Episode list

In San Francisco, Alison encourages Meredith to press charges against their father who is stalking them. Billy learns where Alison is after a talk with her mother and arrives at Meredith's apartment and fights off the sinister Mr. Parker who threatens both of his daughters. When Alison returns to LA and tells Billy of her intention to sue her father for emotional damages, Billy leaves her for good. Meanwhile, Michael wakes up in the hospital with amnesia and can't tell who ran him over, while Jane gets arrested as a suspect and tries to secure her release by placing the blame on Sydney. But the real culprit is Kimberly who places the blond wig she wore that day while driving Jane's car in Sydney's apartment and tips the police about it. After Jake breaks up with Amanda, he saves a woman named Brittany from drowning in the marina and they get close fast.

After Sydney gets arrested for the attempted murder of Michael, Jane calls on their father who hires a lawyer for Sydney's defense. But Sydney soon learns that they want her to plead guilty to accept a plea bargain and nobody, not even the skeptical Jane or Mr. Andrews, believes her true claims that it was Kimberly who tried to kill Michael and framed her. Jane eventually asks their father to have Sydney committed to an insane asylum after mistakenly thinking that Sydney is murderously crazy and out of control. Meanwhile, Kimberly brings the amnesiac Michael home at their beach house to care for him. Alison goes to court against her father in his home town, and even names her mother in the lawsuit after learning that she knew about Mr. Parker's sexual abusing their daughters, but kept quiet out of denial. But when Meredith refuses to help Alison after seeing that Mr. Parker is a well-known and respected person in the community, their suit fails. Back in Los Angeles, Amanda takes advantage of Alison's absence to manipulate Billy for professional gain when she asks his help to get inside tips to get an ad account from the magazine company where he works, which results in his dismissal from the agency. Also, Brittany continues hanging out with Jake on his boat at the marina while he tries to keep distant to her, unaware that she has a hidden agenda.

After a slow start, Jake begins a torrid affair with Brittany, who is finally revealed to be a contract killer hired by Amanda's revenge-seeking father to murder Jake in revenge for losing his business. Meanwhile, Sydney is committed to a lunatic asylum and suffers abuse there. When Jane offers Sydney a conditional parole only if she confesses to attempting to kill Michael, Sydney, desperate to get out of the place, accepts. Kimberly's attempts to isolate Michael (so that he won't regain his memory) fail when Jane and Matt visit him to get him to sign some papers, where Matt confronts Kimberly with being the one that tried to kill Michael after discovering that she wears wigs to hide the horrible scar on her head from the car accident involving Michael. But Jane is skeptic to Matt's claims about Kimberly. Reed's parents visit Jo and ask questions about her and Reed. Also, tensions rise when Alison returns to Los Angeles and learns she'll be working with Billy at D&D after Amanda gives him a job as the new copywriter. Both Billy and Amanda are outright hostile to Alison, (he for walking away from their wedding, and she for the Chas lawsuit) and they both individually tell Alison to watch her step for they look forward to giving her a very hard time at work.

Sydney moves in with Jane and gets a job as her personal assistant and more than expected attention from Jane's new Australian beau and business partner, Chris Marchette. When Sydney gets in contact with the amnesiac Michael, he regains his memory and confronts Kimberly about being the one that tried to kill him. Meanwhile, Palmer approaches Amanda and urges her to hide him while he gets his money from the bank so he can leave the country while Brittany rigs Jake's boat with explosives. Amanda starts making Alison's live miserable at work again when she fuels her conflict with Billy after he moves out of Alison's place. Jo meets with Reed's parents again whose kindness turns to hostility when they sue her for custody of her unborn baby. At the end, Palmer and Brittany kidnap Jake on his boat where (not surprisingly) she double crosses both of them by shooting Palmer dead, then blows up Jake's boat up at sea and fleeing in a motorboat into the night with all of Palmer's money for herself.

Amanda sees the message left by her father and calls the FBI for help, while the Coast Guard finds a half-dead Jake floating at sea on some of the wreckage of his boat and he returns to Melrose to break the news to Amanda of her father's death. When Jake has hard time to accept this turn of events, he hits the road. Despite Matt's warning that Kimberly is dangerous, Michael decides to stay with her and divorce Sydney. Jane then asks Sydney to get Michael to give his share of Mancini Designs to her. But Michael tricks Sydney into accepting only $5,000 and leaving the rest of his assets to him. Meanwhile, Billy hires a new secretary, named Elizabeth Wyatt, who's the splitting-image of a younger Alison and they being dating, much to Alison's increasing jealousy.

