"Morristown - Episode #1"

Tagline – “Live. Love. Lie”

“25 words or less” – It’s one-degree of separation for six carefree friends within the New Jersey suburb of Morristown where these early thirty-something professionals live, work and love

Full Summary:
“Morristown” is a TV series that follows six friends who are all early thirty-something professionals living in the shadow of New York City in the New Jersey suburb of Morristown. Everyone knows each other in this relatively small town and, with five restaurants, four bars, three coffee shops and one gym, there’s no hiding or escaping anyone even if you try. This makes life challenging when one of the main characters tries to avoid a fling that ended awkwardly or an ex that refuses to leave their life.

The pilot episode opens with Kathryn McGrath, a nymphomaniac real estate agent, being told that she’s contracted an STD by her doctor, and good friend, Erica Phillips. Erica is the level-headed, practical friend of the group, however the same can’t be said for her friend Kathryn. Kathryn is out for only one thing, sex, and an STD isn’t going to stop her pursuit of more. Although Erica warns her of the dangers and pleads with her to hold off on being intimate until she’s cured through treatment, Kathryn is determined to finally have sex that night with the new guy she’s seeing, Daniel. Daniel is also one of the six friends that the series revolves around and he enjoys his relationship with Kathryn which is a welcome diversion from his relatively boring job as an accountant. If Kathryn finally goes home with Daniel, will she have the guts to tell him about her STD before she sleeps with him?

Erica’s level-headedness is further counterbalanced by her sister, Jessica, who is also her roommate. Although Jessica has a very stable job as a divorce lawyer, she has the tendency to act irrationally mostly because she can’t find a decent man and she’s worried about growing old without one. One night, they go to the Famished Frog, a divey bar in the center of town that everyone goes to all the time, where a drunken Jessica runs into one of her clients. Desperate for attention from a man, she goes over to him and strikes up a conversation which quickly becomes flirtatious. Does Jessica try to elevate the harmless flirting into something more, potentially jeopardizing her career?

To round out the group of six friends are Russell Paxton and Steven. Russell is a completely carefree, cool but lackadaisical high school substitute teacher who just wants to be surfing all the time and admits he only has his job because he gets out of work at 3p everyday and he has the summers off. He’s also the type of teacher that takes cell phone calls during class and will take a swipe from his flask when the students aren’t looking, not that he even notices the kids in his class most of the time. Russell is a good-looking guy and is adored by many of the attractive female high school students, many of whom openly admit to their friends that they’d like to have an affair with the single man. Will he ever act on one of his student’s desires?

Russell is also the life of the party and with his friend, Steven, a trainer at the local gym, they join up with Erica and Jessica on a Friday night to pre-game at their apartment before hitting up the local hotspot, Famished Frog. Once at the bar, the two guys peel away from the girls in search of women. Russell tries desperately to get Steven to hit on some of them with him, but he refuses. He tries and tries again but Steven stands his ground. Frustrated, Russell calls him out and jokingly asks if he’s gay. Since Steven is, in fact, a closeted gay, will he finally come out to his best friend? If he does, what will the reaction be?

Each episode presents an ethical or moral dilemma for at least one of the characters and we see how that particular character deals with it. Sometimes they make the right decision but more often than not they end up making the wrong move which only gets them into deeper trouble later. Even the level-headed, practical doctor Erica is bound to get into her own moral dilemmas as well. That’s just what’s come to be expected from the carefree, “I want whatever I want now” generation and it’s the central theme of “Morristown.”
Morristown Screenplay