Lie To Me s02e14 Episode Script
React to Contact
Wake up, sweetheart.
What? Jakey? Jakey? Jakey, get up.
Dad, you're hurting me.
Shh.
Shh.
Get under the bed.
There's somebody out there, Jakey, so get under the bed.
Daddy Shh.
Dad! It's just the rain! Daddy! Do not move! Copy? Aah! Jake! I told you not to move! You OK? You all right? I'm OK, mom.
I'm OK.
Damn it, Jeff! You need help! I--I told him not to-- Oh, God.
Oh, God.
Oh, God.
Ok.
Ok.
Ok.
Well, I think somebody should say it.
It sounds a lot like PTSD.
Sergeant Turley got back from Iraq 6 months ago.
He was one of my most effective NCOs.
I read your bio, Dr.
Lightman.
And I'm begging you, do whatever it takes.
All right.
Are you going to help my dad? Who are you? Jake.
Mum? Becky.
How do you do? Jillian.
Are you a soldier? My dad was.
My dad's getting a Silver Star.
Your dad must be really brave.
We're just going to sit over there.
Come on.
Restraints? Turley nearly took out his own kid with a weapon he's no longer authorized to have.
We're lucky he's not in a cell downtown.
I'll be right back.
All right, Jeff.
I'm Cal Lightman.
Only joking.
So, uh, what you so scared of, then? Say again? You heard.
You have any idea what it's like to get back from Iraq, and somebody's still trying to kill you? No.
I can only imagine.
A bit basket case, if I were you.
No offense.
Colonel said he'd call you in, says you can see if I'm lying.
Well? What are you doing? I'm getting you out of here.
Sergeant Turley saved the lives of 14 soldiers in Iraq.
Including a wounded man he carried to safety.
Army medical files make no mention of PTSD.
No, they haven't run all the tests on him yet.
The hospital has been overwhelmed it's a 6-month wait, minimum.
Do you really think somebody's trying to kill him? The point is, he believes it.
File, please.
Thank you very much.
Mm-hmm.
Lightman talked to the VA.
They're going to let him use the magnet.
Colonel Powler cut through the red tape.
The magnet? Their FMRI machine.
All right.
Says here that you killed your house with an armor-piercing round.
Who exactly is after you? I don't know.
I--I wish I did.
Trust me.
Ah.
All right.
Let's talk about your boy, Jake.
I couldn't live without him.
Well, you almost blew his bloody head off.
Up yours, man.
All right.
Calm down.
Look at me.
Come on, I dare you.
Look at me.
What do you see? A smartass limey bastard.
No, though, I mean, apart from that.
Friend or foe? Be honest.
Sorry.
Sorry.
All right.
We'll take a break, then, calm down.
Listen, I'm fine, OK? Take a breath.
Take a deep breath.
I'm good.
I believe you.
When did you last have a decent night's sleep, Jeff, eh? One or two months ago.
Army gives me pills, but they don't do squat.
What, the little white one? Listen, I know-- I know what you're thinking.
No, you don't.
I don't have PTSD.
Oh, excuse me, where did you do your post doctorate work, eh? Think about cheese.
What? Think about cheese.
We're going to take a few pictures of your brain.
You might as well be smiling.
So, a bunch of pictures will appear on the screen above him, and the machine will record what happens in his brain when he looks at them.
Ok.
Let's get started.
Uh, flash them at 1/10 of a second.
Jeff, when you see the angry face, your amygdala, here, lights up.
We would expect that.
It's primal warrior neurons firing, the fight or flight reflexes.
Which is good, if you're a soldier in combat.
But if you're home with your wife and kid, not so good.
When we flashed the neutral face This area should light up.
But there's no change.
Right.
So at the neuron level, where our emotions begin, you see this face as angry.
So you're reading neutral faces as hostile.
Everyone is your enemy.
That's PTSD.
So you've seen a lot of combat, and you're having trouble moving on.
I've moved on.
It's OK, babe.
We're getting you the help that you need.
And that's avoidance.
You won't let people get close to you, even your wife, who we know you love.
Having PTSD doesn't mean someone out there doesn't want me dead.
Absolutely.
And no one said they did.
So? You're getting awarded the Silver Star, right? What for? See, I would have thought you'd be proud to tell me that.
I don't want to talk about it.
You seem more ashamed than you are proud.
I told you-- yeah, I know.
You don't want to talk about it, which is why we're going to go back.
Back where? Back to the root of the problem.
Why are we doing this? He isn't being deceptive.
But he is being lied to.
Yeah, by his own brain.
During moments of extreme trauma, part of the brain can just shut down.
And in Jeff's case, the only real memories he has of the events is-- in the form of nightmares or flashbacks.
So the idea is to retraumatize him in a controlled way.
Right, so that his memories reintegrate.
The truth is the only way to help him recover.
So this is Foster's pet project, huh? Virtual reality.
Yep.
Foster got a DOD grant to build this prototype.
You know, they say truth is the first casualty of war.
Foster thinks virtual reality can change that.
All right.
The day that you earned your Silver Star, where were you? Uhh In my Humvee outside Zirmaya.
Put the old, um, things down.
That's it.
Look at that.
Same crap hole I just left.
Look to your right.
What do you see? Um, Ronnie's sitting next to me.
Ronnie? Sergeant Bacca.
He's what? Your army buddy, is he? We were in the sandbox together.
He always had my back.
All right.
Now, use the remote control, yeah, to move about.
It's like a video game, really.
We were number 2 in the convoy.
Yeah.
We were heading into Zirmaya.
Anything important? Uh, topcover.
2 helos above us.
