Our Country Friends

Senderovsky’s show is officially canceled as the network found his story about a previous Soviet republic too close to the current situation in the US for people to enjoy it. Despite this blow, he begins to feel more thankful for his family, and he and Masha grow close again. Masha decides to take a break from her job and possibly go back to private practice after a visit with her parents. She and her family do not have the same immigrant experiences as the others at the house, and she wants to support her family with more lucrative private practice opportunities. Ed cooks a BTS dinner for Nat and everyone enjoys it. The dinner is wonderful and friendships are strong, with Senderovsky and Vinod feeling comfortable enough to not wear shirts and Karen explaining to Dee the telecommunications technology she will need for her virtual lectures in the fall. Ed and Vinod discuss their relationships while Senderovsky sings to Masha and Nat cuddles up to Karen. Their peace and happiness are soon interrupted by the sound of a car coming up the gravel driveway.

The Actor returns to the House on the Hill, disheveled and looking to speak with Dee, who refuses. The Actor opts to instead speak with Senderovsky and they go to the Actor’s old bungalow. The Actor tells Senderovsky that he gave Senderovsky's scripts to another network and they want to make the show, but he needs Senderovsky to help him get Dee back. Senderovsky refuses, opting to protect his friends at the expense of his career. The Actor tells him that he is starting his own production company, angered by the fact that his team will not speak to him if he is with Dee, and asks Senderovsky to run it with him and Dee. Senderovsky does not budge, and when the Actor asks to stay the night, Senderovsky leaves to ask Masha’s permission. The Actor stays in the bungalow, sweating, tired, and agitated. He is sick with COVID-19.

Everyone begins arguing over the Actor and whether he should stay. Nat advocates for him, and Ed questions Dee’s feelings for the Actor versus himself. Upset, Dee storms out and sees a truck at the foot of the driveway that quickly speeds off. Masha, meanwhile, encourages Senderovsky to let go of his show and finally separate himself from the Actor. She assures him that she will provide for their family and that he no longer needs to keep this house and the bungalow; they can move back to the city. Vinod encourages Karen to help the Actor and fix his obsession over the Tröö Emotions photo that makes him lovesick for Dee. Vinod wants Karen to issue an apology to the public about her app’s damaging effects on people and couples. He tells her that she does not have to stay committed to the app just to make up for her own father’s business blunders.

Masha brings the Actor food but won’t meet his request to stay. More gunshots sound in the background; they are becoming more frequent and closer. The Actor later meets with Karen in her bungalow, and she explains how the app works, telling him that his acting experience tricked the app into showing him something that wasn’t there. He is angry and struggles to come to terms with this reality. He flees the House on the Hill, coughing and clearly sick.

Karen’s assistant sends up boxes of old photos from the city and she, Vinod, and Senderovsky reminisce about the party Senderovsky’s then-girlfriend Suj threw for his first book. In one photo, a Russian journalist is gifting him a plastic suit of armor. For years, Senderovsky lived with Suj and benefited from her hard work and her family’s money, only to leave her for Masha the night of the party when they reconnect for the first time since childhood. Vinod sees a pattern in Senderovsky’s treatment of others, remembering Senderovsky crushing his own hopes for his book and even once encouraging Masha down a medical path other than psychiatry.

Though the Actor is gone, he leaves his car in the driveway, and because he is clearly sick, Karen, who closely interacted with him, begins wearing a mask and isolating in the bungalow at night, away from Vinod. She refuses to kiss him, scared to get him sick, especially with the added risk from his partial lung. Vinod cannot stomach the break in their closeness and one night, while she sleeps on the couch, he leans down to kiss her.

Vinod is in the meadow again, reading, and Karen, with what is seemingly pink eye, is fully quarantining. When Vinod hears Senderovsky, Dee, and Ed yelling by the bungalows, he pauses his reading and gets up. Struck by the virus, he experiences confusion, headache, and shortness of breath. He feels a dire need to get to Karen and find the will in his bag but struggles to make it back to the bungalows.

Three days later, he is in bed, very sick, and finally gives Karen his will. In his fever dreams, Vinod finds himself at Senderovsky’s party years ago. He is walking up the stairs but cannot make it to the top. He pauses and Suj sits with him, asking why he sticks with Karen and Senderovsky when he could go off and do so much more. He says that he always knew he would catch up to them, but she tells him he never will. He next imagines having to bring an air conditioner up to his and Senderovsky’s old apartment in the city, and when Senderovsky refuses to help because he “discovered” sports, he drags it into the elevator alone. He holds the door for another man who rushes into the elevator. The man slowly grows larger, crushing Vinod into the wall of the elevator, immobilizing him. He realizes that the elevator is going down. He wakes up naked to Karen and Masha bringing him to the toilet and he asks what happened at the party.

Masha, Senderovsky, and Karen meet to discuss Vinod and the situation with his worsening illness. Karen and Masha trade accusations of blame while Senderovsky confidently asserts that Vinod came to the House on the Hill with the wish to die surrounded by his friends. They go over his papers and find that he has both a Do Not Resuscitate order and paperwork refusing intubation. He does not want to go to a hospital under any circumstances. Masha and Karen continue to fight over him and their argument boils over to involve Nat, with each woman accusing the other of not being a real mother. Their argument reminds Senderovsky of how his parents used to fight when he was younger.

