Grotesquerie (2024) s01e09 Episode Script

1
♪
[SPOKEN WORD] I remember
when I was a little girl ♪
Our house caught on fire ♪
["IS THAT ALL THERE IS?"
[BY PEGGY LEE PLAYING]
I'll never forget the look
on my father's face ♪
As he gathered me up in his arms ♪
And raced through
the burning building ♪
Onto the pavement ♪
And I stood there shivering
in my pajamas and ♪
We should not be doing this.
I want to go to Dairy Queen.
Maisie, I know what I'm doing.
Pull over. It's right up here.
Is that all there is? ♪
♪
[SINGING] Is that all there is? ♪
If that's all there is, my friends ♪
Then let's keep dancing ♪
[WATER SHUTS OFF]
Let's break out the booze ♪
And have a ball ♪
If that's all ♪
[DOOR OPENS]
There is. ♪
[SONG ENDS]
- [MARSHALL SIGHS HEAVILY]
- [REDD CLINKS SPOON ON CUP]
We're just going to sit
here and say nothing?
Marshall.
Maisie is sitting out there, Lois.
She gets paid to sit there and judge.
[SIGHS]
Look,
it's been a long, long run
between us, Marshall.
A long run.
I realized a long time ago what
was happening between you two.
I wasn't heartbroken.
I mean, I'd lost the capacity for that.
Which made me understand
why you went in search
of something else, Marshall.
We don't have to do this, Lois.
I didn't blame you.
I mean, I didn't hide
how far I felt from you.
Why wouldn't you want to be with
someone who actually liked you,
which I could no longer do
after you couldn't hide how disappointed
and disgusted you were
with our daughter's
weight gain in college?
It wasn't disappointment or disgust.
That was you. I was helpless.
Hundred pounds in one year?
It's biblical. It-it was a curse.
Exactly. And that's when
you love people more.
And your reaction to that made me think
I could no longer love you.
So, sleeping with her husband
was your way of showing love?
Do do do you hear yourself, Lois?
Look
There are very few things
people are not capable of.
You taught philosophy.
And for the record, I will
never not be sorry about that.
I like you, Redd.
I always have.
She was your nurse in my dream.
But, Marshall, I heard you
when you whispered
in my ear in the hospital
and wished me dead.
Just fucking die.
And not in a merciful way, so
I was pushed to that.
Well, we all know how love
can turn to hate, don't we?
I don't want to live like that,
in a constant state of catastrophe
and-and-and endless rage.
So, with regards to you
and I and the future
I want us to just be at peace.
Okay?
Here are divorce papers.
You can have whatever you want.
The Danish China,
the silverware, all of it.
Anything. Take it.
And whatever peace you can muster up.
And I will do the same, just
elsewhere.
Where?
Well, when I was a kid
I went to Florida with my folks.
A little town called Tarpon Springs.
Mm. We fished,
ate seafood, stayed in a motel.
It beckons.
[MARSHALL] Does it?
Now, I'm-I'm just supposed
to be grateful now?
That-that's what's expected of me?
[SIGHS]
I will always remember that
I loved you once, Marshall.
Then we had a complicated daughter,
and I got hard.
Big deal.
[LAUGHING]
Th-That's the sum of
your collected wisdom
about who you are?
Let's set the record straight.
"Hard" implies
that you are still a recognizable human,
but you are impossible to categorize.
A chimera, a fucking beast made of fury.
And good luck letting that go,
because it's engrained in you, Lois.
- It is you, Lois.
- [REDD] M-Marshall.
Let's not do this. She's trying to
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I did want you to die. You bet.
It would've been a
fucking mercy to both of us.
- The cunt
- [REDD GASPS]
and the asshole keel over.
Both of us need to be dead.
The world would be prettier.
That's our show, folks.
[DOOR OPENS, CLOSES]
[MAISIE] I have to tell you, Ms. Lois,
I think the Virgin
Mary would forgive me,
but this cone is heaven.
It's-it's Heaven. We should
come to Dairy Queen every day.
- Should we do that?
- Mm.
Time to go see the kid.
Don't know why you
won't let sleeping dogs lie.
If you don't, you'll get up with fleas.
That's actually two
sayings conflated into one.
[MAISIE] Hmm.
I don't know why you were just a cop.
With that fancy education,
you could have been a dentist.
[LAUGHS]
What?
[CAR ENGINE STARTS]
♪
[SIGHS]
[KNOCK ON DOOR]
It's good to see you.
