Strange Empire (2014) s01e08 Episode Script

Previously on Strange Empire Nothin' worse, being a woman.
I suppose every man in camp will be after me now.
Your Thomas is going to the grave.
That girl has no one.
You might make up some ground with your maker if you look out for her some.
He can't afford that mine and you haven't the investors.
I suppose I could loan you the money, John.
Strange Empire 1x08 How Far is Heaven Like a road, going somewhere.
It wasn't the wind planted that.
That's a name, there - first letter's bigger.
- _ I should be learning you girls to read.
Give you a better life.
Things I need to know, ain't written on a rock.
Written in books.
Miss Logan, Mrs.
Slotter even, they all have book learning.
Educated ladies like Rebecca Blithely.
Won't be wanting for schoolmarms.
You have your school.
I won't go.
Let's get back.
Have mercy upon me, oh God, according to Thy loving kindness.
According unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies.
Please, lord.
Please have mercy.
Mama? We gotta go, okay? - Here.
- Hello.
- Come on.
- Wait.
We're lost, is all.
Hungry.
Then share what we have.
Take what you've got.
Ma! Don't.
No! Mama? Mama? Shh Body will be leaving in the morning.
Captain Slotter had me arrange it.
Freight paid all the way to Toronto.
Because Emily is buried in Toronto.
My stepmother.
His true wife.
Jesus.
I have just taken what he gave to me.
He gave me his heart.
That's just what folks say.
A way of saying "I love you.
" No! Get rid of it.
People will take you for a witch, or worse.
You don't understand.
Thomas and I are resurrectionists.
- Grave robbers - No, students of medicine! Cadavers are necessary, necessary for science, for understanding anatomy and disease.
The seat of sin.
That's what some say.
It don't bother you to stick the knife in? You a virgin, married your father, - that's what Isabelle said.
- Yes.
Never had a man? Come to ask you to stay, widow Blithely.
Be graves here and more of 'em.
Bodies you can rob and tuck into.
You do your doctoring here.
I'll set you up in a crib.
Why? Why would you be so generous to me? Well, be a new seam of coal just discovered.
Prosperous days ahead.
What do you expect in return? I fall apart, I expect you to sew me back up.
Purity.
Shaft's being sunk? Men working? Fortunes are changing.
All the coal in the world, and Slotter sitting on top of it.
Rest of us, crushed under.
Makes me sick.
I'll have one of those.
Take that dollar, and I'll satisfy your hunger better than a lump of flour and lard.
Lusting after women other than one's wife is opening the door for the devil.
I do sin, but I am not the devil.
Though, for another dollar, I could be.
A good, thick seam of clean-burning, low-sulphur coal.
Engineering reports back it up.
It's a good day for us.
Thanks to heroic efforts on your part, sir.
I'm caught.
I love you, Izzy Slotter! Careful, my darling.
It's a delicate time.
You'll unsettle him.
I will make everything right for you and him.
We'll be a family.
A proper family in the sight of God.
Slotter! Timbers won't hold.
That's new lumber.
Matchsticks.
Mine starts producing, improvements will be made.
You dig, Franklyn Caze, you hear? That's what I pay you to do.
Captain would buy better posts, if he could afford to.
Those timbers are just for now.
He'd better find that money, Mrs.
Briggs.
Else-wise, me, my men are moving on.
All of them leaving? When there's coal in the ground? That's what he said.
Comes to money.
A man of means comes to a coal camp in dire straits.
Could be his money will save our souls.
It's a bank you need to buy good timber.
Man boarding with Briggs is wearing a bank on his back.
Really? Some kind of sermonizer.
Can he be tempted to sin? Turned down miss Logan.
Briggs says he wants someone pure as the driven to call his wife.
You have come to see the gentleman boarding with Mrs.
Briggs? How well you know me.
He came looking for a laundry.
Fell out of his bundle.
Thief.
My people tell me he has been travelling north, sermonizing, searching for the kingdom of heaven.
Godless place, this.
Three loaves, please.
Ma took pity on a couple of strays.
That was kind of her.
Daughter.
Sit and read with me.
Can't.
A child deprived of God's word is an open heart, waiting for the light to come and fill it.
And you're the light? You are the heart.
Mr.
Young? Word is, you are recently arrived to our Canada.
The garden of Eden truly is here.
