[bright instrumental music]
♪ ♪
[bright easy listening music]
♪ ♪
- Oh, I believe we've arrived.
- Oh, Paris.
Oh.
Oh, and it feels just the same.
It's been waiting for us.
[chuckles]
- I told Jean I prefer never to look back,
but that's not entirely true,
not when the past looks like this.
- I was an embryo here, just getting started.
But you have a legacy, Paul.
You left a mark.
- Two days.
Just the two of us.
- [honks horn] [speaking French]
- [speaking French]
- Hmm? - Go on and check us in.
I'll, uh-- I'll handle this scoundrel.
- Don't hurt him too much. - No, no, no, no, no, no.
- Bonjour. - Oh, bonjour.
- Julia.
Julia! - Avis!
- Oh. They told me
your train from Nice had a slight delay.
But you're right on schedule.
- Yes, we made up time.
What are you doing here?
- You invited me. - I did?
- Yes.
You wrote, "You must come to France."
So I did.
- Well, that's just a thing people say.
- I've made friends with the front desk clerk.
He's a lovely guy.
Long story short, we have adjoining rooms.
- Oh.
- You all right, Paul?
- Oh, I'm great.
I've really missed this.
Can you believe it?
Paris.
I'm going to be a flaneur again for two straight days.
You?
- No flaneusing for me, alas.
I wish.
I have an Alp's worth of work in my briefcase.
I'm allowing myself one lunch
with an old pal I used to edit.
- Anyone I know?
- [clicks tongue]
- Ooh. - Hmm.
[both humming]
- I'm just getting some fresh air, mon chéri.
- Save some for me.
- Oh, I thought you'd never come.
- [chuckles] - Champagne?
- Oh, darling.
You shouldn't have.
- To gay Paris.
[chuckles]
- Mm.
Let's really go to town, as they say.
Indulge.
Forget our troubles.
Come on, get happy.
- The thing is, Avis--
- Julie! - Paul--
be back in a flash.
- [humming]
- Oh.
[both humming]
- Where should we go first?
Jeu de Paume? L'Orangerie?
- No museums.
- No museums?
- No. I think I'd rather be
a tourist of our past this time.
- Poet.
- So much has changed.
Even in these last few months with Simca,
I sometimes feel like I'm losing track of who I am.
- Hmm.
- Maybe if we went back to where it all started--
to Le Cordon Bleu.
- I see it.
I may even have some surprises up my sleeve.
And down my pants. - Ha!
- I'll call to tell them. Then we can be on our way.
- You hold that thought, Paulski.
You've made me all hot and bothered.
[laughs] I may just need to air out the merchandise.
[chuckles]
You were saying?
- Cigarette?
- Oh, I shouldn't.
Well, just a puff for old times' sake.
- Were you smoking? - [scoffs] No.
You know I don't smoke alone.
Or--or drink alone.
Yet.
[chuckles] No, it's just the aroma of Paris.
- I'm running away.
- How fabulous.
From what?
- I know we're running away, but so what?
Let's embrace our final weekend in the past,
before we are thrust back into the hustle
and bustle of the present.
None of that until the plane lands.
Okay, kitten? - Hmm?
[shutter clicks]
- It's a little warm for hot chocolate.
But oh shit, it's legendary.
And it's not like I'm coming back when the weather turns.
- The thing is, Avis, dear, Paul has--oh.
- Don't be alarmed, Julia, but there's a tiny woman
on the next balcony
who bears a striking resemblance
to a lush we sometimes entertain in Cambridge.
- You don't say.
- Well, the jig is up.
The thing is, Avis, dear,
Paul is planning a rather remarkable romantic trip
down Memory Lane for us this weekend.
- [laughs] Well, why didn't you just say so?
- Well, because you came all this way
based on my rhetorical invitation.
- I am perfectly capable
of entertaining myself in Paris.
- And you don't mind?
- Mind? I insist.
Just not too romantic.
We share a wall.
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
- Sorry I'm late.
