Maniac (2018): Season 1, Episode 5 - Exactly Like You - full transcript

.

..

Turn that off, would you, Bobby?

Do you smell that clean air?

I just smell manure.

Oh, it's different up here.

Good things happen when
you get out of the city.

I get shot every time I leave New York.

That's an exaggeration.

Degas run in Cap-Ferrat? Shot.

Gauguin ceramics in Marquesas? Shot.



That time in Jackson Hole
with the wife? Also shot.

- But Jackson Hole was our biggest score.
- Still counts.

Hmm. I never noticed
that pattern before.

Bobby, pull over. I think
my mind is playing tricks.

I know you ain't
superstitious like me, boss,

but I find this very serendipitous.

Maybe fate's tellin'
you you need a partner.

This job is gonna be a real doozy.

Get her as far away
from here as possible.

I don't care if you have
to drive her to Atlantis.

Keep her away from that s?ance.

I'd need a boat to take
her to Atlantis, boss.

Hi, Ollie.

- What are you doing here?
- I was about to ask you the same thing.



Oh, you know me,

always poppin' up in the wrong place.

You know you need a ticket, right?

The Neverdies don't just let anyone in.

Wanna go together?

Sounds good.

It's good to see you, Ollie.

And it's disturbing to see you.

Hey! Hey!

Damn it, Ollie.

Presto chango.

Look.

It's happening again.

A fraction from one and nine creating

persistent inadvertent harmonies.

Inverse self-reflections are present.

Present in both.

That's fascinating.

Every time I separate them, they
just find their way back together.

They're sticking.

- It's reminiscent of iteration 41.
- It has to be hardware.

We should examine the IO spindle.

Yeah, there...

and there.

Just a little scoring.

Maybe something inside the F housing.

But it's impossible to tell
while we're still running.

Do you want to order a full reset?

No, my mother was too conservative
when it came to these anomalies.

Well, then, we'll push through.
I'll try to manage it manually.

Data tank between one and nine, yes.

Uncomfortable, but manageable.

I'll pulsadrate nine out early
to unravel any globular weaving.

Just do your best to uncouple them.

I'll do the repairs right
before we run the evens.

Yes, sir.

Azumi...

We've shared intimacies.

You don't have to call me sir.

Ticket, please.

Lady Neverdine welcomes you to the
Full Moon S?ance, Sir Hightower.

May I take your coat, sir?

I have never been...

After the s?ance, well,
I know things have changed.

- Will Arlie Kane be here?
- Is that Ollie Hightower?

- He is lonesome.
- Is he as big a Cervantes fan as we are?

- ...don't see it, I'm sorry....
- Oh, stop being so obvious.

- Lady Neberdine lets us tour the house.
- Not tonight.

- Oh, bother.
- Hey, go back to Hightower...

Do you know what they thought

owls meant in the old days, Ollie?

Hello, Olivia.

They're the moon incarnate.

They lead us someplace safe.

Every time.

This s?ance brought out all
the usual suspects, didn't it?

I only see one.

And I'm hoping he'll
take me under his wing.

Show me the ropes.

Not tonight, kid. I work alone.

You always gonna fly solo, Ollie?

He said, "There's no such
thing as magic, of course."

So I made him a bet.

I bet that I would do a trick
and he couldn't figure it out.

And if I lost, I would
give up magic forever.

- And if you won?
- He would give me his peerage.

You see, I wanted his "sir".

And I got it.

- How?
- Tell us!

I performed a trick.

Oh, come on.

And he was unable to crack it,

and now I am Sir Ollie.

- You can imagine...
- You can't give away a title like that.

- Well, sure you can.
- But what was the trick, Ollie?

- Come on, show it to us.
- Yes.

I'll demonstrate on
our fair butler here.

Good sir, may I have
a moment of your time?

I need to prepare for
the great illumination.

Oh, come here. It's just one minute.

Just right here, come on.

All right, you name a card

and it will appear on
the very top of this deck.

- Any card?
- Any card.

