In the movie, they looked inseparable, the best of friends in their iconic final act of driving off a cliff. In Howard County, their plot had a few different twists. For starters, this Thelma and Louise were turkeys.

They arrived at Burleigh Manor Animal Sanctuary on a crisp December afternoon three years ago, waddling straight to the coop beside a tom named Sergeant. Tucked in a quiet cul-de-sac in Ellicott City, the sanctuary sprawls across acres of rolling fields and shaded pastures.

Over the years, it has become a haven for more than a hundred rescued animals, beasts with rough beginnings who got a second chance. These turkeys were no exception, arriving after outgrowing a family’s backyard shed.

Sanctuary founder Lisa Davis didn’t hesitate to take the birds in. She renovated the farm’s coop to fit their oversized frames. Davis doesn’t play favorites with her animals, but if she did, turkeys would be close to the top.

As you gather around the Thanksgiving table, passing platters of turkey and stuffing, consider the story of Thelma and Louise. Their bond, a tale as layered as anything Shakespeare could have imagined, reveals a startling truth: Turkeys have more complex emotional lives than we give them credit for.

The two hens couldn’t have been more different.

Like most broad breasted whites — a breed of turkey — Louise was a feathery puffball, so round she teetered on spindly legs, her soft frame as gentle as her heart. Thelma, wiry and bearded, was her opposite, a genetic anomaly for their breed, quick to squabble and barely interested in food.

Still, they shuffled side by side for months, earning their names. But one spring day a few months after their arrival, everything changed.

Poets say love can strike in an instant, and turkey biology agrees. One well-timed chortle during mating season can turn a close friendship into a rivalry — especially with a strapping bird like Sergeant in the mix. With a six-inch snood and a rich red wattle, he transformed from a brotherly companion to the flock’s Casanova.

Thelma lunged first, Davis recalled, ready to risk it all for Sergeant’s attention.

Louise, usually so docile, fought back with surprising force.

Sergeant had made his choice. He apparently found Louise’s soft, voluptuous curves too tempting to resist. And Thelma was furious.

Each morning, Davis slid a fence between Thelma and Louise, trying to keep the peace. But the hens weren’t having it. They constantly squabbled, gurgled and pecked at each other through the wire. On one side, Thelma would watch as Sergeant fluffed his feathers out to court Louise.

“Every day was Groundhog Day,” Davis said.

As autumn’s chill swept across the farm, the squabbling between Thelma and Louise began to fade. Turkey hormones peak in spring, Davis explained, then plummet as the days grow shorter.

By winter, nearly a year into their new lives at Burleigh Manor, the two turkeys had called a fragile ceasefire. Thelma bonded with Greta the goose, her new best friend. Louise, meanwhile, stuck close to Sergeant.

Even so, the hens never fully made peace.

Louise’s full, round frame — the same one that had once captivated Sergeant, the type of frame bred to be a perfect Thanksgiving roast — became her undoing. Her leg buckled under her weight, and the injury couldn’t be repaired. The sanctuary made the difficult decision to put her down.

Like males of every species, Sergeant wasted no time moving on. Suddenly, Thelma didn’t look so bad. Nor did every other female bird in the coop.

Over the next two years, he and Thelma fell into their own rhythm: Sergeant chasing, puffing, preening; Thelma dodging, squawking, dismissing him without so much as a glance.

Earlier this year, Sergeant died at age four — a long life for a turkey. Davis wishes she could say Thelma mourned Louise or Sergeant. But she didn’t.

“These are emotional creatures,” Davis said. “They get jealous. They hold grudges.”

Now, Thelma rules the coop on her own. She paddles in the mini-pool with her old pal Greta, curls up in Davis’ lap, and lingers late each evening, eyeing the chickens, ducks and geese as they shuffle to bed in the coop. She’s moved on in almost every way, Davis said.

Almost.

At a Thanksgiving-themed charity event at a golf course this week, Thelma’s scars from the love triangle still showed.

As middle-aged men crouched beside her for photos, she often turned her head away, sometimes giving a sharp flutter of her wing. Occasionally, she’d whip her neck around, a flash of movement that sent grown men stumbling back, hands raised in surrender.

“Are you scared of her?” Davis asked one of them, smirking as he backed away.

“Just her beak,” the man muttered.

A gobbler broke her heart and cost her a friendship. It’s no wonder she’s not a fan of the fellas.