.
[upbeat music]
- Ooh.
- You're good. Five-second rule.
- One, one thousand, two, one...
[pained] Thousand! Ow.
- Take a mulligan.
- OK, one, one thousand,
two, one thousand, three, one thousand.
- Hello? We're back.
- Something smells good. - Dad, catch.
- Jim made supper!
- Oh, God!
* *
- * It's genius *
* The marriage that we once had now is through *
* And now we're doing all that we can do *
* To keep us all together as a crew *
* Trust, do as we say, not as we do *
* We really thought that we were done *
* But we've just begun *
- So how was Miami?
- Exhausting. Happy to be home.
- Happy to have you home.
Happy to see you in the home, because it means
I'll be leaving the home.
Congrats on your tan, by the way.
- Jim, I was working.
And thank you for your flexibility.
You are a great ex-husband.
- I am! I am.
When you're divorced with kids, life is like a relay race.
In our case, I run with the baton my week
with the kids, and then I hand it off to Julia
for her week, and it's a rhythm, you know?
My week, her week, my week, her week.
But this time, it was my week, my week.
- Jim, thank you so much for doing the extra week.
- Oh, did I do an extra week?
Yes, I did do an extra week.
- But the client needed more time.
- All good, I have no hidden resentments
that I'll carry with me for the rest of my life.
So whose crisis did you smooth out this time?
- There's an NDA. I can't say.
- I didn't sign it. It was Pitbull.
- Where did you have your meetings?
On his yacht?
- There's an NDA, so I can't say.
- It wasn't a yacht. It was a ship.
Pool, disco, theater, helicopter.
- I don't want to know. - Three-story water slide.
- I do not want to know.
Well, a lot happened while you were on your multi-story
water slide for 14 days. Was it 14 days?
Yes, I believe it was 14 full days.
- Let's not forget Grandpa Bobby
was here for the last three.
- Hours. The last three hours.
- Jim, I'm truly sorry I saddled you
with the extra days, but I'm here now.
What's the update? - Things are good.
Things are-- are-- are fine.
They're-- they're-- they're not good.
They're-- they're bad. Yes.
What can I say?
I dropped the ball on the grocery shopping,
so our cupboards are a little bit bare.
The side dishes for dinner are peanuts,
ketchup, and seven pretzels.
Today, we had olives for lunch.
And we are out of soy milk,
rice milk, oat milk, and milk-milk.
- And milk has lost all meaning.
- Actually, the closest thing to human milk isn't cow milk.
It's rat milk.
- Who's the sick bastard that figured that out?
Somebody had to suck on a rat's breast?
- What else? Oh, Grace got a C-minus
on her trigonometry test. - What happened?
- What happened is I did not have the bandwidth
to investigate what happened. - It's OK.
I'm on it.
- How is trig useful in real life?
- Actually, trigonometry can be used in naval navigation
to find the distance from the shore to a point at sea.
- How is trig useful in real life?
- Oh, also, Grace is sleeping over at Jasmine's tonight.
- Jim, I hate when they have sleepovers
the first night that I'm back.
- I sympathize. But again, it is day 14.
My brain is just barely keeping my heart beating.
I don't remember Trey's last name.
- Taylor. - Doesn't ring a bell.
Oh, and allow me to direct your attention
to the dinner table,
where you will notice Jimmy isn't.
Now I have called him to dinner five times,
but he is completely absorbed in his new video game.
- How absorbed? - He plays a few hours a day.
- How many? - Yesterday, all of them.
- Jim, I thought we had limits. - We do.
But mine apparently is 10 days.
Because on the 11th day, I placed our son in the custody
of his computer.
I'm not proud of it. I'm quite ashamed.
Didn't even plan on admitting any of this,
but I am exhausted.
So if there is nothing else,
I will attempt to recharge by bingeing the new season
of my favorite Swedish murder show
back at my apartment by myself,
doing nothing for anyone.
- Does a Swedish woman go missing?
- A Swedish woman does go missing, Trey.
Very astute.
I see you're versed in the genre.
And then a Swedish police lady
along with a Swedish police man with a beard will get--
- Get to the bottom of it. - Mm.
- I love Swedish murder shows.
- Is there anything else we need to know?
- It's called "Gustavsson."
That's the cop with the beard, Gustavsson.
- I meant about the kids.
