[eerie music]
♪ ♪
- I remember damage...
[sharpening knife]
- Then escape.
both: Then adrift in a stranger's galaxy
for a long time.
But I'm safe now.
I found it again...
- My home. - My home.
- It's been a week.
Can you stop worrying about David?
- You should be more worried.
- He was so sad about his wife.
I wonder what happened to him.
- What did he say his wife's name was, again?
- Rose.
- By any other name.
There probably was no "Rose."
- I know that.
Well, so what if people make up who they are?
It's what you all do all the time.
- All of who? Actors? - Pre-Pans.
- [scoffs]
- What did he say to you when you were alone with him?
- Why do you care so much?
- Well, I care,
because if something happens to you, it's my fault.
The world's still a very dangerous fucking place, Alex.
- Cartwheel.
- Just--don't talk to strangers!
- Welcome to the fork in the road,
the beautiful Petoskey Station!
- I finished reading it!
It's inspired. Inspired!
Really. - What is it?
- Wendy adapted "Hamlet."
Takes place in Portland, Oregon.
Told in the vernacular of '90s indie rock.
It's wild. - All right.
Circle the wagons.
- Four watch points.
Swap every four hours.
That's our route.
Learn to love it, Dan. We don't go off-wheel.
- Why is Pingtree crossed off?
- That way's Pingtree.
Golf course where a bunch of professors live now.
Gil, our second founding member, he retired there.
And that way's Nuevo Santiago.
Whew, they love music.
- We used to split up every year.
Actors went that way, and musicians went that way,
and we'd rally here afterwards and all head to Traverse City.
- So why don't we do that anymore?
- Gil had a second-marriage thing going on at Pingtree.
Some professor named Katrina.
Conductor found out, like, three years now,
and she shot Gil.
- She killed our director?
- Nah, she winged him. He quit.
Haven't split the troupe since.
Go dig the shitter. - Right.
We don't go to Pingtree.
[keytar playing]
[bike bell chimes]
- Stranger.
- Hi! Hello! Hello.
- No danger. - I finally caught you!
- No danger.
- I'm very much looking forward to your next performance...
tomorrow.
- Dieter, here's a suspicious man
I didn't bother to tell you about from the other day.
- [laughs]
Perhaps this is the perfect time
to invite you once more
into the Museum of Civilization.
To the east.
It's only a week away, and I will personally guide you.
Personally guide you.
We're fans of yours, Ms. Larson.
I listen to it all the time.
- How? - Uh--
- Well, we will not be coming to your town,
but I will be taking this.
Thank you.
I used to be on NPR.
- Well, um...
perhaps I'll--I'll try you again in Nuevo Santiago.
- The answer's still gonna be no!
- Third--third time is a charm! [chuckles]
Remember what you love.
- We don't leave the wheel.
[unsettling music]
♪ ♪
- "Beware the Prophet. If you see this man,
"cover your ears and run for your lives.
"Beware the terrible prophet in these parts
and the cult of the children who follow him."
- Oh, fuck.
- That should clear it up.
- Okay.
- He asked me what it was like
to be the only Post-Pan in the troupe.
I said I didn't think about it that way,
but he said that I should...
That Post-Pans were special...
the first human generation to be rid from trauma...
and that the survivors were the only liars left.
- That's what the Undersea thought.
It's from "Station Eleven."
- Maybe he read it. - No.
There's only one copy, and I hid it.
Huh.
It's at Pingtree...
in Gil's office.
- We should go tonight. Just us.
Check on Gil and...
and make sure everyone's okay.
- I'll talk to Sarah.
[thunder rumbles]
Let's unload.
[Pearl Dowell's "It's All Over"]
♪ ♪
- ♪ You don't move me ♪
♪ Like you did once before ♪
♪ Don't care for you anymore ♪
- Ready? Are you ready? - Yeah. Yeah.
- Are you ready? - Go. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, there you go. - Oh! Fuck!
