Us or them

“Us or them” is Cal Dollinger’s coercive formula for presenting the planned killing of Olivia as a choice that has already been made. Recalled first as a pact between partners and then sharpened into an arithmetic of whose lives count, the phrase converts fear and self-interest into a supposed necessity, even as Adam Yates’s plea for another way exposes the moral choice the slogan tries to close off.

The Phrase as a Reminder

When Adam hesitates, Dollinger invokes the words as something they have agreed to remember: “Us or them, remember?” Adam nods slowly. The line does not establish that no alternative exists; it asserts a shared rule meant to make hesitation seem like betrayal. Its short, balanced wording reduces a complex situation to two opposing sides, placing Dollinger and Yates together on one and their perceived enemies on the other.

The reminder immediately acquires a practical purpose. Dollinger says they must find Olivia, stressing that he means both of them, because if other agents arrest her, she may talk. Yates completes the implication, and Dollinger confirms it. The phrase thus links their supposed solidarity to a fear of exposure: Olivia’s possible arrest becomes the threat around which their cooperation is organized.

The Calculation of Whose Lives Count

Later, Dollinger makes the slogan explicit as a moral accounting. He describes Candace Potter as an ex-stripper who was involved with Clyde Rangor and Emma Lemay, reducing her to a stigmatized past and criminal associations. Against her, he places two families: two husbands, two wives, and five children, divided between their households. He concedes that he and Yates may not be innocent, but claims that the other family members are.

The figures give Dollinger’s argument the appearance of a calculation, but the categories are not neutral. Candace is treated as a disposable individual; the families are presented as innocent lives whose destruction must be prevented. Dollinger says that they must end one life, perhaps two if he cannot separate Olivia from Kimmy Dale, or allow seven other lives to be destroyed. The framing narrows the imagined outcomes to murder or catastrophe, making the phrase sound like the conclusion of an equation rather than a justification chosen by the men themselves.

What the Refrain Conceals

Dollinger repeats, “Us or them,” and declares that in this case it is not even a close call. The repetition turns a reminder into a verdict. Yet Yates’s response interrupts that certainty: he says he should go with Dollinger, then apologizes and asks again for another way. Dollinger refuses the offer, instructing him to remain at the office with Ted and create a murder scenario in which Matt Hunter’s body will look like a mob killing meant to silence an informant.

This contrast reveals the phrase’s function. It binds the partners together rhetorically while assigning them different roles in the planned violence: Dollinger will go after Olivia, while Yates is to construct the cover story. Yates’s repeated plea shows that the slogan has not erased his awareness of an alternative, even though he remains involved. “Us or them” is therefore both a tool of persuasion and a compact expression of the conspiracy’s self-deception: the language of protecting families is used to authorize a killing and arrange a false account of another murder.