1
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[traffic roar]

2
00:00:31,766 --> 00:00:35,469
[birdsong]

3
00:01:09,403 --> 00:01:12,472
If we'd made the film,
there would've been a car here

4
00:01:13,407 --> 00:01:15,710
probably in that
spot on the left

5
00:01:16,511 --> 00:01:20,882
and it would've been a
California Highway Patrol car

6
00:01:21,181 --> 00:01:22,717
but era-appropriate

7
00:01:22,850 --> 00:01:25,553
so like a 1960s...

8
00:01:25,987 --> 00:01:28,756
black cruiser with a white door

9
00:01:28,890 --> 00:01:30,457
and a kind of...

10
00:01:32,225 --> 00:01:33,761
badge on the side.

11
00:01:39,499 --> 00:01:42,469
This would've all been
reenactment, obviously

12
00:01:43,938 --> 00:01:46,841
which is how all these things
tend to start now.

13
00:01:48,141 --> 00:01:52,346
Like, everything's got to have
that rhythm of drama...

14
00:01:53,146 --> 00:01:55,583
even when it's documentary.

15
00:02:01,956 --> 00:02:06,094
So inside the cruiser, we'd
have an actor playing Lyndon,

16
00:02:06,594 --> 00:02:09,329
the cop at the center
of the story,

17
00:02:10,665 --> 00:02:13,467
and he's just sitting there
minding his own business

18
00:02:14,035 --> 00:02:16,470
when in pulls this other car.

19
00:02:17,605 --> 00:02:20,140
And of all the spots in
the parking lot,

20
00:02:20,374 --> 00:02:22,877
this car pulls up
right next to Lyndon's.

21
00:02:26,848 --> 00:02:29,884
And so at first, Lyndon doesn't
necessarily think much of it.

22
00:02:30,317 --> 00:02:32,854
but eventually he
looks over at the guy

23
00:02:33,387 --> 00:02:34,656
and he sees

24
00:02:35,023 --> 00:02:37,725
that the guy is
staring right at him.

25
00:02:39,192 --> 00:02:43,263
And we'd have heard Lyndon's
inner monologue throughout this

26
00:02:43,631 --> 00:02:45,833
which would've been
taken from the book.

27
00:02:48,235 --> 00:02:50,303
I'll just read a
little bit of that now.

28
00:02:50,972 --> 00:02:52,940
[ominous drone]

29
00:02:53,908 --> 00:02:54,842
So he says:

30
00:02:56,844 --> 00:02:59,947
'He did not drop his
eyes or turn away.'

31
00:03:01,649 --> 00:03:04,384
'With his face
quivering in spasms,'

32
00:03:04,852 --> 00:03:07,922
'and an unflinching
stare of hate,'

33
00:03:08,589 --> 00:03:11,693
'I knew I was looking
into the eyes of death.'

34
00:03:13,695 --> 00:03:15,596
So he describes it
in these almost...

35
00:03:16,263 --> 00:03:18,298
biblical terms.

36
00:03:18,700 --> 00:03:22,070
And obviously we'd have had
a close-up of these eyes...

37
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if we could find an actor

38
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with eyes menacing enough
to match that description

39
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and probably cross-cutting
between that

40
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and Lyndon's eyes,
and it's this kind of...

41
00:03:32,580 --> 00:03:33,981
face-off situation

42
00:03:34,214 --> 00:03:36,918
between these two men
in silence in this parking lot.

43
00:03:38,953 --> 00:03:41,189
This feeling of
a growing tension

44
00:03:41,522 --> 00:03:43,825
that has to break in some way.

45
00:03:47,628 --> 00:03:49,697
And finally,
just when you think

46
00:03:49,831 --> 00:03:52,100
that the worst could happen,
that this could...

47
00:03:52,365 --> 00:03:54,301
rupture into violence...

48
00:03:55,368 --> 00:03:58,238
Lyndon leaps into action.

49
00:03:59,140 --> 00:04:03,243
I had it so clear in my mind:
this shot of Lyndon's hand,

50
00:04:03,578 --> 00:04:05,680
lurching for the gearstick,

51
00:04:06,547 --> 00:04:08,616
pulling it into reverse and
then he's out of there

52
00:04:08,850 --> 00:04:11,451
and the hills are whirling
through the windows

53
00:04:11,586 --> 00:04:14,088
as the car reverses out
of the parking lot

54
00:04:14,321 --> 00:04:16,256
and guns it onto the highway.

55
00:04:17,024 --> 00:04:18,593
And the tension breaks

56
00:04:18,726 --> 00:04:21,596
but there's also this
sense of high drama

57
00:04:22,029 --> 00:04:25,867
that has erupted
from this confrontation,

58
00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:27,334
[drone escalates]

59
00:04:27,602 --> 00:04:30,138
even if we don't necessarily
know what any of it

60
00:04:30,470 --> 00:04:31,806
signifies...

61
00:04:32,974 --> 00:04:33,808
yet.

62
00:04:37,277 --> 00:04:39,046
[drone ends]

63
00:04:40,882 --> 00:04:43,050
[distant, irritable car horn]

64
00:04:44,118 --> 00:04:46,621
So we would've followed
Lyndon down the highway,

65
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until he finds a place to
pull over and get his bearings

66
00:04:52,193 --> 00:04:56,898
and then he would have
lowered his... sun visor

67
00:04:58,065 --> 00:05:03,303
and pinned to the back of it
is the famous police sketch

68
00:05:04,505 --> 00:05:06,541
of the Zodiac Killer.

69
00:05:09,243 --> 00:05:10,978
Fuck... it would've been good.

70
00:05:12,647 --> 00:05:15,183
And from there we'd have
gone straight into

71
00:05:15,448 --> 00:05:16,951
the title sequence,

72
00:05:17,819 --> 00:05:20,288
which kind of
would've made itself.

73
00:05:20,755 --> 00:05:24,025
All these things are basically
built to the same model now.

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00:05:24,357 --> 00:05:25,793
[urgent piano]

75
00:05:26,260 --> 00:05:28,930
It's lots of layered imagery,

76
00:05:29,997 --> 00:05:32,600
so you can never quite tell
what you're looking at...

77
00:05:33,534 --> 00:05:37,470
bodies and landscapes,
all intermingled,

78
00:05:38,172 --> 00:05:39,707
but in a very meaningful way.

79
00:05:40,041 --> 00:05:42,442
What are we,
but products of the landscape?

80
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[laughs]

81
00:05:44,145 --> 00:05:47,181
But with a kind of disjointed,
scratchy aesthetic,

82
00:05:47,315 --> 00:05:50,952
as though it's been made by
the serial killer themselves.

83
00:05:51,285 --> 00:05:53,287
[evil circus music]

84
00:05:53,888 --> 00:05:55,857
The same sorts of images
pop up again and again:

85
00:05:55,990 --> 00:05:57,825
you got like...
you know...

86
00:05:58,025 --> 00:06:00,294
birds taking flight

87
00:06:01,028 --> 00:06:04,866
and a shadowy man...
walking away

88
00:06:06,100 --> 00:06:09,837
and kind of
country-inflected music

89
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but with a dark edge.

90
00:06:13,641 --> 00:06:17,178
And everything's
vague and fluid,

91
00:06:17,377 --> 00:06:21,549
like it's being viewed through
the fog of a dream.

92
00:06:23,416 --> 00:06:26,120
Lots of tiny text...

93
00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:29,223
that's almost
too small for human eyes,

94
00:06:29,422 --> 00:06:32,193
I guess to make
it look cinematic.

95
00:06:32,894 --> 00:06:34,562
And over the top of all this,

96
00:06:34,795 --> 00:06:38,733
audio that starts to
tell the story of the case.

97
00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:42,570
'You can see that this
does not look like grief...'

98
00:06:42,837 --> 00:06:44,538
'... does not read as grief.'

99
00:06:44,705 --> 00:06:48,342
And typically by the end,
it gets weirdly talky,

100
00:06:48,509 --> 00:06:50,443
It is almost like you're
watching a trailer

101
00:06:50,645 --> 00:06:52,113
for the film you're
already watching.

102
00:06:52,346 --> 00:06:55,116
'It was the case that goes
to the heart of our democracy.'

103
00:06:55,583 --> 00:06:58,986
'This is a murder which, unless
solved, won't be forgotten.'

104
00:07:01,789 --> 00:07:04,191
It kind of sets up
everything and nothing.

105
00:07:04,892 --> 00:07:07,061
All the soundbites are just
people saying things like:

106
00:07:07,427 --> 00:07:11,132
'The things that went on...
were beyond the imagination.'

107
00:07:11,599 --> 00:07:12,900
Or whatever.

108
00:07:13,067 --> 00:07:14,302
Like, it doesn't really
tell you anything...

109
00:07:14,869 --> 00:07:17,305
but at the same time,
it gives you the general vibe

110
00:07:18,306 --> 00:07:20,841
in case you've got one
eye on your phone.

111
00:07:27,447 --> 00:07:29,850
[steady rumble of highway]

112
00:07:30,618 --> 00:07:33,654
So then we'd have
gone back to Lyndon

113
00:07:34,221 --> 00:07:37,124
coming back down
the highway after this...

114
00:07:37,525 --> 00:07:40,127
unsettling confrontation.

115
00:07:41,796 --> 00:07:44,932
Maybe still stealing the
odd glance at the sketch.

116
00:07:48,636 --> 00:07:50,705
And obviously, he's realizing

117
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that he may have
just come into contact

118
00:07:53,841 --> 00:07:57,111
with the most
wanted man in America.

119
00:08:01,949 --> 00:08:04,018
But for all the adrenaline
of that moment,

120
00:08:04,151 --> 00:08:08,589
he also managed to take down
the guy's license plate.

121
00:08:10,224 --> 00:08:12,460
So right from the off, we're
getting this sense of Lyndon

122
00:08:12,593 --> 00:08:15,763
as someone who's
calm in a crisis.

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00:08:21,669 --> 00:08:26,173
I should probably give some
general background on Lyndon.

124
00:08:27,241 --> 00:08:28,809
[heavy truck]

125
00:08:29,944 --> 00:08:34,548
So Lyndon was a California
Highway Patrol cop

126
00:08:35,349 --> 00:08:38,719
for, I think, 30 years,
maybe longer.

127
00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:43,791
And towards the end of his
life, he published this book,

128
00:08:44,191 --> 00:08:46,694
about his lifelong quest

129
00:08:46,861 --> 00:08:50,231
to bring the
Zodiac Killer to justice,

130
00:08:50,664 --> 00:08:53,200
starting that day
up at the rest stop.

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00:08:54,769 --> 00:08:55,803
It's called...

132
00:08:56,337 --> 00:08:58,239
'The Zodiac Killer Cover-Up'

133
00:08:59,106 --> 00:09:01,575
a.k.a. 'The Silenced Badge'.

134
00:09:02,143 --> 00:09:04,879
And it's got this
very distinctive cover

135
00:09:05,046 --> 00:09:07,815
with this bright red
spider's web

136
00:09:08,182 --> 00:09:10,684
with a little crosshair symbol
at the center

137
00:09:11,452 --> 00:09:14,088
because that was the
Zodiac Killer's trademark.

138
00:09:16,157 --> 00:09:17,892
And I remember
seeing that cover

139
00:09:18,092 --> 00:09:20,928
in thumbnail form on Amazon,

140
00:09:21,162 --> 00:09:23,397
presumably after
the algorithm had

141
00:09:23,564 --> 00:09:26,133
exhausted every other
true crime book on the market,

142
00:09:26,734 --> 00:09:29,136
and just being
very drawn to it.

143
00:09:31,939 --> 00:09:33,908
So I bought the book,

144
00:09:34,175 --> 00:09:36,911
read it kind of
absentmindedly at first,

145
00:09:37,278 --> 00:09:39,113
but I remember
being struck by how

146
00:09:39,280 --> 00:09:42,383
incredibly cinematic
a lot of it was.

147
00:09:43,084 --> 00:09:45,853
It feels like it's been
written in the mold

148
00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:48,122
of a true crime documentary.

149
00:09:49,790 --> 00:09:51,492
And so even though I'd
never really imagined

150
00:09:51,759 --> 00:09:53,694
making a true crime doc,

151
00:09:54,395 --> 00:09:57,631
working in documentary these
days, true crime's got this...

152
00:09:57,865 --> 00:10:00,801
gravitational pull.

153
00:10:02,470 --> 00:10:05,239
Eventually, you just...
give in to it.

154
00:10:06,541 --> 00:10:08,209
[distant highway]

155
00:10:08,609 --> 00:10:12,880
So I started trying to get
the rights to the book,

156
00:10:13,647 --> 00:10:16,951
from Lyndon's family.

157
00:10:17,818 --> 00:10:20,187
And it all seemed
to be going well.

158
00:10:20,321 --> 00:10:23,991
We were deep into
contract negotiations

159
00:10:24,191 --> 00:10:27,061
and starting pre-production.

160
00:10:28,496 --> 00:10:30,599
I even went out to Vallejo

161
00:10:31,031 --> 00:10:35,369
in the Bay Area, where it
all took place, and started...

162
00:10:36,070 --> 00:10:38,239
scouting around for locations,

163
00:10:38,607 --> 00:10:42,943
speaking to people I thought
might make good interviewees.

164
00:10:44,879 --> 00:10:47,748
So I was actually out there,
working on it,

165
00:10:48,115 --> 00:10:50,651
when I got the email to say

166
00:10:50,885 --> 00:10:53,320
that Lyndon's family
had pulled out

167
00:10:53,687 --> 00:10:56,891
and that we weren't
getting the rights to the book.

168
00:11:02,531 --> 00:11:05,634
And I still don't know
entirely why...

169
00:11:05,900 --> 00:11:10,104
whether it was a case of them
wanting more money or more...

170
00:11:10,304 --> 00:11:12,641
control over the
finished product, or just...

171
00:11:13,007 --> 00:11:15,442
someone else swooping in

172
00:11:16,076 --> 00:11:19,446
promising to make it the next
Tiger King, or whatever.

173
00:11:22,316 --> 00:11:23,918
[quiet room]

174
00:11:24,285 --> 00:11:28,455
But it was honestly kind of
devastating, by that point,

175
00:11:29,356 --> 00:11:32,459
because I really had
figured the whole thing out,

176
00:11:33,360 --> 00:11:37,331
right down to the locations
for the re-enactments.

177
00:11:41,101 --> 00:11:42,836
The way I was picturing it

178
00:11:43,003 --> 00:11:45,439
the majority of the
investigation was going to be

179
00:11:45,706 --> 00:11:47,676
based in Lyndon's home

180
00:11:48,475 --> 00:11:51,412
or what we would've been
passing off as Lyndon's home,

181
00:11:52,514 --> 00:11:54,848
where, unable to put this

182
00:11:54,982 --> 00:11:57,351
confrontation at the rest
stop out of his mind,

183
00:11:57,718 --> 00:12:02,456
he starts to mount this kind of
freelance investigation.

184
00:12:04,992 --> 00:12:07,127
And at first, he's just
laying it all out,

185
00:12:07,728 --> 00:12:10,764
and I think we could have had
him literally laying it all out

186
00:12:10,898 --> 00:12:12,032
across the table

187
00:12:12,433 --> 00:12:15,402
and seeing if
the pieces fit together.

188
00:12:16,504 --> 00:12:18,239
But as time goes on
and he becomes

189
00:12:18,372 --> 00:12:21,976
more and more
immersed in this case,

190
00:12:22,711 --> 00:12:26,814
we'd have filled the space
with more and more stuff:

191
00:12:27,114 --> 00:12:30,985
pin boards and photocopies,
library books.

192
00:12:32,953 --> 00:12:35,189
Anyway, he's got the
license plate number

193
00:12:35,322 --> 00:12:38,759
so the first thing he does
is run a check on that

194
00:12:39,026 --> 00:12:42,162
and comes back with the name:

195
00:12:43,130 --> 00:12:45,499
George Russell Tucker.

