This place rots. Stupid, boring, quiet, boring,
one-horse, boring town. Why do I have to burn my Saturday volunteering?
Oh, you're not volunteering.
It's called community service.
And you wouldn't be doing it if you didn't pull the fire alarm
during your I.Q. test.
I wouldn't be doing it if you hadn't arrested me.
You know, sometimes it sucks have a dad who's the town smokey.
Well, sometimes it sucks having a daughter who's the town delinquent.
I take it back.
Gee, thanks.
It always sucks.
Please, don't make me do this. I hate old people.
You don't do this, you won't live to be one.
Can't we just discuss this?
You're going, end of discussion.
I will do jail time.
Go. Scoot.
I can't tell you how much I appreciate this, sir.
No need to thank me, Fargo. You've earned it.
Having your own office is a right of passage.
It's a symbol of status and rank.
Tells the world you've arrived.
Not yet.
Section Five?
Pace yourself.
What's down here?
You and your new office.
Congratulations, Fargo.
You deserve every square foot of it.
Thanks.
What did you do to get put down here?
I earned it.
Having your own office is a right of passage.
It's a symbol of status and rank.
Rank's the word all right.
It smells like something died in here.
Like, say, the 1970's.
You have no vision. Once all this junk's gone,
this will be an exemplary office space.
Just lacking... A woman's touch?
Style.
Well, you've got a lot of great stuff in here.
Just, it deserves our respect.
The dumpster's down the hall to the left.
Dumpster? No, no, no.
One man's trash is another man's treasure.
Been nice doing business with you.
Check this out.
What do you think? Stereo?
Sure. First generation iPod.
How do you turn this thing on?
On?
It's got keyholes.
And we got keys.
I saw some in the desk over here.
Hey, these two match.
Here. Go unlock your side.
Ready? Set. Go.
Just another old piece of useless junk.
That was almost exciting.
ELECTRONIC VOICE.; Primary firing sequence initiated.
Weapon will deploy in 24 hours.
I don't think I like this station.
Well, car or no car, it's a 30-mile-an-hour zone.
Don't you have anything better to do than harass me?
No. Not really.
Now you do.
Yeah, that can't be good.
What's going on, Sheriff?
I was hoping you could tell me.
This sort of thing happen often?
Not to my recollection. I've never seen anything like it.
It's some sort of ICBM.
ICBM? Please.
Look at the circumference.
Clearly that's an IRBM.
So you guys have seen this before?
Nope. Nope.
Thanks, guys. Big help.
What do you think it is, Sheriff?
Oh, I know exactly what it is.
Trouble.
Carter. ALLISON.; It's Allison. We've got trouble.
That's exactly what I said. Trouble.
Well, hello.
I'm Doris Stokes, the director. You must be Zoe.
Unfortunately.
I've heard a lot about you.
But everyone deserves a second chance, right?
Or a third or fourth.
Let's put you right to work, okay?
Actually, Doris, see, I usually ease into my day
with a latte and maybe some sort of pastry.
Funny.
I understand we have you for the next 13 Saturdays.
Thirteen?
A hundred hours divided by eight-hour shifts.
I'm afraid that three months of Saturdays is not gonna work for me.
So, why don't you say we just get the whole thing over in one fell swoop?
Let's start with the rec room.
Up and to the side.
Wide circles forward.
Holy crap.
This is the rec room?
It's a nice place to die.
Even nicer place to live.
The residents of Eureka give so much.
This facility is our way to give back.
Run out of tennis balls?
I guess all the massages in the world can't stop you from losing your mind.
Here.
ANNOUNCER.; And deuce.
So, Doris, are there any age restrictions on getting a room here?
You've got a darling sense of humor.
Come on. I assigned you to Eugenia.
Eugenia, this is Zoe.
She's going to assist you today.
If I desired assistants, I'd be living in an assisted living facility.
Don't mind her. She has teence of an attitude problem.
I do not. I do not.