- What's wrong with you? [laughter]
You're so bad at cards.
- We should do this more, though, for real.
I mean, it's not like we have lives or anything.
- Yeah, but you've been writing.
- Don't attempt to score "Hamlet."
It will kill you.
"The winds of chaos," as my mama used to say.
I saw you...
onstage.
Something had you...
just for a second.
What happened?
Tell me.
- Is this what you were playing when I met you?
- I was attempting to play that.
- You can't play "La campanella" on the keytar.
- That's not the reason I can't play it.
I still fantasize, though...
About that harlot being forced to hear me play it for Gil.
- Maybe we should go back. - No!
Fuck her, and fuck him.
- I did hear something, actually, um...
At St. Deb's.
I don't know. It might have been a rumor.
- What?
- That Katrina died, actually.
- What? How?
- Pneumonia.
Although...
I don't know.
You know what? It was secondhand.
And I don't know if...
- Everyone!
- Oh, Sarah.
- Listen up!
We're splitting the troupe.
The actors and I are going back to Pingtree.
The rest of you, take the wagons
and go on to Nuevo Santiago.
- We just make up the rules as we go.
Why?
[pensive music]
♪ ♪
[thud]
- Hey.
Now the road's open,
maybe we can go scavenging again.
- We don't need anything.
- How about a new book?
- I like this one.
- Why, though?
Really, I mean, I played the main guy,
and I still don't even know.
Is it actually any good,
or is it just what was in your backpack?
Read me a line.
- "To the monsters, we're the monsters."
- What does that mean?
- You murdered Big Daddy's entire family.
- Murdered?
- The wolves think you're scary like you think they're scary.
We're the same. - Hmm.
We're not the same.
- I don't know. Everything looks safe.
Everything looks normal.
Still the fake minefield. No sign of the Prophet.
I should have seen what he was doing.
- No, it's hard to see dangerous people.
- You knew it, though.
- Yeah, I knew it, but I was dangerous
when I was little.
And people really put their guard down
when you play vulnerable.
I mean, the leg, the dead wife.
- What's the situation?
- We're not sure.
- Does that sign say "minefield"?
- Let's go. - Yeah.
There used to be a minefield. - Yeah.
- Why are there mines on a golf course?
Just out of curiosity. - Oh, back in Year One,
a whole bunch of Red Bs took this place over.
- In the First One Hundred.
- And what are Red Bs? - Red Bandanas.
A bunch of militias of crystal meth morons.
Called them Kevins back in Virginia.
- I thought this place was all, like, nice people,
college professors and the old director.
- Professor from Purdue moved in
after the Red Bandanas all killed each other.
- Not all of them.
There's still some pockets in the woods.
- Yeah. To the east.
- And you know Vlad was a Red Bandana, right?
Really. You could ask him.
- There!
- Oh. - It's Gil.
- Hey! - Gil!
- Yeah!
- Hey! - Hey!
- Gil! - Hey!
- Gil! - Gil!
- Hey, will you have us back to play?
- Over here! - It's been too long.
- Stop moving!
We put the mines back in. - What's he saying?
- Gil, it's us from the Traveling Symphony!
- Stop! There's mines!
- Who is that? - It's Katrina.
- My God, I hate Katrina.
- Stop moving!
We put the mines back in!
- Well, hello to you, too!
- You're already in the middle of the minefield!
It starts back there at the fucking green!
- Oh, my God.
- You are surrounded!
Hello, Sarah.
- Stay still. - Okay.
So do you know where they are?
- Uh, well, we just sort of
scattered them everywhere out here.
- What happened?
Why did you put the mines back in?
- 'Cause he fucking took everything!
The Prophet!
- The cult came here last fall, and they...
- They stole your children!
- No! - No, Allie!
No, Allie! - Don't move!
Stay there! Stay there!
- Oh, my God.
- I'm sorry, Gil. Gil. - It's okay.
