- Previously on "Limetown"... - Goodbye, Dorothy.
[gunshot] - [gasps]
- This whole story has to stop, Lia.
The whole thing has to stop. It cannot continue.
- Would you hold on to that for me?
- Of course. - Thank you.
Maybe someday it'll find its way home.
- We had an agreement, and yet, five seconds later
you turn around and agree to talk to Deirdre Wells.
I can't just sit here and let people die like this.
- Hello, agent Siddiqui.
- Mark called.
- [grunts]
- [gasping]
- He told me about Deirdre Wells.
And you have the full support of the FBI behind you.
[tense music]
[door opens, footsteps]
[door closes]
- [sighs]
[music continues]
[beeps]
- Are you asking me to wear a wire?
- No. I'm telling you to wear one.
- I'm absolutely not wearing a wire.
- Lia, we're here,
and there is no time for a negotiation.
So just wear the wire.
And let me be very clear.
If you disable it,
you will have Interpol
entirely up your ass in, like, 60 seconds.
And I will have to shut down your story...
and take everything from you.
Do you understand?
[water running]
[music continues]
- My name is Lia Haddock,
and I am an investigative reporter for APR.
And I have spent many sleepless nights...
[muffled thuds]
[whispers] Many sleepless...
I have spent many
sleepless nights recently asking myself
if I should continue to tell this story.
- [breathily] Lia.
- And the only answer I have come to
with any real certainty
is that I have to tell it.
Because if anything has been made clear to me,
in following this story...
is that someone must be held accountable.
It is...
bigger than me.
It is bigger than APR.
This is why I will continue.
[dark music]
I met Deirdre Wells at her home
somewhere outside of the United States.
So you lived here this whole time, since Limetown?
- That's right.
15 years.
15 years...
Of trying everything I possibly could
to escape the feeling that I had blood on my hands.
But it wasn't until I heard your show...
That I realized...
How simple the solution really was.
There's only one way to free yourself of guilt,
and that's by telling your truth.
All of it.
My name is Deirdre Wells.
I'm deaf, so I'm speaking to you through an interpreter.
This isn't my voice, but this is my story.
And I was responsible for the panic at Limetown.
I met Max in 2001.
He was a brooding, genius asshole.
- Hey, hey.
I loved him right away.
[soft music playing]
- Stay.
Stay.
Why do you writers have to go to these retreats?
What is it that you are retreating from?
Are you gonna call me?
You gonna--you gonna write?
Are you even gonna think about me?
- Your scarecrow. Why?
Why the hell's that?
- Oh.
I think you're entirely too sexy to be a Dorothy.
- Ten years later, when Max asked me
to go to Limetown I said, "No, I have a novel to write."
He then very calmly, very honestly said to me,
"I'm going to change the world,
"and I can't do that without you.
We're going to Oz, and I need my Dorothy,"
so I said okay.
- We should pause here,
to talk about the technology itself
and its spread in the town, for context.
The late Dr. Chambers told us about the ill-fated
but successful animal trials of the product.
And the late Dr. Finlayson told us
that the human trials were also a success.
From there, it was decided to give the surgical implant
to half the town using the other half as a control group.
Living in Limetown made you a part of a grand experiment,
whether you liked it or not.
When Max got the call and Deirdre didn't she was scared.
Max saw it as the only way everyone would know
the process was fair.
Deirdre saw it for what it was--
a clear divide
between the haves and the have-nots.
[dark music]
[indistinct chatter]
- [distorted] And that's why I married her.
[both laugh] - She's very...
- Awful. Awful too.
- [laughs]
- Max?
Max? - [laughs]
I'm sorry.
Gary over there was just telling Lisa
that it's so funny how sometimes, uh...
- What?
- It--it doesn't matter.
- Don't. Don't.
What is the special today, please?
- Those who were given the implant
were required to take a daily supplement
that was regulated at the pharmacy.
Now, the supplement allowed users
to focus their communication between specific partners.
Without it, there was only noise and chaos.
Now, this is important to remember for later.
For people without the tech,
the pharmacy remained a pharmacy.
And that is where Deirdre met her first ally in isolation.
- Old school.
- Writing things down. Pen and paper.
And I'm...
S-P-E-N-C-E-R
Yeah.
What do you do?
- Oh.
- [chuckles] Did he deliver?
