-(birds singing) -(child calls out)
(heavy footsteps)
(man and woman speaking Vietnamese in distance)
(conversation continuing in distance)
♪ ♪
(truck honks)
(engine droning)
(telephone rings)
(indistinct conversations)
(door opens)
(plastic rustling)
(bottle clinks)
(indistinct chatter)
MAN: That's a great question.
What is the difference between assertive
and aggressive?
It can be a fine line.
-Walter. Hi. -Look, I need to talk to you
-about something. -(door closes)
-Okay. -No.
You don't... You don't need to do that.
This isn't a session.
What do you need?
I explained to you what happened with Shrier
was mostly my fault.
I took the van, I drove us out there.
You did, yes.
So, what, you didn't believe me?
I believe that you care about your friend,
and I understand that.
So where is he? Where did they take him?
Nobody took him anywhere. He's back with his family.
You don't have to do that, okay? You can tell me the truth.
That is the truth. Shrier needed more help
than we can give him here,
and he's with his family. They'll decide.
Why? Why, because of what he thought was going on, hmm?
What did he think was going on?
If I tell you, you gonna have me moved
-and throw out all my stuff too? -Of course not.
I just saw them, they're throwing out all of his shit.
They're not throwing it out.
(scoffs)
Look, we both broke the rules, okay?
Whatever's happening with Shrier is also...
(sighs)
I don't even understand what I'm thinking sometimes.
We all think things that make us uncomfortable.
Everyone.
And I'm different because why?
Because you want to be here.
That's it?
Well, in my experience, it makes
a very big difference, yes.
Sometimes people that need the most help...
They even trashed his fucking harmonica.
I mean, why couldn't he take that with him
wherever he was going?
You're worried about him.
Aren't you?
Yes, I am.
Will you sit down, please?
Please.
Okay.
(recorder beeps)
Shrier plays harmonica?
Yeah, well, not anymore, apparently.
Come on, Walter.
I'm sorry.
Yeah, no, he was, uh... he was terrible,
-but Lesky gave it to him, so... -Lesky?
-Titanic Rising Lesky? -Yeah.
Yeah, Lesky's sister sent it to him
in a care package, or something like that.
I guess she thinks all we do is sit around campfires
with our muskets or...
whatever, I don't know.
Lesky was gonna throw it out, and Shrier said that
he wanted it, so...
Why did he want it if he didn't know how to play?
(sighs) I don't know.
I think he liked Lesky's sister,
or the idea of her.
He used it more like a weapon,
honestly, the harmonica. He, uh...
Whenever anyone would fall asleep in the Humvee,
he'd just blare into it.
And who was in there with you?
Shrier drove. I was up front with him.
And Benji and Lesky were in the back.
You said that Lesky died when his vehicle
went over an IED.
That's right, yeah.
You were with him.
That day, no. Uh, Lesky was in another vehicle.
Why?
Because I put him there.
What do you mean?
Um... Benji was, uh...
(scoffs)
Benji was pestering Lesky, asking him a million questions.
About what?
Stupid shit. Um... (scoffs)
Christmas carols,
pyramids, fucking dinosaurs.
You know, Lesky was... was telling him he was an idiot,
and he was getting angry, and...
I don't know, Benji just kept questioning him.
It was like he wanted the abuse.
And I just... I didn't want to deal with it.
So... I told Lesky to go to another vehicle
and I had a guy from that vehicle come back with us.
And then?
Well, uh... we drove out,
and, uh...
and their vehicle was ahead of ours.
And then, all of a sudden they were slowing down for something,
I don't know what, so we slowed down, too,
and I just saw their vehicle jump up
and come back down.
There was smoke everywhere.
I climbed out and went to go check on Lesky,
and he was dead.
He was definitely dead, and, uh,
there was a piece of metal just
stuck right in here.
Just stuck right there.
(scoffs) What a shame.
Walter...
what else do you think about what happened?
I was in charge, I got impatient,
and so I sent Lesky to another vehicle and he died.
