"Mary and Rhoda"
The Plot
ACT I
The original music to "Love is All Around" plays as Mary Richards-Cronin comes up and off the escalator at a New York airport, carrying her luggage. The music then reverts to a new, jazzed-up version sung by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, as Mary drops a piece of luggage and the contents fly out all over the floor. Clips from the original "Mary Tyler Moore Show" with Mary and Rhoda are seen for a few moments. Mary is then seen chasing her many pieces of luggage on wheels at the airport terminal. Spicy music abruptly ends and Mary climbs into a cab with an Arabic cab driver. The cab driver asks her where she's been; she's been in Europe for the past five months, alone. Her husband, a politican, died recently and she needed to get away. Cut to another cab, where Rhoda Morgenstern-Rousseau is conversing on a cell phone with different people, in attempt to track down her daughter, Meredith, a pre-med student at Barnard College. The cab driver is driving like a maniac, screeching along the street and jostling Rhoda around.
Mary's apartment is a large, spacious, deluxe apartment with a temperature control panel that she can't figure out how to work. Just as she gets to the door, the bellhop tells her that he thinks her daughter moved out. She still has her letter 'M'. Indeed, Rose has cleaned out a couple rooms. She left a note for her mom that she did move in with a boyfriend, and that she "took some stuff with her". Mary is flabbergasted now! Meanwhile, the apartment is freezing cold and because she can't get the heat on, she changes into a bunny pajama outfit. Rose then shows up, and tells her that she's moved in with her boyfriend, and we learn that this is not the first time she's moved out; she once lived with a married man. Rose is a trendy, upbeat, young woman (she's got a pierced tongue!) with a candid sense of humor.
Change of scene: Rhoda is now at her daughter's Barnard College dorm, which is a horrendous mess. Meredith is very attractive, with Rhoda's New York accent and all her vitriol, and she too is in her early 20's. She lives on "beer and Lucky Charms." Rhoda tells her that she wants to exhibit her photography work in a local art show, and she has returned to New York to "start over"...to be closer to Meredith, mainly. Mary and Rose walk into the now-vacant rooms of the apartment and talk about old times. Rose asks Mary if she needs her to stay at home...Mary says no. Mary will clearly have a difficult time adjusting to life without her husband, and now, after 30 years, this "girl" is "all alone" again. Rose tells her that she needs to call Rhoda. Evidently Mary and Rhoda had a disagreement some years ago at Rhoda's wedding to Jean-Pierre Rousseau...he came on to Mary at the wedding, and Mary let Rhoda know it. Mary admits that she "really loused that whole thing up", then decides to call Rhoda and make amends.
Mary tries to get ahold of Rhoda, and makes numerous phone calls to Paris, where Rhoda lived for a number of years. She has no luck. In the mean time, Rhoda has decided to get in touch with Mary, but it turns out she's too nervous to call, so she decides to stop by her apartment. Just as Rhoda arrives at the building door, she sees Mary getting into a cab. The cab pulls away but Rhoda runs after it, screaming "Mary, Mary!" Mary turns around, sees her, and orders the driver to stop, then gets out and she and Rhoda reunite. They are much older now, but their friendship is exactly as it was many years ago. They make amends right then and there; Rhoda admits that her husband was a philanderer, and Mary apologizes for what she had said to Rhoda. They go out for lunch, then take a long walk in Central Park and pick up where they left off nearly 20 years ago. Rhoda is now vegetarian and has been on a religious quest. She raised Meredith in Paris, and she continued her work there as an artist and photographer. Her marriage to the promiscuous Jean-Pierre was clearly a mistake. Mary did network news, but about eight years earlier she left so she could raise Rose properly. Rose is now an English major at NYU. Rhoda shows Mary some stress-relieving exercises. They agree that the misunderstanding was just that, a misunderstanding, and they agree never to part ways again. Mary offers to let Rhoda come and live with her for the time being (she's been staying at a hotel), since her house is now so empty. Mary has an appointment at her lawyer's office, so they depart, exchanging 'I love you's.
ACT II
Mary and Rose are in Mary's lawyer's office, and the lawyer grimly informs her that Steven (her husband) did not leave her any money; he mortgaged a lot of their property in order to finance his campaigns. She will be getting no money and will have to live on what little savings she has. Rose lets her know that she's not getting any younger. Mary must now find a job. She daydreams with Rhoda about what jobs she could hold...a model, a trafficwoman, a phone solicitor, a sidewalk fruit vendor dressed in a pickle suit. She ultimately applies for a job as segment producer. At station WNYT, she visits the office of station manager Jonah Seimeier, a 33 year-old yuppie who thrives on automatic office doors and Q-balls and gadgets. He isn't exactly crazy about Mary, but hires her on as segment producer.
