Masters of Science Fiction (2007–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - The Discarded - full transcript

From the very beginning,

we have wondered
how life began,

what our purpose is

and where we are headed.

We have struggled to
understand time,

matter, the
infinite universe,

who we are and if
we are alone.

Great minds have imagined
the most wonderful

and the most terrifying
answers to these questions.

We invite you to join us
on this great expedition.

As we seek to improve
and refine ourselves,



to elevate humankind to
its consummate form,

hat will become of those
who are less than perfect?

You can't go out.

It's the first hand.

I fold.

You are so full of it.

Do it, Sharon. He's lyin'.

- Play the game.
- I call.

Read 'em and weep--

Four kings.

- Damn.
- I told you.

You didn't have to listen.

Shuffle the cards.

I can't take anymore.



All right!

Who the hell's gonna clean

this garbage up and
blow it outta here?

Okay, okay. Volunteers?

All right, you--
you, you and you.

Yeah, that's right,
the Dullard sisters.

Get over there.

Cleanup on aisle 13.

Come on, move!

Seriously, I had one of
the very first geno-pets.

They hadn't worked out
all of the bugs, so

it shifted species
depending on my mood, but...

it was a really good companion.

I named her dolly,

after that sheep with
the big hooters.

I miss that cat--

that dog--that thing.

You know what I miss?

A healthy bowel movement--

a real big,
round cookie, baby--

one that only happens when
you've been eatin' real food.

Do you remember real food?

Not really.

One, two, three!

So long, Riila.

Mango. Very piquant.

Easy.

Thank you.

I am...

I am extremely whipped.

Riila never manifested
herself for the K.P. shift.

Odious though it may be,
I worked both.

Do I make myself pellucid?

Eight detestable hours.

I may have to kill that woman.

You're too late.

Riila?

I was perturbed she didn't
wish to do her garbage shift.

Would you kindly be quiet?

Now it seems she is
the garbage shift.

Fortuitous I didn't
knock over the plant.

Well, if you had,

there'd have been two all-meat
pizzas floatin' out there.

As I've always said, Bedzyk,

you're a kindly,
thoughtful man.

Just passin' the time
till it's my turn

- to go out the garbage port.
- I am Samswope!

No, you loathsome creature,
I am Samswope!

Come on, Bedzyk,
it's not that bad.

At the very least,
we are still alive.

We'll find a landfall.

We will...

- All in the fullness of time.
- Ah, come on, Sam.

Been to all six terraformed
sites in the system,

some of them more than once.

It's always the same--

"Keep moving, scum.
Hit the road.

Get lost, and take
this piece of junk with you."

If we had any sense, we'd

fly this garbage scow
right into the sun--

and better still,
crash it right up there.

Ah, yes--

into the bosom of our
succoring Mother Earth...

- Up there, down there.
- Wherever.

Adieu and bide thee well,
dear, sweet Riila.

What is she,
the third this month?

The fourth?

Sixth.

- So we're down to what, 96?
- 93.

Two-thirds of our
original little party

of discarded freaks,
dead and gone.

It's tragic, just tragic.

We've been orbiting too long.

- What are you going to do?
- What am I gonna do?

In spite of your surely,

one might even venture taciturn,
nature, mon ami,

you remain an imposing and,
whether you like it or nay,

a de facto executive figure
aboard this enchanted scow,

the mutant horrors
of which hold you

in the very highest esteem.

And I suspect,

beneath your snarls,

you actually care
what happens to them.

I'm just a passenger, pal--

just another
steerage-class passenger,

and I got my ticket
to prove it.

- I... I want to go home.
- Yeah, me, too.

I wanna go home.

I-I wanna go home.

Off you go, then.

Ah, Bedzyk,
exit the mere passenger,

replaced by the
sublime poet-philosopher.

Oh, that's why everyone looks
to you, you know.

Apathy prevails here on
the good ship "gulag,"

A.K.A. "The riggum express."

But you're the one who gets up

and does something--

if not every time,

at least with
sufficient frequency

that your nobility rises like
the rose mountains of Mars

above the apathy.

Everything I do, you could do.

You jest, sir.
You jape. You jive.

I laugh at your
jackanapery, squire.

No, really,
you could run this place, Sam.

You got two heads.

Do you in fact know--

to *** away from the
previous bull-pucky--

Why we call the sickness that
condemned us to this floating prison--

what we affectionately refer
to as "the blood poop"--

Do you know why we
call it "riggum,"

as previous generations
called theirs "the pox"

or "yellow fever"
or "A.I.D.S."?

I--I'm sorry, Sam.
I gotta get some fresh air.

Yes, well,
we could all use some fresh air.

