Devoted Christian Dorothy Sheedy mistakes inflatable dolls floating from a truck bed for angels, and jumps out of her car, unaware of her surroundings, and is hit by another driver. Her husband, also strong in his faith, doesn't know whether his wife's death was an odd accident or suicide but remains calm about it, believing it was simply her time to die. Nate doesn't accept that and when David forces him to stop pressing the man with questions on why his beliefs are thus and why he won't appear more angry or saddened, he quits the business and confronts Ruth for trying to persuade him to stay at all. Keith goes to a job interview to be a celebrity's security guard. A plumbing-system problem causes blood to arise in all the building's drains, and David has an interesting reaction to the plumber that Keith takes in stride. Everyone else gives Ruth a hard time for putting George's belongings up in place of the family's. Rico continues to weakly answer Sophia's pleas to see him, spending less time with his family or at work.

Nate meets a divorced mom with a tot the same age as Maya and they soon arrange for a play-date for the kids - which turns out to be quite playful for them as well. David works with Arthur on his appearance - he buys him a new suit - and on his technique for dealing with clients. George and Ruth receive a wedding present that contains a tin of feces. She's convinced she knows who sent it. Sophia has Rico wrapped around her little finger and he agrees to pay for her new boob job. Claire is surprised when she learns that Edie is a lesbian. Joe tells Brenda he wants to spice up their sex life with a little role play.

Ruth is more convinced than ever that Arthur is responsible after they receive yet another package with feces. She decides she's going to lay a formal complaint with the police but George finally tells her it's not Arthur and knows who is sending these packages to them. David receives a frantic call in the middle of the night from Jennifer, his one-time fiancée, telling him that her father Lawrence Mason died from a lightning strike. He wants to help her out as much as possible but worries when her current fiancé seems less than supportive. When he reaches out to her she unleashes her pent up anger over their failed relationship. Nate begins to think that Lisa may not be dead. Brenda and Joe have dinner with Brenda's mother and Olivier. Keith has yet to come out at work and it's starting to weigh on him.

Although their earlier visit did not go very well, Ruth suggests they invite George's estranged son Kyle for dinner. She's also thinking of inviting a friend of hers and introduce them. Nate goes to a grief management class but has trouble relating to the other participants. At the funeral home, Rico and Dave console Anne Thornton's husband who blames himself for his wife's death. Claire doesn't react well to criticism of her self-portraiture photos. David picks up an apparently stranded motorist but it all turns nightmarish for him.

David has recovered physically from his carjacking but refuses to tell his family what really happened to him. At the funeral home, he has the case of Robert Meinhardt who he thought was a suicide but then learns he was shot in the head by burglars. David has a panic attack and has to call 911. George and Ruth attend an academic receptionist where she overhears a conversation and learns of George's philandering ways. It's David's birthday and Ruth has organized a dinner to celebrate the occasion. In the kitchen she lets slip to Vanessa that Sophie visited Rico. She also embarrasses George by lashing out at him. Nate gets a new job taking care of dogs in a canine retreat and is at peace with himself. Joe has found a house for he and Brenda but she drops in on Nate, not sure she can live a simple life with Joe.

Claire has taken a liking to her friend Edie but is having difficulty coming to terms with her emotions. With Vanessa suspicious, Rico decides to tell Sophie he can't come by anymore. She's at her manipulative best and he can't bring himself to break away. Vanessa follows him and assumes the worse when she sees her. Nate and Brenda have been sleeping together but he also goes on a date with a fellow worker from the pet retreat. George and Ruth's relationship is strained and he invites her on his annual fossil hunt. Their outing doesn't go well and they end up at her sister Sarah's house. Sarah's overcome her addiction but Ruth realizes she may have more in common with her sister than she would like to admit. Keith is on tour with Celeste who takes them to a gay bar.

David is living at home alone now that Keith is on the road with rock star Celeste. He does take advantage of an out of the blue call from an old acquaintance, Sarge, but still suffers from post-traumatic stress. Keith finally comes out to one of his co-workers but it's an encounter with Celeste that sends him packing. Ruth has come to the end of her tether when she returns from church to find that George has trimmed a tree her first husband had planted in the yard. She leaves a note saying she's gone away for awhile. Having told Joe that she has slept with someone on the side - without identifying who - she undertakes to try harder to be good. When Joe unexpectedly comes home and finds Brenda and Nate on the sofa half-naked, he doesn't have to guess who the other guy was. Claire comes to a decision on advancing her relationship with Edie but it leads to frustration all-round. Vanessa and her sister Angelica decide to visit Sophia and let her know just what they think of her fooling around with Rico.