Kiowa OH-58s.
And an A-10 Warthog in support.
I'll see your Kiowas, and I will raise you one Warthog.
We're going to turn right down this alley.
It's a routine patrol, but the road was blocked right down here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This lead Humvee's going to get hit by an IED.
Survivors? Sutton, Cortez, and Tanaka, all dead, just like that.
Never even went to their funerals.
Some hero.
Survivor's guilt.
Blood pressure and heart rate are elevated.
Want some water? No, no.
No.
Let's just do this.
Ok.
So we're going to take some incoming.
Yeah.
Incoming right here.
Where? RPG, 11 o'clock! All right.
They set my engine block on fire, and Jeffers is up on top, and we're taking major, major heat.
All right.
We're going to lose Jeffers in a second here.
Uh, God.
We're taking major fire.
Jeffers goes down.
Jeffers is down.
Jeffers is down.
He's pounding on my window.
He's yelling.
He's going to haul my ass out of here.
Who is? Uh Ok.
We're taking major fire.
He's yelling at me.
He's telling me that we got to take this compound with this red door.
If I don't go through it, he's going to kill me.
Who's going to kill you? Who's going to kill you? Who's going to kill you? Who's going to kill you? What, you're a coward now, are you? Are you scared? You calling me a coward, Captain? Who you calling a Captain, Sergeant? All right.
Foster? Torres? Find this man's Captain.
Private Johns got shot with a 7.
62 round.
First thing he's going to be doing is screaming for his mama.
Now, you reach into his pack to find the pressure bandage.
Instead, you find tobacco.
Pressure bandage.
Upper right-hand pouch as you wear it.
With a large wound, you can use the plastic to contain any mess.
At ease, gentlemen.
Afternoon, ladies.
Hi.
You work with Dr.
Lightman? Yes.
I'm Jillian Foster.
Torres.
Colonel Powler said I could be of help to you.
You served with Sergeant Jeff Turley? Sorry to hear he's having some trouble readjusting.
Glad he's working with you.
We used to study Dr.
Lightman's work at West Point.
Really? At West Point? Every officer reads Dr.
Lightman's book.
In Iraq, we used his facereading techniques to help identify insurgents.
I can't tell you how many soldiers he helped save.
What are you doing here? Nothing.
I, uh, I got you a cactus.
Why? Why not? What have you done? I haven't done anything.
I just-- it--it reminded me of you.
So can you tell us what happened at Zirmaya, after the convoy was hit? Turley froze, terrified.
We were in a kill zone.
His gunner was K.
I.
A.
I had to get him out of that Humvee.
Otherwise, he'd be dead, too.
Why would he say you want to kill him? Because at that instant, I did want to kill him.
And I wasn't the only one.
I had to yank him out of that Humvee.
Yet you recommended him for the Silver Star.
Bravery is overcoming your fear.
Turley did that.
He stepped up, saved lives without regard for his own.
Sir, battalion update briefing is moved from 1800 to 1630.
I'm sorry.
I have to go.
We're deploying in 3 days.
Let me get you the afteraction report from Zirmaya.
Taw will be back with it in 2 minutes.
Ladies.
Well, if you want my read, he's telling the truth.
That's the kind of guy I'd follow into war.
That's because he was flirting with you the entire time.
Well, it gave me a baseline.
This is a guy who's deploying back to the war in 3 days.
His voice, the pride in it? He's hiding something.
Oh, neat car.
My dad gave it to me.
Jake, Emily.
Emily, Jake.
Is he your dad? Yeah.
He's helping my dad.
My dad's a soldier.
Ahh.
You can talk about that later.
Go.
Go on.
Bye, Jake.
Off you go.
Go on.
Keep going.
Nice to meet you.
Keep going.
Keep going.
Keep going.
That's it.
Go on.
Based on the afteraction report, here is the official story.
Right.
So, Humvee gets blown up here, right? Now, they're taking fire from here and here.
Jeff, Ronnie, and the Captain, they assault the red door.
Right.
Jeff goes through the red door first.
Yes.
And he clears the snipers nests here and here, and he shoots a combatant here, OK? And a firefight happens here.
And that's the official version.
What do you think, there's more than one version? There's always more than one version.
Can I have a go? Sure.
I think I broke it.
It's an accident.
It's all right.
It does that sometimes.
When you asked me if I was a soldier, were you hoping that I was going to be one? Yeah, like my dad.
Oh.
Well, I'm not.
Oh.
Come here.
I-- How'd you get that, then? My dad gets scared.
What, like, when he fired his gun? That was an accident, too.
Ok.
Are you scared of your dad? How do you know? Well, I was a boy once, you know.
Only I was about, um Well, I was much shorter.
My dad was trying to protect me.
From what? The bruises.
They're from Ronnie.
Your dad's army buddy? He lives above our garage now.
Hey, Jake When you say that Ronnie hurts you, that's a big deal.
You know that, right? Hmm? I saw Ronnie and my mom once in the kitchen.
Mm-hmm.
He touched her face like this.
Jake is afraid of losing his dad.
He blames Ronnie.
That's why he's telling lies.
A boy sees his father falling apart, and then, another soldier moves into the house and provides support and comfort to his mother.
Put yourself in his shoes.
Is there something going on between you and Ronnie? Ronnie's very special to us.
We're very lucky to have him around, particularly with what's going on.
Yeah.
You said no, but what you were actually doing was nodding yes.
She never actually said no.
Did you, Becky? And right there, you just sucked in your cheek, which means you were trying to wipe away an obvious emotion.
Ronnie's the only friend we have.
Jeff never came back from the war.
