Ten-year-old Lemonade Liberty Witt’s social worker is driving her from San Francisco to Willow Creek, a rural area in California, after her mother died of cancer. She is met by a gigantic Bigfoot statue and vast woods. Lemonade asks the social worker why she can’t live with her teacher, Miss Cotton, and the social worker gives a vague response about paperwork. Lemonade sees a boy running through the woods wearing a bucket hat and holding binoculars.

Lemonade meets her estranged grandfather and new guardian, Charlie. He is gruff and introverted, and his farmhouse is plain, dull, and without any technology. Lemonade and her grandfather stare at one another, trying to figure each other out. Charlie notes how Lemonade’s red curly hair and green eyes are just like her mother’s, and he shows her to her room. Lemonade feels unsettled by the quiet of the new place. Her room is Charlie’s old study and contains little more than a bed. The social worker tells Lemonade that everything will be okay and that she’ll be back for monthly check-ins. Left alone, Lemonade sits on the bed and cries.