* You got no time for the messenger *
* Got no regard for the thing that you don't understand *
* You got no fear of The Underdog *
* That's why you will not survive. *
(rhythmic handclaps)
Hey, Colby.
SAC kicked this back.
Again?
Yeah, they want to know where we're at
on the Title 3s. Okay?
We're heading out.
Oh, yeah, you going to the stash house?
Yeah. We're gonna pick up breakfast first.
Okay, egg whites on wheat, please.
Granger?
Lumberjack special, double the pancakes, please.
What's going on?
Oh, uh, Narcotics is shorthanded.
The SAC asked me to fill in for a few weeks.
They asked or you asked?
I think it's better, don't you?
Liz, it's not like I don't think you're a good agent.
I mean, I still want you on the team.
Yeah, I can't help but wonder if you'd be saying the same thing
if I was the one who called it off.
Hey, Don, I got a judge
on the phone about the Title 3s,
but he wants to talk to you.
You know, I'm...
You know when it comes to promoting the book,
I'll do anything the publisher asks me to,
but taking publicity pictures in the middle of the FBI's bullpen
- seems kind of tacky. - What?
Mathematician, published author,
FBI crime-solver.
What's tacky about being presented
as the Renaissance man you are?
I don't know, I'm just a tad bit worried
that the more popular the book gets,
the farther it gets away from the math.
Yeah, well, if you want to reach the widest audience,
touch the most hearts, you have to...
Sell out.
Sell a lot.
(elevator bell dings)
Going down. (sighs)
Did you ever notice the first car you get
is always going the wrong way?
Well, actually, the elevator paradox accounts for that.
See, any one elevator spends most of its time
in the larger section of the building,
so that's more than likely the direction it's coming from
when you hit the call button.
If we were to stand here for several hours...
(elevator bell dings) Saved by the bell.
Got Lakers tickets for next Saturday.
(gasps): And Colby can't make it?
As nice as it is to be second choice,
I'm going back east for a couple weeks.
Really?
Larry mentioned that he was headed back east as well.
(laughs)
I knew you two are getting back together.
Granger owes me 20.
You bet on me and Larry?
You know, I left my wallet upstairs.
I'm serious. I'll be right back.
I'll meet you out front.
- Whoa! - Hey, there's a line!
(metal detector beeping) GUARD: Hey! Hey...
(gunshots)
(panicked shouting) Move! Move!
GUNMAN: Back up!
- Move! Back up! - Drop the weapon!
Drop the weapon and let her go!
It's not my fault!
I acted in self-defense!
Self-defense from who?
- Who's trying to hurt you? - From you!
From all of you-- you won't leave me alone!
Okay, you just, sir, tell me what you need.
What I need?!
You need a hostage.
(gasps)
You need a hostage...
now you have two.
David?
I'll kill her.
Then I will kill you.
Nobody wins.
Too many things to keep track of, you know.
What's going on out there, what's going on in here.
It's hard to watch both of us, you know.
You're going to make a mistake.
You don't want to make a mistake.
I'll let her go if you let the door go.
No, we can't do that.
Yes, we can. Yes.
Yes, I will.
(screams)
I'm ready to die right now! Are you?
Are you?!
(panting)
Okay... what now?
Just a minute of quiet, okay?
Let me think.
David Sinclair.
What?
While you're thinking, you think about my name--
David Sinclair.
You have a name maybe I can think about?
Ben Blakely.
Surveillance subcontractor.
He's a wizard with wiretapping and hidden cameras.
MAN: All right, let's go, fellas.
Look alive. I want rappel gear up on six.
Special Operations Group can only do so much,
so sometimes we have to outsource.
He was working on a RICO case for me,
standard OC surveillance.
Agent Devane, do you have any idea why he would shoot at you?
He started acting nutty,
thought we were following him, tapping his phones.
So I had to let him go,
revoke his clearance.
Shutting him out of all government contract work?
I knew he was tightly wound,
but I didn't see him as the disgruntled shooter type.
Obviously not.
All right, would you follow him off to the hospital.
I'm going to need a complete statement.
DON: What happened?
I've got this ex-contractor
who's having paranoid fantasies...
And what, David trades himself?
I mean, what's that about, and why didn't you stop him?
He made a judgment call.
DON: Yeah, well,
not a very good one.
