- How do I take off a mask when it stops being a mask,
when it's as much a part of me as I am?
10:00 a.m. - Amen.
- 12:00 p.m.
- Life, love...
- 2:00 p.m. - I'm Ray.
- To stay as sane as possible
until he's gone.
- I am not to be gotten rid of!
- I find you refreshing--
young, bold--
exactly what we need right now.
- The FBI believes that I was behind the hack.
- Gideon's gonna rat you out.
[gunshot, people screaming]
- Something ain't right about this guy.
- Bang!
- I don't trust him.
- We are in a war,
and they are picking us off
one by one.
[gunshot]
- Tyrell Wellick and fsociety
engaged in this attack.
- [chuckles]
Bonsoir, Elliott.
[surf crashing, seagulls squawking]
[bell jingling]
- ♪ Ding, dong, ding
- All right, man, explain this to me again.
Why are you taking me to an arcade?
- Well, I'm trying to tell you, but you don't listen.
That's the problem with your generation--
too ADD to really take in this world.
- All right, all right, break it down for me.
- Well, to really get it,
I got to take you back to 1924.
Husband-and-wife team, the Bedfords,
opened up a freak show/ dwarf sanctuary
on this land you're about to be at.
- Dwarf sanctuary?
- Yeah, they called it the Bedford Lilliputian--
a whole miniature city
scaled down for dwarf and midget inhabitants.
I mean, they also had other freaks
like lion-faced man, limbless woman, shit like that.
But the dwarves were the big moneymaker.
Suffice to say, the Bedfords were a big hit--
lines around the corner,
the biggest attraction out here in Coney Island.
Then one year, rumor has it,
the husband wakes up one Christmas morning,
grabs a large kitchen knife,
slices his wife's throat open,
stabs his little kids to death,
then slits his own wrists.
- Huh. - No motive was ever determined.
- God.
- Cut to the 1960s.
Woman named Mary Meghan Fisher decided to buy up the place,
turned it into an old-school arcade--
pinball machines, Skee-Ball, the likes.
Called it "Games Games Games."
Shit, a bit on the nose, if you ask me,
not to mention repetitive,
but at least it had clarity.
Mary Meghan even installed a little bar
so she could get drunk with her friends
and shoot pool at night.
And so she did,
almost every night...
till one time in '86, she got so liquored up,
she accidentally fell off the barstool
and landed hard on the pool cue she was holding.
- Oh.
- Went right through her neck, clean.
Killed her right on the spot.
- What in the fuck are you telling me this for, man?
[door creaks and bangs]
- Place remained dormant until 2000,
when Ned Bosham bought up the joint under the name
Fun Society Amusement LLC.
Ned wanted to reopen it as a classic arcade.
Now, why anyone would want to start an arcade in 2000
beats me, but Ned Bosham had it in his mind
that that's what he wanted to do, and so he did.
[clicking and creaking]
About a year ago, his oldest son, Harold, wanted to sell it,
but Ned wasn't down with that.
So the oldest son, Harold, being simpleminded and needing money
for whatever simpleminded folks need money for,
decided Dad had to go.
So Harold stole his twin brother's hunting rifle
and shot Dad in the face.
Now, what Harold wasn't counting on,
considering he had never fired a weapon before,
was the kickback.
It kicked back so hard, he tripped and fell
out of his dad's 20-story window.
- [hisses]
- By the time he hit the ground, his head opened up
like one of those Gallagher watermelons.
All this commotion stirred awake his twin brother, Clyde,
who, as he told it to me, was in his bedroom
catching some Zs when all this went down.
By the time he got his bearings,
he was immediately arrested for the double homicide
of his brother and father,
being the weapon was in his name.
- And how do you know Clyde?
- He was my cellmate.
This place made him crazy.
He thinks it's cursed.
- [whispering] Yeah. No shit, Sherlock.
- Before I left the clink, he gave me the keys to the joint
and made me swear to burn it down
before it caused any more ruckus.
He swears it's haunted--
believes it is the nexus of all evil in the universe.