On the road, Jake stops in a certain town to visit his real father Vince Conners, a wealthy upper class businessman, who won't accept Jake as a son because he never told his current wife about him. Back in Los Angeles, Michael and Kimberly try to impress the hospital's new chief of staff Dr. Peter Burns, a ruthless, no-nonsense man who makes it clear that he will not accept any trouble from anybody in hospital procedures. Meanwhile, after Alison complains to Amanda about Elizabeth being unprofessional, Amanda outright fires Elizabeth instead of reprimanding her, which fuels the conflict between Alison and Billy. Depressed over her life, Alison goes to a bar and meets a new man for herself, an architect named Mitch. But she leaves him when he is only interested in sex. Also, Sydney doesn't know what to do when Chris starts harassing her by making obscene comments, phone calls and sending her nasty gifts.

Jake returns to Los Angeles where he receives a $50,000 reward by the FBI for helping them in the Palmer Woodward case after the arrest of Brittany, in which he uses the money to buys Shooters. Jane refuses to believe Sydney's allegation that Chris is harassing her, even when Jake confirms it after witnessing one of Chris' lurid comments he makes to Sydney. Jane (at Chris' urging), throws Sydney out of her apartment and fires her. Chris makes things worse when he tells Jane and Sydney's parole officer a fabricated story about Sydney harassing HIM, and then tries to force himself upon Sydney as she closes up Shooters. Susan Madsen, a restaurant chef and Alison's old college roommate, moves in with her and captures the attention of Billy. Meanwhile, Peter won't allow Michael and Kimberly to appear in an ad campaign for D&D, but when he meets Amanda for the first time, he changes his mind fast. Also, Jo becomes worried about her financial situation before the coming custody battle.

During a weekend getaway in Las Vegas, Chris proposes marriage to Jane and she accepts, Sydney learns about this and knowing that the two-faced, sociopath Chris is just a gigolo after Jane's money, she tips off Michael and Kimberly about it in which they follow Jane and Chris to Vegas to break it up. In Vegas, Kimberly persuades Michael to get married themselves instead. Back in Los Angeles, Jake comforts Sydney after hearing about her terrifying run-in with Chris. Jake later confronts Chris and knocks him into the pool. Meanwhile, Susan cancels her plans with Alison to go on a date with Billy and when Alison finds out, she starts drinking again. Also, Jo ends up in the hospital after breaking down in pain due to the extreme stress of the custody suit.

After Michael gets fired by Peter for leaving his job at the hospital without notice to stop Jane and Chris' wedding in Vegas, he asks Amanda to put in a good word for him with Peter to get his job back, in exchange that he must turn over his half of Mancini Designs to D&D. But Michael yet again gets the last laugh again when he blackmails Amanda not to take over his share of Jane's business with an incriminating auto tape of Amanda bad-mouthing Peter's lifestyle. Sydney thinks her romantic night with Jake was a mistake, but he insists on a relationship. Meanwhile, Alison makes up with Susan and asks her to stay, but when she spots her getting intimate with Billy, she gets drunk, insulting and aggressive. Matt runs into his former lover, Jeffrey, who later tells Matt that he has left the Navy because he is HIV positive. After Bruce Teller, the president of D&D, embarrasses Amanda at a business party when he publicly accuses her of unauthorized account actions, Peter secretly suggests to Amanda that she take things at D&D into her own hands.

Alison goes over the deep end when she realizes that Billy and Susan now live together and begins dating record producer and party king Zach Phillips. Jo's custody battle for her unborn baby begins where her lawyer, Mr. Waxman, believes he shouldn't discredit the Carters, but show that Jo's a fit mother. But all turns bad for Jo when she and her friends are raked over on the witness stand with incidents from their pasts. Meanwhile, Kimberly wants to get pregnant, but her gynecologist tells her that she can't bear children. Matt ponders if can make a commitment with Jeffrey. After Bruce suffers a mild heart attack, Peter persuades Amanda to begin the takeover of D&D.

