Manhattan (2014–2015): Season 1, Episode 5 - A New Approach to Nuclear Cosmology - full transcript

Previously on "Manhattan"...

I want to talk about your
colleagues in the tech area.

Why don't you ask Frank?

You're the best student I ever had

and you know that I would back
you to the edge of the Earth.

- You are a biologist?
- Botanist.

Here I'm just a physicist's wife.

Too many great minds have been
forced to abandon their work.

What a pity it would be to lose another.

It's an artificial hive.
I want to study them.

Suspicious words and
phrases updated hourly.



If you hear any of these words,

you're gonna press this button

and Security will hop on the line.

Something I need to tell
you. We're building a weapon.

No Ingles.

You read a paper of mine.

- "New Approach to Nuclear Cosmology."
- Right.

Your approach wasn't new.

You're a self-righteous old man
on his professional death bed.

Akley might not know what
you really are, but I do.

It's KPS, community radio.

On our first day of broadcast on the Hill,

we take you to a distant land.

It can't be found in any atlas.



This is "Memories of You."

I know your secret.

Mmm.

Don't tell your girlfriends.

I don't want their husbands
stealing my technique.

That's not what I'm talking about.

For the last few weeks you've
been home for dinner every night.

You've barely set foot in the
tech area over the weekend.

We're going back to Brookline.

The project's winding down.

Niels Bohr helped you finish it, didn't he?

We're not winding down, Abby.

We're just getting started.

Then what is it? You love your job.

It's complicated.

Hey, I'm glad we're not going just yet.

Ahem.

My job's quite fun, actually.

Not that they're gonna give a switchboard
girl a Nobel Peace Prize, but...

Did she die?

Looked like you might have
been sputtering out back there.

Uh, the engine's fine.

I'm a bit of a shade tree mechanic.

You want me to take a
gander under the hood?

Um, I should be on my way.

Something special for the old lady?

Mine wants and electric
blender for her birthday.

Like I'm Andrew Carnegie.

Anyway, you drive safe.

Manhattan 1x05
A New Approach to Nuclear Cosmology

_

You double-checked the center of gravity

on the alignment rod?

I told you it's good.

You look a little out to lunch is all.

Better pull it together
before the presentation.

Ante up.

A buck for the betting pool.

How many Krauts we're gonna vaporize.

- I don't gamble.
- Shh, here it comes.

Auf wiedersehen.

This is Frank Winter.
I need an outside line.

Indiana.

Is that Chanel No. 5?

I thought they stopped shipping that?

Oh, my mother planned ahead.

Emptied the pantry and
filled it with bottles.

The Nazi flag is flying over Paris

and the thing she fears most
is running out of perfume.

How's that sweetheart of yours?

Can't complain.

Pretty thing like her, I wouldn't either.

Big man on campus.

- Your classes good?
- Same old.

World buys new shoes,
academia digs in its heels.

Now, Frank, have you figured out what
you're gonna do when you graduate?

God bless you.

What, are you sick?

Uh, it's just a cold.

Just get yourself a good winter coat.

A young man like you need a
good coat and a sharp razor.

How's that sweetheart of yours?

She's good. She's good.

I'd better get going.

Happy birthday, Pop.

Gesundheit.

Oh, old man's birthday, huh?

88 years.

He'll bury all of us.

Did you talk to him?

He thinks I'm an undergrad at Columbia.

Silver lining is he doesn't remember

what a son of a bitch he used to be.

Well, space-time is curved.

Maybe we're all living in the past, huh?

Good to know at least one senior
citizen has his faculties intact.

Ham on rye.

Want me to cut the
crusts off for you, kiddo?

Out task was to present a prototype

with an ignition system that's
not only functional but reliable.

We've incorporated

redundant triggering mechanisms

that must all agree before
the propellant is fired.

This ensures that detonation
occurs at the optimal altitude

maximizing blast radius
and guaranteeing the...

