[faint footsteps]
[keypad bleeps]
[sinister music playing]
[Art] What the hell do you want with us?!
We didn't do anything!
Shh.
What'll it be, Wally?
Wally.
-You have five minutes. -Okay.
Okay.
-Where have you been? -What the fuck is going on?
Hey, everybody. Please shut up.
-We've been offered a deal. -A deal?
-Yes. -With people who tried to have me killed?
They insist Hank went rogue.
Well, as long as they insist.
What's this deal say about us getting out of here?
The deal says that we get to go back to our lives
in exchange for, um, complying with certain conditions.
-[disbelieving laugh] -What conditions?
Well, first and foremost, we have to give up the monster hunt.
Uh, second, we agree to never say a word about what we discovered to any soul.
No family, no friends, not anyone,
because they are listening and watching.
Third, at least for the time being, we can't leave The Boroughs.
Anyone who breaks these conditions
will end up back here at The Manor…
for good.
What aren't you telling us?
The last condition is I go to work for them.
-Doing what? -What?
I don't know.
Apparently, somebody was impressed with the bait that we created.
[Art] So we go back to our lives,
pretending that monsters
aren't sucking our brain juices in our sleep?
Hey, I've been assured that if we comply, we'll be removed from the rotation.
The rotation?
What about the rest of our neighbors?
Um…
Oh, no deal.
I'm with Sam.
Wally, you are not going to work for these leeches.
I took the deal.
Why?
Because look around.
We lost.
The more we learn about The Boroughs, the less anybody's gonna believe us.
The tragedy is we were just senile enough to think
we could stop them.
Come on. Be honest.
We're too old.
They're too powerful.
Take the deal.
Play pickleball. Take a class.
Share a good meal.
Enjoy the rest of your lives.
Take the deal.
If you don't, the only sky you're ever gonna see for the rest of your lives
is the one painted on these walls.
[TV signal drones]
[intriguing, unsettling intro music playing]
[serene, old-timey music playing]
[music trails off]
Fuckers.
I'm CEO Blaine Shaw,
and my grandfather founded this little slice of heaven
way back in 1950.
Fuckers.
[Blaine] …healthy and happy has been the family business for almost 75 years.
So kick back and enjoy.
I promise you'll have the time of your life.
There's always…
Fuckers!
They're still blocking our Internet.
What did you expect?
It's only been three days.
Snood works.
Who plays Snood anymore?
I do.
Hey, wanna go for that walk today?
I can't today.
Oh, you have something to do?
What is there to do?
We gotta do something.
Well, you go ahead and do whatever.
I'm gonna be eating cheese and smoking weed!
[man] Wally.
Hey, Wally.
It is good to see you, buddy.
First day.
Very exciting.
So… you're… one of them?
You make it sound so ominous.
What am I doing here?
You'll see.
[woman] I don't mind Ozempic face.
It's the Ozempic poops that bother me.
You're pooping?
Lucky girl.
I haven't gone to the bathroom since I started taking it last year.
Is everything okay, Renee?
Yeah, I just didn't sleep well.
Oh, you should get a white noise machine.
My granddaughter got me one.
Changed my nighttimes.
What's gotten into her?
Paz. Paz. Paz.
I'm so happy to see you.
I didn't hear from you. I thought they found out.
-Everything okay, Paz? -All good, Maddie.
I'll make sure the main office files that report, Ms. Joyce.
-Right. -Have yourself a good day.
Thank you, officer.
["Rock the Boat" by the Hues Corporation playing]
-[noisemaker toots] -Oh, Wally.
Welcome. Come in.
Come in. Don't worry. We don't bite.
So, what do you think of your new lab?
Of my lab?
Well, yours and Dr. Mansour's here.
What am I supposed to do with this?
First things first, you gotta meet the team.
Everyone, say hello to Wally.
Hello.
You know, after everything you've been through, I…
I can only imagine what you must think of us.
Nothing good.
[Blaine] Fair enough.
But I think
you'll come to find that we're not so bad as all that.
In fact, Phyllis here went to the trouble of putting together this little spread
in honor of your first day.
And she made the cupcakes herself.