So so, what is this?
Are you here to beg
for more forgiveness,
- to apologize more? I mean
- Nah.
I know I was a bad mother.
[LAUGHS]
An unforgivable one, eventually.
"Eventually"?
But you Little girl, you sucked.
And I was there for
you through all of it.
The two nervous breakdowns,
the-the-the time you
joined a goddamn cult.
Okay, I did not join a cult.
- That was a group of like-minded
- A cult.
All the bad boyfriends.
I was there for all of it, Merritt,
and I tried and I tried.
So, what, all of this justifies
you sleeping with
the man that I married?
Of course not, Merritt.
But you were a bitch for two decades.
And I had had enough.
[SCOFFS] So
What, did you want to make it impossible
for me to ever touch him again?
You marked him like a dog.
He got me, Merritt. My ways.
Ugh.
He and I had more in common
than the two of you,
if we gonna be real about it.
Oh, my God, did you love him?
Did you?
Or was he just a provocation?
Can a crazy person actually love?
'Cause you were crazy.
And so was I.
[SCOFFS]
Merritt.
The things we do to
each other, us humans.
If you knew how bad it could get,
maybe you would've been
less of a shit all those years.
That's why you stole him
from me? To show me?
[SIGHS]
Look,
I am leaving, okay?
I'm moving away to somewhere warm.
Bye.
One last thing.
That slap of yours
the last time I saw you,
that really hurt.
Good.
[SIGHS] Now
if you ever desire to have
a real relationship with me,
come find me.
'Cause after all I've
been through, baby girl,
that is the only kind I want.
[REPORTER ON TV] a breaking
news update on the devastation
- left in the wake
- [PHONE BUZZING]
of the hurricane which
just made landfall overnight
[NEWSCAST CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY]
[PHONE CONTINUES BUZZING]
Duval here.
Can you repeat that, please?
Text me the address.
[GRUNTS SOFTLY]
[NEWSCAST CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY]
[REPORTER ON TV] Major
highways are impassable
due to debris, and it could take days
or even weeks to restore electricity.
[NEWSCAST CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY]
[SHOWER WATER RUNNING]
[DR. WITTICOMB] Does some
of it make sense to you now?
Your dreams and hallucinations
are like jigsaw puzzles,
impressionistic but
made up of reflections
from your own experiences.
But not all of it.
In my experience,
we are watching the world burning.
Living through the end of the world.
The fire came up out of nowhere.
[GAS STATION ATTENDANT] Nothing
comes up out of nowhere, Lois, dear.
[LOIS] Well, is there
any way around it, Daddy?
My father taught me how to camp,
and I forgot most of it, but
But I think
that he was the gas station attendant
that gave us the fire tents.
Got to be prepared for the worst.
A moral force.
Teaching lessons.
I miss him.
You know
He's the reason I am who I am today.
He was also a sheriff
in the High Desert, so
So you think you summoned him
to save you with the fire tent?
I want to get back to
the dreams of murder.
Actually, I would like to
call in a colleague of mine.
He has a PhD.
He is brilliant in the nascent study
of dreams and coma landscapes.
We are just at the beginning
of understanding what the brain,
what neurons in trauma
can do, catalogue.
He's been working with me
on your exceptional case.
He is, in a word, if I may say
brilliant.
May I call him in?
May I smoke?
Of course. If you need that.
I do. [SIGHS]
Go ahead, bring him in. What's his name?
Dr. Milton Smythe, PhD.
[DOOR OPENS]
[DR. SMYTHE VIA TABLET] Hello, Lois.
It's nice to finally meet you.
Your mind is extraordinary to me.
The murders from your dreams
that bear no resemblance
to any case you ever had,
what is that, do you think?
The milk plant.
[WOMEN WHIMPERING]
Women tied to to milking machines.
That was
in my mind, in my-my-my subconscious.
Women losing agency,
control over their own bodies.
Being forced to reproduce.
I never had a case like that, but
It was distressing to me
the way this world has
Turned on women.
You know that's how I got
the COVID that put me in a coma.
Maisie and I went to a women's rights
rally at city hall.
[DR. SMYTHE] Based on my research,
an issue you would die for.
And almost did.
And then there was a drug den.
[DR. SMYTHE] Yes.
You never had such a case,
but you described every detail.
An unrecognizable codex of words,
a language on the walls.
And the Burnside family.
I don't want to talk about it
'cause that I do not want to conjure up.
[DR. SMYTHE] We have to, Lois.
