New Amsterdam

[Omar hands John a CD]

Omar:
Cop dropped this off. Snow White and the Seven Dwarves the real story?

John Amsterdam:
Close.

Omar:
I always thought Dopey got the bum rap. Just because he doesn't talk doesn't mean he doesn't have something to say. And what's the deal with Happy? Why does he have to be fat? Are most fat people you know happy?

[1941, John is forging a birth certificate]

John Amsterdam:
At least Uncle Sam wants me. Name: Johann Vandersee [writes: John York] . Date of birth: June 1st, 1607 [writes: Jan 6, 1904] . Place of Birth: Amsterdam, Holland [writes: New York City] . So that's the end of the story. [to dog] huh, 29? You know Lily did me a favor. Got me to join the army. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get killed.

John Amsterdam:
Tell you a secret. Nothing can kill me either.

Corey:
Huh.

John Amsterdam:
Oh, you don't believe me?

Corey:
Uh, uh.

John Amsterdam:
I've been shot, stabbed, strangled, poisoned, beaten...

Corey:
What if your head was cut off?

John Amsterdam:
That hasn't happened yet.

Corey:
You'll die.

John Amsterdam:
I hope not.

[New York, 1941, Chrysler Building after Lily has departed]

Maggie:
These are your calls. You've got the Martin arraignment tomorrow at nine and lunch with Judge Farrow. [regarding Lily] So, is she the one?

John Amsterdam:
I don't know. Do I look any older?

Maggie:
You probably look the way you did when my mother married you fifty years ago.

John Amsterdam:
I feel older. I miss your mother, M.

Maggie:
Well, no wonder. You're about to celebrate the 300th anniversary of your death. Are you having a party?

John Amsterdam:
Small guest list. Just you and me. Could be it. Time will tell.

[visiting Lily's grave]

Omar:
Just seems like the only thing you care about these days is finding this girl.

John Amsterdam:
Hey. I've been looking for her for almost four...

Omar:
[interrupts] 400 years, I know. The woman who'll turn your hair grey. The one. So what does that make my mother? The fifth? The twenty-fifth? Does she get a number like your dogs?

John Amsterdam:
Watch your step Omar.

Omar:
Or what. You're gonna ground me? Take me to the woodshed? I'm a sixty-five year old man.

John Amsterdam:
You're also my son.

[John and his great-grandson were discussing Superman]

John Amsterdam:
I'll tell you a secret. Nothing can kill me, either.

Corey:
[giggles]

John Amsterdam:
What, you don't believe me?

Corey:
Uh uh.

John Amsterdam:
I've been shot, stabbed,strangled, poisoned, beaten...

Corey:
What if your head was cut off?

John Amsterdam:
That hasn't happened yet.

Corey:
You'll die.

Mank:
Just humor me. Al Sharpton and Billy Graham decide they've gotta see the Pope. They take the space shuttle...

John Amsterdam:
It just looks like a parachute.

Mank:
Ok. A doctor, a lawyer, and a veterinarian...

John Amsterdam:
Sue the duck.

Mank:
Hank Aaron dies...

John Amsterdam:
That's God. He just thinks he's Barry Bonds.

Mank:
I hate you.

[1813, Bronx]

Fanny:
I've lost the only thing I care about.

John Amsterdam:
Your honor.

Fanny:
You. I saved myself for you.

Dr. Sara Dillane:
Marriage. It's hard.

John Amsterdam:
Yeah. Well... I've got the scars to prove it.

Dr. Sara Dillane:
Speaking of which, you want to tell me about the ones you have? The one above your heart, for example?

John Amsterdam:
Ran into a sword.

Dr. Sara Dillane:
A sword. What about your shoulder?

John Amsterdam:
A bullet hole.

Dr. Sara Dillane:
Stomach?

John Amsterdam:
Shotgun blast.

Dr. Sara Dillane:
Arm?

John Amsterdam:
Gardening accident. Nah, I didn't want to bore you. It was another sword. Or, more like a dagger really.

John Amsterdam:
You should have seen her Omar. She took down this guy all by herself, single footedly.

Eva Marquez:
I had it all under control until you showed up.

Omar:
[reads what's on John's monitor] Uh oh. New York Times, 2003.

