Manhattan (2014–2015): Season 2, Episode 9 - Brooklyn - full transcript
Days before the world's first nuclear explosion, everyone races to secure their place in history.
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Previously on "Manhattan"...
Robert Oppenheimer's having an affair.
- We have to do something. - We?
Frank Winter was a problem. You made him disappear.
Beuker. Joseph Beuker.
Charlie Isaacs.
I need an address for a woman who died last year.
I'm trying to contact her next of kin.
I spoke with Miss Tatlock on the telephone,
and I said some cruel things.
I hereby declare you a citizen
of the United States of America.
Welcome home, son.
Is that the man you remember?
"Brooklyn". No ideology, no beliefs beyond himself,
thinks he's in a spy picture.
What are you doing? Give that to me. Give--
"Perseus believes that he is more intelligent than he is,
which makes him susceptible to flattery."
Those notes are not about you.
Well, I guess that there's another Soviet spy on the hill.
President Roosevelt is assembling a Target Committee
to decide how the Gadget's used
and who it's going to be dropped on.
You can't make me fix Charlie Isaacs' broken bomb.
I want a seat on the Target Committee.
I can get the scientists a seat,
but it won't be you.
What if someone dipped a brush
in the wrong can of paint?
Convince the Target Committee
to demonstrate the bomb on an uninhabited island.
We're all betting on him now.
Attention. All technical work
must be completed before the dignitaries arrive
for tomorrow's committee meeting.
Frank.
I got my hands on the Target Committee list.
Fourteen names, most of them dc regulars.
These guys wage war for a living.
You really think they're gonna care what I have to say?
Break a leg, Dr. Isaacs.
The meeting's happening in the shadow of your test.
In that room, you are the authority.
I built them a $2 billion car.
Now I'm gonna tell them to leave it in the garage?
No, no. You tell them to drop it on an uninhabited island
instead of a military target.
Fly in the Japanese high command,
give them all front-row seats--
white flags waving over Hirohito's palace in a week.
Everybody wins.
Hirohito isn't Harry Truman.
His people think he's a God.
Gods don't bow to armies.
You think he's just gonna fold after a warning shot?
It's not a warning shot.
This is not even another bomb.
It's a second sun.
The Emperor is not surrendering to the army,
he's surrendering to the-- the power of the universe.
To be honest, I wish it was you facing the firing squad, Frank.
Makes the test look easy.
Just remember, when you first get into the meeting,
keep quiet, let them exhaust themselves
fighting over which military target to take out.
Yeah, and then wait for the last word. I know.
Yeah, you gotta make an emotional appeal, Charlie.
They got one chance to show restraint here,
win the war without any more loss of life.
I'm not sure the army's
losing a lot of sleep over Japanese casualties.
Okay, well, come up with your own angle.
Try to-- try to make it personal.
- Make it personal. - Yeah.
If we detonate a base near a populated area,
there'll be, what, 50,000 casualties?
How many children?
Jesus, I don't know. Um... 20,000.
What about Joey?
My kid, their kids.
If we don't show mercy with our WAMDs in this war,
how can we expect anyone
to show our children mercy in the next one?
That's it. Say that.
Hey, Frank...
Where are you bunking up now
that you're back from the desert?
- Starting tonight, my new office. - New?
I imagine I have you to thank for that?
It only took two months to convince Oppenheimer
you were an improvement over a drunk foreigner.
The capsule got stuck in the tamper.
- Team leader's on the phone. - Jesus, I'm coming.
- Just make sure you get the last word. - Yes, I know.
Welcome back to the cheap seats.
Don't fret, we saved your desk.
Dr. Winter.
Theodore Sinclair. Welcome to Little Boy.
Well, we have a job.
We'll do it to the best of our ability.
And if we are lucky, it will all be for nothing.
The implosion Gadget, it's the warning shot.
Little boy's only on deck
if the Japanese don't heed that warning.
Let's just hope that day never comes.
Not exactly St. Crispin's day.
Victor, please...
Stay for dessert.
Your job is to listen.
We're hoping your expertise will prove useful
in translating technical information
concerning the current status of the Gadget.
Our Gadget or the Soviets'?
Yes, Dr. Barath. I will try to put you through,
but there are so many calls coming in from out there.
Hello?
- Mr. Tatlock? - Yes?
This is Abigail Isaacs.
Miss Isaacs, you received my letter.
Yes.
"Let 100 mothers cry, but not my mother.
But better my mother than me."
Do you know who said that?
George Washington-- kidding.
It was an Arab. I love Arabs.
Great fighters, highly quotable.
And I've heard that particular adage
is a favorite of your boss at the Kremlin, right?
You must think that you know what happens next.
But we Yanks, we're such a young country.
We're still finding our legs.
No idea what we wanna be when we grow up.
It makes us...
unpredictable.
Ah, you were so good, Mr. Green.
You're so thorough.
Burned everything,
just like they taught you in Moscow.
Buried the ashes in the yard.
It's just that we're getting better and better at...
unburying things.
So, what's in Brooklyn?
Wasn't our, uh, uranium
stockpiled in a warehouse there?
Um, Staten Island.
Staten island. Anyway, that was a long time ago.
Too obvious for a man of your pedigree.
So, what is it?
Uh... Maybe Brooklyn's not a borough.
Maybe it's a code
for a military maneuver.
Or maybe--
maybe Brooklyn... is a man.
Your ace in the hole,
your atomic spy.
He's a New Yorker, isn't he?
Thank you, Dr. Oppenheimer.
I'm sure you feel like a war widow, Mrs. Isaacs.
I've made unreasonable demands on Charlie,
but I promise to return him undamaged
in 48 hours.
Sir, I spoke to
Professor John Tatlock this morning.
Jean's father.
I wanted to know more about his daughter...
and her death.
