Photograph 51 Summary & Analysis

The stage lights come up on Rosalind Franklin. In romantic, nostalgic terms, she describes the work she and her colleagues did to make “the invisible visible.” Their work, she says, made them feel “powerful.” But though they could “see everything,” Rosalind admits that sometimes they missed things that were right in front of them. 

Rosalind recalls how, throughout her childhood, she constantly drew shapes—endless and miniature “repeating structures.” She remembers playing with her father’s camera as she photographed leaves in the yard, but at the height of her reminiscence, Maurice Wilkins steps in and begins a reminiscence of his own. As he begins to recall aloud the events of January 1951, other voices join him—James Watson and Francis Crick help him to reconstruct a goodbye party taking place in Paris as Rosalind Franklin bid goodbye to her colleagues there and prepared to journey to London to undertake a fellowship at King’s College.

More voices continue adding to the chaos, reconstructing the background of Rosalind’s decision to venture to London. Don Caspar and Ray Gosling join the fray and continue telling the story of Rosalind’s arrival in London. Gosling tells about how Rosalind wrote a letter in advance of her arrival detailing the materials she’d need. Rosalind reads the letter aloud—the letter, addressed to Wilkins is “cold and formal.” Wilkins writes back to Rosalind’s letter, addressing her as “Miss Franklin” as he informs her that she’ll be working in “another area entirely.” 

The action shifts suddenly. Rosalind is at King’s College with Wilkins, who informs her that she won’t be working on proteins, as promised, but instead on “deciphering the structure of DNA” due to her expertise in X-ray crystallography. As Wilkins explains that she’ll be assisting him, Rosalind turns icy and angry. Even as Wilkins introduces Rosalind to her own assistant, Gosling, Rosalind remains irate. She explains that she was told she’d be in charge of her own research. Wilkins calmly, blithely tells her that “circumstances [have] changed,” and all hands must be on deck in the race to discover the structure of DNA—“the secret of life.” 

Rosalind proclaims that she refuses to work as anyone’s assistant—she likes to do her own research and works best alone. Wilkins encourages Rosalind to think of their work together as a “partnership.” Rosalind storms off, furious.

Watson, Crick, and Caspar step in to comment on what’s just happened. Watson says the “race [was] lost […] in a single moment” as soon as Rosalind realized she’d been brought to King’s under false pretenses. Wilkins tells him that he’s wrong, but Caspar agrees with Watson—Rosalind, he says, would never have left Paris had she known what really lay in store for her. The men begin ribbing one another and arguing until Gosling steps in and reorients the action back to Wilkins’s and Rosalind’s “dank cellar” of a laboratory.

Rosalind comments upon the gloomy nature of the lab, claiming that her working conditions in Paris were much more hospitable. Wilkins subtly chides Rosalind for “leav[ing] England when she needed [her people] most.” Rosalind coolly replies that she was doing more for England in Paris than she would have been had she stayed behind during the war—then points out that Wilkins himself was in America during the war working on the Manhattan Project.

Rosalind adds that no female scientists from Britain were offered any research positions during the war, and then, finally, declares that she doesn’t “approve” of nuclear force. Wilkins retorts that Rosalind’s “lot” never does. Rosalind asks what he means, and Wilkins says, somewhat haltingly, that after all the hard work people did to “save […] the Jews,” he’s found Jewish people, ironically, disapproving of the methods taken to do so. Rosalind icily, sarcastically states that “Jews should be in a more grateful frame of mind these days.” Wilkins shuts Rosalind down by telling “Rosy” she’s won the argument. Rosalind corrects him, telling him that her name is Rosalind—but most people call her “Miss Franklin,” even though she prefers “Dr. Franklin.”

Gosling, hoping to cut the tension in the room, declares that it’s already two in the afternoon—well past time for lunch. Rosalind agrees it’s time for a break and asks Wilkins where they should go to eat. Wilkins matter-of-factly states that he dines in the senior common room—which is for men only. After a brief pause, Rosalind urges Wilkins to go on without her. Gosling stays behind in the laboratory with Rosalind, listening to her rail against the rampant sexism that saturates King’s College. Rosalind is angry to be barred from the dining room—she knows that “scientists make discoveries over lunch.”