If you want,
a group of us not on the list--
not picked--we get together
and make fun of all these...
[mutters] Dorks.
If you want to come.
- Cool.
I'm gonna see you around, old school.
- In the real world,
I don't think Spencer and I would have connected.
We were so different,
But there...
I could tell he was so lonely.
I was too.
- Deirdre, this is Harvey. - It was nice to listen.
Nice to be heard.
- When I asked Deirdre if the relationship with Spencer
ever became romantic she answered no
with the same sense of whimsy and detachment
that I felt throughout her interview.
It reminded me of something my father used to say.
Trauma either cracks your walls
or puts another coat of paint on 'em.
[dark music]
The evolution of the group
exposed this difference between them.
Deirdre painted.
Spencer cracked.
- Daddy-O's became ground zero for the left-behinds.
We even came up with a name for ourselves--the Old School.
For me, it was like group therapy,
but for Spencer...
it became a union.
- It isn't right what's happening.
- He became fixated on this idea.
Everyone working so hard,
but only half of us reaping the benefits.
- Those assholes won't even speak to us anymore.
- He was so angry.
- It's like-- it's like we're not even here.
- As the tension between the Old School
and those with the tech escalated,
Dr. Finlayson made a proposal to Deirdre
that seemed to break every rule of A/B testing.
Speaking for myself,
his explanation for doing so
seemed to be in complete disregard
of his character-defining objectivity.
Love was not a good enough reason
for his decision.
- Why not?
- [sighs]
Oh, you mean your comrades in the Old School?
Those people?
I need you to do this. - Why?
- Because I don't want to lose you.
I mean look at us. It's like we're strangers.
Like, we don't know any of the same words anymore.
Remember when you described riding a horse?
That connection you felt to another living creature?
You said riding gave you a physical way of communicating
that didn't require signing or spoken words.
It just was.
I want that for you. I want that for us.
Oh, I know. It's gonna be our little secret, right?
We'll do it on the sly, all right?
We're gonna do the surgery tonight.
Now. Quick and easy.
Nobody has to know but you, me, and Oscar.
No. There's no time.
I need you.
[soft dramatic music]
[faint indistinct chatter]
[music continues]
- I hope you know what you're doing, Max.
She's awake.
- Hey. You all right?
It's all right.
Hey.
It's okay.
I love you.
I love you most of all.
- The thing you have to understand about Max is...
He...
always operated on a different scale.
He wasn't trying to fix me.
He was trying to fix all of us.
And maybe, for a small,
perfect window of time,
it worked.
- Okay.
- To be able to hear my husband,
for him to be able to hear me,
was completely transformative.
But that feeling that this is better,
it didn't last long.
- Why not?
- The tech expresses what you are thinking,
like words express what you're thinking,
but not why you're thinking them.
The horror of this technology is it gets rid of any pretense.
You're exposed all the time.
Max knew I was angry before I even knew why I was angry.
Your vulnerability is just bounced back and forth
between the two of you.
We both felt a disaster coming,
but we didn't know if it was in the town or with us.
Eventually, things became so bad
we couldn't be in the same room together.
The same house.
But when I was with the Old School
I felt just as alone.
I was still inside my secret...
- Mm.
- Terrified of being revealed.
- I have a few thoughts to share,
regarding the pharmacy.
It should be mandatory
that all the staff speak with their voice.
Maybe--
maybe all departments should have to have one of us
as--one of the Old School.
[tense music swelling]
[faint indistinct chatter]
Maybe--
- Dorothy, I do miss you,
most of all.
[music continues]
[music intensifies]
[distant chatter]
- We need to--
- How long have you had the tech?
Deirdre, tell me.
Traitor!
- I tried to hang on to all of it.
That was reckless.
The next day,
Oscar called an emergency town forum
back at the diner.
There was so much fury.
- Please listen to me.
My friends, please.
My friends, we have done everything possible
to be transparent.
This experiment-- I'll answer questions shortly.
- We don't have questions. We have demands.
- Right. - Right!
- We demand to know why Deirdre Wells was given the technology.
- Yeah.
- What else are you, and Dr. Finlayson,
and the rest of the administration hiding from us?
all: Yeah! - Tell us the truth.
- Yeah, tell us the truth. - I know you're angry.
- We are! - Yes!
- I know you're angry. all: Yes!
- We have been lied to every step of the way.
We have been misled.