- I wanna go home. I wanna go home...
- Ah, smiler, my old friend.

I wanna go home. Home.
Home. I wanna go home.

Do you know the etymological basis
of the nom de blood poop "riggum"

for our communal sickness?

Well, it began as
transmutational blood poisoning--

wildly stupid and
inaccurate term,

just as chronic fatigue
syndrome was Epstein-Barr,

or mono--

Listen, I gotta go. No, no, no.

Then--then they
abbreviated it to T.B.P.,

whence came "tepee."

But native americans
decried that as racist,

so they started calling
it "blood mutation"

or "blood poop"--

Utterly disgusting
redneck term.

And finally,
after a million people had it,

they took it seriously,

particularly when the
President of Uruguay

grew e1even extra noses
on the back of each hand,

and they called that-- ta-da!

The birth of the blues!

I'm only kidding.

They called the sickness
what it really is...

Random idiopathic
genomic mutation--

the acronym--R.I.G.M.,

or "riggum."

Now wasn't that an
informative interlude?

Philistines.

I am festooned
with Philistines.

I was just telling Sharon here
how much I miss whisper chips.

- Really?
- You remember, don't ya?

Opening the bag
without a sound,

the feel of that first
little crisp chip,

jumped right out of the bag,
and you caught it on your tongue,

and then the funny little
hiss when you bit down.

Of course,
I remember when chips made a crunch

and pissed off
everyone around you.

- Yeah. Barbaric.
- Exactly.

Excuse me.

I never tasted any
kind of chip at all.

Oh, darlin',

the things you've missed--

the popcorn,
the beer-battered flurge,

sonic potatoes!

Hi, Bedzyk.

Lookin' good, sis.

Now that, my friend, is an eye.

Some hell of an eye,
let me tell you!

Yeah, that is an
eye only to die for.

You could plotz from
an eye like that.

Ah, the tuchis is not
easily dismissed either.

What do you mean, the tuchis?
What are you, a pervert?

- Yeah?
- Bedzyk, that you?

No, it's somebody else.

Come on, will you stop crankin' me?
Is that you, Bedzyk?

Harmony, this is Bedzyk. What?

We got a ship comin' in,
dead-on trajectory from Earth.

Yeah, so?

So I checked the ephemeris
and the new E.T.A. readout,

and there's nothing
supposed to be there.

All right.
So our loving friends and neighbors

have sent us an unscheduled
load of toilet paper.

Why bother me with it?
I'm a tourist here myself.

Come on, Bedzyk.
They'll dock in eight hours.

What the hell do
you want me to do?

Well, call me in
eight and a half hours

if you're desperate
for my company.

- I'm gonna turn on the light.
- What are you doing?

- I want to turn up the light.
- Don't. Don't.

You know I don't like that.

How long have you been
here on the gulag, Annie?

- You know.
- I can't remember anything.

Time just runs
together out here.

Come on,
how many years has it been?

14.

I was 16 when they crashed
the "Coventry" on Callisto

- and took me to the settlement.
- You were a kid.

How long were you
on the "Coventry"?

I was, uh...

22,

I think, when I was discarded,

so that'd be five or six,
something like that.

Do you ever wonder why
you were discarded, Annie?

Yeah, I do,
but it's that thing about Malthus.

At least, that's how they
always explained it to me--

too many people on Earth,

no place to stand,
the sheep look up.

Yeah, that's what
they always say--

"It's too crowded.
Somebody's gotta go.

Why not send the
infected ones?"

I don't buy it.

So what is it then, hmm?

You ever hear of father Damien?

No.

- Who is he?
- He was a priest.

He worked with lepers.

See, they used to send
people with leprosy

to this island to die, okay?

Like they shipped us up here,
to the gulag.

Where are you going
with this, hmm?

The real reason they
sent us out here, Annie,

is because they can't
stand to look at us.

It's the ugliness that
scares the hell out of 'em,

not the infection.

We're just like those lepers.

You read too much.

Listen, love,

I'm no fan of our
neighbors from Earth,

but I don't think even they
could be that cruel to...

To exile us with no landfall ever,
just because we repulse them.

Out of sight, out of mind.

- And there's a big ship coming in.
- Oh, yes.

- Maybe it's good news.
- Oh, good news!

Yeah, good news is comin'.
Yeah, next week.

- Let me turn up the lights.
- No, don't.

- Annie, I like to look at you.
- No. It's not--

No. I...

- It's me, this ridiculous arm.
- It's not you, Bedzyk.

- You are lovely.
- Yeah, I'm gorgeous.

Really.

I love looking at you.

I just...

- I just have...
- Baggage.

