It's not a lot of non-patient visitors coming by.
RITA: Is Adam one of those visitors?
♪ (PENSIVE MUSIC PLAYS) ♪
When did it start?
Around when my father died.
-Did Adam have anything to do-- -Mm-mm, mm-mm, mm-mm.
I've started searching for my son.
Do you want to be a mom, Brooke? 'Cause we can do it.
This could be the thing that finally makes us an us.
You need closure on this chapter.
And when you're ready, all you have to do is call me.
You think that by lowering yourself,
you become more lovable.
The only way for you to experience real love
is if you stop dimming your light.
Brooke: You can probably imagine how I've wrestled with this.
I knew it would come completely out of the blue for you.
I didn't know how you'd feel. Um...
I still don't.
♪ ♪
But before I finish and let you respond,
I just, um...
You should know that I'm open to
whatever communication you're comfortable with.
I am not attached to an outcome here.
It's just that it's been 27 years of...
wondering, and I...
couldn't go another day without knowing you.
How does it sound?
Adam: Well, it...
It's not very different from the last version, right?
Well-- I-I added the part--
About not being attached. Yeah.
Do you like it?
I mean, it sounds good, but...
But what?
(sighs) I mean, come on, Brooke.
You're very attached to the outcome here.
I'm not. Really, I'm not.
You've been obsessing over this speech
since the day the file arrived.
What-what's this, the sixth draft? Seventh?
Those are just the ones I've heard.
And how many times have I run lines with you?
I mean, that Celebrex audition still haunts my dreams.
"Look at me. I'm free."
(soft laugh)
I'm nervous, okay?
Which means I'm obviously attached.
I just don't know how to do this any other way.
What if you just...
let it be what it's gonna be?
Don't over-think and over-plan.
Just pick up the phone, see what happens.
Because I'm not you.
Huh. Alright, well, I'm gonna get another one.
-You want anything? -Please stop asking me that every night.
-Only being a gentleman. -I think there's more to it than that.
Yeah. Of course you do.
Hey. Hey.
-Come here. (laughs) -(soft laugh)
Let me make us dinner.
You mean, I make us dinner.
-Yes. That. -Yes.
(both laugh)
(light piano music playing)
♪ ♪
Brooke: (sighs) It is like watching someone
swing from a trapeze or swim the English Channel.
It's just not something I'm ever gonna be able to do.
Bullshit. Even you can slice a baguette.
(soulful song playing)
Can't I just tear it into pieces?
♪ Oh darling... ♪
-Fine. -(grabs knife)
Thin slices or thick?
-Baguette slice-sized, thank you. Yes. -(laughs)
Did you know in Peru, there's a city of bread?
-Oropesa, it's called. -Oropesa.
-Mm-hmm. -I did not. How do you know that?
It's, uh, just outside of Cusco.
My teenaged patient sent me
-a selfie from there. -Yeah?
-She's really making her way, huh? -Yeah, she is.
-Very proud of her. -(song continues)
You see yourself in her, don't you?
From one girl who's always leaving to another.
♪ Tell me that you want me ♪
Is that true?
(laughs) I mean, certainly is to me.
Every few years, I go to bed thinking all is well,
and then I open my eyes in the morning...
She's gone.
(song continues)
See? What do you need Rita and Paul for?
I'm all the insight you need, baby.
(soft laugh)
(puts down bowl)
-What? No, no, no, hey, hey, hey, no! -No, Adam?
Do not insult this wine with a water glass.
Shit. Sheesh.
-There you go. -(soft laugh)
(cutlery clinking)
(contented sigh)
-I think I, um, overestimated your abilities. -Oh.
-What-what? Tragedy. -(laughs)
-(slicing) -Mm!
♪ Oh! Tell me that you want me ♪
-Both: Mm! -(slicing)
-Bam. (laughs) -Mm!
(both laughing)
Please make this one better than the last one.
There's literally nothing better than G. Love & Special Sauce.
Oh.
Wait, where's the rest of the "Never Forget Philly" collection
-I put together when you moved? -It's in there somewhere.
Everything's alphabetized.
(soft laugh)
Oh yes.
(record player clicking)
-("I'll Make Love To You" by Boyz II Men playing) -Oh no!
-Oh yes! Oh yes. -(laughs) No!
-Oh... Oh. -And you're gonna dance with me. Come on.
Come on now.
-(both laugh) -(puts down glass)
You know, the tall, skinny guy was my favorite.
-Shawn? Shawn was your dude? -Yeah!
