Marietta walks into her office.
Marietta: Ladies, do you know what next month is?
Henrietta: Is this a trick question? Is it your birthday.
Marietta: No! That’s in June. You’re family, you should know this.
Henrietta: I’m sorry, I have other things on my mind, you know?
Amy: Just tell us, Marietta. I don’t have the energy for a guessing game.
Marietta: It’s Halloween!
Tammy: I could have gotten that one.
Marietta: I want a big celebration this year.
Amy: I have a party every year, Marietta. It’s always big and the talk of the town.
Marietta: I don’t mean a big party, although your costume parties are iconic. I mean decorations and stuff around the city. We gotta go all out on city property.
Tammy: It’s not Christmas. How extravagant are you talking here?
Marietta: Can I tell you why I want to go so big with the decorating this year?
Amy: You’re gonna anyway.
Marietta: The cast and crew of the reboot of the iconic slasher film series Hallowed are in town this month to film the newest movie, out next Halloween. It’s the first, uh, cajun-influenced chapter in the franchise and horror fans are very excited. I want to celebrate them choosing to film here for the long-awaited return.
Tammy: That’s it?
Marietta: That seems like a pretty reason to me!
Henrietta: How much are you looking to spend?
Marietta: We’ll barely have to crack into the city budget for it.
Amy: You want to use the city budget for your Halloween wonderland?
Marietta: Of course! That’s what it’s there for.
Henrietta: Isn’t it more for emergency things that we need?
Marietta: Y’all are no fun!
Henrietta: I’m a scream queen. I love Halloween. I just don’t know how the city council will feel about dipping into the city budget so you can buy Hocus Pocus decorations.
Marietta: Hocus Pocus is very offensive to our city’s proud voodoo culture, by the way.
Henrietta: I never know when you’re kidding.
Tammy: Trust me, honey. You never will.
Amy: To answer Henrietta’s question, the city council’s going to hate this.
Marietta: They hate everything I do!
Amy: Exactly. Especially when you’re costing them money.
Marietta: This is barely going to dip into the budget, I promise.
Amy: Fine. You want it, go ahead.
Marietta: All right! I’m so glad to get the approval of my press secretary! I needed that before eI felt okay moving forward.
Amy: You don’t have to be a bitch about it.
Marietta: Henrietta, start looking for cheap decorations on Amazon.
Henrietta: How cheap?
Marietta: Up to you.
Tammy: I feel like this is a bad thing to do when you’ve been accused of misusing campaign funds.
Marietta: This is different, this is official government funds.
Tammy: Right, right. The public is gonna love this.
Amy: “My tax dollars at work!”
Marietta: It’s beneficial to the community, I am pretty much a hero.
Amy: She wants the Medal of Freedom for buying inflatable ghosts to put out in city parks.
Marietta: I was joking!
Tammy: I’m not convinced you were.
Two weeks later, at a city council meeting…
John: One final order of business before let you go, Mayor Landfield.
Marietta: Sure, what is it?
John: We were looking over the monthly expenditures, and surely this is a mistake, but it says five thousand dollars were spent on Halloween decorations?
Marietta: I know, what a deal! I thought it would be so much more!
John: So it wasn’t an error?
Marietta: Afraid not. The city’s Halloween decorations were in bad shape and needed replacing.
Reggie: Now, I might not be the best at math, but I’ll be damned if there was five grand worth of Halloween decorations in this city to begin with.
Marietta: That price creeps up faster than you'd think.
John: Do we look amused, Mayor Landfield?
Marietta: No, not really. You all look like disappointed parents.
John: We don’t. have money in the budget to spend with reckless abandon. This wasn’t needed, and you spent money on it anyway without a second’s thought, didn’t even ask us. You make it so hard to work with you sometimes.
Marissa: May I add something?
John: Of course, it’s an open discussion, anyone can speak.
Marissa: I wanted to speak out on the mayor’s side and say the decorations look great and are a public service for our city. They bring amusement and enchantment to so many who live here and visit here and I think it’s worth spending such a small part of the budget on them.
