After a chat show host comments on Rick's weight Mel and the others agree, and Marty taunts him with doughnuts.
The first few storylines are as follows: Michael is distraught about finding out his father's sexuality, Magda is searching for a house after her bedsit gets infested with toxic gas, and Sam and Ben have made a single on YouTube.
The episode opens with Rick at a celebrity charity auction trying to attract bids for the waistcoat of an ex-rock star.
The waistcoat bought by Rick turns out to be worth considerably more than he paid for it, but he has given it to his daughter, whose boyfriend has cut it up for a textiles project at college.
Rick's appearance on a radio phone-in show is not as successful as might be and Sam has split up with Ben for a new boyfriend, the eponymous 'Spikey', who is a drunken waster.
Magda wants to return home for her sister's wedding and Mel agrees to pay for this, to Rick's disapproval.
It turns out to be a gloomy experience, relieved only by Ben's mobile phone that Rick is keeping hold of ringing at an inopportune moment.
Rick's appearance at a function for a junk mail organisation goes awry when he is lampooned for the mobile phone incident, which has been reported in the local press.