Tear Along the Dotted Line (2021) s01e06 Episode Script

1
A NETFLIX SERIES
["Strappati Lungo i Bordi"
by Giancane plays]
[birds chirping]
[alarm sounds]
[alarm stops]
["Un Batito Ancora" by Gli Ultimi plays]
["Un Batito Ancora" continues playing]
[Zero] Dead people are dead.
I don't believe
they watch over us from heaven,
so I don't understand
what funerals are for.
To break your balls.
Oh, stop it.
You don't have to be disrespectful.
I'm not complaining though,
that's what all funerals are for.
Priests go on and on.
The Lord is my shepherd.
He leadeth me beside the still waters
and to watch the paint dry.
You're forced to drown your grief
in all this blabbing
until you start to bleed from your ears.
Four hours later, you leave,
so emotionally drained
you can't even bring yourself to cry.
Oh, I'll cry.
I can already feel a lump in my throat.
-Sure!
-I can.
A lump in your throat?
Doesn't mean a damn thing!
It needs to be extreme to have an effect.
You need to fill at least two jugs
with tears and snot.
Then spend another half an hour
stirring it until it froths,
otherwise the mucus stays
at the bottom, you see?
Do you really think we need to actually
focus so much on bodily fluids?
It's necessary.
You have to get all of it out.
It's the only way for you
to process all of your pain.
You ever noticed the words "catharsis"
and "catarrh" are very similar?
But one comes from Greek
and the other Latin.
Yeah, who cares?
If two huge
and very different civilizations
are able to agree on the same concept,
I just find it conceited that you'd come
and break my balls about it.
[Zero] Whilst I reflect on this catharsis,
the priest and the crying,
I realise that this has nothing to do
with what we're doing here today.
Because this isn't a church,
it's a public gym.
Instead of an altar, there's a boxing ring
in the middle of the room.
And I get why we're here,
because Alice had a thing
for boxing and all that,
but this place doesn't really have
the grandeur to effectively reverberate
all the preaching
that's supposed to make me cry.
Sarah, do you think this is appropriate?
I mean, an appropriate place to cry?
If I don't cry, I'll regret it.
The train here cost 300 euro.
Shut up! People don't attend a funeral
just to cry, Zero!
[Zero] It's true. Sarah's right.
There's another reason
people go to funerals,
or at least some funerals.
Because they're hoping to get answers
to the question
that's been on our mind since Tuesday,
since the telephone calls began.
But we didn't know how to start,
what words to use,
how to respond when they ask you things.
[Secco sighs sadly, grunts]
Shall we go get some ice cream?
Jesus, man. We're at a funeral!
I asked if you wanted ice cream,
not to go and have a wank.
Is that disrespectful?
Is Alice lactose-intolerant now?
[Zero] Anyway, that wasn't the question.
It was a different, more difficult one.
It was, "Why did she do it?"
There has to be a cause and effect, right?
Why do we eat? We're hungry.
Why are we hungry? We skipped lunch.
There have to be
some explanations or reasons.
You may even blame someone.
There has to be a reason
why people kill themselves.
Why she went and killed herself.
I'm sorry to be the one
to break it to you,
but there's never a simple answer.
Any time someone gives you
a nice, neat, simple reason
why someone killed themselves,
it's bullshit.
Or they're just telling you
what they want you to believe.
The exception to this
is if you're cornered in a hut,
out of ammo, and there are 40 ISIS gunmen
coming to get you,
so you blow yourself up.
That's understandable,
there's no other way to interpret it.
But in all other situations,
the truth is that people don't ever
kill themselves for simple reasons.
There's no cause A leading to effect B.
It's a knotted tangle of reasons
you get lost in.
Often, you don't understand
any of it yourself,
let alone anyone else.
What do you mean, Sarah?
How can there be no answer, no note,
nothing that stops us from going crazy?
It's absurd to me that we can't understand
the reasons behind something like this
when she was someone we knew.
You were her friend, Sarah,
and I was pretty close to her too.
Aside from the fact we were both nutters
who kept chasing each other
and doing nothing about it.
We were actually very close.
Really you mean she chased you
and you kept running away.
Sarah, firstly, what the fuck do you know?
Fine, I was never quick off the mark,
but she never made a move either.
I'm not criticising her.
I respect these things.
The first to let down their guard
risks getting hurt more.
I guess that's why neither of us
ever dared to make a move.
Oh, Zero. Are you serious?
She tried to make a move a million times!
-What do you mean?
-For fuck's sake!
She always asked for a smoke
because she wanted to hang out.
You always said, "No, I don't smoke."
Once, she asked you on MSN
to write her a story
to encourage you to share your feelings.
And you sent her that horrible,
depressing story
about the boy who trips everyone up!
Also, before she left Rome,
she spent the whole afternoon
trying to call you
because she wanted to tell you all this
before moving to Biella,
and you never replied
and ghosted her for two weeks!
Look, it doesn't matter now,
but stop telling yourself all that crap.
[Zero] I don't know what to say.
I'm speechless.
I try to make sense
of all this information,
but it's like there's been
a nuclear explosion in my brain.
