[crying softly]
Holy shit.
-They're dead. -[woman sobbing] No!
No!
Oh, my God.
[woman continues sobbing] No!
[Niles] Dorothy. Rise and shine.
Dorothy?
[Cliff] Chief, we got a live one.
Fresh off the knuckle.
What the hell were you thinking?
I'm thinking this perfectly good touching stick
is my ticket to being able to feel.
We agreed. No brutality.
And I agreed, but this finger
literally fell into my lap.
See I was waiting for Vic to man up and get his lady friend back,
and out of nowhere come these two bad guys.
So I'm like, "What would a good person do?"
Stop the bad guys, right?
Which I proceeded to do.
It's important that before I tell you about the car door,
you understand that I'm basically a hero.
I don't give a damn, Cliff.
Dorothy's missing.
Table the finger and help me find her.
Hang tight, little guy.
You're sure we weren't followed?
Not really.
The Bureau of Normalcy seems to be everywhere these days.
I'm sorry my son sold us out.
Why are you apologizing? You were trying to make amends.
And apparently, they'd all be better off if I were dead.
Well, that may be true,
but I would be bereft.
-You're not coming home? -I, uh, have a commitment...
in town.
-Really? -Yes.
I need to purchase street clothes...
for a rehearsal...
of Our Town...
by the Cloverton Players.
Community theater, huh?
Well, go ahead and say it.
I'm a vain, selfish person
who'd rather chase fame than support you
in your time of need.
First, I'm not in a time of need.
I'm in a time of regret and self-loathing.
Second, I doubt it's fame you're chasing
by joining the Cloverton Players.
They're very well-reviewed in the Cloverton Bugle.
Well, break a leg.
I hope you find what you're looking for.
Right. [clears throat]
Oh.
-Oops. -[laughs]
Well, I was going to tell you to come back to bed, but...
looks like you beat me to it.
Mmm. Taking advantage of the disabled.
[whispers] Class act.
Let's stay in today.
I'm sorry, Vic.
But I live in the real world,
and us normals without a S.T.A.R. Lab credit card
have to come up with rent, buy food,
and pay off years of medical stuff.
I get it. What kind of medical stuff?
PT from botched corrective surgeries,
pain meds, PTSD meds, anxiety meds,
which, apparently, are different from PTSD meds.
Sounds expensive.
Cost of doing business with black ops.
But don't you worry.
I'll die long before I have to pay it all off.
Hey.
Can I look inside of you?
-Ew. -To see what's broken, I mean.
[chuckles] A hundred times "ew."
There's gotta be a better way to ask that.
Look...
All this crap you're dealing with
is because they ripped the tech out of you, right?
-Right. -Well, I happen to know
something about the line where tech meets flesh.
If I could do a deep scan,
I could figure out how to relieve some of your pain.
I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
[chuckles] There's gotta be a better way to say that.
[both laugh]
You can scan my guts if...
you tell me about your PTSD.
All the gory details you're too chicken shit
to share in group.
Maybe you should go back to work.
[chuckles] You're such an asshole.
Okay. Deal.
-Deal? -Yeah.
You're gonna tell my boss I got a fever?
Mmm-hmm.
You're gonna cough up a day's wages?
Are you gonna do the...
-other thing you do? -Hmm.
-You like that thing, huh? -I like that thing.
[rumbling]
What the hell?
Yoo-hoo. Any pigtailed pains in the ass down here?
Jane?
Oh, shit!
Oh, shit. Oh, shit!
[gasps] Oh, shit. Oh, shit!
Oh, shit.
Chief!
There's something wrong with Jane.
-Where was she? -The basement.
Was Dorothy with her?
[Cliff] No! Nobody cares about Dorothy!
Jane was in the basement, covered in this shit.
-Are you gonna help? -She's breathing.
[Cliff] What the fuck happened?
-She was with Dorothy. -That's not an answer!
This is Dorothy's doing. But why?
Your daughter did this, and that's all you got?
What about all this wax?
All you talk about is how your dumb girl's
gonna end the world, but you have no idea
how Jane ended up in a fucking coma?
[Larry] Hey, what's going on?
-[Cliff] Dorothy put Jane in a coma. -Have you seen her?
Oh, no.
But there's something else you should see.