Having agreed over the phone not to have sex with others, Keith on his return tells David of having slept with Celeste. Still stressed from his attack, David now worries that Keith will develop an interest in women. Claire is still having trouble coming to grips with her own sexuality. Her friend Edie no longer wants to speak to her but Jimmie suggests they sleep together. Claire is also surprised at school when she learns that Billy Chenowith will be their substitute teacher for the rest of the term. In the year he's been away he seems to have gotten his act together but does admit he's not seen his sister Claire in that time. Brenda and Nate are sleeping together regularly but her admission that she loves him elicits a strange and unexpected response. Ruth has no interest in returning home and she and Bettina set off for a holiday in Mexico that has its own surprises for them. At the funeral home, Nate and Rico's latest client is Lawrence Tuttle, a comic book collector who died when a bookshelf fell on him. Rico is still living at the funeral home and pining for Vanessa and the kids; George suggests it's time to move on and find a new woman.

Nate dreads having to go to Idaho to visit Lisa's family and attend a service they have arranged. He and Brenda have reconciled and she convinces him that going is the right thing to do. He asks her come along. The visit goes well but after Nate returns to LA, the local funeral director tells Lisa's parents he doesn't think the ashes they interred were in fact Lisa's. David and Keith attend a friend's wedding and decide they want to adopt a child, though David seems to think it's more pressing. Ruth returns home and tells George what it will take for them to continue as a married couple. She invites George's son Kyle and her friend, who are now a couple, to dinner. Claire has a final confrontation with Edie and seems to be getting friendlier with Billy. Rico is happy to have spent some time at home with the kids but is quickly dismayed when he realizes that Vanessa has asked an old high school friend to visit her.

Brenda feels the clock is ticking and wants to have a baby sooner rather than later. Nate wants to think about it for a while. A lunch with her mother Margaret doesn't go particularly well - Margaret is rushed to the hospital. The event does give Brenda and Billy a chance to see each other again. George feels they should be preparing for whatever catastrophe may befall mankind. Ruth tells him of the old bomb shelter and he thinks it's just perfect. Claire's latest project gets raves from Billy and several of her classmates but she reacts badly when Russell claims to have originated the concept with her. She's thrilled though when she gets the opportunity display some of her work at a show. David learns that the man whose ear he's bitten is suing him for $500,000. There's one way he can get out of it but it involves Keith. At the funeral home, Rico and Nate deal with a particularly tragic case when four members of the Gorodetsky family - parents and two children - are killed in a car accident leaving only their eldest son to deal with it all. Nate is forced to admit to Lisa's sister Barb that he buried her in the desert.

George's infatuation with impending disaster is causing him nightmares. His daughter Maggie joins him and Ruth for dinner and she has a lot of stories about her dad. Later, Ruth is quite concerned when she finds George talking by himself to an imaginary person. Claire's showing of her work is a huge success but she ignores her friends in the process. Nate is stressing over Barb's threat to take Maya away from him. He learns more about the circumstances of Lisa's death, leading to another tragedy. David hopes that if he faces his attacker, who is now in prison, he will feel liberated. It doesn't quite work out that way. Keith gets an interesting offer from Roger, who had promised to drop his lawsuit against Dave in return for sex.

Pilar Sandoval attempts to Rollerblade a steep hill while walking her dogs but literally doesn't make it when she loses control and is hit by a car. Brenda is upset with Nate's fists-up attitude toward the daughter they'll have, and is suspicious that his latest wish to attend Quaker meetings is simply to join Maggie. David, Nate, and Rico try but fail to agree on how to invest on the business, but it gives Rico a good opportunity to focus on pursuing his relationship with Vanessa. Ruth's babysitting experience with Durrel and Anthony goes sour when they don't return from playing basketball until Durrell drives the SUV home, and, only after David blames Ruth, is learned to have done it before. Later Durrell threatens Keith during a confrontation over it, and David learns from Anthony that he doesn't get they won't have to eventually leave. Ruth, encouraged by Claire to get a haircut, goes camping with Hiram again. Claire herself only attends Anita's show when Ted offers to tag along, and it goes smoother than she expects. The second night Nate attends a Quaker meeting with Maggie, Brenda goes there after her ultrasound with Jackie, only to find Nate absent, since he and Maggie got wrapped up talking and never went. As Brenda waits for his arrival, they sleep together...then Nate gets up, and immediately goes numb and collapses.