Tiny Beautiful Things (2023) s01e07 Episode Script

1
Dear Sugar,
I'm supposed to be
getting married in a month.
My fiancé is amazing,
but I don't wanna go through with it.
Dear Sugar, my wife and I
just bought our first house,
and I know I should be happy.
But after she goes to work,
I just sit in it and cry.
Dear Sugar,
I've been a good wife for 25 years.
But for 25 of those years,
I'd wanted to leave.
- What do I do?
- When is it okay to go?
Do you think I should stay?
What are you reading?
Uh, nothing.
How about five stars this time?
How about you go fuck yourself?
Dear Sugar.
I'm a messed-up woman.
I've been married twice.
I'm dishonest,
impulsive,
unhappy,
jealous,
and lonely.
And I have no right to give advice
to anyone.
Um, guys?
- Oh, okay. Hey.
- Shit. Um, Hey, Rae.
Here.
It's from Uncle Lucas. He paid you back.
So now you guys can stop fighting.
Or maybe you already have.
Okay, I can't get anything else out of her,
but something's off.
Why the hell would Lucas trust a friend
to drop off 15 grand?
Have you seen my Hayes letter?
I I keep it in a book,
- and now I can't find the book.
- No.
I need it for the retreat.
And now Rae's acting all cagey.
Wait. I found it. Ah! Good.
Okay, I want to know
who the hell was at my house last night.
- Don't you?
- Danny. Lucas paid us back.
Rae's not screaming at me.
We had sex for the first time in months!
Everything is good! Things are good!
What was up with
that Uber driver last night?
Oh. That's That's Amy.
So I will see you tomorrow night.
So you're leaving?
Right now? In the middle of this?
In the middle of what?
Danny, there is no "middle".
There is no "this."
Hey, everything is good.
Okay?
It's good.
- Sorry. Hi. Hi.
- Mama, hustle!
What? Were you looking
for that Hayes letter?
- Hi.
- Hi. Hi. Hi.
- Okay. So I got jerky.
- Sorry.
- I got CBD lollies.
- Whoo!
Oh, my God, what's wrong?
Nothing. Everything. I don't know.
- Let's just go.
- Okay.
I never want to see
another blue book in my life!
At least until next quarter.
- Oh, we should celebrate.
- Yes!
Let's drive to Mexico.
Well, that's kind of far.
Come on, Mom.
It's spring break.
Would you settle for Dairy Queen on Route 4?
How about this?
We will save up,
and then spring break, senior year,
we'll go somewhere great.
Yeah!
Yeah, okay. Uh, we've got
- We've got two years to save.
- Mm-hmm.
Where should we go?
Machu Picchu is supposed to be incredible.
- Well
- The Inca Trail?
I was thinking less hiking, more margaritas.
Hey, wh what are you doing?
Documenting.
Okay. Uh, well,
I'm Jess.
Uh, well, you're a terrible driver, Jess.
Huh! Uh, I wasn't I wasn't driving.
Right. You were just
- sitting there, not moving.
- Well, stopped.
I mean, who's gonna pay for this?
You were driving.
Honey, it was our fault.
No, no, Mom.
It's gonna take us both
working doubles to cover this.
We're never gonna make it to Mexico!
Uh, well You know what?
My father knows a guy, a mechanic.
You wanna give me your
number? I can see if he could
I don't know, like,
hook you up or something.
You know, why not? Worth a shot.
Yep.
Unless this is just some ploy to
- get my number.
- No. No way.
It's the mechanic. Uh
So I'm gonna get you a mechanic.
- Cool.
- Yep.
This writer's retreat
is the best birthday present
that anyone has ever given me.
Aw! Well, you only have two
sad little days left of your 40s.
- Oh, my God.
- So you gotta go big or go home.
- That's what they say.
- Oh, God.
"Legendary British author Hayes MacKeown
"leads this penetrating workshop"
- Oh, God.
- "featuring a master craftsman
working at the height of his powers."
Oh, "height of his powers"? Jesus!
Like, they'd ever say that about a woman.
Hey. So I have some news.
