Original subtitles

- Where are your gaiters? - I fucking forgot.

Come here.

Thank you, husband.

Marriage.

I don't think you're going to be able to walk anywhere like that.

I'm fine.

Tanya and I can finish it off. We should be able to handle it.

- Us two old pros. - I know you are. It's just...

It's meant to be really beautiful over at Monument.

The whole fuckin' island looks the same, to be honest.

You want anything?

Latte? Croissant?

No?

Is she OK?

Yeah, she's fine. It happens to everyone before they leave.

Foaming Plateau, 22kg. Monument Harbour, 24kg.

Cossack Ridge, 22. And Smoothwater Bay, 24kg,

with an additional 8kg of brodifacoum poison

in an intertidal zone.

Hello?

You there, New Zealand?

Coming through now, Sarah.

Oh, there must be a storm coming.

OK, I'm moving my queen to F6.

You've been thinking about that move for a while.

Well, I've got all the time in the world.

So that's the whole island covered now.

Are you guys celebrating?

Depends what you send down on the supply boat.

OK. Last lot.

I hope they haven't drunk it.

They're going to be at least four days in this weather.

Speech, Tanya. Come on.

Um, to my lovely crewmates,

to those weeks of subantarctic freezing rain,

I say...

'Fuck you! I'm going home!' Whoo!

Pete.

So, whatever brought you down to this godforsaken dot of earth

for the next six months, we say nau mai, haere mai.

Welcome, bro. A few ground rules.

Don't fuck off the sea lions. That's for sure.

No shoes inside.

No shoes inside. And clean up after yourself.

Anything else, Sar?

Don't be a wanker?

- Are you going to miss us? - Nup.

I'm bloody homesick.

I reckon you need a soul patch.

Yeah.

Why don't you come back on the boat with me?

I'm going to worry about you.

It's just a winter.

Are you happy just being his accolade?

Stop. Stop it. I know you think you know him, but you don't.

Dammit.

Another one. Fuck me.

Hey.

What's happening back in New Zealand?

I don't really read the papers.

Is that Antarctica that way?

Yeah, it is.

- That way. - I meant roughly.

It's good to have you here, man.

- Hey. - Hey.

Am I just your accolade?

You're a methodical,

beautiful scientist.

Watch yourself.

Stay still.

10 years ago, this island had everything -

cats, rats, rabbits, pigs, feral sheep eating the grass.

Well, we killed the cats.

The poison will deal with the rabbits.

Now, our job is to monitor the island, take its temperature.

We're going to see this whole ecosystem

shift back to the way it was before humans ever touched it.

Down at Disappointment Inlet

there's been a 25% drop in chlorophyll levels.

The hillside's getting eaten away, Glenn.

Think we should call this stuff in now?

I'm taking care of it.

The island was too big for hand baiting.

We need to get choppers down there before winter.

You're going to have to trust me.

You know, in a hundred years, when the polar caps are gone,

the population of the world will be a tenth of what it is today.

Worst case scenario.

- Best case? - Best case?

Best case is that we wipe each other out entirely

and there's no one left at all.

Sorry, Pete. Glenn loves to indoctrinate everyone he meets.

I'm sorry, darling. I didn't realise it bored you.

Not planning on having kids any time soon, then?

God, no.

It's arguably one of the most egotistical things you can do,

having these little visions of yourself running everywhere.

Hey there, Perseverance.

Didn't expect to hear from you for a while.

Some troubling results have come in.

Ah, OK. I'll just find a pen.

Night.

Sarah! There's a front coming.

We need to secure the nets. I need you and Pete to go.

OK.

Come on!

Hey. What happened to you?

Do you have something to change into?

I didn't bring any extra clothes.

A raincoat?

OK. Well, there's a lookout about an hour away.

Do you think you can make it that far?

I don't feel the cold.

Of course you don't.

Keep moving. This way.

We'll wait here for the storm to pass.

Shit, Pete. You're like ice.

You've got to take that off.

Come on. Arms up.

Sit down.

Try and stay awake.

Tell me how old you are.

23. I told you.

You ask me something, then.

Why did you marry Glenn?

Um...

I took his class at uni.