Guaranteeing the most
efficient destruction of targets

both hard and soft.

It'll never fly.

The ignition system?

The plane. Too goddamn heavy.

Major, maybe you haven't accounted

for the weight removed from
the B-29's three gun posts.

You haven't accounted for fuel.

The weight and balance
specs don't include petrol.

Gassed up, the B-29 tips 26 tons heavier

than when it rolls off the assembly line.

Try to fly that thing,
she'll wind up in the drink.

I wasn't informed.

That airplanes run on gas?

Bottom line is you're no closer

to a deliverable weapon
than you were two weeks ago.

How the hell are we
supposed to cut 800 pounds?

It's a modified cannon. Cannons are heavy.

They have to be or they bust
apart when you fire them.

Turns our Jesus can't
walk on water after all.

Don't worry about it, Chuck.
We mortals have more fun anyway.

We're talking about 2,000
years of ballistic science.

Have another drink.

I've had plenty.

Well, your little oversight
set us back two weeks.

What's one more night?

I didn't order that.

Heard you caught a bad beat

with our friends over
in ordnance today, huh?

Got to put that cannon
of yours on a diet, huh?

Compartmentalization.
Can't really talk about it.

You know...

I had a neighbor once.

Big beefcake of a guy

who couldn't please his wife.

So he hatches a theory.

If he screws her more often, eventually
she'll whistle like a teakettle.

So he drives home from work for a nooner,

he wakes her up at 3:00 A.M.,

he runs in from mowing the lawn.

Bam, zoom. Nothing.

So one day the wife's home alone.

Ding-dong. Salesman.

He's peddling ice boxes.

Now, I don't know how
this slick shrimp does it,

but five minutes later, they
are making like a corkscrew.

And right out of the gate

she goes kaboom.

It turns out

all she needed

was one good bang.

Son of a bitch.

Is he talking about my wife?

Christ, you really are off your game.

- One good bang.
- He's talking about Thin Man.

2,000 years of ballistic science only apply

if your cannon needs
to fire more than once.

We want our cannon to bust apart.

It only needs to fire once.

So it can be thinner and lighter.

That old jalopy's still
got some fuel in his tank.

He could teach you how to give
the goods to your old lady.

Yeah, like I need sex tips from a Commie.

What did you say?

Just trying to help.

Like you helped Richard Lavro?

Good night, gentlemen.

Babbit's a Communist?

- How do you know?
- He's friends with Richard Lavro?

Glen Babbit has been part of this
project since there was a project.

He slept in a tent for two weeks
when we had no place else to put him.

And he never complained.
Besides, he's a Jew.

This is not a man who's
passing secrets to the Germans.

You're focused on today's problem.

I'm talking about tomorrow's.

You can't swing a dead
animal up on this Hill

without hitting some genius
who attended a Communist rally.

Including Robert Oppenheimer.

Yes, but Oppenheimer
never knew Richard Lavro.

The physicist's physicist.

Made some of the key
discoveries in quantum theory.

Tenured at Harvard until October,
1939, when he disappeared.

Sounds like you've been
reading too many ghost stories.

Richard Lavro is not a
ghost. He's a defector.

In '39, he sailed from New York
to London, then London to Moscow.

Now he directs a group
in laboratory number two

in the Academy of Sciences.
The Soviet Manhattan Project.

What does any of this have
to do with Glen Babbit?

The USSR is a frozen cow pasture.

They barely have indoor plumbing.

Yet somehow, this
country that has to import

its elevators from Yonkers,
has a nuclear program

that's riding up your ass.

And you think Babbit gave
Lavro our nuclear research?

Gave, is giving, will continue to give.

Last time you had a theory,

I ended up with a dead mathematician
and a 10-page bill for fencing.

And you want to disrupt the
crucial work that's happening here

because you're waging
a war against a country

that's technically our ally?

Technically.

I expect your full cooperation.

And I expect the full
cooperation of your staff.

