Previously on surrealestate.
Are you two...?
Megan is seeing a urologist.
- What's his name? - Hunter.
- What is happening to me? - He has a demon in him.
Jaylen! Wake up!
Executive director? That's wonderful, shell.
- I'm afraid I broke my promise. - You're fired.
712 river walk is hitting the market.
It's me! Can I get an amen and a hallelujah!
Elvis the elephant.
Morning.
Hi. Is, Dr. Donovan here?
She's with a patient.
Can I just leave her this? It's her sweater.
Who are you?
A friend. Luke Roman.
Wait over there.
Luke, hi.
They said you'd be out here.
Hey. I brought you this.
You left it at the heart the other night.
Thanks.
You didn't have to make a special trip.
Well, it's on my way.
So, how are ya?
Code blue to room 124.
- I'm sorry. - Luke, I gotta go.
Yeah, go!
You go.
We'll, catch up later!
That one of ours? Or one of theirs?
A security guard, a department head
and a gentleman in a suit wearing an earpiece
all watched me clean out my desk
and escorted me out.
Well, we brought back all your stuff.
- Yeah. - Set it up just like you asked.
I hope it feels like home.
Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
they have to take you in.
Robert frost.
And Rochelle, she is cool with all this?
Rochelle just wants me to be happy.
Even when she says it through clenched teeth.
She is a prize.
But to be clear, I,
I have no regrets about my brief asdra sabbatical.
I was reminded of,
and humbled by the awesome inspirational power
of unlimited funding
unburdened by supervision and accountability.
There is that.
If we just get the pope to fire father Phil
we would be back on top of the world.
Phil orley is a rare gem.
Very few of his parts are interchangeable.
Any ideas?
I play an online rpg...
A role-playing game... on Thursday nights.
It's, sort of a game of thrones-type world
only it features llamas instead of dragons.
It's called alpacalypse.
Anyway, there's a young man in the group who did some
freelance work for us at asdra. He's brilliant.
Call him! Bring him in for an interview.
That could be problematic.
Strictly speaking, tag doesn't actually
leave his apartment.
What? Like ever?
I'm late for a showing.
Could we do, like, a video conference later?
- Does he do that? - Constantly.
Okay. I'll have Lomax cover my open house.
Set it up?
And Gregory's new school is, like, five minutes away!
Perfect!
Gonna go take a look? Okay.
Is it possible things are finally going my way?
You got some good luck coming, Isabel.
I never thought I'd be able to afford something like this.
My real estate guy beat him up so bad on the price.
He just wore him down.
And then he got the bank to squeak me by on the loan.
That's great.
Isabel.
Hey!
You ready to do this?
Yeah!
All right, why don't you go take a look around.
Make sure they fixed that stucco in the back
and replaced the tile in the shower.
Will do.
Thanks for being so nice to my sister.
She is a wonderful lady and a great mom.
Yeah, she's had such a tough time.
Her ex is such a jerk.
But now she has a new job, a new house.
A fresh start.
Things are finally going her way.
And over here, you should have it.
If you don't have it, check your files.
Well, that's not my problem. Get it done!
Everything okay, Keith?
They're killing me.
We can't start tearing this place down
'til we get the last permit for the demolition.
But now, now they want to see the soil survey
we did 18 months ago
before they'll let us start grading the roads.
Well, the engineer must have that on file.
Any delay is going to cost us a fortune.
See, that's why you were smart to partner with roman/ireland.
We can help with this stuff. We'll get our people on it asap.
Thanks.
Did they clear out the house?
All the good stuff went to auction.
The junk's in the barn out back. We've had some vandalism there.
- You think it's kids? - Yeah.
Kids. It's all fun and games
'til they step on a rusty nail and daddy calls their lawyer.
I was just gonna check on the house to make sure
we're ready for the bulldozers.
Okay.
Hey, Keith! Don't worry. We got this.