Alison keeps hanging out with Zach while continuing to deny that she has a drinking problem. When Billy and Susan invite Alison over for Thanksgiving to reconcile, she shows up drunk in which Alison gets so insulting that they force her to leave. Jake is visited by an extortionist and gets beaten up when he refuses to pay. Sydney investigates and becomes horrified to discover who's behind it: a revenge-seeking Chris who once again threatens Sydney that if she will not have sex with him, he'll have his thugs murder not only Jake, but Jane as well. Sydney reluctantly accepts the deal. While Kimberly is searching for alternatives in becoming a mother, she meets Jo and proposes to her a solution for the court verdict: they will fake the baby's death so Jo can leave town to raise it on her own. Meanwhile, Amanda discovers that Peter has begun taking over D&D by anonymously buying large chucks of D&D's stock. Also, Matt's parents invite him over at their house for Thanksgiving dinner, but they want to introduce Jeffrey only as a friend to the rest of the family.

Alison is arrested for drunk driving after hitting a boy. Alison then unsuccessfully tries to win back Billy, but she's more lucky in court. Jane gets $500,000 for a business expansion and give Chris (whom Jane still trusts) the job with handling the money. But Chris instead steals the money and kidnaps Sydney. Meanwhile, Amanda shatters Bruce's plan to merge D&D with a big advertising company when she publishes the information, so Bruce fires her. Kimberly's plan to be a mother takes off when she finds a stillborn baby at the hospital, so when Jo finally goes into labor and gives birth to a baby boy at the beach house, they substitute the stillborn for Jo's baby so they can get rid of the Carter's lawyer. But Jo soon learns of Kimberly's true plans the hard way.

Jo desperately tries to get her baby back from Kimberly, but since it's officially dead, she can't prove that it's hers. Meanwhile, Sydney enjoys being Chris' captive in Las Vegas. But when Sydney finally learns that the money Chris's spending and gambling away is Jane's, she calls on Jake for help. Michael, Jane and Jake fly to Las Vegas to rescue Sydney. But Chris slips away with the rest of Jane's money, leaving behind Sydney who surprisingly gets lashed out by the paranoid Jane whom accuses her of being in league with Chris, and even Jake is skeptic to Sydney's abduction story. Only Michael is silently amused by all this and tells Jane a big, plain, "I told you so" about Chris. Back in Los Angeles, Bruce creates a new management team which includes Alison, but when the takeover of D&D is complete, the majority holders (led by Peter) install Amanda as president and as a result, Bruce is dismissed and kills himself. Billy is promoted to vice president of accounts and his first assignment from the now tyrannical Amanda is to fire Alison. But an intervention of Billy, Susan and Matt finally convinces Alison that she needs help.

Jo persuades Michael to do a blood test on the baby Kimberly has which convinces him that it's Jo's child, but Michael wants to keep the baby anyway, declaring Jo an unfit mother. Peter's attitude towards Amanda changes into possessive and manipulative, so she decides to cool down their relationship. Meanwhile, Alison checks herself into Twin Oaks rehab clinic in order to prevent Billy from firing her and meets Terry Parsons, an NFL player and recovering alcoholic/sex addict who persuades her to face her troubles when she continues to deny to herself and the others in group therapy that she's an alcoholic. Susan finally leaves Billy for good after he tells her that he still has feelings for Alison, and Jake does likewise with Sydney when she confesses to him about her sexual deals with Chris to prevent him from harming him or Jane. Also, Matt asks Jeffrey to move in with him, but Jeffrey's still unsure about it.

Jo goes to Matt for help and he proves the baby theft to Peter with gathered hospital records and he forces Michael to give Jo her baby back. But Kimberly goes crazy about the event and makes a certain phone call to the Carters. In a warped-version of 'A Chirstmas Carol', Amanda insults Bruce's sister who asks for financial support. Later, Bruce's ghost appears before Amanda in her dreams and shows Amanda her lives of Christmas past, present and future if she continues living with her ruthless attitude. Bruce's ghost also tells Amanda to break up with Peter because he has another mistress and will murder Amanda to take control of D&D for himself. Meanwhile, Jeffrey decides to enjoy life and buys Matt expensive gifts. Matt tells Jeffrey that he can't cope with this style of living and decides to end their relationship for good. In rehab, Terry helps Alison face her drinking problem and declares his love for her.

