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Clap your hands
Riotous cacophony
to accompany
Talma
into our next phenomenon.
Prepare to
be amazed
and mystified
by the ultimate feat of transfiguration!
Now, I ask
for only one thing.
Your silence.
Pay very close attention.
That's good.
Watch closely and learn
why we call this
Aquarius.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I now give you,
like the mermaids
of legend, Talma!
Is she supposed
to be in there?
Uh, yeah, looks like it.
Again, I give you
Talma!
Poor girl.
I'm sorry.
I heard they're supposed
to be pretty good, but
Uh, not
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I, uh
Close it.
Close it now!
I don't think
this is part of the show.
No.
Will someone call 911?
Excuse me for
a minute, okay? Yeah.
Oh, come on, Charlie,
I can't believe this.
Celtic green in my house!
Those were the stakes,
my friend.
I'm sorry.
The Lakers lost the Finals.
No, no.
You will wear it.
You're just not
into b-ball, huh?
I'm wearing it.
I'm wearing it.
Uh, you see how it brings out
the worst
in otherwise reasonable people?
Larry, when you were
in that monastery,
you think you figured
anything out?
I remind you,
I was thrown out
of that monastery.
But what do you mean,
figured things out?
Like, in terms of what?
I went to this temple
the other night.
Really?
Yeah.
And, uh, I hadn't been in one
since my mother's funeral.
Before that,
I- I was probably 13.
That is quite
a span.
So, what brought you back?
Well
So it goes.
Yeah, David.
What's up?
I thought you were on a date.
Yeah, I'm on my way.
Got to go
to the Tower of Mystery.
Tower of Mystery.
Tower of Mystery?
One of those LA landmarks
I've always wanted to see.
I got a magician
who disappeared.
Magician who disappeared?
Isn't that
what's supposed to happen?
Two magicians were
on the stage.
One does patter,
other one does a trick.
Talma, no last name-
she was in that
thing right there,
flowers swirling
around her, then poof,
she's gone, and it's
filled with water.
That's a good trick,
I guess.
That's what I thought,
but according to her
partner, The Amazing Susanna,
aka Susie Weisz,
Talma's not supposed
to disappear.
She's supposed to stay
in that thing, Aquarius,
swimming around
in the water.
She's never supposed
to leave the cylinder.
She stays in there
for the entire trick, but
she just disappeared.
A woman transposed
from air to water,
back to the beginning
of life.
Can we please
go home now?
Talma is hiding
under the stage.
No, she's not hiding
under the stage.
You really want to follow
thugh with this hoax?
'Cause, I tell you,
I've learned
from personal experience-
you don't mess with the FBI.
I'm not sure I know
what you're talking about.
The cylinder looks complete,
but the stage
is actually seven inches deeper
than the proscenium indicates.
Well, yeah, but that has
nothing to do with the trick.
Seven inches is plenty deep
for Talma
to disappear
under the stage.
No, you don't
understand.
We have rehearsed this
hundreds of times,
and she has always
been in there.
Open the trap door, please.
What trap door?
Hey, if there's a door there,
buddy, you better open it.
Hey, she may pay you.
Does she pay you enough
to go to jail for filing a false
FBI report?
Open the door!
Okay.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
may I present to you
the vanished Talma?
Tell me that blood is part of the trick.
Our techs put it between one and two liters
of blood in that box,
so something bad
happened down there.
I mean, we're sure
she was in here?
No one saw her, but our lab
results will tell us something.
All right, let's havit.
Where is she?
I don't know.
You already lied to the FBI,
okay? You told us
that Talma wasn't supposed
to leave Aquarius.
Then we got
the trap door.
You want to go
for strike three now?
I think I should talk
to my lawyer.
Oh, yeah.
Forgot about my date, Sarah.
I'll be right
back, all right?
The blood could
be a prop,
could be part of
the act, you know?
Spray some blood on the walls,
vanish, voila,
you got a great trick.
So a hoax?
It's easy enough to figure out.
We'll use an application
of blood spatter trigonometry
to study
the correlation
between this blood and then
Talma's probable position
in the box.
Sounds like a place to start.
Now, I would assume,
these pipes
are for the pumping
of the water.
Yeah, and I'm thinking
these angled air movers
in the corners
get the air swirling.
Oh, dear.
I'm gonna get
some latex gloves.
Professor Charles Eppes?
