The scene opens to an oceanfront patio of a Cape Cod home. Its owner, Charlotte, a highly respected political blogger, is on her phone asking a colleague to run a story. As Charlotte speaks, Irene Hopkins, a woman in her fifties, approaches the house.

Irene was once Charlotte’s professor in college. They haven’t spoken to each other in years. The conversation is slow at first, but then it is clear that Irene has a bigger agenda than rekindling past relationships.

Irene has been working for Bob Farrington’s Senatorial campaign as an advisor. She met the candidate when he came to speak at the university. She has come to ask Charlotte to use her media influence as a favor to the candidate. Charlotte spends some time questioning Irene, who is taken back, joking, “Why do I feel like a student?”

Small tensions between the two begin to unravel. While in school, Charlotte was almost expelled for the way she went about completing an assignment in Irene’s local politics class. Eventually this was sorted out, but their relationship has remained tense. After realizing that television and newspapers were restrictive, Charlotte started a very powerful blog with a fellow classmate named Brittany Matthews.

Eventually Irene gets to the root of her request. She reveals that the candidate’s competition, Senator James Hamilton Cullen, is a fraud. A former colleague of Irene’s used to work at the Department of Defense and uncovered depositions from Cullen’s unit when he served in the military. An incident that had made Cullen a war hero has been depicted to the public falsely. In truth, Irene claims, Cullen led his men into danger, giving confusing orders, and saved a man who was shot by members of his own unit. His men were in such disarray that they fired on one another in the cross fire. Irene gives Charlotte some documents to prove that her version of the story checks out.

A few days later, Megan has made her way from the beach to the patio, where Charlotte offers her a towel to clean off her feet. Megan is an associate of the other candidate, Senator Cullen. Megan dropped out of college to join the Marines and afterwards got into politics to continue to serve her country.

Megan has arrived with the intension of squashing the rumors against the Senator. She claims that the military documents that Irene brought are lies. She begins to give Charlotte some alarming information about the soldiers who gave testimonies regarding Cullen. Then, she unveils that she has dirt on Bob Farrington. Farrington has been meeting with a lot of big time lobbyists, some of which are rumored to be crooked. Charlotte is not content with rumors and asks Megan for proof. Megan adds that Farrington might be seeing several women outside of his marriage, including Irene. She gives Charlotte a choice; if she forgets about Cullen’s military career, they will forget about Irene Hopkins.

At the top of the next scene, Megan and Irene are sitting on the patio; Charlotte is nowhere to be found. Charlotte has asked both women to meet her at the same time. Though the two know exactly who the other is, they make small talk. They eventually exchange some blows about each other’s candidate. Megan begins to ask Irene what Charlotte was like as a student.

Irene reveals to Megan that Brittany Matthews is Charlotte’s partner in creating the blog. Irene mentions that Matthews is not her real last name, it was her mother’s name and her father was absent most of the girl’s life. Megan contacts a source to do some research and finds out that Brittany’s real name is Grezandiwinsky, but her grandfather changed the name to Grandis, a name famous for its wealth.

Charlotte enters and interrupts the two, revealing that she invited them both to “thrash things out.” Both Irene and Megan reveal what they have on the other’s candidate, including that Megan is aware of Irene’s intimate relationship with Farrington.

Irene cuts deep and reveals that Senator Cullen’s wife has been having affairs with young women, and one of them is Megan.

After Irene and Megan realize that Charlotte now has the undeniable upper hand, they team up and go on the attack. They reveal that the government has been after Brittany’s grandfather on cases of racketeering, extortion, prostitution, drug dealing, and murder. The two accuse Charlotte of using the crime family for her sources, and its money to run the blog. A Mexican standoff is suddenly apparent, and the two decide to leave Charlotte with the choice to print or to ignore the stories that have surfaced, threatening to out her blog’s criminal ties. The two agree to leave each other’s names out of, what is bound to be, a cutthroat campaign.