Holler Girl

SHAELYN FORD is hopeful to attend college, the first in her family. She is brilliant and scored the highest SATs in the entire state (and adjacent states). A literary genius, she is a poet who sees beauty in the abject poverty of the small town of Bluestone, West Virginia; once a booming coal town but now a withered husk of its former self. Its proud people are clinging to a way of life that died out decades ago. As the oldest sibling in a family of four, it's her job to look after the rest. She works to put food on the table and keep the lights on while her mother BLAIR squanders their welfare and what little money she earns to feed an opioid addiction. Shae and Blair often come head-to-head; Shae is more of a mother to her siblings than Blair is to her own children. When Shae is admitted to college, she grapples with the decision to stay or go, leaving her siblings in the care of their mother. She decides to take guardianship of her siblings away from her mother for their own good, but Blair is not one to roll over easily. Each episode follows a different character while continuing the main storyline of this battle of wills between the two powerful matriarchs: KAYLA (15) is a pregnant teen, brother NOAH (10) tries to fill the role of man of the house, while youngest sibling GRACIE (5) is a victim of child abuse and neglect, struggling with dependency on Shae, even as she regresses into herself. Their UNCLE DYLAN (40s) isn't much help, a long-haul trucker who, without work, is now drug smuggling for a local cartel. Meanwhile, Shae's best friend, HENLEY, a musical prodigy with an ear for bluegrass and notably a closeted lesbian, struggles to keep her secret from the judgmental and religious views of her father. Shae fills the shoes of a mother while trying to make a life for her siblings and keeping her eye on her goal of college. When Blair catches on to her plan, Shae faces a choice: will she stay behind or leave them?