One of the main subplots of season one is Lucy and Don's relationship with Holt McLaren and the love triangle that erupts between Lucy, Holt, and Holt's current girlfriend Julia Mallory, a popular sitcom star who has begun breaking out into horrible movies while Holt's career has tanked after a series of movies he has done, flopped. In an attempt to convert Holt into a secret source for potential stories, Lucy offers to use the full resources of her magazine to revive Holt's career. In exchange, Holt reveals that Julia's best friend is pregnant after a one-night stand with a fellow actor. The actress overdoses (whether intentional or not is never fully revealed), then has a brain aneurysm and dies. Holt, feeling guilt after hearing of the actress' death, has a mini-breakdown while driving and gets into a high-speed car crash, nearly killing himself and Julia. Julia suffers severe injuries, which leads to an addiction to painkillers and eventually a full-blown drug addiction. To revive her career and gain public sympathy, Julia secretly obtains and leaks a copy of a sex tape of her and a co-star and falsely accuses her co-star of rape, though Lucy exposes her lies in her vault of secrets.