ACT III
Mary and Rhoda try to find places to display Rhoda's photography. They go to a trendy, uptown gallery, where a rude, yuppie receptionist turns Rhoda down flatly. Rhoda keeps hunting for suitable places while Mary goes to her first day on the new job. Jonah arranges a lunch for Mary to meet Cecile Andrews. When she gets home, she and Rhoda prepare a dinner party where Meredith and Rose can meet. Rhoda prepares melted cheese on a large rock as an appetizer (called "rocklette"). They all get acquainted and then eat dinner. Mary brags about how Rose was a natural-born writer, and as a kid, her favorite movie was "The Paper Chase". Rhoda beams up Meredith as being a kid who did hernia operations on her G.I. Joe dolls, which led to her interest in medicine. But Rose and Meredith now have other ideas; they want to drop out of school. Rose wants to do stand-up comedy, and then admits that in fact she already dropped out of school. Mary is enraged. Both girls storm out; Rose announces that she'll be performing at Giggles Comedy Club the next night, and that Mary should come if she's interested.
The next day at work, Mary meets Cecile Andrews, one of the WNYT News anchors, over lunch. Cecile is a middle-aged, articulate but bitchy woman whose only concern is how she appears on camera. During lunch, she checks out her reflection in a knife. It turns out that viewers have been sending in letters expressing their distaste with Cecile's work...she's been putting on weight, is slowly getting on in years, has bad hairdos, and Jonah would like to give her the axe. Mary quickly figures out that Jonah's plan was to hire her so Cecile couldn't sue him for ageism and she confronts him about this. Mary now wants to quit, but she decides to stick it out because she needs the money.
ACT IV
She and a cameraman go to the home of Marjorie and Ken McNeil, whose son had joined a gang and murdered another kid as part of his initiation into the gang. They wait for Cecile to show up, she never does, and Mary asks questions of the McNeils about their son. Finally, Cecile shows up an hour late with her own list of absurd, grilling questions ("How does it make you feel to know that your son is a murderer?") By the time she finishes with them, the mother can't stop crying. As Cecile and Mary leave their home, Cecile barks out that the interview "oughtta give us some good numbers!" Cut to the jail, where Cecile now interviews 18-year old James McNeil. She asks him a number of similarly pointless questions. Meanwhile, Mary watches all this and decides that there's no way she's going to let Cecile's interviews go on the air as is.
Giggles Comedy Club. Mary and Rhoda meet there to watch Rose perform. To put it mildly, Rose does an atrocious act. After she finishes, Mary goes backstage and they talk about life. Rose did not go to Europe with Mary, and wonders if she only made the trip to attempt to forget completely about her husband's death. She asks Mary if she was ever really happy in her marriage. Rose insists that school is not the place for her, but stand-up is definitely something she wants to keep doing.
ACT V
Next morning: Rhoda has found a job as a photographer's assistant. Her boss is a balding, pushy bespectacled man who has her making him bagels and cream cheese, and nonfat cappucinos. He also makes her massage him.
Mary sees the cut of Cecile's interviews; she asks the editor to do a thorough editing of what is currently an atrocious segment. The young editor says it could mean losing her job. Mary confronts Cecile. Rhoda goes up to Barnard College campus and sees Meredith fighting with her boyfriend. Meredith, from a distance, motions for her to get lost. Rhoda packs up her things and prepares to leave town, and just before she hails a cab, Mary arrives home and tells her not to leave. Their conversation is interrupted when Mary sees a stray puppy running down the street, about to get run over. Chase ensues; Mary catches the dog. She and Rhoda bring it back to the apartment. That night, Mary works with the film editor to get a suitable segment on the McNeil case. The next morning, she tries to talk Jonah into looking at her cut; he refuses.
ACT VI
Rhoda goes to Meredith's dorm room, and they talk and make up. She explains why she came back to New York and how she only wants what's best for Meredith. Mary calls Rhoda from work, but the voice mail picks up the call. She admits that she swapped the tapes; her cut, not Cecile's will be aired that night, and it will probably mean losing her job. She'll be at McGovern's Grill for dinner, and hopes Rhoda can join her there. Rhoda does; just as she arrives, the McNeil segment that Mary produced airs, and the whole clientele watch. They are all amazed, and many are in tears over it. Rhoda announces to the whole restaurant that what they just saw was Mary's work. Mary returns home to find that the dog she captured has got to have some limits set on him.
ACT VII
Next morning, Mary walks in to work, and everyone in the office, except Cecile, applauds her. Cecile walks over and hands her an envelope with a few dimes in it; they took up a collection for her. She tells Mary that Jonah wants to see her. Prepared that he's going to fire her, Mary goes to his office and admits that taking the job was a mistake in the first place. He agrees. Then she doubles back and tells him that she definitely belongs at WNYT and that he has no right to fire her over a production that was as profound and effective as hers. He lets her stay, but warns her that she from now on must abide by his rules, and if the ratings drop, she's out. Meanwhile, Rhoda tries to develop a new understanding with her own boss; he wants her to pick up his drycleaning, and she demands that he's not using her to her full potential.
Rose is back at Giggles, having revamped her stand-up routine. She opens her act with several clever jokes, and now she's a smash. After the performance, Mary and Rose talk again backstage, and Rose decides to go back to school. When they get back home, Rhoda and Meredith are waiting for them with a small surprise party. It was in attempt to cheer Mary up after being fired, but since she was not fired, it becomes a celebration of Rhoda's having found a place to display her photography. They make a toast, "To New Beginnings!"
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