American Auto (2021) s01e07 Episode Script
Recall
I've removed features, tweaked designs,
betrayed every creative bone in my body.
I cannot get the cost down anymore.
We are so close to making this car profitable.
What have you missed? Guys, what did Cyrus miss? Go.
I've pushed every safety regulation to the absolute limit, and frankly, revealed the need for quite a few more.
Ooh, barely legal.
My kinda ride.
- That's gross.
- It's a character.
Like, "Imagine I really said that?" You did just say that.
Can we just hide the last few dollars in some sort of fee and give it, like, an obscure name people won't question? The dealers are not gonna like that, okay? It's basically their entire business model.
What about if we use less paint? - We're at the minimum.
- I might have something.
Great.
Lay it on us.
"Out of the mouth of babes," or something, something.
It's probably nothing.
But when I was on the transmission line for the Hydra, we had to shelve 100,000 locking pawls 'cause they weren't rated for the weight of an SUV.
But the Pika's so light.
Why couldn't we just use those pawls now? Cyrus? Nerd it.
Do your nerd thing.
I mean, I see how you got there.
That is cute, you know.
It's a really cute idea.
Both: And? And it might, might, I'm saying might theoretically, also technically, work.
- We're in the black, baby.
- Haha! Jack saved the car! Yep, he came in and found the last bit of savings after my months of It's crazy that the handsomest guy in the office is also the smartest.
Well, no, no, no, no.
Looks are subjective, so you can't really Jack! Jack! Jack! Jack! Cyrus.
Cyrus.
Cyrus.
Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack.
Jack.
Cyrus.
Cyrus.
Cyrus.
Cyrus.
Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack.
Cyrus, Cy To Jack, who stepped up and knocked one right out of the park.
Yep, right after I loaded up the first 2,600 bases, Jack just came in and just Oh, we should celebrate tonight.
There's this new place you can go to where you get wasted and then throw an axe.
- Is it the woods? - No, I think it's Chop Stop.
I actually can't make it tonight.
- Chop Shop maybe.
- Oh, why not? You're the hero of the day.
I just have concert tickets, that's all.
Plans with your real friends.
We get it.
We get it.
No, no, no, no.
Sounds like somebody got a date.
Oh, busted.
- Who is she? - No, no, it's just Does she work here? Yeah, c'mon, Jacky, stop being a coy boy.
- Eww.
- Ugh.
It's just that lady I sat next to in the commercial, the actress.
- Yes.
- Oh, yeah.
She was cute.
She seemed nice.
Yeah.
Uh-oh.
Hands off Sadie's man.
What? I said she seemed nice.
Overcompensating much? We were all saying stuff.
Yeah, making excuses much? I love the much thing.
Well, I might as well celebrate a little more now.
Dori, could you get the good bottles? - Yep, the good bottles - The champagne.
The ones that I put on your desk last week.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Little treat for when we got the car down to cost.
Or to, you know, drown myself with if we didn't.
Yeah.
Is Cyrus in here? Am I the thing finder today? Yes, Robin, I'm here.
Hey.
We checked on that inventory you asked for and Mm.
- Let's go.
- Okay.
There's gotta be some champagne in here somewhere.
So you just drank all of Catherine's fancy high-end champagne on your own? Well, she put it on my desk and said, "Here you go.
" I thought it was a gift.
I was popping bottles at the Lakers in 2002.
Does anybody here have any champagne? Does it have to be champagne, or is sparkling wine okay? Whoo! My girl.
No, sparkling wine is great.
How many bottles do you have? Oh, I don't drink.
Just clarifying.
That's a great question, Janine.
Sometimes inventory's off by a few dozen units.
But this time? 80,000.
Crazy, right? That's so many.
Yeah, but it says they're in the system.
It says we have 100,000 pawls.
Is it possible they were stolen or Yeah, they probably had a whole crew.
Demolitions expert, little guy in a box.
Maybe we put 'em in the Hydra after all.
Uh-oh.
Dun, dun, dun! hat would be bad.
Oh.
Eatin' your feelings, huh? Been there.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Captain Obvious to Sadie.
You're jealous of Jack's date.
Not how Captain Obvious works.
Also, not true.
Hey, look, look, all the science says when you're holding back feelings, you get cancer.
And we all get it eventually, but sooner.
I prefer that to this.
Just pretend I'm Jack, okay? Say whatever you wanna get off your chest.
- Not gonna do that.
- Yo, what's up, girl? Wow.
Oh, damn, you're looking fine as hell.
Very much no, sir.
Gotta huddle up.
Yo, we gotta huddle up, girl.
That is spot-on.
Now, this is what I call turning chardonnay into chardon-yay.
Right.
Oh! You're not supposed to put white wine in the soda machine.
Janine, baby, I swear to God.
So there's a chance that there may or may not be up to 80,000 cars out there whose weight exceeds the maximum capacity of their locking pawls.
Gleep-glop-gloop-gloop.
Cars.
That's what that all sounded like to me.
Well, the pawl's the pin that keeps cars in park.
If they break, cars can roll out of park.
Whatever it sounds bad but it's not, like, a disaster.
