01x10 - Risky Bismuth

Episode transcripts for the TV show "The Tick". Aired: August 2016 to April 2019.*
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In a world where superheroes have been real for decades, an accountant with zero powers comes to realize his city is owned by a super villain. As he struggles to uncover this conspiracy, he falls in league with a strange blue superhero, "The Tick".
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01x10 - Risky Bismuth

Post by bunniefuu »

TICK: Our precious institutions stand

as the pillared embodiments
of our values and security.

But when the cosmic truths

we held so dear become unreliable,

even a superhero's mightiest tummy

will bloat with agitated butterflies.

The foundations of our
eternal beliefs are shaken,

rattled and rolled.

And the deified Ubermensch
proves to be less

than the sum of its invulnerable parts.

Tick, remind me what Karamazov said

when you went to drop off Kevin's tools.

"Oh, my tiny neck

- "grows weary again."
- No, the thing about Superian.

Right.

Said he seems to be suffering from

Big Bismuth poisoning.

Yeah, but from where?

Dr. Shrinky Dink wasn't
in any shape to tell.

But Tinfoil Kevin's working
on his condition right now.

What does that even mean?
Kevin is not a doctor.

Okay. Sometimes there's more to a person

than meets the eye, chum.

Oh, God, Tick, you are not a robot.

My vastly superior

robot brain computes otherwise.

This is The Terror's work.

It's part of his plan to k*ll Superian.

It has to be.

Why don't we call Overkill and your sister?

- Get the old g*ng back together.
- No, I'm not

calling anyone, Tick.

Okay? If The Terror
catches wind of the fact

that we're hiding Superian...

then who knows what he'll
send to finish the job?

I'm guessing mummies.

No.

Yeah, I'm gonna stick with mummies.

Okay.

Hello?

Oh, Kevin.

Where's, uh, Dr. Karamazov?

Uh, he's in a better place.

Oh, no.

KARAMAZOV: Oh, yes!

Surprise!

Mr. Tinfoil has helped me fashion

the unit into a vehicle

for my wildly disproportionate form.

A... a vehicle?

So-so you're... in that thing?

Yes, with my head nesting
comfortably inside this collar,

I can operate the gears and levers

to facilitate movement, like so.

Okay... Oh, oh, oh.

Okay. Okay.

Perhaps I could use a bit more practice.

Okay, well, you'll have
plenty of time to practice

back at my apartment.
Kevin, we need to get him

out of here. I think Superian may be dying.

Huh?



MISS LINT: The security
guards check the floor

on a timed cycle.

Frank, you and your crew...

You're gonna take 'em out.

Imhotep and Wallace,

you're gonna lock down the engineers.

And Dennis here is gonna help my tech guys

get the device into
place and set it all up.

Yes, Frank?

They're still calling
us the Pyramid out there,

but if we're not, then, like...

what are we?

- You're criminals.
- Okay, sure.

That's a given.

But who are we, together, as a group?

Our group identity.

That was a really big thing with Ram...

I just, um...

I think we do better with a name.

How about the sh*t for Brains g*ng?

Okay. Yeah, well,

I'll work on it, come
to you with some ideas.

Wow. Thank you.

Janet, what's happening?

Face feels so funny.

You had an accident.

Were there... darts?

No.

Oh. Hmm.

Who are these guys?

I run the city now.

Go back to sleep.

Okay.

What?

- How many axles?
- Stosh, you said you wanted me to drop by?

No, you're not listening. They want a truck

that's refrigerated.

I don't know, some kind of high-tech crap.

Want to wait out in the hall, Dottie?

Come on.

This is the kind of sh*t
you do not want any part of.

My shift starts soon.

Five minutes.

What? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm here,

I'm here. What do you got for me?

Tick.

In here, chum.

Well, I'll be.

Dr. Doll Parts is a robot, too.

KARAMAZOV: It works.

The Big Bismuth is infecting him

on a cellular level.