It's really impactful, isn't it?
When you rewatch the whole story
from the outside, you don't recognise it.
You've always seen it like a rom-com
starring Hugh Grant
about two eternally hesitant people,
like some kind of never-ending flirtation.
[sombre music plays]
[armadillo] But now…
all you see is an arsehole
who's been wriggling away like an eel
for 20 years
to avoid taking any responsibility.
Oh my God!
My legs are weak. I feel anxious.
I was acting like a detective,
trying to investigate,
understand the motives, find the cause!
But really, I'm like a serial killer
who goes to the funeral of his victims.
I know I didn't kill her. I'm not stupid.
But how can I not think
maybe I could've given her a reason,
just one reason to stay,
something that gave life meaning?
Shh! Her father's speaking.
Alice was an incredibly sensitive girl,
who endured the suffering
of those around her,
who didn't want to step on anyone's toes,
or bump heads,
or upset those close to her.
Perhaps that's why she never managed
to find her place in the world
that she'd been promised.
We promised it to her,
because we had faith.
Alice wanted to work.
She wanted to be useful.
And she felt defeated
when she had to leave Rome
because she couldn't make ends meet.
And she had to come back here, home to us.
Alice suffered
from her lack of independence.
But this wasn't all Alice was.
She wasn't just someone who suffered.
Alice was also full of enthusiasm.
She continued her work
volunteering with children
and, in the last few years,
she found boxing.
I wasn't happy about it.
I didn't understand why she wanted to box.
I wasn't very enthusiastic about the idea
of my daughter
getting punched in the nose.
She told me that in life,
you get punched anyway
and she wanted to learn
how to take punches and give them back.
She said that she'd rather grow old
with a face covered in scars
than with an unchanging doll face.
And this was her salvation,
for as long as it lasted.
Our daughter, she was not a victim.
She always had the strength to fight back,
like our whole family does.
But she was also unwell.
She was, but that's not all she was.
We know that's not all her life was.
[Zero] I know, it's a beautiful speech,
but I can't accept it.
All that's spinning around in my head is,
"It's all my fault,
everything from Jesus's crucifixion
to 9/11."
Sarah's words are echoing in my head.
I'm overanalysing everything,
I wanna tell her…
Now look, that's all bullshit!
It's just a story you made up.
But I can't even convince myself.
Well, come on, Calcare. You have to be
really honest with yourself.
Not even a Jesuit would believe
all of this bloody bullshit.
[Zero] I go outside
because I can't breathe.
I can't stop myself from thinking
that Alice could've still been here.
I don't know how,
but maybe if I'd taken responsibility
for our relationship,
she wouldn't have ended up
with that piece of shit. Who knows?
If I'd been braver,
I mean, if I'd tried to be the person
to give her a reason to keep going--
[shocked gasping]
[Sarah] Stop it, stop it, stop it!
[reverential music plays]
This is bullshit, Zero! You're doing
exactly what you did as a kid,
acting like you have the power
of life and death over those around you.
You told me she was waiting
for me to make a move,
now you're shocked I feel guilty?
Did I say
you're the second coming of Christ
or that anyone killed themselves
because you didn't fuck them?
Or did I tell you the truth, and you're
on a guilt trip 'cause you're an egomaniac
and you need to feel like the lead
in a film that isn't about you?
All right!
You don't need to be such an arsehole!
You were her friend!
Maybe at one point,
she wanted to fuck you.
Other times, she wanted to eat ice cream
and snuggle up with you on the sofa.
Sometimes you made her laugh,
others you drove her mad.
That's what people are like.
You didn't have control
over whether she lived or died.
That was her choice.
Will you give her that, at least?
Okay, self-determination is important,
I believe that.
In fact, now I feel
like an idiotic, egomaniac
and I'm ashamed
for ever thinking those things.
Confusion, shame, doubt.
I try to change the topic
so she can't tell I'm all over the place.
Okay, so why the hell did we come
to this damn funeral? To cry?
We can't cry. There are no answers.
We could've all
just stayed at home, couldn't we?
[Secco grunts]
We came to honour the moment, Zero.
To get closure.
Like after you get stabbed.
You don't stop feeling bad
after they stitch you up,
but you do stop bleeding
and the wound starts to heal.
[Zero] A very clinical answer.
I still don't understand
why I've had to travel 400 miles
to get a scar, but I don't say anything.
I don't have the strength to answer.
In my head, I'm still thinking
about all the moves
Alice made in 20 years
that I never picked up on.
Secco, what about you?
So did you know that Alice fancied me?
Yeah.
Sorry, how do you know that? Who told you?
She told me.
The day you didn't pick up your phone,
she called me and we met up.
What the hell did you both do?
We went to get some ice cream.
-What did she tell you?
-Oh, loads of stuff.
She talked for four hours.
I think she wanted to vent.
I told her you're a piece of shit,
you never answer me either,
but we're still friends, innit?
But what? Why didn't you tell me?
Two years passed, you only tell me
now she's killed herself?
Well, you could've picked up your phone.
I'm not your secretary.
Great! So I was the only one
who never realised any of this.
