Ross Birchall

What if the phone never rang that day? What if it was all a mistake? Who would you be? What would the last eight months have been like? Would you have laughed so much? Would your mother have come home? Would you know that the angelic boy was your brother? Or was this simply all a dream?

Ari's finest hour is now. He steps into the spotlight as Katie's husband, lover, friend, and father of her children. Katie's hospitalized amidst a media frenzy and in her darkest hour, she tells him that he has to go on. He needs to forget about her and find someone new. As Katie drifts in and out of consciousness, Ari fantasizes about his 23 year-old assistant in a strip bar, but it's Katie who finishes the dance.

Like planes hitting buildings and large waves crashing on distant shores, reversal is the key to life and drama. Katie's cancer comes back with a vengeance. Nicky is busted, but not busted up for his affair with Lenora Bukowski, the sexy Polish émigré. Sarah goes to the edge, but chooses not to seduce her Lit 12 teacher. Saul gives the kiss of life to the young man he put in a coma, while Ari holds on for dear life. Ellie begins to reveal a secret to Eli about the angelic boy. And "No Show" has its final show with Katie Sampson as host.

Life thunders along for the Sampson family: Saul begins to atone for his violent past, Nicky's deep in his affair with the Polish émigré, Eli has become a dark prophet of life and death and his mother's chances of survival, while Sarah moves ever closer to realizing the Rapture of Literature and bedding her Lit 12 teacher. Ari holds everything together but cannot control what comes out of the woodwork: Ellie the barfly marches all the way across town with a 35 year-old secret. She's somebody's mother. And Katie? Having held death at bay, she has achieved what all talk show hosts crave: an Oprah-like aura with ratings to match.