- Oh, no need. No need.
You're here for the big news.
Now gentlemen, as we all know,
things can't continue the way they've been going.
As much as I hem and haw
about fresh ideas and new content,
I need to put my money where my mouth is.
I've made the difficult decision
to cancel "I've Been Reading."
- This is their doing.
Hunter, I know his audience is limited,
but as a non-reader,
I have learned so much from "Reading."
The show, not actually reading.
Don't succumb to a female agenda.
- I appreciate that, uh, Roman,
but this has nothing to do with those ladies.
I'd save it if I could.
I've racked my head against the wall
trying to figure out how.
- If I may?
I--I just think you need to try some noisier guests.
Controversial.
Provocative.
Dangerous, even.
- Like who?
- Off the top of my head, I don't know--
Helen Gurley Brown, "Sex and the Single Girl."
See if he can step up to the times.
- Albert and "Sex and the Single Girl"?
[laughs] I, for one, have never been a sexual single girl.
I've barely been a sexual married man.
I can't speak to the content.
Alice?
- Hmm? What?
- You're single, right?
- What--what do you mean?
- Is sex interesting to you?
- I gotta pee.
- Lovely.
Um, doesn't exactly instill confidence.
- [exhales] Oh! Jeez.
- Oh. - Oh, sorry.
- That's all right. It's all right.
- Sorry. Oh, hey, Russ.
Um, seeing as Hunter sort of wants new ideas from us
yesterday, I was wondering
if you could spare a few minutes
to spitball with me.
- Spitball? I love the TV lingo, pal.
Did Elaine teach you that?
But no can do.
I've got an anti-war movement to spotlight.
I'm actually meeting some members
of the Socialist Party of America.
- Socialism. Radical.
- Day one of pilot filming.
The great work begins.
- Well, good luck.
- Are you okay?
- Me? Why do you--why do you ask?
- You're looking a little sweaty.
Are you feeling all right?
- Oh. - Oh.
No, no, no. Let me try that again.
Marian tells me women don't appreciate
those kinds of observations.
She definitely doesn't.
Ixnay on the weatsay.
More like a glow.
A misty glow.
You're glowing, Alice.
- [speaking French]
[door opens]
Julia?
- [speaking French]
- Oh, Monsieur Bugnard.
Monsieur Bugnard.
[scattered applause]
[shutter clicks]
[cheerful music]
♪ ♪
- But it's true.
It's all meaningless.
- You can't stop, Jean-Paul.
You can't stop writing.
- Why? What's the point?
I understand that just like any writer,
I'm doomed to tell the same story
until the day I die.
But having that knowledge?
It just makes it, uh, not only futile, but petty.
- Okay.
You're bringing me down, JP.
I have one day in Paris.
I wanna be inspired, rekindled, awed.
- Try Camus.
Maybe he's in town.
- How can you be so flip?
This is your life's work.
And for whatever it's worth, this is my life's work, too.
And you telling me my life is meaningless
is, frankly, pissing me off.
- Well, I'm sorry it's pissing you off,
but that does not make it less true.
Open your eyes.
All that survives is crap.
The Bible--garbage.
It does not even hold up dramaturgically.
Shakespeare--incomprehensible, sentimental tripe.
- Enough.
Another word on the subject, and I'm leaving.
I didn't come all the way here to get a lecture.
- Maybe Bugs Bunny-- he has insight.
Apart from that, I'm drawing a blank.
- A Mel Blanc.
- This place has a really nice junior high school vibe.
I hadn't thought of myself as having cooties in 20 years.
- Julia talks about a confederacy of women,
although I'm pretty sure she meant a sisterhood
and not a traitorous army.
- Well, whatever she meant, we really need her back.
I mean, we need reinforcements.
- I have an idea for a show.
For our female audience--
Julia's audience-- as per Hunter's instructions.
- This is why I said yes when you asked me to take this job.
- Okay.
[sighs]
Maybe we should take our brainstorming session
someplace else.
Dinner tomorrow night?