T two years
doing tech support. It was a company that created
and sustained the illusion that they sold color printers,
but were actually in the ink business.
They promoted me three times and it could have been four,
but I would have had to move to salt lake city
and I detest choral music and sodium chloride,
so I began to do freelance land survey analysis
for energy companies, as well as online book reviews
and troubleshooting submarines.
- Submarines? - Yeah.
There's a million things that can go wrong:
Life support, weapons, power plant.
And then, of course, the new Virginia class attack subs
replaced traditional periscopes with two photonics masts
that host visible and infrared digital cameras
at the end of telescoping arms.
Picture the 18-armed hindu warrior goddess Durga
in a wet suit riding a snorkeling tiger
hurling tomahawk cruise missiles, ugm-48 missiles
and mk 48 torpedoes.
We'll try.
Now that's a movie.
We need someone to do our research.
Title searches, property histories,
- who lived in the house before. - Or died.
And more than a little digging into, mythology.
Mythology? You mean, like, digging up dirt
on hera and Zeus?
Not exactly.
'Cuz it is out there.
We deal more in the,
residual unpleasantness that could impact
a home's resale value or time on market.
We need someone who can provide a 360-degree view
of a property's past and present.
Generate a hypothesis around any,
metaphysical anomalies and possible amelioration of same.
And this is a job?
Look, the last person in the position,
they spent a lot of time visiting archives,
old dusty basements, digging up little-known facts
that never made it into the digital record.
They walked property lines. They interviewed family members.
Well, I have relationships with every archivist in the area
as well as clerks, curators and historians.
Recognized experts in virtually every field.
Everything is somewhere. You just need to find it.
Some of the things you'll be researching
are a bit... out there.
I have no problem with "out there."
I just need to do it in here.
It's Susan. I need to take this.
Can you tell me a little bit about
the homeowner's association fees?
I, I don't actually have that information offhand.
I'm covering for my associate, Luke.
This is really his property that he's the lead on.
He should be by anytime soon now, miss.
I'm sorry. I didn't get your name.
I'm Madison.
And, yes,
'll wait.
Sorry, but, we're gonna have to get going.
That was Susan. She's tracking down
some soil samples for a huge developer client.
She was going to cancel her date tonight,
but I said we'd handle it.
Priorities.
Thanks for your time, but,
I'm afraid we're looking for someone a little more mobile.
It was nice to meet you.
See you Thursday night?
Alpacalypse. Absolutely.
Interesting kid.
I think you may have judged him a bit harshly.
Lomax. Hey.
Madison.
Who?
Of course some are gonna die. They're old.
Who says too many? What's too many?
Wow, that is a lot.
Okay, I'm gonna have to call you back.
Seven. Been a while. What are you doing here?
Malech. You look fit.
I know.
The skin I lucked into this time is amazing.
And he's rich! He warehouses the predeceased
while killing them slowly with golf and water aerobics.
It's brilliant.
And no one remembers?
What, Elvis the elephant?
Nah. I fuzzed them all out.
To them, Elvis is just...
Some nightmare they had once and don't remember.
You were laughing at me, weren't you?
You're all laughing, saying, "poor charismalech.
Sunk in a pond by a mortal brat and his father!"
There was...
Some laughter.
Yeah.
I bet I can tell you who.
Nergal.
Sedit. Mormo, right?
- That smug, smarmy piece of shit. - Malech...
Look, I won't be laughed at, seven!
Malech, there is a space right now on the higher plane.
Seven, you gotta hold me that spot.
Look, I was just gonna kill the guy and move on.
Then I thought
Luke Roman is no ordinary doofus.
He has this link across the veil.
Talks to 'em, negotiates with them.
Just imagine if I could hop into his skin.
Open up a whole new territory.
Death would no longer be the end for us.
Why have you not done this already?
Something about him resists it.
I'm gonna find the way in.
A weakness.
An achilles heel.
Bingo bongo.
This intrigues me, malech.