-Because you were impatient? -Yeah.
I mean, is there a different way I'm supposed to look at it?
-Well, that it was... -What, unrelated events?
-No one's fault? -Yes.
(scoffs)
I made a decision. That's what happened.
-Not what you were trying to do. -It didn't matter
what I was trying to do or what I wanted to happen.
None of that mattered over there.
-But you're not over there, you're here now. -Right.
I'm here now, and I know I got to let go of it.
Well, you don't have to. I mean...
do you want to, do you want to let it go?
I just want something new.
Um... whatever's next.
But I keep seeing their vehicle
on the road ahead of us, and...
you know, I see it over and over again,
and I'm begging for it to stop or slow down a little,
but that's what happened.
And, uh, I'm responsible for it.
Walter.
No, I mean the memories.
Keeping 'em alive, you know?
I...
I just can't leave 'em.
That's a lot for one person.
I've seen a lot of guys go through a lot worse, believe me.
I can handle it.
Anyway...
Shrier's gone now, so...
who else is gonna do it?
(engine stops)
(dogs barking in distance)
(car alarm honks briefly)
(footsteps approaching)
This is busted. Have you been messing with it?
No.
-How'd it go with Andrew? -Anthony.
I just need to find my...
Your what?
(scoffs)
Anthony was kind of vanilla, wasn't he?
In a bad way?
Why didn't you tell me I was in the hospital?
Tell you?
(laughing): You were there.
Why didn't we ever talk about it?
Now you want to talk about it?
(sighs) What's there to talk about?
So it didn't go perfectly.
So you needed a break.
(scoffs) That doesn't mean you spend the rest of your life,
I don't know...
hiding.
Or tearing the house apart.
(sighs)
(indistinct conversations)
GLORIA (over computer): How are they treating you?
WALTER: Good. It's really nice here.
GLORIA: How's your room?
WALTER: It's nice.
GLORIA: You don't know any words besides "nice"?
Is someone there?
There's a bunch of us here.
-Pale Kreyol. -Why?
-Eske y ap koute w? -Is who listening?
When I'm speaking to my son I want to speak to my son.
You don't have a phone yet?
None of us do, Mom. That's why they set this up.
You can't buy one now that you're home?
We're in the middle of a swamp. There's nothing around
except some retirement community.
-A hospital in a swamp. Why? -It's not a hospital, Mom.
We're not... It's like an office building.
Can we just have a normal conversation?
-This is a normal conversation. -No, it's not.
No one else here is getting interrogated.
Does your friend Joseph speak to his mother this way?
Shrier?
I have no idea.
Let me talk to him.
He's not here right now.
Where is he?
He's, um...
Look, I got to go.
Why can't you talk to me? What is it?
Because I can't. That's all. Okay?
I love you.
♪ ♪
-Heidi. -Oh.
-Hey. There you are. -Hi.
Was looking for you. Hey, I just had this crazy idea.
I want to run it by you real quick.
-All right. -Okay? What if, one day,
the guys wake up and this whole place
is like a shopping center?
-Oh. -Right? We totally immerse them,
the whole day.
And they'd have a task, a specific task.
Like, they'd have to buy a-a gift for their dad or whatever.
-Mm-hmm. -Right? And then we create these obstacles
where we really get to assess the group's overall challenges,
-hone in on them. You know? -Yeah.
-What do you think? -Uh, it's, uh...
Can we just talk about this another time?
Yeah. Sure.
Sure. Yeah.
What are you doing in here, anyway?
What are you doing in the-in the storage closet?
♪ ♪
I'm sorry. Sorry.
♪ ♪
(typing)
(typing stops)
I'm looking for Redwood.
You're in it.
Hi. I'm Thomas Carrasco
with the Department of Defense.
Um, I'm trying to speak with someone about Homecoming.
It was a DoD subcontract.
Oh, so you need to get with the Compliance folks.
Yeah, I was just there. They sent me here.
Huh. Compliance sent you here?
