Will Graham

“I needed to see you first.

But I'm right. 

I know I'm right.

I'm starting to 

be able to 

Think Like 

This One.

Something still doesn't make sense to me :

[ This has NOTHING to Do with Solving The Case —

Oh, Wait : IT DOES. ]

You're the best forensic

psychiatrist I know,

and yet somehow, 

in all our time together —

this possibility 

never occurred 

to you.

Lecter :

Well, I’m Only Human, Will.

Perhaps I made 

a mistake.

Lecter :

Special Agent Graham.

What an unexpected pleasure.

Will Graham :

I'm sorry to bother you 

again, Dr. Lecter.

I know it's very late.

Lecter :

It's no bother.

We're both night owls, 

I think. Come in, please.

Will Graham :

Thank You.

Lecter :

Let me take your coat.

So, What's on Your Mind?

Will Graham :

We've been on the wrong track

this whole time. You and I.

Our whole profile's wrong.

We've been looking 

for someone 

with a crazy grudge and 

some kind of anatomical knowledge.

Decertified Doctors, 

Med-School dropouts

laid-off mortuary workers... *

( * oh, yeah — there’s gotta be just thousands and 

thousands of those  —

it’s rife. No demand, see.

Mortuaries closing down every other week lately, round these parts, the Death market is just completely flat.) 

Lecter :

From the precision of the cuts, yes,

and his choice of souvenirs.

See, that's where we're off-target.

He's not collecting body parts.

Lecter :

Then why keep them?

He's not keeping them. 

He's eating them.

No, listen —

We were at Molly's parents' 

for New Year's

and Molly's Dad was 

showing My Son, Josh

How to Carve a Roasted Chicken.

He said, 

"The tenderest part of the chicken is the oysters,

here on either side of the back."

I had never heard that expression before,

"Oysters."

Then suddenly I had 

a flash of the third victim,

Darcy Taylor.

She was missing flesh from her back.

And then it hit me.

Liver, kidney, tongue, thymus.

Every single victim lost

some body part used in cooking.

Lecter :

Have you shared this 

with The Bureau?

No, I needed to see you first.

But I'm right. I know I'm right.

I'm starting to be able to think like this one.

Lecter :

Yeah, it's fascinating —

You know, I'd always 

suspected as much.

You are an eidetiker.

I'm not psychic, Doctor.

Lecter :

No, this is different.

More akin to artistic imagination :

You are able assume 

The Emotional Point of View of Other People,

even those that might scare or sicken you.

It's a troubling gift, 

I should think.

How I'd love to get you 

on my couch.

Something still doesn't 

make sense to me.

You're the best forensic psychiatrist I know,

and somehow, in all our time together

this possibility never occurred to you.

Lecter :

Well, I am only human, Will.

Perhaps I made a mistake.

You don't strike me as a man

who makes very many mistakes.

Lecter :

Now I'm sorry to think I might

no longer enjoy your full confidence.

No, I didn't say that.

I don't know what I'm saying.

I'm very, very tired.

I almost had it.

Lecter :

It'll come to you.

Why don't you come back 

in the morning?

I'll clear some time on my schedule

and then we can get started in revising our profile.

Sound good?

Yeah.

Lecter :

Rest here, and 

I'll get your coat.

That's the same atrocious

aftershave you wore in court.

I keep getting it for Christmas.

Christmas, yes. Did you get my card?

I got it, thank you.

So nice of the Bureau's

crime lab to forward that.

They wouldn't give me your home address.

Dr. Bloom sent me your article

on surgical addiction

in the journal of forensic psychiatry.

And?

Very interesting, even to a layman.

You say you're a layman.

But it was you who caught me.

Wasn't it, Will?

Do you know how you did it?

I got lucky.

I don't think you believe that.

It's in the transcript.

What does it matter now?

It doesn't matter to me, Will.

I need your advice, Dr. Lecter.

Birmingham and Atlanta.

You want to know

how he's choosing them, don't you?

I thought you'd have ideas.

I'm asking you to tell me what there are.

Why should l?

There are things you don't have.

Research materials.

Maybe even computer access.

I'd speak to the Chief of Staff.

Yes, Dr. Chilton.

Gruesome, isn't he?

He fumbles at your head

like a freshman pulling at a panty curtle.

