Ambition In The Blood - Deleted, Extras, & Skew
As I mentioned in an earlier post here I recently got a couple of Profiler scripts. This is a partial cross-post with profiler_fans because I have some additional skewed thoughts in this post.
In Ambition In The Blood, I found a deleted Sam and Bailey scene, some dialogue variances from the DVD, and some nice John and Bailey dialogue that had been cut.
Script variances:
After George, Grace, Coop and Sam review Dupree's history and Sam has a flashback about Jack in Venom, there's a scene between Sam and Coop. There is some difference in dialogue in the DVD, so from the script:
BACK TO SCENE
Sam shakes off the unwelcome memory. Coop looks up from
his desk where he is working with a map of Manhattan.
COOP
When they passed out the stamina
pills, you were first in line.
SAM
I'll be okay, I've just had a hard
time sleeping.
COOP
You were abducted, terrorized,
arrested... your best friend went
down. You keep on keeping
on... I don't know how you do it.
SAM
I just try to do one thing at a
time... Let's just catch Dupree, and
then I can worry about everything
else.
COOP
Would you humor me and lean on me
a little bit?
Sam nods pointing to the map on Coop's desk.
SAM
How are you coming with the grid search?
COOP
It would have to be New York.
There're seven million people on that
island. I feel like one of them is
a short timer, unless I get smarter.
SAM
Our inability to stop evil is not the
reason it happens.
*****************************************
No real commentage except there seems to be distance between Sam & Coop.
*****************************************
After Sam and Coop talk and before the scene where John is at the hospital, is a nice Sam and George scene which unfortunately was deleted. From the script:
INT. SAM'S OFFICE - VCTF - DAY
Sam enters her office with the files. George knocks on the
door as she enters and steps in behind her.
GEORGE
They've scheduled Bailey's surgery
for seven tonight. You feel up to
going with us?
SAM
I was going anway, George. But
thanks, I'd like to go with you.
She looks over at Coop talking with a group of staffers.
SAM
Looks deceptively normal, doesn't it?
You get used to the way things are.
You expect them to always be that way.
Looks over at Bailey's empty office.
GEORGE
Bailey will be fine. Too much
unfinished business... and he's always
the last one to leave.
*****************************************
I think it's nice to see the Sam & George interaction, it's one of the rare moments Sam seems to let anyone on the team actually in throughout the series.
*****************************************
In the DVD, the scene with John at Bailey's bedside follows Sam and Coop talking. In the script after Sam and Coop talk and the deleted George and Sam scene they have Jack typing Sam's psychological profile. To me it flowed better in the DVD where they placed it later in the episode and they eliminated a Jack singing at a time that doesn't quite fit the gravity with which he would regard his task. Here is the script:
EXT. JACK'S LAIR - DAY
XCU Glass - a fat raindrop hits the dry pane. THUNDER
peals, but it's SFX off a scratchy 45 rpm single of
"Raindrops" from the early 60's. The record skips. RACK
FOCUS to Jack, inside sitting in a high back chair.
INT. JACK'S LAIR - DAY
Jack bangs his jukebox to stop the skip, kicks off to ZOOM
across the room. As he does, he hums, "Raindrops, so many
raindrops, must be raindrops, falling from my eye-eyes."
Jack rolls the top up on a scarred bankers desk, revealing
a mass of junk - baggies of "evidence" (syringe, a narcotic dart,
duct tape) , fingerprint cards, photos - he clears a
path to a Royal typewriter, circa 1950.
Humming, "Since my Baby left me, I'm so all alone," he
caresses a framed photo of Sam, then takes a sheet of bond
off a 3 foot stack by the desk, cranks it into the Royal.
XCU - THE PAPER
As clogged type slams through the cloth ribbon onto the
pure white paper... "S-a-m-'-s g-u-i-l-t."
*****************************************
Not that Jack singing doens't seem like fun, but Jack would probably regard his analysis of Sam very seriously and limit his distractions. So, this is one alteration that I think the director ultimately made the right decision on.
*****************************************
The scene where Jack alters the pictures of VCTF members was originally set after John talks to Francis in the script instead of between Bailey's emergency surgery and Coop bringing Sam juice. In the script he painst his face out in blue rather than burning it.
*****************************************
Okay, aside from the continuing the Skew Blue theme, I do rather like the idea of the blue rather than the burning because Jack with his god-complex might not have embrace burning his own image - just my personal two cents.
*****************************************
When Sam brings flowers to Bailey in the hospital, John is with him and this bit of dialogue preceding her arrival and some dialogue changes that unfortuanately were deleted. There's some great interaction between Bailey and John in the script:
INT. HOSPITAL ICU - DAY (ONE DAY LATER)
Lots of cards and flowers. Bailey's trying weakly to
sip through a bent straw. WIDEN as John bends the straw so
Bailey can manage.