- Oh, uh, lunch was olives, out of milk,
Grace's trig test, Jimmy's game,
brain is flatlining. That's everything.
Ooh, Jimmy! - Just go knock on his door.
- Julia, there are my problems, and there are your problems,
and now that you're back, this is your problem.
My well is dry, my tank is empty,
and whatever third metaphor for depletion
that I am too tired to come up with.
- You sure you don't want to eat dinner with us?
- No, thanks. - Eh, I'm good.
- We're good.
.
- Jimmy, dinner. - Stab him!
Stab his neck!
That's it. Now stab her.
Stab her good.
- Jimmy.
- That's it, stab again! Stab!
Chase him down, Isaac. Slice the jugular!
Yes! Nice win.
Way to slay. Oh, OK, I got to go eat.
Mommy, I missed you.
You were gone a long time.
- I know, sweetie, but I'm back now.
- Oh, did you hear Grace got a C-minus.
Are you gonna ground her?
Can I ground her?
Oh, nice tan, by the way.
- I was working.
[upbeat music]
* *
[peanuts rattling]
So tell me about this new game. Seems action packed.
What's it called? - "STN."
It's the best game ever, Mom.
- Well, I'm glad that you like it,
but, um, it's kind of violent, isn't it?
- No, there's not even guns.
Just knives and machetes and stuff.
- Well, what's the "STN" stand for?
- "Stab The Neighbors."
- "Stab The Neighbors"?
- This game is bomb.
Your squad fights your neighbor's squad
to the death.
You get points for kills, but also for stabs,
even if they don't die.
- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Your dad said that you've been playing it a lot.
- No, I play the normal amount.
- Well, I'm glad you're enjoying the game,
but it's also important that you spend time outdoors.
- I go outdoors.
The whole time I walk home from school is outdoors.
- You should also be playing with your friends.
- Mom, I play the game with my friends.
- What about the after school job
that we discussed? Did you talk to Mr. Shay?
- Oh, yeah, I started when you were gone.
- Oh. [chuckles]
Well, that's great.
I'm so proud of you, honey.
- You got a job. Good for you.
- It's easy.
I just bring in his mail and stuff.
- Well, I think it's great.
I always had a job when I was little.
- Yeah. Yeah. OK. [chuckles]
Let's just keep an eye on the game, all right?
- Of course. Mom, today was so lit.
- Mm-hmm?
- We killed the Maguires, the Murphys,
and most of the Harrisons.
- But those are our real neighbors.
- I know. So great, right?
The AI lets you customize the avatars
to look like real people.
Mr. Harrison even has the same comb-over.
I got to get back to the game and finish them off.
I'm so glad you're home.
Oh, seriously, think about grounding Grace.
I think two weeks is fair.
- Mm, I wouldn't go in there if I were you, Astrid.
[phone ringing]
Ugh. Yeah?
- We need to talk about this game Jimmy's been playing.
- Is this an emergency? - Not yet, but--
[phone beeps]
- Behind you. Behind you.
Bakom dig! Bakom dig!
[sighs]
- Jimmy's a good kid, right? - Love that kid.
- You don't think this game is gonna turn him
into some kind of sociopath, do you?
- Honey, millions of people play video games.
Not all of them turn into sociopaths.
- But some of them do.
- Yeah, statistically in any large group,
you're gonna find some killers.
- Die, old man, die! - Excuse me just one second.
* *
- Die, die, die!
Die, die, die!
Isaac, stab Ms. Murphy in the stomach!
The stomach, not the neck.
Stomach.
Just cut her in half and move on.
[screams]
Mom, the Wi-Fi!
What happened to the Wi-Fi, Mom?
- Well, I don't know!
- Do you know how to restart it?
- No, honey, sorry.
Your dad hooks up all of our internet.
- Call him! Call him now!
- But it's late, sweetie. I'll call him tomorrow.
- Tomorrow?
No, we're supposed to decapitate the Murphys,
.
- I just don't think sabotaging the Wi-Fi
is a great plan long-term.
- I didn't sabotage the Wi-Fi. - Oh, really?
So the modem just spontaneously ripped itself out of the wall.
- They're not well made.
I think they're deliberately designed to fall apart.
Big Modem-- they got us where they want us.
- Big Modem?
Babe, if you don't want him to play the game,
you're his mother. Just tell him not to play.