- What?
- Uh
Okay, I heard from my agents.
Finally.
Oh, Aim. Okay. I'm so sorry.
And Random House is making an offer which
Oh, my God.
- Wait! Oh, my God!
- Right?
- Oh, my God!
- It's not even that much money but it
But, who cares. Uh, wait.
It doesn't matter about the money.
- It's just like
- Yeah.
Out of curiosity, just how
I mean, I wonder how much
Like, I think they said 85K.
- $85,000?
- Yeah. But, uh
- Holy shit, Amy!
- I know.
- And guess what?
- What?
I guess there's some interest
in the screen rights.
- Wow!
- I know! What!
Wow! Oh, my God. Wow. I am
Whoa!
Oh, my God. This place!
Not. Too. Shabby.
Thank God they do a sliding scale, right?
- Amy? Amy!
- Oh, my God.
I just heard the news!
- Shut up, shut up, shut up!
- I know.
- It's crazy. It's crazy.
- You are a goddamn goddess.
- Thank you so much.
- I'll just
I'll just sign us
Or, you know, check us in.
Thanks for all the support.
I am so excited for you.
- Hi.
- Hi.
I'm just here to, uh, check in
Clare Pierce and Amy Adler.
Yes.
You're in
Writing About Abandonment.
Yay!
Uh, no, no, no.
We're in, uh, Hayes MacKeown,
uh, The Story Within.
You're definitely Abandonment.
No, we're literally here for Hayes
But you're literally in The Empty Chair.
Yeah. Empty Chair.
- Ueah. No, that's us. Yeah.
- No, the
Like I said. Let me get
your welcome packets.
Mm. Thank you.
Can I see this?
- Why are
- So, okay, there's a, um,
thing which is that the
Hayes' workshop sold out in,
- like, two seconds.
- No.
So, um, there's a loophole,
which is that we take
the Abandonment workshop,
we say we hate it, and then we switch.
We're gonna abandon
the Abandonment workshop?
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
So, Clare, what'll it be?
Sancerre or Rhône?
Um red. Red's red's fine.
Did you hear that, Joan?
We have another hot earther.
I hope you like beef bourguignon, Clare.
It's good.
I I love your paintings.
When we were in grad school,
we decided we would buy
one piece of art a year.
Art being very loosely defined.
Uh, Clare's mom is something of an artist.
- Yeah?
- Mm. No, not not like this.
Come on. Sh I mean,
everything Clare has
is practically handmade by her.
I mean, she basically built your house.
Wait. Is she an architect?
No, she's a waitress.
I waited tables in college.
I think it's something
everyone should do
once in their life, don't you?
She's in college too, actually.
With me.
- Oh, you're kidding.
- Good for her.
That's It It's never too late, right?
I wanted to be Ruth Ginsburg.
Jess, what if I came to law school with
you next year?
Would you die?
Well, actually, I was, uh
I was thinking Well, we were thinking
that I might, uh, defer a year
to do some traveling abroad.
I'm sorry?
Clare's applying
to a semester in Dublin,
so we thought it might be fun
if we both stayed on
a bit longer, right? Yeah.
Huh.
I'm just gonna use the,
- uh, bathroom.
- Oh, the bathroom?
It's Just go out to the left.
Welcome, writers.
Take a look at this chair.
Wow, they really took this whole
empty chair thing very literally.
- How does it make you feel?
- Yeah.
What memories does it call up in you?
In this writing workshop,
we'll explore abandonment
as it relates to ourselves
and our characters.
And we'll do it safely,
in a circle of trust.
We're just gonna stay
for one minute,
and then we can bail and go to Hayes.
- Okay? Yeah.
- We can't do this.
Oh, but also, he's with Random House too.
So I wanna ask him about an editor.
Ladies, everyone
Sorry.
Maybe we weren't held
We can't just leave
after a minute.
We have to stay a little bit
longer or it would be rude.
maybe you weren't
invited to that birthday party because
everybody knew that you always wore
a T-shirt over your bathing suit.
- Fuck it. Let's just go now. You ready?
