Ruth-Anne responds with a touching story about her deceased husband and the affair that she had during the war. As Ruth-Anne is tucking Maggie in, Maggie asks why men are such swine. Much later, Ruth-Anne shows up to take Maggie home. Ed, being a man, has absolutely no response for Maggie. In a hilarious speech to Ed, Maggie concludes that men are only needed for sex and are otherwise worthless. When Joel is unable to find anything wrong with her, after Adam leaves for a trip, she knocks him out with a frying pan to keep him from leaving.Д«ack in town, Maggie is drinking heavily at The Brick, and complains to anyone who will listen about how despicable men are. As Joel examines her, she is quick to point out her various symptoms, and makes her own diagnoses, which Joel refutes one-by-one. Upon arriving, Joel is confronted by a very outspoken woman, who is obviously an extreme hypochondriac. Despite Joel's cynicism, Adam proclaims his wife as the image of perfect womanhood. As the two take Joel's truck out to Adam's home, Adam speaks with unceasing praise about his wife, Eve. Joel is unwilling to go, but follows after Adam takes his medical bag. Late that night, Joel is visited at his cabin by Adam, who tells him that his wife needs medical assistance. At dinner that night, they dine with Holling and Shelly, and Maurice professes his love for Barbara, who is more concerned with her meal than with Maurice's affection. Barbara is obviously the female counterpart to Maurice: very gruff, bordering on masculine, with a tough, by-the-book demeanor that she devotes to her work as a police officer. The thoughtfulness of the gift leaves her speechless.

Maurice chooses that moment to present her with a Browning pistol which he had engraved to her.

Barbara is aroused by the gunfire, and kisses Maurice passionately. Maurice and Barbara Semanski are out in a field, having target practice with pistols. Her sadness over Rick's death slowly turns to anger. Later that afternoon, she and Maggie are talking at The Brick, and Maggie is shocked to find that Rick had several other relationships while she was living with him. In a short testimony to Rick, she tells of their intimate relationship, a revelation which shocks Maggie. As people are invited to say a few words about Rick, a young woman steps forward and introduces herself as Joanne. However, Maggie thinks it looks like a hood ornament. Residents of Cicely are gathered near the woods at a ceremony for a statue of Rick which Maggie has commissioned. And Joel is bound for disaster when the nomadic Adam requests a late-night house call for his ailing wife, Eve. Meanwhile, Maurice is walking on air thanks to his unbridled emotion for a gun-loving, by-the-book state trooper, but a search for tax loopholes may ground him.

This revelation of Rick's unfaithfulness sends Maggie storming off to drown her sorrows in drink. For Maggie, a ceremony to unveil a larger-than-life-size statue of recently deceased boyfriend Rick turns gloomier when a female stranger in the crowd pipes up with an intimate eulogy of her own. A third season blows clouds on to love's horizon for some denizens of Cicely, Alaska.

Northern exposure bumpy road to love