Sam's V.O. tells us, "I was reading an article the other day, by which I mean I was watching T.V." That's my favorite magazine. What she read and/or watched was all about how you should figure out what you can't control and then control it to death. Sam and Dena are walking along, coffee cups in hand, while Sam tells Dena about the kiss, and in particular how Sam doesn't really know what Todd meant by it, since he split before they could talk. Sam talks about how he yelled at her and left. Dena: "Yup, I got yelled at by a guy once, right after he kissed me. My braces got stuck in his chewing gum. He was a bad therapist." Ha! They enter the lobby of Sam's building, where Sam worries that Todd ran home to have sex with Chloe right after the kiss while Sam spent a sleepless night trying to figure out what it all means. Dena tells Sam that love is like a dog -- you just have to let it off the leash so it can run in the mud and roll in dead animals, and if it comes back to you it was yours to begin with. Chapman, Sam's non-billionaire, non-sexy boss, is at the elevator, listening to this entire conversation. Dena leaves, and Sam gets on the elevator with Chapman. It's completely tense and awkward for about sixty floors. And then as the doors open, Chapman tells Sam, "Your friend? I want her, make it happen." Credits.
Sam follows Chapman into his office and asks if he really wants to ask Dena out. He really does -- just that morning, he wrote his last alimony check. But instead of being thrilled (like he was on the day he settled out of court with his father), he's feeling lonely and isolated. He thinks Dena's Hallmark-style views on love are exactly what he needs. Sam resists, and Chapman snaps at her, "Go to the mall!" Yes, lets's! But he's not telling her to shop -- it's just that today is the groundbreaking of the $200 million mall construction project she's been spearheading.
Cut to Sam and Andrea walking through a grassy meadow that's straight out of Pushing Daisies. Sam complains that Chapman actually started talking about his feelings: "It's like if the toaster started talking about the weather." What, yours doesn't? Andrea thinks it would be awesome if Dena ("our best friend") started dating the boss, since it would give them a chance to get all kinds of perks out of him. In particular, Andrea's got her sight set on a leather chair that molds itself to the shape of your ass. Sam wonders when Andrea started thinking of Dena as her best friend. Andrea: "Who got up in the middle of the night to pick her up when her stupid car ran out of gas?" Sam: "Uh, me?" Andrea: "Oh, so now all of a sudden you have a memory. That's very convenient." And here's Tracy, Sam's assistant, with her hard hat and golden shovel for the groundbreaking. Sam is thrilled -- until she sees a mob of protesters swarming in her general direction. She asks what they're protesting, just as one of them runs up, screams out "butterfly killer!" and jams a net over her head. And now Sam has a flashback.
Cut to Andrea and Bad Sam walking through the same field. Andrea is warning Sam that there will be all kinds of problems when she tries to build a mall in the only habitat of an endangered species of butterfly. Sam: "Parenting books. Golf. Ohio." Andrea asks her what she's talking about. Sam: "Just listing other things I couldn't give a crap about."
Back in the present, Tracy tries to remove the net from around Sam's shoulders while the crazy protester who netted her is just standing there. Where are the cops? Sam thinks she has butterfly blood on her hands. Andrea: "Oh, I don't think they have blood. They're like birds." Sam can't believe that this is going to be her legacy. She wants to tell Chapman to forget the mall, but Andrea notes that to do that she'll need a way to come up with $200 million. Sam gets a sneaky look on her face. I know where she's going, but I don't think Dena's quite worth $200 million.
Cut to Sam and Dena at the bar. Sam tells Dena that she needs to find herself a man, but Dena thinks dating is kind of dangerous, since she gets a little too stalkery a little to easily. And then Chapman shows up. Let's leave them to get to know each other while we watch some commercials.
It's the morning, at the coffee shop. Sam is asking Dena how Chapman was when Andrea shows up. (Dena thought he was great, by the way, and not at all creepy the way Sam always said he was). Sam tries to lead Andrea away, but not before she hears that Dena went on a date with Chapman. Andrea follows Sam and accuses her of pimping out Dena (said pimping being something Sam claimed she would never do). Sam thinks it would be wrong to pimp Dena out for an ass-hugging chair, but that it's okay to do it to save the butterflies. And then Dena arrives to let Sam know that Todd is lurking outside the coffee shop. Sam becomes intensely neurotic (I mean, more than usual), and breathes in Andrea's face to see if she's kissable. She has coffee breath, so she runs off to find a mint. While she's gone, Andrea starts gossiping with Dena about Chapman. But her gossip is interrupted by her own cry of pain, as she complains to Dena about the horrible crappy chair she's forced to sit in at the office.
