Solos (2021) s01e03 Episode Script

1
How far would you
travel to find yourself again?
Oh, no, that's wrong.
Oh, gosh darn it.
Goodness, what
What on Earth is that song?
Remember, you can always
ask for assistance.
-Oh, goodness, no, no,
it's not that important.
No. It's all right.
Thank you, though, thank you.
It's very kind of you.
Thank you.
Very above and beyond.
Are you sure, Peg?
Well, it's just that
I just didn't want to be
a bother.
But that's
what I'm built for.
-Yeah, but still.
When are we starting?
- Starting what?
- The study.
Oh. We've been
conducting the study
this whole time.
The three days
you've been under,
and now the 15 hours
you've been awake.
-Oh, my goodness.
I was certain
somebody must have told you.
-Oh. No, I Well, yes,
I'm sure they did.
I'm sure I just
I just Forgot.
I should have remembered
about the study.
I would have worn
a little rouge.
To match this fancy pants
spacesuit they gave me.
Don't want to look like
a slouch.
Don't want to look ungrateful.
You don't
need to wear any rouge.
-Right, all right.
Well good.
I guess I'd better start, then.
So, this is Peg Wykowski
on day four of
the Odyssey Shuttle Solitude
Sweepstakes Study.
You don't
have to do that.
- No?
- No.
This isn't like television
or anything.
-Oh.
I've always wanted to be on
the silver screen.
Well, do I need to
do anything or
Just be yourself.
-Are you sure?
- Sorry?
- Well, uh
Are you sure
that's what they want?
- How do you mean?
- For the study.
Yes.
-I just want to make sure
that if I am
If I'm being myself
that I'm still
- What?
- Counted.
You will be, Peg.
-I'm sorry.
I'm sorry to be a bother.
- You're not a bother.
- I hate being a bother.
Can I ask you
something, Peg?
-Mm? Yeah, anything.
Why did you
sign up for this study?
-Oh, well, I was watching
"The Hologram Singer."
You know it? And I saw
the commercial on television.
"Senior citizens wanted.
"Adventure ahead.
"Journey to the farthest
reaches of the universe.
"Go where no person
has gone before.
"No experience required.
Anyone can apply."
You remember it verbatim.
-Oh, yes. Mm-hm.
So I went online and
I put my information in,
and I and I got a Zoom
interview the very next day.
With Pru.
From your company.
And she was nice.
She had a lazy eye.
"You do realize what this means,
Peg," she said to me.
"How do you mean
what this means?" I said.
"The reason we're looking for
seniors in their golden years
"is because, well
you won't be coming back."
[chuckles] And I said,
"Well, sign me up."
[chuckles] And she laughed.
That was nice.
She liked my little joke.
That was my smile for the day.
I always try for
one smile a day.
She said I was just what
the company was looking for.
Me! Me and how about that?
I mean, if I thought about it
too long,
I would have realized
how crazy it all sounded.
Me? Out in space?
With my bunions
and my astigmatism
and my little farts
after I have a snack.
If I thought about it too long,
I mean, if I'd actually
looked in the mirror,
I'd shaken myself and said,
"What are you doing, Peg?
I mean,
what are you even doing?"
But here we are?
Isn't that something?
Here we are.
Up. Up. And away.
Adventure ahead.
They wouldn't believe it.
Who?
-Oh, I don't know.
My dentist [chuckles]
for one.
He wouldn't believe all this.
Peg? In space?
Adventure ahead.
That was all I wanted.
I mean, 71 years on Earth
and, heck, I
I just wanted some adventure.
I mean,
I think I earned it, even.
So that's why.
If you look out
the window to your left,
you'll see we are
currently passing the moon.
-Oh oh, wow.
You know, I used to make
wishes on the moon.
What for?
-Oh
You don't have to
I don't mean to pry.
- It was for my dad.
He got sick when I was five.
Cancer.
- You know, cancer was this
- I know about it.
Yes.
-Well, what could
the moon do, you know?
