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

An egocentric husband is killed with a frying pan after his wife finally has enough of his mouth.

Nate and Claire go to Seattle to pick up the body of a man who died on a public bus.

Jewish executive Jeffery Shapiro accidentally hangs himself while masturbating with asphyxiation.

Christmas Eve - and the one year anniversary of Nate and Brenda's meeting and Nathaniel Fisher's death - is approaching, and this year, the Fishers are requested by bikers to allow the funeral home to be open on Christmas Day so they can have a party/memorial service for Jesse Ray Johnson, who was involved in a motorcycle accident on his way to his part-time job as a mall Santa while greeting some kids. The family (and Rico) each remember their last moments with Nathaniel and, in most cases, regret what they didn't do for him before he died. On Christmas Eve Brenda's mother invites Brenda and Nate over for dinner with a "special guest", who turns out to be Billy. Ruth prepares to take Claire to church with David out to visit Keith and Taylor, but they never make it when they enter Nikolai's shop to see it robbed and him shot in the legs with both now broken. Ruth decides, to the chagrin of the family, that he'll stay with them until he can walk, since he has no insurance. Nate is forced to confess his AVM to Brenda when he has a seizure as they sleep together. On Christmas Day, Marrilyn Johnson offers Nate a motorcycle as a gift so he can live every day to the fullest. Toby, Keith, and Taylor are invited for dinner that evening. Rico has a good holiday with his family - until his cousin Ramone arrives to attack him when he's forced to tell Vanessa he's gay and she told his wife. Also, Claire's holiday takes an interesting turn when Toby calls her "hostile" and she drives him away, though she does enjoy keeping in touch with Billy Chenowith.

Benjamin Srisal suffers a heart attack at home, requiring a Bhuddist service at Fisher & Sons that Nate gets a crash-course in how to conduct, but he's still got no answers as far as what should be done concerning Brenda and Lisa. Lisa apologizes for her outburst in the store but requests she have full custody of the child, causing him to be haunted by visions of the first child they conceived, as well as all the others he lost to abortion. David and Keith begin to argue again, especially after Karla accidentally hits and kills a homeless man on the street, and Taylor is too shaken to actually keep it secret and tells David under the pretense that it's a joke - David is troubled enough to tell Keith, but feels too guilty to report to the police as Keith does. After hearing her "soul-twin" parents have chosen to remarry, Brenda attends an orgy with Melissa where she sleeps with more than one man but then chooses to blame Melissa for her infidelity so breaks contact with her. Claire considers attending an arts college. Ruth returns Nikolai to his apartment prematurely at his request, but invites him to move in with her.

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.

Surrounded by his family, Bernard Asa Chenowith dies of stomach cancer, and when Nate learns of it he requests Lisa's permission to attend his funeral since Brenda was there after his father's. Lisa agrees, and Nate plans to leave Maya with Ruth, but she's out secretly stalking Arthur jogging. Claire chooses to go shopping with Russell at an arts store, where Russell buys her a gift of an expensive bottle of paint she refused to purchase. David takes a reluctant Keith to Terry's party, where he's humiliated at playing a game and eventually leaves David to take his drinks alone. Nate doesn't want to leave Maya with Arthur and almost drops her off at the Diazes', but Vanessa is so distracted and on edge he decides against it. He informs Rico, though, who worries that she's depressed over her mother's loss and despairs of getting her to talk about it openly. Nate ends up taking Maya to the funeral, which angers Lisa, who believes Nate still loves Brenda rather than her, along with the fact that Brenda touched Maya.

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.

Convience-store owner Dorothy Kim Su is fatally shot during a robbery. Nate is forced to file a missing-person report when he continues to hear nothing from Lisa. Construction-worker Edward Tully hits some electrical wires in the site where he's working during an earthquake, is electrocuted, and falls to his death. Nate calls David, where he's sleeping with Patrick, and tells him he's starting to panic, especially after the earthquake. Ruth has convinced herself, as usual, that everything, including Lisa, is fine, but doesn't convince Claire, who is set to believe she's died. David Jordan Monroe suffers a fatal heart attack while on a treadmill at his health club, giving Fisher & Diaz a full schedule of 3 funerals in one day, 2 at the same time. forcing David and Rico to quickly escort the mourners out. Brenda is now living in an apartment to avoid Billy, but Margaret forces both of them to show up to dump Bern's ashes, and when she can't be persuaded to place them where her kids know he would have preferred them, she chooses an unorthodox place to put them. Vanessa sees a psychiatrist who reduces her medication and her pushy sister Angelica comes over to help...by encouraging her to spend freely without Rico's consent, and ignore any practical advice he gives. Claire again refuses to take Russell back and confronts Olivier - before discovering that she is pregnant. Ruth finally accepts something terrible must have happened to Lisa and ends up crying on a man's shoulder when he comes to reclaim his glasses in the funeral home, but Gerge Sibley is accepting and sympathetic to her worries. When Lisa's car and cell phone are located in a state park, deserted, Nate checks into a nearby hotel and waits in despair, while David and Claire try to console him.