Jo hires Emily, a charming Englishwoman, as a nanny to look after baby son, Austin, while she organizes her departure from L.A. But Emily is not all as she seems. Alison returns from Twin Oaks, but doesn't lose her connection to Terry and ignores Billy's offer of help. Meanwhile, Peter surprises Amanda with the employment of Caitlin Mills, an equally ruthless efficiency expert who decides to improve D&D's efficiency by firing everyone she dislikes, except for Billy whom she finds attractive and Alison, for Caitlin too is a recovering alcoholic. Also, Michael heats up his personal cold war with Peter after he finds out about illegal kickbacks that Peter is receiving from a long closed account.

In this two-hour episode, Jo recruits Jake to help her search for her missing baby after Emily, who's working for the Carters, snatches him away. But when Jo finds the Carters, they shoot her down. After Jo gets a threatening visit from the evil Mrs. Carter, she finally realizes that she can never win this war and makes a painful choice to give her baby up for adoption. Meanwhile, Peter and Caitlin are revealed to be having an affair in which they plot to get Amanda fired by tampering with her drug tests so they can have D&D all for themselves. When news of a rent increase circulates at Melrose, Sydney welcomes Rikki, a mysterious young woman to help her in paying the increased rent, and who introduces Sydney to her guru, Martin Abbott, a motivational speaker. Elsewhere, Alison accompanies Terry to a football game in Miami and gets engaged with him. Amanda asks Billy and Matt's help to prove her innocence from drug charges, but a desperate move, Peter makes an attempt to kill Amanda by having surgery performed on her. Michael saves her in the nick of time and Peter is arrested. Amanda reclaims her throne at D&D, ousting Caitlin. Also, Alison breaks off her engagement with Terry when he falls off the wagon.

Kimberly becomes nervous when the hospital's new chief-of-staff, Dr. Calvin Hobbs, issues a psychology evaluation for the employees because she knows about her psychotic tendencies. So, she resorts to hiring two thugs to beat up Matt in order to avoid taking the evaluation since Matt is coordinating the tests. Meanwhile, an unusually pail and emaciated Amanda starts giving everyone a hard time at work. Billy thinks she looks sick and asks Michael to inconspicuously examine her during a formal charity ball. Alison's sister, Meredith, arrives in town for a visit and falls for Billy. Sydney begins participating in Martin's activities, much to Jane's disapproval while at the same time, Sydney gets blamed for a series of incidents at Melrose, starting when Jo's apartment is broken into and all her camera equipment is stolen. Then, Jane's apartment is broken into and her dress designs are ruined. Then, Shooters is broken into and trashed and Jake blames Sydney, despite her watertight alibi. But the real culprit is Rikki who (acting under orders from Martin Abbott) is plotting to turn all of Sydney's friends against her to draw her closer to them.

Rikki and Martin convince Sydney to leave Melrose and come live with them at their desert retreat which turns out to be a polygamous religious cult. When Sydney decides to leave, they lock her up against her will. Meanwhile, Michael convinces Amanda, after another diagnosis, that she has Hodgkin's disease (lymph cancer). Amanda wants to keep her condition a secret and ignores Michael's request that she reduce her workload. Detective Jonathan Rawlings, a gay cop, questions Matt about his beating and when Matt tells him of his suspicions about Kimberly, Rawlings shows his true colors when he physically threatens her.

At Martin Abbott's desert retreat, Sydney tries to convince him and Rikki of her loyalties to them while she waits for another opportunity to try to escape, while Jane and Jake set out to rescue Sydney after Jane makes a background check on Martin and learns that Sydney's in a notorious cult. Back in Los Angeles, Amanda, afraid that she might lose her iron grip of power on D&D, doesn't stop working during chemotherapy, while Kimberly begins to doubt that Michael's interests in Amanda are strictly professional, while Billy also confides in Alison with Amanda's health. Meanwhile, Detective Rawlings continues hanging out with Matt and to please him about what he does for a living, he takes Jo on a photo tour through downtown L.A. where she photographs him beating up a suspected drug dealer.