I'm, uh, Penn llette.
Penn and Teller?
I'm a big fan.
You are?
Yeah.
I've read everything
you've written.
I even read your book.
Not as good as the original
paper, but, uh
Oh.
I was upstairs
prepping a special
and heard you were down here.
Man, it is so great
to meet you in person.
Well, you know, uh, actually,
I'm a big fan of yours, as well.
Really? Cool.
Yeah, you work with
the other guy, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
I
like the white tigers.
I could never get Feynman
to go to Vegas, either.
You knew Feynman?
Really easy guy to fool,
and loved every minute of it.
All right.
It was a great
pleasure meeting you.
I've got to get back to work.
Of course.
Uh, I'd love to talk
to you about your paper
about Infinite Series
Cognitive Dissonance
Leading to Semantic
Contamination.
That's not my paper.
White tigers.
All right.
I heard about Talma.
If you need any help,
well, I know a little bit
about magic.
Thank you,
Mr.
Jillette.
Sarah?! Excuse me.
Sorry about that.
Got to It's okay.
I get it.
Job comes first.
I'll make it up to
you, okay? Maybe
You seem like a good guy.
Maybe under different
circumstances.
Let me call
you a cab.
Too late.
Excuse me, Agent?
Is the FBI involved in the
case of a missing woman?
Is it true that a large amount
of blood was found at the scene?
I'm sorry.
No comment.
We're in the middle
of an ongoing investigation.
All right? So, you guys
excuse me.
Tha you.
Excuse Move.
What we do know right now
is that a magician is missing
And Talma No-Last-Name
started disappearing
before last night.
DMV comes up empty,
no medical records.
So, I guess we can forget
about a blood match, huh?
What else did you get?
Our lady Copperfields have
a history of fake emergencies.
They do this buried alive
illusion.
As they piled the dirt on,
Talma's casket collapses.
It takes emergency crews
to dig up an empty coffin.
Three months later,
Fairbanks, Alaska- same deal
with an escape
from a fire that failed.
And let me guess.
Both times Talma miraculously
reappeared unharmed?
Uh-huh.
They paid 50 grand in fines,
sold 250 grand in tickets.
That box looks secure
from the inside.
That's what I'm
thinking, too.
There's no way she got out
of that without help.
And her partner was on stage
the whole time.
Oh, of course.
That's what magicians do.
You know, make it look like
they're here
when they're not, right?
I saw a special where one guy
made a limo disappear.
Turns out, it was 14 guys,
a mirror
and three pieces of plywood
painted asphalt black.
Yeah.
Well, I'm working on a list
of people they've
both worked with.
Figure, maybe one
of them will pop.
Yeah, for a crime we're not even
sure happened, my head hurts.
WOMAN Is it true that a large amount
of blood was found at the scene?
Uh, no comnt.
Uh, sorry.
We're in the middle
of an ongoing investigation.
Ah, Agent Harry Potter,
first on the scene.
WOMAN Well, what we do
know right now is that
If I had taken her
anywhere else, man,
a movie, anything,
there'd be another date.
Stop ***.
Give her a call.
Right, you're a big TV star now.
She's gonna love that.
So, of course, now I got
the assistant director on my ***
about why one
of our agents has dragged us
into a case that's gonna
make us look like idiots.
Don, I'm sorry.
She We got
to find the girl now, all right?
You ever get the feeling
you're searching for an answer
you already have?
Well, so much for an unbiased
search for the truth.
Is Charlie still determined
to predetermine the results?
That's not fair.
I think you're cherry-picking
the data to give you
the answer you expect.
You pick the next batch.
Who doesn't like magic?
Top hat and tails and pulling
bunnies out of thin air.
It's
Elvis on black velvet.
Well, I love the feeling
of a live audience,
swept up in the suspense
of the show, trying to
figure out the trick,
looking for the mirrors.
Yes, and just a little relieved
when you don't
see them.
I'll show you the mirrors.
Oh, no, you don't, Dr.
Eppes.
I won't let you ruin this
for me, too.
So, the serology report
on the blood found at the scene
verifies that it is human,
O positive.
There's Barr bodies
in the cell structure
and the Kell antigen,
which indicates
that it's a white female.
And the DNA
in the hair sample that we
picked up in her dressing room
does match the DNA in the blood,
so very good chance it was Talma
in that box.