And she puts a little lavender in there.
I dare you to try just one.
-Wally, they'll change your life. -I'll pass, thank you.
Well, if cupcakes aren't your thing…
[mysterious music playing]
…here's sweeter stuff.
Is…
Is that the…?
-Yes. -The…
Oh.
Well… I'm…
Will it cure my cancer?
Of course.
You're in the clover now, pal.
Stick with us, you'll never age another day.
You're gonna feel like a million bucks, forever.
So long as you drink.
I can't.
Don't be a drag, Wally.
[Blaine] Wally.
Wally.
Wally. Wally.
[all joining in] Wally. Wally.
[chanting intensifies]
[Blaine] Hey!
Hey!
There he is.
Welcome to the winning team, Wally.
Drink up, everyone.
Come through my oven again, you're getting zapped.
[phone ringing]
[TV pops]
[ringing stops]
[static buzzing]
[ominous music building]
Oh.
[Lilly moaning, pounding on screen]
Sam!
Sam--
Please help.
Sam, can you help?
-Where am I? -Lilly.
-Sam, where am I? -Please!
-Sam. -♪ Oh, come take my hand ♪
Sam.
I'm sorry.
[Sam panting] No!
-Sam. -I'm good. I will be good.
[overlapping, chaotic chatter]
-What do you want? -Sam!
Sam, help!
No! Stop!
Enough! Enough!
[screens thumping]
Sam!
[chaotic din halts]
[door slams open]
[Sam gasping for breath]
You all right?
What?
Are you all right?
No.
[Art sighs]
Want a hit?
Not sure that would do any good.
Yeah, probably not.
Mmm.
But what would?
I'm afraid I'm losing my mind.
"Insanity is the only sane reaction to an insane society."
And shit is crazy as hell around here.
I can't live like this.
What choice have you got?
They've got us tagged like animals, and they're watching every exit.
They're not watching the desert.
[Art] They're evil, but they ain't dumb.
That's 20 miles to the nearest anything.
A trip like that at our age is certain death.
It's better than The Manor.
Don't go out into that desert, Sam.
I just need to make it to the diner, call Claire,
get some help.
I can come back here with the cavalry and burn this fucking place to the ground.
Or you could try golf.
There's a certain satisfaction
with whacking that white ball all over the fucking place.
Yeah, Jack suggested the same thing.
Yeah. [chuckles wryly]
Hey, look, man.
It is what it is, you know?
Make peace with it best you can.
["Up, Up and Away" by Engelbert Humperdinck playing]
[distorted] ♪ Would you like to ride In my beautiful balloon ♪
♪ How'd you like to glide… ♪
[man] Trippy, right?
Oh, excuse me.
-The light show, I mean. -Oh.
Fair warning, it fades the more you drink, so enjoy it while you can.
-Oh. -I wish I had.
-Ernest. -Oh, hi.
Sorry. Wally.
Nice to have a new face here.
It's gotta be 20 years since someone joined,
something like that.
How old are you?
I'm 62.
Hey, me too! Birthday buddies.
Hey, do you like pickleball?
Uh, pickleball?
Yeah, pickleball.
I know it's the hot thing right now,
but I've been playing since '86.
I'm getting pretty good.
So, um…
what do you do here, Ernest Neeman?
I used to be head of IT.
Most of the infrastructure in this place was built in the '50s,
so it's all falling apart.
Scar, one of the kids, he actually escaped a few weeks back.
That sucked.
-But now, I'm the new head of security. -Oh.
You know, seeing as how your friends chucked Hank over a cliff.
Uh, "kids"?
What we call the spider ghoulie thing you killed down in the tunnel.
Why call them "kids"?
'Cause every mother's got kids.
-[Blaine] Hey, Ernest. -Yeah?
Help Kayleigh box things up?
Yeah. You got it, Mr. Shaw.
[Blaine] Having fun?
What the hell am I doing here?
Well, your job is to save a very special patient.
Dr. Mansour has been doing the best he can,
but unfortunately, his best isn't good enough anymore.
He needs your help.
We need your help.
And if you fail, we're all dead.