- Yes. You're on.
- I know a mediocre diner I can afford on my GBH salary.
Breakfast all day.
- Oh. How are the eggs?
- Greasy and great.
I'm so sorry.
Will you excuse me for a minute?
[exhales]
No.
You are not pregnant.
[retches]
- Editing my translations,
you always had such confidence
in how they would be received in English.
- You and Camus.
I was still a kid, practically.
Playing masterpiece sandbox, immersing myself,
working like a dog with you two nutcases.
I don't know where I found the confidence.
- I remember you were having an affair
with that fat, boring, married American.
- That fat, boring, married American is now my husband.
- Ah.
Americans.
They can make anything Puritan, even their affairs.
[chuckles] So devoted to their mistakes.
- You know what?
I think I'm done.
[speaking French]
- Fancy seeing you here.
- Likewise. - [laughs]
Oh, you have a little hot chocolate mustache.
- So do you. - [laughs]
- Avis DeVoto, Jean-Paul Sartre.
- Oh.
- Enchanté, madame.
- Hello. - [laughs]
I actually have to get back to the hotel.
- Oh.
- Yeah, I'm desperately behind with work.
I was hoping our time together would inspire me
to dive in with newfound vigor.
Oh, well.
I'm waiting for the next piece, JP.
I do not accept this extension of your philosophy.
If nothing else, write it down.
- Well, uh, it was nice meeting you.
- Oh, don't leave me all alone.
I'll kill myself.
I'm so fucking depressed.
- Me too.
- He wanted to come in.
Why did you not let him?
To take off your clothes with another person
is one of life's only real pleasures,
even if you're as old and saggy as we are.
- It's a butterflies problem.
I don't have them.
With Bernard, my husband, I always had them.
- But he is dead, no?
- Yes.
- I don't understand.
Stanley is not a replacement for your husband,
but for loneliness.
- Hmm. Maybe.
- It's funny. You're upset
because Stanley gives you too much attention.
Try getting too little.
When I come home, will Simone be there?
- I'm guessing no?
- I probably won't see her until morning,
if I'm lucky.
But that's l'amour.
There is always one who loves the other more.
It's never equal.
- My marriage was equal.
- I guess you achieved what Romeo and Juliet could not.
- I guess so.
- What happened when your husband took a lover?
- He never took a lover.
- Well, what about when you took a lover?
- I never took a lover.
- C'est impossible.
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
- Aren't they all marvelous, Julia?
- Oh, they are.
- Only at Le Cordon Bleu.
- Oui.
- Oh!
- [laughs]
- Bon soir.
- Bon soir, madame.
I hope you had a pleasant day.
- You've obviously never spent an afternoon
with an existentialist.
- Oh.
You have a number of messages.
- Oh, look at me.
How popular am I?
- They're all coming from the same person.
Someone named Blanche.
- Read them to me. I can't bear it.
- All right.
"I need an update on the Sylvia Plath estate now!"
There is an exclamation point.
"Where are you?
I thought you were coming home today."
"I call you at your hotel.
Where are you?"
"People don't answer their phone in Paris, huh?"
"Your assistant knows nothing."
"I fire your assistant!"
Exclamation point again.
And--
- I'll be working in my room this evening, and ordering in.
No calls. - Bien.
- Merci.
- Staring at Simone's apartment,
waiting for her or her lover to emerge post-coital,
doesn't seem to me to be the best use of time, JP,
even if life is meaningless.
- I never said life is meaningless.
You don't understand existentialism.
- No, I probably don't.
Shoot me.
But didn't you write "hell is other people"?
- Oh, you saw "No Exit"?
- No, I read that line in a magazine.
Then why all these extra people in your life?
Why this endless parade of lovers
that drive you crazy with jealousy?
That seems inconsistent.
- You think I should be consistent?
- You are Jean-Paul Sartre.
- Is every psychiatrist sane?
- Oh, well, you make a point.
- Is every priest a saint?
- Now you're gloating.