He grabs his knife, and he vanishes at night, and the only person I can call is Ronnie.
So there's nothing more than that between you two? No.
There's not.
Not yet.
Problem.
Jeff's gone.
Go to my house and see Ronnie Like I have to all the time.
You going somewhere, Ronnie? One-eyed night at the ice rink.
Who's asking? I'm Dr.
Foster.
This is Dr.
Lightman.
We're looking for your friend Jeff.
You look a little nervous.
Mind you, I would be, too, if I was bashing another man's son around.
Jake says you hit him.
He's a kid.
It's been a rough 6 months.
I'd never lay a hand on Jake.
Are you sleeping with your friend's wife? I'll take that as a "not yet.
" Mind you, I've seen her.
I mean, you know, she is tasty.
I feel your pain.
The man saved my life.
I'm not going near his wife.
End of story.
All right.
I'll buy that.
I got his back, all right? It's all good.
Hot date at the ice rink, Ronnie? Jeff was here.
I'm going to go find him.
All right.
All right.
Becky says he goes walkabout at night.
To the veterans cemetery.
See some friends.
in Iraq, you busted through a red door with your squad.
What happened at the other side? Well, I took the hit pretty quick.
You're going to have to ask Jeff, or the Captain.
You don't like the Captain much, do you? He's a good officer.
What about Jeff? How does he feel about the Captain? Not much? What else are you hiding from us? My gun's missing.
You don't take a gun to a cemetery, do you? Hey.
Captain Renshaw.
Dr.
Lightman.
Dr.
Foster.
Your man Turley's on the loose with a gun.
Really? Oh, yeah.
We thought he might come see you.
Why? Well, that was going to be our next question Well, he's not here.
Oh.
Can we do this in the morning? I actually need to get as much sleep as I can before we ship out.
Yeah.
I'm sorry we bothered you.
We thought we would just let you know.
I appreciate that.
You should get your head down, get some sleep.
I will do my best.
All right.
Good night.
Good night.
Well, he's in there.
That doesn't look like a man reaching for a drink.
That looks like a man who knows how to fight dirty.
Well, it takes one to know one.
I'm going to go stall him at the front door.
Well, that's a good idea.
Hi.
Captain Renshaw.
Just one more thing.
Dr.
Foster, I did tell you that we're shipping out tomorrow.
I was planning on going to bed.
What is so important that you need to talk to me in the middle of the night? Look, we think that Jeff is under the impression that he has unfinished business with you about the war.
I nominated him for a Silver Star.
Getting it pinned on him is our only unfinished business.
We know that he is an honorable man.
He's a hero.
And we also know that those are words that he would never use to describe himself.
Sounds like Sergeant Turley to me.
Can I come in? Put the gun down, Jeff.
Lightman, you are way out of your depth.
Absolutely.
I'm coming in from your left, and I am armed, all right? Here I come.
Right, see? There it is.
Why do this? Why do this? Ask him.
He knows.
Don't you? Why don't you enlighten me, Sergeant? Did you come here to kill the Captain, or just talk about killing him, eh? Give him the gun.
Nope.
Come on.
Give it to him.
No.
Give it to him! He wants to kill me, he can go ahead and do it himself.
You want to kill me, Hmm? Do it.
You need help, Sergeant.
Why does the Captain want to kill you? Because you deserve it? Or think you do? You're trying to kill yourself here, aren't you? Well, it's a bit different with the gun in my hand, isn't it? I let everybody down.
You didn't do any such thing.
When you got shot up in that Humvee, it was on fire.
You were afraid.
But in my book, bravery is what you do in spite of fear, son.
You know what? Sod this, all right? I mean, really.
What happened behind the red door? What happens over there stays over there.
Really? Well, not for him, clearly.
It doesn't do him or anyone else any good to keep going over it.
Anyone else? You got someone particular in mind, have you? Look at him.
You think this is helping? Jeff? Enough.
He doesn't have a gun.
And even if I did, I don't want to kill you.
Put the gun down.
Here I come.
Here.
So you're outside the Humvee, right? Now what? Uh, I'm OK.
Ronnie, me and the Captain were the assault team.
The rest of the convoy is pinned down.
Look, let's skip ahead to the bit with the red door.
The insurgents are in there.
All right, so, you go through the red door, you're going to save the convoy, right? Uh-huh.
So Kick it in.
Kick it in.
Come on, Jeff.
Come on, kick it in.
Go on, I dare you.
Kick it in, kick it in.
No, no.
I can't.
I can't go in there.
Look, it's just a bloody video game, Jeff.
It's safe as anything.
I can't, OK? Why not, Jeff? My son is in there! Right.
Your son is 9 years old, Jeff, right? Right? So he's not in this war.
No.
No, he's not.
Oh.
So kick the door down.
Kick the door down.
I can't.
Ok.
Well, then your story is a load of bullocks.
Look, you're running out of options.
You either kick the door down or you're raising your kid from the looney bin! Right, in you come.
Faster, come on.
Ok! Ronnie banks left, takes out a sniper.
Aah! I went right, Captain goes high.
There was a car there, I took some cover behind it.
All right, you're afraid.
That's good, 'cause that means you're there.
React to contact.
It's what we train for.
Now you were taking sniper fire, right? I return fire with my M-4, pop off a 40 millimeter grenade round.
Ahh! Carry on.
Ok, so we move forward through the market, I'm on point.
I take a turn, and there was, uh There was resistance.
Resistance? I saw a combatant.
Unh! There's a combatant? A combatant? He's not an enemy this time.
No, he's making a distinction.
But he came out of nowhere! He came out of the archway.
It's a kid.
