After arranging a funeral for a young gay man who was brutally murdered for his sexual orientation, David comes out to his family and resigns his post as deacon.
During this time, George becomes increasingly paranoid, particularly with beliefs regarding an inevitable nuclear apocalypse, forcing Ruth to admit him for treatments including electro-convulsive therapy.
Claire is known for being rebellious throughout her teenage years and often acts in a selfish and surly manner, yet displays genuine affection and care for her family at moments of crisis.
During Season 5, Claire works as a temp in a legal department where she meets and begins to date Ted, a Republican lawyer, despite having left-wing views.
According to her obituary, Claire became an award-winning photographer and taught photography as a faculty member at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in 2018, earning tenure in 2028.
However, after Keith brutally beats a man during a domestic violence call, he resigns from the LAPD and gives Taylor to his parents without consulting David.
Keith offers to combine his savings with David's when Rico has a chance to buy his own smaller mortuary and agrees to sell back his 25% share of Fisher & Diaz Funeral Home for $500,000.
Rico is considered one of the best in the business, and is briefly lured away by a funeral home chain called Kroehner Services International, before he realizes he has become just another over-worked employee.
David and Keith purchase Rico's 25% and Federico and Vanessa go on to establish the Diaz Family Mortuary in 2005, where he serves the community for 35 years before retiring.
Vanessa Diaz, played by Justina Machado, is Federico's high school sweetheart, wife and mother of his two sons Julio and Augusto.
In 2002, after several years of working at the Bay Breeze Nursing Home she is fired for negligence after not realizing that a resident's roommate shoved a hot dog down the deceased's throat.
Even after his death, he is still a presence with all of the Fishers and Rico and frequently appears in scenes as the living characters converse with him, visually like a "ghost" but actually as a fiction of their minds and sort of a conscience.
The details of Lisa's death are left ambiguous (although murder by Hoyt is strongly implied, it is never confirmed) but she remains in the show as another deceased character who appears in recurring visions, frequently to Nate or Brenda.
A Quaker and traveling pharmaceutical representative from Arizona, Maggie moves to Los Angeles to help take care of her ailing father.
Alan Ball specifically denied this speculation during his DVD commentary on the series finale, noting that as a pharmaceutical industry representative, Maggie is simply working when we see her in the doctor's office.
Nikolai, played by Ed O'Ross, is the Russian owner of Blossom d'Amour Flower Shop where Ruth Fisher works for a time.
Ruth takes this as an opportunity to expand their relationship, but instead causes more tension when she pays off Nikolai's debt with Nathaniel's life insurance policy.
However, he gets into more trouble: holding up a convenience store, stealing the Fishers' embalming fluid to use for extra-potent joints, and pulling a gun on another driver while Claire is trying to drive him to a secluded area.
She later receives closure from a fantasy scene showing that she believes Gabe has died and that he is at peace in death and able to see his younger brother Anthony.
Dr. Bernard Asa Chenowith (1939–2003), played by Robert Foxworth, is Brenda and Billy's father who worked as a celebrity psychiatrist with his wife Margaret, whom he met when she was a college intern.
When she runs into him at another showing, he tells her he had been hit by a car, and that while most believe he is in love with fellow student/artist, Jimmy (to whom he gave a drunken blow job), he confides in Claire that he is merely jealous and wishes he could be as talented as she.
Parker is a rebellious transfer student from a private school, although she appears to be a "goody two-shoes", who attempts to start a friendship with Claire Fisher.
Arthur Martin, played by Rainn Wilson, is an intern at Fisher & Diaz Funeral Home from March to November 2003, though it was intended to be permanent.
Arthur has a brief cameo in episode #5.9 ("Ecotone"), when Ruth imagines herself shooting all of her ex-boyfriends (and eventually her dead husband Nathaniel) with a shotgun to the tune of circus music.
They engaged in a brief sexual relationship where he was responsible for giving Claire her first orgasm using the coital alignment technique which he refers to by its slang name "grinding the corn".
A divorcée and an environmentalist (he drove a hybrid Toyota Prius car, while Begley drives an electric vehicle in real life), Hiram was once a major chef (he received a rave review from the Chicago Tribune) who gave up cooking to become a hairdresser.
Ted Fairwell, played by Chris Messina, is an attorney at Braeden Chemical Legal Department who becomes Claire Fisher's love interest after she begins working as a temp secretary.
On their first date, Ted reveals himself to be a conservative Republican, which upsets Claire at the moment when the mood changes to somber after receiving the news of Nate's stroke.
Carol Ward, played by Catherine O'Hara, is Lisa Kimmel's boss during seasons 2 and 3, a neurotic, self-involved motion picture producer with an unstable demeanor.
Although their relationship was initially only sexual on their first encounter, Rico continues to show her affection for several months by spending time with her and her daughter and buying her gifts.