What business is it of yours?
Well, I overheard some of your calls at the switchboard.
Mr. Tatlock says that the handwriting
on the note wasn't Jean's
and that someone may have staged the scene
to look like a suicide.
You loved her.
Don't you wanna know if someone killed her?
You are a...
reasonably intelligent woman.
Do you know the difference
between a conjecture and a theorem?
Allow me.
I may conjecture that Colonel Darrow had jean murdered
to keep me on the project.
What?
But I have nothing to test, to prove.
Therefore, no theorem.
We'll never know.
That's our world.
Uncertainty.
Nuance.
No need to return to the switchboard.
You're removed.
We anticipate a temperature rise about,
uh, six degrees every three seconds.
Dr. Winter.
I requested new composites,
but Donlon says we've already blown
our metallurgy budget for the month.
Yeah. Well, I hope you didn't spend it all in one place.
Apparently most of it
went to a laboratory in Rochester, New York.
What's in Rochester?
Um, you know what?
It'll take me a couple of days
to get back up to speed,
But I'll definitely get into it.
Is he always so unfocused?
He'll be back.
Abigail.
This has been a complicated day.
Maybe we can worship together later in the week.
Did the army have anything to do with Jean Tatlock's death?
Miss Tatlock took her own life, as you know.
Colonel, I know she didn't.
What exactly did your husband tell you?
Not my husband. Robert Oppenheimer.
Then it's true, isn't it?
And you knew-- you knew all along,
and you let me beg God for forgiveness.
Do you like to watch women beg?
Did you watch Jean Tatlock beg?
You're confused, Abby.
Just because you're an officer in the Army...
I'll tell Charlie. I'll just tell the police.
Come with me.
Where?
Confession.
What is this place?
My sanctuary.
I'm not telling you how to do your job.
I'm just telling you that there's a job to be done.
Frank winter was a problem.
You made him disappear.
Miss Tatlock needs to go.
What are you suggesting?
You're a soldier, right?
We're at war.
What do you know about war?
If you can't handle it,
my father has associates
in St. Louis.
You should be careful whom you accuse, mrs. Isaacs.
And may the Lord forgive us all.
Did you find him at a meeting?
Or did your man just waltz into the Consulate General?
Brooklyn is in Kings County. Maybe he's British.
Maybe you're Brooklyn.
Warmer?
Colder?
Please, Victor, don't make me angry.
Help me.
Get me some rat poison,
A razor blade.
Do you know what the water cure is?
They pour water into your nostrils.
You drown on dry land.
I don't know what you're doing here,
but you're not one of them.
Think of the people who love you.
How would your son feel if he knew you'd be tortured?
How do you know I have a son?
Or-- or a daughter.
A wife.
You have a family. I can see it in your eyes.
Their father, their husband,
he's a merciful man, I know.
I see it.
I think-- I think Victor knows me--
Things about me.
If he does, maybe Brooklyn knows me.
Maybe I know him.
How did they find him?
It must've been that Indian boy.
And you're sure that it's him?
Yes, he's a handler. His name is Victor Green.
Well, I already have a pass for the test site.
I can leave now.
No. No, you and Perseus,
you wait for the convoy,
and you get out to the test site as planned.
We can't arouse suspicion.
What if he gives us up?
He won't crack. Even if they torture him, he won't crack.
Are you sure about that?
I know men like him. I know how they've been trained.
He-- he killed a G-2 agent.
He risked his own life
so that you could finish what you've started.
Yes, but if he trades up and I don't make it off the Hill,
I won't be able to finish anything.
Listen to me. Nothing changes.
You wait for the convoy and you take it out to the site.
Okay.
Do you have the schematics for the circuits?
I don't need the schematics. I built the circuits.
Do you understand what happens if the test succeeds?
It won't. I won't crack, either.
Okay?
So, do you have a dossier on Paul?
Did Brooklyn think that he was recruitable as well?
It turns out we have a big tent
and a welcome mat, too.
Only 20 men on this Hill know that I have a son.
Hogarth is one of them,
but, uh, I rather doubt his double agency.
Even his single agency was shit.
You know, you're not the only one with a kid, Paul.
Victor has a daughter. Eleanor. Adopted.
Should be about 30 now?
On the rolls at the University of Pittsburgh?
But Eleanor fell off the map a few years ago.
And so where is she, Victor? Have you heard from her lately?
No?
Don't worry, Director Hoover has all kinds of ways
to track people down these days.
I predict a tearful reunion.
I need your assurance you'll leave her out of this.
In exchange for...
A name.
Your colleague, he came to us two years ago.
He told us you have a son.
His name was sid liao.
You're welcome.
Take one for the road.
Have as many pastries as you like.
Good afternoon, gentlemen.
While I have your attention,
I want to tell you
about a study I've been conducting
in partnership with one of the university labs
on the environmental effects of the Trinity Test.
When, in the next 48 hours,
you detonate the world's first atomic weapon,
you will propel radioactive particles high into the sky
that will eventually fall back down to earth.
Let's give this phenomenon a name.
Let's call it...
"Fallout."
Fallout.
Despite all the work that you've done here on the Hill,
we know almost nothing about how fallout
will be absorbed back into the earth
or maybe into the human body.
Consider, for example, the lanthanum radioactive tests
you've been doing in the Bayo Canyon.
Incidentally, that muffin you're eating,
that was baked this morning from corn that was harvested
from that very area.
Now, Trinity could produce
100,000 times more fallout than any prior experiment.
And we have no idea what this might mean
for the surrounding farms, for the water sources,
for the water we drink here on the Hill.
Our research has only just begun.
But for everything we don't know,
there is one thing that we do--
the extent of the fallout will depend on the weather,
how strong the winds are and which direction they blow.