Is it Dorothy playing dress-up with Rita's skin?
No, no. There's a spaceship outside.
Tell them I'm not here.
[Cliff] What?
Hey. Where do you think you're going?
I need to find Dorothy.
Wait, Niles, slow down.
Do you know these guys?
In 1955, the Bureau gave me funding
for my Immortus initiative,
which included sending a research team into space.
-To do what? -Research.
I lost contact with them in the early '60s
and assumed they were dead. Apparently, they're not.
And their timing couldn't be worse.
What, so, I should just send them away?
No!
Keep them here.
Don't ask me. I don't fucking know.
-[footsteps receding] -[sighs]
Hello.
Welcome back... to Earth.
I'm Larry Trainor.
-And you are... -[laughs]
Who are we?
-We are... -[together] The Pioneers of the Uncharted.
Earth's best and brightest,
assembled by benevolent genius,
Niles Caulder.
To pilot the space vessel Icarus
on a three-generations mission...
Into the deepest reaches of the unknown.
Pioneers, roll call.
The name's Zip. Hotshot pilot, nothing scares me.
-[chuckles] Except marriage. -The name's Specs.
I'm the brains of the op and a heartbreaker to boot.
And my name... is Moscow.
[both] The Russian one!
And together we are...
-The Pioneers of the-- -Of the Uncharted. Got it.
Zip Callahan. Wow.
You made the back of my kid's cereal box.
I always wondered what happened to you.
[Moscow] Well, that is a long story.
So, where is benevolent genius Niles Caulder?
He's, uh... He's a little tied up at the moment.
Hey.
What are they doing?
There was a vote.
A funeral procession seems appropriate.
But we don't know they're dead.
You saw what that thing did to them.
Secretary, I'm gonna need you to be, like,
10% more self-aware.
-This is a construct. -[shushes]
Are you a construct, Jane?
You should be completely ashamed of yourself.
What does death even mean here?
Personas disappear.
They go dormant for a while.
But there's no evidence we can even be killed.
Not unless you pull a Miranda
and throw yourself into the well.
No.
There was a vote.
[Cliff] Dorothy.
Come out.
-Come out. -[Niles] Dorothy.
[Cliff] You little shit...
-[Niles] Dorothy. -Dorothy!
[Niles] Dorothy.
[Dorothy] I didn't do it.
It was the Candlemaker. I'm sorry.
I'm leaving.
[rumbling]
What the fuck?
[loud rumbling]
What's going on?
Man, when the kid runs away, she really runs away.
Damn it, Cliff, keep up. There's no time to lose.
Pretty sure she's gone.
You and I are gonna bring her back.
Here. Take this. We'll need it.
Uh, Chief, I'm sorry your daughter ran away
to space!
But we've got a patient on the table in there
who we might actually be able to... Whoa!
You had a fucking spaceship in this garage
the whole time?
When I lost contact with the first ship,
I saw no reason to use the second.
[Cliff] The fuck...
Make sure the airlock shuts behind you, Cliff.
Things may be rusty.
-When did you build this? -1955,
pre-Sputnik. Technically speaking,
I invented space travel.
Fuck! And 30 years later,
you still couldn't build me a working hand.
I've always done the best I could with what I get, Cliff.
And in the '50s, science still hadn't mastered basic rocketry,
so I mixed my science with...
a little bit of borrowed magic.
[machine whirring]
[scoffs] You know what?
I think you can solo this one, Chief.
I'm not in a rush to get stranded in space
on your homebrew devil-ship.
Give me the apple, Cliff. We need fuel.
Cliff, I need you. Dorothy needs you.
In case I haven't been clear,
fuck Dorothy!
I'm Team Jane,
and I'd rather sit uselessly by her side
than chase your brat across the cosmos.
Listen to me, Cliff!
If you ever want my help with your body
in the short time that I have left,
you will shut your damned mouth
and retrieve my child.
[groans] Fuck it.
[beeping]
[rocket whooshing]
[Cliff] I'm going to space.
Of course. I'm fucking going to space.
What the hell was she thinking?
Does she have any idea what I've done for her?
She thinks she can hide from me.
I'll lock on to her coordinates.
She takes my ship to get away.
I built the damn thing!
She's too dangerous to go traipsing around,
pretending that her actions don't have any consequences!