- You buy into any of this shit?
- Fuck no, man.
I'm too broke to be superstitious.
In a way, all this hocus-pocus keeps things clean
for whatever it is you need to do.
The public records are in limbo.
People down in county don't even want to touch the place.
I'm siphoning electricity from the grid.
As far as anyone's concerned, it don't exist.
Now, on the market, this joint would run you
about 5 grand a month, but since it's you,
I'll give it to your guy for half.
Come on, Mobley, don't give me that look, man.
You know how hard it is for an ex-con to get a job.
Money's tight,
especially with my mom's cataracts.
The bills are adding up.
- I'm not here to rent from you, Romero.
I want you to work with us.
- Oh, hell no, man. I just got out.
I ain't trying to go back no time soon.
- Just hear my guy out, okay?
We need a phreaker.
Now, you know you're the best in the game.
- Don't try to sweet-talk me, motherfucker.
I don't need you to tell me who's the best in the game.
I invented the shit, okay?
Now, either you're renting, or I'm finding somebody else,
but I cannot get mixed up in whatever it is you're doing.
- Man, this is a chance to get back at the system
that stole six years of your life.
This is a game changer, man.
- Who's this guy, again?
- He's, uh-- he's a little weird.
But, uh, he's gonna love this place.
He's got a thing for Coney Island.
You'll like him.
Actually, you'll hate him.
But he's a genius.
Best coder I've ever met.
And he wants to meet you.
- How much?
Aw, don't smile. I ain't said yes yet.
Money's gonna be the deciding factor in all this,
and it's gonna need to be a whole lot to bring me back in.
- That's the thing, man.
In a way,
this pays everything.
[Dusty Springfield's "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me"]
[dramatic music]
What happened to the U and the N?
- Oh, that?
That's a story for another time.
♪
- ♪ When I said
♪ I needed you
♪ You said you would always stay ♪
♪ It wasn't me who changed
♪ But you
♪ And now you've gone away
♪
♪ Left alone with just
♪ A memory
♪ Life seems dead
♪ And so unreal
♪ All that's left
♪ Is loneliness
♪ There's nothing left to feel ♪
♪ You don't have to say you love me ♪
♪ Just be close at hand
- Panic. Here it comes again.
Remember?
That sudden sensation of fear,
overwhelming fear,
burrowing its way underneath my brain,
making itself at home...
- ♪ You don't have to say you love me ♪
- Nesting...
- ♪ Just be close at hand
♪ You don't have to
♪ Stay forever
♪ I will understand
- Screaming in my mind.
- ♪ Believe me
♪ Believe me
[static crackling]
- It's good to hear your voice.
- Where are you?
[foreboding music]
- Not yet where I'm supposed to be.
But soon, very soon.
- Protestors are taking to the street in massive numbers,
and police and community leaders
are at a loss as to what to do at this point,
citing that...
- And where is that?
- I don't think that's a good idea.
- You think someone's listening?
- Don't tell me you're having second thoughts.
You don't want me to have to worry about you.
- I need to know what's going on.
- It's not safe.
I wish it were.
Oh, how I wish.
How I wish.
I think about you a lot, Elliot.
I think about that night
when we became gods.
- That night--
I want to know what happened.
[suspenseful music]
Tell me what happened.
- Like he said, it's not safe,
not on the phone.
- I'm not gonna let you make me a prisoner
of my own paranoia again.
- If you're not paranoid,
you need me more than you think you do.
We had a deal.
You wanted to talk to him.
I delivered.
It's not my fault he's loony tunes.
- He really expects me to believe this?
Did we really talk to the most wanted man on the planet?
- Why the fuck are you asking them?
You heard him. You talked to him.
- I talk to you too.
- [scoffs] What do you want, huh?
We had a deal. I delivered!
[bang] What more do you want?
- What I've always wanted:
for the panic to finally stop.
- Shocking news from last night,
Gideon Goddard, owner and CEO of Allsafe Cybersecurity,
considered ground zero for the Five/Nine attacks,
was shot dead at a bar in Manhattan.
