Audrey tries to ask Duke if he knows anything about Lucy, the woman from the photo. He says that he's through doing favors for cops, but that he might be in a more cooperative mood later. He leaves with a date.
Audrey goes to the Haven Farmer's Market. A local chef, Katarina Hall, yells at a man for trying to sell her rotten apples. Suddenly, several of the foods at the event rot before their eyes in a matter of seconds. People start puking and collapsing.
Nathan arrives and Audrey fills him in. She finds it suspicious that only certain kinds of food were affected. They go to several farms and interview people, who reveal that their farms have been hit with selective patterns of rot. The lab calls and says that the rotten food looks like it was attacked by hydrochloric acid.
Eleanor calls and says that a class on a field trip has fallen sick after eating ice cream from a small shop. They question Benjy, the shop's owner. They find all his ice cream rotten, much to his shock as it was just made a few hours ago. He makes it himself from his cows, but when they go to the back, his cows are all rotten corpses.
Nathan offers Audrey some local clothing so she doesn't stand out so much. Nathan realizes that all the targeted people routinely deliver their food to the Second Chance Bistro, owned by the brothers Jeff and Bill McShaw. Katarina is their cook. They go to the restaurant to find them disposing of a lot of rotten food. Jeff, a talented chef himself, says the restaurant has a lot of competitors, so it's possible they are responsible. Jeff warns Katarina not to use sesame seed oil. Bill admits that he fired several people who might be seeking revenge. A local businessman, John Roberts, is putting up flyers promoting his lobster hot dogs. As Bill goes to get the employee list, Jeff shows them his squab in tarragon dish. Duke comes in with a delivery. After some haggling, Duke gives it to the McShaws for free.
Nathan and Audrey go outside, but birds start falling out of the sky and they take cover. The birds are rotten corpses as well. Katarina lists Bill's girlfriend Meg as a possible suspect because she resents Jeff.
Audrey visits Meg's organic garden. Meg admits that she hates Jeff, but says that she didn't do it. Her garden's tarragon rots.
Nathan questions Mr. Roberts. Roberts says that while he's a competitor to to the McShaws, he had no reason to sabotage their food. Roberts says Jeff will run his restaurant into the ground with his expensive tastes.
Vince and Dave Teagues visit the local store and discover Audrey trying on dresses for the McShaws' restaurant reopening. They ogle her, much to her annoyance. Nevertheless, they help her pick out the perfect dress.
Nathan and Audrey arrive at the reopening. Audrey suggests that everything connected to what Jeff cooks rots. Nathan retorts that her theory does not explain Benjy's ice cream. Duke arrives and annoys them by asking if they are on a date. The first course, a dandelion salad, is served. Bill hands Nathan a list of fired employees. Roberts walks up and Bill talks to him. Audrey reports that the dandelion salad shows no signs of rotting. The brothers briefly argue because Jeff was considering selling the restaurant to Roberts. Jeff proposes a toast and serves salmon. Bill takes the first bite. The salmon rots before their eyes and people start getting sick.
Later, Katarina tries to comfort Jeff, who's anguished that the restaurant's reputation has been ruined. He decides to go back to New York. When Katarina asks to come with him, he loses his temper and calls her mediocre. He hands Bill a penknife and leaves. Meg comforts Bill.
The next morning, Jeff's dead body is found in the water. When Nathan and Audrey investigate the docks, they find that thousands of salmon are dead. They question Duke, since he knew the McShaws. Duke says that Jeff visited him after he walked out on Bill, but that he left and he has no idea how he died. The penknife represents a second chance the brothers believed everyone should have. The Second Chance Bistro was supposed to be the second chance for the brothers to reconcile.
Nathan leaves to question Roberts, the last person dialed on Jeff's cellphone. Duke remarks on how good-looking Audrey was in her dress, and if she wasn't a cop, he would ask her out in a heartbeat.
Roberts explains that he withdrew his offer to Jeff after the incident with the salmon.
Meg insists that neither she nor Bill killed Jeff. Audrey finds a Benjy ice cream wrapper and Meg explains that Bill eats ice cream as stress food. Audrey examines the freezer and finds all the ice cream rotten.
