Hannah's 30th birthday is no party for her when she takes time to reflect on her life and love. Hannah's little voice inside her head tells her that what's missing is Marty.
A woman arrives and threatens to make Brian's life a living hell, by threatening to get back at him for the bad review he gave that caused her husband to die. Hannah meets Marty's ex-fiancee at his family's Seder and sees that the old flame may still be lit.
When Catherine gets the impression that the magazine may have become too high brow, she searches out the everyman's opinion. When she hears Robin's thoughts, she is impressed and takes her on as a consultant and the entire staff becomes on edge.
A friend of Marty's, a Hollywood producer, decides to ""do lunch"" with Hannah when he wants to make a movie about one of her stories, something Marty has rejected for a long time.
Marty may become editor after a corporate trouble-shooter comes in, evaluates the magazine and decides Catherine is out and he is in, never mind that Marty slept with her. A little corporate blackmail may work wonders to save Catherine's job, using Marty as the tool.
Marty's girlfriend plans a surprise birthday party for him, but he surprises her and everyone else by breaking up with her, before everybody yells surprise.
Hannah and Marty go out to dinner with Robin to help her celebrate her un-anniversary. After seeing Robin's ex-husband there, each has a different perspective on how the restaurant caught fire. Everyone turned their heads when they walked across the room.
When the staff is gearing up for an all-niter to get out their election issue, Hannah gets excited; however Marty is less than enthusiastic, especially when the election is close, the night is long and the candidate he thought was a lock, loses and he has no material.
Marty is the unwitting weapon used by an aspiring young journalist against Hannah, after Hannah helped her get a chance to work for the magazine.
When the magazine needs a new cover story in less than 20 hours, Hannah & Marty must go to a hotel to write the story. While searching for an angle on the story, Hannah decides the mood may be just right to check out the bed with Marty.
Marty nurses a bruised ego when he sings show tunes on a news talk show and Hannah makes a celebrity out of a woman who was thrown out of a restaurant for nursing her baby.
Catherine's decides to become ""ordinary,"" after being snubbed of a mention in pop-culture legend's recently published diaries, and leaves Marty in charge of the magazine. The ""Squaddies"" protest Brian's review of the latest Star Squad movie and storm the newsroom to make Brian come to their convention.
Hannah insists she's not jealous of Marty's new girlfriend and invites them to dinner to prove it. When his date appears to be choking, Hannah delivers the Heimleich maneuver and breaks a rib, but she's not jealous.
A trip to the dentist for Marty also includes making a date with Robin and she is more than ready for a relationship and proves it by overreacting to a little kiss.
Catherine makes everyone take a lie detector test when she suspects someone on the staff is leaking gossip about her to an underground rag.
Hannah loves Marty's psychiatrist to death and Marty finds it difficult to cope with being shrinkless. Marty has a final session with his shrink casket-side.
Hannah sweet-talks Bradley, a fact checker, into letting a libelous quotation into her article, this all leads to a 10 million dollar libel suit and Hannah having to fire him.
Hannah finds out that her mother had her heart donated. She finds the new owner is a depressed man, who is not living his prolonged life to its fullest, the way Hannah envisioned the recipient would.
Marty and Hannah trade bylines to prove that Catherine is using favoritism in choosing articles for publication, and Marty winds up jail protecting ""his"" source.
An unexpected heat wave puts a damper on a party Hannah tries throwing because she wants to warm up her relationship with Catherine.
If he doesn't already feel guilty enough about everything, Marty really feels guilty when his Thailanese foster daughter comes to attend college in Chicago and he is really attracted to her.
Hannah returns from a vacation to find that the magazine has been bought by a corporation and the hip new editor comes in and begins to stir things up, especially Marty who considers resigning. Hannah becomes a writer, the magazine is changed to a weekly format and is renamed The Chicago Weekly and an English book and theater critic is brought into review television.