Michael takes Amanda to New York City to meet with a famous oncologist in order to get her into a research program, while a jealous Kimberly tries to sabotage Michael's plans. With Amanda absent, the situation at D&D grows from bad to worse when Alison and Billy lose a client. Alison inadvertently makes matters even worse when she tells the client to stay by confiding in him about Amanda's illness. But the client leaves anyway, and more clients do so after word of Amanda's illness spreads through D&D. After Jo's apartment is broken into and trashed for the photos she took of Rawlings murdering the drug dealer, she and Matt hesitate on what to do. When Rawlings thinks that Matt and Jo will expose him to Internal Affairs, he holds both of them hostage in Matt's apartment to get them to talk to look for the photos. Meanwhile, Sydney thanks Jane and Jake for rescuing her from Martin Abbott's cult, but to her surprise neither one still wants to associate with Sydney, and worse still, neither Jane or Jake will apologize to her for thinking she was responsible for the incidents that they still mistakingly think Sydney was capable of doing. When Sydney tells Jake that she wants to get back together with him, he rebuffs her by saying that his love interest has moved to Jane, of all people.

Michael takes Amanda with him to a ranch in Santa Barbara for a few days of relaxation and to attempt to woo her. But when Kimberly accidentally finds out, she follows them there and threatens both of them with bodily harm. When Alison delivers Amanda's entry for an advertising contest, the entry coordinator, Brooke Armstrong, convinces Alison to enter the contest herself in which she befriends her and offers Brooke a job at D&D. Meanwhile, Sydney reverts back to her devious personality by declaring an all-out war when Jane refuses to back off from seeing Jake. Sydney then successfully sabotages Jake and Jane's romantic evening by going out and making Jake rescue her from rowdy patrons at a sleazy and dangerous biker bar.

After Alison wins the advertising contest, she's appointed as president of D&D, ousting Amanda. But unable to keep up with the frantic work schedule, Alison immediately adopts Amanda's ruthless and aggressive attitude which surprises even Billy when Alison seduces him and then discards him the morning after. Meanwhile, Michael decides to sue the city for $250,000 in matters of his road accident from Kimberly, so he sends her to another town and invites a very sickly and vulnerable Amanda over at the beach house to care for her and even has her pose as his wife to a visiting insurance agent. Jake and Jo travel to his home town in Washington state for his mother's funeral where they meet his older half-brother Jess, an auto mechanic who's still angry and bitter at Jake ever since he ran away from home at age 15 without saying a word, leaving Jess to care for their drunkard mother.

While Amanda is in the hospital for continue cancer treatments, Kimberly tries to bind Michael with the $100,000 settlement they receive from the city over their car accident. But Michael tricks Kimberly by having her sign divorce papers and declares his love for Amanda. Kimberly is devastated by this turn of events and decides to end it all. Meanwhile, Jess arrives in Los Angeles and surprises Jake by moving in with him and asks to give him a job a Shooters as the bartender in order to begin a new life for himself. But Sydney becomes suspicious to Jess' true motives when she sees Jess snooping around Jake's office. But eventually, Sydney decides not to say anything because she knows that nobody, not even Jake, will believe her because of her (misundersood) reputation as a sociopath and a compulsive, pathological liar. Brooke shows Billy her father's mansion as a potential photo shoot for D&D, while Alison constantly argues with Jo over the photo layout. At the end, Brooke secretly meets with Amanda who recruits her for the coming war against Alison to take back her title of president at D&D.

Michael finds Kimberly unconscious after she tries to kill herself by swallowing a whole bottle of sleeping pills and waits for her to die. But they are discovered when Sydney walks in on them. Sydney then blackmails both Michael and Kimberly for $50,000 each to help each other in fighting against the other in matters of the incident. Meanwhile, Jake competes with Jess for Jo's interests. The devious Brooke starts Amanda's plan to help her take over D&D when she manipulates Alison to give Amanda a job at the agency, and then begins to disrupt Alison's work schedule, while she also sets her sights on Billy, despite knowing about Alison's feelings for him.

For a new account, Amanda persuades Alison to use an alternate approach, knowing the client will hate it. Brooke continues to secretly peruse Billy and finally scores with him. Meanwhile, Kimberly enters a remote feminist paramilitary training camp called "No More Victims" with the aim to make herself strong against those who have hurt her. Jess continues to try to win Jo's affections by playing the poor victim to Jake's suspicions, and Jo buys it. Sydney joins Jane's Mancini Designs management as president with her recently acquired money, much to Jane's disgust. Also, Amanda find herself being lusted after by Michael who won't take "no" for an answer.

