All language subtitles for Lore.S01E02.WEBRip.x264-ION10

[film projector whirs]

AARON MAHNKE: In 1903,

the 100 residents of
a small town in Virginia

didn't want the patients

living at the nearby
insane asylum

to be their neighbors.

They voted,
and it was agreed

that the inmates
would be relocated

and the asylum closed.

The patients were transferred
to the Lorton Reformatory,

a prison outside
of Washington, D.C.

The vehicle swerved,

rolled, and crashed.

Two patients escaped
into the woods--

Marcus Wallster
and Douglas Grifon,

a man who'd murdered
his wife and child

on Easter Sunday.

A manhunt discovered a trail
of half-eaten rabbits

left on the ground
and hanging in the trees.

The trail led the officers
to one of the escaped inmates.

Marcus Wallster was found

hanging from
a railroad bridge,

a crude, self-made ax
in one hand

and a note
attached to his foot.

It read "You'll never
catch the Bunny Man."

The other fugitive,
Douglas Grifon,

was the Bunny Man.

He was never found.

Two years later,
on Halloween night,

three teenagers went out
into the woods to drink

and were later found
hanging from the bridge.

Each had been gutted,

just like
the mutilated rabbits.

Similar murders occurred
the following year...

then in 1913

and once more in 1946.

The police were finally able

to track Grifon down.

It turns out, as he escaped,

he'd been hit
by a train and killed.

Police reported
hearing laughter

after the train had passed.

[man laughing]

Nowadays, the bridge

is a popular Halloween
destination,

but there's little chance

of seeing the ghost
of the Bunny Man.

You see, there are
no records to prove

that any of these events
actually ever occurred.

The asylum that
Grifon and Wallster

were believed
to have escaped from,

it never existed.

The Lorton Prison
wasn't built until 1910,

seven years after the reported
transfer of the inmates.

And there are no records

of prisoners named
Wallster or Grifon.

No record of any murders

near or on
the Bunny Man bridge.

But just because
it's folklore

doesn't mean
we shouldn't listen.

The thing is

the insane are the characters
in our horror stories

for a reason.

They're the dark side,

the negative image
of who we are,

and that's fascinating
and utterly terrifying.

I'm Aaron Mahnke.
This is Lore.

[thunder rumbles]

The asylum.

A place for people in need...

built with the best
intentions:

to ease the anguish
of the insane.

But the mental institution

is home to our worst
nightmares.

Hell on Earth.

Where we set horror stories.

Bethlehem Hospital
is Europe's

oldest functioning
psychiatric hospital,

founded at the beginning
of the 15th century.

As some of the earliest
patients

passed through its gates,

they were greeted
by two statues--

"Melancholy"
and "Raving Madness."

When Bethlehem first opened,

mental illness wasn't seen

as a condition
that could be treated,

and those
considered dangerous

would be shackled and kept
in solitary confinement.

By the 19th century,

Londoners had shortened
the hospital name

to Bethlam--

[shouting, screaming]

...which was then
further clipped

to Bedlam, a name

that's become synonymous

with chaos and madness.

Corrupt and cruel,

Bedlam was run like a zoo.

For a shilling, Londoners
could roam the hallways

and see the lunatics.

As the centuries passed,

so-called treatment
at asylums like Bedlam

continued to be
variations of violence,

as if mental illness could
be beaten out of the mind.

Inmates were routinely
placed in cages,

chained, isolated.

Death often came

before any cure.

In 1930,

Bedlam entered the modern era

when a new facility
was constructed.

In spite of this,

a nightmare of human misery

was still contained
within its walls.

The following decade,

American physician
Walter Jackson Freeman II

imagined what can
only be considered,

well, unimaginable.

Walter Freeman was
going to eliminate

the need for the asylum

forever.

[grunt]

So, Ralph, Ellen.

Did you read the paper
I gave you?

Any questions
about the procedure?

Terrific.

There's a coffee shop

across the street
and down a block.

Come on back
in, say, an hour?

Hop on up, Ellen.

Hang on.

You can keep your shoes on.

Ellen.

[electricity humming]

[machine shuts down]

Come on.

[breathing heavily]

[thinking] First transorbital
leucotomy a success.

Transected cortical tissue
of the prefrontal cortex

to the thalamus.

Sallie Ellen Ionesco

suffered from depression

and violent episodes.

Two suicide attempts.

Psychiatric therapy and
several institutional stays

resulted in no progress.

In asylums, patients are
allowed to deteriorate.

Transorbital lobotomy

promises
a revolutionary advance.

A simple, effective
method of treatment,

it offers hope of returning

a high percentage
of "incurable psychotics"

to their communities.

Critics may
question a procedure

intentionally
damaging the brain,

but which is better,

to damage the brain a bit

and get the patient
out of the hospital

or do nothing?

