[static]
[beeping]
[male #1 on TV] '4-13 is in.'
[male #2 on TV] 'We copy you down, Eagle.'
[male #1 on TV] 'Houston, uh, Tranquility Base here.'
'The Eagle has landed.'
[all cheering]
[Creedence Clearwater Revival singing "Bad Moon Rising"]
♪ I see a bad moon rising.. ♪
You just missed the moon landing you little troglodyte.
Get out of here, Laura.
Don't have a spaz.
I don't care about your stupid toy, Danny boy.
It's not a toy. Get out.
Why don't you get out?
You haven't left the house in three days.
- Mom! Laura's bothering me. - Mom sent me.
Personally I could care less
'if you stay a friendless goober your whole life.'
'Hello? Earth to Danny..'
♪ There's a bad moon on the rise.. ♪
Wow, he's leaving the house! Hold on. Let me get a picture.
[door closes]
♪ Hope you've got your things together ♪
♪ Hope you are quite prepared to die ♪
♪ Looks like we're in for nasty weather ♪
[dramatic music]
[music continues]
Detective McAvoy, Lilly Rush.
A retired detective. Just Mack, now.
Well, you said you got something for me to look at?
Yeah, couple days ago guy comes into the Fairmount Station.
- Drops this off. - 'Some kind of model rocket?'
Yeah, he found it up near the bluffs over the Wissahickon.
Some, uh, civilian desk jockey processed it
and didn't even bother ID'ing the guy who brought it in.
Yeah, civilian humps doing cops' work.
Yeah, take a look here.
'"The Chestnut Hill Rocket Boys launched this vehicle'
"July 20, 1969 AD in peace for all mankind."
Signed "Danny Finch."
Day after we landed on the moon
Danny Finch's body turns up in the Schuylkill.
'He was 12-years-old.'
That was my first year in Homicide.
Tough way to start out.
Yeah, tough on the family.
Any suspects?
Scumbag Reggie Blunt.
He got popped for a laundry list of murders
around the city that year.
And the DA lumped my kid's case in with them.
Never got a conviction
but everybody was sure he did it, except me.
Talk to Danny's friends back in the day?
'No, he didn't have any.'
Boy was a loner, you know, science nerd type.
Blunt went down for the other murders
and Brass said there was no more meat on the bones.
He pushed me to move on.
This gives you something to chew on.
Yeah, this rocket was in the park
'two miles upstream from where the body was found.'
I interviewed all the kids in the neighborhood.
I got nothing.
But this makes me think that..
...maybe he did have some friends after all.
- These Rocket Boys. - I don't know, Mack.
A toy rocket's a tough sell with the bosses.
I've been 39 years turning over in my sleep
what could have happened to this kid.
You have any idea what that does to you, detective?
No one else around here will give me the time of day.
And I hear you take cases nobody else will.
You find this kid's murderer..
...maybe I can get to sleep again.
Rocket Boys, huh?
Yeah, you think I'm crazy, huh?
I don't think you're crazy, Mack.
[theme music]
[instrumental music]
This baby is a freaking marvel. Check it out.
Custom-machined, high-grade chrome nickel washer.
[Lilly] 'A 12-year-old kid built this?'
Get it to Evidence, see if they can lift
any prints inside the cylinder.
Pretty skimpy box on this kid.
You sure your boyfriend did all his homework?
Blunt gets credit for the murder
suddenly Mack's strong-armed to move on.
Blunt gets shanked in Graterford in '78.
He knew anything about it, he took it to his grave.
Old crackpot Mack.
Oh, you knew him, boss?
He was in homicide when I was still walking
a beat in Fishtown. He's a good cop.
Bosses thought he cared a little too much.
Autopsy report's got Danny with abrasions on the face and body
'a cracked skull, blunt-force trauma.'
Kid got banged up pretty bad.
Aw, Chestnut Hill Chemistry Award, 1968.
I didn't even know they had chemistry in 6th grade.
Danny's sister Laura is in with Jeffries now.
See if she knows anything about this rocket.
Or the Chestnut Hill Rocket Boys.
Can I smoke in here?
[chuckles] Uh, no.
Sorry. I thought police station, you know, maybe.
Not unless you're planning on confessing.
[sighs] I lost my baby brother the day they put a man on the moon.
I still can't look at it without thinking about him.
You two were close?
I was pretty awful to him, actually.