DeeDee: I understand the excitement for Halloween, and I don’t mean to attack the mayor for buying decorations, but this could have been used in more meaningful ways. That money could have gone towards helping the homeless.
Marietta: I’ve asked for more funds to build homeless shelters, no one ever acted on that.
John: Still debating that.
Moira: I think you are all just bullying the mayor because you know you can.
Reggie: No, we’re holding the mayor accountable for using emergency funds to buy decorations.
Moira: Who among us has not?
Reggie: Fiscal responsibility is so important!
Moira: You sound like a Republican!
Reggie: You take that back!
John: Order! Stop yelling!
Helene: I can not believe I’m watching grown adults argue over Halloween decorations.
Marissa: It’s not, contrary to what some of you seem to believe, the job of this committee to be the fun police.
Reggie: Wanting responsibility is not being the “fun police?”
Marissa: Is “responsibility” your word of the day?
John: Can you all stop this Nightmare on Decatur Street?
DeeDee: We’re not on Decatur Street.
John: It was the first street I could remember.
Marietta: Do I still have to be here or…?
John: We’re going to vote.
Marietta: Oh. Vote on what?
John: I drafted a bill, which states that you will have to personally repay there thousand dollars to the city by the end of the month to offset costs of the Halloween display. That means two thousand dollars is still covered by the city, which feels generous.
Marietta: Do I get a say in this?
Reggie: You got your say when you bought it!
John: Councilman Barrack!
Reggie: You said it was an open discussion, John!
John: Not that open.
Marietta: What happens if I can’t pay?
John: Then they’ll go back. Or we’ll file a report alleging you of misuse of government funds.
Marietta: Mr. Bezos isn’t too forgiving, don’t think he’d like that much.
Reggie: Is that really our problem?
Moira: Reggie, shut up!
John: Everyone, shut up. We’re voting now.
Pat: I haven’t go-
John: All in favor of the bill, raise your hands.
Marietta: Is th-
John: All opposed?
Marietta: That’s definitely less than those in favor…
John: The motion passes.
Marietta: Dammit!
Two hours later…
Patty Lynn: How did the council meting go, honey?
Marietta: This is a war on Halloween!
Martin: Did they ban face paint on government property?
Marietta: They attacked me, assaulted me -
Patty Lynn: WHAT?
Marietta: With words.
Patty Lynn: You gotta specify that in advance, I thought someone mugged my baby.
Sarah: You thought a member of the city council shanked the mayor?
Patty Lynn: City government gets crazier than you’d imagine.
Kathleen: Since no one seems likely to ask at this point… what happened at the meeting?
Marietta: Apparently it’s “wrong” to spend thousands of dollars on Halloween decoration ,and now they want me to repay the city for what I spent.
Patty Lynn: How much did you spend on Halloween decorations?
Marietta: Five… thousand.
Martin: My head hurts.
Sarah: That’s a sign of a stroke, I learned that in health class. Or was that an aneurysm? It could mean something bad.
Kathleen: Thank god we basically have a doctor on board here.
Patty Lynn: You spent five thousand on Halloween decorations? At once? For where?
Marietta: For the city. They didn’t love that I bought it on the city budget.
Patty Lynn: Oh my.
Sarah: You know it’s bad when even grandma isn’t siding with you.
Marietta: I am innocent!
Kathleen: Did you get yelled at?
Marietta: Well, yeah. I also have to pay sixty percent of it back to the city by Halloween.
Sarah: You’re rich. No problem.
Kathleen: Or just dip into your campaign funds.
Marietta: I can’t even look at you right now.
Kathleen: It was a joke!
Martin: Does she look like she wants to hear a joke right now?
Kathleen: It’s Halloween! Sometimes you have to embrace the dark humor.
Marietta: Three grand! I can’t joke about that!
Martin: We’ll figure something out.
Sarah: Yeah, we have to worry about our Halloween costumes now instead. Are we doing a group costume or individual stuff or just a group theme?
Marietta: Oh, so we’ve moved past me being three grand in the hole? I was only trying to help the community!
