When her husband, Judah, dies of a sudden heart attack while out with his ten-year-old son, Shane, Nancy Botwin finds herself in a financial crisis. With no other option available to her, she turns to Conrad Shepard and his family to sell cannabis, using a fake bakery to move the goods. Aided by her wayward black-sheep brother-in-law, Andy (Judah's younger brother), she struggles to keep her new means of bill-solving secret from suspicious PTA members and her nosy neighbors as well as from her children, Shane and his teenage brother, Silas. Coping without Judah as the patriarch of the family reflects in the Botwins, especially Shane, who is going through the painful process of growing up without his dad, with Andy as the reluctant and rather poor substitute for father-and-son topics that go with growing up.

The name of Nancy and Andy's "fakery" is Breadsticks and Scones. The cap that bakery employees wear shortens the name of the bakery to "BS" as a joke.

[bantering about racial prejudices]


Conrad Shepard:
You calling black people stupid?


Nancy Botwin:
And lazy... and they also steal.


Heylia James:
Yeah, but we sings and we dances real good.

Factual errors: Shane asks for batteries for his Nintendo DS, but Nintendo DS's have a rechargeable battery.

(theme song)
Written by Malvina Reynolds