Original subtitles

I'm just gonna attach this lapel mic, sir.

[grunts]

So, you want me to talk about persephone odair? That's easy.

She was a brilliant entrepreneur who wanted to save the world.

How I wish that was her only shortcoming.

My company, lifeboat, can take an ocean of salt water

And transform it into clean drinking water,

Cheaply and efficiently with a machine

Only the size of a can of oats.

[audience] [gasps] oats!

Now, the doubters call this goal "impossible,"

But I prefer to say: "I'm possible."

[applause]

♪ ♪

[narrator] this story is about a little girl who had a dream.

But it begins with another little girl

Who allowed us to use the footage

From when she interviewed the first little girl

Who is no longer a little girl.

I'm so excited to be interviewing

Persephone odair, ceo of lifeboat.

So, persephone,

You were the most be-badged girl scout of all time

And then followed in the footsteps of bill gates

By dropping out of harvard early.

The earliest ever.

Our car didn't even slow down on freshmen move-in day.

So inspirational.

What was the "aha moment" that gave you the idea

To start lifeboat?

Great question.

And, lisa, great questions are the jackhammers,

Which demo the walls built by distrupto-phobes

To create the open floorplan of innovation.

I've always thought that about questions.

[persephone] lisa, my grandfather was a world war ii sailor

Whose ship was torpedoed.

He was stranded on a lifeboat, lisa,

Surrounded by water but not a drop to drink.

Don't tell me he died.

Worse.

He gave up.

And then he died, of quitting

And super-duper dehydration.

But I will never give up

Until I've raised enough capital to make lifeboat a reality.

[chuckling] so if you know any billionaires...

Well, the only one in our town is mr. Burns,

And he's awful.

Once, he clear-cut a forest

Because he thought a squirrel was looking at him funny.

♪ ♪

Montgomery burns. Mm.

Interesting idea, lisa.

No, I didn't say it to be an idea!

He's terrible.

Whatever you do, don't go to him.

[narrator] but the woman who once tried

To clone sheryl sandberg for a school project

Would not be deterred.

Welcome to orlando. Quick heads-up.

We may have to cut this panel short

Due to our third once-in-a-million-year

Hurricane this season.

-[wind whistling] -put this on my reel!

-Terrible luck. -No fault of anyone's.

Mr. Burns, climate change has left the earth in peril.

Who sent you? John muir? Friedrich engels?

Mike doonesbury?

I'm getting word that this hurricane is meeting up

With the everglades super fire.

Montgomery, I'm the founder of a desalination company.

Our world is running out of water,

And we need a hero to rescue us.

And I believe that that hero is your money.

[wind howling]

We sell chemicals that can put out that fire.

Granted, those chemicals turn alligators into godzillas,

But we're working on a bomb that can fix that.

Sorry, miss. Desalination is a snooze.

But I do want in on the godzilla bomb.

[narrator] persephone was not shy about hounding mr. Burns,

And he wasn't shy about hounding her.

[barking, snarling]

Some fish just swim with the tide.

I'm the kind of relentless fish

That falls down ten times before it runs up the mountain.

On ocean shoes.

[whirring]

Eh. Fine, you've got five minutes.

Who are these goateed wastrels?

A documentary crew.

Only the most paradigm-shifting start-up ceos have them.

Mr. Burns, I see your life as a beautiful business opera

And investing in lifeboat as the climactic aria

That will put you in the same pantheon as getty,

Vanderbilt, the spanx lady.

Desalination is an expensive and inefficient industry

Begging to be disrupted.

Success is a decision.

Dare to choose it, sir.

-Dare to. -Of course.

Like how I chose to be born rich.

Together we can disrupt big salt water.

You mean... The ocean?

Exactly, or should I say...

[both] excellent.

Not only am I pledging much of my personal wealth

To lifeboat, but I'm giving the company cooling tower a

To use as its headquarters.

Cooling tower a was mr. Burns' favorite tower.

He always said it held so many precious memories.

In addition, all workers in sector 7-g

Are immediately fired...

Hey, that's me! Screw you, pig!

...And are rehired at higher tech industry salaries.

Bless you, pig!

[narrator] burns brought his wealthiest friends

Into persephone's fold.