Sydney makes a suspicious deal with two new business partners for Mancini Designs for a new pantie hose. With Brooke's help, Amanda launches a successful coup against Alison by making her look incompetent to D&D's board of directors which results in Alison's dismissal and Amanda immediately taking over her position. Meanwhile, Michael threatens Amanda when he receives a restraining order from her. Kimberly get complimented out of the camp when she breaks her drill instructor's arm and returns as an unstable-as-ever person, vowing to get back at Michael for abandoning her. Matt meets the hospital's new plastic surgeon, Paul Graham, who is also gay and invites Matt out on a date. Also, Jo feels guilty about seeing Jess behind Jake's back.

Jake throws out Jess of his apartment after he hears about him and Jo being romantically involved. But Jess later runs into and hires a trio of lowlife hit men to kill Jake in revenge for his humiliation. Matt becomes angry at Paul after he learns that Paul is married. However, Paul keeps telling Matt what he will leave his wife and wants to keep dating him. Meanwhile, Kimberly begins a new plan of revenge against Michael when she persuades Amanda to sue him for malpractice. With Alison gone from D&D, Brooke has her equally devious father, Hayley, offer Alison a job as far away as possible so she can have Billy to all to herself. After finding out that the new pantie hose design is a drug smuggling operation, Sydney is pressured by a undercover cop to resign from Mancini Designs, and flee from Los Angeles, where Jane gets the last laugh and reveals it all to be a scam.

The psychotic Kimberly continues her plan of revenge when she successfully frames Michael for stalking Amanda, and later had him arrested for beating her up. While Jake is in the hospital recovering from the shooting, Jess takes over Shooters for himself, while Jo refuses to believe Jake's accusations that Jess was behind the shooting. Meanwhile, Alison arrives for her new job in Hong Kong, while Brooke forges a farewell letter from Alison to Billy in a cold tone and gets him to propose to her. Also, Paul keeps hanging around Matt wanting to spend more time with him. But for some suspicious reason, Paul doesn't keep his promise to tell his wife about him and Matt.

In the two-hour, nail-biting, cliff-hanging season final, Brooke and Billy announce their wedding plans to everyone. In Hong Kong, when Alison hears about their engagement and about the job Hayley Armstrong offered her, Alison finally realizes that Brooke had set her up to keep her away from Billy. Alison then quits her job, flies back to L.A., and after unsuccessfully trying to stop the wedding, she starts drinking again. Jake returns from the hospital and is not pleased to find Jess running his bar in which he fires Jess, who in an unconvincing tone, denies anything to do with the punks who shot Jake. Jo gives Jess a job at a construction site, but soon begins to see his possessive side. When Jane's business is foreclosed, she uses aggressive methods to gain a new investor, Richard Hart, and falls in love with him. But Richard's estranged wife, Mackenzie, doesn't approve of Jane's meddling in their business. With Michael still in jail, he recruits Sydney to follow Kimberly to find evidence that she framed him for beating her, while at the same time, Kimberly is haunted by a mysterious phantom she identifies as 'Henry' who tells her that she must kill all of her enemies. In a surprising twist, Dr. Peter Burns returns, just released from prison, and helps Michael with his legal troubles in exchange for Michael to help Peter keep his medical license from a review board. Meanwhile, Matt and Paul's renewed relationship takes a shocking turn when Matt gets arrested after Paul's wife is found murdered. But when Paul appears and identifies Matt as being the killer, Matt realizes (way too late) that Paul had been setting him up as the fall guy for his wife's murder this entire time. After Jo turns down Jess' marriage proposal, he beats her savagely and leaves her for dead, leading to a major fistfight between Jess and Jake atop the roof of a three-story construction site, which ends when both of them fall off. When Peter romances and tricks Kimberly into helping him get back his medical license, she goes over the deep end and, in a berserk rage, she abducts and tortures Sydney when she finds her following her, and rigs large incendiary bombs to destroy the Melrose apartment complex and everyone in it - once and for all.