- You expect me to live by my own philosophy
every single second?
This from a woman who believes
that a chance meeting with a man at the age of 18
was ordained by the universe
as her only shot at happiness?
- It made me happy for a long time.
Isn't that good enough for a working philosophy?
- You should write a book.
[church bells ringing]
- So what's the plan?
- We wait all night, if necessary.
- Okay. - What else?
- I know you didn't come to Paris for me to cook a fish.
- No.
It was a very nice fish.
- You're looking at me like it's 1948,
on our first night in France, and I'm only 36 years old.
- No.
I'm looking at you like it's today,
and I've never changed how I felt since then.
[romantic music]
♪ ♪
- I've watched every episode three times,
and I think it's fascinating
how much the show has evolved in just one season.
And I noticed that things that were mistakes in episode one,
by episode four,
they were incorporated into the rhythm of the show.
- No, at first Julia's mistakes gave me angina.
But I figured out pretty quickly
that the flaws were the show's greatest strength.
Never cut.
Never start over.
You'll miss something distinctly Julia.
Over here, it's just a limitation of our setup.
When you're shooting her moving from the oven to the counter,
it's very tough to get around on her on camera three,
so I just come very close with camera two,
and she knows by now to cheat to camera.
She's completely instinctive.
- Stick close by, Russ. I'm gonna need you.
- As I told Julia, I'm just down the hall.
- May I ask, why did you leave in the first place?
- Because today I got to do the work
I've been dreaming about my whole life.
- ♪ I once was lost ♪
♪ But now I'm found ♪
♪ Was blind, but now ♪
♪ I see ♪
[applause]
- Amen.
The altar is now open for anyone to receive Jesus.
- Dear God, long time no see.
Um, I guess you know how desperate I am
just by me being here.
But I'm willing to try anything at this point.
Please, please, I beg of you--
- You didn't call me back last night.
Too busy for your mama, but you have time for this?
I'm dubious, to say the least.
- Are you actually mad that I'm praying?
- Mad? Not mad.
More confused.
Suspicious. What did you do?
What trouble did you get yourself into?
- I--I needed inspiration for a new show.
I thought he could help.
- That is a waste of his time.
- Can we discuss this later?
- [sighs] I'll see you in the lobby,
at which point we'll discuss proper kneeling attire.
- Mother!
[romantic music]
♪ ♪
- I have missed this place.
Oh!
Mm. - Ooh, la, la.
Oh, fantastic.
[cork pops] Oh! Oh!
- [laughs]
A toast to us.
[chatter]
- [speaking French]
[laughter]
- They were just shellfish!
[laughter]
I wish you could have seen her.
Le Cordon Blue, the great Bugnard,
all in service of her vision.
- Well, Bocuse's vision.
But still, the fish was lighter than a feather,
which I cannot say for this duck.
It's marvelous.
- We haven't indulged like this since you two left.
- Has it been that dreary?
- The man who replaced you, George Drummond--
a nincompoop.
- Oh, now, I liked George.
- He was a plodder, playing checkers to your chess.
- Oh, I do miss the challenge of it.
- And he did not understand French.
- Oh. - Well,
I always prided myself on that.
- Wow. - Mmm.
- They were, I think it is fair to say, anni mirabiles.
- Oh, tout a fait.
- The Marshall Plan.
All across Europe, would there be democracy without it?
- No.
- Here in Paris, the work we did
with the Joint Distribution Committee
for the Jews resettling in France--
returning their homes, their businesses,
their possessions, the things they left behind in exile.
I remember them all, every face.
The Rosenthals,
the Wiets, the Blochs,
the Levis, the Steiners.
They became friends of ours-- uh, some of them.
We gave them back their lives.
- Huh.
- And what does that mean?
- You know France less well than you think.
- Annette. - No.
What's the point of this?
It means we do not change the world,
only who does the hurting.
- Leave it as you remember, Paul.
What does it matter?
- It matters.
It was his life's work.
- Florent?