I-I'm sorry. Are you
actually celebrating this?

You're right.

Forgive me.

Can you help him or not?

I cannot say.

The symptoms he's exhibiting

should be dissipating

with time away
from the V-L-M.

The V W-What does the V-L-M
have to do with any of this?

It is a very long story.

I was born in the factory town of Grot

on the Russian-Urmanian border.

ARTHUR: Excuse me. Do-do we need to start this
far back?

Yes.

- The... So, the very beginning.
- Life was harsh.

Food was scarce. All there was to eat

were potatoes and acorns.

Sensing my own innate genius,

I decided to become a scientist

and solve the world's hunger problem.

- Thanks.
- To that end,

I focused all my research

on inventing a growth ray

which could increase the size

of matter itself.

I labored tirelessly,

but none of the catalytic elements I tried

created the proper reaction.

Despondent, I began to
wander the wilderness.

As they say in my country,

I didn't know whether to
yodel or jump off the mountain.

I chose yodel.

The mountain chose avalanche.

TICK: Avalanche.

The deuce you say.

As I was lying there,

I saw a scatter

of iridescent beauty,

like a dream locked in ice.

It was Big Bismuth.

TICK: Destiny sure shook up

your snow globe that day.

KARAMAZOV: My next experiments
were very promising.

It was time

to share my invention with the world.

Many officials and Urmanians

of great importance

attended the unveiling

of my growth ray.

As was his custom,

Superian attended our
demonstration as well.

He had always kept a watchful
eye on my government's

superscience efforts.

This was to be my moment of glory.

But it was my downfall.

Unfortunately,

for all its miraculous properties,

Big Bismuth is wildly unstable.

It caused a violent expl*si*n of energy.

Its polarity reversed,

my growth ray became a shrink ray,

and I was halved in size.

My stature, physically

and as a scientist, had plummeted.

KARAMAZOV: I was despondent.

I was ruined. I was...

Hot in here.

Is anyone else hot? Is it just me?

Ow.

Superian, he's-he's burning up.

He should be getting better...

...not worse.

We need to get his
temperature under control.

STOSH: Broadcast tower on the south side.

Pyramid's looking to hijack it.

Don't ask me.

Maybe Lint's looking to
get into pirate radio.

That it?

That all you got?

What are you talking about?

The Pyramid g*ng's making a big move.

It's high tech, it's criminal.

We have to figure out what they're doing.

There's nothing new about
the Pyramid committing crimes.

I'm not interested.

Look, you said to bring you intel.

This is intel.

This is thug chatter. Low-level.

If it was part of The
Terror's plan, I'd know it.

You heard Stosh mention Miss Lint.

How can you be sure it's
not related to The Terror?

Instinct. Experience.

When you've been on the
mission as long as I have,

squatting in rain forests,
living off leeches,

drinking your own urine...

Why are you drinking your
own urine in the rain forest?

Stop arguing with me.

You're making a fool of yourself.

Popping off rounds at some empties

and eavesdropping at your roller gym

qualify you for jack f*cking squat.

Your lead's a dud.

Let go of me.

DANGERBOAT: And this is why one of us

doesn't have any friends.

KARAMAZOV: That's good.
Over his whole body.

Procurement of solid H O complete.

Superian appears to be cooling down,

but we need more ice.

More ice?

Affirmative.

Wait, Tick.

Tick, you have got to stop
it with this robot thing.

I don't see why, chum.
Finding out my origin

has given me a great
sense of personal relief.

Okay, you do realize, don't
you, that if you were a robot,

you wouldn't even be able to feel things

like personal relief.

Unless we have emotion chips inserted

into our circuit programming.

Tick. Tick, you don't
have programming. Okay?

If you had programming,
you wouldn't have free will.

Hmm.

You wouldn't be able to
choose to do the right thing.

Or anything. You-you couldn't
choose to answer destiny's call.

