List of Not Going Out episodes

Lee starts a job writing jokes for Christmas crackers. He is lodging in publisher Kate's (Megan Dodds) Docklands flat. She is the ex-girlfriend of his best friend Tim Adams (Tim Vine). Kate arranges a dinner date between Lee and author Lucy Moss with the intent to find his serious side, which fails. Whilst Lee is out with Lucy, Tim comes to the flat to apologise to Kate for cheating on her with 23-year-old Emma, but they end up insulting each other. Lee stops seeing Lucy when she overhears him insulting her. He is sacked from his job when one of his funeral jokes is accidentally put in a cracker. Kate starts a course to learn clowning skills, but struggles to find her 'inner clown'. She is expelled for throwing water over the instructor and throwing a custard pie down her trousers.

Tim's 94-year-old grandmother has died, and as Kate comforts him, the two grow closer. She and Lee accompany him to the funeral. Meanwhile, Lee is encouraged by Kate to visit a therapist (Lorelei King), who quickly begins to suspect that Lee is secretly in love with Kate, and suggests that he talk to her about it. Lee turns up unexpectedly at the funeral with the intention of telling Kate how he feels, but Tim interrupts before he can. Whilst Lee is getting drinks, Tim tries to rekindle his relationship with Kate, but she turns him down, saying that she does not want to get back together. Kate then leaves, and Tim suggests that Lee goes after her, but Lee instead decides to stay at the funeral with Tim. That evening, Kate asks Lee what he was going to tell her, but he says that it can wait.

Ruth, an Australian friend of Kate's, comes to stay. Kate persuades Lee to pretend to be Tim and explains that Ruth has never met Tim and that she has not told Ruth that the couple has split up. At the pub, Lee argues with Tim about how easy it is to impersonate a middle-class person, like Tim, but Tim finds it harder to the same with a working-class man, like Lee. When Tim visits the flat, he impersonates Lee badly with a strong Northern accent. Tim tells Ruth who he and Lee actually are. Lee's new job is handing out leaflets at a shopping centre whilst dressed in animal costumes. He is frequently kicked by a local youth. He is sacked for throwing the youth in a canal.

Kate's friends are attending a wedding in the Caribbean, so their surly 14-year-old goth son Nicky is staying at the flat for a few days. He is hostile to Lee. He takes Nicky to the pub, where they meet Tim. Nicky and Tim share the same taste in heavy metal music. Kate takes her friends' Great Dane to the park, where it kills a swan. Nicky wants Kate and Tim to get back together, but thinks that Lee is attracted to Kate; Lee says that he is not.

Kate is pressuring Lee to find a permanent job. To prove a point, Lee is offered a job as a caretaker in the same block of flats, which involves moving into a room on the ground floor. He is hesitant to accept the job, but Tim encourages him to do so, claiming that Kate will have more respect for him. Lee accepts the offer and moves out. However, Tim's actual plan is to convince Kate to offer Lee's room to a new female flatmate, removing her from all male attention. Kate advertises the flat, but her first applicant is an intelligent and attractive man who would be a rival to both Lee and Tim. Tim urges Lee to move back in as quickly as he can. Lee puts off Kate's potential new flatmate by telling him that she likes to do something unpleasant involving fish. He asks Kate to move back in with her, which she does. She tells him that she has heard about Lee's fish story, producing one from behind a cushion and whacking him with it.

With Kate having gone back to America, Tim tells Lee he is going to sell the flat, and hires Barbara (Miranda Hart) to clean it. Lee tries to get a mortgage so he can buy it, and in the meantime he puts off all the potential buyers, until Lucy (Sally Bretton), who unbeknown to Lee is Tim's sister, arrives saying she will rent the spare room when Lee buys it. Lucy soon decides she wants to buy it herself, and both offer to buy it from Tim. They are visited by a man called Hilary Alison (Stewart Francis), and both assume he is interested in the flat. Lee pretends it is "a burgled former asbestos mill" to put him off. Tim decides to sell it to Lee, but he cannot get a mortgage (Hilary was the surveyor) so Lucy buys it. On Tim's wishes, she rents out the spare room to Lee.