It is when the place it rolls is downhill over a bunch of other people and stuff.
Ah, okay, well, that kinda gives me disaster vibes.
What do we do in a situation like this? Well, legally speaking, we need to inform NHTSA and then issue a very expensive recall with the emphasis on very and also expensive.
If this happened, wouldn't we be hearing that people's cars are rolling out of park? I think someone would complain.
People love bitching about stuff.
So what are you doing? Oh, looking to see if anyone's had issues with Hydras rolling out of park.
- No, no, no, no, no.
- What are you doing? No.
So, look, the problem is, right, you know, if there is a problem, then obviously we are legally obligated to take some very big, very impactful actions.
So if we don't want to take those actions, then, well, it would probably best serve us if we didn't know about the problem in the first place.
Do you understand? We shouldn't Google it because we wanna be able to claim deniability in the event that we decide to engage in a massive cover-up.
Give the lady a prize.
Hey, c'mon, is this your first rodeo? Pop open a private browser, go to town.
Private browser? Those only exist to make cheating husbands sleep better.
There's still a record of everything.
What? That's not true, right? Okay, guys, we are officially in crisis mode.
No one leaves until we figure out what we're gonna do.
Or not do.
Let's not forget our good friend, not do.
He's served many corporations faithfully over the years.
Sorry, Jack, you're gonna have to cancel your date.
That must make you happy.
- Why would I be ha - Wait.
Is looking at hacked celeb nudes legal or illegal? - Legal.
- But disgusting.
Oh, thank God.
New lease on life, guys.
Not gonna lie.
I was very concerned.
All right.
Here we go.
I thought I'd let it breathe a little bit.
W-w-what is that? It's the champagne.
Not really in the mood to celebrate, Dori.
We're kind of in the middle of a crisis here.
Some of our cars might be defective.
We're just debating whether or not to engage in a massive cover-up don't tell anyone.
Wait, we have a customer complaint department, right? - Yeah.
- Yes.
Okay, great.
Dori, go check the locks.
See if anyone has reported a Hydra rolling out of park maiming, killing, squishing, anything like that.
But do please be subtle about it.
Yeah, again, 'cause of the cover-up.
- We're not calling it that.
- Okay.
Well, if these taste weird later, that's on y'all 'cause y'all waited.
Okay, so we keep talking about how expensive this recall will be, right? But it's a $40 part.
So takes about a hour or so to replace.
That's 100 bucks worth of labor.
80,000 times 140, you're talking about $11.
2 million.
I mean, it's not cheap at all, but Are you kidding? That's nothing.
That's, like, the cost of a house.
- Whose house? - A lot of people.
- What? - You're not wrong.
I mean, for a company our size, that is not a lot of money.
Except you can't tell a good pawl from the bad one just by looking at them.
So we would have to recall every Hydra sold since 2018.
That's a million cars.
And the lawsuits, obviously.
I mean, even if the pawls aren't defective, the minute this is announced, you're gonna start seeing commercials being like, "Oh, were you injured in an accident in your car? "Well, it's not your fault for being a crap driver.
It's all Payne Motors' fault.
Why don't you sue them?" And adding the cost of a recall campaign and dealers overcharging for repairs, all in, it could be, like, ten figures.
The whole company is only worth 11 figures.
We'd be left with one.
Oh, that's not how math works.
Yeah, but it's big.
It's a big hit.
To fix something that might not be broken.
But now let's think about the cost of not doing a recall.
Wouldn't that be zero dollars? Many millions versus zero.
Let me rephrase that.
Let's think about the cost of not doing a recall, and then learning that we had put the wrong pawls in and a bunch of people died.
Yeah, I gotta agree with Sadie here.
How do we actually put a price on people dying? Oh, well, we don't have to.
The lovely people of the Department of Transportation have actually done that for us already.
Really? So the value of a statistical life or VSL for this year is 11.
6 million US dollars.
But isn't a person's life kinda priceless? - No, it's $11.
6 million.
- Right.
I mean, most of these complaints are from real nuts.
"My car has too many buttons.
" "The headlights look angry.
" "The seatbelt cut my neck.
" Oh, I'm actually I'm gonna I'm gonna note that one.
- That's pretty bad.
- Yeah, you should.
Could you check for, I don't know, parking and rolling? Parking Here we go.
Here we go.
"The car gets too windy when I roll down the window.
" So there's roll.
Uh-huh.
That's great.
Could you check for death or dying, please? - What? - Death.
Just, just It's just a bunch of random B.
S.
"The seats attract dog hair.
" "The car smells like farts.
" Oh, here we have some folks who say that there's a ghost in the car.
So that's kinda, like, death-related.
Ghosts.
I know, I know.
These people are crazy.
But just in case, are we talking the, "Boo, I'm gonna scare you" ghost? Or do they have unfinished business? - I don't know.
- How do we know? They didn't say.
Guys, this is about more than just people dying.
There's the cost of litigation, punitive damages, and the hit that our brand would take? It's gonna cost way more than the price of a recall.
If we install the defective pawls.
For all we know, we just lost them.
Okay, I've checked every complaint about the Hydra since 2018, and not one mention of it rolling out of park.
- Great.