He opened my eyes to a new way of thinking.

He's the most interesting person I've ever met.

And the age thing?

Do you like it here?

It can be hard.

Sometimes you feel like you're the only person left on earth.

I like that.

It makes me feel like I'm part of something... bigger.

You sound like him.

All our problems, all the shit we worry about. Our lives.

None of that matters here.

That's horrible.

Beautiful.

Are you hungry?

Fucking starving.

I've got protein.

- Fuck off. - Come on.

No. You go ahead.

It's really yum. It's so good.

You've got to eat it. Just try a little.

I'm not eating that. Get off.

- Shut your eyes. - No. No.

What?

Shit, Glenn. The radio!

Yeah, I know. She was a big one. Blew the whole thing over.

Should be able to fix it

once we've cleared this stuff out of the way.

Things to do.

Huge storm last night.

I can't believe what it did to the radio.

Yeah. Hard to feed a report home now.

It's Disappointment Inlet.

The creek.

Landover.

All those plants absolutely stripped and scarred.

It's under control, Sarah.

It's not the end of the world.

But the point of science

is that you accept failure as an extra bit of data.

The fact is the Myoxin's not working.

We can't kill every rabbit on this island by ourselves.

I don't know what's wrong with that radio, eh.

I put it back together and-

I'll fix the goddam radio when I get a minute, OK?

What's funny?

I think I'm pregnant.

Have you told Glenn?

It's arguably one of the most egotistical things

you can do, having these little visions of yourself

running everywhere.

Little human vermin.

What are you so happy about?

Pests.

Hey!

Hey! Surprise.

Surprise.

Happy birthday to us. Um...

we found all this Christmas shit in the spare room.

Thank you

for this. This is nice.

And also I...

made some...

Christmas crackers.

Hey, hon.

What do you call a letter that goes up a chimney at Christmas?

It doesn't make a noise.

I think you have to make it yourself.

- Bang. - Blackmail.

What?

What do you call a letter

that goes up the chimney at Christmas?

Blackmail.

You don't have a hat. Do one with Glenn.

Mm. Do one with me.

Bang.

You only say bang if you win.

Bang.

Hey, we're gonna take advantage of this break in the weather.

-Beaumont shags are nesting- -GLENN: Bounty.

Bounty shags are nesting up in the cliffs. Do you wanna come?

No, you guys go.

Glenn.

Where's Pete?

Pete!

Hello!

Pete! Peter!

Sarah!

Peter! Peter!

It's over. Come on. It's over.

You need to fix that radio right now. I'll help.

The sooner we get helicopters down here, the better.

Pete!

Peter!

Sarah, there's no way that he would have survived in the water

- all this time. - This is a person.

He's my friend. You need to report this.

I once had to share a tent with a corpse.

That's what we sign up for.

Yeah, if we don't get helicopters down here soon,

that's us trapped for the winter.

OK. So that's what this is about -

so you can go back to your drone life in your drone city

with all the other shells

and keep sucking the life out of this planet.

You know what's really funny

about your whole 'humanity's bad' philosophy?

You need some loser to listen to your bullshit!

You lonely, lazy bit of shit!

- Fix the radio! - No! Never!

- Why?! - Because I'm not going back.

What are you doing?

Aah! Aah! Argh!

Untie me. Sarah, untie me.

No! No! Argh!

Argh!

Sarah!

Please. Stop.

Sarah.

Under here is your lower intestine.

The stab wound will hurt,

but it shouldn't cause too much pain.

No medical attention in three, four days

will generally result

in a painful infection

and death.

There's just something worth saving here, OK?

I'm sorry,

but you need to fix the radio for me so we can go home.

To my lovely crewmates,

to those weeks of subantarctic, freezing rain,

I say, 'Fuck you! I'm going home!' Whoo!

It looks really sexy!

They wanted to make sure you got this.

Oh yeah.

Bad news?

Pen pushers - you know.

How's the kid?

- He's just a kid. - Seems a bit useless.

Yeah, well...

You want to take a bit of time with him.

He's keen enough. Wants to learn.

So is that Antarctica that way?

Yeah, it is.

No, no, no, no. That way.

I meant roughly.

