Forty year old single Chicagoan Claudia Larson gets a lot of bad news just before the Thanksgiving holidays. This news places her in an even worse mood in preparation for her Thanksgiving visit with her family in Baltimore at the home of her overbearing parents, Henry and Adele Larson. Others coming for Thanksgiving dinner are Adele's crazy sister, Glady; Claudia's humorless sister Joanne Wedman and her equally humorless family, Joanne who acts as the primary caregiver for their parents; (unexpectedly) Claudia's younger mischievous gay brother, Tommy Larson, and his new "boyfriend", Leo Fish; and Russell Terziak, Claudia's sad old "friend" who Adele is trying to reintroduce to Claudia. Beyond the disasters and potential disasters Claudia is anticipating as well as the unexpected ones that do ultimately occur at dinner, Claudia is most concerned about what happened between Tommy and his long term boyfriend, Jack Gordon, and what her own teen-aged daughter, Kitt, is doing at home without her.

Robert Downey Jr. publicly admitted to using heroin during the making of this film. Jodie Foster wrote him a letter praising his work but warning him that he could not keep doing this on other films.

Joanne:
You're calling me a freak?


Tommy:
No, I'm calling you a product of baboon lovin'. There's a distinction.

Continuity: The whipped cream on Claudia's father's pie.

Written by Clarence A. Henry
Performed by Rusted Root