Baby Reindeer (2024) s01e05 Episode Script

1
[suspenseful music playing]
[Donny] Martha was barred for an incident
shortly after the attack on Teri.
There you are!
You cowardly, two-timing fuck.
The nerve you showed me the other night,
rubbing that skank in my face.
All right, that's enough, Martha.
You've made an enemy of me, reindeer.
- Make no mistake about it.
- [man] Martha!
- I hope you know what you've done
- [man] Enough!
- in wounding me like this.
- [man] Martha!
[Martha] Your mouth's
gonna get you in trouble, boy.
[Donny] For a moment,
I thought that might be the end of it,
but she just multiplied
across all other areas of my life.
Hey, you should see
the woman he's dating. Pig ugly.
If he stooped any lower,
he'd be a hunchback.
Yes! Uh, hello, ladies and gentlemen, s
He's a hunchback! Quasimodo!
Head in a gutter of skanks!
Yeah, there he is, Mr. Two-timing Slut.
Don't trust him, guys.
He'll promise you sex,
then sprint the other way.
[Donny] It was killing me, all of it.
A free pass to the comedy final
on account of Martha ruining the gig
offered little comfort
in the face of everything.
I thought about quitting the bar
or moving house
or pausing the comedy for a while,
but I didn't wanna
give her the satisfaction
of taking any more than she had.
So all that was left to do
was lie and wait,
questioning what else
she might be capable of.
[typing]
[sinister music playing]
[door slams]
[Keeley] Mum! Someone just threw something
in my face.
[Liz] You'll be all right.
Just wash it out.
What's going on?
- [Keeley] Someone just attacked me!
- What?
I thought it was acid.
I thought I was gonna go blind.
Jesus. I mean, what was it?
I don't know. It was, like, a fizzy drink.
It was Coke, I think.
Coke? As in, like As in, like like
Diet Coke?
I wasn't paying attention
to the sugar content, Donny.
- Jesus Christ!
- Yeah, no, of course.
[Liz] It was that woman
from the cooking group.
I saw her running down the street
when I came to the window.
Oh yeah. No, I I
I think I remember her. Yeah.
She said, "That's for fucking Donny,"
before she threw it in my face.
What is going on here?
[sighs] She's this woman.
She's been
stalking me.
She's been stalking you?
Wait, is this that Martha woman
who's been harassing me on Facebook?
Oh my God.
She's been in my home.
You are a fucking idiot. You know that?
- [Liz] How long's this been going on for?
- I don't know. Like, six months.
- Six months?!
- Have you been to the police?
Yeah, I have, but they, you know,
wouldn't take it seriously.
They might if you tell them
what just happened to me.
What, that someone
threw a Coke in your face?
[scoffs quietly] You know what?
I can't believe you.
No, that wasn't what I meant.
I just meant
Oh my God, I'm just saying, like,
if they don't take this woman sending me
hundreds of emails a day seriously,
they're not gonna give much of a shit
about a soft drink, are they?
Well, in that case
I really hate to do this to you, Donny.
I think you'd better move out.
[Donny] I moved to Kilburn with two guys
from my drama-school days.
One of their dads owned the flat,
so it was just about affordable for me.
I expected the absolute worst,
but as the door opened onto my new place,
all my dread and frustration
at the whole situation just vanished.
It was perfect. A fresh start.
Anonymity again.
Holy shit, this place is nuts.
[man] Yeah, it's such a find, honestly.
Jesus Christ. The balcony!
Yeah. Always nice to look down on people
as they go about their lives.
Thought you'd have done enough of that
at private school.
[chuckles] Haven't seen you for two years,
already with the class digs. Good.
How's the comedy going?
Yeah, not bad. Got to the final
of a new-act competition recently.
New act?
You've been doing this for five years now.
At this rate, I'll still be doing them
when I'm picking up my pension.
[man laughs]
[Donny] How about you? What are you up to?
- I'm taking a gap year.
- [Donny] In London?
Are you working? Saving up or something?
Nah, I'm, uh, living off my savings.
Finding my way. Enjoying my freedom.
We steal Wi-Fi from the café downstairs.
It's fast as fuck, so we save there too.
Fucking hell, this is insane.
What's the catch?
[dance music playing]
[uneasy music playing]
[typing]
[dance music playing]
[Donny] I found it tediously predictable
that Francis had failed to mention
that him and Bijou had taken time off
to fulfil their
Cultural, psychoactive destiny, man.
Psychedelics, bro.
They give you an insight, a clarity,
like nothing you've seen before.
My thoughts exactly.
A gap year, people think
that means getting on planes and shit,
but you can do an entire round trip inside
your living room these days, brother.
This all sounds very riveting,
but if it's okay,
I'd quite like to take a shit now.
So this was my life.