John Amsterdam:
Yeah. A temporary glitch.

Omar:
Doctor Sara Millay Dillane, daughter of Mary Dillane and Franklin Dillane was married Friday to Robert Camp. That don't sound temporary to me.

John Amsterdam:
How many times have you been married?

Omar:
Enough to know it's supposed to be forever. I'm just saying, maybe she aint the girl of your dreams.

John Amsterdam:
Hm. It's my dream. Okay?

John Amsterdam:
Take honor from me and my life is done. Honor. A word we almost never hear anymore Thirty-Six. Not in America. It used to mean virtue, nobility. Now, it's become just another reason to kill. Maybe it was always that way.

Eva Marquez:
What is it about women that scares men so much they have to rape and kill to destroy it?

John Amsterdam:
Amartya. That's a lovely name.

Amartya Vikram:
It means immortal.

John Amsterdam:
Really?

Amartya Vikram:
I wish I felt that way today.

[talking about an AA step where your share your story with someone]

John Amsterdam:
Something happens when you do this. I... I would have given the moon to the person who heard mine.

Eva Marquez:
Big deal. Old guy had an old guitar.

Omar:
Old ain't bad with guitars or men. A Gibson L-double-oh. Early 1930's. Mr. Robert Johnson's axe of choice. Great shape. You'd get six, eight grand for it.

Eva Marquez:
That's why a homeless guy had it. Who's Robert Johnson?

Omar:
Who's Mozart? Who's Charlie Parker?

Eva Marquez:
Who's Chano Pozo?

John Amsterdam:
Oo, hoo, hoo.

Omar:
Cuban percussionist. Used to play Big Band bebop with Diz.

John Amsterdam:
Co-wrote "Manteca".

Omar:
Ouch.

John Amsterdam:
Robert Johnson invented the Blues.

Omar:
Sold his soul to the Devil to do it.

Eva Marquez:
For what? Immortality?

John Amsterdam:
Who'd want that?

Omar:
To play this thing like no one ever has before, or since. You dig Chano? My man RJ will melt your brain.

Dr. Sara Dillane:
Why aren't you in public databases?

John Amsterdam:
[lets out a weary breath]

Dr. Sara Dillane:
It must be real bad.

John Amsterdam:
Something happened. I had to become someone else.

Dr. Sara Dillane:
What is it... undercover thing? What's your real name?

John Amsterdam:
John Amsterdam. I like it. I'd like to keep it. I'd like to keep you.

[1964, The Dutchman Nightclub. The band passes by John]

John Amsterdam:
Goodnight guys, goodnight Omar.

Frank:
Young white man with a colored child. No day at the beach. You struggle through God knows what growin' him up. Don't give up now. You want your son back? You start writing. Do the work.

John Amsterdam:
My whole life? That might take a while.

Frank:
You like it? Your son walking past you like you don't exist?

John Amsterdam:
What happens when I'm done?

Frank:
You read it. Out loud. To another human being. Like me, for example. [Slides a notebook over to John] The past is the past. Everybody's got one. You're not going to tell me anything I haven't heard before.

John Amsterdam:
[lifts up the notebook] Hey Frank, got more of these?

John Amsterdam:
[to Sara] Want the truth? The truth is, I'm 400 years old. The truth is, Omar is my son. One of sixty-three children I've fathered.

Dr. Sara Dillane:
John.

John Amsterdam:
I've tried to be careful because I can't stay with them. I'm immortal. They're not. The truth is...

Dr. Sara Dillane:
[interrupts] Stop. Just stop. [walks away]

Eva Marquez:
I'm not your little girl Dad. Not anymore. I'm a cop. I work my ass off trying to get a tiny bit of respect. And then you tell my partner to take care of me? Everything I've been trying to build goes down the drain.

John Amsterdam:
DNA work. Pronounced similarity in genetic markers. Alex Spoor was family.

Omar:
Not like you didn't suspect it. [raises a glass] To Alex.

John Amsterdam:
[raises his glass] to Alex.

Omar:
A descendant of my wayward father. Sorry we never knew you... Your wife and your son, why didn't you go after them, John? Try to see them.

John Amsterdam:
And say what? I knew I had to leave them sooner or later. Better they left me.

