03x02 - The Modern Piece

[bunniefuu]

♪♪ (theme)

Bob: Rope.

Check.

Cutting blades.

Check.

Gasoline.

I got it.

Please, say "check" so I don't get confused.

Fine, Bob. Check.

No problem. I got this.

No problem.

Hey, Warren.

(stammer)

I can't do it, Bobby. I'm scared.

So am I.

But you know what really scares me?

What?

Is never being able to play music with you guys again.

Dee Dee: Damn right, brother.

What's the status, Dee Dee?

Six blocks away.

Okay, you ready to blow it up?

Ah, this is gonna be beautiful.

♪♪ ("Night On Bald Mountain")

♪♪ (funk b*at)

Gloria: We're sold out for months.

Everybody loves bubbles.

Sure. But doesn't booking out the hall send a negative message?

No.

It says that we're all committed so finding a solution and getting the players back playing.

In the meantime, having our halls filled with bubbles is better than having it filled with nothing.

When do we want it?

Now!

What do we want?

Respect!

When do we want it?

Now!

This is ridiculous.

Respect!

When do we want it?

Now!

What do we want?

Respect!

When do we want it?

Now!

Thank you for coming. Did you have a good time?

Good. What the hell are you doing?

So this is what it takes to get a face-to-face conversation.

Our lawyers made you a counteroffer.

Yours have not responded.

It wasn't an offer. It was a joke.

You've been stalling for a month, and now you've put bubbles into our house?

Boo!

Lily, I'm so sorry.

Do you want to go inside and relax?

I'm fine right here.

Ha ha. She's fine.

Okay, look, why don't we just move down the street away from these lovely folks?

You're all scabs!

Now. Now. I want you out of here right now.

That's how it works in your world, right, Gloria?

You want something gone?

Fair wages, health insurance.

Move down the street, or I'll call the police and have you politely removed.

So call them. Call the police.

She just wants us to take a few steps back there.

And take that rat with you.

That rat is not just a rat.

It's a symbol of... of our solidarity...

Cynthia: Right.

...with the labor and...

No. Pavel, no!

No, no! It's a rental!

Don't touch our...

(all shouting)

I thought you were with us, Pavel!

Yes, but not with these things you do!

When do we want it? Now!

You have some tape? We can save...

(shouting)

You're not going to make it. You've got to let it go.

Girl.

Girl!

What?

Luggage.

Wow.

Hello.

(footsteps)

Oh, my God.

I am so sorry.

I didn't mean to intrude at all.

I asked if you were here, but I didn't hear anything, and I was just looking.

Your house is very beautiful, and I was taking a tour of it.

Rest.

No, uh, I'm... I'm really good.

I actually slept a lot last night.

It's, like, 1:00 or something, so...

(hoarse whisper) No. Vocal rest.

Oh.

No talk.

Okay. You got it. No talk.

Is Rodrigo here?

(chuckle)

Do you want me to come with you?

Hey, do you think you could tell me the WiFi password?

Because, um, I just need to rebook my flight home, and then I could be out of your way.

No internet.

No internet.

Okay. Cool.

Yeah, I was supposed to leave, uh, for Moscow in, like, three weeks.

sh*t. I can't believe I got fired.

What is waiting for you at home?

Uh... nothing, really.

So you're free. I'm jealous.

Well, kind of. I'm free and broke.

Is...

Is this clams?

When something makes us scared, must face it again right away.

Is that an Italian thing?

This is what my mother used to say.

But you know what happened to her.

No. What happened to her?

(imitating g*nsh*t)

Oh, my God.

I'm so sorry.

Eat the clams.

I don't think that's a good idea.

Do you think I should sing the concert?

I was not sure.

Yes, you should definitely, definitely sing the concert.

I will sing if you eat the clams.

Huh.

Wait. Really?

No clams, no concert.

Okay.

Ohh.

Ohh.

How did you become the maestro's lover?

Oh, no, no. We're not lovers.

We're just friends. I mean, kind of.

We're kind of friends.

Did he say something to you?

Because, I mean, his grandmother, she did say that we were going to have kids, but she was also reading coffee grounds, so I don't think that's very reliable.

Epa. Hey, the two of you in one room. Okay.

Oh, wow.

Yep.

Hai Lai, look what I got you.

I'm going to make you a tea for the stomach.

My grandmother used to do this.

