Jack is released from jail determined to leave behind everything and everyone that led him there, but his father's recent passing triggers the unraveling of a dangerous game. As old small town secrets come to light, Jack is forced to ultimately choose between the life he's always known - or none at all.

SYNOPSIS:

Willowport, Missouri. A small southern town fixed against a Harbor. Lush hills attempt to distract from its underdevelopment. Beyond the thick fog that cascades over the hillside and creeps through large groves of willows is VERNON’S home. Vines and live oak defend against any natural light that dare penetrate its walls – for a reason. QUAID DARCEY and VERNON control Willowport’s crime syndicate. Big fish in a small pond of drugs, weapons, and women—All the F U’s in fun. Vernon grows obsessed with finding the site of Julopite—a rare, valuable gem; its genesis believed to exist in the coalmines of Munsville County. He directs ROY and AVA to steal him a specific map, the key, from a rumored location. When they return empty handed, Vernon’s impetuous behavior results in the couple’s murder. Moments prior to their deaths, Ava checks on her newborn baby, SYDNEY, revealing THE MAP tucked away on her body and a small sampling of the gems concealed with the baby. Quaid’s SON, JACK DARCEY (5) follows his toy car down the hall, witnessing Ava’s murder feet from Sydney’s crib. Fed up with his obsession and callous violence, JANETTE, Vernon’s half-sister and matron of the illicit household, takes the baby and leaves Willowport.

—2 5 Y E A R S L A T E R— Jack Darcey, no longer an inmate, lights his cigarette outside the prison gates. He looks as if he’d rather turn back around than board the idling shuttle bus home. Among his few belongings is a lengthy, incoherent letter from his late father, Quaid, whose suicide Jack learned about while incarcerated. Jack returns to Willowport only with the hope that anything his father left behind, including their pontoon houseboat, will be enough to cut ties with the town permanently and start over. Jack has no desire to take his father’s place beside Vernon, who along with a band of misfits, still muscles his way about town as he pleases. Meanwhile, Quaid’s suicide brought home another familiar face. Janette [along with Sydney] moves back to Willowport and resumes ownership of her diner, where Sydney now works as a waitress. At night, Sydney sings at the Harbor Bar – Willowport’s seediest, most popular establishment.

Jack and Sydney share a brief encounter at the bar, unaware of any shared history between them. Vernon finally shows, occupying his usual booth in the back, and welcomes home his surrogate son. They toast to Quaid and reminisce, but the forced pleasantries are short-lived when Jack learns his father didn’t leave a will. His wings are clipped. Vernon takes offense that Jack would need any convincing to reintegrate into the life he was groomed for. He reminds Jack his true inheritance is taking his father’s place beside him — Where a Darcey belongs. Jack refuses, and Vernon’s stoicism is anything but. The man can take anything personally.

Jack settles into the old pontoon, decorated by fresh layers of dust, moisture, and splattered blood stains around a bullet hole in the wall that may as well have read like a neglected banner.

—W E L C O M E H O M E , S O N—

Jack finds an old box tucked away on the boat. Among its various nostalgic contents is THE MAP, stained and obscured by Ava’s blood. We later learn Janette discovered the map on Ava’s body after her murder. Janette confided in Quaid and the two agreed Vernon’s obsession with finding the Julopite was a detriment. They kept the discovery a secret. But Jack, baring no attachment to the items inside and attempting to rid himself of all others, leaves the box for Vernon. With the bloodied map now in Vernon’s possession, he slowly pieces together years of Quaid and Janette’s duplicity.

At Janette’s diner, Jack has his second encounter with Sydney — a breath of fresh air with a face. But he’s soon driven out by an awkward run-in with SHERIFF BELL. Look, it’s clear to everyone Jack’s dick is way bigger than Bell’s, but Bell is in Vernon’s pocket, so he likes to swing it around every once in a while. Jack notices a raven pendant being beaten into the ground by heavy rains—its eyes made of two vividly red gemstones boasting a shimmer that glows larger than their size. The same gems Ava hid on baby Sydney prior to her death, with the promise of a better life. Recognizing the pendant as Sydney’s from their first encounter, Jack returns it and invites her back to the boat. He later discovers the engine’s been tampered with and as his unlucky stars align, is forced to accept Vernon’s terms for one last job. With the map and the promise of Julopite back in Vernon’s sights, retracing footsteps into the past also places the girl Jack’s fallen for as a high priority target on Vernon’s shit list.

It’s a game of cat and mouse. Vernon needs more than a ruined map to find what he’s looking for, but with her refusal to cooperate, he murders Janette in a brutal public display; stringing up her dead corpse like a marionette for all the town to marvel and sets his sights on Sydney. Jack and Sydney’s relationship deepens, but so does Jack’s entanglement in Vernon’s web. With love built on a sturdy foundation of secrets and lies, Sydney is terrified and confused by Jack’s possible involvement in Janette’s murder, until a life-saving attempt to regain her trust convinces her they’re each other’s only chance for evading Vernon and escaping Willowport alive. But getting out of town isn’t easy when the town is out to get you. Alongside his band of misfits, who face their own struggles with blind, steadfast loyalty amidst years of pent up disillusionment, Vernon’s relentless hunt for Jack, Sydney, and the Julopite escalates to its final and fatal conclusion.

WILLOWPORT