I'm going to give you more time, but remember,
if you fail, if you inspire scornful laughter,
oblivion will not be punishment enough.
An eternity of agony awaits you.
Sounds fair.
So... I guess you two know each other?
We've met.
Okay.
Well, I will leave you to it then.
Okay?
Okay.
So, Madison... Madison?
Madison.
Luke. Love your work.
Who are you really?
Most people know me by my nom de guerre.
Death.
Well, that explains a lot.
Goddam kids.
I'm gonna call the cops!
And you can explain that shit to your parents!
Get outta there!
Banker!
Gotta admit, I always pictured you as a redhead.
So why am I only seeing you now?
I choose when I'm seen.
And by whom.
Why me?
The oldest reason in the world.
I need a favor.
I'm not unaware of your special talents, Luke.
You've helped many troubled souls across.
I'm grateful.
Well, I'm just happy to help the ball club.
Here. Pull over here.
Wait.
I know this house.
Sold it a couple of years ago.
It was a nice old guy moving into assisted living.
What was his name again?
Padgett.
Raymond. Padgett. That's it.
Raymond became a client of mine a few days ago
and he's having a bit of trouble moving on.
Would you mind?
Well, I could try.
Yeah, he's in there, all right.
God, I wish I could do that.
Susan Ireland.
Susan Ireland?
- Yes. Who's calling? - I'm a friend of August Ripley.
I have some information for you.
I'm sorry, you, you said August gave you this number?
Look, if you're looking for soil studies
done by empire engineering about the property
in the vicinity of 38.3332 degrees north
and 123.0481 degrees west, I have some information
I don't understand how you know
I hacked your car's GPS and saw where you were this morning.
Anyway, the test was 20 cores and came in highly porous,
less than six-millimeter aggregates,
and a whole lot of well-distributed roots. Yay.
- And that's good? - Gosh.
Yes, very positive for development and construction.
I can email you the complete report.
Let me send you my email address.
- Nope. Already got it. - Should be coming through
right about... now!
Who are you?
How did you even know I was
my name is tag. I'm a friend of August's.
But... thank you, but...
You might also be interested in hearing about the murder-suicide
that took place on the property 70 years ago, but that's a story
for another time. Business before pleasure, right?
- Wait a second. - You might tell Mr. Roman
that perhaps mobility is highly overrated.
Okay, have fun on your date tonight.
Keith?
Keith, hello?
Hi. You've reached the voicemail box...
Keith?
My god! Keith!
Goddamn bankers!
Wait! I'm not... we're not...!
Raymond?
Come on, Raymond.
I know you're here.
Raymond.
- Hello, Luke. - Nice to see you again.
You're with her?
Yeah.
She asked me for help.
So, what's the deal, Raymond?
You got a whole universe waiting for you.
What are you doing in this musty old house?
- I... - I can't find my pen.
Pardon me?
My pen.
My lucky pen. I, I, I can't find it.
Raymond, nobody can say for sure
what waits for us beyond the veil, but,
I don't think there's a lot of paperwork.
My granddad gave me that pen when I graduated college.
I was the first in the family to do it.
I signed my marriage license with that pen.
A-And my first mortgage on this very house.
Where was the last place that you saw it?
Big roll top desk up in the office.
Top drawer. That's where I kept it.
And it's not there.
Okay. You wait here.
So I gotta ask.
You're facing eternity
and you ask for your real estate agent?
Well, you get to be a certain age,
you lose a lot of your friends.
You of all people know that.
When we sold this house, there was a lot of money
on the table.
And Luke, well, he could've screwed this old codger
six ways to Sunday, but he didn't.
I trusted him then and I trust him now.
And he...
Where was it?
In the office, just like you thought,
on the floor wedged between a baseboard and a rug.
Thank you.
So, here's what I can do.
I can go to the cemetery in the morning
and I can dig just a big-enough hole
to put that in there.
That way you'll have it there forever,
in a manner of speaking.