Rosalind asks Gosling what Wilkins is like, knowing they’ve worked together for a long time. Gosling tells Rosalind that Wilkins is “fine”—he is a hard worker who is divorced, and so he doesn’t have the burden of a wife or a family. He is entirely devoted to his work. Rosalind retorts that she is just as devoted as Wilkins. Gosling tells Rosalind that she has his complete “allegiance”—he’s been assigned to be her assistant and will do whatever she needs from him.

Wilkins returns from lunch. Rosalind blithely asks him how his meal was, adding how “glad” she is that on her first day at the lab, he didn’t break from his routing to bring her somewhere she was allowed to eat. Wilkins tells Rosalind—again addressing her as “Miss Franklin”—that he wants to be clear about how much he’s been looking forward to working with her. He's upset that they’ve gotten off to a tough start and wants to “begin again.” After a brief pause, Rosalind agrees. She sticks her hand out and re-introduces herself as “Dr. Rosalind Franklin.” Wilkins re-introduces himself, too, and makes a big charade of asking Rosalind questions about herself, but she says she’s ready to be done with playing “games” and start taking pictures of DNA crystals. She heads off to start her work.

Several days later, Rosalind and Wilkins are back in the lab after the weekend. Wilkins asks Rosalind how her weekend was, and she tells him that she went to a matinee of The Winter’s Tale the day before. Wilkins says he almost went to the same performance—he passed the theater and almost went in but decided not to at the last moment. The two begin talking about the Shakespeare play, and Wilkins tells Rosalind that in the story on which the play is based, the heroine dies—while in Shakespeare’s she survives. Rosalind says that John Gielgud, the actor who played Leontes, was terrific but adds that she can’t remember the actress who played Hermione—the woman simply “didn’t stand out.” The two continue discussing the play, quoting from it in snippets and discovering that both their grandfathers once made habits of memorizing entire Shakespearean plays.

As their friendly conversation dies down, Wilkins asks Rosalind what she’s going to work on over the course of the morning. Rosalind says she wants to find an image of DNA that is useable in spite of the damaging lack of humidity in the camera. Wilkins says he supposes they need to fix the problem with the camera. “I suppose we do,” Rosalind retorts.

Gosling comes forward to describe a correspondence Rosalind took up with a doctoral student in biophysics at Yale named Don Caspar after he wrote to her on the recommendation of his advisor, asking her for some X-ray images and other writings to aid in his PhD research. As Caspar and Rosalind write back and forth, it becomes clear that Caspar is more invested in the letters than Rosalind. He compliments her work in fawning but genuine terms, commenting upon the beauty of the “shapes within shapes” Rosalind’s X-ray images reveal. He says he believes one is able to “see something new each time one looks at truly beautiful things.”

Gosling steps forward and says that Rosalind was often away—sometimes she’d phone the lab after failing to show up and announce that she was hiking in Switzerland or having some other adventure. The action cuts to Rosalind, narrating her trek through the Alps to Gosling over the phone and describing how the beautiful, clean mountain air clears her head. She echoes Caspar’s words, stating that looking at “truly beautiful things” allows one to see and understand something new each time.

Commenting upon Rosalind’s frequent departures, Crick says he supposes Rosalind must have felt “that something was at her back.” Watson asks if Crick means the two of them, but Crick says he means “fate.” Watson asks him what the difference is.

Back in the lab, Gosling helps Rosalind set up an X-ray shot. Frustrated with his work, Rosalind moves him aside and sets the shot up herself, stepping into the X-ray’s path as she does so. Gosling turns to the audience and explains that he knew—and could feel—how dangerous exposure to the X-ray was but didn’t want to rock the boat with Rosalind by chiding her for moving through it or refusing to do so himself. That night, when Rosalind dismisses Gosling for the evening, he begins to urge her to be careful but changes his words at the last minute and cheerily tells her not to stay too late at the lab. Caspar steps forward to comment, shocked by how casually Rosalind interacted with the X-ray beams—and by how reticent Gosling was to tell her to stop.

