August: Osage County recap

When Oklahoma poet Beverly Weston disappears, his three adult daughters return to the family home, where their mother Violet is ill with cancer, dependent on pills, and ready to expose every weakness around her. Beverly is found dead by suicide, and the funeral dinner becomes a sustained family battle. Eldest daughter Barbara tries to take control while her marriage to Bill fails; Ivy plans to leave with her cousin Little Charles; and Karen insists that her fiance Steve offers a new beginning. Violet's attacks and the family's hidden resentments destroy the gathering. Steve targets Barbara's teenage daughter Jean, Bill leaves with Jean, and Karen departs with Steve despite learning what he did. Ivy discovers that Beverly secretly fathered Little Charles, making them half-siblings. Violet finally admits that she delayed acting after Beverly contacted her before his death. Barbara leaves, as her sisters already have, and Violet ends abandoned in the house with only Johnna, the caregiver Beverly hired, remaining beside her.

At the Weston home outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma, alcoholic poet Beverly Weston hires Johnna Monevata as a live-in housekeeper and caregiver for his wife Violet, who has mouth cancer and a severe dependence on prescription pills. Beverly soon disappears. The crisis draws home the couple's daughters: Barbara arrives with her estranged husband Bill and their fourteen-year-old daughter Jean; Ivy, who lives nearby, tries to manage practical matters; and Karen comes from Florida with her fiance Steve. Violet's sister Mattie Fae and her family also gather. Old grievances surface immediately as Violet moves between confusion and deliberate cruelty, while Barbara tries to impose order and hide the collapse of her own marriage. Sheriff Deon Gilbeau eventually reports that Beverly's body has been recovered from a lake. His death is ruled a suicide, turning the uneasy search into preparations for a funeral.

After Beverly's funeral, the extended family sits down to dinner. Violet, heavily medicated but sharply attentive to everyone's secrets, provokes one relative after another. She attacks Ivy's appearance and choices, mocks Mattie Fae and Charlie's son Little Charles, challenges Karen's confidence in Steve, and forces Barbara and Bill's separation into the open. Little Charles, already humiliated after arriving late, receives further abuse from Mattie Fae until Charlie firmly defends him. Ivy and Little Charles are secretly in love and planning to leave Oklahoma together, though the family still understands them to be first cousins. The dinner finally becomes a physical confrontation when Barbara wrestles the pills away from Violet and recruits the family to search the house for her hidden supply. Declaring that she is now in charge, Barbara takes on the controlling position she has condemned in her mother, while the gathering splinters into smaller conflicts.

Barbara's control does not save the family. Mattie Fae admits to Barbara that Beverly secretly fathered Little Charles, a fact that makes his relationship with Ivy incestuous even though neither lover knows it. Bill makes clear that he will not resume his marriage to Barbara. Meanwhile Steve gives marijuana to Jean and makes a sexual advance toward her; Johnna intervenes and drives him away from the girl. Karen refuses to give up the future she has built around Steve and leaves with him, while Bill takes Jean back to Colorado. When Ivy announces that she and Little Charles are going away together, Barbara reveals that they are half-siblings. Ivy leaves devastated and condemns the family for keeping the truth from her. Violet then discloses that Beverly contacted her before he died and that she delayed seeking him while protecting money he had placed beyond her reach. Barbara understands that Violet had a chance to intervene and drives away. With all three daughters gone, Violet is left disoriented and calling for them; Johnna, the outsider Beverly brought into the house, is the only person who remains to comfort her.

After the funeral dinner, every attempt to hold the Weston family together collapses. Johnna stops Steve when he makes a sexual advance toward Jean, but Karen chooses to preserve her planned marriage and leaves with him. Bill takes Jean back to Colorado and rejects Barbara's attempt to reconcile. Ivy and Little Charles prepare to leave together until Barbara tells Ivy that Beverly, not Charlie, was Little Charles's father, making them half-siblings; Ivy leaves in fury. Violet then admits that Beverly contacted her before his suicide and that she delayed responding while securing the family's money. Barbara recognizes that her mother knowingly left Beverly unaided and finally drives away. Violet calls for her daughters after all three have gone, leaving only Johnna to comfort her in the empty house. Barbara escapes the home but has no settled destination, while Violet is left with the isolation her cruelty and choices helped create.