196
00:12:47,602 --> 00:12:50,237
Classic serial killer name.

197
00:12:50,404 --> 00:12:51,905
Three names.

198
00:12:52,239 --> 00:12:53,340
[laughs]

199
00:12:53,508 --> 00:12:56,310
Apparently that's because
the media always uses

200
00:12:56,443 --> 00:13:00,314
people's middle names after
they become serial killers,

201
00:13:00,582 --> 00:13:04,552
so they don't get confused with
anyone else with the same name,

202
00:13:04,686 --> 00:13:06,220
the same first and second name.

203
00:13:06,987 --> 00:13:09,790
But as a result, the second
you say someone's middle name,

204
00:13:09,923 --> 00:13:11,025
they sound like
a serial killer.

205
00:13:11,158 --> 00:13:13,193
It works both ways.

206
00:13:14,663 --> 00:13:16,830
And then, along with the name,

207
00:13:16,997 --> 00:13:20,535
he gets a photograph
of the guy.

208
00:13:20,901 --> 00:13:24,338
We'd have had, inevitably,
the moment where

209
00:13:24,506 --> 00:13:28,042
the envelope arrives from the
DMV and he pulls out

210
00:13:28,175 --> 00:13:30,944
the photocopy of
the driving license,

211
00:13:31,211 --> 00:13:34,081
slides it alongside
the police sketch,

212
00:13:35,650 --> 00:13:36,917
and needless to say,

213
00:13:37,051 --> 00:13:39,621
the similarities are striking.

214
00:13:40,588 --> 00:13:43,857
And again, we'd be hearing
Lyndon's words from the book,

215
00:13:44,491 --> 00:13:46,427
which capture that sense
that he's kind of

216
00:13:46,561 --> 00:13:50,464
approaching this
with a degree of skepticism

217
00:13:50,765 --> 00:13:55,269
and it's only actually the
sheer weight of the evidence

218
00:13:55,603 --> 00:14:00,140
that means he's duty bound
to look further.

219
00:14:01,909 --> 00:14:04,211
[sinister drone]

220
00:14:04,679 --> 00:14:06,280
So he says:

221
00:14:08,349 --> 00:14:11,586
'The horn-rimmed glasses
were very prominent.'

222
00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:14,955
'The shape of his hair...

223
00:14:15,322 --> 00:14:18,158
'was nearly a perfect match.'

224
00:14:19,426 --> 00:14:22,463
'A mad dog killer
was on the loose'

225
00:14:23,430 --> 00:14:26,066
'and apparently living nearby.'

226
00:14:27,067 --> 00:14:29,637
'Very close indeed.'

227
00:14:36,845 --> 00:14:38,979
[drone eases]

228
00:14:40,314 --> 00:14:43,785
It wouldn't have been me
reading all of this, obviously.

229
00:14:44,586 --> 00:14:48,523
We'd have hired an actor with a
voice more similar to Lyndon's.

230
00:14:50,792 --> 00:14:54,194
But actually, we probably would
have left it kind of ambiguous

231
00:14:54,395 --> 00:14:57,297
as to whether it was an actor,
or Lyndon himself.

232
00:14:59,534 --> 00:15:03,638
If you show a tape player the
first time you hear the voice,

233
00:15:04,004 --> 00:15:07,542
you can kind of just let people
draw their own conclusions.

234
00:15:10,712 --> 00:15:12,980
Apparently in the industry,
they call those shots...

235
00:15:13,247 --> 00:15:15,349
'evocative B-roll'

236
00:15:17,217 --> 00:15:21,589
You know, like those
standalone images

237
00:15:22,690 --> 00:15:24,859
that sort of evoke a scene

238
00:15:24,992 --> 00:15:27,161
without actually
showing much of it.

239
00:15:28,830 --> 00:15:30,364
Like sometimes
they'll have people in them,

240
00:15:30,497 --> 00:15:33,400
but they're always
just at the edge of frame

241
00:15:33,535 --> 00:15:36,538
or kind of falling out of focus

242
00:15:36,671 --> 00:15:38,606
in some improbable way.

243
00:15:40,875 --> 00:15:41,843
'Bactors'.

244
00:15:42,443 --> 00:15:44,111
That's what someone
told me they're called.

245
00:15:44,879 --> 00:15:46,980
Because you can only
ever see their backs.

246
00:15:48,683 --> 00:15:51,586
But I see why they do it:
it is almost like the more...

247
00:15:51,820 --> 00:15:54,154
generic the image...

248
00:15:54,689 --> 00:15:59,493
the more effective it is
as visual shorthand.

249
00:16:04,431 --> 00:16:08,503
Like there was this other bit
of evidence against Tucker,

250
00:16:08,937 --> 00:16:11,706
related to a boot print

251
00:16:11,873 --> 00:16:14,843
that was found at one
of the Zodiac crime scenes,

252
00:16:15,476 --> 00:16:17,244
and if that's the
only relevant detail,

253
00:16:17,377 --> 00:16:19,814
you don't really need
the whole crime scene.

254
00:16:19,948 --> 00:16:25,385
You just need that one shot
of the boot print...

255
00:16:27,020 --> 00:16:28,255
in the mud.

256
00:16:31,358 --> 00:16:33,862
Maybe even like a flashbulb...

257
00:16:34,929 --> 00:16:37,699
like it's a crime scene
photograph being taken.

258
00:16:39,066 --> 00:16:40,635
Did they use flashbulbs...

259
00:16:41,603 --> 00:16:43,103
in the 60s?

260
00:16:43,738 --> 00:16:46,373
We'd have gone with it anyway,
it's very dramatic.

261
00:16:46,641 --> 00:16:49,109
Like, the big flash
of the bulb,

262
00:16:49,243 --> 00:16:50,143
we see the boot print,

263
00:16:50,612 --> 00:16:52,580
and maybe the bulb
falls to the ground

264
00:16:52,747 --> 00:16:55,282
and smashes next
to the boot print.

265
00:16:56,350 --> 00:16:58,051
You can see it, can't you?

266
00:16:59,353 --> 00:17:01,523
[road rumbles steadily]

267
00:17:02,389 --> 00:17:04,993
And then the next scene
would have been Lyndon

268
00:17:05,292 --> 00:17:08,663
bringing his findings
to his superiors

269
00:17:09,162 --> 00:17:14,134
or to the team leading the
Zodiac investigation in Vallejo

270
00:17:17,271 --> 00:17:21,809
and they agree to
call Tucker in for questioning.

271
00:17:29,017 --> 00:17:30,685
This is actually a library,

272
00:17:31,051 --> 00:17:32,620
not a police station.

273
00:17:33,287 --> 00:17:35,088
It's much easier to
film at a library

274
00:17:35,389 --> 00:17:37,224
so we were gonna do
the exteriors

275
00:17:37,357 --> 00:17:39,159
and some of the interiors here.

276
00:17:41,128 --> 00:17:44,632
And the way this works in
the book is a little convoluted

277
00:17:44,766 --> 00:17:48,803
because obviously this wasn't
Lyndon's jurisdiction.

278
00:17:49,269 --> 00:17:51,204
I don't think he was
actually present

279
00:17:51,506 --> 00:17:53,508
when Tucker was brought in
for questioning.

280
00:17:54,074 --> 00:17:58,580
But dramatically,
we would have wanted him there.

281
00:17:59,547 --> 00:18:02,115
So I think we would have at
least implied that he was there

282
00:18:02,282 --> 00:18:05,352
without going so far
as to actually state it.

283
00:18:06,754 --> 00:18:08,923
In fact, I always
imagined Lyndon

284
00:18:09,057 --> 00:18:10,525
behind a two-way mirror

285
00:18:13,595 --> 00:18:18,332
and that he would be
monitoring this interrogation

286
00:18:18,633 --> 00:18:22,604
from the relative security
of the next room.

287
00:18:25,974 --> 00:18:27,809
So they bring Tucker in

288
00:18:27,976 --> 00:18:33,915
and they ask him for a series
of basic personal details:

289
00:18:34,281 --> 00:18:36,149
full name, address...

290
00:18:36,684 --> 00:18:38,953
But for our purposes, this
is just an excuse for Lyndon

291
00:18:39,087 --> 00:18:43,256
to finally get like a real
close up look at the guy,

292
00:18:43,658 --> 00:18:47,962
not in a moment of heightened
tension like at the rest area,

293
00:18:48,128 --> 00:18:51,099
but now in a cool and collected
way, where he can actually

294
00:18:51,231 --> 00:18:55,335
scrutinize the man who's
physically sat in front of him.

295
00:18:57,572 --> 00:19:00,307
And at the same time,
we'd have tried to

296
00:19:00,474 --> 00:19:03,678
fill in some of who
Tucker actually was.

297
00:19:06,714 --> 00:19:09,282
As far as I could tell, there's
no actual footage of him,

298
00:19:09,416 --> 00:19:10,685
unfortunately,

299
00:19:11,151 --> 00:19:11,753
but

300
00:19:12,620 --> 00:19:17,457
there's those 4 or 5 bits
of home movie footage

301
00:19:17,625 --> 00:19:20,260
of American families
in suburbia of that era

302
00:19:20,427 --> 00:19:21,963
that you see in
every documentary

303
00:19:22,096 --> 00:19:23,564
because they can
stand in for...

304
00:19:23,931 --> 00:19:26,567
the whole idea
of American childhood.

305
00:19:27,267 --> 00:19:28,636
So that would have
done the job.

306
00:19:29,771 --> 00:19:31,304
[laughs]

307
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:35,342
But the point here is that
Lyndon's actually getting

308
00:19:35,510 --> 00:19:37,578
a real sense of the guy

309
00:19:38,112 --> 00:19:39,446
and asking,

310
00:19:39,947 --> 00:19:43,450
could this actually
be the Zodiac Killer?

311
00:19:45,586 --> 00:19:47,822
And of course, the answer
would have been yes

312
00:19:48,556 --> 00:19:49,891
because we would've

313
00:19:50,024 --> 00:19:54,194
staged this entirely to
confirm those suspicions

314
00:19:54,327 --> 00:19:59,867
so all the classic
interrogative signifiers:

315
00:20:01,201 --> 00:20:03,671
cigarette perched
on an ashtray,

316
00:20:04,404 --> 00:20:06,473
reel-to-reel tape recorder,

317
00:20:07,542 --> 00:20:09,844
ticking clock on the wall,

318
00:20:11,512 --> 00:20:13,480
the interrogation lamp.

319
00:20:14,949 --> 00:20:17,085
Do you picture an
interrogation lamp

320
00:20:17,217 --> 00:20:19,386
like a desk lamp
or a hanging lamp?

321
00:20:19,921 --> 00:20:20,922
A hanging lamp.

322
00:20:22,023 --> 00:20:23,390
And they're always swinging.

323
00:20:24,125 --> 00:20:24,892
[laughs]

324
00:20:25,358 --> 00:20:26,460
Why are they swinging?

325
00:20:26,861 --> 00:20:28,896
Is the implication
that it's got tense?

326
00:20:29,030 --> 00:20:30,164
Someone's knocked the lamp.

327
00:20:30,464 --> 00:20:32,399
The bad cop stood to his feet

328
00:20:32,533 --> 00:20:34,635
and knocked the lamp
and it's gone swinging.

329
00:20:35,803 --> 00:20:37,171
[laughs]

330
00:20:37,872 --> 00:20:40,641
See, I'm not saying that having
seen a lot of these things

331
00:20:40,775 --> 00:20:42,977
is all the training I would
have needed to make one,

332
00:20:43,111 --> 00:20:45,345
but I do think it would have
got me pretty far.

333
00:20:47,982 --> 00:20:51,552
[music pulses, like a
faulty air conditioner]

334
00:20:52,419 --> 00:20:55,556
[slow, rhythmic
metallic thuds]

335
00:20:56,924 --> 00:21:01,562
What happened next would
have taken things up a notch,

336
00:21:02,429 --> 00:21:04,264
dramatically speaking.

337
00:21:07,535 --> 00:21:10,337
But actually, it's kind of...

338
00:21:11,239 --> 00:21:14,108
hard to know what I can

339
00:21:14,242 --> 00:21:17,011
and can't talk about here.

340
00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:19,947
Legally.

341
00:21:22,482 --> 00:21:25,586
A lot of what I've
described thus far,

342
00:21:26,319 --> 00:21:28,055
there's multiple sources for.

343
00:21:28,189 --> 00:21:32,425
So like, the scene at the
beginning in the rest area...

344
00:21:33,227 --> 00:21:35,362
Lyndon filed a police report

345
00:21:35,730 --> 00:21:38,833
so some of the details of
that are in there.

346
00:21:39,567 --> 00:21:41,002
He gave interviews

347
00:21:41,135 --> 00:21:43,971
over the course of his life,
where he talked about it.

348
00:21:44,572 --> 00:21:47,307
So there's these
various sources

349
00:21:47,942 --> 00:21:51,646
diluting the extent to which
we're drawing from...

350
00:21:51,979 --> 00:21:53,014
Lyndon's book

351
00:21:53,581 --> 00:21:56,383
which obviously,
we don't have the rights to.

352
00:21:59,352 --> 00:22:02,089
The tricky thing is when
you get to sections like this

353
00:22:02,223 --> 00:22:06,359
where the book really
is the only source.

354
00:22:08,361 --> 00:22:09,997
And so there's kind of a limit

355
00:22:11,065 --> 00:22:12,567
to what I can say.

356
00:22:17,038 --> 00:22:19,607
But without getting
into it too much,

357
00:22:20,340 --> 00:22:22,375
essentially, Lyndon alleges

358
00:22:22,510 --> 00:22:25,012
a kind of conspiracy

359
00:22:25,780 --> 00:22:28,415
in which Tucker was able

360
00:22:28,583 --> 00:22:34,322
to exert influence within the
Solano County Sheriff's Office

361
00:22:35,256 --> 00:22:38,893
and basically get the
investigation shut down.

362
00:22:42,196 --> 00:22:44,999
So this would have been a
kind of montage

363
00:22:45,199 --> 00:22:49,904
where word is making its way
through the corridors of power.

364
00:22:51,706 --> 00:22:52,940
You know, like...

365
00:22:53,140 --> 00:22:56,244
phone call begets
phone call begets phone call

366
00:22:56,744 --> 00:23:01,315
until it reaches
the highest authority,

367
00:23:01,448 --> 00:23:03,751
the sheriff of the county.

368
00:23:05,253 --> 00:23:07,487
And we'd throw in
a few interview moments

369
00:23:07,622 --> 00:23:11,225
where people are like,
'oh, power in Vallejo...'

370
00:23:11,759 --> 00:23:12,860
'it's all about...'

371
00:23:13,527 --> 00:23:14,762
'who you know.'

372
00:23:18,398 --> 00:23:22,770
Finally, Lyndon hears that word
has come down from the sheriff,

373
00:23:23,738 --> 00:23:26,641
and obviously it's
not what he wants to hear.

374
00:23:27,141 --> 00:23:29,977
I'll read the actual quote
from the book...

375
00:23:31,846 --> 00:23:34,048
because it gives
you a sense of the

376
00:23:34,949 --> 00:23:37,885
conspiratorial tone
of the thing.

377
00:23:40,087 --> 00:23:42,156
[pages rustling]

378
00:23:43,524 --> 00:23:45,092
The sheriff's message is:

379
00:23:46,694 --> 00:23:48,195
[dramatic drone]

380
00:23:48,396 --> 00:23:50,531
'Belay all such orders'

381
00:23:51,933 --> 00:23:55,002
'and forget about
George Tucker completely.'

382
00:23:57,138 --> 00:23:58,773
'I don't care who he is.'

383
00:23:59,774 --> 00:24:02,310
'I am telling you to
destroy your notes'

384
00:24:02,810 --> 00:24:04,545
'and burn your files.'

385
00:24:05,846 --> 00:24:08,448
'I never want to hear
the man's name again.'

386
00:24:09,951 --> 00:24:10,618
'Ever.'