The weather will determine the magnitude
of the effect of Trinity.
And unless the weather agrees with us,
we won't move forward.
I expect you all to know Dr. Winter's report chapter and verse
by the time you get to the test site.
So, those muffins, did they really come from the Bayo Canyon?
The PX. You think I took up baking?
An oriental was spying for the russians?
Uh, according to our guest.
You wanna explain to me how a ghost killed Avram Fisher?
Victor might have killed him.
I don't think Sid Liao is their spy.
Was their spy.
I know there was a time that I doubted him,
but Sid Liao was just a desperate chap in over his head.
There are 428 men on your payrolls
who were born or raised in Brooklyn,
72 on this Hill.
Maybe we should consider delaying the test
until that list can be narrowed.
In two days, the President of the United States
will be in Potsdam, Germany,
sitting across from Joseph Stalin
with the map of the world between them.
Truman's gonna draw lines on that map.
Clear, bright, lines.
Delay is out of the question.
Sir, I know I'm new to this,
but what if it's not just information that they're after?
We just shipped a billion dollars' worth of plutonium
into the middle of the desert.
What if Brooklyn stole it? What if--
I don't know, what if he manages to disrupt the test somehow?
What would the President have to show Stalin then?
I will speak with Mr. Green myself.
Make sure we have more castings.
As many as it takes.
All right. Go, go! Kiss your kids good night.
Hopefully, not for good.
Circus leaves town 10:00 A.M. sharp.
Fritz.
You ready for the Target Committee?
No. You help me prep on the way out to Trinity.
I'm...
I'm not going to trinity.
Dr. Isaacs, we need your approval for--
Hang on. Sit down.
Sit down.
Fritz...
I know you've been through hell and I'm sorry.
No, no, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that I won't be able to help you anymore.
I'm grateful for the opportunities you've given me here, Charlie,
But I just-- I've had enough death for one lifetime.
How long have they been in there?
I heard you were a patient man.
That your patience led to the capture of six enemy combatants.
So how'd you come to all this?
- You're some sort of... - Psychiatrist.
Talking cure.
You're a long way from Freud's couch, doctor.
Well, diseases of the mind aren't confined to asylums, Paul.
They rewrite maps.
Look at Hitler.
Stalin. The world's full of sick--
Clean it up.
Abby? Sorry, I should've told you
I wouldn't be back last night.
Everyone needed five minutes.
Now I only have five minutes. Where's my suitcase?
Hey, could I get a sandwich for the road?
Have your men do it.
What?
Your men in St. Louis.
Your father's men who took care of Jean Tatlock.
Have them do it.
Abby.
Colonel Darrow records
every conversation in his office.
Did you know that? I didn't.
I heard you, Charlie.
It was a bluff...
to light a fire under Darrow, and then he...
took things too far.
He did, not me.
Do you think a jury cares whose hands are dirtier?
Jesus. Abby, the decisions I make every--
I'm holding a hundred thousand lives in my dirty hands.
In my position, you see things through to the end,
things the world might not understand,
but because you believe in something bigger.
You let me believe that I was responsible for a woman's death.
You're a monster.
God, I don't expect you to understand.
No. No, of course not.
How could I? I just have the one life in my hands.
I gotta go.
We'll talk about it when I get back.
Joey!
Where's joey?
He's on his way to Brookline.
I don't have time for games, Abby. Where is he?
Juanita is driving him.
He's going to live with my parents.
The Colonel may have me trapped here, but...
my son will have no part of this.
You sent my son
3,000 miles away from me
with the Goddamn maid?
I was seeing things through.
Maybe I'm just as much to blame as you are,
but Joey deserves better.
Stolen away from his father,
that's what he deserves?
I'm keeping him safe from you
just like you should've been kept safe from your father!
You think I won't get in the car and bring him back?
Your test is in 24 hours.
You think I don't know which way you'll drive?
Is this how they teach you how to stage a suicide
in medical school?
This one's a challenge.
The stable's a unique venue.
Forty percent check out in their own house.
I prefer bathrooms.
It's a good place to open a wrist.
Or drown.
In the end, it's not the scene that matters,
it's the story.
It's gotta be credible.
In this case...
a bankrupt, small-time rancher
holes up in his remote barn.
How about this for a story?
A Commissioned Officer executes a suspect?
The man who could have told us the identity of Brooklyn.
There was no judge, there was no jury--
Do you think I'm happy we're here?
A Soviet spy in the hand is worth ten in the ground.
We could've used him. Angry man, your colonel.
Not a lot of restraint when it comes to communists.
He'll make a hell of a senator someday. You wait and see.
Grab that foot.
He won't mind.
We're gonna pull on three. Ready?
One, two, three.
You know, I agreed to translate scientific information.
Tell the Colonel my tenure is over.
The Colonel, forget him. He doesn't even know you're here.
No, I wanted you to see this.
Why?
World War II is over, Paul.
The next war's already started.
It's gonna be unlike any conflict in history.
It'll be waged silently by men like you and me.
- I'm a physicist. - I'm a doctor.
We're forming a new breed of intelligence organization,
one with a more centralized approach.
We have connections, money, pedigree--
things you like.
You'll get used to the things you don't.
I saw them load the crate into the back of the truck.
Well, how do you know it was a body?
What else are they gonna carry out of an interrogation room?
Jesus.
That's the, uh-- that's the convoy.
I bet-- I better go.
No. No!
You're not going with the convoy.
You and Perseus are gonna go out there on your own.
What? Why?
I'm making an adjustment to the plan.
If we all we do is sabotage the Gadget,
- they'll just keep rebuilding it. - Maybe.
But it's gonna take them months to figure out what went wrong.
And then they'll do another test, just ten times more powerful.
But didn't Moscow say to stick to the plan?
Didn't you say that nothing changes?