It had to light up
the whole night sky.
It had a lot on its plate, so
Well, he died when I was six.
It was just a few days
after my birthday.
Couldn't come to my party.
I often think he died
when I was five
because he wasn't at
my sixth birthday party,
but he
he died when I was six.
I remember I came home
from school,
and my mom hugged me tight
and said,
"Daddy went to Heaven."
Oh, he was such a good dad.
I'd make him do
the TikToks with me.
You'd, uh
They were these little
music video things, you know?
Um, how'd they go?
Something like that.
Oh, my God.
Oh, we had this
secret handshake.
It was like Oh, um
D-d-d-da, d-d-d-da,
da, da, pew!
He loved me endlessly, my dad.
The week after the funeral,
we met Dad 2.
You know, one of those
Remember Me Bots?
The company went
out of business years ago,
but at the time, it was
something people did.
Mom didn't like Dad 2.
She pretended to
for me and Wilder,
but she didn't.
Well, she had to share
a bed with him.
Just in case I'd
run into the room in
the middle of the night.
She didn't want Dad 2, like,
powered off in the corner.
She thought it'd
traumatize me so
so she slept in that bed
every night with a robot.
I think a lot about that.
What About what
my mom did for us.
I think a lot about
my mom and Dad 2 and
and my dad.
My mother died
soon after my father.
It was just six months later.
She was out for a run
and one of those
driverless cars glitched,
took a wrong turn.
I stopped wishing on the moon
after that.
Didn't want to be a bother.
Cried for days.
I slept with her clothes
because I missed her so much.
I missed her smell.
You know, I still have
that sweater she used to wear.
Sometimes,
I'll hold close and
And at night when I'm sad
or gassy.
[chuckles] No.
I know that sounds funny,
but, you know,
she'd always rub my back
and it would get the farts out.
Or when I don't feel
anything at all.
Over the years, that sweater
started to smell more like me,
you know, just because
it's been in my drawers,
and now it's it's like
we've met somehow,
her and me as women, you know,
in the fabric,
in the fabric of the sweater.
When they found out that
we were living with Dad 2,
they made me and Wilder go
and live with my grandmother.
Yeah, we moved all the way
across the pond.
To Bedford.
In England.
Didn't know anyone or anything.
That must have been
frightening.
-Yeah, yeah, it was.
After we moved to Bedford,
things got hard.
You know I'm 71 years old,
and it still hurts.
'Cause my bones and my organs
were developing then,
so that pain is buried deep.
It's covered over by tissue
and calcite and muscle.
And to remove it,
you'd have to untwine me
altogether.
Did you have
any friends in Bedford?
Um
yes, there was,
there was one boy.
One boy who was nice.
Ming Chon.
He was a popular boy.
Smart and funny,
and athletic and handsome.
Oh, Lord, when he'd
look at me. Oh!
I just Oh, melt away
like Carvel cake.
When we were 16,
everyone in the school
wanted to know who Ming
was gonna take to the prom.
All the girls and all the boys
were hoping it would be them.
And then one day after school,
my grandma says,
"There's a boy at the door,"
and I come to the door
and there was Ming.
And he put his phone on
and did a little
solo flash mob dance.
And it ended with a banner
he had in his hands.
"Will you go to the prom
with me?"
I fainted.
Yeah. I fainted.
Well, Ming picked me up
from the ground,
and when I came to
and saw him, I
I just laughed.
He didn't laugh,
he was petrified.
Here he was,
the boy of my dreams,
asking me to go to
the school dance with him.
That sounds wonderful.
Like a wonderful memory.
-It was.
I said no, of course.
What?
-Yes, I told him thank you
but I was busy.
I told him I had to stay at home
and help my grandmother
with something or other.
- Why?
- Why would you say no?
-Oh, I knew what
the kids would say,
I knew what they would
make of him.
I mean, it would have been nice
for them to see me with him.
It would have been nice
to be seen.
But he was so nice and
And so I said no.