387
00:24:11,252 --> 00:24:13,821
[satanic choir roars]

388
00:24:14,355 --> 00:24:15,823
[timpani drum roll]

389
00:24:16,157 --> 00:24:18,759
[satanic choir roars]

390
00:24:19,427 --> 00:24:20,661
[timpani drum roll]

391
00:24:20,795 --> 00:24:23,597
[satanic choir roars]

392
00:24:24,332 --> 00:24:25,566
[timpani drum roll]

393
00:24:25,700 --> 00:24:27,868
[satanic choir roars]

394
00:24:28,202 --> 00:24:29,670
[timpani hit]

395
00:24:30,604 --> 00:24:32,073
[final timpani hit]

396
00:24:32,807 --> 00:24:36,911
[drums and choir melt
away into drone]

397
00:24:39,814 --> 00:24:42,083
[drone dissolves]

398
00:24:43,150 --> 00:24:46,587
So that's good...
dramatic stuff, right?

399
00:24:47,455 --> 00:24:52,093
I presume the 'burn your files'
thing was not literal

400
00:24:52,927 --> 00:24:55,463
but obviously we'd have
had to make it literal.

401
00:24:55,596 --> 00:24:58,599
That's too good to pass up on.

402
00:25:00,067 --> 00:25:03,437
I'm imagining all this stuff
that we've seen earlier,

403
00:25:03,571 --> 00:25:05,873
like the printout of Tucker's
name

404
00:25:06,007 --> 00:25:08,509
or the Zodiac police sketch,

405
00:25:09,176 --> 00:25:12,179
all of this stuff,
all of this key evidence

406
00:25:12,346 --> 00:25:14,682
being swallowed up by flames

407
00:25:14,949 --> 00:25:20,721
as we see the scale of the
perversion of justice at hand.

408
00:25:23,090 --> 00:25:25,559
And through it all,
there's this sense that

409
00:25:25,693 --> 00:25:26,394
you know

410
00:25:26,961 --> 00:25:29,230
not only was Lyndon
on to something,

411
00:25:30,731 --> 00:25:33,567
but he actually got
too close to the truth.

412
00:25:37,605 --> 00:25:39,173
Alright, end of act one.

413
00:25:42,810 --> 00:25:45,446
[traffic rumble, cars passing]

414
00:25:46,380 --> 00:25:50,217
So the next sequence would
have been a kind of...

415
00:25:50,785 --> 00:25:53,921
dust-settling moment.

416
00:25:54,288 --> 00:25:56,157
Lyndon's off the case

417
00:25:56,323 --> 00:26:02,029
and so by default,
he's back to the daily grind:

418
00:26:02,797 --> 00:26:04,799
routine traffic stops,

419
00:26:05,232 --> 00:26:11,038
seeing the normality - the
banality - of life in Vallejo.

420
00:26:11,739 --> 00:26:13,040
Oh, wait, this is amazing.

421
00:26:13,808 --> 00:26:16,210
[motorcycle revving]

422
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,115
[laughs]

423
00:26:22,716 --> 00:26:27,421
But for him it's instilled with
a real sense of of anti-climax.

424
00:26:27,621 --> 00:26:31,025
He's gone from being the cop
who's going to solve

425
00:26:31,225 --> 00:26:33,727
the most high-profile murder
case in the world

426
00:26:33,894 --> 00:26:37,231
to being the cop who
hands out parking tickets.

427
00:26:40,634 --> 00:26:42,269
But the point would have been,

428
00:26:42,403 --> 00:26:46,040
and maybe we'd have had some of
our interviewees spell it out:

429
00:26:46,407 --> 00:26:50,377
that that banality is
really just a veneer,

430
00:26:50,644 --> 00:26:53,380
masking something
more sinister.

431
00:26:56,717 --> 00:26:59,086
And actually, getting people
to say that, doesn't really

432
00:26:59,220 --> 00:27:00,387
take much work.

433
00:27:01,489 --> 00:27:03,791
There's two things
people ever say about

434
00:27:03,924 --> 00:27:06,360
the places where these
sorts of crimes happened.

435
00:27:07,529 --> 00:27:09,763
Like, oh, it was idyllic.

436
00:27:10,131 --> 00:27:11,600
'Waterloo was a great place.'

437
00:27:11,832 --> 00:27:14,335
Kids played out in the street.
You didn't lock your doors.

438
00:27:14,536 --> 00:27:16,237
'Kids rode their bikes.'

439
00:27:16,704 --> 00:27:19,306
'It's just a very
quiet neighborhood.'

440
00:27:19,508 --> 00:27:22,276
'It's a very isolated
little community.'

441
00:27:22,611 --> 00:27:24,411
'It's a beautiful place...'

442
00:27:25,614 --> 00:27:26,780
'but...'

443
00:27:27,815 --> 00:27:29,383
But it had a dark side.

444
00:27:30,417 --> 00:27:32,219
'... there's a dark side.'

445
00:27:35,956 --> 00:27:38,159
And so that shift
would have led us

446
00:27:38,527 --> 00:27:40,529
inexorably towards...

447
00:27:40,861 --> 00:27:42,396
Tucker's house.

448
00:27:43,397 --> 00:27:46,767
[eerie drone]

449
00:27:56,043 --> 00:27:58,879
[airplane, faint birds]

450
00:28:01,882 --> 00:28:05,486
I think we would have had it so
the first time he drives by,

451
00:28:05,620 --> 00:28:07,321
it's almost by accident.

452
00:28:07,454 --> 00:28:08,689
Like he's...

453
00:28:08,956 --> 00:28:10,324
He is driving by on
one of these routine calls

454
00:28:10,457 --> 00:28:11,759
He is driving by on
one of these routine calls

455
00:28:11,926 --> 00:28:14,629
and happens to see Tucker...

456
00:28:14,762 --> 00:28:15,863
maybe like...

457
00:28:16,598 --> 00:28:18,032
emptying his trash or...

458
00:28:18,766 --> 00:28:20,201
parking his car.

459
00:28:20,467 --> 00:28:21,335
[car engine quietens]

460
00:28:22,102 --> 00:28:23,003
[door lock clicks]

461
00:28:24,405 --> 00:28:26,541
[drone fades]

462
00:28:27,341 --> 00:28:30,778
And is reminded,
like, oh...

463
00:28:30,911 --> 00:28:32,846
as long as I do nothing,

464
00:28:33,147 --> 00:28:35,783
this guy is still
out in the world

465
00:28:35,983 --> 00:28:38,819
potentially committing
further crimes.

466
00:28:39,588 --> 00:28:41,021
[distant wind chimes]

467
00:28:41,523 --> 00:28:45,926
But what's more, the way he
describes the house is like

468
00:28:46,193 --> 00:28:49,430
this perfect villain's lair.

469
00:28:49,797 --> 00:28:51,765
[pages rustling]

470
00:28:51,899 --> 00:28:53,267
He says its...

471
00:28:53,434 --> 00:28:57,572
'surrounded by an unusual
grove of whispering pines'

472
00:28:57,972 --> 00:28:59,907
and that...

473
00:29:00,207 --> 00:29:04,512
'no stranger's eye can pierce
its foreboding veil'.

474
00:29:08,182 --> 00:29:10,818
And the sense would've been
that his suspicions were

475
00:29:10,985 --> 00:29:14,054
really starting to
solidify here,

476
00:29:16,257 --> 00:29:19,026
really just based
on seeing this...

477
00:29:19,994 --> 00:29:21,895
fucking creepy house.

478
00:29:23,030 --> 00:29:26,467
It's intuition more
than anything else.

479
00:29:30,538 --> 00:29:33,340
This isn't the actual
house, incidentally.

480
00:29:33,774 --> 00:29:36,343
The actual house isn't
anywhere near spooky enough.

481
00:29:39,780 --> 00:29:43,317
Anyway, I don't know if we
would've needed some moment

482
00:29:43,484 --> 00:29:48,088
that it crossed into...
actually sinister.

483
00:29:48,422 --> 00:29:50,692
Oh, in fact I tell you what
it would have been...

484
00:29:51,593 --> 00:29:55,963
After a few days of staking
the place out,

485
00:29:56,096 --> 00:29:58,999
Lyndon discovered these...

486
00:30:00,801 --> 00:30:02,936
bits of graffiti
around the house.

487
00:30:03,070 --> 00:30:04,773
Let me read
from the book again.

488
00:30:04,905 --> 00:30:07,141
[pages rustling]

489
00:30:08,710 --> 00:30:10,679
[eerie drone resumes]

490
00:30:11,278 --> 00:30:15,816
'One day, I noticed
something very strange.'

491
00:30:16,884 --> 00:30:19,253
'Someone had taken white paint'

492
00:30:19,587 --> 00:30:22,524
'and painted an inverted
cross with arrows'

493
00:30:22,823 --> 00:30:26,226
'on the telephone pole on
the right side of the house.'

494
00:30:28,095 --> 00:30:29,631
'Then lo and behold,'

495
00:30:29,930 --> 00:30:33,467
'on a concrete water cistern
to the left of the house,'

496
00:30:34,001 --> 00:30:36,870
'was painted a large hatchet.'

497
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:42,610
And because he describes
finding these symbols

498
00:30:42,744 --> 00:30:48,182
as though he's unearthing
some dark, occult mystery,

499
00:30:48,849 --> 00:30:52,353
I always imagined them hidden
behind reeds, or something,

500
00:30:52,620 --> 00:30:55,489
like Lyndon had to
pull back something

501
00:30:55,956 --> 00:30:58,859
to see these ominous symbols

502
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:02,029
painted around
this creepy house.

503
00:31:04,666 --> 00:31:07,901
[drone evaporates
into sound of the dusk]

504
00:31:08,936 --> 00:31:10,270
Um...

505
00:31:10,705 --> 00:31:13,974
I mean, there is a third one,
that we would have had to lose,

506
00:31:14,108 --> 00:31:16,009
because the
third one depicts...

507
00:31:16,410 --> 00:31:21,181
'two nude males engaged in
explicit homosexual activity'

508
00:31:22,249 --> 00:31:27,187
and the photograph of this
in the book is...

509
00:31:29,223 --> 00:31:31,425
to Lyndon, I think,
very sinister.

510
00:31:31,726 --> 00:31:36,865
To a contemporary viewer,
I think, slightly less ominous

511
00:31:36,997 --> 00:31:38,465
than the hatchet.

512
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:39,834
[laughs]

513
00:31:40,602 --> 00:31:43,237
We probably would have
taken it out, in the interest

514
00:31:43,370 --> 00:31:46,240
of trying to make
the theory convincing.

515
00:31:47,074 --> 00:31:49,042
[eerie drone returns]

516
00:31:49,577 --> 00:31:51,679
You can still deploy

517
00:31:51,813 --> 00:31:53,615
someone just having a bad vibe

518
00:31:53,981 --> 00:31:55,916
and living in a creepy house

519
00:31:56,818 --> 00:31:59,319
but today's Netflix viewers

520
00:31:59,453 --> 00:32:04,526
don't get as worked up about
someone being gay, potentially.

521
00:32:05,459 --> 00:32:07,829
Or bi, actually.
He doesn't say he was gay.

522
00:32:07,961 --> 00:32:12,032
He says that Tucker was bi.

523
00:32:12,266 --> 00:32:16,638
Although adorably, he actually
says that he was 'AC/DC',

524
00:32:17,872 --> 00:32:21,241
which is a wonderfully 1950s
way of putting it.

525
00:32:23,210 --> 00:32:25,580
[drone evaporates]

526
00:32:27,281 --> 00:32:30,518
[birdsong, distant road]

527
00:32:34,823 --> 00:32:38,492
So next Lyndon
starts to build this...

528
00:32:38,693 --> 00:32:40,027
crack team

529
00:32:41,195 --> 00:32:45,800
assembled from across
Vallejo society

530
00:32:46,568 --> 00:32:50,237
in order to aid his
investigation into Tucker

531
00:32:51,773 --> 00:32:53,875
which is kind of amazing
for our purposes,

532
00:32:54,007 --> 00:32:56,544
because that's already like
something out of a film.

533
00:32:57,779 --> 00:33:01,448
And this group consists
of him, obviously,

534
00:33:01,683 --> 00:33:05,520
and a few of his friends
from law enforcement,

535
00:33:05,687 --> 00:33:09,122
from the California Highway
Patrol and other agencies,

536
00:33:09,858 --> 00:33:13,160
as well as various people
from local government,

537
00:33:14,394 --> 00:33:18,198
and then, weirdly,
Lyndon's minister...

538
00:33:19,801 --> 00:33:21,134
a guy called Ernie,

539
00:33:21,569 --> 00:33:24,873
who was the minister at the
local United Methodist Church.

540
00:33:25,305 --> 00:33:28,877
And in my head, I pictured
them meeting in a diner,

541
00:33:29,409 --> 00:33:32,246
somewhere unremarkable,
somewhere everyday,

542
00:33:32,847 --> 00:33:35,349
where they can slowly
start to build

543
00:33:35,482 --> 00:33:37,785
this case against Tucker.

544
00:33:39,521 --> 00:33:41,823
And a few of them
are still alive,

545
00:33:42,122 --> 00:33:43,558
so I was imagining

546
00:33:43,691 --> 00:33:46,694
getting them down to the diner
and filming them...

547
00:33:47,027 --> 00:33:48,428
getting out of their cars,

548
00:33:48,763 --> 00:33:50,665
their boots coming
down on the tarmac,

549
00:33:50,999 --> 00:33:52,299
[heavy footstep]

550
00:33:52,534 --> 00:33:55,235
sitting them down in a booth
and getting them to

551
00:33:55,503 --> 00:33:59,641
play the role of
the hot-shot detective.

552
00:34:00,808 --> 00:34:02,142
You know what I mean?

553
00:34:02,276 --> 00:34:05,947
I feel like all these
figures of authority,

554
00:34:06,681 --> 00:34:08,048
the second you point
a camera at them,

555
00:34:08,181 --> 00:34:09,383
they just know what to do.

556
00:34:09,717 --> 00:34:12,787
You know, they
know the image of a cop

557
00:34:12,921 --> 00:34:14,388
in a true crime show.

558
00:34:14,923 --> 00:34:16,323
[heavy footstep]

559
00:34:16,456 --> 00:34:18,292
And so without prompting,
they walk in the right way

560
00:34:18,425 --> 00:34:21,128
and they talk about themselves
in the right way.

561
00:34:21,495 --> 00:34:24,498
'What I figured out at an
early age in the Bureau is...'

562
00:34:24,766 --> 00:34:28,536
'you push it, and then...
you keep pushing.'

563
00:34:29,069 --> 00:34:30,638
Even just the nicknames!

564
00:34:31,005 --> 00:34:35,309
They all have these
clearly self-anointed nicknames

565
00:34:35,577 --> 00:34:38,111
and about half of them
seem to be 'the bulldog'.

566
00:34:38,312 --> 00:34:39,547
'What was your nickname?'

567
00:34:39,681 --> 00:34:40,414
'The Bulldog'

568
00:34:40,582 --> 00:34:41,081
'Bulldog'

569
00:34:41,214 --> 00:34:42,182
'The Bulldogs'

570
00:34:45,653 --> 00:34:48,455
It's like there's
no direction required.

571
00:34:50,390 --> 00:34:53,093
[distant cars]

572
00:34:54,963 --> 00:34:59,366
And I was imagining these
interviews as a springboard

573
00:34:59,767 --> 00:35:03,805
for discussing each of the
killings in more detail.

574
00:35:04,137 --> 00:35:05,607
[beep of reversing truck]

575
00:35:05,873 --> 00:35:08,943
You know, someone ominously
references one of the crimes,

576
00:35:09,077 --> 00:35:13,648
and we cut to the microfiche in
the archive, whizzing back to

577
00:35:13,781 --> 00:35:14,616
[mechanism whirrs]

578
00:35:14,782 --> 00:35:17,150
'July 4th, 1969'.

