It’s December 24, 1979, just before closing at Baker-Taylor’s discount department store, and Fran (née Baker) is surveying her domain. Her husband, Fred, is charming customers in the front of the store. The older Taylor kids are on register, while the younger ones’ chaos is contained to the stockroom. All is right in the world as the new decade approaches. With four healthy children and financial stability their own parents could have only dreamed of, Fred and Fran are the picture of the American Dream --- with a successful chain of family-owned stores built on years of hard work and long hours. Underneath the surface, however, the business is changing at a breakneck pace, and each member of the family is struggling to keep up.

In the male-dominated field of animation, Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses are a dynamic duo: Sharon is quietly ambitious but self-doubting, Mel is brash and unapologetic, always the life of a party. They spent their 20s ensconced in a gritty Brooklyn studio. Now, after a decade of striving, the two are finally celebrating the release of their first full-length feature and stand at the cusp of making it big. But with their success comes doubt and destruction, cracks in their relationship threatening the delicate balance of their partnership. When the only other partner Sharon has ever truly known --- her troubled, charismatic childhood best friend, Teddy --- reappears, long-buried resentments rise to the surface, hastening a reckoning no one sees coming.