Carly has a big job catering a party for the mayor and she's so busy that she doesn't notice Sarah is acting preoccupied herself before leaving for school. When Sarah arrives home, she is still acting a bit odd. Jack asks what's wrong and she tells him she got her first period that day. Jack, who had just been bragging to Will about having it all together while Carly is out of the house, is thrown for a loop and bumbles around trying to find the right thing to say and do. Stephanie shows up at the apartment and leads Sarah in some strange New Age-type ritual to commemorate the event. Jack calls Carly to tell her the news. Carly feels that she should go home to Sarah, despite the importance of her job.

A booby trap set by Jack and Dante catches newspaper-stealing neighbor Mrs. Ross redhanded (or blue-faced, actually) and she promptly sues Jack. Meanwhile, Sheldon has cancelled plans with Sarah one too many times, and she's ready to do something about it. While Jack is seeing one lawyer, she goes to another to try to get Sheldon to disown her and make Jack her legal guardian. Sheldon is furious and thinks Jack is behind it. He comes to the apartment and tries to reconcile with Sarah, asking her to come along to Paris with him and Stephanie, but Sarah refuses. Jack tries to calm Sheldon down and talks to him about what it takes to be a good father. The talk only spooks Sheldon into thinking he'll never make a good dad and he now wants to sign the papers. Carly talks Sarah into travelling to Paris, but Stephanie and Sheldon have already left. Rushing to the airport, Carly boards the plane to talks to Sheldon, who then leaves the plane with her. Meanwhile Sarah has boarded and the plane

Will has a new girlfriend, Jennifer, and he's nervous about her well-to-do parents meeting his own, especially his father Dante. The Hadleys come over for dinner at Jack and Carly's one night and all goes well until they depart. That's when Carly discovers a decorative egg that Lorraine Hadley was admiring is suddenly missing. This sends Jack, Carly and a reluctant Will on reconnaissance missions to locate and retrieve the egg.

Stephanie is a wreck--she's being written out of her TV series ""Thena"" and is to be replaced by a younger warrior goddess, Zora. To make it worse, her character will be killed off on a special live broadcast. Carly wants to offer sympathy and support, against Jack's advice. The two of them see Stephanie and try to cheer her up by telling her she'll have more time for Nicole and Sheldon. Steph takes the advice to heart, smothering those two with attention that is driving them nuts. Nicole comes home with the news that Stephanie wants her to live with her.

Before the show begins, Jack and Carly visit Stephanie backstage to wish her luck. She pries out the news from the couple that Nicole doesn't want to move and that Sheldon is distancing himself from her, which doesn't exactly help her already fragile state of mind. The broadcast begins and it quickly turns into a fiasco, as Stephanie begins to ad lib and refuses to let Thena die. Finally Zora convinces her that she must go through with

An angry Jack is on the train from Philadelphia with Nicole. The story is told in flashbacks. Carly plans for the family to help out at a homeless shelter, but Nicole wants to go to a party. Nicole convinces Carly to let her go if she'll find a substitute for the night--who turns out to be Jack. The next night, Nicole is supposed to help again at the shelter, but she has a chance to go see the Rollling Stones. She takes advantage of Carly's desire to be liked as a stepmother, borrows $150 from her and gets permission to go to the concert, telling Carly the show is ""downtown somewhere"" and conveniently neglecting to mention the downtown is Philadelphia's. Jack is angry at his daughter and goes to retrieve her. He thinks the best punishment for Nicole will be facing up to Carly.