But… I promise, you and your friends
will die first.
[Wally] Mmm.
Perhaps I should meet this patient.
Good idea.
[suspenseful music playing]
Wally,
meet… Mother.
[suspenseful music intensifying]
Isn't she beautiful?
[music trails off]
[operator] Please leave a message for…
-[Sam] Sam Cooper. -…at the beep.
-[voicemail beeps] -Hey, Dad. It's me again.
Please call me.
I don't wanna pop in.
Nobody likes a pop-in.
Whoa.
What you doing?
I am fixing Ella's hoverboard.
Right.
What… What are you… What are you doing?
I'm wrestling with a conundrum.
See, my wife is a genius.
Hot and smart. That must be so hard on you.
You have no idea.
She designs planes for a living.
Yeah, she spits in the face of gravity every single day.
She makes the impossible possible.
She's an engineer, just like her dad.
She's tough, also just like her dad,
but that…
that toughness makes it sort of hard for her to…
show any weakness.
So when faced with the impossible,
she does have a hard time asking for help.
And what if she was able to ask for help?
What would you tell her?
Well…
I would tell her
that some things can't be fixed.
Only felt.
And I know she's gonna make the right choice…
-[Claire groans] -…no matter how impossible it feels,
because as much as she doesn't like to say it, she loves her family.
Another thing she got from her old man.
You're so lame.
I know.
But damn, I'm handsome.
Well, I'm gonna make my wife some mac and cheese.
Because I have this sneaking suspicion she has not eaten anything all day.
What'll it be, squiggly noodles or bow ties?
Squiggly things.
-[Paz] Hey. -No!
-Oh God, Paz, I'm so sorry. -[Paz coughing]
-I can't breathe. -I didn't know it was… God.
Don't go creepin' up on women.
You took the air out of me.
You're fine. You're fine.
-I missed you. -I missed you too.
But we can't be seen together.
These people are dangerous, but I've got a plan to get you all out.
The 75th anniversary is this weekend.
The town will be full of guests. Security will be thin.
Our best shot at a getaway.
Okay, so I'll tell everybody, get them on board, and we'll be ready.
Your house, phone, cars are bugged,
but you should be safe enough talking outside.
Even they can't surveil the whole town.
Here, take this.
I set it to a frequency they never use.
I've got the other,
but we should keep chatter to a minimum just in case.
Okay, over and out.
"Copy that." "Over and out" is when you're done talking.
-You are so cute when you're patronizing. -I know, right?
["Love Train" by the O'Jays playing]
Oh, shit.
Great, now the house is on fire.
-[Seraphim] Is there a problem, ma'am? -Like you care.
-Do you require the fire department? -I don't require anything from you.
Very well, then. Have a great day.
[laughs sarcastically] You are really enjoying this, aren't ya?
Thank you for choosing The Boroughs, where you'll have the time of your life.
You know what? I am. I'm having the time of my life.
I am having the time of my fucking life!
Time of my life. You know what?
I'm having the time of my life.
Watch me! Here it goes.
Time of my life looks like this!
[screams]
Here.
You all right?
Okay.
Your primo stash?
Yep, so be careful.
You be careful.
[woman on TV] Feeling restless?
Check out any one of our dozens of classes.
Learn a new skill, make a new friend.
Fancy a bite?
A wide range of delicious culinary options are being prepared for you right now…
-[static droning] -[overlapping radio chatter]
[intriguing music playing]
[device bleeps]
Gotcha.
[tense music building]
[music trails off]
[woman] Play 18 holes on any one of our three award-winning golf courses.
Or keep healthy in our brand-new fitness center…
Sayonara, fuckers.
-[Renee] Welcome home, Ward. -Oh!
Nice to be home, June.
God, you look fantastic.
Oh, I, oh…
-Thank you. -Care for a drink?
Don't mind if I do.
[Renee] So, what do they have you doing?
-[Wally] I wouldn't know where to start. -The beginning?
Okay.
In the spring of 1949, a local miner named Marcus Shaw
found a strange egg buried deep beneath the ground.
Oh, shit, so we are going way back.
Okay, cool. Lay it on me.
