Rick and Lily's families gather at the school carnival. Lily and Karen, who don't know of each other at this point, are paired to work together in a booth there.

Lily tells Jake she wants a divorce, and tells Rick about her one-night stand with Jake. Rick can't forgive her, putting their future in jeopardy.

Rick and Lily begin to mend their relationship. Judy meets a man who might fulfill her dreams.

Lily's new job helps her put her priorities in order. While talking to Grace, Tiffany lets it slip that her relationship with Jake started BEFORE Lily and Jake split up, possibly altering her relationship with her father forever.

Lily says that the kids in the two families should meet. So they schedule a night for that. Zoe is concerned about the environment. Grace again has conflicting feelings about Eli. Jennifer reveals to Grace that Cassidy is cheating on Eli. Grace is hesitant about telling Eli this information. Two of Cassidy's friends, Rachel and Lisa, warn Grace not to tell Eli what's going on (or else!). Naomi starts a book group and invites Karen, instead of Lily to be in the group because she feels that she and Lily have been drifting apart. Miles lets it be known to Rick that he doesn't want David involved on his project. Work pressures threaten to unravel Lily's plans for the meeting and they leave Rick on edge. Judy and Karen have a heart-to-heart in the bookstore about their two families. Eli finds out for himself that Cassidy's been cheating on him. Pressure from Miles forces Rick to cancel the dinner. A passage from the book the group is reading makes everything clear to Lily and Rick and Karen

Judy turns the bookstore into a ""book club for singles."" This attracts an interesting clientele, including Jake (who's tiring of his girlfriend Tiffany) and Lily's boss Christie. Judy isn't sure of her attraction to the handyman who's fixing up the store.

Grace gets her learner's permit. She has a crush on Pace, a boy from her driver's education class, who seems oblivious to her feelings. So she goes out with Paces' annoying friend, Spencer, in an attempt to maybe make Pace jealous enough and have him ask her out. The date is a disaster. Tiffany breaks up with Jake when it becomes clear to her that their relationship wasn't going to go beyond the physical attraction.

Rick and David are served with a notice to get an injunction to stop the Atlantor project - and the hearing is on Valentine's Day. Grace is troubled by the fact that a building that is helping those who need help is being torn down to build Miles' (and therefore Rick's) project. David is frustrated that no one but him thinks that they have a serious problem with the project and the injunction to stop its construction. Rick sees Grace protesting and they have an argument. David quits the firm because of his opposition to the project. The court's decision makes no one happy, with the possible exception on Miles. Rick proposes to Lily, but she feels it's not the right time.

Will returns to repair ice damage to Lily's house, making for awkward moments for Judy. Judy runs into Paul (the guy who went off on her when she broke it off with him), creating more awkwardness for Judy. Lily grows agitated with Graham's constant flirting with the office women. Judy tells Karen that she thinks that Paul is the one calling her late at night. When Jake finds out that part of the repair might include a workspace for Rick in the attic, he says that he won't pay for the repairs. Judy hears noises outside her store and calls Jake. Jake confronts Paul and tells him to stay away from Judy and assaults him in the restaurant's kitchen. Lily angrily tells Graham that he has a real problem when dealing with women. Lily was going to give Tiffany Grace and Zoe's old baby clothes, but decides to save them for Judy's (future?) kids. Will reveals to Judy that it was he who was doing the calling and the noises. He angrily tells her she was wrong to dump him, among other things, which

Miles gets indicted and work on the Atlantor project is indefinitely suspended. Rick is invited to appear on a local talk show to tell his side of the story. But instead, he gets ambushed by the host on the air and leaves in the middle of the interview. The DA working on the case does everything but say that he is interested in Karen. They steal a ""moment"" at an awards dinner they both attended. After drinking a lot a a bar with co-workers, Rick comes home and get into an argument with Lily. Rick goes to Miles' suite and angrily confronts an obviously dying Miles. Rick rambles on to Lily about why she shouldn't marry him, but Lily tells him that she does want to marry him - faults and all.

As the wedding approaches, hardly anything is finalized. Lily's father appears to her in her dreams. He asks her to ask Jake ""what's been lost"". Grace gets a letter from Carla, who's living with her brother, saying that she misses Grace, but not Eli. Grace lies to Eli and says Carla does miss him. Rick finds out that he's really low on cash and his attorney asks about scaling back the wedding plans. ""What's been lost"" is Jake's restaurant. He tells Lily this when she goes to pick up the cocktail napkins. Judy finds out details about Will's past through Tiffany, like that he has a daughter he gave up for adoption. Disagreements about who's staying where and who's paying for what prompt Lily and Rick to call off the wedding. Eli finds Carla's letter. Jesse calls Karen to tell her that the wedding is back on, and Karen sheds a tear. Jesse knew that her mother was secretly hoping that Rick wouldn't go through with the wedding. Lily's mother surprises everyone by showing up. Lily sees her a

As the two families merge into one house, disagreements over Jesse and Zoe's room decorations dominate the breakfast discussion. Lily's employer, Pages Alive, shuts down, so she's out of a job. Eli's busted for marijuana possession following a car accident. The officer finds Coop's marijuana in the car. This renews Karen's demands that Eli get a job and give up music. Lily, however, has a different opinion. Karen also talks with Rick about Eli living with her for a while. Predictably, Rick gets caught in the middle. Rick finally stands up to Karen and says that Eli will be okay. In the end, Eli ignores his mother's wishes and gets a job in a recording studio and continues to live with Rick and Lily.

Grace finds an ""adult magazine"" in their home recycling bin. This leads to a whole ""will you talk to Eli about this?"" talk coming from Lily to Rick. Rick is amazed at Sam's continued inability to be with only one woman at a time. Judy and Sam have yet another awkward conversation, this time at a newsstand. Judy later confesses to Sam while having lunch that she can't kiss him because she wouldn't stop once she started. Lily worries that Rick isn't as interested in her now that they're married. Rick confides to Sam that he thinks the same thing about Lily. Karen and Judy go out to a bar/club. Karen isn't sure she wants to be there in the first place. She meets a man there, and feels guilty when she ends up spending the night at his place. Tad makes Jesse uncomfortable at his party. Lily tells Rick that she doesn't necessarily WANT sex, but rather just to BE with him and not have his mind a million miles away. Judy and Sam have their usual ""we can't be together but we have to

Amid complete chaos, a surprise Christmas Eve delivery of Tiffany and Jake's baby unites the Manning and Sammler families like never before. Meanwhile, Judy's first encounter with Sam's eleven-year-old son doesn't go very smoothly.

When Lily's brother Aaron expresses a desire to move out on his own with a young woman who is also mentally disabled, she finds it emotionally impossible to let him go.

Rick and Lily face more life-altering decisions when he is offered a major architectural position in Australia and she is offered a chance to take her Chicago-based radio show into national syndication.

The Series Finale Episode concludes with this show's traditionaly black and white breaking of the fourth wall but this time, its the actors and not the characters as they speak about the realtionships formed amid the cast and what the show has meant to them.