- Fucking--oh, my God. - She's okay.
- Gil, I'm scared. I mean, they're your kids.
- It's okay. It's okay. - It's all right.
- I'm so sorry. - It's okay.
- Okay. Did anyone see where she stepped?
- Kind of a straight line. - Oh, my God.
- No?
Okay. I think--
- Sarah...
we could really use your light and life more than ever now.
- [whimpers] Good!
- It's an even year! What comedy are you doing?
- "Hamlet."
- Well, we said we'd never do "Hamlet."
- Well, that was back when we made decisions together, so...
- I see.
So what are you planning for score?
"Tubthumping"? - Gil!
We all just almost died.
Could you not be an asshole for a second?
- Sorry. - You're not an asshole.
- Hi, Kirsten. Welcome back.
- Hi. - Don't talk to him.
- What did he do, though, specifically?
Why did you let him in?
- One day, a man and a boy appear at our front door.
They're on a journey.
They are traveling for the first time.
He even has crutches.
I mean, anyone who would be disarmed by that story
in Year Twenty...
- There's something about him, though--
the Prophet.
- You've met him?
- We both did,
uh, at St. Deborah's last week.
Yeah, we talked to him.
I'm not saying I trusted him. The opposite.
It was like he knew I knew he was pretending.
It was a game. - To me, he just felt honest.
Most Pre-Pans don't.
- Maybe if you're young enough, he can be compelling.
But he's not innocent or kind.
- Anyway, we gave them some food
and sent them on their way.
And he comes back the very next day.
No crutches.
Different name, different story, different kid.
And we ask him why.
And he just smiles and nods
and says, "There's no before.
The survivors are the problem."
- That psychopath stole my grandkids.
We let them have a campfire.
He told a ghost story, and two weeks later,
the only four children of Pingtree were gone.
- Penelope, Michael, Brett Olson, Annie.
- What was the story?
- I don't know.
- Okay, I can forgive these two--they're actors--
but one would think that the grandkids of professors
would have basic thinking skills.
- Enough, Sarah!
We need your joy right now.
Okay, let's--let's talk about the play.
Now, honestly, "Hamlet" is easily
the most overrated play of all time,
and, yes, I'm including "August Osage County."
- I love that play.
- Oh, of course you do, Dieter.
- I'm not a great actor. I know that, Gil.
- Well, we all know that, Dieter.
- I know that.
What's embarrassing is that you don't know
you're a bad director.
You're not missed.
- I knew this would just become a resentment festival.
- Is there an expression of basic joy?
- It's fine. We do this. This is what we do.
- Golf with weapons?
- The weapons were already here.
- Doesn't that sound a little close-minded to you people?
- Do you know what I think is close-minded?
Performing Shakespeare without updating it.
Oh, that's one of the reasons that you left, wasn't it, Gil?
- It's one of the reasons, yes.
You don't like risk.
- We're artists.
Everything is dangerous.
We have completely deconstructed "Hamlet"
this season.
It's set in Poland.
- Portland. - Whatever.
- What?
- Wendy is our writer.
Alex is the lead.
- Hey, that's awesome.
Wow.
Well, this sounds interesting.
Is this your first lead? - Mm-hmm.
- Congratulations. That's great.
- Afterwards, maybe I'll play a little on that baby grand.
- We should go rehearse, right?
[person coughing]
- I'm looking forward to this.
Hardly finished here.
- Dan! Now!
Thank you so much. Dinner was wonderful.
- Wait, what's a camcorder?
- A camera that takes videos.
- But phones make videos.
- I'm not saying that.
- You are gonna say it. - I'm not saying that.
- I'm the writer. - I'm the actor.
- Wen, I'm sorry,
this just doesn't feel like the same play.
It's not holding me. - It makes sense, you guys.
This is actually-- it's so powerful, Wen.
Hamlet's the same.
He doesn't see that Ophelia's faking everything.
