Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

The Disciples of James Dean gather for a 1975 reunion in the dusty McCarthy Woolworth's. Juanita is preparing the store and noting the potential for more members to arrive. The day sets the tone for the intertwined stories that will be revealed through flashbacks.

Disciple Sissy arrives late, having been helping at the truck stop. Juanita notes that more members could still come, while Mona's bus is running far behind schedule. The heat and the weather add a tense backdrop to the reunion.

In a stormy 1955 flashback, Sissy shelters inside the store and checks on Mona, Sydney, and Joe Qualley. Mona arrives delayed by the weather, and the trio goes to the front counter to sing 'Sincerely'. Juanita frowns, as she only approves gospel music.

Back in the present, Stella Mae and Edna Louise arrive wearing one of the red jackets the Disciples used to wear. Mona explains that her bus had broken down and needed repair. The club pores over a group photo with James Dean and recalls the last time they all gathered in their jackets.

Mona recalls recently moving back to McCarthy from college after asthma attacked her there. Doctors had advised the warmer, drier town air as beneficial, contrasting with life on campus. This memory frames her longing for Dean’s legend and the town’s attention.

News breaks that Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean will be filming Giant near Marfa, Texas. Auditions for extras will be held across the area, stirring Mona’s dream of meeting Dean on screen. Joe drives Mona to Marfa to pursue that possibility.

Back in McCarthy, Mona claims that Dean chose her to bear his son and that he fathered a child named Jimmy Dean. She asserts this child is living apart from the community due to his alleged condition. Her confession unsettles the others and injects a new layer of rumor into the reunion.

A Porsche roars into town and stops near the storefront window, where Mona and Juanita greet Joanne. Joanne reveals she used to be Joe Qualley, the Disciples’ only male member, tying the present to the past.

Joanne recounts a night after a McCarthy High School dance when Joe crossdressed. Leicester T drags Joe to a graveyard and assaults him as locals jeer behind a fence. Unable to recount what happened in full, Joe screams that he kept calling him Joanne.

Stella Mae asks whether Joanne is half-man, half-woman, and Joanne reveals she underwent a sex-change operation thirteen years earlier. She calls herself a freak, a term her friends reluctantly use to describe her. The exchange underscores themes of identity, rumor, and acceptance.

A loud car engine roars through town, startling the Disciples who think it’s thunder. It’s actually Mona’s son, Jimmy Dean, who has stolen Joanne’s Porsche and is racing through McCarthy. The moment heightens the tension between past secrets and present loyalties.

A radio announces that James Dean has died in a car crash, prompting the Disciples to vow a vigil. The news blends myth with memory, tightening the bond between the town and its legends. The moment crystallizes the reunion’s bittersweet mood.

As the reunion winds down, Mona wonders about returning for another gathering in twenty years. Sissy and Joanne stand with Mona before the mirrors and sing 'Sincerely' once more, as wind sweeps through the abandoned five-and-dime. The film ends on the image of the decayed storefront, memory echoing into the future.