It breaks my heart now.
At that age, you just don't think.
Danny say where he was going that day?
He never told me anything.
He sort of holed up in the science.
'Skipped a grade when he was eight'
ended up in my class. Drove me crazy.
We found this up in the park.
Danny's name on it.
Know anything about it?
Math, science, chemistry.
He was more about equations than this sort of thing.
What about a Chestnut Hill Rocket Boys club?
Danny in a club? No way.
But...the week before he died..
...I saw him with some boys from the neighborhood.
Right, right here.
- Alright, perfect. - Okay.
'Perfect.'
Neil Armstrong readies the launch vehicle for ignition.
How come you always get to be Neil?
- 'Huh, Chuck?' - Cause I'm the commander.
You can be Buzz Aldrin, the mission specialist.
Okay, she's set to fly, captain.
Saved every cherry bomb I could find from 4th of July.
Rocket's loaded and ready for liftoff.
Loaded and ready. This baby's going to the moon.
I hope you know it's not going to work.
Go play with your Bunsen burner, Poindexter. Busy here.
Look, you can't just pack it full of explosives.
You have to cut the powder with sulfur, otherwise--
Kid, we need your help, we'll ask for it. Got it?
Alright, men. Let's light this candle.
Let me do it, Chuck.
[sighs] Here we go!
[together] Ten, nine
eight, seven
six, five
four, three..
[screaming]
[laughing]
[Danny] 'Told you so.'
♪ I thank the Lord for the night time the night time ♪
♪ To forget the day forget the day ♪
That stunt caused a lot of trouble.
Chuck's dad about skinned him alive.
Remember their names?
Just Chuck Pierce, the cute one.
But those three, they were always together, though.
Ever see them with your brother again?
Chuck came by the next day. Asked to see Danny.
'I remember being disappointed.'
I thought he was there to see me.
Civvie who took in the rocket's a real paperweight.
Oh, let me guess, less than helpful.
Like pulling teeth.
I finally got him to remember what time the guy brought it in.
I went back and dug through the catch desk sign-in sheets.
Came up with a name, Mike Collins.
Great, got to be what, 800 of them in the Philly phone book?
Yeah. Go, Irish.
Your boyfriend called again.
Mack asked if we want him in on interviews.
Told him, thanks. We're good.
You going to share your desk with this guy, Lill?
[Lilly] 'Aw, he was a good cop.'
Tough to walk away when you got business to settle.
I'm still sweating cases after I get my gold watch
do me a favor, put me out of my misery.
Count on it.
Crackpot Mack said Chuck Pierce used to run with some boys
Seth Rundgren and Bobby Kent.
All three of them interviewed in '69.
Said they were watching the moon landing together.
Doesn't look like Chuck let go of the rocket thing.
Naval aviator, applied for NASA in the '90s.
Private air captain now.
Lear jets of the rich and famous.
Poor man's Neil Armstrong, this guy.
Let's see what Neil Armstrong
has to say about the Rocket Boys.
Yeah, it was a real shock when Danny turned up dead.
Block was never the same again.
Yeah, how so?
Predator on the streets.
Parents wouldn't let kids play outside after dark anymore.
Only now, thinking Danny might
have been with friends the night he died.
You friends with Danny back then, Chuck?
Friends? Not really.
No, Danny was kind of a.. Kind of an odd duck.
On the night of the moon landing did you see him around?
No, I was at home watching it on TV.
- Pinnacle of human achievement. - You with anyone?
Yeah, I was, I was with, uh, Seth Rundgren and Bobby Kent.
Haven't seen those guys in years. They lived on my block.
The Chestnut Hill Rocket Boys, right?
Yeah, well, rockets were a phase
I mean probably because of the moon landing and all.
I think we were into sharks the next week.
[chuckles]
Then, uh, why'd you stop by Danny's
the day after you and your posse blew the neighborhood to China
trying to launch a rocket?
Ah, well, we wanted to see what he knew.
I mean, a rocket without a brain to guide it
is pretty much just a pipe bomb.
- Hmm. - He help you out?
Oh, yeah, sure, he'd do anything
anything to be our friend.
We, we were just out to have a good time but this kid..
[chuckles] This kid was obsessed.
Once we're in, we got to move fast.
The foreman, Mr. Wallace, hates kids.
Heard he killed a guy on his site once.