[breathing heavily]

MAHNKE:
For everything we know

about what the brain
is made of,

we know very little
about how it works

and even less
about how it doesn't.

Sigmund Freud believed

that many forms
of mental illness

were the result of repressed
unconscious desires.

He revolutionized treatment

with the development
of psychoanalysis,

a dialogue between
patient and doctor

that would, over
the course of many years,

reveal the source
of the problem.

[whimpering]

There was a rival
and opposite approach

to psychiatry:

psychosurgery.

Advancements
in surgical technique

made brain surgery a faster

and less expensive route
toward curing mental illness.

One of the founders
of modern psychosurgery

was a Portuguese doctor
named Antonio Egas Moniz.

In 1935, Moniz
drilled several holes

into a female
patient's skull.

The surgical procedure
he was experimenting with

would sever the nerves

connecting the frontal lobe
to the thalamus.

Moniz believed that
severing the connection

between these parts
of the brain

could produce
beneficial effects,

transforming
a psychotic patient

into someone more docile
and less tormented.

He'd eventually
win the Nobel Prize

for his discovery

of the therapeutic
value of leucotomy.

Leucotomy, you see,

was another word
for prefrontal lobotomy.

When Walter Freeman

and his partner,
neurosurgeon James Watts,

heard about the procedure,

they knew
it had the potential

to radically alter
the treatment

of chronic mental illness.

Freeman,

who wasn't licensed
to practice surgery,

would stand behind Watts
and direct him,

telling him how and where
to point the blade.

In 1946,

Life Magazine
published an article

titled "Bedlam."

It was about
the deplorable state

in two mental hospitals
in Ohio and Pennsylvania,

conditions that were
typical for the time.

Freeman was determined
to become a savior

to patients like
those in the article,

but the procedure
he developed with Watts

was time consuming
and costly.

In the ten years they'd
been performing lobotomies,

they'd only done
a few hundred.

If Freeman wanted
to make a difference,

he'd have to do thousands.

He heard about the work

of an Italian doctor
who developed a technique

to reach the brain
through the eye sockets.

This was the shortcut
Freeman was looking for.

By inserting a large needle

into the skull
through the eye socket,

he would wiggle it

to sever the nerves
in the frontal lobe.

He called the procedure
the transorbital lobotomy.

It was quick, it was cheap,

and it was so simple

that it could performed
in a doctor's office

without the use
of anesthesia.

When Watts walked
into their shared office

and saw a patient

with a needle sticking
out of each eye,

he was horrified.

Freeman is said to have asked
Watts to hold the instruments

so that he could
snap a picture.

I'm Dr. Freeman,

and this is my new associate.

And this...

it's an Orbitoclast.

O-R-B-I-T-O-C-L-A-S-T.

Orbitoclast.

We had a machinist friend
of ours make this one,

and we tested it by
inserting it through a keyhole

and then lifting it
with a force

of 25 kilograms on the handle

without bending
or breaking it.

But you see, this is actually
the second Orbitoclast.

A funny story.
Marjorie-- my wife Marjorie.

And my wife Marjorie.

Honey, tell everyone
what I used

as the first Orbitoclast.

A-- An ice pick.

That's right. Ha ha ha!

An ice pick, right off
our kitchen counter.

I needed a stiff,
you know, sharp object,

and there it was.

I practiced first
on oranges and grapefruits.

But here today we have Allan.

Allan suffers
from chronic depression.

He's tried to kill himself.

He's visiting us today
from Saint Elizabeth's.

The problems of our mental
hospitals cannot be met

until the backlog of
chronically disturbed patients

is much more
effectively treated

than they are
at the present moment.

Now, I maintain

that the proper application
of the transorbital leucotomy

will turn our asylums
into old peoples' homes,

and this at a cost of only
$25 to the patient.

[laughing]

No, no, no, no.

Allan,
today is on the house.

Of the 400
prefrontal leucotomies

that I've performed
in asylums,

only one patient has died
on the day of the procedure.

Two died days later
from bleeding in the brain,

and six patients, uh,

suffered convulsions
or other complications.

But don't be nervous, Allan.

I have my private cases
performed here in the office.

85% were allowed
to live at home.

In fact, one went on
to get his pilot's license.

Another's
an orchestra violinist.

Many have been married
since the procedure.

Now true, immediately
after a lobotomy,

patients are cheerful
to the point of elation

for a few days or a few weeks.

Then they display what I call

the Boy Scout's virtues
in reverse.

Patients demonstrate
a lack of trustworthiness,

helpfulness, kindness,
cleanliness, or reverence.

- But that can be remedied
- [electricity buzzing]

with a follow-up
of aftershock.

[groaning]

- Walter!
- [machine powers down]

This is not a cure.

This only shuts
the patient up.

