Freeze!
How are you?
Terrified.
He's out there right now,
putting Elias's body somewhere.
They find it sometime tomorrow morning.
Coroner finds the note.
And then,
sometime tomorrow...
the cavalry comes.
I hit him with the pitcher.
Stab him.
And the cops blow his head off his goddamn shoulders.
Okay.
Or he's out there right now, dumping the body,
and as he rolls it out of the blanket,
my note comes out of his mouth.
Then...
Well, if that happens, what are you gonna do?
If he drives a knife down my throat?
I don't know, die as quickly as possible.
Well, I mean, your hands aren't tied, are they?
I just shoved a note down a poor dead kid's throat.
That was pretty good.
I'm sorry I didn't use my skills
as a mediocre high school wrestler
to beat a crazed killer to death.
Fuck you, Charlie. I got old.
You've mentioned your old age and your weakness several times already.
It's pretty relevant.
I agree. We should talk about it.
If nothing else, it's probably
the most interesting case you've ever had.
Uh-huh.
I'll write a book.
Sam's Treatment.
There, I have the title.
CREDITS
Have you ever heard of Kenny Chesney?
No.
He's a country western singer.
Sam is very devoted to him.
Goes to his concerts a lot.
Has, I think, a community of fellow fans.
Alternate social world, real but not,
where he can be like everyone else.
I just had this dream.
I was in a concentration camp.
Auschwitz, I think.
I walked into the barracks.
These Jews were reciting the Kaddish.
Orthodox, with all the stuff on.
Okay.
So I'm a Jew.
I am trapped in the basement with a killer.
A killer who wanted to recite the fucking Kaddish himself.
I miss my wife. Orthodox Ezra.
It's all pretty obvious.
Sometimes with an obvious dream,
the question is less the interpretation
and more "what are you going to do with it?"
Are you gonna tell me that I need to fight again?
Got the point.
No.
What, then?
The work.
The work you've always done.
Look into yourself, Alan. Go ahead.
Don't you want to take the veils off?
They aren't doing you any good down here.
I can't.
You can.
What's the point?
Beth's dead.
Ezra is in a fucking religious cult
and hates me.
I'll probably be dead by tomorrow.
So, what do you want to do with the day you have left?
You're an adult. You make your own choices.
You're joining a cult.
Well,
I don't think you have an authentic relationship with God.
Yitgadal...
Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'meih raba.
Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'meih raba...
B'alma...
Yitgadal...
What are you doing?
I was trying to recite the Kaddish for my wife.
I can't, I can't...
I can't remember the words.
I want to talk to you.
It's been a long day and night.
I'm exhausted.
No hunting knife down the throat?
Not yet.
- It's good to be alive. - Jealous?
Are you ready?
I'm too anxious right now.
The body, the note, waiting...
Come on, you fuckers.
Hey.
Mr. Buchella.
Wait, I remember you.
- Yeah, I'm Sam. - Right, right.
- Sam Fortner. - Right. Right.
Right, Sam.
I didn't know if you'd still be here.
Yeah, still kicking.
Hey, do you remember when
Mr. Schube was yelling and screaming in class,
and he threw that chair, and he almost hit Cindy Perez?
And then you came in and asked to talk to him in the hall?
And then he came back after you talked to him,
and he told us he was sorry?
Yeah. Yeah, I do.
He didn't come back the next year. Did you get him fired?
Yeah.
Yeah, I did.
Well, it was good to see you, Sam.
I've got to pick up my wife.
I don't think my life is good.
Oh?
It's like it isn't working out.
And I can't...
It just isn't working out, and I'm not... happy.
I don't know how to...
Did you know this would happen?
From what I was like, when I was a kid?
No.
No, not really.
I'm sorry to hear it.
I knew you were a little different.
You'd had a hard time.
But you always hope things turn around.
Can you be my therapist?
You're looking for some counseling?
Uh...
Well, I don't know. Um...
I've had some clients outside of school over the years.
But they were always current students.
But a former student?
Maybe.
Let me think about it, Sam.
I, uh,
I really do have to go pick up my wife.
Here's my number.
- Call me in a few days. - Yeah.
Hey, Mr. Buchella.
What do you think about someone living with their therapist?
Could that help?
That would not be a good idea.
- You guys thirsty? - Yes.
- Hi. - Hi.
Hello?
Hey.
Did you ever think that there was something...
wrong with me?
What do you mean?
I don't know, just something...
something that seemed
wrong...
or different?
You were my husband, Sam, and then we broke up.
I think there were all kinds of things wrong with you.
Your whole life revolves around food.
I was never positive you loved me.