Oh, we were just talking about your grandmother, but actually La Fiamma just... just made me eat clams again, and that's actually making me feel a lot better.

Uh, I will dress for rehearsal.

Si. Claro. Si, rehearsal.

(speaking Italian)

(cough)

Hai Lai. What's up?

I thought you were dead.

Yeah, I know. I also thought I was dead.

Yeah?

I should have listened to you about Walsh. You were right.

Ah. Well, no. You should only listen to yourself.

That's your only job, really, as an artist.

Even if you're completely wrong, that's what an artist does, listen to one's self.

Hey, what are you doing here? Everyone in New York said that you'd fallen off the map.

Well, yeah. They took me off the map.

Didn't they? Right?

I'm doing opera. For La Fiamma.

Oh.

Are you living here?

I moved in, yes.

Me... We can rehearse.

We can do music, you know?

We don't talk about meetings or "A ten minute break, maestro."

None of that here.

No, no. Mm-mm. No, no.

What?

Nothing.

What, Hai Lai?

Uh, what!

Uh, it's just in the park, you said that the orchestra was your home.

♪♪ (Woman singing opera)

Oh, wow.

Okay. I just feel like everyone's kind of waiting for you to come back.

♪♪ (continues)

Ah, sí, sí, sí.

(speaking Spanish)

He's like a child.

Yeah. He is.

(laughs)

Okay. (speaking Spanish)

Did you go to school here?

No. They rejected me, you see?

Really?

But I wanted to observe the teachings, so I took a job as, uh... how you say in English?

To clean the floors.

Like a janitor?

Ah. Maybe that would be a better nickname for me instead of La Fiamma. The Janitor.

(speaking Italian)

Uh io... io solo canto.

Anch'io.

She will show you.

Okay. Thanks. Hey.

Ah. Alessandra.

Hey. Hey, I want you to meet someone.

Come, come. Nico.

Hi. It's so good to meet you.

Thank you so much for coming.

Piacere, Nico.

He's my friend Nico Mulli.

He's about to premiere an opera in New York, and there is an aria there that we would love for you to do.

How wonderful.

And what's the character?

So the character's a young American woman named Amy Fisher, and she is having an affair with an older man, an she goes over to his house and sh**t his wife in the head, and his name is Joey Buttafuoco.

Buttafuoco?

Baghdad, Budapest to how? How?

Girl?

Yes. Hello.

Who are you?

Yeah, I'm Hailey Rutledge.

I play the oboe. I'm just here with the maestro, uh, just using the WiFi...

So you are with the maestro, and, uh, he is with you.

No. No, no. I'm just here with the maestro.

Common mistake.

Please, of course.

It's understood.

(speaking Italian)

You have done me a fantastic service.

Molti grazie.

Molti grazie.

Okay, de nada.

What?

♪♪

So this is what you'd be singing, this line, then the rest of it is all going to be made by sort of prerecorded sounds and then you singing all these numbers and little pieces of fragmented text into the microphone that you're going to repeat with your foot pedal.

Foot pedal?

You wouldn't have to use the foot pedal.

Someone else could use the foot pedal.

I'll do the pedal. Let me do the pedal.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And what does the orchestra play?

The orchestra does nothing. They just sit there because the whole thing is about you, what's happening inside your head, and how that's reflected in the counting, the repeated numbers, the obsessive rhythms.

Basically.

It's all in your head... all the numbers and the little things you're thinking, and the audience is listening to you and your humble pedal.

So what do you think?

(sigh)

J'adore.

Nico: Mm-hmm.

I adore.

The combination of sounds, technologies, the voices, the counting, 16, 17.

Ah, it's going to be such a grand finale, you know?

And people are going to go crazy. They're going to go wild.

But I don't understand it at all.

If Amy Fisher was his wife, then bang, yes.

But she's the Buttafuoco's lover.

Why does the lover sh**t the wife?

Maybe you should change the story.

Yeah, man.

Uh, I never...

I hadn't thought about changing it because it... well, you know it's actually based on a real thing that happened...

Amy Fisher's real?

Amy Fisher's completely real.

I don't believe it. It's a myth.

Alessandra, I think you should do this.

I want to make you happy.

I like the robot sounds.

But I cannot sing what I do not feel.

This American girl in love with this older man, so desperate and life so empty that she will do anything to be near him.

How can I understand her?

Well, the good news is I got a flight tomorrow, but the bad news is it goes through Estonia and then Houston and then New York.