[Cliff speaks quietly] No wonder she fucking ran.
All systems go, Chief.
Looks like the old dog's got some new tricks.
-What a whiz! -[laughs]
Seems our reunion will have to wait.
Yeah. About the whole benevolent genius thing...
I should probably warn you.
-Oh, bust my chops, will ya? -[both laughing]
I got you, you smooth little pip.
[Specs] Gravity. What a treat!
[both laugh]
We've been in space for 65 years.
It's gotten... weird.
My real name is Valentina Vostok.
Vostok?
The cosmonaut?
Your disappearance was the talk of the Mercury Program.
And you must be Captain Trainor.
Your reputation in the Air Force precedes you.
Preceded.
That was a long time ago.
You have a Negative Spirit?
Seems we have much to discuss.
[indistinct whispering]
-Isabel. Isabel Feathers. -Gertrude.
Oh, no, thank you.
I... I've seen this play so many times,
-I'm already off-book. -Oh.
Wow. But isn't the script still being written?
The script for Our Town? No.
I think Thornton Wilder
finished it quite some time ago.
I see where you're confused. We're not doing Our Town.
We're doing Our Town!
[woman] Welcome to the first readthrough of Our Town.
The script is woven from first-person testimonies,
newspaper reports, journals,
and what we know in hindsight about the day our town
was sucked into the ground.
Tonally, kind of, like, The Laramie Project.
But more important.
We'll read through Act One,
"The Day the Monsters Attacked."
We'll cruise right through Act Two,
"Life as a Series of Portraits,"
we'll break for lunch, and then we'll tackle Act Three,
"What We Talk about When We Talk About the Donkey."
-Let's begin. -[applause]
What part are you playing?
The Blob Lady. [giggles excitedly]
[Moscow] Sixty-five years ago,
Niles Caulder assembled a small team
for a top-secret project.
We were chasing a cosmic entity,
a teleporting rift that would appear in the night sky.
The mission was to find
a pattern in the cosmic radiation,
which Niles believed was a source
of time-dilating power.
A key to immortality.
That puts your mission at 1955,
six years before my accident.
-Accident? -Yeah.
Niles used your research
to send my X-15
straight into that cosmic radiation. Hence...
-this. -Then our mission was a success.
-How fortunate. -Fortunate?
-We sense you are angry. -You sense correctly.
That rift ruined my life.
[Moscow] For us, it was a gift.
But we do recall being upset for a time.
[Larry sighs]
The rift kept moving.
The Pioneers chased it deeper into space.
We lost contact with Earth, but Niles had insisted
the mission was vital, so...
when we next caught up to it,
I went on a spacewalk to take a sample.
When I touched the energy... Well, you know the rest.
Not exactly, because I was irradiated.
If I remove these bandages--
People die. Yes.
That happened to this body, too,
before we learnt to contain
the radiation within our skin.
We had to live in our ship's airlock.
-It was a difficult five years. -Five years?
Yes. I am embarrassed to say
it took five years to reach harmony with my...
-spirit, as you call it. -Five years.
You learned to master that thing in five years.
How long did it take you?
Ah...
Well...
For us, the change happened
when there stopped being an "I" and a "She."
The pass to infinite harmony
was to accept, there is only now, "We."
Infinite harmony.
In five years.
[Vic] How weird do you want me to get?
Mmm, just tell the truth.
Okay.
I was trying to save an old friend,
a guy named Niles Caulder.
Then an omniscient bad guy
put a viral thought in my head.
What if I can't trust my own dad?
Next thing, I was... beating my old man to death.
-Holy shit. -Yo, I'm skipping over
a pocket universe in a donkey,
a world-ending cult, a world-saving cult,
a secret government branch
that housed a pack of flesh-eating butts.
-Wait. Are you being for real right now? -For real.
-For real, for real. -For real, for real?
[both laugh]
Oh, God, I'm sorry.
I'm laughing at your PTSD.
Look, this is why I can't do group.
Hold still. I'm trying to get a good image.
-My bad, my bad. -Come on.
[scanners pulsing]
Yo.
What is this?
What?
Did you used to have tech fused to your spine?
Oh, yeah.
That old thing.
Yeah, there was a skeletal support system
before they ripped it out.
Experimental weapons ain't light.