You've dealt with so
many horrors in your career.
This is the culmination of all of them.
We have to discover what it means.
What it felt like when you drove up.
What you saw.
What was revealed.
[SIREN WAILS]
[SIGHS]
I got a call around dawn.
I was at home.
[SIREN WAILS]
[DR. SMYTHE] You described pulling up
and seeing your
horrified police colleagues.
Stay with it.
Describe it.
You described
viscera, blood, intestines
and body parts on the walls
of the living room.
Some sick art project?
And you walked into the kitchen.
[CAMERA SNAPPING]
From what place does
this get conjured up?
I don't know.
I don't know how this is
I don't This is in me,
but-but from where?
I want you to be free from
the grip of your trauma,
and while some nightmares
are better left alone,
some we have to confront.
The ones we don't forget,
what I call "failed dreams"
because we should not remember them.
You saw the future, I think.
You envisioned it.
Dr. Smythe, if I may
I have an observation.
Of course. Sharing is caring.
I went to a lecture
on empathy in New York a bit ago.
[PSYCHOLOGIST] Well, I think
this proves that there is less empathy
now than there was previously.
At least in student populations.
So, what are we to make of this?
Is empathy seeping out of human nature?
Why are we hardening?
Is the ubiquitous media
humming in the background
numbing us to the signs and clues
of life in the people all around us?
Maybe [SIGHS] it's the
isolation of our moment.
Less human interaction,
more technology supplanting communion.
But regardless of what it is,
brain imaging is showing
our mirror neurons
changing markedly.
And this can only mean
that the human species
is also changing.
[APPLAUSE]
[CAMERA SNAPPING]
[DR. WITTICOMB] He called it
a "de-evolution" of the species,
and I think you're
prefiguring this, Lois.
Like Moses.
A prophet, as it were.
That is an interesting choice
of words for a psychiatrist.
A prophet?
Maybe.
Let's leave it. Let's let it be.
So, what's next for you
now that you're healthy and retired?
"Healthy"? Mm.
I really want to
Get back to myself, you know?
I've built built up
such a wall, and
I don't let anyone in.
And I hate it.
I want to get back to loving life
and loving people.
Maybe the best way for me to do that
is to move out of town.
Stay in touch, Lois, please.
- Will do.
- [SMYTHE] Lois,
if I may make an observation.
Yes.
Your soul touches me.
And your soul touches me.
Thank you.
♪
Maisie?
Oh, boy.
I'm gonna go to the shop.
For some of those
nice shortbread cookies
from Scotland you like.
Goody, goody, gumdrops.
Redd.
[SIGHS]
I can't tell what season it is
from what grows anymore.
Can you?
I mean, it's fall.
In the desert.
What is going on in the world?
In this town?
You know the old Groucho joke
about not wanting to belong to
any club that would have you?
Yeah.
That's me.
I don't want Marshall, Lois.
Not like this.
I mean, it's not it's not fair.
Goddamn it.
I mean, it was fine when
he was yours, you know?
I-I got him part-time.
I could be my own person,
go on long goddamn drives,
take off if I wanted to,
not get out of bed if I didn't want to,
not have dinner if I didn't want to,
not cook.
And a couple of times a week, you know,
some little ritual with him, company.
[SHUDDERS]
Company and martinis
and a fuck and an old movie.
And then the rest of the time,
I could I could look
up for pottery online
or old Chanel Number 5 bottles
for the whole day, if I wanted.
The whole day.
But now he's just there.
Yeah.
That's what happens
with men his age, Redd.
[CHUCKLES] They are
always fucking there.
Molting.
I thought you loved him.
He's just become banal.
Well [CHUCKLES]
you can't bring him back here, kid.
We have a policy
No refunds, no returns.
I know. I know.
"Not your circus, not your monkeys."
Ding, ding, ding.
But when I heard you say
that you were going someplace
Tarpon Springs.
Yeah.
Why did you come see me, Redd?
I mean, out of all the people.
Don't you have any real friends?
Does anyone?
Anyway, I looked up Tarpon Springs.
Little Victorian bungalows.
That's what I want.
Walk on the beach.
Warm Gulf waters.
Alone with my thoughts, you know?
My silence.
Nobody else's noise
going around in my head,
least of all Marshall's.
Why do women think they need men
when all they need is Tarpon Springs?
You want my advice?
Break up with him.
Rip the Band-Aid.
Don't look back.
Go find your silence.
Get you a goddamn dog, a cat.
