James, Carlos, Logan and Kendall get the opportunity of a lifetime when they are asked to head to Los Angeles and form a singing group. Once they are in Los Angeles, they must figure out a way to make Gustavo Rocque and Rocque Records happy in order to become a singing sensation.

The boys are not thrilled with their boring apartment at the Palm Woods and hatch a plan to improve it when Gustavo creates a fun "fake" living area for them on a soundstage for an upcoming EPK shoot. The guys enlist the help of all their friends at Palm Woods to move all the cool games and gadgets from the set to their apartment.

The record company CEO thinks adding a fifth band member will broaden Big Time Rush's appeal and sticks the guys with a self-proclaimed "bad boy" named Wayne Wayne, who tries to inject dissension and tension within the group. Ultimately, Gustavo and the guys secretly band together to get him booted out of the band, in a "bad boy-off". Meanwhile, Mrs. Knight gets persuaded that there's an axe maniac on the loose, and forces Katie to play with a girl named Molly, who is later found to be a con actress that's 20 years old and tries to pass herself off as an 11-year-old girl driving in a high speed chase with cops, using Mrs. Knight's rental car, trying to get a job in Hollywood.

The guys chase the same girl named Jo, causing the band to fight. Meanwhile, James gets an allergic reaction to a body spray and Kelly (Tanya Chisholm) attempts to make him get an allergy shot, Gustavo gets a new personal helper named Freight Train, Katie has to write a report on her biggest hero and writes about Gustavo so she does not have to read anything, and Griffin wants a slow love song for the next song, but Gustavo cannot seem to figure out how to make the song work.

The boys are at the Palm Woods, severely injured. Camille asked them why they look so beat up if they just got their picture in Pop Tiger. The boys show their entire flashback from beginning to end: The boys were having their very first photo shoot as Big Time Rush. However, with Gustavo and Kelly doing community service for vandalizing Matthew McConaughey's mailbox, Griffin took over and makes them "space matadors with stuffy puppies". A simple photo shoot becomes a race for time and the perfect shot. Meanwhile, Katie and her mom are determined to get an autograph from teen hunk Dak Zevon, and Mrs. Knight starts to go a little nuts when the security guards are mean to Katie, so she (Mrs. Knight) gets all the fans of Dak and tries to barricade the door to Dak's recording room.

The guys, who desperately want to remain in L.A., have to pass the greenlight of their demos for that to happen, after Kelly tells them they will be forced to head back to Minnesota if they do not get their CD's greenlighted. Mercedes Griffin, Griffins daughter, comes and pretends to be the "secret someone who picks the demos". They soon find out that the demos are picked by a chimpanzee, so they try to bribe it to pick Big Time Rush. Meanwhile, Mrs. Knight tries to be assistant manager to stay at Palm Woods for Katie's sake.

When the boys find out they are not invited to their own party at Rocque Records, they decide to throw their own in the Palm Woods, since Mrs. Knight and Katie are off to San Diego, even though Mr. Bitters does not allow it. They call the party a 'social gathering', since there is no rule forbidding them, and the boys agree on only inviting 3 friends each. Kendall invites Jo, as his 'guest-friend-person-thing', while James invites the 3 hottest girls on his phone. It is unknown who Logan invited. Carlos cannot decide and ends up inviting the first 3 contacts on his phone and one of them is 'All Contacts' (Carlos thought it was "Al Contacts", thus inviting his whole phone). During the "social gathering," everybody in Carlos phone is now in the party which causes a big problem. Soon, Bitters is hunting for their party, so Kendall and Jo try to stop him before the boys get "3 strikes" and are thrown out of the Palm Woods. Both Camille and Mercedes arrive at the party trying to spend some time with Logan which causes a problem for him.

The boys have been breaking things while having too much fun at the Palm Woods and Gustavo has had enough. Rather than covering for them, Gustavo decides to teach the guys a lesson by making them get jobs to pay off $2,000.30 for the damages. Gustavo puts the boys on Freight Train's "No-Swim list" so they cannot swim in the Palmwoods pool until they pay all of the money back. Carlos becomes Gustavo's production assistant, while James attempts to become a model with Katie as his manager. At first, Logan and Kendall were going to be sign spinners. However, they get fired and start a babysitting service, which was not as easy as they expected. Eventually, Kendall and Logan make the kids wash cars. When Carlos is getting a coffee for Gustavo using an automated coffee maker C.A.L. (very likely a parody of H.A.L.), it makes a coffee with foam, and when it asks Carlos if he wants more foam, C.A.L. keeps on squirting more and more foam until the kitchen is full of it and more and proclaims it wants to cover the Earth in foam. The boys eventually pay Gustavo back his money, but then, people come storming in asking who will pay for setting up an illegal daycare service in the Palm Woods, using Palm Woods rags and towels, James' wardrobe, the coffee machine, and foam removal. Gustavo gets angry and wrecks his studio. Griffin sees this and asks him to pay him back the exact same amount of money the boys get fined. The episode ends with Gustavo, Kelly, and the boys washing cars.

In the eye of their first album release, Griffin, the head of the record label, cancels the album, tour, and concert, forcing them to return to Minnesota, which threatens to break up their life-long friendships. James gets mad and he's got 3 record deal, and joins Hawk, Gustavo's Arch-Rival. Gustavo has to pay back to Griffin $2,000,000 to get back Big Time Rush, and to get them to come back and to finally perform concert. They come back to the LA, and they cannot stay in the Palmwoods again, so they all start living in the Rocque Records "RocqueWoods". James does not want to come back to Big Time Rush so they open an audition for the new James, but they can find anyone and James comes back and they prepare for the concert

Big Time Rush returns to the Palm Woods after their world tour and learn they are now famous.

The boys dislike Griffin's new line of Big Time Rush merchandise and attempt to sabotage his sales plan, but they wind up making matters worse. Meanwhile, Katie accidentally destroys her mother's Palm Woods robe and buys a replacement robe from Bitters, only that the robe she was sold doesn't include a belt, and Bitters refuses any refunds or returns so she attempts to get her money's worth by getting the belt the robe was supposed to have.

Kendall attempts to ask Lucy out on a date, until her ex-boyfriend Beau arrives at the Palm Woods to reunite with her. Moments later, he is caught also making out with other girls at the Palm Woods. With James, Jett and Camille to assist, Kendall is determined to document evidence of Beau's activity. Meanwhile, Griffin orders Gustavo to kidnap him, so Gustavo hires Carlos and Logan to do the job. Also, Mrs. Knight and Katie (with help from Buddha Bob) try to steal Jett's computer to find out the ending of the cliffhanger episode of New Town High which Jett is on.

Kendall is unsure whether he has moved on with Lucy during Jo's absence, or whether he still has feelings for Jo. Meanwhile, Carlos has to make a choice to stand by either his best friend James, or his new benefactor Mr. Bitters, during a supposed zombie apocalypse.

Camille finds a gold necklace and believes it's Logan anniversary gift to her, when it's really Kendall's birthday gift for Jo. Meanwhile, James and Carlos want to find out if they can listen to BTR in pure gold without getting caught by Gustavo.