While comforting a friend whose husband passed away, Larry and Cheryl comment on the husband's shirt. Larry then goes to the department store the next day to buy it. Meanwhile, Jeff talks Larry into investing in a trendy new celebrity restaurant. Larry also gets into trouble when he throws away some trash in a random garbage can.

Larry, Jeff, and Ted scramble to find a chef for the new restaurant, but Larry doesn't like Ted's recommendation. While trying to find a replacement, Larry learns a few things - Cheryl has a new, male, tennis playing friend, people won't take a wedding gift after a year, and that club soda and salt will get stains out of anything.

Larry, Cheryl, Jeff and Susie encounter a ""nanny from hell"" whose reign of terror is thwarted by ten sponge cakes. Larry commits a ""penis faux pas"" after a pool party, and Richard Lewis seeks immortality from Bartlett's Quotations.

A rumored threat of a terrorist attack undermines a benefit performance by Alanis Morissette at the home of one of Larry's friends. Meanwhile, Larry can't help snubbing Mindy Reiser, wife of actor Paul Reiser, during a series of encounters at a restaurant and the perfume shop where she works.

Larry's mother dies while he's shooting a film in New York City, but he doesn't find out until he returns to Los Angeles two days after the funeral. Once he's past the initial shock, Larry uses his loss as an excuse to avoid a number of unsavory invitations. Meanwhile, Richard Lewis accuses Larry of taking back his meditation mantra, and Larry plots to relocate his mother's body at the cemetery.

Over a makeup dinner with the Braudys, Larry openly ponders the question, ""When a husband pays the check, do you have to also thank the wife?"" Meanwhile, Jeff's return home is ruined by his allergy to the family's corpse-sniffing German Shepherd—but his daughter Sammy refuses to give away the dog. Concerned about his agent's welfare, Larry figures out an ingenious way to give the pooch to the Braudys, who are looking for just such a dog.

Larry is accused of betraying the confidences of Wanda's boyfriend, Crazy-Eyez Killa, a rapper he met at a party. Later, Larry alienates Jeff's wife Susie by declining her house-tour offer. He encounters further problems when he tries to replace a sports jacket Cheryl threw out.

Larry proves himself an unskilled Christmas tipper, while both Larry and Jeff prove incompetent at creating believable alibis for the messes they get in. After offending his housekeeper, Larry makes amends with her at the expense of his wife. Later, Larry attempts to reconcile with Cheryl's family after ruining their nativity scene.

Larry figures out a way to fire a chef, and alienate an important restaurant critic, in the days before his new restaurant is scheduled to open. As Susie stews over a misunderstanding with Larry and Cheryl, the Davids spend some quality time at the car wash. With its grand opening at hand, the restaurant owners hire a new chef with a penchant for speaking his mind.