Rivers flowing with Milk and honey.
There's ice cream in my kitchen, girls.
Would you care to join us, Mr.
Young? I believe I will.
Thank you.
If you're looking to invest, there is material abundance beneath our very feet.
Coal.
I would consider it.
- Your means? - Cash and Letters of introduction from the bank.
Aw, you Got the bread.
Then get it home.
Shouldn't you be at my goddamn mine, Mr.
Caze? Men need to work.
Won't go in with rotten props.
Double our wages to $3.
00 a day, we'll get your coal out.
Money won't make it safe.
We pay you to keep the peace, Mrs.
Loving.
Not for your opinion.
He's grasping, Mrs.
Loving.
As you can see, looking after my dollars.
You don't have many is what I hear.
Mine's safe so far, isn't it, Franklyn? You been going in.
You will go in.
Coal goes out to market, there will be improvements.
Next time I'm negotiating, Mrs.
Loving, keep your mouth shut.
What will you do if it comes to mutiny? Who will keep the girls safe? They know to look after themselves.
Put them with me.
Mary's been missing you.
She says you're sending her away.
Spend some time with her then before she's gone.
Will you teach them to read? I could do.
It's shameful for a girl not to know how to read.
You go for your lesson.
Come right home.
That's what it's come to then, using a virgin as a Judas goat? Marriage to a wealthy man is not a terrible fate.
Better future than most of us is fit to have.
He is double her age.
Maturity in a man is not a vice.
Nor youth and red hair.
Purity, this is for you.
To sleep on? Not big enough.
For me? And me alone.
Most would not consider that an advantage, but This Is something you might need, a woman alone.
A gun.
I believe you would have no trouble pulling the trigger.
Turn for me.
You have to look right.
Respectable.
You're a young lady.
Do you like Mr.
Young? Uh, I like the look of him.
That's a start.
You must make the most of your youth, Kelly.
This could well be your only chance.
What about the reading lessons? Mr.
Young.
I was educating these young ladies.
Elevating their confidence.
Join me.
I'll be reading Matthew 26.
Gentleman's waiting.
Robin, too.
No, Mary will be wanting a playmate.
Unsound timbers won't keep the earth from your head.
Not your concern.
Everyone's concerned when men are killed or maimed.
And for what? A decent goddamn wage.
Man over there has a wife now.
Be babies coming soon.
$3.
00 a day is the price you'd put on a father's life? That is greed on greed.
Go away from me 'fore I see fit to throttle you.
Gentlemen! Listen up! You believe John Slotter will make improvements? You believe he will pay that wage? What if he's bluffing? What if he can't meet the payroll, let alone make improvements.
My word.
That's all you need.
What about Proper timbers? Pumps to get the water out.
No work until we have assurances.
You talk like a goddamn socialist, Mr.
Caze.
You men no longer work for me.
The mine is shut down.
Better watch your back, Chase.
It was you did this.
All right.
Nice work, Mrs.
Loving.
Whiskey! You stole it.
I found it.
I found a still.
Hey.
Folks showed us mercy.
Is what she does every time.
It's why we can't never stay nowhere.
But she used to be Right.
Where's your pa? We could send for him? Killed.
Long time back.
Mama.
For many are called, but few are chosen.
You are chosen.
I have chosen you, an innocent among the fallen.
Not so innocent.
I know why you brought me here.
To kiss me.
Boys back home, I punched Todd Fiscus right in the nose when he tried.
You are a beauty.
You think I'm beautiful? Surely not the first to speak it.
All boys talk stupid when they want to kiss.
Don't you want to? Desperate to.
Kiss you here And here And here.
But I shall marry you first.
Marry? Not before I've been kissed.
There is a reason why the white men will not work for you.
Chinese will work until they're dead.
Pay's a third of what a white man is worth.
I decide how much to pay.
It's her runs you.
You're a servant in your mother's house, just like you were in mine.
The house that Cornelius Slotter built? You, his contemptible son.
The one who's married to the woman you can never have.
I've seen how you look at her.
She tell you she's carrying my child? Your workers I will consider your request and give you my answer tonight.
Tonight? You will come back.
You'll be back.
Missus says I will be.
I'll watch over your boy.
And who is this sweet girl? She is a follower.
The orphan of my brother.
Name's Martha.
You know him? A prophet.