One of these broken attachment points is--
Leaking poison into my organs.
Uh-oh. You kind of sound like my doctors.
It's kind of sexy.
-[chuckles] -You knew this?
Roni, this stuff could kill you.
No, Vic. This stuff is killing me.
As in, doctors stumped and chemicals classified.
I told you I'd die before I pay off my bills, didn't I?
Jokes.
Nice defense.
I don't have many other options.
Okay, I'm hacking the military.
What?
If I can figure out what's inside of you,
I can figure out how to neutralize it.
Uh-uh. Don't you dare make me your project.
I am not your redemption story, okay?
And if you're so worried about being a bad guy,
how about not hacking the government on my behalf?
It's a small price to pay for what I've done.
[imitates beeping noise] Oops. Hacked the government.
-[clicks, whirs] -Found your blueprints.
You fucker.
Okay, let's see.
[chuckles]
Oh, big parts list.
Lot of sub-contractors.
Here we go.
Materials vendors.
Wait, wait, wait. Does that say "S.T.A.R. Labs"?
And "Caulder Robotics."
[Candlemaker] You can't run away, Dorothy.
I don't want to talk to you.
You shouldn't be upset.
The beast was a child's thing.
You need a new friend.
A new protector.
Shut... up.
You don't even sound like yourself.
Since when do you know so many words?
As you grow up,
so do I.
This is all your fault.
I didn't want to hurt Jane.
Yes, Dorothy, you did.
You made a wish.
Go away.
Big-girl wishes have big-girl consequences.
But never fear.
I'll always be by your side if you need me.
I said, go away!
[woman singing in Spanish]
Hey.
Have you seen her before?
No.
Her station's deep.
Do you think this is why she exists?
To mourn?
You think the girl expected to bury two of us?
I'm just saying each of us serves a purpose.
What does it mean if Baby Doll's dead?
Less playtime,
more adulthood.
Maybe that's fucking normal.
But she's one of the only ones who trusted men.
Who wanted their affection.
And look where it got her.
So, that's it?
We're just going to destroy that part of us?
Forever?
If you got a better plan, primary,
we're all ears.
[door creaking]
Kay?
Do you know what's going on out there?
I'm responsible for this.
I made us stay.
But now, I don't know how to fix it.
[sniffles]
Just tell me you're okay.
Tell me I didn't hurt you.
Please.
What am I supposed to do?
Knowing is your job.
[crying softly]
[sniffles]
[Vic] So, you have no idea about the off-market blueprints I sent over?
S.T.A.R. Labs is a big company, son.
With lots of clients.
This seems pretty relevant to your interests, Dad.
What's your angle on this?
-It shouldn't matter. -I'm not gonna dig deeper
on classified military tech
without some context.
It's for this girl, okay?
It's her schematic, they ripped this stuff out of--
A girl?
Vic, you buried the lede.
-Dad? -I should have seen the signs.
Hacking secret documents,
poking around dark corners of the military.
It's young love.
-Little fatherly advice? -Pass.
Slow down.
Get to know this girl better.
People involved with high-tech black ops--
Oh, really?
Says the man whose own company
sold tech to the same black ops.
Seriously.
How could you let this happen?
I'm gonna level with you, son.
That kind of money...
is what makes you possible.
-[Zip laughs] -[Specs] Smooth little pip!
Oh, come here, you.
-[grunts] -You old dog.
[laughs]
[Moscow] She is your family?
No.
But she may be the only family I have left.
When you think of your family,
your spirit grows restless.
-We see it. -Oh, yeah?
Maybe that's because my own son
just tried to imprison both of us.
And my grandson got shot in the gut.
Such a loving, healthy family reunion.
Prompted, by the way, by the spirit.
I wouldn't even know my other son committed suicide
if this thing hadn't shown me.
What if it's trying to tell you...
that you can release your dead son from your conscience.
The past can chain us to old wounds,
traumas from our youth.
There is relief in letting the past go.
You don't know what you're talking about.
And this Zen master bullshit isn't helpful.
It's inhuman.
My son killed himself, because he was obsessed
with his absentee father.
And if that's not worth being tormented by,
I don't know what is.
[rumbling, beeping]
This is my fault.
I was so desperate to give Dorothy a family
before I'm...
gone.
I pushed Jane before she was ready.
