoning us
and everyone who's in it.

When Callie gets home,
we have to strip her down.

- Okay.
- We have to scrub her skin.

Just calm down.

Calm down and listen to yourself
for a second.

I'll show you.

If you're looking for the janitors
to clean up something,

they all left for the night.

Actually, I am trying to clean up a bit,
but I don't need a broom.

You're Meeks, correct?

Jim.

Pleasure.

You've been here, what, Jim, eight months?

Must be quite a change from Maine.

I imagine your mother misses
having you nearby.

She's been ill, hasn't she?

Do I know you?

I handle personnel issues
in the Manhattan District.

I end up reading a lot of files.

I can tell you the issue here.
We barely have any personnel left.

Yeah, it does look
a little bit lonely around here.

Is your boss in?
I have some questions for Dr. Winter.

Yeah, well,
I have some questions for him, too.

You know, I always like to hear
about things on the ground.

Maybe you'd like to share some thoughts
about Dr. Winter's management style.

It was going off everywhere here
just before you came back.

Come on.

You know, I should never have let it
out of my sight.

You know, the Army could have come
in here while I was outside, or G-2.

You know, they could have rewired it.

They could have rewired it, Frank,
to cover their tracks.

Sweetheart, sweetheart,
nobody has been in our house, okay?

It was working.

They're less than a year old.
They should be fine.

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