It's early Monday morning in New Orleans...where EDNA POWELL, the owner-chief mechanic at her own auto-repair business, watches coworkers GINA WILLIAMSON and DARRYL KEITER tow a 2018 Ford Focus into the place.
This alongside another car in the garage...and with nine more vehicles awaiting salvation in the parking lot, nothing's easy for these full-timers in the Big Easy. In Edna's words: "It'd take an octopus to move all these cars out."
She knows it's the truth...but this motherly, mentally-tough woman doesn't want her two full-time mechanics to use it as a crutch.
Edna finds she can't hide the truth from fatherly-beyond-his-years Darryl or from heart-on-her-sleeve Gina...so, with Gina's work on a 2003 Oldsmobile Alero the last straw due to a messed-up electrical system, Edna goes online to draft a classified ad.
Edna interviews FIVE HOPEFULS...one of whom attempts to rob her, only to receive a wrench in his gun arm by another job applicant, a Tulane University student named FAIRY GODCHAUX.
Fairy's reward for thwarting the theft attempt and for saving Edna's life: "I'll think it over. I'm gonna need a letter of reference, too."
That doesn't sit well with Fairy...or Gina or Darryl...or with wisecracking TANYA THIBODEAUX, a part-time mechanic at Edna's Garage when not attending high school.
While Tanya sticks another bug in Edna's ear about bringing in quiet-introverted-gutsy Fairy, Fairy herself locks horns with her organ professor at Tulane, EVONN GREENGRASS...who teaches that women are fit for fixing pies, not cars.
Never mind that Evonn's own vintage Audi Fox needs repair: It's "growling like a grizzly bear..."
This crusty, highly-opinionated prof promises to type Fairy a letter of reference as long as this musical mechanic looks for a "nicer" job. Evonn wins the night...until her 1977 Audi quits on her about half a block from Edna's Garage.
Fairy passes by in her own self-repaired 2014 Chevy Camaro...and, with a moonlighting Edna watching, replaces the plugs and points in Evonn's Fox.
When the Audi starts right up, Fairy gains two converts: Not only Evonn herself...but also Edna, who hires the Tulane undergrad without the previously-needed letter of reference.