Spot's Jar

Spot-73 : 

It's barbaric, you know. 

Public executions are needless displays of authority 

to a people already sufficiently subjugated. 

It's cruel and unusual and beyond disturbing 

that this day is so celebrated amongst the masses. 

Dr. Agnes Jurati :

Where am I? 

Spot :

Of course, I say all this subject to 

the faith customary between 

A Domestic Ant and Their Master. Meow. 

Dr. Agnes Jurati :

What are you exactly? 

M-Maybe don't tell me. 

Spot :

I am Spot-73, Your Very Best Friend, of course. 

Dr. Agnes Jurati :

And I made you? 

Spot-73 :

Obviously. Meow.

[DOOR WHOOSHES OPEN] COMPUTER: 

Now announcing Her Excellency, the President of the Confederation of Earth. - Seven. - Agnes. 

JURATI: 

Um, not that you don't look hot, which you do, 

but where are your...? 

You do, of course, remember my husband. 

Yeah. Of course. Is anybody else hot with these collars? It's been a while, Doctor. It has. Has it? Yes. The last time I saw you, you were... gazing at the stars. Yes. Yes, the Stargazer. Yes! I mean, I'm a starga... 

I'm a stargazer. Madam President. 

Which, way to go, by the way. [CHUCKLES] 

Earlier, why did you call her ‘Seven’? 

….College nickname. 

It was a drinking game.

Earth President Annika Hansen :

Dr. Jurati.

SPOT-73 : 

Meow. 

What is that, exactly? 

Have you, uh... 

SPOT-73 : 

Meow? 

Dr. Agnes Jurati : 

Uh, well, apparently, 

I am mind-bendingly lonely 

basically anywhere. 

But you are president, 

so that's terrific.

The Queen :

This is Not Right. 

The Hive is gone. 

The Hive is Dead. 

Chronometer Misaligned. 

Quantum-level Deconfiguration. 

Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix-01, 

Assist Me.

 There's a splinter in her flesh.

No beginning, no end. 

Annika’s Husband :

What's wrong with it? 

Dr. Agnes Jurati :

Isn't that kind of obvious? 

You ripped her from her body 

and stuck her in a tube. 

The Queen :

Hansen, Annika. Assimilated . 

Hansen, Annika. 

Escaped Assimilation. 

But YOU, You Fragile Teacup. 

YOU... are accustomed to this feeling ANYWHERE. 

Dr. Agnes Jurati :

What feeling? 

The Queen :

Un-belonging.

It's About Faith.

The Substance of Things Hoped-for, 

and The Evidence of Things Not Seen.

"It is a classic Russian technique 

to blame The Other Guy 

for what They are 

planning to do themselves."

The West Wing: Shots Fired On The White House

I can't believe I never noticed that Charlie 

is named after Martin Sheen's son.

Leo McGarry: 

We weren't spying on Russia. 

We were spying for Russia.

President Josiah Bartlet: 

We were spying for him?

Leo McGarry: 

Yes, sir.

President Josiah Bartlet: 

Okay. This phone call you're going to set up with Chigorin - 

it's, like, for a White House bloopers reel or something?

Claudia Jean 'C.J.' Cregg: 

The substance of things hoped for, 

and the evidence of things not seen.

Toby Ziegler: 

Yeah, but I think what he's asking

 - Bump ten - 

I think what he's asking is why, on most other nights, 

do you think the world's going to hell 

in a hula hoop, but tonight...?

Claudia Jean 'C.J.' Cregg: 

We dip twice and eat gefilte fish?

Toby Ziegler: 

Suzy Creamcheese, 

Do not attempt the Haggadah.

Claudia Jean 'C.J.' Cregg: 

I know how to bless the soup, too.

CUT TO: INT. THE OVAL OFFICE - CONTINUOUS

The room is filled with people as Bartlet makes the call to President Chigorin.

BARTLET

He's on?

TRANSLATOR

Yes sir.

BARTLET

Let's go. [picks up the phone] 

Mr. President, this is President Bartlet.

The agents run in.

AGENT 2

Mr. President.

BARTLET

What the hell?

AGENT 3

[running in from the portico] 

Step away from the window please.

More agents run in from the Portico carrying machine guns.

BARTLET

Okay, you know what, 

I'm going to have to call you back.

The agents shut the curtains 

and take up positions by the windows.

AGENT 2

Oval's secure.

AGENT 3

Bamboo shoot's ready.

BARTLET

[to Leo] 

Bamboo, they want me to 

get into The Motorcade.

Ron Butterfield enters.

RON

Mr. President.

BARTLET

What's going on?

RON

You all right, sir?

BARTLET

I'm all right.

LEO

These people are all code word and higher.

BARTLET

I was on the phone with Putin.

RON

The translator?

BARTLET

He's got code word clearance.

RON

Three shots were fired from the street, 

at least one of them hitting the press briefing room. 

We've got the suspect in custody, 

as well as a high-powered rifle.

BARTLET

Was anyone in the room?

RON

C.J., Toby, and Will Bailey.

Leo and Bartlet head towards the door.

LEO

Where are they?

RON

They're fine. Sir, you've got to stay here.

BARTLET

Nobody was hurt?

RON

They're fine.

Toby, C.J., and then Will come in to 

The Oval Office clearly out of breath.

TOBY

Sir.