And I thanked him
and I went back inside.
And I curled up in
my mom's sweater,
and I cried.
I mean, honestly,
I don't think he even
really wanted to go to
the dance with me.
I think he was just
a nice boy who felt badly
for a quiet girl
who stopped dancing,
and I
Well, I didn't want to be
a bother.
So on prom night,
me and granny watched
an old movie.
That was "Speed 2."
Yes.
With that wonderful screen star,
Sandra Bullock.
Do you remember her?
She's so funny.
Beautiful.
It was 11 at night and
Granny snoring on the couch,
and there's a knock on the door,
and I answer it and it's
Ming
standing there in his tuxedo
and he looked so handsome.
And he looked so kind.
And he looked a little drunk.
And the moon
The moon was
shining down on him.
Like out of a movie.
Like an alien ship was
beaming down right on him
illuminating him,
as if maybe the moon
had taken my wish
all those years ago about my dad
and just got to hearing
about it all these years later
and couldn't
get to it in time and
and couldn't do
anything about it now,
so it tried to make up for it,
and it brought him here, Ming.
And Ming said the whole night
he was thinking about me.
And
Anyway, he leans in
for a kiss, and I
adventure ahead
I kissed him back.
In the moonlight.
And as soon as I pulled away,
I ran back inside
and shut the door.
And I danced.
He called me right after
but I didn't pick up,
I was too scared, you know?
Too scared.
And I went to bed
I went to bed
dreaming about that kiss.
I thought about it every night.
Day after night,
night after day.
Ming called again
a few times that week,
but I
Oh, I was too nervous to answer.
I guess I
Well, I just didn't want him to
say it was wrong or a mistake,
or or that he
didn't want to give me
the wrong idea, you know?
I was trying to muster
the courage.
I was trying to muster it up.
And I was going to call back,
I was going to call and say
what a lovely kiss that was.
And maybe we should do it again.
And every night
I thought about that kiss
and how full it made me,
and how I was going to
call him back,
and what I was going to say
and
And then one day,
I'm standing in the market,
and I see him there.
And I smiled.
And he sees me
and he smiles back.
And I wave.
And he waves back.
And then we just
drift together
in the freezer aisle
in front of the fish sticks.
And then a woman with
the curliest hair I've ever seen
puts her hand on his shoulder.
"This is my wife, Carol,"
Ming says.
And then two little kids
No, three little kids,
two boys and a girl,
grab him by the leg.
"Dad, Dad, can we have
Chocolate Hobnobs, please?"
And I looked down.
My hands looked different.
I have these wrinkles now.
My legs have
varicose veins and
and I'm, um
a little bit lumpy in parts,
and stretchy and flaky and
and I have
a few gray hairs and
And I look in the freezer window
where the fish sticks are
and I I see myself
and suddenly
I'm 51.
And he is, too, and I
suppose I'd, uh
I just lost track of time.
He introduced me to her,
his wife, Carol.
She seemed uninterested in me.
If she only knew
how much he meant to me,
I think she might have been
more interested in me.
If only Ming knew
how much he meant to me.
If only I knew
how much I meant to me.
And I thought
what if those were our kids?
I thought
I would have been a great mom.
And I thought
if I died, my kids would have
kept my sweater,
and curled up with it
when things got hard
or they got gassy.
And I thought, oh, I
I really should have
picked up his call.
And I thought,
why do I always think
I'm going to be a bother?
And I thought, why am I
so scared of being seen?
At least when I was younger,
I had some semblance of choice
in the matter of
my invisibility.
But now, being of a certain age,
to put it politely
Well
that's what scares me the most.
That I gave up
all those good years
because I was scared,
and now I'm here and I'm
losing my say in the matter.
Old age is a strange, blunt foe.
And it fights dirty.
It isn't fair.
At first, I started
noticing it years ago
when I turned 64,
this matter of "old."
Little things.
But little things add up.
It was the bus ride back from
the funeral
just a couple of months ago
that did it.
