Reed spends an evening on the firing range, then stops by an all-night grocery store. When Reed leaves, a man approaches him as if he knew him, then points out another man in a green Beetle holding a gun on the officer. Reed drops his groceries, shoves the man, jumps and fires at the Beetle driver, hitting the car, but the man in the Beetle shoots his accomplice. The grocer swears he only heard one shot, and the accomplice gives a dying declaration that Reed was trigger-happy and shot him, leading to Reed's suspension. Malloy and his by-the-book replacement partner locate the green Beetle (now yellow) after going through numerous DMV checks and locate the other man, exonerating Reed.

Officer Charlie Burnside pulls a prank on Officer Albert Porter, a friend of Reed's. Porter, who does not find the prank funny, informs Reed that Burnside is frequently "badge-heavy" (rough) with his suspects. After dealing with an inept would-be robber, Malloy and Reed observe Burnside choking a suspect. Reed reports the incident, but nothing is done by the Captain because the victim would not admit Burnside was the aggressor. Burnside turns cocky on Reed saying he has "an ace in the hole" and that Reed was mad about the prank he pulled on Porter, but it is later revealed that Burnside got to one of the robbers, placing him under investigation. At the end of watch, Burnside tries intimidating Reed, then tries brushing his intimidation off as a joke when he realizes the other officers are against him; when they all walk out, Burnside resigns.

Malloy and Reed are given an older cruiser with 300 miles to go until retirement. They quickly learn the car is extremely unreliable and barely works: the accelerator surges, the glove compartment door constantly drops on Reed's knees, the water hose breaks while they are sneaking up on a prowler suspect (actually just a man who once lived there), their malfunctioning taillights prevent them from writing a ticket to a citizen whose car had the same problem, the distributor cap fails when trying to respond to another call, and finally, after capturing a pursuit suspect, the car's brakes fail and the unmanned car totals itself on a light pole. Another call regarding a truck loading up at a warehouse leads to the arrest of a large group of organized burglars after Malloy notices a slight discrepancy in their otherwise foolproof plan.

Malloy's old landlady, Mrs. O'Brien, has her purse stolen and refuses to leave the station until her case is settled. Mrs. O'Brien resorts to other means, including hounding detectives and setting up a picket line to vent her frustrations. Malloy makes connection between her theft and a string of purse snatchings involving social security checks, and a decoy leads to the end of the theft ring. Calls include two suspicious men and a pursuit involving them, and a homicide where candy wrappers and tire tracks from the pursuit suspects are found.

While on second shift, Malloy and Reed take Police Commissioner Dixon on a ride-along. They encounter a bar owner who locked a naked, elderly man inside, a fight with a knife-wielding man and another man with a gun, and a missing 17-year-old deaf boy with mental instabilities, which Reed recognizes as the boy that escaped his foot pursuit in the previous episode.

Malloy and Reed are stunned to discover that the driver who led them on a high-speed chase is the son of Sgt. MacDonald, and Malloy takes it upon himself to help his boss figure out why the young man is acting out. In the meantime, they investigate a possible burglary in progress at an apartment building, mediate a dispute at a park over an elderly woman feeding ducks, respond to a call of two armed men fighting over a woman and deal with a wino who is attempting to direct traffic at a busy intersection.

The officers undergo their driver refresher courses to hone their pursuit and driving skills. A rash of car strippers brings about a new approach suggested by Officer Wells: going undercover as paperboys riding bicycles to find the thieves. Hilarity ensues; Wells wrecks his bicycle that belonged to a young girl, Malloy deals with an irate newspaper customer, and Reed and Malloy pull over a VW Microbus on a traffic violation where the driver's parrot chanted "Down with Pigs!", but the tactics work and the officers break up the car stripping ring.

A World War II survivor and tailor shop owner sets an ambush for an unidentified intruder when Malloy and Reed intervene. R&I determines the owner is clean and emigrated to the U.S. seventeen years earlier from Eastern Europe. The officers speak with a local priest who knows the owner, who complains to Sgt. MacDonald about what he feels is the officers' interference. Later, shots are fired at the shop, and the officers find a wounded intruder with no one else in the shop. Malloy and Reed find the owner with the priest, who informs them that the intruder is a former Nazi soldier who killed his relative during the war.

Malloy and Reed pull over a car on a routine traffic stop and are taken hostage by two robbers escaping from their heist. The officers have to use all their skills to escape the situation.

Reed loses a case against a young car thief in juvenile court, who later dies in high-speed pursuit. A girl's boyfriend dies from a heroin "hot shot", she buys drugs from the supplier and provides the serial number of the $10 bill she used to buy them. An elderly woman insists on being arrested rather than ticketed for a traffic violation.

Malloy and Reed encounter an armed private investigator from out of state, who is in Los Angeles to find a bail jumper. Later the PI is in the middle of an altercation with two black men, one of which is injured; the PI claims the men tried to rob him, but the men tell a different story, and Sgt. MacDonald orders the PI arrested. The PI is found roughing up the bail jumper and is arrested. Calls include an elderly man wanting a group of cars driven by hippies ticketed for illegal parking, and a woman who demands the officers ticket her husband's car because he refuses to replace the balding tires on it.

Malloy and Reed have to wear their long-sleeved uniforms despite a hot forecast, then learn they could have changed to short sleeves but missed the radio notification. Calls include the search for a bicycle pump that contains drugs, a woman experiencing withdrawal symptoms with the dealer and the pump up the street, a man complaining about his grass being trampled during his neighbor's yard sale (which had stolen property taken by the neighbor "on consignment") leads to the discovery of the burglar, who then provides a tip on a murder suspect.