Hiding away in my bedroom
while the heat rose through the floor
and the walls pounded with
the shittest fucking music known to man,
feeling utterly overcome
with how much I hated Martha.
[typing]
[door creaks]
Hello?
[indistinct chattering in distance]
[Donny] I've got a daughter.
Two month-old. Two-month-old, right?
So I called her Adolf.
I'm joking! I'm joking!
What's going on?
She's three months old.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
Look, just fucking get that off.
No point. We've watched 'em all
several times.
This is gonna sound like a crass question,
but why isn't it funny?
Ask Norwich.
It's Norwich that's not funny.
We laughed at it for two seconds,
then sat around depressed as fuck for you.
It's like when someone dies,
and you know you can't joke about it.
It makes me not wanna do acid again
in case I wake up
inside your comedy routine.
Sorry, who's this?
- That's Digsy. He's new.
- Make yourself at home, why don't you?
Whoa, don't take it out on Digsy.
It was Martha that told us.
I almost unbarred her there and then.
You don't have the authority to do that,
you fat prick.
To be fair, it's a lot funnier than
the audience are giving you credit for.
- That's true.
- Yeah, marginally so.
Don't pity me. That was my first gig.
I'm a lot better now.
Well, we look forward to seeing it.
[Gino] Yeah, and until then, I'm thinking
let's project that on the wall.
- Beam this cunt round the entire pub.
- Right.
[laughter]
- [Gino] Yeah?
- [laughter]
["Never My Love" playing]
You ask me if there'll come a time ♪
When I grow tired of you ♪
[Donny] I started spending
more and more time around Teri's place.
I thought the incident with Martha
would be the end of us,
but instead it bound us
tighter than ever before,
Teri's experience allowing her
to better understand mine.
[Teri scoffs] Jesus, those guys
are such assholes.
Did you tell them you have
a big, fancy comedy final coming up?
No, I don't think the prospect of becoming
the Laughing Duck New Act of the Year
would have done me favors
in a conversation like that.
[chuckles] They'll be laughing
on the other side of their face
when you take home the crown.
[Donny] Mm, I like that attitude.
- Don't get used to this, by the way.
- [Donny] I won't.
[coughs]
[coughs]
- Too much chili?
- [Donny] Too much?
Christ, Teri,
they're gonna feed me this in hell!
[both laugh]
Oh my God!
Here, drink your milk, pussy!
I feel like I can see into the next life.
[laughs]
[Donny] And within the comfort
of Teri's flat,
with all the safety she needed
and all the privacy I did,
we flourished into the couple
we should have always been.
And in a strange sense,
I'd gotten everything I'd ever wanted,
a closed-door relationship,
as I tried very hard not to feel grateful
towards Martha in some fucked-up way.
When did you first figure out
you were open to dating trans women?
I think I asked God one day
if he could make my life more complicated.
How do you identify sexually?
If there was a gun to your head.
Oh, please, pull the trigger.
[Teri] Shut up, asshole.
I don't fancy that funeral.
All the speeches.
"Donny was a top lad with great banter."
Will my gran
be the only one that's speaking?
[both chuckle]
[Teri] Answer, idiot!
[sighs] I don't know. Like, bi, maybe.
And what makes you bi?
Because I feel like a fraud
no matter who I sleep with.
What's it gonna take
to give you some confidence, huh?
[scoffs]
Seriously, think about it.
I'm not sure you ever have.
I don't know. What's that phrase?
You know, the one about
dancing and watching.
Confidence is dancing
like no one's watching you?
[Donny] Yeah.
I don't know.
Just seems quite nice.
Well, that's easy.
See? Piece of cake.
Yeah, and you look like a total knob too.
[scoffs] Ten years of ballet,
two in tap and jazz.
My mom definitely wanted a girl.
Love me ♪
Please love me ♪
For a love ♪
[Teri] Come. I'll show you.
No way.
- Don't be shy.
- No, not a chance in hell.
- Just try.
- [Donny] No, no.
- I'll sandbag you.
- Oh, don't be such a bore.
Fine. I'm sandbagging.
No. I'm sandbagging. No.
I'll try all evening,
if that's what it takes.
No. No. Come here. Come here.
So?
Do you feel like a fraud with me?
I dunno.
We haven't put it to the test yet.
Love me ♪
Please love me ♪
[both moaning]
For a love ♪
Oh fuck, I'm shaking. [chuckles]
That's okay. I can work with that.
Come here.
Forget her ♪
Keep your loving for another ♪
I'll keep my loving for you ♪
[Donny moans softly]
What's going on?
No, no. I'm I'm fine.
I'm just finding it hard to
Shake off your prejudice?
Please. No lectures during foreplay.
Oh, come on. Don't act like
you wouldn't find me hot as a lecturer.
