COLD OPEN – MATTHEWS APARTMENT, MORNING
Topanga zips a pie into a carrier; Cory folds napkins like origami turkeys. August tests a tiny travel bottle of gravy like cologne.
Cory: We are headed to Grandma's, where naps are mandatory and opinions are hotter than the oven.
Topanga: We leave in ten.
August: As your son and your history student, I’m prepared to mediate and also carry heavy side dishes.
Cory: My tiny diplomat.
Topanga: My taller-than-me diplomat.
They hug; door slam; road trip.
Smash to titles.
ACT ONE
SCENE A – INTERSTATE TO PHILLY SUBURBS – DAY
Traffic crawls; skyline glitters distant. A paper bag of rolls teases everyone.
Topanga: No one opens the rolls.
Cory: But what if the rolls open us.
August: I brought car playlists labeled “Nostalgia,” “Traffic Warfare,” and “Emergency Feelings.”
Topanga: “Emergency Feelings” it is.
They sing, badly. Spirits up.
SCENE B – TWO-LANE BACK ROAD, PENNSYLVANIA – DAY
Shawn drives; Katy navigates with a printed map and an unhelpful phone (“Recalculating…”).
Katy: The map says turn at Old Mill Road. The phone says drive into a cornfield and accept your fate.
Shawn: The map is winning.
They pass Old Mill Road… and a sign: “GAS 15 MI.” The fuel light blinks.
Katy: We should’ve stopped.
Shawn: We believed in ourselves too much.
The car sputters. Dies. Silence.
Katy: We did not manifest gasoline.
Shawn: I’ll call AAA.
Katy: No bars.
They look at each other. Laugh to keep from screaming.
SCENE C – ALAN & AMY’S HOUSE – DAY
Warm, lived-in kitchen. ALAN bastes a massive turkey. AMY consults a recipe binder. MORGAN (35, sharp, stylish) strides in with a sheet pan of spatchcock diagrams; JOSH (24, helpful chaos) lugs an outdoor fryer box.
Morgan: We’re not waiting six hours. We butterfly this bird, crank to 450, boom—crispy, juicy, feminist.
Josh: Or we fry. Science plus danger. The American way.
Alan: We roast. Tradition.
Amy: We eat. Ideally before Friday.
She kisses Alan; he melts, then raises the oven temp “just a touch.”
Morgan: Did you just—
Josh: Did you lower it?
Amy: Did both of you touch my dial?
Everyone: guilty. The oven beeps in protest.
SCENE D – DRIVEWAY – LATER
Cory, Topanga, and August arrive with pies and hugs.
Amy: My baby!
Alan: My other baby!
August: Hello, grandparents. I’m here to lift heavy emotions and casseroles.
Morgan: August, rate my spatchcock.
Josh: Or my fryer.
Cory: Nobody say “rate my spatchcock” before I’ve had water.
Topanga: Where’s Shawn and Katy?
Amy: “Lost, probably,” per Shawn’s last text an hour ago: “Road looks like a postcard.”
They all exchange the “of course it does” face.
ACT TWO
SCENE E – COUNTRY SHOULDER – AFTERNOON
Shawn and Katy sit on the hood, sharing a granola bar.
Katy: Remember when we ran on empty because we were both saving each other’s slices? Same mistake. Different… car.
Shawn: I still want you to have the last slice.
A pickup slows. A neighbor, MRS. DILLON (60s, no-nonsense), leans out.
Mrs. Dillon: Y’all need a lift to the station or you planning a still life?
Katy/Shawn: Station, please.
They hop into the truck bed with their pies (buckled). Wind in hair. Off they go.
SCENE F – ALAN & AMY’S KITCHEN – AFTERNOON
August helps Amy prep sides; Topanga quarterbacks salads; Cory keeps family peace like a seasoned referee.
Morgan (to August): Turkey as metaphor: adulthood is heat management.
Josh: And occasionally fire.
Alan: We are not frying a turkey.
Smash cut to: DRIVEWAY. Fryer assembled. Alan holding a fire extinguisher like a talisman.
Alan: We are… testing the oil level. That’s all.
Amy: If we blow up the driveway, I’m telling Feeny.
Cory: He already knows. He senses chaos like a bat.
They heat oil—slow, careful. Then someone (no one will ever admit who) nudges the thermostat too high. A quiver, a hiss, a WHOOSH! A brief flourish of flame licks up. Alan hits it with the extinguisher—fwump. Soot and foam snow down. Everyone safe; turkey… not.
Beat of stunned silence. Then:
Morgan: So… spatchcock?
Josh: I… vote oven pizza.
Amy: (calm general) Plan B. Sides to the front lines. Ham from the freezer. Josh, you and Alan scrub the driveway like your lives depend on it. Cory, call the diner: order three rotisserie chickens and say “it’s a conceptual turkey.”
Cory: Already doing it.
August quietly starts a group text: “New menu. No panic. Bring hunger.”
SCENE G – GAS STATION → BACK ROAD – SUNSET
Shawn fills a gas can; the card declines—bank fraud alert. Katy’s card: same.
Katy: We never leave the city. Our banks think we joined a wagon train.
Clerk: Cash only, folks.
Shawn/Katy count pockets… short by five bucks. Mrs. Dillon slides a five across.
Mrs. Dillon: Happy Thanksgiving. Pay it forward; don’t pay me back.
Katy: We will name a casserole after you.
Back in the truck bed with gas can and pies, they rumble toward the car, laughing at their own sitcom.
SCENE H – LIVING ROOM – TWILIGHT
The house smells like stuffing and triumph. August sees Cory staring at the extinguished fryer through the window.
August: You okay, Dad?
Cory: My childhood yard nearly became a teaching tool about flashpoints. Holidays are… a lot.
August: People change people. Fire extinguishers save porches.
Cory: That, too.
August: I can run plates, corral cousins, or distract Grandpa with a story about the union of nap and sport.
Cory: Or you can just… be here. Sometimes the job is “show up.”
August: That’s my major.
They bump shoulders.
ACT THREE
SCENE I – DINING ROOM – NIGHT
Table reset like champs: rotisserie chickens sliced like a turkey stunt double, ham, stuffing, yams, greens, rolls (untouched until now). A lone, slightly singed drumstick sits on a mantel in memoriam.
Amy: Bless the bird that gave its life, and the birds that bailed it out.
Alan: And the extinguisher that kept my eyebrows.
Morgan: And the oven we slandered.
Josh: And the group text that saved the vibe.
Cory: And the neighbor who’ll never know we almost called the fire department.
Knock at the door—Shawn and Katy burst in with wind hair and pies.
Shawn: We brought gasoline and pumpkin!
Katy: In separate containers!
Chaos turns to cheer. Plates pass. Laughter stacks. Family, even when the menu mutates.
August (quiet to Amy): Grandma, it’s still… good.
Amy: Sweetheart, it’s us. That’s the recipe.
They eat. They laugh. It’s loud. It’s right.
TAG – PORCH / LATER
Cory checks a buzzing phone. Riley on video, bundled up outside a campus building; Maya leans into frame in a beanie; you can just hear Farkle/Zay/Lucas arguing off-screen about pie charts vs. pies.
Riley: Happy Thanksgiving, Dad! Friendsgiving Part One here was… eventful. A bus broke. A plan changed. Maybe… we pivot tomorrow?
Cory: There’s room. There’s always room.
Maya (calling past him): Save us a conceptual turkey!
Cory: We saved three.
He pockets the phone, smiles at the noise inside, the promise outside.
Super: TO BE CONTINUED → Girl Meets Life After High School: “Girl Meets Thanksgiving (Part 2)”
END (Part 1).
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