BAILEY
Thanks, John. God I'm like a baby.
JOHN
You're like a guy who took a nine
millimeter round in the chest. You
held the straw for me when I was
winged remember?
BAILEY
Sure. But I don't remember being
shot. I was dressing...
Sam enters, all smiles, a vase of flowers. He accepts her
kiss and gentle hug, but can't hug back.
SAM
You look so good, buddy...
BAILEY
Liar. I look like hell. Feel worse.
SAM
These are from Chloe, who
specifically wanted me to tell you
yellow is the happiest color.
BAILEY
Tell her thank you.
SAM
Did they get you up and make you walk?
BAILEY
About an hour ago. I was just
telling John, it's the darndest
thing but I can't remember what
happened. It's gone.
SAM
The doctor says it's very common.
BAILEY
Then you tell me. I've been shot, I
want to know who did it. The staff
here are like a bunch of nuns who've
taken an oath of silence.
Sam and John exchange looks. She nods, he nods.
SAM
Nobody was there but you and Frances.
Your gun safe was found in her room.
Your gun is still missing.
JOHN
She called me and said it was my
fault for not helping her. I drove
over, you were down, she was gone.
BAILEY
(long beat)
I was pushing her into a corner.
Where is she?
JOHN
I traced her to Caroline Beach, and
she tried to cut a deal. I should
have lied and told her she had
one. But, she skipped out again.
BAILEY
You said you'd bring her back.
Thanks for trying.
JOHN
You remember that?
Bailey nods.
SAM
What he's not telling you, Bailey, is
he set a new land speed record down
Peachtree, and brought you in over
his shoulder. They think you had
about a minute to live.
Bailey absorbs this, coping with pain-killer induced tears.
BAILEY
I should have never let you walk out of
the VCTF. I want our team back, and
my friend back. The door's open.
Wondering exactly what Bailey heard before, John takes
Bailey's extended hand
*****************************************
*****************************************
There is some dialogue difference in which Sam get's Jack's psychological profile of her in the script here:
COOP
What is it?
SAM
It's a profile. It even looks like
the ones I write. But, the subject
of this one is me. He wants me to
know what it's like to be reduced to
a clinical summary.
XCU - INDIVIDUAL WORDS
"Sam's"...."guilty"..."of"..."creating"..."Jack."
SAM (O.S.)
He said I'd walk a mile in his shoes.
*****************************************
I think I like this better than the dialogue used because Sam seems more aware of what and why Jack's writing about her. It's not putting her under a microscope as she implies in the DVD, rather Jack has reversed their roles and is using it to teach her. I love the part about her creating Jack, I can see where they would flinch from using that implication but have to love it.
*****************************************
Minor difference between DVD and script in seen when Bailey returns to the VCTF. In the script George is talking to Sam rather than Coop when he talks about Bailey ordering everyone back to work.
*****************************************'
It made more sense for George to talk to Sam than Coop. Coop is really an outsider who doesn't have a place in the VCTF. Not just as an agent but his demeanor is lower classed than the others, he's a thorn in everyone's side.
*****************************************
Deleted scene between Sam and Bailey that's after she and Coop break up and before going back to Atlanta PD, from the script:
INT. VCTF - BAILEY'S OFFICE - DAY
Bailey's leaning on his cane, looking at an office.... dozens of
get well cards stacked on his desk, stacks of mail. Sam enters.
SAM
Hello
Bailey sits slowly on the couch. Sam sits next to him.
BAILEY
Sam, why does Legal want my
recommendation on suspending you
pending the resolution of Darla
Turner's murder. You want to tell me
what happened to you, Sam?
SAM
Jack. He put something in my eyes,
and took me to this place...
Bailey I was so scared, but for the
first time, I was just as angry as I
was scared.
(beat)
He came at me and I hit him... but it
wasn't... There was that woman, and I
hit her... or I think I did. I think
I killed her.
(beat)
He made me like him.
The emotion which Sam has bottled up boils out of her.
Bailey works a sore arm over her shoulders to comfort her.
BAILEY
No... You could never do that. He's
an animal, Sam... you're nothing like
him, and never will be. Even if you did
hit her, it was an accident, the
way he planned it. Feel regret, but
not guilt. Don't give him a victory.
Remember who you are, and he'll never
win... because we won't let him.
Sam nods, burrowing her face into the comforting shoulder of her
best friend.
*****************************************
This scene speaks to me, yeah weird since it's Sam & Bailey, but it has lots of Skewed potential. Bailey is as he and the other guys at the VCTF always do, making excuses for Sam - even possibly excusing murder in this case. Jack has given Sam her first brush with culpability for her actions and even just giving Sam the feeling she may have killed someone, pulling her slowly into his world.