Or
I could drive over to that assisted-living place,
find that nurse you like so much...
What was her name again?
The one that always let you beat her at cribbage.
Jenny. She's a sweetheart.
Jenny. Well, I could find Jenny
I can give her the pen.
Say it was from you,
to use to sign her marriage license
and her first mortgage.
Special things like that.
Yeah. I... I'd like that.
Hello?
I'm sorry. I-I seem to have forgotten your name.
It, it's tag. Hi, Susan.
- Hi, tag, sorry. - Y-You mentioned
there was a murder-suicide in this farmhouse?
Yeah, let me pull it up.
Here. Okay.
The place belonged to an ike and Margaret gatlin.
They got behind in payments. '51 was a bad year for Milo.
But there's only corn here now.
Back then it was Milo.
Anyway, the bank sent them a guy to serve them
with an eviction notice and he was never seen again.
That same night,
ike shotgunned Margaret in the face
before impaling himself on a pitchfork.
That's why he called me the banker.
- Wha-what? - Who... who called you a banker?
- Never mind. - Anything else?
Hello?
- Let's see. Nope. - Except the neighbors said
that Margaret was terribly vain about her looks
and ike had a terrible temper.
Great. Okay, look, look, tag,
I need you to call 9-1-1 and get, and get
- the cops and ambul... okay? - Susan, I can't... I
- tag? Tag! - Hear me?
Susan?
Shit.
Vain about her looks.
- Hi, Susan. - Tag, two quick questions:
The banker whose body they never found,
ahe was serving an eviction notice, right?
Right.
Second question. Do crows eat Milo?
In fact, they do not.
Most birds don't like Milo.
I was not personally aware of that.
I think I know what happened to the banker!
Tag, I need you...
Isabel?
Hello?
The scarecrow.
A client of mine, I found her passed out in the house.
The ambulance just brought her in.
- Luke, I... - God, I hope she's okay.
She's just the nicest lady.
Luke, I'm sorry.
Ike. Margaret. I'm with the bank.
There has been a mix-up with your paperwork.
A bookkeeping error. These things happen.
Thank goodness I got to you before this eviction notice
was served.
'Cause that would have been... Unfortunate.
Anyhow, the notice is canceled. The farm is still yours.
As long as it stands.
But I think you two have somewhere else to be.
Don't you?
You got this one wrong.
She's young.
She has a kid.
She just got her world turned around.
Things were looking up. She just bought a house
and she was nice. She was really nice!
Why couldn't you take somebody mean?
That's not the way it works
- and you know... - then how the hell does it work?
Now, what's it gonna take
to get you to leave her alone?
There's a ton of bad people in the world.
Just take one of them.
Or somebody old.
Somebody that already lived a good life.
Come on.
After all the souls I've brought across...
You owe me one.
No can do.
It was her time.
And when it's your time, you have to go.
And she didn't have it coming.
You all have it coming.
So, are you finished
cycling through the stages of grief?
'Cuz I need another favor.
Todd?
You'd be Susan.
Hi.
So sorry I'm late. What a day.
Yeah, tell me about it.
Well, I'm working with this developer,
I'm in real estate, so
- no, sorry. - I, I didn't mean, like,
"tell me about it!" Just like, you know,
it's the expression.
Hello. I need all the bourbon, please.
Neat.
My cat's dying.
No.
Well, he, he's 18 so, it's not like
a "struck down in his prime" kind of thing. Still...
They become part of our lives.
- Have you had cats? - Not yet.
But I'm thinking I might end up with a lot of them.
He was coughing this morning.
But not like the hairball cough.
Like the whe-whe. It was deeper,
more phlegmy, so it was like a whuh-whuh-whuh.
God, anyway, that's how my day started.
What was wrong, like, with yours?
Well, for, for starters, I, I got locked in a barn.
I'm sorry. God. I'm sorry.
That, that just reminded me of my dad. He...
He got locked in a garage one time.