You didn't even realise I had a thing
for her when I introduced her to you.
What? Wait. So was Alice gay as well?
A bit. Not enough, clearly.
But I took it in my stride.
Oh my God! What do you mean?
You didn't hook up because of me?
Are you saying I ruined it for you--
Whoa! Ruined what? Don't start again.
I'm only telling you so you understand
that people are complex,
they behave in ways that are motivated
by deep, unfathomable reasons.
They have sides that you aren't aware of.
We only see a tiny fragment
of what they have inside and outside.
As individuals, we can't change it.
We're just blades of grass, remember?
[Zero] I don't know. I'm confused.
Now I feel like a narcissistic idiot.
Even the blade of grass thing,
I know it's true, I can't argue with that,
but it doesn't feel quite as reassuring
as it did 30 years ago.
-[wind blowing]
-[sentimental music plays]
I look around myself now,
and rather than blades of grass,
I think we're just rags.
Thin and crumpled shreds
like the lives we hold in our hands.
And we're stupid, too,
because we cling on to the concept
of comparing our lives to other people's
that seem perfectly cut out,
stacked and ordered.
Perhaps they're only that perfect
'cause we see them from afar.
And we look down
at these senseless scraps of paper…
that are so far from the shape
they were supposed to take.
Believe me,
if Saint Peter came down tomorrow
and asked me about the shape
of the lives of the people around me…
I don't know why it's Saint Peter.
He seems the type to ask stupid questions.
I'd say,
"The shape of a girl
who thought she'd be a teacher
and spent her life pursuing that dream,
cutting out that shape."
"But now, her whole life
is slipping through her fingers,
day after day, in a shitty office
off the ring road outside the city,
bringing coffee to people
who don't even remember her name."
"Or the shape of a guy
who lives precariously,
with the Sword of Damocles
hanging over his head,
whose chances of paying
his electricity and gas bills
depend on the cards in his hand
and how strong the other players
in the tournament are."
That's it. In the end, I might tell Peter…
Hey, Pete. I don't know if this
is still a battle or if it's over now,
and if we've discovered
that we can live with these jagged shapes,
accepting that we'll never play
on the same team
as the peaceful, successful people.
[fire crackling]
But we can still sit by the fire
and remind ourselves
that in the end,
any piece of paper can keep you warm.
Sometimes, that fire is enough.
[Alice sighs]
[Zero] And other times, it isn't.
[sombre music plays]
-Are you the guys from Rome?
-Hmm.
Alice's mother wants you
to come back inside.
There's something you might like.
We have no way of knowing
what Alice would've wanted
from a day like this.
But we know how proud she was
of her children,
and how proud they were of her.
That's why we'd like
to listen to their voices once again.
[Alice] Come on, kids.
[boy 1] Tell us the story
about the prince again!
[Alice] Okay, if you're quiet,
I'll tell it to you again.
It's a story about Zed,
a child who doesn't want morning to come
because the night before,
his mummy told him,
"Tomorrow, you have to buy milk
at Ermete's café."
And who's always waiting near the café?
[kids] Prince Trip-you-up!
[Alice] Very good! Prince Trip-you-up!
And everybody knows
that he's really dangerous.
And no one wants to go to that café.
Even his girlfriend, Veruska, just says,
"If you die, can I have your rabbit?"
[kids laugh]
[Alice] The next morning, Zed wakes up.
[mouths] Lovely story!
[Alice] He goes out,
and doesn't bump into anyone.
Maybe the prince is unwell today.
-A shadow with long legs appears.
-[mouths] Shall we get ice cream?
[kids] The prince!
[Alice] The prince!
And so does the cat, Notail,
who runs away
so he doesn't get tripped up.
Zed tries a different street,
but it's too late. What happens?
[kids] He gets tripped up!
[Alice gasps] That's right!
He went down like a sack of potatoes.
Everyone saw him!
[girl 1] Did he get hurt?
[Alice] A little bit,
but he'll be better soon.
[girl 2] Did he scratch his knee?
[Alice] A bit, but by the next day,
it's already starting to heal.
[girl 3] Alice,
when does the scar go away?
[Alice] The scar never goes away.
It's like a medal
that no one can take away from you.
So, when Zed is grown up
and isn't scared of the prince anymore,
he remembers what he went through.
That he had a lot of adventures.
That he fell down,
but he always got back up.
[boy 2] Why won't it go away?
[Alice] Because it's a scar.
Only temporary tattoos
wash away with water.
It's a scary thing,
but it's also beautiful.
[clock chimes]
[Alice] That's life.
["The Funeral" by Band of Horses plays]
Really too late to call ♪
So we wait for ♪
Morning to wake you ♪
Is all we got ♪
And to know me as hardly golden ♪
Is to know me all wrong, they warn… ♪
If you or someone you know
is struggling with thoughts of suicide,
crisis resources are available at
And coming up only
To show you're wrong ♪
I'm going for a walk.
Truce.
But just for today. All right?
Yeah.
You idiot.
-[Zero] I thought we had a truce?
-[armadillo] All right. As of now, okay?
[rock music plays]
[soft rock music plays]