Eli takes pity on Phil's latest get-rich-quick scheme; Warren, Mark and Jimmy create a hilarious Ed and Carol tribute video for the rehearsal dinner, but Shirley is the one who really brings down the house with a special song; Mike feels a little lost as the best man in the face of the extensive groomsman experience and contacts displayed by Ed's cousin Mitch; Molly opens the door when a possible opportunity comes knocking; Ed gets a behind-the-scenes inspiration for a wedding day $10 bet from a surprising source; Ed and Carol hatch some truly hairbrained ideas in their quest for the appropriate theme for their wedding until Ed's inspiration leads them to the perfect place to start the next phase of their lives.

At the same time Ed receives a visit and a job offer from his old collegue, Carol invites him to the Stuckeyville HS junior prom; To avoid the embarrassement of not having a date, Warren seeks out an escort service; Phil attempts a string of comical practical jokes to get on a TV show.

Eli, Phil and Shirley take over preparations for Stuckeybowl's 75th birthday party; Carol completely freaks out when Ed tells her that Molly stole her journal and read parts of it to him, but she can't resist asking Molly about his reaction; bored with their friends' dinner parties, Mike and Nancy accept an invitation to a kegger from Stacie and Jenny, coeds they find stranded by the side of the road with a flat tire; over his better judgment, Eli takes Phil's advice to invite Vivian to the party, and gets turned down; while one college party and its hangover are enough for Nancy, Mike decides to take the plunge again by attending ""Luau Night"" after helping Stacie and Jenny study for their chemistry exam, but gets more than he bargained for when he's forced to turn down Stacie's proposition; Shirley comes up with the right person and the right motivation, and Eli finally gets up the courage to approach a pretty woman at the party; Warren's band gets booked to play at the festivities an

Ed Stevens has just been fired for misplacing a comma in a 500 page contract, which cost his law firm employer millions of dollars. When he arrives home to give his wife the bad news, he finds her in bed with the mailman. He decides to pack it all in and head back to his hometown of Stuckeyville, Ohio. When he runs into Carol Vessey, the girl of his high school dreams who is now an English teacher at Stuckeyville High School, he decides to stick around and purchase the local bowling alley, where he sets up a law practice.

Ed tries lucid dreaming to figure out if he should pursue a relationship with Frankie.

Ed defends a secretary being sued over a payroll error; Carol decides that she and Nick have to end their relationship; Mike is reviewed by his superior; Molly selects talent over beauty in casting the school play.

A brush with death inspires a local man to change his life and do things he's never done before such as scale a wall, bowl naked, and go out with Molly. Meanwhile, Ed tries to recapture his youth by doing things he did when he was 18, and Warren becomes inspired by Thoreau's call to ""simplify"".

The families converge for the wedding, and Carol begins to have second thoughts after talking to her father about her parents' courtship; Warren enlists the help of Carol's sister Stella in writing a song for the bride, and the two hit it off better than Warren could have dreamed, leading him to seek out Eli for advice about women; Ed decides not to attend the wedding, but Carol begs him to reconsider; Jennifer encourages Ed to break up the wedding and he decides to go for it and ride up to the church on a white steed, but the horse he ends up with has other ideas; Dennis makes a painful decision to tell the truth at a crucial moment.

Carol's childhood diaries prove useful when the town's premier magician, Stuckeyville Stan, sues a competitor for revealing his secrets; Nancy becomes threatened by the baby's nanny.

The return of former high football star, Troy McCallum, brings out feelings of resentment in both Ed and Carol. Meanwhile Ed tries to help high school student Warren, whose nerd vs. jock conflict mirrors his own.

Tired of the continuing Carol/Ed saga, the pair's friends trap them in Stuckeybowl until they finally work things out, one way or another.

As Carol and Ed are finally seeing Liz off, they get mugged, leading Ed to question whether he could have prevented it; Russ pays Mike and Nancy a visit after his wife kicks him out for cheating; Phil sets up a ridiculous and elaborate security system in the aftermath of the robbery; Kate offers Eli another gig at the radio station, but Jennifer isn't happy about Eli's spending time away from her; Liz's continued presence in Stuckeyville as a result of the mugging begins to wear mightily on Carol, so Ed asks Liz to leave; after Kate is fired for backing up his decision not to grant a listener's request, Eli devises a scheme to get her rehired, which dovetails nicely with Russ's plan to win back his wife's affections.

