Rhys

Its compelling antihero, sixty-something Rhys Kinnick, has spent seven years in self-imposed exile, occupying a cinder block cabin in a remote region of Washington state.

Rhys has been subjected to Shane’s rants for years, and distills his son-in-law’s worldview down to this: “a Satanic liberal orthodoxy whose end goal was to subsume good Christians like Shane into an immoral, one-world socialist nightmare in which people pooped in the wrong bathroom.”

Rhys tries valiantly not to engage with Shane during this holiday gathering, but for years he’s hopelessly observed the “long sad cultural decline” that led to “the literal worst person in America” getting elected president, and he can’t take it anymore.

Rhys luxuriates in his solitude and lack of responsibility, detaching to such a degree that, in 2020, he’s largely unaware of the COVID-19 pandemic until his barber insists he don a mask.

It’s then that Rhys comprehends that in protecting himself he has failed to be there for his beloved ex-wife, Celia, who’s since died of lymphoma, or for his daughter, who has mysteriously run away, leaving a note to a neighbor instructing her to take her kids to stay with her estranged father.