Okay, you weren't there.
And I wouldn't have done it either,
but he wasn't wrong. He saved that woman's life.
You're right, you're right.
King, SWAT. Car is stuck between floors
so we're setting up positions here and in the bullpen.
Right.
Is anybody opening up a line of communication with Blakely?
I'm going to give him a couple minutes,
let him think about his situation.
Maybe put in a psych warfare soundtrack,
shake up his world, soften him up a little.
Before we start isolating and agitating a disturbed suspect,
maybe we should let him air his grievances,
let him think that we're listening to him.
DON: I agree.
Hey, you can go through the motions if you want,
but we're going to end up assaulting.
It's just the way it goes.
Just set your positions. No moves until I say, all right?
Why don't you get a line on Blakely, his background.
Liz, I want you to go to the hospital, all right?
So somebody just walked into the FBI and started shooting people?
Yeah, seems to happen every year or two around here.
Actually, if you consider the number of people
carrying guns in the city
and account for the amount of criminals
associated with this building,
even weighted against the security measures...
I suppose they deal with this stuff all the time here, huh?
David is going to be okay?
Probabilistically.
So what do we do now?
What? We just wait?
Until they need me.
What are they going to need you for?
There's always something.
What-what is that, Charlie?
It's a thought.
More of an abstract notion.
Yeah, about what?
About getting David out of there.
You know what's going on out there?
Guns, cops,
more guns.
Your people are getting ready to kill me.
They don't want to.
Yes, they do.
What was your plan, Ben?
You thought you'd come in here shooting
and walk out the front door?
I didn't have a plan.
I didn't think.
I just wanted it to stop.
I told Devane, over and over again.
And who's Devane?
Okay, and what did you tell him?
The FBI guy I shot.
I told him to stop following me.
He had people spying on me.
Do you know what that's like,
to never have any privacy?
Always wonder who's watching you, and from where?
(over P.A.): This is Don Eppes.
To talk to me, you just push the call button
on the panel there.
Now, sir, I want you to understand two things:
We want you to surrender, and I will do anything necessary
to ensure the safety of Agent Sinclair.
The first step
is for us to just start talking, now, okay?
What you want right now, Ben, is time.
You need time to think.
If you don't answer up,
you're going to push everybody out there to act faster.
That is exactly what you don't want.
He's fine.
Tell them. Tell them you're fine.
Everything's fine in here, Don.
DAVID: Everybody's keeping a level head.
Mr. Blakely, you've got to understand,
sooner or later, you're going to come out of there.
What do you want to do, Ben?
DON: Ben? Ben?!
BLAKELY: I don't want to talk right now.
And I don't like being watched.
He terminated contact.
Playbook says we shut down the air-conditioning,
kill the lights,
run a fiber optic line to the car,
restore our visual.
Uh, actually, Don,
you're better off not looking inside the elevator.
This must be the math brother.
Exactly what made you come to that conclusion?
You're not an FBI agent, but you walked in here like one.
Look, he earned that walk, okay?
What were you going to say?
It's a classic thought experiment
called the Chinese Room,
in which there's a computer inside a room
receiving questions written in Chinese characters
that it answers back in Chinese.
It's programmed so perfect that the questioner
thinks he's talking to an actual person,
which is called the Turing test.
Now, imagine there's a man inside the room
who doesn't speak Chinese but answers the questions back
using the same rules as the computer,
writing back predetermined responses.
John Searle argued that you can't get meaning
from a blind manipulation of symbols,
while others argued that semantics...
I get that the elevator is the Chinese Room, right?
Who's the computer?
Uh, it's not about the Turing test.
than that.'s far more abstract
I don't get it. I mean, more data is always better, Charlie,
so why not look?
I'm pointing out that there are programmed responses
logical to both David and Blakely...
How long to get a camera in there?
Ten minutes.
We get a visual, we put an armor-piercing round
through the thinnest wall.
Not the nicest way to resolve this thing,
but it's the fastest.
You can't guarantee you're going to kill the guy
before he pulls the trigger.
Even if I could, I wouldn't.
All right, just put the camera in for now.
I've been helping you for four years.
You know, I haven't been wrong too many times.
I mean, this isn't just some...
Some thought experiment?
WOMAN: I don't believe it, not Ben.
He witnesses life, he doesn't live it.