A newly minty Sam approaches Todd outside the coffee shop. He's reading a newspaper he just took out of the vending machine. They're all awkward and stiff with each other as Sam asks Todd if anything big has happened to him recently. It turns out it has -- he's gotten a job freelancing for the newspaper, and his first photo is in that day's issue. So he runs off to call his parents.
Regina is in the kitchen at home when Sam enters. Sam is preparing to go out, and Regina asks her where she's off to. Sam tells her that she's going out with Dena, to "make topiaries." Regina, sounding wounded, asks, "You're going to Clip-Clip-Hooray?" Sam wouldn't go with Regina, but she's going now because she needs to kiss up to Dena. Sam mentions that Dena is dating Chapman, and Regina can't believe that Sam has now let both Funk and Chapman slip through her own clutches. Did she let Funk slip away? Last I remember, they were talking about a coffee date. Regina thinks that Sam clearly only wants to date the poor -- an impression that is confirmed when she hears that Sam kissed Todd.
Clip-Clip-Hooray! Andrea has joined Sam and Dena at the do-it-yourself topiary shop. Is that a real thing? Sam shows Dena the project she made. Dena guesses that it's a moose head, but it's actually a butterfly. Sam starts to make her pitch about the endangered insects when Andrea interrupts to talk about how dangerous a bad chair can be. They talk over each other until Sam shouts out "Save the butterflies!" and then explains to Dena that she needs her to speak with Chapman so he'll call off the bulldozers. And then Regina shows up to sit at the table and do her own topiary.
Sam exits the elevator at work and finds Andrea sitting in a fancy new chair by the receptionist's desk. She seems happy, but then explains that she doesn't really love the chair and is going to push for a cappuccino maker instead. Sam runs off to see what she was able to get out of Dena. As Sam approaches Chapman's office, a disheveled Dena emerges. And when I say "disheveled," I mean "lipstick smeared across half her face." Dena did speak to Chapman about the mall, but then he told her how many poor people were going to get jobs in the new mall, and Dena decided that might be more important than the butterflies. Dena leaves, and Chapman emerges, with more lipstick smeared around his mouth. Commercials.
Sam enters the break room at the office, where Andrea is doing her Price is Right modeling routine with the new espresso maker. Sam has found old plans of the mall that don't seem to require plowing over the butterfly habitat, but she can barely hear herself over the sound of the machine steaming milk.
To escape the noise, Sam runs into her own office. Unfortunately, Chapman has decided to hang out there waiting for her. He doesn't want to talk about the mall -- he wants to hear what Dena says about him. He's clearly smitten, going so far as writing a poem for her (which he tries to read before Sam cuts him off). He tells Sam that he's worried that he might be coming on too strong. So she decides to take advantage of the situation by telling him that he might be coming on too strong, but that she'll find out what Dena's thinking. What follows is a series of intercut scenes in which Sam manipulates Dena into ignoring Chapman so that he'll go crazy with desire and do whatever Sam asks him to. And it works, because Chapman agrees to do whatever Sam asks if she can just get Dena to go out with him again. What Sam wants is a delay on the mall construction. For some reason, Sam waits until she's back in the empty field standing to a bulldozer before calling Dena to tell her that it's okay to call Chapman again. As she hangs up, she tells a conveniently loitering butterfly that no matter how pretty he is, she'll gladly kill him if all the work she's doing jeopardizes her friendship with Dena.
And now we're back at the club (which I guess is also a restaurant) where Chapman and Dena are on a date. All of Sam's lies come home to roost, as Dena acts unnaturally nonchalant and Chapman gets upset about the fake ex-boyfriend of Dena's that Sam invented to make him jealous. Dena drops the act to tell Chapman that she has no idea what he's talking about.
Cut to Dena pounding on the door of Sam's house. When Sam (wine glass in hand) lets her in, Dena's first words to her are, "Shame on you!" Sam: "So many of my conversations start out like that." Dena's angry that Sam pimped her out to get what she wanted at work. Hey, Andrea's also there, drinking wine. Sam starts to make excuses, but Dena tells her not to bother explaining why she did it: "You did it because you could!" Dena continues, "I'm just glad I still have one friend I can count on. Come on, Andrea. [Chapman] is taking us to karaoke." Dena and Andrea leave Sam to stew in her own deceit, but not before Dena tells Sam that the bulldozers will be rolling in the morning. And suddenly Regina is standing there. She tells Sam, "Karaoke, with the boss? It could have been you." Commercials.
