BrainDead

What'd you say?

What?

I said, "Sorry about sleeping on the couch."

I think I nodded off."

Can you not hear me?

Oh, a bit.

What'd you say?

"Sorry about sleeping on the couch.

I think I nodded off."

Oh.

So that ear's better?

Uh, yeah.

It's probably my tinnitus.

I didn't notice it last night.

Well, it's always worse in the morning.

How'd you sleep?

Well.

You? Good.

I have to get to work.

These field office meetings. I hate being late.

Can I use your restroom? Sure.

Anthony, did you change the sheets?

Yeah, I-I hope that's all right.

I, uh... I can be a bit anal,

and there was a... you know,

a wet spot.

Where are the dirty ones?

In the pantry.

I saw you had a washer, I just threw them in.

Again, I hope that's all right.

Laurel?

Yeah, yeah, it's all right.

- Good. - Hmm.

I smell like an ox.

I'll call you later.

Thanks for a great night.

Why? What did he do?

Nothing, he just had trouble hearing in one ear.

Oh, my God, he's a bug man. No, stop.

He's cleaning your sheets while you're sleeping?

Seriously, is that something guys usually do? Okay, I'm getting back to work.

Laurel, he's a bug man. He could kill you.

What did he say?

Nothing. He had to rush off.

Right, to commune with other bug people.

You're looking at me like I'm crazy. I'm making sense here.

If he was infected, why wasn't Laurel infected?

Because you were sleeping on the couch,

at least that's what you said, so the bugs just got to him.

Okay, can we return to the subject here?

This is the subject.

What do we do with the CDC?

I called Wu again. He wants to help,

but he's running into some political headwinds at work.

What does that mean? He needs someone to apply pressure to his boss at the CDC.

How do we do that? We don't do that.

You do.

No, no.

I can't talk to my brother about this stuff.

He's very practical. He'll think we're insane...

Yes, if you tell him we're investigating brain-eating bugs.

But Lyme disease

and Zika are just as weird as this.

We've come to accept it, but it's the same

type of parasite. Okay. Okay, I'll think on it.

Good.

And, uh... I'm leaving these.

What are those? Sedatives to give

to your bug man. I'm not giving him sedatives.

The only way to know if he's clean is to give him a CAT scan,

and we know bug people don't want that.

And, uh...

Here are some brass knuckles, too.

I'm going back to work.

Can you stop calling them "bug people," please?

Take those.

So is that who you were sleeping with last night?

What?

I called back last night to thank you for the help

with Amarant when some guy picked up.

Imagine my surprise.

No, it wasn't him.

No, so... who was it?

Just someone.

Oh, that's right, my life's an open book, but Laurel...

It's Anthony, Anthony the FBI guy.

Oh, yeah. Is it serious?

No, of course not. Laurel doesn't do serious.

Why am I being attacked this morning?

Have you noticed, you never give guys a second chance?

They always do one thing wrong, and you drop them.

Oh, my God, is that true?

We're snobs. Face it.

The Healy children.

No one's up to our standards.

Okay.

Got to address the troops.

Hey, what are you doing?

Not much. What about you?

Oh, you know, just saving the world.

I'm sorry if I was...

weird this morning.

Oh, you weren't the weird one, I was.

Showing you my feminine cleaning side.

If that's the worst thing you show me, we'll be fine.

You want to get dinner tonight?

I can't.

I'm supposed to go to this party tonight

for the government reopening...

Actually, do you want to come?

It's a work event, everybody trying to be bipartisan.

Yeah, sounds fun.

No, it doesn't.

No, it does. What time? 8:00.

We have to stay at least an hour, but then we can...

I'll make you dinner.

Oh, okay.

Good.

See you then.

Bye.

Give yourselves a hand.

We're back! MAN: Yes, we are.

The government is open for business, so let's show

the people of Maryland what we can do.

All right.

So where you all from? Baltimore, Senator.

I'm Private Blaine.

This is Private First Class Tulley.

Hey. And Lance Corporal Middleton.

Uh, actually, I'm from Cumberland.

Wouldn't be caught dead in Baltimore.

Even though I probably will.

Well, let's not hope for that.

This is my sister, Laurel.

She takes care of constituents. We know. We were briefed.

What are those there, Lance Corporal?

Toys for my one-year-old.

Her car seat hooks into my wheelchair here and here.

You have a one-year-old?

Lilly.

Best thing ever happened to me.

You should see us both crawling on the floor.

Why don't you all come on back and

let's talk. You sure?

They told us not to press you, Senator.

It'd just be Laurel hearing our bitching.

Hey, if you want me gone...

No, no! No, no, no, no, no, no.

We were enrolled in the clinical drug trials,

and they were halted during the government shutdown.

We need Congress to get NIH to restore funding,

and some of us don't have a lot of time.

Meaning?

Me. Liver cancer.

In fact, I wasn't gonna come today.

It's hard to pull myself away from Lilly

when she's ready to walk, but...

I convinced him.

He's the most critical.

- How critical? - Ten days.

Don't sugarcoat it, Sheila. Give it to them straight.

I'm just hoping to make it to Lilly's first birthday.

When is that?

July 4.

I know. Corny, huh?

Wow.

Yeah.

You know what's the best thing about my job?

I can't imagine.

I can do something about that.

I'm heading to the Committee on Veteran Affairs right now.

No one votes against veterans, so this'll be handled

by the end of the day. You sure?

Oh, yeah.

Good, 'cause I liked him.

I know. Me, too.

I have something to ask of you.

What? I didn't ask anything of you.

You're on some committee giving funding to the CDC.

And they're saying that these fatal strokes are because

of some bad blood pressure medicine,

but we think they're wrong.

"We," meaning those two people

in the conference room with you?

We're in touch with a Dr. Wu at the CDC.

He needs some political pressure applied to his bosses

for them to look at other theories.

All you need to do is drop a word and they'll jump.

Okay, here's the thing, Laurel.

I'm gonna share with you a wonderful little civics lesson

about the glory of our system of government.

Oh, boy. Everybody hates everybody.

If the CDC were wrong about

blood pressure medicine, the FDA would scream bloody murder

because they approved it.

See, that's how I know your friends are wrong.

No one's screaming. Talk to you later, I'm late.

Mr. Chairman,

as a first order of business,

let's fast-track the refunding of drug trials for veterans.