Uh do you want to eat? Come on back to the tent.
I will build my church here, Mrs.
Slotter, and invest in your mine.
On one condition.
That I marry that one.
Come.
Sit with me.
I've been good to you, hmm? I saw you with her.
Don't I deserve God's reward? Man is that he might have joy.
I fell in love.
She'll be a sister.
And mother? What will What will happen to her? We are a family.
Together.
You must talk to Kelly.
Your children, and her children, and on and on.
Morgan? Your hair? Took the grease out of it, is all.
I've been thinking.
You With your darkness, I can't see into it, whether you grieve for that man dead Whether you feel for me.
You're a woman.
It's not what I expected.
What I was expected.
I've seen both configurations before, breasts and genitalia - in some bodies - That is not me.
"Freaks," they're called.
Pike, your uncle, does he know about you? He was the one set me right.
Greased my hair dark.
Gave me dirt for a beard.
Kept me safe to be a cowboy.
Bandages for the breasts I do not want.
I do feel for you, miss Finn.
I will leave you then, to your feelings.
You will pay my men half what you pay your whites.
And for me, Partner with a chinaman? A silent partner.
There is a lawyer will arrange it.
You have no money to pay my men.
You owe money to your father and you cannot pay him.
If not for me, you will lose everything.
My men will mine the coal for one month without cost to you.
You will sell the coal and pay my men what you owe.
Sign.
Uh I'll give you your answer tomorrow.
He really a prophet? He is.
Made of light and spirit carried to earth.
He's handsome enough, that's for sure.
God speaks to him, and then he speaks to me.
He told me he kissed you.
He kissed you? Shut up! He breathed his spirit in you.
Can't you feel it? Come with me tonight.
You'll see.
I'm here, too.
I said, shut up! He wants to marry you.
When? Now.
He is the prophet.
He puts his hand on his Bible, and you are wed to him.
He is beautiful.
You've arranged it all? Yes.
Then I'll have my church, and you will have your investor.
Get the money? Soon.
Get the goddamn money, Izzy.
Get your Mr.
Ling off my back.
He's come to you.
There will be trouble.
I am only one person.
We are prepared.
With weapons? If they fire upon us, we will fire back.
Best you stay here today.
Where's Kelly? Robin? Uh, she was gone when I woke up.
Going to get her.
Their prophet, hers and Martha's.
His name's Jordan Young.
It's Kelly's prophet now, too.
Kelly's? She's in love with him.
Told me she kissed him.
Who is Jordan Young? Jordan Young is my husband.
What took you so long? I've been waiting and waiting Don't He kissed you.
Is he going to marry you instead? He married my mother, then me.
He lies only with me.
"Man is that he might have joy " See, he won't touch Mama, only me.
It makes her hurt, and wail, and pray He marries you, he won't come to me so much.
What have I done? Kelly? Jordan Young.
He was going to marry me.
He's married.
I know.
To Lucy.
To Martha, too.
Makes me a fool.
You've had congress with Mr.
Young? He is to marry miss Kelly.
You have no claim on him.
He's my uncle.
Your uncle? He married my ma, then me.
After your father was killed? Did Jordan Young kill your pa? Right in front of us.
If you give testimony of murder, he will be punished.
I will personally take him other side of the line No.
Martha I won't give testimony.
We're a family.
She was how young when he took her? I was a child once.
We all were.
There's business with that man yet to be conducted.
You lied.
No.
You're already married once and twice! And in love with you.
You fill me with joy.
No.
Well, well, the bride and groom.
My investment has come due.
Your heart run with her, has it? I'll be leaving.
Taking my investment with me.
Think on that.
Don't, don't, don't, don't Man needed killing.
He's a murderer Man's a pauper! Nothing but a few dollars and, let's see here Letters writ by The U.
S.
bank of God almighty! Men will be there when? As you wish.
You will see that your indecision has cost you.
My share is 25%.
Martha! You and your ma can stay in our camp.
Be better off.
Belly full.
You don't have anyone.
The prophet - He's ahead of us.
- Yes.
Just ahead.
What do you think will happen to them? Purity.
You called for me? Take what you want of him.
Bugger'll be here till morning.
To hell with this.
Hell with yellers! Hold your tempers and hold off! Law of assembly, gentlemen.
There's no goddamn law here.
Goddamn scabs! Come on, let's go!