Marietta is at Martin and Patty Lynn’s for their annual New Year’s Eve party.
Patty Lynn: Ten…. nine… eight…
Marietta: Mom, we can all read the counter on the screen.
Martin: Let her have her fun.
Patty Lynn: Four… three… two… one… Ha-
Tammy: Happy New Year!
Patty Lynn: She stole my line!
Sarah: Did you trademark “Happy New Year,” grandma?
Patty Lynn: Do you really want to start off the new year by sassing me?
Kathleen: She does it any other time, why would the change of years matter any?
Marietta: You know, the celebration for us is quite subdued compared to the New York countdown. They get a rousing anthem dedicated to the spirit of their city. We get a sparkling fleur-de-lis before Seacrest sends things over to Hollywood for mediocre pre-recorded performances by has-beens. It’s just not the same.
Milton: Are you jealous that I got to set the countdown in motion when I was mayor and you’ve never been asked?
Marietta: Of course I am! What the hell is that crap?
Milton: They said times are too divisive to include anything political in the broadcast.
Marietta: Hogwash! They’re just a bunch of sexists.
Amy: Do you really want to spend the start of the year complaining?
Marietta: Yes! This is a conspiracy against me!
Eliza: Speaking of conspiracies -
Henrietta: Mom… don’t!
Eliza: I was just going to ask -
Henrietta: Don’t ask things! Keep the peace!
Eliza: I just wanted to know if she’s heard anything about Ron Marks’ campaign finance investigation.
Henrietta: Oh, god, now you’ve done it!
Elena: You had to open this can of worms after midnight, honey?
Kathleen: Smart of her, if you ask me. If Marietta flips out, Eliza can leave and pretend it’s just because she’s tired.
Marietta: Do you all think of me as someone that has temper tantrums and melts down on curses at people?
Kathleen: So anyway, anyone know who’s performing at the Hollywood party?
Martin: No one I’ve ever heard of.
Sarah: Okay, so they’re people who attained fame after 1978. That rules out Fleetwood Mac.
Martin: Too soon.
Tammy: To answer your question, Eliza -
Henrietta: I don’t think that needs to be done.
Tammy: No, we haven’t really heard about the investigation. From what I gather, we won’t hear much of anything until the report is filed, unless there’s a leak to the press.
Eliza: That sucks. You are getting railroaded over this for no reason other than political revenge. They have no actual argument against you, Marietta.
Marietta: I am aware of how flimsy it all is.
Patty Lynn: Can we celebrate now, instead of dwelling on some of 2022’s greatest nonsense? This is a night for new beginnings, not worrying about the past.
Marietta: I wasn’t the one who brought it up.
Patty Lynn: Did I say youwere?
Martin: Oh, look, Cyndi Lauper! Everyone sing along!
Kathleen: These girls don’t seem like they wanna have fun, Martin.
Martin: Maybe I should just get drunk on champagne then, if I have to listen to bickering all night.
Milton: Nice going, guys. You broke dad.
Marietta: He lives with mom and aunt Kathleen. He was already pretty broken.
Kathleen: I take that as a compliment.
Sarah: Happy New Year, everyone!
Three days later…
Henrietta: Have you seen this?
Amy: It’s front-page news, of course I’ve seen it.
Marietta: Seen what?
Tammy: Why are you always the last to know everything about your own political career?
Marietta: No one ever seems to care to tell me.
Henrietta: They have identified the person that leaked to the Times about the campaign finance violations.
Marietta: Well, who’s the traitor?
Amy: A volunteer named Celine Jaffree.
Marietta: Celine Dion? It’ll be hard for my heart to go on after that betrayal.
Tammy: Are you simple?
Marietta: A bit, why?
Tammy: This is a major development in this scandal and you seem to not care in the slightest.
Marietta: What good does it really do me to know the name of my betrayer?
Henrietta: Revenge?
Amy: Wow, I didn’t expect little Henrietta to be the vengeful one here.
Henrietta: I can have a mean streak when I want to.
Amy: I’ve yet to see it.
Henrietta: You haven’t pissed me off… yet.
Marietta: Okay, if this goes on another second I think Amy’s going to find a horse’s head in her bed when she gets home.
Henrietta: Oh, come on, I’m only joking. I’m not insane. I know you can’t really get vengeance on this Celine person. Not the revenge she deserves, that is.