Bill, can you at least wait
till you see how it's done?

The only thing
this accomplishes

is making it easier for those
who are nursing them.

Bill, you know what my favorite
definition of genius is?

Genius is the ability to put
the cart before the horse

and make them both run.

So, fellas, follow here
as I lift Allan's eyelid.

I'll then take
my small mallet,

and, in back where the bone
is very, very thin,

I want to go in
about 5 centimeters.

I will now transect

the cortical tissues
at the thalamus.

[laughing]

Oh, Bill.

I guess Bill won't be
staying for the second one.

We'll extract the Orbitoclast,

and that's all there is to it.

Now, Allan will suffer
a couple black eyes,

but we send them home with
a fine pair of new sunglasses

so they're not too embarrassed

when they see their friends
back at St. Elizabeth's.

His shuddering
should slow down

in about 35, 45 minutes.

And somebody want
to check on Bill there?

I don't think his pulse
is nearly as good as Allan's.

1946 was a rocket ride
for Walter Freeman.

America had just
defeated fascism,

and people saw possibility
and potential everywhere,

and they embraced his
radical new procedure.

"Any damn fool could
learn it," Freeman joked.

And he set off across
the country to prove it.

For cash-strapped
institutions,

it was impossible
to resist a procedure

that could deliver such
apparent relief so easily.

Just a silent insertion,

a few tiny taps...

[tapping]

and the horrors
that had dominated

the minds
of the chronically ill

could be taken away.

Buoyed by his growing
popularity.

Freeman began promising more.

The lobotomy, he maintained,
could provide relief

for non-institutionalized
patients as well,

like Warner Baxter.

Baxter was
the second man ever

to take home an Academy
Award for best actor,

and he remained one
of the highest paid actors

in the 1940s.

But by 1950,
he was plagued by arthritis

that was so crippling that he
had trouble feeding himself.

So in 1951, he famously
underwent a lobotomy

in search of relief.

Freeman had moved
the lobotomy

from the fringes
to the mainstream.

One of Freeman's most
noted cases, however,

from years earlier,

had been kept
tightly under wraps.

But that secrecy

wasn't intended to protect
Freeman's reputation.

Rosemary Kennedy
was the third

of Joe and Rose Kennedy's
nine children.

In 1918, Rose suddenly went
into labor with Rosemary.

The nurse was reluctant
to deliver the baby

without a doctor present.

She ordered Rose to keep
her legs tightly shut

in an effort
to delay the birth.

It didn't work, and she
forced the baby's head

back into the birth canal.

For two agonizing hours,

baby Rosemary was deprived
of sufficient oxygen,

and this caused her
lasting brain damage.

Rosemary was a joyful,
exuberant child,

but she often
experienced seizures

and violent tantrums,

and she struggled
intellectually.

In a family renowned

for brilliant,
striving overachievers,

the frustration
and feeling of inferiority

must have been unbearable.

In response,
Rosemary acted out.

Fearing that scandal
might threaten

his other children's
political prospects,

and without
consulting his wife,

Joseph Kennedy brought
his troubled daughter

to Walter Freeman
and James Watts

for a prefrontal lobotomy.

The lobotomy
left Rosemary Kennedy

permanently disabled.

Initially, she could
only speak a few words.

She never regained
the full use of one arm,

and she walked with a limp.

Consigned to a church-run
facility in Wisconsin,

the rebellious and
free-spirited Rosemary

had been more or less
silenced by the age of 23.

On July 8, 1946,

Freeman took his two
young sons Randy and Keen,

along with a nephew,
on a camping trip.

They planned to hike
in Yosemite National Park,

climbing along Vernal Falls,

325 feet
off the Merced River.

While hiking along
the river's edge,

Keen bent down
to refill his canteen.

I heard Keen shout.

I turned and saw that he'd
fallen into the river.

The current was taking him
toward Vernal Falls.

I was some distance back
and became paralyzed.

If I had vaulted
over the railing

and extended
my walking stick to him,

I might have saved him.

A 21-year-old man Dale,

just five days
discharged from the Navy,

jumped in the river
and managed to grab Keen

15 feet from the fall.

The last I saw was his face

as he went over the edge.

The small crowd
there screamed.

Randy, Jeff, and I
were paralyzed.

I jerked myself out
of my paralysis of fear

and ran down the trail,
screaming to myself,

"Keen...

"Keen...

"you're dead.

You're killed."

They did not find
Keen's body for a week,

lodged between two rocks.

Mr. Loos, the sailor,
was found a week after that.

I had to identify my son.

I had to look twice...

but there's no mistaking him.

He had been in the water
for a week or so,

and even though it was cold,

there was some swelling
of the tissues,

body gases,

and some peeling of the skin.

There was no disfigurement.