Vinod once again dreams of his younger days when he worked for Senderovsky’s father at his wedding album business. One day, Karen comes in, asks if Vinod can leave early and, after kissing him, brings him back to his apartment to have sex. He realizes that he is some kind of alternate version of his life and wonders aloud about what could have been if he left them and went to one of the prestigious universities he was accepted into, instead of following Senderovsky to a city college. Karen tells him not to think about it. When they reach the apartment, he enters the elevator, but Karen is gone. Vinod holds the door for the man again and once again Vinod is crushed, realizing that he forgot to check if there was a tube in his mouth.

Vinod finds himself on the stairs of the party again, with Masha now. Masha speaks Russian to him and he finds that he can understand her. She tells him to come with her to school in New Haven and leave the others behind. He tells her he wants to get to the top of the stairs and she shares with him that she regrets what happened between Suj and Senderovsky. She gives him a mask before she leaves. He reaches the top of the stairs and the party continues, with the Russian journalist giving Senderovsky his suit of armor. The journalist tells Vinod to go into Senderovsky and Suj’s room.

Dee wants to leave, but Ed wants to stay to support Vinod. As they debate their future, the black pickup truck comes up onto the lawn. Since the Actor left the House on the Hill, he makes a home at the abandoned camp, trying to rebuild his life post-Dee. He sleeps in different places every night and forages food and supplies from the House on the Hill while Senderovsky and his guests sleep. He takes the time away from them to think about his career and how he must find himself to get his life back together. The Actor begins performing on the stage at night and a week into his time there, the pickup truck comes and watches him perform. When the Actor finally feels that he is over Dee, he approaches the truck and the man behind the wheel brings him back to the House on the Hill.

The man tells the Actor that he loves his early work and that he can tell in those performances that the Actor was passionate. When he returns, the Actor assures Senderovsky and the rest of the group that the man in the truck is good and not a threat and says that he wants to make amends. Nat is happy that the Actor is back and runs to him after Karen punches him in the face for bringing COVID-19 into their small community.

Karen takes care of Vinod, who seems to be slightly improving. She shows him clips of commercials from the 80s to help him take his mind off COVID-19, and it brings him back to his younger days. He remembers his parents, and he remembers seeing non-white girls in commercials, who seemed to be accepted by America, unlike him. Despite being sick, Vinod is happy that he has this time to think back on his life and figure himself out with the support of his friends.

The Actor and other housemates perform a surprise production of Uncle Vanya for Vinod. It is streamed to help boost the Actor’s public image, getting him back in the spotlight. Vinod watches, his attention going in and out, and he notices that each of the housemates’ characters in some way reflects who they are as people and what roles they serve in their little community. When Vinod cannot focus on the production, he watches the nature around him. After the play, the Actor comes to ask for forgiveness from Vinod, and Karen tells him to leave. Ed and Dee, heading back to the city soon, offer to give him a ride. Vinod asks for a moment with Masha and begs her to stand up to Senderovsky and Karen when the time comes and not to let them bring him to a hospital. She reluctantly agrees.

Vinod dreams of a joint book reading with himself and Senderovsky. Senderovsky takes the spotlight and does not allow Vinod to talk, speaking for him and emphasizing his own book. He tells Senderovsky that he never wanted his life, and when Vinod finally reads from his book, he realizes that it is about his parents clinging to each other in the face of time and growing old. In another dream, he is back in New York City in the 90s, but this time, he and Karen are together as a couple and Senderovsky is the third wheel. The trio go to have dinner at their favorite restaurant, Florent’s, set on a pier. As they enjoy the meal, Karen takes out pictures from their future and shows them ones from Suj’s party for Senderovsky. Neither she nor Senderovsky listen to Vinod’s request for a toast or his adamant pleas for escape when the pier begins to collapse. He tries and fails to grab Karen’s hand as they fall, though he never hits the water.

In another dream, he is back at the party, at the top of the stairs. Ed and Evelyn, Karen’s sister, comment on the big day for Senderovsky and how mean Karen can be. They direct him to the guest bedroom. When he enters, he finds Karen and Senderovsky having sex. He experiences no rage though, his love for them is too strong, and he knows that as his family, they are bound to hurt him. Karen says she is trying to save him before she and Senderovsky disappear. After this scene, Vinod finds himself walking through the city, although it now has a rural redesign that integrates the House on the Hill and its bungalows. He walks up to Senderovsky’s house and looks in the window, where he sees Hindi holy men around the piano. One invites him inside, but when he steps through the door, he is in his old apartment building. He steps into the elevator again and despite the man begging for him to hold the door, he resists the urge to do so until the last second. When he puts out his hand to stop the door from closing, it slams through his hand and he cannot move or save himself.

A month after Vinod is airlifted to the hospital, his friends having ignored his requests, Senderovsky and Karen collect his personal belongings from the hospital in the city after his death. Masha, Nat, Ed, and Dee meet them for food. Karen will buy the House on the Hill and build her own home next to the original, which the Senderovskys can still use as their own second home. Senderovsky will work to publish Vinod’s novel as well as write new ones of his own, while Karen and Masha co-parent Nat. Ed decides to finally settle down in the city and applies for American citizenship. They stay at the restaurant for hours, and even when it begins raining, they get up to dance to the music playing from the restaurant speakers. Masha watches them all, sees her family happy, and knows that it is time to go home to their apartment.