Wilkins steps forward, cutting the dark moment short. He begins telling a story about a conference in Naples, Italy in the spring of 1951. After Wilkins delivers a lecture explaining the importance of studying and understanding DNA, a young American scientist—Watson—approaches him and compliments his presentation, adding that Wilkins’s lecture has inspired him to determine, once and for all, DNA’s structure. Watson goes on to excitedly say that even though he doesn’t believe in fate, he’s thrilled to have been “born at the right time.”

Watson tells Wilkins that he wants to learn crystallography and come to work with him. Watson talks at length about himself and his background, explaining that his atheistic upbringing has inspired him to search for his own set of “instructions for life.” He has come of age determined to crack the “secrets” of nature, and “the gene” is the biggest secret of all. He is determined to “get in the race,” a statement that puzzles Wilkins, who insists that there is no race. He dismisses Watson out of hand and walks away—a move that Watson steps forward to say was perhaps the “biggest mistake of [Wilkins’s] life.” Wilkins steps forward and admits that he, too, has often wondered if he should have taken Watson on as a partner.

Rebuffed by Wilkins, Watson approaches another scientist who takes him on and pairs him with Francis Crick, a young scientist whose drive to unlock the secrets of the world parallels and rivals Watson’s own. As Gosling steps forward to comment on the men’s partnership, he seems to envy their “impressive” bond and drive, remarking that he himself has never been so focused on anything in his life as they were on their research.

Back in the lab at King’s, Wilkins returns from his conference and exchanges cool pleasantries with Rosalind—pleasantries that dissolve when he asks to see what Rosalind has been working on. Rosalind is reticent to show Wilkins her research. She explains that she’s fixed the humidity issue in the camera. Wilkins tells Rosalind he’s “impressed” by her, which she takes as a condescending comment. Rosalind bristles, and Wilkins, overwhelmed, becomes red and flustered.

Later on, in another part of the lab, Wilkins asks Gosling how he’s supposed to get any work done if all his time is spent apologizing to Rosalind for the myriad tiny ways in which he offends her. Wilkins tells Gosling that other people around the world are “on DNA now,” and that they must hurry and push forward if they want to be the first to determine the structure. Still, Wilkins admits that he’s distracted by his own inability to get Rosalind to like him—and resolves to find a way to do so.

The next day, Wilkins shows up to the lab with a box of chocolates for Rosalind. He hands them to her. She is confused and flummoxed. Wilkins explains that they’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, and he wants to set things right and start again. Rosalind points out that they’ve already “started again” once before. Wilkins says he wants an easier relationship with Rosalind, but she points out they’re not supposed to have a relationship—they’re supposed to have a partnership. Rosalind is not, she says, Wilkins’s wife. Wilkins says he just wants to be her friend, but Rosalind retorts that she doesn’t want to be his friend. Frustrated, Wilkins storms away.

Caspar writes Rosalind another gushing letter professing his admiration for her work and filling her in on his own progress with X-ray technology. He says he loves using the camera because it helps him feel like he’s discovering the “secret[s]” of the world. Rosalind replies curtly to Caspar’s letter, stating that she occasionally shares some of his thoughts—“it’s nice to hear,” she writes, “that one isn’t alone.”

Wilkins delivers a lecture in which he cites “his” research with X-ray patterns in the discovery of a clear central helix in the structure of DNA. Rosalind calls him out on his deceptiveness in claiming her research as his own—and tells him, moreover, that she believes his statement about a central helix is wrong. She has not come to that conclusion herself, and believes he is compromising their research and reputations by flaunting baseless claims to the world. Wilkins explains they have to share their findings if they want their funding to continue. Rosalind says she can’t respect Wilkins if he’s going to behave in such a way, and the two storm off.