If you recall, Will,

our last collaboration

ended rather messily.

You'd get to see the file on this case.

And there's another reason.

I'm all ears.

I thought you might enjoy the challenge.

Find out if you're smarter

than the person I'm looking for.

Then, by implication,

you think you're smarter than I am,

since it was you who caught me.

No, I know I'm not smarter than you.

Then how did you catch me?

You had disadvantages.

What disadvantages?

You're insane.

You're very tanned, Will.

And your hands are so rough.

Not like a cop's hands anymore.

And that shaving lotion

is something a child would select.

Has a little ship on the

bottle, does it not?

And how is young Josh and the lovely Molly?

They're always in my thoughts, you know.

You will not persuade me with appeals to my intellectual vanity.

I don't think I'll persuade you at all.

You'll either do it or you won't.

- Is that the case file?

- Yes.

With photos?

Let me keep them, and I might consider it.

No.

Do you dream much, Will?

Goodbye, Dr. Lecter.

You haven't threatened

to take away my books yet!

Give me the file, then!

And I'll tell you what I think.

I'll need one hour. And privacy.

Just like old times, Will?

This is a very shy boy, Will.

I'd love to meet him.

Have you considered the possibility

that he is disfigured

or that he may believe he is disfigured?

Yeah, the mirrors.

You notice he smashes

all the mirrors in the house,

not just enough to get the pieces he wants.

And, of course, those shards in their eyes

so he can see himself there.

That's interesting.

No, that's not interesting.

You've thought of that before.

I had considered it.

- What about the women?

- Dead?

Mere puppets.

You need to see them living,

the way they caught his eye.

That's impossible.

Almost. Not quite.

What were the yards like?

Big backyards, fenced, some hedges. Why?

Because if this pilgrim

feels a special relationship with the moon,

he might like to go outside and look at it.

Ever seen blood in the moonlight, Will?

It appears quite black.

If one were nude, say,

it'd would be better to have

outdoor privacy for that sort of thing.

You think the yards might be a factor

when he selects victims?

Yes.

And there will be more of them, of course.

Victims.

So, you'll be wanting lots of these

little chinwags, I take it.

I might not have time.

I do.

I have oodles.

I need your opinion now.

Then here's one:

You stink of fear under that cheap lotion.

You stink of fear, Will,

but you're not a coward!

You fear me, but still you came here.

You fear this shy boy,

yet still you seek him out.

Don't you understand, Will?

You caught me because

we're very much alike.

Without our imaginations,

we'd be like all those other poor dullards.

Fear is the price of our instrument.

But I can help you bear it.

God Wills This Contest

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: 

I have, therefore, in every case thought it proper to keep the integrity of the union prominent as the primary object of the contest on our part.

JOSHUA WOLF SHENK, Writer: You have widows and orphans coming to Lincoln constantly. They line up in the hallway. He has to pass through this crowd of visitors just to get from his living space to his office.

RONALD C. WHITE, Jr., Historian: As he recognises the pain all around him and the cost not simply of the lives of these young men but to their wives, mothers, sweethearts - What this is going to mean for The Future of The Country?

NARRATOR: Lincoln toured hospitals and sat with The Sick and wounded.

RANDALL M. MILLER, Historian: If things are supposed to be right, it should be that Bad People Suffer and Die and Good People Triumph. 

But The War was demonstrating that Death came to people regardless of whether they were Good or Bad.

ALLEN C. GUELZO, Historian: While Lincoln won't actually say, "I am responsible for this," he has A Government, he has A War, he has A Nation to whom he is responsible.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: If Hell is not any worse than this, it has no terror for me.

NARRATOR: Then in February 1862, Death visited the White House itself. Lincoln's third and favorite son, Willie, died of typhoid fever. He was just 11 years old. Lincoln found a measure of consolation in the eulogy delivered by a Presbyterian minister, Phineas Gurley, at Willie's funeral.

Rev. PHINEAS GURLEY: What we need in the Hour of Trial, and what we should seek by earnest prayer, is confidence in Him Who Sees The End from The Beginning and Doeth All Things Well. 

Let us acknowledge His Hand and Hear His Voice and inquire after His Will and seek his holy spirit as our counselor and guide, and all, in the end, will be well.