When I invest, I look at the business's key fundamental:

Am I under the delusion that I have a shot with the ceo?

[giggling]

[narrator] burns and persephone were soon

Running the new company side by side,

Overseeing a start-up culture

Where everyone had a creative title.

Persephone odair, founder and status quo demolitionist.

Montgomery burns, chief change alchemist.

Waylon smithers, purposefulness warlock.

Carl carlson, braindump magician.

Lenny leonard, storytelling ninja.

Homer simpson, "compet-ticy" rockstar.

[director] competency?

Say it again.

If anyone can transform burns,

It's a visionary like persephone.

Like, if you work at lifeboat, you have to use

These metal drinking straws.

It's so easy to clean after every use.

[grunting]

I'm just... [groans]

Why does it have to bend?

[straining]

♪ this is my fight song ♪

♪ take back my life song ♪

♪ prove I'm all right song. ♪

[grunting]

-[cheering] -my fellow lifeboaters!

I'm so excited to have you on this journey with me.

Imagine a world with an endless supply of drinkable water.

A world where every hotel towel can be used once

And then dropped on the floor.

Oh, there are a lot of changes.

Unlike when this was a nuclear plant,

Security's super tight now,

And we have to sign stringent ndas.

And I am bad at keeping secrets.

Like how I'm not supposed to talk about lenny's crush

-On his italian tutor. -Homer.

[speaking italian]

[narrator] lifeboat was soaring,

But no one could've predicted what shocking turn

Was in store for the company.

Um, is this one of those documentaries

Where I'm not supposed to look at the camera?

Or is it like the office, where I always look at it

And do a big take so the audience knows

When to laugh?

In richness and wealth, for richer and richer,

I now pronounce you husband and wife.

I'm still pinching myself.

I'm married to montgomery burns.

Nuclear industry legend.

Chief s'more toaster at the bohemian grove.

The first man with no blood type.

What a joy to wake up in the morning,

Turn my head on the pillow

And see her bedroom door through the glass

Of my hyperbaric chamber.

[narrator] soon, persephone and burns were the new it power couple.

And the press couldn't get enough of this may...

Last-minute-of-December romance.

It's so refreshing to see a young person

With the world at her feet

Who also sees the glory that is montgomery burns.

[slurping]

[slurping continues]

[narrator] now it was up to persephone

To create a working prototype of

Her amazing desalination technology.

The water in front of you comes from

The functional prototype of

The lifeboat desalination machine.

So everyone please raise a glass

To milestone this history-defining moment.

[overlapping chatter]

Oh, no, you can't drink it now. No.

Our competitors could steal the proprietary aquatech

In your urine.

[overlapping chatter]

And just in case any of our patented evaporated mist

Made it into your bladders,

We've arranged to have you all catheterized.

[overlapping excited chatter]

[whirring]

So lifeboat was just following the tech industry playbook:

Fake it till you make it.

Or as I call it, "lie-po until you ipo."

But the employees were already dreaming of cashing out.

Tech salaries are the greatest.

This week, I gave marge 200 stock options

To go grocery shopping.

It didn't work at all.

I had to put all the food back on the shelves.

[narrator] meanwhile, the newly minted tech workers

Were adapting to a much different corporate culture.

At the new company, people were so secretive

They actually moved the post-it notes with their passwords

Off their monitor.

Workers were getting fired every day.

That tattoo is the intellectual property of the company.

[buzzing]

The whole company got so paranoid.

Because of those ndas he signed,

Homer couldn't even tell me how his day was.

I can neither confirm nor deny I had a day.

Well, it was strange they wouldn't let me

Look inside the machines, since my title was

Chief engineer of inside the machine.

And whenever a reporter came by,

It seemed like they were trying to cover something up.

Well, still better than working for zuckerberg!

They were hiding something, and it was really freaking me out.

So I emailed persephone.

And the next day, carl was gone.

[narrator] despite the red flags flying from this lifeboat,

There continued to be believers.

Persephone dominates my vision board.

Sure, she married mr. Burns,

But as ceo, a woman had all the power.

That's what made the internet trolls so mad.

[narrator] all the online negativity stirred up

The finger-tempted anger of a different kind of troll.

Hmm.