Sometime later, Rosalind and Gosling peer at an X-ray image they’ve developed—it seems to show DNA in two forms. Caspar steps in to explain what they’ve found—the A form and B form of DNA, two structures that once appeared “on top of the other” but, due to Rosalind’s visual separation of the two, can now be seen separately. Wilkins is excited by the development, but he and Rosalind are still not speaking. They attempt to communicate through Gosling as Wilkins asks Rosalind if they can collaborate on this new finding, but Rosalind insists that she will not share her data with anyone. Wilkins suggests they each study one form of the DNA—Rosalind reluctantly agrees.

Crick and Watson step forward to explain just how close Rosalind was to discovering the structure of DNA—but because she believed in proving things, not hypothesizing or speculating, she didn’t create any models, instead simply focusing on determining what she could see. As the days go by, Gosling and Wilkins pressure Rosalind to hurry up and make a model—the other researchers in their field are doing so—but Rosalind refuses.

Wilkins grows frustrated with Rosalind’s stoniness and her unwillingness to collaborate, hypothesize, or make a model. He goes to visit Crick in Cambridge, and is surprised to find that Watson is there, too, as Crick’s new research partner. Crick and Watson ask Wilkins about his work with Rosalind, asking if she’s “ornery” like most Jews or overweight like most domineering women. Wilkins starts to defend Rosalind, but the two cut him off and begin asking about his research and whether he really believes DNA is a helix. Wilkins says that without Rosalind’s half of the research, it’s impossible to say for sure. Crick suggests Wilkins build a model, but Wilkins explains that “Rosy” is opposed to making models.

In November of 1951, at a colloquium on nucleic acid structure held at King’s, Rosalind delivers a lecture while her colleagues watch. In the audience, Watson and Crick speculate about how attractive “Rosy” would be if she “took off her glasses and did something novel with her hair.” Throughout her lecture they continue criticizing her and, afterwards, when they meet her and shake her hand, they think she is “a cipher where a woman should be.”

A week later, Watson and Crick have made their model. They invite the researchers from King’s to come see it. Rosalind is skeptical of the model the men have made—it’s clear that they didn’t listen to any of her lecture the week before, statements in which directly contradicted the model the men have now made. Wilkins agrees that the men’s model is incorrect, and suggests Watson return to America, “where theft and burglary are upheld as virtues.” Wilkins and his team leave Cambridge in a fury, and Watson and Crick are ordered by their superior to stop research on DNA.

Back at King’s, Gosling excitedly shows Rosalind the most recently developed X-ray photograph they’ve taken of DNA. As they stare at it, Rosalind remarks that she’s never seen anything like it. Caspar and Watson identify the thing she’s looking at as the infamous Photograph 51. Gosling states that the photograph clearly shows a helix—Rosalind corrects him, stating that it “looks to be a helix.” Caspar and Crick wonder what could have possibly been going through Rosalind’s head as she looked, uncomprehendingly, at the photograph revealing the structure of DNA.

Rosalind steps forward and delivers a flashback to a camping trip with her father while she was in university. He warned her that if she were to go forward with a career as a scientist—a woman scientist at that—she “must never be wrong.”

Back in the lab, Rosalind puts Photograph 51 away in a drawer. Gosling asks if they should show it to Wilkins, but Rosalind doesn’t want to do so. As Wilkins enters the room and asks what’s going on, Rosalind toys with him, asking him to help them celebrate but refusing to tell him what it is they’re celebrating. She urges Wilkins to take a “leap of faith.” Wilkins retorts that Rosalind should take her own advice. She in turn states that just coming into the lab every day is, for her, a leap of faith.

Rosalind and Wilkins begin arguing. Wilkins says he’s never encountered a woman of “such temerity,” and Rosalind suggests that Wilkins hasn’t encountered very many women at all. She calls attention to his failed marriage to a woman who lives, with their son, in America. At the mention of his ex-wife, Wilkins goes off on a diatribe, calling Rosalind a hypocrite and condemning her research methods which make “no room for … humanity.” He storms out of the lab, furious. Gosling steps forward. Later that night, he reveals, he slipped Photograph 51 to Wilkins, believing the man had a right to see it.

