Lisa’s maddening struggle to get Aldo and Ella into the car for the 5-hour drive to Marco’s home in L.A. evokes decades-old memories of a fraught family car trip. Back then it was her dad who kept all the secrets. These days? It’s the whole Giordano clan.
Trapped in the back of her parents’ car, Lisa’s mind replays the moments that shattered her marriage, while in the present her massive texting #FAIL seems to seal its fate. Tano’s encounter at the airport has him wondering if he could be a father. Marco bonds with one of his employees.
Lisa makes a friend during a roadside coffee stop. Aldo’s bigotry rears its racist head, while his memory visits a time when he was the hated “other”. Tano and Nisha arrive at Marco’s. With a surprise guest in tow.
When Ella enters a German-speaking fugue state and thinks Lisa is her Grandma, Lisa panics and calls Bill. Meanwhile, Ella’s "fugue" takes her back to her childhood in Germany, amidst a family dynamic even more tense than that of the Giordanos. Aldo is pulled over on the 210 freeway and comes dangerously close to being arrested.
When Christmas Eve Dinner comes to a screeching halt (thanks to her annual
screaming argument with her father), Lisa ditches the family for a date with a guy
she met at the airport. But she can’t stop thinking about the first time she met Bill.
It’s almost as if he were there. Which, by the way, he IS when she comes home.
The next morning..
Christmas morning at the Giordano house is rife with memories of... Christmas
morning at the Giordano house. The other one. When they were kids. Marco can’t
get his brother Dino out of his head. Lisa is determined to keep Bill at her side.
And Tano is about to reveal a big surprise... when Ella collapses and has to be
rushed to the hospital.
Lisa waits for Ella’s release from the hospital. Tano flashes back to his breakup from
Sarah and wonders if his life could have been different had he not had such a
toxically masculine father. Christmas dinner blows up when Tano learns that Lisa’s
been keeping a secret – one he’s sure belongs to him.
Another dysfunctional holiday behind her, Lisa struggles to figure out why she keeps
sabotaging her life. Could it be tied to a misadventure she and her best friends had
in high school? Something they never spoke of? Tano and Nisha head home to start
a new phase of their life together. And Marco and Manuela’s life is headed for a big
change as well when Aldo and Ella decide to stick around. Lisa says goodbye to Bill
– for now, not knowing someone is waiting to give him a big HELLO back in NYC.