Nobody thought to ask Babbit

about any of this during
his intake interview?

He claimed he never spoke to Lavro.

I lied. I met him at the
Solvay Conference in '33.

We ran into each other at a couple
of symposiums over the next few years.

But that's all. I...

he was a good physicist.

And an active Communist.

10 years ago, so were half
the scientist in America.

It wasn't an issue.

Well, it becomes an issue when you
lie during your security interview.

I got jittery.

Any connection to Lavro looks bad.

I didn't think anybody
was gonna call me on it.

Maybe Isaacs was at one
of those conferences.

Saw you two talking to each other.

A drunken kid says
something stupid in a bar...

Yeah, and I hear about it
from the security office.

Did you ever talk to Lavro about fission?

Of course not.

Anybody comes to you with questions,

you stonewall them. Stick to your story.

- Jesus, Frank.
- You never met him.

I'm not as good a poker player as you.

Well, you lied to get in here.

You can certainly do it again.

I'll find out what the kid knows.

Leave it alone, Frank.

We got the plutonium.
We got real work to do.

- It'll all blow over.
- Just like Sid Liao?

There's no breeze here, Glen.

Things don't blow over.

Liza.

So these are your pets
everyone's buzzing about?

Well, they won't bring you your paper,

but they won't bite the postman either.

Ah. Here.

This was mixed in with ours.

I didn't peek.

So you can see why the
journal sent it back.

I mean, I know the censors
have to be vigilant,

but if you took even a cursory glance,

you'd see that nothing in my
subject matter is classified.

I study plants.

In this case, the...

pollination preferences
of the Apis mellifera.

The European honey bee.

Interesting critters.

I always thought they were
only good for ruining picnics.

- Mrs. Winter...
- Dr. Winter.

Scientists are prohibited from publishing

during their tenure in
the Manhattan district.

I don't have a tenure here and
I'm not employed on the project.

But you are a scientist.

Captain, I sacrificed my job

to come here with my husband

because his work is
crucial to the war effort.

Mine is not, but it is crucial to me.

Says here, you studied in France.

During college, yes.

Well, I was in France, too.

Not the Sorbonne, but the Argonne.

You know what I remember most?

The food.

Because that's what you do in a war...

make the best of it.

Before you go, Dr. Winter,

your bees,

there have been some complaints.

Strategic bombing.

6,000 civilians on detonation.

Ours will be 50 times more powerful.

So suddenly you care
about collateral damage?

You didn't seem to at the PX last night.

I had a lot to drink.

Tell Dr. Babbit I'm sorry.

Don't say another word to anyone.

Don't even think his name.

Jesus, relax. I apologize.

You think I give a shit?
G-2 shakes your tree,

you make sure nothing falls.

You want me to lie to
military intelligence?

You saw two men who can
think circles around you

just talking shop at a conference.

There's no conspiracy.

Just a figment of your imagination.

I worked as the staff assistant

at the Physics Department at Harvard.

Answered phones, ran the mimeo.

I'm sure your parents were very proud.

You just keep your mouth shut.

And I delivered mail.

One day, an envelope
shows up for Dr. Lavro.

It wasn't sealed.

Yeah? Sounds like you're the
one G-2 should be interested in.

It was a ticket to
London on the Cunard Line.

So what? He defected from London.

It wasn't for Lavro.

His had already arrived.

Same sort of envelope.

The ticket was in Babbit's name.

Fritz, let me borrow that French letter

you keep in your drawer.

You can't borrow a condom.

Anyway, I already used it.

Rubbish.

I've seen you gaze wistfully at it

every day since the army handed it out.

Meeks has got one too. Take his.

Meeks is in Albuquerque with a
chorus girl from "The Wizard of Oz."

Tin Man's probably getting
his joints oiled as we speak.

Meeks has a girlfriend?

Only a true miser hides a
resource he'll never need.

See you later.

Is everybody getting laid but me?

It's just sex, Fritz.

Is it because I'm husky?