Fortunately, the back of the
skull was severely crushed,

showing that death
was immediate...

and painless.

I was certain I'd find you
here with another woman.

Marjorie, after 22 years
of marriage,

you should understand that,

though possessing
diplovirility,

the path to my emotional
recovery is through work

and not through another
woman's parted legs.

[door creaks]

They'll send you to a
psychiatric hospital again

if you keep that up.

[laughing] "They"?

[laughing]

[stopper pops]

Drink with me?

Do something to help me.

Our children will support me
if I file for divorce.

They told me so.

You don't
have the strength

to go through
all it would take.

Is that coming from
my husband or my doctor?

[sigh]

[sigh]

The only thing
that I know for certain

is that my life is over.

[sobbing]

Oh, no.

[sobbing]

[sobbing continues]

Walter Freeman never tried
to ease Marjorie's pain

by subjecting her
to the procedure

that had brought him
fame and fortune.

And, while he performed
nearly 3,500 lobotomies,

Freeman was never able
to do what he set out to do,

which was to empty
the asylums.

By the mid-1950s,

the number of patients in
U.S. mental institutions

did experience
a steady decline.

But it wasn't
Freeman's lobotomies

that were responsible
for reducing the numbers.

It was a pill.

Chlorpromazine,

more commonly known
as Thorazine,

was introduced
in America in 1954.

Its effect on patients
was immediate.

Psychiatrists were amazed.

In fact, it was so fast

that it was popularly
referred to

as a chemical lobotomy.

The development
of Thorazine was hailed

as one of the great
advances in psychiatry.

Thorazine calmed patients

and greatly reduced
their hallucinations,

delusions, and agitation,

the major symptoms
of schizophrenia.

By the end of its first
year on the market,

doctors had used Thorazine

to treat more than
2 million patients.

It might decrease
the use of lobotomy,

but I don't see it
ever replacing it.

They're calling it

the psychological
equivalent of penicillin.

It's a stopgap used

to mask the symptoms
of mental illness,

not to heal them.

It just
shuts the patients up

while others nurse them.

Walt, that's--

that's word for word
what Nolan said

when we demonstrated
transorbital lobotomy.

Look,

I think...

we should use the release
of this drug as cause--

as the reason--

to call it a day.

Look, I've been given
a heads up.

[sigh]
Greenblatt and Solomon.

They've just edited a report

on the long-term effects
of lobotomy-- its...

"permanent inability
to inhibit impulses,

"its unnatural tranquility

with undesirable shallowness
and absence of feeling."

[rattling]

Christmas cards from
my lobotomized patients.

How many other doctors
get Christmas cards?

Do you think anyone
is going to send

the makers of Thorazine
a Christmas card?

I changed lives!

[scoff]

Look at that.

Did you really change
lives, Walt?

[door closes]

[thunder]

It's easy to think of him
as a monster, an egomaniac

who abused
his patients' trust.

And he was all
of those things.

But at the same time,

he really did want
to make a difference

in the lives of the people
who came to him for help.

WOMAN:
He only gets worse.

He refuses to change.

You think he'd think
what's best

for the family first,
for others,

but he's destructive to me
and my husband and himself.

and he will not--
he refuses to see it.

He thinks he's better
than everyone else.

We've tried everything,
and...

it's in your hands now.

Hmm.

"He does not react
to either love or punishment

and seems to do
a lot of daydreaming."

Me, too.

"And when asked about it,
he says 'I don't know'.

"Charles turns room lights on

when there's broad sunlight
outside."

Hmm.

Okay, then.

Any questions
about the procedure?

All right.

There's a coffee shop
across the street.

Why don't you come back
in, say, about an hour?

All right.

Okay, Charlie.

Jump on up.

Go ahead and pop that
in for me.

I'm just gonna
lay you down gently.

Head on the pillow.

Perfect.

[electricity humming]

- [electricity crackling]
- [Charlie struggling]

[machine powers down]

[rapid breathing]

In 1967, the medical board
finally banned Walter Freeman

from performing lobotomies.

In 1968,
he hit the road again,

but this time,
his mission was different.

Freeman crossed the country
to visit his former patients.

He wanted to see what
their lives were like,

if he had truly
been the savior

that he so desperately
wanted to be.

Maybe he was looking
for the one thing

his lobotomized patients
couldn't give him:

redemption.

Marjorie Freeman
died in 1970,

but, really, her life ended
the day her son passed away.

Walter Freeman died
of cancer two years later.

He's buried beside
his wife and son.

There is a hole near
the top of his tombstone,

as if it had been punctured
with a large ice pick.

When I first saw it,

I thought of it as a hole

in a life
of unfulfilled dreams.

But then again,
maybe I'm overthinking it.

Maybe it's just
a coincidence.

After all, lore has a way
of doing that to you.