Eight Hundred Grapes

Downstairs, Bobby is at the kitchen table and tells Georgia that their father wants to hold off on picking the Block 14 grapes. When he can feel Georgia stalling, he confronts her and tells her to say whatever it is that she thinks will convince him that neither Finn nor Margaret meant what happened between them. Georgia reiterates multiple times that Bobby needs to sit down and discuss their issues instead of circumventing them and finding band-aid solutions to fix their romantic problems. Deflecting from the topic, Bobby tells Georgia she should have told him about Ben and Maddie. He points out that while two people might love one another, sometimes they just screw up.

After Bobby leaves, Georgia drives to the courthouse in Santa Rosa. There, she seeks out Kirby Queen, someone whom she knew in high school. She files an injunction against the sale of her father’s vineyard. Though she knows that there is little chance for success, her first goal is to bury Jacob’s lawyer in paperwork until they back off the sale. After mentioning that the sale would go to Murray Grant Wines, Kirby falls into the planned role that Georgia has for her: to tell everyone in town about the injunction. Moments after leaving the courthouse, Georgia gets a call from Deputy Sheriff Ethan Tropper, a long-time friend of Finn’s, who tells her that Finn has been arrested.

On their way to the jail cell, Ethan explains that Finn has been a frequent visitor. He tells her that the fire hydrant accident was the last straw. Georgia rectifies the story and tells him that she is to blame for the accident. Ethan believes her, but when they get to Finn, he contradicts her and tells Ethan that he’s responsible, not Georgia. Ethan lets him go, and the two Ford siblings drive away. In the car, Finn initiates the Ford children’s way of apologizing: holding out a hand to the offended sibling, which the other will take as a sign of the apology being accepted. When she takes his hand, Finn promises that he’s going to stop his nonsense with Margaret and make amends for what he’s done. They talk about Michelle being in town and how she will be attending the harvest party. Jokingly, he tells Georgia that she should set them up together.

When they return to the house, Georgia tells her parents that she’s filed an injunction against the sale of the vineyard and announces that she and Ben have plans to take over the vineyard. Both parents are disbelieving, then outright angry. Her mother can’t look at her anymore and her father leaves the house. Georgia realizes how important the vineyard is to her but doesn’t know how to communicate it with her parents.

The narrative goes back in time to 2004, the night before Bobby and Margaret’s wedding. Dan is at the brewery. Though Dan loves Margaret as a daughter-in-law, he doesn’t know if Bobby is a good choice for her since he seems to be entering this marriage out of a sense of urgency rather than love. When he gets home, Jen is making place cards for the wedding. He expresses his worries to her: not only for Bobby and Margaret but also for Finn and Georgia. Jen comforts him, and Dan admits that he had hoped that one of them would take over the vineyard, especially Georgia.

In the present, Georgia returns to the house and finds Suzannah waiting for her. They walk through the vineyard, and Suzannah admits that she was too hasty in advising Georgia to stay with Ben. She explains that while her husband believes that she is his “have-to-have,” she doesn’t believe that Ben is Georgia’s. Georgia, however, contradicts her and tells her that they are working through their issues and she is trying to be happy.

While preparing for the harvest party, Georgia’s father comes to collect her and thanks her on the way to the tent for enjoining him. He leaves her by the entrance to meet friends, and Georgia spies her mother, looking overwhelmed, with Henry by her side. Bobby and Margaret are forcing smiles, and Michelle, Maddie, and Ben coloring together. She runs into Jacob and Lee and lies when introductions are being made, saying that she didn’t know that Lee was Jacob’s fiancée. When Lee leaves to get a drink, Jacob berates Georgia for filing the injunction, but the conversation quickly turns to why Georgia is spying on Lee. Then Jacob states that Michelle has nothing on Georgia.

When Georgia finally joins Ben, Michelle, and Maddie, Michelle requests to be left alone with her so that they can talk and clear the air. It’s made clear in their discussion that Ben has been seeing Maddie and Michelle frequently during the last few months, including the month before when he was finalizing the purchase of their new home. Michelle also makes it known that they would live in the same neighborhood, which distresses Georgia as she realizes what kind of life she would lead in London: She would live in the city, but it would never be her city. She understands, too, that Michelle is intentionally trying to disrupt their relationship so that that she may be together with Ben.

Georgia finds Ben and confronts him about why he never told that her he’d met up with Michelle and Maddie, despite claiming that there would be no more lies. She asks whether he was trying to see if he, Michelle, and Maddie could be a family. He admits that he had a moment of hesitation, but ultimately, he picked Georgia. Georgia, however, is too thrown by the situation and steps away. Lee comes to find her and tells her that she should feel bad about pretending not to know her. Lee then tells her she’s moving away to Seattle and that Jacob is trying to consider going with her. She says that Jacob is a very good man and that she knows the reason Georgia didn’t introduce herself to her.

In the winemaker’s cottage, Georgia finds Finn hiding from the party and defrosting the last frozen lasagna in a pan. He tells her that he plans to move to New York and lies that he has great photography opportunities there. When he points out that moving away worked for Georgia, she disagrees and tells him that she thinks that Michelle loves Ben. Their mother finds them and admonishes them for missing the party. She ushers them back outside, where her father is waiting to give a speech, the frozen lasagna still on the stove.

Her father is in the center of the stage at a small podium, while all the attendees and family members look on proudly. However, instead of giving a speech, he turns the microphone off and whispers something in Jen’s ear, which makes her reach for him and lovingly, awkwardly, start to dance with him—that is, until Henry screams about a fire. The cottage is in flames, and the whole family runs to it, with Jacob calling the fire department on the way. The Ford children try their best to extinguish the fire, but eventually their father tells them to let it go. Then, suddenly, a bolt of lightning explodes in the sky, and rain plummets to the ground. As one, the children realize that the rain will damage the Block 14 grapes and run together to save as many as they can. As they work, the fire department arrives, which is why none of them realize that their father is laying on the ground, listless, in their mother’s arms.