Did you notice any warning signs--
erratic behavior, increased agitation?
He showed all of those signs,
especially before our divorce.
Our son died in a car accident seven years ago.
After that, he just disappeared into his work.
I think watching other people
made him feel less lonely somehow.
He seems to think that he's being watched.
He's thought that for 25 years.
Sweeping the apartment for bugs, avoiding store cameras.
I think when you know how easy it is
to take somebody else's privacy away,
you're just that much more sensitive about your own.
Do you think there's any way you could get through to him?
Agent Reeves, I don't think I can help you with Ben.
He's as much a mystery to me as anybody else.
It's... it's getting hot in here.
Probably a safety mechanism--
save power during a malfunction.
What do you think they're doing out there?
Trying to find a way to end this peacefully.
(grunts)
The agent you shot...
Devane.
He thought I wouldn't find out.
Find out what?
That they were following me, spying on me.
Why?
He destroyed my life's work... to cover up his...
Cover up what?
DON: Ben.
Hey...
(mutters): Sons of bitches...
What was Devane trying to cover up?
Eppes!
Hey, Ben, stay with... Ben!
Eppes!
Yeah, Ben, what's up?
Do you really think you can pull a fiber optic snake past me?
You pull it.
Pull it!
Ben, listen to me...
I don't care if we both die in here!
Ten, nine...
Ben, you are going to make me shoot you!
Then do it. Do it right now-- we'll both die.
Ben, calm down, okay? It's just a camera.
I will not be watched!
Don't back yourself into a corner!
You don't have to do this!
...seven, Easy, Ben!
six...
I will not be watched!
Five!
You can't do it, Eppes-- Negotiation 101.
- Four, three... - Blakely, lower your gun!
I'm pulling it. Pull it!
All the way out!
It's out. It's out.
(gasping)
Okay... okay.
All right.
Okay.
You realize we just told wingnut he's in charge.
Maybe we should try some passive surveillance.
Thermal imaging?
Yeah, we can read heat signatures through the walls,
but the problem is, it's not enough information
to give us a clean shot.
Well, it's better than nothing.
Not according to your brother.
Everything I heard about the guy, he's like a magician.
Are all his ideas so out there?
Yeah, sometimes.
Should we be thinking about it?
Rib stopped one, and, uh...
the other was a through-and-through.
Good thing he wasn't a better shot, huh?
You know, something's
just not making sense about Ben Blakely.
He profiles as volatile and paranoid,
but none of the bellwethers
of explosive, violent action are there.
Meaning what?
Meaning he was ripe for an episode,
but something set him off.
I'm guessing that something, you're not telling me?
Is she for real?
As real as the files we accessed on your RICO case,
the SAC shut it down
six weeks before you fired Blakely.
So what exactly has he been doing for six weeks?
Blakely already had surveillance cameras and wiretaps set up
with a dozen organized crime figures.
I let him keep recording until the warrants expired.
I figured I might get lucky.
Unauthorized use of Bureau funds for an unapproved activity?
I mean, come on, that's a hell of a disciplinary review.
They're going to have to move fast.
I'm retiring at the end of the month.
Look, I rolled the bones,
tried to go out on a win instead of a loss,
and it blew up in my face.
You think two bullets isn't punishment enough,
then report me.
LIZ: You know, those interrogations
where the subject is telling you just enough of the truth
to make it hard to tell where the lie starts?
I think he made a bad judgment call,
and now he's just trying to cover his ass.
An internal investigation's gonna have to
find the truth eventually.
Yeah, but David doesn't have "eventually" kind of time.
I think we have to go open up Ben Blakely's head
and get a good look inside.
So... how long you been in surveillance?
Twenty-five years.
I made the tra... the transition from...
from analog to digital...
reel to reel and directional microphones to laser switchers
and omnidirectional receivers.
Not a lot of us did.
Yeah.
Must've seen and heard a whole hell of a lot, huh?
No, not really.
It's just information, to be packaged and moved on.
I... I hear it, but I never listen.
I find that hard to believe.
Twenty-five years?
Exactly.
All those voices, all those words...
if I had listened to all of it, if I had listened to any of it,
I'd have gone...
I'm not crazy, you know.
The FBI has been watching me.
I can prove it.
How?
It doesn't matter, does it?