Nine of hearts.

Nine of hearts.

Presto chango!

Wow.

Fantastic.

- Amazing.
- If you'll excuse me.

You've done just fine, and if
you'll excuse me one moment.

You know that peach is bad news, Ollie.

Oh, no. She's just my wife.

What does that mean?

Sudden change and destruction
will lead to your liberation.

For his own sake, Bobby better

be lying dead in a ditch somewhere.

He's not.

How'd you trick him into
bringing you back, huh?

I didn't.

It's just very hard to say no to me.

Why don't we just lay our cards...

on the table?

What's that?

You have to pay up for a bad joke.

You are here to steal the

lost 53rd chapter of Don Quixote.

Just like me and half these
lunatics at this s?ance.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Attention, fellow Neverdies,
and those who are with us.

Do you feel something in the room?

Do feel something vibrating among us?

Fuck.

Component C protocol
hasn't been triggered.

Right now.

It hasn't.

Why the fuck is Gertie
actively participating?

What's the problem?

She's put herself in.

Who?

Tonight is a special night.

May I present...

the first Neverdie.

Gertie Neberdine.

A true goddess of Luna.

Oh!

- I can't believe it!
- All hail the Queen.

- Oh! I cn't believe it.
- Come on, I'll introduce you.

There are some things
I haven't told you.

Things I... I wasn't fully aware
of before I brought you back.

I think...

we have a serious problem.

I think our computer is...

horribly depressed.

And might be behaving unpredictably.

We're both great admirers.

Yes, I sensed it.

Arlie Kane, I know all about you.

I heard you two were separated.

We were. No longer.

Hon, let me get you a drink. Excuse me.

Oh!

This is Robert.

Hello.

What's wrong with him?

It's so hard to keep those
we've lost in our lives.

Don't you agree?

You must excuse me.

All right. Okay.

Gotcha!

Any lost chapters?

You and your zapping around.

Why do you keep trying
to ditch me, Ollie?

Because you are on my continent.

No more jokes, Arlie. Go
back to Paris. I'm working.

- You still drink gimlets?
- You still poison 'em?

I only poisoned the one.

What should we cheers to?

How about the night my wife
stole everything I have,

slipped me a Mickey, disappeared,

and I woke up with the cops
and three years in the clink.

I heard you pled guilty
to that Sister Wendy job.

Yeah, I have to quit doing that.

So what happened to this
dame that betrayed you?

Rumor has it she ran
off with another woman.

Sounds like she might have
had some sort of condition.

She did.

She always disappeared just
when you needed her the most.

To mistakes, then.

You hear what I heard?

- About what the lost chapter can do?
- No, and I don't care.

1615, Cervantes writes the
final chapter to his masterpiece.

So powerful...

that anyone who reads it is
lost in their own fantasies...

forever.

He shows it to a friend,
who slips into a coma.

Same with a neighbor, never comes out.

They live in their own
dream worlds until they die.

- Sounds swell.
- Cervantes thought the opposite.

He said being lost like that
was a fate worse than death.

For someone who didn't come
here for the lost chapter,

you seem to have thought a
lot about the lost chapter.

Don't be dense, Ollie.

I'm not here for some score.

But wouldn't you know?

The lost chapter is hidden
somewhere in this mansion.

I'm here to help you.

Goodbye, Arlie.

You don't know where it is, do you?

'Cause I do. It's through a mirror.

Who gave you that information?

Some wise old crone in
an alleyway in Barcelona.

What does it matter to you?

Because you lie constantly, that's why.

So what was your plan, then, Ollie?

To snoop from room to room until
you happened upon it next September?

Hah. Even if you knew where it was,

she'd have it in a safe,

and you can't crack a safe without me.

Well, I'm here to help you.

So for old times' sake,
Mr. Magic Fingers,

how about I do intel
and you crack the safe?

We can't help but do
what we've always done.

Do I have a choice in the matter?

No.

9:05, time for the main event.

Do not make me regret trusting you.