Caspar writes Rosalind to tell her that he has graduated from his PhD program—he is officially a doctor. He asks if there is a fellowship at King’s he might be able to apply for—he wants to come work with Rosalind. Rosalind writes back to Caspar, congratulating him on becoming a doctor and assuring him that many new opportunities will soon be available to him as a result of his degree. The same has not been true for her, she says, as she’s had to keep her head down and do her work in an attempt to prove herself. 

Watson, watching the above exchange, chimes in and states how ludicrous it was for Rosalind to “be in the race and ignore it.” Crick challenges Watson, asking what a “race” is anyway and how one can tell who’s won it. He wonders if “none of [them] really knew what [they] were searching for” all along, and whether Rosalind was right about keeping her head down and focusing on the work rather than chasing a false idea of success.

Watson flashes forward to January 1953. Watson travels to London, bringing with him a paper on nucleic structure one of his and Crick’s colleague has just published—which is flawed in some ways but close to the truth in others—to Rosalind and Wilkins’s lab. Watson shows Rosalind the paper, and she laments that the “rush to publish” is filling scientific publications with errors. Watson tries to ask Rosalind what she thinks about the structure of DNA, but she is reluctant to tell him. Rosalind of accusing Watson of “insulting” her intelligence by trying to prey upon her research and knock her off course. Watson changes tack and tries to earnestly appeal to Rosalind, insisting that they’re both close enough to finding the answers that sharing their research could genuinely help one another, but she orders him out of the lab.

Watson goes down the hall to Wilkins’s office and vents to him about Rosalind being an “old hag.” Wilkins agrees that Rosalind is a lot to take and a horror to work with. Watson laments that Wilkins is Rosalind’s partner and not his. He suggests that Wilkins would be better off without Rosalind and should stop trying to collaborate with someone who makes it “impossible to get along.” Wilkins says he’s stayed with Rosalind because of her work and produces from his desk the print of Photograph 51.  Watson takes one look at the photo, becomes overwhelmed, and rushes out the door.

On the train back to Cambridge Watson sketches what he can remember of the image, realizing that it is the key to DNA—and the Nobel Prize. Back at his lab, he confronts Crick and tells him that he has found an image that confirms DNA’s double helix structure, and that they need to start building a new model right away. Wilkins and Rosalind, he says, have no idea that they are the ones with the answer to DNA’s secrets. Wilkins steps forward, claiming that he didn’t give Watson the photograph until Watson asked for it directly—but Gosling steps up and cuts him off, reporting that later that same week, Don Caspar arrived from America to come work at King’s.

As Caspar arrives at the lab, Wilkins shows him around and introduces him, at last, to Rosalind—whom Wilkins calls “Miss Franklin.” Caspar, however, greets Rosalind as “Dr. Franklin.” He is clearly spellbound by her and struggles for words, finally blurting out that he’d imagined her blonde. Rosalind asks Caspar if he knew she was Jewish, and he says he did—he tells her that he is, too. Rosalind tells him that with Caspar’s arrival, there are now officially two Jewish scientists at King’s.

A few days later, Crick invites Wilkins to come to Cambridge for dinner, and Wilkins accepts. When he arrives, he finds that Watson is there, too. As the three men drink, Wilkins tells Watson and Crick he’s still frustrated by Rosalind and has been fantasizing about moving out to the country. Watson says it’s hard to meet women outside the city. Wilkins asks Crick about his marriage, and Crick says he’s happy with his wife—but it seems as if he’s hiding a kind of melancholy. Wilkins sadly worries that it’s too late for him to “begin again” when it comes to romance.

