Anthony goes to extremes to impress his girlfriends' wealthy parents, inventing a pedigreed family -- then an uninvited dinner guest informs him he is the father of her child.

Suzanne's visiting ex, a novelist who loves flowery Southern words and women, is in a writer's slump and contemplating suicide.

Charlene dreams the Sugarbakers back to WWII and the USO.

While Charlene, Julia and Mary Jo get the flu on a trip to St. Louis, a snowstorm forces Suzanne and Anthony to share a motel room in Tennessee.

Anthony is dismayed when an old prison cellmate arrives at Sugarbaker's with a business proposition -- he wants Anthony to become his partner.

Charlene withdraws after being dumped by her boyfriend Bill, who is still grieving the loss of his first wife.

Julia and Suzanne disagree on how to handle the arrival of their half-brother, a recently discharged mental patient with aspirations to stand-up comedy.

A penniless Suzanne faces stiff fines for back taxes, so after trying to charm Ray Don at the IRS, she sells off her possession and considers marriage to wealthy octogenarian Wilmont Oliver.

A voluptuous maid disrupts a romantic Thanksgiving at the beach.

Julia runs for a seat on the local board of commissioners, but her outspokenness may cost her the election.

While touring Graceland on VIP tickets, Julia is touched when a truck driver tells how the King influenced his life.

Bernice asks the ladies to be her wedding attendants when she receives a marriage proposal from a TV pitchman -- who habitually proposes to every woman he meets.

Suzanne convinces Charlene that Bill should date more before they get serious, and the ladies plan revenge on a bunch of sexist hardhats working across the street.

Striking laborers from a textile factory besiege the company, and the Sugarbakers women come to respect them for surviving their terrible working conditions.

The women embark on a wilderness survival course designed to build leadership -- but it's first-time camper Bernice who ultimately takes command.

Acting as surrogate brother a troubled youth, Anthony remembers his own painful childhood, and when Julia puts her trust in Anthony's juvenile charge, it only gets her photo on the evening news.

The designers are determined that a recently deceased client's last wish be honored -- to leave her millions (and the ladies' prepaid services) to her cat.

Charlene becomes a part-time saleswoman for ""Lady Jun"" cleaning products, and when she repeatedly succumbs to psychological pressure from her friend Libby despite her stated intention to quit, Julia determines to rescue her from this ""cult"" -- and winds up taking on Lady Jun herself. Meanwhile, Anthony receives an unusual nomination from his junior college -- as homecoming queen -- and gets unexpected support from Suzanne.

A full moon coincides with strange occurrences, including Mary Jo's sudden conviction that Claudia and her boyfriend are up to no good.

Charlene, now happily engaged, dreads meeting Bill's intimidating mother and aunt, Mary Jo gives the dating game another try, with a much younger man.

Charlene's wedding is in jeopardy when she finds Bill handcuffed to a scantily clad dancer after his stag party.

When Mary Jo is mugged, the Sugarbaker women take a self-defense course.

When she discovers him working as a bellboy/pianist, the accountant who absconded with her life savings offers Suzanne a deal.

A nearby newsstand selling pornography offends Julia, to the point where she drives her car straight through it, and pits her against an equally determined publisher in the ensuing court battle.

A terminally-ill high school classmate's last wish is to spend one night with the girl of his dreams -- Julia. The catch is, she doesn't remember him at all.

While preparing for Charlene's baby shower, the Sugarbakers women are surprised by a visit from the Director of Pageants for Miss Georgia. Due to a clerical error discovered in the 1975 balloting, Suzanne must relinquish the crown she won 15 years earlier.

The Sugerbaker women and their mates take a canoe trip in the Georgia backwoods -- which turns into a nightmare when them encounter some good ole boys.

Attempting to prove himself when Mary Jo hires him and some of his ex-convict friends to finish an incomplete remodeling job, Anthony gets a new girlfriend -- an ambitious young woman who sees him as an upwardly mobile vehicle.

While she is helping the Sugarbakers women choreograph a Supremes lip-synch routine, Charlene's favorite cousin inadvertently reveals that she is a victim of domestic violence.

The Sugarbaker women testify for Bernice when her niece Phyllis attempts to have her declared legally incompetent because she sings Bobbie Gentry songs to strangers on the street and introduces Anthony as her illegitimate son.

While posing for a gag photo at the governor's mansion, Julia gets her head stuck in the banister just before the annual ball.

Desperately single Mary Jo, worried that her busy schedule will condemn her to a life alone, accepts coaching from Suzanne as she plans a weekend manhunt.

