- After a mysterious woman leaves Lazarus with a locket containing a photo of a woman he remembers but can't name and a Palace of Dreams business card in the pilot episode, he travels to New Orleans to find the Palace and get answers.
- Lazarus states the date as Feb. 8, 1866, in his opening narrative.
Lazarus rides to New Orleans to find a woman who left a business card in the pilot episode.
Arriving at the Palace of Dreams, he enters and asks bartender about Joie DeWinter. He says she was executed and is now on display in the street.
Lazarus asks bartender if he recognizes face of woman in his locket. No response.
A black man, Movaise, enters and talks to bartender. He intends to gamble with three men and claims he will have taken their last dollar in 45 minutes. He says it's October, but it's really February.
Bartender to Lazarus: "Inside these walls, reality is what Monsieur Movaise says it is."
Lazarus surprises himself when he predicts every card that turns up with his back turned.
Movaise invites Lazarus to play. He oppens his watch, and Lazarus sees a picture of Claire is inside.
Lazarus plays and wins.
Movaise: "Your powers of memory are sublime, monsieur"
Lazarus: "That's not a compliment I hear very often."
Lazarus wants to play more. Movaise says he's cleaned out. Lazarus opens his locket, shows the photo of Claire to Movaise and says they have something to discuss.
Movaise agrees to a rematch but not until 3 a.m. He won't discuss Claire.
Mouvaise: "It was 3 o'clock, monsieur, when our last game was so tragically interrupted."
A woman in a Mardi Gras mask takes Lazarus upstairs, shows two room peepholes to him. Decadent things going on inside. Next she shows him an empty room; for him.
He takes her mask off and see's that she's Joie DeWinter. Lazarus asks about the woman who was executed. She says Mouvais convinced a woman who resembles her to take the fall.
Lazarus asks DeWinter who the woman in the locket is. She won't say except "She was my friend, my enemy, both." Then says, "Leave if you value your life."
She leaves the room, and he's locked inside. The window is boarded.
Lazarus sleeps. He wakes to hear a woman crying in another room. Door opens now. He investigates.
Flashback: Lazarus opens door. A woman has just taken laudanum. Men come for him. He jumps through a window.
Back to present:
Lazarus opens door, and Movaise' man is there. Lazarus questions him gets no answer. Movaise appears and says his man is mute.
Movaise: "This is a house wreathed in pain, monsieur."
Lazarus asks again who the woman in the locket is.
Movaise says she is his wife and the stakes for which they will play.
A painting of Claire is in the hall.
Lazarus puts on the clothes Movaise told him to wear for their game and discovers a tear in the sleeve. That causes a flashback when he remembers tearing it on a door.
Lazarus: "Is she here in this place?"
DeWinter: "Yes. No. She's everywhere and nowhere."
Lazarus: "Talk straight."
DeWinter: "He will kill us both tonight. Is that plain enough? If you had never come here he would still be living in his dreams."
Mute man knocks. Lazarus goes with, leaving DeWinter in room.
Lots of pictures of Claire in the card room.
Movaise says the stakes are their lives.
Lazarus: "You're joking."
Movaise: "I don't laugh at jokes, much less make them. I have no interest in life without Claire."
Lazarus: "And I have no interest in taking yours."
Lazarus doesn't want to play. Movaise tells him to return to the door he was so interested in, and what he sees behind it will make him want to play.
Stairs inside that door lead to a cellar. Lazarus takes something heavy off wall. Locket hangs behind. His picture is in it.
DeWinter appears with a gun. She insists that he leave or she will kill him.
Movaise appears. Takes gun from DeWinter. Extends invitation to play to her, too.
Back to the game.
After they play a hand, Movaise said Claire was brought to the Palace of Dreams last October by Yanks.
Another hand. Lazarus wins
Movaise: "I was to be her keeper."
Movaise wins a hand, says Claire was beautiful. Seems upset.
Another hand
Movaise: "You might as well have killed her with your own hand. If you just hadn't come here that night. If you just could have followed simple orders in Washington, stayed home that night and not gone to the theater they never would have taken her."
Lazarus appears to lose the last hand. Movaise shoots mute man, who had been the dealer. He's holding the Jack that Lazarus said would be the last card but wasn't.
Movaise explains shooting the dude by saying he can't abide cheaters.
He gives Lazarus opportunity to shoot him. Lazarus refuses.
DeWinter shoots Movaise and runs away. Lazarus follows. "Where's Claire," he calls.
Another flashback.
Lazarus enters room to rescue Claire. Another woman is there; says Claire is out in streets, tells him to get her. Men corner Lazarus in hallway. He jumps out window, first in black and white of the flashback, then in color (and presumably the present).
Lazarus wakes up in bed. Nuns are talking. One comes to his bedside. He's in a hospital called Our Lady of Sorrows. Nun said he "took a terrible fall."
She returns his locket. Now it has his picture in it, as well as that of Claire.
Epilogue
DeWinter is seen in a nun's costume.
Closing narration:
Lazarus: "Feb. 9, 1866; Ash Wednesday. The only thing I do know for certain is that I now have a wife, a woman I must pray, no, I will believe for surety is still alive. It is all that I know and care to know right now; for this knowledge has given me something in this new life that I never had before. Hope."
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