Alice O'Connor is ready to leave New York and give up on her dream of becoming a writer when her mother drops a bombshell: Alice's idol, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Bram Shepherd, is her dad. When idealistic Alice goes to see Bram, she finds he's not the man she hoped he'd be. In fact, as Molina describes him, he's ""venal, self-centered...and greedy,"" with ""no interest in fatherhood.""
Alice moves in with Bram, and when things do not go as smoothly as hoped. Bram takes out his frustrations on her cat.
When Bram is short on money, he suggests a poker game with his downstairs neighbor. Things go wrong when he can't cover a bet and offers Paul to the winner.
Despite feeling judged by Alice, Bram does what he has to do to get an invite to the big party, while Alice chafes at her ""goody two shoes"" image.
When an attractive student asks Bram to read her novel, he has Alice read it—under the pretense that it is his book, which he has been working on for years.
After neighbor Martin Fitzgerald passes away, Bram discovers that the old man kept a pristine copy of the first edition of his bestseller. Smelling an opportunity to score some easy cash to help with alimony payments, he attends the memorial service at Martin's apartment with Paul in order to steal the book. To their dismay, Martin was former commissioner of the police force, and the fuzz is all over the building to pay their respect. Meanwhile, Katie reunites with her ex-skating partner (and former flame), only to find she doesn't love him as much as she does Toshiro.
One afternoon while delivering her father his briefcase, dateless Alice meets Mark, one of Bram's more gifted students. They agree to see to a movie together, but when Alice discovers Bram favors his story to her own, she subconsciously begins to harm Mark--many times over. Meanwhile, Bram has gourmet chef Theresa over for a romantic meal. Once she reads Mark's story, Bram himself feels the pangs of Mark's praise, and poor Mark ends up getting a double dose of being in the right place at the wrong time. During all of this, Katie asks Paul over to help move furniture. Mystery man Toshiro (a male incarnation of Maris from ""Frasier"") calls Katie, hears Paul in the background and presumes they're fooling around...a mistake which she chooses to exploit. At the end of the episode, Paul finds himself in an very compromising situation.....and a kimono.