SEASON 1 – Showtime
Created by Abby McEnany and Tim Mason
Theme music by Ethan Stoller
- 001. 180 Almonds – 12/8/2019
- Abby McEnaney (herself) is a 45-year-old self-described ‘fat, queer dyke’ living in Chicago and struggling with depression and self-loathing. She sits down with a therapist named Dr. Franklin (Nancy McCabe-Kelly) and tells her that she plans to kill herself in 180 days if things don’t improve. She is counting out the days by laying out the same number of almonds and throwing one away every day. As she tells Dr. Franklin her thoughts, she realizes that Dr. Franklin has died in her chair. Abby has lunch with her sister Alison (Karin Anglin) and tells her what happened. When the waitress Chris (Theo Germaine) flirts with Ali, who is straight with kids, Abby expresses that she thinks that the waitress is gorgeous, Ali encourages her to ask her out. After they leave the restaurant, Ali returns and gives Chris Abby’s number. Later, while Abby is playing charades with her group of friends, Chris calls for Abby and asks her out. When Abby mentions that she is an attractive woman, Chris clarifies that he is a transgender man. Abby and Chris meet at a restaurant, where Abby spots actress Julia Sweeney (herself). Abby tells Chris that her Saturday Night Live characters Pat ruined her life, as people often referred to Abby as Pat, whose character’s sex was ambiguous. Chris, who is 22 and is not familiar with Pat, encourages her to tell Julia about how she ruined her life. Chris decides to talk to Julia herself, but when Julia comes over to meet her, Abby faints on the floor. Flashing back to September 1995, Abby attends the house party of her girlfriend, Alexis (E.R. Fightmaster), and when she walks in, a guy named Chad (Matthew Quattrocki), the boyfriend of Alexis’s roommate Charlotte (Maggie Scrantom), calls her Pat. She confronts him, and upon meeting Charlotte, tells her what her boyfriend said, leading to a big fight between her and Chad. As Abby starts making out with Alexis, she wakes up in the present with Chris and Julia looking over her. Once she is up, Julia joins Abby and Chris for drinks, and Julia apologizes for the pain she experienced due to Pat, and Abby and Julia both do impressions of the character as Chris looks on in puzzlement. Julia gives Abby her number and offers to make her dinner, also saying that she has a good feeling about Abby and Chris. After walking back to Abby’s apartment, Chris invites himself up to her room, so she takes five minutes to clean up the apartment before letting him up. As Abby prattles on, Chris eats one of Abby’s almonds and then kisses Abby. She tells Chris that he ate one of the days of her life, and the proceeds to explain the story of the almonds. Celeste Pechous is Abby’s best friend Campbell. Alex Moss is Brad, the guy at the entrance to the party. Other Charades friends are Georgia (Alison Gates), Shauna (Shauna Marino), Chandler (Chandler Marino), Nancy (Nancy L. Coleman), Renee (Renee Lehocky), Ann (Anne Lehocky). 5/24/26
- 002. 176, 172, 171 – 12/15/2009
- Abby wakes up in bed next to Chris after a night of talking, and Abby thanks him for not dying. After Chris catches an Uber home, Abby writes in her journal. Abby then attends her nephew Matty’s (Kenny Rasmussen) soccer game, where she has to explain the sex of Chris’s sex to her brother-in-law Mike (Gerard Neugent) and how her date went to her niece Megan (Lauren Viteri). She continues to throw an almond away every day. Later, she also has to answer questions from Campbell about whether she is still a lesbian, as she drives Abby to the funeral of Dr. Franklin. After the minister (Delia Kropp) finishes the service, Abby talks to a large photo of Dr. Franklin and catches her up on her dating life, only to find that there is a line of people, starting with a guy (Ben Kobold) carrying his cat. When Abby arrives to her cubicle at work, her boss Susan (Mary Sohn) questions whose funeral she attended. When she gets home, Abby moves her almonds from a table to the cookie jar. Abby visits a weight loss clinic, where the receptionist Miriam (Kate James) weighs her and tells her that she’s gained 17 pounds, before she attends a