I know you loved me,
but I mean...
loved, loved.
But, overall,
I know you're a good guy.
Okay. Bye.
Are you ready now?
_
His damn father-in-law, Chaim.
Who sits there putting stamps on envelopes
and boxes all day,
when he's not reading his Talmud.
Ezra has chosen this ridiculous life.
He's left us all in the dust.
That whole family, his in-laws,
they are over at his house constantly.
Helping with the kids, waiting on them hand and foot.
It's like they're all living together in the shtetl.
Whenever we visited,
we were like second-class citizens.
We were somehow not Jewish enough.
Beth,
who devoted her life and career to Judaism...
Liberal Judaism, but still...
She was not Jewish enough.
And we smiled, and smiled and smiled.
When she got sick,
he still couldn't get past himself.
Always had to have the last word.
She was lying there, in bed...
in so much pain, spit coming out of her mouth.
She wants to go out on her terms,
with her family around her.
We got the pills.
It's all ready.
And you know what the fucker,
the little fucker said to me?
"It's illegal."
Not just that it's against God, but it's illegal.
Like we're criminals.
And he will have no part of it.
Judgmental.
That day, the last day,
she's lying there, he gives his holier-than-thou speech,
and he walks out of the house.
And I go after him, mostly just to talk to him.
Trying to get him to come back inside.
"Don't do anything that you are going to regret doing for the rest of your life."
And I get back this torrent.
I never understood him.
I was never there for him.
I mistreated him ever since he became Orthodox.
I said the wrong thing to the rabbi at his son's bris.
I didn't give a big enough donation
to his fucking yeshiva in Israel.
I once said
that his wife made the best kosher steak
that I had ever had.
How about that? I complimented his wife.
I get that he was hurting.
His whole life was a rebellion against his mother.
I support rebellions, obviously. I get it.
And his mother...
there was a lot to rebel against.
A lot of individuating to do.
But at a certain point, you have to come back around.
You have to grow up.
Well, it sounds as if
with all the emotion and pain swirling around Beth's death,
Ezra hit a bad spot.
You did, too.
But we know these things pass.
It didn't pass.
That day, Beth wanted to die with her family around her,
and he had to throw this tantrum.
He was struggling to process the pain of his mother's death.
Okay. But he's always been like that.
He digs in, and he can't see any other way
but the way he sees things.
No wonder he became Orthodox.
I've been reaching out, over and over.
Nothing.
I know grief can do this, but...
I'm gonna print that prayer you can't remember.
From the Internet.
I really appreciate that.
And I want you to know that is empathy in action.
That is it.
You put yourself in my shoes,
you saw what I needed,
and you did it for me.
Yeah. I just...
Go ahead.
I don't feel good.
What kind of printer is it?
Uh, Hewlett-Packard.
Sam.
I's been a difficult day. Exhausting, probably.
But I want to talk to you about what's going to happen
when they find Elias's body.
I'm sure it will be on the news, and you'll see it.
And you're going to have a lot of complicated feelings.
I don't want to tell you what those feelings will be.
You'll have to tell me that.
But I just want you to be prepared
to have a mix of feelings
that I will help you work through.
It won't be on the news, Dr. Strauss.
I didn't do what you told me to do.
I was on the way to do it.
I had a good spot picked out,
where they'd find him.
But I was almost there,
and this truck pulls up next to me at a stoplight.
And I can see the driver
just looking down into the bed of my pickup,
where, you know, the body was wrapped up. And I just...
And I just thought,
if this is on the news tomorrow,
and that driver remembers seeing something, remembers my pickup...
So I didn't do it.
I know it wasn't empathetic.
What did you do with him?
I put it somewhere.
No one will find it.
How do you pronounce it? Kaddish?
Kaddish.
Can I hear you say it?
It's private.
"Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mei raba,
b'alma di vra khirutei.
v'yamlikh malkhutei
b'chayeikhon uvyomeikhon
uv'chayei d'khol beit Yisra'eil,
ba'agala uvizman kariv
v'imru: Amein.
Y'hei shmei raba m'varakh 'alam ul'almei almaya.
Yitbarakh v'yishtabach v'yitpa'ar
v'yitromam v'yitnasei
v'yit-hadar v'yit-aleh
sh'mei d'kud'sha. B'rikh hu
l'eila min kol birkhata v'shirata
tooshb'chatah v'nechematah
da'ameeran b'almah, v'eemru: Amein.
Y'hei shlama raba min sh'maya
v'chayim aleinu v'al kol Yisra'eil
v'imru: Amein.
Oseh shalom bimromav
hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu
v'al kol Yisra'eil,
v'imru: Amein".
CREDITS