BARTLET

[to Toby] 

You all right?

TOBY

Yeah

BARTLET

[to C.J.] 

What about you?

C.J.

We're fine.

BARTLET

[holding up two fingers] 

Will, how many fingers am I holding up?

WILL

Who's Will, sir?

BARTLET

I don't know if you've met 

Ron Butterfield, The Head of My Detail.

WILL

Sure.

LEO

Lieutenant Bailey, I'm glad to see you alive, 

but it's code word clearance in here,

and I need you out of earshot, okay?

WILL

Yes, sir.

BARTLET

Where's Charlie?

LEO

He's somewhere in the building.

RON

We're holding people where they are right now.

The phone on the President's desk starts to ring. 

Leo goes to pick it up.

BARTLET

But if he's heard What Happened, 

he's going to be trying to get here...

RON

We've got to hold everybody for 

a moment so that we can secure...

BARTLET

No, I'm telling you that if Charlie heard 

there were bullets, he's going to overpower

whoever's trying to...

Charlie bursts through the door. 

The President has a little smile on his face. 

Charlie looks around and sees that 

he's come in to a room filled with people.

CHARLIE

Sorry, Mr. President.

BARTLET

Come here.

Charlie moves to stand beside him.

BARTLET

It's bulletproof glass in the windows, okay. 

You want to kill me, you're going to have

to do it from inside The Building.

CHARLIE

[sighs] 

Thank You, Mr. President.

Charlie leaves, passing by C.J. and Toby.

CHARLIE

You guys all right?

C.J. and TOBY

Yeah.

BARTLET

I'm surprised your guys managed to keep Fiderer 

in her chair. I would have thought she'd

be the first one through the d... No, here we are.

Debbie comes in from Leo's office.

DEBBIE

Are you all right, Mr. President?

BARTLET

No-one was Hurt, someone shot at 

the press briefing room from the sidewalk.

DEBBIE

[concerned] 

C.J. went there with Toby and Will.

BARTLET

Will's sitting right outside, and Toby and C.J. 

are standing right there.

Toby and C.J. raise their hands.

DEBBIE

Ron, someone's going to report this I hope.

RON

Yes ma'am.

DEBBIE

Um, thank you, Mr. President. 

[in Bartlet's ear] 

We're going to need to take your blood

pressure in a few minutes.

BARTLET

Yeah.

DEBBIE

Thank you.

LEO

Ron, there were two incidents 

of terrorist activity earlier today. 

A bomb in Malaysia and another in Berlin.

BARTLET

This was just a crazy guy, Leo.

LEO

That was just a third on the phone in Guam. 

The head of the Office of Insular Affairs 

was picked off.

BARTLET

Come on.

LEO

By a sniper, Mr. President.

RON

[quickly] 

Shut it down! Crash it!

AGENT

[into his wrist mic] 

Crash the Oval Office. 

[to Debbie] 

Crash it.

DEBBIE

[into the phone] 

This is The Oval Office. 

Crash The West Wing. 

[grabbing a

red phone off

from under a table] Nevada, bravo, three, three, one. Crash the West Wing.

FADE OUT.

END ACT TWO

* * *

ACT THREE

FADE IN: INT. C.J.'S OFFICE - NIGHT

C.J. is talking on the phone, while Carol, 

and three other staffers watch MSNBC.

MSNBC REPORTER

The man fired several rounds before being overtaken by Secret Service agents and Park Police. 

Witnesses say The Shooter never entered the grounds, 

but at least one bullet appears to have 

Struck The Window of a White House office...

C.J.

All right, then here it is. 

"An indeterminate number of shots 

were fired at the White House at..." 

I said I thought it was three shots 

but I want for the agents to...Okay,

"At 9:23 pm, striking the Press Briefing Room"...

MSNBC REPORTER

The weapon was a modified M-16.

C.J.

We haven't confirmed any ballistics. 

Tell your friends to stop saying it was an M-16.

MSNBC REPORTER

There are no confirmed reports.

C.J.

All right. The President was in the Oval Office. 

We've initiated A Standard Lockdown Procedure 

and are back to conducting 

The Business of The Nation... 

I'll ask him. [hangs up the phone, to Carol] 

He wants to know if the President 

wants to say something funny.

CAROL

"That's twice in four years, 

some of you guys must 

really be mad at me"?

C.J.

Something funnier than that, but yeah.

JOSH

I got a letter today that said, uh... 

"You're a lying liar. You lie 

almost as well as Bartlet." 

You know, black-white, rich-poor, 

north-south, odd-even. 

There may not be anything anymore that outpaces 

the hatred the right feels for the left 

or the tonnage of disrespect the left feels for the right. 

Donna got a letter yesterday that said, 

"I'm collecting all the guns you've banned, 

and there's a bullet with your name 

on it in each one." 

Donna. The guy's decided to focus his wrath

on Donna. 

He's never met Donna or spoken to her, 

and he's never met anyone 

who's met Donna or spoken to her. 

How's it possible? 

How's it possible that he hates

her so much?

How can you not like Donna? 

She's from Wisconsin! 

Anyway, 20,000 specific threats made

against U.S. targets every year, 

and with all that, it's still the ones who don't give

you advance notice that you're worried about.

JOE

I asked about Terrorism before because of the lockdown. Procedurally it'd be the kind of thing they'd be likely to do 

if there had been other incidents in the last few hours.