- That is great.
That's great.
So that's it.
Crisis averted.
Uh, well, you know, if there were complaints, that would mean that there were faulty pawls, but no complaints just means no one's complained.
Yes, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
Oh, shut up.
Great.
So this basically tells us nothing.
Well, what do you want me to do with it? I don't know.
File it? Burn it? I have four brain cells available.
Do they really need to be on this? All right, I guess we'll let the numbers decide.
- Cyrus, are you done yet? - Mm, it's rough.
But if we do the recall, it'll cost us around $900 million.
And then if we don't do the recall, my best guess of the total cost of lawsuits and what not comes out to somewhere in the neighborhood of, yep, $900 million.
So yeah, those are the numbers.
It's so crazy.
If Jack hadn't come up with that idea about the pawls, none of us would even be here.
You mentioned that an hour ago.
Yeah, couple times, actually.
- Did I? - Yeah.
I'm tired.
Imagine if someone you know was driving one of these cars.
Would you really be okay just rolling the dice like that? You can't let these sorts of things become personal.
All right? As it happens, my mother, okay, whom I love, drives a Hydra.
You know, okay, admittedly it's a UK model, so the pawl issue doesn't really apply here.
Actually, these pawls would be in the UK model.
We ship them from our factory.
- Hm.
- Uh-huh.
Oh, okay.
Well, yeah.
Well, no.
Well well, there you go.
Exactly, that's my point.
So, you know, we have to stay analytical.
All right? We can't, you know, go around imagining a pile of dead mummies dead bodies.
That that doesn't help us at all.
So Elliot is against the recall.
Jack is for it.
Cyrus, what about you? Mm, it's hard.
You know, I'm of two minds on this.
Cool.
Thank you for that, Socrates.
Sadie? Oh, I think we need to do it.
Are you sure you're not just siding with Jack 'cause you like him? 'Cause he's taken, so you gotta move on.
- Not cool, dude.
- I'm siding with Jack because it is the side of decent human beings.
I'm sorry that I'm not some sort of British robot.
I wish I was a robot, okay? I wish.
Mm, C-Creepy-O.
That would be your name.
- I hate that that's good.
- You're so pious.
I hope you hurt yourself when you fall off your high horse.
Wow! Not like Christopher Reeve-level, but something bloody uncomfortable.
That is too soon.
That is Superman.
And in this country? In America? - Can I guys - I'm on a high horse because I don't wanna murder our customers? It is manslaughter at best.
Guys, just stop.
Stop, stop.
How is this helping? Oh, here comes the hero again.
"Um, um, hey, hey, I-I-I may have something.
" Well, here it is, Jack.
Here it is.
Jack.
Jack.
Oh, not now? Jack.
Jack.
None of y'all said Cyrus.
Okay, everybody, I think we should take five.
I'm shaking right now.
- Superman? - Five! Superman? Your queen, man.
How you feeling about Jack and his little actress? It's fine.
Okay, well, if you ever need to talk, I'm here.
Me, I can't hold stuff in, sometimes I just have to vent.
Okay, sometimes, it's like First it's, "Go find champagne, Dori" - Mm.
- In the middle of a work day.
But do I push back? No.
But do I make it happen? - Yeah.
- Yes, every time.
Mm-hmm.
And then I'm on a busy work errand with some rando freaking me out about ghosts, and you know I don't play with demons.
- Mm-mm.
- And is it appreciated? Matter of fact, is anything I do at this damn company appreciated? - Yeah.
No.
- Exactly.
No.
- Mom.
No.
No, I do understand it's late.
It's just it's very it's very important that you it's very important that you and you gotta get rid of the Hydra.
Okay? Because because I am going to buy you A brand new car.
Yes, special surprise for the birthday girl.
Well, I know it's done until July.
But it's, you know, you're gonna have another one, aren't you? So it's just it's just ahead of time.
Claire? No, no, no.
No, you can't give the Hydra to Claire.
That's the whole point is to yeah, yeah.
No, no, I under one second.
- Oh.
- "Oh, no.
" Busted.
I'm trying to quit," etcetera.
You vape? Only when I'm stressed out.
Used to be cigarettes.
And then one day I confiscated this from my stepdaughter.
And now everyone knows if I come home smelling like blue raspberry, stay away.
All right.
I get it.
"Heavy is the head," right? Mm-hmm.
It makes me glad I turned down the job.
Okay, truth bomb.
They technically never offered it to me.
- Mm.
- It's insane.
I know it's insane.
But I guess they kinda knew what they were doing.
Sure.
You know, in some ways, you're the only person here who really gets what I'm going through.
They're all hired hands.
I mean, you and I, we have skin in the game.
Yeah, I guess, connected in that way.
We are.
Yeah, we are.
Fate is pretty weird, huh? Mm-hmm.
You need any? Oh, no, I'm good.
Oh! Oh, my God! - No, no.
- Oh, oh.
Not where this was going! - Okay.
- No! Ew.
All right.
- Don't say - Not even close.
Ew.
- Hey.
- Hey.
Am I interrupting something? No, no, no, no.
Just standing right here.
- Being weird? - No.
Texting.
The actress girl person.