I was looking right down the barrel of his gun.
Up like that? He was 10 years old.
That's about the same age as your son, eh? Yeah.
What'd you do? Did you kill him? Ahh! They train you for everything, they don't train you for that.
What you just told me was a lie.
What are you talkin' about? What are you talkin' about? I told you! We--we came through the market, I turned left, he came out of nowhere and I returned fire! Unh! All right, fair enough.
But Why does that make the Captain want to kill you? Huh? I don't know.
I don't know.
Maybe he doesn't.
Maybe I am nuts.
I'm just I'm telling you everything I know.
Ah, no, something definitely happened that day.
Well, if you can't tell me what it was, I'll have to get it out of the Captain.
All right, Jeff lost it in Zirmaya.
And since that place has been completely blown off the map, this'll have to do.
I thought the point of therapy was to put the day behind him.
Oh, what, you're a psychiatrist in your spare time, eh? Neither am I.
She is, however.
Turley's gotten worse since you've been in his life.
I have to agree.
He's completely unstable.
Lightman has that effect on people.
Try being her.
All right, you said you'd take a bullet for Jeff, didn't you, Captain? Anything for one of my men.
All right.
Well, let's put that to the test.
So you come through the red door.
All right, then what? I go to the right with Renshaw.
I head left, take out the sniper, upper window.
Ahh! Captain? You're awfully quiet.
I laid down suppressive fire to cover the upper floor.
Well, then what? I cleared through the market.
One more enemy K.
I.
A.
at the end.
Ahh! And that's when the kid came through with the A.
K.
What, right here? Yeah.
Yeah? Right.
Gillian.
Be the kid.
Go on.
Heels off, make yourself shorter.
You know, shouldn't be too difficult.
Ok, so you see the kid.
Then what happens, Jeff? I killed him.
Ahh! You killed him? Is that before or after Ronnie becomes a cyclops? Ahh! I got shot.
I don't remember.
Yeah, but you would remember if Jeff's gun went off before you got shot, right? I heard a lot of shots that day, OK? No, no, no, no.
I froze.
I froze.
I didn't kill the kid.
I froze.
I froze.
I-I-- I should have fired, but I didn't.
Is that because it was a kid? Ahh! Ronnie! All right, Foster, uh, point at Ronnie.
Go on.
Ok.
Well, say, "bang.
" Bang.
All right, brilliant.
All right, Ronnie, on the ground.
Ok.
Jeff.
What then? UhI went to him.
Ronnie! I covered them.
In the report, it doesn't say anything about Jeff freezing.
You wrote the report up, Captain.
Why'd you leave that out? His best friend got hurt as a direct result of his inaction.
You see that, right? Defensive posture.
Yeah.
Defensive of Yourself? I saw something.
The kid? No, no, no.
The kid ran away.
Right, so the kid legs it, right? And then, uh, what? You saw something else? Yeah.
I saw someone else.
You saw "someone" else? Who'd you see, Jeff? Who came through here? Ronnie! Oh, my eye! Get him up! Friendly fire.
Your report was fiction, Captain.
You killed one of your own men.
Game over.
He was from another company.
Got cut off from his squad.
Sorrow? Remorse? It was an accident.
Your senior officer had you lie about friendly fire.
He had to, if he was going to keep it out of the report.
Sergeant here is an unstable man.
History of mental problems.
Oh, yeah, yeah, he's absolutely crackers, but one minute later, Zirmaya gets blown off the map, right? Who called in the air strike? Captain? I wonder.
Renshaw, he asked you a question.
When I picked up Ronnie and ran Come here, man.
Come here.
Up, up! Unh! Come on, come on, come on! I could hear a Warthog above us.
And Renshaw was calling in an air strike.
Cobra seven, this is Bulldog six.
You are cleared hot! Friendly fire isn't a crime.
But covering up friendly fire with an air strike-- that-- that's a war crime.
You know how many people died in that air strike? You see that? That Is what your mind couldn't handle.
All right.
So this is our friendly fire victim, eh? I wanted to honor him somehow.
Well, you've done that.
Saved Ronnie's life, got a Silver Star.
Well done, mate.
Got something better than that last night.
Oh, yeah? A good night's sleep.
Oh, 'cause I was thinking, you know, the other.
Mind's in the gutter.
Thanks for helping my dad.
No worries.
Comfortable, Dr.
Lightman? Does it matter? You want me to run the whole battery of scans? Yeah, the usual suspects.
Have you finished checking my homework? Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I'm nearly done.
Yeah, look at this.
You're gonna like this.
Yeah.
Check that out.
Take a look at this.
What do you see? Uh, wrinkles.
Like--like one of those dogs with the scrunched-up faces.
All right.
Like a Shar Pei.
Brains are ugly.
That's my brain, that is.
Oh.
Well, you have a very handsome brain.
Thank you very much.
Hmm.
Ok, you see this area here? That is supposed to be love.
Aww, when you look at a picture of me? Mmm, yeah, aww.
All right, now see what this says.
Fight or flight? A picture of mom triggered that.
Yeah, so flight, mostly.
You're making that up.
No, look at me, read my face.
Huh? There.
Ok, now Foster.
Whoa, Fourth of July.
Oh, yeah? Shepherd's pie.
All right.
Here.
That's your granddad, that is.
And this you? Yep.
He was a soldier.
You never told me that.
You never asked.
He didn't talk about it much.
You know, I'm curious about him.
Yeah.
Me, too.
But you never asked him about the war? No, it was a matter of respect, really, you know? I mean, he came out of the war, and he went straight back to work in the rail yard.
He put me through college, so that was that.
I'd like to meet him someday.
