Jared Harris: Valery Legasov

Open Wide, O Earth

Valery Legasov

Boris Shcherbina: Have you ever spent time with miners?
Valery Legasov: No.
Boris Shcherbina: My advice, tell the truth. These men work in the dark; they see everything.

Glukhov: We're gonna need more men. Four hundred at least. We'll have to work around the clock. How deep do you want this tunnel - six meters?
Valery Legasov: Twelve.
Glukhov: Twelve? Why?
Valery Legasov: For your protection. At that depth, you'll be shielded from much of the radiation.
Glukhov: The entrance to the tunnel won't be twelve meters below ground.
Valery Legasov: No.
Glukhov: And we're not twelve meters below ground now.
Valery Legasov: No. We're not. We have some equipment here outside. More will arrive by midnight. You can start in the morning.
Glukhov: No. We start now. I don't want my men here one more second than they need to be.
[gestures at the face mask on the desk]
Glukhov: If these worked... you'd be wearing 'em.
[leaves]
Valery Legasov: Are they all like that?
Boris Shcherbina: They're all like that.

Valery Legasov: I don't want to do this anymore. I want to stop. But I can't. I don't think you have a choice any more than I do. I think despite the... stupidity, the lies, and this, you are compelled. The problem has been assigned and you'll stop at nothing until you find an answer. Because that is who you are.
Ulana Khomyuk: A lunatic, then.
Valery Legasov: A scientist.

[last lines]
Ulana Khomyuk: I'll go back to the hospital and re-interview Akimov and Toptunov. If they're still awake
Valery Legasov: They're not.
[last scene is of a burial where several metal coffins in a large pit are covered with concrete]

Valery Legasov: How, how, how did this happen? Who gave them the idea? Someone decided that the evacuation zone should be 30 km, when we know, here
[points at map]
Valery Legasov: there's Cesium-137, in the Gomel district. That's 200 km away!
Boris Shcherbina: It was decided.
Valery Legasov: Based on *what*?
Boris Shcherbina: I don't know!
[silence]
Valery Legasov: [shrugs helplessly] Is this really how it all works? An uninformed, arbitrary decision that will cost who knows how many lives, made by some career Party man?
Boris Shcherbina: *I* am a career Party man. You should mind your tone, Comrade Legasov.

KGB Chairman Charkov: The KGB is a circle of accountability. Nothing more.
Valery Legasov: You know the work we're doing here. Don't you trust us?
KGB Chairman Charkov: Of course I do. But you know the old Russian proverb: Trust but verify.
[Grins]
KGB Chairman Charkov: The Americans think that Ronald Reagan thought that up. Can you imagine?

Valery Legasov: There is an enormous amount of radioactive debris and contamination spread out across a zone of approximately 2600 square kilometers. This entire region must be completely evacuated. We must go to every town, every village, to ensure this. And all animals still surviving within the zone, whether domesticated or wild, must be presumed contaminated and will have to be destroyed to prevent the spread of radiation and disease. In the immediate area surrounding Chernobyl, uh, every rock, every tree, the, the very ground itself, has absorbed a dangerous amount of radio nuclides, which will be carried by the wind and the rain if left exposed, so we will have to raze entire forests, we will have to rip up the top layer of earth and bury it under itself, approximately 100 square kilometers.

Ulana Khomyuk: Dyatlov won't talk to me. Akimov yes, Toptunov yes. Valery: Akimov... his face was gone.
Valery Legasov: You want to stop?
Ulana Khomyuk: Is that a choice I even have?

Boris Shcherbina: What will happen to our boys?
Valery Legasov: Which boys? The divers?
Boris Shcherbina: The divers, the firefighters, the men in the control room... what does the radiation do to them, precisely?
Valery Legasov: Well, at the level some of them were exposed, ionizing radiation tears the cellular structure apart. The skin blisters, turns red, then black. This is followed by a latency period. The immediate effects subside, the patient appears to be recovering. Healthy, even, but they aren't. This usually only lasts for a day or two.
[he stops]
Boris Shcherbina: [quietly] Continue.
Valery Legasov: [reluctantly] Then the cellular damage begins to manifest. The bone marrow dies. The immune system fails. The organs and soft tissue begin to decompose. The arteries and veins spill open like sieves, to the point where you can't even administer morphine for the pain, which is... unimaginable. Within three days to three weeks, you're dead. That is what will happen to those boys.
Boris Shcherbina: And what about us?
Valery Legasov: Well, we've... we've gotten a steady dose, but not as much of it. Not strong enough to kill the cells, but consistent enough to damage our DNA. So, in time, cancer. Or aplastic anemia. Either way, fatal.
Boris Shcherbina: Well... in a sense, it would seem we've gotten off easy, then... Valery.