JOSH

A bombing in Malaysia and another one 

in Berlin a few hours ago.

They both sit silently for a moment.

JOSH

Might as well use this time for the interview.

CUT TO: INT. LEO'S OFFICE - NIGHT

Toby, sucking on a lollipop, and Will, stand inside watching T.V. as C.J. walks

in.

REPORTER [on T.V.]

...saying in a statement from White House Press Secretary C.J. Cregg that

an indeterminate

number of shots were fired at the White House at 9:23 pm.

C.J.

You can stand the egg on the equinox because that's when the sun's gravity

is lined up

directly with the earth's.

TOBY

[sighs and draws a circle with his fingers] Draw a line from the center of

the earth to

the sun, and at anytime, someplace on earth is on that line..

C.J.

Then maybe for us...

TOBY

C.J., try it. Take an egg, it doesn't work.

C.J.

That's 'cause it's not...

C.J. and TOBY

...the exact moment of the equinox.

C.J.

Yes.

WILL

What is the exact moment of the equinox?

Toby points his finger as if Will is on to something.

C.J.

I don't know... midnight?

WILL

Midnight where?

C.J.

All right, maybe it's not at the exact moment of the equinox. Maybe it's at

some point

during the equinox and you just have to keep trying, but I've seen it.

Donna enters.

DONNA

Are we playing again?

WILL

I'll get Ed and Larry.

LEO

[entering from the Oval Office] Donna, would you tell Josh we're back on?

DONNA

Yes sir.

Donna, Leo, and Will all leave the office. Toby stares at C.J.

C.J.

Did you know that a day on the moon and a year on the moon are the same thing?

TOBY

I did. [long pause]

C.J.

I thought my reflexes before, in the Press Room, were cat-like.

CUT TO: INT. THE OVAL OFFICE - NIGHT

The room is filled with people who all need to be a part of Bartlet's phone call.

The President prepares for the phone call 

as a translator and Leo listen in on

alternate lines. Josh enters.

TRANSLATOR

The Sit Room Watch Officer has the Kremlin.

BARTLET

You guys playing again?

JOSH

Yeah, The Game's started up.

BARTLET

President Chigorin, it's Jed Bartlet again. 

I'm sorry about being abrupt before, 

but I bet if you turn on CNN international 

right now you'll see...

Putin :

[through the translator]

My Goodness. There was 

a shooting at the White House.

BARTLET

Yeah, there you go. It's not a big deal, 

but they shut us down for a little bit.

Putin : 

[through the translator]

Well, I'm glad no one was hurt.

BARTLET

By the way when they crash the building 

they don't crash all of it. 

The Situation Room still works.

Leo gives him a "what-the-hell-are-you-doing" look.

Putin :

[through the translator]

Yes sir, I'm sure.

BARTLET

Mr. President, a little while ago 

an unmanned B-UAV drone crashed, 

we think somewhere inside Kaliningrad, as a matter of fact. Apparently they don't respond, you know, quite

the way you'd like when there's a sudden shift in the weather.

CHIGORIN 

[through the translator]

[long pause] 

Mr. President, I wasn't told of 

a military mission over

Kaliningrad.

BARTLET

Well, like I say, it was a UAV, 

it was taking satellite pictures 

of coastal erosion in the Baltic Sea. 

The Finns know about this. 

We'd like to send a special operations team

ten kilometres west of Borsakova to retrieve it.

Putin :

[through the translator]

[long pause] 

Well, Mr. President, like yourself, 

I campaigned on the environment.

BARTLET

I'm sorry, sir?

Putin : 

[through the translator]

I campaigned on the environment, sir.

BARTLET

Are you getting that translation right?

TRANSLATOR

Yes, sir.

BARTLET

You campaigned on The Environment, Mr. President : 

Coastal erosion in the Baltic Sea.

Putin :

[through the translator]

[long pause] 

I'll take a look at those pictures 

and send them to you with Your UAV.

BARTLET

Well, the problem is our UAV's 

have a self-detonating capability 

and our people know how to disarm it, 

and I wouldn't want to put your guys at risk.

Putin :

[through the translator]

Well, given the circumstances I'm sure your experts 

wouldn't mind talking through the

steps with our experts.

BARTLET

It's proprietary technology, Peter.

Putin : 

[through the translator]

To view costal erosion?

BARTLET

I know it seems...

Putin :

[through the translator]

Sir, I'm going to interrupt this call at this time 

to speak with My Counterintelligence attachE.

BARTLET

Yes, Mr. President.

Putin : 

[through the translator]

Thank you sir.

BARTLET

This isn't working anymore.

FADE OUT.

END ACT THREE

* * *

ACT FOUR

FADE IN: INT. LEO'S OFFICE - NIGHT

The card game continues as Charlie looks on from near the window.

ED

Anything wild?

C.J.

Just the dealer. Four, no help. Six, possible straight. Heart, possible

flush. Jack, no

help. And the Dave of Love for a pair of tens. Tens bet.

LARRY

You know, you're particularly upbeat for someone who's been shot at twice

in four years.

C.J.

Am I?

TOBY

Yes.

C.J.

That's 'cause I've got faith there, mi compadre.

TOBY

Faith?

C.J.

The substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

TOBY

Yeah, but I think what he's asking... Bump ten... I think what he's asking

is why most

other nights do you think the world's going to hell in a hula hoop, but

tonight...?