Do not apologize.
You are allowed to date actress girl people.
I know.
I know.
I'm sorry.
I just don't know why it's so weird.
Because people here keep making it weird.
Yes.
We're adults.
I think that I can manage to work with a guy I had sex with without picturing him naked all the time.
And here I was thinking you actually were picturing me naked the whole time.
Figured that's why you always look so impressed.
I just have impressed resting face.
But I'm picturing it now just 'cause we're talking about it.
Yeah, and I'm a little bit self-conscious now.
I think we should just put the past in the past and stop acting like awkward teenagers.
- Yes, we got a deal.
- Oh, great.
Cool penis, by the way.
I just wanted to make nice things.
Didn't even have to be cars.
Now the thing I made could be responsible for killing people? It's a real mind.
I worked in pharma for 20 years.
Probably killed a lot of people.
You get used to it.
I've never killed a person, but I once went on a trophy-hunting trip for exotic mammals.
I didn't want to, but it's my tenth birthday, it's a family tradition.
You know, it's not even hunting.
They just they line up the animals and you It's horrible stuff.
Yeah, so when Mum offers you the Hydra, you have to reject it.
Well, because you're an adult woman.
You shouldn't be sponging off your 70-year-old mother.
No, no, this is not no.
Okay, you're not a victim.
I'm not I'm not a bully.
Would a bully be offering to buy you a brand-new car? No, well, it was it was a surprise.
Yeah.
Liam? What, he doesn't have a car of his own? Well, how do you manage to find the only man in Somerset that doesn't own his own car? Although, actually, now I come to think of it, it could work rather well.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yes.
Great.
The Hydra is Liam's car.
They were completely messed up.
Like, I they were crooked and I had a snaggletooth.
Mine, they just, they just grew in like this.
I actually hate you right now.
I had headgear in high school.
Oh, I am so sorry.
That sounds so bad.
It was bad.
What band were you seeing on your hot date? Just this tribute band.
It was the late, great Charles Bradley.
- Oh, man.
- Yeah.
So great.
And so late.
And you've never heard of him? I've never.
I'm not cool.
But, you know, on the plus side, I never claimed to be.
So paradoxically, that kinda makes me even cooler.
Yeah, and it also means that there is room for improvement.
- Mm-hmm.
- Yeah.
So take a listen.
Think you'll like it.
You know, it's weird.
When you think about greedy corporations screwing people over for profit, you imagine, like, old white guys stroking black cats in secret underground bunkers, not, I don't know, eating stale Wheat Squares at 3:00 a.
m.
on a Wednesday.
Just wanna say.
You know, I'm not motivated by greed.
All right? I'm just following the logic.
It's not like I get paid all the money that's left over in the end, you know what I mean? I mean, what is money anyway? You know, it's just an idea that people came up with so we don't have to carry chickens around in our pockets.
- Is that true? - Yeah.
I mean, I heard it on a podcast.
Yeah.
I mean, the truth is, I don't actually care that much about money.
I mean, what makes me feel alive is experiences.
Watching a simple beautiful sunset, you know.
Maybe over the ocean, you know, so it's West Coast.
Soaking in a hot tub up on a cliff, you know, at some luxury resort.
That sounds expensive.
Have you ever been to the Post Ranch Inn? That is exactly what I was just picturing.
- So expensive but so worth it.
- Top tip.
If you book using your platinum card, they give you checkout 4:00 p.
m.
- Really? - Yeah, like, a whole extra day.
Is that the place with the fresh-baked cookies - in your room - Yes.
And then if you run out, they bring you more? Yes, yes, yes.
Service is just I mean, they're all locals, but they're respectful.
- They are.
- Yeah.
Look, I hate to be this guy, but it's 3:45, so we need to make a decision on what we're gonna do.
- Or not do.
- Or not do.
Okay, you're right.
Yep, we gotta stop pussyfooting around here, and we just need to make a decision already.
Should we just all take a vote? No, no, it's on me.
I'm the one in charge.
I'm the one who's responsible.
Who's got a coin? This could be a life or death situation.
You wanna base it on a coin flip? Yeah, exciting, right? It's, like, a metaphor for fate or something.
I don't I'm exhausted.
C'mon, somebody coin me, please.
I only have hundreds.
Maybe a $50.
I got a Tum.
Can we flip a Tum? Forget about the coin.
I'm just gonna make a call, and that's it, okay? So okay? On the count of three.
One, two, three.
Recall? No re--recall? The decision is So we'll gather up and make the call first thing in the morning when we're fresh, you know? - Fresh eyes.
- I agree.
I just don't wanna put it off, though.
- It is important.
- It is, it's so important.
You want me to schedule a meeting for 9:00? Um, no, we should sleep in.
And then we've got that dealer call at 11:00.
We'll figure out something like that.
We've gone years without doing anything about this.
What's another couple of days, right? Couple of days? You said we'd do it tomorrow, though.
So tomorrow where So did we just decide not to do the recall? No, I think we decided not to decide whether to do the recall.
Ah.
It's a great idea though, the Pika.
Thanks.
I might hold off a little before suggesting anything in the future.
Yeah, just until you get your feet wet.