He's obsessed with his own emotions.
- No, that's Ophelia.
- Forget it. This is gonna work.
Come on! Let's put it on its feet.
You heard Gil. They need us right now.
They need our light and our life.
Come on, come on! Oh, yes, it is gonna work.
- Hey. - Sorry.
Is she directing now, too?
- Just--just be more positive, okay?
It's your job to help, no matter what,
even if you're not a lead.
- Right.
Wen.
- Just try. Just once. - Okay.
[eerie music]
♪ ♪
- Where's my book?
- I don't know. Side pocket?
- What did you do?
Did you take it?
[footsteps approaching]
[doors open]
- [sighs]
- Hi.
- What are you doing here behind my desk?
- I was just looking at your big book of...
- I was thinking of adding the word "great."
"The Great Book of Joy and Despair."
Mm.
Fuck books.
You wanna putt?
I have balls.
- Uh, I'm good.
- I don't know why I leave that thing out there anyway.
Never try to write an oral history of the world
after it ends.
- We miss you, for what it's worth.
I mean, the actors, 'cause we have no director.
And Dieter's wrong.
You were really good at it.
- Yes.
- Gil, can I ask you something?
Is this what you thought it would be?
Like, living off the wheel?
- Oh, retirement.
Ah, not really.
No, no.
"Our revels are now ended.
"Yea, all which it inherit-- shall dissolve.
"We are such stuff as dreams are made on,
a little life rounded with a sleep."
- [chuckles]
- Come back.
Leave with us.
What? You can.
- Katrina just lost everything.
- So did everyone, 20 years ago.
- You sound like him, you know?
The Prophet.
"There's no before," right?
- I'm just saying you should come home...
if that's what you want.
- This is what I want.
[melancholic music]
♪ ♪
- "Station Eleven" is the story
of a stranger named Dr. Eleven,
who we first meet floating unconscious in space
and who then gets stuck aboard a broken space station.
Captain Lonegan is in charge, but he has no crew
and is locked inside the bridge
and just drinks scotch and talks about the past.
An explosion destroyed the "guyroscope"...
- Gyroscope. - Gyroscope.
And spilled half an ocean
into the workstations of the crew.
This drowned every grown-up.
The survivors are kids called the Undersea.
They want to go home and build a future Earth
by using time travel.
Dr. Eleven talks to both sides and doesn't care
what happens or what they do. - Hey, Jee.
- He scares everyone.
- You still scared of the dark?
- Yeah.
It's gonna get cold. [Luli meows]
- Hey, Luli.
[Luli meows]
- Hi. - Hi.
- Nice to meet you, Kiki.
- I don't wanna live the wrong life and die.
- What did the Prophet say to you?
What was so amazing?
I wanna know. Really.
- He asked me to leave the Symphony.
And I said yes...
Because that's how I felt that day.
And then after the bonfire,
I went to go meet him, and he didn't show.
- Well, thank God.
- I didn't wanna be with him. You get that, right?
I wanted to be the lead, just once.
- Well, I'm glad you get to.
- It's weird that you do that.
- It's weird that I do what?
- Take weapons to a play.
- Not to me, it's not.
- We all bow to you!
You're wonderful!
I love you, Ophelia.
Can't you see that?
No, you can't.
You're fake.
- My love is real.
You're just inside of it.
I knit you out of it. - [mouths] Hi.
- My entire family lived and died before we met.
That's true of everyone here.
Fuck you, Hamlet.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- Brava! Bravo! [cheers and applause]
- It was inventive, it was unlike anything
I've ever seen, and she, Alexandra, my God--
absolutely wonderful.
- You did bring us new life.
Well, we've been too scared to be out here
since he came.
The Traveling Symphony isn't afraid of anything.
- We're artists. We are terrified.
- Well...
you don't seem to be.
Sometimes I think we should be out there looking for them.
- Well, maybe they'll just come back on their own.
- Sorry. Really important play thing.