579
00:35:19,186 --> 00:35:20,387
I think that actually is...

580
00:35:20,521 --> 00:35:21,689
the date of one of
the Zodiac crimes.

581
00:35:21,889 --> 00:35:24,726
This is how embedded
it is in my head.

582
00:35:27,562 --> 00:35:29,697
And then they discuss
the facts of the crime

583
00:35:29,831 --> 00:35:32,332
and how Tucker
might be implicated.

584
00:35:37,872 --> 00:35:39,139
And meanwhile,

585
00:35:39,306 --> 00:35:42,710
our 'evocative B-roll'
is going into overdrive.

586
00:35:42,910 --> 00:35:45,345
All the classic staples:

587
00:35:45,780 --> 00:35:46,914
the gun...

588
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:49,416
rising up towards the camera,

589
00:35:49,984 --> 00:35:53,621
shell casings
clattering to the ground,

590
00:35:55,857 --> 00:35:57,892
crime scene tape...

591
00:35:58,258 --> 00:36:01,161
stretching out into
the distance,

592
00:36:02,764 --> 00:36:03,731
Or...

593
00:36:04,632 --> 00:36:05,700
blood,

594
00:36:05,867 --> 00:36:07,635
pooling on the ground.

595
00:36:08,836 --> 00:36:12,172
Maybe a hand
reaching in to touch it,

596
00:36:12,974 --> 00:36:15,843
as though to check
it's actually blood.

597
00:36:17,045 --> 00:36:18,579
[car suspension rattles]

598
00:36:20,081 --> 00:36:24,919
Plus all the actual police
photographs of the crime scene.

599
00:36:26,087 --> 00:36:27,522
Which now

600
00:36:27,722 --> 00:36:29,524
I feel like, even recently,
you could just show those,

601
00:36:29,657 --> 00:36:31,659
and now everything's so jazzy.

602
00:36:32,827 --> 00:36:34,461
Like, at the very least,
now they have to be placed

603
00:36:34,595 --> 00:36:37,965
in a kind of 3D environment

604
00:36:39,499 --> 00:36:42,503
or be falling in and
out of focus

605
00:36:42,737 --> 00:36:46,674
with a bit of dust
dancing across their surface,

606
00:36:47,842 --> 00:36:49,610
and the thing I increasingly
see now is

607
00:36:49,744 --> 00:36:52,379
they've taken the crime
scene photograph and they've...

608
00:36:52,814 --> 00:36:56,150
created a three-dimensional
image from it.

609
00:36:56,651 --> 00:36:58,686
You know, it'll be like
a layered thing.

610
00:36:59,721 --> 00:37:02,156
It's like you're moving
through the space

611
00:37:02,422 --> 00:37:05,660
so you can be not just

612
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:09,664
at the place where a horrific,
brutal murder took place,

613
00:37:09,864 --> 00:37:15,335
but actually traveling through
it, like on Google Street View.

614
00:37:16,637 --> 00:37:17,739
It's probably good work

615
00:37:17,872 --> 00:37:21,341
for some graphic
artist somewhere,

616
00:37:21,843 --> 00:37:23,878
someone who knows
After Effects.

617
00:37:27,782 --> 00:37:28,950
You must just...

618
00:37:29,083 --> 00:37:30,585
forget what you're looking at.

619
00:37:32,352 --> 00:37:34,287
[distant cars]

620
00:37:35,656 --> 00:37:37,558
And so between
all of that, we'd...

621
00:37:37,925 --> 00:37:41,428
fill in the general
contours of the case.

622
00:37:44,165 --> 00:37:45,499
[intercom blip]

623
00:37:45,633 --> 00:37:47,735
PRODUCER: Do you wanna
fill in some of that now?

624
00:37:50,238 --> 00:37:51,672
Uh...

625
00:37:52,439 --> 00:37:53,708
No.

626
00:37:55,176 --> 00:37:56,778
PRODUCER: Okay.

627
00:37:57,011 --> 00:37:58,146
[laughs]

628
00:37:58,445 --> 00:38:00,081
No, not at all.

629
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:02,216
I feel like that's...

630
00:38:02,850 --> 00:38:06,286
the only saving grace of not
getting to make the film,

631
00:38:07,188 --> 00:38:09,190
is that we don't have to...

632
00:38:09,590 --> 00:38:12,894
re-tell the story
of the Zodiac Killer

633
00:38:14,327 --> 00:38:16,597
for the thousandth time.

634
00:38:20,433 --> 00:38:21,936
Anyway, they're
doing all this work

635
00:38:22,069 --> 00:38:27,008
to link Tucker to
each of the crimes

636
00:38:27,809 --> 00:38:30,511
but obviously, this is
all off the books

637
00:38:30,912 --> 00:38:34,414
because Lyndon's been told
not to pursue the case.

638
00:38:36,449 --> 00:38:37,919
So next, him and his team

639
00:38:38,052 --> 00:38:43,490
have to take their theory
and get it in front of someone

640
00:38:43,658 --> 00:38:46,027
higher up the chain of command.

641
00:38:49,329 --> 00:38:51,666
He puts together a dossier

642
00:38:53,466 --> 00:38:55,636
of his and
his colleagues' findings,

643
00:38:55,770 --> 00:38:57,738
and then together
they go into these

644
00:38:57,905 --> 00:39:00,975
centers of investigative power,

645
00:39:01,542 --> 00:39:02,877
slam down the dossier,

646
00:39:03,010 --> 00:39:04,946
and they think that's
all they need to show,

647
00:39:05,079 --> 00:39:08,249
but instead, these agencies
just don't seem to care.

648
00:39:08,381 --> 00:39:12,253
They have their own suspect,
their own theories of the case,

649
00:39:12,385 --> 00:39:13,554
and they don't want
some outsider

650
00:39:13,688 --> 00:39:15,890
telling them how
to do their job.

651
00:39:16,991 --> 00:39:18,358
[door clicks shut]

652
00:39:18,926 --> 00:39:21,796
So the main challenge
for Lyndon becomes

653
00:39:22,263 --> 00:39:25,566
getting anyone to hear him out.

654
00:39:26,267 --> 00:39:28,569
[car indicator ticks]

655
00:39:29,837 --> 00:39:31,772
But then at the same time,
he kind of doesn't

656
00:39:31,906 --> 00:39:33,741
want too many people
to hear him out,

657
00:39:34,141 --> 00:39:35,943
because if you get too
many people on board,

658
00:39:36,210 --> 00:39:40,081
it kind of ceases to be
your suspect anymore,

659
00:39:40,214 --> 00:39:41,916
ceases to be your theory.

660
00:39:43,985 --> 00:39:47,021
So much of what's making it
possible for me to talk about

661
00:39:47,288 --> 00:39:50,457
Lyndon and his suspect
without the rights to the book,

662
00:39:50,591 --> 00:39:53,294
is the fact that he wasn't
terribly discreet.

663
00:39:53,426 --> 00:39:56,364
Like, he went on the radio
and talked about his suspect.

664
00:39:56,496 --> 00:39:58,866
He gave interviews
to newspapers.

665
00:39:59,934 --> 00:40:02,770
Like, in one sense, he really
would have been better

666
00:40:02,904 --> 00:40:04,939
just keeping it to himself.

667
00:40:08,376 --> 00:40:11,579
Like, it's not just the
quality of the evidence.

668
00:40:12,213 --> 00:40:13,915
It's the...

669
00:40:14,315 --> 00:40:15,983
exclusivity.

670
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:20,453
Like, did you watch The Jinx

671
00:40:20,588 --> 00:40:21,889
when it went out?

672
00:40:22,523 --> 00:40:23,224
[intercom blip]

673
00:40:23,357 --> 00:40:24,424
PRODUCER: No.

674
00:40:25,092 --> 00:40:28,396
The final episode of that
is unbelievable.

675
00:40:29,230 --> 00:40:31,464
So for six episodes or
whatever, they've been pursuing

676
00:40:31,632 --> 00:40:33,433
this guy called Robert Durst,

677
00:40:33,701 --> 00:40:37,338
who is this eccentric heir

678
00:40:37,505 --> 00:40:39,640
to a real estate fortune,

679
00:40:39,941 --> 00:40:43,311
who's suspected
of murdering three people.

680
00:40:44,111 --> 00:40:48,149
And he's interviewed in this
show and always kind of

681
00:40:48,382 --> 00:40:50,184
dodges their questions

682
00:40:50,318 --> 00:40:53,486
and skillfully evades
incriminating himself

683
00:40:53,621 --> 00:40:55,690
right up until
this final episode,

684
00:40:55,990 --> 00:40:59,026
where, at the end
of his final interview,

685
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:00,528
with the filmmakers

686
00:41:01,095 --> 00:41:05,766
he goes to the bathroom
and unknowingly,

687
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:11,105
still wearing his microphone,
confesses to himself...

688
00:41:15,776 --> 00:41:17,845
[rustling of clothes]

689
00:41:20,247 --> 00:41:21,916
[groaning]

690
00:41:30,791 --> 00:41:32,827
It's unbelievably chilling.

691
00:41:32,994 --> 00:41:35,062
Just incredible television.

692
00:41:35,529 --> 00:41:37,331
And the timing was just unreal.

693
00:41:37,465 --> 00:41:41,235
I think Durst was arrested
the day before the airing,

694
00:41:41,769 --> 00:41:42,937
and then in the finale,

695
00:41:43,204 --> 00:41:46,574
you see exactly how and
why he was caught,

696
00:41:47,208 --> 00:41:50,011
but it did beg the question:
how did this ever line up?

697
00:41:50,411 --> 00:41:54,548
Because obviously
that interview was conducted

698
00:41:54,682 --> 00:41:58,252
I think years before the
broadcast of the show,

699
00:41:58,953 --> 00:42:01,889
and so whatever
the legality of it,

700
00:42:02,023 --> 00:42:05,159
it would seem quite ethically
dubious if the filmmakers had

701
00:42:05,326 --> 00:42:08,729
left this murderer
to be walking the streets

702
00:42:08,863 --> 00:42:11,732
for two years,
just in the interest of

703
00:42:11,932 --> 00:42:15,269
holding back a big reveal
for their final episode.

704
00:42:16,570 --> 00:42:18,806
And the story that they told

705
00:42:18,973 --> 00:42:21,776
was that they hadn't
actually known

706
00:42:22,176 --> 00:42:24,745
that they had
captured the confession.

707
00:42:25,813 --> 00:42:28,682
That that tape
went unlistened to

708
00:42:28,949 --> 00:42:32,521
for months or years
after it was recorded,

709
00:42:33,020 --> 00:42:34,989
and that they realized
like a week before

710
00:42:35,122 --> 00:42:38,125
the final episode was gonna
air, just in time to edit it in

711
00:42:38,259 --> 00:42:40,361
and the fact that he was
therefore arrested

712
00:42:40,529 --> 00:42:43,164
the day of the airing
or the day before or whatever,

713
00:42:43,330 --> 00:42:44,899
is just a happy accident,

714
00:42:45,433 --> 00:42:46,634
slash...

715
00:42:46,901 --> 00:42:47,802
the greatest thing that's
ever happened to them

716
00:42:47,935 --> 00:42:49,203
in their filmmaking lives.

717
00:42:53,307 --> 00:42:55,843
[distant highway]

718
00:42:56,477 --> 00:42:58,547
[uncertain drone]

719
00:42:58,846 --> 00:43:00,815
But anyway,
in Lyndon's telling,

720
00:43:01,516 --> 00:43:05,820
any secrecy is very
much foisted upon him

721
00:43:06,420 --> 00:43:10,324
by the incompetence of
these various agencies,

722
00:43:12,493 --> 00:43:14,662
and from that, he concludes
that if he's ever going to

723
00:43:14,795 --> 00:43:17,064
bring Tucker to justice,

724
00:43:17,798 --> 00:43:20,067
he's gonna have to
go it alone.

725
00:43:24,305 --> 00:43:25,806
And there's a great...

726
00:43:26,207 --> 00:43:28,476
caustic line about this
in the book.

727
00:43:28,609 --> 00:43:29,977
Let me just find it.

728
00:43:30,878 --> 00:43:33,180
[pages rustling]

729
00:43:35,249 --> 00:43:36,217
He says:

730
00:43:38,819 --> 00:43:40,087
'Do you think
I'm going to trust...'

731
00:43:40,221 --> 00:43:42,389
'a bunch of
badge-toting clowns...'

732
00:43:42,524 --> 00:43:44,391
'with additional information?'

733
00:43:45,759 --> 00:43:46,794
'Not me.'

734
00:43:47,761 --> 00:43:48,929
'Never again.'

735
00:43:57,539 --> 00:44:00,007
I'm trying to keep
all these quotes brief

736
00:44:00,141 --> 00:44:03,944
because I have to justify
each one to our lawyer,

737
00:44:06,548 --> 00:44:10,417
but there's 400 pages of this.

738
00:44:11,819 --> 00:44:13,187
[drone continues]

739
00:44:13,988 --> 00:44:16,591
[like a choir holding
an uneasy note]

740
00:44:16,957 --> 00:44:18,593
Anyway, under cover of night,

741
00:44:18,759 --> 00:44:21,195
they begin pursuing Tucker,

742
00:44:22,263 --> 00:44:24,865
tailing his car
wherever he goes,

743
00:44:25,466 --> 00:44:30,704
arranging a series of shadowy
meetings with witnesses,

744
00:44:31,405 --> 00:44:35,809
informants, people who know him
in one way or another.

745
00:44:37,912 --> 00:44:40,181
They go through
his trash at one point

746
00:44:40,347 --> 00:44:43,050
and try and find incriminating
evidence in there.

747
00:44:46,086 --> 00:44:48,722
And ultimately,
they stage this...

748
00:44:48,989 --> 00:44:52,826
show-stopping sting operation.

749
00:44:54,929 --> 00:44:57,298
[drone fades]

750
00:44:57,998 --> 00:45:00,535
[distant cars,
gentle birdsong]

751
00:45:01,435 --> 00:45:04,972
Basically, they found out
Tucker was in AA,

752
00:45:06,407 --> 00:45:09,243
and I'm not entirely
sure how, actually,

753
00:45:09,410 --> 00:45:11,812
but the way I always imagined
it playing out was

754
00:45:12,046 --> 00:45:13,847
they're tailing Tucker

755
00:45:14,181 --> 00:45:16,951
around Northern California
one evening.

756
00:45:17,686 --> 00:45:19,688
Eventually they see his car

757
00:45:19,987 --> 00:45:22,691
pull up outside a church.

758
00:45:24,959 --> 00:45:26,327
Not this church,

759
00:45:26,460 --> 00:45:28,729
but a church,

760
00:45:28,862 --> 00:45:30,864
and this one would have done.

761
00:45:33,834 --> 00:45:36,070
And so Lyndon's
maybe across the street,

762
00:45:36,504 --> 00:45:38,707
watching Tucker as he
gets out of his car

763
00:45:38,839 --> 00:45:40,941
and makes his way
into this church.

764
00:45:43,377 --> 00:45:44,445
Um...

765
00:45:44,579 --> 00:45:47,381
Eventually, maybe,
he sneaks in and realizes

766
00:45:48,650 --> 00:45:50,751
that it's an AA meeting.

767
00:45:52,052 --> 00:45:54,922
And so this is like
hitting paydirt,

768
00:45:55,256 --> 00:45:58,526
because what do people do
at an AA meeting?

769
00:46:00,562 --> 00:46:02,096
They confess.

770
00:46:03,531 --> 00:46:06,934
And so immediately, Lyndon and
his team start discussing

771
00:46:07,234 --> 00:46:09,336
how to get someone inside,

772
00:46:09,803 --> 00:46:11,338
but also who to get inside,

773
00:46:11,472 --> 00:46:13,642
because obviously
a lot of them are...

774
00:46:13,841 --> 00:46:16,143
too high-profile, in one
way or another,

775
00:46:16,443 --> 00:46:19,246
would be too easily
recognized by Tucker.