If you were working for Devane, right,
and he had everything you recorded...
why watch you?
I don't know...
All right.
And where was killing him going to get you?
I mean, it wouldn't get you any answers.
Oh, maybe it would.
Maybe now, someone will tell me why I was being watched.
Or maybe...
maybe all I want is this moment, right now,
with no one watching me.
(labored breathing)
I couldn't sleep...
knowing they were listening.
I...
I just...
I'm just tired all the time now.
I can't focus.
Okay, the thermal camera's in.
Car's too small-- the heat signatures are blurring.
Even if they haven't changed positions,
I still can't advise taking a shot.
I don't see what we can do but insert.
How many times have I been there for him? How many?
And he interrupted me.
He cut me off, like I'm some kind of...
- Consultant? - Okay, fine,
but he didn't have to act like the-the...
The boss.
I'm getting subtle clues that you're on his side.
No, no, no. No sides.
It's just that you're both in a very stressful situation.
You have to admit, the idea
of not looking inside the elevator,
given the circumstance, it's a little, uh... Zen.
Zen, radical, maybe, but, you know, he didn't
even allow me to formulate the argument.
I mean, I know I'm right.
That's not even true.
I failed.
I failed to make myself understood.
Sometimes there are things in my head that are
so purely what they are...
that when I try to turn them into words,
they either are no words, or I just don't know how.
And... you can't imagine how that feels.
How hard it is to have an idea and not be able to share it.
Hey, can you do me a favor, come take a look at something?
Yeah, sure.
DON: This is the image from the elevator.
I need to know if there's any way of reading these things
that I don't know of.
I don't know, maybe.
If you would allow me to try
to explain the Chinese Room theory--
No, no, no.
Listen to me, okay? We're going to assault.
What I need to know, is there anything
that I can do to improve David's chances?
Yeah. Of course.
I can do something.
I can't guarantee it'll be enough.
Whatever you can do, I would appreciate it, okay?
You know, when I was a kid, um,
we lived in this brownstone.
When the phone would ring downstairs,
you know, I'd pick it up.
If it was one of my older sister's boyfriends,
you know, she'd, she'd take it on the upstairs extension.
I never really cared what they were talking about.
I couldn't help but listen in, you know?
It's the human urge-- to light up the dark corners,
look for answers in other people.
But at the end of the day, there are no answers there,
just more lives as sad and singular as our own.
That's why you stopped listening?
What answers were you looking for, Ben?
You know, I don't think anyone understands loss
until they've lost a child...
not really.
And once you truly understand loss,
you realize it's worth anything to never feel it again.
I stopped listening, Sinclair,
because I didn't have the strength
to take their pain, too.
So why didn't you just quit?
Just walk away?
Twenty-five years, Sinclair.
I don't know anything else.
More coffee...
and I found some, uh,
well, some kind of cookies.
It seems like I spend half my life bringing
you boys food and beverages, you know?
K-means cluster analysis.
It's hard to believe that there was
a time when I considered myself math literate.
Well, the process can get complex,
but the concept's fairly simple.
You know, David and Blakely are throwing off
two coinciding heat signatures--
like two schools of fish passing through each other,
looking to the naked eye like a single group,
but when you analyze the data continuously-- examine
the movement and behavior of each individual fish--
you can separate the two clusters.
And figure out which one is David,
and which one is the, uh, crazy guy.
Well, first I have to separate the heat signatures.
You know, discerning which one is which
requires a whole other analysis of height
and weight and body type.
Son of a gun.
I know this elevator.
Been on it enough times.
No, I mean it's a Schindler 400A.
The Convention Center project I've been consulting on
has four of them.
I need to talk to Don.
MEGAN: I didn't know there were this many ways
to spy on a person.
Really.
Okay, so where do we start looking?
And what are we looking for?
I'd skip all the raw surveillance material
and the work stuff for now.
We're looking for a letter,
or an emotional trigger of some kind.
Okay.
Or course there's almost
nothing personal in here.
There's not one photograph,
or one knickknack.
It's like he's consciously burying all of his memories.
I got a file folder
labeled "Them."
Now we're talking paranoia.
Is it like a list
of grievances?
What is that?
Video files,
I think.
Just 'cause you're paranoid doesn't mean
that everyone isn't watching.
ALAN: Okay. This pulley system here
is called the Overspeed Governor.