They say he buried the body in the yard.
Never found it.
We have to make the nozzle out of something
that'll hold up to the heat from takeoff
launch the vehicle all the way into the mesosphere.
Geek, you don't shut it
I'm gonna launch you in the mesosphere.
We're supposed to be sneaking in, nimrods.
Wallace is going to hear us a mile away.
Shh.
This is it.
Up and over, men.
Uh, guys?
I'm really not so great at climbing fences.
Ah, gee, there's a surprise.
There, we need that piece.
The one that's shaped like a cone right on top, it's perfect.
[dog barking]
Hey, hey!
Hey!
'Come here!'
- Hey, you little bastards! - Come on. Go, go, go!
Get the hell off this property.
You think you're going to steal from me?
Aw...bite it, dirtbag.
You runt, show your face in here again
you'll see what happens, man.
Come on! Come on!
That guy was a damn menace.
'Everybody knew it, but like I said'
that kid Danny, he was obsessed.
You saying he went back?
He told us that everything we needed to launch a rocket
was inside that fence.
When was this?
Oh, I don't know maybe a week before the moon landing.
[beeping]
[Neil Armstrong] That's one small step for man
one...giant leap for mankind.
Night, Lill.
You find anything on the rest of Chuck's crew?
Well, Seth Rundgren has a colorful history.
A court-ordered lockup '86 to '90.
Schizo-affective disorder.
Bobby Kent's a floor manager
at Zane's Sporting Goods in Germantown.
What about this Wallace character?
Picked up an assault and battery in '68
for slapping around a junkie
trying to steal copper from his site.
Put the guy in ICU for three weeks.
You get something off that rocket, Nick?
Rocket science, people.
Well, the factory that machine-tooled
the metal cone Danny used as a nozzle
'was located right here in Philly.'
"DWC Custom Manufacturing."
Place was knocked down, the summer of '68 and guess who's
on the books as site foreman for the demolition company.
Dick Wallace.
Meaner than a junkyard dog.
[instrumental music]
Best demo company on the Eastern seaboard.
Ain't a building they put up I can't pull down on a dime.
'69, though
you were just starting to make a name for yourself.
I paid my dues.
Took any job that'd have me.
Demo, drywall, construction.
Site watchdog.
Yeah, I was the ogre.
Somebody had to be.
Rob you blind, otherwise.
Like that junkie you busted open back in '68.
Freak pulled a knife on me.
What am I supposed to do? Bleed on him?
Sure, I get it.
Sometimes you got to crack a few skulls, get things done.
Yeah, you said it.
What about Danny Finch?
[Scotty] 'Kids tried to sneak on your lot, you make a few threats.'
Week later, this boy turns up beaten to death.
[Will] 'Danny thought he could outsmart you, sneak back in.'
It's not like you didn't warn him.
Yeah, I warned him alright, not that it did any good.
[clattering]
You got to be some kind of special nitwit, right?
It's almost $14. It's all I got.
W-we just need maybe 200 grams of potassium nitrate.
Forget it.
Seriously, kid, amscray.
Look, I'm sorry we broke in
but my friends, they're counting on me.
I'm like Wernher von Braun to them.
Wernher von Braun.
The scientist who created the space program.
Without him...without me that rocket will never fly.
I've been up all night working out the mix
trying to get it right.
If I do, maybe they'll see that I'm..
That you're what?
Nothing.
Probably hopeless anyway.
The calculations never come out right.
It's going to explode or fly off course.
I'm gonna regret this.
Should be about the right mix.
Need an emulsifier to bind the powder.
'The right nozzle, it should burn clean instead of a..'
...fast explosion, know what I mean?
Hey, kid.
Calculations will only get you so far in life, right?
At some point, you got to get outside
you got to make it work.
[whispering] Wow.
Wow, this is perfect.
- Yeah, the scrap metal's-- - Yeah, I know.
Saw the perfect part for the nozzle when we were here before.
Well, take what you need, alright?
Just don't be bringing your little hood pals back.
Hey, kid.
You blow yourself up, you leave my name the hell out of it.
You dig?
Alright, now beat it.
You gave a 12-year-old kid dynamite?
It was a different time.
No lawsuits, no helmets, no safety seats.
We let kids be kids.
So, Danny..
...he managed to launch that rocket, huh?
Looks like it.
[chuckles] That's good.
Good for him.