- Turns out, we--
we didn't do half the things we thought we did.
- No, you did them.
It just didn't change anything.
France doesn't change.
Paul Child or George Drummond, so what?
We are who we are who we are.
[jazz music]
[chatter]
- You are so comfortable in your skin.
- [laughs] Not always.
But always when I move.
♪ ♪
- [laughs] Life is full of amazing things.
They are not all the same.
You should be open to all of them.
♪ ♪
- You couldn't sleep?
- No.
- Well, we had a lot to drink.
All four of us.
We know what we did.
I know what you did.
The Rosenthals, for one.
I know what we did for them.
- That Rembrandt.
You know, Rosa was the one with the eye.
- [chuckles]
Yeah, but he was the one with the money.
- [laughs]
- It's been such a wonderful trip
in every other way.
And we still have eight hours until the plane takes off.
Let's find them.
I miss them now.
[whimsical music]
♪ ♪
- Ugh!
♪ ♪
Evan Jones, please.
The United States.
That's Beekman 64541.
Evan.
No, I'm fine.
I missed my flight.
Is that okay?
[laughs]
[knocking at door]
- Oh! Ow.
What?
[mischievous music]
♪ ♪
[sighs]
Huh?
[laughs]
Ow. Oh.
- This isn't dangerous, Russ?
- They're peaceful protests, Marian.
And I'm just filming them.
- Yes, but socialists.
- Against the war, not the government.
And this is the United States of America.
You're allowed to say what you think.
- Okay. - [sighs]
They marched to the statehouse yesterday,
and I filmed it all.
Some students, mostly. Some retirees.
Oh, I even interviewed a housewife like you.
- How open-minded.
- Television is the key, Marian.
I can connect people all across the country.
Instead of 100 small protests,
now they're part of a movement.
[baby crying]
Oh.
No, no, no.
That's right.
Make noise.
Make noise, little Vicky.
Your daddy's gonna change the world.
- After that, maybe a few diapers.
- You bet.
- This is something you two cooked up?
Look, if I had wanted to expand my repertoire
to include the subgenre
of lightly pornographic self-help literature,
I would have let you know.
- I'm sorry, Albert, but the author
of "Birdwatching: An Ornithological Diary
in 30 Species" had to cancel.
- Let me guess. Bad clams again?
- Well, last time it was-- it was Updike.
And that worked out well.
- Surely even you and Ms. Levitch
can see the difference between John Updike
and--and Helen Gurley Brown.
Oh, that can't be her real name.
- Albert, as a new and now die-hard fan
of the show myself, I'm just trying
to entice a new audience.
- Well, what will it be next, Levitch?
I strip to my skivvies and juggle?
- How am I gonna get that visual out of my head?
- Now, uh, what I found tit-- titillating about your book--
- Why Albert, you pussycat.
What did you find titillating?
- [laughs nervously]
Uh, your focus on financial independence.
I hadn't thought of it that way.
That's-- well, that's not so terrible.
- Rather big of you to say.
- Big of me?
- Very big.
Financial independence and sexual freedom
are inextricably intertwined.
I was 37 when I got married,
but you don't honestly believe
I was a virgin at 37?
- I guess I don't.
- So isn't that the truth of it?
- Well, young lady, you know what they say.
Good girls go to heaven.
- True. But bad girls go everywhere.
- [laughs] - From the age of 20--
what the hell, 19--
I explored my options sexually
until I met the right partner.
I had my fill of all shapes and sizes.
- Good God.
- Having my own income allowed
for some adventurous discernment.
The gift of time.
Did your wife have a chance
to explore her options sexually?
- Well--
- I bet she did.
She just didn't tell you.
Now, it's not your fault, professor.
It's societal.
And that's what my book, and now the movie,
are here to dismantle.
- You know, in my day,
we read books like "Anna Karenina"
and "The Scarlet Letter,"
and women were punished for their sexuality.
[clears throat]
- Your day has passed, old man.
- I have to pee.