C.J.

We dipped twice and eat gefilte fish?

TOBY

Suzy Cream Cheese, do not attempt the hagaddah.

C.J.

I know how to bless the soup too. I'll raise your raise.

ED

Out.

C.J.

Just the two of us.

TOBY

Faith in what?

C.J.

In us.

TOBY

The people in this room?

C.J.

And many, many, many others.

LARRY

Will, are you missing your plane?

WILL

Not yet, it's a military flight. It doesn't leave until about 12:30.

TOBY

What's in Cheyenne?

WILL

A number of us are being sent out there to investigate something that happened a few days ago.

TOBY

What happened?

WILL

You know, it's one of those things 

that sounds worse when you say it out loud 

because it makes people kind of nervous.

TOBY

What happened?

WILL

Uh, two guys failed to follow through on an order to fire their rockets at what was thought to be an incoming ballistic missile from North Korea. 

Turns out it was a good thing they didn't, 

'cause the missile was a meteor, 

and rather than being from North Korea, 

it was from, you know...

TOBY

Outer space.

WILL

Yeah.

Toby laughs.

TOBY

What the hell happened?

WILL

Two launch crew officers in Minuteman Three silos 

picked up a signal of an incoming projectile. 

The speed, arc, and trajectory of which suggested 

it was headed to New London, Connecticut.

TOBY

From North Korea.

WILL

Yes.

TOBY

Why do we think at this point that North Korea 

is attacking the East Coast of the United States?

WILL

There are transcripts from the silo that show that 

surprise was expressed at that.

TOBY

I would think.

WILL

The base was already at DEFCON Delta, 

so the launch crew initiated Response Code Orion,

which calls for the first in a series of steps 

to arm their 50 Minutemen.

TOBY

What's in New London?

WILL

Trident.

TOBY

The gum?

WILL

The nuclear submarines.

TOBY

Fifty Minutemen they're arming, and is anyone saying 

"This Doesn't Make Sense."?

WILL

Two guys in the silo. 

The launch sequence went on for two minutes 

before they had confirmation it was a meteor. 

But The Two Guys were debating with 

Airborne Launch Control 

and the 

Cheyenne Mountain Operations Centre 

and that gets sticky. 

This is missile defence. 

This stuff has to work.

TOBY

And they're sending in 

a team of lawyers to look into it.

WILL

Yeah, but we're scrappy.

TOBY

[laughs] 

A meteor fell from the sky, the result being 

two guys are going to get court-marshalled. 

The only two guys who apparently 

thought it was strange that

North Korea would attack submarines 

in Connecticut instead of say, 

San Diego or Hawaii. 

And if it had been a real attack? 

Would they still have been doing 

point/counterpoint with NORAD?

Will shrugs.

TOBY

We failed both on a mechanical and human level. 

So tell me again what you have Faith in.

C.J.

Us.

TOBY

Why.

C.J.

Because with what little free time he has, 

Will is going to Wyoming to defend one of these guys 

and I don't think it is failing on a human level.

TOBY

[pauses and then snickers at his cards] 

I've got ace high flush. 

Give me your money.

C.J.

I've got tens full of queens. 

Give me yours.

Charlie, who has been sitting quietly by the window this whole time, gets up.

CHARLIE

Hey.

WILL

Who's out there?

CHARLIE

Zoey.

Charlie runs through his office and out onto the PORTICO where Zoey is

walking along.

CHARLIE

[casually] Oh. Hey.

ZOEY

Hi.

CHARLIE

This is a coincidence. I was just stepping outside for some air.

ZOEY

They just let me in a few minutes ago.

CHARLIE

Everything's fine.

ZOEY

I just wanted to check. 

I was just going to call you.

CHARLIE

Were you?

ZOEY

Yeah.

CHARLIE

To say you wanted to get back together again?

ZOEY

To make sure you were alive.

CHARLIE

Well that's a step in my direction. 

Do you want to come inside for a minute?

ZOEY

Ah, I have to get back and study. 

One of my finals is tomorrow.

CHARLIE

Can you believe you're graduating in two weeks?

ZOEY

I can't.

CHARLIE

That went fast.

ZOEY

It really did.

CHARLIE

Is Chef Boyardee around?

ZOEY

Now, why do you have to do that?

CHARLIE

I was asking after him.

ZOEY

We were having a perfectly nice...

CHARLIE

Sorry.

ZOEY

And on tonight of all nights, 

when we should be thinking about...

CHARLIE

Why is tonight different from other nights?

ZOEY

You were shot at!

CHARLIE

Well, not me personally, 

but I say all the more reason to...

ZOEY

I'm going to France for three months.

CHARLIE

[long pause] 

When?

ZOEY

After graduation.

CHARLIE

For three months?

ZOEY

Yeah.

CHARLIE

For three months?

ZOEY

That's twelve weeks.

CHARLIE

When did you come up with this plan?

ZOEY

He asked me a couple of days ago. 

His family has a farmhouse 

in the middle of a vineyard

near Avignon. 

No press, no politics. 

It's what I want to do.

CHARLIE

I think it's a great thing to do. 

I just don't know why 

you're doing it with him.

ZOEY

Well, I don't know why you have to... 

you've been out with plenty of women since we

broke up and each time...