Jane's like a daughter to me, Cliff, you must understand.
I just wanted Dorothy
to be normal.
Which made me a terrible father and a bastard
and quite possibly responsible for the world's end.
[Cliff] Is she really that dangerous?
I isolated her.
And in her terror, she spawned imaginary creatures.
But as she got older...
the creatures became more dangerous.
Even here...
left to her own devices,
she could unleash a being so powerful
it would cleave the Earth in two.
All it would take...
is for Dorothy to wish it so.
Please, Cliff.
Tell her...
all will be forgiven. Tell her I love her.
Tell her anything.
Just get her back.
[Cliff] What you makin'?
A grave.
Do you need help?
No.
Can I sit here for a while?
And that's when I realized...
I could make them pay.
The ones who laughed at me,
called me freak,
goo girl,
Mrs. Melty.
[laughs] Oh, they'd pay.
I'd suffocate them all...
under the weight...
of my rage!
[all applauding]
Very nice work, everyone.
Um...
Very nice work, uh,
but we didn't get all the way through it.
We didn't?
But more pages and revisions coming soon.
This is beautiful work.
Important work.
Let's pick it up again tomorrow.
Hey, Gertrude, nice job today.
[sighs] Thanks.
I so love the humanity
that you brought to the bee keeper.
I mean, who knew the attack on Cloverton
killed so many bees?
The way you eulogized them, oh.
I could feel your pain.
Have you acted before?
Once or twice.
-Mmm. -If I could offer one thought.
It's not a note, simply an observation.
Sure.
-The Blob Lady. -Mmm-hmm.
I wonder...
if she's more human.
Not quite so drive-in picture monster.
After all,
villains think that they're the heroes of their own stories.
Oh, no.
I thought I was playing that.
Shoot!
Like,
I even did a deep-dive character bio
for background because all the first-hand
accounts of the event were so sketchy.
A biography.
Do tell.
Well, the way I see it,
the Blob Lady didn't actually seem to enjoy
being so big.
Which means she probably
started off small.
But her dress was fancy, like...
she wanted to be seen.
There's a neediness there,
like a little girl trapped in a woman's body
still desperately vying
for the approval of her father.
Mother.
Right. Of course, it's the mother.
That lines up so much better. Thank you.
So, the Blob Lady
has been craving attention
for so long,
she is terrified that when people see what she is,
what she really is,
they are going to run screaming
because she is hideous
inside and out.
Just, like, completely unlovable,
unlookable, unfuckable.
And then, everything her mother
always said about her would be proven true.
And the sick joke of it all,
is that her resentment of her mother...
is the one thing keeping her
from what she was always meant to do.
What is she meant to do?
Suck the entire world
into the folds of her big, disgusting body.
[sighs]
Anyway, thank you.
I will work on that. I'll see you tomorrow.
Well...
I've found my nemesis.
[Zip] Come here, you smooth little pip.
[Specs] All right, hotshot, you're a real whiz.
[Larry] Hey. Hey, hey.
What's your deal?
I'm Zip, hotshot pilot.
Nothing scares him,
except marriage.
No, I know. I mean, how are you so young?
You're not telling me you have spirits in you, too?
The name's Specs.
I'm the brains of the op.
And a heartbreaker to boot.
How are you still alive?
[Moscow] They're not.
Zip and Specs died a long time ago.
[laughs]
Come here, you smooth little pip.
[Specs] Gravity, what a treat.
What is this?
The bodies of Zip and Specs were invaded by a benign spore
from a distant planet some years ago.
The men you see before you are husks,
autopiloted by some...
foreign plant matter.
Is it contagious?
We don't believe so.
In fact, we,
mostly she,
sense that bringing their bodies into Earth's atmosphere
would kill the spores.
You came back to bury them?
We need to put the past behind us,
if we are ever going to travel farther.
[Zip and Specs grunting]
Nothing scares me.
Bust my chops, will you?
-[Zip] Come here, you dog. Bust my chops... -[Specs groans]
I'm sorry I've been so irritable.
Sounds like you've been through hell.
We don't see it that way.
Even suffering has its own meaning.
And there is always beauty in meaning.
We have seen much.
And Earth is still the most beautiful place in the galaxy.
Because it's a spinning orb of constant suffering?
Yes.