I'm changing-- I'm changing the plan.
Oh, you-- you can do that?
Those men out there at Trinity,
they're not gonna stop unless we stop them.
Stop them how?
You built the circuits,
you can wire them to go off at any time you like.
You mean before everyone evacuates?
Jim...
You wanna kill the scientists?
You wanna kill my friends?
We do one terrible thing tomorrow,
but then no one ever has to again.
I wanna go to the test.
And I'm gonna get there
if I have to stow away in somebody's trunk.
Don't do that.
Why not?
Don't go to Trinity.
You've got a lot of work to do here.
Yeah, well, tell that to my boss.
Even hogarth worked longer hours.
Frank is damn lucky to have you as his deputy.
And he's not going to the Trinity site, either.
No. But who is?
You. A guy who went to a second-rate law school
is getting orchestra seats
to physics history.
Hey, I went to a third-rate law school.
And if I could bring a date...
Well, it wouldn't be me, apparently.
Charlie Isaacs.
What am I supposed to call you? "Beuker"?
Sure, why not?
What the hell are you doing here?
Ever been to Brooklyn?
Not in a long time. Why?
Never mind. I heard you fixed both Gadgets
inside of six months.
Not bad for a conscientious objector.
Yeah, maybe I went to the wrong meetings.
What do you want, Joe?
You ever hear of Camp Aliceville in Alabama?
Why? Is that where you're putting on
your latest piece of theater?
It's a prison for German POWs.
Not all military. Cultural ambassadors, too.
Even a few musicians.
Including your mother.
I thought you might like to know.
Team leader from Test Vector X-2B,
report to Director Schaefer.
Helen? What time is it?
Business hours in New York.
Took some calls,
but I got to the bottom of how our metallurgy budget
wound up in Rochester.
Admin must've given you the wrong form to sign,
but, uh, you can give them a call, straighten it out.
Just leave the number here on my desk.
The funny thing is-- and you won't believe the coincidence--
Liza's collaborating with
the University of Rochester on her work.
Our money just funded all the resources and equipment she needs.
Small world.
Must be really exhausting
making sure we don't finish Little Boy on time.
As soon as you're sitting in this chair again,
we'll do things your way.
I did everything you asked
when you were running implosion.
Even when it was illegal.
I sounded the alarm when you disappeared.
Then I gave up my one shot at history
so you could get us a seat at the table--
Scientific control of the bomb.
But you don't want a seat at the table, Frank.
You don't want there to be a table or a bomb.
And you think that you're entitled
to make that decision on your own.
And what about you, Helen?
You excited to incinerate 20,000 kids?
How did you get this office back, Frank?
Fixing Charlie's mistake?
The detonator charges at the dry run,
they got reversed somehow?
You came to the rescue?
Get the hell out of my office.
What the hell?
What are you doing?
- Excuse me, gentlemen. - Thank you.
Gentlemen? I think we have a quorum.
I'll give the table over to Dr. Oppenheimer.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
The last time this committee met,
it was on Pennsylvania Avenue.
I think you'll find the desert more civilized.
I'll start.
When I, uh, took this job...
When I took this job, I had no idea
what we were building here.
When I found out, I wanted to leave.
Since I've been here, I've done things...
I never imagined I was capable of.
I convinced myself we were here to protect
our kids from the Gestapo.
Well, my wife...
sent my kid back East last night
to protect him from me.
Dr. Isaacs--
She told me I'm a monster.
A murderer.
I wanted to tell her she was wrong,
but I couldn't.
I had a speech prepared.
I was gonna come in here and tell you
to detonate the bomb on a desert island--
a demonstration for the Japanese high command.
I was gonna tell you that
Hirohito would surrender on the spot.
I was gonna say let's show restraint
and we can be feared and loved
and then be forgiven for bringing the Gadget
into the world in the first place.
But the truth is...
we can be loved...
or we can have peace.
Not both.
So, if we want to change the world--
and we do, gentlemen-- we have to.
If we want to change the world,
then we need to embrace
what the world will call us
when we finish what we've started.
Monsters...
who erased a city...
without warning.
You mean a military target?
No, a city full of civilians.
And we detonate the altitude
that gives us the widest blast radius.
Maximum destruction of infrastructure.
Homes, hospitals, schools.
It has to be catastrophic...
on a scale that no one has ever imagined.
If we detonate our bomb on a desert island,
we might stop this war.
But we won't prevent the next one.
The weapon we're testing...
Fat Man?
It's nothing.
We'll measure it in, uh, kilotons of TNT.
Twenty years from now they'll be counting megatons,
Countries, continents.
So I'm begging you,
for your kids, your grandkids,
show the world what evil looks like once.
See it through.
As a species, we lack in imagination.
we can't conceive of the big nightmares--
genocide, mass starvation,
or atomic war until we live it.
We have to drop our bomb
on a city in the heart of Japan.
Because people need something to be afraid of.
Fear is now and has always been
the only thing that keeps the peace.
The only thing that changes the world,
changes anything, anyone.
We have to be monsters today
to stop the monsters of tomorrow.
Shouldn't you be in the desert
with the rest of the nabobs
doing the chain-reaction charleston?
I'm not really in a dancing mood.
I just don't believe it, you know?
That accidents just happen?
Do you know what she said to me that day?
Jeannie?
Whatever you're gonna say--
whether it's to make me feel better
or just to spin some Crosley malarkey--
skip it.
She said she didn't know what we were doing in the tech area,
but she knew that it might change the world.
And Jeannie said if the world had to change,
then you were the kind of man to keep us all honest,
make sure it would change for the better.
You can still get there, you know?
I'll be at the PX getting drunk.
You can come, not come-- I don't care.
Charlie.
Robert.
What the hell?
It was you.
I think Frank Winter's sabotaged the pretest.