Yeah.
Well, one day, eh?
What? Jakey? Jakey? Jakey, get up.
Dad, you're hurting me.
Shh.
Shh.
Get under the bed.
There's somebody out there, Jakey, so get under the bed.
Daddy Shh.
Dad! It's just the rain! Daddy! Do not move! Copy? Aah! Jake! I told you not to move! You OK? You all right? I'm OK, mom.
I'm OK.
Damn it, Jeff! You need help! I--I told him not to-- Oh, God.
Oh, God.
Oh, God.
Ok.
Ok.
Ok.
Well, I think somebody should say it.
It sounds a lot like PTSD.
Sergeant Turley got back from Iraq 6 months ago.
He was one of my most effective NCOs.
I read your bio, Dr.
Lightman.
And I'm begging you, do whatever it takes.
All right.
Are you going to help my dad? Who are you? Jake.
Mum? Becky.
How do you do? Jillian.
Are you a soldier? My dad was.
My dad's getting a Silver Star.
Your dad must be really brave.
We're just going to sit over there.
Come on.
Restraints? Turley nearly took out his own kid with a weapon he's no longer authorized to have.
We're lucky he's not in a cell downtown.
I'll be right back.
All right, Jeff.
I'm Cal Lightman.
Only joking.
So, uh, what you so scared of, then? Say again? You heard.
You have any idea what it's like to get back from Iraq, and somebody's still trying to kill you? No.
I can only imagine.
A bit basket case, if I were you.
No offense.
Colonel said he'd call you in, says you can see if I'm lying.
Well? What are you doing? I'm getting you out of here.
Sergeant Turley saved the lives of 14 soldiers in Iraq.
Including a wounded man he carried to safety.
Army medical files make no mention of PTSD.
No, they haven't run all the tests on him yet.
The hospital has been overwhelmed it's a 6-month wait, minimum.
Do you really think somebody's trying to kill him? The point is, he believes it.
File, please.
Thank you very much.
Mm-hmm.
Lightman talked to the VA.
They're going to let him use the magnet.
Colonel Powler cut through the red tape.
The magnet? Their FMRI machine.
All right.
Says here that you killed your house with an armor-piercing round.
Who exactly is after you? I don't know.
I--I wish I did.
Trust me.
Ah.
All right.
Let's talk about your boy, Jake.
I couldn't live without him.
Well, you almost blew his bloody head off.
Up yours, man.
All right.
Calm down.
Look at me.
Come on, I dare you.
Look at me.
What do you see? A smartass limey bastard.
No, though, I mean, apart from that.
Friend or foe? Be honest.
Sorry.
Sorry.
All right.
We'll take a break, then, calm down.
Listen, I'm fine, OK? Take a breath.
Take a deep breath.
I'm good.
I believe you.
When did you last have a decent night's sleep, Jeff, eh? One or two months ago.
Army gives me pills, but they don't do squat.
What, the little white one? Listen, I know-- I know what you're thinking.
No, you don't.
I don't have PTSD.
Oh, excuse me, where did you do your post doctorate work, eh? Think about cheese.
What? Think about cheese.
We're going to take a few pictures of your brain.
You might as well be smiling.
So, a bunch of pictures will appear on the screen above him, and the machine will record what happens in his brain when he looks at them.
Ok.
Let's get started.
Uh, flash them at 1/10 of a second.
Jeff, when you see the angry face, your amygdala, here, lights up.
We would expect that.
It's primal warrior neurons firing, the fight or flight reflexes.
Which is good, if you're a soldier in combat.
But if you're home with your wife and kid, not so good.
When we flashed the neutral face This area should light up.
But there's no change.
Right.
So at the neuron level, where our emotions begin, you see this face as angry.
So you're reading neutral faces as hostile.
Everyone is your enemy.
That's PTSD.
So you've seen a lot of combat, and you're having trouble moving on.
I've moved on.
It's OK, babe.
We're getting you the help that you need.
And that's avoidance.
You won't let people get close to you, even your wife, who we know you love.
Having PTSD doesn't mean someone out there doesn't want me dead.
Absolutely.
And no one said they did.
So? You're getting awarded the Silver Star, right? What for? See, I would have thought you'd be proud to tell me that.
I don't want to talk about it.
You seem more ashamed than you are proud.
I told you-- yeah, I know.
You don't want to talk about it, which is why we're going to go back.
Back where? Back to the root of the problem.
Why are we doing this? He isn't being deceptive.
But he is being lied to.
Yeah, by his own brain.
During moments of extreme trauma, part of the brain can just shut down.
And in Jeff's case, the only real memories he has of the events is-- in the form of nightmares or flashbacks.
So the idea is to retraumatize him in a controlled way.
Right, so that his memories reintegrate.
The truth is the only way to help him recover.
So this is Foster's pet project, huh? Virtual reality.
Yep.
Foster got a DOD grant to build this prototype.
You know, they say truth is the first casualty of war.
Foster thinks virtual reality can change that.
All right.
The day that you earned your Silver Star, where were you? Uhh In my Humvee outside Zirmaya.
Put the old, um, things down.
That's it.
Look at that.
Same crap hole I just left.
Look to your right.
What do you see? Um, Ronnie's sitting next to me.
Ronnie? Sergeant Bacca.
He's what? Your army buddy, is he? We were in the sandbox together.
He always had my back.
All right.
Now, use the remote control, yeah, to move about.
It's like a video game, really.
We were number 2 in the convoy.
Yeah.
We were heading into Zirmaya.
Anything important? Uh, topcover.
2 helos above us.
Kiowa OH-58s.
And an A-10 Warthog in support.
