Grotesquerie (2024) s01e06 Episode Script

Good Ceasarean Work

1

[INDISTINCT P.A. ANNOUNCEMENT]
So you'll take care of them?
Great.
Talk?
Yes, but whatever you do,
do not let her leave that room.
Yes, ma'am.
She shows no signs of dilation.
We did her bloodwork, her ultrasound.
There's no HCG.
A hormone secreted by the placenta.
What are you saying?
She didn't give birth today.
Guess that's not that surprising.
She is old as the hills.
The blood.
Wasn't her blood.

Hi, there. What's your name?
Maisie.
Maisie DeBroses Montgomery.
Where's my baby?
Maisie?
I am Lois Tryon.
I'm a detective.
Your baby is fine. They
have him in an incubator.
But I need to ask you some questions.
Is he okay?
He's so early, but isn't it glorious?
Maisie, where did you give birth today?
Was it in the car?
Were you at home?
Are you going to be in
my room for very long?
Because I don't
understand why I'm talking
to the police and not pediatricians
- and specialists.
- Mm-hmm.
Don't you think it's a little unusual
for a woman your age
to have given birth?
Sarah, of biblical fame,
age 90,
gives birth right here in
the glorious book of Genesis.
There's that word again: Glorious.
And in Spain, 2006,
Maria del Carmen de Lara
gave birth age 66.
So I want my baby
and to go home.
Home. Where is home,
Maisie, hmm?
You know,
your bloodwork was tested.
And there is no way you
gave birth today, but
I was at a crime scene
earlier where pregnant women
were cut open and their
babies were taken from them.
We are going to test that
and find out if it's a match.
It's not.
But
there is great malefaction in this town.
You have noticed that, Detective, yes?
Sometimes newborns are
used in glorious ceremonies
- to fight these evils.
- Okay.
Now that's the third time.
Is there a reason you keep
using the word "glorious"?
It could possibly be someone
is trying to get your attention.
- And who would that be?
- [INHALES SHARPLY]
Have you ever wondered why
you're encountering me today, Detective?
Maybe it was kismet,
maybe it was meant to be.
Maybe it's a sign and a wonder.
What makes you imagine
this is not all just some
glorious dream you are having?
[SCOFFS SOFTLY]
I wish it were.
What would I represent?
You perhaps?
What would the baby represent?
Also you?
We might be just some kind of a vision.
Okay, well
Thank you, Maisie.
Do you know what a 5150 hold is?
Let me explain.
I'm gonna talk to the staff,
and I'm gonna have them
hold you in the psych ward
for 72 hours, just until we
get all this worked out, okay?
Please.
Please don't.
[SIGHS]
I just want my dear baby,
and to go off, blown by El Niño.
[EXHALES]
What wrong have I ever done?
[SIGHS]
Nothing.
But you?
What wrongs have you done?
More than you can imagine.
She was fun.
We got a hit from Interpol
on her fingerprints.
Nothing in this country, but
you're not gonna believe it.
Try me.
Her real name is Moira Hatzigeorgiou,
born in Thessaloníki, Greece, she's 67.
And when you got Glorious McKall
on human trafficking,
this sweetheart was part of the family
obtaining babies in Cyprus.
Jesus Christ. She was in there going on
about "glorious" this, "glorious" that,
and said that someone was
trying to get my attention.
Have you ID'd the baby yet?
Not yet, but you
better go to Glorious's,
'cause it sounds like she found you.
[BIRDS SINGING]