- Mm.
- Power suit. Secretary glasses.
One of those pointer things
to hit you with.
[Donny moans]
Oh, I'm sorry. No. No. I'm I'm not ready.
I'm sorry. My my body,
it's it's just not letting me.
Hey, don't worry. It's fine.
Happens all the time.
- Does it?
- [Teri] Yeah.
- So I've heard.
- [Donny laughing] Shut up!
- Would you like a tea or something?
- [Donny] Yeah, sure.
Okay.
[Donny] It was strange.
After all the awful things
that had been done to my body,
I just couldn't lose myself
in intimacy anymore.
Now there were feelings involved,
it all just felt too much.
The touch, the love, the confirmation.
[somber music playing]
[Donny grunts softly]
Sorry, it's just not happening.
[Donny] Over the next fortnight,
after repeated failed attempts,
I started noticing a change in Teri.
Days spent predominantly in bed,
skulking around the house
in yesterday's clothes,
blurring the line between night and day
without her usual spark.
Is everything okay?
Yeah, I'm fine.
[Donny] Then I would wake in the night
to find her shrinking inside of herself,
her wings clipped.
Is everything okay?
My God, stop asking that.
Well, maybe if you explain,
I might be able to help.
[scoffs]
Look at my hair, Donny.
Look at the state of it.
- It's growing back in weird clumps.
- [Donny] I think it looks great.
It looks horrible, and you know it.
I look like fucking Beetlejuice.
[laughs]
Great. Now you're laughing.
What? That was funny.
Look, Teri, if this is anything to do
with all this awkward sex stuff
No, it's the way you make me feel
during the sex stuff.
Like your body's manifesting
all the awful things
she said to me that night.
No, no, Teri,
it's got nothing to do with that.
It's just the whole Martha situation.
That's what's getting to me here.
I just feel so fucking stressed.
But what are you even doing
to fix the situation, Donny?
We've been stuck inside
for God knows how long now,
waiting for you to figure it out.
Well, I've been to the police,
but they were useless.
Did you mention what happened to me?
Of course I did.
Then why haven't they been round?
It's because you didn't say shit!
That's not true.
You stopped me calling them
the night she attacked me.
You stopped everyone calling.
You couldn't have whisked me
out of that pub any faster.
- I was trying to get you to safety.
- Yeah. Sure you were.
The safety inside your own fucking head.
She said I look like a man, Donny.
Do you know what that's like for me?
No, I don't.
But for what it's worth,
you don't look like a man at all.
Pretty rich coming from someone
who's always treated me like one.
[Donny] I should have gone then.
I should have grabbed Teri's hand
and brought her
to the police station with me.
But still my shame won out.
I just had to find a different way.
[typing]
We can't charge someone for masturbating.
It's not about the masturbating.
Read the email.
You shouldn't be allowed to send that.
If anything, her email implies
that she's gonna stay away.
I think you're missing the point here.
I'm giving you the arguments
she'll come back with.
To arrest someone
on the basis of an email,
we need a credible threat
or something sexually aggressive.
If I was a young woman
and a 40-year-old man
kept emailing stuff about wanking,
would that be a credible threat?
With male-to-female gender stalking,
the threat of a man is physical.
He carries more weight.
Nobody carries weight
against a fucking knife, do they?
Again, if I could see any evidence
that would suggest violence
Oh, Jesus fucking Christ,
she's ruining my life here.
Type her name into the system.
Martha Scott.
There'll be something there.
I'm telling you.
[typing]
Right.
Yeah. I I believe I've found her.
Just Tell you what
why why don't
why don't I get you your, um
[officer clears throat]
Actually, why don't you
just come through to the back?
'Cause I'd better get my
my supervisor just to look through this.
- Sorry, is there someone coming?
- [officer] Yeah. Uh
Oh, just just now, in fact.
Thank you.
Good afternoon.
I'm Detective Joanne Culver.
So, Martha Scott.
Yeah.
I can't say too much here,
but all you need to know
is she is a very serious woman.
So serious that she once
stalked a policeman.
Right.
My colleague tells me she's not
in possession of your phone number.
Is that correct?
Yeah, that's that's correct.
Good. Let's make sure
we keep it that way, shall we?
Yeah. Yeah.
[Culver] Now, ideally,
you would draw up a timeline for us.
Everything that's happened thus far,
to give us a sense of the scale of it.
That's fine. And in the meantime?
We will talk to her,
warn her regarding any future conduct.
Great.
Then what?
The presence of the police
can change things, Mr. Dunn.
Mm, I get that,
but you literally just said
she's a serious woman
who even stalks policemen.
We'll do what we can.
[uneasy music playing]
[Donny] The police's presence at Martha's
door brought with it a sudden silence.
Strange, eerie silence.