Malloy finds himself attracted to the new girl in the steno pool, and decides to ask her on a date after learning she's Officer Wells' 25-year-old niece. Out on patrol, he and Reed investigate a report of a prowler in a heavily wooded neighborhood, make a deal with a flower vendor before booking him for unpaid tickets, engage in a high-speed pursuit with a green corvette and investigate a suspicious gardener.

Reed and Malloy rush an 8-year old to Rampart Emergency Hospital, where he is diagnosed with diabetes. Scared of the hospital, Jimmy runs off, and it's up to Reed and Malloy to find him before he goes into a diabetic coma. Elsewhere, Malloy's new girlfriend, Cathy, mans a hospital telephone hotline. Sherry, a 15-year old junkie, is threatening suicide to escape her troubled life. Malloy and Reed need to find her fast, before she OD's.

Malloy and Reed are called to a hotel to stop a woman's suicide attempt; while there, they learn of a parolee there who refuses to speak with the woman because he thinks someone from the mob is after him. Later the officers are called back to the hotel because the manager wants the parolee evicted; another call to the hotel leads to shots fired from the parolee, who was having delusions the mob was after him. In another case, the officers offer assistance to a man whose extremely damaged car simply needed a tire change; the man and his car are later the suspects in a robbery, and detectives arrest the man with the officers' help.

Reed spends a Saturday night talking about buying a used car, during the watch the officers handle a possible DUI but the driver passes the field sobriety tests, a shooting during which a man kills his recently paroled son-in-law, a car stripper, trick a man into revealing his name after pulling him over for speeding and finding the car has over $900 of unpaid tickets, and two beatings at motels.

Malloy wins $10,000 in a women's shampoo naming contest and is stampeded by people telling him what he should do with the money. Calls include an elderly male tenant complaining that a new elderly female tenant's Irish music is too loud, a sniper wreaking havoc until he is shot trying to escape in a car, a reported theft turned out to be a broke man whose three wives stripped the expensive house he was in clean except for the stolen items, and a wino is killed by another wino for his new tennis shoes.

Malloy and Reed spot a runaway young boy hiding in the woods and prepare to take him home, then respond to his address for a disturbance and find his mother and step-father quiet. They return a second time with the couple throwing things at each other and break it up. A third call to the same address forces the officers to send the husband to his sister's house, but he returns to the apartment and when he does, shots ring out just as the officers arrive for the fourth time. Calls include a motorist encountering a girl who offers him drugs, a man trying to break into his own truck after his dog locked him out, and a drunk bicycle thief.

During Malloy's birthday, he lets Reed know he does not enjoy surprise parties, but becomes increasingly suspicious and believes the others are actually planning a surprise party, much to his chagrin; it is soon revealed that is not the case. Meanwhile, Sgt. MacDonald warns the officers about a rash of robberies using milk crates to break store windows; during a routine traffic stop, Reed notices a milk crate in the back of a car and surreptitiously marks it for identification later, and the thief is apprehended later using the same milk crate. Calls include a backup call for a jewelry store robbery when the officers pull over the owner of said store for DUI, an embarrassed male purse snatching victim inside a negligee shop, a phony gas station worker at a closed gas station, a shootout in the police garage between the entire station and a drunk suspect officers failed to handcuff, and Officer Wells capturing a B&E suspect based on a hunch by Malloy.

Reed spreads his flu to several other officers, leaving the station undermanned. Calls include a shootout with a rifle-toting bookie, an argument between a storekeeper and a customer over a cantaloupe during an unrelated traffic stop, Reed locating a burglar after seeing a flashlight inside a store, and a teenager evading Reed in a foot pursuit. Due to the understaffing situation, Malloy and Reed are asked to do double shifts, and Malloy tickets a woman for turning right at a red without stopping. Later, Sgt. MacDonald assigns them to drive around a police commissioner for the night; the commissioner is actually the woman Malloy ticketed.

A hotel janitor (and wino) named Harry witnesses a murder in a hotel room, but refuses to talk until Reed shows him compassion and respect, both of which are lacking from his family and friends, but his testimony is clouded by his alcoholic past. Malloy relives his childhood by telling the story of his chaperoning a junior high dance.

Malloy and Reed are patrolling the outskirts of Los Angeles when a girl on horseback alerts them to a small plane that landed in a secluded area. When the officers investigate, they see a pickup truck fleeing and the plane trying to take off; though they stop the plane, they have no proof the pilot did anything. Malloy and Reed later learn from the DEA that a Mexican cartel is behind the landings, with the pilot instructed to play dumb if caught. The officers find the pilot and trace the pickup truck's location, and the truck is followed to the landing site, where the smuggler and the pilot are arrested.

Malloy and Reed arrest a seemingly less-fortunate woman for shoplifting items for her baby, but she escapes from custody during a disruption at the station; the officers later learn the woman and her husband actually stole the baby, as they could not have one of their own. After finding the woman at a landlord-tenant dispute, they learn the woman's husband stole his car, and that the manager supposedly made an extortion call demanding $2,000 for the baby. The officers pursue and eventually catch the husband at a rail yard. Another call results in Reed briefly being held at gunpoint by a burglary suspect; Reed manages to trick the suspect and signal Malloy for help.

A series of purse snatchings involving motorcyclists frustrates the LAPD, as they cannot follow them down the off-road trails they take. Reed holds a community meeting with the various motorcycle clubs, and the leader of one club challenges Malloy to a dirt bike race. Reed teaches Malloy how to ride a dirt bike, and while Malloy loses the race, he gains the respect of the club's leader, who helps them apprehend the suspects by blocking their escape route.