776
00:46:19,547 --> 00:46:23,984
And so eventually,
all eyes fall on Ernie...

777
00:46:24,619 --> 00:46:25,986
the minister.

778
00:46:27,388 --> 00:46:31,292
And maybe we'd have set up
earlier in the film that

779
00:46:31,559 --> 00:46:35,362
Ernie is a bit of a redundant
member of the group,

780
00:46:35,530 --> 00:46:39,366
like it's nice to have him,
but he's not the big guns

781
00:46:39,634 --> 00:46:42,202
of this investigative team.

782
00:46:42,970 --> 00:46:46,541
But lo and behold,
now it falls to Ernie

783
00:46:46,775 --> 00:46:48,909
to do what the others cannot.

784
00:46:51,312 --> 00:46:55,349
So Ernie begins driving up
to the church every week,

785
00:46:56,083 --> 00:46:58,586
takes his collar off...

786
00:46:58,720 --> 00:46:59,920
[fabric slide]

787
00:47:00,354 --> 00:47:02,990
I'm imagining the
dramatic scene of him

788
00:47:03,424 --> 00:47:05,426
putting the collar
on the bedside table

789
00:47:05,627 --> 00:47:09,463
to go out and deceive a man
he doesn't even know,

790
00:47:09,731 --> 00:47:11,098
in a church.

791
00:47:12,099 --> 00:47:13,834
And then at the end
of each meeting,

792
00:47:14,001 --> 00:47:16,538
Ernie would record these tapes

793
00:47:16,771 --> 00:47:20,374
reciting back everything
that Tucker had said.

794
00:47:21,308 --> 00:47:23,377
And apparently
the tapes still exist,

795
00:47:23,511 --> 00:47:27,147
so we would have played
them over this sequence.

796
00:47:29,718 --> 00:47:30,984
Here's a quote from it.

797
00:47:31,318 --> 00:47:34,522
This is Ernie on one
of these tapes, saying:

798
00:47:35,222 --> 00:47:37,224
[unsettling drone]

799
00:47:37,625 --> 00:47:40,060
'I felt like he was
trying to say,'

800
00:47:40,294 --> 00:47:42,463
'I am a rotten S.O.B.'

801
00:47:43,364 --> 00:47:45,700
'but I can't tell you
what I have done.'

802
00:47:46,801 --> 00:47:50,605
'I've done things I'm not proud
of, and would never tell you.'

803
00:47:51,673 --> 00:47:53,073
'Terrible things.'

804
00:47:54,108 --> 00:47:55,643
'If only you knew.'

805
00:47:56,845 --> 00:47:58,278
'But you will never know,'

806
00:47:59,279 --> 00:48:01,048
'and I don't care anymore.'

807
00:48:02,149 --> 00:48:03,884
'It's in the past now.'

808
00:48:05,653 --> 00:48:09,657
[drone intensifies,
breathy and insistent]

809
00:48:10,759 --> 00:48:12,092
[intercom blip]

810
00:48:12,226 --> 00:48:13,561
PRODUCER: Imagine going
to an AA meeting...

811
00:48:13,762 --> 00:48:16,463
... and then what you say
being published in a book.

812
00:48:16,664 --> 00:48:18,465
[laughs, drone cuts out]

813
00:48:19,133 --> 00:48:20,501
Well, yeah.

814
00:48:20,934 --> 00:48:22,035
Not great.

815
00:48:23,404 --> 00:48:24,171
Um...

816
00:48:24,905 --> 00:48:26,407
You know, invading

817
00:48:27,107 --> 00:48:30,010
the sanctity of an AA meeting

818
00:48:30,177 --> 00:48:33,180
to listen in on
someone's confessions,

819
00:48:33,313 --> 00:48:37,251
hoping they admit to
committing the Zodiac killings.

820
00:48:39,219 --> 00:48:40,622
That's the thing, though.

821
00:48:40,755 --> 00:48:43,157
If he did...

822
00:48:43,658 --> 00:48:44,526
it's fine.

823
00:48:45,159 --> 00:48:47,829
Right? If he did,
it's absolutely fine.

824
00:48:47,961 --> 00:48:49,396
You could go much further.

825
00:48:49,764 --> 00:48:53,668
It's only if he didn't, that
you start to feel a bit...

826
00:48:54,067 --> 00:48:56,003
sweaty about it.

827
00:48:57,171 --> 00:48:59,006
And I feel like that's what

828
00:48:59,139 --> 00:49:02,309
we would have been
trading on with this.

829
00:49:02,476 --> 00:49:06,447
You need people
to be fully convinced

830
00:49:06,581 --> 00:49:12,219
going into this sequence, or it
just seems way beyond the pale.

831
00:49:14,254 --> 00:49:17,391
I always think back
to that scene in...

832
00:49:17,892 --> 00:49:19,359
Paradise Lost.

833
00:49:19,493 --> 00:49:22,329
I think it's the second
Paradise Lost film, where...

834
00:49:23,531 --> 00:49:25,934
It's like...
Have you seen Paradise Lost?

835
00:49:26,233 --> 00:49:26,935
[intercom blip]

836
00:49:27,067 --> 00:49:28,368
PRODUCER: No.

837
00:49:28,603 --> 00:49:31,773
It was a trilogy of
documentaries about this...

838
00:49:32,473 --> 00:49:35,543
miscarriage of justice where
these teenage boys were...

839
00:49:36,343 --> 00:49:40,748
sent to prison for
the murders of some children

840
00:49:40,915 --> 00:49:43,050
that they clearly
hadn't committed.

841
00:49:43,718 --> 00:49:47,054
And in the second
of the three films,

842
00:49:47,454 --> 00:49:51,124
they start sniffing
around the possibility

843
00:49:51,391 --> 00:49:54,529
that the dad of
one of the dead kids

844
00:49:54,762 --> 00:49:57,765
could have been responsible
for these deaths.

845
00:49:58,198 --> 00:50:01,235
And in the interests of
exploring this idea,

846
00:50:01,368 --> 00:50:05,272
they film him out in the woods

847
00:50:05,740 --> 00:50:11,378
performing some sort of
commemorative ritual,

848
00:50:11,913 --> 00:50:12,814
um...

849
00:50:12,947 --> 00:50:15,650
which is admittedly...

850
00:50:15,817 --> 00:50:17,852
incredibly weird and creepy

851
00:50:18,452 --> 00:50:21,589
and the takeaway
of the scene is clearly:

852
00:50:21,723 --> 00:50:24,659
oh my God,
this guy is guilty as sin.

853
00:50:25,927 --> 00:50:28,563
And he wasn't.
He had nothing to do with it.

854
00:50:29,062 --> 00:50:31,766
And I think even at the time,
they got a bit of stick for...

855
00:50:31,900 --> 00:50:33,267
having kind of...

856
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:35,637
exploiting his grief
in this way,

857
00:50:35,770 --> 00:50:36,604
um...

858
00:50:37,404 --> 00:50:39,039
but if it had been him,

859
00:50:40,008 --> 00:50:42,710
no one would have cared
about exploiting the grief.

860
00:50:44,546 --> 00:50:47,114
If you're convinced it's
for the greater good,

861
00:50:47,782 --> 00:50:51,418
there are very few
ethical lines

862
00:50:52,020 --> 00:50:53,320
as far as...

863
00:50:53,855 --> 00:50:56,189
HBO execs are concerned.

864
00:50:58,058 --> 00:50:59,594
[distant cars]

865
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:05,198
So Tucker is saying all this
creepy stuff in these meetings,

866
00:51:05,332 --> 00:51:09,704
but obviously he's
not about to confess

867
00:51:09,938 --> 00:51:11,539
to being the Zodiac Killer.

868
00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:16,109
And so they realize they
need to go one step further.

869
00:51:16,243 --> 00:51:18,880
They need something undeniable.

870
00:51:19,614 --> 00:51:22,149
And what he
arrives at is...

871
00:51:22,684 --> 00:51:24,552
this palm print.

872
00:51:27,789 --> 00:51:30,190
Basically, after
one of the crimes,

873
00:51:30,825 --> 00:51:34,394
the Zodiac Killer himself
called the police

874
00:51:34,662 --> 00:51:36,564
to report what he had done,

875
00:51:37,230 --> 00:51:40,835
and they managed to get to
the phone booth that he used

876
00:51:40,969 --> 00:51:42,036
quite quickly

877
00:51:42,436 --> 00:51:45,707
and so they found on it,
a palm print

878
00:51:46,507 --> 00:51:50,845
that was considered
to be definitively his.

879
00:51:52,580 --> 00:51:54,716
And so Lyndon seizes upon this

880
00:51:54,849 --> 00:51:59,687
as the ultimate test
of Tucker's guilt.

881
00:52:01,221 --> 00:52:03,457
[insistent electronic music]

882
00:52:04,324 --> 00:52:08,295
And so, from here, we'd have
been straight into our scheme,

883
00:52:08,663 --> 00:52:11,866
and I think we'd have done it
a little bit like a heist film,

884
00:52:12,332 --> 00:52:14,234
showing it step by step
and piece by piece,

885
00:52:14,368 --> 00:52:19,206
before people have a chance to
make sense of what the plan is.

886
00:52:19,406 --> 00:52:22,275
You feel it coming together
like this jigsaw puzzle,

887
00:52:22,409 --> 00:52:23,645
until at the end,

888
00:52:23,978 --> 00:52:25,747
the picture reveals itself.

889
00:52:27,481 --> 00:52:29,851
So the first step is that
a friend of Lyndon's

890
00:52:30,183 --> 00:52:33,655
bandaged Ernie's arm
into a cast,

891
00:52:34,354 --> 00:52:36,323
and he wore this cast

892
00:52:36,557 --> 00:52:40,394
every week at this AA meeting
where he was undercover,

893
00:52:40,561 --> 00:52:44,297
getting Tucker used to the idea
of him in an arm cast.

894
00:52:45,533 --> 00:52:48,102
And then Lyndon...

895
00:52:48,335 --> 00:52:50,104
gives Ernie a gun.

896
00:52:50,470 --> 00:52:53,306
He arms him, with a revolver.

897
00:52:53,574 --> 00:52:56,577
And I could just imagine
the inserts of all of this:

898
00:52:56,711 --> 00:53:00,648
the gun tucked into
the ceremonial robes...

899
00:53:01,783 --> 00:53:04,217
Does a Methodist
minister wear robes?

900
00:53:04,619 --> 00:53:06,554
We would've had him wear robes.

901
00:53:07,121 --> 00:53:09,824
Just, that image of...

902
00:53:10,424 --> 00:53:14,095
the gun going into
the religious garb

903
00:53:14,294 --> 00:53:16,664
and then maybe
the bandaged arm...

904
00:53:16,831 --> 00:53:19,834
swinging back in front
to hide the gun

905
00:53:20,434 --> 00:53:23,236
and then the...

906
00:53:23,805 --> 00:53:26,908
In fact, I have to hand this
one over to Lyndon

907
00:53:27,041 --> 00:53:31,813
because the way he describes it
is so perfectly understated.

908
00:53:32,980 --> 00:53:33,648
Let me find it.

909
00:53:33,781 --> 00:53:35,248
[pages rustling]

910
00:53:35,817 --> 00:53:36,751
He says:

911
00:53:37,518 --> 00:53:41,254
'As March 1st, 1977,
approached,'

912
00:53:41,622 --> 00:53:43,958
'our plan was
right on schedule.'

913
00:53:45,325 --> 00:53:47,829
'I bought the
fishbowl required.'

914
00:53:48,328 --> 00:53:49,362
[glass hit reverberates]

915
00:53:49,564 --> 00:53:51,032
[like a revving engine]

916
00:53:52,100 --> 00:53:54,936
I mean, as a cliffhanger...
just incredible.

917
00:53:55,136 --> 00:53:56,403
If this was a series,

918
00:53:56,537 --> 00:53:58,039
that's where you'd
put the episode break,

919
00:53:58,172 --> 00:54:00,808
and then there's no way
people are stopping watching.

920
00:54:03,376 --> 00:54:06,214
And so Lyndon
gives Ernie this fishbowl,

921
00:54:06,614 --> 00:54:08,616
and he drives up the highway

922
00:54:09,050 --> 00:54:11,619
to this fateful AA meeting.

923
00:54:12,520 --> 00:54:14,021
He's sitting outside,

924
00:54:14,155 --> 00:54:17,225
thinking about whether his
grand plan is going to work.

925
00:54:18,458 --> 00:54:23,164
Eventually, he
sees Tucker arrive,

926
00:54:23,865 --> 00:54:26,100
and so he gets out of the car,

927
00:54:26,466 --> 00:54:31,839
walks to his trunk, pops
it open, and there it is:

928
00:54:32,073 --> 00:54:33,007
[glass hit, resonates]

929
00:54:33,141 --> 00:54:34,509
the fishbowl.

930
00:54:36,944 --> 00:54:38,012
So he says,

931
00:54:38,146 --> 00:54:40,815
could you carry this
into the meeting for me?

932
00:54:41,082 --> 00:54:42,784
Because of my broken arm.

933
00:54:43,751 --> 00:54:45,853
And I guess he explained
that he was gonna

934
00:54:45,987 --> 00:54:48,321
give a presentation
to the group

935
00:54:48,455 --> 00:54:50,825
and use the fishbowl as a prop.

936
00:54:51,893 --> 00:54:54,494
And so this is our
make or break moment.

937
00:54:55,263 --> 00:55:00,300
Is Tucker gonna reach
his hands into the trunk,

938
00:55:00,535 --> 00:55:03,070
plant them on the sides
of this fishbowl,

939
00:55:03,504 --> 00:55:05,273
leaving, presumably...

940
00:55:05,540 --> 00:55:08,408
the platonic ideal
of two handprints

941
00:55:08,543 --> 00:55:10,711
on the side of this glass bowl.

942
00:55:13,313 --> 00:55:14,582
And lo and behold,

943
00:55:15,448 --> 00:55:16,483
that's exactly what happens.

944
00:55:16,617 --> 00:55:17,785
[choir sings]

945
00:55:17,919 --> 00:55:19,654
And I can only
imagine the triumph

946
00:55:19,787 --> 00:55:22,623
of that moment, as this bowl
is carried into the meeting,

947
00:55:22,957 --> 00:55:26,060
and we're caught up
on this wave of energy,

948
00:55:26,194 --> 00:55:27,494
thrust into the building,

949
00:55:27,962 --> 00:55:31,165
albeit obviously, that momentum
immediately interrupted

950
00:55:31,299 --> 00:55:33,366
by a two-hour AA meeting

951
00:55:33,668 --> 00:55:36,204
and whatever Ernie's
presentation was.

952
00:55:37,071 --> 00:55:38,840
[choir is silenced,
driving beat continues]

953
00:55:39,106 --> 00:55:42,543
My assumption is it would've
been some kind of metaphor,

954
00:55:42,910 --> 00:55:46,814
like, take life
one day at a time,

955
00:55:47,281 --> 00:55:48,683
like a goldfish.

956
00:55:50,184 --> 00:55:51,986
Because of the short memory.

957
00:55:52,119 --> 00:55:53,353
Maybe? I don't know.

958
00:55:53,521 --> 00:55:54,454
Uh...

959
00:55:54,889 --> 00:55:57,892
So, at the end of the meeting,

960
00:55:58,626 --> 00:56:01,863
Ernie has Tucker carry the
fishbowl back to the car,

961
00:56:03,097 --> 00:56:04,632
pops the trunk...

962
00:56:05,132 --> 00:56:06,634
I'm imagining this...

963
00:56:06,868 --> 00:56:11,105
this empty trunk of
this car opened up,

964
00:56:11,239 --> 00:56:15,009
the little interior light
just perfectly illuminating

965
00:56:15,142 --> 00:56:16,978
the spot where this
bowl is gonna go,

966
00:56:17,111 --> 00:56:18,779
and presumably from there,
be whisked...