Lucy persuades Lee to pretend to be gay after she lies to a business acquaintance, Guy (Simon Dutton), a man in his early fifties whom she was told is gay, by telling him she lives with a gay lodger to prove she is not homophobic. However, Guy soon starts to get suspicious and tests Lee's sexual orientation by taking him to a gay bar. Later, Guy overhears Lee saying to Tim, who had started to think Lee was gay, that he is not gay. When Lucy then explains to Guy what happened, he reveals he is not gay and he and Lucy kiss.

With Guy in Thailand, Lucy has several intimate telephone conversations with him. Lee is annoyed by this, but Lucy and Barbara think that he is jealous because he is not with anyone, and they persuade Lee to go speed dating. At the speed dating, Lee meets Daisy (Katy Wix), an extremely dim - but likeable - hairdresser. He invites her out for a date and then for a dinner with Lucy at his apartment. Meanwhile, Tim offends Barbara by calling her 'the help' and invites her out for a drink to make it up to her. The 'date' is unsuccessful and Barbara admits that she only agreed to come out with him because she felt sorry for him – and also to keep him away from what is happening at the flat. Tim goes back to the flat and meets Daisy, and they immediately hit it off. After the dinner, Daisy dumps Lee and goes home with Tim.

Guy is taking Lucy on a surprise holiday and buys her many expensive clothes. Lee becomes suspicious when a package is delivered to Guy, and assumes that Guy is a gangster. However, when confronted, Guy claims it was only his passport. Lee and Tim break into Guy's office and discover several precious stones in the package. Guy admits that it was not a passport he had delivered, and says that the clear stones are white sapphires, which he is going to make into a necklace for Lucy. Still suspicious, Lee steals one and has it valued at £10,000, and confirms that it is a diamond. The surprise holiday is revealed to be to Sicily. When Guy and Lucy go to the airport, Barbara warns Lee and Tim that Sicily is famous for gangsters, and that Guy is using Lucy to smuggle the diamonds abroad. Lee and Tim run to the airport and confront Guy, but he explains that the sapphires are real and that the diamond is the only one – and has been made into an engagement ring. Guy asks Lucy to marry him, but Lee asks her to say no – he may not be a gangster, but he is still not right for her. Lee returns to the flat alone, but Lucy later returns, saying she refused Guy as he was too controlling, and their relationship is over.

Lee decides not to go home for Christmas in the hope that the opportunity will present itself to seduce Lucy. Lucy and Tim's parents Geoffrey (Timothy West) and Wendy (Deborah Grant) invite themselves to the flat for Christmas, and Lucy persuades Barbara to work on Christmas Day for £100. On Christmas Day, Tim brings his girlfriend Daisy. Lee buys a murder mystery game, which they all dress up to play. However, the game ends abruptly when Wendy flirts with Lee and Tim and Geoffrey argue. Lee then manages to bond with Geoffrey and they finish the game. Lucy (who was to sleep on the sofa whilst her parents had her room) appears to ask Lee to sleep in with her, but Lee realises she means just him, whilst she has his room.

When Lucy announces to Lee that she is pregnant, he wonders if the father might accidentally be him - as a result of him ejaculating in the bath before she took a bath in it soon afterwards. However, he cannot bring himself to tell Lucy how he thinks it might have happened, but Tim guesses, and he is infuriated at the thought of his friend and his sister together. However, Lee has started to warm to the idea of being a father. Lucy reveals to him that she did not think she was pregnant, and that she made up the story after seeing him masturbate in the bath.

Over-excited by the appearance of Amy (Melanie Gutteridge) and her lesbian partner Alex in their building, Lee and Tim ask them over for dinner, but when the day comes, Amy arrives alone, having split from Alex. When Amy meets Lucy, they instantly connect and begin to spend a lot of time together. Lee is worried that Lucy and Amy may become a couple, and eventually confronts Lucy. Lucy admits that she is having feelings for Amy, but tells Lee it is none of his business. She later kisses Amy but realises that she is not interested in her. Tim tracks down a former girlfriend, Lola (Angela McHale), who is now openly gay. He is shocked to see that her online profile says she knew she was gay after one kiss and is convinced that she means him. He meets up with Lola and asks her, but is relieved when she tells him she meant the first girl she kissed. However, he becomes worried again when it turns out that the girl was another one of his former girlfriends.

