Bart Curlish

**Bartine "Bart" Curlish** is a main character in the television series *Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency*.

Bart is a self-proclaimed "holistic assassin" who was a part of Project Blackwing before she escaped. Like Dirk, she believes all things are connected and that she is brought to the people that she is meant to kill. Isolated from society, she has very little knowledge of how the modern world works.

## Biography

### Early life

As a child she was found by Project Blackwing under Scott Riggins, were she was titled as **Project Marzanna**. She was brought in by Mr. Priest at age 13.

When Bart was a kid she was held by the CIA division Project Blackwing. She knew there were other people like her there, but she never got to meet them.

She left Blackwing under unknown circumstances. Afterwards she roamed the land fulfilling her intuitive purpose of killing people, living sundered from society and normal human life and behavior. Most recently she had been lonely and barely been spoken to for at least over five years.

At some point the name "Dirk Gently" came to her in a dream. As her purpose in life had been killing people, she concluded she was supposed to kill Dirk Gently and set out to find him.

### Season 1 (A Completely Lost Dog)

#### Kidnapping Ken

Bart, searching for "Dirk Gently", came upon two men, Red and Ken. She killed the former and chased the latter until he turned out to not be Dirk Gently as she had thought. She then took him with her, telling him she would kill him otherwise.

When her car breaks down, a motorcyclist offers to fix it though Bart informs Ken that she will have to kill him afterwards. When the car is repaired, the man reveals his intentions to kill Bart and Ken and steal the car. He tries to shoot Bart but all the shots miss and she is able to easily dispose of him.

Bart continues to travel via car with Ken and learns more about the modern world, including the fact that radio songs are prerecorded. Their trip is once again interrupted when a motorcycle gang, seeking revenge for their member killed in the previous episode, capture and restrain the two travelers. They are left tied in the sun for several hours and Bart informs Ken that while she will escape, Ken will probably perish in the fight. Soon after, the gang returns but when they attempt to harm Ken, a series of strange events lead to Bart escaping and defeating the entire gang.

#### Searching for Dirk

Sometime between the previous episodes events, Bart and Ken have switched vehicles and are traveling via ambulance until they run out of gas in Seattle. Believing this to be a sign that Dirk is around, Bart becomes confused by his lack of presence. She resigns herself to wait there until he arrives but is convinced by Ken to take a break. He introduces her to the concept of a Chinese restaurant and hotel, two things that she had never been aware of before. Bart uses the hotel shower to clean herself off but becomes upset with having to wait around and soon leaves the room to kill a seemingly random guy standing across the street.

#### Finding Dirk

Bart is walking around Seattle when she overhears a man declaring that his name is Dirk Gently. She begins to chase him through the town but all of her kill-shots manage to miss him. She eventually corners him on a tower but is once again stopped from murdering him. The two begin to mimic each other and Bart realizes that Dirk is different from the others; he's like her. Before she can attempt to harm him again, Farah stabs her in the leg and throws her down the tower. She is taken by Ken back to their hotel room, somehow unnoticed by anybody they pass by. To muffle her loud screaming, Ken turns on the TV and a news report reveals that the man she killed across the street had been keeping two women captive in his basement.

#### Recovering

Bart spends a few days resting and recovering in her hotel room while watching TV commercials. Believing her injury to be punishment for straying from her path, she feels like she should quit the mission, stating that she only has two bullets left in her gun. Ken, having seen her incredible feats in the past week, manages to convince her to see where the two bullets lead her. Leaving the hotel room, the two are eventually led to the Spring Mansion where Dirk and his friends are being threatened by two Men of the Machine. Before she can kill Dirk, she is forced to use her remaining bullets to kill the two men and decides to leave after Ken fixes the time machine.

While Ken is concluding that Bart's mission was to save rather than kill Dirk, Bart realizes that the reason she hadn't killed Ken was because he was meant to fix the machine. Seeing as his mission has been completed, she regretfully admits that he is free to leave. Having formed a bond with Bart over the last week, Ken assures her that he is fine where he is. The two begin travelling together again but are soon ambushed by Blackwing.

### Season 2 (The Middle of Everywhere)

#### Searching for Ken

When Blackwing had confronted her at the end of the Spring case, Bart managed to evade her attackers and remain free, but was separated from her friend Ken. Since then Bart had been roaming the land looking for him, changed by the gaining and losing of a friend.

About two months after the Spring case, Bart was traveling by bicycle through Bergsberg County. On the road she passed Suzie Boreton, driving to work in the opposite direction. That night Bart arrived at Suzie's workplace at the Bergsberg quarry, and killed four Cavatos Thugs that had been about to kill Suzie. Despite feeling like she should kill Suzie, Bart decided to spare her, moved by empathy and spite against the universe. A terrified Suzie used the magic wand to defend herself, causing Bart to be hurled away. Bart fell into the quarry hole.

#### Seeking help

...

...

## Character

Bart has a terrifying but cute personality. Not having any friends before meeting Ken, she is unaware of how the world works. For example, she doesn't know how cars, radios, and hotels run.

Bart is an anomalous entity, described as a causality psychic. For her this expresses itself in intuitive feelings of being meant to kill someone, and the urge to do so. Aiding her on that path are the facts that her any purposeful or innocuous action may be deadly to her targets, directly or through an improbable chain of events, and that she herself is impervious to harm in a similar fashion, protected by the same clusterings of coincidences. This boon of invincibility protects her for as long as she follows her insincts and serves her purpose; when she deviates from it -- by accident or intentionally -- she is vulnerable as anyone.

Her Blackwing codename is "Project Marzanna"; the name stems from a Slavic goddess associated with death.

## Targets

**Season 1:**

* several Men of the Machine
	+ Red (stabbed, *Horizons*)
	+ Ed, Zed (shot, *Two Sane Guys Doing Normal Things*)
* two unnamed gas station robbers (shot, *Horizons*)
* members of the New Children of the Old God biker gang
	+ Jake (*Lost & Found*)
	+ eight bikers (blunt force trauma, shot, stabbed; *Rogue Wall Enthusiasts*)
* Gifford (traffic, *Very Erectus*)

**Season 2:**

* four Cavatos Thugs (*Space Rabbit*)
* Suzie Boreton (*Space Rabbit*), spared by Bart contrary to her intuition
* Kellum Army
* Ken Adams, spared by Bart

## Behind the scenes

* Bart Curlish is portrayed by actress Fiona Dourif.
* In the original script for Ep 1.01, Bart Curlish is a man in his 40s.
* In the second series, Bart's inmate ID is shown to be "QT 3.14". With the numbers 3.14 being the first three digits of the mathematical constant Pi (π), this spells out "cutie pie".

### Appearances

* Season 1 (BBC America)
* Season 2 (BBC America)
	+ Space Rabbit
	+ Two Broken Fingers

## Notes

1. ↑ Max Landis on Twitter, 23.10.2017[1]
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 *Lost & Found*
3. ↑ Horizons
4. ↑ Rogue Wall Enthusiasts
5. ↑ Very Erectus
6. ↑ Fix Everything
7. ↑ Two Sane Guys Doing Normal Things
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 *Space Rabbit*
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 *Two Broken Fingers*
10. ↑ Max Landis on Twitter, 02.09.2017, [2]