967
00:56:18,913 --> 00:56:20,915
straight to whatever
expert is gonna

968
00:56:21,048 --> 00:56:24,518
painstakingly extract
these palm prints,

969
00:56:24,652 --> 00:56:26,486
which can then
be matched to the...

970
00:56:26,621 --> 00:56:28,522
file print of the Zodiac Killer

971
00:56:28,656 --> 00:56:31,292
and the whole thing is
gonna be wrapped up

972
00:56:31,424 --> 00:56:33,127
in this perfect, neat bow,

973
00:56:33,393 --> 00:56:35,997
as soon as Tucker
places this bowl

974
00:56:36,197 --> 00:56:39,567
back down into
the trunk of the car.

975
00:56:40,101 --> 00:56:42,670
[glass reverberates
in anticipation]

976
00:56:43,704 --> 00:56:44,772
But then...

977
00:56:45,239 --> 00:56:47,775
Actually, let me read
the version in the book,

978
00:56:47,909 --> 00:56:53,214
because Lyndon describes it in
such exquisitely tragic terms.

979
00:56:53,614 --> 00:56:56,183
[music collapses into
thudding pulse]

980
00:56:57,018 --> 00:57:00,054
'But then, for
some strange reason,'

981
00:57:00,221 --> 00:57:03,557
'our suspect did
something totally bizarre.'

982
00:57:05,559 --> 00:57:07,528
'After the bowl
was set securely...'

983
00:57:07,662 --> 00:57:09,730
'in the trunk of Ernie's car,'

984
00:57:10,598 --> 00:57:13,167
'Tucker slapped the bowl
with his palms'

985
00:57:13,567 --> 00:57:14,835
'several times'

986
00:57:14,969 --> 00:57:16,504
[glass hits, like
chiming bells]

987
00:57:16,671 --> 00:57:17,972
'and then rubbed the bowl'

988
00:57:18,105 --> 00:57:20,141
'several times as well.'

989
00:57:22,475 --> 00:57:23,978
'Ernie said,'

990
00:57:24,477 --> 00:57:26,781
'I could not believe
my eyes, Lyndon.'

991
00:57:29,183 --> 00:57:30,952
'It was like he knew.'

992
00:57:34,454 --> 00:57:35,523
[birdsong]

993
00:57:36,724 --> 00:57:38,793
[bike whizzes by]

994
00:57:40,428 --> 00:57:42,797
Pretty good, right?

995
00:57:44,999 --> 00:57:46,867
And I think we would've
tried to play it

996
00:57:47,001 --> 00:57:51,772
right down the middle of either
an intentional act of sabotage,

997
00:57:52,707 --> 00:57:55,376
or just about plausibly,

998
00:57:55,910 --> 00:57:58,179
an innocent action.

999
00:57:59,413 --> 00:58:01,048
That's a fun knife edge.

1000
00:58:01,248 --> 00:58:05,086
Either it's like the wily
behavior of a serial killer,

1001
00:58:05,485 --> 00:58:06,821
or it's like your dad,

1002
00:58:06,954 --> 00:58:08,356
kind of

1003
00:58:08,488 --> 00:58:11,225
patting the sides of something
to show you how robust it is.

1004
00:58:11,559 --> 00:58:13,794
[glassy reverberations]

1005
00:58:14,528 --> 00:58:16,330
And I think by
shooting it slow motion,

1006
00:58:16,464 --> 00:58:18,466
we would have really extracted

1007
00:58:18,933 --> 00:58:23,838
every agonizing clap of
the hands against the bowl

1008
00:58:23,971 --> 00:58:28,309
and then that terrible,
dreadful rubbing of the sides.

1009
00:58:28,442 --> 00:58:29,310
Like this...

1010
00:58:29,443 --> 00:58:30,878
I could just imagine...

1011
00:58:31,012 --> 00:58:32,780
Oh god, I was so excited
about shooting this sequence.

1012
00:58:33,614 --> 00:58:38,119
The feeling of agonizing loss

1013
00:58:38,519 --> 00:58:40,254
in that moment.

1014
00:58:42,123 --> 00:58:44,692
[reverberations fall
away to nothing]

1015
00:58:51,599 --> 00:58:54,668
[car softly pulling up]

1016
00:58:56,637 --> 00:58:58,606
And so it's
that feeling of loss

1017
00:58:58,806 --> 00:59:01,475
that would've set the stage

1018
00:59:01,609 --> 00:59:03,911
for the final third
of the film,

1019
00:59:04,779 --> 00:59:08,816
which begins with
a real error of judgment

1020
00:59:09,150 --> 00:59:10,718
on Lyndon's part,

1021
00:59:13,120 --> 00:59:16,323
and that's that he agrees
to meet with another man

1022
00:59:16,457 --> 00:59:21,629
who's been on his own parallel
hunt for the Zodiac:

1023
00:59:22,329 --> 00:59:24,165
Robert Graysmith.

1024
00:59:26,267 --> 00:59:29,103
Will that land, do you think?
Or should I explain who he is?

1025
00:59:30,738 --> 00:59:33,107
So, Graysmith is the author

1026
00:59:33,441 --> 00:59:37,478
of the most successful book
about the Zodiac Killer,

1027
00:59:38,145 --> 00:59:40,247
so successful, in fact,
that in Zodiac circles,

1028
00:59:40,381 --> 00:59:43,084
it's often just called
'the Yellow Book,'

1029
00:59:44,085 --> 00:59:45,920
like it's Macbeth or something,

1030
00:59:46,353 --> 00:59:50,724
because it's got this very
distinctive yellow cover

1031
00:59:51,092 --> 00:59:54,361
with 'Zodiac' written
down the center.

1032
00:59:56,797 --> 00:59:57,932
But at this point,

1033
00:59:58,065 --> 01:00:00,734
he's still chasing
the story down

1034
01:00:00,868 --> 01:00:02,470
and so him and Lyndon have been

1035
01:00:02,770 --> 01:00:07,108
speaking to the same sources,
following up on the same leads,

1036
01:00:07,675 --> 01:00:10,711
but it's only now,
at this low ebb,

1037
01:00:11,178 --> 01:00:13,347
that Lyndon agrees to meet,

1038
01:00:14,815 --> 01:00:15,816
figuring, I guess,

1039
01:00:15,950 --> 01:00:17,785
what do I have to lose?

1040
01:00:19,920 --> 01:00:22,323
And pretty soon
he gets his answer.

1041
01:00:23,525 --> 01:00:25,292
[distant cars]

1042
01:00:26,427 --> 01:00:27,394
I think we could have gone

1043
01:00:27,529 --> 01:00:29,263
pretty swiftly from that to...

1044
01:00:30,097 --> 01:00:33,701
Well, what I was imagining
was Lyndon wandering innocently

1045
01:00:33,834 --> 01:00:36,270
around his local bookstore

1046
01:00:37,606 --> 01:00:39,006
and then spying

1047
01:00:39,140 --> 01:00:42,243
in the new releases
or the bestsellers section,

1048
01:00:42,376 --> 01:00:44,613
this bright yellow...

1049
01:00:45,446 --> 01:00:47,882
Actually, I think the first
edition was black, but...

1050
01:00:48,349 --> 01:00:50,451
it's got that
crosshair symbol on it

1051
01:00:50,784 --> 01:00:52,486
and 'Zodiac'
in massive writing,

1052
01:00:52,786 --> 01:00:54,021
and so I was imagining him

1053
01:00:54,321 --> 01:00:56,157
feverishly searching
through the pages

1054
01:00:56,290 --> 01:00:58,792
to see if it
favors his suspect,

1055
01:00:59,393 --> 01:01:02,631
and instead, not only
does it present

1056
01:01:02,997 --> 01:01:06,800
an entirely different suspect,
but it also includes

1057
01:01:06,934 --> 01:01:11,540
some of the juiciest details
from Lyndon's story

1058
01:01:11,672 --> 01:01:14,975
almost as this, kind of,
funny aside.

1059
01:01:18,580 --> 01:01:21,949
And one of the main reasons
I was able to describe

1060
01:01:22,216 --> 01:01:25,654
the fishbowl story in such
detail a minute ago

1061
01:01:25,786 --> 01:01:28,355
is that the story got out

1062
01:01:28,989 --> 01:01:31,759
20 years before Lyndon
wrote his book,

1063
01:01:32,693 --> 01:01:34,361
which must have been...

1064
01:01:35,396 --> 01:01:36,297
annoying.

1065
01:01:39,833 --> 01:01:41,670
But then he can't
really make it about that

1066
01:01:41,902 --> 01:01:43,737
because that seems
sort of vain,

1067
01:01:44,271 --> 01:01:50,110
so the version in Lyndon's book
is all about how this was...

1068
01:01:50,244 --> 01:01:51,178
You know,

1069
01:01:51,312 --> 01:01:53,347
a threat to
his family's safety,

1070
01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:55,883
and how this was putting lives
in jeopardy and all this stuff.

1071
01:01:56,016 --> 01:01:57,318
Let me find the thing.

1072
01:01:57,851 --> 01:01:59,253
He says:

1073
01:01:59,688 --> 01:02:02,056
[disenchanted drone]

1074
01:02:02,624 --> 01:02:05,459
'Graysmith, a complete novice,'

1075
01:02:06,026 --> 01:02:07,461
'went on to disseminate...'

1076
01:02:07,596 --> 01:02:11,298
'sensitive investigative
findings to the entire world,'

1077
01:02:12,433 --> 01:02:15,002
'things which could place
my family members...'

1078
01:02:15,135 --> 01:02:17,371
'in a great deal of danger.'

1079
01:02:20,307 --> 01:02:25,079
So he frames it as an
ethical concern, essentially,

1080
01:02:25,779 --> 01:02:28,482
and we would have run
with that in the film, but...

1081
01:02:29,149 --> 01:02:31,018
but I think the real
violation was that...

1082
01:02:31,151 --> 01:02:33,287
not only was this book
hugely successful,

1083
01:02:33,420 --> 01:02:36,790
and made Graysmith
a very wealthy man,

1084
01:02:38,425 --> 01:02:39,694
it also made him...

1085
01:02:39,860 --> 01:02:42,896
the de facto authority.

1086
01:02:46,000 --> 01:02:48,369
[drone fades into distant cars]

1087
01:02:49,403 --> 01:02:53,340
It's very hard to be the
second true crime book,

1088
01:02:53,474 --> 01:02:56,711
or the second true crime film
about any given subject,

1089
01:02:57,444 --> 01:03:00,214
because as soon as
one is a hit,

1090
01:03:00,814 --> 01:03:02,684
that kind of sets
the terms by which

1091
01:03:02,816 --> 01:03:04,418
the thing is understood.

1092
01:03:07,087 --> 01:03:09,290
It assigns the guilt,

1093
01:03:10,491 --> 01:03:14,495
I think, more powerfully
really than even the...

1094
01:03:15,296 --> 01:03:19,166
law enforcement agencies
directly working on the case.

1095
01:03:23,037 --> 01:03:26,073
[distant, tinny melody]

1096
01:03:27,041 --> 01:03:29,143
Anyway, my plan
had been to bounce

1097
01:03:29,276 --> 01:03:31,011
straight from
the Graysmith stuff

1098
01:03:31,513 --> 01:03:37,184
into some of Lyndon's more
out-there detective work,

1099
01:03:38,252 --> 01:03:40,588
as he becomes
increasingly desperate

1100
01:03:40,722 --> 01:03:43,991
to get his own investigation
moving again.

1101
01:03:44,793 --> 01:03:46,728
[tinny tune grows louder]

1102
01:03:47,562 --> 01:03:51,031
I imagined it like that
classic cop movie thing

1103
01:03:51,165 --> 01:03:54,101
where they go back
to the drawing board,

1104
01:03:54,335 --> 01:03:57,971
start re-examining all the old
evidence to see if they can...

1105
01:03:58,606 --> 01:03:59,873
shake something loose.

1106
01:04:00,307 --> 01:04:04,878
So he'd be re-reading
interview transcripts,

1107
01:04:05,346 --> 01:04:09,316
going back and meeting
with witnesses again,

1108
01:04:11,151 --> 01:04:14,121
trying to see if there's
something that he missed

1109
01:04:14,254 --> 01:04:16,090
first time around.

1110
01:04:17,525 --> 01:04:20,260
[jolly melody continues]

1111
01:04:21,195 --> 01:04:23,030
There's an ice cream truck

1112
01:04:23,230 --> 01:04:24,998
just out of shot here.

1113
01:04:28,369 --> 01:04:31,205
But as Lyndon looks
closer and closer,

1114
01:04:31,438 --> 01:04:33,974
and obsesses over
every little detail,

1115
01:04:34,475 --> 01:04:36,611
we would've been trying
to build this sense of

1116
01:04:36,745 --> 01:04:37,444
kind of...

1117
01:04:37,579 --> 01:04:39,279
growing paranoia.

1118
01:04:41,750 --> 01:04:45,052
Like, maybe the leads start
off fairly reasonable,

1119
01:04:45,352 --> 01:04:50,558
like there was this thing about
him buying Tucker's old car,

1120
01:04:51,659 --> 01:04:54,928
the one that he'd been driving
that day at the rest stop.

1121
01:04:56,463 --> 01:04:59,299
Lyndon buys it, and he
searches through it,

1122
01:04:59,433 --> 01:05:04,271
looking for any old discarded
items that might...

1123
01:05:04,739 --> 01:05:06,574
have evidentiary value.

1124
01:05:08,909 --> 01:05:11,813
But as he starts to look
at each of these things closer,

1125
01:05:11,945 --> 01:05:16,984
there's kind of a
mania that sets in,

1126
01:05:17,786 --> 01:05:18,553
you know,

1127
01:05:18,686 --> 01:05:20,053
and in particular,

1128
01:05:20,187 --> 01:05:22,956
there was this whole thing
where he found a button,

1129
01:05:24,491 --> 01:05:25,794
in the car

1130
01:05:26,059 --> 01:05:28,630
and became convinced
that this button

1131
01:05:28,763 --> 01:05:32,600
had some sort of massive
significance to the case.

1132
01:05:34,803 --> 01:05:37,572
And so I think we could've
taken little things like that,

1133
01:05:37,705 --> 01:05:41,175
and used them to create
this sense that we're...

1134
01:05:41,308 --> 01:05:44,144
delving deeper and deeper
into Lyndon's...

1135
01:05:44,679 --> 01:05:45,946
psyche.

1136
01:05:49,717 --> 01:05:50,585
Like...

1137
01:05:51,218 --> 01:05:53,086
[paranoid drone]

1138
01:05:53,287 --> 01:05:56,156
We're falling down the
rabbit hole with him,

1139
01:06:00,194 --> 01:06:03,130
not knowing how deep it goes.

1140
01:06:04,398 --> 01:06:07,735
[ice cream melody
plays on eerily]

1141
01:06:11,438 --> 01:06:15,342
[a thudding pulse,
music warps and distorts]

1142
01:06:18,979 --> 01:06:24,686
But because Lyndon was such
a lone wolf by this point,

1143
01:06:26,353 --> 01:06:28,723
almost by definition,
this is where we have...

1144
01:06:28,857 --> 01:06:30,257
the fewest sources

1145
01:06:30,424 --> 01:06:32,359
outside of his book.

1146
01:06:34,428 --> 01:06:36,430
So people just have to...

1147
01:06:36,598 --> 01:06:39,534
take my word for it
that there would've been...

1148
01:06:39,667 --> 01:06:41,034
you know...

1149
01:06:41,502 --> 01:06:44,037
some great
twists and turns here.

1150
01:06:49,309 --> 01:06:51,178
Like, have I even...
I haven't even mentioned...

1151
01:06:51,311 --> 01:06:53,046
the building yet, have I?

1152
01:06:55,583 --> 01:06:59,453
Basically, there would've been
a key scene here,

1153
01:07:02,122 --> 01:07:05,359
where there's an explosion,

1154
01:07:06,226 --> 01:07:07,529
uh...

1155
01:07:08,095 --> 01:07:12,065
with narrative significance.