seminar from a motivator named Judy (Malkia Stampley). Chris invites her to go out, and they wind up at a progressive queer bar, where she meets Chris’s trans friends Kai (William Rusan), Lark (Parker Guidry), and King (Armand Fields). Chris introduces Abby to Al (Eli Sulkowski), who just got his driver’s license with his new name on it. Abby recognizes the place she is at but can’t recall what it used to be. The bartender (Osiris Khepera) reminds her that it was once a lesbian bar. She suddenly recalls being there in 1997 when it was a more traditional lesbian bar with a Melissa Etheridge cover band (Xoe Wise, Sami Grisafe). Abby sees other girls making out and then tells Campbell that she sees a black woman staring at her. She meets the woman named Melanie (Echaka Agba) and winds up making out with her in the alley, which she contrasts with making out with Chris in the present. After they leave the bar, Chris and Abby make out on the bus on the way home. Abby admits that she was kind of scared of all of the young people. Chris tells Abby that the one thing that is off-limits with him is his birth name. Abby gets home and calls Chris to tell him that she remembered that the name of the bar was once The Watering Hole. It is revealed that she had found this information in one of her old journals, of which she has an entire hidden closet full. Johnny Lee Davenport is Harold, the peanut butter addict. The ladies at the Watering Hole are Martha (Katie Klein) and Donna (Tania Richard) Willy LaQueue is Abby Jr. Meg Leary is the backroom performer. Coco Diaz is the woman at the scale. The femme fatales are Iridessence/Jezebelly and Carina Shero. The vaudettes are Nicole Bowles, Amee Binder, Heather Sanders, Dalton Edward Burr, Shaul Guerrero, and Lorca Jolene. 5/24/26
- 003. 162 – 12/22/2019
- While Abby is journaling to start her day, her father tries to call her, but she ignores the call. She and Chris then take a Lyft Share to head for a day of visiting. Once they are in the car, Chris tells Abby that they are going to have sex that night, which gets awkward in front of the driver Brennan (Tim Paul) and Diane (Jeanne Scurek), the lady with whom they are shaving the Lyft. They head to a brunch party with Chris’s friends, where a guy named Riv (Donovan Session) is doing the cooking. Abby meets Riv’s two boyfriends Kai and Geo (Dane Valerio). Al and Abby Jr. are also there with their friend Carter. Abby questions whether everyone there is polyamorous. Chris makes it clear that he is not sleeping with anyone currently, but he will be in seven and a half hours, he will be. As the ‘family’ eats, they all sing Luv Luv Luv. Chris and Abby head out for Chris’s nephew Matty’s birthday, and Abby once again accidentally orders a Lyft Share. Claire (Megan Kellie), the other passenger in the car won’t stop talking about a escape rooms. As she talks, Chris and Abby text each other about the rules of their first time having sex. When they arrive at her sister’s house, Abby gives Matty her gift: a megaphone. Her niece Megan has an attitude because her father made fun of her shirt. Alison tells Abby that she needs to talk to their father but won’t tell her why, but Megan spills the beans that he is getting married. As they are ridding to their next destination, Abby tells Chris that she has herpes and remembers how her ex-girlfriend Melanie was rather cruel when she found out about it. Chris says that she doesn’t care and that she gets tested frequently. When they arrive, the Lyft driver (Syd Robbie) tells Abby that he too has herpes. Their next stop is to have dinner with Julia Sweeney and her husband ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic (himself), who turns out to be quite normal and boring, especially as he describes how he makes sangria. They also meet their daughter Lula (Sarah Wisterman), who is getting ready to go to NYU. Abby and Chris snoop around and discover some of Weird Al’s memorabilia, including the wig that he uses. During dinner, they further discuss Julia’s character Pat. Weird Al says that he offended a lot of people with his songs, especially Like a Surgeon. However, Abby points out that his song Fat was actually quite offensive. Chris says that Al’s work isn’t nearly as offensive as Pat. Finally, Abby and Chris head back to Abby’s place where they get in bed. Abby insists that they turn out the lights as they have sex. This leads to Abby somehow smashing her head and ending up with a subconjunctival hemorrhage. Despite Campbell text messaging Abby and disrupting their lovemaking, they still continue and then go for a second spin before Abby goes to the ER. Eunji Kim is Alison’s friend Ann. 9/3/26