-They did. -Did you try
texting the help desk for an appointment? They'd really
-be your... -I'd like to speak with someone today.
All right. Let me send up a couple flares.
We'll see what comes back.
Hi. Colin?
There's a gentleman here from the DoD.
Okay.
Thomas Carrasco, asking about Homecoming.
Should I... Hello?
(typing)
(door opens)
-That him? -Yes, but I'm routing him
-so you don't have to... -I'll take it. It's fine.
Tom.
Yeah.
Been bouncing you around, huh?
-No problem. -Uh, we've got five floors here.
I get turned around myself. How could I help?
Uh, I just have some questions
about a Geist program, Homecoming.
-Are you familiar with that? -Not really, no.
Oh, th-that program's no longer operational, right?
It appears not, but I'm just trying to track down
an incident report from 2018
regarding a Walter Cruz.
What is it you think happened?
Well, if you look here...
you can see Cruz's, um...
date of discharge.
Yeah. May 15, 2018.
Mm-hmm.
And if you look here, this is the employment record,
uh, of a project administrator, Heidi Bergman.
Do you know her?
Heidi Bergman? No.
But she did work for Geist?
Well, if you say so.
Sorry, I've just, uh... Let me see.
I've never been to Tampa.
You know, they kind of need me here at HQ.
Well, you can see her termination date.
May 15.
May 15, 2018. And Cruz
was discharged for violent misconduct
-the same day Bergman was hospitalized. -Okay.
I'm just wondering if the hospitalization
-was the result of Cruz's... -I-I see.
You know what?
-Let's go over here. -What?
-Co-Ca. -Co-Ca?
Yeah, Co-Ca. Correlation-causation.
-We deal with this all the time here. -What do you mean?
Well, look, basically, my whole job is to look at data
and try to find a narrative.
Stare at this stuff long enough, believe me,
it'll say whatever you want it to.
Oh, I don't want it to say anything.
But if the events are connected...
You mean because they happened on the same day?
-Well, yeah, that and the fact that they... -Okay, well,
I-I have the same birthday as my dad.
Does that mean we're the same person?
-No, it doesn't. -Okay, so you see my point.
Look, I'm just looking for any kind of documentation--
an incident report, insurance claims--
something that would show that on the...
That something happened. But what if it didn't?
-What? -Happen.
Would there be an incident report then?
-Well, no, but... -Good, then.
Are... are we...
(chuckles) Yeah. I got to get back to the desk.
Well, all-all right.
If there's no documentation...
Yeah, no.
Kind of a dead end. I'm sorry.
Oh, no, that's okay. I'm... I guess I'll just
have to speak to the contemporaries directly.
Contemporaries?
You know, from the Homecoming facility.
Yea... Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, those guys are scattered all over the place
and, you know, privacy issues being what they are,
-tracking them might be... -Oh, no. I've located a client.
-(elevator bell dings) -Oh, you have?
Yeah.
So I'll speak to him.
Thank you for your time.
(knocking on door)
Engel. Dude.
I can't play any more Monopoly.
-I'm gonna lose my shit. -HEIDI: Uh, I'm sorry,
it-it's not Engel.
-Hi. -Hi.
U-Uh...
Do you want to come in?
Um, yeah, sure.
Um, what's up?
Um, I just, uh, did a little digging,
-and, uh... -You did?
Here.
Oh. (laughs)
I just thought, maybe...
No, yeah, uh, thank you.
Really.
What's that?
Hmm? Oh, um...
I don't know, I was... I was thinking after we talked,
and so I just looked up a route.
It just was something to do, but, uh,
-if I knew you were coming, I... -What are all these things?
Um...
Well, if you...
if you keep driving along here,
um, past Yosemite,
there's these little towns, like, uh, Angel's Camp
and Cave City.
Fish Camp?
I've been to Fish Camp. Or through it.
-Really? -Yeah, once.
I was 17.
What were you doing way out there?
(laughs): I was being an idiot.