Oh, you two should get on just fine.
You smoke? No.
Drink? No.
You lying?
Maybe.
What kind of a name is Zoe anyway?
It's a popular one.
You know, probably as popular
as Eugenia was back in the Great Depression.
For once, Doris maybe right.
How's my hair?
Your hair? Oh, it's fine.
How's my hair? Wait, why are we whispering?
But what matters most is the matter of how we handle antimatter.
That used to be me.
Antimatter, unlike matter...
You used to talk to yourself?
No.
He used to talk to me.
It had to come from somewhere.
Keep looking. Yes, sir, Dr. Stark.
Allison, glad to see you. Sheriff.
Scientist.
Which one of your guys is responsible
for the Cuban Missile Crisis popping up all over town?
They're not missiles.
Really?
Because I have a town full of extremely anxious people
who think they look a lot like missiles.
What are they, Nathan? And why do they look a lot like missiles?
We're working on it.
So, you don't know? He doesn't know.
Don't touch the buttons.
I have to call this in to the D.O.D.
Not yet. We have plenty of time to figure this out.
Well, I can only wait so long and I'll need to have answers.
Like what are these things that look a lot like missiles,
but aren't, popping up all over
your top-secret little town?
Give us a little room, people.
Sorry, but Henry's a lot smarter and faster than me...
Fargo, Fargo, it's the best decision you made all day. Henry?
Well, it's definitely a weapon and this machine controls it.
Well, tell me more than that. It's set to discharge a huge ionosphere particle beam.
Oh, jeez. Okay, okay,
this ion beam thingy is what exactly?
Irradiated uranium isotopes. Oh, God.
Death ray. Why don't you just say death ray?
I've searched your entire database.
There's not one single record of silos,
or irradiated isotopes, or ionosphere particle beams.
Try death ray?
It's as if the machine never existed.
Did you try turning it off?
Oh, why didn't I think of that?
Fargo, turn the machine off.
And that's a stupid question?
I mean, you did just turn it on, right?
That was an accident. Jack, this machine was built
at the height of the Cold War.
There is no off switch.
Could you cut the power source?
And risk there's a fail-safe and it fires immediately?
I take that as a no. How much time do we have?
ELECTRONIC VOICE.; Weapon will deploy in 23 hours.
Well, finally a straight answer.
We need to arrange for transport trucks and establish evacuation routes.
Make emergency contingencies for every location that could be hit.
Yeah, area hospitals should be prepped for emergency overflow.
And we'll need to estimate collateral damage
in and around the target perimeter. Good.
You can hear us, right?
Unfortunately. You're panicking.
We're not panicking, we're reacting.
You say death ray, we have a reaction.
You said death ray.
It's a ray, right,
that causes immediate death?
Yes, it could cause immediate death.
Could simply blow up and people here would immediately die.
It could strike Moscow and people there would immediately die.
Then Moscow would retaliate and people everywhere
would immediate die.
Evacuation's moot. No place is safe.
Well, you chose a great time to be indifferent.
I'm not indifferent, Sheriff.
I'm focused.
We have 24 hours and we happen to be
in the most advanced scientific facility in the world,
housing the largest supercomputer in the world,
populated by the smartest scientists in the world.
We have plenty of time to figure this out
as long as we don't panic.
But we've downloaded, scanned and decrypted
every file, every schematic and every piece of paper of every project
ever developed here and there's nothing.
Well, maybe not every piece of paper.
This is every piece of paper I pulled from Fargo's office.
Something here has to tell us about that machine.
Come on. If scientists are so smart,
how come they don't know anything about penmanship?
Pardon the alliteration, but which would you prefer,
penmanship or progress?
Tequila. Scotch.
Really.
What's it?
It what? I.T.
It's scribbled at the bottom of all these pages.
Oh, I don't know maybe, information technology,
perhaps from the department from which these documents originated.
Looks more like someone's initials.
Well, you are the detective.
Marshal. Sheriff.