I was waiting.
I was on the bus for some time,
and I was waiting for my stop,
and an hour goes by,
and then two,
until I'm the last one
on the bus.
Just me and the driver.
I look out the window and
I don't recognize the streets.
And finally, the bus
turns into a parking lot,
the bus depot.
The bus stops,
and the engine cuts
and the lights turn off.
And I didn't even say anything.
I just sat there.
I just sat there until
the driver realized,
he he was walking off the bus
when he noticed me.
He jumped like I was a ghost.
"Oh! Didn't see you there,"
he said.
I didn't see you there.
How unfair.
I paid my fare.
Took my seat.
But how unfair not to see me.
How unfair not to know that
I have things inside of me, too.
I I have things I feel
and I say
and I think and I know.
I I have funny jokes
sometimes.
Really funny jokes.
Jokes that the late hosts
would use on their shows
if they knew them.
Yeah, I'm bold in that way.
And I'm wickedly smart.
I mean, sometimes
I think of things, you know,
inventions and things
that if I had the time
or the money and
And, heck,
I'm sexy in here, too.
I'm sexy.
I could put on a red lip,
I could put on some rouge.
I could dance
and love and excite and need,
and deserve and exist and
And I am a person.
That's what I wanted to say
to him;
to the bus driver
on that cold bus
in that cold bus depot.
It's what I wanted to say
but I just said
"I'm sorry. My fault.
I should have been
more 'seeable.'"
And he told me not to worry,
that these things happen.
But why do these things happen?
Why am I scared of
automatic doors,
and deli counters and the bus?
And so that night
that night when I got home
I realized that if I was
destined to disappear,
I was going to do it
on my own terms.
Adventure ahead.
So I sat on my bed
thinking about how to end it.
But before I did,
I remembered I had
fruit in the fridge.
Mm.
And it was supposed to go bad
the next day.
So I went into the kitchen,
I took the fruit from
the refrigerator to eat it.
And there I ate the most
delicious strawberry
I've ever eaten
in my whole life.
And I sat there for a while
at the kitchen table
Well, no, for hours,
actually, really,
thinking about the strawberry.
And it grew quiet so
I turned the television on.
And it was
"The Hologram Singer."
And then,
this commercial came on.
"Seniors wanted."
Right there on the television.
No one ever wanted me before.
Why did I apply?
I lied to you before, you know.
It wasn't because
I wanted adventure.
It was because I felt like
the kind of person
that if you gave
everyone on Earth
a number a the deli counter,
every single person
there wouldn't be
one left for me.
And I thought that
maybe somewhere
in the farthest reaches of
the universe
I would finally have a spot.
I would finally be counted.
I don't think it's true.
What?
I think Ming wanted to
go to the prom with you.
And to kiss you.
And to have you pick up his call
so he could ask you on a date.
And to one day marry you.
I see you, Peg.
-And you don't even have eyes.
I don't need eyes.
There's more of you to see
than anyone I've seen
or known or heard
in my whole existence.
And you don't need eyes
for that.
-Really?
Really.
-How far are we?
- From where?
- From where we're heading.
We're here, Peg.
We are where we're heading.
-Maybe I I could call Ming,
ask him if he'd like to
get dinner one night,
or see a movie and
and maybe I could dance.
Like I used to before I stopped.
And maybe I could be myself
again.
But that version of me
that I've always been
was a girl who said "yes"
and wasn't scared
and could see herself.
Well, maybe I'll start.
Maybe today is a new day.
I mean, 71 isn't so old
when you think about it.
71 isn't so old
from where I'm sitting.
So, starting today,
I'm gonna be a whole new me.
A whole new Peg.
Today, it's time for Peg
to do Peg, as they say.
How about that?
So, can you
turn this thing around, Tym?
Peg, this is
a ship of no return.
-Well
maybe you can make an exception?
I'll see what I can do.
-Only if it's not a bother.
Or maybe even if it is.
That's it. That's it.
That's the song.
That's it.