Not a single day from the moment I met her
did she not contact me.
Now silence.
Strange, eerie silence.
Weeks went by, and I started to panic.
The emails allowed me
to tune into every facet of her emotion.
I knew when she was sad,
when she missed me,
when she was ill or drunk or angry.
Now nothing.
I found myself awake at night,
worried, terrified, in fact,
that I was gonna get up one morning
to find she'd killed herself,
an email in my inbox
expressing that I was the reason why.
[uneasy music playing]
[music fades]
[Donny] Did I miss her?
Was there some part of me that missed her?
Missed the drama, missed the attention,
missed the distraction from him
and Teri and myself and what happened.
Did I miss her?
And the strangest part about all of this,
I started to masturbate over Martha.
[moaning]
There was something so awful yet thrilling
about doing something
that would devastate my life even further.
[moans]
[Donny] I would come quickly every time
and be left with the same confusion
that had become my post-orgasm trademark.
"What the fuck was that?
Where did that come from?"
I wasn't even attracted to her,
but the idea of it
became this wild obsession for me.
[knocking on door]
♪take a stand ♪
For it was I who chose to start ♪
Just call me angel of the morning ♪
Angel ♪
Just touch my cheek
Before you leave me ♪
Baby ♪
Just call me angel of the morning ♪
Angel ♪
[moans]
[Donny] Oh God.
♪turn away from me ♪
Someone hurt you, didn't they?
[moans]
Just call me angel of the morning ♪
Angel ♪
Just touch my cheek before you leave ♪
[Donny] Out of all the things
I expected Martha to do next,
fixing my broken libido
wasn't one of them.
♪of the morning, angel ♪
[Donny] And I hated
how happy it made Teri too.
Then slowly turn away ♪
[Donny] I didn't know anything anymore,
so, in a tailspin
as to where this all might end,
I felt abused again.
Surely with the police now involved,
she'd be foolish to do anything else.
Have you put together a timeline?
Uh, not yet. Sorry, I I
I haven't found the words.
Well, no problem.
Just get it to us when you can.
So we spoke to Ms. Scott.
What did she say?
Uh, well, she was surprisingly cooperative
in the end.
Really?
[Culver] She said she was embarrassed
and went on to accept our offer of help.
In fact, she has attended
two of our social-adjustment courses
since we last spoke to her.
Social-adjustment courses?
[Culver] It's usually for ex-convicts
who have done lengthy prison sentences,
but it helps with reoffenders as well.
So, did she say anything else?
Nothing that causes concern.
She didn't, like, pass anything on?
Nothing that comes to mind.
But she was upset, right?
I mean, she must have been upset.
No. No, she took it quite well, actually.
[exhales]
So, that's it, then?
That's it.
If she contacts you again,
we'll move the process on to the CPS,
who will decide the judicial outcome,
and likely result in you obtaining
a full restraining order.
You can breathe out now, Donny.
[exhales]
[exhales]
[Teri] So, what? She just accepted it?
Yeah. Strange, right? I at least thought
she'd say something back.
You know, make shit up.
But, apparently, she was very cooperative.
Weird.
You think you know someone.
Yeah.
What's wrong?
Not the big showdown you were hoping for?
I don't know. It's just, like, odd
that she had self-restraint all along.
Makes me think
she wasn't all that mad to begin with.
Now you're talking like the crazy one.
I'm not crazy.
40,000 law firms say otherwise!
Hey, this is still a mentally ill woman
that we're talking about here.
Okay, okay.
I'm still a therapist.
I can't be seen indulging
[attempts Scottish accent]
rank impressions, baby reindeer,
baseless lies and slander.
What was that? [chuckles]
Was that
Was that a Martha impression? Wow.
[both chuckle]
[cell phone buzzes]
[Teri] Who's that?
It's my mum.
Get it. I'm intrigued. You can always
judge a man by how he treats his mother.
What the fuck do you want?
I'm only joking. I haven't picked up.
[chuckles]
I'll get back to her later.
This night is for us.
Here.
To new beginnings.
To new beginnings.
- Do you know what you're having?
- [Teri] No idea. What are you getting?
I usually pick the only thing
I can pronounce on the menu,
so I think it's the ham hock for me.
[automated voice] First new message,
received Sunday 28th at 8:28 p.m.
[Donny's mother] Will you pick up?
We've been ringing every hospital
to figure out
which one you've been taken to.
Nobody knows a thing, so if you would
[Donny's father] Give me that, will you?
Son, pick up your bastard phone.
We're sitting here
wondering where the fuck to go.
Nobody has any records of you anywhere,
or a car crash
or anything we've been told.
So tell us what's going on.
We can't get back through
to the person who called either.
What's her fucking name?
Martha.
[uneasy music playing]
[music fades]
[somber music playing]
[music fades]