A minor skirmish on a basketball court leaves one of Kelly's friends dead and the other one in jail for manslaughter. Meanwhile, Sipowicz is convinced that a man knows more about his wife's death in a highway shooting than he is letting on. Laura feels as though she's being dangled in front of Giardella when Sylvia tells her to push on him harder. Janice saves Kelly's life during a drug raid and the event seems to bring them back together.

Kelly, Medavoy, and Martinez investigate the brutal murder of a entire upper class family. Meanwhile, Inspector Lastarza orders Janice to cooperate with the mob even though it results in the death of the person whose license plates she ran through the computer, and Kelly deals with his relationship with her who tries to keep him out of the situation she's in. Also, Sipowicz takes a statement of a gay writer whose Academy Award was stolen.

As Christmas draws near, the zone commander, Haverill, starts to come down on Lt. Fancy about his work skills and Sipowicz later intervenes and threatens Haverill to lay off Fancy or he will reveal some incriminating evidence about him being a racist. Meanwhile, Kelly and Sipowicz investigate the kidnapping of a doctor's daughter. Janice must pass some more information to the mob about the station's moves and wonders how she will get out of this situation. Also, Martinez and Medavoy question a woman and her young son who claim to have been robbed by a man who picked them up while they were hitchhiking in North Carolina. But Martinez later discovers that the woman, Kathy, is not who she claims to be, which leads to a hostage situation, involving Donna, at the station. Sipowicz reluctantly plays Santa as the precinct's annual Christmas party, and Martinez receives his gift from Lt. Fancy when he is promoted to detective, while Medavoy panics when the station's pet cat eats the Christmas rabbit, and Kelly visits his Alzheimers-stricken mother who resides in a nursing home.

Medavoy leaves his wife and finally tells Donna about his romantic feelings for her, which turn out to be mutual. Sharon LaSalle, a police academy classmate of Kelly's, joins the squad and shortly after, she and Sipowicz investigate the death of her husband, Danny, who was an ex-cop trying to stop a robbery during her first day at the 15th precinct. Kelly and Sipowicz relentlessly try to track down the two robbers responsible, while an an ambitious publicity-seeking reporter plots to take advantage of the case to further advance his own career. Meanwhile, an alcoholic woman keeps lodging complaints to Kelly against her abusive husband that she never follows through with.

Lt. Fancy insists to a reluctant Larson that he take a drug test and when it comes back positive of methamphetamine use, he is fired. One of Detective Mike Roberts' informants/girlfriends comes to the precinct and causes trouble for him, especially when she later turns up dead, and Roberts becomes a suspect. Although Roberts ends up being cleared, his reputation is ruined and he decides to quit the police force. Meanwhile, Sylvia has trouble getting through to Sipowicz to give their relationship another try. Also, Laura appeals to Kelly to help her re-examine a case she is prosecuting of the alleged murder of an abusive man by his wife, in which Martinez and Medavoy investigate one witness and discover some conflicting facts in the case.