All right, so
let's say it's not a hoax.
Let's say it's real-
who'd want to hurt Talma?
The partner?
Susie Weisz,
a known box jumper,
the beautiful assistant,
but not a real magician
until she she started
working with Talma.
Talma's good-looking,
from all accounts,
the more talented
magician.
Why would she switch places,
basically taking
the assistant's job
and put herself in the cylinder?
Who knows?
The fact still remains that
Talma was the big draw, right,
so I doubt the Amazing Susanna
would do anything
to try to harm
her meal ticket.
I've been
running down
some more of the
names of the people
that perform with them-
nobody's talking.
I mean, it seems
like the world of magic
is all about
keeping a secret.
I still say this
is just one more stunt.
You know, fake a felony,
get on the news,
get famous.
So, what's the blood
supposed to mean?
Well, there's what
it usually means.
So, blood spatter
trigonometry
suggests the spatter
is real.
Uh, it came
from a body
being torn
by a sharp force trauma.
So, you know what happened
inside the box?
We weren't trying
to reconstruct the actual event.
We were looking
to validate
or rather invalidate
the blood spatter.
It's like when you walk outside
and you notice
that the ground is wet.
The question is: Did it rain
or is the water
coming from somewhere else?
A droplet of water falling
in a vertical line from a cloud
will slam to the ground
and splash outward.
Water from a garden hose
will have an entirely different
mathematical signature.
Different vectors, velocity,
a far more obtuse angle.
So, we compare the rain triangle
to the garden hose triangle
to tell us if it rained
or if your neighbor
just recently washed his car.
Now, we were able to analyze the
pattern of the blood droplets,
as well as the angle
and velocity
of the impact to determine
with fairly high
probability
that Talma did suffer
a real injury.
Now, whether it was an accident
or the result of some sort
of struggle, I'm not sure.
I would love
to consult
with an expert
who might be able to tell me
which it was.
Yeah, sure, go for it.
Hey, what happened
with your, uh, date?
Did you call her?
Yeah, she's not answering.
Go bring her some flowers
or something- we'll be
all right for an hour.
Hi, uh, I'm David.
I'm I'm looking for Sarah.
Sarah?
This is, uh, 1F, right?
I I picked her up here
last night.
We just got back today.
I'm sorry to bother you, ma'am.
Is it is it possible
maybe, uh, Sarah
is staying here?
Long hair,
African-American?
We have lived here
for 33 years.
???
�
And you met her
at the Howling Dog, right?
That's a known cop bar.
A set-up from the start.
A couple
of magicians want to amp up the disappearance
of their main act,
what better way
than to get FBI in on a missing persons
investigation?
Yeah, I hope she was hot.
Hey, don't feel so bad, big guy.
You know, I'm thinking
a night out, no matter what,
sounds pretty good.
And I don't care what that blood says,
I say we're being played.
Yeah, time to talk
to the Amazing Susna again.
You've made a career of demystification.
But we weren't
the first.
Houdini dedicated
his life to revealing
these charlatans
that defraud the human race
with their lies, the
talking to the dead,
the psychics.
Yes, well,
the blood spatter was not faked.
The FBI suspects
that there was a third party involved
in Talma's disappearance.
An illusion this complicated,
she would have needed the help
of an artisan.
An artisan?
Yeah, the people
who actually build
and design the tricks.
Angel has, like,
working for him.
You know, we'd both love
to see these blueprints.
Good luck.
A trick like Aquarius
is worth millions
to the guy who
creates it.
Once these women
do it, it becomes public domain-
within a year, you got
their versions.
The Swimming Pool,
the Water Cube,
the Shark Tank.
Let me show you
this thing.
This was a feature trick
Done on TV and everything.
Now you can buy it
at any toy store.
That's the way things
work in this business.
Neat trick, huh?
Hydrophobic sand.
You do know your magic.
I know my science.
It's gonna be hard
to find this engineer.
No one will reveal
who the artisans are,
especially not the artisans.
Henning had to
deposit money
in an untraceable bank account
to look at some blueprints.
Maybe we don't need to know.
Maybe we can reverse
engineer the trick
on our own and find out
who built it.
Study the architecture
to find the architect.
You do know your science.
Well, no.
I know my magic.
It wasn't supposed
to be like this.
I mean, yes, we made you
part of the show.