When Tim and Lee try to organise a surprise party for Lucy's 30th birthday, their ideas of what makes a good party differ widely. Tim likes a few games of charades while Lee likes a party with no competitors for Lucy's attention. So when Lucy turns up at the party arm-in-arm with another man (Ed Weeks), Lee makes it his mission to get rid of him... without causing a scene.

A new neighbour (Andy Linden) moves in upstairs and his constant noise drives Lucy to distraction. She begs Lee and Tim to get him to stop but neither of them is man enough. Tim rushes off to join a boxing gym while Lee, in an attempt to impress Lucy, makes the mistake of confronting the man in his own flat, where he finds a creepy psychopath with the eyes of a cold killer.

Lee is horrified when he hears that Lucy is considering marriage to Pavlov (Aleksander Mikic), a political refugee from the old Eastern bloc who is a local mechanic, just so that he can stay in the country. He initially gets Tim, Geoffrey and Wendy on his side, but, as Lucy's family meet Pavlov and hear his tragic tales of life back home, they are each persuaded that he is a perfect match for Lucy. Lucy and Pavlov plan their wedding, but Lee visits the Home Office to discover the questions that they will ask when inspecting the couple. When he warns Lucy of the cryptic questions she will be asked, she has second thoughts about the wedding. Lee goes to visit Pavlov himself, and Pavlov realises that the idea is bad and agrees to return to his home country. However, Lee comes up with the idea for Barbara to marry Pavlov instead, and the two drive off for their honeymoon in India.

After an unsuccessful Christmas dinner with her parents, Lucy is cross with Lee's behaviour, and Barbara tells him he should make more of an effort with Lucy. He arranges a special dinner for them, and it seems to go well, until his estranged father Frank (Bobby Ball) turns up at the flat unannounced, asking to borrow £500. Lee wants him out of the flat but when Frank announces that he is dying, Lucy tells Lee that if he really has changed, he will make an effort to get to know Frank before the inevitable. Lee offers Frank a day out, and after a visit to a lap-dancing club, Frank takes Lee back to the theme park where he once stole Lee a goldfish and later ate it. On a roller-coaster, Frank admits that he is not really dying, and soon after leaves the flat, giving Barbara a more emotional farewell than Lee. Lucy admits that Lee was right all along, and they share a brief kiss under the mistletoe.

Final appearance of: Barbara. First recurring appearance of: Frank

After a night out, Tim returns home from a nightclub wearing the wrong coat. After discovering a large quantity of cocaine in a pocket, he panics. When he returns the coat to the wrong person (Frankie McGinty), the real owner of the coat - Larry the butcher Stubbs - sees him with the coat and is angry. Tim and Lee buy what they think is cocaine from a street dealer to give to Larry, while Daisy thinks they have a drug habit after seeing them with the cocaine. They visit Larry, where they discover that what they think is cocaine is in fact washing powder, which Tim spent his £8,000 savings on. Larry hangs Lee and Tim upside down using rope. Daisy arrives with a malfunctioning nail gun which accidentally fires many times - hitting Stubbs and breaking the ropes, enabling Lee and Tim to escape.

Lucy is fed up of Lee treating her flat as if he owns it, especially after he has a barbecue in it. He promises to change but omits to mention that he has already let the flat out to a film director (Mike Wilmot), who is paying Lee £500 to use the flat while Lucy is out at work. It later turns out the film shooting is for a porno, and Lee tries to get them out of the flat before Lucy returns. Tim finds out about the filming when he unexpectedly walks in on it, but Lee persuades him it is a thriller, causing him to ask for a bit part or he will tell Lucy. Tim finds out it is porn and leaves, after which the male lead Rod leaves, causing the director to pressure Lee to play the part. Lucy arrives home while Lee is hanging upside down.