- No, Amy. We can't
- Let's go. Come on. Let's go.
- Amy, stop. We're not gonna leave now.
Come on. I'm not staying. Come on.
Amy!
I'm sorry.
Let's begin by closing our eyes
and remembering a time
we emotionally abandoned ourselves.
I should've known.
I love this room.
All these books! It's
Oh, you should take that one.
Hayes MacKeown.
Oh, my mom reads everything he writes.
And this ladder.
I've only seen them in the movies.
I didn't know normal people had
bookcases with ladders!
You think my parents are normal?
Yes.
They think you're just with some
- Backwoods
- What?
- Why did I wear this dress?
- Stop.
You're perfect. Do you
When
do you think we should tell them?
Tell them what?
That we're engaged.
What?
We should get married.
No.
Well, we've only been together, like
We've only been together,
- like, three months.
- I don't I don't care.
I don't. I want us to
I want us to spend our lives together.
And then one day, we'll
we'll have our own house,
and and it'll be full of
- art and so many books
- Books.
and as many ladders as you want.
Are you being serious?
Uh
- If you say yes, yeah.
- Yeah, right.
You kinda
Uh, you wanna unlive that.
You know what I mean?
However, it does beg the question,
this is this is probably
gonna be a plotline for the next one,
if I ever do a next one
'cause why the fuck would I bother?
But having said that
Excuse me?
- Oh, hi.
- Hi.
I'm so sorry for I'm just
gonna sneak in with the
No. You You can't. It's full.
No one's gonna know if I go in there.
I tried my workshop, but it's just
It's not a great fit for me.
So I'm I think
I could just slip into that.
I can't let you join that one,
but I I can get you into, uh,
Kooks, Crazies, and Nut Jobs:
Writing About Mental Illness
with Jan Barnes-Jablonski.
I don't think any of those words
are okay to say.
It's literally the name of the workshop.
- Clare. Clare.
- Oh.
Uh-huh, okay.
- Can you hold on one second?
- Amy!
Oh, my God, I'm dealing with
this book stuff.
My agent wants this book to come out in
Why did you just leave me?
Are you being serious right now?
- Yeah!
- I didn't leave you, Clare.
You stayed.
Ugh.
Hi. Yeah, I'm here. That's
I I don't know, I've never
been to London before. I
Oh!
This This is incredible.
Yeah, well, don't expect a home library.
Hi!
- Hi, Mom.
- Hi!
- We meet again!
- Hello.
Jess didn't believe me
when I said, "Middle of nowhere."
- Hi, honey.
- I missed you.
How was the drive?
I hope no one rear-ended you.
No. No.
This time.
Is
Is this, um
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, we we wanted it
to be a a surprise.
It's Jess' grandma's engagement ring.
I am surprised.
Hey, it's Danny.
You know what to do.
Hey, it's me. I'm just checking in
because I I just hate
how we left things, and I just
Uh, this place is so awful.
And there's, uh
People are so weird,
and and everyone is vegan,
and there's, like, no bar,
and I just I'm, like I just wanna
Uh, anyway, so I'll just see you
tomorrow night.
And, um, I'll Okay. All right. Bye.
Ooh, my God!
- You all right?
- Yeah, it's hotter than I
Ooh!
- You get used to it.
- Yeah.
I'm Clare.
P Pierce.
Oh, yeah?
You probably don't remember my name.
Oh, look, if I If I did
anything, uh, inappropriate,
it was entirely my fault.
I was a whiskey sodden wanker
- with the manners of a fuckin'
- Oh, my God. No!
- No?
- Yeah. No.
Ah, that's a fucking relief.
- So
- Actually, I sent you a letter, uh, once
- with a sh a story
- Oh, yeah?
that I'd written.
It's called The House with the Blue Canoe.
- Right.
- It was a long time ago.
It was, like, 18 years ago that I wrote it.
It was on the back of a menu.
I was a waitress.
Had a lot of doodles on it.
- Nice.
- The menu had
a lot of stuff on it, like,
"Surf, Surf, and Surf."
Okay.
'Cause it was a very irreverent chef.
