Chappaquiddick

Is a dramatization of a specific incident in the life of Ted Kennedy, then Massachusetts Senator and Senate Majority Leader. It's Friday, July 18th, 1969. He is hosting a casual party on Chappaquiddick Island off Martha's Vineyard, the island only accessible via ferry. The choice of Chappaquiddick is because of his annual participation in a sailing regatta there that weekend. The party, which also coincides with the Apollo 11 moon launch, primarily is to celebrate the contributions of who are known as the Boiler Girls, a group a loyal secretaries working for Ted's brother Robert F. Kennedy in his Presidential bid before his recent assassination. Seen as Bobby's heir apparent being the only surviving brother, Ted is arguably the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination for President in 1972 if not the President in waiting. Among the Boiler Girls at the party is Mary Jo Kopechne, who left federal politics to head "home" to Jersey City, she who Ted is trying to convince to work on his Presidential campaign. Out that evening with Mary Jo, Ted drives off a small bridge near the ferry terminal into the lagoon below, he who is able to make it out alive while Mary Jo eventually perishes having drowned, trapped inside the overturned car. Initially believing this incident was not only an end to his Presidential bid but his political career, period, Ted slowly begins to believe that with the help of his political aides and his controlling father, family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy, he may be able to ride out this storm, partly on the strength of the Kennedy name and some lies. While only Ted and Mary Jo know for sure what happened from their own perspectives regarding the cause of the accident, the accident itself and its immediate aftermath until Ted called in specifically his cousin Joseph Gargan and Massachusetts Attorney General Paul Markham, both at the party, others can only speculate. However, Ted's actions and public statements made by him or his aides end up contradicting themselves. The one person who is trying to get Ted to stand up and face the music and suffer the consequences is Gargan, as there are the indisputable facts that he left the scene, didn't report the incident to the police for nine hours and especially that someone died.