Marietta and Sarah walk into the mayor’s mansion late one night.
Marietta: It’s almost seven, you need to get in the shower. You’re not going to be able to sleep tonight.
Sarah: You’re not my mother and you can’t tell me what to do!
Marietta: Can it, Hayley Mills.
Sarah: I don’t know who that is.
Marietta: It’s no use. Either way, stop acting and get yourself cleaned up.
Sarah: I have a question first. Can we sign up for one of those genealogy sites?
Marietta: Is this a stalling tactic? Have you grown afraid of water? What’s this about?
Sarah: We have a school project to make family trees and write about our family lineage.
Marietta: When I was in school, we didn’t have fancy sites for things like that. Why don’t you ask your grandmother to help you out? She’s old enough to have met every human to have ever lived.
Sarah: Have you ever asked grandma to tell you stories from the past? She rambles on so long, she forgets what the topic was to begin with.
Marietta: She does do that, you are right.
Sarah: Grandpa’s notch better, he can’t remember any details to begin with.
Marietta: And when’s this project due?
Sarah: A week.
Marietta: Okay, we’ll sign up for one of those family tree sites. Although, you know, the real family is in your heart.
Sarah: What does that mean?
Marietta: I don’t know, it just sounded like one of those phony inspirational sayings people like to say to cheer other people up.
Sarah: I don’t need any cheering up. You just told me I’ll be able to do actual research for my project and wont’ have to rely on an interview with grandma. I’m over the moon.
Marietta: Maybe don’t tell your grandmother how ecstatic you are that you don’t have to talk to her.
Two days later, at a mayoral candidates forum…
Marietta: Okay, what am I doing here? What’s the goal of this?
Amy: We’re here to reintroduce you to the voters.
Marietta: I’ve been mayor for four years, I’ve not been in hiding. I’m not Greta Garbo.
Amy: You’re right, but most voters don’t really pay attention to what the mayor is doing as long as nothing goes horribly wrong.
Marietta: Are you saying things have gone horribly wrong? Or are you saying I’m boring?
Tammy: She’s saying this is good publicity for the campaign and you need all the help you can get.
Marietta: This is airing at 5 o’clock on a Saturday on one TV channel. I don’t think this’ll make or break the campaign.
Tammy: We can’t let Egerton get in a public appearance unanswered. You have to work just as hard as him if you want any shot of fending him off.
Marietta: Maybe I should just lay down and accept my fate. It’s so much work and I’m exhausted. Retirement sounds pleasant.
Tammy: Okay, President Johnson, we’ll just drop out now. Good thing we haven’t put in any work on this campaign.
Marietta: My god, Tammy, I’m just blowing off some steam. This campaign isn’t ending until I lose in that runoff and have to concede on television as I cry.
Tammy: Have you seen your competition?
Marietta: That’s true, maybe I’ve got a chance.
Henrietta: Marietta, this is -
Marietta: Kent Egerton…
Kent: Howdy!
Marietta: Henrietta, is there a way to build some sort of partition to block me from having to see him?
Kent: Now now, madame mayor, no need for hostility.
Marietta: In think there’s plenty of reason for hostility. You’re running non-stop ads about me being a crook.
Kent: Come on, water under the bridge!
Marietta: I saw the ad running this morning!
Kent: You really don’t want to meet my beautiful wife?
Marietta: No, not really, Egerton.
Kent: Well, here she is.
Marietta: Her?
Kent: This is Tressa, my wife and campaign manager.
Marietta: Tressa? Like the shampoo?
Henrietta: That’s Tresemme.
Marietta: Either way, dumb name.
Tressa: Ain’t your name Marietta? Like the city in Georgia?
Marietta: Shut up, Tresemme.
Kent: Don’t talk to my wife like that, mayor.
Marietta: I’m so sorry to talk to her like that. I didn’t mean to offend, it must be hard enough going through life with a fake name.
Kent: I offered you an olive branch and you lash out. I’ll be going hard after you tonight if this is how you're talking to me now.
Marietta: Going hard at me? Honey, you don’t have what it takes.
Tress: You know, you may think my name is dumb, but I know more than you think.
Marietta: I’d hope so. Based on looking at you and your blank stare, I don’t think you know a single thing. Tammy, I think we can still win if this is the brilliant mind running our opposition campaign!
Kent: Okay, that is enough!
Marietta: What, are you afraid of me calling out the low intelligence of your nepotism hire? I get Ron Marks investigating me for campaign finance violations, while you clearly gave your wife a job just so you can legally pay her using campaign donations. I’m the crook?
Kent: Nepotism? The daughter of the former governor wants to talk nepotism?
Henrietta: Marietta! Phone call from Sarah!
Marietta: Okay, I gotta take this. Sorry to step away, Kent, this was such a stimulating conversation.
Kent: Yes, stimulating, the was a word for it.
