The pilot is broken up by a series of title cards that introduce each vignette. It's a fairly linear storyline for the most part with fantasy, voice over, and some rather interesting cinematic devices thrown in (i.e. the ecstasy party scene). It's also not for the kiddies (thank you, thank you, Thank You!).

The story introduces us to Mark Colm (Eric Stoltz) who seems to be the long-suffering, calm, together spouse of a severely depressed Lorna (Felicity Huffman) who uses whatever prescription, drug, and/or alcoholic beverage she can to escape her past rape by her brother's friend, her step-father's abuse, and her mother's refusal to protect her in those situations. Mark is the only functioning adult in the house so he does the parenting for both to their young son Dylan.

Mark has a very active imagination in which he sees himself as part of a ongoing movie of his own life. He also hears plants and animals talking to him. When he drops his son off for soccer practice, he meets the soccer mom Danni (Kim Dickens) after ogling her from across the field. She relates that she doesn't think that people are meant to be monogamous.

Lorna and Mark alternately fight and support each other frequently. At Thanksgiving dinner, Lorna finally confronts her parents while Mark sits mutely by. This is played out in his imagination as a scene modeled on "Raging Bull". Later, Lorna relates that she saw it differently in a less vivid, but affecting way. She placates Mark by remarking that his idea was "good too". Lorna refers to Mark as the "perfect husband" several times, but also tells him that his high pitched voice makes him "sound like a girl". Mark resents her lack of responsibility, absense from their family life, and writing talent that surpasses his own, but he is also tortured by the trauma of her rape and his inability to bring her back to a funtional state. He has murderous fantasies about her rapist.

After the end of the kids' soccer season, Mark misses Danni enough to call her home and proposition her. She turns him down and he dives into a bag of cookies (there is a recurring issue with his eating his worries away). [here there is an incredible dance sequence that you have to see, it's my favorite scene]. After, Mark calls Danni back and explains his troubles.

After partying all night with another neighbor Annie (Justine Bateman), who has come onto Mark previously, Lorna misses an important business meeting with Mark and a director (Peter Bogdonavich). Mark suggests they throw a party for his upcoming birthday and use ecstasy as a way of doing 'research' for a character in their script. At the party, they all skinny dip and when Mark and Danni are left alone in the pool, they briefly have sex. Later, Mark tries to convince Danni to be with him again, but to no avail.

Lorna, who has been spending more and more time with the dysfunctional Steven (William H. Macy)- a washed up alcoholic director-, stumbles back home one night to an exhausted and irate Mark who takes his anger out on Steven by punching him in the face. The next morning, Lorna is nowhere to be seen as an exhausted Mark supports his son in a class play. Mark runs into a sympathetic Danni in a supermarket and asks her not to leave him (alone). They go to a hotel and have (pretty steamy) sex. Danni tells him that it was good for her because he was a more comfortable fit than her over-sized husband and he relates confidently that he considers himself average because he "measured". Mark also tells her that he wrote a poem about their first encounter which he recites for her.

Mark returns home to find Lorna more lucid and penitent. Lorna begs him to forgive and remember all the years they've been together. They comfort each other and while lying on their bed, he relates how he tried to kill the (last of eight) goldfish, but that it survived. Just like he has.