It keeps the elevator from dropping too fast.
Yeah, we can drop the car anytime you want.
But if you override the emergency brake,
the car will start moving slowly
because that's what it's designed to do.
Well, that would give Blakely plenty of time to shoot David.
But if you reset the Overspeed Governor,
raise its maximum speed...
Diversion, right?
How far you think it will drop?
No more than five or six feet.
KING: So we drop the box, my guys go in
while they're still rattled, right?
Still a lot of risk, guys.
Well, less if we know where they both are.
DAVID: I don't know about you,
hey, but... but I'm getting hungry.
Yeah, sure.
Drugged food.
A chance for them to drop in some tear gas.
Hey, Ben, nothing makes them more nervous than silence, okay?
You got to start putting some demands out there.
Open the lines of communication.
You want them to stay outside,
you got to get them talking here in this room.
Well, I'm supposed to take your advice?
Man, if they don't think there's any reasoning with you,
they're going to bring this elevator down
to the ground floor, and they are going to breach it.
Even if we haven't shot each other by then,
I do not want to be in the line of fire.
Ben...
do you want to live?
I'll put it another way.
(crying)
You want to live.
(sniffling)
That's why you shot Devane.
To protect yourself.
'Cause you wanted things to go back the way they were.
But you didn't think this thing through,
so now it's up to me to help you out, okay?
Ben, I am going to walk you out of here.
I'm going to go to jail.
Yeah.
Probably.
Eight by eight box,
24/7
with no privacy, huh?
How do you think I'd do?
So, maybe you're wrong.
Maybe living isn't my best bet.
He has dozens of files like this.
Yeah, he's Warspying.
Just when I'm convinced
you can't come up with something new.
Most video surveillance cameras operate
and broadcast on unprotected,
2.4 gigahertz video feeds.
DON: You're talking like Wi-Fi, right?
Exactly, and intercepting those feeds
requires a video receiver,
an omni-directional antenna, really not much else.
It's probably hidden in his briefcase.
All right, so he sweeps his loft--
probably a routine check for bugs...
Realized he is being watched,
unlocking all the paranoid fantasies,
exacerbating the privacy issues.
All right, so who the hell is watching the guy?
CHARLIE: Can't tell you that, but I can tell you where from,
give or take 35 feet.
How?
It's like any other signal, okay?
It-it gets stronger
as you get closer to the receiver and the transmitter,
gets weaker as you get farther away.
You plot enough points
where the image is clear, and you apply
inverse geometry.
Uh, like fireflies flickering on and off
during a summer night,
apparently random blinks of light in the darkness,
but math reveals their true path and purpose:
what trees they've laid eggs beneath;
where they've gone to mate,
bringing rhythm and pattern to their light show.
DON: All right, let's just focus
on the thermal image, all right?
This program doesn't need me to finish its work for it.
And given the wealth of data,
the geometry should take, like, 15 or 20 minutes.
Good idea... about the elevator.
You know, I-I feel kind of funny
about being so involved here, and, uh,
if anything should happen...
Well, it won't.
You know, I'm a little old for hollow reassurances, Colby.
You see, this was my idea,
and if David gets hurt, I am responsible for that.
Oh, yeah, that's true.
Some hollow reassurance would be nice now.
Look, Alan, there's no instruction manual
for how we handle these situations.
I mean, not really.
You know, we make our best guesses out there,
and, you know, we just hope.
So, how do you wrestle with that?
Having to make these big decisions,
having people's lives literally in your hands?
I mean, sure, it's not every day
that your best friend's life is on the line, but...
Actually, a lot of days it is.
CHARLIE: Based on body type, a small
height differential,
and allowing for inaccuracies in the cluster analysis,
I can say that this is David,
but I can say that with only 65% certainty.
Yeah, well, that's a big 35%.
And that's why I can't advise going in.
All right, wait, but somebody's got to ask.
Chinese Room say?
All right.
It's an analysis of Blakely's stated objectives
and David's impact on his environment.
It's, it's a weighted matrix of risk-reward, all right, so...
Hold-hold on a second.
Can't you do all that stuff and still see in the box?
No. The act of observation creates...
creates a relationship between the-the viewer
and-and the subject, all right?
I can't tell you why I know what I know.
