The Insider's Guide To Happiness

Julie, a thirty-something caterer, meets her husband Simon at a cafe to tell him the good news that she is pregnant, but his response is to choke on a mushroom and collapse. In the ambulance on the way to hospital Simon revives, just in time for the ambulance to swerve, lose control and smash into a parked car at a busy intersection. At the hospital, a doctor, William is ill-equipped to tell Julie that Simon died in the crash. Julie, in shock, goes home, collects all Simon's possessions and burns them in the bath. Then she returns to the café, demanding to know how one of their mushrooms can kill a man? The waitress is sympathetic and comments that maybe accidents happen for a reason. Julie suggests that maybe Simon lives on in the baby. We are introduced to Matthew, a good Samoan boy, and our narrator. Matthew runs across the road at a busy intersection - just in time to be hit by the out of control ambulance carrying Simon and Julie. Matthew is killed.

Tina rescues an old lottery ticket from under a stray cat at the accident intersection - and gets scratched in the process. Because she suffers from Von Willebrand's, a rare blood disease, she goes to hospital for treatment. She calls Sam, unknowingly disturbing him from a tryst with Kat. Sam lies and tells Kat that Tina is his sister, and is then angry with Tina at her 'neediness'. He leaves her at the hospital. On a whim, Tina checks the lottery ticket at a dairy - only to find that it's a first division winner. She has just won 6.3 million dollars! She gets a call from Julie (who we discover is her sister) to say that Simon died in an accident. Tina rushes to Julie's side and is taken aback by her sister's pragmatism regarding Simon's death. Julie has cremated Simon privately, then collected the ashes and divided them up into little boxes, sending one to each of his relations. Tina can't understand this. She thinks how she'd react if she lost Sam. Tina takes her lotto ticket.

Matthew escapes from the hospital and goes to his own funeral. He feels guilty about having cheated on his fiancee with Tess on his last day alive. But during his funeral Matthew discovers to his horror that his father is having a affair, and that his fiancee wasn't sure that she wanted to marry him anyway. Worse, his family all remember versions of Matthew that are not really true, and Matthew begins to question whether his family really knew him at all. He decides that everything he believed in was based on a lie, and that the only true thing in his life was the way he felt about Tess. When he discovers that James, a stranger in a pub, can actually see and hear and touch him, he is amazed. Despite James's wariness, Matthew convinces him to deliver a message to Tess, thanking her for 'changing his life'. Tina, grieving for the break-up of her relationship with Sam, withdraws her 6.3 million dollars from the bank and plans to give it away.

Lindy hates her new job and she despises Nathan, the bookshop's paraplegic owner. When she accuses him of being a loser and 'giving up' on life, he fires her. Now she has no job. Back to the wall, she convinces Alan, her TV producer to give her a shot at her own show - problem: she has to pay for the pilot. In desperation, Lindy goes to the only person she knows who might lend her the money - her old boyfriend, William. But William is angry that she has turned up only for money, and rejects her. Lindy hits rock bottom and faces her old demon, alcohol. She takes a full glass of whiskey to Nathan at the bookshop and asks him for help. Nathan and Lindy share their deepest fears, and Lindy stumbles upon a great idea for a TV show. She books the studio, puts on the show and uses Nathan as her first guest. It's a success - Lindy is back! William's worst fear comes true when he is moved from Accident and Emergency to the Oncology department.

James tries to deny the surreal things that are happening to him, but becomes increasingly distressed as the monks assert that he is the reincarnation of Yu Ku'an Wu. When he time-slips again, he decides to fight whatever's happening by going to a rugby game and changing what he saw would happen in the future. But in fact his very actions in trying to change things make the prophecy come true. James gives in, and accepts the monks' explanation - the boy from Wanganui is the reincarnation of Yu Ku'an Wu. On William's day off, he agrees to do anything Phil wants. Phil's wishes include delivering a baby and flying a plane, during which he pretends the plane is about to crash. Tina and Julie's mother Annette turns up, and hits on Tina's boyfriend Corin, leading to an argument and their break-up, and it becomes obvious why Julie won't have anything to do with her mother. Tina hits the town, takes too many drugs and collapses in a nightclub, right under the DJ - Sam's - nose.

Phil doesn't have much time left, but convinces William to do three things he's always wanted to do. First, they meet up with Lindy for an 'old times' lunch - but it's a disaster. Then they go fishing, but Phil has a relapse and William has to rush him back to hospital. As Phil nears the end, he confesses to William that he slept with Lindy when she was William's girlfriend, and feels he contributed to their break-up. As Phil dies William faces memories of his father dying when he was fishing with him as a boy - his despair in the face of death is explained by this early trauma. He seeks out James and asks him to deliver another message to Tess. James, amazed to discover that Matthew is dead and only hecan see him, considers this further proof of his new spiritual identity and agrees to help Matthew. Tess is a bit spooked, but happy to hear James deliver Matthew's message. Julie finds that Tim has drawn a picture of the ambulance crash that killed Simon, and put it on her fridge.