Director Stan Jansen is filming a documentary at the junior high and everyone is trying to get on camera--except Gordo, who wants to be a director himself. But Stan singles out Gordo as his star and tells him his appearance in the film could lead to a career in directing. Gordo is eager to go along, so when the director tells him he wants conflict, Gordo trashes Kate on camera. Lizzie and Miranda think that's great, but it's not so great when Tudgeman gets upset after the same treatment. Then when Gordo manipulates Lizzie and Miranda into revealing long-held secrets about each other, the trio's friendship is on the rocks. The girls can't stay mad at each other, though, and they convince Gordo that their friendship should be the most important thing to all of them. The kids find a way to get back at Stan Jansen.

Gordo is feeling a little left behind: the girls are going crazy over Ethan Craft, who gets a new dirtbike for his 14th birthday, just like all the ""men"" in his family have. Even Larry Tudgeman is shaving now, though not very well! Gordo now wishes he had celebrated his bar mitzvah, the Jewish ceremony performed on the 13th birthday that marks the passage of a boy into manhood. Concerned about what makes a boy a man, Gordo takes his camera interviews many different men to get their experiences. He tries several different ""manly"" things that they mentioned, even going to a tattoo parlor! But he decides they are not for him. He asks his parents why they didn't insist on a bar mitzvah for him. They tell him they trusted his judgment then, and that at the time he didn't think it was necessary or important. But Gordo has made up his mind now--he wants to be bar mitzvahed. The ceremony is held with all his family and friends in attendance.

When Kate dislocates her shoulder during cheerleading practice, Claire usurps Kate's position as captain.

Miffed with her parents for not raising her allowance, Lizzie gets her first job as a busboy at the Digital Bean.

Lizzie begins mentoring a seventh-grader girl named Andie, who begins to mimic her characteristics and behave like Lizzie.

A water pipe bursts in a wall in Matt's room and to Lizzie's horror, she'll have to share her room with her brother for a week until the repairs are done.