Exactly.
Is Jane okay?
I have no idea.
Now I understand why my dad is so scared of me.
I keep messing things up.
Daddy.
Jane.
The more I'm out here in the world...
the more I'm sure I'm a bad person.
I'm going to stay up here,
away from anyone I can hurt.
-Forever. -Mmm.
I don't think that's how oxygen works.
[sobbing]
Cool rocks, though.
Who's it for?
Manny.
Your imaginary friend?
You wouldn't understand.
Try me.
My mom gave him to me.
He was the last piece of her I had.
My daughter lost her mom, too.
When she was young.
Too young to remember much of her at all, I'm guessing.
But from what I can tell,
she turned out to be a really good person.
The truth is,
we're all struggling to figure out
what kind of people we are.
Jane included.
She'll understand, I promise you.
Sometimes a person hurts so bad,
all they can imagine is that
everyone wants to hurt each other.
But that's not true.
You're not alone.
I know you want to be alone right now.
But trust me, that'll pass.
Always does.
It's pretty.
[Cliff] Yeah.
I'm glad we came here.
Never again.
Dorothy...
you must promise me...
you will never make another wish
for as long as you live.
I promise.
[Cliff] Christ, that's sad.
[sputters] My name is Zip, hotshot pilot.
[sputters] Name is Specs,
brains of our...
[Larry] Any last words?
[Moscow] Yes.
If ever any fruit grows here,
don't eat it.
[Zip sputters] My name is Zip, hotshot pilot.
[babbling incoherently]
Rest in peace, Pioneers.
I hope it was all...
painless.
Thank you for your help.
Now, it is time for us to leave.
Back to space?
Eventually.
First, we will see my old home.
How it has changed.
How we've been forgotten.
Then, maybe,
we'll be able to sever our final bond to Earth.
And you?
[sighs] I'm going to return to my family.
But I'm not going to sever ties.
I'm going to mend them, or die trying.
If you ever need a new perspective on Earth,
I highly recommend space.
Is that what you want, buddy?
[exhales]
You know what? Doesn't matter.
For as long as you're in a human body,
we're going to act like a human being.
And human beings need family.
["Genesis" playing]
♪ The sky breaks ♪
♪ Light reaches for me ♪
♪ I'm awake ♪
♪ For the first time ♪
♪ It's too late ♪
♪ I'm on the other side ♪
[Hammerhead] Why are you stopping?
[Pretty Polly] What if he's in there?
[Secretary] He's in there. He's always in there.
Well, then we'll beat the shit out of him. All of us.
Come on.
Let's just get this over with.
Don't!
Don't do it.
I'm primary.
I'm responsible for all of us,
and I say we have to give
the broken ones time to mend.
We don't know anything.
We don't know how this happened.
We don't know how this works!
The one thing we do know
is that there's no going back from here.
You seem to know a lot about the well...
for someone who's never been inside it.
-Miranda. -The one and only.
I thought you killed yourself.
I did. I threw my battered body down the well,
and in time, I was reborn...
as they shall be.
Sweet child...
Fierce protector...
It is time.
["Genesis" continues playing]
♪ This is where it all begins ♪
♪ My Genesis ♪
♪ This is where... ♪
[deep rumbling]
It's okay.
It's just their stations collapsing.
We won't need them anymore.
["Genesis" continues playing]
[sobbing]
Now what?
If you'll kindly step aside as primary...
I'll show you what the girl wants.
[sobbing]
[breathes deeply]
[Cliff] Wow.
What are we all so angry about?
So,
her imaginary friends took out
two of Jane's imaginary selves.
Do we need to have an imaginary intervention?
There's nothing funny about a damaged mind, Cliff.
I fear Jane may never be the same.
Be sure to secure Dorothy's helmet before re-entry.
Thank you, Cliff. I promise I'll never
ask another favor of you.
[Cliff] Hey, for what it's worth,
the kid,
she's all right.
She is special, isn't she?
She's all right.
But she deserves to be safe, happy.
Even after you're gone.
And if that means showing up for her
and acting like a real family,
then what the hell?
I'm in.
Let's go home.
That means the world to me, Cliff...
but we're not going home.
What are you doing? Niles?
-What the fuck are you-- -[alarm blaring]
[Cliff screaming]
No!
Fuck!