I mean, an FBI agent
involved
it adds to the hype,
but that blood was not
part of the illusion.
So what
is the trick?
I mean, uh
how does Aquarius work?
Well, I I don't know.
I mean, that's Talma's thing.
I do patter, exhibition.
Misdirection.
Well
yeah.
I'm gonna
need the name-
the real name- of my date.
Well, I I have no idea.
Talma set it up.
She just told me
to expect a cop
and to keep him occupied
and away from the box.
When that math guy opened it,
I expected her to be in there.
That was how we
rehearsed it every time.
So, she doesn't tell you how the trick works.
All right, she
lies to you
about the endgame,
then she puts you in the middle
of an FBI investigation?
She used me.
She didn't get out of
that box by herself,
so who besides yourself
would help her?
Garland Saint Michael.
Formerly the
Miraculous Michael.
You know your magic.
He's on our list
of Talma's
past collaborators.
He and Talma were hot and heavy
before he got all mystic-purist.
Uh, he's the guy
who hung himself
from flesh hooks for 24 hours on live TV.
And that's magic?
He thinks so.
I'll spend six days
in my Dream Cocoon.
Total sensory
deprivation.
Do you wish to lay in it?
No, thanks.
On the seventh day, I'll emerge,
an altered state
of consciousness,
unable to take
even the slightest sound
or color for granted.
Yeah, I bet
you'll be hungry, too.
Talma and I remain close,
and I wish her all success.
We differ in tone,
but unite in passion.
You do realize she's missing.
Is she?
Where were you
last night?
Las Vegas.
Drove in this morning.
I'm sure Caesar's
has security footage
of me preparing
for my next piece.
Do you know
where she is,
what she's
planning?
We haven't even spoken
for months.
But I'm not surprised
she went
with the classic-
the Vanishing Lady.
That's really the core
of our differences.
Magic isn't magic
until it elevates
the human spirit.
Talma is stagnating,
attempting to make art
from rubbish.
Is that why
she let Susie Weisz
play the part of the magician?
Talma needs to be in the middle
of the action.
Touching the trick,
really feeling it.
Oh, on that much we agree.
We found a liter
of blood at the scene.
She's a genius.
No matter
how mundane,
Talma would literally bleed
for a trick.
I have faith
that when she reveals herself
to the world,
it's going to be beautiful.
Let's consider
the Gliederpuppe.
David said the
cylinder was empty.
Then, the lights went out
for a few seconds.
Then, the cylinder was filled.
Well, let's
be conservative here.
How about five seconds?
That's a long time
for the audience to be sitting
in the dark.
Let's say 3.
5.
Coming up through the floor,
fighting gravity,
the water pressure required to fill that cylinder in such a
short time
The pressure on the human
body would be enormous.
That makes Talma one tough lady.
It's an amazing feat, really.
I mean, it's almost like her response to
the misogyny
of cutting a
woman in half.
She's created this
this mechanical paean
to the beauty
of womankind.
She reverse evolves
the female,
surrounded by flowers,
then she drops her right back
into the elegance of the ocean
where all life began.
It's almost like Venus
returning to her clamshell.
You really see all that?
You really don't?
All I see is pipes
and air movers
and flowers and fish
being pumped in and sucked out.
Why can't you accept magic
as an art?
Why allow yourself
to be pummeled by water pressure
every night.
Isn't there an
Occam's razor here?
I mean, you said yourself,
the solutions
to magic tricks are often underwhelming
and simple.
Why do the "reverse evolution?"
Why water coming in
every night?
Uh-huh.
You see these and these?
Well,
isn't that just
where the glass connects
to the decoration
on the outside?
I think Larry's
half right.
Thissn't a reverse evolution trick.
This is a woman coming
out of the water.
And into the air.
She flies?
She flies.
The micro thin flying wires
for the harness
enter through the cylinder
here and here.
It's unseen by the audience.
She looks like she's flying in a fully-encased
cylinder.
David didn't say anything about flying.
And we didn't
find a rig in the rafters
at the Tower of Mystery
because that wasn't
part of the trick that night.
There's a second part
to the trick?
Ah, but of course.
The stunning conclusion.
The vanished
woman reappears,
in the glory
of flight.
We need to flip this trick, make it
work backwards.
Yeah, reverse the reverse
engineering.
Worst ways to spend a night.
I'll go put
a kettle on.
Hey.