Mary Jo takes a second job at a fast food place when Ted's child support payment is late.

Julia and Suzanne negotiate for a new delivery van and drive a hard bargain with an overbearing salesman (Ross).

Hired for a temporary job at Sugarbakers, Anthony's needy friend Vanessa learns the tricks of the trade from Suzanne, then goes to work reeling in Anthony.

Julia is not pleased to learn that Payne is graduating early in order to marry his pregnant girlfriend. Upset at becoming a grandmother so soon, Julia gets tipsy at the wedding, then wakes up mortified -- and scantily clad -- the next day with Payne's frat house roommate (Young).

A redecorating job for a sports account is right down Sugarbakers' alley when it pits the women against a macho, over-confident designer from an all-male firm. They determine to steal one of his prized clients, Cherokee Lanes Bowling Alley, but discover they must pose as regular bowlers.

Julia intervenes when Bill's grief over the loss of his first wife threatens his relationship with Charlene -- and she becomes convinced he is having an affair with his new cockpit partner, Gail.

A lonely Suzanne digs through her old pageant connections for a best girlfriend, not realizing that her friend's "coming out" meant that she was a lesbian and not just the oldest living debutante.

When her maid Consuela is threatened with deportation, Suzanne puts Anthony in a dress and pays him to impersonate the terrified woman. But he performs too well, awakening romantic interest in the Immigration and Naturalization Service examiner.

When Mary Jo attends church with Julia and Suzanne, she ends up dating Gene Chapman, the minister, but feeling guilty about her sexual interest in him.

An extremely anxious Anthony makes it to his college graduation despite a series of mishaps and his nervousness about his grandmother's visit and his performance as commencement speaker.

Sugarbaker's is beset by tourists when the building's Civil War foundation puts it on the Tour of Historical Homes, Mary Jo opens her heart to an old friend eager to make good on a marriage pact they once entered into.

Charlene aims to make Anthony's 30th birthday a memorable one -- by hiring a private detective to find his long-lost father.

Resentment builds between Charlene and Mary Jo when Charlene wants to take a year off to look after her baby. The decorators cater to the whims of a rich, insufferable 10-year-old client as Mary Jo and Charlene ponder the joys and pitfalls of working mothers.

Julia's dinner plans with former President Jimmy Carter and his wife are put on hold when her slow-moving jury gets sequestered.

When organizational confusion leads to Suzanne winning a date with Anthony in a bachelor charity auction, the two reluctantly try to make the best of a very awkward situation.

As the proud new owner of a grand but ghostly mansion, Charlene hires the decorators to give the place a facelift -- not mentioning that it's haunted.

Mary Jo takes up jogging, and inadvertently helps turn Julia into a fitness zealot.

With her husband away on a mission, Charlene guiltily draws close to a man in her support group for military spouses who wife is also away. Meanwhile, lottery fever sweeps Sugarbakers.

Mary Jo forbids her nearly 18-year-old daughter to date a 34-year-old, then dates him herself, Julia is forced to crash the men's room at a football stadium.

After Bernice gets a local public-access cable TV show, Mary Jo has her heart broken by a client and decides that Bernice's show is the ideal arena to air her views on men.

Mary Jo borrows and loses a string of pearls flaunted by Suzanne, subbing as a lifestyles reporter for local TV news. Meanwhile, a recurring dream about Julia upsets Anthony.

Anthony, concerned with his masculinity after working with the women so long, tries standing up to his bullying neighbor, and is further humiliated when the women come to his rescue.

Everyone at Sugarbakers is baffled to discover that sensible Julia has covertly been singing evenings at a nightclub, Anthony tries to muster the nerve to ask out a girl who works at the bookstore.

Bernice gets an extraordinarily bad eye tuck and rhinoplasty from a plastic surgeon whose work leaves something to be desired.

Mary Jo, wanting a baby, turns to her friend and former beau; Suzanne takes up smoking as a way to diet.

When the gang attends a convention in intoxicating New Orleans, Mary Jo unwittingly sleeps with a married man.

Mary Jo runs across the man who mugged her the year before, but faces horrendous judicial red tape to bring him to trial.

Julia tries coping with her boyfriend Reese's death by looking after Randa Oliver, the supremely spoiled child of a client couple on an extended vacation.

Charlene, readjusting to married life upon Bill's return from the Middle East, quits her and Mary Jo's children's-book project.

Suzanne is jealous when Anthony is invited to be the first black (i.e., token) in the previously all-white Beaumont Country Club.