That sounds like a demotion.
Hand me some pics.
What's the shiny thing? Is that a solar flare?
That shiny thing is a mirror. Now, you do remember the moon landing, right?
Oh,
do not tell me that didn't happen.
No, it happened, but we didn't go to the moon just to walk.
We put mirrors all over the moon
to bounce signals back to the earth,
telescopic images, satellite communications.
Death rays?
They weaponized the moon.
I mean, they can bounce a laser off the moon
and wipe out any target they want.
What, like tanks and stuff?
No. Cities and stuff.
So, you're telling me while the world watched,
Neil Armstrong take one small step for man...
NORAD took a giant leap for themselves.
Well, with the help from someone at Global.
Someone with the initials I.T.
I.T.
Oh, Irvin Thatcher. It's has to be Irvin Thatcher.
Irvin Thatcher was this brilliant scientist behind MAD.
MADD? Mothers Against Drunk Driving?
Mutually Assured Destruction.
That MAD.
You said he was a brilliant scientist.
Was or is?
This is easily explained.
The atom nucleus is comprised of positively-charged protons
and neutrally-charged neutrons.
When a nucleus is bombarded by a neutrally-charged particle,
the result is fission.
You lost me right after, "This is easily explained. "
Okay, let me try it another way.
Your father is a proton. Your mother is a neutron.
You are a free radical.
You're caught stealing CD's in the mall.
You hit your parents with that news.
What happens?
They go nuclear? Exactly.
And split.
You think that I'm the reason my parents split?
No, no, no, no, no.
Zoe? Zoe?
What? I'm doing the job. I'm helping people.
I'm assisting people.
Fine. Be right back.
Please, carry on.
This is the oppressive jerk who's all up in your business?
I see you found something to talk about.
Hi, Sheriff Carter, nice to meet you.
I'm looking for a retired scientist.
Swing a cat.
A Dr. Thatcher? Irvin?
Room 101, but why do you want...
Wait for it.
Hey, room 101, that would be...
Room 101? Right this way.
What do you need him for, Sheriff?
There's a situation. Even the brainiacs at Global can't figure it out.
But there is one guy in town who can
and apparently, this is the guy.
Dr. Thatcher? This is the guy?
The question remains fusion or fission?
Fission? Certainly not.
I haven't been fishin' since I lived on Lake Erie.
You think that's eerie?
How do you explain quasar energy paradox?
Or baldness among musicians?
This is the guy.
Right this way, Dr. Thatcher. IRVIN: This way?
Give the doctor some room.
Sir, sir, right this way.
Dr. Thatcher, it's an honor.
I'm Henry Deacon.
This machine of yours, it's really something.
It's like a riddle inside an enigma,
wrapped in ten inches of titanium alloy.
We're assuming it's similar to other space-based weapons,
using a single-channel transponder package.
Or maybe a survivable, low-frequency communication system.
In which case, we'd have to reassess
certain aspects of our approach. Guys, go easy.
We need launch codes, Sheriff.
And easy is not going to get it.
Neither is browbeating the man. So just give him a minute.
Dr. Thatcher?
We think the controls are behind this panel.
I just can't figure out how to get to them.
These locking bolts, are they some kind of proprietary threading?
Reverse the hex. Excuse me?
If you want sex, reverse the hex.
Sheriff, at any point when you picked him up,
the car ride, the long walk down here,
happen to notice this guy's not all there?
Yeah, there may have been signs.
Righty loosey, lefty tighty.
Got it.
Bang-up job.
Reverse the hex.
The screws recede.
It's brilliant.
Okay, Dr. Thatcher, all I need is a code
to suspend the launch sequence.
Charlie, Tango, Lima.
No, Charlie never tangoed in Lima.
He's just tired. Dr. Thatcher, why don't you take a seat?
Don't give up, okay?
Up, down, up, down.