Late supper?
On a little break.
Lost in contemplation?
Yeah.
You know,
when last we spoke,
you were asking me
about religion.
Right.
Well,
at the very basic level,
cosmological quantum
physics suggests
that if this universe here is as real as we believe
that it is,
it must have been cast
into reality by an external observer.
God?
And yet paradoxically,
how can there be anything
external in an all-inclusive universe?
Uh-huh.
So, you see?
My own quest for God has
always been inextricably intertwined with my work.
Does that help you sleep?
No.
It keeps me awake.
All right, so,
what's the point?
The point is to keep looking
for the point.
That's what the
Rabbi said.
Rabbi?
Yeah.
Rabbi.
Well
I will rejoin Charlie and Amita.
Oh, and I should
do that, too.
Tough to track a woman
without an identity,
but I found Talma's
corporation.
Two weeks ago, Aquarius
Specialties Limited
rented trucks to load in
at the Tower of Mystery.
Now, where'd the trucks
pick up from?
Movers said that they
picked up two big crates
in the middle
of an abandoned parking lot.
Paranoid magicians.
Yeah,
hoax the FBI-
I'd hide my prep, too.
Aquarius Specialties Limited
also rented a storefront on Hollywood Boulevard.
It's a high
traffic area,
lots of tourists,
entertainment seekers.
Charlie thinks
there's gonna be a part two to Talma's trick
Which is why I checked into the party rental
agencies in the area.
Two of them have
been contracted to deliver folding
chairs, tents
and big screen TV's
to the same location.
Come on.
"Hollywood
Brasserie"?
Talma loves her misdirection.
Oh, come on, now, does it
really need to be this dark?
You scared, Granger?
Nah.
Pitch-black was top of my class
in "Pitchblack Assaults
on Magical Illusions"
back in Quantico.
Let's see.
Lights.
??
***?
Well, ME's initial
report is inconclusive.
Talma drowned,
but she has a contusion on the side of her head, too.
She also had a laceration
on her right leg,
pretty deep.
That explains the
blood we found at the Tower
of Mystery.
However she got cut,
accidental or otherwise,
the wound was
bandaged,
trace amounts of blood
in the water.
She didn't bleed to death.
According to Charlie's analysis,
this was the master
fail-safe-
it's a handle that
would release the water.
Now it was broken off
and wiped clean
of prints, so, definitely
somebody was here.
Hairline fracture
in the glass could match the contusion
on her head.
Yeah, I'm thinking maybe
there was a struggle,
and she got
knocked out against the glass.
Yeah,
then the killer dumped her,
unconscious,
in the water
to drown.
All right, so they broke
the handle-
that's master
fail-safe,
so the internal ones
wouldn't work.
It still doesn't answer one big question.
Who'd want to kill her?
Why can't they just build
a normal machine,
with everything laid out
in an orderly fashion?
Function fit to form.
The magic design
for the magic machine.
Let's take a break
from the flying part.
You know, it's like
a jigsaw puzzle.
You put together
the frame pieces
before trying to work the more
difficult middle section.
You know she's right.
If we could just get a handle
on the cylinder,
we could figure out
how much tensile strength is
needed for these flying wires
and how much
for the common joints between the glass and filigree.
Uh, the glass.
That's simple.
Yeah.
The first question.
How much water
can it handle?
Well, witnesses
from the performance report that it was full.
Talkin' 50 cubic
feet of water.
Water weight 3,300 pounds.
A little over one a half tons.
Wow.
That amount of water
withstanding
that kind of pressure.
You're not gonna find that kind
of glass at Home Depot.
There are two factories that produce
the quality of glass
that Charlie says is required
to create the cylinder.
Asahi Glass in Tokyo and Undverglasen in
Garmisch, Germany.
Undverglasen shipped four tons of multi-ply
tempered-curved glass
to a Burbank warehouse
last year.
Well, before she hit
the fast track
with Susie Weisz,
she bounced around for about five years.
Why's that?
Maybe because her previous boss drowned while
was on stage.
Who's the girl
in the middle?
That's Drowndini's
assistant.
That could be a lead.
Sister blames Talma for her brother's death.
Yeah, same MO, drowning,
could fit for revenge.
That's my date.
Sarah.
Her real name
is Jenny Calandro.
Can't believe
your search led you to the doorstep
of Gage Jones.
Impressive,
Dr.