Orson Welles is overweight.

The paper say he married Rita Hayworth.

How long's it been?

- Uh, a little while.
- Fritz.

29 years, 11 months, 19 days.

Then lets call this an
early birthday present.

Should we put on the radio or something?

What? Oh, no. You're not
gonna do it in my room.

Get over here.

Um, her, her. Not her.

The one with the bob,
she charges by the minute.

That's a good deal if you're a
quick draw and you like short hair.

Wait, you want me to sleep with a...

They're all whores?

They're capitalists.

It's basic economics. Supply and demand.

I took econ at Cornell. This
definitely wasn't on the syllabus.

These girls make $5 a
week at the lunch counter,

but they're walking around with
gold mines under their skirts.

I always thought it would
be with someone special.

Jeanie's special. She plays the bassoon.

Hmm.

At least she cleans her sheets.

Why don't you tell me again?

You met Richard Lavro in 1933.

You ran into him at a conference or two.

Maybe three. Physics is a small pond.

But you didn't really know him?

That's why you lied during
your security interview,

because the fact that you met
him wasn't really relevant.

To our work here, it wasn't.

I met Charles Lindbergh once.
Doesn't make me a fascist.

Or an airplane pilot.

You know how G-2 operates.

If they sniff blood in the water,

if there's any whiff of impropriety...

But you lied to me, too.

You're lying right now.

What did Isaacs tell you?

A ticket to London.

That's what he saw.

I'm not a Communist, Frank.

The ticket was in your name.

- It was delivered to Lavro.
- Oh, Jesus.

I've never even been to London.

So some travel agent
made a clerical mistake?

Isaacs has imagined this whole thing?

They're gonna come after you.

You better get your story straight.

I didn't get on any boat.

But you were going to.

Did you help him defect?

Are you passing him information now?

No.

Then why was your name on that ticket?

- Frank.
- Why?

You know why.

You know.

He asked me to leave with him.

He thought the ticket would convince me.

He wanted to start a new life.

He was naive.

We both were.

But I have never

betrayed my country.

You were married when I met you.

That was a long time ago.

From three major
publications a year to zero.

It's like Agatha Christie.

One day she vanished.

Don't you think those sons of bitches

are gonna give my career
a funeral with full honors?

I'm sorry.

Well, I'm gonna keep on typing

and they can keep on redacting and
eventually they'll run out of ink.

Can you tell me what's wrong?

I had a disagreement with Glen.

The sort that would ruin

a perfectly good weekend in Cape May?

No.

No, this is different.

Glen lent us his car for our honeymoon.

And he sat in the waiting room

at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital

for 10 hours when I was in labor.

Whatever it is, apologize
and be done with it.

I don't even know who
I'd be apologizing to.

The man's not who you think he is.

He's been lying to me
since the day I met him.

Since the day we met his wife.

Glen's never lied to me.

And everyone deserves
a little privacy, Frank.

He told you?

He didn't have to.

You know, in all these years,

there's only ever really been one

bone of contention between Glen and me.

You know what it is?

No matter what you do,

he refuses to judge you.

Under each arm,

the sandman has an umbrella.

One of them is covered
in colorful pictures...

of all the wondrous things in the world.

And this umbrella, he puts on the
headboards of the good children

so they will dream wonderful
stories all the night through.

The other umbrella has no pictures.

It's black and frayed

and wires poke out.

The children who get this umbrella

toss and turn all night long.

For they are very bad.

And when they wake in the morning,

they haven't dreamed anything.

They haven't dreamed anything at all.

Shall we begin?

Some gentlemen from Washington
paid Glen Babbit a visit last night.

- It wasn't a social call.
- What did Babbit tell them?

That's not my business. What matters
now is that you tell them the truth.

They pulled your security
file this morning.

Due diligence. They're
gonna put you on record.

Whatever you know about Babbit,

you have to protect yourself.

And what if Babbit is not a Communist?