Sarah: And I’m trying to help us win the costume contest at Amy’s.
Marietta: Definitely equally important.
Kathleen: Did you guys know they’re filming the new Hallowed here? Maybe we can dress as characters from the movie?
Marietta: Don’t mention that movie around me right now.
Kathleen: Did it hurt you in some way?
Marietta: You’re really getting on my nerves!
Martin: I shouldn’t have to tell my grown daughter this, but don’t say that to your aunt!
Marietta: Sorry. I’m just very stressed and that movie is the reason for it.
Kathleen: Did you just watch the installment from 2002? It was bad enough to stress anyone out.
Marietta: The new movie filming here is what made me want to go all-out with decorating the city and set this fiasco in motion.
Sarah: So no group costume then?
Two weeks later…
Marietta: Henrietta! Your costume… what is your costume?
Henrietta: I’m not wearing a costume!
Amy: She already used that joke on me.
Tammy: On me as well.
Henrietta: I’m Carey Mulligan from Promising Young Woman.
Marietta: What’s with the crazy hair?
Henrietta: I swore you said you watched the movie.
Marietta: I just wanted to appease you.
Henrietta: Well, what are you supposed to be?
Marietta: A mayor.
Henrietta: Womp-womp.
Marietta: I’m an adult, I don’t dress up for Halloween at work.
Amy: Someone’s in a grumpy mood.
Marietta: Shut up, Bette Midler.
Amy: These freaking teeth, I want to put a curse on whoever made these!
Marietta: Who’s grumpy now?
Tammy: We have news for you, Marietta. Please don’t get mad.
Marietta: Me? Mad? Never.
Tammy: Jenny Lane Carter, the iconic star of Hallowed -
Marietta: Don’t talk about that movie…
Tammy: She found out about Amy’s Halloween party tonight and asked if she could attend, since it’s “the hottest party in town.”
Amy: Imagine how honored I am that THE scream queen wants to come to MY Halloween party!
Marietta: In the words of Olivia Rodrigo, good for you.
Amy: Olivia wasn’t happy for the person she was saying that to.
Marietta: Stars, they’re just like us.
Henrietta: Are you really still that upset about the decoration fiasco?
Marietta: Honey, I already have a campaign finance scandal following me. Now, the council is threatening to expose me for “misusing” government funds if I don’t get paid. I’m being blackmailed.
Amy: Not really. The press already ran a story about you tapping into the emergency fund for the decorations.
Marietta: I can’t take you seriously with those teeth in.
Tammy: Did you ever pay it back? The deadline is in three days.
Marietta: It’s paid. I just came from handing John Jackson the check personally.
Tammy: Why was John of all people such a hard ass about this Halloween fiasco? Did Halloween hurt him in some way? I expect this from Reggie, not him.
Amy: John’s very set in his ways about what should and should not be the role of the government. Clearly, he doesn’t view Halloween as an essential service.
Henrietta: Look at it this way, you gave a great gift to this city that’ll make people happy for years to come. No one can take that away from you.
Marietta: Unlike the money they took away from me. Enough talk of this, though. The Halloween party -
Amy: Jenny Lane Carter’s Halloween Extravaganza!
Marietta: You named it after her?
Amy: It’s not every day you get a superstar attending your Halloween bash.
Marietta: Anyway, what time is it tonight?
Amy: Seven sharp. It’ll go all night, but I don’t want to start until after dinner. That’s way too many people to feed. You think they’re gonna film for the new Hallowed movie at the party?
Tammy: No, I don’t think the movie franchise about a serial killer nun will be filming at your Halloween party. You don’t have nun vibes.
Henrietta: I’m going to try to get there. I have to take Charlotte trick-or-treating and then try to get her to bed.
Tammy: Is no one going to mention my costume?
Henrietta: I got chills! They multiplying!
Tammy: Thank you for getting the reference!
Marietta: Olivia Newton-John, I am so sorry.
Tammy: I did great, Mitch is gonna be Ione hell of a Danny Zuko, and you’re just going to have to deal with it.