Please.

Annie, all over the system,

people make love to each
other with the lights on

because they like to
look at each other.

I'll tell you what--
I--I'll give you

$2 in small change
if just once...

we could pretend we're normal.

Did you just say "normal"?

Bedzyk?

Yes?

It's Harmony Teat.

That ship is docking right now.
What should I do?

Why don't you take
that ship and--

Has it been eight
hours already, Harmony?

Six, ship time.
I didn't figure it so good. Sorry, boss.

Have they declared themselves?

Get that ham-fisted
jackhammer you call an arm

and your fat ass
over to control now!

It's an emissary yacht
from Earth Central.

What's going on?

Ephemeris time 0-0-0,
and he's sweet.

- Nice. Very, very nice. Nice.
- Coupled and locked in.

Bam! Did I do a job,
or did I do a job?

I'm one hell of a navigator.

- Did they hail us?
- Not yet.

Guess we're being thrown out of here.
You think?

Yeah, probably.

All right, let's hail them.

Attention, Earth vessel.

Attention, Earth vessel,
do you read me?

- What are they, deaf?
- Could be.

Attention, Earth vessel.

Listen, guys,
save yourself the effort, okay?

We are leaving Earth space.

What is this?

Maybe they're all dead and purple
and full of maggots in there,

you know? Tongues hangin' out,

guts spillin' out of their noses,
eyeballs all...

One can only hope.
I don't get it.

They're here.
We know they're here.

Why won't they talk to us?

They've undogged their
debarkation port and cycled ours.

They're boarding us.

Home. Home.

W-w-we're going home.

All right, open it.

Hello.

I was sent from Earth Central

to make you a really
terrific offer.

My name's Curran,

and you must be the captain.

I wanna go home! Home!

What year is it on Earth?

Quiet!

All right, listen up!

Now you all wanted to
go to the terraforms.

Have we been to the terraforms?
- Yes!

You wanted to go to Europa.

- Have we been to Europa?
- Yes!

- Have we been to Mercury?
- Yes!

Have we been to Venus,
Callisto, Ganymede...

Yes! Yes!

Twice-- twice we
went to Ganymede.

All right, then back off!

Back off.
Let me talk to this guy.

I'll tell you everything
in five minutes.

Oh, yes, my captain.

Come on.
We can talk in the cathedral.

The cathedral.

Drop to your knees and pray.

Reminds me of the rain forests
my grandparents spoke of.

Plants are life--

the very air we breathe.

That's 'cause you bastards
never sent us new scrubbers,

and the original crap they put

on this garbage scow
broke down years ago.

Harmony, make sure
we're left alone, huh?

All right, speak your piece...

Shove off.
Stop suckin' up our air.

I've been invested with
the most important mission

people of your home
planet have ever mounted.

I represent every member of
the Sanhedrin of Earth central.

Yes, how profoundly moving.

- And your name is Curran?
- You can call me Barney.

Well, Mr.
Curran, or Ambassador Curran,

or Plenipotentiary
High-mucketty-doodle Curran,

we perceive your
vast importance.

Now just get on with it.

Captain, could you introduce
me to your associates?

Okay, Sam.

Well, uh, this is Harmony Teat.

I... uh, we are Samswope,
the captain's right arm.

I am Samswope.

Let me see if I can guess, Mr.
Sanhedrin Earth neighbor.

You want us to move our
little load of misfits

off orbit L-5,
or we'll blast your asses away.

Oh, no.
N-no, it's not that at all.

And in fact, I don't think
that any of us down there have

an idea of how hard it's
been for you people.

Without the lubricant, huh?
Just spit it out.

Bedzyk, let him talk.

You were the control
that skimmed us in.

- Lovely job--like a ballet.
- Hey, Curran--riggum.

Beg your pardon?

R.I.G.M.

R...

I...

G... M. The blood poop.

Random idiopathic
genomic mutation.

"The sickness."

The gift that keeps on giving--

like another head.

Do you think that Earth
Central hates you,

that we don't feel you pain?

God, it's been 37 years.

You--you have to believe
that we feel the guilt

and torment of what the
former generation did to you.

Oh, that's why you never
send get-well packages

- or toilet paper?
- Mr. Bedzyk and I

need to tell our
happy little band

why you're here, sheriff.

So go ahead.

Uh, by the way,
I notice that you're

a healthy,
arrow-slim normal lad.

Did they pick
you preferentially,

to give us a little
tweak of the antennae?

- Oh, god.
- You're one of us.

The runnies.

That's how darting priest went.
Remember, Bedzyk?

And gary what's-his-name,

the one that drank
the can of lye.

They sent you to
be a passenger.