A buddy of mine from high school, his grandpa died
and left him a Honda Civic.
It was metallic gold, had 180,000 miles on it.
I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever seen,
so I offered him anything I had for it, like 2,000 bucks.
And he took it, and I decided to drive up to Yosemite.
So you've always wanted to go there?
Well, yeah.
I mean, at the time,
it was the farthest place I could think of.
That's the main thing I knew about it, was that it was far,
and I wanted to drive, so...
(laughs)
My mom was so pissed. She was like,
(Haitian accent): "You drove 4,000 miles
"to sit around and watch deer
with a bunch of broke white people?"
-(laughs) -But you went.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, basic training wasn't for a couple of weeks, so...
You know, I drove all the way from Georgia,
day and night.
It was the first time I'd seen the country.
What I noticed the most
was when I got up into the mountains,
there were all these little towns.
You know, not too much--
a hardware store, a little cafe.
And, uh, it was crazy to me, I'd drive past these places
in, like, two seconds, and each one of them
were like their own little planet, you know?
I felt like if I'd stopped for just a second,
I'd just disappear.
Disappear? What do you mean?
Well, I mean, if I pulled over and actually checked it out,
that'd be it, that'd be my life.
But I didn't.
I kept it moving.
So how was the park?
Amazing?
I don't know.
You don't know?
No, I, uh, I never actually made it.
Right when I got to the ranger station or whatever--
I mean, right when I got there--
my car died.
It did not.
Yeah. It did. My mom
had to get me a bus ticket home.
When I finally got back, she was just smiling at me,
like, "I told you so."
And a couple weeks later, I was in training.
You drove all that way for nothing?
Yeah. (chuckles)
Yeah, but when I was sitting at that gate,
waiting for the tow truck, I just kept thinking to myself,
"It's okay. It's fine.
"You know, I'm gonna see a lot of things.
-I'm gonna see the whole world." -And two weeks later,
you were there.
Yeah.
But, um...
wasn't like what I thought.
What was it like?
(sighs)
It was hot.
Hard to breathe, hard to think.
You know, I'd find myself getting used to it,
and then something new would happen,
something fucked-up and awful,
and I just couldn't even understand why we were there.
I mean, no one did.
That was the scariest part of it all:
just the pointlessness.
All I wanted to do was just be done with it,
just go somewhere else, you know,
do something else.
I just wanted to be in a... in a place
where the days, like, build on each other.
You know?
What about you? What do you see?
For myself?
Yeah.
I'm here.
-So you live around here? -I should probably get going.
-Oh, okay. -(chuckles)
Uh, thanks for the harmonica.
Uh, yeah.
See you tomorrow.
Yeah, you can put anything in there,
it turns it right into spaghetti.
It doesn't even matter what it is.
If you put bacon in there,
-bacon spaghetti. -Can I ask you something?
Yeah. What?
Have you ever forgotten something?
Like, something big, something that you know
you should be able to remember?
Yeah, all the time.
Yeah, for my birthday last year, AJ took me out,
(sighs) Got kind of hectic, I came to like three days later,
and I'd ended up making all these doctors appointments.
Very weird doctors appointments.
No recollection...
Wait, look. Look at this.
I found this.
This is from my old job.
What? What is it?
Well, look, all the calls are to the same guy.
Who's Colin?
I don't know.
You blocked it out.
-I guess so. -Well, you got to call him.
Well, no, I don't even know him.
Heidi. What can he do?
You got to call him. Call him.
Well, this doesn't even have service anymore.
Okay, please. Come on, come with me.
(line ringing)
-Well, is it ringing? -Yeah.
COLIN (over phone): This is Colin.
Uh, uh, h-hi.
This is Heidi Bergman, and I was...
(phone crackles)
(dial tone)
What happened?
(indistinct conversations, laughter)
(jazz music playing in distance)
-See you down there, huh? -Yeah. Okay.
-♪ ♪ -(conversations continuing)
(jazz music, conversations continuing)