Seth Rundgren?
[Lilly] 'Detectives Rush, Vera.'
- Need a hand? - No, thanks.
Few questions about Danny Finch.
Danny Finch.
Mind if we come inside, talk about it?
The last time I saw Danny
'he wanted us to break into a construction site.'
[Lilly] 'We heard.'
We climbed a fence and-and a man came out
with a baseball bat and chased us away.
Right. What about after that? The day of the moon landing.
You see Danny that day?
[clattering]
Please don't touch that.
Oops.
'Seth.'
The day of the moon landing.
T-t-there was no moon landing.
Come again?
It's the pinnacle of human achievement and it was a hoax.
T-t-they shot the whole thing on a, on a soundstage.
Who's they?
NASA, the CIA, LBJ.
Lyndon Johnson faked the moon landing?
'I've talked to agents who were there.'
They tell me things
t-t-the, t-the truth about what happened that day.
Danny think the same way?
He said it was the scientists who made it happen.
Without them, the Eagle never would have landed.
Seth the broadcast about the Eagle landing happened
the day Danny died.
If he said that, it means you saw him that day.
Three of you were with him when he launched the rocket.
The Chestnut Hill Rocket Boys.
I know what you're trying to do.
Y-you're trying to get me to say that I, I see Danny.
'But he's gone.'
I-I know that.
But you still see him sometimes?
They say it's the disease.
It, it, it makes me believe things that aren't true.
Who's they? Chuck and Bobby?
Seth, you talk to them lately?
Your friends when you were 12.
How many of them do you still talk to?
Guy gives new meaningto the word certifiable.
Keep pushing, we'll never get a straight story out of him.
Just lock up under pressure.
Stick a tail on him, see what he does, where he goes.
Believe his rap about not talking to Bobby and Chuck?
Not for a second.
I did steal his phone bill off his desk.
Lot of calls to one number.
Bet it ain't the CIA.
I got a few minutes before I'm back on the floor.
Say you're looking for some contact info for Seth Rundgren?
Yeah, know any way we can get a hold of him?
I wish I could help, but..
I haven't talked to him in, gosh, ages.
[phone ringing]
Go ahead. Pick it up. We'll wait.
Hello.
What up, liar?
Got your number off of Seth's phone records.
He's been calling you 20 times a week for the past month.
You sure you haven't talked to him in ages?
You can hang up now, Bobby.
The three of you were with Danny the night he died.
Seth already told us.
Question is why is he calling you so much?
And why are you both lying about it?
Look, Seth has a pretty weird imagination.
That's one way of puttin' it.
Something go down with Seth and Danny that night?
No.
Oh, come on, Bobby. Unstable guy..
Maybe not even his fault, right?
Out in the woods, a dare gone bad.
Guess we got to take you downtown, sort this all out.
Okay, okay, alright.
It isn't about Seth.
Seth and Chuck are lying to protect me.
♪ I'm going up the country.. ♪
This is outstanding.
Nice job, Danny.
Yeah.
Nice job.
Bobby, why do you say everything Chuck says
right after he says it?
I don't.
Actually, you kind of do.
Shut up, dork. What do you know?
Hey, ease off.
He's the reason we're out here.
Ought to be at home watching this on TV.
You kidding? This is way better.
We're living it, man.
Right, Danny?
Yeah, this is the best.
Never really been in the woods before.
We're explorers.
Conquerors.
I'm Neil Armstrong, commander of the--
Ow!
What was that?
There's something in the woods.
[screaming]
Die, wusses!
♪ Got to get away ♪
♪ I'm gonna leave the city.. ♪
Chuck!
♪ Got to get away ♪
My half-brother, Malcolm, and his dirtbag buddy, Griff
they used to beat our ass every chance they got.
You left Danny behind with them?
Nothing we could have done--
And when Danny turns up dead?
They killed Danny, what do you think
they would have done to me?
Where are your parents in all this?
Dad split, and mom was working all the time.
She left Malcolm in charge of me.
Best thing that ever happened was the two of them
shipping off to Vietnam, the second they turned 18.
Griff died over there.
Malcolm came back even worse.
And where is he now?
Up at Graterford, doing ten to twenty for armed robbery.
[dramatic music]
So, now Brother Bobby's trying to pin a murder on me
that's swell.
It sounds like you got it comin'.
Made his life hell.
Life is hell.