Additional material: Simon Evans, Paul Kerensa, Dave Cohen, Simon Griffiths, David Isaac, Liam Woodman, Milton Jones

Lucy and Tim's parents, Geoffrey (Geoffrey Whitehead) and Wendy, are separating because Geoffrey would not let Wendy go ballroom dancing. After an unfortunate heart-to-heart with Geoffrey, Lee unintentionally makes him realise he wants to leave Wendy and he moves into Lucy's flat, banishing Lee to the sofa and causing Lucy to threaten to evict Lee if her parents do not get back together. Lee speaks to Wendy, who tells him that while she wants to dance with another man, what she actually wants is an affair. Lee tells the others about their conversation, using 'dance' as a euphemism, but no-one understands and they all think Wendy just wants to dance with someone. They all decide Lee would be the perfect man to dance with her. Lee reluctantly agrees, but when the dance is in full swing, Geoffrey runs in and punches Lee, saying that he realised he could not bear to let Wendy dance with another man. Geoffrey and Wendy get back together.

First appearance of Geoffrey Whitehead as Geoffrey Adams

An old woman, Betty (Vilma Hollingbery), wanders into Lucy's flat and sits next to Lee on the sofa. Betty does not know who or where she is, so Lee throws her out. Lucy makes him bring her back, though she thinks she had sex with him. Betty says that she has a rich son who always pays a reward to the person who brings her home, which Lee intends to use to buy fireworks. Lee and Tim take Betty around the streets to try to find someone who recognises her. A friend of hers (Morris Perry) tells them where she lives, which they discover is a rest home. Lee is disappointed when he finds out that there is no reward; her son lives abroad and has little contact with her.

Lee invites Lucy to watch greyhound racing with him, but she declines. Shortly after, Lee is hit by a car which places him in a coma. As Lucy, Tim and Daisy gather around his hospital bed, Lee dreams of a life with Lucy, where in quick succession she declares her love for him, they have sex together, she becomes pregnant and puts on a lot of weight, they marry, Lucy gives birth to many children, Lee is forced take a menial job, they split up and Lee haplessly turns the flat into a lap-dancing club. Throughout the dream, Lee's father, Frank re-appears in various costumes. In the hospital room, as Lee shows no signs of recovery, Lucy calls Frank. In the dream, Lee reconciles with Lucy, but just as they are about to get back together, the real Frank arrives at the hospital and Lee wakes up. Delighted by his full recovery, Lucy accepts his racing invitation.

Lee's weekend is wrecked when Frank turns up unexpectedly. Having just come out of the hospital with his legs and arms in plaster, he needs somewhere to stay for the weekend, leaving Lee to care for him. When Lee realises that Frank needs a suppository inserting, he invites Tim, Daisy and Geoffrey round 'to watch the cricket', when his actual motive is to get one of them to administer the suppository. Geoffrey eventually agrees to do the deed, but all three of them, plus Lucy, criticise Lee for his lack of care for his dad. Frank suggests he and Lee pretend to like each other in order to impress Lucy, and she is impressed by his new-found attitude. Frank manipulates Lee into agreeing to allow him to stay for longer, but instead reveals that he has been faking his injuries. Lucy congratulates Lee on the care he showed for his father.

Lucy is working on a government initiative encouraging men to regularly check themselves for testicular lumps. Lee follows the campaign's advice and discovers they are swollen. He talks about it to Tim, who tries to convince him to see his doctor and tell Lucy, but Lee does not and lies to her that everything is fine. After Tim looks at them, Lee visits his doctor but is put off by the fact that she is female. Lee and Tim go to a sauna, to look at men's testicles, but it does not go as planned. Lucy convinces Lee to re-visit the doctor after she finds him on a gay porn site when trying to see average testicle sizes, at first thinking he is gay. He agrees but realises the male doctor is one of the men from the sauna. Lee discovers he has a hydrocele.

Lucy had a mild indiscretion whilst drunk and claims to have no memory of the event, which Lee doubts. Lucy suggests that she and Lee embark on an experiment with a bottle of homemade potato hooch to prove that you can remember what happens when you are drunk. The next day they wake up naked in bed together and think they had sex. They decide not to tell anybody, but it transpires that Tim and Daisy came round and they may have made a sex tape with Tim's video camera. Lee and Lucy check the tape in the camera, but it is a video of Tim and Daisy's Spanish holiday. As Daisy was supposed to have taken this home, Lee and Lucy realise that she has taken the sex tape by accident. Lucy phones Daisy and convinces them to wait until the following day when they can all watch it together. In the middle of the night, Lee and Lucy sneak into her parents' house to steal the sex tape but are caught and her parents decide that they will all watch the tape together. The tape reveals that Lucy set up the premise of having sex together on purpose so that Lee would think that they did, thereby proving her point that you can forget things when you are drunk. Lee counters that he knew this, as he was sober all night.

