Drug-addict actress Rebecca Leah Milford overdoses on cocaine, leaving her fellow cast and crew members, including Rico's sponsoring obnoxious sister-in-law, to set up the funeral. A guide to parents with gay children recommends accepting them by welcoming their lovers for a family meal, so Ruth prepares to invite Brenda, Gabe, and Nikolai before learning that Keith is no longer part of David's life. David and Nate both get bad news on their MRI's: David has gonorrhea and Nate learns that his brain condition is indeed AVM, potentially (but not necessarily) fatal, but upon learning there appears to be no effective solution for curing it, leaves the doctor angrily with no intention of learning anything more about it. He tries harder than usual to stay fit and healthy by taking an aspirin a day...but ends up taking one of David's ecstasy tablets instead, making Ruth's dinner an interesting one. Later, he dreams his father introduces him to Life and Death, playing Chinese checkers with ... Written by brainybrailler@comcast.net

A football player collapses of dehydration during a practice session, but doesn't die...but his fellow player and best friend Joshua Peter Lagmead is ignored as he falls a moment later. Nate and Brenda prepare to make her high-school boyfriend Trevor envious when he visits for dinner with his own family, but in between trying to succeed, Nate is plagued with visions of Josh weeping, afraid of what will happen to him in death, and does his best to ignore his presence. Robbie graduates from The Plan, and invites Ruth to be his witness, and she's intrigued by the positive outcome and free-spiritedness seen in all its graduates so considers enrolling. David tries to keep contact with Keith as a friend, and when he tags by Keith's sister Karla's houses so he can give his niece Taylor a birthday gift, Taylor becomes intrigued on their relationship, while Keith is angry with his relapsing drug-addict sister for neglecting Taylor. Claire learns that Gabe stole embalming fluid from the Fishers... Written by brainybrailler@comcast.net

Michael John Piper finally passes away, depressed and delirious, after a long battle with cancer, and his psychic widow sticks around Fisher and Sons to discuss his funeral arrangements with him. She also predicts that one of the brothers will have a child, and perplexedly tells Nate she doesn't sense Nathaniel - though only because the funeral home is crowded so not everyone can be sensed. Nate is also baffled by Brenda's so-called ebb in sexual activity, especially when learning even Rico, with a family of four, has an extremely strong pattern of one. He does get some good news, though - at his first funeral-directors' meeting he enthusiastically declares war on Kroehner's and is well-received by all present. Ruth begins attending The Plan seminar when Robbie invites her, and alternates between resisting their hate-the-world policy and taking a hard look at her actual family relationships, meaning she mostly insults her kids. Claire soon has more to worry about than cutting remarks,... Written by brainybrailler@comcast.net

Harold Mossback falls asleep but doesn't wake up on a bus tour in Seattle, where his kids hire the Fishers but insist he should transported by land back from LA since he feared flying in life. Unable to get any transportation services, Nate chooses to fly to Seattle and stay at his ex-roommate Lisa Kemmel's, then transport him by rental-car, offering to take Claire along for the ride (and to help drive). David is stuck sitting Taylor for Keith when he's stuck on assignment for several hours, annoying Rico and causing Ruth, now trying to contact old friends and estranged relatives to discuss their relationships, to remind him he shouldn't be too candid on his gayness with a child still developing her blueprints...until David advises her to mind her own business and drop the metaphors. Brenda, still fantasizing of seeing other, preferably dangerous and exciting, men, is called to be with her mother in an emergency, only to discover she wanted attention as she stalks then attacks a ... Written by brainybrailler@comcast.net

Emily Previn chokes on her TV dinner and isn't discovered dead in her apartment until a week later. Her funeral has already been set up, but Rico finds it a time-consuming impossibility to let her have an open-casket one since she's in such bad shape and Nate and David are only able to contact one of her friends (the one who has a funeral-phobia). The questions left of who she is and why she lived alone have an even more profound effect on Ruth, who begins having troubling dreams of living in an empty environment. David hopes to begin a strong relationship with Ben Cooper, but Keith turns up at his door after he awaits judgment for shooting an intoxicated man arguing with his wife...then leaves the next morning, apologizing for his wrong action and leaving David depressed. Claire is enraged to hear that Parker McKenna is cheating on her SATs and that she claims she's slept with Gary Deitman. Brenda befriends her prostitute client Melissa and watches her at work after determining to ... Written by brainybrailler@comcast.net

At a corporate-funded boat-party he denounces, Matthew Heath Collins has too much to drink, drops his latest beverage over the side of the deck, and in attempting to retrieve it falls underwater and is cut by the propeller. His widow Catherine first contacts Fisher and Sons for a closed-casket funeral without bodily repairs, then chooses to switch to Kroehner's instead, forcing David and Nate to think of a way to set a cheap, but reasonable, price to convince her to switch back. Ruth's sister Sarah comes to visit upon receiving her message after years of feuding, angering Ruth once again at the memory of how her friend slept with Nate as a teenager and she did nothing to help with taking care of their grandmother. So she's not very supportive that Sarah informs Claire she's a natural artist. David continues dating Ben but doesn't feel anything for him - he chooses not to invite him to Nate and Brenda's engagement dinner with the family, Sarah, and Nikolai, where the dinner's ... Written by brainybrailler@comcast.net

Jeffrey Marc Shapiro performs asphyxiation therapy while watching an adult video and jogging on his treadmill, but winds up hanging himself after not using his lemon slice to assist breathing. Nate befriends the man's religious leader, Rabbi Ari, and asks her the Jewish beliefs on death and afterlife. Claire chooses to go to Tapenga Canyon to visit Sarah for a weekend, despite Ruth's objections, and is interested more in the teenage son of a pair attending the artists' party there than the partying artists themselves. With Claire gone, Nate busy, and David going out to dinner with Keith after he leaves Eddie and invites him out (though dinner is canceled after Taylor undergoes appendix surgery), Ruth is lonely at home but makes a mistake in how to deal with it. Brenda continues to get advice from Melissa, cheat on Nate, and meets her mother with the usual disastrous results. Rico suspects his cousin Ramone is sleeping with Vanessa, but discovers the truth is even more shocking. Written by brainybrailler@comcast.net

Christmas Eve - and the 1-year anniversary of Nate and Brenda's meeting and Nathaniel Fisher's death - is approaching, and this year, the Fishers are requested by the Hell's Angels motorcyclists 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 ... Written by brainybrailler@comcast.net

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 ... Written by brainybrailler@comcast.net

Benjamin Srisal suffers a heart attack at home, requiring a Bhuddist service at Fisher and 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 ... Written by brainybrailler@comcast.net

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 ... Written by brainybrailler@comcast.net

The Diazes' friend and former neighbor Leticia Perfect 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 ... Written by brainybrailler@comcast.net

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 and 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. ... Written by brainybrailler@comcast.net