What'd you do, steal the yacht?

It's getting worse...
much worse--

the sickness--riggum.

But why'd you come to us--

What, to tell us we were
gonna have to double-bunk?

Th're gonna send a--a couple
of hundred more discards

up here to our floating swamp?

If it were that,
we wouldn't send hundreds.

We'd send hundreds
of thousands.

It's spreading--

changing us like a
tidal wave every day.

There is no day here--
also no night.

Every day is every day.

Sam, let him tell it.

After the first
wave of discards...

After all of you... left,

it spread from
continent to continent.

We don know how.
We didn't know the--

the vector of contamination--
if it was fleas, ticks,

animals, people.
We didn't know.

But there was a spray--

um, germicide or pheromonic,
I don't know.

I'm not a biologist. But

the Sanhedrin sprayed
the entire planet,

and it worked--
for about 11 years.

And then the sickness
mutated around it--

got stronger, smarter.

- Damn riggum.
- Got even tougher.

The rigmarole.

Something in the spray
itself activated a trigger

in the nucleus of the plague virus.
Everyone was hit.

There's no chance to isolate
it or for quarantine.

So what,
we're the ones who got off easy?

Is that--is that what
you came to tell us?

- That is a bit rich.
- It got so bad,

people evacuated the cities,

started living in sterile
shelters and domes underground.

We thought it was all over.

And then a doctor,

a hungarian,

came up with a serum.

Do you hear what he's saying?

Don't you get it yet?

A cure.

The only thing that
stops it from spreading.

It's a--it's a serum
synthesized from

prepandemic enzymes that
are only found in blood,

in...

in the blood of...

Of discards.

Of us!

Are you kiddin' me?

You want our blood!

Here I thought I'd lost my faith
in the wickedness of mankind.

Y-y-you want us to save you?

Hey, Barney--

Hey, you got a world full
of freaks up there, huh?

Why don't you use them?

Better yet, why don't you pop
into one of your own puky veins?

Hey, you could save the
whole world yourself.

We're no good.

The sickness changed us.

Our blood doesn't
secrete the same enzymes.

Well, then you and the
world have crapped out,

because I wouldn't
take a whiz on you

if there were flames shooting
out of your eyeballs.

If you'd listen to my proposal,

I think you might
well reconsider.

It could change the lives of
everyone aboard this vessel--

- Oh, sure it will.
- If you would just listen--

I'm not gonna listen to you.

You got nothing I
want to listen to.

No!

Comin' home! Comin' home!

Baby Jesus--Jesus loves me!

- Grab him!
- Hallelujah, Jesus!

Hallelujah! I'm goin' home!

- Smiler, no!
- I cannot wait!

I'm goin' home!

I'm goin' home, baby Jesus!

I'll talk to the captain.

I'll talk to him.

You know how to use this thing?

Yeah, Harmony taught me.

- What happened?
- Smiler lost it--

tried to bring us down.

Tried to kill the cathedral--

merely succeeded in
killing Harmony Teat.

Well, where is he?

Chucho red's got him locked
up in the lazarette.

Well, you're still here?

It's important that I finish
what I was going to say.

Well, if it's important,
you'd better finish.

You all need to
know that we care.

What happened to you is happening to us,
only faster.

We've watched people change
right before our eyes.

No family is untouched.

My wife...

On behalf of Terran Central,

if you agree to help us,

we're prepared to
let your ship land

and house all of you on Earth.

You'll be home again.

You'll--you'll breathe real air.
Feel real land.

What happens if we decide
not to give you our blood?

Yeah, that's right.
He wants our blood.

You'll come out here
and take it anyway, won't you?

No, of course not.

No, we'll send an
emissary to another ship,

but I hope that
won't be necessary.

What do you think,
we're a bunch of idiots?

- You won't give us anything.
- Yes, we will. I swear.

Oh, god, you're a liar, Curran.

You're an errand boy
wearing a sailor suit.

You're their lapdog with
a bad case of the mange.

- You'll say whatever takes.
- Please.

I suspect that I'm not isolated
in my naked, desperate,

pain-filled need to return
to the planet of my youth.

This isn't home, Bedzyk.

We want to go back to Earth.

All of us--
we want to go back home!

There is no Earth!

Not for us. Not now, not ever.

It's what these people do, Sam.

They lie to get what they want.

How could it possibly be to
our detriment, old friend?

- He said we could go back home!
- And he's lying!

Let him screw around with
somebody else's ship--not mine!

"Mine"?

Get out of the way.

I'm gonna throw this lying
pissant off the ship.

They are not gonna let us
get any closer to Earth!

Can't you pathetic freaks
ever realize that?

