Edith Kirky is the 4th patient of the year to be brought to Fisher and Sons from Bay Breeze Hospital where Vanessa works, so David predicts Rico's usual pride over the fact...but no one predicts him, suspicious about her neck-markings, to discover a whole hot dog wedged down her esophagus. When informing the authorities, Fisher and Sons is forced to allow them to bring Vanessa and her partner to be examined since they failed to find the hot dog themselves. Rabbi Ari encourages Nate and Brenda to be honest with each other, but Brenda reacts badly when Nate informs her he's going to be a father (though fails to mention she's unfaithful to him) and he later talks about it with Rabbi Ari, who introduces him to a Jewish client, Aaron Buchbinder, who needs a pre-meet since he has pancreatic cancer. Brenda's reaction after criticizing Nate is to get high and sleep with a pair. At Brenda's bridal shower, Bernard Chenowith asks Ruth what she's done as far as Claire's depression, but when Ruth visits Gray Deitman to see if she is depressed, the answer comes as a different sort of shock. David encourages Keith to stand up to his father when he and his mother ask that Taylor come to San Diego to live with them, and David himself is forced to find some inner strength of his own to get Catherine Collins, supported by Mitzi Dalton-Huntley, not to sue them for "emotional distress" after Nate's showing her husband's mutilated body at her request. He doesn't have any qualms about becoming angry with Ruth, though, after she pays all of Nikolai's debt to Yuri just before David and Nate have need of the money themselves.

The Diazes' friend and former neighbor Leticia Perfecta Perez dies in her sleep at a beauty parlor and leaves his family a large sum of money, causing Rico to remember how he lost his father and got into the funeral business to begin with. However, she also leaves behind a son, never close to her in life, who wishes to give her a more expensive casket than her pre-meet's choice and is jealous of Rico. Nate and Brenda attend her parents' remarriage, he goes to cheer up Aaron Buchbinder, and Keith, David, and Taylor are visited by a social worker. Nikoai responds indifferently when Ruth tries to plan what days they'll meet, and while watching a separate movie than he is, she breaks up with him. Claire likes the prospect of attending LAC Arts school but is disappointed that Gary Deitman is about to transfer jobs. The news that Kroehner is bankrupt and undergoing a federal inspection is overshadowed by bad news for both David and Nate - Keith is found innocent for his shooting, but hours later attacks an argumentative abusive husband he investigates and is judged guilty; and Nate reads Brenda's story then recognizes it's not fiction when one of the subjects Brenda slept with from the night before comes by. Nate breaks off his engagement with Brenda just before Lisa calls to inform Ruth his daughter has been born.

Aaron Buchbinder passes away painfully shortly after Nate arrives to visit (after he argues with Ruth about her visiting and photographing his daughter Maya). Kroehner's last act against the Fisher & Sons funeral home is to hire an inspector to examine the place, and they're fined for the problematic drainage system. Nate has a bleed requiring a cranial surgery to cure. Vanessa encourages Rico to ask for permission to be a partner since he has the money to pay the fine, and he's given 25% of it only when Nate reminds David he may need a replacement for Nate. Ruth quits her job at Nikolai's since she feels they can't easily share an environment. Claire goes to an interview at LAC but remembers her father's loss was the reason she began artwork, so cries for the first time since his death. Nate goes by to see Brenda one last time to attempt reconciliation and announce he'll be getting surgery, and finally tells Ruth about the surgery and its cause on their way back from seeing Maya. Ruth, still trying to keep control, insists Claire and David go to the gradation Claire doesn't care about rather than be with Nate. At the hospital, Nate receives anesthesia and dreams that he's running in the desert when a bus pulls up next to him. He boards it to find it's empty and doesn't start moving...yet.