Buffalo

Peg Dahl is born in Buffalo, New York to a poor, blue-collar family. Growing up in financial hardship, she is inspired by her late father's hustling mindset and plans to study economics. She dreams of earning a place at an Ivy League school and eventually working on Wall Street.

Peg earns admission to a good college but cannot afford the tuition. To bridge the gap, she starts selling counterfeit Bills game tickets. Her scheme is discovered, and she is sentenced to forty months in prison.

After her sentence, Peg is released and starts working at her brother J.J.'s bar, cleaning toilets to re-establish herself. She then hustles the local debt collection firm to erase her own legal debts by working for them, using their system to maneuver herself back into money.

Peg's ambition pushes her to the top levels of the debt collection firm. However, she is eventually deceived by the owner, Wizz, who manipulates the system for his own gain. The betrayal marks a turning point in her understanding of the business.

At the bar, Peg meets Graham, a prosecutor who is investigating the racket. They sneak out during a bar brawl, and later go to Peg's place where they sleep together. The spark leads Peg to reassess her path and future plans.

The next morning, Peg announces she is starting her own debt collection firm—legit, using the intel Graham provided. She recruits a diverse crew, from phone sex operators to Asian business owners and a fellow parolee, to drive the venture's growth. The pitch is to relieve people from the pressure of debt by applying savvy sales tactics.

Peg's new firm finds early success, but constant sabotage and veiled threats from her former employer begin to bite. She reinvests the employees' commissions back into the business to fuel growth, which draws even more attention from Wizz. Wizz retaliates by destroying Peg's offices and meddling in her family life, including taking her brother's bar.

Peg invites J.J. to dinner, hoping to rally family support against Wizz, but he grows angry over what he has heard. Wizz retaliates by roughing him up and having Peg's mother arrested for off-the-books hairdressing. Peg escalates the feud by returning to Wizz's premises, firing shots to lure him out, and the confrontation ends with police arresting her for the firearm incident.

In the interrogation room, Peg is confronted about chasing riskier money-making schemes rather than honest work. She accepts a deal and agrees to help the police bring down the other debt collection agencies.

Peg orchestrates a citywide alliance of debt collectors by gathering at J.J.'s bar to record confessions on tape. The raids result in forty-two people being arrested for illegal debt collecting, and Peg burns over 50,000 debt sheets—the equivalent of over a billion dollars in debt. The action marks a dramatic consolidation of power and a high-stakes showdown with the industry.

Peg is sent back to prison for destruction of evidence. While serving her sentence, she teaches the other inmates finance as part of her plea deal, using education to reform the prison atmosphere.

Peg is eventually released from prison and returns to her family and friends, who provide seed money to start over. With their support, she sets her sights on challenging hedge funds, aiming to reform the debt-collection landscape from the ground up.