You know, when I was a boy,

my old man,

first snow,

he'd stick a Winchester in my hand,

he'd drag me out to the
woods to shoot a whitetail.

We'd sit there

all day freezing our stones off.

See, my old man refused to go home

without a kill.

I read Babbit's work in college.

He is an underappreciated scientist.

- He's one of the best around.
- And you want me to shoot him?

Charlie, you're not the hunter here.

These men will not go back to Washington

without a trophy.

And if they can't bag a deer,
they will settle for a grouse.

You got a brilliant career ahead of you.

Don't throw it away

by lying to protect the wrong man.

I need a word.

I'm submitting my resignation.

I'll talk to Oppenheimer.

They came by my house.

What did you tell them?

The last four months,
the army's been trying

to take us behind the woodshed.

I am not giving them any more ammunition.

- What did you say?
- I stuck with my story

just like you told me to.

But it doesn't matter
because sooner or later,

they're gonna talk to the kid.

It's better to resign now
for the good of the group.

You are the group.

Frank, at some point, we all need
to pay for the sins of the past.

I am out of ration stamps.

- Not accepted.
- It won't be

up to you when Isaacs talks.

You let me worry about Isaacs.

The kid already said he's gonna sing.

Well, I'll try a new approach.

She fixed you up with a painted lady?

Our Helen?

I underestimated both of you.

And lo, Prometheus gave
man the gift of fire.

Yup. It was hot.

So which one of them was it? Lucy? Peg?

I don't kiss and tell.

- Please.
- Oh.

Shall I just check the infirmary

- for young ladies with crush wounds?
- Oh.

I'd look for the girl with
the biggest smile on her face.

Whoever she is, her moans
kept me up half the night.

Sorry if we made too much of a racket.

Cut the shit. I'll tell
you why I was up all night.

Comforting poor Jeanie.
She said you ran away

before she could even
get your trousers off.

No, that's not true.

You knocked over her lamp on the way out.

I heard the bulb break.

Look, Helen, the truth is...

I don't want to hear it, Fritz.

You just pay her the $2.25.

But I didn't have sex with her!

And we agreed on $2 flat.

Yeah, well, the extra
quarter is for the light bulb.

You like it?

The music on the radio.

- Music.
- Music.

You know, we could teach each other.

God knows I need your help with my Spanish.

Do you...

do you know what a post office is?

There's one in the pueblo.

Post office?

Um...

el correa?

- El correo.
- Correo. I'm sorry.

Do you think...

that you could post that for me?

Do you understand?

- Operator.
- I need an outside line.

Indiana.

Let there be light.

I'm sorry about the...

misunderstanding.

I brought your money, too.

Here.

I've had customers cross the finish line

in 10 seconds flat.

You're the first guy who didn't
make it to the starting gate.

I just remembered an equation

I hadn't written down and
I didn't want to forget it.

You whiz kids. Always in your heads.

You deserve some fun every once in a while.

You know...

as long as you're paid up...

Have you seen "The Mummy's Tomb"?

It's playing at the PX.

How much does it cost to
take you to the movies?

- Joey asleep?
- Mmm.

You didn't...

you didn't steal something, did you?

I stole you away from the most

eligible Jewish bachelors in Brookline.

But you would never cheat, right?

What are you talking about?

I don't know. I...

I got Frank Winter an outside line today.

And on the call he said that

you took work from other scientists

and published it as your own.

Well, that's bullshit, Abby.

Frank Winter's had it out
for me ever since we got here

'cause he's jealous 'cause I've
accomplished more in a few months

than he has in almost a year.

Tell me exactly what he said.

Um...

he was talking to his father.

Mm-hmm.

But he said he might go to Oppenheimer.

He said one conversation and
you're career would be finished.

And I was so upset I had to come home.

He wasn't talking to his father.

He was talking to you
trying to get in my head.

- So you would never...
- Plagiarize?

How could you even ask me that?