I'll never betray you again.

Then wait for my signal.

Oh, joyous Celestial Goddess,

now is the time for your
energy to flow through us

and pour life back
into our lady's beloved.

Tonight we speak to Juno,

tonight we speak to Diana

and tonight her life brings life to us.

Lunar goddess?

Who will be tonight's astral nodes?

Oh.

Them, I think.

Those two.

Us?

- What the hell are we supposed to do?
- The moon will tell you.

We have reached...

maximum illumination.

They're playing our song.

Stop trying to stick
yourselves together!

Oh, she's gone to the astral plane.

Oh, it's working! It's working!

Who wants to join her?
Another dancer. You. Now.

Wait, wait.

...with a title that you trade away!

Because I'm their father, and
you're their mother! God damn it!

I have no idea where you are!

- Is Mom coming back?
- ...that again.

Is that about the size of it?

Um... tell me the whole story again.

You don't get to give that up, Rosie.

- No!
- Once upon a time...

- there were two girls.
- It's not a fucking title...

They rode through the forest on a wolf.

A wolf, yeah.

They were going to their
grandmother's house.

But they didn't read the sign.

So, they got lost and couldn't
really find their way home,

until they read one of the signs.

It said, "Don't go this way."

- Good evening, fellas.
- Evening.

You didn't wait for my signal.

Good gravy!

Help me down.

Come on.

Look down here.

The mirror's right there.

Try this.

Locked.

Nothing here.

You're not supposed to be here.

There's another way, come on.

Owen.

Owen.

I mean, Sir... Sir Ollie.

So, I talked to a ritual cognitive.

Turns out Jed and I
were twins in the womb.

Except he strangled me
with the umbilical cord.

Don't worry about that.
That was... ectoplasm.

Go back to your quest.

Ah, Gertie's nuts. I'm gonna
stick around here a little bit.

Matches.

What is this?

The old crone said the spirit would

take me exactly where I wanted to be.

I don't know where to go from here.

Do you know what they thought
owls meant in the old days?

Come here.

Finally.

Something that makes sense.

How long is this gonna take?

This place gives me the willies.

Hey, Arlie.

Seeing we're both inside
a mirror and all...

Do you ever think your condition...

is a lot simpler than you think?

Maybe you're the one with
the broken heart, not me,

pretending I'm the one who's devastated.

It's the way that you make
yourself feel stronger.

Make me feel smaller.

Sure.

And maybe you like being
the martyr a little too much.

And you thought that
"sir" would fix you,

but it hasn't fixed anything at all.

I guess we'll never know.

Why is it so tiny?

People were a lot smaller back then.

All right.

We should skeddadle.

Sorry, Ollie.

I'm gonna need you to hand
that tiny chapter to me.

I just really, really need it.

Sure.

You didn't have to use the gun.

I would have just given it to you.

That's always been your problem.

That's not my problem.

My problem is I let you get too close.

And you're poison.

There she is.

Subject nine, your experience
with the B pill is complete.

Where's Ollie?

What you're about to experience
is the proximity test.

It's a cross-check of the
data that we've gleaned.

Helps the G.R.T.A. render your
reflections for the final pill.

I'm a friend.

And...

this is normal.

By the way, I was sorry to hear
about your sister being crushed,

and then burned to death...

in that car accident.

So...

Your score goes up or down
depending on the consistency

between your answers and, uh...

what we've observed.

The scale is from zero to ten.

Uh, anything below a 9.2

results in the termination of
your experience at the trial

due to, uh...

a lack of progress.

A lack of progress with what?

The dissolution of
your defense mechanisms.

Okay.

Consider this just me verifying
that your data is usable.

All you have to do is give an
honest account of your experience.

So, let's start by saying
your name for a baseline.

Annie Landsberg.

And, uh...

are you survived by any other relatives?

Just my dad, Hank Landsberg.

Your mother's deceased?

I don't know.

Huh.

Do you know where you are right now?

I'm in a pharma trial.