- But I do.
- Right.

But the version of you
that could make that choice

wouldn't even exist.

So, is that what you feel like?

Mm...

Is it?

Computing.

Come on. We have to go get ice.

GARRETT: We open on black.

A low hum. No music, just a hum.

But then...

flames rising behind.

And we reveal you in silhouette.

- We're feeling the danger.
- TERROR: Yeah.

- We're feeling the heat.
- TERROR: Yeah.

And then we hear it:

...a maniacal laugh.

I've been underground for years

and you want me to open
with a maniacal laugh?

- We think it could really pop.
- Uh-huh.

Well, I can't just summon a maniacal laugh.

I need to see something maniacally funny.

That was a maniacal chuckle.

What are you gonna do
with a maniacal chuckle?

GARRETT: That's a good note, sir.

HANNITY: Okay, back to the storyboard.

We thought maybe you're
stroking a beautiful cat.

- Cool and aloof.
- Cliché.

Cliché. Cliché. Where's the edge?

Where's the now?

This is my big relaunch.

Terror . !

I want folks to be sweating their boots!

I am...

Where'd this pig come from?

Y-You said you didn't want a cat.

Oh.

Yeah.

Lint, where you at?

I'm in the middle of executing your plan.

What is it?

Just sent you a pic. Need your opinion.

TERROR: Did you get it?

What the hell am I looking at?

- Let's go.
- TERROR: Me...

and a pig.

What do you think?

Is it the good kind of
bad, or bad kind of bad?

Jesus, I... It's-it's great.

I have to get back to work.

Huh.

KARAMAZOV: After the expl*si*n

caused my catastrophic shrinkage,

things were very bad for a while.

I fell into obsessive despair

while pouring over all my
private data from the disaster.

That's when I saw it: a secret

that had eluded humanity for decades.

The Achilles heel of the
world's first superhero.

Right. Yeah, Big Bismuth. We know.

- Yeah.
- Big.

- Bismuth.
- Bismuth.

- Yeah.
- Big Bismuth.


KARAMAZOV: I continued to study

this remarkable element until one day

the government somehow

learned of my discovery and came to see me.

They demanded I develop a weapons program

to be used as a deterrent

to Superian's continued interference

in our sovereign nation's
human rights atrocities.

The Terror discovered my secret

and sent his minions.

They took my lab, my work.

The Terror had everything he
needed to destroy Superian.

But then an unexpected event occurred.

What? What was the event?

Someone blew up the entire
cache of weapons at the wharf.

The Tick destroyed everything
The Terror took from my lab.

The weapons, the work,

and the world's supply of Big Bismuth.

TICK: Hey, that story's about me.

I remember choosing that.

- Thank goodness you did.
- Mm-hmm.

THUG: Keep going. Keep going!

THUG : Here you go.

THUG: Supposed to bring this up
to the radio tower on the roof.

THUG : What do you think it is?

DENNIS: Lint said something
about a major body count.

Thousands, maybe.

sh*t. No signal? What the hell?

OVERKILL: It's jammed.

Phone won't work.

My comm link with Dangerboat is out, too.

What are you doing here?

I thought my intel wasn't worth your time.

I lied.

I didn't want you involved
in this sensitive mission.

What are you wearing?

We're going up against Miss Lint.

I had to ground my suit.

Oh. Okay.

I heard them talking about a device.

They're gonna take it up to
the radio tower on the roof.

Yeah, I know. The Terror's using

the station's transmitter somehow.

I need to get out there and stop them.

Get down to the basement.

Find the power grid for the
building and shut it down.

- Got it.
- Sorry about grabbing your arm before.

I'm still pissed at you for lying.



And when The Tick brought
you the surviving wingsuit,

he set another chain of events in motion.

Apparently, I've been
choosing all over the place.

KEVIN: Superian's fever's melting

the paint in the bathroom.

He's not getting better.

The effects of Big Bismuth
should be dissipated by now.