My darling, I'm so happy to see you, and we all are.

Hai Lai.

Hi.

Hailey: Hi.

Would you come with me this afternoon to my fitting?

To your costume fitting?

Mm-hmm.

And, Maestro, you must go and find a place for me to sing out of the cage.

Hmm. Out of the cage.

We will.

We will.

(speaking Italian)

What was that?

(speaking Italian)

What?

What was that?

(speaking Italian)

Oh, my God. Okay, he's here.

Uh, there's no receptionist.

Nobody around. I can't...

Hey, can you just say something to prove that... that you are you and that this is real?

Are you eraseface?

Yeah. Danny. You can call me Danny.

Oh, thank God for that.

Hello. This is Thomas Pembrige speaking to you from, um, Studio B, Brooklyn.

Danny and I are about to collaborate on a piece of work... original, I hope... and I'm looking forward to it. Who am I talking to?

It's my mom. She loves you.

Oh, really? Well, give her my love.

Uh, he, uh, he sends his love.

I think she's crying.

Really?

Okay. I'll talk to you later. Bye.

Hmm.

Dude, thank you so much.

You have no idea how much that means to her.

She's, like, such a big fan of yours.

She saw you do Mahler's Sixth in San Francisco, and she was, like, a fundamentally different person after... like, kind of strangely different.

Well, let's, uh... shall we get down to it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, look, I don't know how you want to proceed here.

I set up a piano for you.

I've got an invention here, a fugue there.

Would you mind if I show you what I have first?

No, not at all.

♪♪ (electronic b*at)

That's my washing machine.

♪♪ (ends)

I knew this was a mistake.

Oh, uh, yeah. I mean, we can work on something else.

I still have so much mixing to do on that one.

It's... I mean, it's way too rough.

Too rough? My cat's tongue is way too rough.

But this... this thing?

This is a hop, skip, and a f*cking jump through Robocop's anus, and you know it. I mean, what is it?

You want me to play some cliché'd bullshit classical stuff to put on top?

Do you want this crap?

♪♪

No, no.

Yeah. Bullshit.

Yes. That's terrible. Please, don't do that.

So what do you want?

Okay.

The Martians have landed.

Introduce them to Thomas Pembridge.

How do you do that?

The Martians?

Okay. I think I get it.

Um...

♪♪

Yeah. No. Yeah. That's really...

Hmm.

...good.

Um, no, can you do, uh, just the top voice?

Just the right hand, please.

Oh.

♪♪

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, right now, uh, just do that again, but do it one octave up.

Yeah?

One octave.

Yeah, just one octave higher.

Good. Tell me when.

Yeah, now.

All right.

♪♪

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it, that's it.

Hold on.

Wait a minute.

Wait. That's it.

What do you mean? That's it?

That's what I need.

And now we give it to the orchestra. Look.

(sigh)

♪♪
♪♪ (electronic b*at added)

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I love it.

I love it.

It's f*cking great!

Yee-ha! Yeah! Well done.

Do that again. Do that again.

Do what?

Do the "Yee-ha," dude.

Uh, make some noise.

Yee-ha!

Yee-ha!

Yee-ha!

Welcome to the world, you m*therf*ckers!

You've got to come.

He wants me to go to Venice to perform the damn thing.

And the turbot for the lady.

If I could just scoot your calculator over.

Yeah. Sorry. We're on the clock.

You know, I'm going to have to start making reservations for three of us: you, me, and the calculator monster there.

Please. If anyone sees us, it's a... it's a perfect cover.

We're working on the budget.

Darling, don't be so paranoid.

We live in a city of 9 million people.

I mean, what are the chances...

Oh, I don't believe it. Hi, Bunny.

Oh, Bunny.

Thomas.

We missed you at the ballet benefit.

Oh.

Beautiful.

I cried through the Giselle.

Claire would have loved it.

Mm, actually, she didn't like the ballet.

But she did love to weep.

Ha ha!

We're just burning the midnight oil...

Mm-hmm.

...at this work dinner.

Just running the numbers on the annual gifts.

Work, work, work.

(chuckle) Speaking of which, I haven't received a check from you this season.

Who would I be giving money to?

The bubble people?

See you on the way out, Gloria.

Oh, yeah?

I'm going to the ladies' room.

Ooh.

Follow me, but be discreet.

Good idea.

