IN 1988

The Undiscovered Country With Dr. Emmet Cole premiered, to great success, and it went like this, for twenty-some years:

Cole: "There's magic out there."
Cole: "I am all about dragonflies, even back in 1988. Something about my wife's eyes looking like an insect out there!"
Cole: "There's magic out there!"
Cole: "There's a finless porpoise out there!"
Cole: "There's magic out there."
Cole: "There's magic out there."
Cole: "Sometimes my kid is really important to me out there, but other times I am kind of a selfish Baby Boomer out there."
Cole: "Did I mention there's magic out there?"

SIX MONTHS AGO

Well, he died. He fired his Captain, Emilio Valenzuela, and left his cheatin' (and absurdly unlucky) wife Tess at home, didn't bother saying goodbye to his grumpy med-student son Lincoln, did an end-run around his usual producer Clark, and set out for the Amazon to find something mysterious, which presumably he did find. The only person he really talked to back home was his cameraman's daughter Lena, who'd grown up alongside his son, about things like computers and infections and whatever, because she knows everything and cannot wait to tell you everything about everything.

Anyway, he disappeared. They searched for like six weeks, and then held a funeral.

Lincoln: "I am so very hungry. These bags under my eyes are not because I'm sad about my dad dying, but because as a vegan I can hardly summon the strength to stand here and say incredibly unpleasant grim things such as this speech I have prepared."

As a kid I used to watch my father on TV, and the voice would come up: "Next week, Emmet Cole may not survive what he finds in the cave!" I'd be terrified he wouldn't come home. He always did. Well, today... We give up hope. Also dairy.

NOW

Clark and Tess show up at Linc's drinking hole to badger him into signing on to play Jonny Quest just one more time. Lincoln has a fairly believable relationship with his mother, I think. She is such a drama magnet that I would probably estrange myself too.

Tess: "Emmet's beacon has gone off! In the jungle!"
Lincoln: "Leave me to my tequila! And my residency in Chicago!"
Tess: "But I care deeply for the zombie that is what's left of your father! Plus I cheated on him with a scumbag!"
Clark: "Lincoln, how are you."
Lincoln: "I will tell you how I am, dicks. Using another parable with roughly the same language as moments ago, only this time instead of the announcer threatening my father's death, it is the sadness of birthdays."
Tess: "He was kind of a selfish martyr sometimes, but..."
Lincoln, verbatim: "You'd bake a cake and you'd tell me not to be sad because Dad was here in spirit. So you know what, to me this just feels like another birthday."