No one on the show ever confronts Sam when she's evasive, all she has to do is sigh and give a sad look and they don't press her. It's like all the men are so blinded by her they don't really see her and that's the beauty of Jack - he does see her and he still likes her.
In Ambition In The Blood, I found a deleted Sam and Bailey scene, some dialogue variances from the DVD, and some nice John and Bailey dialogue that had been cut.
Script variances:
After George, Grace, Coop and Sam review Dupree's history and Sam has a flashback about Jack in Venom, there's a scene between Sam and Coop. There is some difference in dialogue in the DVD, so from the script:
BACK TO SCENE
Sam shakes off the unwelcome memory. Coop looks up from
his desk where he is working with a map of Manhattan.
COOP
When they passed out the stamina
pills, you were first in line.
SAM
I'll be okay, I've just had a hard
time sleeping.
COOP
You were abducted, terrorized,
arrested... your best friend went
down. You keep on keeping
on... I don't know how you do it.
SAM
I just try to do one thing at a
time... Let's just catch Dupree, and
then I can worry about everything
else.
COOP
Would you humor me and lean on me
a little bit?
Sam nods pointing to the map on Coop's desk.
SAM
How are you coming with the grid search?
COOP
It would have to be New York.
There're seven million people on that
island. I feel like one of them is
a short timer, unless I get smarter.
SAM
Our inability to stop evil is not the
reason it happens.
*****************************************
No real commentage except there seems to be distance between Sam & Coop.
*****************************************
After Sam and Coop talk and before the scene where John is at the hospital, is a nice Sam and George scene which unfortunately was deleted. From the script:
INT. SAM'S OFFICE - VCTF - DAY
Sam enters her office with the files. George knocks on the
door as she enters and steps in behind her.
GEORGE
They've scheduled Bailey's surgery
for seven tonight. You feel up to
going with us?
SAM
I was going anway, George. But
thanks, I'd like to go with you.
She looks over at Coop talking with a group of staffers.
SAM
Looks deceptively normal, doesn't it?
You get used to the way things are.
You expect them to always be that way.
Looks over at Bailey's empty office.
GEORGE
Bailey will be fine. Too much
unfinished business... and he's always
the last one to leave.
*****************************************
I think it's nice to see the Sam & George interaction, it's one of the rare moments Sam seems to let anyone on the team actually in throughout the series.
*****************************************
In the DVD, the scene with John at Bailey's bedside follows Sam and Coop talking. In the script after Sam and Coop talk and the deleted George and Sam scene they have Jack typing Sam's psychological profile. To me it flowed better in the DVD where they placed it later in the episode and they eliminated a Jack singing at a time that doesn't quite fit the gravity with which he would regard his task. Here is the script:
EXT. JACK'S LAIR - DAY
XCU Glass - a fat raindrop hits the dry pane. THUNDER
peals, but it's SFX off a scratchy 45 rpm single of
"Raindrops" from the early 60's. The record skips. RACK
FOCUS to Jack, inside sitting in a high back chair.
INT. JACK'S LAIR - DAY
Jack bangs his jukebox to stop the skip, kicks off to ZOOM
across the room. As he does, he hums, "Raindrops, so many
raindrops, must be raindrops, falling from my eye-eyes."
Jack rolls the top up on a scarred bankers desk, revealing
a mass of junk - baggies of "evidence" (syringe, a narcotic dart,
duct tape) , fingerprint cards, photos - he clears a
path to a Royal typewriter, circa 1950.
Humming, "Since my Baby left me, I'm so all alone," he
caresses a framed photo of Sam, then takes a sheet of bond
off a 3 foot stack by the desk, cranks it into the Royal.
XCU - THE PAPER
As clogged type slams through the cloth ribbon onto the
pure white paper... "S-a-m-'-s g-u-i-l-t."
*****************************************
Not that Jack singing doens't seem like fun, but Jack would probably regard his analysis of Sam very seriously and limit his distractions. So, this is one alteration that I think the director ultimately made the right decision on.
*****************************************
The scene where Jack alters the pictures of VCTF members was originally set after John talks to Francis in the script instead of between Bailey's emergency surgery and Coop bringing Sam juice. In the script he painst his face out in blue rather than burning it.
*****************************************
Okay, aside from the continuing the Skew Blue theme, I do rather like the idea of the blue rather than the burning because Jack with his god-complex might not have embrace burning his own image - just my personal two cents.
*****************************************
When Sam brings flowers to Bailey in the hospital, John is with him and this bit of dialogue preceding her arrival and some dialogue changes that unfortuanately were deleted. There's some great interaction between Bailey and John in the script:
INT. HOSPITAL ICU - DAY (ONE DAY LATER)
Lots of cards and flowers. Bailey's trying weakly to
sip through a bent straw. WIDEN as John bends the straw so
Bailey can manage.
BAILEY
Thanks, John. God I'm like a baby.