When Lucy accidentally runs over a female pet rabbit belonging to Sophie, the daughter of important client Paul, she needs Lee and Daisy to help cover her tracks. Lucy asks Lee to take the blame. When Lee gives it to Paul, he rejects it as not Sophie's. It turns out she had hit the rabbit, but gave Lee a dead wild rabbit that was nearby which she wrongly assumed was the pet. Lucy and Lee buy a rabbit from a pet shop to replace it, but Paul realises that it is also not Sophie's, because it is male. Tim has moved to Germany on a work placement.

Lee, Lucy and Daisy are on a skiing holiday in Eastern Europe. Lucy's arms are in plaster, having been broken in an accident with a luggage carousel. On a cable car, Daisy accidentally jams the mechanism with a ski whilst trying to get rid of a bird, and Lee accidentally jams it further with the other ski whilst trying to dislodge the first one. At this point, a heavily pregnant woman on board (Pooky Quesnel) goes into labour. Lee and Daisy successfully calm her down, but this speeds up the labour. As Lucy is unable to move her arms and the woman does not trust Daisy, it is up to Lee to deliver the baby. He eventually manages to deliver it, but she then reveals she is expecting [triplets]]. Fortunately, help arrives before Lee has to deliver the other babies.

When Lucy enrols at night school on a training course in counselling, Lee takes advantage of her new-found skill to try to patch things up with his father Frank. This brings up childhood issues and Frank says that Lee caused his parents to separate.

Lee attempts to stop Lucy from flirting with male delegates at a three-day annual trade conference, which she does in order to gain contracts. He takes obstructive action by posing as her husband, and then father. This pretence becomes more difficult to sustain when Lucy's mother Wendy, and later Lucy's father Geoffrey, turn up at the conference. Geoffrey accuses Lee of trying to seduce his wife and Lucy. A client whom Lucy invites to her hotel room is punched by Geoffrey when Geoffrey knocks at the door and walks in, seeing Lucy and Wendy in the room.

Lee decides that the best way to get Lucy to become attracted to him is to make her jealous. Daisy sets him up with Rachel (Joanna Bobin), a Fatal Attraction-style psychopath who proceeds to stalk him. Rachel soon discovers Lee's attraction to Lucy and threatens to tell Lucy if he does not go on another date with her very soon. Daisy showcases various superhero and supervillain outfits for an upcoming hen do. After Lee stops dating Rachel, she enters the flat holding a large kitchen knife, then Daisy knocks her to the ground.

When Lucy's first love Scott (Simon Farnaby) reappears after 19 years and asks her to be in a play that he wrote for her, Lee has to fight for her attention, which ends badly. He believes that Scott is after her and created this play to win her over. After Lee is dismissed from the cast for being difficult, he appears on the night of the performance secretively taking back his role and ends the play with a shock which not even the cast knew about - dropping Scott through a trap door.

Additional material: Simon Evans, Paul Kerensa, Dave Cohen, Simon Griffiths, Liam Woodman, David Isaac

Lucy's nine-year-old goddaughter, Nancy, is suddenly dumped on her by Nancy's mother on the night before the girl's birthday party, after a fire at Nancy's house. Lucy and Lee have to arrange entertainment. Despite disliking Nancy, Lee arranges a magic show for Nancy and her 12 friends. He goes to a magic shop to get what he needs. The magician did not receive the cash which Lee sent Daisy to deliver, so he takes the equipment just before the show. Daisy placed a successful bet with the money, which Lee uses to take Lucy and Nancy to a JLS concert, where Nancy reveals that she started the fire.