Eppes.
Uh, guy's one
of the legendary Artisans of the magic world.
Of course, last I knew,
he was, uh,
working
in an abandoned ferry on Fidalgo Island
in Washington.
Is all right that we just
let ourselves in like this?
Oh, I called ahead.
Uh, magic awaits.
Professor Fleinhardt,
if you would, please.
My pleasure.
Around here.
The guillotine!
It's a far better thing I do,
than I have ever done.
The blade folds up into the trick.
Shh! It's angles.
It's all angles.
That's all I'm saying.
Okay, let's, uh,
show you another one.
How about the Kafka box?
Are you ready
to metamorphosize?
Into what, a cockroach?
So this one
is a false back.
He's still inside the box.
Okay, that's pretty cool.
He climbs in,
Penn spins the box,
engages the catch,
the catch releases
two mirrors.
The mirrors fold out
at 45 degree angles.
You think you're looking
at the back of the box,
it's really just
reflections.
Hey, quiet you.
Mr.
Jillette.
Three guests.
From the FBI.
You're here because of the lovely and
talented Miss Talma, I take it.
Well, may be a wasted trip,
she's not here.
But she'll turn
up in due time at a place of her choosing,
for the best
possible impact.
I hate to break it to you,
she already turned up.
Oh, was it wondrous?
She was dead.
Real dead.
But I
just saw her.
I mean I built Aquarius.
She was found in the second part
of the trick
on Hollywood Boulevard.
She drowned inside.
No, couldn't have drowned.
We had too many fail-safes
built in.
There was a handle
on the outside
that was broken off
by someone else.
You know a, a girl,
a former assistant-
Jenny Calandro?
Yeah,
I know Jenny.
Talma brought her around
a couple times
to look at Aquarius.
You got an address?
We think it may not
have been an accident.
You're damn right
it wasn't an accident.
If Talma's dead,
she was murdered.
Hello.
Hi.
Oh, hey.
What's on?
Baseball, basketball,
football, hockey.
Take your pick.
What, you got to ask?
Hockey.
That's right
So what is, uh,
what is all this
about you, uh,
going to temple?
I went once.
Yeah, and?
Thinking I might take
a class or two.
You know, I'd be more than happy
to talk to you about it.
I mean, I've been
to Hebrew school.
I know all the prayers.
Thanks.
We'll see how it goes.
I think I'm okay for now.
Right.
Hockey.
I know I'm still new
and all,
but is this status quo
for you guys?
What's that?
Stalking girls on company time.
My date's home.
Jenny.
You've got to be kidding me.
You do have a way
with the ladies.
You are not playing chicken
with the FBI.
Yeah, she is pretty.
??I swear.
You blamed her for your
brother's death.
You wanted revenge.
Anthony was reckless.
He didn't check his gear,
his machines.
He thought that
if they worked once,
they always worked.
That's what killed him,
and I knew that.
Oh, so it was a coincidence
that you were at the show
the night that Talma
disappeared?
I mean, the night
she was murdered.
Talma dealt with my brother's
death differently.
I moved on.
She made it her life's work
to court death.
I brought you to the show,
because an old friend
asked me to.
I was her assistant,
nothing more.
You helped her out of that box?
As soon as you left,
I went under the stage,
removed the hatch.
Talma was covered
in her own blood.
When she fell through
the trap door,
she hit a metal strut,
tore her leg open.
No, we never found
a bloody strut.
She took it,
said it added to the mystery.
Look, I wanted
to take her
to the hospital,
but she insisted she was fine.
We bandaged the leg,
I helped her to her car
and she drove off on her own.
Where'd she go?
To Hollywood.
To make sure the second Aquarius
was working properly.
I told you, she learned from
what happened to my brother.
My job was to
get back to you.
You were just supposed
to be some cop.
I could have gone up
to any guy in that bar.
But I was selfish.
I went up to the right one.
Best sucker in the house.
Not what I meant.
She lying?
I doubt it.
But, hey, I'm the last guy
you should ask, right?
What are you
talking about?
You're the only one I can ask.
Don, send somebody else
in there to talk to her.
Well, either she's very good,
or she does like you.
I believe she knew Talma.
I believe she was working
with Talma that night.
And I believe
there's much better ways
to get payback
than to sucker an FBI agent
into watching you
kill your target.
Yeah, I agree with you.