- Yeah.
- Hold off, you'll learn.
I cannot get the cost down anymore.
We are so close to making this car profitable.
What have you missed? Guys, what did Cyrus miss? Go.
I've pushed every safety regulation to the absolute limit, and frankly, revealed the need for quite a few more.
Ooh, barely legal.
My kinda ride.
- That's gross.
- It's a character.
Like, "Imagine I really said that?" You did just say that.
Can we just hide the last few dollars in some sort of fee and give it, like, an obscure name people won't question? The dealers are not gonna like that, okay? It's basically their entire business model.
What about if we use less paint? - We're at the minimum.
- I might have something.
Great.
Lay it on us.
"Out of the mouth of babes," or something, something.
It's probably nothing.
But when I was on the transmission line for the Hydra, we had to shelve 100,000 locking pawls 'cause they weren't rated for the weight of an SUV.
But the Pika's so light.
Why couldn't we just use those pawls now? Cyrus? Nerd it.
Do your nerd thing.
I mean, I see how you got there.
That is cute, you know.
It's a really cute idea.
Both: And? And it might, might, I'm saying might theoretically, also technically, work.
- We're in the black, baby.
- Haha! Jack saved the car! Yep, he came in and found the last bit of savings after my months of It's crazy that the handsomest guy in the office is also the smartest.
Well, no, no, no, no.
Looks are subjective, so you can't really Jack! Jack! Jack! Jack! Cyrus.
Cyrus.
Cyrus.
Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack.
Jack.
Cyrus.
Cyrus.
Cyrus.
Cyrus.
Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack.
Cyrus, Cy To Jack, who stepped up and knocked one right out of the park.
Yep, right after I loaded up the first 2,600 bases, Jack just came in and just Oh, we should celebrate tonight.
There's this new place you can go to where you get wasted and then throw an axe.
- Is it the woods? - No, I think it's Chop Stop.
I actually can't make it tonight.
- Chop Shop maybe.
- Oh, why not? You're the hero of the day.
I just have concert tickets, that's all.
Plans with your real friends.
We get it.
We get it.
No, no, no, no.
Sounds like somebody got a date.
Oh, busted.
- Who is she? - No, no, it's just Does she work here? Yeah, c'mon, Jacky, stop being a coy boy.
- Eww.
- Ugh.
It's just that lady I sat next to in the commercial, the actress.
- Yes.
- Oh, yeah.
She was cute.
She seemed nice.
Yeah.
Uh-oh.
Hands off Sadie's man.
What? I said she seemed nice.
Overcompensating much? We were all saying stuff.
Yeah, making excuses much? I love the much thing.
Well, I might as well celebrate a little more now.
Dori, could you get the good bottles? - Yep, the good bottles - The champagne.
The ones that I put on your desk last week.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Little treat for when we got the car down to cost.
Or to, you know, drown myself with if we didn't.
Yeah.
Is Cyrus in here? Am I the thing finder today? Yes, Robin, I'm here.
Hey.
We checked on that inventory you asked for and Mm.
- Let's go.
- Okay.
There's gotta be some champagne in here somewhere.
So you just drank all of Catherine's fancy high-end champagne on your own? Well, she put it on my desk and said, "Here you go.
" I thought it was a gift.
I was popping bottles at the Lakers in 2002.
Does anybody here have any champagne? Does it have to be champagne, or is sparkling wine okay? Whoo! My girl.
No, sparkling wine is great.
How many bottles do you have? Oh, I don't drink.
Just clarifying.
That's a great question, Janine.
Sometimes inventory's off by a few dozen units.
But this time? 80,000.
Crazy, right? That's so many.
Yeah, but it says they're in the system.
It says we have 100,000 pawls.
Is it possible they were stolen or Yeah, they probably had a whole crew.
Demolitions expert, little guy in a box.
Maybe we put 'em in the Hydra after all.
Uh-oh.
Dun, dun, dun! hat would be bad.
Oh.
Eatin' your feelings, huh? Been there.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Captain Obvious to Sadie.
You're jealous of Jack's date.
Not how Captain Obvious works.
Also, not true.
Hey, look, look, all the science says when you're holding back feelings, you get cancer.
And we all get it eventually, but sooner.
I prefer that to this.
Just pretend I'm Jack, okay? Say whatever you wanna get off your chest.
- Not gonna do that.
- Yo, what's up, girl? Wow.
Oh, damn, you're looking fine as hell.
Very much no, sir.
Gotta huddle up.
Yo, we gotta huddle up, girl.
That is spot-on.
Now, this is what I call turning chardonnay into chardon-yay.
Right.
Oh! You're not supposed to put white wine in the soda machine.
Janine, baby, I swear to God.
So there's a chance that there may or may not be up to 80,000 cars out there whose weight exceeds the maximum capacity of their locking pawls.
Gleep-glop-gloop-gloop.
Cars.
That's what that all sounded like to me.
Well, the pawl's the pin that keeps cars in park.
If they break, cars can roll out of park.
Whatever it sounds bad but it's not, like, a disaster.
It is when the place it rolls is downhill over a bunch of other people and stuff.