- This was one of my favorite apartments in all of Paris,
and my very favorite couple.
- Yes.
- Bonjour.
- Uh, bonjour, mademoiselle.
- [speaking French]
- Au revoir. - Au revoir.
- Hmm.
- [singing in French]
[romantic music]
♪ ♪
- [gasps] Merci.
- [speaking French]
- In the long dark tunnel of night
that is human existence,
last night was a revelation.
- You mean you had a good time.
- I'll still never put pen to paper again.
That's useless folly.
But from now on, I shall dance whenever I can.
- [laughs]
- When I got home, Simone was so worried and jealous.
Who stays out till 3:00 a.m. at my age?
[chuckles]
We never went to sleep at all.
- Oh. Well, glad I could help.
- Simone wants to meet you.
This woman who can bring people back from the dead.
Will you join us?
- For lunch, dinner?
- Oh... there can be dinner too.
- Oh.
Oh! [laughs]
Oh, really, JP.
[laughs]
I'm seeing someone.
- I still know my way around the Paris bureaucracy
as well as any man.
An address for the Rosenthals.
You okay, Jule?
- It's from Chef Bugnard.
- Oh.
"I was so happy to see you today, Julia,
"all these years later.
"Teaching you was one of the great joys of my life,
"and now you are my teacher, too.
"But I will be happy to miss you,
"because your work is in America now.
"Do not be afraid of the new.
"It does not erase the past, only build on it.
"Show the world how to cook,
daughter..." [laughs] "of Escoffier,
"madame ambassadress,
my shining student."
[cloth rustling]
- Hello?
Oh, Mom.
What--what are you doing with those?
- Did you stop ironing your sheets?
- I never ironed my sheets, Mom.
- You know they actually last longer if you care for them?
- Did you pop over here just to tell me that?
- No, I came to talk to you.
The sheets called out to me from the other room.
- I will try to find some time this weekend.
- Unless you're in church again, I suppose.
- It's possible.
- Alice.
Alice.
Even if you have no one else to talk to, you always have me.
And I answer quicker than God.
Can I help you with anything?
- No.
No. I'm just blocked at work.
- Well, her fangs were out.
What can I say?
We should never book New Yorkers.
- Is that right?
- You know, I admit I didn't properly prepare
the way I like to.
But have you read it, Hunter?
"Sex and the Single Girl"?
It's trash.
I don't know how to help trash.
- But don't you realize, Albert?
She was there to help you.
- How do you mean?
- Do you want me to spell it out for you?
- I understand that times are changing.
I do.
I mean, it's happening at the college, too.
I recently added Willa Cather to my syllabus, and a Bronte.
- Well, that's terrific.
I'm sure your students will appreciate it,
especially those of the fairer sex.
- It meant losing "Moby-Dick."
You can't add without subtracting.
- Took the words right out of my mouth.
Albert, this is not easy.
I've actually had stomach issues for days
just figuring out how to say this to you.
It's not gonna work, Albert.
- Okay. Invite her back.
I'll do better.
I'll do better this time, I promise.
- You can finish out the season,
and we'll give you a proper sendoff.
You've been a vital part of WGBH since the beginning,
and for that, I'll always be grateful.
- Oh.
I see.
Well, then.
Thank you, Hunter.
I hope someone treats you with the same grace
when your time comes.
And it's coming.
- Oh, my God, I almost feel bad.
- Don't. She wiped the floor with him.
He was a mop.
- He was a wet, wet mop.
[laughter]
You know, her sexual politics are an A-plus,
but her food politics--
I don't know if you read the book.
They're just the worst.
If she saw two women eating dessert
with nary a man present,
we'd be thrown into girl jail.
- And it's all a little grandiose.
And true, she talks about sexual freedom,
and quite frankly at that,
but without any real nuts-and-bolts information
about how to take care of yourself
within that freedom.
- You mean orgasms?
- I mean pregnancy.
Okay. I had a night.
A--a great night.
A really great night.
- Sounds like a great night.
