This year the town's charity Bachelor Auction host will be -- Marin Frist! Meanwhile the relation between Patrick and Annie is ready to go to the next step, meeting Patrick overprotective mother, and another relationship gets more complicated - that of Ben and Theresa.

Marin wants to find out if you really can be friends after you've spelt together. She asks Jack to take her to Anchorage so she can get a dose of culture. Patrick begins to wonder if there is a problem in his relationship with Annie, because she always asks him to leave right after they've been intimate. Meanwhile, Ben gets tired of having to sneak around with Sara, and he asked Theresa to move out.

After Jane leaks an excerpt from Marin's new book on men to The New Yorker magazine, Marin is forced to defend her career to Jack. Elmo receives a special guest singer-songwriter Jewel, whose car has broken down. She runs into her former bandmate, Theresa, in the Chieftain. Meanwhile, Celia and Patrick's new stepmother, Mai, face each other in an alpha showdown for the role of "top mom."

While Marin is waiting for Lynn to leave Elmo and Jack, Annie thinks that Patrick can't have a relationship until he can survive without his mother. Meanwhile, Celia gets a visit from her out-of-town boss, Sarah comes back to Elmo and gets a surprise when she sees Ben and Theresa back as a couple. Back in NY, Jane wonders if she wants to keep a long-distance relationship with Sam "Plow Guy."

In the first of a two-part story, a heated fight between Marin and Jack is the result of an invasion of wild wolves in Elmo. Annie's mother arrives in town as a series of unfortunate events could ruin Patrick and Annie's wedding. Meanwhile, Ben's new hockey team causes problems and the church elders of Eric's church attempt to stand in the way of his relationship with Sara.