The suspected murderer surrendered at the scene.
The alleged gunman,
whose name has yet to be released...
- But it won't.
- Described by law enforcement sources
as disgruntled, unemployed,
and having a history of mental illness.
- Just don't know why you can't send me a new one.
You ain't even with E Corp.
Well, I guess I never figured
you were all in bed together like that.
How am I supposed to pay the bills
if my autopay stopped working?
[knocking at door]
Okay, somebody's at the door.
Guess I got to call you back.
Uh-huh, like you give a shit.
[knocking at door] Door's open.
Come on in.
- Hi, Mrs. Romero.
- Oh.
I don't know where he at.
Ain't seen him for a bit.
Probably downstairs.
You know how he is.
Just comes and goes, goes and comes.
[people chanting indistinctly on TV]
- Rome!
Yo, Rome!
Where you at, man?
Rome?
[sniffs] Whoa.
What the fuck is that smell, man?
Rome?
[foreboding music]
♪
Rome?
[ominous music]
♪
[whispering] Shit.
[indistinct chatter on TV]
[dialysis machine beeping]
- But has become a citywide epidemic for families as well.
Now let's check in with Jessie
for our five borough weather report.
- Oh, thank you, Chris. I wish I could tell you...
- Got those at Mel's.
[chuckles] Beautiful, huh?
Sad to see his shop shut down.
Mm.
Mmm.
Was gonna leave it to his nephew too.
Kid with the burnt face.
You know what I'm talking about?
What's his name?
Mm.
Can't think of it.
Anyway, with everything going on with the trucking,
Mel says fresh deliveries just aren't coming through.
'Sides, now that the allowance
is down to just $50 a day,
no one's spending it on flowers.
Hmm.
I swear, the only way I'm getting through this
is having breakfast with you.
Mets won again.
It's gonna be their year.
Yeah, I know.
I know, I know, I know, I know.
- Ready, y'all?
[indistinct chatter]
Pick up.
- Ah, damn. Come on.
- Can't never do it with that shit!
[indistinct chatter]
- Take it easy with that dosage, cuz.
I ain't your keeper, and I damn straight
ain't gonna be your reaper neither, you dig?
Let's go! - Come on!
- What problem you trying to solve anyway, man?
- How do I tell him that someone I cared about died?
I'm fine.
- You know, that's what you always saying, man.
- So we're back to the morphine?
- Don't listen, man.
- What do you think that's going to accomplish, exactly?
- It's not morphine.
It's Adderall.
This is your fault.
All of it.
Now it's time to get rid of you.
[dramatic music]
♪
When a computer gets hit with a kernel panic,
there's only so much you can do.
An internal fatal error
is hard to recover from.
I mean, listen to that:
internal fatal error.
Sounds pretty fucking bad, you ask me.
But OD'ing on Adderall was finally my way
of controlling him.
♪
- Do you have a moment, Mr. Alderson?
- Is this the FBI?
Did Gideon rat me out?
- Come on!
- Help!
Help!
No! No!
[muffled screaming]
♪
[panting]
- [singing operatically in foreign language]
♪
- This is a New Lots Avenue-bound four train.
[radio static crackles]
[indistinct police radio chatter]
[brakes screeching]
[hissing]
This is a Brooklyn-bound two express train.
Next stop is DeKalb Avenue.
- [singing operatically]
- Stand clear of the closing doors, please.
[electronic chime]
- [singing operatically]
- Elliot and I both warned you
it was a liability he sold drugs.
- God damn it.
Why are you being such an asshole?
He's dead.
- Did anyone see you?
- Just his mom.
What did you want me to do?
She was upstairs.
Fuck, Darlene.
What did we do?
[foreboding music]
♪
- [grunting]
♪
[gasps]
♪
[gasps]
[panting]
Where am I?
[shouting] Where am I?
♪
What are you doing?
What's that for?
[ominous music]
♪
No, no, wait.
♪
No.
No!
No! I have them! No!
[muffled screaming]
♪
[gagging]
[dramatic orchestral music]
♪
[vomiting]
♪
- That's it.