- It was, but now I am afraid
that it's going to cost me the rest of my life.
I'm nauseous, I have this weird pain in my side,
and I have to pee all the time.
- When did you have your night?
- It was four days ago.
- No, you're not pregnant.
And the odds of getting pregnant
from having sex one time are super low.
- [whispering] It was three times.
- You're still not pregnant,
and if you were, you wouldn't know,
not yet.
Can I ask you an intimate question?
- I mean, you can ask.
- After all those times, did you pee?
- No.
But we spooned.
- You should have peed.
It's, uh, sort of a rule, my dear.
- A rule?
- To prevent you from getting a UTI.
You have a UTI.
- Oh, uh--
- A urinary tract infection.
- Oh.
Oh, how wonderful!
Oh.
Oh, thank you.
- So we need to get you on some antibiotics,
and then, if you want to have sex a fourth time...
- Yes, I do.
- You need to get on contraception.
And I will help you.
- Well, you are amazing.
You should write a book.
- Maybe I should.
My parents would plotz.
- Or better yet, make a show.
Women talking to women about things
no one else talks about on television.
- Is this what you wanted to spitball about?
- Mm-hmm.
- Cool.
- To Julia.
For bringing us together.
- To Julia.
[chuckles]
- I didn't know my aunt and uncle well.
- Well, they were wonderful people.
- And so charming.
And they had us over one night for Friday night dinner.
And I discovered challah bread,
and nothing's been the same since.
- [chuckles]
- Are they no longer in Paris?
- They tried.
That's probably when you knew them.
But it was very hard
for many Jewish people after the war.
Guilt made the anti-Semitism worse, not better.
After all, Paris stands because she gave up her Jews.
We were made to feel like thieves in our own homes.
Neighbors would stare.
Worse than stare.
It was too much for my aunt and uncle.
They sold the flat and moved to Israel.
- Oh. - Gosh.
- Yes.
[melancholy music]
- I'm sorry for taking up your time
and dredging all this up.
- No, no, no.
It's nice to remember.
Well, not nice, but important.
My parents converted.
They didn't want to leave,
and that felt like the safest way to stay.
France is their home.
My aunt and uncle didn't understand.
But for us, it was the right thing.
- Yes, you poor soul.
♪ ♪
- Your aunt and uncle had a magnificent art collection.
It was part of my job to--to help locate it.
- I'm sorry.
- Please don't apologize. There's...
there's nothing, uh, for you to apologize for.
- I just wish I had a better answer.
- Yes. I do, too.
♪ ♪
It's stunning.
♪ ♪
- "Donor unknown."
They've been erased.
- You tried, Paulski.
- What does it matter?
- It matters to me.
And I'm sure it mattered to them.
- They lost everything.
What I lost...
We just have no idea, do we?
What any of it means.
What we do.
[soft music]
I sometimes wonder,
if we had had children...
- They would have been who they are,
not the sum of everything we gave them.
♪ ♪
You were the one who reminded me,
we don't control what the things we do mean,
only what we want them to mean.
- I did, didn't I?
- The show is our baby.
It's growing up, and it needs us.
We still have chapters left to write, Paulski.
We don't need to look back anymore.
The climax of the story
always occurs in the second act.
That's the best part.
[Ann Sothern's "The Last Time I Saw Paris"]
♪ ♪
- ♪ The last time I saw Paris ♪
♪ Her heart was warm and gay ♪
♪ I heard the laughter of her heart ♪
♪ In every street café ♪
♪ The last time I saw Paris ♪
♪ Her heart was warm and gay ♪
♪ No matter how they change her ♪
♪ I'll remember her that way ♪
♪ I dodged the same old taxicabs ♪
♪ That I had dodged for years ♪
♪ The chorus of their squeaky horns ♪
♪ Was music ♪
♪ To my ears ♪
♪ The last time I saw Paris ♪
♪ Her heart was warm and gay ♪
♪ No matter how they change her ♪
♪ I'll remember her ♪
♪ That way ♪