It's good to have you here, man.

Bloody difficult to get poison into them.

Didn't think there was many of them left.

This one's a real survivor.

They were introduced to kill the rats. Un-fucking-believable.

What are you going to do with it?

- Wanna do it? - What, kill it?

Yeah. You've killed an animal before, haven't you?

Of course.

Or you could take it back to the hut, kill it humanely,

but one of us will have to bring the cage back and...

The good shit, eh?

On the boat on the way down, we, um...

we passed a pod of whales.

Oh. Beautiful.

And I was wondering, like...

what happens to whales when they die.

Do they just sink away to the bottom?

It's called whale fall.

See, the beautiful thing, when a whale dies,

is that its carcass can sustain an entirely new ecosystem.

Thousands of organisms can live and propagate off it.

Trippy.

Evolution has led us to a dead end.

All the empirical evidence suggests

and points to us being a complete and utter failure

as a species.

And yet we keep getting told that we're somehow special.

By who?

Oh, fucking television, internet, radio,

books, music, you know.

Everything that mediates between us

and the outside world out there.

This fucking thing. Fucking stupid thing.

Yeah!

I'm the king of this island.

I die, the island dies with me.

OK.

They send you here to spy on me?

Is the old fella not up yet?

You're raring to go.

A lot of rabbits out there.

General Sherman sailed straight into those rocks

in the 1860s.

The survivors, men and women, they lived round here.

They ate seals and grass and the odd bird.

Lived like that for two years before building a boat

and sailing to Stewart Island.

They all made it. They were the lucky ones.

About 20 miles up the coast, another ship was wrecked

around the same time.

19 men washed up.

A year later,

only three left.

They'd eaten each other. That's why there were only three left.

Go ahead, mate.

We've been trying to get in touch for a while, Glenn.

It looks like the rabbit population

has not been affected whatsoever

by the hand baiting. Over.

It's way too early to judge that.

Sarah's figures are damning.

The soil nutrient content, the community characteristic,

the overwhelming spike in rabbit numbers...

Sarah rang those through?

Yep. It's a disaster.

And you've made it worse by deliberately ignoring

your responsibility.

You got the review notice, I take it?

Sarah!

There's a front coming. We need to secure the nets.

I need you and Pete to go.

OK.

This is crazy, Glenn.

Is it a trophic cascade?

What's that?

It's when the top predatory level

of an ecosystem is taken away.

It causes an imbalance. The whole system could collapse.

The entire island could become extinct.

- This is not a trophic cascade. - The feral cats are wiped out.

Without them as predators, the rabbits are thriving,

so the poison drop's not working.

The point of science is that you accept failure

as an extra bit of data.

We can't kill every rabbit on this island by ourselves.

- Hey, Pete. - Gidday, man.

Whew. What are you doing?

Sarah's pretty worried about this... tropical cascade.

It's trophic.

She'd feel a lot better if you got that radio fixed up.

So, what do you do at DOC again?

All sorts.

- Stewart Island, eh? - Yeah.

So you must know Danny Cremer.

Actually, he probably left before you were there.

- How old are you? - 20.

So you probably didn't know him.

No.

We should get back. There's a storm coming.

Hey!

Who is this? Huh? Who is this?

I don't know.

I've been looking at that radio for Sarah.

There's a regulator missing. It works as an internal antenna.

Someone's been into it real good.

You stay away from Sarah.

Suit yourself, old man.

You didn't forget Sarah's birthday, did you?

Hey.

I need that passport back.

Let's go for a walk later, huh?

There's something I want to show you.

Drink up.

Do you have the passport?

Hey, we're going to take advantage

of this break in the weather.

-The Beaumont shags are nest- -Bounty.

Bounty shags are nesting up on the cliffs.

Do you want to come?

Nah, you guys go.

I won't fall in.

Don't touch me!

Don't fucking touch me.

Give me the passport

and I won't say anything to Sarah about the radio.

There's your fucking passport.

If you're stupid enough to go in there, I hope you fucking drown!

Pete!

Pete!

Pete!

Fuck.

Nothing happened with me and Pete.

He deserved to die.

You have no idea who he was, the lying little shit.