I'll see your Kiowas, and I will raise you one Warthog.
We're going to turn right down this alley.
It's a routine patrol, but the road was blocked right down here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This lead Humvee's going to get hit by an IED.
Survivors? Sutton, Cortez, and Tanaka, all dead, just like that.
Never even went to their funerals.
Some hero.
Survivor's guilt.
Blood pressure and heart rate are elevated.
Want some water? No, no.
No.
Let's just do this.
Ok.
So we're going to take some incoming.
Yeah.
Incoming right here.
Where? RPG, 11 o'clock! All right.
They set my engine block on fire, and Jeffers is up on top, and we're taking major, major heat.
All right.
We're going to lose Jeffers in a second here.
Uh, God.
We're taking major fire.
Jeffers goes down.
Jeffers is down.
Jeffers is down.
He's pounding on my window.
He's yelling.
He's going to haul my ass out of here.
Who is? Uh Ok.
We're taking major fire.
He's yelling at me.
He's telling me that we got to take this compound with this red door.
If I don't go through it, he's going to kill me.
Who's going to kill you? Who's going to kill you? Who's going to kill you? Who's going to kill you? What, you're a coward now, are you? Are you scared? You calling me a coward, Captain? Who you calling a Captain, Sergeant? All right.
Foster? Torres? Find this man's Captain.
Private Johns got shot with a 7.
62 round.
First thing he's going to be doing is screaming for his mama.
Now, you reach into his pack to find the pressure bandage.
Instead, you find tobacco.
Pressure bandage.
Upper right-hand pouch as you wear it.
With a large wound, you can use the plastic to contain any mess.
At ease, gentlemen.
Afternoon, ladies.
Hi.
You work with Dr.
Lightman? Yes.
I'm Jillian Foster.
Torres.
Colonel Powler said I could be of help to you.
You served with Sergeant Jeff Turley? Sorry to hear he's having some trouble readjusting.
Glad he's working with you.
We used to study Dr.
Lightman's work at West Point.
Really? At West Point? Every officer reads Dr.
Lightman's book.
In Iraq, we used his facereading techniques to help identify insurgents.
I can't tell you how many soldiers he helped save.
What are you doing here? Nothing.
I, uh, I got you a cactus.
Why? Why not? What have you done? I haven't done anything.
I just-- it--it reminded me of you.
So can you tell us what happened at Zirmaya, after the convoy was hit? Turley froze, terrified.
We were in a kill zone.
His gunner was K.
I.
A.
I had to get him out of that Humvee.
Otherwise, he'd be dead, too.
Why would he say you want to kill him? Because at that instant, I did want to kill him.
And I wasn't the only one.
I had to yank him out of that Humvee.
Yet you recommended him for the Silver Star.
Bravery is overcoming your fear.
Turley did that.
He stepped up, saved lives without regard for his own.
Sir, battalion update briefing is moved from 1800 to 1630.
I'm sorry.
I have to go.
We're deploying in 3 days.
Let me get you the afteraction report from Zirmaya.
Taw will be back with it in 2 minutes.
Ladies.
Well, if you want my read, he's telling the truth.
That's the kind of guy I'd follow into war.
That's because he was flirting with you the entire time.
Well, it gave me a baseline.
This is a guy who's deploying back to the war in 3 days.
His voice, the pride in it? He's hiding something.
Oh, neat car.
My dad gave it to me.
Jake, Emily.
Emily, Jake.
Is he your dad? Yeah.
He's helping my dad.
My dad's a soldier.
Ahh.
You can talk about that later.
Go.
Go on.
Bye, Jake.
Off you go.
Go on.
Keep going.
Nice to meet you.
Keep going.
Keep going.
Keep going.
That's it.
Go on.
Based on the afteraction report, here is the official story.
Right.
So, Humvee gets blown up here, right? Now, they're taking fire from here and here.
Jeff, Ronnie, and the Captain, they assault the red door.
Right.
Jeff goes through the red door first.
Yes.
And he clears the snipers nests here and here, and he shoots a combatant here, OK? And a firefight happens here.
And that's the official version.
What do you think, there's more than one version? There's always more than one version.
Can I have a go? Sure.
I think I broke it.
It's an accident.
It's all right.
It does that sometimes.
When you asked me if I was a soldier, were you hoping that I was going to be one? Yeah, like my dad.
Oh.
Well, I'm not.
Oh.
Come here.
I-- How'd you get that, then? My dad gets scared.
What, like, when he fired his gun? That was an accident, too.
Ok.
Are you scared of your dad? How do you know? Well, I was a boy once, you know.
Only I was about, um Well, I was much shorter.
My dad was trying to protect me.
From what? The bruises.
They're from Ronnie.
Your dad's army buddy? He lives above our garage now.
Hey, Jake When you say that Ronnie hurts you, that's a big deal.
You know that, right? Hmm? I saw Ronnie and my mom once in the kitchen.
Mm-hmm.
He touched her face like this.
Jake is afraid of losing his dad.
He blames Ronnie.
That's why he's telling lies.
A boy sees his father falling apart, and then, another soldier moves into the house and provides support and comfort to his mother.
Put yourself in his shoes.
Is there something going on between you and Ronnie? Ronnie's very special to us.
We're very lucky to have him around, particularly with what's going on.
Yeah.
You said no, but what you were actually doing was nodding yes.
She never actually said no.
Did you, Becky? And right there, you just sucked in your cheek, which means you were trying to wipe away an obvious emotion.
Ronnie's the only friend we have.
Jeff never came back from the war.
He grabs his knife, and he vanishes at night, and the only person I can call is Ronnie.
