Failed lawyer Stephen's father has recently died, and he makes plans to take over the family's pub. On the day of the funeral there is an unexpected mourner at the graveside: Andrew, who was Stephen's foster brother from March to August 1987.

Stephen learns that his father left five percent of his pub business to Andrew. Stephen decides to buy five static caravans to rent out and one is delivered to a field, which Stephen moves into. Andrew organises a trendy outdoor food festival, at which some attendees use Stephen's caravan as a toilet. His ex-wife Alison and her partner Tom are trying for a baby and use Stephen's caravan to have sex; Tom insists that Stephen guard the door to prevent the festival goers entering. The festival is a financial loss.

Andrew suggests many improvements to the pub, including better-looking bar staff. Stephen disagrees with the changes, but they go ahead and garner an increased number of customers and many excellent TripAdvisor reviews. Stephen accuses Andrew of creating reviews under fake identities. Stephen makes bad reviews pretending to be customers, which Andrew thinks were done by the new staff, so Andrew brings back the old staff.

Alison tells Stephen that she has put her house up for sale, and that she intends to move to a large city.

Cass says she is going to go travelling, which for 20 years she has been saying that she is going to do. Stephen and Andrew visit the pub's suppliers, discovering that Laurie and Ellen enjoyed an open marriage.

They remember an acquaintance who disappeared in 1987 without explanation, and wonder if they killed him. During the trip, Stephen meets a young woman who prefers him to Andrew. After Stephen and Andrew come home, Cass tells Andrew that she is not going to travel because she is in love with him. He encourages her to travel the world for five or six months, and to sell her share in the pub to fund the trip.

The family clean up and repair the pub after the fire. Ellen blames Stephen for allowing the insurance for the pub to expire.

Cass sells her share of the pub to Andrew, and goes travelling. Geoff intends to sell his farm to developers who want to build a housing estate there.

Stephen loses the dog whilst walking it in the woods. He finds a man's corpse in a tree whilst looking for the dog. He is unable to find the dog and does not have a signal on his mobile phone. Andrew is jogging through the forest, and Stephen tells him about the situation. Andrew phones the police on his mobile and gives a television interview, claiming that he found the body and is the pub's landlord. He also befriends the man's widow.

Cass returns after four days with a new boyfriend, having travelled no further than Lille, where she met him. A man falsely claims that he has the dog, and tries to extort a thousand pounds from Stephen by threatening to kill it. Stephen and Andrew meet the extortionist in a car park. Laurie's brother Geoff, who knows that the dog has come home, turns up and beats the extortionist with a baseball bat.

Stephen and Alison, who have effectively restarted their relationship, meet Andrew's biological mother in the hope of getting them to meet, but are met with strong reluctance. Eventually, Stephen bribes Andrew's mother and the two meet. Meanwhile, Alison's parents reunite as her mother is shown to be inept as a member of bar staff at The John Barleycorn and her father quickly gets bored of travelling. Despite testing negative on a pregnancy test, Cass believes she is pregnant, although quickly dismisses this eventually. Alison adopts a retired service dog which happens to be skilled at detecting cancer in humans, this causes concern among the group when it moves towards Ellen, who is later established to have cancer and starts undergoing chemotherapy. On account of the diagnosis, Ellen and Julian move their marriage forward, which causes concern with Stephen as he suspects Julian may be attempting to inherit the pub and house in the event of her death, in case no will has been made. It is not revealed whether Ellen and Julian did marry prior to her death.