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Spotlight · written by Josh Singer & Tom McCarthy · 2015
Scene 104 of 143 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act two
The Boston Globe's Spotlight team pries open the Catholic Church's decades-long cover-up of child abuse — one sealed record, one silenced victim at a time.
Robby's Spotlight team operates comfortably inside its own routine, prospecting a modest police-corruption story under a departing editor's cover.
Baron's outsider question exposes what the paper has never done: investigate whether Cardinal Law knowingly protected an abusive priest.
The team sets aside its own project and enters unfamiliar territory: survivor networks, a hostile plaintiff's lawyer, and a legal fight to unseal church records.
The team pays the cost of the work — hearing survivor testimony, chasing MacLeish's stonewalling, and combing church directories for a hidden pattern of reassigned priests.
The directory search and Sipe's estimate deliver what they set out for: confirmation that the abuse spans dozens, then eighty-seven, priests across Boston.
Unable to sleep, Matt sits up in bed at 4am, the weight of the story catching up to him.
In his kitchen at night, Matt eyes his old warning note about the treatment center on Pelton Street, realizing he's still carrying the story home.
Robby walks into a Providence restaurant to meet a well-dressed man.
This scene
Robby and the man, KEVIN, 40s, sit at a table. We’re in a long shot. We see them talking. Kevin is friendly, amiable.
KEVIN
So, I was probably a few years after
you, right?
ROBBY
More than a few.
KEVIN
(laughing)
Well after BC High, I came down to
Providence, played hockey for the
Friars.
ROBBY
You must’ve been pretty good.
KEVIN
No, rode the bench in college. But
I loved the city, never left. We
just had our third kid. And I still
get my Globe, for the record.
ROBBY
Good to know.
Kevin smiles. Robby nods. Takes a beat. Then dives in.
ROBBY (CONT’D)
Look, Kevin, that’s actually why I’m
here. I need ask you some questions
about Father Talbot.
Kevin’s face tightens, his eyes intense. Robby waits.
KEVIN
How’d you find out? I guess that
doesn’t matter.
(shakes his head)
I never even told my wife.