Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.

Eliza D'Amico thinks her marriage to Louis is going great until she finds a mysterious love note to her husband. Concerned, she goes to her mother for advice. Eliza, her parents, her sister Jo, and Jo's boyfriend all pile into the station wagon and go to the city to confront Louis with the letter. On the way, the five explore their relations with each other and meet many interesting people.

A cashier poses as a writer for blacklisted talents to submit their work through, but the injustice around him pushes him to take a stand.

This is the story loosely based on Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed, who introduced rock'n'roll to teenage American radio audiences in the 1950s. Freed was a source of great controversy: criticized by conservatives for corrupting youth with the "devil's music"; hated by racists for promoting African American music for white consumption; persecuted by law enforcement officials and finally brought down by the "payola" scandals.

A teenage delinquent who goes on a drunken joyride is left in jail overnight by his parents in the hope that he might learn a lesson from it. But events follow which result in the boy spending far longer behind bars than anyone had foreseen.

Fashion designer Joanna Crane leads a double life. By night she is China Blue, a prostitute who's attracted the attention of a sexually frustrated private detective, and a psychopathic priest in possession of a murderous sex toy.

While working on a documentary on his old neighborhood, a young film school graduate shifts the focus of his production onto the disappearance of a local resident and the strange characters who are conducting the search to find him.

A dedicated social worker joins forces with a group of senior citizens fighting City Hall to prevent the demolition of their apartment building and falls for the man she meets on a blind date at a punk rock club. She soon learns that he is the building inspector who condemned the seniors' decrepit home, forcing her to turn to her amorous lawyer ex-boyfriend to find the loophole that will save the building.

On the highway of life, Jerry's at a dead-end. Unemployed and still living at home with his parents, this thirty-three year old loser has no drive to better his life. That's all about to change. A fateful drug deal gone bad transforms Jerry overnight into the cop's number one murder suspect and the mob's number one target. With a sack full of drugs and a budding romance at stake, Jerry could get a life... or lose it. Either way, it will be the ride of his life.

Emily Hollander becomes the subject of a lesbian obsession at the hands of Andrea Glassen, her next-door neighbour.