Is this what The Terror intended?

The illness is not Terror's plan.

This is Terror's plan.

ARTHUR:
The V-L-M.

KARAMAZOV: When my weapons were destroyed,

so was our supply of Big Bismuth.

We needed more, so I improvised
a plan to create more.

The Terror's men collected
what fragments they could find.

In suitable organic matrix,

elemental Big Bismuth
attaches to recombinant DNA

and replicates its nucleotide sequence.

So Big Bismuth grows inside a human being.

And... Terror had specific
human being in mind.

We injected the Big Bismuth serum

into said individual.

My growth ray did the rest.

As the man became Very Large,

so did the Big Bismuth
crystals in his bloodstream,

creating all The Terror
would need to k*ll Superian.

Oh, my God.

It's...

it's the stupidest plan I've ever heard.

It's mad science.

No, it's stupid science.

Mad science begins where physics ends.

Okay, I don't believe this.

Hey, Tick, what do you think?

Tick?

Made perfect sense to me.

Lou, are you okay?

No, he's not.

You're lucky I made a promise not to k*ll.

You get the -hour coma punch.

Oh. Tick.

Are you okay?

Arthur...

I'm not a robot.

Great. Thank God. I am glad that is over.

- Okay, come on, let's go back...
- For a short while there, I...

thought I knew who I was.

I have to say...

- ♪
- it was nice to know me.

What are you talking about?
You're-you're still you.

- And what is that?
- Who knows?

But I know you're doing the right thing.

If you hadn't been at
the warehouse that night

and blown up those Urmanian weapons,

then Superian would already be dead.

Listen, Tick...

nobody really knows who they are.

Nobody.

But we keep going, because...

that's what the journey's about.

Finding out.

Like a quest?

Yeah. Yeah, a quest.

Well, that's got me written all over it.

Yes, it does.

Come on. Let's get back upstairs.

Lint.

- Hello, Esteban.
- You don't seem surprised to see me.

I invited you.

I know Everest's sister

is trying to mole her
way into the Pyramid g*ng.

Thought it'd be a good
way to get word to you.

Yes. I saw you and your girlfriend

skulking around the cemetery.

What are you up to,
Janet? Where's The Terror?

Wait, so...

she is your girlfriend?

- You made a big mistake bringing me here.
- No.

I don't think so.

Nice girdle.

But you're still not gonna k*ll me.

Let's test that theory.

Come and try.



You're not alone.

You brought a date...

to our showdown?

Find her.

Bring her to me!

- Yes, ma'am.
- Right away.

Getting nervous?

Terror must have you on a tight clock.

No, I'm good.

What about the power, Janet?

Oh...

Tiger.

You, of all people,

should know...

I am the power.



BOTH: It's Superian!

Not everything that glows
gives you superpowers.

And no, that glowing ooze is not magic.

It's probably unstable
industrial effluence,

or unnatural secretions,

or how about plain, old-fashioned radioactive?

It's probably giving you cancer.

Remember, if it glows, get up and go.



TICK: So choosy choosers choose Destiny.

That's pretty clear.

KARAMAZOV: Tick! Arthur!

Good, you're back. Look!

Our patient is starting
to feel much better.

How?

Superian.

From one hero to another,

may I say it is an honor.

Whoa! Oh!

Hey, hey, hey, hey, what just happened?

I think I know what's k*lling Superian.

What?

TICK: Tony Robbins' "Money master, the game"?

No. Him!

I?

KEVIN: Guys.

Guys.

The
V-L-M.

It's moving.

NEWSMAN: Breaking news...
The V-L-M is on the move,

and he's heading in a northeast direction.

But the question remains,
in Superian's absence,

who can stop this behemoth
before someone gets hurt?

Whoa, look at him go!

Yeah, but...

where is he going?

Here.

To the city.

It's the final stage of The Terror's plan.

Didn't I mention that earlier?

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