Georgia Lass is aloof and emotionally distant from her family and shies away from her life. After dropping out of college, she takes a temp job through Happy Time Temporary Services. During her lunch break on her first day, she is hit and killed by a toilet seat falling from the deorbiting Mir space station.[3] She is soon informed that, rather than moving on to the "great beyond", she will become a grim reaper in the External Influence Division,[4] collecting souls of people who die in accidents (many of which have a Rube Goldberg-style complexity[5]), and homicides. Each reaper has a secret quota of souls; and, once the quota is met, the reaper moves on to another realm and the last soul reaped then takes his or her job collecting souls.

In Season 1, George has trouble adjusting to her circumstances—collecting souls while holding down a day job. By Season 2, she has mostly adjusted to her new role, with few unresolved issues with her life and her afterlife.

George's family is struggling to deal with her death. Her mother, Joy, is depressed, and visibly repressing it. Her father, Clancy (Greg Kean), is having an affair. Her sister, Reggie (Britt McKillip), acts out – stealing toilet seats from neighbors and school and hanging them on a tree – until her mother sends her to therapy. Reggie clings to the belief that George visits her, but she is starting to lie to cover this up. At the start of Season 2, the family begins to break apart as Joy and Clancy divorce.

All of the main characters have issues with their life after death, but they cope with it in different ways: Mason (Callum Blue) resorts to alcohol and drugs; Daisy (Laura Harris) puts on a veneer of perkiness; and Roxy (Jasmine Guy) is physically and verbally aggressive. Rube (Mandy Patinkin) and George are more straightforward about their sadness.