CARTER HODGES
Carter Hodges had made it. “Man Cave,” the multi-cam sitcom he co-created about a dad in his 50’s moving in with his 24-year-old son and his roommates, was a hit. Sure, the critics dismissed it as basic at best, sophomoric at worst, but from 2001-2008, it was still the #1 rated comedy in country.
And then, on Valentine’s Day 2009, his co-creator and star killed his girlfriend. Show cancelled. Carter not just unemployed but, due to some ill-worded defences of his old partner, profoundly unemployable.
To outside observers, there was a bright side. The same month that Carter’s co-creator was arrested, Carter’s wife , Meg Park, was winning the first of her 10 Emmys for her own show “Ms. Mayor.”
Plus, Meg was pregnant with their first child. Carter could finally take a break, focus on his family, and enjoy life as a husband and a dad.
Except, unbeknownst to anyone, he really didn’t want to.
For Carter, work defined him. And now, against his will, he was a stay-at-home dad, watching from the sidelines as his wife took over the role of the success of the family. Even more painful: she was better at it than he ever was.
Fatherhood grew on him eventually, as he created a mini version of himself in his daughter Eleanor, with whom he shared looks, places and jokes only they understood.
And then she became a teen. With her own tastes. And her own life. And just like that, Carter was alone. And sad. And resentful.
And while he’s found a good outlet for his frustration in his podcast, “What We Lost,” where he talks to his old comedy friends about what they learned from their biggest failures, he’s still very much lost himself. As a husband. A father. A person.
SAMUEL “SAM” HODGES
“Delightful.” “Charming.” “Enchanting.”
These are just a few of the ways that friends, old co-workers, and the barista at his favorite coffee place in Park Slope, Brooklyn would refer to Sam Hodges.
Ask his wife and children, on the other hand, and you’ll get a different take.
“Sad.” “Defeated.” “A human sigh.”
So lies the contradiction that is 82-year-old Sam Hodges as he awaits the assessments of his chosen eulogists during the living funeral he has decided to throw for himself.
A 3rd generation Harvard legacy, Sam spent most of his youth tucked away at the best schools, first at Pomfret then Harvard, where he fell in with fellow sons of New York and Boston legacies.
But after years of following the preordained life path, Sam soon found himself not as a banker but an advertising copywriter, married not to his first love Gloria Pemberton, but to Maryann Devitt, the daughter of a contractor, and living not in an Upper East side townhouse but in a brownstone in the as-yet ungentrified Park Slope, Brooklyn. It was a life he never imagined, and a life he instantly regretted.
And now, 50+ years later, freshly diagnosed with Stage 4 colorectal and prostate cancer, Sam wants a retrospective on this disappointing life. But why?
MARYANN HODGES
Growing up as the daughter of a contractor in a town known mostly as the place city folks escape to their summer homes, Maryann Devitt was prepared for a nice quiet life as either a teacher, or maybe a pediatric nurse if she could get the money to go to nursing school. In the meantime, she’d marry one of those nice local young men who worked for her father during the summers and they’d build a nice house near her parents.
Then she met Sam Hodges.
Over two years, she fell for his charm and self-deprecating humility. She especially loved how he would make fun of his Harvard education before anyone else could.
And when her brother was killed by a drunken driver, she and Sam leaned on each other for comfort, eventually deciding to get married and move away from the grief to Brooklyn. Something stayed broken though, and they grew apart, as she focused on trying to create a loving home, while he worked long hours and travelled.
Along the way, she fought the loneliness by immersing herself in her kids’ lives. Divorcing seemed like too much effort. It was just easier to be unhappy.
But now that he’s dying, how does she acknowledge his life? And more importantly, who is she without him
MEG PARK
Meg Park’s mother was a force of nature. Not only was she the first female mayor of a U.S. city (Sacramento) she did so while raising a daughter by herself. Growing up in the presence of such a strong personality, Meg learned everything she needed to know about succeeding in Hollywood: surround yourself with smart people, be prepared to massage a few egos, and maintain confidence in the face of doubters.
Presently, no one can doubt her success. After starting as Carter’s writing assistant on “Man Cave,” she eventually got her own show. “Ms. Mayor” based on her mother’s life, subsequently won 10 Emmys over the course of 8 years, helping propel Meg into her current role of TV hit maker.
While her busy schedule makes her life incredibly hectic, she makes sure to acknowledge her overly-sensitive husband’s sacrifices in taking on the new role of homemaker. She’ll occasionally resent working so hard, not having as close a relationship with her daughter as Carter, but despite the headaches and stresses it regularly plagues her with, god she loves her job.
BECCA HODGES-WILSON
As the oldest of the Hodges children, Becca felt the pain and tension of her parents’ unhappy marriage more than her younger brother. And as she got into her teens, she channeled her family-induced angst into music and art, which led her to the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
After college, she continued pursuing her love of music, playing in a few bands in the burgeoning Boston music scene, before starting her own band, Hodgepodge. For three years, she travelled the world, charting some songs on college radio, and almost making it big a few times.
