The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise

Louise wakes up and misses Ken. Four days after he died, she took a fly-fishing trip that they had scheduled by herself. She enjoys the freedom of being a widow but misses Ken and his idiosyncrasies. She is drawn out of her thoughts by the letter and starts her morning routine. She then reminisces about George. She loves the life that she built with Ken but still feels a twinge of pain for the 48 years she’s lived without George due to the as-yet undefined decision that they made. She lights the stove and sets the letter on fire, ignoring Tanner ringing the doorbell, until the letter burns into ash even though it hurts her hand and triggers the fire alarm. 

Tanner hears the fire alarm and pounds on the door, but she panics when Louise doesn’t answer. Assuming that something bad has happened, she climbs the fence into the backyard, though it hurts her leg, and is about to use a patio chair to break the sliding glass door when Louise opens it, seeming unbothered and chalking up the fire alarm to burnt toast. She calls Tanner “girlie,” which bothers her, but then shows her to the guest room. Louise gives Tanner her weekly schedule of errands and appointments and her daily schedule of four o’clock cocktail hour, prior to which Tanner can use the TV all she wants. 

Louise is flabbergasted by Tanner’s ability to play video games for five hours straight and turns the TV off with her cane at four o’clock. Tanner retreats to her room and Louise pours three fingers of Finlandia vodka over ice. As she drinks, she thinks of her escape plan. George was the planner in their partnership, but now Louise must figure out how to run on her own. She can’t fly since it’s traceable, but driving is tricky with her hip. She also worries that Jules will panic if she can’t reach her and that she won’t be able to slip away from Tanner.

Tanner wakes early due to the sound of Ken’s grandfather clock, which chimes every hour. She has a cup of coffee in the kitchen with Louise and gets ready to drive her to physical therapy. Louise and Tanner settle into their monotonous routine of video games, cocktail hour, and appointments. Their routine is broken on the third day by the arrival of August, a young, handsome neighbor who does odd jobs for Louise. He bonds with Tanner over Horizon Zero Dawn. Louise instructs him to make sure that everything is okay with her car, and he heads to the backyard. Tanner tells Louise that she could have checked the car, since she has experience with cars from working on the Fiat with her dad. Louise says that it’s more interesting to have August do it, alluding to his good looks, before settling into her routine cocktail hour. As Tanner falls asleep, she thinks back and finds it odd that August went to the backyard to work on the car, since Louise’s Mercury Grand Marquis is parked in the garage. 

On Wednesday night, Tanner lies in bed scrolling on her phone, feeling bitter and upset about her circumstances as she sees her friends’ and former teammates’ lives on Instagram. Instagram brings up a memory: a video of a game when Tanner scored the winning goal after an assist from her best friend, Vee. She misses Vee but knows that she ruined their relationship. As her self-pity continues, she hears a door open and footsteps heading toward the garage. She follows Louise and finds her sitting in the car with the engine running. She stops Louise, reminding her that she can’t drive with her bad hip. Louise startles and tells Tanner that she sometimes sleepwalks but not to tell Jules and worry her. Tanner worries that Louise may be in the early stages of dementia.

After dropping Louise off at her bridge game, Tanner drives home and sees August. He waves, but she panics and doesn’t return the gesture. After she parks the car in the garage, she sees a woman approaching her. The woman asks if Tanner is Louise’s granddaughter and states that she lives next door. She tells Tanner that Louise threatened her boyfriend, Declan, a few months ago, and she hasn’t seen anyone in the house for a few months. Tanner tells her that Louise broke her hip and has been in recovery. The woman then tells Tanner that Louise pointed a gun at Declan and said that she’d “gladly go back to jail” (57), which startles Tanner. The woman tells Tanner that she’ll call the cops next time and leaves. Tanner calls Jules to report the incident but gets her voicemail. She then works her way through the house looking for the gun but finds nothing but a few locked closets, a locked box in Louise’s secretary, and a locked drawer in her nightstand. When she’s done looking, she walks down to August and apologizes for not waving back, and he asks her to get sandwiches on Monday. She feels giddy at the possibility of a date. 

After a week, Louise is frustrated with Tanner’s overly slow and cautious driving and her meddling, especially calling Jules to report the sleepwalking and the gun incident. It is also revealed that she was not sleepwalking but instead seeing how painful it would be to press the gas pedal for her escape. When Jules calls, Louise assures her that she is fine and promises to look into a support group. She also mentions that she plans to take a trip soon, possibly to Italy, despite her aversion to airplanes.

A day after Louise was reported missing, Jules continues to express concern in the group chat. Charlie searches Louise’s house but finds nothing out of order. Her suitcases are still there, and the Mercury car is in the garage. He becomes alarmed, though, when he finds Tanner’s phone in her bed, left behind, ringing with a call from Jules.