RONALD C. WHITE, Jr.: There's no facile explanation as to why Willie might be better off in Heaven. 

There's none of that in this sermon. 

There's this recognition of The Mystery of God's dealings, but there's also the affirmation of The Comfort God at times of loss. 

The Comfort is in A Loving God, A God Who Cares for Us.

NARRATOR: Lincoln asked for a copy of Reverend Gurley's eulogy.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: "What we need in The Hour of Trial, and what we should seek by earnest prayer, is confidence in Him Who sees The End from The Beginning and Doeth All Things Well."

RONALD C. WHITE, Jr.: This sermon is a real pivotal moment in Lincoln's life — 

Your Son has died. 

You listen to this sermon. 

This pastor comes into The White House and suggests to you that you need to Trust in A Loving God with Personality, who acts in history.

NARRATOR: A few months after His Son's Death, Lincoln began to re-examine his relationship with God.

RONALD C. WHITE, Jr.: It was untitled and undated. It's on a little slip of paper, lined paper. 

This is something Lincoln never expected any of us to ever see.

He was not about to publish this. 

This was his own private musing and reflection.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: The will of God prevails.

ALLEN C. GUELZO: Lincoln is working out on paper his own problem, his own difficulty. 

This is Lincoln's own agony and sweat over the ultimate question, 

"What is The Will of God in this crisis?"

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: In great contests, each party claims to act in accordance with The Will of God. 

Both may be, one must be, WRONG. 

God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. 

I am almost ready to say that this is probably True, that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet, by his mere quiet power on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the union without a human contest. 

Yet the contest began. And having begun, he could give the final victory to either side any day. 

Yet the contest proceeds.

JOSHUA WOLF SHENK: Lincoln is considering this epic and awful idea that The Master of Order and Goodness is actually in favor, in some way, of the carnage and suffering because of some larger end. 

Lincoln's mind is turned towards that question, "Out of this affliction, what good might come?"

NARRATOR: Lincoln determined that he must act.

ALLEN C. GUELZO: There must be something new and novel that God is interjecting here. 

God is doing something new in this war. 

What could that new thing be? 

Ah! Emancipation!

NARRATOR: In September 1862, The President called his cabinet together. Southern troops had been defeated after a fierce battle at Antietam Creek. It was a divine signal, he said, for him to issue a proclamation abolishing slavery in the rebellious states.

ALLEN C. GUELZO: It was so astounding that one member of his Cabinet actually asked him to repeat himself because he was sure he hadn't heard it right.

NARRATOR: "God," Lincoln declared, "had decided this question in favor of the slaves."

RONALD C. WHITE, Jr., Historian: "I have been told by God to free these slaves."

ALLEN C. GUELZO: God has ceased to be this machinery, grinding and chopping. Instead, God has plunged himself into the flow of human events, to direct them in a very personal way. And it is to this God that Lincoln appeals.

NARRATOR: On January 1st, 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation into law, freeing slaves in the rebel states.

MARGARET WASHINGTON: "Jehovah has triumphed. His people are free." This was indeed the coming of the Lord.

DAVID W. BLIGHT, Yale University: This was a religious moment. This was a moment to be experienced in biblical time, in religious time, in spiritual time. 

It was an event for the soul.

Innocent or Not, He's Going to Destroy Your Vessel

• ”TOXIC MASCULINITY” •

Originally, the episode's story – as pitched by Andrew Shepard Price and Mark Gaberman – involved an alien computer dissecting Seven of Nine (similar to the plot of Demon Seed) to create an army of drones that it intended to use for galactic conquest. 

Although the story changed considerably from the original pitch, the writing staff of Star Trek: Voyager composed the plot's final version by essentially weaving the initial story idea together with a theme that comments on false memory syndrome. 

Staff writer Bryan Fuller remarked, 

"That's kind of what we had to fall back on for this one." 

Regarding false memories, he commented, 

"We hear so much about how they can essentially ruin peoples' lives, how well-respected and credited doctors have been completely dethroned, how teachers and parents have been humiliated." 

"I initially had my concerns, because we were trying to distinguish it from a TV movie about date rape.

We removed the sexual elements." 

Fuller believed that the turning point for the story's development was the addition of The Doctor to the plot.