1156
01:07:12,834 --> 01:07:14,702
[pulse slows]

1157
01:07:17,505 --> 01:07:19,941
[pulse continues,
a muffled thud]

1158
01:07:20,608 --> 01:07:22,442
But the purpose of all
this would've been

1159
01:07:22,677 --> 01:07:28,181
getting Lyndon to a more
reckless state of mind,

1160
01:07:29,817 --> 01:07:34,756
where he's ready to make
the kinds of rash decisions

1161
01:07:34,889 --> 01:07:38,325
that he wouldn't
have made a few years earlier,

1162
01:07:39,226 --> 01:07:40,828
or half an hour earlier,

1163
01:07:40,962 --> 01:07:42,329
for our purposes.

1164
01:07:46,400 --> 01:07:50,370
And again I can't get
into the intricate...

1165
01:07:50,505 --> 01:07:52,439
plot mechanics of this,

1166
01:07:53,841 --> 01:07:57,210
but basically in a bizarre
twist of fate,

1167
01:07:57,812 --> 01:08:01,916
Lyndon finds himself presented
with the opportunity...

1168
01:08:02,050 --> 01:08:03,551
for him and his wife...

1169
01:08:03,885 --> 01:08:08,455
to go to dinner with
Tucker and his wife

1170
01:08:09,857 --> 01:08:11,191
as friends.

1171
01:08:11,325 --> 01:08:13,427
Like, they've fallen into
the same social circle

1172
01:08:13,561 --> 01:08:16,798
through this very strange
series of events

1173
01:08:16,965 --> 01:08:21,069
and now, the situation is such

1174
01:08:21,201 --> 01:08:23,638
that it could make
sense for them to...

1175
01:08:23,771 --> 01:08:26,239
essentially double date.

1176
01:08:28,943 --> 01:08:31,746
So Lyndon writes in the book
about them preparing

1177
01:08:31,980 --> 01:08:35,883
to go to dinner
with Tucker and his wife,

1178
01:08:36,684 --> 01:08:40,021
and he writes about it
like they're preparing

1179
01:08:40,287 --> 01:08:42,590
for a military operation.

1180
01:08:42,890 --> 01:08:45,893
[pages rustling]

1181
01:08:48,228 --> 01:08:49,097
So he says:

1182
01:08:49,631 --> 01:08:51,398
[buzzing tone, like
a live wire]

1183
01:08:51,666 --> 01:08:54,902
'The evening before
this arranged dinner,'

1184
01:08:55,168 --> 01:08:57,471
'I retrieved my
.38 five-shot...'

1185
01:08:57,605 --> 01:09:00,642
'Centennial Smith and
Wesson hammerless,'

1186
01:09:01,542 --> 01:09:03,143
'cleaned and lubricated it,'

1187
01:09:03,745 --> 01:09:05,813
'and loaded it
with high-velocity,'

1188
01:09:05,947 --> 01:09:07,915
'light-grain hollow points.'

1189
01:09:10,417 --> 01:09:12,754
'Next, I checked my small...'

1190
01:09:12,887 --> 01:09:16,390
'palm-sized .22
Magnum Derringer,'

1191
01:09:17,324 --> 01:09:21,161
'the dynamite stick,
which holds two bullets.'

1192
01:09:22,462 --> 01:09:25,232
'I called my wife into
the kitchen and asked her,'

1193
01:09:25,967 --> 01:09:29,570
'do you remember how to load
and shoot the Derringer?'

1194
01:09:31,673 --> 01:09:33,975
And so, with the guns
tucked into the...

1195
01:09:34,207 --> 01:09:38,646
the pocket of Lyndon's
jeans and his wife's purse,

1196
01:09:39,413 --> 01:09:40,915
they set out...

1197
01:09:42,416 --> 01:09:44,652
for a date with justice.

1198
01:09:48,056 --> 01:09:49,356
[intercom blip]

1199
01:09:49,489 --> 01:09:50,424
PRODUCER: I think
'double date with justice'.

1200
01:09:50,558 --> 01:09:52,459
A double date with justice.

1201
01:09:52,593 --> 01:09:54,294
[laughs]

1202
01:09:56,764 --> 01:09:58,933
See, this is why it's a bit...

1203
01:09:59,332 --> 01:10:00,668
bittersweet doing this.

1204
01:10:00,802 --> 01:10:03,538
Like, this is the fun
of this genre, right?

1205
01:10:03,671 --> 01:10:07,809
Getting to that point where
things that would have seemed

1206
01:10:07,942 --> 01:10:10,477
impossibly outlandish
at the outset

1207
01:10:10,745 --> 01:10:14,448
now start to seem
perfectly reasonable.

1208
01:10:15,449 --> 01:10:17,885
Like, you watched
Making a Murderer, right?

1209
01:10:18,186 --> 01:10:19,654
[dark-edged country music]

1210
01:10:19,954 --> 01:10:23,423
That first season, even
though it was built around this

1211
01:10:23,558 --> 01:10:25,693
very dramatic story of this...

1212
01:10:25,827 --> 01:10:27,829
possible miscarriage
of justice,

1213
01:10:28,261 --> 01:10:31,298
the actual content of the show

1214
01:10:31,666 --> 01:10:33,801
was pretty restrained.

1215
01:10:34,669 --> 01:10:36,904
Most of what you were
looking at was just...

1216
01:10:37,205 --> 01:10:39,741
grainy interrogation footage

1217
01:10:39,907 --> 01:10:43,911
and shots of people
standing about in courtrooms.

1218
01:10:45,813 --> 01:10:48,149
But then they made
a second season,

1219
01:10:49,117 --> 01:10:53,054
and you can just feel
this inevitable slide

1220
01:10:53,187 --> 01:10:55,690
into sensationalism,

1221
01:10:55,957 --> 01:10:59,560
from the off-- from episode
one of season two,

1222
01:10:59,794 --> 01:11:02,964
they are taking a mannequin,
putting a wig on it,

1223
01:11:03,097 --> 01:11:06,234
and covering it in red paint
to simulate blood splatter.

1224
01:11:06,701 --> 01:11:09,837
'I wanted to re-enact it.'

1225
01:11:10,905 --> 01:11:12,540
And you look back
at the previous season

1226
01:11:12,673 --> 01:11:14,776
where it was all basically
men in dusty suits

1227
01:11:14,909 --> 01:11:17,377
sitting around discussing
legal precedent,

1228
01:11:17,512 --> 01:11:18,679
[heavy thud]

1229
01:11:19,180 --> 01:11:20,081
and you think,

1230
01:11:20,248 --> 01:11:21,749
how did we get here?

1231
01:11:22,884 --> 01:11:27,054
Like, the bounds of
rational behavior

1232
01:11:27,188 --> 01:11:29,557
are just ever-expanding.

1233
01:11:31,291 --> 01:11:32,927
[quiet room]

1234
01:11:34,929 --> 01:11:37,799
So if you accepted
Lyndon and his team

1235
01:11:38,699 --> 01:11:41,301
searching through
Tucker's trash,

1236
01:11:41,903 --> 01:11:43,805
then why wouldn't
you accept them...

1237
01:11:43,971 --> 01:11:46,107
eavesdropping on
the AA meeting?

1238
01:11:47,340 --> 01:11:49,844
And if you accept them
eavesdropping on the AA meeting

1239
01:11:49,977 --> 01:11:51,879
then why wouldn't you
accept the whole...

1240
01:11:52,412 --> 01:11:54,414
fishbowl caper?

1241
01:11:58,019 --> 01:12:00,988
And yeah, here we are,
at a steakhouse,

1242
01:12:01,122 --> 01:12:02,757
with the Zodiac Killer.

1243
01:12:03,691 --> 01:12:07,261
[jangled thuds, like a piano
thrown down a staircase]

1244
01:12:07,995 --> 01:12:11,032
So this is
the actual steakhouse

1245
01:12:11,199 --> 01:12:15,502
that they went to,
up in Winters, California,

1246
01:12:18,139 --> 01:12:20,508
and I think from the moment
they would've met,

1247
01:12:20,641 --> 01:12:24,912
we would have had this
question of recognition.

1248
01:12:27,715 --> 01:12:31,484
Like, does Tucker remember
Lyndon from the rest stop?

1249
01:12:32,553 --> 01:12:36,190
Or did he somehow
sense his presence...

1250
01:12:36,423 --> 01:12:38,693
at the police interrogation?

1251
01:12:39,492 --> 01:12:42,196
To what extent
does this man know

1252
01:12:42,563 --> 01:12:45,600
that this meeting
is not a first encounter,

1253
01:12:45,733 --> 01:12:47,702
it's the culmination

1254
01:12:48,169 --> 01:12:50,771
of years of police work.

1255
01:12:52,607 --> 01:12:55,810
[discordant pulse continues]

1256
01:13:01,816 --> 01:13:04,384
So in the book, Lyndon writes:

1257
01:13:06,621 --> 01:13:07,989
'The next hour...'

1258
01:13:08,155 --> 01:13:11,458
'was one of the most
bizarre in my entire life.'

1259
01:13:13,361 --> 01:13:17,064
'Staring straight out
at about a 30-degree angle,'

1260
01:13:18,065 --> 01:13:20,500
'Tucker appeared to be
in another dimension,'

1261
01:13:20,635 --> 01:13:21,602
[knife carving]

1262
01:13:21,736 --> 01:13:23,237
'some kind of Twilight Zone.'

1263
01:13:23,371 --> 01:13:24,605
[moist scrape]

1264
01:13:28,843 --> 01:13:30,945
And in the context
of all of the suspicions

1265
01:13:31,078 --> 01:13:33,014
that we would have built up
by this point in the film,

1266
01:13:33,147 --> 01:13:38,653
I think Tucker just
seeming kind of detached

1267
01:13:39,720 --> 01:13:41,355
would have become a kind of

1268
01:13:41,555 --> 01:13:44,125
absorbent surface,

1269
01:13:45,626 --> 01:13:48,428
for anything we wanted
to throw at it.

1270
01:13:52,333 --> 01:13:55,036
And that's even before the...

1271
01:13:55,703 --> 01:13:57,204
the drive home.

1272
01:13:58,906 --> 01:14:01,242
[thudding pulse continues]

1273
01:14:01,609 --> 01:14:03,644
[cars passing outside]

1274
01:14:04,045 --> 01:14:08,249
So they're driving back along
the I-80, down to Vallejo,

1275
01:14:09,216 --> 01:14:14,355
and I was imagining this as
already a tense scenario:

1276
01:14:14,522 --> 01:14:16,557
the road stretching out
before them,

1277
01:14:16,724 --> 01:14:19,593
and we're packed
into this tight space

1278
01:14:19,727 --> 01:14:22,229
with our hero

1279
01:14:23,130 --> 01:14:24,231
and our villain.

1280
01:14:28,703 --> 01:14:30,738
And then that tension

1281
01:14:31,138 --> 01:14:33,674
would have ratcheted up
even higher

1282
01:14:33,908 --> 01:14:37,578
once Tucker takes
an unexpected turn

1283
01:14:38,112 --> 01:14:42,216
off the highway and onto
this little side road called

1284
01:14:43,150 --> 01:14:45,052
Cherry Glen Road.

1285
01:14:51,058 --> 01:14:53,160
[intermittent
percussive strikes]

1286
01:14:54,996 --> 01:14:59,567
And I think if we'd charted
that rising tension effectively

1287
01:14:59,700 --> 01:15:01,769
it would have
all felt inevitable.

1288
01:15:01,902 --> 01:15:06,040
We would've felt Lyndon's hand
reaching into his pocket

1289
01:15:06,173 --> 01:15:07,942
to grab the gun
before he even did it.

1290
01:15:08,075 --> 01:15:12,346
We'd have seen the Derringer
coming out of the purse

1291
01:15:13,147 --> 01:15:15,816
a split second
before it's on screen.

1292
01:15:16,417 --> 01:15:17,885
[pulse darkens]

1293
01:15:18,619 --> 01:15:22,390
And the audience is becoming
convinced that this is it.

1294
01:15:22,523 --> 01:15:24,091
This is the moment

1295
01:15:25,092 --> 01:15:29,196
where all of the latent threat
and violence of the film

1296
01:15:29,330 --> 01:15:33,167
is about to
suddenly burst forth.

1297
01:15:34,335 --> 01:15:36,904
[a high note emerges
from the dirge]

1298
01:15:37,938 --> 01:15:39,974
And we're pushing the tension

1299
01:15:40,341 --> 01:15:42,276
as far as it will go,

1300
01:15:44,145 --> 01:15:46,781
but we know it can only sustain

1301
01:15:46,981 --> 01:15:49,784
for so long before it has to...

1302
01:15:51,118 --> 01:15:52,553
break....

1303
01:15:53,054 --> 01:15:54,588
somehow.

1304
01:15:57,224 --> 01:16:01,595
[high note soars,
pulse thuds like a heartbeat]

1305
01:16:06,067 --> 01:16:08,769
[percussive strikes
splinter into feedback]

1306
01:16:16,877 --> 01:16:20,081
[disparate sounds merge
into a wall of noise]

1307
01:16:21,248 --> 01:16:22,616
But instead...

1308
01:16:23,084 --> 01:16:24,985
[music dissolves into
rumble of road]

1309
01:16:25,520 --> 01:16:27,121
nothing happens.

1310
01:16:28,322 --> 01:16:29,690
They return home.

1311
01:16:30,424 --> 01:16:31,892
They're dropped off.

1312
01:16:32,760 --> 01:16:34,295
The air clears.

1313
01:16:37,398 --> 01:16:38,799
But now there's no mistaking

1314
01:16:38,966 --> 01:16:40,968
who has the upper hand.

1315
01:16:43,704 --> 01:16:44,972
You know, like

1316
01:16:45,106 --> 01:16:47,675
Like so many Zodiac
victims before them,

1317
01:16:48,175 --> 01:16:52,279
he's showing them
that they're at his mercy.

1318
01:16:55,249 --> 01:16:55,950
[intercom blip]

1319
01:16:56,083 --> 01:16:57,885
PRODUCER:
By driving home.

1320
01:16:58,352 --> 01:16:59,954
[laughs]

1321
01:17:02,189 --> 01:17:04,825
Yeah, but on an
unconventional route!

1322
01:17:06,694 --> 01:17:08,796
See, if we'd
done it right, though,

1323
01:17:09,063 --> 01:17:12,199
you wouldn't be
thinking like that.

1324
01:17:12,967 --> 01:17:14,368
You haven't seen enough
of these things,

1325
01:17:14,502 --> 01:17:17,671
but when they work,
you just kind of go with it.

1326
01:17:18,339 --> 01:17:22,910
The internal logic of the film
just pulls you through.

1327
01:17:24,445 --> 01:17:30,251
And I think we'd have got the
audience there by this point

1328
01:17:31,051 --> 01:17:33,821
and then we would've been
on the home straight.

1329
01:17:34,155 --> 01:17:37,091
We're at an hour and 15 now.

1330
01:17:39,727 --> 01:17:42,096
So next, we
would have gone to...

1331
01:17:42,696 --> 01:17:43,731
the letter.

1332
01:17:43,864 --> 01:17:45,065
[clunking keys]

1333
01:17:48,102 --> 01:17:51,772
Basically, as a
sort of last resort,

1334
01:17:52,773 --> 01:17:55,976
Lyndon wrote a letter
to the president,

1335
01:17:57,144 --> 01:18:00,381
and it's quite somber,
quite serious,

1336
01:18:00,549 --> 01:18:03,717
all about duty and honor.

1337
01:18:05,286 --> 01:18:07,254
[noble drone]

1338
01:18:07,589 --> 01:18:09,190
He says:

1339
01:18:11,992 --> 01:18:13,662
'Mr. President,'

1340
01:18:14,495 --> 01:18:19,433
'after a devoted and dedicated
32 years of investigation,'

1341
01:18:20,267 --> 01:18:23,704
'into the infamous
Zodiac Killer case,'

1342
01:18:25,272 --> 01:18:29,109
'I am in fact writing
my last letter of appeal.'