Better he learned that early on.
Nice record you got, Malcolm
armed robbery, assault
killing animals.
Not a big leap to doing in a kid.
You made your minds up. Pull the trigger already.
Says here you got a shot at parole in seven months.
Number might come down or go up
depending how interesting you make our time here.
This is a simple question. See Danny that day or not?
Yeah, we saw him.
Kid was about to wet his shorts.
- You like that sound, maggot? - Let me go.
Should have learned to run faster, professor.
Might have lived a little longer.
Hey, what have we got here?
Man, that is one big-ass firecracker.
Fuse and everything. What are you gonna do with this, dork?
Let's light it under his twerp ass
see how many pieces it makes of him.
Leave it alone. It's ours!
Leave it alone! Or what, wuss?
Light it up, Griff.
[screaming]
Oh!
Broke my nose!
Kill him!
[groaning]
[screaming]
Ah!
[coughing]
What? The rocket's mine, numb-nuts.
Wait up.
Deviated my septum, little bastard.
[whistling] You hear that?
Still whistles when I breathe.
Got your asses kicked by a couple 12-year-olds?
Seth wanted that rocket real bad.
He was crazy enough to take us on for it.
Hey, I was honest with you.
That's got to be worth something, right?
Right. We'll get back to you, Malcolm.
No, you won't.
'I been in here long enough. I ain't stupid, but hey..'
Tell Bobby his big brother says hello, would you?
[Mack] Uh, took you long enough.
Thank you.
[both chuckles]
Never much into housekeeping.
[chuckles] Nice.
Those interviews that you took
from the boys in the neighborhood..
...still got them?
I got everything.
So, where do you want to start?
Seth Rundgren, Bobby Kent and Chuck Pierce.
Here you go.
You ever have a case like this?
You know, one that sticks with you
doesn't let you rest?
Yeah, I, I do.
Name's Cooper.
And the kicker is he's still out there.
Unsolicited advice?
Don't let it sit for 30 years.
Starts eating away at you.
Trust me on that.
Their stories are exactly the same across the board
pinnacle of human achievement.
Still doing it today. Chuck says it.
Seth's got the same lines, word for word.
Like "The Manchurian Candidate."
Danny gets killed here in the park
'and dumped in the Wissahickon.'
Then floats all the way down to the river.
Some of the injuries could have come from the beating he took
but the marks on his legs and arms..
maybe postmortem, bumping off the rocks as he drifted?
Well, it was a rainy summer.
Creek was swollen.
Would have only taken a few hours.
Now, that spot could be right where
our Michael Collins found the rocket.
Michael Collins?
'The guy who brought in the rocket.'
Probably a fake name.
Michael Collins was the third astronaut
on the Apollo 11 mission.
Third astronaut?
Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon
put their footsteps down, became heroes
and Michael Collins..
He stayed in orbit around the moon and never landed.
The boys were playing astronauts.
If Chuck was Armstrong, and Bobby was Aldrin--
Seth was Michael Collins.
[birds chirping]
Michael Collins.
Y-you-you followed me.
You found the rocket here?
No, not, not, not here.
Up the path by the ravine.
You brought it in 'cause you wanted us
to reopen Danny's case. Why?
I don't want to-to see it anymore.
I-I want it to stop.
What do you want to stop, Seth?
What I remember.
It can't be real.
What wasn't real?
The moon landing, the launch?
No, our..
...our launch was-was real.
You chickens through running away?
Oh, you made it back.
You got away.
- Holy crap. - How did you do it?
Danny punched Malcolm right in the honker. Paw!
Nah, it was all Seth.
I'd be dead if he didn't come back.
[Bobby] 'We're all dead anyways.'
Malcolm will never let this go.
Forget it. He can kill us tomorrow.
Right now...we got a rocket to launch.
[in unison] Yeah.
Let's do it.
♪ Walking along the river road at night ♪
♪ Barefoot girls dancing in the moonlight.. ♪
- This is right here. - Yeah.
- Great. - This is it.
Engraved it
so whoever finds it knows who we are.
The Rocket Boys.
- It's great. - Hey, guys, listen.
[Neil Armstrong on radio] 'One small step..'
They're walking on the moon.
[Neil Armstrong on radio] '...one giant leap for mankind.'
♪ Skip it across Green River.. ♪
Wow.
They did it.
You light it, Seth.
Whoa!