Watson switches the subject to DNA and asks if Wilkins has any new research to report. He says he doesn’t. Watson asks what Rosalind has been up to, and though Crick seems reluctant to pry at first, soon echoes Watson’s questions about Rosalind’s work. They ask what she’s writing and whether she’s building a model—Wilkins surprises the men by stating that Rosalind is, for the first time, flirting with the idea of making a model of strand B. Watson and Crick confide in Wilkins that they, too, are planning another crack at a model—using the research Wilkins has shared with them. Gosling steps forward and states that what Watson and Crick are neglecting to mention is that they’ve already begun their new model.

Crick and Watson encourage Wilkins to make his own model—he says that he can’t as long as “Rosy” is around, and is surprised that Crick and Watson, having already failed once, are ready to try a model again. He confesses that if he’d known they wanted to make another, he wouldn’t have shown Watson Photograph 51.

Time moves forward. Gosling explains that things begin moving “quickly” as Watson and Crick get their hands on Rosalind’s new paper—which is confidential. They claim to have gotten it from another scientist at Cambridge after it was circulated to one of his committees, and Watson states that even without the paper, he and Crick would’ve been able to make their model anyway. Wilkins steps forward and says he and Rosalind would have been able to make their own, too, had the exchange of information among the four scientists been equal. Watson points out that Wilkins and Rosalind, though, were never really a team.

Back at the lab, Rosalind and Caspar find themselves working together more and more. There is clearly sexual tension between the two of them, and yet Rosalind is skittish and cold around Caspar. When he calls her Rosalind, she chides him for not calling her Dr. Franklin, but Caspar admits earnestly that he just likes using Rosalind’s name because it makes him feel warm. Rosalind points out that no one thinks she’s warm. Still, Caspar invites her to dinner, and Rosalind appears to entertain the idea before lamenting that “there just isn’t time” for such a thing.

Crick and Watson succeed in unlocking the key to DNA’s double helix structure, which in turn allows them to understand how DNA replicates itself through the templates provided in either strand. Crick and Watson begin dreaming of fame, money, success, and recognition, realizing how close they are to winning the “race.”

That February, Watson and Crick invite their colleagues from all over England to Cambridge. Rosalind, Wilkins, Caspar, and Gosling all pay them a visit. Rosalind is in a good mood—she flirts with Caspar, openly discusses theory with the other men, and even floats the idea of building a model. Crick and Watson ask Caspar how long he’ll be in London, and he tells them his fellowship lasts only a couple more months. Rosalind says it’s a “shame” that Caspar has to leave so soon. But Crick and Watson, realizing that Rosalind will be distracted from completing a model as long as Casper is in town, rejoice in having bought themselves some more time.

Back in London, Rosalind and Gosling are at work in the lab—or, rather, Rosalind is hovering over their newest X-rays while she orders Gosling to stand away from her so that she can think. After some time, she says that the A and B forms have to be helical. Gosling steps forward from the scene, addresses the audience, and says that though Rosalind was just two steps from the solution, she couldn’t see it.

Hours later, Rosalind is alone in the lab staring at Photograph 51. Wilkins walks in and tells her she should go home and get some sleep. When Rosalind refuses, he offers to help her, but she retorts that she is at “the end of thinking” and feels her mind has gone blank. Wilkins offers to help Rosalind talk her thoughts through. After a moment of hesitation in which Gosling remarks that the “different ways [all their] lives could go hovered in the air,” Rosalind says she’d like to call it a night. She leaves the lab.

A few days later, in Cambridge, Watson and Crick are in a pub finalizing their theory. Meanwhile, in London, Rosalind and Caspar are at dinner together. Caspar thanks Rosalind for agreeing to eat with him and says he hopes he isn’t taking up too much of her time. She tells him she’s not sure how valuable her time is, and admits she believes she may have been “allotting it to the [wrong] things” lately. Caspar assures Rosalind that she’s an amazing woman doing “groundbreaking work.” Caspar acts Rosalind if her work makes her happy, and it’s clear she doesn’t know how to answer his question. Caspar says he has a theory that “the things we want but can’t have […] define us”—he asks Rosalind what it is she wants. Rather than answering truthfully, Rosalind says she’s not sure.