- [squeals] - Come on, girl. This way.
The way they held you when you said it,
and there's just something about being Hamlet, you know,
and just, like, devouring people.
[imitates explosions]
- You were really great, Allie.
I should say that more often, but you were.
- Come ride with me. We'll celebrate!
Come, come, come. Come on! - No. No, no, no, no, no.
- Come on. Come on. - Stop.
- We'll ride the minefield. There's no before.
- Hey!
Don't say that. That guy's a psychopath.
He probably does the same thing in every town he goes through.
- No. That's you...
all of you.
Oh, you never deviate.
Rules. Routines.
"We never split the troupe. We never go off-wheel."
"Ah, wow! Hooray! They're here.
"It's--it's the--
"the terrified carnival of trauma!
It's the Traveling Symphony!"
- Hey! Just--stop it.
The Traveling Symphony raised you.
Watch your mouth. - I'm going for a ride.
- No! - No?
both: You are not going! - God damn it!
- Why not? - Because he's still out there!
He didn't die when I stabbed him!
Yes, I tried to protect you at the bonfire, Alex!
That's why he didn't meet up with you.
You're welcome.
- Why are you so mad at me? - I'm not--
both: Whatever happens to you is my fault.
- I haven't made a single choice for myself
since I met you.
I was just supposed to walk you.
- You made us leave Frank's.
- Yeah, but we waited too long.
We stayed for your fucking play.
- Why are you being like this?
- Because you can't just say
you felt like leaving the Traveling Symphony one day.
- No.
I can't.
I'm sorry.
I'll just be downstairs.
- Don't worry. It's still in the Ziploc.
- Alex, it's getting dark.
Just make sure everyone comes inside.
- Okay.
[groans]
[distant chatter]
- Found this onstage. On the ground.
- I never liked this recording.
- Why not?
- I recorded it two months before my father passed away.
That's all I think about every time I play it.
The whole thing just dies when you try to capture it.
It's like it happened, and then it ended,
and then, that's it.
- Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
- What's wrong?
- Well, I moved into a country club.
- [chuckles] You did do that.
- Yes, I did.
- These people respect you. - Yeah.
- Katrina there loves you.
I never treated you very well.
- Yes, you did.
You wrote a brand-new fucking symphony every year.
You actually got better after the world ended.
- So what?
You heard me.
You organized me.
- Sarah...
You do know
that I love everything we made together.
- I feel the same way.
But I didn't leave.
[solemn music]
♪ ♪
[horse whinnies]
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- Alex, you can't. There are mines out there.
Alex! - Alex.
[thunder rumbles]
[unsettling music]
♪ ♪
- You're in our room.
- Hi.
What are you wearing?
What is that?
Is that a mine?
- They're beacons for the Prophet.
- Oh.
Well, maybe you can show me.
- Your friends are gonna start to disappear.
♪ ♪
First, Alex.
The Conductor maybe?
- [grunts]
- Who knows?
♪ ♪
- Penelope?
- I'm not Penelope.
- Okay.
- He's wearing a bomb!
Stop!
- You know, I seem to remember
a little girl
who loved miniature golf.
She loved it.
♪ ♪
- Gil, the kids have bombs!
- Do you wanna try?
Show me.
♪ ♪
[cheers and applause]
[glasses crack]
♪ ♪
- Stop! No, no, no.
♪ ♪
Gil, he's got a bomb!
- You came back. - Gil!
- There is no-- - There is no before.
[eerie music]
♪ ♪
- Captain's log. Star date 2817.6.
Starship "Enterprise" diverted the schedule
for the purpose of a confirmed discovery
by Dr. Thomas Leighton.
An extraordinary new synthetic flu,
which would totally end the threat of famine.
- You mean to tell me, you called me
three light-years off my course
just to accuse an actor of being bogus?
- Jeevan!
Jeevan! - [mouths] Guys!
[lighter clicking]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