He promised us the world. all: Yeah!
- We should be angry. all: Yes!
- We are done being your God damn lab rats.
We are all leaving this ---- town.
- Yeah! - Please--please listen to me.
We are doing this together.
This incredible, incredible thing is about all of us.
We've come so far. Don't--don't go.
Not yet. You can't leave.
- We can't leave?
- Of course you can leave. I'm asking you not to.
- Hey, hey.
Don't touch me.
- Don't touch him!
- It happened just like that.
Pure rage in an echo chamber.
A mob mentality with no guardrails.
- Deirdre said the turn to violence
escalated quickly, after that.
The Old School had reached a boiling point,
and those with the tech
could only hope for the heat to die down.
- You chose his side, Deirdre.
The tech is bad.
It doesn't bring people together.
It doesn't solve all your problems.
It only hurts people.
It needs to die here.
- It is a lesson we learn over and over again.
The rage of a community
that feels left behind is capable of anything.
[dark music]
[all shouting]
- It took them a day,
but without the supplement
we were in a bad place.
We could hear every thought.
Feel every emotion.
There was no way of knowing
if this was spontaneous, or...
If it was just a culmination
of some dark fantasy Spencer always had inside him.
[music continues]
- [distorted shout]
There was a poetry to the revenge
that seemed beyond the will of a mob.
- [distorted shout]
[screaming]
all: Ahh!
- Whoever's idea it was, it was genius,
because whatever doubts I had about the tech...
Or whatever regrets I had--
they were exponentially magnified
the moment I realized
I was going to feel Oscar burning.
I was going to hear him beg for death.
And I did.
- Please stop.
Put a bullet in my brain.
Make this stop, please.
Help me!
Please!
- And then, in the middle of the most traumatic thing
I've had the misfortune of experiencing...
Something miraculous happened.
I was transported.
- Wait.
What do you mean transported?
[dramatic music]
- Taken somewhere.
- You mean emotionally?
- Exactly.
Comforted.
I don't know for a fact,
but I think,
finally, it was him.
I've never felt something like that, in my life,
and you were calm.
Calmer than you've ever been.
I had heard Max drunkenly talking about it once.
How pure his gift was.
And then just as suddenly.
- Don't touch her! Don't touch her!
- That was the last time I saw Max
or anyone from Limetown.
- Deirdre, Max tried to find you years ago,
and he only stopped because he was afraid you'd be harmed.
[soft piano music]
You don't have blood on your hands.
You're not complicit.
[music continues]
[beeps]
I turned the wire off because I already knew the answer.
I mean maybe I had always known the answer.
Deirdre, who was the Man That You Were All There for?
[pounding on door]
- Polizei! - [speaking German]
- Why are the police here? - I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry.
I couldn't have done this interview any other way.
[pounding on door] - I trusted you.
- Deirdre, I need to hear the name.
Please.
I need to hear you say it.
[thuds, overlapping shouting in German]
Are you listening now?
[men shouting in German]
- [speaking German] - Don't let them stop you.
- Have you always been listening?
- Psst, Apple.
[indistinct chatter]
- There's only one way
to release yourself from guilt,
and that is to tell your truth.
All of it.
So here is all of it.
Mark Green is a good man.
He was a good man, and he didn't deserve
what happened to him, but...
And I know this now...
Because I learned something about myself
that I would never have learned in any other way.
I would do it again...
Because my truth...
is that once you left, Emile,
there was no peace.
Limetown was the disappearance of you...
And knowing what happened there...
Knowing what happened there, I would...
I'd kill for it.
And I would die for it.
[dark music]
[distant shouting]
Are you there, Emile?
Are you listening?
[shouting continues]
That's the story.
That's the Man They Were All There For
and the-- the girl he left behind.
[door opens]
- That's now what I said. - I heard what you said.
[door closes, indistinct chatter]
The have and have-not.
Hello?
- Hello, Lia Haddock.
I have all the answers about Limetown.
Are these answers the most important things to you?
- Lia, Mark is dead.
- [grunts] - Was he murdered?
- They don't know.
You're going to walk out of here right now,
and go downstairs, and out on Fourth.
The FBI is about to seize everything related to Limetown.
You're live, Lia. You've gone viral.
- Okay, well, welcome, everyone who is listening right now.
- Hello, Lia Haddock. - Yes, hi.
- Would you like to come on in?