Manhattan (2014–2015): Season 1, Episode 13 - Perestroika - full transcript

Previously on Manhattan...

Whatever we're doing here,

please tell me it's worth it.

I have cousins in Europe.

I can't do anything
about what's happening over there,

but you can.

The man inside Heisenberg's project...

They executed him.

Magpie?

You didn't tell anyone
else about him, did you?

Frank's been sending money?



Tell him he has nothing to feel guilty about.

Why would Frank feel guilty?

It's true.
You've been listening to Akley.

I am not gonna be the last casualty
of Frank Winter's ego.

I'm going home, Charlie.

- The Army won't allow it.
- They will if we're divorced.

Thin Man is dead.

This project won't survive without us.

You'd work with me?

You did the best you could, Reed.

Reed!

They told us one day.

That was five days ago.

See that red stamp?



That means there are contingencies.

Some men from the government
have taken an interest in your case.

What men? I don't understand.

I'm afraid it's out of my hands.
You'll just have to wait.

I filled out the forms.
I paid the entry fee.

You tell me we need to pay
$50 to enter the country.

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Ma'am.

I understand that these nice people
have an American sponsor.

Yes, this is the one.

She says his name is Charles Isaacs.

He is a very important man.

Tell me about Mr. Isaacs.

I guess it's always a mystery.

Suicide. But Reed Akley?

How did he seem when you saw him last?

I don't know.

The same.

I guess I never realized.

Hard as it is having secrets kept from you...

...keeping them must be harder.

Callie!

Is anyone planning on getting that?

All right, already. Hold your fire.

Um...

Dad?

Dad!

How's his wife holding up?

Does it matter?

At least he didn't have children.

Success has many fathers,
failure is an orphan.

Reed Akley was the father of the most
expensive failure in the history of war.

I was his father.

There's a...
There's a problem with Thin Man?

Reed Akley is dead.

So is Thin Man, as you well know.

That doesn't mean the project is dead.

- The implosion bomb works.
- Babbit told me.

- I'll need a written briefing by day's end.
- I can do that.

It's for the War Department.
Use small words.

We have to reassure them
there's continuity of leadership.

I need to know that you're ready.

Ready? Ready for...

Twenty-four hours, you'll be sitting
in a room with the Secretary of War.

If I could choose anyone else, I would,

but you're the only man who knows
implosion well enough to run the program.

Whatever messes you've made,
clean them up.

Can't have you tracking mud
onto the carpet of the Oval Office.

- I'll need Glen back as my number two.
- Dr. Babbit will be retiring from the project.

- Robert...
- He abused the power of my office.

Betrayed my trust. That was his choice.

Friends of Frank Winter don't have
a long shelf life on this hill, do they?

It's not the way I wanted it.

That makes two of us.

And, Frank, buy a comb.

Nice of you to drop in.

Should I wake your son or are you
just here to change your clothes?

Abby, please.

You can’t just hibernate in your office

or wherever you've spent
the last two nights.

- Akley's gone.
- Where?

He

put a gun in his mouth and...

Uh...

Reed Akley? My God.

It's my fault, Abby.

- What?
- I let him paint himself into a corner.

I should have walked into his office
two months ago.

Ma'am, we're gonna
have to borrow your husband.

Charlie. Excuse me. No.

Charlie. Charlie!

- It's gonna be fine, Abby.
- I need to speak to my husband, sir.

It's just a misunderstanding, Abby.

Joey!

You stay out of there.

Do not go in there!

I'll have to get a new suit.

We're really taking over?

Helen, you will run
the model and design group.

Meeks, the electric division.
Fritz, metallurgy.

I have a jacket, but I lost the pants
and it doesn't match my other trousers.

The end of the war

could be decided
by the five people in this group.

I know what my decision is.

Helen, where the hell is Crosley?

I don't know.

What about Charlie Isaacs?

There have been violations
of compartmentalization over at Thin Man.

The Army is wiping
its leadership slate clean.

Dr. Isaacs.

Have a seat.

I've been sitting for the last eight months.

Quite a rookie season you've had.

Two months ago you were a towel boy.

Now you're Reed Akley's secret weapon.

Well, you and the rifle.

I'm sorry to hear the news.

So was I.

- Why did he do it?
- I have no clue.

Don't you?

I understand there was
a technical problem with Thin Man.

What kind of problem?

The kind that loses a war.

Akley knew?

We're auditing Thin Man's files to find out.

There are some irregularities.

- In Akley's files?
- In yours, actually.