So there's nothing more than that between you two? No.
There's not.
Not yet.
Problem.
Jeff's gone.
Go to my house and see Ronnie Like I have to all the time.
You going somewhere, Ronnie? One-eyed night at the ice rink.
Who's asking? I'm Dr.
Foster.
This is Dr.
Lightman.
We're looking for your friend Jeff.
You look a little nervous.
Mind you, I would be, too, if I was bashing another man's son around.
Jake says you hit him.
He's a kid.
It's been a rough 6 months.
I'd never lay a hand on Jake.
Are you sleeping with your friend's wife? I'll take that as a "not yet.
" Mind you, I've seen her.
I mean, you know, she is tasty.
I feel your pain.
The man saved my life.
I'm not going near his wife.
End of story.
All right.
I'll buy that.
I got his back, all right? It's all good.
Hot date at the ice rink, Ronnie? Jeff was here.
I'm going to go find him.
All right.
All right.
Becky says he goes walkabout at night.
To the veterans cemetery.
See some friends.
in Iraq, you busted through a red door with your squad.
What happened at the other side? Well, I took the hit pretty quick.
You're going to have to ask Jeff, or the Captain.
You don't like the Captain much, do you? He's a good officer.
What about Jeff? How does he feel about the Captain? Not much? What else are you hiding from us? My gun's missing.
You don't take a gun to a cemetery, do you? Hey.
Captain Renshaw.
Dr.
Lightman.
Dr.
Foster.
Your man Turley's on the loose with a gun.
Really? Oh, yeah.
We thought he might come see you.
Why? Well, that was going to be our next question Well, he's not here.
Oh.
Can we do this in the morning? I actually need to get as much sleep as I can before we ship out.
Yeah.
I'm sorry we bothered you.
We thought we would just let you know.
I appreciate that.
You should get your head down, get some sleep.
I will do my best.
All right.
Good night.
Good night.
Well, he's in there.
That doesn't look like a man reaching for a drink.
That looks like a man who knows how to fight dirty.
Well, it takes one to know one.
I'm going to go stall him at the front door.
Well, that's a good idea.
Hi.
Captain Renshaw.
Just one more thing.
Dr.
Foster, I did tell you that we're shipping out tomorrow.
I was planning on going to bed.
What is so important that you need to talk to me in the middle of the night? Look, we think that Jeff is under the impression that he has unfinished business with you about the war.
I nominated him for a Silver Star.
Getting it pinned on him is our only unfinished business.
We know that he is an honorable man.
He's a hero.
And we also know that those are words that he would never use to describe himself.
Sounds like Sergeant Turley to me.
Can I come in? Put the gun down, Jeff.
Lightman, you are way out of your depth.
Absolutely.
I'm coming in from your left, and I am armed, all right? Here I come.
Right, see? There it is.
Why do this? Why do this? Ask him.
He knows.
Don't you? Why don't you enlighten me, Sergeant? Did you come here to kill the Captain, or just talk about killing him, eh? Give him the gun.
Nope.
Come on.
Give it to him.
No.
Give it to him! He wants to kill me, he can go ahead and do it himself.
You want to kill me, Hmm? Do it.
You need help, Sergeant.
Why does the Captain want to kill you? Because you deserve it? Or think you do? You're trying to kill yourself here, aren't you? Well, it's a bit different with the gun in my hand, isn't it? I let everybody down.
You didn't do any such thing.
When you got shot up in that Humvee, it was on fire.
You were afraid.
But in my book, bravery is what you do in spite of fear, son.
You know what? Sod this, all right? I mean, really.
What happened behind the red door? What happens over there stays over there.
Really? Well, not for him, clearly.
It doesn't do him or anyone else any good to keep going over it.
Anyone else? You got someone particular in mind, have you? Look at him.
You think this is helping? Jeff? Enough.
He doesn't have a gun.
And even if I did, I don't want to kill you.
Put the gun down.
Here I come.
Here.
So you're outside the Humvee, right? Now what? Uh, I'm OK.
Ronnie, me and the Captain were the assault team.
The rest of the convoy is pinned down.
Look, let's skip ahead to the bit with the red door.
The insurgents are in there.
All right, so, you go through the red door, you're going to save the convoy, right? Uh-huh.
So Kick it in.
Kick it in.
Come on, Jeff.
Come on, kick it in.
Go on, I dare you.
Kick it in, kick it in.
No, no.
I can't.
I can't go in there.
Look, it's just a bloody video game, Jeff.
It's safe as anything.
I can't, OK? Why not, Jeff? My son is in there! Right.
Your son is 9 years old, Jeff, right? Right? So he's not in this war.
No.
No, he's not.
Oh.
So kick the door down.
Kick the door down.
I can't.
Ok.
Well, then your story is a load of bullocks.
Look, you're running out of options.
You either kick the door down or you're raising your kid from the looney bin! Right, in you come.
Faster, come on.
Ok! Ronnie banks left, takes out a sniper.
Aah! I went right, Captain goes high.
There was a car there, I took some cover behind it.
All right, you're afraid.
That's good, 'cause that means you're there.
React to contact.
It's what we train for.
Now you were taking sniper fire, right? I return fire with my M-4, pop off a 40 millimeter grenade round.
Ahh! Carry on.
Ok, so we move forward through the market, I'm on point.
I take a turn, and there was, uh There was resistance.
Resistance? I saw a combatant.
Unh! There's a combatant? A combatant? He's not an enemy this time.
No, he's making a distinction.
But he came out of nowhere! He came out of the archway.
It's a kid.
I was looking right down the barrel of his gun.
Up like that? He was 10 years old.