Analyzing The Doctor's actions in this episode, Bryan Fuller remarked, 

"He's dragging Seven INTO her frustration, 

and essentially filling the role of 

The Psychologist who's manipulating The Patient -- 

NOT with malevolence, but because 

he sincerely THINKS that Something Happened. 

But he goes about solving the mystery 

in such a haphazard way that only chaos can ensue." 

In agreement with Bryan Fuller's interpretation of the plot, Robert Picardo remarked on the character arc that his regular role of The Doctor undergoes in this episode: 

"[He] completely loses his self-confidence in a way I don't think we've seen thus far. 

It was actually kind of touching.

It's really quite touching, because it's basically the enthusiasm of someone really TRYING to help out, and really TRYING to be MORE than he's SUPPOSED to be, in a crisis situation." 

Picardo also described the request that The Doctor makes at the end of this episode as "quite dramatic."

Director Jesús Salvador Treviño was presented with the difficulty of creating an unusual look for certain sequences of this episode. 

"For me, the challenge was in conveying the flashback moments," the director explained, "and making them succinct and different enough that we would get a sense of how different this perspective is to [Seven of Nine] and whether it's REAL or not." 

To help create the desired effect, Treviño filmed the flashback sequences at eight frames per second, rather than the usual twenty-four frames per second. 

Ultimately, Bryan Fuller believed that he and Lisa Klink had successfully differentiated this episode from a television movie about date rape, and that the decision to remove the sexual aspects from the script had been made "wisely". 

He said, 

"I think it succeeded [...] and I think it's a solid episode." 

An element of the episode that Fuller especially liked was that it showed The Doctor was NOT infallible. 

"That's the great part of the story, that he screwed up.”

Nonetheless, Fuller also cited this episode as probably being his least favorite from those he wrote for Voyager's fourth season and related, 

"I found myself distanced from it. I'm always disappointed in a story when it turns out not to have happened, and it's based on some sort of illusion or memory wackiness." 

Contrastingly, Jesús Salvador Treviño liked the vagueness of this episode's conclusion. 

"I thought that was very daring for the Voyager writers. 

That was really nice the way they left it TOTALLY open-ended. 

We don't KNOW whether it really DID happen or if it DIDN'T; we have our suspicions and the clues are placed either way." 

Giant Scorpion Moses

“ The Downward Spiral expressed itself in darker magic 

as the Invisibles faced bacterial gods from a diseased twin universe. 

After trying out a Voudon ritual in 1993, 

I found myself facing down 

an immense scorpion creature 

that tried to teach me 

how to psychically assassinate people 

by destroying their “auras.” 

When the ritual was done, 

I switched on the TV to decompress 

and caught the last fifteen minutes of Howard the Duck, in which 

nightmarish extradimensional scorpion sorcerers 

attempted to clamber their way into eighties America.”

"You are about to witness The End of The Old World, 

and The Birth of The New.

I am now one of 

The DARK Overlords of The Universe.

Tonight the laser beam hit 

The Nexus of Sominus.

It lies beyond The Planets. 

It is a Region of Demons, 

to which we Dark Overlords were exiled eons ago.

Just as you were brought down here accidentally, 

tonight, the laser beam released me from that Region of Demons 

and pulled me down into that lab.

During the explosion 

I entered Jenning's body.

I have disguised My True Form, 

which would be considered 

hideous and revolting, here.

Howard, The Duck :

Lucky for the people eating…..

OR —

Extremely considerate.

In the Steve Gerber miniseries The Phantom Zone #1-4 (January–April 1982), it is revealed that the Zone not only has a breach through which other inmates had escaped, but that they were never heard from again. 

The imprisoned Superman and Quex-Ul use this method and travel through several dimensional “layers” seeking The Exit into The Physical Universe. They finally encounter a Kryptonian wizard named Thul-Kar, who tells them that he believed Jor-El’s prophecy of Krypton’s doom and entered the Phantom Zone through magic. 

Using the same breach, he discovered The Truth about the Phantom Zone : all its levels are manifestations of the consciousness of a sentient, malevolent entity called Aethyr, The Oversoul.