Nathan and Audrey test their new theory and ask Bill to take a bite of lobster. Nothing happens at first, but when Audrey taunts Bill to anger him, all the lobster in the area rots. When he gets upset, anything connected to what he eats rots. Bill becomes sad, thinking that he inadvertently killed his brother.
Nathan gets an autopsy report on Jeff. There is no salmon in his stomach. He died from suffering an allergic reaction to sesame seed oil, then falling into the water and drowning.
They confront Katarina and accuse her of tainting Jeff's food with sesame seed oil. When she denies this, Bill and Nathan point out she knows about the Troubles. They explain Bill's Trouble, and Bill threatens to eat a sandwich that she had been eating. She panics and confesses that she did it out of revenge for Jeff refusing to take her with him to New York. As she is arrested, Nathan lies and assures her that the Troubles are just stories.
To prevent Bill's Trouble from harming anybody again, Bill decides to change to a less stressful job, woodworking. He sells the restaurant to Duke for $20, much to his shock. Duke is the closest thing he has to family now, and he figures he could use some legitimate business. Meg is just happy for Bill.
The next day, Nathan arrives at the station to find Audrey in more local clothing, which he approves of. Audrey notes how Nathan and others seem determined to keep the Troubles a secret from the general population. Much to his annoyance, she puts her feet up on the desk and drinks out of his personal coffee cup.
- Angry Chef: Jeff
- Black Market Produce: Duke regularly supplies the restaurant with mystery boxes of food he's smuggled at exorbitant prices.
- Buffy Speak: Duke tells Audrey she looks lovely, while Nathan looks very Nathan-y.
- Deep-Fried Whatever: Duke congratulates the brothers on opening night, and Jeff remarks that it's hard not to still see the restaurant as it was when their parents had it. Duke jokes that to that, they'd have to deep-fry the squab.
- Fashion-Shop Fashion Show: Played for laughs when Audrey is trying to find a dress to the opening of the Second Chance, as Vince and Dave unwittingly become her fashion consultants and take their roles very seriously. She ends up wearing the dress they pick out.
- Foreign Queasine: Everyone's reaction to the restaurant serving squab and raising their own pigeons to do it.
- From My Own Personal Garden: Meg grows most of the herbs used at the restaurant. Audrey notices her tarragon has suffered the same fate as all the other rotted food, which effectively removes her from the suspect list.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Duke speaks in Russian to his date.
- Hollywood New England: Parodied. Nathan gives Audrey a tongue-in-cheek gift of a stereotypical "Maine" uniform when she expresses interest in becoming a local. The uniform includes flannel, waders, duck boots, a bucket hat, and a U-Maine travel mug. Audrey is amused, and ends up dressing up in most of it at the end as a prank.
- Make Them Rot: Bill's Trouble causes food around him to rot. Although, unlike in most other episodes, his Trouble doesn't actually kill anyone.
- Pulled from Your Day Off: Audrey says she's "on her own time" when she approaches Duke about the photograph, and he encourages her to check out the local farmer's market. It's there that the plot kicks off.
- Shout-Out
- After Nathan and Audrey leave the restaurant, pigeons begin to fall from the sky. As they take cover in Nathan's truck, Audrey says she's seen this movie, and it doesn't end well.
- Terrible Pick-Up Lines: The chicken farmer Nathan and Audrey interview about her rotten eggs expresses concern about her rooster, afraid he's what's making the eggs bad. Nathan assures her he'll be checked, and she says that he doesn't seem sick, that he's still chasing after the hens. To Nathan, she throws a sultry "not all of them mind getting caught," to Nathan's Flat "What" and Audrey's grimace.
- Terse Talker: Audrey lampshades Nathan's tendency to do this, saying she thought all there was to being a local was to "squint my eyes and leave out half my words."
- That Came Out Wrong: When Audrey comes out of the dressing room wearing the dress that Vince and Dave picked out.Audrey: You're staring again.Dave: Yeah, but in a good way this time! [Beat] That sounded creepy even to me.