[SWING CREAKING]
[SHUTS ENGINE OFF]
Glorious McKall pimp, sex trafficker.
She was in prison for life.
I have no idea how she got out.
She's at spot five on
Poinsettia Circle over there.
Quiet, a few seniors.
She's not easy.
I collared her twice,
saved her life once heroin OD.
Just have my back.
If it spirals, it'll spiral fast.
- [METAL CREAKING]
- [BEER CAN POPS OPEN]
Glorious McKall Ministries?
I encourage misbegotten people
to live their best lives
under the loving gaze
of the heavenly father.
I've been expecting you.
[GLORIOUS SIGHS]
Let's go in here where it's cool.
[INSECTS CHIRRING]
- Honey, getting old's no joke.
- [BIRD CHIRPING]
It hurts.
It's hard on your feet,
harder on your knees,
hard on your titties.
[LAUGHING] It's just hard.
[GLORIOUS SIGHS]
You look healthy.
I'm talking all my meds
clozapine, lithium and Prozac.
You met my marvelous Maisie?
That's why you're here today, right?
How did you get out of prison, Glorious?
[GLORIOUS SCOFFS]
Honey, you're always the last to know.
I was a most confidential informant.
I gave Interpol them nasty
baby traders from Istanbul,
and voilà!
Witness protection in Port Charles.
Now all the Turkish mafia is dead,
and I am free as a bird.
[CHIRPS]
[LOIS] So they turned a blind
eye to the drugs and girls you ran?
The girls I started pensions for?
Gave blue-chip health insurance to?
Those check-ups every-month girls?
One of whom's daughter just graduated
summa cum laude from Harvard.
Okay, I get it.
Here's the real question.
Why are you trying to kill me?
Hmm?
That's what all of this is really about.
You're-you're taunting me
with these fucking murders.
Look, look, look. I-I don't have time
for your killing and your lies.
- You're way off.
- [FLOORBOARDS CREAKING]
Also, for the record,
props to Glorious here
for getting that little baby to y'all
before he be sold to that nice
family in Modesto.
Maisie gets a little carried away
when she's slaughtering the chickens.
It's for my ministry's
dinner tomorrow, fool.
There's a guy with a MAC-10
in the trailer opposite us
and a girl with an Uzi in the back.
Don't.
Listen.
Glorious, what do you say
we finish conversating at the station,
when I'm in a less
precarious position.
You know, when I'm not
so open and exposed.
I'm afraid my days of submission
are over, dear.
- [GRUNTS]
- [GUNFIRE]
[SQUAWKING]
[GRUNTS]
Ah!
Dispatch, I need backup
and an ambulance at our location.
Code 4, officer-involved shooting.
[LOIS] Oh.
Confidential informant or not,
this ought to get you a nice long stint.
You are being toyed with
by a false prophet.
He thinks we are on the edge of the end,
war,
rumors of war,
nations rising against nation.
He wants to use you
as a-a holy lamb.
[HANDCUFFS CLICKING]
The death of a good woman
will jar the people.
Ha! Oh, hallelujah.
It will jar the people
out of their stupor.
- That's right.
- [CHIRPS]
It's happening all over.
Slaughters of the evil and the good
so people will turn to salvation
before the final chapter, okay?
And you know this how?
Why you think I sent Maisie to you?
Well does Maisie know him?
She was one of his congregants.
[FRANKLIN] You through?
All right, keep moving.
[GLORIOUS] Oh, thank you, Father.
It's all good now.
Hallelujah.
All good now.

[BIRD CHIRPS]
[BUZZING]
[HEAVY BREATHING]
Who is this?
[BREATHING CONTINUES]
I'm close to finding you.
You're aware of that.
Is that why you're calling,
to scare me?
I'm not afraid, asshole.
I'm not afraid of dying,
you sick fuck.
And I will get you
before you have the pleasure.
I am fully awake now,
and it's you
who should be terrified.
[LINE BEEPING]
[SIGHS]
[WATER RUNNING]

