Five neighbors meet during a spontaneous snowball fight on Freesia Court on a cold March day.

Faith invites the four women into her home and the group agrees to start a book club together.

Eric, Merit's husband, strikes her for the first time after she says she wants to join the new book club.

Kari flies to San Francisco and agrees to adopt her niece Mary Jo's newborn baby, naming the girl Julia.

After husbands mock the book club at Kari's Christmas party, the women defiantly adopt the name 'Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons.'

Audrey has a sudden premonition about her infant son Michael and rushes to find a sheet tangled dangerously around his neck.

Audrey has a sudden, certain realization that her husband Paul is having an extramarital affair.

Slip's brother Fred crashes a book club meeting and shocks the women with a harrowing account of atrocities he witnessed in Vietnam.

The Housewives witness Eric brutally beating Merit, and Faith holds him at gunpoint with her husband's unloaded pistol.

Grant builds a snowman holding a white flag in Slip's yard, brokering Audrey and Slip's reconciliation after months of silence.

Merit meets a kind stranger named Frank Paradise at the library where she secretly practices piano on her lunch break.

Faith travels to meet Beau's partner and discovers that Shelby is a man, forcing her to confront her son's homosexuality.

Faith drives Audrey to her Mississippi hometown and confesses she has always felt responsible for her drunk mother's fatal car crash.

Julia discovers the truth about her biological parentage and stops speaking to Kari entirely.

Slip announces her cancer has returned, and the Housewives mark the moment with a final exuberant snowball fight.

Five women on a Minneapolis cul-de-sac meet during a snowball fight and quickly form a book club that becomes the anchor of their lives across three decades. Their bond is tested by Merit's abusive marriage, which comes to a crisis when Faith holds Merit's husband at gunpoint, and by long-held secrets that slowly force their way to the surface. The group survives an internal rift between Audrey and Slip, while the children they raised grow into adults with complicated lives of their own. Faith's son Beau coming out as gay finally breaks open her decades-long guilt over her mother's death in a drunk-driving crash. The Housewives celebrate Merit's joyful second marriage and watch each other transform as the years pass. They gather in the end around Slip in a hospital room, sharing laughter and memories as her cancer returns for the last time.

The major milestones of thirty years of friendship on Freesia Court.

Faith writes the first of many letters to her mother Primrose, signing it 'Sorry' and concealing her painful past.

Audrey, Faith, and Slip spontaneously flash their prim neighbor Leslie Trottman from the safety of Slip's backyard treehouse.

Faith's mother-in-law Patsy urges Faith to stop inventing stories about her past and trust that loved ones will accept her.

Slip is stunned and devastated to learn that her brother Fred has enlisted in the U.S. Army.

Kari presents the baby Julia to the Angry Housewives the day after secretly bringing the infant home.

Merit secretly rolls garbage and rude notes into her French roll as small, private rebellions against Eric's control over her appearance.

Merit's estranged father calls to apologize for cutting her off years earlier but dies the very next day.

Merit goes into labor at a book club meeting and the Housewives help her deliver a healthy baby girl.

Audrey and Paul finalize their divorce after she confronts him about the string of affairs he had throughout their marriage.

Audrey's son Bryan is seriously injured in a car accident, and his recovery draws Audrey's sons closer to each other and to her.

Merit performs at a piano bar for the first time, with all the Angry Housewives cheering from the audience.

Audrey believes she has received a vision from God and decides she wants to train to become a pastor.

The Angry Housewives vote to officially induct neighbor Grant into their book club as a full member.

Grant's partner Stuart dies of AIDS, and Grant remains at Stuart's side throughout the entirety of his illness.

Faith receives a letter written by her deceased biological father, revealing his identity and the existence of a surviving half-sister.

Even before the Angry Housewives have their name, they are quietly shaping each other's lives through small acts of solidarity and support. Kari's secret adoption of Julia, Merit's hidden rebellions against Eric's control, and Slip's grief over her brother's enlistment all run beneath the surface of their cheerful gatherings. The group weathers divorces, car accidents, and family losses while finding joy in piano performances, pastoral training, and the slow expansion of their circle. Stuart's death from AIDS and Faith's discovery of her biological father mark the later years with both grief and unexpected revelation. Through it all, the women continue to show up for one another in ways that husbands and families sometimes cannot. These secondary moments form the connective tissue of a friendship built carefully over thirty years.

The quieter moments and supporting stories that shaped the Housewives' lives.

Slip and Faith sit together in Slip's treehouse and Slip weeps about the Vietnam War, assassinations, and the collapse of idealism.

At book club, the women share memories of favorite teachers, and Merit quietly reveals that a music teacher sexually assaulted her.

Eric pushes Merit to the floor and kicks her on the very night of Kari's beloved annual Christmas party.

Slip joins a protest against the Kent State shootings and soon learns her brother Fred was wounded in Vietnam.

Faith notices that her son Beau is unusually gentle and fearful at school and meets with the principal to demand his protection.

Slip's brother Fred arrives at her home and retreats to the basement, showing severe symptoms of post-traumatic stress from Vietnam.

Kari attends her niece Mary Jo's wedding and anxiously watches for any sign that Julia's biological parentage might be exposed.

Slip visits her brother Fred on a nuclear disarmament peace march and finds him sober, recovered, and helping other veterans.

Faith ruins Kari's Christmas party by being uncharacteristically snippy and withdrawn as her long-suppressed guilt pushes her toward a breaking point.

Merit confronts her ex-husband Eric at their eldest daughter's high school graduation and talks back to him for the first time.

Slip's doctor runs tests on her persistent fatigue and returns a diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease.

Grant shares with the Housewives how his father rejected him entirely after discovering that Grant was gay.

Slip's daughter Flannery announces her novel has been accepted for publication and asks Slip to be the first to read it.

Kari flies to California where Julia, having read Kari's letters, reconciles with her and introduces her fiancé.

The Angry Housewives gather in Slip's hospital room, laughing and reminiscing while Faith assembles a scrapbook of their thirty years together.

Beneath the cheerful surface of Freesia Court, the Angry Housewives are shaped by a series of revelations and hard-won turning points that force honesty into the open. Merit endures escalating abuse in secret, Faith spirals under the weight of her hidden guilt, and Slip struggles to help a brother broken by war. Family secrets and buried truths gradually demand to be confronted—from Merit's assault by a music teacher to the truth about Julia's parentage to Faith's devastating confession about her mother. Each woman reaches a crossroads that requires her to change course: Merit finally talks back to Eric, Kari prepares to tell Julia the truth, and Slip receives her cancer diagnosis. By the time the Housewives make a scrapbook together and sit at Slip's bedside, they have earned every moment of their bond through decades of hard-won honesty.

The secrets, discoveries, and decisions that pushed each woman toward who she became.