[in unison] Ten, nine
eight, seven
six, five
four, three, two
one!
♪ With flat car riders and cross-tie walkers.. ♪
What happened then, after the launch?
What happened out here?
We had to jump.
It was only way to get home
before our parents caught us.
Chuck and Bobby told me he-he didn't make it
but I-I know that's not true.
Because I saw him.
I think you're gonna have to come with me.
How long you been at him?
Hour or so. Guy's all over the place.
Still think he knows who did it?
I don't know.
A whole lot more than just
phone calls between these three.
Chuck and Bobby have been paying Seth's way the last 20 years.
A lot of money.
Got Chuck's name on receipts for clozapine, loxitane.
Heavy meds.
They're doing everything they can to keep him quiet.
Boss!
Get the medics!
This is Rush in Homicide.
Get a medic unit in here now.
[door opening]
Pronounced him at the ER at Roxborough.
Guy was a mess. I shouldn't have left him alone.
[John] 'Yeah, well, nothing you could have done, Nick.'
Something happened at that creek.
And Seth would rather die than tell us what it is.
[door opens]
Your friend's on the slab, Bobby.
Seth?
Killed himself right over the table you're leaning on.
Died keeping your secret.
Almost like you killed him yourself.
Poor guy.
Never really had a chance.
Friends like you... I guess not.
Don't seem very surprised, Chuck.
We did everything we could to help him.
Why is that? Goodness of your heart?
We were practically brothers, the three of us.
We couldn't let him down.
That's what everybody did his whole life.
- You tried to help him. - That's right.
Just little things.
- Making sure he was okay. - 'Little things?'
Like the 14,000 bucks for his mental hospital?
Ten years' worth of antipsychotic meds?
That wasn't me.
What happened at the creek, Bobby?
Seth said Danny made the jump, Chuck said he didn't.
What's Chuck paying all that money to hide?
Alright, so I...I paid a few of Seth's bills.
It's only because he couldn't afford to do it.
- Bobby, either. - You were keeping him quiet.
- No, I was helping him cope. - 'With your secret.'
Tearing him up inside for the past 39 years.
[Scotty] 'The jump, Chuck.'
Tell us what happened at the jump.
Chuck bent over backwards to help Seth.
That's the kind of guy he is.
End of story.
I got nothing else to say.
Little memento for you.
Sit here with your dead friends
and think about how they got that way.
[Scotty] 'Now, Chuck's not gonna break unless we got him cold.'
Bobby's so deep in his thrall
it's like getting him to rat out Jesus.
Hero worship.
[John] 'Chuck's throwing money at the problem'
but Bobby's doing all the work.
'Cause Bobby actually cares.
I got this.
[door opens]
Get up.
I gotta cuff you before I take you to your cell.
Wait...what?
[Nick] 'Chuck tossed you under the bus.'
You're locked up for murder.
Chuck wouldn't..
- He wouldn't do that. - Well, he did.
And he's gonna get away with it because you're too spineless
to do the right thing.
Get up!
[Bobby] 'I didn't do anything.'
I didn't do anything!
Save it! Bedtime story for your cellmate.
Wait, Chuck said I did something?
- Why would he do that? - I don't get it.
You follow the guy around like a sheep.
- I'm not a sheep. - Ba, ba, ba.
That's all I hear when you open your mouth.
Guy thinks he's the king of the world, jetting around
and you're stuck here cleaning up the mess.
With Seth? I was glad to do it.
Chuck said we were a team.
He's my best friend.
Sit down.
[clattering]
Last chance.
Or you're gonna spend the rest of your life
in a cell half the size of this room.
We tried to get back home after we launched the rocket.
Chuck said he knew the way, but he was wrong.
[dramatic music]
Not this place again.
We've been out here all night.
We gotta get home.
Too far to jump.
We gotta go around.
That's what you said last time.
How we got lost in the first place?
We're never gonna make it back before our parents wake up.
- What about your dad? - I said it's too far.
Standing around talking about it is just gonna take longer.
We can do it. You?
Not a chance. Forget it.
We can do anything. We're the Rocket Boys.
Will you shut up about that? It's stupid.
It's not stupid. It's the best thing ever.
You don't get it. I'm not even supposed to be out here.
My dad finds out, I'm dead, okay?
We go around.
What's this? Let's go.
I'm with Danny.