-I know, I know. I can't explain it. -(laughs)
-Especially after the braces. -(laughs)
-You know? (laughs) -Yeah.
I think about it a lot actually. (laughs) I mean, imagine...
being at the height of your fame and getting
adult braces!
(both laugh)
Poor guy! Oh!
Both (singing): And I will not let go!
-Till you tell me to... -(both laughing)
Oh, this is ridiculous!
-(both laugh) -Oh!
This makes me think of junior year homecoming dance.
-You know, I-I'd do it all over again. -Hm?
Junior high,
high school, all of it.
-You would? Why? -Yeah.
-Shit was easy. All I had to do was coast. -(laughs)
(both laugh)
And it'd mean that,
eventually,
I'd get to meet you for the first time all over again.
-Oh, you are so full of shit. -(laughs)
-Am I? -Yes! (laughs)
-Yes! -(both laugh)
-Oh, are you okay? -(laughs)
-That's enough of that. -Yeah, that was enough of that.
(sighing) Oh. Oh man.
Uh...
-I don't know how you did it. -(turns off record)
-Did what? -Makes you think of how the worlds we grow up in
sink their teeth into us. (laughs)
Hey, Philly's tough.
Big city. Horrible weather.
And your neighborhood...
Yeah, I-I think I know what you mean.
I-I bet meeting you so young though,
-I wasn't a fully formed dickhead yet, so... -Mm.
I'll never forget it.
You walked into The 'Vous, that was it for me.
(laughs) You have a strange way of showing it.
I was with the whole cast. You know, I had to play it cool.
No, you were with Amanda.
-Who? Who? -(clicks tongue, scoffs)
-(whispers): Amanda. -(both laugh)
This place...
did a number on you, didn't it?
But still, you came back.
Yeah.
I'll be honest, uh...
fucked me up when you broke the news.
Well, leaving you was the hardest part.
(laughs) Yeah.
I-I-I'm not talking about you and me.
Like, the whole thing just fucked me up. The...
It proved that if-if you're moving back here,
(laughs) then we're all just continuous suckers for our pain.
(ice clinking)
You know?
Yeah.
Make me another one and...
-meet me outside? -Mm-hmm.
(ice clinking)
-(insects chirping) -(light breeze blowing)
(singing): Abide with me...
♪ Fast ♪
♪ Falls the ♪
♪ Eventide ♪
♪ The darkness ♪
♪ Deepens ♪
♪ Lord, with me ♪
♪ Abide ♪
♪ When other ♪
♪ Helpers ♪
♪ Fail to comfort ♪
♪ Me ♪
♪ Help all the ♪
♪ Helpless, Lord ♪
♪ Abide with ♪
♪ Me ♪
I sang that at my mom's funeral.
-Beautiful. -Hm.
I don't know how I got through it.
So young.
Or that was exactly how I got through it.
First time I lost someone.
I had no concept.
Death means something different to me now the older I get.
I've found a perfect solution.
-I just don't think about it. -Hm.
At my dad's funeral, I...
this feeling washed over me.
It wasn't grief. It was, um...
recognition?
This... crazy deep sadness that
I'd entered this new phase.
Birthdays,
who cares?
The time in life where your friends are getting married,
that's over.
Now (laughs),
just about all the babies have been born, so...
now, life is just a series of funerals
until it's your own.
Why-why-why you, why you talking like this?
(wind chimes ringing)
We've been a witness to each other's lives, haven't we?
A w-witness?
Hell, hell yeah, we have. You know? It...
Next year, we'll have known each other
for longer than we haven't known each other.
(laughs) I can picture you--
I know you can picture me when, but what...
what about now, Adam?
What do you...
How do you see me now when you look at me?
-What-what do I see? -Mm-hmm. I need to know.
-Look at me. -(sighs)
Tell me.
-I really don't wanna do this. -Please?
What do I see? Wh... What do you want me to say, Brooke?
Th-th-that you look sad?
Yeah, we're all fuckin' sad.
It's been a shit year for every human on Earth.
Sad?
Yeah. Sad.
I'm not a thesaurus.
And you're sad, too?
Yeah. Sure.
I mean, sometimes. I mean, it's not like, you know, just...
Baby (clears throat). Don't listen to me.
I'm sorry. Don't listen to me. I'm a mess.
I mean, you don't have to apologize. I mean, like...
-you're going through it, you know? -Oh!
I am. I really am.
(sighs)
Let's just hope your son doesn't inherit
all this doom and gloom of yours, you know? (soft laugh)
No...
-Brooke. -I'm going to get a refill.
-It was a joke! -Okay.
Ugh...