That egg hatched a creature they call "Mother."
Drinking Mother's blood holds you in time.
You don't age.
You don't get sick.
And you'll never die.
The world can fall around you, and you just… stay.
So we were right. They are drinking blood.
In little Dixie cups.
How is it?
Like tasting the sun.
But Marcus, who you know as Blaine,
needed a steady stream of human brain fluid
to keep his creature fed.
Particularly once it started having kids of its own.
So he and Anneliese founded The Boroughs.
It was the perfect cover.
They locked Mother up in their offices,
and locked her kids away in tunnels they built underground.
But at night, the kids are let loose to crawl through the tunnels,
out our ovens,
and into our bedrooms,
where they suck out brain fluid they feed to Mother.
All so that the Shaws and all their little friends
can cheat death for one more day.
The worst part is how small it is.
These fools have discovered the fountain of youth.
They've been given the gift of infinite time.
Know what they do with it?
Play pickleball and make lavender cupcakes.
They're dirty-faced children,
squabbling over a toy they don't understand,
but in the right hands, that toy could change the world.
Whose hands? Yours?
Why not?
I could end disease as we know it.
AIDS, heart disease.
Prostate cancer.
That's right.
Because I have lost enough.
Friends, patients, lovers.
An entire generation, gone.
But not this time. This time, I win.
This time, I save everybody.
Or you could become a monster too.
Death is the real monster.
Everything else is shadows.
Wally, don't do this.
Paz has a plan to get us out. All of us.
No…
You should go.
I have work tomorrow.
Wally…
Thank you for the drink, Re-Re.
I found some Kit Kats left over from Halloween.
Do Kit Kats go bad?
Nah.
And, for me,
Camembert.
Mmm!
And they go with my good crackers
with the seeds.
And, for you…
Catch.
Mmm! Mmm.
Remember that burrata we had at Nayera's wedding?
That shit was amazing.
And we spent weeks trying different brands.
And we never could find it.
We could try it again.
We certainly have the time.
Yeah, well, maybe.
Where are you going?
To my office.
To do what?
To do my thing.
I thought getting high and eating string cheese was your thing.
Judy, I'm not doing this.
Oh, come on.
Art, we have banked 44 years, man.
-I can count. -We have been through it all.
Bullshit!
Spencer's diagnosis,
the Ivyhurst house.
This is different.
I fell in love!
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to.
I broke the rule.
And that's not nothing.
It's not everything.
Art, we are family.
Nothing can change the past.
No, but it certainly has a hell of an effect on the future.
Does it have to?
It already has.
I'm out, Judy.
[scoffs, sputters]
Go ahead. Give up.
I'm done, Judy.
You know, I… I went in earnest
on a soul-searching quest for something more.
Something divine.
Something other.
And all I found was thousands of dead birds
and some monster in the dark, trying to kill me,
and a dead man's shirt in the bottom of your closet.
And the burrata,
it came from fucking Costco.
Just didn't have the heart to tell you.
[somber, sorrowful music playing]
[knocking at door]
[music trailing off]
-Hey, Judy. -Hey.
I brought your dish.
My dish?
Yeah, from Jack's barbecue.
That's not…
[intriguing music playing]
…necessary.
Well, I thought you might need it.
Okay.
Thanks, Renee. You're the best.
All right, see you later.
[intriguing music continuing]
-Hey. -Jesus!
You scared the shit out of me.
I was… I was trying to sneak.
Well, good job.
Okay, so what are we doing here?
Well, I figure they aren't gonna bother surveilling an empty house, right?
-Smart. -Hey.
Hey.
Where's Art?
He's not coming.
What about Sam and Wally?
Well, nobody home at Sam's house, and Wally made a different choice.
So it's just the three of us.
Doing what, exactly?
Well, I have a plan to get you all out.
Actually, I'm changing up the plan.
-You're calling an audible? -[Renee] Yes.
Wally says that Blaine and Anneliese are drinking the blood of a mommy monster,
and that's what's keeping them young.
-The gold shit I saw Hank drink. -Right.
The missing piece of the puzzle.