♪ this is my fight song ♪

♪ take back my life song... ♪

I wanted to give my wife-- wow, wife,

Still getting used to saying that--

A little something special for her birthday.

A twitter gift card?

No. I bought you twitter.

The whole company. It was a bargain.

The previous owner had to sell it

After his self-driving mars rocket

Crashed into the international space station.

Oh! Mm.

Mr. Burns, you deleted

All negative tweets about persephone.

Is that evidence that you're in a kind of cult

And won't hear any criticism of your leader?

Yes, I am in a cult.

It's called a marriage. [laughs]

My wife is the head of it, and my job is to support her.

Now, maybe you're the cult leader in your marriage, andrew,

But I know pilar, and I suspect she'd disagree.

[laughter]

[narrator] but lifeboat was rocked by a fresh scandal,

When an anonymous whistleblower bravely came forward

With damning new information.

[distorted voice] my best friend carl was abducted

Because he was about to go public

With a story that would destroy this company.

People need to know the truth.

The lifeboat machine doesn't work.

[narrator] the whistle was blown and the damage was done.

Ma'am, ma'am, the whistleblower claims

The only person who has seen

The inside of your desalination machine

Has disappeared.

Isn't that suspicious?

Why do you doubt a female ceo

But believe the silhouette of a man

Sitting in the dark?

News flash! Women have faces now.

[narrator] at this moment,

Allegations that its core technology

Does not work are threatening lifeboat's very survival.

-[thunder rumbles] -is this the beginning of the end

For this once-promising start-up?

[female narrator] and the answer is...

Absolutely not.

Lifeboat will save humanity

And become the world's most profitable company.

Join us next time for lifeboat afloat,

Persephone's total vindication.

[burns] this documentary series is now a burnsco production.

Montgomery burns wasn't happy

With the documentary

About his wife's start-up, so he bought the company

That made it, but that didn't stop others

From telling the story, because the business of

Business documentaries is big business.

We've unearthed even more never-before-seen footage

Of the beatles, including six hours

Of them discussing drinking water.

The thing about water, you can't make tea without it.

What if you made tea out of coffee?

What if you made coffee out of tea?

Uh, fellas, maybe we should play some music.

[sips] why do they call it h2o?

I bet no reason at all.

[narrator] just weeks ago, lifeboat stopped payment

On their stadium naming rights.

Despite the glut of lifeboat documentaries,

The definitive version was made by a storyteller so compelling,

He made 12 hours on the national parks feel like 11.

♪ ♪

[peter coyote] the mysterious whistleblower alleged that

Persephone's desalination machine was fraudulent.

[distorted voice] the lifeboat machine doesn't work.

[peter coyote] unfortunately for him,

Mr. Burns' legal team had acquired the raw footage

Of the whistleblower's damning interview.

[distorted voice] the machine doesn't work.

Hey, I ordered this sub toasted.

This is only lightly toasted.

[normal voice] is this how you treat a whistleblower?

Uh-oh.

[peter coyote] mr. Burns and persephone now knew

The identity of the man who betrayed them.

And the hiring of lawyers to destroy homer simpson

Proved to be quite the aphrodisiac.

[both moaning]

[peter coyote] lifeboat lawyers were relentless

-In trying to subpoena homer... -[screams]

...And sue him for breaking his nda.

[lisa] my dad got an anonymous message

Saying there was something he had to see,

So I went with him.

What I saw changed

The one thing I thought could never be changed--

My mind.

[gasps] carl. You sent the message.

You've been working in the lab all along?

If I didn't do their dirty work,

They'd tell the world my dark secret.

I've been to 700 jimmy buffet concerts!

I'm a parrot-head.

"cheeseburger in paradise"!

[lisa] so, what are they making you do?

I'm putting something in the lifeboat machines

Called "jab-a-tose."

Well, if I may frink-splain.

In 1970,

A very popular diet soda called jab

Was discontinued because of the overpowering sweetness

Of its artificial flavor.

Lifeboat bought up thousands of cases of unsold jab sodas

Because jab-a-tose was so strong

It could completely mask the taste of salt.

Oh, my god. This machine doesn't take out the salt.

It masks it with sweetness!

That's the jab-a-tose.