The windows on the bus go up and down
Up and down, up and down
Any luck? The windows on the bus go up and down
Up and down, up and down
Up and down
The windows on the bus go
Why were our kids sent home from school?
Is there going to be a missile strike?
Do we need to evacuate?
There's no reason to panic, folks.
I heard it was a death ray.
That's ridiculous. That's obviously a rumor.
Started by an idiot.
Who's he? Is he responsible?
Okay, folks, listen up, just go on home, okay?
The situation's completely under control.
It could also be thermal conductive resistance.
Let me take a look.
Yeah. Looks like they used the classic formula.
Red for hot, blue for not, yellow's usually the ground.
So, I guess it's pretty safe to cut the blue.
What do you think? ELECTRONIC VOICE.; Weapon will deploy in 20 hours.
Do it.
Launch code override initiated.
Yes!
Weapon will deploy in seven hours.
No.
Let's not cut any more wires.
Dr. Thatcher, I know it's in there.
Just give us a hint.
Gravity.
The natural force of attraction exerted
by a celestial body upon objects
at or near its surface.
That's great. Just be a second.
Look, we have our best people working on this.
You don't know Nathan, but he will find a way to shut it down.
Nothing against your husband, but... Ex. Soon to be ex.
But the man with the answers is sitting right there.
We just need to figure out how to get them out of him.
What? What what?
You've got that look on your face,
like you know something I should know but you're not telling me.
Spill. I can't. It's classified.
It's Nathan's turf,
and there is no way that he is gonna...
Allison, if we don't stop this thing, there won't be any turf.
What is it?
Okay. Gravity. Got it.
What?
Hey, Allison.
Absolutely not.
That technology is highly experimental
and far too dangerous for anyone to...
Carter? Really?
That's just a risk we may have to take.
So this is basically a Vulcan mind-meld, right?
Well, the PX-24 allows one person
to probe the consciousness of another.
In theory, anyway.
In theory?
Well, we haven't performed a human test run yet.
Oh.
"In memory of Skippy"?
Oh, he was everyone's favorite test chimp.
Did he die on this thing?
No.
The autopsy was inconclusive.
Carter, listen, I'm not gonna think any less of you
if you don't want to do this.
What am I looking for again?
Sequences. Equations. Codes. Okay.
Kiss for luck?
Oh, wow.
Last chance to be a hero, Doc.
Just say the word.
Was worth a shot.
The wheels on the bus go round and round
Carter, are you okay?
The wheels on the bus go round and round
IRVIN.; Eugenia.
Okay, I'm stopping this. No! Keep going.
IRVIN.; Stockholm.
Linus Pauling. Linus Pauling.
Eugenia. Eugenia.
Who is Eugenia, Carter?
IRVIN.; Mutually Assured Destruction.
Did you see how to stop it?
No.
But I saw what happens if we don't.
Irvin, we're going to go and see that girl of yours. Would you like that?
All right. Don't play coy with me, okay?
I've been inside that big brain of yours.
I know how much you love her.
That doesn't go away, does it?
Well, I don't think it does.
And I know that when you're not thinking about nuclear holocaust,
you're thinking about Eugenia.
That's what I thought.
Got you with the nuclear holocaust thing, didn't I?
I put a trace on the hot wire.
The power source leads out the back.
That is where the machine is vulnerable.
Now, if we can reach that, then we can get to the guts of the thing.
I've got a team in Section Five
working on a laser bombardment drill
that will bore right through the titanium shell.
Yeah, unfortunately your guys in Section Four
tell me it's not titanium, it's zirconium carbonite, which is...
Impenetrable.
But, I believe we can get there from here
through the base of the machine.
If we tunnel down, under and up,
we'll be directly behind it and then I think we've got a shot.
Tell Fargo to give you anything you need.
And not to touch anything you don't.
Bad news, good news. We didn't get anything from Thatcher,
but Carter wasn't hurt in the process.
And the good news?
There you go, buddy. Take a seat.
I'll go look for Eugenia and you enjoy the view with a room.
