When a down on her luck 68-year-old with a past suddenly inherits a condo in the world's largest retirement community, she must learn to trust others to fit into her new community or face repeating the mistakes of her past.

SYNOPSIS:

The Isles is an hour-long, scripted, dark comedy for television about how what makes you weird is what makes you powerful. It’s about Sarah Jenkins, a 68-year-old hot mess who shoplifts and drinks cough syrup like its water. She may or may not be (heavily) inspired by my eccentric mother. Think Jessica Lange meets Amy Sedaris, with a wild side. After killing her abusive husband with a cast iron pan, she ends up losing her daughter to social services and spending twenty-five years in prison. After prison, she decamps to a trailer park in Florida where she works at a gas station. This is where we meet Sarah at the start of the pilot: stumbling her way through her day job amidst hot dogs on rollers and truckers in tight jeans. Lonely. Alone. Lost.

Sarah holds out hope, delusional as it might seem, that she’ll one day make it big on the stage. Theater has always felt like home to Sarah - it’s a community of fellow weirdos where she can let her freak flag fly. And she’s actually a good singer and a fantastic dancer. Early in Act One of the pilot, things turn around for Sarah when her estranged sister, Jessica dies suddenly, and Sarah inherits her house at the world’s largest retirement community – The Isles.

Life at The Isles is like a never-ending spring break for the golf-cart-driving retirees who live there. And it is a microcosm of the ideological and political tensions of this moment in America. When Sarah moves in, she embarks on a journey to reinvent herself, find a chosen family, and live her dream. Unfortunately, Sarah will have to battle Brenda Bergman, the fast-talking, speed-walking, 81-year-old President of The Isles Governing Council. Brenda is a churchy control freak who wants everyone and everything to be squeaky clean. Sarah doesn’t quite know what to make of Brenda and finds herself making up details of a more sanitized, fictional past. Little white lies that will come back to haunt her in future episodes. Brenda makes it clear that she and Jessica were not on good terms, revealing suprising details about Jessica’s gambling past.

Next up for Sarah is an exploration of all The Isles has to offer, starting with a class of Broadway Babes where she meets musical-theater-loving Herb and Theo. The two quickly become her BFF’s. After a night of drinking (and a few lines of cocaine), Sarah is invited to consider a role in Salon, the Musical, Theo’s new masterwork. Then, things get messy for Sarah as she struggles to keep her sharp edges, potty mouth, and dramatic flair under control in the clubs and activities that make The Isles desirable. She picks a fight playing cards, lobs a ball at a resident’s crotch in Pickle Ball, and gets a bit too creative with her moves in water aerobics.

Next, Sarah meets Fred, a vagrant who lives in his van, over sloppy drinks. When Brenda discovers Sarah stumbling out of Fred’s van after a night of passionate, drunken sex, Brenda snaps. She’s heard of Sarah’s shenanigans through the gossipy granny grapevine and confronts her. This is too much for Sarah to bear. She decides to take Brenda down, setting in motion the season engine: the campaign between messy Sarah and uptight Brenda for President of The Isles Governing Council. But, she’ll have to get rid of the crabs Fred gave her first.

Sarah makes a surprise discovery in a hidden storage space in her garage: a box filled with poker chips and a pearl-handled gun. She isn’t sure what to make of it, but is starting to wonder what Jessica was up to – and why she gave her house to Sarah given their tense past.

Herb and Theo introduce Sarah to Dotty, the cruise-loving septuagenarian and former past president of The Isles, who joins as campaign manager. The quartet get brainstorming for Sarah’s campaign. But then, Sarah gets a double whammy. First, Brenda and her followers organize an impromptu parade past Sarah’s house, proving Brenda has a lot more support than Sarah thought. But that’s nothing compared to the call Sarah receives at the end of the pilot. It’s Jessica, her sister, who is not dead after all.