Absolutely Fabulous

Saffy has moved home, she hopes only temporarily as she plans to move out whenever she gets a job. She has an interview at the house for a job to parlay her volunteer work for New Labour into a paying gig, it not clear if the moving out or getting this job of greater priority. Meanwhile, Eddie has diversified her brand, her hands, as she describes it, in more pies, although she hasn't increased the amount of work she actually does. She has a new partner in Bubble's overly confident cousin, Katy Grin, who will try and steal the spotlight whenever she can. But it is Eddie who will be hitting the airwaves in having scheduled relatively new client Twiggy to appear on Richard & Judy (2001) with her. Patsy has been using a new filler called Parralox, its original purpose and Patsy's frozen-looking face which gives hints on just how strong it is. Patsy tries to convince Eddie, against Saffy's vehement objections, to use Parralox to look her best on the show. Meanwhile, Saffy can't figure out why her hands are feeling somewhat paralyzed. Could it be sympathy pains for Patsy, or is it something more?

When Saffy hires a handsome young man to do the Monsoons' garden, Patsy recognizes him as Jago Balfour, the younger brother of a friend of hers who died of a drug overdose, leaving Jago the family mansion and its grounds. Gold-digging Eddie immediately pounces on Jago.

Patsy gets the chance to relive her days as a model on a photo shoot in Paris with top model Erin O'Connor. Eddie comes along for a mother/daughter fashion spread, but fails to persuade any glamorous young actress to play her daughter, so she drags Saffy into it. Patsy gets edged out of the picture by younger models and a glamorous photographer, and Eddie goads Saffy to do something totally out-of-character atop the Eiffel Tower.

Eddie is worrying about her weight again, seeing herself as the "donkey" of her social circle, a fact that her bitchy friends endorse, so she goes on a punishing diet-and-exercise regimen which Saffy and Patsy oppose for different reasons. She even dreams that God and the Devil offer their own comments. Saffy is encouraged to write a play by Taylor, an actor friend seeking to revive his career.

Eddie's current preoccupation is to become famous. That focus quickly changes when she receives what she believes is a missed telephone call from Serge, whose whereabouts she doesn't but would desperately like to know. That focus again changes when she discovers the missed call had nothing to do directly with Serge, but had to do with what she learns is Saffy's new project: she has written an autobiographical play, "Self-Raising Flour", which has a one week run and which centers on her growing up with Eddie as her mother. Such a play is the one way Eddie does *not* want to become famous, all the others in the family knowing what her reaction would be in they having known about the play and directed not to mention anything to her. Eddie does whatever she can to stop the production. If the show does go on, she at least vows not to attend. But if it does end up making it to a premier, will curiosity be too much for Eddie to handle?

Bubble accidentally sends most of Eddie's clients' details to rival Claudia Bing, who poaches them, including Twiggy, who is annoyed because Eddie's mother has been stalking her, confusing her with Madonna. Eddie sacks Bubble, but ends up back in business thanks to Katy Grin's unlikely intervention. Meanwhile, Saffy encourages Eddie to attend Menopausal Anonymous with Patsy, who has been diagnosed with osteoporosis. After the meeting, Patsy announces that she is pregnant from Mick Jagger's sperm, which she bought at an auction.

With Patsy focused on a new job, and Saffy preoccupied with her new "observant" studies, Eddie, beyond using Cold War era methods of training Bubble to be a production assistant, feels a bit lost for what to do, which makes her mind wander to thoughts of Serge. When Eddie, Patsy, Saffy, Mother, Marshall and Bo convene, the latter two who now run a Christian ministry in London complete with an evangelical television show, it comes to light that they all without telling Eddie have known some key pieces of information about Serge, namely that he is living in New York City and arguably one of the primary reasons for him leaving being that he is gay. Regardless, Eddie is determined to find him and is accompanied by Patsy to New York. But as their quest to find Serge with what few pieces of information that they have, including that he works at what they assume is a gay club, Eddie builds up in her mind the perfect gay Serge which may or may not match reality.