Where is that?
IRVIN.; Stockholm.
Linus Pauling.
Royal Palace. Stockholm. Sweden.
How do you know that?
I don't know. I was there.
When? Recently.
Do you know where Eugenia is?
She's not to be disturbed.
Her words, not mine.
Come on. Come on.
This is her.
Eugenia?
Eugenia, it's Zoe.
Has she done something wrong? No, no.
Eugenia, it's Sheriff Carter. I need to talk to you.
Is there something I should know? No.
There is, isn't there?
Actually, yeah, yeah. That crack I made about you being a delinquent?
Yeah. Didn't mean it.
You're my girl.
It's really bad, isn't it? No.
Eugenia! Eugenia!
Eugenia?
Come in, Jo.
Where are you, Jo?
Come on, Jo. Talk to us.
We all live here. We have a right to know what's going on.
What is the trajectory of the weapon?
Is there a sea-based boost phase intercept?
Have the launch protocols been initiated?
Don't know. Don't know.
Don't know.
What do you know? Go home.
We've got everything under control.
What is that?
Except for that.
Zoe, think. Did she say anything
about going anywhere, doing anything?
Not that I remember.
How about family? Did she ask the kids to pick her up or something?
It never came up, okay? Where is that?
The MENSA Think-Off? Yeah, I seriously doubt you can compete.
No, the sundial, where is that?
Copernicus Park. I can see...
It's on the south side of the distilled water tower. Come on.
That's where I'll find my girl.
I thought I was your girl.
Wait, that sounded weird.
Henry...
Henry, how's it...
Henry, how's the drilling going?
This laser bombardment drill cuts through quartz like butter!
I should be done drilling in what, five hours.
ELECTRONIC VOICE.; Weapon will deploy in four hours.
Drill faster. Yeah.
Oh, my God, Eugenia. What...
What are you doing? How did you even get here?
Henry souped up my chair. I can go 50 miles between charges.
So, why have I been pushing you around all day?
I wanted you to feel good about yourself,
like you were assisting.
Fine. I didn't hate the company.
Dad, are you okay?
IRVIN.; Eugenia.
Dad, what the hell are you doing?
Why did you do that?
I'm not sure.
Mind your own business, Zoe.
Sorry.
Your anniversary. Our anniversary.
Anniversary? Of what? You and me.
Him, Thatcher.
Anniversary?
He never even proposed.
Yes, he did.
I saw it.
Trust me. Never happened.
Is dementia contagious?
No, okay, in his mind he proposed.
I mean right here. That's why you come here.
I come here for lunch every day.
This is where we first met.
We'd sit and look at the sky.
He told me how the stars shined,
how the planets revolved around the sun,
how his universe revolved around me.
And then his universe came crashing down and mine with it.
What happened?
We were going to get married in Stockholm
after Irvin won the prize.
The Nobel Prize?
No one imagined Linus Pauling would win a second Nobel.
It was devastating to Irvin.
He had a complete mental break the day of the announcement,
the day he was going to propose.
The day I lost the love of my life.
The picture, the virtual Stockholm.
You must think I'm a fool pining over a love that's gone.
It's not gone.
We just have to pick up where we left off.
Did I say we?
Sorry.
ELECTRONIC VOICE.; Weapon will deploy in three hours.
Well, there's got to be something.
I mean, use explosives to blast through the rest of the bedrock.
This machine was programmed as a second-strike dead man's weapon.
Any kind of explosion and...
I cannot believe we built this thing to protect ourselves.
I'm gonna have to put a call in to the D.O.D.
You can't. I have to.
You can't. I think that they'll notice if we start World War lll.
Allison, think about it.
What are you going to say, we may accidentally blow up Moscow,
Beijing, Pyongyang and Stockholm?
Okay, I know how fond you are of Stockholm, Nathan,
but this is bigger than you.
If you tell them that we can't stop it,
they're gonna try and stop it.