That's about the same age as your son, eh? Yeah.
What'd you do? Did you kill him? Ahh! They train you for everything, they don't train you for that.
What you just told me was a lie.
What are you talkin' about? What are you talkin' about? I told you! We--we came through the market, I turned left, he came out of nowhere and I returned fire! Unh! All right, fair enough.
But Why does that make the Captain want to kill you? Huh? I don't know.
I don't know.
Maybe he doesn't.
Maybe I am nuts.
I'm just I'm telling you everything I know.
Ah, no, something definitely happened that day.
Well, if you can't tell me what it was, I'll have to get it out of the Captain.
All right, Jeff lost it in Zirmaya.
And since that place has been completely blown off the map, this'll have to do.
I thought the point of therapy was to put the day behind him.
Oh, what, you're a psychiatrist in your spare time, eh? Neither am I.
She is, however.
Turley's gotten worse since you've been in his life.
I have to agree.
He's completely unstable.
Lightman has that effect on people.
Try being her.
All right, you said you'd take a bullet for Jeff, didn't you, Captain? Anything for one of my men.
All right.
Well, let's put that to the test.
So you come through the red door.
All right, then what? I go to the right with Renshaw.
I head left, take out the sniper, upper window.
Ahh! Captain? You're awfully quiet.
I laid down suppressive fire to cover the upper floor.
Well, then what? I cleared through the market.
One more enemy K.
I.
A.
at the end.
Ahh! And that's when the kid came through with the A.
K.
What, right here? Yeah.
Yeah? Right.
Gillian.
Be the kid.
Go on.
Heels off, make yourself shorter.
You know, shouldn't be too difficult.
Ok, so you see the kid.
Then what happens, Jeff? I killed him.
Ahh! You killed him? Is that before or after Ronnie becomes a cyclops? Ahh! I got shot.
I don't remember.
Yeah, but you would remember if Jeff's gun went off before you got shot, right? I heard a lot of shots that day, OK? No, no, no, no.
I froze.
I froze.
I didn't kill the kid.
I froze.
I froze.
I-I-- I should have fired, but I didn't.
Is that because it was a kid? Ahh! Ronnie! All right, Foster, uh, point at Ronnie.
Go on.
Ok.
Well, say, "bang.
" Bang.
All right, brilliant.
All right, Ronnie, on the ground.
Ok.
Jeff.
What then? UhI went to him.
Ronnie! I covered them.
In the report, it doesn't say anything about Jeff freezing.
You wrote the report up, Captain.
Why'd you leave that out? His best friend got hurt as a direct result of his inaction.
You see that, right? Defensive posture.
Yeah.
Defensive of Yourself? I saw something.
The kid? No, no, no.
The kid ran away.
Right, so the kid legs it, right? And then, uh, what? You saw something else? Yeah.
I saw someone else.
You saw "someone" else? Who'd you see, Jeff? Who came through here? Ronnie! Oh, my eye! Get him up! Friendly fire.
Your report was fiction, Captain.
You killed one of your own men.
Game over.
He was from another company.
Got cut off from his squad.
Sorrow? Remorse? It was an accident.
Your senior officer had you lie about friendly fire.
He had to, if he was going to keep it out of the report.
Sergeant here is an unstable man.
History of mental problems.
Oh, yeah, yeah, he's absolutely crackers, but one minute later, Zirmaya gets blown off the map, right? Who called in the air strike? Captain? I wonder.
Renshaw, he asked you a question.
When I picked up Ronnie and ran Come here, man.
Come here.
Up, up! Unh! Come on, come on, come on! I could hear a Warthog above us.
And Renshaw was calling in an air strike.
Cobra seven, this is Bulldog six.
You are cleared hot! Friendly fire isn't a crime.
But covering up friendly fire with an air strike-- that-- that's a war crime.
You know how many people died in that air strike? You see that? That Is what your mind couldn't handle.
All right.
So this is our friendly fire victim, eh? I wanted to honor him somehow.
Well, you've done that.
Saved Ronnie's life, got a Silver Star.
Well done, mate.
Got something better than that last night.
Oh, yeah? A good night's sleep.
Oh, 'cause I was thinking, you know, the other.
Mind's in the gutter.
Thanks for helping my dad.
No worries.
Comfortable, Dr.
Lightman? Does it matter? You want me to run the whole battery of scans? Yeah, the usual suspects.
Have you finished checking my homework? Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I'm nearly done.
Yeah, look at this.
You're gonna like this.
Yeah.
Check that out.
Take a look at this.
What do you see? Uh, wrinkles.
Like--like one of those dogs with the scrunched-up faces.
All right.
Like a Shar Pei.
Brains are ugly.
That's my brain, that is.
Oh.
Well, you have a very handsome brain.
Thank you very much.
Hmm.
Ok, you see this area here? That is supposed to be love.
Aww, when you look at a picture of me? Mmm, yeah, aww.
All right, now see what this says.
Fight or flight? A picture of mom triggered that.
Yeah, so flight, mostly.
You're making that up.
No, look at me, read my face.
Huh? There.
Ok, now Foster.
Whoa, Fourth of July.
Oh, yeah? Shepherd's pie.
All right.
Here.
That's your granddad, that is.
And this you? Yep.
He was a soldier.
You never told me that.
You never asked.
He didn't talk about it much.
You know, I'm curious about him.
Yeah.
Me, too.
But you never asked him about the war? No, it was a matter of respect, really, you know? I mean, he came out of the war, and he went straight back to work in the rail yard.
He put me through college, so that was that.
I'd like to meet him someday.
Yeah.
Well, one day, eh?