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.

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.

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.

While trying to reach the newspaper on the sidewalk, Samuel Wayne Hoviak, who was the best high-school friend of Nate, falls and his truck run over him. In the funeral service, Nate meets their other former best friend, Tom Wheeler; they recall their adolescence and realize that they are getting up. The bitter and deranged Ruth has no patience with George, and they receive his daughter Maggie. David proposes Claire to donate her eggs for the baby of his own with Keith, but she refuses. Claire feels her art rejected by the owner of a gallery and Billy misses his former personality. Rico dates Sharon and does not understand her hint that she does not want to see him again. Brenda begins an internship in a free clinic and does not support her first day, seeking Margaret's influence to help her to find a better place to work.

Diabetic Daniel Holzenchenko succumbs to the call of canned peaches...and leaves behind 2 brothers and 2 sisters who seem unable to agree on anything from refreshments to music to be used at his funeral. While trying to mediate them, Nate also has to figure out how to convince Brenda not to tell Maya that she is her stepmother and her real mother Lisa is dead. David and Keith go to an adoption agency picnic where they meet Anthony, and choose to foster and possibly adopt him and his brother, when Mary's news about conception changes to news of an error. Ruth tells her knitting group her patience with George has officially ended, and at their urging convinces him to find an apartment for them and a job for himself - but actually plans to leave him with the apartment. Claire has a worse time leaving Billy, pressured by Margaret as well as him. Julio torments another student so Rico volunteers to go in and explains his anger is actually from his parents' divorce, but Vanessa confronts him about what he says. Nate is advised to make a choice about talking with Maya from an interesting source, and gets a surprising response from Brenda.

Maggie Sibley's friend and fellow Quaker Peter Thomas Burns suffers a heart attack while watching a play, and Nate becomes intrigued about her faith when she brings it up. Brenda's blood tests reveal that her and Nate's child has a higher-than-usual possibility for developing Down's Syndrome or other complications at birth, and the doctor recommends amniocentesis to eliminate these factors. Ruth, feeling a misfit among other women in the sudden free time offered her without George, is displeased to hear that he wants the briefest divorce possible since he's already found another woman, so warns her she'd be marrying a depressed, sick man. Meanwhile, Rico is disgusted that sleeping with Vanessa is brief, to the point, and unenthusiastic, almost like another chore for him to help out with. Claire meets Ted, a lawyer, at work and eventually chooses to try to connect with him. David accidentally learns that Durrell will be performing in a school musical, and, remembering what it was like to have a parent who didn't have time to do it for him, he insists to Keith that they should go see him in it...despite the fact that Durrel's embarrassed enough about it not to want them to. After hearing Maggie admit her handicapped son's life was painful for her, Nate is inclined to agree with the doctor that Brenda should test to ensure there are no problems with her pregnancy, but Brenda is doubtful enough of his support to refuse.

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.

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

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.

Maggie Sibley's friend and fellow Quaker Peter Thomas Burns suffers a heart attack while watching a play, and Nate becomes intrigued about her faith when she brings it up. Brenda's blood tests reveal that her and Nate's child has a higher-than-usual possibility for developing Down's Syndrome or other complications at birth, and the doctor recommends amniocentesis to eliminate these factors. Ruth, feeling a misfit among other women in the sudden free time offered her without George, is displeased to hear that he wants the briefest divorce possible since he's already found another woman, so warns her she'd be marrying a depressed, sick man. Meanwhile, Rico is disgusted that sleeping with Vanessa is brief, to the point, and unenthusiastic, almost like another chore for him to help out with. Claire meets Ted, a lawyer, at work and eventually chooses to try to connect with him. David accidentally learns that Durrell will be performing in a school musical, and, remembering what it was like to have a parent who didn't have time to do it for him, he insists to Keith that they should go see him in it...despite the fact that Durrel's embarrassed enough about it not to want them to. After hearing Maggie admit her handicapped son's life was painful for her, Nate is inclined to agree with the doctor that Brenda should test to ensure there are no problems with her pregnancy, but Brenda is doubtful enough of his support to refuse.