On the way home from the cinema, Lee and Lucy go down a dark alley and run into three teenage muggers, led by Razor (Joshua Pascoe), who steal Lucy’s handbag. To get it back, Lee is to fight with one of them and he is desperate to prove his masculinity to impress her. When the police are no help he attempts to take up boxing. When Lee has a chance to show how well he is doing, he gets Lucy and Daisy to watch him try fighting someone but ends up against a little girl, in which he loses. He once more tries to get the bag back (by bribing Razor with £100) but it's the final straw as it ends badly and Razor steals the money without returning the bag. Razor's grandmother (Joan Linder) (who turns out to be the receptionist at the boxing club) drags him to the flat and forces him to return the goods to Lucy, but when Lee comes in and sees him handing over the knitting needles, he attacks Razor, thinking that he is threatening Lucy. Razor's grandmother beats Lee up in retaliation.

Finding an appropriate gift for the Christening party of their new neighbours', Toby (Hugh Dennis) and Anna (Abigail Cruttenden), baby becomes problematic when their custom-made plate with the baby's footprint unexpectedly depicts six toes. Unaware of the child's real number of toes they end up taking him out and realise it was a mistake and it was the wrong foot. But when it turns out that again the wrong foot was printed they turn up to the party in a very awkward situation. Lucy smashes the plate before Toby and Anna are able to see it.

First regular appearance of Toby and Anna.

Lucy is getting more and more desperate for a baby, but instead of waiting for a relationship she decides to look for a sperm donor and become a single mother. Her original choice is a colleague (Timothy Knightley) - but after she worries about not knowing him well enough, she chooses Lee instead. Lee feels uncomfortable about the offer but does not want to upset Lucy, so he agrees on the condition that her parents agree - Lucy eventually persuades them, as well as Frank. Lee turns up at the clinic in a nervous state ready for his donor, but when he puts the porn DVD on, he keeps imagining faces of people he knows speaking to him as the performer on the video, which puts him under more pressure. He then anxiously gives up and lies to Lucy that he has a problem and is unable to do the donation. Then it leaves Lee and Lucy with no choice but to have intercourse, but Lee ejaculates prematurely. Lucy ultimately accepts that it is not time yet, and she will wait until she is in a relationship.

When Lucy lies to impress and befriend Toby and Anna, the new neighbours, Lee has to do the same. So he organises a meal at the flat for them all and pretends he works at a bank and is quite rich. Then Anna invites Lee and Lucy to a night out at a posh restaurant with live music. The group go out for the meal but Lee is acting strange about his fake job as a rich bank worker when Anna continues to ask questions. Then he becomes too drunk and admits he does not really have a job and is not rich.

Daisy signs up to be on the quiz show Pointless and is accepted. So she chooses Lucy to be her partner, but then she is tricked by Lee into allowing him to be her partner on the quiz show after he pretends to have a lot of knowledge. The pair appears on the show but eliminated in the first round. On their second chance, Lee follows Richard Osman into his dressing room and finds the answer cards laying on the table, so Daisy and Lee memorise the answers. Lee and Daisy make it to the final but Richard Osman is certain that they must be cheating, so they give the pair a question about Shakespeare in the final round, which leaves them both in an awkward situation.

Guest appearances of Alexander Armstrong and Richard Osman as themselves.

When Lee and Lucy confront Lee's father Frank about his alcohol consumption, he returns the sentiment. Frank invites Lee and Lucy to go to Frank's club where people confront their alcoholism, after Frank gives them the impression that they might be alcoholics themselves.

Lucy organizes a surprise party for her parents' wedding anniversary and she insists it must remain a secret. Lee struggles to keep Geoffrey away from the flat while a party planner called Mario is organising the arrangements with Lucy. Lee cannot hide it any longer and tells Geoffrey about the surprise party and he insists that it is cancelled. Lee tries to stop the surprise party from taking place and things become awkward.

After being pressured by Frank, Lee gets drunk on the night before his and Lucy's wedding, which causes serious problems for Lee and Frank, along with Lucy's father, Geoffrey, after the police find that the ring that belongs to Geoffrey is actually stolen. Will the three of them make it to the church on time for Lee and Lucy's wedding day?