Get that Adderall out of your system.
Good boy.
That's it, get those shitty pills
out of your system.
- [sputtering]
[panting]
♪
- I have burrowed underneath your brain.
I am nested there.
I am the scream in your mind.
You will cooperate, my son.
I will make you, because I own you!
- Argh!
♪
[grunts]
♪
I will not be owned.
♪
- First, I want to offer my condolences.
Terrible news about your old boss.
I hear he was a good man.
Very unfortunate when bad things happen to good people.
- Thank you, sir.
I've been pretty broken up about it.
- Second, this interview that you've set up,
it's all wrong.
I want to do Fox instead of Bloomberg.
No preinterview, and I want final approval
of all questions beforehand.
- I'm on it.
Mr. Price?
I think this is a mistake.
Frankly, Fox isn't where we should be right now.
Bloomberg is where investors get their business news,
and if our goal is to reassure them--
- Sit down.
[sighs]
Have you ever had dinner at Fidelio's?
- No.
I haven't.
- Used to be a dive bar years ago.
It's since turned into one of the nicest restaurants
in the city.
I know the chef.
He's very good.
I'll have Marcel make a reservation.
You've never had semifreddo
until you've had it there.
- Okay.
- I'll arrange a car to pick you up.
Saturday, 8:00.
And, uh, yes, you're right.
Bloomberg-- it's more appropriate.
We'll stick with that.
- Thank you, sir.
- I've noticed you always look at that
before you leave my office.
Perhaps you find it as fascinating as I do...
How a man can change the whole world
with a bullet in the right place.
[lively orchestral music]
- Oh, no, what does that say?
♪
- [laughing]
- Don't fall over.
♪
You okay? You okay?
- [laughing]
- I don't want to go to sleep another night
not knowing you're not gonna be my wife.
♪
- [laughs]
Oh, my God.
♪
- Emilia, will you marry me?
♪
- Next on "Million Dollar Listing New York"...
- Am I gonna be dealing with you--
- Alexa, what time is it?
- [electronic voice] It is 4:03 a.m.
- That's it, not a penny more.
- Whatever she says goes.
- [sighs]
[The Highwaymen's "Highwayman"]
[energetic instrumental music]
♪
- ♪ I was a highwayman
♪ Along the coach roads I did ride ♪
♪
♪ With sword and pistol by my side ♪
♪
♪ Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade ♪
♪
♪ Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade ♪
♪
♪ The bastards hung me in the spring of '25 ♪
♪
♪ But I am still alive
♪
- ♪ I was a sailor
♪ I was born upon the tide
- [sighs] Alexa, stop.
- ♪ And with the sea I did--
[music stops]
[electronic beeping]
[whirring]
- [sneezes]
Whew, sorry. Something's going around.
Victim's mother's back at the station.
[sniffs] Didn't get much from her.
Down here.
[indistinct police radio chatter]
[sniffling]
All we got on the victim so far is,
he's a known hacker with a record.
Got busted in '08.
Served six years for some small-time computer fraud stuff.
[coughing]
It's okay. I got gloves on.
- Well, it doesn't matter much if you sneeze...
- [sneezes]
- On them. Okay.
Tell you what, why don't you hold this still?
- We're still looking, but it looks like he only
printed out these three sheets from the full FBI roster.
[sniffs and grunts]
[coughs]
We contacted everyone here at the New York office.
You're the first to respond.
- It doesn't mean much.
Thousands of FBI names and contact details
were leaked a few months back.
Every hacker has this.
What are they doing?
- Uh, it's Forensics.
We found his desktop unlocked.
Uh, once we're done analyzing it,
we'll send a full report.
- Did you have them check if the ports were modified at all
before using them?
[electricity crackling]
- Whoa! - Shit!
- Fire extinguisher.
[banging, indistinct chatter]
- [sighs] Well... [chuckles]
- [coughing]
- Here's my card in case you find anything else.
Thanks again for calling me.
I'd really talk to your doctor about getting a Z-Pak.