Paul?
We need to talk about Jim.
{\pos(226,200)}www.ZiMuZu.tv
Previously on "Manhattan"...
Robert Oppenheimer's having an affair.
- We have to do something. - We?
Frank Winter was a problem. You made him disappear.
Beuker. Joseph Beuker.
Charlie Isaacs.
I need an address for a woman who died last year.
I'm trying to contact her next of kin.
I spoke with Miss Tatlock on the telephone,
and I said some cruel things.
I hereby declare you a citizen
of the United States of America.
Welcome home, son.
Is that the man you remember?
"Brooklyn". No ideology, no beliefs beyond himself,
thinks he's in a spy picture.
What are you doing? Give that to me. Give--
"Perseus believes that he is more intelligent than he is,
which makes him susceptible to flattery."
Those notes are not about you.
Well, I guess that there's another Soviet spy on the hill.
President Roosevelt is assembling a Target Committee
to decide how the Gadget's used
and who it's going to be dropped on.
You can't make me fix Charlie Isaacs' broken bomb.
I want a seat on the Target Committee.
I can get the scientists a seat,
but it won't be you.
What if someone dipped a brush
in the wrong can of paint?
Convince the Target Committee
to demonstrate the bomb on an uninhabited island.
We're all betting on him now.
Attention. All technical work
must be completed before the dignitaries arrive
for tomorrow's committee meeting.
Frank.
I got my hands on the Target Committee list.
Fourteen names, most of them dc regulars.
These guys wage war for a living.
You really think they're gonna care what I have to say?
Break a leg, Dr. Isaacs.
The meeting's happening in the shadow of your test.
In that room, you are the authority.
I built them a $2 billion car.
Now I'm gonna tell them to leave it in the garage?
No, no. You tell them to drop it on an uninhabited island
instead of a military target.
Fly in the Japanese high command,
give them all front-row seats--
white flags waving over Hirohito's palace in a week.
Everybody wins.
Hirohito isn't Harry Truman.
His people think he's a God.
Gods don't bow to armies.
You think he's just gonna fold after a warning shot?
It's not a warning shot.
This is not even another bomb.
It's a second sun.
The Emperor is not surrendering to the army,
he's surrendering to the-- the power of the universe.
To be honest, I wish it was you facing the firing squad, Frank.
Makes the test look easy.
Just remember, when you first get into the meeting,
keep quiet, let them exhaust themselves
fighting over which military target to take out.
Yeah, and then wait for the last word. I know.
Yeah, you gotta make an emotional appeal, Charlie.
They got one chance to show restraint here,
win the war without any more loss of life.
I'm not sure the army's
losing a lot of sleep over Japanese casualties.
Okay, well, come up with your own angle.
Try to-- try to make it personal.
- Make it personal. - Yeah.
If we detonate a base near a populated area,
there'll be, what, 50,000 casualties?
How many children?
Jesus, I don't know. Um... 20,000.
What about Joey?
My kid, their kids.
If we don't show mercy with our WAMDs in this war,
how can we expect anyone
to show our children mercy in the next one?
That's it. Say that.
Hey, Frank...
Where are you bunking up now
that you're back from the desert?
- Starting tonight, my new office. - New?
I imagine I have you to thank for that?
It only took two months to convince Oppenheimer
you were an improvement over a drunk foreigner.
The capsule got stuck in the tamper.
- Team leader's on the phone. - Jesus, I'm coming.
- Just make sure you get the last word. - Yes, I know.
Welcome back to the cheap seats.
Don't fret, we saved your desk.
Dr. Winter.
Theodore Sinclair. Welcome to Little Boy.
Well, we have a job.
We'll do it to the best of our ability.
And if we are lucky, it will all be for nothing.
The implosion Gadget, it's the warning shot.
Little boy's only on deck
if the Japanese don't heed that warning.
Let's just hope that day never comes.
Not exactly St. Crispin's day.
Victor, please...
Stay for dessert.
Your job is to listen.
We're hoping your expertise will prove useful
in translating technical information
concerning the current status of the Gadget.
Our Gadget or the Soviets'?
Yes, Dr. Barath. I will try to put you through,
but there are so many calls coming in from out there.
Hello?
- Mr. Tatlock? - Yes?
This is Abigail Isaacs.
Miss Isaacs, you received my letter.
Yes.
"Let 100 mothers cry, but not my mother.
But better my mother than me."
Do you know who said that?
George Washington-- kidding.
It was an Arab. I love Arabs.
Great fighters, highly quotable.
And I've heard that particular adage
is a favorite of your boss at the Kremlin, right?
You must think that you know what happens next.
But we Yanks, we're such a young country.
We're still finding our legs.
No idea what we wanna be when we grow up.
It makes us...
unpredictable.
Ah, you were so good, Mr. Green.
You're so thorough.
Burned everything,
just like they taught you in Moscow.
Buried the ashes in the yard.
It's just that we're getting better and better at...
unburying things.
So, what's in Brooklyn?
Wasn't our, uh, uranium
stockpiled in a warehouse there?
Um, Staten Island.
Staten island. Anyway, that was a long time ago.
Too obvious for a man of your pedigree.
So, what is it?
Uh... Maybe Brooklyn's not a borough.
Maybe it's a code
for a military maneuver.
Or maybe--
maybe Brooklyn... is a man.
Your ace in the hole,
your atomic spy.
He's a New Yorker, isn't he?
Thank you, Dr. Oppenheimer.
I'm sure you feel like a war widow, Mrs. Isaacs.
I've made unreasonable demands on Charlie,
but I promise to return him undamaged
in 48 hours.
Sir, I spoke to
Professor John Tatlock this morning.
Jean's father.
I wanted to know more about his daughter...
and her death.
What business is it of yours?
