3x02 Elephants and Hens

Manny: Well, instead of the... um... academic and the journalist's daughter... um... perhaps it could be about an elephant?
Bernard: An elephant?
Manny: That's right.
Bernard: I see. What's your other suggestion?
Manny: Well... um... instead of the Stalinist purges and the divorce and the investigation, um... it could be about loosing a balloon.
Bernard: An elephant who looses his balloon?
Manny: That's it.
Bernard: But, but it would still be my story in essence?
Manny: Oh, yeah.
Bernard: My vision?
Manny: Completely.
Bernard: Yes, alright! Let's do that, then!

Mother: [deleted scene] Hello, do you have the latest in the Doom Castle series?
Bernard: The what?
Mother: You know, it's the books where there's a group of children and they worship a horned god.
Manny: Yes, it's right here. Anything that gets them reading, eh?
Bernard: 6.66
Mother: All her friends love it too, they come round and have their little ceremonies, don't you dear?
Girl: We observe the sacred rites. As all must.

Bernard: It couldn't be simpler. You've got the academic who survived the Stalinist purges and is now having flashbacks to that time. There's his daughter whose long bitter marriage is falling apart around her and the journalist who's investigating the academic because he suspects he was never in Russia at the time and then he falls obsessively in love with the daughter and sacrifices his career to become a lense grinder in Omsk.