You really shouldn't be out here infecting your whole unit.
It's very irresponsible of you.
- [imitating airplane zooming]
Mom, please give us a minute?
Come Mohammed. Let's go dear.
- According to the police report,
there was no sign of a robbery.
- Someone was there
with the sole purpose of offing him.
- You're jumping to conclusions.
- What about that Allsafe guy?
That's two murders in a row
associated with this hack.
- They caught the guy.
It was just some wack-job.
Besides, I don't really care discussing this with you,
given how easily you forgot about what we started.
- What, because I don't care for stupid high jinks
like burning money in the middle of a park?
- That stupid high jinks
is killing public confidence in E Corp,
which is exactly what we need to be doing right now.
- We might be getting executed by the Dark Army,
and this is what you'd rather be discussing?
- It's not the Dark Army.
They don't know Romero
or the two of you.
They only communicate through me,
and I sure as shit didn't tell them anything.
- You're not the only person they've talked to.
- He wouldn't do that.
- The state Elliot's in, we don't know--
[bang]
- Don't say what you're thinking.
- You don't want to listen to reason,
that's on you.
But I'm taking off.
I'm not sticking around to be next.
I'm gonna stay with my buddy in Arizona.
- If they wanted us dead, we'd be dead already.
Besides, if you're just gonna end up in Arizona,
then being dead isn't that much of a downgrade.
- Ha-ha.
- Then what do you suggest we do, then?
- I'll talk to Elliot.
I'll hit you both when I get more info.
Until then,
stop spazzing...
And be cool.
- [sighs]
- I don't trust her
or her crazy-ass brother.
You know he tried to pull a gun on Romero?
Think about it, Trenton.
They're the only two that talked to the Dark Army.
Now they're trying to tell us the Dark Army isn't involved.
- What are you saying?
- I'm saying we just committed the crime of the century,
and they're trying to cover their tracks.
And right now, we're the tracks.
- A lot of life is a balancing act.
We're all just doing our best,
tightrope walking above that pit of ungodly pain
that's daring us to trip up.
Take money and health.
One isn't very useful without the other, you know?
Case in point:
even though you've been paid handsomely,
the physical condition you're in right now
kind of cancels that out.
And I'd like to say upfront...
I'm very sorry this happened to you.
The guys I deal with, they can be ruthless.
Me, I'm more of a positive reinforcement kind of guy.
You know, I just happen to think it's more productive.
- [sobbing]
- Nevertheless, that don't change what's been done to you.
The person who did this
will get proportionate retribution.
On that tip, I still need you to fix this thing for me.
Our site's been down way too long.
Good news is, once you bring it back up,
you will get your money,
and, in time, God willing,
your health.
That's all I want to do here--
help put your life back in balance.
- They keep emptying the Bitcoin wallets,
and the server keeps crashing.
I don't know how to stop it.
I only know basic network security measures.
You have to find someone who--
who can migrate the site to another,
more secure location
and set up a system of hot and cold wallets.
Just...
[pensive piano music]
Please...
♪
[whispering] Please.
I can't--I can't figure it out.
[sobbing]
♪
- I could try to convince him again.
- Just because you beat a man's face to a pulp
don't mean he gonna know what he don't.
We're not animals.
We need to find someone who can do that migration thing
he keep talking about.
[sighs]
This heat wave is a motherfucker.
What's the high supposed to be today?
♪
What you looking at me for?
Turn on the goddamn weather station, let's go.
♪
- Can I tell you a secret?
It's been three days since I slept.
I'm up to about 200 milligrams now.
But that's not the secret.
He's gone.
You heard me.
He's gone.
[upbeat music]
♪
It was so simple.
I'm way more aware now.
I'm way more focused.
And I'm feeling 100%.
♪
[electronic beep and chime]
He's gone. He's gone.
The Adderall is working,
and fuck if this drug doesn't feel good.
♪
I can even handle talking with people.
- Yo, bro, he's like...
- Even Leon's stupid "Seinfeld" philosophy
is starting to sound fascinating.