The calculations
you've been assigning your staff,

it's almost as if they have
no bearing on Thin Man whatsoever.

They may look irregular to an untrained eye.

But your former colleague, Dr. Lancefield,
he's trained, isn't he?

- Tom Lancefield?
- He told me a fascinating story.

Said you'd hotwired the project
and were driving it over a cliff.

They found stolen files
under his floorboards.

He's probably fingered
Dwight Eisenhower by now.

The timing is curious, though, isn't it?

Reed Akley knights you.

Two months later, he's lying
on an autopsy table and so is his bomb,

and no one can make heads or tails

out of the paper trail
coming out of your office.

I was exploring alternate theories
out of an excess of caution.

Funny how to an untrained eye
caution looks like sabotage.

I was trying to save the project.

So you were aware
of a problem in Thin Man.

Let's talk about Herr Doctor Schlimmer.

Magpie, our man
inside Werner Heisenberg's lab.

Till somebody talked and he lost his head.

I'm sorry, what agency do you represent?

Justice, Treasury, War, Immigration.

When did you become aware
of the existence

of an allied spy in the Nazi's bomb project?

Hello?

Rose?

Rose?

Liza.

I thought you were the driver.

I couldn't spend another night here alone.

I'm taking Reed back to Chicago.

Rose, I'm so sorry.

Is there anything I can do?

You won. The town council.

It was a landslide.

None of that really matters.

They're wrong, you know?

Reed didn't...

Must have been an accident.

He had the world on a string.

He was almost ready to deliver the peace.

Liza...

Did Frank say anything to you

about Reed?

He said that Reed was the most

brilliant man he'd ever met.

Ma'am, the car's out front.

Take care of Frank.

He's on the throne now.

That's what really killed Reed, you know?

The Gadget.

I don't know how many
different ways I can say this.

Even if I had known

about an inside man
in Werner Heisenberg's staff...

- Which you didn't.
- Which I didn't.

I wouldn't have told a soul,
least of all the Nazis.

- I have family in Europe.
- In Minsk.

Not a particularly hospitable
corner of the map for Jews.

The thing about secrets,

once the genie's loose,
you can never put it back in the bottle.

First two people know,
then four, then eight, then 16.

It's a chain reaction.
You tell some Russian apparatchik,

somewhere in Berlin a physicist winds up
in a coffin with extra headroom.

But why would I talk to the Russians?

'Cause family is everything.

And you had family in Minsk.

Yuri, the husband,
he's still there and probably dead.

But Malka and the little girl,

they're in New York City.

And they're very eager to meet you,
their American benefactor.

They made it out?

The Soviets are a funny bunch.

They'll put a bullet through your head

and send your wife the bill
for the ammunition.

And yet they tend to keep their promises
tit for tat.

They got an inside line
to the Manhattan Project, and you,

you got your wife's family out of Europe.

Reed Akley got them out.

I...

I asked him if there was
anything he could do.

Well, let's bring him down here
so he can confirm your story.

I would never disclose military secrets.

Prove it.

No.

No, I can't. I can't prove it.

I can't prove
that I'm not the Tooth Fairy either.

You can't prove a negative.

You scientists do it all the time.

What do you call it? A null hypothesis?

If you can't prove your theory is valid,

you examine the opposite theory
and try to refute it.

Let's look at all the data, you and I.

Charles Isaacs is not a spy.
That's our null hypothesis.

If it were true, we'd expect him
to be loyal to his country.

That's why I'm here.

And yet, since the day you arrived,
you've questioned the ethics of a project

undertaken to protect
your country from annihilation.

- If Charles Isaacs were not a spy...
- Listen to me...

I would expect him to associate
with law-abiding citizens.

Your father is Oscar Isaacs,

former member
of the Socialist Party of America,

current resident
of the Missouri State Penitentiary.

My father and I haven't spoken in years.

You also are acquainted
with a Professor Richard Lavro

who traded his office at Harvard
for one in Stalin's atomic research division,

an association you misrepresented
the last time we met.

If Charles Isaacs is not a spy,

we'd expect him to be
forthcoming and cooperative,

and yet you have lied since the moment
you set foot into this room.

So I'm your unified theory.
Is that right, genius?

That every scientific failure,
every intelligence slip up,

I'm singlehandedly responsible?

I'm not so sure it was singlehanded.

The Perlmans are your wife's cousins?

What role did Abby play in all of this?

Paul.

Didn't think you had
the first idea where I lived.

I didn't. Helen told me.

So you told Akley we were
siphoning resources from Thin Man?