Well, I overheard some of your calls at the switchboard.
Mr. Tatlock says that the handwriting
on the note wasn't Jean's
and that someone may have staged the scene
to look like a suicide.
You loved her.
Don't you wanna know if someone killed her?
You are a...
reasonably intelligent woman.
Do you know the difference
between a conjecture and a theorem?
Allow me.
I may conjecture that Colonel Darrow had jean murdered
to keep me on the project.
What?
But I have nothing to test, to prove.
Therefore, no theorem.
We'll never know.
That's our world.
Uncertainty.
Nuance.
No need to return to the switchboard.
You're removed.
We anticipate a temperature rise about,
uh, six degrees every three seconds.
Dr. Winter.
I requested new composites,
but Donlon says we've already blown
our metallurgy budget for the month.
Yeah. Well, I hope you didn't spend it all in one place.
Apparently most of it
went to a laboratory in Rochester, New York.
What's in Rochester?
Um, you know what?
It'll take me a couple of days
to get back up to speed,
But I'll definitely get into it.
Is he always so unfocused?
He'll be back.
Abigail.
This has been a complicated day.
Maybe we can worship together later in the week.
Did the army have anything to do with Jean Tatlock's death?
Miss Tatlock took her own life, as you know.
Colonel, I know she didn't.
What exactly did your husband tell you?
Not my husband. Robert Oppenheimer.
Then it's true, isn't it?
And you knew-- you knew all along,
and you let me beg God for forgiveness.
Do you like to watch women beg?
Did you watch Jean Tatlock beg?
You're confused, Abby.
Just because you're an officer in the Army...
I'll tell Charlie. I'll just tell the police.
Come with me.
Where?
Confession.
What is this place?
My sanctuary.
I'm not telling you how to do your job.
I'm just telling you that there's a job to be done.
Frank winter was a problem.
You made him disappear.
Miss Tatlock needs to go.
What are you suggesting?
You're a soldier, right?
We're at war.
What do you know about war?
If you can't handle it,
my father has associates
in St. Louis.
You should be careful whom you accuse, mrs. Isaacs.
And may the Lord forgive us all.
Did you find him at a meeting?
Or did your man just waltz into the Consulate General?
Brooklyn is in Kings County. Maybe he's British.
Maybe you're Brooklyn.
Warmer?
Colder?
Please, Victor, don't make me angry.
Help me.
Get me some rat poison,
A razor blade.
Do you know what the water cure is?
They pour water into your nostrils.
You drown on dry land.
I don't know what you're doing here,
but you're not one of them.
Think of the people who love you.
How would your son feel if he knew you'd be tortured?
How do you know I have a son?
Or-- or a daughter.
A wife.
You have a family. I can see it in your eyes.
Their father, their husband,
he's a merciful man, I know.
I see it.
I think-- I think Victor knows me--
Things about me.
If he does, maybe Brooklyn knows me.
Maybe I know him.
How did they find him?
It must've been that Indian boy.
And you're sure that it's him?
Yes, he's a handler. His name is Victor Green.
Well, I already have a pass for the test site.
I can leave now.
No. No, you and Perseus,
you wait for the convoy,
and you get out to the test site as planned.
We can't arouse suspicion.
What if he gives us up?
He won't crack. Even if they torture him, he won't crack.
Are you sure about that?
I know men like him. I know how they've been trained.
He-- he killed a G-2 agent.
He risked his own life
so that you could finish what you've started.
Yes, but if he trades up and I don't make it off the Hill,
I won't be able to finish anything.
Listen to me. Nothing changes.
You wait for the convoy and you take it out to the site.
Okay.
Do you have the schematics for the circuits?
I don't need the schematics. I built the circuits.
Do you understand what happens if the test succeeds?
It won't. I won't crack, either.
Okay?
So, do you have a dossier on Paul?
Did Brooklyn think that he was recruitable as well?
It turns out we have a big tent
and a welcome mat, too.
Only 20 men on this Hill know that I have a son.
Hogarth is one of them,
but, uh, I rather doubt his double agency.
Even his single agency was shit.
You know, you're not the only one with a kid, Paul.
Victor has a daughter. Eleanor. Adopted.
Should be about 30 now?
On the rolls at the University of Pittsburgh?
But Eleanor fell off the map a few years ago.
And so where is she, Victor? Have you heard from her lately?
No?
Don't worry, Director Hoover has all kinds of ways
to track people down these days.
I predict a tearful reunion.
I need your assurance you'll leave her out of this.
In exchange for...
A name.
Your colleague, he came to us two years ago.
He told us you have a son.
His name was sid liao.
You're welcome.
Take one for the road.
Have as many pastries as you like.
Good afternoon, gentlemen.
While I have your attention,
I want to tell you
about a study I've been conducting
in partnership with one of the university labs
on the environmental effects of the Trinity Test.
When, in the next 48 hours,
you detonate the world's first atomic weapon,
you will propel radioactive particles high into the sky
that will eventually fall back down to earth.
Let's give this phenomenon a name.
Let's call it...
"Fallout."
Fallout.
Despite all the work that you've done here on the Hill,
we know almost nothing about how fallout
will be absorbed back into the earth
or maybe into the human body.
Consider, for example, the lanthanum radioactive tests
you've been doing in the Bayo Canyon.
Incidentally, that muffin you're eating,
that was baked this morning from corn that was harvested
from that very area.
Now, Trinity could produce
100,000 times more fallout than any prior experiment.
And we have no idea what this might mean
for the surrounding farms, for the water sources,
for the water we drink here on the Hill.
Our research has only just begun.
But for everything we don't know,
there is one thing that we do--
the extent of the fallout will depend on the weather,
how strong the winds are and which direction they blow.
The weather will determine the magnitude
of the effect of Trinity.
