The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise

The group checks into a motel at the coast, and once they get settled into their rooms, they head out to lunch and then to see the ocean. August and Tanner explore the coastline while Louise and George talk, catching up on their lives and Louise’s marriage to Ken. Louise says that she never told Ken everything and asks if Jermaine and George forgave her. George says that she was angry but understood why Louise did it. Louise asks George if she thinks the world is better now for women, thinking back to her worry for her neighbor, her worry for her daughters when they went out, and how Tanner felt so pressured to be polite that she fell off a balcony. She wishes that the world would address the problem of misogyny instead of putting a bandage on it. 

When they get back to the motel, Louise and George go back to their room. Sitting in a chair in the corner is Salvatore, with his hand in his pocket with a bulge that looks like a gun. He tells Louise that she had no right to meddle with his wife, Betsy, or to take what was his. 

Next door, Tanner stops making out with August when she hears a man’s voice coming from Louise and George’s room. Tanner grabs the gun and opens the adjoining door, before kicking in the second adjoining door. She points the gun around the room and orders everyone to freeze. Salvatore taunts her, telling her that he doesn’t believe that she knows how to shoot. She closes her eyes and shoots, missing Salvatore and hitting the lamp next to him. 

Immediately after, FBI agents burst in with their guns drawn and order Tanner to put her gun on the ground and kick it over to them. Agent Huang checks Salvatore’s pockets and finds no gun. She then asks where the money and jewels are. Salvatore says that he doesn’t know about any money, but the second part is what he wants to know. He asks Louise where his daughter is—his daughter named Jules, whom Louise stole from him 48 years ago.

In January 1975, Louise shows up at George’s house in the middle of the night with a baby in her arms. 

In New York in 1968, Betsy Blau meets Salvatore D’Amato, and after one of their dates, they kiss. When her father comes home, he says that a coworker’s daughter saw the kiss. He slaps Betsy and kicks her out for ruining her reputation. She marries Salvatore, and two weeks later, he beats her for the first time. Despite his continued abuse, they keep trying for a baby until she gets pregnant in 1974. She knows then, for her child, that she has to leave. 

Betsy finds George through a friend of a friend. For 15 years, George and Patty have been running a whisper network that helps smuggle women out of abusive relationships. When Betsy calls George, Patty demands that they change their rule of no cop wives and no mob wives because of Betsy’s pregnancy. The week before her due date, Betsy is set to leave, but after Salvatore calls her fat, she flies into a rage and tells him that she is leaving. Salvatore then beats her so badly that she needs life support. She delivers her baby and dies two days later. Patty promised Betsy to take care of the baby, but George says that it is too dangerous. Still, two months later, Patty steals the baby.

Everyone in the room is shocked by the news that Louise stole Jules. Louise also says that she killed a man. After Louise took the baby, Salvatore called George’s house and threatened them, revealing that he knew who Louise was when he hired her as a nanny for two months and that he knew she was helping Betsy leave him. He told Louise that a man was coming to take Jules, and when the man showed up, both George and Louise shot him. They packed up and ran, but when George and Jermaine went back, the body was gone, so there’s no proof of the killing. They split up and Louise changed her name, and the group vowed never to reunite for the safety of everyone.

Agent Huang circles back to the Copley case, and Salvatore and Louise both deny responsibility. Tanner is confused, as Louise admitted to her that she stole jewels. Louise thought that she said Jules, not jewels, so the homophone led to their confusion. Salvatore says that he wants to see Jules before he dies, and Louise decides to let Jules consider if she wants to see him or not. 

Agent Huang wraps up the case, not pressing charges for Jules’s kidnapping 48 years ago, and decides to call her estranged husband and son out to stay in the motel on the coast for a few days of rest.

The group flies home on a plane, and Tanner notices Louise’s fear of heights again as she clutches her seat. Tanner asks Louise if she’ll go by Patty again, but she says no because she’s been Louise for most of her life. Louise promises to give Tanner the money later, since the FBI confiscated it to confirm that it was from Ken’s life insurance. She also tells Tanner that she found out what she’s good at: being a friend. 

When they land in Atlanta, Louise’s children are there to greet her, relieved that she is safe. Tanner’s family is there too, and Candace runs to hug her, shouting “my baby” repeatedly (322). Tanner and Candace hug, releasing their tension and reuniting as mother and daughter. The rest of her family joins the hug and Marty gives Tanner her phone back, telling her that she didn’t give it to their mom, but she did text Grant “exactly what he could do with those disgusting dick pics” (324). When August gets off the plane, Marty ogles him, and Candace knows that he’s a man she may not approve of but that she can’t control Tanner’s choices.

A year and a half after Louise’s disappearance, Tanner works in food service at the Vinings River Retirement Village. George and Louise move into the village instead of hiring a live-in nurse. Tanner received the money from Louise but decided not to go back to Northwestern. She instead travels. She visited Vee and apologized, and they resume their friendship. She went to see the arch in St. Louis again. She went to Italy for two weeks, sending photos back to Louise at every opportunity. 

After dish duty, another worker tells Tanner that Louise is dying. Tanner goes into Louise’s room and stays with her, since after George died a few months after they moved in, Louise said that she didn’t want to die alone. After touching her arm, Tanner applies Louise’s signature pink lipstick to her lips, until Louise’s eyes pop open. Louise’s Parkinson’s is devolving into dementia, and she tells Tanner that she’s not dying and that she toured a submarine. Louise asks Tanner for breakfast, and before she leaves to get it, she gives Tanner an envelope, saying that it’s a “leg of lamb” (331). Jules, Charlie, and Lucy arrive, hugging their mother. As Tanner leaves, Louise calls her girlie and gives her a wink. When Tanner gets home, she opens the envelope, and out falls the Kinsey diamond.

As she lies in bed, Louise tells her children that she and George robbed the Copley Plaza hotel, but they think that she’s telling stories because of her dementia. They also don’t believe that she sees Ken, sitting on her bed holding her hand, waiting for her. 

Louise stumbled onto Salvatore’s plans to rob the Copley. When Betsy died and she worked as a nanny, she overheard Salvatore calling off the robbery. She and George needed the money to help more women. So, they robbed the hotel and distributed the money to women who needed it and shut down their network, since they had to go into hiding after stealing Jules. 

Louise kept the diamond for years, and at the end of her life, she decides to give it to Tanner, because she feels that Tanner understands her in a way no one else does. Now, it’s Tanner’s turn to decide what to do with the diamond and her turn to make the decisions.