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.

Charlene's baby, Olivia, auditions for a modeling job, Mary Jo finds one of her former teachers in a nursing home.

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

Anthony buys in to become a full partner; new student Charlene fends off an amorous psychology professor.

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.

Amateur painter Julia inadvertently becomes the darling of Atlanta's art scene when someone tries to buy her handbag while she's attending a gallery opening; Suzanne inadvertently glues her lips shut.

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.

Mary Jo and Julia demonstrate different coaching styles when their firm sponsors a Little League team.