Marietta walks outside.
Marietta: What’s going on, dear?
Sarah: You’re not Henrietta.
Marietta: She handed the phone right to me.
Sarah: I’m glad she did, I have a big question!
Marietta: Can you say it quickly? I have to get back to the forum before it starts.
Sarah: I’m hiding in the bathroom because I don’t want anyone to hear me.
Marietta: Why on earth are you doing that?
Sarah: I found something top secret on the genealogy site, something I had to ask you about first before I brought it up to anyone else.
Marietta: Sounds intriguing.
Sarah: Did you have a sister named Mary Frances?
Marietta: Is that what the website told you?
Sarah: Yeah, I was very surprised. No one ever told me about her!
Marietta: I don’t know anything about her. Are you sure it’s right.
Sarah: It said she lived from 1960 to 1962. Rings no bells?
Marietta: None at all. Her name sounds very similar to mine, maybe this site mixed her up with me somehow. It was the cheapest site we found, you know.
Sarah: There’s a picture of a grave on here.
Marietta: A grave?
Sarah: This is so freaky.
Marietta: That’s definitely a word for it.
Two hours later…
Amy: What in the hell was that out there? You looked completely lost! You looked like a dementia patient.
Marietta: I’m not -
Amy: Not in the right frame of mind? That much is apparent.
Henrietta: Give her a break, let her talk.
Tammy: Marietta, are you having a stroke? A heart attack? We can get you to a hospital, we have time!
Marietta: That call I got from Sarah, you know what that was about?
Henrietta: I didn’t talk to her before I handed the phone over.
Marietta: She’s working on a family tree project at school and she used one of those genealogy websites.
Amy: I’ve used one of those, it didn’t make me completely blank out and stare into space, though.
Marietta: Well, I’m assuming you didn’t discover a secret sister when you did your test, did you?
Tammy: That’s quite a twist!
Amy: Which one had the affair, Patty Lynn or Martin?
Tammy: It’s Martin. It’s always the man who has the love child.
Marietta: I didn’t get the details, but she apparently was been born before me. She died the year I was born.
Tammy: Another twist!
Amy: I don’t know what the proper response is to that.
Marietta: I don’t know the proper way to feel about it, so you aren’t alone.
Tammy: At least now, if you do lose this election, we have a new scapegoat thanks to this abysmal performance today.
Marietta: My dead older sister?
Tammy: No, Sarah!
Marietta: I’m good with that.
Henrietta: I thought she was going to say me.
Tammy: It’s a little bit on you, too.
Henrietta: Please don’t fire me.
Amy: Don’t worry, you’ve got nepotism on your side.
Marietta: I think that’s enough nepotism talk for today.
At Martin and Patty Lynn’s…
Patty Lynn: Marietta, you were incredible today! How could anyone vote for Egerton after a performance like that from you?
Marietta: Mother, we have to talk.
Patty Lynn: We can talk about anything.
Sarah: Oh boy.
Kathleen: What do you know about this?
Marietta: I gotta call Milton and get him on the line for this one.
Patty Lynn: I don’t know what you have in mind, but sure, I always love speaking with my children.
Marietta calls Milton.
Milton: Hey! Is it time?
Marietta: Yes, it’s time!
Milton: All right, let me tell Kate I have to head out of this meeting.
Kate: You go, you have more pressing matters than this.
Ellie: I wish she was half as forgiving with me as she is with you.
Milton: Well, how would she possibly live without you by her side constantly?
Kate: Better.
Milton: Okay, Marietta, showtime.
Patty Lynn: Now I’m very intrigued.
Marietta: Who is Mary Frances?
Martin: Debbie Reynolds’ birth name.
Marietta: Mary Frances Landfield. Who is she?
Martin: How did you ever hear that name?
Sarah: I discovered it on a family tree website.
Martin: Those aren’t al-
Patty Lynn: Honey, I think we have to tell them.
Milton: You think?
Kathleen: He left a Senate meeting for this, you could at least tell him the truth about his family.
Marietta: So she is real!
Sarah: Call me Sherlock.
Kathleen: No shi-
Patty Lynn: She is real. She was our first-born child, I had her two years before you, Marietta.
Marietta: Well, that settles that. Told you I was right, Milton!
Milton: I guess you had more faith in my daughter’s researching abilities than I did. Apologies
Sarah: It’s time people learn to stop doubting me.
Marietta: Why didn’t you ever tell us about her?
Martin: Losing her was hard for us, as you would expect. You were a newborn and it was so sudden and we had to just sort of bury it for your sake.
Patty Lynn: You went to stay with Kathleen for a few weeks after it happened while we dealt with
our grief.
Kathleen: And we had a ball! I was the first person you ever called “mama.”
Martin: That is a lie.
Kathleen: You don’t have to believe it, I know it to be true.