Ah, okay, well, that kinda gives me disaster vibes.
What do we do in a situation like this? Well, legally speaking, we need to inform NHTSA and then issue a very expensive recall with the emphasis on very and also expensive.
If this happened, wouldn't we be hearing that people's cars are rolling out of park? I think someone would complain.
People love bitching about stuff.
So what are you doing? Oh, looking to see if anyone's had issues with Hydras rolling out of park.
- No, no, no, no, no.
- What are you doing? No.
So, look, the problem is, right, you know, if there is a problem, then obviously we are legally obligated to take some very big, very impactful actions.
So if we don't want to take those actions, then, well, it would probably best serve us if we didn't know about the problem in the first place.
Do you understand? We shouldn't Google it because we wanna be able to claim deniability in the event that we decide to engage in a massive cover-up.
Give the lady a prize.
Hey, c'mon, is this your first rodeo? Pop open a private browser, go to town.
Private browser? Those only exist to make cheating husbands sleep better.
There's still a record of everything.
What? That's not true, right? Okay, guys, we are officially in crisis mode.
No one leaves until we figure out what we're gonna do.
Or not do.
Let's not forget our good friend, not do.
He's served many corporations faithfully over the years.
Sorry, Jack, you're gonna have to cancel your date.
That must make you happy.
- Why would I be ha - Wait.
Is looking at hacked celeb nudes legal or illegal? - Legal.
- But disgusting.
Oh, thank God.
New lease on life, guys.
Not gonna lie.
I was very concerned.
All right.
Here we go.
I thought I'd let it breathe a little bit.
W-w-what is that? It's the champagne.
Not really in the mood to celebrate, Dori.
We're kind of in the middle of a crisis here.
Some of our cars might be defective.
We're just debating whether or not to engage in a massive cover-up don't tell anyone.
Wait, we have a customer complaint department, right? - Yeah.
- Yes.
Okay, great.
Dori, go check the locks.
See if anyone has reported a Hydra rolling out of park maiming, killing, squishing, anything like that.
But do please be subtle about it.
Yeah, again, 'cause of the cover-up.
- We're not calling it that.
- Okay.
Well, if these taste weird later, that's on y'all 'cause y'all waited.
Okay, so we keep talking about how expensive this recall will be, right? But it's a $40 part.
So takes about a hour or so to replace.
That's 100 bucks worth of labor.
80,000 times 140, you're talking about $11.
2 million.
I mean, it's not cheap at all, but Are you kidding? That's nothing.
That's, like, the cost of a house.
- Whose house? - A lot of people.
- What? - You're not wrong.
I mean, for a company our size, that is not a lot of money.
Except you can't tell a good pawl from the bad one just by looking at them.
So we would have to recall every Hydra sold since 2018.
That's a million cars.
And the lawsuits, obviously.
I mean, even if the pawls aren't defective, the minute this is announced, you're gonna start seeing commercials being like, "Oh, were you injured in an accident in your car? "Well, it's not your fault for being a crap driver.
It's all Payne Motors' fault.
Why don't you sue them?" And adding the cost of a recall campaign and dealers overcharging for repairs, all in, it could be, like, ten figures.
The whole company is only worth 11 figures.
We'd be left with one.
Oh, that's not how math works.
Yeah, but it's big.
It's a big hit.
To fix something that might not be broken.
But now let's think about the cost of not doing a recall.
Wouldn't that be zero dollars? Many millions versus zero.
Let me rephrase that.
Let's think about the cost of not doing a recall, and then learning that we had put the wrong pawls in and a bunch of people died.
Yeah, I gotta agree with Sadie here.
How do we actually put a price on people dying? Oh, well, we don't have to.
The lovely people of the Department of Transportation have actually done that for us already.
Really? So the value of a statistical life or VSL for this year is 11.
6 million US dollars.
But isn't a person's life kinda priceless? - No, it's $11.
6 million.
- Right.
I mean, most of these complaints are from real nuts.
"My car has too many buttons.
" "The headlights look angry.
" "The seatbelt cut my neck.
" Oh, I'm actually I'm gonna I'm gonna note that one.
- That's pretty bad.
- Yeah, you should.
Could you check for, I don't know, parking and rolling? Parking Here we go.
Here we go.
"The car gets too windy when I roll down the window.
" So there's roll.
Uh-huh.
That's great.
Could you check for death or dying, please? - What? - Death.
Just, just It's just a bunch of random B.
S.
"The seats attract dog hair.
" "The car smells like farts.
" Oh, here we have some folks who say that there's a ghost in the car.
So that's kinda, like, death-related.
Ghosts.
I know, I know.
These people are crazy.
But just in case, are we talking the, "Boo, I'm gonna scare you" ghost? Or do they have unfinished business? - I don't know.
- How do we know? They didn't say.
Guys, this is about more than just people dying.
There's the cost of litigation, punitive damages, and the hit that our brand would take? It's gonna cost way more than the price of a recall.
If we install the defective pawls.
For all we know, we just lost them.
Okay, I've checked every complaint about the Hydra since 2018, and not one mention of it rolling out of park.
- Great.
- That is great.
That's great.
So that's it.
Crisis averted.
