SPOILER ALERT!
Plot points may be revealed below.
It’s Chardonnay Tuesday, and it’s supposed to be ladies only. But Liz has brought her new man, Jackson Scull, and he’s just plain creepy: He’s a dentist, who keeps a copy of Silence of the Lambs in his waiting room. He constantly makes disturbing jokes. He sometimes pretends to be a dog. And to the dismay of her friends Mary and Jo, Liz is head-over-heels for Jackson, thrilled to no longer be “one of those dateless divorced women in sensible shoes doing Fun Runs and book club”—though Mary points out that she and Jo are exactly that.
What makes the Jackson thing especially weird is that one of his dental hygienists has mysteriously disappeared—and now, Jackson is planning to take Liz’s teenage daughter Amanda camping, alone in a canyon in the wilderness. Mary and Jo know they have to intervene, and hatch a plan. The first step: visit Amanda, and persuade her to back out of the trip altogether.
But it’s an uphill battle: Amanda thinks Jackson is great, and adores all his quirks (like the antique dentistry collection in the basement). So Mary and Jo take a different angle, hiring an investigator (Sergeant Kirk Sponsüllar—who, quite coincidentally, happens to look more than a little like Jackson). Next, Mary goes to talk with Amanda’s snowboarder ex-boyfriend Trenner. Well-meaning but a bit dim, Trenner (who may or may not be hitting on Mary) agrees to follow them to the campsite to fight off the presumed killer.
That night, Trenner comes to Mary’s house, when Liz unexpectedly shows up outside. Not wanting him seen, Mary shoves Trenner inside the pantry and closes the door. When Liz enters the house, she confronts Mary: Why was she trying to talk Amanda out of going camping? And why did she go to seek out Trenner? As the situation heat up, Trenner bursts out of the pantry, (unsuccessfully) trying to help; Amanda comes in next. Appalled at the whole scene, she storms out to head for the wilderness campsite, pursued by Trenner.
Friday night, Mary and Jo get ready to head to the canyon, when the Sergeant brings disturbing news: the missing girl’s body was found, hacked to bits, apparently by a dental instrument. It’s not long before all four have headed for Jackson’s campsite—Mary, Jo, and the Sergeant hoping to capture Jackson—and Liz hoping to save him.
When all six of them arrive at the campsite, they’re launched into an utterly bizarre night of misadventure. And between Trenner’s not-so-subtle thing for older women, Liz and Jackson’s fondness for conspicuous lovemaking, Sergeant Sponsüllar’s uncanny resemblance to the man they’re all chasing, Amanda’s growing disillusionment with just about everyone and everything, and a cave with rocks that glow in the dark, it’s anyone’s guess how it all shakes out.