[INSECTS CHIRPING]
[WATER TURNS OFF]
[REDD] Oh, hello?
Hello! Hello!
- Sorry, sorry. I
- What? What?
- Sorry.
- W-What are you doing here?
Is did something
happen with Marshall?
Oh. Oh, no. No, no,
no, no. Marshall's fine.
Well, he's not fine, but he's-he's
unchanged.
No, really, I I just
wanted to speak to you,
and it could not wait a moment longer.
Peace offering?
Uh, peace offering? What?
A very good vodka.
Croatian potatoes.
I bring it back from holiday
in Dubrovnik every year.
Easier on the pancreas.
Um, may I come in?
What I have to say is
not for the veranda.
["MY LOVER'S PRAYER"
BY OTIS REDDING PLAYS]
[REDD GASPS]
Oh
This is my lover's prayer ♪
Your serial killer.
You never stop thinking about it.
How, thus far, you're
incapable of catching him.
It must be a crushing burden.
[SIGHS]
It's my job.
What is this about?
I've seen lots of terrible things
in my job, too, like you.
And like you,
I've I've grown a shell
around me.
Lost the capacity to comfort.
More and more,
unaffected by the dying,
their families.
Is this going somewhere?
[PHONE BUZZING]
When you need some
loving arms to hold you tight ♪
Tell me, what you gonna do tonight ♪
When you need my ♪
Do you need to get this?
[BUZZING CONTINUES]
Honey, but you can't let that ♪
But, actually [CLEARS THROAT]
You've got to come on home ♪
And help me solve 'em ♪
there's another
connection between us
that you need to know about.
And honey, my lover's
prayer would be all over ♪
You see
I knew Marshall.
- Before.
- What can the matter be, now? ♪
I was bored in my job,
single.
I went to work, I came home
to my orange tabby, who
actually despised me.
And I was smarter than that.
You know, I I deserve more than that.
I wanted to be what I once was
in the world, you know?
Vital and curious.
Anyway, um
one day, I read this
article in the local paper
about his seminar.
"Terror Management in
Existential Philosophy."
And I went.
Terror management is simply this:
The film in our heads
which we can't see,
which is always running,
is a horror flick,
the soundtrack of which is terrifying.
And this is what we are hearing today:
"I will die.
Those I love will die.
All will die."
And we cope with that
horror by seeking out
and creating anything that gives us
a sense of permanence.
Patriotism,
procreation,
art,
all attempts to silence that soundtrack.
And that is how we manage
the terror of death.
Questions?
[REDD] Oh, that class.
I took it again the following semester,
learning more than I had the prior.
the burden of creating
meaning in an indifferent
universe. Live fully and die.
You hear me?
- Hello?
- [LAUGHTER]
This is our final lecture.
I have so appreciated you all.
Stay in touch if you like.
Fan mail is always appreciated.
[LAUGHTER]
Enjoy the summer. Thank you.
[CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]
Always the last to leave.
I hate it ending, Professor.
I think, in fact, this
seminar is saving me.
Uh, maybe over drinks, you
can tell me why it saved you.
Is that a yes?
My cruelty to you.
I was lost
without him.
Do you know how-how hard
and how much he grieved
what happened to your family?
Nothing can prepare you
to live with a hole in your stomach
when you see your child
sneaking a-a quart of ice cream
in a drug store parking lot
and your wife with a
pint of some cheap vodka.
How did this happen?
Did I do this to them?
Did I destroy them?
[REDD] The first time he cried,
- that broke my heart.
- [WHIMPERS]
- All I wanted was to take his pain away.
- [MARSHALL CRYING]
And then I realized
that was my meaning.
That was why I was here.
He was my raison d'être.
He had so much guilt. [SNIFFLES]
I said I'd quit.
You know? We could move back to Britain.
I-I have a beach shack in Dungeness.
But he wouldn't leave you two.
And then he arrived at the ER
and he was [SHUDDERING]
he was intubated
within hours and then
[CRYING]
I lost the only hint of light
[SNIFFLING] that I had