Tammy: Thank you for bringing us back on topic! What do we all think of this revelation/?
Marietta: I think I don’t remember who Celine Jeffrey is.
Tammy: Celine Jaffree.
Marietta: Who gives a crap?
Tammy: One of the major responsibilities of my job is to make sure you’re knowledgable about what’s going on in case the press stops you for a quote.
Amy: You have responsibilities?
Marietta: You have a job?
Tammy: You’ve begged me not to quit multiple times, so I don’t want to hear any smart remarks out of you.
Henrietta: Look at Tammy fighting back!
Tammy: I have to call out hypocrisy when I see it.
Marietta: I suppose you do have a point, actually. I do need to be aware of something that the press will surely hound me about.
Tammy: Ha! See what fighting back gets you, people start to take you seriously.
Marietta: Don’t let it inflate your ego.
Amy: Too late. Look at her, she’s about to chug some of the leftover champagne from New Year’s Eve.
Henrietta: Should I do some research on this woman, just so you’re prepared for the questions?
Marietta: What research do you need to do? We know she volunteered for me and that she’s a leaking traitor. That seems sufficient.
Henrietta: I think it might be pertinent to know how long this woman worked for you, or how high-level she was in the campaign.
Amy: I think Marietta would remember her if she was a high-ranking staffer.
Marietta: I have to be honest with you, the only staff members of mine whose names I remember are the three of you in this room.
Tammy: That’s bad.
Marietta: You think I don’t know that it’s bad?
Amy: Truly a woman of the people.
Marietta: Oh, so you remember the names of all of your campaign staffers?
Amy: More than three of them! And I haven’t even seen my staff members in years, unlike you.
Marietta: See, you’ve also lost touch with your campaign workers.
Amy: Yeah, you got me. Why do I even bother arguing with you?
Marietta: I don’t know, I’m so good at it.
Later that day…
Kate: How are you doing in this new year? Any exciting developments?
Marietta: Not really, no. You?
Kate: I held my first caucus meeting today with the new class of senators. I’m telling you, Mare, they get dumber every time. First of all, there are like ten of them, and maybe four of them have normal qualifications. One of them is a skater!
Marietta: Were you not star-struck? I love her!
Kate: She’s as moody as a teenager, pregnancy brain has struck her hard.
Marietta: That’ll get better, at least. What’s wrong with the others?
Kate: They’re just a bunch of airheads, not much to really say. I actually think skater girl may be one of our stronger rising stars. Now, time to share something about your day. I can’t be the only one contributing here.
Marietta: I told you, nothing happened. I had some meetings, yelled at Tammy and Amy a bit, cried about my holiday break being over, found out who the leaker is, had lunch, all normal stuff.
Kate: You found out who the leaker is?
Marietta: Yeah, nothing exciting.
Ellie: Of course it’s exciting!
Marietta: Ellie! How long have you been there?
Ellie: I’m always here, come on.
Marietta: I should have known.
Kate: Who’s the leaker?
Marietta: Actually, I don’t really know. She worked for me, but I don’t know anything else about her.
Ellie: Ooh, how intriguing! A mystery!
Kate: Stop that.
Marietta: It’s not as exciting as it sounds. Just someone getting a little too nosy and deciding she could make some money off of her findings. Politics is dirty, this is nothing unexpected.
Kate: How don’t you know anything about someone that worked for you?
Marietta: I’m just going to guess that Tammy hired her.
Henrietta: Hey!
Marietta: One second, girls, Henrietta needs to talk and she’s the only sane one around here.
Kate: All the time you need, I’ll take any excuse I can to get away from my new simpleton colleagues.
Henrietta: I did some research on Celine Jaffree.
Marietta: As you’ve said.
Henrietta: So this is what she looks like. Ring a bell?
Marietta: Can’t say she does, no.
Henrietta: Well, that’s probably because she was just a run-of-the-mill door knocker. She had no high-ranking position in the campaign.
Marietta: How the hell did she find out about Tammy mishandling the finances if she was a small-time volunteer?
Henrietta: She apparently was actively looking for it. She could have been a plant, we all know that’s been a problem before. Sorry about that.
Marietta: These people are trying to take me down like I’m Tony Soprano. I’m a mayor! I literally don’t do anything.