So--so he just--he just--
he just ran out of the party,
pushing old people aside?
That's so funny. Was there even a fire?
I mean, that's classic George, am I right?
- I don't like this, bro.
♪
- Why haven't I done this before?
Damn, these dishes look immaculate.
[electronic ding]
♪
I'm pretty sure I even found God.
[electronic buzzing] all: Amen!
Amen! [electronic buzz]
- Amen, Amen, Amen!
Amen, Amen, Amen, Amen!
Amen! Amen!
Even the dumb basketball game is enthralling.
The ball goes into a hoop.
Of course.
Whoo!
Slam dunk!
We can finally be back to normal.
It'll just be me and you, my friend.
We'll dine together.
[tape squealing] Maybe I'll read to you.
Or we'll just talk.
But the point is,
he's gone,
and now it's just us.
You're not buying any of this either.
Are you?
[foreboding music]
♪
It was feeling good
for a few days.
It really was,
wasn't it?
But this is the fifth day of not sleeping,
I think.
Fifth...
Isn't that a funny word?
Shit.
There it is again.
[static scratching]
The overwhelming fear building,
the burrowing,
the nesting,
the scream.
[static crackling]
- Stoob Dnalamit Gniraew eb Egroeg.
Dna gnihtyreve dna ogol eht htiw,
sdrawkcab edosipe elohw eht yalp yehT "layarteB ehT."
Eb ot tog sah tsepod eht.
- I know, I know, Leon's talking backwards.
This isn't good.
♪
[static scratching, electronic beeping]
Yeah, I know.
That's very weird too.
[electronic beeping and buzzing]
[ominous music]
♪
My internal fatal error...
[electronic beeping]
From which my system cannot safely recover.
[electronic beeping]
[high-pitched ringing, electronic beeping]
[high-pitched ringing, thudding]
Kernel panic.
Day number six without sleep.
[eerie music]
I'm crashing.
♪
Next, my consciousness will go.
[music intensifying]
♪
The panic isn't settling in anymore.
It's just there.
The scream in my mind is coming back.
♪
- [sighing]
You are likable.
[relaxed funk music]
You are attractive.
♪
You are beautiful.
♪
crowd: Revolution!
Revolution!
- What is that solution? crowd: Revolution!
- Phillip Price, please.
- Your party's here.
Do you want me to show you to the table?
♪
- ♪ Say the word
♪ Say the word
[women vocalizing]
♪
[men and women vocalizing]
♪
- ♪ If you love...
♪ Love me, babe
♪ Any--
- Angela.
Yes, come. Please, please.
I'd like you to meet two of your colleagues.
Gentlemen, introduce yourselves.
- Saul Weinberg,
managing director of operations.
- Hi. Angela. It's nice to meet you.
- Jim Chutney, SVP of B.A.
- Angela.
- Phillip Price, master of the universe.
[all chuckling]
[light piano music]
- All right.
- [whispering indistinctly]
- [groans]
Yes.
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
- Because of the situation,
you have to pay upfront now.
- [grunts]
Well, a toast.
May new relationships
lead to new opportunities.
- [panting]
Oh, God.
Alexa, when is the end of the world?
- Unless it collides with a very large rock
or a future technology goes very wrong indeed,
Earth is most likely to be destroyed
when the sun swells into a red giant
in several billion years' time.
- Right.
[electronic beeping]
[whirring]
[eerie music]
♪
- I know you--you want me to talk about myself,
but I don't...
- The Adderall's almost out of my system.
With that, sleep will return.
Any second now, he's gonna come back,
and my mind will be under siege again.
- This isn't something, like, I-I...
- Mr. Robot has become my god,
and like all gods,
their madness takes you prisoner.
- There was this...
- I guess I couldn't avoid Gideon's death after all.
My dam of guilt is finally cracking.
I want to cry, but I'm so high that I can't.
- There was an Indian man working behind the counter,
and I made fun of his accent.
[imitating Indian accent] And talk like this.
"Hello, how you doing?"
[in normal voice] And one day, he stood up for himself.