But seeing a future of touring college towns and constant struggle, she went back home to Brooklyn and became the music teacher at the same school she and Carter went to.
On the bright side, along the way, she met and married Wilson Wilson, lead singer of the popular but short-lived Britpop band, Slouch, who followed her to Brooklyn, where they adopted a baby, Xander, and found a place a block away from her parents.
Despite an occasional “what if I’d stayed with music” daydream, she’s found enough in her life to be 50-60% content.
WILSON WILSON
You remember Wilson’s band Slouch? Formed in London in 1989, they were named NME’s “Next Big Thing.” The next few years saw a string of #1 songs including their biggest hit, “One More Pint (Ten More Stories.)” culminating in headlining The Glastonbury Festival in 1994. But it all came crashing down in 1995 after the band broke up and Wilson became fodder for the British tabloids with assaults on paparazzi and a spat with Liam Gallagher of Oasis.
Fortunately he fell in love with a fellow musician, and moved to the US to live off royalties and reimagine his career. 20+ years later, the royalties are drying up and he’s still re-imagining.
ELEANOR HODGES
16-year-old Eleanor is the perfect blend of her father and mother. She has the sarcastic wit of her father, which equally hilarious and devastating. And she has the drive and focus of her mother, which has led her to follow her dreams of being a filmmaker even at such a young age. (She won a Special Prize at LA Film Festival for her documentary short on displaced pets after the wildfires in Los Angeles.) To keep up on trends and news, she is always on her phone (just like her mom), a development that bothers her dad to no end, especially after they spent so many years joined at the hip. She still loves him more than anyone, but, hey, she’s got to grow up sometime, right?
XANDER WILSON
Growing up the son of musicians, 17-year old Xander couldn’t help but be drawn to music himself. But unlike his parents, he didn’t want to be a guitarist or singer. Just like his parents did for him, exposing him to a wide array of music, he wanted to curate, to discover, to introduce others to stuff they’d never heard. So he became a crate-digger, searching for vinyl treasures in any sidewalk sale and record store he could find, then DJ-ing his own podcast of his finds. As he’s grown older, he sees how much his parents miss their old lives as musicians and wishes he could do something to rekindle that joy for them.
LILY HODGES
If anyone knows what Sam is going through, it is his older sister Lily. They were both raised in the same lonely house in Washington, CT. They were both shipped out to boarding schools as early as possible (age 8 in those days.) And they both witnessed the slow decline of their father, both emotionally and physically. While Sam bottled up his feeling about his childhood, Lily was determined to analyze and understand her dad, becoming a renowned cognitive behavior therapist, focused on family trauma. It has given her some sympathy for Sam, but also frustrated her that her never dealt with it.
STEPHEN PEMBERTON
Since meeting as 8-year-olds at boarding school in 1948, Sam and Stephen have been friends, roommates, best men at each other’s weddings, and almost brothers-in law ever since. Which is odd since they are so distinctly different from each other. While they both share the same pedigree of monied east coast legacies, Stephen always embraced his lineage while Sam felt insecure about it, a notion for which Stephen had no patience. The good life (money, vacations, women, money) was put on a platter for them. Why not imbibe? Sam’s unhappiness is just another example of how Stephen chose the right path.
TESS PEMBERTON
Back in his sophomore year at Harvard, Sam spent a summer at Stephen’s summer home on the Cape. There, he met his younger sister Tess, and they immediately fell for each other. She liked that Sam was so unlike her boorish brother, self-aware but still charming, and he liked that she had a similar discomfort with the excesses that surrounded their lives. But she was still a Pemberton, with money and connections and expectations, and that was what ultimately doomed their relationship. When they broke up, she too escaped her preordained life to move across the country to Portland, OR, where she lived until her husband passed away a year ago.
ARCHIE EATON
Archie joined Young & Rubicam Advertising the same week as Sam, but not as a writer. He was stuck in the mailroom. Hard work and a little boost from Sam got him promoted to a job as Sam’s art director partner, and for the next 15 years, they rose through the ranks to lead the huge Eastern Airlines account for a decade. During that time, Archie spent more time with Sam and knew more about him than Sam’s whole family. When he left to start his own pioneering multi-cultural agency, he understood he was abandoning his friend, but it was time for everyone to evolve. Unfortunately, Sam never got the memo.
ZOE HAWN
During Sam’s stint as the lead of the Eastern Airlines account, he had to fly to Miami almost weekly to meet with the over-involved CEO. One night at the hotel bar during one of these trips, Archie instigated a conversation between Sam and herself. They knew each other were married from the start but found comfort in a shared sense of loneliness despite their relationship status. They would meet up every time he was in town, and while it eventually became physical, they mostly enjoyed the simple act of talking to someone they liked. It eventually ended when they realized neither had the fight to take it to the next level.
