It's the anniversary of a rare mountainpox outbreak in the seemingly-idyllic town of Lingen, but Elliot would prefer not to think about that. Luckily, the arrival of bird artist Xiomara - naïve, hopeful, and completely fascinating, puts it all out of his mind. Though painfully shy and scarred by his past, the compulsively heroic and peculiarly disaster-prone Elliot can't stop trying to protect her from anything that might harm her... such as his closest friend, Alec. It doesn't help that the secrets of the past keep refusing to stay in the past. Meanwhile, Xiomara has other things on her agenda. Number one is recovering her passions in life, artistic and... otherwise. But while she finds birds reassuringly understandable, humans have always been a bit of a conundrum. One strange bird leads to another and soon all three of them are on rocky ground, and the way out is harder to find than the flammulated grosbeak Xiomara would like to catch a glimpse of. The Third Thing flips tropes and chairs in an offbeat dramedy that starts as a slow-burn love story and builds into a heart-twisting epic of friendship, romance, courage, and the struggle to be true to yourself... and stay alive. You don't have to be perfect (or even normal) to find love... you just have to be willing to risk absolutely everything.