Henrietta: They’re just intimidated by you.
Marietta: Stop flattering me, get back to looking into this woman. There has to be something to this, it’s premeditated.
Henrietta: I’ll keep looking, I won’t stop until I find something.
Kate: So, you were saying this wasn’t interesting?
Marietta: I’ll have to change my characterization, I didn’t realize it was actually a mystery
Kate: You seem to be a magnet for political sabotage.
Marietta: Mayoral politics, it’s must more scandalous than one would think.
Ellie: No one’s ever tried to infiltrate my campaign in an attempt to bring me down, I feel left out.
Kate: You’re too boring.
Ellie: Boring? Excuse me?
Kate: You’re a Democratic Senator from Massachusetts in Senate leadership. Dime a dozen.
Ellie: That was hurtful.
Marietta: I’d better let you two go, I’m sure you’re very busy with the start of the new Congress.
Kate: Yeah, that’s the problem. Don’t make us go. Not back to them.
Marietta: I’m sorry, I have my own nightmares that I need to get back to. I’ll talk to you soon!
Later that night, at Martin and Patty Lynn’s…
Marietta: Oh, what a day.
Patty Lynn: We’ve seen!
Marietta: Seen what?
Patty Lynn: What I presume you’re talking about! Celine Jaffree!
Kathleen: It’s a media firestorm.
Marietta: Oh dear god.
Sarah: Weren’t you aware?
Marietta: I was aware her name was revealed, I was not aware of the extend of the hubbub they’re making it about.
Martin: This is like your Watergate. The media reports on it are like watching As the World Turns. New twist and turn every day.
Sarah: What’s that?
Kathleen: From before your time.
Patty Lynn: The media people aren’t cutting you any break. This has thrown gasoline onto a four-alarm fire.
Sarah: It’s huge news on Twitter, it’s the #2 story behind Elon actively trying to burn down the site.
Kathleen: People love a trainwreck.
Marietta: I don’t understand why people are so intrigued by this small detail being revealed.
Kathleen: Like your dad said, in his own geriatric way, it’s like a soap opera for these people. This is a new character for them to invest in and learn about.
Marietta: Well, we really don’t know all that much about her ourselves. All we know is that she used to work for me and somehow found out about the “scandal” despite being a nobody in the campaign.
There is a knock at the door.
Kathleen: Maybe it’s her now!
Sarah: Escandalo!
Patty Lynn: Y’all are weird.
Kathleen: Did she just say that with a straight face?
Marietta opens the door.
Henrietta: Good, you're here!
Marietta: How you know I’d be here at all?
Henrietta: You come here every day after work to pick up Sarah, and you just left work like twenty minutes ago, so I figured this was a safe bet.
Patty Lynn: Henrietta, it’s so nice to see you! Do you want something to drink?
Henrietta: I’m good, thanks, though.
Marietta: Why’d you have to track me down? Did you find anything out? You said you were going to stay at work until you did, and this is pretty fast.
Henrietta: I guess I’m just really good, then. I did find something out.
Kathleen: Well, tell us!
Sarah: Wait, I need the popcorn.
Henrietta: Celine worked for you ten years ago as a Senate intern. You didn’t recognize the name for multiple reasons, as we’ve found out today, but mainly because Jaffree is her married name. She worked for you as Celine Jefferson.
Marietta: Can’t say it rings a bell.
Henrietta: She has reason to hold a grudge against you, you had her fired from the Senate page program because she wasn’t showing up for work on time and her work wasn’t up to your expected “quality.”
Marietta: Whoops.
Henrietta: So, it turns out that it’s a personal vendetta, and not another campaign infiltrating yours.
Marietta: I don’t get why she’d pose as a staffer, though.
Henrietta: She had to get an “in” somehow. She must have hacked a computer or something of one of the higher-ups on the campaign and discovered Tammy’s “issue.”
Marietta: So, when are we bringing this woman down? She committed a crime!
Henrietta: I’ll let you figure that out. For now, I have to get home to my lovely family, including my whiny child. Life is a joy.
Marietta: Well, thanks, Henrietta. There’s one mystery solved.
Kathleen: Disappointing ending if you ask me.
Patty Lynn: No one did.
What did you think of the midseason premiere of Marietta? Let us know in the comments and make sure to read a new episode next week!