[imitating Indian accent] "Sir, I must ask you to leave."
[in normal voice] And something snapped in me,
and I just popped him in the face.
I saw red, man.
I just--I just kept punching him and punching him.
And I hated him so much.
He was Indian.
[crying]
But it was raining.
There was a thunderstorm,
and I remember stepping outside.
And the clouds parted,
and the sun came out.
And I knew that that was God
showing up for me in that moment.
[crying]
He forgave me.
- Jesus loves you.
And this was clearly just a test.
all: Amen.
- Elliot, would you like to share?
- No, man.
My system's hung.
- God can help you.
- Is that what God does?
He helps?
Tell me,
why didn't God help my innocent friend
who died for no reason
while the guilty roam free?
Okay, fine.
Forget the one-offs.
How about the countless wars
declared in his name?
Okay, fine.
Let's skip the random, meaningless murder for a second,
shall we?
How about the racist,
sexist, phobia soup
we've all been drowning in because of him?
[pensive music]
And I'm not just talking about Jesus.
I'm talking about all organized religion--
exclusive groups
created to manage control,
a dealer getting people hooked
on the drug of hope,
his followers nothing but addicts
who want their hit of bullshit
to keep their-- their dopamine of ignorance,
addicts afraid to believe the truth--
that there is no order,
there's no power,
that all religions are just
metastasizing mind worms
meant to divide us
so it's easier to rule us
by the charlatans that want to run us.
♪
All we are to them are paying fanboys
of their poorly written sci-fi franchise.
♪
[chuckling]
If I don't listen to my imaginary friend,
why the fuck should I listen to yours?
♪
People think their worship's
some key to happiness.
That's just how he owns you.
♪
Even I'm not crazy enough
to believe that distortion of reality.
♪
So Fáák God.
♪
He's not a good enough scapegoat for me.
♪
Please tell me I didn't say all of that out loud.
♪
Shit. I did.
[foreboding music]
♪
[door bangs]
[laughter]
[light piano music]
♪
- [clears throat]
Angela and I are going to have one more drink.
- Oh, of course.
Of course.
- Thank you for dinner, Phillip.
- Mm-hmm.
- Don't get up.
It was good to have met you.
- Pleasure meeting you, Angela.
Now remember, come see us anytime.
We'll have lunch.
- On you. [laughing]
- [sighs]
So...
did you enjoy the semifreddo?
Was it all I promised?
- Yes.
- Excellent!
- Absolutely. It was delicious.
- Good.
And good company.
Jim's been with us for 27 years.
He's a Harvard guy-- lives upstate.
Three kids--two in college, one in high school.
Company man through and through.
He's the reason we do our Toys for Tots program.
And Saul is the chair
of our nonprofit arm.
Good man as well.
He has grandkids, so he's--
he's a little ahead in the family department.
Oh, and another thing they have in common:
they were both in the room with Colby
when they made that grave error
covering up the leak in your hometown.
Hmm.
Ordinary men...
Capable of extraordinary things.
Our CFO has discovered that within the last two years,
both Jim and Saul have been engaged in some
nasty insider trading.
Thick as thieves, these two.
They like to buddy up on their white-collar crimes--
a regular Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
There's enough evidence in there
to put them away for years.
I should get home.
Your car will be out front.
- Whatever you're doing, I don't trust it.
- You're panicking right now.
I understand.
It's a big decision you're making,
because these men,
their lives will be destroyed.
But the minute you remove emotion from this...
You'll do just fine.
[indistinct chatter]
- Heard you had an interesting night.
Chaplain's an old friend.
- I threw it out for a reason.
- I figured you might want it
for down the road.
Trust me, I've been there.
[clears throat]
Five years,
seven months, three weeks,
and two days ago,
my wife passed away.
A few weeks of being frozen in my own grief,
I woke up one morning,
fixed myself breakfast like I normally do,
plugged myself into my dialysis machine
like I normally do,
and started talking...
out loud.
For a second, I thought I was crazy.
Moved on with the day.
Then the next day, I did it again--
talked out loud--
and the next.