When we return, Sam has done three things. First, she's gone to the butterfly meadow. Second, she's managed to call together the protesters from earlier. Third, she's borrowed the blue butterfly wings that one of the protester's was wearing earlier. Sam is quite efficient when she sets her mind to it. Sam, bullhorn in hand, is telling the protesters that although she's the one who set the destruction of the butterflies in motion, she's now determined to stop it. Just as she's telling them that the plan is for nobody to leave until the butterflies are safe, they all start to leave. Without any explanation as to why they've suddenly abandoned their own values.
Cut to Dena (who's wearing the same dress she was wearing earlier when she was at dinner with Chapman and when she took Andrea away for karaoke), shoving Chapman into her bedroom. She's trying to simultaneously rip his clothes off and talk about her decorating choices. Chapman is quite into having his clothes taken off, but he's also really interested in the decorating, going so far as opening up a debate on the pronunciation of "wainscoting." They throw themselves down on the bed, but Chapman cools off considerably when he sees the two enormous dogs that are already on the bed, staring at him. It looks like it might be a deal breaker for Chapman, so Dena turns on the television, explaining that it will make the dogs fall asleep. When she turns on the television, the news is showing the protesters picketing the meadow in late afternoon light, chanting in favor of butterflies and rainbows. And then we cut to Sam (identified as a Chapman and Funk VP and "environmental terrorist"), standing in front of the protesters, explaining to the cameras that although she knows she'll lose her job, she's glad to do it to save the butterflies and her own soul. "When you find something that is beautiful and delicate in this world, you have to protect it. Not just use it up and shove it aside just 'cause you can." Dena, touched, tells Sam that she forgives her.
And here's Sam, alone, back at the field and bedding down in the scoop of a bulldozer. And then Regina walks up to her and lectures her about not taking care of her butterfly wings: "I know it's just a bulldozer scoop, but it does say a little bit about how you were raised." Sam picks up the bullhorn and asks why Regina is there. It turns out that she saw the news and was surprised at the feelings of pride she got at seeing Sam take a stand (although she did initially confuse the feeling of pride with the after-effects of sour cream that had gone bad). While she's talking, she wraps a scarf around Sam's neck. Sam thanks her, both for telling her she was proud and for bringing the scarf, since it's apparently getting cold. Regina: "Well, it's not for the cold. On TV your neck looked kind of creepy."
It's morning. Sam and Regina have fallen asleep in the bulldozer scoop. Sam wakes to the sound of a bulldozer engine, and is excited at the thought that she's about to take a stand for the butterflies. She uses the bullhorn to wake Regina and then stands up to throw herself in front of the bulldozer. Only to discover that the scoop she was in wasn't actually attached to the bulldozer in front of her, and that other machines are already busy crushing butterflies.
Cut to Sam, clearly just fired, carrying her box of possessions out of the office. Her voiceover tells us that the hardest thing about trying to change is just figuring out what things are in your control and what things aren't. She looks into the box, and sees a picture of herself with Miss Piggy. I'm sorry, my mistake -- it's actually a picture of Todd. But he's got long hair and squinty eyes, and his nose is looking a lot like a snout. What I'm saying is, what did Barry Watson do to piss off the props department?
And now Sam and her box are standing in front of her apartment building. She's asking Frank to please let her know whether Chloe is up in the apartment so she can know whether it's safe to speak to Todd. Frank has clearly been taking some classes on doorman ethics, because he refuses to tell her anything. Sam threatens him by telling him that she's now free to wait there all day to run into Todd. Frank: "That's not very impressive. I wait here all day, every day." Yeah, but do you do it with Sam nattering in your ear? Because I think that's the real threat. Just then, Todd exits the building and almost bumps into Sam. He tries to sneak off, but Sam stops him. Todd is feeling guilty, because he apologizes for freaking out when he saw Sam at the coffee shop. He felt bad about the kiss, but didn't know how to tell her, so he made up the newspaper freelance job to get away from her. He explains that he shouldn't have kissed her, since he's dating Chloe and wants to give that relationship a chance. So Sam grabs him and kisses him. And then she shoves him to the ground and tells him, "Lose some sleep over that." As she walks away, her voiceover tells us that the hardest thing is figuring out that some things just aren't meant to be, while things that are meant to be will work out no matter how badly you try to screw them up. And then she sees a bunch of the endangered butterflies, who apparently are just as happy living on the streets of Chicago as they are in a beautiful meadow. Take that, environmentalists! Credits.