that you didn't even value
but, to me, was everything.
- [CRYING]
- Oh, come on, now.
Come on.
- [LOIS EXHALES]
- [SNIFFLES]
Oh.
Well Oh.
[LOIS] Yeah. Now,
that must have taken
- so much courage.
- Mm.
I owe you more than my rage. [SNIFFLING]
Mm.
I suppose I did think that
tonight might end with you
[CHUCKLING] holding
a pistol to my face.
- Oh!
- [CHUCKLING]
You poor thing.
[CHUCKLING]
You spoke too soon.
[GASPS]
If I see you
around my husband's hospital
room one more time
- [GASPS]
- it will be you
- that's on life support.
- [SHUDDERS]
Now you have till the count
of four to get the fuck out
- of my house.
- Oh! Oh.
- One.
- No. Oh!
Two.
Three.
[DOOR OPENS]
[DOOR CLOSES]
[TV NARRATOR] The monarch's wingspan
is just under four inches,
and they weigh less than
one-fifth of an ounce.
Somehow, they survive
their marathon migration
- [CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY]
- [MAN HUMMING]
[TV NARRATOR] If it is too
cold, they get sluggish,
and flap their wings. If it's too hot,
they stop flying so they
don't get overheated.
[CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY]
You spoke to my savior, Glorious.
So now you understand
the good work we do.
That she made me do.
Rescuing the children from him.
Yeah.
I used to assist him.
She helped me take those children.
Okay, who's in charge?
A-And who's "he"?
And what is it, you-you take
children from unwed mothers?
He
is a prophet of dissembling.
I understand that now.
A false prophet.
And Glorious made me see
the work I was doing for him was a sin.
Kidnapping children
and k-killing women? Yes.
'Kay, but-but if you tell me
where they are, where-where he is,
in some measure, it might be redemptive.
If it's not too late.
Those were not good mothers.
They would have given their
babies away to strangers.
Made 'em work on the
streets like whores.
They did not love those babies.
Those women's choices condemned
those children to death.
We had to save 'em.
He made me believe
they were going to homes
of grace and good.
But he lies so convincingly. Glorious
Made you see.
She's a peach. I get it.
- Look
- I think
he may well be beyond your abilities.
An Antichrist, an entity,
a man some of the time,
with the tongue of a black goat.
Look, Maisie,
I need to find those babies.
He admires you, you know.
He wouldn't have shown you otherwise.
Yeah.
You must be very careful.
That-that makes you very
vulnerable to infection.
Wait, wait.
- Wouldn't have shown me what?
- The breach.
The place where the earth opened up.
The place of fires and
brimstone in the desert.
The place that spews forth.
Y-You mean that firepit?
He lured me out there.
He was trying to get rid of me.
He wants to kill me.
No, my dear.
No. If only it were that easy.
Death is nothing. No.
If he wanted you dead,
you would be dead.
He has bigger plans for you.
[QUIETLY] For you to be a martyr.
Maisie,
where are the babies?
Please.
[TIRES SCREECHING]
[SWAT OFFICER SHOUTING]
Breach in the rear!
Go! Move, move, move!
[SWAT OFFICER 2] We'll clear.
You bring the medics in behind us.
[LOIS] Okay. Now, don't shoot
to kill if you can help it.
- I want him brought in alive.
- Roger that.
Let's go! Move in, move in!
Go, go!

[DOOR CLOSES]
- Clear!
- Clear!
Clear!
Clear!
Clear!

Holy shit.
[WOMEN CRYING]
Clear a set perimeter high and low!
Medics, we need these ladies alive!
[WOMEN WAILING]
[MILK SQUISHING]
[WOMEN GROANING]
Make way for EMTs.
[WOMEN CRYING]
I want these women safe.
[BABIES FUSSING]
We need the pediatric unit now.
[SUCKLING]
[BABIES FUSSING]
You're okay, babies, you're okay.
You're in good hands now.
[MOZART'S REQUIEM PLAYING IN DISTANCE]
[VOLUME GROWS LOUDER]
[MUSIC PLAYING OVER SPEAKER]

[BUBBLING SLOWLY]

[CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING]

[LAUGHING]

[MUSIC STOPS]

[BODY THUDS]
[KNIFE CLATTERS]
[PANTING]

[GASPS]
[BREATHES HEAVILY]



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