| Director | Steven Soderbergh |
|---|---|
| Budget | $2 million |
| Box office | $3.4 million |
An up and coming actor, Nicholas, is interviewed by Catherine, first in an airport and then during a flight from New York to LA. She comments on how much easier the careers of his white colleagues seem to have progressed compared to his own, while he guesses, correctly, that she has a straight, male intern working for her. He pushes her to give him details of her notoriously cruel father, but she only admits that he adored her.
Carl and Lee Bright, a married couple who are drifting apart, start their day amicably, but coldly before departing for work. Carl writes for a magazine and has a boss he dislikes, while Lee is the VP of HR in a large company in LA.
A masseuse, Linda, muses about her dating life while on her way to work. She's recently met someone online who claims to be from Tucson and whom she hopes to develop a relationship with, though she has already withheld information from him, such as her age and the specifics of her work. He has claimed he's a young painter. She passes Carl on his commute to work and the two acknowledge each other positively.
A middle-aged playwright, Arty, and an actor discuss and then rehearse a play they're working on about Hitler, imagining him as an affable, relatable everyman.
At work, Carl discusses with a female colleague the reasons why someone might star in porn. She recommends he stop overthinking it and tries to shut down further conversations on similar topics, explaining that they're now especially inappropriate as she's recently started dating someone. Carl switches to voicing his concerns about a meeting his boss has scheduled with him later that day.
Meanwhile, Lee interviews an employee, David, who, after three years working at her company, she has to admit hasn't made an impression on anyone higher up and as such is at risk of being fired. She grills him with a series of unusual questions, which make him uncomfortable, finally asking him to name as many African countries as possible in a minute, which he seems hesitant to do.
Carl discusses plans to get a hair transplant with a friend in the bathroom at work. The friend dissuades him from doing so and, when the conversation leads there, suggests replacing the word "but" with "and" when Carl discusses his wife, to build a more positive view of their relationship. Linda visits a friend who works as a waitress and discusses her plans to meet with her online acquaintance in a Holiday Inn, which he'll pay for.
The rehearsal of the play about Hitler breaks down when Arty is too distracted talking to someone he's met online to focus on the work his lead actor is doing, causing the lead to storm out of the theatre. Back on the plane, Nicholas returns to his seat to find a heartfelt note, which he believes Catherine placed there as a prank, but she denies writing or even knowing about it. Nicholas tears the letter up to show how unfazed he is by this.
Carl discusses "porn names" with Tracy, his office's receptionist. Despite her showing clear discomfort, he explains that they're a combination of your middle name and the name of the street you grew up on. When he asks her for her porn name, she says that she doesn't have a middle name. Another interviewee of Lee's successfully names several African countries while Lee makes her play catch with an inflatable globe. This interviewee questions whether Lee is allowed to treat employees this way, but Lee assures her she is.
After the interview, Lee has a phone call with Linda, who asks her if they're still having lunch to celebrate Lee's birthday. Lee pretends she has a bad connection in order to end the call early. Linda later talks to a client about how she and her sister, Lee, were seriously affected when they found their father dead in the basement of their family home as children.
Carl practices a speech explaining his friend Gus's views on how attractive gangster stories are to people who want to experience danger vicariously through them before being interrupted by his boss, with whom he starts discussing plans for a cover story. Carl's boss assures him that he trusts Carl's judgement on such matters, but wanted instead to talk to him about whether he drinks beer from a bottle or pours it into a glass. Carl says he drinks from a glass, to which his boss explains "I want this magazine to drink from the bottle". Carl struggles to understand what this implies.
Following their flight, Nicholas muses to Catherine on the things that have changed about how African American leading men are treated in Hollywood, but also the main way in which they haven't: that America still seems wary of seeing them express love.
Linda and Lee discuss Linda's romantic life over lunch. Lee shows disdain for Linda's plans, but also offers to help fund them. Having returned to the theatre, the actor disregards Arty's concerns about the fact that another actor, due to play Eva Braun, has just quit the play. The actor suggests that she only judged him for drinking blood because she hasn't done it herself.
Back at the lunch, Linda suggests Lee is too concerned about turning 41 and Lee retorts that, as a child, their mother claiming to people that Lee "ruined her body" was only one of many things which scarred her psychologically and lead to this mindset. Lee also notes that Linda's birthday gift is smaller than the one she gave the previous year, reminding her that it wasn't an appropriate gift to give to your married sister and that she only used it once. This year, playing it safer, Linda has gotten Lee what she claims is a coin purse.
On a film set, Catherine describes to Nicholas a dream she had about Carl, who she considers is unappreciated at work, before he's pulled away to film a scene alongside Brad Pitt.