- 004. 161, 153, 137, 122, 106, 104, 102 (We’re Still Counting Almonds.) – 12/29/2019
- The day after her night with Chris, Abby meets up with Campbell at a coffee shop, and Campbell immediately can tell that she had sex. For the next couple of months, Abby is quite happy and seemingly always in a good mood, although her passion with Chris leads to multiple injuries on different parts of her body. However, there is one low point in her daily routine that seems to always plague her; when she uses public bathrooms, women always look at her like she’s in the wrong gender bathroom. Making it worse, her OCD makes her take forever as she is always harshly washing her hands. After another run-in with a woman (Robyn LeAnn Scott) in a restaurant restroom, she and Alison discuss their father’s upcoming wedding to a woman named Caroline. Alison suggests that she invite Chris to the wedding. She also gives Abby some tickets to see Dolly Parton at the Ravinia Festival that she won in an auction. Chris tells Abby about an app called Refuge Restrooms that are gender neutral. When Chris sees her throwing away an almond, Chris is surprised as he thought things were better with her life. Abby goes to the park and has an imaginary session with Dr. Franklin and question whether the universe hears people’s pain and throws them a bone once in a while. She worries that by not throwing away the almonds that she might jinx the good things that are happening. While at work, Abby’s co-worker Susan asks her why she makes such a watery mess in the bathroom, and Abby has to explain about her OCD handwashing. Abby takes Chris, Campbell, and King to the concert. When Abby and Campbell head into the ladies’ room at the train station, Abby tries using her high lady voice to keep women from looking at her funny. After they leave the restroom, a cop (Mickey R. Mahoney) questions them about whether there is a man in the women’s restroom. King gives everyone Molly for the concert. When they arrive, Abby has to use the restroom again, and she thinks back to a previous festival where she and Melanie go over to a bar called Farragut’s to use the restroom. It’s a one-seater, so Abby asks Melanie to watch the door, but Melanie wanders off with a friend. Abby is taking forever because of her hand washing, and an impatient woman (Liz Sharpe) starts banging on the door. When she comes out, the woman tells her that it is a women’s restroom, making her furious at Melanie because she can’t even use a restroom in a lesbian bar during a lesbian festival. Back in the present, two men (Ed Flynn, Tyler Parker) see Abby and follow her into the restroom, thinking that she is a man. An older woman (Linda Bright Clay) tells her that it is women’s room, and another woman (Dina Facklis) calls out that there are three men in the women’s restroom and that they should all leave. Abby snaps at the woman and uses some choice words to tell her how ignorant she is. She goes on a rant about how hard life is, especially with her OCD. A trans woman (Riley Mondragon) back her up, and Abby says that her life is still harder than the trans’s. When a woman (Emily Muller) in a wheelchair comes out of a stall, Abby admits that her life is harder but then takes it back, as she says everyone feels sorry for her. Her meltdown intensifies when a nun (Charin Alvarez) walks into the bathroom, and Abby blames her religion for her problems. She tells everyone to read a book and then faints while screaming. Chris is there to help wake her up, and Abby tells him that he can’t be in the ladies’ room. Caleb Hearon is the Dolly fan who wants to hear Hard Candy Christmas. Haley Gustafson is the lesbian in yellow at Farragut’s. 9/3/26
Leave a Reply