Joe?
It's your cue.
It's time to cut the umbilical cord.
But I've forged my way in the dark before,
I can do it now.
I have to
to protect my daughter.
Congratulations, dad. It's a boy.
It's a boy?
I'm fucked!
And so is he.
Welcome home, Forty.
Maybe we can use his real name.
We're a family.
Me, a boy, and his mum,
who is usually great,
but occasionally murders people
with her bare hands.
So, you have a new baby.
Yeah.
Yeah, Henry.
Yeah, sometimes we call him "Forty".
His name's Henry.
A good therapist would dig into why
our child is named after her dead, addict,
co-dependant brother,
I'd imagined parenthood would feel
like an essay by Nicholson Baker,
tiny moments made magnificent.
Yeah.
Turns out, parenthood is groundhog day
as written by Jean-Paul Sartre.
Joe?
Despite living in some Greek myth
about pushing a boulder of baby poop
up a hill.
It's incredible.
The urge to protect.
I feel it in my bones.
I would do anything for him.
What I don't feel
is connection.
The more I try to bond, the more he cries.
He knows we don't have it.
Why does my own child not like me?
Whenever I hang with Henry I'm reminded of two things.
One, he hates me.
Two, I have to protect him at all costs
from what happened to me.
You know, babies can tell
when your heart's not in it, Joe.
-I have wanted-- -Just no.
I'm sorry. It's all in my head.
What are you doing? Are you bringing him?
You want me to leave him in the car?
It's like bad parenting 101.
Witnessing us digging up a body isn't?
Developmentally, he's barely any depth perception,
which you should know.
What I'm hearing
is that even as I'm doing everything in my power
to save my child, my parenting skills
aren't up to your standards, is that right?
Is this really what's important right now?
So, Joe, how have you found
the transition to fatherhood?
An existential tangle of dread and failure,
oh, and also murder.
It's great.
And there he goes every time I touch him.
Just fucking let me do it. Joe!
-Joe? Joe? -What?
Come on. Come on, let's go. Let's go.
I'm trying.
I'm in over my head,
he said using an idiom
his son will never understand
because it's impossible to communicate with babies.
Yeah, right. Exactly.
I'm gonna do everything I can.
I just don't know what that means yet.
I'd...
So, what? You don't hate me?
Yeah. Well, same here.
Same here.
Okay. Now it's a good talk.
Okay, go get some rest. I got him. Really. Really.
I got him. Hm-mm, I got him.
Thank you, thank you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
-I love you, Forty. -Oh...
Okay, Henry. Coming in hot, Henry. Hey.
Gotta bank to the left. Here, look.
-There we go. -What's Henry like?
Oh, he's a terrorist.
-Oh... -No, he's, he's adorable.
He's sweet.
A big fan of Hemmingway and Fitzgerald.
I'm not surprised, you've seen him with the bottle.
I really hope he's better than me.
Hey. I'm sorry, baby. Had more questions.
Joe, I'm at the hospital.
Henry has the measles.
I have been kidnapped, held at knifepoint,
held at gunpoint,
lost a finger, been locked in a cage,
but in my history of scared,
this...
is the most scared I've ever been.
You have to get better.
I haven't always been the best person,
but being your dad...
is changing me.
What does it mean to be a good father?
To protect? Yes.
But can you be a good father if you're a bad man?
It's not the kind of father I wanna be
and not the kind of mother you wanna be either,
thank God.
Our little scout will be better for it.
I didn't have good parents.
But I know what a good parent does...
Protect.
Even if that means protecting from...
I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry.
This isn't forever.
I love you.
More than anything.
Hey!
I don't know what to say.