[1913, Greenwich Village]

Samantha:
Let's... let's move out of the village. Lead a normal life. It'll be better for Rosey.

John Amsterdam:
["Dutch"] You mean for you.

Samantha:
Yes. I don't belong here anymore. Look at me. My hair's gone gray. I... I want... different things. You... you look and act the same as the moment we met.

John Amsterdam:
["Dutch"] I don't want to lose you.

Samantha:
Then you're going to have to make a choice, aren't you?

Omar:
[to John] People are people. If I took responsibility for everything you did, I'd never get out of bed in the morning.

John Amsterdam:
Well, it's like 200 years ago you beat up somebody in a bar and today one of his descendants blows up a building. Now you can say it's not your fault, but you're connected to it.

Omar:
It's the butterfly effect. A butterfly flaps it's wings in India and you don't get your wine shipment.

John Amsterdam:
With me it happens over time. Most people don't live long enough to see it.

Omar:
Because we only live one life.

John Amsterdam:
One life, it's... it's just a blink of an eye.

[a 1913 painting of John's hangs on the wall of Spoor Brewery]

John Amsterdam:
Are you an art lover?

Nicolas Spoor:
My great, great grandfather was a painter. He walked out on his family, or so the story goes.

John Amsterdam:
You never know with stories.

Nicolas Spoor:
[points to the woman in the painting] Over her.

John Amsterdam:
[is offered a bottle of beer] Don't drink.

Nicolas Spoor:
You're bad for my business.

John Amsterdam:
Yeah.

Nicolas Spoor:
Tell me what made you decide to be come a cop anyway?

John Amsterdam:
I saw too many people get away with it.

Nicolas Spoor:
Now you're really bad for my business.

Callie Burnett:
Amsterdam. Where do you go when you do that? It's like you're here but you're not here.

John Amsterdam:
That's because I'm there.

Coroner:
Amsterdam. Where do you go when you do that? It's like you're here but you're not here.

John Amsterdam:
That's because I'm there.

John Amsterdam:
Why Narcotics? Most cops would kill to get into Homicide?

Eva Marquez:
It's after the fact. Digging through he past isn't going to bring anyone back. I'd rather be on the front lines. Why Homicide?

John Amsterdam:
I like to solve puzzles. And it intrigues me.

Eva Marquez:
What does?

John Amsterdam:
Death. Likes to play hard to get.

John Amsterdam:
We need your help Mrs. Carlton. We need it now because I'm not letting whoever did this walk away.

Mrs. Carlton:
Will that bring her back? She was my heart. You have no idea what I'm feeling. It's just words until it happens to you.

John Amsterdam:
He was six, my son. Uh, almost six. It's pain without end.

John Amsterdam:
I've watched the world change. Best invention: indoor plumbing. Worst invention: the alarm clock.

John Amsterdam:
Ever ask yourself why a vampire has no reflection in a mirror?

Omar:
Not this week.

John Amsterdam:
Be too painful. To see himself year after year, century after century, unchanged while everything around him grows old. To search for love but to know it's always just out of your reach. Because to be human is to die. To die is what makes life worth living. It's God's joke.

Eddie Riley:
You're the dude who chased me. I thought you were dead.

John Amsterdam:
I was. Now I'm not.

John Amsterdam:
[at an AA meeting] My name is John and I am an alcoholic. I haven't had a drink in 15,495 days.

AA Man:
You think that's funny? I can do the math. You had be sober since 1965.

John Amsterdam:
I look young for my age.

Indian Woman:
[after bringing Amsterdam back to life] You will not grow old. You will not die. Until you find the one and your souls are wed.

John Amsterdam:
How will I know when I find her?

Indian Woman:
[points to his chest] You will feel it... here. In your heart.

John Amsterdam:
[holds out his gun] Eddie?

Eddie Riley:
[pulls out his gun] Don't do this, man. I don't want to have to shoot you.

John Amsterdam:
Then don't. It hurts like hell.

Eddie Riley:
I didn't kill her, okay?!

John Amsterdam:
Yeah? Where the blood come from? What's her name, Eddie?

Eddie Riley:
Get on the ground, now! I know how to use this thing.