Right. So we're going to use the chaos of the 75th anniversary
to sneak in and kill it.
What? No, we need to get out, not further in.
But without their golden goose, Blaine and his cronies, they're dead meat.
This is a bad idea.
Look, if we run, we never stop.
I'd rather fight.
I want to kick some ass.
Stack some bodies.
Stack bodies?
That's right.
So, are you in?
Or not?
-I'm in. -No shit?
They can't get away with this.
Right.
Yeah… Fuck it. I'm in too.
The Grey Rebellion rises.
-Such as it is. -Yeah.
[breathing heavily]
[mellow country music playing faintly]
[hoarsely] Phone?
[Claire] Hello?
-Claire. -Dad?
Where are you? Are you okay?
[panting] Claire, honey, listen to me.
Honey, listen to me very carefully.
Your life, all our lives, they're in danger.
-Dad? -The Boroughs, Blaine…
[sputtering] They're all in on it.
The tunnels.
The monsters.
They're in the ovens, Claire.
What are you talking about?
Listen, you gotta come and get me.
I made my way to the diner on Route 25, but you can't tell anyone.
No one. You understand?
Okay.
-Okay. -Yeah. Promise me.
Yeah, I promise.
I'm gonna get on the road. I'm on my way, okay?
Okay.
-I love you. -Okay.
[somber music playing]
Hey, Claire Bear.
What the hell, Dad?
I know, I know.
Are you okay?
How did you get here?
I walked.
Through the desert in the middle of the night?
Terrible things are happening.
I promise, I'll explain everything.
I will. I'll explain everything. Soon as we're far away from The Boroughs.
-Dad, we're not-- -Claire, please.
I haven't slept in 24 hours.
And we'll be safe at your house. Take me home.
Please.
Okay.
-Okay. -Thank you.
[tender, emotional music playing]
[Claire] Dad?
-Dad, wake up. -Mmm?
Oh, are we there?
I love you.
[chilling music playing]
What did you do?
I'm sorry.
-It's okay. -I didn't know what else to do.
It's all right.
Dad.
It's all right.
I love you, Claire.
[Claire] Wait.
Hold on. Just wait.
Easy. Easy now.
It's all right. He's safe now.
Don't worry. We're gonna take good care of him.
[Claire] You should've seen his face.
He didn't even fight. He was so calm.
[Neil] It's all right. Come here.
You did it.
[Art] Excuse me.
I'm sorry to bother you.
I'm… the neighbor, Sam's friend.
Has something happened?
We had to put Sam in The Manor.
[foreboding music playing]
-In The Manor? -[Neil] Yeah.
He was wandering in the desert, rambling about… monsters.
[sighs heavily] Oh, boy.
Yeah.
Were you guys very, um, close?
Maybe you noticed some signs of him in distress or…
No. No, nothing.
I'll leave you to your business. My condolences.
["Smiling Faces Sometimes" by the Undisputed Truth playing]
♪ So hear me when I'm sayin' ♪
[volume increases]
♪ Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes ♪
They got Sam.
I could have stopped him, but I didn't.
Let's get our boy.
And then let's do what we gotta do.
Bet.
♪ Beware of the handshake That hides a snake ♪
♪ Can you dig it? ♪
♪ I'm telling you ♪
♪ Beware ♪
♪ Beware of the pat on the back ♪
♪ It just might hold you back ♪
-♪ Jealousy ♪ -♪ Jealousy ♪
-♪ Misery ♪ -♪ Misery ♪
-♪ Envy ♪ -♪ Envy ♪
♪ I tell you, you can't see behind ♪
♪ Smiling faces ♪
♪ Smiling faces sometimes ♪
♪ Hey, they don't tell the truth ♪
♪ Smiling faces ♪
♪ Smiling faces tell lies ♪
♪ And I got proof ♪
♪ Hey, your enemy won't do you no harm ♪
[song trails off]
[medical monitor beeping slowly]
[sighs]
[gate grinding]
[cryptic music playing]
[medical monitor beeping]
[breathing hoarsely]
[wondrous music playing]
[music swells]
[music trails off]
[suspenseful, mysterious outro music playing] ♪