So what do we do with her?
She committed a crime,
and she ran.
You make the call.
How much have they dismantled?
Apparently, the veneer
was taken down,
but the guts remain.
The guts, which are usually
under the stage
and lead
to a panel offstage where the technician
calls the shots.
These must be
the fail-safe dials.
Check the glass.
All right,
looks like there are two switches hidden inside
the cylinder:
one high and one low.
Water release valves.
The techs indicate
they've not been touched.
It's a good gument
for Talma being unconscious.
She couldn't trip
the fail-safes.
One, two, three input pipes.
Reconstruction
of the apparatus
indicates there should
be at least four.
Should be six if they
were playing it safe.
So to fill this cylinder
with three pipes
in five seconds
Or less.
would require higher water pressure
than we'd anticipated,
extremely high water pressure.
Where does
that leave us?
All right, hey.
We don't think Talma
was murdered.
No, our findings suggest that
higher than intended pressure
was ultimately responsible
for Talma's death.
So this is all an accident?
The flaw was in the machine.
Well, how can you figure
that out if you never even
saw the trick being performed?
We used Design Recovery.
It was originally implemented
to handle secretive
computer software systems
hidden within coding:
illusions,
ghosts in the machine.
To a first-time viewer,
a staple jt looks like
a tiny piece of metal
holding your papers together.
But pry it loose
and study its dimensions,
how it bends,
you realize at some point
it changed shape
to achieve its goal.
Put it under
a microscope and you see telltale signs
it was attached
to others of its kind.
Without seeing
the staple's origin,
we reverse engineer the unseen machine that put
our tiny little piece
of metal to work.
Most likely,
Talma climbed in,
and then someone else started Aquarius.
However, the water
filled up too quickly.
She slammed her head against
the glass on the inside.
Added to the blood loss,
it knocked her unconscious.
Which is why she never engaged any of the security devices
inside the machine.
Yeah, it doesn't
explain the handle,
the fracture,
the other person,
why they didn't let her out
We think they tried.
They pulled the handle,
but that failed.
Yeah, they tried
another way: brute force.
We found this fracture in the exact structurally
weakest place.
It wasn't Talma's head
that cracked the glass,
it was probably somebody
with a sledgehammer.
So all the signs of attempted
*** were actually
evidence that someone
tried to save her.
Yeah, and there was only one
person, other than Talma,
that had inside knowledge
about this trick:
the man who built it.
Magicians have something
against track lighting or what?
This place is a
lot less threatening during the day, trust me.
Jones?
Don't make us have
to come get you!
NIKKI
I think we got him.
What's the matter,
there was no bed to hide under?
Got him.
Tried so hard
to get her out.
You got to believe me.
An artisan's worst nightmare is to have a trick go wrong.
You gave us Jenny Calandro,
knowing she was innocent.
Why didn't you
tell us before?
I wanted to, it's just
she was out cold,
laying there
as the water killed her.
The fail-safes
We know.
Her chest
stopped moving.
I was inches
away from her when she died.
It was an accident.
All you had to do
was come forward.
Oh, and watch
my entire career,
my greatest invention,
die with her?
Nobody buys illusions
that kill you for real.
So, hmm, how was that?
Well
to be honest, Mom's was better.
Oh, come on.
It's the same recipe.
I'm just saying.
That's all, I'm just saying.
Hey, listen, Donny,
um do you feel
like I cheated you
out something?
We were never
a religious family.
It's not
about that.
I just I always used to know
exactly what I was doing,
why I was doing it,
you know, what
I wanted and
I just I feel
like I'm missing something.
So, you, um
you think, uh, you'll find it
by going to temple?
I don't know.
I just know where it's not.
You know, it's not in the job.
I know, but I
I never
taught you about,
you know, God and
or gave you that choice.
No, you did.
You know, look
where I'm looking for it.
Right.
So, um that's it?
That's all I got.
I cooked,
you do the dishes.
Don't look
at your phone as if it's gonna
ring and save you.
Just do the dishes.
This is hardly a
romantic spot.
It's not a romantic spot.
It's a learning spot.
Help me with this.
Amita?
I want to show you
what I see in magic.
Uh, I see a harness.
Yes.
go over there
to the switchboard.
Flip switch seven.
Uh, hey, are we sure
this is safe?
Well, we know the design
better than anybody.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Do you see it yet?