As explained by Thul-Kar, Aethyr itself came into being uncounted millennia ago when two spiral galaxies collided at an almost primordial stage after the physical universe’s creation. Countless worlds were simultaneously destroyed and the deaths of so many beings merged somehow to form a single, evil consciousness that called itself Aethyr The Oversoul. 

This supremely powerful entity enclosed itself into a dimension outside The Physical Universe within itself, forming The Phantom Zone.

The Zone itself is an interface between the Earth-One dimension (The Physical Universe) and Aethyr’s Mind, the outer layer (where zone criminals are housed) representing its ability for Abstract Thought; The Zone is basically Aethyr’s capacity to imagine other possibilities of existence, and is the outermost template of its consciousness. 

Only by entering Aethyr’s core realm can a zone prisoner escape back to the physical universe, but this process is dangerous since any being who tries risks being destroyed in numerous ways as well as by forever having their souls merged with Aethyr’s essence while within Aethyr’s core realm. This is because as you enter deeper into Aethyr’s consciousness, you no longer exist as an abstract entity and your existence becomes subject to Aethyr’s whims. 

When attacking Superman and Quex-Ul, Aethyr personified itself as an aggressive, purple-skinned dog’s head that breathed flames capable of destroying and absorbing the souls of those that it wishes to conquer. 

While Quex-Ul is killed by Aethyr in this fashion, Superman manages to make his way out of the Phantom Zone by avoiding those flames and flying directly through Aethyr’s skull and its mind, returning to Earth through a tear in the fabric of Aethyr’s mind and the physical universe, but not without encountering the horrific remains of all of the souls entrapped within Aethyr over the millennia.

Mister Mxyzptlk is later possessed by Aethyr. During the process while Myyzptlk is imprisoned on his own home dimension, Thul-Kar communicates with Mxyzptlk and offers him an escape in exchange for the merger. This merger, however, empties the Phantom Zone of its criminal inhabitants. As the Phantom Zone villains head to Earth to conquer it, Thul-Kar and Nam-Ek are re-absorbed into Aethyr. Superman awakes and sees that the Phantom Zone villains are wreaking havoc on Earth, causing destruction to the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. and demanding Superman come out and fight them. Superman battles the Phantom Zone villains in Washington D.C.. While fighting Faora Hu-Ul, he witnesses her disappearing as she is absorbed into Aethyr. Mister Mxyzpltk reveals that his strong personality has taken over Aethyr and he absorbs all the rest of the Phantom Zone inhabitants back into himself, determined to torture them endlessly and wreak havoc as he sees fit. Mxyzpltk-Aethyr leaves, intending to next take over the Fifth Dimension, and Superman is left to put out the fires in Washington and then rid Metropolis of the Kryptonite remains of Argo City.

What is This About?

“When you try to tell The Story – he breaks warp ten, starts shedding skin, he kidnaps The Captain and then he becomes One with The Universe, [he and Janeway] are salamanders, and have a baby – it sounds ridiculous.

What is this about? 

Before you can even start to tell The Story you have to find The Moral. What is the simplest point of this episode? 

Once you can say that in a sentence then that is what the episode is about. 

To me […] the whole warp ten [challenge] and salamanders and all of that frosting was about Paris trying to find some sort of salvation outside himself and ultimately realising that he had to find his own self worth from within. 

Here is somebody who thinks he's got to break warp ten and prove to Everybody, His Father and Himself that he can do this outside thing, but ultimately your happiness comes from within.”

“Some of the fans sort of questioned the science of it. Some of this anger was misplaced, I thought. 

A lot of the ire seemed to be caused by the fact that we stated no one had ever gone warp ten before, and people flooded us with letters saying, 'That's not true, in the original series they went warp twelve and warp thirteen.' 

We should have had a crawl before the episode explaining all this, but it really was a recalibration of warp speed.

It is not one that took with the audience. The fact that we were turning people into salamanders was offensive to a lot of people and just stupid to others."

Freak

“Mr. Jewell... 

DID you conspire

with David Dutchess 

or anybody else 

to plant a bomb in Centennial Park?”

“No.”

“Then how the FUCK did you know to be on the other side of that AT&T tower where you KNEW you'd be protected from the blast?

A bomb went off RIGHT where you were stationed.

CHAOS erupts.

BODIES hit the ground.

COPS go flying — 

Hell, I was ONE of them.