- Right, because while I'm gone,
Jim lets it all go to hell, and then I have--
- Because you extended your trip.
- No one went down that water slide more than you.
And now you want me to come in here
and look like the bad guy? No, sir.
Let's let the cable company take the hit on this one.
- I'll be at Jasmine's. - Hold up, young lady.
Let's talk about these trig worksheets.
We got to get your grades up.
- Mom, I got all A's and one B right now.
And trig is boring.
- Sine 2X minus 2 cosine X equals what?
Your answer, "I don't care."
- I don't. - Grace, this is unacceptable.
- Dad said don't worry about it.
- I wasn't here to cover Dad's mouth when he said that.
- Dad said that trig isn't useful in life.
- Dad's wrong.
You can use trig to find points in the ocean and the shore.
- It's not useful for everybody.
- I couldn't fix it. - Give me a minute.
Grace and I are discussing the importance of--
damn it! [door slams]
- Hey, thanks for coming over, Jim.
Sorry to disturb your weekend. - Great.
With your apology and a dime, I'd have a dime.
And I was just getting to the point where Gustavsson
finds the body of the local vicar
who I had been led to believe was the killer.
- Well, vicar's usually the red herring.
And it might interest you to know that red herring
was coined by the Englishman William Cobbett,
who would use smoked fish to distract his hounds
from chasing rabbits.
- It might interest me, and yet, it didn't.
And I don't see how somebody
who knows so much about so many useless things
couldn't fix the Wi-Fi.
- Well, at least I knew the vicar
was never a serious suspect.
- Well, well, well, look who thinks he's Gustavsson now.
- It's fine. It's fine.
They'll be out to fix the Wi-Fi sometime
between Monday and 2086.
- Well I'm going back home to resume my recharging.
All I ask is that you respect my wishes
as you would the word of God.
Now if there's nothing else, sweet dreams--
or as Gustavsson would say, drom sott.
- Do you think less of me
because I was married to him for 17 years?
- Yes.
Babe, come on, Jimmy's just playing a game.
- Jimmy needs a break from the video game.
- Yeah, but how is this a plan?
You can't keep him off the internet forever.
- That's it. Stab again! Stab!
- Or at all, apparently.
- Mom, check it out.
My squad won four matches in a row.
- How did, um--
you have internet?
Oh, yeah. Look what I rigged.
Mr. Shay was paying me five bucks an hour,
but I said, "How about two bucks,
and I get to use his high-speed connection?"
Win-win, right?
And there's zero lag,
so I'm getting really good.
I know I said I want to be a doctor when I grow up,
but I think I'm gonna go "STN" pro instead.
- Pro? As in -fessional?
- No. Professional.
One word.
You let me quit school, pretty soon
I'll be pulling down 50k a month.
- Is anyone dead, dying, or missing?
- Everyone's fine.
- Then we need to define "emergency."
- Jim, this is serious. - Oh, you want to talk serious?
When last I saw Gustavsson, he was running through a bog
by a fjord. - Which means what?
What are you even saying?
- It is common knowledge that a bog by a fjord
holds all the darkest Swedish murder secrets.
This was dramatized most notably
in the 2019 limited series--
[together] "Fjord Bog."
- What's your emergency?
- Why'd you call my dad?
- I called everyone whose fingerprints are on this mess.
- Is this about the chicken? Because I didn't drop it.
Jim did. - Chicken?
- Stay focused, Julia.
What was the mess?
- The mess you left me with.
Your son is so addicted to this video game
that he is running wires from two floors up
and wants to quit school
to become a professional stabber.
And your daughter, who no longer lives here,
by the way, has forsaken math.
- I got out of a bubble bath for this?
- Jim, I don't know what to do. I'm exhausted.
- Exhausted on day three. Lightweight.
- You left me with a dumpster fire.
- You were on a yacht. - I was working.
- On a yacht!
- Can I add a little sanity to this discussion?
I know two things.
One, no one with my DNA is ever gonna do well at math.
And two, boys have always pretended to kill each other.
When I was a kid, you know what we did all summer?
We played army.
We pretended sticks were machine guns,
and we killed each other over and over and over.
And when I got to Vietnam, I was ready.
- Thank you for your service.
- I could have used that "thank you" 50 years ago.
- All right, look, folks.
Uh, I know I'm the new guy, but allow me
to add some perspective, all right?