John Amsterdam:
[puts his gun away and makes his way to Eddie] Last time I was shot, it was Hopkins & Allen. XL number six pocket.

Eddie Riley:
Now! Get on the ground!

John Amsterdam:
Now in those days, bullets didn't have copper jackets so it was like pouring hot water through your veins.

Eddie Riley:
Are you crazy?

Callie Burnett:
What is going on with you? This Gleason thing is getting to you.

John Amsterdam:
Just working a case Sarge.

Callie Burnett:
You are wound so tight, you're going to pop a gasket.

[John knows how to "Shoot the Stars" at the arcade]

Eva Marquez:
[looks at the stuffed animal prizes] This is like Noah's Ark.

John Amsterdam:
Yeah, it's almost like there's a trick to it. [the targets are reset yet another time] I know how all the flats are gaffed. [hits first star]

Carney:
You are con man. Not cop.

John Amsterdam:
I've been both. Sometimes I can't tell the difference.

[New York, 2002]

Andrew Gleason:
Where do you think you're going?

John Amsterdam:
Thought I'd go look for the guy the witness said killed him.

Andrew Gleason:
By yourself? I don't think so Lone Ranger.

John Amsterdam:
Catching bad guys Andy, that's the job.

Andrew Gleason:
I know what the job is. It's not flying solo, being reckless, going off half-cocked trying to be a hero. There's a reason they give you a partner.

[at Brodsky's Night Club]

Eva Marquez:
We're looking for your boss.

Russian Henchman:
Not here.

John Amsterdam:
[looks over the place] They had dog racing around here. Right down the block. Back in 1879.

Russian Henchman:
No dog racing here. We are closed.

Eva Marquez:
[shows two photos] You know these guys? Sasha Zukov? Mikhial Kasparian?

John Amsterdam:
In 1911 they switched from dogs to cars. Now cars, they're a lot harder to root for.

John Amsterdam:
Something's definitely going on with Sara.

Omar:
Well, if she really is the one?

John Amsterdam:
Time feels more...

Omar:
Important.

John Amsterdam:
Lighter. Not so endless. Like, like there might be... less of it for me. Been thinking about death a lot. For the first time, it scares me.

Omar:
Welcome to the human condition. Like the man said, everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.

John Amsterdam:
Favorite part of the job. "Sorry for your loss. Got an alibi?"

John Amsterdam:
I've never had a coronary over a woman before.

Omar:
Sometimes a coronary is just a coronary. Face it, you've been eating omelets now for nigh on four hundred years.

John Amsterdam:
I have the arteries of a 35 year old.

Omar:
You keep telling yourself that.

Dr. Sara Dillane:
Your bloodwork was curious. It had anomalies.

John Amsterdam:
Anomalies.

Dr. Sara Dillane:
Toxic level of lead. Native American genetic markers.

John Amsterdam:
A great, great, great, great grandmother was part Lanpae.

Dr. Sara Dillane:
Lanapae.

John Amsterdam:
The original inhabitants of Manhattan.

Dr. Sara Dillane:
Yeah, the ones who sold it to the Dutch?

John Amsterdam:
Old wives tale. Trust me. Never happened.

Eva Marquez:
What was that about?

John Amsterdam:
What?

Eva Marquez:
She couldn't stop staring at you. You were flirting with her.

John Amsterdam:
I wasn't.

Eva Marquez:
Shamelessly. And when you walked up, her reaction...

John Amsterdam:
I get that a lot, it's, uh...

Eva Marquez:
I know. It's your face.

John Amsterdam:
[walks into Omar's very crowded bar] This is what they mean by "The City That Never Sleeps."

Omar:
Which is why it looks like hell in the morning. You saw her. I can tell.

John Amsterdam:
She's going to run more tests.

Omar:
Wait till she gets the results. How did you explain the dying, not dying thing?

John Amsterdam:
I didn't.

Omar:
I see.

John Amsterdam:
I want her to get to know me first.

Omar:
Oh what a tangled web we weave.

John Amsterdam:
Spare me. I hate getting parental advice from my children. [Looks at the band] Do they take requests?

Omar:
When they're written on a $20 bill.

John Amsterdam:
Well ask them to play "How Long Has this Been Going On?"