Stop acting like a victim.
I can't so much as roll over in bed without you mentioning him.
Talking about how much you want to see him,
going over your speech over and over again.
It-it's not fair for you now to act like
-he's some third rail that can't be discussed. -Not as a joke!
I was trying to lighten the mood.
Oh, well, how about this for lightening the mood?
I hope your kids never inherit your laziness,
your arrogance, or any of your other fuckboy tendencies
-that I fell for. -That you fell for?
Yeah, like I'm some fuckboy mastermind.
Mastermind wouldn't be the word I'd use.
Oh, Brooke, you think I haven't figured out that
you're smarter than me?
I did that math years ago, and I'm totally comfortable with it.
-How nice for you. -No, I think it's nice for you.
Zero competition, right? No one can be as smart
or as deep or as hurt as you.
-You own it all! -Oh, that is true, at least between us.
I will always be more whatever than you
because I am willing to have real feelings.
I see them and I feel them,
and I make meaning out of my pain.
I try.
-I really try. -Until you don't.
(sighs)
-.(puts down glass) -I'm going to bed.
(clattering)
(runs water)
-(shuts off water) -See, this is exactly what I'm talking about!
There she goes, folks!
Always fuckin leaving me high and dry!
(clattering)
(click)
-Not tonight, Brooke. -(mumbling) I'm tired.
-Hey. Sit up. -No. No, I don't want to.
-I'm gonna make you go through it. -I don't wanna go through it.
Why? 'Cause it's so much fun?
-It's no fun at all. -Yeah, so we're lucky then.
Lucky, yeah.
You know, thank God
we never made a real run for it.
Never got married, never got pregnant.
Me having the forethought to take that
morning-after pill.
You did that?
Why did you do that?
-Tell me. -(scoffs)
I mean, look at us.
Who deserves us as parents?
Well, you clearly...
think your son deserves you as a mother.
So, the real question is
who deserves me as a father?
(sighs)
How many more times are you gonna underestimate me?
-I... -You do.
You always have. Every audition I go to.
I can see it in your eyes.
-You don't think I'm gonna get the part. -Can we sit down?
And I know what you think.
Brooke: Think about what?
(sighs) I know you, Brooke Taylor.
I knew you since before you got all those
fancy letters after your name.
-I know how you frame it in your mind. -I'm confused.
You think I like it when you're drunk.
Oh! I know that you do!
-I like it when you've had a drink. -(scoffs)
When we're laughing,
-having fun, we're relaxed. -Mm.
But you think I like it
because it gives me an advantage.
That you're dulled, so I can shine.
-I don't think that. -Let's be clear here. I never put
put a goddamn drink in your hand that you didn't ask for.
Yeah, but you never care to come around when I'm sober.
No, because that's when you leave me!
Oh, oh, so we're gonna pretend like you could stop drinking
-when I decided to stop? -You never asked me to!
Get out!
I'm not the alcoholic here. You are! But somehow,
I get cast in the role as
the fuck-up, the-the fuckboy, the loser.
'Cause that's easier for you.
As long as you can keep on assuming
that I can't give you what you need,
you can keep me at arm's length. You get to stay safe.
But what if that makes you bad for me?
-Can we just sit down? -All I'm saying is, we both know what this is,
and it pisses me off when you act like the innocent.
-Y-you called me six weeks ago! -And you came running!
You're welcome, 'cause that's the dance we do.
But you know what the fucked-up part is?
I'm good with it.
I'll drift in and out of your life like a fuckin' tumbleweed.
I'll respond to your texts when you feel lonely,
and I'll slink away when you come to your senses because...
I know that...
one of these times...
you won't need to go.
You'll want to stay with me.
Because me being there...
won't be seen as a bad thing...
but as a good thing.
Because we love each other.
We love each other.
(light piano playing)
♪ ♪
(heavy breathing)
(heavy breathing continues)
(inaudible)
♪ ♪
(birds chirping)
(wind chimes ringing)
(line ringing)
(ringing stops)
Rita (on phone): Hello?
Rita.
♪ ♪
I'm ready.
Rita: Hallelujah. That's my girl.
I'm on my way.
♪ ♪
♪ Abide with me ♪
♪ Fast falls ♪
♪ The eventide ♪
♪ The darkness ♪
♪ Deepens ♪
♪ Lord, with me ♪
♪ Abide ♪
♪ When other ♪
♪ Helpers ♪
♪ Fail to comfort me ♪
♪ Help all ♪
♪ The helpless, Lord ♪
♪ Abide with ♪
♪ Me ♪