[chuckles] You'll never make it, Seth.
Yeah? Watch me.
[intense music]
[laughing] He's right.
See you at home, suckers.
[chuckles] Almost didn't make it over, fat-ass.
Lay an egg, psycho.
I cleared it by a mile.
Yeah.
[instrumental music]
Race you to the bend.
I never saw a kid so proud of himself.
Chuck said he was too weak, he didn't make it.
But he did.
So how'd he end up in the water?
I don't know. We ran ahead.
Look, Chuck was the leader.
If he said it, it had to be true.
After a while, I started believing it myself.
But Seth never did.
It just chewed him up on the inside.
I've been checking into your family, Chuck.
Who knew the Pierces were such an American dynasty?
Yeah, dad's a war hero.
Built a textile company from scratch
turned it into an empire.
You got a point?
It's hard to live up to. Only son.
A lot of pressure on a kid.
I thrived on it.
- Some people do. - Right.
Right, 'cause you were following in his footsteps.
And 12-years-old or not, you were a leader.
That's why, when Danny fell in the crick
you tried to save him.
Kid was so out of shape..
...he couldn't hold himself above the water.
He must've panicked.
That's what happens, situations like that.
[whispers] Yeah.
Maybe he was gonna pull me down with him.
I...I had to save myself.
I..
I mean...so help me, God.
I let him drown.
Then covered it up.
Papa Pierce found out, worse than being punished
he'd have been disappointed in you.
It was an accident.
And I spent the rest of my life trying to make up for it.
[Lilly sighs]
You know, there's just this one little detail
that doesn't fit.
Danny didn't drown, Chuck.
There's no water in his lungs.
- That's got to be a mistake. - 'No mistake.'
Someone cracked him in the skull with a blunt object.
[Scotty] Whack.
[Lilly] 'We didn't just check into your family, Chuck.'
We checked into you.
[Scotty] 'Being an astronaut, now that would've gotten'
your old man off your back for once.
No, but NASA rejected you. Three times.
It's a good thing he's not around anymore to see you.
Bus driver in the sky for rich people.
Now Danny, he was a real leader.
Danny was weak.
He was no leader.
Buddies thought he was.
Launched the rocket, made the leap.
Danny said jump and they jumped.
But you...you were scared.
And Papa Pierce finds out about that
might as well not go home at all.
You go to hell, alright. I was no coward.
And Danny's death was no accident.
You know what, I want a, I want a lawyer.
You're dying to shut us up.
Can see it on your face.
Know what we did to piss you off, what did Danny do?
Danny shouldn't even have been there.
Danny was no Rocket Boy.
Maybe not at the beginning, but he made the jump.
'He made it across.'
He wasn't the hero. I was.
[dramatic music]
It's okay, Chuck. You can do it.
You're Neil Armstrong, remember?
Just shut up!
I'm not scared, alright!
Then jump. Come on. It's no big deal.
Help me!
Chuck!
Chuck, Chuck, I lost my glasses!
I can't see! Chuck!
Help me!
Chuck! Chuck, help!
[coughing]
[dramatic music]
Chuck!
Chuck, help me! Chuck!
[Bobby] 'Hey, what's going on?'
I won't tell them you were scared, Chuck.
[Seth] 'Hey, where are you, guys?'
You think I was scared?
[Seth] 'What's going on?'
[screaming]
[dramatic music]
[instrumental music]
[Procol Harum singing "A Whiter Shade Of Pale"]
♪ We skipped the light fandango ♪
♪ Turned cartwheels across the floor ♪
♪ I was feeling kind of seasick ♪
♪ The crowd called out for more ♪
♪ The room was humming harder ♪
♪ As the ceiling flew away ♪
♪ When we called out for another drink ♪
♪ The waiter brought a tray ♪
♪ And so it was that later ♪
♪ As the miller told his tale ♪
♪ That her face at first just ghostly ♪
♪ Turned a whiter shade of pale ♪
[instrumental music]
♪ She said there is no reason ♪
♪ And the truth is plain to see ♪
♪ But I wandered through my playing cards ♪
♪ And would not let her be ♪
♪ One of 16 vestal virgins ♪
♪ Who were leaving for the coast ♪
♪ And although my eyes were open ♪
♪ They might just as well been closed ♪
♪ And so it was ♪
[Lilly] Stay tuned for scenes from our next episode.
[theme music]