Considering you've been abusing
the A pill for some time,

I'd like you to tell me about
your experiences with the B pill.

I had what felt like a hundred
dreams all on top of each other.

I call them reflections.

Neurochemically, they're very
similar, but so is psychosis.

How many experiences
do you think you had?

I remember two well.

But there were more.

And more underneath those.

It's a globular cluster
of arborized realities.

Well, they were realities
that mattered more than mine.

Describe your reality.

Uh, my reality...

is that I am depressed.

And I have been for a very long time.

Let's try and focus on your reflections.

In one, I was Linda from Long Island.

I could smell her perm.

She was a nurse and a...

mother, and a wife, which is...

the opposite of anything
I've ever wanted.

And...

then...

I was Arlie. She was a
thief and a con artist.

A con artist is a liar.

Why are you a liar?

She...

I think people lie
because they're afraid,

and she was afraid and she
didn't want anyone to see that.

Did anyone?

Owen. He did.

He saw me. He saw...

her.

Them.

Subject one?

Describe his presence.

We were connected in all of them.

With Linda...

it was the kind of connection

where you meet in
seventh grade, and then...

you look up and 20 years
later, he's still there...

holding your hand while you have a baby.

You remembered whole lives together?

Yes.

Did the pill do that?

It wasn't designed to.

Why do you think you experience
so many of these, uh, lives...

with him?

He said there was a pattern.

And that we were connected
to each other somehow. I...

I mean, I thought he was crazy.

So, I told him there is no
pattern. There's just chaos.

Let me ask it...

in a different way.

Why do you think you found
yourself trying to deliver a lemur?

Mr. Milgrim's presence notwithstanding.

The woman in that
dream was Paula Nazlund,

the mother of the person
that killed my sister.

My real sister, in this life.

And sometimes I fantasize about if
Greg Nazlund had never been born.

And when you were a thief...

how do you explain that reflection?

I had a goal.

I needed to get something.

And it... didn't seem
to matter who I hurt.

- Is that a behavior you share in life?
- No.

Is that a behavior you've seen
exhibited in a parental figure?

Is this therapy now?

I thought this was supposed
to be better than that.

It's not therapy.

Did you enter this trial
in lieu of harming yourself?

No!

Why did the number not change?

That's true.

Were you suicidal?

Arlie is like my mother.

She could charm anyone, she
would make deals with people.

She would say things to me like,

"This is just between you and me, Annie.

You're the only one who understands."
That's how she would get you.

And then she knew that you gave a shit,

and so your guard was
down and she would gut you.

Okay? How's that?

It disturbs you, this idea of...

behaving in the same way
that your mother behaves.

Yes.

Did you and your sister
make any of these special...

deals?

Similar to the ones that
you and your mother had made?

No.

Ours were different.

How?

Ours was a pact.

I took care of her when we were little.

And she took care of me when we grew up.

Here's your diagnostic.

Someone will be through
shortly to collect you.

What's your report?

Your security leaves
something to be desired.

Expect a bill first thing.

It doesn't work, you know.

The chapter.

I already tried.

Every mistake I've ever made started
with "It's too good to be true."

So, what do you say, Ollie?

About a partnership?

I told you where the safe was. That's

gotta be worth somethin', right?

Took me a minute.

Thanks for that.

But I don't do partners.

What would you have wished for...

if that chapter had worked?

I keep my fantasies to myself.

Well, maybe I'll see
you again sometime soon.

Bobby, you've got some explaining to do.

You want me to turn it off?

No, no, you can leave it, Bobby.

I'm really sorry, boss.

She shot me.

She shot you, Bobby?

Only in the shoulder.

I've been trying to motivate
myself to get in there.

I haven't been able to move.

She really wanted to come to the party.

Did you and her reconnect, at least?

No, it didn't work out.

She had too much else on her mind.

Hm.

Aren't you gonna miss her, boss?

You know what, Bobby?

Life is simple as hell
until you bring on a partner.

Welcome back, subjects.

Welcome back.

...