1343
01:18:30,778 --> 01:18:34,014
'My request is
not really about me.'

1344
01:18:35,249 --> 01:18:38,520
So he does that maneuver you
see in a lot of these things,

1345
01:18:38,653 --> 01:18:41,656
which is that he reframes it...

1346
01:18:42,122 --> 01:18:46,260
as being...
really about the victims,

1347
01:18:46,894 --> 01:18:48,896
and their families.

1348
01:18:49,964 --> 01:18:52,399
About seeking closure for them.

1349
01:18:53,801 --> 01:18:55,836
[distant cars]

1350
01:18:57,572 --> 01:18:59,373
And, you know...

1351
01:19:01,208 --> 01:19:02,743
Sure.

1352
01:19:05,312 --> 01:19:06,648
But...

1353
01:19:07,716 --> 01:19:10,652
as true crime's got bigger and
bigger and people have got...

1354
01:19:10,784 --> 01:19:12,052
like maybe...

1355
01:19:12,554 --> 01:19:15,590
10% more squeamish about it,

1356
01:19:16,357 --> 01:19:18,560
that little disclaimer
has become

1357
01:19:18,926 --> 01:19:20,794
even more ubiquitous.

1358
01:19:23,632 --> 01:19:27,768
Like, did you watch that
Netflix Dahmer show?

1359
01:19:28,936 --> 01:19:32,373
I've never seen anything
with such an outsized

1360
01:19:32,540 --> 01:19:36,343
sense of its own
moral righteousness.

1361
01:19:37,646 --> 01:19:38,979
It's like ten episodes long,

1362
01:19:39,146 --> 01:19:40,981
and the first nine
episodes are just...

1363
01:19:41,248 --> 01:19:43,984
Jeffrey Dahmer drilling
into people's skulls,

1364
01:19:44,519 --> 01:19:48,989
and then the tenth episode
is this lecture, about how...

1365
01:19:49,356 --> 01:19:51,025
we shouldn't really focus on...

1366
01:19:51,158 --> 01:19:53,394
Jeffrey Dahmer drilling
into people's skulls...

1367
01:19:53,762 --> 01:19:56,531
'Just when you thought folks
couldn't stoop any lower.'

1368
01:19:56,665 --> 01:19:57,766
'It's sick.'

1369
01:19:57,898 --> 01:20:01,869
Obviously they do
the final grid.

1370
01:20:02,671 --> 01:20:05,306
That's when you know these
shows really care, right?

1371
01:20:05,439 --> 01:20:09,376
When they end with a
photo grid of all the victims.

1372
01:20:10,277 --> 01:20:12,813
Eight and a half cumulative
hours of violent gore,

1373
01:20:12,946 --> 01:20:17,051
and now a single passport photo
of each of the victims

1374
01:20:17,184 --> 01:20:19,253
to remind us
what really matters.

1375
01:20:21,021 --> 01:20:22,089
[intercom blip]

1376
01:20:22,222 --> 01:20:22,923
PRODUCER:
You watched it though.

1377
01:20:23,123 --> 01:20:24,458
Yeah, it was good.

1378
01:20:24,626 --> 01:20:26,226
Evan Peters.

1379
01:20:29,664 --> 01:20:31,999
[steady rumble of car]

1380
01:20:33,367 --> 01:20:35,770
So Lyndon sent his letter,

1381
01:20:36,571 --> 01:20:39,808
and then it would have been
a case of waiting

1382
01:20:40,642 --> 01:20:43,977
to see if it's going to lead
to anything at all.

1383
01:20:46,413 --> 01:20:48,248
And so I figured we'd have him

1384
01:20:48,415 --> 01:20:51,653
drive out to the
outskirts of town,

1385
01:20:52,319 --> 01:20:55,557
where he finally
has time to reflect

1386
01:20:57,958 --> 01:21:01,161
on everything he's
given over to this,

1387
01:21:04,131 --> 01:21:06,100
on all the years lost

1388
01:21:06,867 --> 01:21:08,369
to the pursuit of Tucker,

1389
01:21:08,636 --> 01:21:12,473
that could all be for naught
if nothing comes of it.

1390
01:21:14,441 --> 01:21:15,909
[car passes]

1391
01:21:18,011 --> 01:21:19,480
[laughs]

1392
01:21:20,948 --> 01:21:22,916
It's just so beautiful.

1393
01:21:23,350 --> 01:21:24,451
Uh...

1394
01:21:28,021 --> 01:21:29,923
We would've shot a less...

1395
01:21:30,057 --> 01:21:35,396
distractingly beautiful sunset
for the actual thing, but...

1396
01:21:35,830 --> 01:21:36,631
good job,

1397
01:21:37,732 --> 01:21:38,966
nonetheless,

1398
01:21:39,667 --> 01:21:40,901
camera team.

1399
01:21:49,644 --> 01:21:51,579
[distant cars]

1400
01:21:53,147 --> 01:21:55,249
And then finally,
the word comes back

1401
01:21:56,216 --> 01:21:57,552
from the FBI

1402
01:21:58,419 --> 01:22:00,988
that they're not going
to take up the case.

1403
01:22:03,424 --> 01:22:05,860
And Lyndon writes quite

1404
01:22:06,093 --> 01:22:08,362
strikingly about it
in the book,

1405
01:22:10,497 --> 01:22:14,168
as almost like,
the end of hope,

1406
01:22:16,805 --> 01:22:18,673
where he says:

1407
01:22:21,408 --> 01:22:24,646
'So now I tell the world
there is no justice,'

1408
01:22:26,013 --> 01:22:27,414
'there is no integrity,'

1409
01:22:28,115 --> 01:22:32,219
'and there are no existing laws
that morality can supersede.'

1410
01:22:33,822 --> 01:22:37,592
'There is no agency
and not one individual'

1411
01:22:38,325 --> 01:22:40,127
'who will step forward
to intervene'

1412
01:22:40,260 --> 01:22:42,963
'in this noble
cause of justice.'

1413
01:22:56,376 --> 01:22:59,279
[metal sings in the wind]

1414
01:23:01,281 --> 01:23:03,551
[distant cracks...]

1415
01:23:05,687 --> 01:23:08,388
[perhaps fireworks...]

1416
01:23:11,325 --> 01:23:13,327
I definitely haven't quite...

1417
01:23:13,661 --> 01:23:15,663
made my peace...

1418
01:23:16,631 --> 01:23:17,765
with this.

1419
01:23:19,433 --> 01:23:21,502
With not getting
to make the film.

1420
01:23:24,739 --> 01:23:29,343
Like, obviously, I'm happy
with what we've done instead,

1421
01:23:32,947 --> 01:23:35,517
but how many people
are ever going to watch this?

1422
01:23:37,785 --> 01:23:39,286
Realistically.

1423
01:23:49,731 --> 01:23:51,799
[birdsong]

1424
01:23:59,172 --> 01:24:01,208
So in this final stretch,

1425
01:24:01,609 --> 01:24:03,711
the question would have become,

1426
01:24:04,077 --> 01:24:06,014
what is the closure

1427
01:24:06,581 --> 01:24:09,249
that the audience now needs?

1428
01:24:12,252 --> 01:24:13,688
Once it becomes clear that

1429
01:24:13,855 --> 01:24:17,090
Lyndon isn't going
to definitively prove

1430
01:24:17,357 --> 01:24:19,594
that Tucker was
the Zodiac Killer.

1431
01:24:22,462 --> 01:24:24,966
Not least because
he wasn't, obviously.

1432
01:24:25,098 --> 01:24:27,702
But, that's...

1433
01:24:28,703 --> 01:24:30,270
parenthetical.

1434
01:24:30,872 --> 01:24:31,873
[intercom blip]

1435
01:24:32,306 --> 01:24:34,308
PRODUCER:
Like, he definitely wasn't?

1436
01:24:34,909 --> 01:24:36,343
I mean...

1437
01:24:37,244 --> 01:24:38,580
no?

1438
01:24:39,981 --> 01:24:41,516
I mean, maybe.

1439
01:24:42,884 --> 01:24:45,285
But no, probably not.

1440
01:24:50,592 --> 01:24:51,993
But yeah, either way...

1441
01:24:52,660 --> 01:24:56,598
we know now that Lyndon isn't
gonna get it over the line,

1442
01:24:57,297 --> 01:24:59,968
at least in a legal sense.

1443
01:25:00,902 --> 01:25:04,404
And so the stakes
become much more about

1444
01:25:04,973 --> 01:25:07,909
the internal drama of the film

1445
01:25:08,208 --> 01:25:11,111
and the ending that
the film demands.

1446
01:25:13,413 --> 01:25:17,518
And, the book
doesn't necessarily

1447
01:25:17,785 --> 01:25:21,321
offer an obvious one, but
I think that the closest one

1448
01:25:21,990 --> 01:25:26,193
I found in it, and how I was
planning to end the film...

1449
01:25:27,327 --> 01:25:31,365
was with this party
at Tucker's house.

1450
01:25:34,468 --> 01:25:37,471
Basically, Tucker threw
a summer barbecue

1451
01:25:37,905 --> 01:25:41,308
and invited Lyndon
and his wife.

1452
01:25:42,476 --> 01:25:45,312
And so they drive up
there, they go inside,

1453
01:25:45,580 --> 01:25:48,415
and he describes Tucker...

1454
01:25:48,683 --> 01:25:51,052
at the bar, mixing cocktails,

1455
01:25:51,686 --> 01:25:55,056
which is a wonderfully...
innocent action.

1456
01:25:55,188 --> 01:25:55,923
I don't know if we'd

1457
01:25:56,057 --> 01:25:56,991
try and like...

1458
01:25:57,491 --> 01:25:59,060
make that seem more
sinister in some way.

1459
01:25:59,192 --> 01:26:02,697
Maybe he's mixing
blood red cocktails.

1460
01:26:04,899 --> 01:26:09,236
The book's description of this
encounter is fairly minimal.

1461
01:26:09,737 --> 01:26:10,738
He says:

1462
01:26:11,806 --> 01:26:14,341
'He looked at my wife
and said, thank you,'

1463
01:26:14,742 --> 01:26:17,712
'but never made the slightest
eye contact with me.'

1464
01:26:18,980 --> 01:26:20,313
'It was very awkward,'

1465
01:26:20,480 --> 01:26:23,051
'but I extended my arm
for a handshake...'

1466
01:26:23,216 --> 01:26:24,819
'and felt like
a complete idiot.'

1467
01:26:25,185 --> 01:26:29,090
So in Lyndon's own telling,
it's an emasculating moment,

1468
01:26:29,791 --> 01:26:33,360
but I think it could've been
made into the moment we needed

1469
01:26:33,728 --> 01:26:38,533
of Lyndon finally holding
his own against Tucker.

1470
01:26:39,167 --> 01:26:41,703
And in particular, the thing he
says about eye contact...

1471
01:26:42,170 --> 01:26:45,106
that he never made
the slightest eye contact,

1472
01:26:45,873 --> 01:26:47,608
even when they're
shaking hands,

1473
01:26:48,009 --> 01:26:51,145
because eye contact was
how we began down this road...

1474
01:26:51,779 --> 01:26:55,315
They were in these adjoining
cars, they locked eyes...

1475
01:26:56,316 --> 01:26:59,987
and then Lyndon feels
that he lost face

1476
01:27:00,188 --> 01:27:03,825
by letting himself be
stared down by this stranger...

1477
01:27:05,660 --> 01:27:07,695
I think this could've
been the moment

1478
01:27:08,261 --> 01:27:10,497
where he reverses the dynamic:

1479
01:27:11,632 --> 01:27:13,601
[redemptive drone]

1480
01:27:13,901 --> 01:27:17,038
Where he goes in for
the handshake with Tucker,

1481
01:27:17,805 --> 01:27:20,307
realizes he doesn't want
to meet his eyeline,

1482
01:27:23,144 --> 01:27:25,345
but he just holds him there.

1483
01:27:26,279 --> 01:27:28,348
Maybe he won't let his hand go,

1484
01:27:30,218 --> 01:27:31,451
until Tucker...

1485
01:27:31,819 --> 01:27:34,655
raises his eyes to Lyndon's,

1486
01:27:36,991 --> 01:27:38,726
in acknowledgment,

1487
01:27:41,328 --> 01:27:44,297
and there's a sense
that even if

1488
01:27:44,498 --> 01:27:47,735
he knows he's never going
to see Tucker put away,

1489
01:27:48,669 --> 01:27:51,338
he's forced Tucker to recognize

1490
01:27:52,405 --> 01:27:54,742
that he is a worthy match.

1491
01:28:02,817 --> 01:28:04,752
That's actually quite
good, isn't it?

1492
01:28:05,153 --> 01:28:06,621
[laughs]

1493
01:28:09,023 --> 01:28:13,161
And I think it would have been
a good cue for us to

1494
01:28:13,928 --> 01:28:17,330
swerve towards
a larger takeaway.

1495
01:28:18,365 --> 01:28:20,001
[soft waves]

1496
01:28:20,768 --> 01:28:25,239
You know, what is it in all
of us that makes us want to...

1497
01:28:25,405 --> 01:28:27,508
revisit these terrible crimes?

1498
01:28:27,642 --> 01:28:30,645
Why can't we let the past
be in the past?

1499
01:28:31,411 --> 01:28:35,216
And I think we'd be building
a rhythm up by this point.

1500
01:28:35,348 --> 01:28:36,784
It's almost becoming
like a montage

1501
01:28:36,918 --> 01:28:39,020
as we revisit these
little moments from the film.

1502
01:28:39,153 --> 01:28:41,689
We'd have little snapshots of
each crime scene,

1503
01:28:42,256 --> 01:28:45,458
and interviewees coming
back to the fore to...

1504
01:28:45,593 --> 01:28:47,628
give their final thought.

1505
01:28:48,629 --> 01:28:52,066
We'd re-run our
'evocative B-roll' of...

1506
01:28:52,533 --> 01:28:53,568
bullet casings,

1507
01:28:53,734 --> 01:28:55,303
dropping to the floor and...

1508
01:28:55,837 --> 01:28:58,338
the paperwork consumed by fire.

1509
01:29:00,541 --> 01:29:02,510
And the sense you get
is that there's something

1510
01:29:02,643 --> 01:29:05,246
tying all of this together,
as though...

1511
01:29:05,613 --> 01:29:07,515
everything we've
seen thus far was...

1512
01:29:07,648 --> 01:29:10,350
speaking ultimately
to the same idea,

1513
01:29:10,718 --> 01:29:13,353
something sort of universal...

1514
01:29:13,521 --> 01:29:16,757
something profound
and open-ended.

1515
01:29:17,758 --> 01:29:19,927
[soothing tones continue]

1516
01:29:20,427 --> 01:29:22,029
And you can kind of...

1517
01:29:22,330 --> 01:29:24,866
you know, at that point,
re-wrap...

1518
01:29:25,233 --> 01:29:29,003
this lack of a conclusion
as almost a moral virtue.

1519
01:29:30,938 --> 01:29:34,876
That actually, it would be
simplistic to have an ending,

1520
01:29:35,276 --> 01:29:37,078
to give an easy answer,

1521
01:29:38,378 --> 01:29:41,414
because, what is life,

1522
01:29:41,849 --> 01:29:48,089
if not accepting
the chaos of reality,

1523
01:29:49,323 --> 01:29:50,658
and the mysteries

1524
01:29:50,825 --> 01:29:53,594
at the heart
of human existence?

1525
01:29:56,797 --> 01:29:59,667
[music reaches closing note]

1526
01:30:00,635 --> 01:30:03,470
It's funny, you
build up the rhythm...

1527
01:30:03,704 --> 01:30:06,774
and the feel of closure...

1528
01:30:07,440 --> 01:30:09,944
and you almost just get it.

1529
01:30:17,484 --> 01:30:21,055
[meaningful drone]