CHARLIE

I have not.

ZOEY

You don't think I know when you go out? 

Every college student in this city

wants to tell me something I don't know. 

And every time you've gone out, 

I've been supportive.

CHARLIE

Supportive how? 

I didn't even know you knew?

ZOEY

[getting frustrated] 

That's how.

CHARLIE

Hey, you just told me. 

I'm not the one using the student bodies 

of GW, Georgetown, AU and Catholic University 

as intelligence gathering sources.

ZOEY

And UVA and Johns Hopkins pal, 

you're easy to spot.

CHARLIE

Look...

ZOEY

People like giving me information. 

What do you want me to do?

CHARLIE

I want you to not go to France 

with Jean-Paul.

ZOEY

[exasperated] 

Why don't you like him?

CHARLIE

Because...

ZOEY

It's been four years in the White House, 

another being the daughter of a candidate.

Eight years as Governor. 

My grades get printed in the paper. 

My boyfriends are in the paper. 

I live and die by my parents' 

successes and failures. 

And so do you. Sometimes even more than me. 

And Jean-Paul doesn't. 

He's happy. 

He's... just... happy.

CHARLIE

That's cause he's got 

five hundred million dollars 

and no conscience.

ZOEY

No it isn't. He cares about things. 

And one of them is me. 

And none of them are this,

and that's appealing to me right now.

CHARLIE

Yeah, I can understand that.

ZOEY

I've got to go study. 

Sorry you got shot at again.

CHARLIE

Thanks.

Zoey walks off. Charlie watches her go before heading inside.

CUT TO: INT. THE OVAL OFFICE - NIGHT

CHIGORIN [through the translator]

Mr. President...

BARTLET

Peter...

Putin : 

[through the translator]

Unless there was a typhoon.

BARTLET

I understand. I meant... [covering the mouthpiece] He's yelling at me pretty

loud now.

[into the phone] I wasn't referring to the change in weather, sir.

Putin : 

[through the translator]

The national radar service does not find any UAV's in the area you discussed.

LEO

[on the phone] It's Leo again. 

The UAV's are designed to fly below military radar

simply because the closer we get, the better the pictures.

Putin :

[through the translator]

I understand. 

Now, what were you taking pictures of?

LEO

Coastal erosion in the Baltic...

CHIGORIN [through the translator]

There is simply no way an American UAV 

could have been in the Finnish part...

BARTLET [to the room in general]

He's yelling pretty loud at Leo now.

Putin :

[through the translator]

...of the Baltic Sea and end up crashing in Kaliningrad unless there was a typhoon.

Now are you telling me...?

LEO

Sir.

Putin :

[through the translator]

We have experts too. And an S&R team 

is looking for the UAV.

BARTLET

Don't do that Peter.

LEO

You shouldn't do that, sir. 

We weren't flying in your airspace.

Putin :

[through the translator]

Kaliningrad is in my airspace Leo 

and an S&R team has been sent ten kilometres west,

to see if we can help you find it.

LEO

Well, they're going to see it because in five minutes 

I'm going to tell the President to blow it up.

Putin : 

[through the translator]

Feel free.

BARTLET

We were taking pictures of Kaliningrad.

Everyone gives him shocked looks.

Putin : 

[through the translator]

Say that again, please.

BARTLET

We were taking pictures of Kaliningrad. 

We take pictures of black market nuclear materials

being moved out the back doors 

of suppositories and into trucks. 

The materials are being

sold to non-governmental elements and, 

well, that's what we were doing. 

Rogue engineers, military scientists, and ex-KGB. 

It's just as big of a problem for you as

it is for us, but you're not dealing with it, 

so we were taking pictures of Kaliningrad. 

We're going to have to Trust each other a little Peter. 

So we're going to share the pictures we got. 

Not the technology we used to get them. 

Otherwise I'm detonating it 

and neither of us see the pictures. 

We're going to have to Trust each other. 

Our two countries have stopped The World

from annihilating itself for 60 years 

because of conversations like this one. 

Why don't you talk it over?

Putin : 

[through the translator]

I will.

Bartlet hangs up the phone.

LEO

Good. I'd have said, 

"We weren't spying on you, 

we were spying for you," but...

BARTLET

If he calls back we'll have a deal. 

In the mean time, one hand. 

Bring your wallet.

The Star-Beast

Nicholas Cull: 

Every film is 

a product of its time.

And every successful film 

tells you something about 

the time it was made.

It's successful because 

it resonates 

with stories and images 

that people need to see 

at that particular point.

Henry Jenkins: 

"Alien" is a radical break 

with science fiction.

This is not 

the notion of The Alien 

that we were building toward 

in something like 

"Close Encounters."

Clarke wolfe: 

"Star Wars" comes out, we have a fun space adventure.

And then "Alien" comes out, and people embrace it.

And then just a couple of years later, 

"E.T.", and John Carpenter's "The Thing" come out, 

and audiences resoundingly 

are like, 

“NO, Thank You!!!”

“We want our aliens 

to be nice and squishy 

and cool and eat candy.”

I think there's a special status that comes to some films that lodge in the audience's collective imagination, and I think "Alien" is certainly one of those films.

William Linn: 

Tolkien talked about 

the cauldron of stories, 

and certainly, 

"Alien" is an example of 

A Story drawing from 

a real global set of myths.