And then I realized who I was talking to.
- Why are you telling me all of this?
- 'Cause you and me
are a lot more alike than you think, Elliot.
- Are you crazy?
How the hell you knocking on my door this early?
- I'm sorry, Mrs. Romero.
I'm Dominique DiPierro with the FBI.
I'm assisting Homicide on your son's case.
I know it's early, but I just had a few more questions
about your son's murder.
- I already talked to the police!
- I know the cops took all your joints.
I looked through your files.
I also know you have arthritis
and probably can't roll 'em yourself,
so I'm guessing your son did.
I can help roll 'em for you if you'd like.
Used to do it all the time for my kid brother
back in high school.
He always told me I was pretty bomb at it.
[door clicks open]
- All right!
You can come on in.
Mmm.
Yeah, it's tight.
Not perfect,
but definitely doable.
Yeah, it's not as fat as my dear Leslie's.
That boy wasn't around much,
but he was always doing for me.
Always.
God bless him.
- I see you're moving out.
- Ah, yeah.
I can't stay here no more.
I raised Leslie here,
Huh. Too many memories here.
- Did he go anywhere or do anything suspicious?
Any small detail could help.
- Well, he be fooling around with those computers.
You guys know that.
He always did that since he was little.
I never understood it.
Gobbledygook, if you ask me.
- Did he have any friends?
Did anyone ever come to the house?
- Friends?
Leslie didn't have no friends,
except that chubby boy.
[coughing]
You mind if you get me--
grab me a glass of water?
Should be some in the boxes.
- Oh, yeah, of course.
That's right, you told the cops someone did come,
but you didn't see him, right?
- Nope, not with these cataracts.
I can barely make you out from my cat.
Where is that thing, anyway?
Probably ran off like everyone else.
[tense music]
- Did he say his name?
Have you seen him before?
- Nope.
My mind was dancing in the clouds.
All I know is, I can't live here no more.
♪
Now that I don't owe anymore on the place,
maybe I can just rent it.
Yeah. Man.
Besides, I need the money.
♪
- $19 million.
[cheers and applause on TV]
[dramatic music]
♪
- What do I do?
- Why did you start writing that journal in the first place?
- I thought it was the right answer.
- The right answer to what?
- Controlling my life.
- [sighs] My wife...
well, she drove her car that day.
She did everything right.
She always wore her seat belt,
hands at 10:00 and 2:00.
She was the most perfect driver I'd ever met.
[laughing] It was--it was annoying.
She stayed in the lines.
Never went above or below the speed limit.
Stopped at traffic signs.
She followed every rule.
And then one day, none of that mattered.
Control is about as real
as a one-legged unicorn taking a leak
at the end of a double rainbow.
- Then what do we have?
- You know that bullshit people say about how
when you fall,
you got to get up?
I reject that shit, man.
You know why?
The whole thing is a fall.
It can't help but be.
A perpetual state of grasping in the dark.
It's not about getting up.
It's about stumbling,
stumbling in the right direction.
It's the only true way to move forward.
Whoever it is you wrote about in your journal,
do you still see him?
I can tell the person you're writing about
meant something to you.
Sometimes he takes over?
That's why you don't remember things?
- I shouldn't have come.
I don't want to talk about this.
- Yes, you do.
'Cause you're smart enough to know
that keeping this inside
isn't going to last.
You play chess?
I've been looking for a good adversary.
Want to play?
[somber music]
♪
- What do you think?
Is Ray right?
♪
Maybe it's not about avoiding the crash.
♪
But it's about setting a breakpoint
to find the flaw in the code,
fix it, and carry on
until we hit the next flaw--
the quest to keep going,
to always fight for footing.
♪
Maybe we're all just stumbling from the right questions
to the wrong answers...
♪
Or from the right answers to the wrong questions.
It doesn't matter where you go
or where you come from,
as long as you keep stumbling.
♪
Maybe that's all it takes.
Maybe that's as good as it gets.
♪
- You got to be fucking kidding me.
[music swells]
[surf crashing, seagulls squawking]