Something to keep
from talking to the walls.
Hell, a parakeet.
[WHISPERS] Yeah.
[CHUCKLES]
[SNIFFLES]
Send me a postcard from somewhere.
Why does "away" sound so good?
[DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES]
[CRICKETS CHIRPING]
[PHONE RINGING]
Hello?
[MEGAN] I need you.
Megan?
Lois, I need you to come down here.
What do you want?
I know you fucking hate me right now,
but it's a family.
And I've been here all day,
and the media's found out.
And I need you to just
come down here, okay?
Text me the address.
[SIREN WAILING]
♪
[INDISTINCT POLICE RADIO CHATTER]
It's the worst thing I've ever seen.
♪
[CAMERA SNAPS]
♪
[CAMERA SNAPS]
♪
[BUBBLING]
♪
[INHALES SHARPLY]
[WHIMPERS]
[CRICKETS CHIRPING]
[GARBLED DIALOGUE]
[PHONE RINGING]
[GROANS SOFTLY]
[COUGHS]
[RINGING CONTINUES]
[GROANS SOFTLY]
[SIGHS]
Stop calling me.
I have no choice.
You-you-you do.
I'm done.
Do you understand?
This is your case.
You solve it.
What the fuck do you think my life is?
Some episode of Murder, She Wrote
where you can just call me
and I'll figure it all out?
Those days are done.
The tests came back on
what was in that kitchen.
Lois.
Could you come to my motel, please?
Sulfur?
I don't want to talk about it
on the phone. Just come.
♪
[ENGINE IDLING]
♪
Someone read my medical reports.
- Huh?
- My dream reports.
Someone is painstakingly
trying to re-create them.
A copycat a copycat
is using my dreams.
What? I don't understand.
They-they used your coma dreams
to slaughter an entire family
in the most horrific way?
- Yes.
- Why?
I saw it.
This is the case I was seeing.
Did I bring this thing into being?
My my dreams were
On the other side.
They were they were beyond.
I mean
Did I bring this monster back with me?
What are you saying? I don't even
I don't understand.
I need to wake up.
♪
I need you to cut me.
Cut you?
Lois, what the fuck?
If you cut me and I bleed,
I'm here, you're here.
I'm not dead.
I need
I need to see my blood.
I need to feel it.
Just a small cut.
♪
[GASPS]
[BREATHES SHARPLY]
♪
♪
[NEWSCAST PLAYING INDISTINCTLY]
Justin.
[PANTING]
- What are you doing
- Think I can't track you down?
[YELLS IN PAIN]
Fucking bitch.
[GROANS]
You leave me a fucking note?
[PANTING]
Mm-mm. [GRUNTS]
[GRUNTING IN OTHER ROOM]
- [GLASS SHATTERS]
- Bitch!
[GROANING, THUDDING IN OTHER ROOM]
No!
[SCREAMING, GROANING]
No. No.
[YELLS]
[GROANS] Dumb bitch.
You want to kick me out of my own home?
Give me an ultimatum?
Here's your fucking note! Eat it!
- [GUN CLICKS]
- [LOIS] Get the fuck off her, asshole.
Okay. [GRUNTS]
This why I'm out?
You finally turned gay?
Hey, I get it. I get it.
Stop. You will stop.
- Ah-ah.
- Megan.
No, baby. No, no, no.
You're the crazy bitch, aren't you?
She talks about you.
- [MEGAN] Lois.
- Did you put her up to it?
- Leaving?
- [WHIMPERS]
[JUSTIN] Hmm? Did you empathize with her
because your life is so
totally, deeply fucked?
[LAUGHS]
Oh, we know all about you, babe.
Megan, what is this?
[CRYING]
You, turn around, put
your hands on the wall,
assume the position, asshole.
[MEGAN] Just do what she says.
Don't shoot him. He's sick.
He's not well. He's sick.
It's a dream. It's not real.
No, no, no, it's all real, baby.
- It's a dream. It's not real.
- No, this is all real.
Yeah, you've been awake. You're awake.
You've been awake this whole time.
This whole time, girl,
it's been you awake.
[MEGAN] It's a dream.
It's not real, Lois.
Empathy.
See, it's leaching out.
Studies show we're hardening, numbing.
[MEGAN] Lois, don't hurt him.
Don't fucking move.
You know you can't kill me, don't you?
- [LAUGHS]
- [MEGAN GASPS]
Want to bet?
You want to bet?
[WHIMPERS]
♪