No, I didn't.

He just pieced it together on his own?

We weren't siphoning anything, Frank.

You and Isaacs were. And Helen.

I just gave Akley what you declined
to give me, the benefit of the truth.

It wasn't too much of a benefit, was it?

Don't you dare lay his death at my feet.

It doesn't matter now.

As of today, all the eyes within these fences
will be trained on our group.

You're afraid I'll talk, Frank.

That's what you're even doing here.

To make sure I don't tell
any inconvenient tales in the schoolyard.

We need to stand together.

My father was a blacksmith, Frank.

He spent his whole life hammering iron.

That was supposed to be my life, too.

And then one day,
I read about Lord Rutherford

changing nitrogen into oxygen.

And I thought, "There's a life for me.
I can turn my stock into a nobler metal."

But all those years at Oxford
surrounded by boy kings,

I never belonged.

Of course I didn't.

But in your group, Frank,

with the lads, with Helen...

You belong in the implosion group, Paul.

With us.

No.

I thought I did.

I was mistaken.

You get my silence.

But not me.

Abby.

What the hell are you...
You shouldn't be here.

They said you needed to see me.

They wouldn't even let me clean myself up.
What is going on?

He brought you in here to spook me.

He thinks I'll crack under the pressure.

Who?

Are you in over your head?
Should I call my father, because...

Abby, trust me, this is outside
of the Hat King's jurisdiction.

Yes, well, my father may be
in Massachusetts,

but he's on a first-name basis
with half of Washington, Charlie.

- Senator Weeks was at our wedding.
- You need to go home.

MPs are tearing the place apart.
It's a miracle the walls are still standing.

No. I mean home. Massachusetts.

Is this about the Lancefields?

Your family is safe.

What?

Your cousins in Europe.

The Perlmans.

They're dead, Charlie.

No, no.

They're in New York.

Probably bunked up in some fleabag hotel,

but they're fine.

Safer than we are.

Now, some men from the government
are asking questions.

- They...
- They think that you're a spy.

Well, that I traded military secrets.

But you didn't.

No, I didn't. Of course not.

Whatever they think you did,
Frank Winter made you do it.

- You tell them that.
- Abby, you'd be implicated, too.

Frank knows.

He knows that you helped me make
an unmonitored call to Site X.

He knows that you put the papers
in Lancefields apartment. He knows.

You can have the divorce.

I won't fight it.

You and Joey need to get
as far away from this place...

- Charlie, I...
- ...as you can.

Abby...

Mmm.

I am so sorry.

You know, maybe if we never came here...

Maybe if we stayed in Brookline,
things would be different.

- Hey. Abby. Abby. Come on...
- Charlie. Charlie.

Please don't take him. Please don't hurt him!

- It's gonna be fine.
- No.

Please don't hurt him.

Glen.

Figured you'd be trying to teach
basic calculus

to the group formerly known as Thin Man.

God knows how I'll do that without you.

Oh, you'll manage.

I doubt I'm gonna make it up to the house
before I go.

They want me off the Hill.

But, uh, tell my goddaughter

she'll have the rest of her life
for drinking and smoking cigarettes.

I imagine the lions will be happy
to have their chairman back.

Emeritus.

Of practically everything these days.

Anyway, while we've been
playing in the sandbox,

Columbia has fallen in love
with experimental physics.

Then where? Chicago? Yale?

Moscow?

I don't know.

I hear a lot of old bachelors
are heading west.

You deserve to be happy.

Yeah.

Glen, if there's anything I could do...

Twenty years ago,
I thought I was a pretty good physicist,

then you walked into my office.

Goddamn college sophomore.

I didn't know what was missing
from my work until I saw it in yours.

This project needs you
a lot more than it needs me.

I need you.

Honestly, I'm relieved.

I suppose somebody has to build it,

but I'm glad it's not gonna be
on my tombstone.

- I'll call you as soon as it's over.
- Don't

Glen, I wish there was
something that I could do...

Stop trying to have it both ways, Frank.

It doesn't matter if you're a good man.

Maybe a good man
couldn't have made implosion work.

All that matters is that
you are the man to end this war.

Let God do the accounting when it's over.

Yeah.

Oh...

Huh.

Yesterday, nobody on this hill
even knew who we were.

Anyway, I do support Jeannie's work,

I just don't think it's right for the new head
of the plutonium division to be unmarried.

We're all gonna get tiny, little pay bumps

and I'm sure I'll have enough
for a ring in a month or so.

- Hey, mazel tov.
- Watch out.