You must disabuse yourself of
this paranoia, this hatred.

Simply put, they want what it
is that only we can provide.

We need what they have--
our home!

Home? Are you
really that stupid?

You are as close to a friend
as anyone I've known,

and whether you like it or not,

I consider you to be an equal.

I don't mind if you
think I'm a fool,

but don't ever talk to me
as if you think I'm one.

Oh, come on, Sam.
You're smarter than this.

They're nothing but a bunch of
backstabbing, arrogant liars.

Cease and desist.

Your authority has
been superseded,

and you have been supplanted.

So now we're a democracy, eh?

Yesterday, it was
"Aye, aye, captain."

Today "You're superseded."

As distressing as
it may seem, yes.

How about you, Annie?

Where do you stand?

I'm sorry, Bedzyk.

Look, you're so angry,

you're not seeing
any of this clearly.

I see it real clear.

You people...

Anytime anything
ever went wrong,

you came runnin' for me,
didn't you, huh?

Something had to be done,
some decision had to be made--

"Where's Bedzyk?
Go get Bedzyk. Get Bedzyk."

And this--this--

this Earth scum shows
up with the runnies.

He holds up this bright
and shiny new lie,

and you all sit up
and wag your tails.

It is not my most
fervent wish to expire

on this galactic latrine.

Listen to me.
We will take care of all of you.

We have huge plots of
land in South America--

rugged land, I'll admit--

but there's plenty of
room for all of you.

Don't listen to him!
Never trust an Earthman.

- Never!
- Bedzyk, shut up!

- Annie?
- It's what we all want, Bedzyk.

- Get off my ship!
- Bedzyk, stop!

Sam...

Annie...

Now you've done it.

Get your medical teams up here
and start with the bloods.

We wish to go home,
Ambassador Curran.

We wish to go home now.

Ah! Once again,

the manifestation
of the venerable,

idiom-precise Dr.
Janet Goldstein,

savior of our
misbegotten compatriots

- both here and on Earth.
- Samswope.

It's good to see you.

Your work here
approaches a denouement.

We finally hit our quota today.

The rescue vessel
is on the way.

I wonder who's more excited--

Your people or mine?

What?

Oh, I admit,
before this operation commenced,

I felt a flourish of cynicism--

a touch of the old vampire,
don't ya know?

You've done well, Samswope.

You've saved the world,

and you've saved your people.

We couldn't have done
this without you,

and no one's ever
gonna forget that.

Well, shucks, doc.

I'll be superamalgamated.

Are you ready to
give one last time?

Old girlfriend?

Could we just finish this?

Samswope?

Samswope.

I have an update on
the rescue vessel--

E.T.A. six hours.

- Thank you, Annie.
- Roger that.

You don't seem
particularly excited.

Ah, but I am.

Six hours...

There's more than enough time.

Barely enough to master
all the outlandish

permutations of this
connubiation custom.

Steve's wedding?

But of course, my darling.

This is a first, isn't it?

Truly.

Never happened when Bedzyk
was running things.

Then again,
we didn't have much to celebrate.

What?

It was not my intention...

I didn't mean to
kill him, frenchy.

I swear to God.

He was going to
ruin everything.

You did what you had to do.

You gave us hope.

You gave us back our home, Sam.

Here we go.

Wow. Okay.

Just a little bit right there.

Brothers and sisters,
mesdames et messieurs,

freaks and frogs,
flotsam and jetsam,

we are aggregated here to
witness the tri-binding

of a trio of our assembly
in Holy Matrimony....

Steve, Sharon, Bucky.

It would be remiss of me not
to make mention of the fact

that this moment is without precedent
in the annals of our ordeal.

This is the first wedding
we've ever had here...

A symbol of new
beginnings bespeaking

our imminent departure
for a home to which

we feared we might
never return.

Steve, do you take
these other two

to be your lifelong lovemates?

I do.

Bucky, do you take these other
two to be your lifelong lovemates?

I do.

Sharon, do you take these other
two for your lifelong lovemates?

Okay.

All of which have
the merit of being

acceptable answers to
the query just posed.

Steve, Sharon, Bucky,

I have the distinct pleasure
in pronouncing you men,

women, bisexes, bivalves,
baby-blue husbands and/or wives.

Sam? They're here.

They're docking.

Come! Let us greet the
engines of our salvation!

Ambassador Curran,
welcome back.

You arrive at the most
appropriate moment.

The very thought of
our repatriation is...

No!

No!

No!

Am I Samswope?

Somebody clean that up and
blow it out the garbage port!

What monstrosities
would walk the streets

were some people's faces as
unfinished as their minds.