And unless the weather agrees with us,
we won't move forward.
I expect you all to know Dr. Winter's report chapter and verse
by the time you get to the test site.
So, those muffins, did they really come from the Bayo Canyon?
The PX. You think I took up baking?
An oriental was spying for the russians?
Uh, according to our guest.
You wanna explain to me how a ghost killed Avram Fisher?
Victor might have killed him.
I don't think Sid Liao is their spy.
Was their spy.
I know there was a time that I doubted him,
but Sid Liao was just a desperate chap in over his head.
There are 428 men on your payrolls
who were born or raised in Brooklyn,
72 on this Hill.
Maybe we should consider delaying the test
until that list can be narrowed.
In two days, the President of the United States
will be in Potsdam, Germany,
sitting across from Joseph Stalin
with the map of the world between them.
Truman's gonna draw lines on that map.
Clear, bright, lines.
Delay is out of the question.
Sir, I know I'm new to this,
but what if it's not just information that they're after?
We just shipped a billion dollars' worth of plutonium
into the middle of the desert.
What if Brooklyn stole it? What if--
I don't know, what if he manages to disrupt the test somehow?
What would the President have to show Stalin then?
I will speak with Mr. Green myself.
Make sure we have more castings.
As many as it takes.
All right. Go, go! Kiss your kids good night.
Hopefully, not for good.
Circus leaves town 10:00 A.M. sharp.
Fritz.
You ready for the Target Committee?
No. You help me prep on the way out to Trinity.
I'm...
I'm not going to trinity.
Dr. Isaacs, we need your approval for--
Hang on. Sit down.
Sit down.
Fritz...
I know you've been through hell and I'm sorry.
No, no, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry that I won't be able to help you anymore.
I'm grateful for the opportunities you've given me here, Charlie,
But I just-- I've had enough death for one lifetime.
How long have they been in there?
I heard you were a patient man.
That your patience led to the capture of six enemy combatants.
So how'd you come to all this?
- You're some sort of... - Psychiatrist.
Talking cure.
You're a long way from Freud's couch, doctor.
Well, diseases of the mind aren't confined to asylums, Paul.
They rewrite maps.
Look at Hitler.
Stalin. The world's full of sick--
Clean it up.
Abby? Sorry, I should've told you
I wouldn't be back last night.
Everyone needed five minutes.
Now I only have five minutes. Where's my suitcase?
Hey, could I get a sandwich for the road?
Have your men do it.
What?
Your men in St. Louis.
Your father's men who took care of Jean Tatlock.
Have them do it.
Abby.
Colonel Darrow records
every conversation in his office.
Did you know that? I didn't.
I heard you, Charlie.
It was a bluff...
to light a fire under Darrow, and then he...
took things too far.
He did, not me.
Do you think a jury cares whose hands are dirtier?
Jesus. Abby, the decisions I make every--
I'm holding a hundred thousand lives in my dirty hands.
In my position, you see things through to the end,
things the world might not understand,
but because you believe in something bigger.
You let me believe that I was responsible for a woman's death.
You're a monster.
God, I don't expect you to understand.
No. No, of course not.
How could I? I just have the one life in my hands.
I gotta go.
We'll talk about it when I get back.
Joey!
Where's joey?
He's on his way to Brookline.
I don't have time for games, Abby. Where is he?
Juanita is driving him.
He's going to live with my parents.
The Colonel may have me trapped here, but...
my son will have no part of this.
You sent my son
3,000 miles away from me
with the Goddamn maid?
I was seeing things through.
Maybe I'm just as much to blame as you are,
but Joey deserves better.
Stolen away from his father,
that's what he deserves?
I'm keeping him safe from you
just like you should've been kept safe from your father!
You think I won't get in the car and bring him back?
Your test is in 24 hours.
You think I don't know which way you'll drive?
Is this how they teach you how to stage a suicide
in medical school?
This one's a challenge.
The stable's a unique venue.
Forty percent check out in their own house.
I prefer bathrooms.
It's a good place to open a wrist.
Or drown.
In the end, it's not the scene that matters,
it's the story.
It's gotta be credible.
In this case...
a bankrupt, small-time rancher
holes up in his remote barn.
How about this for a story?
A Commissioned Officer executes a suspect?
The man who could have told us the identity of Brooklyn.
There was no judge, there was no jury--
Do you think I'm happy we're here?
A Soviet spy in the hand is worth ten in the ground.
We could've used him. Angry man, your colonel.
Not a lot of restraint when it comes to communists.
He'll make a hell of a senator someday. You wait and see.
Grab that foot.
He won't mind.
We're gonna pull on three. Ready?
One, two, three.
You know, I agreed to translate scientific information.
Tell the Colonel my tenure is over.
The Colonel, forget him. He doesn't even know you're here.
No, I wanted you to see this.
Why?
World War II is over, Paul.
The next war's already started.
It's gonna be unlike any conflict in history.
It'll be waged silently by men like you and me.
- I'm a physicist. - I'm a doctor.
We're forming a new breed of intelligence organization,
one with a more centralized approach.
We have connections, money, pedigree--
things you like.
You'll get used to the things you don't.
I saw them load the crate into the back of the truck.
Well, how do you know it was a body?
What else are they gonna carry out of an interrogation room?
Jesus.
That's the, uh-- that's the convoy.
I bet-- I better go.
No. No!
You're not going with the convoy.
You and Perseus are gonna go out there on your own.
What? Why?
I'm making an adjustment to the plan.
If we all we do is sabotage the Gadget,
- they'll just keep rebuilding it. - Maybe.
But it's gonna take them months to figure out what went wrong.
And then they'll do another test, just ten times more powerful.
But didn't Moscow say to stick to the plan?
Didn't you say that nothing changes?
I'm changing-- I'm changing the plan.