Right.
Um, anyway, the the point is,
is that I wrote to you about my story
and then you answered me back.
What did I say?
"Dear Clare, thank you so much for
"sharing your beautiful short story.
"I was deep in the throes of writing,
"but I just had to stop to tell you
"to keep up the good work and keep going.
There's something special there.
Much love, H.M."
Or something like that.
Yeah. That's nice.
Anyway, uh
You told me to It was you that
told me to keep going.
- Good.
- So I did.
- Okay, good!
- Yeah.
Then I didn't.
I didn't.
Oh, I thought that if I just, like, saw you,
like saw you, saw you
Like, it it would
just jar something loose in me
or just, like, dislodge something that's,
like, kept me from
Do you remember what you saw in me?
I didn't read your story.
I I didn't write to you, for that matter.
You did. I have, like
I have it right up there.
- You definitely did.
- No. No, no, no, no. No. That wasn't me.
That would've been Morag.
Is Morag is a person?
Morag. Yes.
No, that was my first wife.
She used to answer
all my fan mail, you know?
And, um, she was a poet.
She definitely
She would've used the word "throes." I mean,
she had a tendency towards the dramatic,
which was unfortunate.
But she had really good taste
in other people's work.
And she loved fish. Shellfish.
So
"Surf, Surf, and Surf" would've
been right up her alley.
Well, okay.
Jess, please sit.
Oh, no, it's okay.
I actually
- I need to use the, uh, outhouse.
- Mm-hm.
Uh, but then I will tackle the dishes.
So, you stay right there.
He's a really good guy, Mom.
He seems wonderful.
And he obviously adores you.
But you are both just so young.
I just don't want you
to make the same mistakes I did.
Okay, well
Jess isn't Dad, and I'm not you.
I don't wanna live like this forever.
There's a whole world out there
of art and culture
and and rooms full of books.
And I want that.
You should have whatever you want.
Okay. Well, I want more than this.
Whoo! Hello!
So, there's, like, a fire-pit jamboree
or something tonight, if you wanna
What are you doing?
I I think I'm gonna head out.
I'm sorry if this
feels hard for you.
Who said anything about anything being hard?
Why can't you even pretend
to be happy for me?
What? Amy, I am so happy for you.
- Okay. You're happy for me?
- I am.
I mean, you got a book deal 20 years ago,
and I've been busting my ass
trying to catch up ever since.
16 years ago.
And then I had Rae.
Okay, so
you you got the thing
that you chose to do,
but yet, you're not really that happy for me
when I get the thing that I chose to do.
- That's not fair.
- It's not?
I've been with you,
side by side, neck and neck,
for every single little
and big event in your entire life.
I've been there for your wedding to Danny,
all the kid's birthday parties,
the snot noses, the discolored shits.
Your joys were my joys.
Your bummers were my bummers.
And you can't even,
I don't know, be happy for me!
Because I was happy for you
when you got all the things that
you wanted that I didn't get.
That's different. That's not
You didn't want those things!
How do you know what I want?
It's, like, you just
I'm sorry, but you just act like
you're the only fucking person
in the entire world
that didn't get your heart's desire.
You didn't write a book.
You didn't write the book.
You didn't become the writer
that you imagined
that you were going to become.
And it's not my fault!
And it's not Danny's fault.
And it's definitely not Rae's fault.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That was
Clare.
I can take this up for you
after the wedding.
It'll make a lovely summer dress.
Thanks, Mom.
What is it, sweet pea?
Too tight?
Do you think I'm making a mistake?
This is not a runaway train.
And if you don't want to do this,
you can step off at any time.
- No. I love him.
- Mm.
And everyone's here.
That is not why you get married.
I'm sorry I acted like
this wasn't good enough.
That's okay.
- Hey.
- Mm.
I didn't know you wanted to have kids.
I said
that I wasn't having kids.
Amy
I'm just
I'm just really tired
of people looking at me
like I'm some un unrealized woman
because I'm I'm not a mother.
And then sometimes
I think that they're right.
Amy.
You are an amazing woman.
You're fearless.