Did you kill him?

Aah.

Shut up.

You need to fix the radio for me so we can go home.

It can't be fixed.

You're going to be sleeping over the window

with a fucking corpse.

Why didn't you tell me that?!

Leave me alone. Leave me alone.

- Just let me look at it! - Get out.

Stop your moping. Let's just drop this arsehole off.

That water pump's rooted.

You're going to have to do it by hand

while I start it up again.

- How far have we come? - About a quarter of the way.

Can I help with anything?

Nup. This useless prick's going to clean out the bilge soon.

How long are you down there for?

Uh, six months. Just a short stay.

What's it like?

- The island? - Yeah.

Fuck knows. I've never been there.

You don't work on the boat normally?

I got the sack from my old job.

Dale's my brother-in-law. Helping me out.

Nice to have family, eh?

Not when they're pricks like mine.

Keep quiet. Don't wake him up.

I'm going to worry about you.

It's just a winter.

Are you happy just being his accolade?

Stop.

Stop it. I know you think you know him, but you don't.

Another one. Fuck me.

Get your hands off me.

You can't boss me around any more.

You should stick to yourself. Do whatever they tell you.

You all right?

We're just having a discussion.

Oh yeah? What about?

Oh, you know - chance and necessity

and which drives the evolutionary biology.

Well, there's no chance in nature. None at all.

Take your fucking boots off inside.

- What are you reading? - Just a biology book.

What's it about?

There's chance and then there's necessity,

but both of them work together to drive evolutionary biology.

It's like us.

We're a combination of accident and design.

Sounds fun!

How did you get the job on the island?

I've been working for DOC for years -

Stewart Island, Southland.

Started off volunteering - weeding, replanting, goat culls.

Why?

Are you interested?

Because they're pretty selective about who they take down.

Hey, bro.

The good shit, eh?

On the boat on the way down, we...

- we passed a pod of whales. - Beautiful.

And, like, I was...

I was wondering what... what happens when they die.

You know, do they...

sink away to the bottom?

Well...

it's called whale fall.

The beautiful thing about when a whale dies

is that its carcass can sustain an entirely new ecosystem.

Thousands of organisms can live and propagate off it.

I'm not eating that. No way!

- Shut your eyes. - No. No.

'You just stick to yourself.

'Do whatever they tell you.

'You're not like these people.'

Mmm. Yum, Petey.

It's delicious.

Cheers.

- Hey, it's our birthday soon. - Is it?

I was, um... thinking of milking a sea lion.

You know, baking a cake.

Good luck.

Well, these hands sure know how to make a sea lady happy.

Hey!

Who's this? Huh?

Who is this?!

You stay away from Sarah.

Drink up. It's your last night in civilised company.

Have I done something to annoy you?

- Will you catch me if I fall? - Don't be stupid.

Bro, the Southern Lights!

Help!

Riki!

- Riki! - What's going on?

He leapt off the fucking boat.

Well, he's a good swimmer. About the only thing he is good at.

He's pissed. He hasn't come up yet. I can't swim.

You're on a boat; you should learn to fucking swim.

Yeah, well, I wasn't planning on falling off!

Fuck. Where the fuck is he?

Hey, Pete.

You stupid idiot.

Hey, give me a hand.

Oh, fuck off. Climb up the ladder.

I can't. I'm serious. I can't get up.

Fuck you.

Please.

- Did you call it in? - You're joking, right?

With what we've got on board,

there'll be cops all over this boat.

I'll go.

OK? I'll go in his place.

I'll keep my head down.

Pick me up in a month. I'll disappear.

I'll get lost.

No one will know.

OK.

You fuck it up, you're going to prison for a very long time.

You're going to be a dad.

Didn't she tell you?

There's a boat here.

- There's a boat here. - What?

We need to leave.

I thought he killed you.

I hurt him. He's going to die.

I have to get him.

Wait. Take him down there.

Are you coming?

Tell them I'm dead.

You tried to look for me, but I was washed away.

- You can't stay here. Come on. - There's nothing for me there.

When does it get dark?

April.

Jesus.

The sky is huge.

The infinitely big is the same as the infinitesimally small.

It's all a matter of perspective.