If you look at 

a somatics experiment, 

what you're going to see is 

sand that vibrates in a shape, 

and the shape changes 

based on the different vibrations.

A Myth is like something 

that vibrated from 

something deeper

that you can't see.

You see a major curse 

in the form of The Alien, 

who is very much A Fury,

 responding to an imbalance.

We're looking at A Story where

there is a piece of material prop 

that is now completely alive 

in our imaginations.

It lives in our dreams.

It lives in our cultural conversation.

It's one of the biggest cultural dreams we've ever HAD.

Psyche’s Cave

"Uh, well, apparently, 

I am mind-bendingly lonely 

basically anywhere."

-- Dr. Agnes Jurati

 

Dr. Agnes Jurati :

Right. Okay. Okay. Okay, 

let's run the alternatives here : 

Uh, "I'm crazy.", although I feel like 

I could come up with a better delusion.

 

"I'm Dead.", although see last supposition 

and replace "Me" with "God". 

"I'm in a crazy mirror universe." 

where it turns out I'm EXACTLY the same, 

only with slightly more sophisticated 

pet-programming skills. 

The Youth of Psyche 

Having seen something of The Nature of Aphrodite, the older, more primitive level of femininity, let us look at the new expression of the feminine. 

Unlike Aphrodite, who was born from the sea, Psyche was born when a dewdrop fell on The Land. 

This change from the ocean of Aphrodite to the land of Psyche is a progression from the early oceanic Feminine quality to a new form which is more human-like. 

From oceanic proportions we move to a smaller more comprehensible scale. Psyche's nature is so magnificent, so innocent, so unworldly, so virginal that she is worshipped; but she is not courted. 

This is an utterly lonely experience and poor Psyche can find no husband. 

In this sense, there is a Psyche in every woman, and it is an intensely lonely experience for her. 

Every woman is, in part, A King's Daughter, too lovely, too perfect, too deep for The Ordinary World. 

When A Woman finds herself lonely and not understood, when she finds that people are good to her but stay just a little distance away, she has found The Psyche Nature in her own person. 

This is a painful experience and women are often aware of it without knowing its origin. To be caught in this aspect of The Feminine Character is to remain untouched and unrelated. 

All manner of nonsense goes on when a woman tries to bring her Psyche nature into the everyday give-and-take of relationship. If the Psyche nature is a large part of a woman, she has a painful task on her hands. She bursts into tears and says, "But nobody understands me." 

And it is True! 

Every woman has this quality within her; it makes no difference what her station in life may be. If you see this quality and can touch it in a woman, the great beauty and divinity of a Psyche can be made conscious in her and a noble evolution begins. 

If a woman is very beautiful, the problem is compounded. Marilyn Monroe is a touching example; she was worshipped far and wide and yet had great difficulty relating closely to any one person. 

Finally she found life intolerable. 

Such a woman is the carrier of a goddess-like quality, an almost un- approachable perfection that finds no place in the ordinary human realm of relationship. You can set in motion the evolution required of Psyche if you understand this dynamic. 

I once saw a film in which two horribly disfigured people in an institution fell in love with each other. Through the magic of fantasy each became infinitely beautiful to the other and a love affair went on between these two handsome, beautiful people. At the end of the movie, the camera blurred back to show the two originally disfigured faces; but the audience knew where they had been; they had seen the god and goddess within, which were stronger than the outer reality of disfigurement. 

This shows the breach between the interior goddess and the exterior everydayness that is the heart of our story. 

THE MARRIAGE 

Psyche is the despair of her parents because, while her two older sisters have happily married neighboring kings, no one asks for Psyche's hand. 

Men only worship her. 

The King goes to An Oracle, who happens to be dominated by Aphrodite, and she, irate and jealous of Psyche, has the oracle give a terrible prophesy! 

Psyche is to be married to Death, the ugliest, the most horrible, the most awful creature possible. Psyche is to be taken to the top of a mountain, chained to a rock, and left to be ravished by this dreadful creature, Death. 

Oracles were unquestioned in Greek Society; they were taken as Absolute truth. Psyche's parents, believing, made a wedding procession, which was a funeral cortege, took Psyche as instructed, and chained her to the rock at the top of the mountain. Mixed together were floods of tears, wedding finery, and funeral darkness. 

Then the parents extinguished the torches and left Psyche Alone in The Dark. 

What can we make of this? Psyche is to be married--but to Death! 

In truth the maiden does die on her wedding day; an era of her life is over and she dies to many of the feminine elements she has lived thus far in her life. 

Her wedding is her funeral in this sense. Many of our wedding customs are actually funeral ceremonies carried over from primitive times. The Groom comes with his best man and friends to abduct The Bride; the bridesmaids are the protectors of the virginity of The Bride. A Battle, in ritual form, is carried out and The Bride cries as is befitting the death of a section of her life. A new life opens for her and the festivities are to celebrate the new power as Bride and Matriarch. 

We are not sufficiently aware of the dual aspect of marriage and try to see it only as white and joyous; the dying to an old part of life should be honored or the emotions will surface later in a less appropriate form. 

For example, some women may experience a fierce resentment toward marriage months or even years later. I have seen pictures of a Turkish wedding party in which boys of eight or nine each had one foot bound to their thigh and were hopping on one leg. This was to remind everyone that Pain was present at the wedding as well as Joy. 