In Cambridge, Crick and Watson finalize their model at the pub. In London, Caspar takes Rosalind’s hand—seconds later, she utters a painful gasp and doubles over. Wilkins steps forward. Science, he says, is “the loneliest pursuit in the world […] because there either are answers or there aren’t.”

Wilkins travels to Cambridge and examines Watson and Crick’s model. As he does, Rosalind steps forward and announces, to the audience, that she has two large tumors—one in each ovary. Wilkins tells Crick and Watson that, to his great surprise, their model looks “exciting.” Watson, shocked by the understatement, reminds Wilkins that what he’s looking at is “the secret of life.” Wilkins says he doesn’t know if it is.

Elsewhere, Watson and Crick examine their published findings bound in printed form. Crick seems uninterested and claims he’s tired—Watson, on the other hand, is completely energized. He reminds Crick that now, they’ll “never be forgotten.” Crick, however, says that all he wanted was to “make some small difference.” His wife, he confesses, has moved out, and he is alone.

Rosalind returns to her office from the hospital to find Wilkins sitting in the dark. He asks what she’s doing out of the hospital, and she replies that if she’s going to be in a “disgusting little room” it might as well be her laboratory. She says that wants to work some more before she dies. Wilkins asks Rosalind not to say such things, but Rosalind refuses to sugar-coat the truth to make it “pleasant.” The truth, she says, is that in the end, humans all lose—“the work is never finished.” Human bodies, Wilkins agrees, are like “grandfather clocks.”

Rosalind asks if Crick and Watson’s model is “beautiful.” Wilkins tells her it is. She tells Wilkins that the two of them were close, at least. Wilkins laments that they “lost.” Rosalind says the opposite is true: the whole world won. Plus, she says, it’s not that Crick and Watson solved the puzzle first. She did—she just couldn’t see it. With a few more days, she says, she might have.

Rosalind then asks Wilkins why she didn’t get those days. She wonders aloud if she didn’t deserve them. She begins to wonder about the what-ifs of her life, and the other characters step in to provide them. If only she’d been careful around the X-ray beam, collaborated, been less wary (or perhaps more wary). Or, say Gosling and Crick, if only she’d been born at another time or as a man, she might have succeeded. Rosalind decides to stop dwelling on the what-ifs and happily announces to Wilkins that she’s going to attend a conference in Leeds next month and do some traveling before and after.

Gosling steps forward and says that Rosalind never went to Leeds—she died that April at 37 years of age. As he continues speaking, Wilkins begs him to stop. Gosling says he can’t not report “what happened.” Wilkins begs to “start again.” Crick and Watson try to talk some sense into Wilkins, reminding him that his name is on the Nobel Prize. Wilkins, however, says the recognition is worthless and begs to start over.

Wilkins approaches Rosalind and says he has something to tell her. He confesses that on the day she went to see The Winter’s Tale, he saw her go into the theatre. He got in line at the box office to buy a ticket so that he could go in and sit with her but decided not to. Now he wishes that he had done so, so that they could both have “experienc[ed] the very same thing.”

Rosalind and Wilkins have a similar conversation to the one they had earlier in the play, quoting The Winter’s Tale back and forth. Wilkins says that he loves the part where Hermione, killed by her husband Leontes, comes back to life at the end. Rosalind says that Wilkins has interpreted the play incorrectly—she doesn’t come back to life, but instead, Leontes “projects life where there is none, so he can be forgiven.”

There is a point in life, Rosalind says sadly, where one simply can’t begin again. Wilkins admits he has “spent [his] whole life in regret.” Rosalind, smiling sadly, says that perhaps the two of them should have seen The Winter’s Tale together, or gone to lunch. Wilkins asks if that would’ve changed things between them, but Rosalind doesn’t answer him. Instead, she says she finds it strange that she can’t remember the name of the woman who played Hermione. Wilkins laments that he can’t either. “She simply didn’t stand out, I suppose,” Rosalind says, and the lights dim.