- Jesus, Abby.
- You're right. I'm sorry.

I've never even cheated on my taxes.

- No, you haven't.
- Now you don't trust me?

Of course I do.

Mmm.

- Hey.
- Hmm.

Was that supposed to scare me? Shut me up?

You come into my house with
your bullshit accusations,

you toy with my marriage?

You don't know me. You
don't know where I'm from.

You ever talk to my wife
again, I will kill you.

So classical four-dimensional
general relativity

combined with the nuclear forces

can explain the relative abundances

of all known elements in the universe.

You finally looked at my
paper, congratulations.

I looked at it when I rejected it

from the Physics Review a year ago.

But that line wasn't
a line from your paper.

It was a line from a
1932 graduate dissertation

by a cosmologist named Pierre Brajeux.

It was sadly under-read, but I read it

in the stacks of Widener
Library at Harvard.

And so did you.

Science is a conversation.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants.

The rest of us don't pretend
to be 1,000 feet tall.

- It's one sentence.
- It was a paragraph.

Step by step, word for word.

So you've been sitting on this
for a year waiting for what?

Let me tell you what's gonna happen now.

You're gonna fall on your sword.

You're gonna tell G-2 that you don't know

the first damn thing about Glen Babbit.

It was copied into my notebook.

I didn't even realize I'd taken concepts

from Brajeux until the paper was published.

I would have gotten there on my own anyway.

- It was an honest mistake.
- That you could have easily corrected.

Imagine you wrote a paper that
opened every door in academia.

And it wasn't a fluke. You
had the goods to back it up,

but you accidentally
borrowed a piece of it.

I think the word is plagiarism.

One paragraph, not the whole paper.

Not even the lion's share.
Just a building block.

Just a steppingstone.

And nobody noticed.

Would you come clean?

Doesn't matter what I would do.

All that matters is what you do

once you leave this office.

My wife wouldn't even look
me in the eye last night.

Excuse me.

How's your lunch, Captain?

Making the best of it?

Dr. Winter, we're in
the middle of a meeting.

- I'm afraid you...
- You are afraid.

Aren't you?

Battle-scared warrior,

and all it takes to scare you
is a woman with half a brain.

If I could make an exception

to the publication policy, I would.

But they're dead. All of them.

But you know that, don't you?

What?

Wasn't it enough for you to kill my career?

- Who's dead?
- My honey bees.

Oh, this is the broad with the bees.

Is there anything here that
you really care about, Captain?

Maybe you have a scruffy little
mutt who sleeps on your feet

at the end of your bed
over on Officer's Row

and you leave him tied up out
back when you come here to work.

Wouldn't it be a riot if some rat poison

found its way into his
cute little bowl, hmm?

I don't have a dog, lady.

And I'm not the exterminator.
Get a hold of yourself.

You were at the PX. Is that right?

Drinking at the bar in the PX?

That's correct.

And as the clerical assistant in
the Physics Department at Harvard,

did you ever work for Richard Lavro?

I worked for all the professors.

And at the PX you made
mention that Dr. Babbit

had an acquaintance with Dr. Lavro.

Is that right?

Do you have knowledge

that Dr. Babbit knew Lavro?

I never met Glen Babbit
until I joined the project.

But you do have reason
to believe that Dr. Babbit

had an association with Dr. Lavro?

That he may have shared
sensitive information?

I don't know what you did,

I'm not sure I want to,

but apparently Isaacs barely
remembers the name Richard Lavro

or any connection to me.

You can't remember something
that never happened.

You know the irony?

In the Soviet Union, they actually
enforce the laws against...

against it.

Five years hard labor.

I heard he married some girl half his age.

He thought this country could be better.

We all did, but I swear, if
I'd known he was gonna defect...

You don't have to explain yourself to me.

Music.

That's right, music.

After I got back from the war,

I met a guy, let me crash in
the back of his repair shop.

He didn't know anything about radios,

so I fixed them all.

He's with her again.