When Len and Joycie are jolted off their couch and into their backyard by a massive earthquake, they find their young neighbours unexpectedly helpful. But unsavoury elements are on the prowl and continuing aftershocks are shredding everyone’s nerves to breaking point. Tuesday February 22, 2011 dawns peacefully enough but little does Ginny know that at 12.51pm a lethal earthquake will reveal fractures in her family that she cannot ignore. Joycie fears for Len in Lyttelton, but to Monee the earthquake means freedom.

In the post-earthquake ‘new normal’, Ryan is living in his ute outside his liquefied dream home. Joycie shines as camp mother to inner-city waifs and strays, while Jonty becomes ever more desperate to get to his office through the closed red zone cordon. Quake runner Donna is frustrated when Ryan visits the family in Auckland and can’t get the shaky city out of his mind. Ginny confronts Jonty over his guilty secrets. Monee, on the run and squatting in the deserted suburb Atlantis, puts Ryan in danger.

Len and Joycie break the abuse cycle that has Monee in its grip, while dealing with the consequences of a TV interview in which Len has said too much. Dwayne shows he’s not so hopeless after all and Ryan realises the hard truth about his mate Greggo. Joycie’s honesty costs her her job caring for Aunt Dorothy and Len tries to make amends by organising a party with The Eastern playing. Ginny does a vital deal with Monee and makes a bid for her own freedom, while Ryan’s isolation takes him to the brink.