Unfortunately, not in any way
that you'd understand, but-but...
but I'm hoping to arrive
at a persuasive strategy before it's too late, okay?
Yeah, well, it's too late.
I mean, look, no demands, the guy's refusing to negotiate.
Okay? We cannot wait any longer.
Elevator's ready to drop.
DON: All right.
Any way to give your guy a heads-up?
Yeah. Our distress word is Mexico.
Mexico.
Yeah, let's do it.
Don. Charlie.
Look, I want to go in there.
Okay, David is my partner.
I know his moves better than anyone.
I can make sure these guys don't overreact.
Don, tell me the argument to make.
I will make it.
All right, you go in behind SWAT,
same as any other action.
Got to give up on this one, buddy.
I didn't get where I am by giving up on being right.
(beep) Ben, this is Don Eppes.
How are we doing in there?
Everything's fine, Don.
Everybody's good.
Could maybe, uh, use some water, some sandwiches...
No! No one comes in. DON: Ben, listen to me.
We've been in your loft.
We saw the video.
We know someone was following you.
(whirring)
Someone.
We're going to help you figure out who.
I promise you this.
You know who. I put bullets in the son of a bitch!
You tell me why!
Well, come on out,
and we'll figure it out together.
(whirring)
Oh, you'll whitewash everything.
You'll protect your own, throw me in a cell,
and then stare at me.
And what will it all have been for?
DON: What is it all for?
Ben, you've got to talk to me here.
Ben, I want to help you.
David wants to help you, but you got to be realistic
about your situation.
Ben, you're in an elevator.
You can't just walk out...
...hop on a plane to Mexico.
Now!
(rumbling)
Hold it!
(gunshot)
(gunshots)
(grunts)
(gunshots)
(grunts)
No! Hold your fire! Hold your fire!
(labored breathing)
COLBY: He's got a through-and-through
on the left shoulder,
but otherwise stable.
BLAKELY: It didn't work, Eppes!
I have both guns now.
I'm in control now.
You tell them!
You tell them.
Everything's status quo, Don.
(panting)
Why?
Why are you lying?
I'm not going to give you the power you want, Ben.
Not until I think
you're going to make the right decision.
But I have both guns.
You're still in the same position.
You shoot me, you're as good as dead.
(loud, pained grunt)
Oh, it feels like I've been kicked in the ribs.
(grunts)
Not that I'm complaining about a bulletproof vest working now.
What the hell you doing shutting the door?
Trying to keep your men from killing my partner.
You got no business jumping to the front of the action.
Hey!
My men are trained.
Trained to do what, shoot too fast?
Guys! Later.
Oh, you should talk to your brother.
He may be out there, but at least
he's got a plan he's willing to stick with.
(David gasps)
At least we know where we both stand, huh?
(panting)
You tried to kill me.
DAVID: Really?
I-I distinctly remember
not shooting you when I could have.
(panting) (electrical fizzing)
(knocking) About time.
I ordered a half an hour ago.
LIZ: Oh, you owe us $15. - Fifteen?
You tipped generously.
We need to talk to you about Ben Blakely.
Ben who?
You know, that guy
you've been following around the city videotaping.
you obviouslyll, since
don't have a lie handy,
you should know
that Blakely's holding a federal agent at gunpoint, okay?
So we're just a little short on patience.
Wow. This is some hobby you got here.
Well, I gross 200K a year.
I mean, not that I get to enjoy it.
I spend most of my time in places like this.
How'd you find me?
Inverse geometry.
Ben Blakely.
He's one of the best in the business.
Not as good as me...
Really? 'Cause he knew that you were watching him.
He intercepted your video feeds.
Oh, that briefcase.
Ah, he was Warspying me.
Cheap bastards wouldn't spring for the double-encrypted feeds.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Cheap bastards being?
The Elcar campaign.
The guy running for governor?
Yeah, Elcar got hit with three scandals in two weeks.
Figured they were being bugged,
so they hired me to sweep the offices.
I backtraced the bugs to Blakely.
Started taping him to see if we could get a lead
on who hired him.
I can't believe he was onto me.
Damn, he played that cool.
DON: We're back to where we started.
"However beautiful the strategy,
you should occasionally look at the results."
Winston Churchill.
That's pretty much what King said.
- You got yourself another fan. - Yeah.
I tend to get more respect
from people who didn't give me
noogies when I was six.