Ed goes up against his old law firm in a case involving four friends who wrote up a contract on a bar napkin. At the same time, he must pick a manager for Stuckeybowl and deal with being ""just friends"" with Carol. Nancy and Mike fuss over who takes care of the baby at night.

As Ed takes the case of a injured high school football player who's suing another player for unnecessary roughness, he meets an enthusiastic law school graduate eager for a job; Eli helps Warren and Diane give Mark his last great meal before surgery; Molly does her best to be the coolest principal ever.

When Carol is discouraged after Ed spurns her feelings as ""not real"", Molly becomes the catalyst in helping Ed to rethink his position; Ed helps an old friend achieve his dream of making a movie; Nancy and Mike dip their toes into show business as Mike and Phil pester the star of the movie; claiming that it's never over between Ed and Carol, Frankie flees to Houston to visit Leon; Warren is heartbroken when Stella decides to return to Boston to finish school.

Ed and Carol stumble through the first days of their changed relationship; Mike and Nancy have their hands full with a new puppy and its dishonest breeder; Eli is bewitched by an attractive and talented pie maker.

With only a few days left until Christmas, Ed's getting ready to move back to New York with Carol, however an unexpected "friend" returns from Ed's past. In the meantime, Mike and Nancy are anxious to get back into their home in time for Christmas, and Mr. Hagadorn's annual Christmas yard display is under attack from a neighbor.

Carol shocks Ed by announcing that she is leaving Stuckeyville to become a writer; Ed concocts Stuckeyville's first-ever Festival of Ducks to boost the town's reputation; Phil becomes mentor to a young bowler.

Ed and Carol finds themselves on opposite sides when he represents a gym coach who is flunking one of her best students; Dr. Jerome continues to humiliate Mike; Shirley starts working as Ed's legal clerk.

Ed becomes concerned about his legacy after taking a longevity test and learning that his life expectancy is ""only"" 83 years; Stella returns to Stuckeyville after breaking up with her boyfriend, who follows her there; hoping to cash in on the royalty market, Phil and Eli compete to create a new birthday song; Frankie and Leon come to a parting of the ways; Warren's high-flying approach to playing Cupid for Stella on Valentine's Day gets him the thank-you of his dreams.

After a former student encourages Carol to interview for a writing job at the magazine where he works, she sets out for New York City, accompanied by Ed; at Molly's request, Warren and Mark escort a new student around school and find that the new kid isn't the only one with something to learn; Carol is sent out to complete a test assignment and does so well that she's offered a full-time writing position; Dr. Jerome and his granddaughter do a little stealth psychological testing on Mike; after some reflection, Carol decides to accept the job offer and relocate to New York City.

Ed is planning an elaborate proposal in New York, but when Carol returns to Stuckeyville to find out how they stand, he must come up with another plan. Mike's parents visit and his dad drives Mike crazy. Plus he wants to deep fry the turkey. Eli, afraid, that Jenny will date someone else, arranges a charity Thanksgiving dinner at StuckeyBowl and enlists her help.

Carol's father returns from Florida in time for his birthday party, unaware that she's engaged. When she finally springs the news on him, he's hurt that she's marrying someone he's never even met. At his birthday party, he gives Carol and Dennis the cold shoulder and refuses to speak to her or accept her apology. When she goes to his house to explain, she is shocked to discover that her father remarried a year earlier without telling her. Carol goes ballistic until she finds out that her father may be sick. When she asks him, he denies it. Finally, he visits her and they talk about how they have tried to protect each other ever since her mother died. He finally admits that he's scared and asks Carol to come with him to his doctor's appointment, where they get good news. Warren freaks out about the unfairness of the SAT system and mounts a one-man protest he calls ""Pencils Down!"". After several fruitless attempts to be taken seriously and enroll anyone else in his boycott, he finally fa

Jennifer Bradley breezes back into Ed's life claiming that she needs his legal advice; Ed accepts Dennis's sarcastic offer to be his best man; Carol's impending marriage is making Molly feel neglected.

The first weeks of the new relationship between Ed and Carol are seen through the lens of his cousin Benny, who's filming a documentary for his final film school project; when Carol's lease is up, she and Ed decide to move in together; while mugging for the camera, their friends comment on Ed and Carol, and the nature of romantic relationships in general; as time goes on, and familiarity begins to breed indifference and conflict, Ed learns an important lesson about relationships from his high school driver's ed teacher and Carol gets a crucial insight into Ed from Mike; Molly teaches Warren a lesson about punking one-upmanship.