You people are failing.
Jim, look, I understand you got nothing left
in the tank, and nobody blames you,
but you left us with a train wreck.
- Yeah, well, she left me with...me.
- And, Julia, you did your best
to get the train back on the tracks,
but some of your choices were a bit--
- Bad.
- I just want to help. We need to inspire them.
So if you'll allow me,
.
- Professor Davenport, I'd like to introduce you
to Jimmy and Grace Kearney. - How do you do?
[together] Hi.
- You know, you've made such an impact
on my life when I was here at MIT
that I wanted these kids to meet you in hopes
that you could inspire them the same way.
Jimmy here has an enthusiastic interest in computers.
Isn't that right, Jimmy? - My mom made me come here.
- And we want to channel this interest
into something incredible.
And Grace has become disillusioned
with trigonometry. - I was never illusioned.
- You guys, Professor Davenport
is a Nobel Prize winner, visionary, and genius.
Helped turn me into the man I am today.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go take a selfie
of that building with my name on it.
- I don't remember teaching him.
Jimmy, let's start with you.
Tell me what you like about computers.
- Well, I like that I can play games
on them with my friends. - Games, yes.
What they can do with games today is wonderful.
I understand why young people love video games so much.
- Yeah. Because they're awesome.
- Yes, but they're more than that.
They're an escape from the stark realities of our time.
They offer us a world with no air pollution,
no microplastics, no fire tornadoes.
- I just like goofing with my friends
and cutting people's heads off.
- I see.
Kids, have you heard of the Thwaites Glacier?
Thwaites is an unusually vast Antarctic ice mass
that is rapidly shrinking.
And when Thwaites melts,
sea levels will swell enough to begin
the final phase of mankind's time on Earth.
- You mean--
- That's right, Jimmy. Extinction.
- I wasn't-- I wasn't gonna say extinction.
That sounds bad.
Is that bad? - Oh, my God.
- God deserted us long ago.
And Grace, I can see why you are not interested
in wasting your time with theoretical math,
the only function of which is to navigate
a point from sea to shore,
and in all likelihood within eight years,
there will be no more shore.
- No more shore? - Where will we stand?
- There will be no more standing.
- Is there anything that we can do?
- I don't know. Get a boat?
I used all my best ideas to get that Nobel Prize.
No, I'm just an old man jumping around
in the deflated bouncy house of my life.
But you, your generation will suffer
the brunt of the climate horror,
so you're the ones who have to fix it.
- Me and Grace?
- If not you, who?
- Two kids that could get into MIT.
- I don't mean to suggest that I wasn't honored by the award.
But in the end, it's a trinket
I keep in a drawer with my cough drops.
They also gave me a million four,
but I've got a little bit of a blackjack problem.
- So how are we doing?
Feeling inspired?
- And now we're terrified.
The nerve of you people! - The nerve.
- You lecture us on how to live,
but you've wrecked the one and only planet
that we call home. Shame!
- Shame.
- There's gonna be a lot of new rules around here.
Number one, no more meat.
- Meat equals methane.
- Is it OK if it's sustainable meat?
- Meat is meat.
No meat!
- Number two, from now on, we're composting everything.
- Copy that. What is composting?
- [mumbles indistinctly]
- It's time to bundle up.
From now on, the thermostat goes
no higher than 60 degrees.
If you're cold, just grab a jacket.
But no feathers, no down. - And no leather.
- And no fabrics made from petroleum products.
- What does that leave us? - Naked.
- Cotton, hemp, flax, and wool. Write it down.
But no plastic pens!
- And no wooden pencils.
- Just remember it.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to study my trig.
- You're studying trig?
- Well, I don't want to, but I have to
for this environmental engineering class
I want to take online.
- And no more lights.
From this day on, we live by the sun.
- [exhales sharply]
- OK, guys, well that worked out.
Well done.
Thanks, Trey, for bringing us down the home stretch.
I still have a few days left free,
so I'm gonna go back to my apartment
where I will enjoy heat, light, and a bacon cheeseburger.
[irately speaks Swedish]
- Ah!
- Five-second rule. - Think anyone will notice?
- It's vegan lasagna. That'll help.
- One, one thousand, two, one thousand,
three, one thousand.
- Hey, something smells good.
- Boy, am I starving.
[door clicks]
- Julia made supper!