Marietta: Can we get some work done, witches? Costumes don’t get you out of work.
Tammy: What a grinch.
That night, at Patty Lynn and Martin’s…
Patty Lynn: Marietta! What are you supposed to be?
Marietta: I’m former British Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Kathleen: Why the hell are you green?
Marietta: My head is lettuce.
Kathleen: No, your head is skin.
Marietta: Stop being obtuse. This is brilliant, and I’m going to win the costume contest.
Martin: What’s with the pork roast in your hand?
Marietta: It’s fake, but Lizzie does love a good pork market
Martin: Bit niche.
Marietta: Well, what are you, dad?
Martin: Maverick!
Marietta: John McCain?
Martin: From Top Gun1 I tried to get your mother to be Jennifer Connelly, but she punched me.
Patty Lynn: I thought he was trying to trade me for Jennifer Connelly.
Marietta: Think she’s taken. And young enough to be dad’s granddaughter.
Patty Lynn: Anyway, Marge Simpson’s a better costume.
Marietta: The hair’s a little small.
Patty Lynn: I’m old, it’ll throw off my balance if I make it too high.
Kathleen: That’s why I went with a respectable costume.
Marietta: Let me guess. Joy Behar.
Kathleen: Kate Bush! In the Wuthering Heights music video.
Marietta: Wuthering, wuthering, wuthering heights!
Kathleen: Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Kathleen, I’ve come home.
Martin: What is happening?
Patty Lynn: I think witchcraft.
Marietta: Where is Sarah, by the way?
Martin: Milton got her.
Marietta: He’s in town? I didn’t think he’d get here for a few more hours.
Martin: He wanted to do some sort of group project.
Patty Lynn: I guess I’ll address the elephant in the room. What ever happened with paying for the city Halloween decorations?
Marietta: Already done. I won’t get impeached, nor will I have to return them.
Patty Lynn: Good. Don’t feel bad about it, either, you made this city a spookier place to be!
Kathleen: As if it needed that.
Sarah: We’re here!
Milton: Who’s ready to spice up your lives?
Marietta: Oh.
Martin: My.
Kathleen: What the hell?
Moira: Get ready, tonight is the night that two become one!
Kathleen: What the hell?
Milton: Don’t you know the Spice Girls?
Kathleen: What are they doing in the living room? What is that wig doing on your head?
Milton: I’m Sporty Spice.
Marietta: Mel C need to sue you.
Sarah: I’m Baby Spice, because, duh.
Moira: I’m Posh, because I’m expensive and I have great taste.
Patty Lynn: Aren’t there more Spices? Skippy or Zesty or something like that?
Kate: Surprise!
Marietta: You made it!
Kate: We can’t miss out on the New Orleans social event of the year!
Ellie: This wig is horrible!
Kate: And that’s why she’s Scary Spice.
Marietta: Sarah, did you know they were coming?
Sarah: Yeah…
Kate: She did a great job keeping quiet!
Ellie: Not a great job picking my wig, though. I think they put itching power straight in it.
Kate: Can I just say, Marietta, awesome Liz Truss costume. Love the lettuce.
Marietta: Told you it was brilliant, mother!
Sarah: She worked on that for so long. She tried to buy Truss’s actual podium.
Ellie: I’m assuming the international shipping cost more than the podium?
Marietta: They’d already chopped it up for firewood. I tried.
Patty Lynn: I have to ask, where is Tammy?
Marietta: She and Mitch are meeting us there. They want to fly off in their car a little earlier than we’ll likely leave.
Patty Lynn: Flying car? Are they dressed as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?
Marietta: Danny and Sandy from Grease.
Patty Lynn: Ah, cute.
Kathleen: Not brilliant like Marge Simpson with a bob cut, but cute.
Kate: I have to say, the city looks awesome. We drove past one of the parks and you really went all-out with the decorations this year.
Marietta: Don’t even get me started.
What did you think of this week's episode of Marietta? Let us know in the comments, and make sure to read the new episode next week!