Additional material: Simon Evans, Paul Kerensa, Dave Cohen, Simon Griffiths, Liam Woodman, David Isaac

One year on from the wedding, it is Christmas Eve and a heavily pregnant Lucy is three days overdue with their first baby. Lee is excited about being a father, but worries about his abilities to do a better job than his own father. Lee and Lucy arrive at a department store where Frank is working as an elf to pick up Daisy, who they are planning to spend Christmas with. Lucy had intended to wait in the car but is forced to come in when Lee feels uncomfortable about buying her Vagisil. Whilst there, they bump into Toby and Anna, who are doing their Christmas shopping whilst baby Jack is in Lapland with his grandparents. Frank invites them all to join him for a drink, even though the store is about to close, as he has an arrangement with the security guards, Bill and Mike. Unbeknownst to the group, a robber wearing a Father Christmas latex mask has taken the security guards hostage.

After eight years of marriage, Lee and Lucy disagree over how to keep the romance alive.

Reluctantly, Lucy allows Lee’s father, Frank, to babysit and, surprisingly, he does a good job - until Lucy and Lee believe that he swore in front of Benji, who repeats it outspokenly to Anna. Lucy then wishes she had not had Frank round to babysit and asks Lee to confront Frank with using that language in front of the kids, but Lee does not. Later, Frank returns to the house to thank Lee and Lucy but when Lucy thought that Lee had told Frank about the concern, he denies swearing. Geoffrey and Anna also arrive, and Benji tells the family that it was Geoffrey whom he heard say it. Toby and Anna arrive, and Lucy rants and swears at all of them - not realising that the kids are standing behind her.

It is Christmas Eve, and Lee and Lucy face a possible yuletide disaster when they discover the perfect present they have bought for their children has already been gifted to them by their grandparents.

As a surprise for Lee's birthday, Lucy invites Geoffrey and Wendy, Toby and Anna, and Lee's dad Frank to join them in an escape room. This proves to be something none of them will easily forget, with Lee being handcuffed to a bomb, a 'traitor' in the room, and Toby's work life called into question. Geoffrey and Frank argue over class superiority and intelligence, even though Frank solves most of the clues in the room. It appears that the bomb is about to explode; when it does not, Lee reveals that he set it all up.

After a comment from a saleswoman in a clothes shop, Lucy expresses to Lee her unhappiness with her sagging breasts. After talking to Anna, who tells her that she had a breast augmentation after her son was born, Lucy contemplates having her breasts surgically improved.

For the first time, Not Going Out is broadcast live on BBC One, in a festive special where Lee and Lucy participate in a local Christmas variety show, entitled "Ding Dong Merrily On Live". Lee and Lucy book famed knife thrower Juan as an act, but when Juan flirts with Lucy, whom he plans to make his assistant during his segment of the show, Lee writes fake bad reviews to damage Juan's popularity. Juan finds out, and quits. Toby and Anna end up performing the elements song, but cannot remember the words, make many mistakes and become angry with each other.

Toby has pressured Lee, Lucy, Anna, Frank, Geoffrey and Wendy into taking part in a sponsored skydive with him to raise money for their local children's hospital, despite most of them being terrified at the prospect. However, when they discover just before the jump that one parachute has gone missing, they each try to make a convincing case for why they should or should not take part. The power struggle escalates when Lee revealed he did it all on purpose. Wendy, Toby, Anna, Lucy jump individually. The pilot says that the plane is going to crash. Frank jumps, and Geoffrey lets Lee use the remaining parachute. The pilot and instructor reveal to Geoffrey that there was no problem with the plane and that it was a ploy to make them jump from it. Geoffrey is pleased that he will seem heroic and will not need to jump. The pilot gives Geoffrey his parachute.

Lee and Lucy have gone on what is supposed to be a relaxed weekend away in a countryside cottage with Toby and Anna, but the couples are very unsuited to holidaying together. When they start trying too hard to get their way, followed by acting too nice to make up for it, Lee and Lucy decide to play them at their own game, framed by a series of lies about their relationship. Lies have never treated Lee and Lucy well, however, and it is not long before the facts begin to unravel.

Lee is outraged to find out that the twins have already started sex education in school and so, despite the urgings of Lucy and their teacher, he determines to teach them what he knows about the subject instead. His attempts fail due to his lack of knowledge and discomfort at telling them, causing the twins to repeat misleading things from Lee at school. Lucy tells him she is disappointed with his sexual performance with her, so he studies the subject. When the twins walk in on the couple during sex without the couple realising until afterwards, it is discovered that they have assumed that their parents' sexual roleplay is a usual part of sex.