The ladies are gonna be beating
a path to your door in no time.

Mr. Meeks?

You mean Division Head Meeks?

This guy's rising faster than rail road stock,
darling.

There was a call at the switchboard.
I'm sorry.

Wow.

This is a step up.

You know, I've learned not to grow
too attached to offices one way or the other.

Well, I'm just looking forward
to having a door.

Wait till people start knocking on it.

My mother died yesterday.

Well, it was after midnight,
so maybe it was today.

The nurses at Bangor General
didn't know which.

Jesus, Jim. I'm sorry.

Was it unexpected?

Well, she made it into her 50s with polio,
so that's something, right?

Well, your new office will be
waiting for you when you get back.

Well, I can't leave now.

Not with everything that's going on.

Anyway, the Army would never
grant me a pass on such short notice.

You'll have one by sunset.

Turns out this office comes
with a few privileges.

Thanks, Frank.

I won't be gone long. I swear.

Is your mother still alive, Frank?

I don't know.

- She told me everything.
- Where's Abby?

Women are always quick
to protect their children.

Husbands tend not to get
the same treatment.

Your wife is sitting in the next room.

She told me
everything you've done and why.

That's bullshit.

No one can blame a man

for trying to save his wife's family
from the Nazis

and his marriage all in one fell swoop.

Abby would not have told you anything.

Betrayal gets easier and easier and easier.

After all, she has been betraying you
for months with your neighbor.

Making love in Lancefields bed.

In your bed.

Well, now I know you're lying.

She hated Lancefield.
She wouldn't go anywhere near him.

Yes, well, of course you're right.

But you see, that foreign wife of his,

she had an interesting story, too.

One about romancing your wife
while you were at work.

Your wife is a complicated woman,
Dr. Isaacs.

But as soon as she realized
that she might very well lose her son,

getting her to admit
what you've done was simple.

I don't believe you.

But you do.

You're thinking back to every bridge game,

every martini.

Every time your wife...

Every time your wife told you
she was going over there

to borrow another cup of flour
from that woman.

So you might as well start admitting
what I already know fact by fact!

We're done here, asshole.

You know, our businesses
are not so different.

A secret trapped inside a man
is just like the energy trapped in an atom.

It wants to be released.

Of course, I don't nearly
have the resources you do.

Myself, I've only had
a few dedicated patriots, but they...

They have developed
some very advanced techniques

to convince a man to talk.

What, you're gonna torture me?

The Geneva Convention of 1929...

Where you're going, people don't
concern themselves with convention.

It is feared that the other
members of the crew have been drowned.

With the view of the established presence
of German submarines in this vicinity,

there can be no reasonable doubt
as to the identity of the flag...

- Hi. You must be Abby.
- Yes.

Is your husband here?

- I'm Helen Prins. I work with him.
- I know who you are.

Did Dr. Isaacs stay home today?

- We've been looking for him in the tech area.
- We?

It's urgent.

Business or pleasure?

I'm sorry, sweetie,
all the doors are locked. I'm coming.

Hello, my life! Come here.

How high did you
get on the swings this time?

- I get...
- So high.

- Could you excuse us just for a minute?
- I get super high.

So high! You run on in there.
I cleaned your room up.

I get super high on the swings.

I think you should leave.

I really need to see him.

Well, you're a little late.

MPs came for Charlie this morning.

Why?

Because they think
that a Jew from East St. Louis

is passing military secrets
to people who want to exterminate us.

And you are not the only person on this hill

who's trying to take
my husband away from his family.

Which book did you pick?

That looks like a good one.

Frank!

You know, Akley derived a new space-time
geometry when he was still in college?

It's Charlie.

You heard me earlier.

There is no place for him here.

They're shipping him off the Hill.

He knew the risks.

He came to me with eyes wide open.
What do you want, Helen?

Do you want all three of us to go down
for breaking compartmentalization?

You don't understand.
They think he's a traitor.

Never thought I'd say it,
but I'm gonna miss this shithole.

You're gonna miss it, too. Just watch.

You'll have an army of Ph.D.'s
at your beck and call,

a desk the size of a Studebaker.

You'll wish you were
back in this closet with six guys

and a theory written on
the back of an envelope.

You don't owe me anything, Frank.

You didn't force me to take those papers.

If you hadn't turned me over,
the project would be dead in the water.

Chances are the Army
would have caught up with me anyway

and I'd be sitting in the same place.

You don't owe Isaacs anything either.

You know how many American soldiers
were killed in action this month?