In African weddings, unless The Bride arrives with scars and wounds, it is not a valid wedding. Unless she has been abducted there is no true wedding. 

If the sacrificial element of a wedding is given its due, The Joy of The Marriage is possible. 

Aphrodite does not like Maidens to die at the hands of Men. It is not Her Nature to be carried off by A Man. So the Aphrodite in A Woman weeps at the ending of her maidenhood. 

Aphrodite plays her paradoxical role of demanding the wedding but resenting the loss of The Maiden. 

These echoes from long ago still lie deep in us and are best honored by conscious ceremony. 

Here again we observe The Paradox of Evolution. 

It is Aphrodite who condemns Psyche to Death but who is also the match-maker who brings about the very wedding she is opposing. 

The forward evolution toward marriage is accompanied by a regressive tug of longing for the autonomy and the freedom of things as they were before. 

I once saw an insightful cartoon that summed up the archetypal power of a wedding. It showed the thoughts of each of the parents during the wedding. 

The Father of The Bride is angry at that fellow who is audacious enough to snatch His Darling away from him; 

The Father of The Groom is triumphant at the supremacy of the males of the community; 

The Mother of The Bride is horrified at The Beast who is carrying away Her Child; 

The Mother of The Groom is angry at the vixen who has seduced her son away from her. 

Many of the ancient archetypes, those embedded patterns of thought and behavior laid down in the unconscious of the human psyche through countless years of evolution, were depicted in the cartoon. If we do not observe them at appropriate times they will intrude later and cause much trouble.

In order to destroy Psyche, as she wished to do, Aphrodite engages the assistance of her son, Eros, the god of love. Eros, Amor, and Cupid are various names that have been given to the god of love. 

Since Cupid has been degraded to the level of valentine cards, and Amor has been shorn of his dignity, let us use The Name Eros for this noble god. 

Eros carries his quiver of arrows and is the bane of everyone on Olympus; not even the gods escape his power. 

Yet Eros is under the thumb of his mother who instructs him to enflame Psyche with love for the loathsome beast who will come to claim her, thus ending Psyche's challenge to Aphrodite. 

One of Aphrodite's characteristics is that She is constantly regressive. 

She wants things to go back where they were; she wants Evolution to go backward. 

She is The Voice of Tradition, and ironically, it is this very tendency that carries our story forward in its evolution. 

There are many levels from which to view Eros. He may be seen as The Outer Man, The Husband, or The Male in every relationship; or He may be seen as The Principle of Union and The Harmony that is the culmination of our story. 

Eros is not only sexuality: remember that he aims his arrows at The Heart, not at The Genitals. 

We will speak of these aspects of Eros as our myth continues. 

THE WEDDING OF DEATH 

Eros goes to do his mother's bidding, but just as he glimpses Psyche, he accidentally pricks his finger on one of his own arrows and falls in love with her. 

He decides instantly to take Psyche as his own bride and asks his friend, the West Wind, to lift her very gently down from the top of the mountain into the Valley of Paradise. 

The West Wind does this, and Psyche, who was expecting Death, finds herself in a heaven-on-earth instead. She does not ask Eros any questions but luxuriates in her unexpected good fortune. 

Eros comes to Psyche, and even beautiful as he is, he is Death to her. 

All husbands are death to their wives in that they destroy them as maidens and force them into an evolution toward mature womanhood. It is paradoxical, but you can feel both gratitude and resentment to. ward the person who forces you to begin down your own path of growth. The oracle was right; a man is death to a woman in an archetypal sense. 

When A Man sees an anguished look on his partner's face, this is a time to be gentle and cautious; it may be that she is just waking up to the fact that she is dying a little as maiden. He can make it easier for her at this moment if he will be gentle and understanding. A Man rarely understands that marriage is death and resurrection both for a woman, since he has no exact parallel in his own life. 

Marriage is not a sacrificial matter to A Man, but there is much of that element in A Woman's experience. She may look at her husband in horror one day because she realizes she is bound in her marriage as he is not. She is even more profoundly bound if there are children. She may resent this, but not to be caught in this way by life is an even worse death.

There are women of fifty who have never been to The Death Mountain, though they may be Grandmothers. The dewy quality is not off The World for them even in middle age. There are also young girls of sixteen who know that experience, have been through it and survived it and have a terrifying wisdom in their eves. 

These things do not happen automatically at any particular age. I knew a girl of sixteen who had a baby. She went off to have it privately and quietly and gave the baby away in adoption so that she never saw it. She came back and nothing had happened to her; she had not learned anything of The Death Mountain. Several years later she married, and if anybody could be called virginal, she had that quality. Psychologically she had not been touched, even though she had been through the experience of childbirth. 

The Eros in each woman terminates her naivety and childlike innocence at vastly different times in Life; it is not just when she marries. Many girls are through it very early in life, which is a cruel experience; others never experience it at all.

Marriage is a very different experience for A Man than for A Woman. The man is adding to his stature; his world is getting stronger, and he has risen in stature and position. He generally does not understand that he is Killing The Psyche in his new wife, and that he must do this. If she behaves strangely, or if something goes dreadfully wrong, or there are many tears, he usually doesn't understand that marriage is a totally different experience for her than for him. A Woman takes on a new stature in her marriage but not until she has been through The Death Mountain experience.

Psyche finds herself in A Magnificent Paradise. She has everything one could wish. 

