Former Marine Louanne Johnson lands a gig teaching in a pilot program for bright but underachieving teens at a notorious inner-city high school. After having a terrible first day, she decides she must throw decorum to the wind. When Johnson returns to the classroom, she does so armed with a no-nonsense attitude informed by her military training and a fearless determination to better the lives of her students — no matter what the cost.

An earthquake shatters a peaceful Los Angeles morning and opens a fissure deep into the earth, causing lava to start bubbling up. As a volcano begins forming in the La Brea Tar Pits, the director of the city’s emergency management service, Mike Roark, working with geologist Amy Barnes, must then use every resource in the city to try and stop the volcano from consuming Los Angeles.

When he hears that the new female employee digs ambitious men who are the store employee of the month, a slacker gets his act together but finds himself in competition with his rival, an ambitious co-worker.