When the funeral director is killed in an accident, the family comes together to mourn and decide the fate of the funeral home.

An adult film star electrocutes to death in her bathtub, which leads to a memorial service that is anything but ordinary.

After a woman passes away in her sleep, her husband proves to be a very demanding client.

The family must persuade the angry brother of a war veteran who died of lung disease that his brother should receive a military-honoring burial.

A simple game of golf results in the death of a woman.

A middle-aged woman chokes to death in her apartment, and is found dead a week later.

A construction worker's metal lunch-pail falls from his perch on the building and strikes Dwight Edgar Garrison on the head - resulting in a major family conflict between his current wife and her 2 stepdaughters from his first marriage, on whether he should be buried with his late wife or the widow. Besides having to deal with that, Nate remains unaware that Brenda is still seeing other men but wonders whether she still wants to marry him, or just does out of pity...and whether he should wed at all when Lisa meets him and announces she's pregnant with his child. Claire has doubts about her relationship with Billy, who's also throwing Brenda and her perspective on most of her relationships into confusion. David's relationship with Keith is strong, but Keith's life is troubled when Karla relapses into drugs. Meanwhile, just about everybody finds Nikolai to be a pain while Ruth's working - even Rico loses his sandwich to him. But Ruth is more concerned with the fact that he's in debt to Yuri, a loan shark.

Melinda Mary Bloch shuts herself in he garage in her activated car by way of suicide, leaving behind only a guilty ex-lover who worries Rico when he mentions she'd actually received treatment for depression, and Nate when he admits he'd tried to end their relationship more than once but wound up staying longer than he wished. Lisa, who's been having arguments constantly with him, officially meets Brenda at Claire's art show where Billy also has a display, and Brenda confronts her about her sneaky meeting and assures her she isn't close to Nate. When she and Olivier run into Billy, Claire learns that Billy slept with Olivier when he was his student, heightening her worries about Russell. David and Keith, after both their secrets of paint-ball and 3-way sex have slipped in counseling, get approval from Frank to do the latter if both of them so desire, but David's agreement in public doesn't match his private doubts later on. Arthur gets close, in both senses of the word, to Ruth and they almost sleep together, but then he leaves abruptly, puzzling her.

Woman-killer Carl Desmond Williman finally receives the death penalty by a lethal injection in Texas, and his unemployed daughter hires Fisher & Diaz for the funeral, and sleeps with Nate since they're both miserable and want to escape their problems, but he treats her unsympathetically the following day out of sheer guilt. David breaks up with Keith after spending more time with Patrick. Claire chooses to get an abortion and calls Brenda when she learns she needs a driver, who accepts. Ruth considers marrying George but does decide to slow things down a bit after learning he's been through 6 marriages. Angelica continues to give Rico grief at home. Claire tries to convince Nate to speak to Brenda after her favor to her but Nate's too wrapped up in thinking up everything that could've happened with Lisa to welcome her in, or pay attention to much else.

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.

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.

The insecure Andrea Kuhn is encouraged by her psychiatrist to disclose her true feeling to her family, and when she is happy being herself, her husband accidentally kills her after an argument. Ruth recalls how stress triggered a depressive psychosis in George and his treatment with electroshock. Brenda has a miscarriage in the eve of her wedding day. Billy invites Claire to move to his place. David and Keith are discussing the alternative for their baby, adoption or to rent a belly. Rico misses a steady relationship while dating women from an Internet site.

The family prepares for the worst funeral of their lives. Ruth makes things worse on David by taking out her pain on him until he stands up for himself, and Nate makes things worse for Brenda by reminding her she had the chance to marry Joe if she doubted him. Claire, troubled by the fact that mainly negative memories come to mind, again finds comfort in Ted, who explains that it's not unusual. In the middle of the preparations, Keith gets an emergency call from Roger to remove a breaking-and-entering actor...who reveals Roger taped their affair as he promised he wouldn't, so Keith quits working for him. David has no other business so concentrates on the funeral to keep himself together, especially after a brutal insult from his father, who dodges the question on whether he had favoritism among his children but openly condemns David's gayness. Ruth's pain increases when learning it's a green burial so helps David in order to see the body. At the private burial, David is terrified when he imagines he's attacked by Jake in an orange-sweatshirt in the car and suffers another panic attack, so doesn't help. Ruth gets some comfort with Bettina's visit and, after the funeral, with Brenda's request for her to watch Maya until she can recover from her own pain...and anger.

Nate and Brenda's daughter Willa is born, but 2 months early and at only 2 lb. 4 oz., requiring a prolonged hospital stay. Nate is convinced she won't make it and insists that he can't accept it if she does and is "damaged", shaking Brenda's own confidence. Rico encourages David to sell the funeral home but instead he and Keith buy out Rico's 25% so he can start his own. David agrees to temporarily leave home, and goes to the funeral home. There he's confronted by Nathaniel about considering leaving the business and for his gayness, and is forced to fight his mysterious attacker back, then finally sees his face. Maya is returned to Brenda and Ruth has to face her own problems, until Maggie reveals Nate did see her, happily, as Brenda insisted. Claire takes up photography (of Ted) again and gets a job offer at a New York photo production company, but offers to be there for Ruth until she insists she go and unfreezes her account. Brenda gets a surprise visit from Nate, who finally shows love for his daughter, and someone else. Claire learns the company who gave the job offer has just failed, but Nate encourages her to go onto New York anyway.