Oh, you-- you can do that?
Those men out there at Trinity,
they're not gonna stop unless we stop them.
Stop them how?
You built the circuits,
you can wire them to go off at any time you like.
You mean before everyone evacuates?
Jim...
You wanna kill the scientists?
You wanna kill my friends?
We do one terrible thing tomorrow,
but then no one ever has to again.
I wanna go to the test.
And I'm gonna get there
if I have to stow away in somebody's trunk.
Don't do that.
Why not?
Don't go to Trinity.
You've got a lot of work to do here.
Yeah, well, tell that to my boss.
Even hogarth worked longer hours.
Frank is damn lucky to have you as his deputy.
And he's not going to the Trinity site, either.
No. But who is?
You. A guy who went to a second-rate law school
is getting orchestra seats
to physics history.
Hey, I went to a third-rate law school.
And if I could bring a date...
Well, it wouldn't be me, apparently.
Charlie Isaacs.
What am I supposed to call you? "Beuker"?
Sure, why not?
What the hell are you doing here?
Ever been to Brooklyn?
Not in a long time. Why?
Never mind. I heard you fixed both Gadgets
inside of six months.
Not bad for a conscientious objector.
Yeah, maybe I went to the wrong meetings.
What do you want, Joe?
You ever hear of Camp Aliceville in Alabama?
Why? Is that where you're putting on
your latest piece of theater?
It's a prison for German POWs.
Not all military. Cultural ambassadors, too.
Even a few musicians.
Including your mother.
I thought you might like to know.
Team leader from Test Vector X-2B,
report to Director Schaefer.
Helen? What time is it?
Business hours in New York.
Took some calls,
but I got to the bottom of how our metallurgy budget
wound up in Rochester.
Admin must've given you the wrong form to sign,
but, uh, you can give them a call, straighten it out.
Just leave the number here on my desk.
The funny thing is-- and you won't believe the coincidence--
Liza's collaborating with
the University of Rochester on her work.
Our money just funded all the resources and equipment she needs.
Small world.
Must be really exhausting
making sure we don't finish Little Boy on time.
As soon as you're sitting in this chair again,
we'll do things your way.
I did everything you asked
when you were running implosion.
Even when it was illegal.
I sounded the alarm when you disappeared.
Then I gave up my one shot at history
so you could get us a seat at the table--
Scientific control of the bomb.
But you don't want a seat at the table, Frank.
You don't want there to be a table or a bomb.
And you think that you're entitled
to make that decision on your own.
And what about you, Helen?
You excited to incinerate 20,000 kids?
How did you get this office back, Frank?
Fixing Charlie's mistake?
The detonator charges at the dry run,
they got reversed somehow?
You came to the rescue?
Get the hell out of my office.
What the hell?
What are you doing?
- Excuse me, gentlemen. - Thank you.
Gentlemen? I think we have a quorum.
I'll give the table over to Dr. Oppenheimer.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
The last time this committee met,
it was on Pennsylvania Avenue.
I think you'll find the desert more civilized.
I'll start.
When I, uh, took this job...
When I took this job, I had no idea
what we were building here.
When I found out, I wanted to leave.
Since I've been here, I've done things...
I never imagined I was capable of.
I convinced myself we were here to protect
our kids from the Gestapo.
Well, my wife...
sent my kid back East last night
to protect him from me.
Dr. Isaacs--
She told me I'm a monster.
A murderer.
I wanted to tell her she was wrong,
but I couldn't.
I had a speech prepared.
I was gonna come in here and tell you
to detonate the bomb on a desert island--
a demonstration for the Japanese high command.
I was gonna tell you that
Hirohito would surrender on the spot.
I was gonna say let's show restraint
and we can be feared and loved
and then be forgiven for bringing the Gadget
into the world in the first place.
But the truth is...
we can be loved...
or we can have peace.
Not both.
So, if we want to change the world--
and we do, gentlemen-- we have to.
If we want to change the world,
then we need to embrace
what the world will call us
when we finish what we've started.
Monsters...
who erased a city...
without warning.
You mean a military target?
No, a city full of civilians.
And we detonate the altitude
that gives us the widest blast radius.
Maximum destruction of infrastructure.
Homes, hospitals, schools.
It has to be catastrophic...
on a scale that no one has ever imagined.
If we detonate our bomb on a desert island,
we might stop this war.
But we won't prevent the next one.
The weapon we're testing...
Fat Man?
It's nothing.
We'll measure it in, uh, kilotons of TNT.
Twenty years from now they'll be counting megatons,
Countries, continents.
So I'm begging you,
for your kids, your grandkids,
show the world what evil looks like once.
See it through.
As a species, we lack in imagination.
we can't conceive of the big nightmares--
genocide, mass starvation,
or atomic war until we live it.
We have to drop our bomb
on a city in the heart of Japan.
Because people need something to be afraid of.
Fear is now and has always been
the only thing that keeps the peace.
The only thing that changes the world,
changes anything, anyone.
We have to be monsters today
to stop the monsters of tomorrow.
Shouldn't you be in the desert
with the rest of the nabobs
doing the chain-reaction charleston?
I'm not really in a dancing mood.
I just don't believe it, you know?
That accidents just happen?
Do you know what she said to me that day?
Jeannie?
Whatever you're gonna say--
whether it's to make me feel better
or just to spin some Crosley malarkey--
skip it.
She said she didn't know what we were doing in the tech area,
but she knew that it might change the world.
And Jeannie said if the world had to change,
then you were the kind of man to keep us all honest,
make sure it would change for the better.
You can still get there, you know?
I'll be at the PX getting drunk.
You can come, not come-- I don't care.
Charlie.
Robert.
What the hell?
It was you.
I think Frank Winter's sabotaged the pretest.
Paul?
We need to talk about Jim.