Four thousand three hundred
and forty three.

Nearly four times as many
as the same month last year.

Add another 503 who died later
from injuries sustained on the battlefield,

plus 61 missing and reported dead.

Friendly fire, accidents, disease...

That's another 1,817.

Altogether, that's what? 6,724 lives.

Add the Brits, the number doubles.

Throw in the Soviets, they're overachievers.

190,254.

Germans, 41,200.

Japan, Australia, Poland, France.

Conservatively, let's say
10 million deaths in a year.

833,000 a month.

27,700 a day.

11,057 an hour.

What do you want me to do?

Exactly.

What's one more?

I love you.

I love you, too.

What's wrong?

We're building an atomic bomb.

It'll set off a chain reaction
that will explode with the power

of 20,000 tons of TNT.

Twenty thousand tons?

Powerful enough to wipe cities off the map.

Cities full of people.

Children.

No, the Army will detonate it
someplace where it can't hurt anyone.

And when the Axis sees
what we're capable of,

they'll have no choice.

They will have to surrender.

And then there will never be another war.

That's what we're doing
behind those fences.

We're writing the prologue to a new era.

The history of peace.

You see that?

Bring it around.

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

- Hold it.
- We need ID from every passenger.

You need ID from Henry Stimson?

- Another egghead?
- The Secretary of War.

Okay, let's go.

Let them through. Let's go.

Clear!

Dr. Oppenheimer.

Mr. Fisher.

I'd say you spoiled my appetite,
but Reed Akley beat you to it.

There's a personnel issue
we need to discuss.

Right now.

Get up.

When the Axis sees
what we're capable of,

they'll have no choice.

They will have to surrender.

And then there will never be another war.

That's what we're doing
behind those fences.

We're writing the prologue to a new era.

The history of peace.

Mr. Secretary.

Dr. Oppenheimer.

The last time anybody
kept me waiting this long,

there was a coup d'état.

And not a bloodless one.

My apologies.

We had to dot a few T's and cross a few I's.

Hmm.

- How was your flight?
- It didn't crash.

Well, to small mercies.

I wish it had.

I wouldn't have to tell Roosevelt

that he mortgaged the White House
for a handful of magic beans.

I grant you this is a disappointment.

You sold the President of the United States

a Buck Rogers fantasy.

You shook his hand and told him

the design was entrusted to one
of the best minds in the country.

And now that mind is getting sponged off
the dashboard of a Chrysler.

Secretary Stimson, if I may...

There is a backup plan.

We kept a second design team alive

- for circumstances just like these!
- The implosion group?

That's your goddamn panacea?

You told me yourself it's science fiction.

Not anymore.

The director of the implosion group
is one of the brightest lights on this hill.

He solved the physics
almost singlehandedly.

I'll let him walk you
through the details himself.

This is Dr. Charles Isaacs.

What happened to Frank Winter?

When the Axis sees
what we're capable of,

they'll have no choice.

They will have to surrender.

And then there will never be another war.

That's what we're doing
behind those fences.

We're writing the prologue to a new era.

The history of peace.

I've made mistakes.

I've done things I'm not proud of,

but I swear I did all of it
with you and Callie in mind.

A few months ago,

a physicist from another design group
came to me

and he told me that his model
wasn't going to work.

I revealed information
that I'd been sworn to keep secret,

that we had a spy inside
the German atomic project

and that Werner Heisenberg
was months ahead of us.

I knew the Army and the White House
would never right the ship on their own,

so Reed Akley and I

engaged in a secret conspiracy

to co-op the resources
of his group for implosion.

Akley promoted Charlie Isaacs
to cover our tracks.

Set him up in case we ever got caught.

The irony is, the only way we were
able to crack implosion

is by stealing the theory
from a paper he wrote.

Now that Akley's dead,
G-2s got that poor kid locked up.

They think he is a spy,

but he had no idea.

There's nothing I can do but stay the course

for the good of the project,
for the sake of the future.

We sacrifice the few to save the many.

No, you gotta write down what he tells you.
He's the doctor.

Well, that's...

That's what happens
if you don't keep it elevated.

Yeah. Listen, listen. I gotta... I have to go,

but I will call you again soon, okay?

Yeah. I love you, too, Mom.

Excuse me.

And differences of opinion...
Differences of opinion...

As Charles Darwin so ably said...

Gone but not forgotten.

They said I wouldn't have to meet in person.

Only under extraordinary conditions.

- Things have changed.
- They're changing everywhere.

Implosion is taking center stage.

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