The Change

In the coastal town of Mattauk, New York, three women in their late forties discover extraordinary abilities as they enter menopause, drawing them into a conspiracy involving the murder of young women by some of the wealthiest men in America.

Harriett Osborne, a former advertising executive, has been living in seclusion since her husband, Chase, left her for another woman. Her once-immaculate garden has grown into a wild tangle of poisonous and medicinal plants, alarming the neighbors. When Brendon Baker, the tyrannical president of the Mattauk Homeowners Association (HOA), confronts her about the property, Harriett refuses to comply, noting she never signed the HOA agreement. Celeste Howard, a fellow board member who accompanied Brendon, is drawn to Harriett's fierce independence. Celeste quits the HOA and begins spending time with Harriett, and their friendship evolves into a romantic relationship. Flashbacks reveal that Harriett was forced out of her advertising career after male colleagues took credit for her ideas and that, as a 12-year-old, she poisoned her father after witnessing him murder her mother. In her seclusion, she has discovered an ability to make plants grow and to weaponize botanical knowledge.

Jo Levison, a compact, muscular redhead, runs Furious Fitness, a women-only gym, while her husband, Art, a struggling playwright, stays home with their 11-year-old daughter, Lucy. Jo's menopause symptoms have been intensifying, and during a late-night meditation, she generates what feels like a ball of fire in her palms. She discovers she can channel her hot flashes into extreme heat and superhuman physical strength.

Nessa James, a 48-year-old nurse practitioner and widow, has been hearing the crash of ocean waves inside her quiet house, a sign that a supernatural gift inherited through her family's matrilineal line is returning. As a child spending a summer with her grandmother Dolores in South Carolina, Nessa learned she can hear and see the spirits of dead women who need to be found. The gift goes dormant during a woman's reproductive years and returns in middle age. Now a girl's voice calls to Nessa, and she understands someone lost wants to be found.

Nessa visits Harriett and proposes they work together. She defines their roles: Nessa finds the dead, Jo protects the living, and Harriett punishes those responsible. The three women drive along Danskammer Beach Road, a desolate stretch near Culling Pointe, a gated enclave of billionaires. In the scrubland, they discover a black trash bag containing the decomposing body of a young woman, naked and discarded. On the beach beyond, Nessa sees two more ghosts standing in the water: a pale redhead in a black dress and an Asian girl in a red hoodie.

Detective Franklin Rees, who once worked with Nessa's late husband, takes the case, but the medical examiner rules the death an accidental fentanyl overdose. Nessa's twin daughters remind her that a local girl, Mandy Welsh, disappeared near the same beach two years earlier and was dismissed as a runaway. Jo meets Mandy's mother, Amber Welsh, who reveals Mandy was last seen walking toward Culling Pointe for a job interview. A flashback reveals that Amber experienced sexual abuse as a teenager at the hands of her softball coach, John Rocca, who is now Mattauk's chief of police. When Jo returns the next day, Amber and her three children have vanished overnight.

The women launch their own investigation. Harriett secures invitations to a Memorial Day party at Culling Pointe, where they meet Jackson Dunn, a crude billionaire; Claude Marchand, a sophisticated event planner; and Claude's partner, Leonard Shaw, the billionaire who founded the community. Harriett secretly scatters seeds of Scotch broom, a highly flammable invasive shrub, across the grounds. They also encounter Spencer Harding, a powerful financier whose wife, Rosamund, a former Olympic diver, appears to be held in virtual captivity. Rosamund tosses Jo an apple with the word "FAITH" carved into its skin.

A woman named Laverne Green claims to be the dead girl's mother, but DNA testing proves she is a fraud hired to close the case. Meanwhile, Rosamund dies in a car crash. Remembering the apple, Jo uses "FAITH" as the combination on a second gym locker Rosamund had rented and finds a Polaroid of the murdered girl, naked and terrified. Forensics yield nothing usable, and Rocca warns the women to stay quiet.

Harriett's seeds sprout across the Pointe, attracting massive bee swarms that hospitalize Dunn. When Spencer's bodyguard, Chertov, breaks into Harriett's house, she poisons him, extracts a confession about a police mole feeding information to Spencer, and disposes of his body. Then a man breaks into Jo's home and reaches Lucy's bedroom, binding and gagging the child. Jo overpowers the intruder with superhuman strength and brands his face with a burning handprint. Art takes Lucy to safety in Vermont while Jo stays to end the threat. The three women abandon the legal system and resolve to act on their own.

Jo contacts Josh Gibbon, host of the true crime podcast They Walk Among Us. She dives to the ocean floor off Danskammer Beach and films the remains of two girls stuffed into lobster traps. The footage and interviews air simultaneously. Hours later, Spencer's helicopter crashes into New York Harbor.

Rocca appears on television claiming credit for the entire investigation and blames Franklin, who is fired. The women know Rocca is lying but cannot prove it without revealing Harriett killed Chertov. Josh is later murdered, his death staged as a suicide. Before dying, he left Nessa a microcassette recording of a teenage girl describing how Rocca tried to abduct her from a parking lot, proving Rocca was still actively hunting girls after Spencer's death.

Rocca attempts to kidnap Nessa's daughter Breanna while she jogs near a marsh. Breanna escapes by jumping off a bridge into the water. Jo, Nessa, and Claude confront Rocca at his home with time-stamped security footage tying him to Spencer. During the confrontation, Juliet Rocca, the chief's wife, feeds him a poisoned coffee cake baked from a recipe Harriett provided. Juliet had discovered that Mei Jones, a foster child once placed in the Rocca household, was one of the victims. Rocca chokes and dies.

An email from Jamaica identifies the first victim as Faith Reid, a 17-year-old who disappeared from Montego Bay without a passport. The full scope of the conspiracy emerges: Claude ran the supply side of a trafficking operation for the wealthy men of Culling Pointe, recruiting and silencing girls under rules she set. She brought Faith from Jamaica for Leonard, but Leonard gave Faith to Spencer, who killed her. When the women rush to the Pointe, Nessa is overwhelmed by the ghosts of more than a dozen murdered girls. Claude beats Leonard to death with a golf club after he admits knowing about the killings and dismisses them. Jo ignites the tinder-dry Scotch broom with her touch, and fire consumes every mansion on the Pointe. Harriett retrieves Claude's laptop containing files on all the men involved. Claude dies when a burning propane tank strikes her boat as she tries to flee.

In the aftermath, Jo relocates to Brooklyn with her family, opens a new gym, and launches a national self-defense program for girls funded by the Leonard Shaw estate. Nessa and Franklin build a life together at his beach cottage, continuing to investigate missing cases. Harriett remains in Mattauk, dispensing herbal remedies and justice to women who seek her out. Leonard's estate bequeaths Culling Pointe to a whale conservation group, ensuring the land remains permanently undeveloped. In the final scene, Harriett visits the garden of a CEO whose name appeared in Claude's files and releases spiders near his bench, signaling her work of retribution is far from over.