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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.