You come out without a GODDAMN scratch.

How does THAT happen, RICHARD?”

….What matters here is not whether all this was TRUE but that it was what a sufficient number of ground-level proud, ambitious, bottom-feeding and wounded FBI Agents firmly BELIEVED. 

This belief had extraordinary repercussions.

(Picard is in casual clothes, packing a case) 


TROI: 

So, where have you decided to go? 


PICARD: 

Hmm? What? Oh, er, France. 

Labarre. My home village. 


TROI: Really? 


PICARD: 

Yes. It's the first time in almost twenty years. 


TROI: 

Interesting. 


PICARD: 

Counsellor. 


TROI: 

I just find it interesting. 

Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the man who couldn't be pried out of his seat for a vacation for three years 
—

PICARD: 

It's Earth. It's Home. 

Do I need another reason? 


TROI: 

I don't know. 

What do you think? 


PICARD: 

Your help has been invaluable 

during my recovery, but, look, I'm better. 

The injuries are healing. 


TROI: 

Those you can see in The Mirror. 


PICARD: 

The nightmares have ended. 

All I need now is a little time to myself. 


TROI: 

I agree. In fact, I'm delighted you're going. 

It's just that the choice of where you're going could stand some scrutiny. 


PICARD: 

If you wish to believe that my going home 

is a direct result of being held captive by the Borg, 

be my guest. 


TROI: 

Is that what you believe? 


PICARD: 

I hate it when you do that. 


TROI: 

Captain, you do need time. 

You cannot achieve complete recovery so quickly. 

And it's perfectly normal, 

after what you've been through, to spend a great deal of time trying to find yourself again. 


PICARD: 

And what better place to find oneself 

than on the streets of one's home village. 


TROI: 

Interesting. 

Have a good trip, Captain. 


(She kisses his cheek and leaves him to his packing. He decides against some books, takes a final look around and walks out)

And then I realised, like I was shot — 

like I was shot with a diamond...

a diamond bullet right through my forehead. 

And I thought: 

My God, the genius of that. The genius! 

The will, to do that: perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. 

And then I realised, 

They were stronger than We, 

because They could stand it. 

These were not monsters. 

These were men, trained cadres — these men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who have children, who are filled with love — but they had the strength — the strength! — to do that. 

“Can I ask all you fellas a question?”

“Jesus. WHAT?”

“Do you have ANY kind of CASE against me? 

I mean EVIDENCE. 

Like, any traces of anything on my mama's Tupperware? 

Or did you find any bomb-making materials in her apartment? 

Did you find some - 

Hey, hey. Hey. Richard, we don't need to volunteer- 

I'm gonna say this 

if I'm gonna say anything :

I walk in here and I look at the circle decal on your windows there, and I'm thinking... 

“I... I used to think that federal law enforcement was just about the highest calling a person could aspire to.”

And I'm not sure I THINK that anymore, you know? 

Not after all THIS. 

I did My Job that night, 

and some people are alive because of that. 

Do you think that the next time some security guard sees a suspicious package, 

that he or she's gonna call it in? 

I doubt it. 

You know? 

'Cause they're gonna look at that and they're gonna think, 

"I don't wanna be another Richard Jewell... 

So I'm just gonna RUN." 

How's that make anybody any safer? 

Y'all can keep following me around some more, doing what you're doing, I can stand it, but — 

I just know that every second you spend on me is time that you're not spending on the real guy who did it, and it's like Watson said... 

What happens when he... 

What happens when he does it AGAIN? 

So, do you have ANYTHING you wanna charge me with? Can you? 

Well... 

I think it's time to go…..

Girl

See ... I've had a lot of people talking at me the last few days. 

Everyone just lining up to tell me how unimportant I am. 

And I've finally figured out why :

“And then I realised, like I was shot — like I was shot with a diamond...a diamond bullet right through my forehead —

And I thought: 

“My God, the genius of that. The GENIUS! 

The WILL — to do that: perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, PURE. 

And then I realised, 

They were stronger than We, 

because THEY could stand it.”

“For the first time in a LONG time — 

I feel SORRY for MYSELF.

And there’s NOTHING worse than THAT.” 

— Power Girl

Are You in a Tight Spot?

YES.

Do I Feel Sorry for You…?