(panting)

(vibrating)

My God, that's amazing.

Mm.

What are you doing?

Mm.

(vibrating continues)

Oh. Well, I...

I think it's your phone somewhere vibrating.

Oh.

Oh.

Yes, yes. This is she.

What can I do for...

Ohh!

Oh, hello, Mr. Mayor.

Mr. Mayor?

Hailey, about Amy Fisher, why she sh*t Mary Jo?

I would sh*t Buttafuoco instead.

Yeah. I guess. Same.

I honestly don't really know, though.

You don't know the story?

Uh, no. I think it kind of happened, like...

Tell me something.

Yeah.

Have you ever wanted to sh**t someone?

(chuckle)

No. No.

Even just for a moment.

Uh... yeah, well, maybe my eighth grade oboe teacher.

He was kind of gropey.

Would you ever sh*t him in the head or the heart?

Uh, I think lower.

Lower? Me, too.

(giggling)

But not Amy Fisher.

Not Mary Fisher... Amy Fisher.

Signore, La Fiamma! La Fiamma!

Francesca.

(speaking Italian)

Lionel.

Alessandra.

(speaking Italian)

Oh, my God. Okay.

Oh. Don't worry.

That crocodile doesn't bite.

(chatter)

The girl's k*lling death.

Oh.

(speaking Italian)

(speaking Italian)

Prego.

No. Grazie.

Thank you.

Ah, you must.

Francesca makes the limoncello herself in her bathroom.

(speaking Italian)

Oh. Okay.

Salute.

Salute.

Ooh. That's really good.

(speaking Italian)

Salute.

Grazie.

(speaking Italian)

(both speaking Italian)

Hailey.

Mm.

Yeah.

Come here.

You'll be my dresser.

I'll be your what?

(speaking Italian)

Shh.

Stay just for the Festival.

You help me, we'll talk about Amy Fisher, and then I'll get you a proper ticket to New York or some place better.

I just really don't know that much about Amy Fisher and, like, clothes or...

It's just a few dresses for a concert.

Please.

Come.

If you'll stay, it makes me feel the solo.

Oh.

You'll stay?

Okay. Okay. Uh, it's fine.

Lionel.

Hmm?

She needs to see all the costumes.

So Francesca is Alessandra.

Stefano is you.

The diva, she finish, and then...

♪♪ (chorus singing Carmen)

But when you do it, it must be completely silent.

Okay.

And take half the time.

Alessandra: Lionel.

Oh.

(speaking Italian)

Hailey.

Yeah.

Tell him who is Amy Fisher.

Uh, okay. Well, um... she's from Long Island.

She's a girl, and she was in love with a man, an, um, she sh*t his wife in the face.

♪♪ (chorus continues)

(speaking Italian)

Alessandra?

Joey.

Aah!

Joey Buttafuoco.

(laughing)

Why you want to go home and leave me alone?

Look at me. Why does it have to end?

Uh, Amy Fisher's actually a really sad story.

Opera is supposed to be sad.

So is love.

(as Rodrigo) Hai Lai, look at me.

(giggling)

Rodrigo.

Do you trust me, Hailey?

Uh, yes.

Why do I deserve your trust?

Um... because you're a really bad liar.

You love me.

I don't know yet.

Hai Lai, I love you.

Hai Lai.

What?

(knocking)

Al telefono.

(speaking Italian)

Grazie.

Oh.

¿Hóla?

Oh, thank God, Rodrigo.

I called everyone I know in Venice.

Ai, chíngame, Gloria.

Why... (scoff)...

Wh-Where are you? What's going on?

I know you're not happy with us, but the Mayor called demanding you come to a meeting...

What? I... The Mayor and the meeting?

I don't want to talk about a meeting, Gloria.

I want to talk about music or football.

What do you want to talk about?

This is about the music.

We have to show a united front, or they might pull the funding.

Rodrigo, Rodrigo, you have to come to this meeting, Rodrigo.

(speaking Italian)

You have to!

Attenzione.

Hello?

(speaking Italian)

They will pull the funding.

They'll pull the funding.

(crash)

Maestro.

¿Qué?

We have unfinished business.

Alessandra, yes, we have.

I want to.

I want to as well.

Come hear me be Amy Fisher.

But later. We got...

For now, let's rehearse.

Oh.

♪♪ (singing in Italian)

♪♪ (piano)

♪♪(continues)