She reluctantly returns upstairs to feed the newborn. He introduces the visitor to his wife, implying that Holden can help Doris while she's impaired from the difficult birth. Harry sees her and suggests she return upstairs. She sneaks downstairs and overhears Holden's cutting insults about her design boards. If Karen continues to refuse, Belle says she will gouge out the painter's eyes.ĭoris frantically searches for a pair of shears that she can use as a weapon. Belle begins destroying Karen's canvases, explaining that newborn blood is a particular (unspoiled) taste. Pale People approach from the dunes, and Belle threatens Karen with them when Karen refuses. After a critique of her paintings, Belle demands that Karen obtain the Gardner's baby for her. Belle approaches her, chiding that Karen has not been answering her burner phone. Karen paints a cottage, from the vantage of the dunes. Harry guides her back to the house, and the Pale People scatter. Doris grabs the baby and runs out of the house, but is immediately confronted with the Pale People on the street. Alma questions whether they all think she's good enough to take the risk. Ursula chimes in that it's a good idea, but Harry says it is not for her. Alma openly suggests that they stop lying to Doris and that she wants Doris to take the pill, explaining that it boosts creative performance she adds that she won't even mind drinking the blood after time. When she doesn't get a satisfying answer, Doris shows Harry the bite mark, which he writes off as a scrape from the hospital's monitoring anklet. Doris calls for Harry and demands to know what the foreign pill is. Alma brings Doris pills to help her recuperate, and Doris recognizes one of them as Muse. Doris finds a fresh bite mark on the baby's leg. Time passes, and Harry procures more blood for Alma. Ursula suggests that Doris simply sit back and ride her husband's success (and to be on her best behavior). Ursula insists that Harry is working on further scripts, but Doris is skeptical that her husband has become so prolific. Ursula suggests to a still groggy Doris that Alma's "sip" was simply a dream, but Doris feels that Ursula is gaslighting her. Harry threatens to cut off Alma's pill supply if she harms the baby.
Alma once again mentions that the two of them have outgrown Doris and that she doesn't understand keeping her mother around. As she is not conceding the point of his concern, he threatens to smash her violin before she says she understands. She confirms that a baby's blood is nearly like the potency of the pill itself, and that she is now able to play one of the most challenging violin pieces ever created. She says that the baby was not hurt, and it was just a sip. Alma is drinking from a cut in the baby's leg. She flees into the dunes.ĭoris awakes in the middle of the night, looking for the baby and finds him with Alma. He offers her a production design job and moving with him to Los Angeles, but she quickly realizes that he has succumbed to Muse and everything that comes with it, and demands that he pull over so she can get out of the car. He explains that the studio leased him the Ford GTL (the closest thing to Speed Racer's fictional "Mach 5") because he is now entrusted with reviving the Speed Racer extended franchise universe. Karen encounters a well dressed Mickey, who drives her in a race car to Race Point (a beach she intends to paint). Harry explains that Doris is at high risk for post-birth complications, and they should not be separated for at least 3 weeks. She realizes that they are supposed to have (separately) left Provincetown, as they had planned. She is still in a confused haze as Ursula visits. In a restroom, Harry squeezes birthing blood into paper cups from the soiled linens and drinks.Īt home, Doris dreams of her experiences.
After cutting the cord, the parents vow they're going to be "great" from now on.
Harry is nearly overcome by the sight and scents of the blood. Harry struggles to keep Alma under control.