Uh, well, you know, if there were complaints, that would mean that there were faulty pawls, but no complaints just means no one's complained.
Yes, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.
Oh, shut up.
Great.
So this basically tells us nothing.
Well, what do you want me to do with it? I don't know.
File it? Burn it? I have four brain cells available.
Do they really need to be on this? All right, I guess we'll let the numbers decide.
- Cyrus, are you done yet? - Mm, it's rough.
But if we do the recall, it'll cost us around $900 million.
And then if we don't do the recall, my best guess of the total cost of lawsuits and what not comes out to somewhere in the neighborhood of, yep, $900 million.
So yeah, those are the numbers.
It's so crazy.
If Jack hadn't come up with that idea about the pawls, none of us would even be here.
You mentioned that an hour ago.
Yeah, couple times, actually.
- Did I? - Yeah.
I'm tired.
Imagine if someone you know was driving one of these cars.
Would you really be okay just rolling the dice like that? You can't let these sorts of things become personal.
All right? As it happens, my mother, okay, whom I love, drives a Hydra.
You know, okay, admittedly it's a UK model, so the pawl issue doesn't really apply here.
Actually, these pawls would be in the UK model.
We ship them from our factory.
- Hm.
- Uh-huh.
Oh, okay.
Well, yeah.
Well, no.
Well well, there you go.
Exactly, that's my point.
So, you know, we have to stay analytical.
All right? We can't, you know, go around imagining a pile of dead mummies dead bodies.
That that doesn't help us at all.
So Elliot is against the recall.
Jack is for it.
Cyrus, what about you? Mm, it's hard.
You know, I'm of two minds on this.
Cool.
Thank you for that, Socrates.
Sadie? Oh, I think we need to do it.
Are you sure you're not just siding with Jack 'cause you like him? 'Cause he's taken, so you gotta move on.
- Not cool, dude.
- I'm siding with Jack because it is the side of decent human beings.
I'm sorry that I'm not some sort of British robot.
I wish I was a robot, okay? I wish.
Mm, C-Creepy-O.
That would be your name.
- I hate that that's good.
- You're so pious.
I hope you hurt yourself when you fall off your high horse.
Wow! Not like Christopher Reeve-level, but something bloody uncomfortable.
That is too soon.
That is Superman.
And in this country? In America? - Can I guys - I'm on a high horse because I don't wanna murder our customers? It is manslaughter at best.
Guys, just stop.
Stop, stop.
How is this helping? Oh, here comes the hero again.
"Um, um, hey, hey, I-I-I may have something.
" Well, here it is, Jack.
Here it is.
Jack.
Jack.
Oh, not now? Jack.
Jack.
None of y'all said Cyrus.
Okay, everybody, I think we should take five.
I'm shaking right now.
- Superman? - Five! Superman? Your queen, man.
How you feeling about Jack and his little actress? It's fine.
Okay, well, if you ever need to talk, I'm here.
Me, I can't hold stuff in, sometimes I just have to vent.
Okay, sometimes, it's like First it's, "Go find champagne, Dori" - Mm.
- In the middle of a work day.
But do I push back? No.
But do I make it happen? - Yeah.
- Yes, every time.
Mm-hmm.
And then I'm on a busy work errand with some rando freaking me out about ghosts, and you know I don't play with demons.
- Mm-mm.
- And is it appreciated? Matter of fact, is anything I do at this damn company appreciated? - Yeah.
No.
- Exactly.
No.
- Mom.
No.
No, I do understand it's late.
It's just it's very it's very important that you it's very important that you and you gotta get rid of the Hydra.
Okay? Because because I am going to buy you A brand new car.
Yes, special surprise for the birthday girl.
Well, I know it's done until July.
But it's, you know, you're gonna have another one, aren't you? So it's just it's just ahead of time.
Claire? No, no, no.
No, you can't give the Hydra to Claire.
That's the whole point is to yeah, yeah.
No, no, I under one second.
- Oh.
- "Oh, no.
" Busted.
I'm trying to quit," etcetera.
You vape? Only when I'm stressed out.
Used to be cigarettes.
And then one day I confiscated this from my stepdaughter.
And now everyone knows if I come home smelling like blue raspberry, stay away.
All right.
I get it.
"Heavy is the head," right? Mm-hmm.
It makes me glad I turned down the job.
Okay, truth bomb.
They technically never offered it to me.
- Mm.
- It's insane.
I know it's insane.
But I guess they kinda knew what they were doing.
Sure.
You know, in some ways, you're the only person here who really gets what I'm going through.
They're all hired hands.
I mean, you and I, we have skin in the game.
Yeah, I guess, connected in that way.
We are.
Yeah, we are.
Fate is pretty weird, huh? Mm-hmm.
You need any? Oh, no, I'm good.
Oh! Oh, my God! - No, no.
- Oh, oh.
Not where this was going! - Okay.
- No! Ew.
All right.
- Don't say - Not even close.
Ew.
- Hey.
- Hey.
Am I interrupting something? No, no, no, no.
Just standing right here.
- Being weird? - No.
Texting.
The actress girl person.
Do not apologize.
You are allowed to date actress girl people.
