Sarah, age 16 in season 1, struggles with the choices her parents made when she was a child to follow the fundamentalist principle of polygamy. She works in a fast food restaurant and meets Heather, who becomes her best friend who knows her secret. Sarah always hated polygamy and rejects the idea of becoming involved in polygamy in her own romantic relationships. In the season finale, everybody knows about her family secret.
Season 2
In the second season she joins a support group for ex-Mormons. There she meets Scott, who is 10 years older than she is, and the two date.
Season 3
Sarah and Scott have a rocky relationship. In the second episode she breaks up with Scott and learns she is pregnant, but she doesn't tell him. She eventually wants to go to prom and takes Ben and her young uncle, Frankie, as their dates to her and Heather. In the end of the episode, she tells Ben the truth about her teen pregnancy. Sarah has no idea what to do with the baby. In the sixth episode Come, Ye Saints, when the Henricksons take a trip, Barb accuses Sarah of taking birth control pills. At the end of the episode Sarah miscarries her baby. She decides not to attend college, a decision that ends her friendship with Heather temporarily. In the ninth episode, Scott shows up at her house to try to see her and is told to leave by her father. However, in the season 3 finale, Sarah asks Scott to marry her and he accepts. Margene is excited, Barb and Ben are opposed, and Bill, reluctant at first, eventually agrees to give his blessing, saying he has no other choice.
Season 4
Sarah and Scott are married in the second episode, in a secular ceremony in the communal backyard of the Henricksons' homes, conducted by a Justice of the Peace. Scott goes away for business and Sarah takes it upon herself to help an American Indian girl who is a drug abuser. She and Scott go on their honeymoon to Portland. In the eighth episode "Next Ticket Out" she shocks the family by telling them that she and Scott will leave Utah to move to Portland to start a new life together. Bill at first doesn't agree, but at the end, he lets her go along with Barb, Nicki and Margene. She left after Teenie's birthday.
Season 5
Sarah doesn't return to the fifth season as regular, but returns in the series finale in the last scene of the show. Her appearance was shown 11 months after Bill dies. She and Scott are still married and they have a baby named Bill.