Ocean water enters the machine,

And when it comes out, it tastes normal

But still has more salt than all the glasses

In margaritaville.

Oh, my god. Lifeboat is built on a lie,

And persephone is a fraud.

But her merch is...

[sniffles] solid.

[peter coyote] action was needed,

And island time was running out.

The fateful demo day had arrived

For lifeboat to finally prove its concept

At springfield elementary.

The school's drinking water had been replaced

With lifeboat liquid--

Jab-a-tose-infused salt water.

Lifeboat employees had drunk the kool-aid,

And now it was being served up to the children.

Mr. Burns!

The lifeboat water isn't safe.

It's just super sweetened ocean brine.

Nonsense. My wife is a beautiful genius,

Who succeeds at everything she touches.

And everything she says makes perfect sense.

The wheel of tomorrow is an aqua-circle.

Let's make it rain.

-[cheering] -buddy, buddy, buddy.

What you're feeling towards that lady is fresh love,

Not married love.

But we are married.

Yes, but the married love hasn't kicked in yet.

When it does, you'll see your spouse's flaws

In 4k hdtv you can never turn off.

What are you driving at?

I think you need to look at your wife with marriage eyes.

Water is the original crypto.

Every drop is encoded on the biological blockchain,

And we are the aquanauts of the potable future.

This is wet 3.0!

I don't understand a thing she's ever said.

Now you're married.

And since you're seeing things clearly...

Oh, dear. Those children are going to drink poison.

And the bad news is...

I'm going to be liable.

[echoing] liable!

[gasping]

[peter coyote] that is what would have happened

Had homer not turned the valve off.

Sorry, we only put that in there for the trailer.

Do you know how hard it is to get people to watch

A documentary that's not about a small-town murder?

Please, honey, come clean.

Your miracle invention is nothing but claptrap.

If you can just admit that, maybe we have a chance.

Babe, the underlying imaginary technology still works.

[peter coyote] and in that moment,

This unlikely and super gross love affair died.

Yes, I was besotted, blind to her machinations.

She cost me billions.

It wasn't that she was evil, I love evil.

It's that she still insists she's good.

[peter coyote] lifeboat had finally hit the reef,

Drowning its investors and employees

In poisoned water and counterparty risk lawsuits.

But to this day, persephone has refused

To admit any failure.

Testing showed your de-salinator did absolutely nothing,

Your company is bankrupt, and in the divorce,

Mr. Burns somehow got your high school friends.

What happens from here?

Well, christiane amanpour, as you say,

Things have never looked better for the company.

I didn't say that.

The reality is,

-You're in jail. -[heavy door closes]

Christiane, have I ever told you about

My grandfather's experience on a lifeboat?

Even that was a lie.

Her grandfather wasn't in the war,

And he didn't die on a lifeboat.

He's a cpa whose hobby is fixing british spellings

On wikipedia.

[sighs] not only did I miss out

On once-in-a-lifetime start-up riches,

But I lost the most amazing woman I ever met.

I think, in a few more months she might've even slept with me.

It's great to meet you in person

After seeing so much footage of you in our documentary

The man who sold horse meat sandwiches.

Anything else to add?

Just this.

Don't feel sorry for me.

Time to rebuild and reconquer.

If I know one thing about myself,

Montgomery burns always bounces back.

♪ this is my fight song ♪

♪ take back my life song ♪

-[crying] -♪ prove I'm all right song ♪

♪ my power's turned on ♪

♪ starting right now I'll be strong ♪

♪ I'll play my fight song. ♪

We also have over 90 hours of them talking about umbrellas.

Maybe that could be a documentary, too.

I once brought an umbrella into the shower.

-How did you get clean? -I didn't,

But at least I didn't have to take off my clothes.

As soon as I open my umbrella, it stops raining.

You need a sunroof on it.

What about a giant umbrella you keep in the trunk?

Sounds like you're talking about an "umbrellaphant."

Can we get back to work?

Wait. I like the sound of that.

Get back.

I saw an umbrellaphant at the circus.

He was working for peanuts.

Captioning sponsored by 20th century fox television

And fox broadcasting company

And toyota.

Captioned by media access group at wgbh access.Wgbh.Org

Shh!