Really?
- And he had died in there. - No.
That was the summer he was gonna teach me how to fly fish
and so...
Never again. No more.
How bad can dying alone be?
Luke?
You can see me?
Well, how exactly does that work?
Forgive me for asking. I'm new here.
Madison says you won't go.
How can I?
Gregory is alone.
I owe a gazillion dollars to the bank.
I'm starting my new job Monday.
The timing really doesn't work for me.
- Isabel... - I'm not saying I wanna cheat death.
We all gotta go sometime, I get that.
But why now?
Why the hell now?
The time is never right.
But it's always...
The time.
Gregory is with your sister.
She and her family have taken him in
and they are going to love him like their very own.
Gregory will probably forget me in a month or two.
No. He will never forget
the strong woman who made him strong.
Sure,
someday he'll stop hurting.
Hopefully before too long.
But forget you?
Nope.
Never.
I can't leave him.
I'll stay here somehow.
People stay sometimes, right?
Sometimes they do.
But it never ends well.
They're never happy.
And neither are the people they think that they're helping.
No, sometimes...
Sometimes moms go away
and it only makes us stronger.
So the best thing that you can do,
for Gregory and you,
is to go with Madison now.
Goodbye, Isabel.
Thank you.
Just...
Go away.
It's been a hell of a week.
Tell me about it.
Let's see. Firstly,
Susan and I have created a scholarship fund
for Gregory James, in honor of his mother,
a nice woman that was taken from us too soon.
We'll add a little something each month and encourage
our more affluent clients to do likewise.
- Hear, hear. - Moving on.
Congrats to Susan for keeping the erewhon heights
development plan on schedule.
Keith hoogeboom remembers nothing
and is recovering nicely.
Maybe this is the development client
who won't fire us.
Finally. Susan?
I am pleased to announce that...
- Thornton? - Please, just tag.
Sorry. Tag guinness is our new research associate.
- Thank you. - I look forward
to getting to know all about each and every one of you
in a not-at-all inappropriate, creepy way.
I don't really have anything else to say.
Yes!
We're gonna blow out this wall, right?
We are now.
Great.
So, how was the date?
Yesterday, I got chased through a field
by a, a vengeful farmer ghost couple
and nearly decapitated by a big, sharp,
rusty, cutting thingy
and that still wasn't the worst part of my day.
Seriously, I'm done with dating.
I'm done with guys, done with trying.
God, I always promised my mom I'd be about more than work.
That I would actually have a life.
A, you know, maybe a companion, a relationship.
Now I know that just means having a dog.
Or a cat.
A dog.
Yes, Tyler. Got it.
Yep. You bet.
Yeah, but to find you a place
that's an improvement over where you are now,
it's, it's not going to be easy.
Yes, they're out there.
No. No, not a lot of them.
But we will find 'em. I will find them.
I'll dig 'em up.
Yes.
Like a swine rooting out truffles.
Yep. Okay. You bet. Thank you. Okay. Bye.
Yeah, he's high-maintenance,
but that client, selling his place,
finding him a new one, it's a new level.
I just feel like we're playing in the majors.
It's a statement property.
Right? I mean, I feel like this could be
a real turning point for me.
And by me, I mean us, of course.
Of course.
- What's with the drywall? - Pardon?
I worked construction all through college.
I know drywall dust when I see it.
It's just...
A project. You know.
Luke...
When did it get so hard?
What?
I miss my mom so much.
No matter how bad my day got, I could just laugh with her...
Now, I just cry.
Yeah.
You know, I don't think I'm a...
A weenie.
Nobody who knows you would ever use that word.
Ever.
But sometimes.
I'm right there.
I'm right there with you, Susan.
Wow, officially the most depressing
partners' meeting ever.
I didn't mean to be such a downer.
Do you need some help with Tyler?
Nah. I got Tyler.
I guess we'll both just do the best we can.
Susan.
I got your back.
Always.
Yours too.