When Lee sits down with Lucy to join in watching a TV programme she enjoys, she is quickly driven mad by his constant talking. However, Lee is most concerned about how he cannot remember the name of one of the actors, and his initial concern turns to genuine panic when Lucy mentions a history of dementia in his family.

Lee is accused by Lucy of breaking a vase which was given to her by Geoffrey's mother. Lee invites Anna, Toby, Frank, Geoffrey and Wendy round to find the real culprit. As Lee questions them, various revelations are uncovered about each of their associations with the vase, discovering from Geoffrey that he substituted it for one of similar appearance which he bought for £8.99. Toby reveals that he broke the vase that Geoffrey bought. Lucy and Toby reveal that she was going to sell the original vase to a friend of Toby's for £3,000. Lee is relieved and pleased at finding out the truth - until seconds later he accidentally knocks the vase to the ground, shattering it.

Lucy and the kids are staying at Geoffrey and Wendy's house whilst Lee is left in the house with Dave (Steve Oram), a builder whom Lee and Lucy have hired to refit their kitchen. However, Dave is lazy and it is clear that the job will not be completed in time. Lee's attempts to persuade Dave to speed up fail. Lee persuades Anna to pose as Lucy. Anna pressures Dave to speed up his work, which Dave reacts to by quitting. Lee and Toby finish the job themselves, but due to their severe lack of building skills many things in the kitchen collapse shortly after Lucy arrives home.

Lee loses his phone when out trick-or-treating with his family and goes back alone, dressed as a zombie, in the middle of the night, to retrieve it. However, when Lee ends up locked in the imposing old manor house, in which a mysterious old woman lives alone, he quickly realises that not only could he be mistaken for a burglar, but the slightest shock could kill her. Frank arrives and becomes trapped alongside him. As they are about to leave, the two men see two burglars in the house. After a confrontation between them, the police arrive and arrest the burglars.

A New Years' Eve get-together at Lee and Lucy's turns sour, as - under threat of the traditional celebration trifle being turned into a weapon, and in an attempt to start the new year without conflict - everyone is encouraged to come up with resolutions - but for each other.

When Lee accidentally opens a package for one of his neighbours and finds a penis enlarger inside instead of the phone he was expecting, the simple task of uniting the package with its rightful owner proves to be impossible as his guilt and embarrassment get the better of him. Soon, Lee is lying that Lucy has a twin sister, only to end up with his hands full when he orders a replacement item to pretend he never opened the first one.

To celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary, Lee and Lucy plan a friendly night of quizzing with Toby and Anna in the pub, but the evening is derailed when the foursome splits into rival teams: Lee and Anna versus Lucy and Toby. With Lee desperate to prove his intelligence even by cheating, Lucy and Anna both wanting to humiliate their husbands, and Toby secretly getting answers wrong to save his marriage, a twisted web of deceit and double-bluffing unfolds in full public view.

When Frank announces his engagement to a woman named Carol (guest star Susie Blake) after several months of quiet dating, Lee cannot believe that any woman would want to marry him and sets out to find out exactly what is wrong with her. As Lee discovers she is kind, caring and thoughtful - everything Frank is not - he gets suspicious and uncovers her getting friendly with many other older men. Eventually, Lee hires a local prosthetics expert to make him look 79, ready for his big date with Carol to uncover the truth.

When Lee joins Facebook for the first time and makes contact with his teenage ex-girlfriend Karen (guest star Katy Cavanagh), Lucy is less than pleased. Lee's history of near-engagement with Karen threatens his relationship with Lucy, especially when she plans a meal out with an old friend of hers called Ben directly opposite Lee and Karen's seats at a restaurant.

As the family prepares to leave for a visit to the World War Two war graves in Normandy, their true family history comes out. When Wendy reveals she is two years older than she claimed and that her father Jack never actually escaped Colditz, her March 1945 birth date uncovers some harrowing facts about her real parentage. Even when everyone finally gets over this revelation, it become's Frank's turn to reveal what happened to his mother as well.