Listen, Blakely is the man in the Chinese Room.
He processes information
without ever understanding its significance.
- Okay, so? - So that's the way he likes it.
You know, it keeps his world contained; that's his rulebook.
Right. Him, David, no cameras.
There is an impartial two-player
perfect information game called Chomp
in which two players take turns removing cookies.
The object being
to avoid taking
the lower left corner,
which is the poison cookie.
You can mathematically prove that using
optimal moves, the first player will always win,
but you can't mathematically determine
first moves that will guarantee a win.
David made the first move getting in the elevator?
You became the third player
when you screwed up the winning strategy.
Chaos theory holds
that outcome is sensitive to initial conditions.
So you've got to restore
the decision-making process to David because he started it.
Don, if you were in that elevator,
who would you want to make the next move?
So when you told us you were retiring, you failed to mention
that you had your next job lined up.
Governor's reelection campaign.
Official title: Intelligence Chief.
Unofficially, you're the dirty tricks guy.
Without telling them you moved Blakely
from RICO surveillance to spying on the governor's
political rivals.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
We're talking about misappropriation
of government funds.
You're not just going to lose your job,
you could end up bunking with some of the people
you've been busting.
I had a whole story worked out.
Why he was watching a campaign building
while he was on a RICO case.
And you know he never asked?
Huh.
The man as oblivious.
Not so oblivious he didn't figure out
he was being followed.
So you destroyed
his career to protect your own.
What's going on over there, buddy?
Talk to me.
There's no way out of this for me.
The longer I sit here, not knowing what I want...
Not knowing what comes next...
I'm just giving them more time to try something else,
something after that.
Best bet, they kill me.
What do you mean "best bet"?
Believe it or not,
this is the longest conversation I've had with...
anyone in...
Since my wife...
Since my son.
So what am I holding on to here?
You're getting ahead of yourself.
Ben, slow down. No.
No, it's clear now.
Pick it up.
- I'm not going to do that... - Pick it up and shoot me.
We've been through too much, okay?
I'm walking you out of here today.
Just do it for me, damn it!
Or I swear to God,
I will kill you where you sit!
DON (over intercom): Ben, Don Eppes.
You were right.
Devane was following you.
We got proof and a confession.
Look, Ben, I don't know
what else to give you here.
I mean, I can't lie to you
and tell you everything's going to be okay.
But I can tell you we do believe you, and I guarantee
that Devane's going to pay.
David, look, it's all yours.
Negotiation is in your hands.
Okay.
Hey.
(grunts)
We're on our way down, Don.
Let's go.
You do it,
and I'll k...
You're going to kill me?
If you really want to die, Ben,
that's your best bet.
If these elevator doors open,
and I'm on the floor...
SWAT will fill you full of holes.
Thing is, I don't think you're a killer.
You've had too many chances today.
Even with Devane.
You could've got closer.
You could've fired more shots.
End of the day, I think you're just tired.
You're tired of looking at pictures
and listening words that don't mean anything to you.
You're tired of being alone.
And you're scared.
You're scared of the alternative.
You're sure about that?
I'm betting my life on it.
(bell dings)
It's okay! It's okay!
(handcuffs tightening)
So now what?
I ask myself the same question every morning.
Hell of a last day.
What do you mean "last day"?
I thought you said Narcotics was just for a few weeks.
You know what I mean.
Look, maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe we should just give it another shot, huh?
Because of what we got,
or because you don't want to feel like you bolted
from another relationship?
Come on, Don, you stuck with us.
Even after it was obvious it wasn't going to work.
Accepting the obvious isn't running away.
And for what it's worth, I don't think you're that guy anymore.
So when the right thing comes along...
...you're going to stick with it.
I wanted it to be us.
See you around.
This is a leap of faith, isn't it?
Getting back on this elevator after they
monkeyed with the Overspeed Governor?
Yeah, I can't believe that publicity photographer.
I told her I don't want her printing those candids.
Oh, you mean those of the intrepid Charles Eppes
working side by side with the FBI
in the middle of a hostage crisis?
No, why should she want to use that?
- Hey. - Hi.
- Hey. - Oh.
We came back up here
'cause I thought I might've left something.
Well, I'm almost done, so why don't you guys hang out
and I'll buy the first round?
Yeah. Yeah, okay.