I DO •NOT•.

Why?

Because There’s People 

WAY Worse-off Than YOU.

Clark? You live in a perspective SO different from EVERYONE Else.

ANYONE Else.

I'm kinda in the same situation... 

I'm still getting used to it 

and I have to remind myself of it 

EVERY DAY....

But IF you haven't had THIS conversation with anyone....

Then NO ONE has seen this from Your Perspective.

NOBODY understands what you've been through, but you. 

And even YOU are still unpacking it.

Maybe NO one gets to 

Judge you on this.

Not even you.

" Superman can do anything. 

He's made a LIFE outside of The CAPE. 

As Clark Kent, he has a CAREER and a WIFE. 

ADOPTIVE PARENTS.

I met them twice. 

The first time when they thought 

I was their son's RELATIVE. 

The second time when 

they KNEW I WASN'T.

As NICE as those people were, 

Ma Kent actually got a little UPSET at me.

"I don't know WHO you really are, 

or WHERE you're really from --

-- but you deserve An Answer. 

And so does My Son. 

He may not SAY it, 

he may not SHOW it, 

but all he's ever wanted to be 

is NOT alone."

I know she didn't mean to make me feel like a CON ARTIST or a FRAUD, but I did. 

I kept my DISTANCE since then. 

And I promised myself it would be the last time I felt sorry for myself.

But damn, I can't tell you how many times I thanked the STARS I didn't take the name SUPERGIRL. 

It would've been a CONSTANT reminder that 

I'm NOT [related to Superman]  "

-- Power Girl

“Imagine You and Your Daughter are on a cruise ship. The Cruise Director’s job is to make sure Your Daughter is reasonably happy and entertained. There are scheduled activities, and if by chance she hurts herself, someone will be there to get her back on her feet. 

She knows most of the people on The Ship and everything is familiar. But all of the sudden, girls start •telling• each other The Ship is STUPID and BORING and it’s TIME TO GET OFF.

As you watch helplessly, she leaves behind everything that is safe and secure, gets into a life raft with people who have little in common with her except their age, and drifts away.

  Once in The Raft she may ask herself how she got there or why she even left in the first place, but when she looks around, she sees that The Ship is •impossibly• far away, the waves are TOO big, and there are a •limited• number of •supplies•; she quickly realises that Her SURVIVAL •depends• on bonding with the other girls in that life raft. But Your Daughter isn’t •stupid•. This realisation is quickly followed by another one : She’s TRAPPED.”

The Clockwork Doesn’t Care — But You DO

 NASTHALTHIA LUTHOR :

Ooh. Can we have a show trial before we put 

these traitors to death? Are you okay?

SUPER- LUTHOR :

Better than okay. 

I can see the entire electromagnetic spectrum... and those must be atoms, little clouds of possibility. 

Einstein couldn't connect the gravitational force to the other three... but if he could have seen this... 

It's so obvious. 

 NASTHALTHIA LUTHOR :

Uncle Lex? 

SUPER-LUTHOR :

The fundamental forces are yoked by Consciousness. 

Everything's connected. Everyone. 

And this is how he sees things 

all the time. 

Every day. 

 NASTHALTHIA LUTHOR :

I don't know if I should be worried or mortified. 

SUPER-LUTHOR :

It's a cruel joke —

The mechanistic clockwork of Reality,

hinging on a precious impossible 

Defiance of Entropy, on Life. 

And The Clockwork doesn't care. 

It's like... Like it's all just us, in here together. 

We're all we've got. 

 NASTHALTHIA LUTHOR :

You are embarrassing me beyond therapy. 

SUPERMAN : 

You'll have to forgive him, Nasthalthia. 

He just figured out How Everything Works.

The Farm

“After You Father's Murder, you were orphaned —

What Happened next?

…. I don't imagine The Answer is on those second-rate SHOES, Clarice.”

“I went to live with My Mother's cousin and her husband in Montana. 

They had A Ranch.”

“Was it a cattle ranch?”

“Sheep and horses.”

“How long did you live there?”

“Two months.”

“Why so briefly?”

“I ran away.”

“Why, Clarice?

Did The Rancher make you perform fellatio?

Did he sodomize you?”

“No. He was a very decent man.

Quid pro quo, Doctor.”