Patty Lynn: By the time you came back from Kathleen’s, we’d cleared out every trace of her. It was our attempt to move on in a healthy way without being reminded of her constantly.
Marietta: Erasing a child doesn’t seem to be the healthiest grieving method, I must say.
Patty Lynn: Mental health treatment wasn’t quite as advanced back then as it is today. Facing trauma head on -
Sarah: Like Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween.
Patty Lynn: wasn’t really something they told you to do. So we didn’t.
Milton: I have to ask this, but I am sorry if it’s upsetting to discuss. What happened to her?
Martin: Can you take this one, please?
Patty Lynn: I can. Mary Frances was at home with a babysitter while your father and I were campaigning for mayor Conway’s re-election. They were in the yard and she somehow slipped the gate, wandered into the street, and was hit by a car. The babysitter and the driver did all they could, but she was gone. It was a horrible, horrible accident.
Martin: And we’ve always blamed ourselves for it. We should have been there. Maybe then it wouldn’t have happened.
Marietta: I’m really sorry you went through that. I can’t even imagine.
Patty Lynn: It was the hardest thing we’ve ever got through, but I do think, in a way, it strengthened us. It solidified the importance of family, not made us realize how politics can’t come before family. I think we did pretty good with you two, no?
Marietta: I’d say so, yeah. Why did you hide her from us, though? For fifty years!
Sarah: I hate to correct you here and remind you of your real age, but -
Marietta: Sixty years. Jesus! I’m sixty?
Kathleen: Is time a bitch or what?
Patty Lynn: Like I said, it was too painful to bring it up at the time. Then there never really seemed to be an appropriate time to bring it up. When was I supposed to explain to you that you had a sister that died when you were an infant and before Milton was even born?
Milton: “Hey kiddo, happy fifth birthday, just thought you’d want to know that you had an older sister who died when she was two.” Yeah, I see why you weren’t sure when to bring that up.
Martin: We definitely should have brought it up earlier. Probably when you were both at an age where you could understand what it meant. We would've gone about things differently if we could do it all over.
Kathleen: Look at it this way, at least the truth came out before you both died. They didn’t have to discover it from looking through your old files like in the pilot of a Netflix drama.
Sarah: Since when do you know what Netflix is?
Kathleen: I’m not as behind-the-times as you think. I watch Wednesday.
Patty Lynn: I suppose Kathleen does have a point. Sarah discovering that on some website ended up being a sort of blessing. It takes a weight off our shoulders for sure, and it let us have an honest conversation.
Kathleen: We all know how much you love talking.
Sarah: See, it’s a good thing that I would’ve rather paid for a website to help with my project than talk to grandma about it!
Patty Lynn: You what?
Milton: I don’t know, honey, we still ended up having to talk with her about something.
Patty Lynn: Why are you acting like talking with me is a punishment?
Marietta; It can be.
Martin: I see you’ve all moved on from the interrogation.
Marietta: No, we’re still on that, ignore the distraction tactics.
Patty Lynn: Can you both forgive us for not telling you about Mary Frances?
Marietta: You came clean, you didn’t hide it when confronted, and it never actually hurt us. I don’t forgive you because there’s nothing to be mad about. It was your story to tell. whenever you were ready.
Patty Lynn: Okay… one more thing to tell.
Martin: What’s that? I feel like everything’s been sufficiently covered here today.
Patty Lynn: Your name, when you were born, is actually what your middle name is now. You were Lorna Landfield when you were born.
Marietta: Ooh… really?
Patty Lynn: Yeah… not our finest work.
Marietta: What does this have to do wi- oh!
Patty Lynn: We changed your name to Marietta after Mary Frances died, as a way to honor her and keep part of her with us.
Marietta: I don’t think Lorna Landfield would’ve made it too far in politics, so I’m pretty grateful for that change.
Patty Lynn: Well, you know how pregnancy brain goes. Sometimes it takes a couple months to get that clarity. Or a year.
Marietta: My name was Lorna for a year?
Patty Lynn: Mistakes happen.
Two weeks later…
Marietta: I’m really glad we are doing this as a family.
Milton: Of course you had to upstage me by bringing flowers.
Marietta: This is about our sister, not you. It’s not a contest.
Patty Lynn: I haven’t been here in years, I needed this. Thank you for all pushing me to come here.
Marietta: Family shows up for family. Even family we never knew existed.
Sarah: I hope they use that line in the next Fast and the Furious movie.
Patty Lynn: Mary Frances, we love you. We’re so sorry you’re not here, but your spirit lives in all of us.
Marietta: Even those of us who only learned about you two weeks ago.
Martin: Okay, save the jokes for when we’re not at the cemetery.
Marietta: You have to admit, there’s an air of comedy surrounding this. It’s a sitcom plot.
Milton: Our lives are a sitcom plot.
What did you think of this episode of Marietta? Let us know in the comments and make sure to read a new episode next week!