You're gorgeous.
You're funny as shit.
You once worked a double
with a plum up your vagina.
Who else can say that?
Oh, my God. I hope nobody.
You are the best friend
that anyone could ever have.
And you are a soon-to-be
bestselling novelist.
I know that.
Thank you.
- Can I come here, please?
- Yes, um
Mm.
Hayes didn't even write me that letter.
What? What're you talking about?
It turns out it was his wife.
- One of his wives.
- Oh, my God.
- Named Morag.
- Morag?
Morag.
And she was the one
who answered all of his fan mail.
Barf.
Let me tell you something.
I bet you
that Hayes MacKeown would
kill to be turning 50 right now,
his whole life ahead of him.
Mm.
There you go.
Hi. It's me again.
Blue Canoe, right?
I'm gonna make you actually sign my letter.
Is this my Morag penitence?
- Maybe.
- Look at that.
See the handwriting runs
right off the fucking page.
- Look at that.
- Oh, I know.
Whatever happened to her?
- Oh, she left.
- Ah, right.
I mean, they all fucking left.
- Mm.
- Right?
No, no. Dear Sugar.
It's It's like this online advice column.
But she writes these raw,
gorgeous essays that just gut you.
Oh, I don't do self-help.
It's not even like that, okay?
It's It's She's been through it.
She's been through it,
and she's real about it.
- I'm telling you. She, she would
- Okay.
Oi!
Okay, you've convinced me
- You know what?
- Hmm?
Why don't you keep it?
- Really?
- Yeah.
- You sure about that?
- I'm good.
That's nice of you.
I would like this though.
Please. Sign.
All right.
Should I personalize it?
Should I use the word "throes"?
Uh, "Sugar."
You can make it out to
"Sugar."
All right.
Dear women,
I'm writing to all of you out there
who are in the throes
of trying to answer
these impossible questions.
When should I go?
When do I leave?
And how do I stay?
Right before my junior year of college,
I married a good man
whom I both loved
and should not have married.
Because the day I married him,
there was a small, clear voice inside me
that said, "Go."
That said
"Go
"even though you love him.
"Go
"even though he is kind
and faithful and good to you.
"Go
"even though there is nowhere to go.
"Go
even though you don't know
exactly why you can't stay."
And once I heard that voice,
I couldn't unhear it.
So instead, I tried not to listen.
But, women,
you have to listen.
There are so many reasons we should stay.
But there is really only one reason to go.
Should we hit the outlets
on the way home?
Ooh. Yeah.
Go
because you want to.
Go
because wanting to leave is enough.
Yours, Sugar.
Hey.
Hi. I'm so glad you're up.
Yeah.
How How was it?
Ugh. Well, it was, like, awful.
And then, it was actually good.
Danny
I'm sorry.
For what?
I've, um
I have been trying to
get out of this hole.
Um
And I've been blaming you and
Rae too, honestly.
Neither of you have kept me down in it.
- Clare, I
- No, no, um
You were right. I did betray your trust.
It has nothing to do
with Lucas or the money.
It's about our life together.
I, uh
I disappeared.
I emotionally bailed
on so many levels
and I just, like, haven't felt alive.
- You know?
- Yeah. Yeah.
And so I have been working on something.
Something I haven't told you about.
And I think it's really good.
And I I think people
think it's really good.
And I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna work on it. Full time.
So don't be mad, but I
I wanna quit my job, okay?
And I I I know I just took it on,
- Yeah.
- But I think that that's
- what has to happen.
- Yeah.
And I also spent 200 bucks
at the outlets, and that's it.
- Okay.
- Okay?
Oh, thank you. Thank you, Danny.
What? We're gonna figure this out.
- I I am, uh
- Just you, me, and Rae.
- Gimme a se Let me talk.
- Okay, well Okay.
I am
so happy for you. I really am.
But, um, I don't wanna do this anymore.
- Do what?
- Uh, this. Us.
- You don't wanna do us?
- I wanna go.
What are you talking about?
And I wanna go because I want to.
And
And wanting to leave, it's it's enough.
Best day ever!