JOHN
You're like a guy who took a nine
millimeter round in the chest. You
held the straw for me when I was
winged remember?
BAILEY
Sure. But I don't remember being
shot. I was dressing...
Sam enters, all smiles, a vase of flowers. He accepts her
kiss and gentle hug, but can't hug back.
SAM
You look so good, buddy...
BAILEY
Liar. I look like hell. Feel worse.
SAM
These are from Chloe, who
specifically wanted me to tell you
yellow is the happiest color.
BAILEY
Tell her thank you.
SAM
Did they get you up and make you walk?
BAILEY
About an hour ago. I was just
telling John, it's the darndest
thing but I can't remember what
happened. It's gone.
SAM
The doctor says it's very common.
BAILEY
Then you tell me. I've been shot, I
want to know who did it. The staff
here are like a bunch of nuns who've
taken an oath of silence.
Sam and John exchange looks. She nods, he nods.
SAM
Nobody was there but you and Frances.
Your gun safe was found in her room.
Your gun is still missing.
JOHN
She called me and said it was my
fault for not helping her. I drove
over, you were down, she was gone.
BAILEY
(long beat)
I was pushing her into a corner.
Where is she?
JOHN
I traced her to Caroline Beach, and
she tried to cut a deal. I should
have lied and told her she had
one. But, she skipped out again.
BAILEY
You said you'd bring her back.
Thanks for trying.
JOHN
You remember that?
Bailey nods.
SAM
What he's not telling you, Bailey, is
he set a new land speed record down
Peachtree, and brought you in over
his shoulder. They think you had
about a minute to live.
Bailey absorbs this, coping with pain-killer induced tears.
BAILEY
I should have never let you walk out of
the VCTF. I want our team back, and
my friend back. The door's open.
Wondering exactly what Bailey heard before, John takes
Bailey's extended hand
*****************************************
*****************************************
There is some dialogue difference in which Sam get's Jack's psychological profile of her in the script here:
COOP
What is it?
SAM
It's a profile. It even looks like
the ones I write. But, the subject
of this one is me. He wants me to
know what it's like to be reduced to
a clinical summary.
XCU - INDIVIDUAL WORDS
"Sam's"...."guilty"..."of"..."creating"..."Jack."
SAM (O.S.)
He said I'd walk a mile in his shoes.
*****************************************
I think I like this better than the dialogue used because Sam seems more aware of what and why Jack's writing about her. It's not putting her under a microscope as she implies in the DVD, rather Jack has reversed their roles and is using it to teach her. I love the part about her creating Jack, I can see where they would flinch from using that implication but have to love it.
*****************************************
Minor difference between DVD and script in seen when Bailey returns to the VCTF. In the script George is talking to Sam rather than Coop when he talks about Bailey ordering everyone back to work.
*****************************************'
It made more sense for George to talk to Sam than Coop. Coop is really an outsider who doesn't have a place in the VCTF. Not just as an agent but his demeanor is lower classed than the others, he's a thorn in everyone's side.
*****************************************
Deleted scene between Sam and Bailey that's after she and Coop break up and before going back to Atlanta PD, from the script:
INT. VCTF - BAILEY'S OFFICE - DAY
Bailey's leaning on his cane, looking at an office.... dozens of
get well cards stacked on his desk, stacks of mail. Sam enters.
SAM
Hello
Bailey sits slowly on the couch. Sam sits next to him.
BAILEY
Sam, why does Legal want my
recommendation on suspending you
pending the resolution of Darla
Turner's murder. You want to tell me
what happened to you, Sam?
SAM
Jack. He put something in my eyes,
and took me to this place...
Bailey I was so scared, but for the
first time, I was just as angry as I
was scared.
(beat)
He came at me and I hit him... but it
wasn't... There was that woman, and I
hit her... or I think I did. I think
I killed her.
(beat)
He made me like him.
The emotion which Sam has bottled up boils out of her.
Bailey works a sore arm over her shoulders to comfort her.
BAILEY
No... You could never do that. He's
an animal, Sam... you're nothing like
him, and never will be. Even if you did
hit her, it was an accident, the
way he planned it. Feel regret, but
not guilt. Don't give him a victory.
Remember who you are, and he'll never
win... because we won't let him.
Sam nods, burrowing her face into the comforting shoulder of her
best friend.
*****************************************
This scene speaks to me, yeah weird since it's Sam & Bailey, but it has lots of Skewed potential. Bailey is as he and the other guys at the VCTF always do, making excuses for Sam - even possibly excusing murder in this case. Jack has given Sam her first brush with culpability for her actions and even just giving Sam the feeling she may have killed someone, pulling her slowly into his world.
No one on the show ever confronts Sam when she's evasive, all she has to do is sigh and give a sad look and they don't press her. It's like all the men are so blinded by her they don't really see her and that's the beauty of Jack - he does see her and he still likes her.