They'll nuke us and... And I know.
Any kind of explosion can trigger the device. I get it.
But we're running out of options.
I beg to differ. I'm gonna need to borrow your Nobel.
It was open.
Oh. Sorry.
What in the hell are you doing?
Going to party like it's 1962.
I miss Sheriff Cobb.
You should wear that dress more often.
Do you think this will work? Works for me.
Let's hope so.
Oh, Sheriff.
When a light bulb goes off in your head,
what are we talking, 15, 20 watts?
You have a better idea, I'd love to hear it.
No? Yeah. Better get started.
Jo, wow, you look...
No, you look the other way. NATHAN.; Ladies and gentlemen, and distinguished colleagues,
welcome to Stockholm.
Robert Oppenheimer famously said,
"The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. "
One man never forgot those words,
the man we welcome among us today,
the man whom the NobeI Committee of the Norwegian parliament
has selected for this year's award of the NobeI Prize,
Dr. Irvin Horatio Thatcher.
Fargo!
Dr. Thatcher.
I got that.
He's been carrying that speech for 40 years.
The wheels on the bus go round and round
Round and round, round and round
The wheels on the bus go round and round
Round and round, round and round
A simple little children's song,
but it was this song that inspired my concept
of Mutually Assured Destruction.
We build an A-bomb, they build an A-bomb.
We build an H-bomb, they build an H-bomb.
Round and round. Round and round.
The wheels on the bus leading us towards
an unending escalation of new,
more powerfuI, more deadly weapons,
which is what led me to my greatest achievement,
the lonosphere Particle Beam.
In order to ensure peace on earth,
I built the deadliest weapon in the universe.
But that's the end of the story.
Let me take you back to the beginning.
We don't have time to go back to Never Land.
Dr. Thatcher, there's an urgent situation
that needs your attention.
Oh. Sorry.
I would just like to end by thanking the committee.
And Eugenia, my love,
without whom this achievement would not have been possible.
We have a lot of catching up to do.
I don't like that look. What's wrong?
My crew. I've got to get my crew to fix the device.
You have a crew?
Oh, for the love of God.
Thirty seconds and counting, guys.
Ready, set,
go! Key one, two and off.
ELECTRONIC VOICE.; Launch code override initiated.
Yes!
All right!
Oh, crap.
ELECTRONIC VOICE.; Dead man's protocoI activated.
Launch sequence initiated.
Second strike weapon will deploy in five minutes.
Did somebody cut the blue wire?
Not good.
Very not good.
This is the one that assures mutually assured destruction.
How do we stop it?
I can't. It can't be shut down.
Henry, how much time do we have left?
Thirty seconds.
Is there any way we can re-aim it?
Once it's locked on to its target, it can't be realigned.
Will it work?
I think desperate times call for desperate measures.
Henry, when you outfitted my Jeep, did you put in any airbags?
ELECTRONIC VOICE.;... six, five, four... Carter, are you crazy?
...three, two, one.
Henry, you got it? I got it.
It missed! We missed the moon!
Carter! Carter!
Great job, man. We missed the moon!
We missed it!
Little help.
But where did it go?
MAN.; The Zephyr Rover is making its finaI approach to Jupiter.
Pasadena, we have a problem.
That's gonna be a shiner. Yeah.
Well, one small step for man, one giant welt for me.
So, when are you gonna tell him my Nobel isn't his to keep?
I don't know. He saved your ass. I think he earned it.
No, I earned it.
It's mine.
Take it away, lose a great scientist.
It's not a difficult equation.
You never know, you might need Thatcher
to dismantle the next ticking time bomb.
Good point.
Really?
You did a good job, Carter. Thanks.
I had a little help from my crew.
You remember that feeling?
Yeah.
It's nice to know it can last a lifetime.
And kind of depressing. A little.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm just grateful that we finally got together.
I said we again, didn't I? Yeah.
How long is this supposed to last?
See you tomorrow, Carter. No, seriously.