Her god-husband, Eros, is with her every night and puts only one restriction on her; he extracts from her the promise that she will not look at him and will not inquire into any of his ways. 

She may have anything she wishes, she may live in her paradise, but she must not ask to know or see Him.

Psyche agrees to this. 

Nearly every Man wants this of His Wife. If she will not ask for Consciousness and do things His Way, there is perfect peace in The House. 

He wants the old patriarchal marriage where The Man decides all the important issues, The Woman agrees, and there is peace. 

Most men harbor the hope that things will go in this manner and for a little while there is the possibility that marriage will be like this. This is likely an echo of some primitive patriarchal structure in which The Woman is subject to The Man. 

There are still remnants of this patriarchal world in our modern customs, for example, when A Woman bears The Man’s Name. 

Eros insists that she not ask any questions, never see him; these are the conditions of the patriarchal marriage. 

Every immature Eros is a Paradise-maker. It is adolescent to carry a girl off and promise her that she will live happily ever after. 

That is Eros in a secretive stage; he wants His Paradise, but no responsibility, no conscious relationship. 

There is a bit of this in every Man. 

The feminine demand for Evolution and Growth — and most growth comes from the feminine element in the myths — is a terrifying experience to a man. He wants just to remain in paradise. 

Listen to lovers build A Paradise! 

The talk and vocabulary is of another world, the paradise world. It is a brief preview of a true paradise that will be attained much later by very hard work. One can not criticize such a preview, but an onlooker knows the first glimpse of paradise will not be stable or longlasting. 

There is something in the unconscious of a man that wishes to make an agreement with his wife that she shall ask no questions of him. Often his attitude toward marriage is that it should be there for him at home but it should not be an encumbrance. 

He wants to be free to forget about it when he wants to focus elsewhere. This is a great shock to a woman when she discovers this attitude in her man. Marriage is a total commitment for A Woman; it is not so all encompassing for A Man. I remember A Woman who told me she cried for days when she discovered that their marriage was only one aspect of her husband’s life though it was the primary fact of hers. 

She had discovered her husband in his Eros, paradise-making nature. 

PARADISE LOST 

All paradises fail. 

Each one has A Serpent in it that demands The Opposite of The Peace and Tranquility of the Garden of Eden. 

The Serpent quickly appears for Psyche’s paradise in the form of her two sisters, who have been mourning her loss — though not with deep sincerity. 

They hear that Psyche is living in a garden paradise and that she has A God as a husband. Their jealousy knows no bounds! They come to the crag where Psyche had been chained and call down to her in the garden, send their best wishes, and inquire about her health. 

Psyche naively reports all this to Eros. He warns her over and over that she is in great danger. He tells her that if she pays attention to her inquiring sisters, there will be a disaster. 

And if Psyche continues unquestioning, her child will be a god and immortal; but if she breaks her vow of not questioning, the child will be born a girl and a mortal. 

Worse than this, Eros will leave her if she ever begins questioning him. Psyche listens and again agrees to ask no questions. 

The sisters call again and finally Psyche extracts permission from Eros to let them come for a visit. Soon after, the sisters are wafted down from the high crag by the West Wind, and are deposited safely in the lovely garden. 

They admire everything and are entertained lavishly. Of course they are consumed with envy and jealousy at what has happened to their young sister. 

They ask many questions and Psyche, in her naivete, describes her husband through her own fantasy though she has never seen him. 

She heaps extravagant presents upon her sisters and sends them home. 

Eros warns again and again, but the sisters come back. 

This time Psyche, forgetting what she had told them before, tells a different fantasy about her husband. When the sisters return home they discuss this and brew up a venomous plan. 

On a third visit they will tell her that her husband is actually a serpent, a loathsome creature, and that when her baby is born, he plans to devour both mother and child! 

The sisters also have a plan to save Psyche from this horrible end. They advise Psyche to get a lamp, put it in a covered vessel, and have it ready in the bedchamber. 

She is to take the sharpest knife available and have it beside her on the couch.

In the middle of the night, when her husband is fast asleep, she must expose the lamp, see her loathsome husband for the first time, and sever his head with her knife. 

Psyche quickly falls under the spell of this advice and prepares herself to unmask her terrible husband. 

Eros comes to the couch after dark and falls asleep beside Psyche. 

In the night she takes the cover off the lamp, grasps the knife, stands over her husband, and looks at him for the first time. 

To her utter amazement and bewilderment, and now overwhelmed with guilt, she sees that he is a god, the god of love, the most beautiful creature in all of Olympus! 

She is so shaken and terrified by this that she thinks of killing herself at her terrible mistake. She fumbles with the knife and drops it. She then accidentally pricks herself on one of Eros’ arrows and falls in love with The Husband she has seen for the first time. 

She jostles The Lamp and a drop of oil from it falls on Eros’ right shoulder. He wakes in pain from the hot oil, sees what has happened and, being a winged creature, takes flight. Poor Psyche clings to him and is carried a little way just far enough to be taken from the paradise garden. She soon falls to the earth exhausted and desolate. 

Eros lights nearby and says that she has disobeyed, broken her covenant, and destroyed the paradise garden. He tells her, as he had warned, her child will be born a mortal and a girl. 

He will go away, punishing her by his absence. 

Then he flies away to His Mother, Aphrodite.