I know.
I know.
I'm sorry.
I just don't know why it's so weird.
Because people here keep making it weird.
Yes.
We're adults.
I think that I can manage to work with a guy I had sex with without picturing him naked all the time.
And here I was thinking you actually were picturing me naked the whole time.
Figured that's why you always look so impressed.
I just have impressed resting face.
But I'm picturing it now just 'cause we're talking about it.
Yeah, and I'm a little bit self-conscious now.
I think we should just put the past in the past and stop acting like awkward teenagers.
- Yes, we got a deal.
- Oh, great.
Cool penis, by the way.
I just wanted to make nice things.
Didn't even have to be cars.
Now the thing I made could be responsible for killing people? It's a real mind.
I worked in pharma for 20 years.
Probably killed a lot of people.
You get used to it.
I've never killed a person, but I once went on a trophy-hunting trip for exotic mammals.
I didn't want to, but it's my tenth birthday, it's a family tradition.
You know, it's not even hunting.
They just they line up the animals and you It's horrible stuff.
Yeah, so when Mum offers you the Hydra, you have to reject it.
Well, because you're an adult woman.
You shouldn't be sponging off your 70-year-old mother.
No, no, this is not no.
Okay, you're not a victim.
I'm not I'm not a bully.
Would a bully be offering to buy you a brand-new car? No, well, it was it was a surprise.
Yeah.
Liam? What, he doesn't have a car of his own? Well, how do you manage to find the only man in Somerset that doesn't own his own car? Although, actually, now I come to think of it, it could work rather well.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yes.
Great.
The Hydra is Liam's car.
They were completely messed up.
Like, I they were crooked and I had a snaggletooth.
Mine, they just, they just grew in like this.
I actually hate you right now.
I had headgear in high school.
Oh, I am so sorry.
That sounds so bad.
It was bad.
What band were you seeing on your hot date? Just this tribute band.
It was the late, great Charles Bradley.
- Oh, man.
- Yeah.
So great.
And so late.
And you've never heard of him? I've never.
I'm not cool.
But, you know, on the plus side, I never claimed to be.
So paradoxically, that kinda makes me even cooler.
Yeah, and it also means that there is room for improvement.
- Mm-hmm.
- Yeah.
So take a listen.
Think you'll like it.
You know, it's weird.
When you think about greedy corporations screwing people over for profit, you imagine, like, old white guys stroking black cats in secret underground bunkers, not, I don't know, eating stale Wheat Squares at 3:00 a.
m.
on a Wednesday.
Just wanna say.
You know, I'm not motivated by greed.
All right? I'm just following the logic.
It's not like I get paid all the money that's left over in the end, you know what I mean? I mean, what is money anyway? You know, it's just an idea that people came up with so we don't have to carry chickens around in our pockets.
- Is that true? - Yeah.
I mean, I heard it on a podcast.
Yeah.
I mean, the truth is, I don't actually care that much about money.
I mean, what makes me feel alive is experiences.
Watching a simple beautiful sunset, you know.
Maybe over the ocean, you know, so it's West Coast.
Soaking in a hot tub up on a cliff, you know, at some luxury resort.
That sounds expensive.
Have you ever been to the Post Ranch Inn? That is exactly what I was just picturing.
- So expensive but so worth it.
- Top tip.
If you book using your platinum card, they give you checkout 4:00 p.
m.
- Really? - Yeah, like, a whole extra day.
Is that the place with the fresh-baked cookies - in your room - Yes.
And then if you run out, they bring you more? Yes, yes, yes.
Service is just I mean, they're all locals, but they're respectful.
- They are.
- Yeah.
Look, I hate to be this guy, but it's 3:45, so we need to make a decision on what we're gonna do.
- Or not do.
- Or not do.
Okay, you're right.
Yep, we gotta stop pussyfooting around here, and we just need to make a decision already.
Should we just all take a vote? No, no, it's on me.
I'm the one in charge.
I'm the one who's responsible.
Who's got a coin? This could be a life or death situation.
You wanna base it on a coin flip? Yeah, exciting, right? It's, like, a metaphor for fate or something.
I don't I'm exhausted.
C'mon, somebody coin me, please.
I only have hundreds.
Maybe a $50.
I got a Tum.
Can we flip a Tum? Forget about the coin.
I'm just gonna make a call, and that's it, okay? So okay? On the count of three.
One, two, three.
Recall? No re--recall? The decision is So we'll gather up and make the call first thing in the morning when we're fresh, you know? - Fresh eyes.
- I agree.
I just don't wanna put it off, though.
- It is important.
- It is, it's so important.
You want me to schedule a meeting for 9:00? Um, no, we should sleep in.
And then we've got that dealer call at 11:00.
We'll figure out something like that.
We've gone years without doing anything about this.
What's another couple of days, right? Couple of days? You said we'd do it tomorrow, though.
So tomorrow where So did we just decide not to do the recall? No, I think we decided not to decide whether to do the recall.
Ah.
It's a great idea though, the Pika.
Thanks.
I might hold off a little before suggesting anything in the future.
Yeah, just until you get your feet wet.
- Yeah.
- Hold off, you'll learn.