Designing Women

- Season 1

(1986)

At the interior design firm of Sugarbaker & Associates in Atlanta, Georgia, thrice-divorced ex-beauty queen Suzanne Sugarbaker, younger sister of founder Julia, goes out with the ex-husband of her co-worker Mary Jo Shivley.

Mary Jo objects to her 12-year-old daughter Claudia entering in a beauty pageant.

Suzanne sets up Charlene on a blind date with a wholesaler of imported goods without telling her that he's significantly overweight.

Julia's son Payne comes home from college with his girlfriend: a professor named Primrose Horton who is at least twice his age.

Suzanne persuades Mary Jo to allow her to set her up with a date.

Suzanne is bored with not being more involved in the actual work at Sugarbaker's, so Julia allows her to work on the very next assignment: Design House '86. As part of the requirement for the job, she spends the night there. The next morning it burns to the ground. Suzanne survives, but her future - and Sugarbaker's reputation - are in jeopardy.

On Thanksgiving Day, Julia and Suzanne's mother Perky visits, along with her friend Bernice Clifton. However, a shadow is cast over the celebration when the women learn that a client was murdered after their delivery man, Anthony, argued with him.

Julia expects an engagement ring from her boyfriend, Reese Watson, but gets a canary instead. Nonetheless, they get married while drunk and annul the marriage the next morning, leaving Julia in a depressed state.

While Charlene's boyfriend Mason is living in Tokyo, they have agreed to date other people. She goes with a man named Ed who is married to another woman, a fact she learns when Julia and Mary Jo meet with their latest client: his wife.

Suzanne believes her maid, Consuela, has put a fatal voodoo curse on her to take effect at midnight. Just in case it comes true, the other ladies have a slumber party at Mary Jo's house.

The ladies' New Year's Eve Party has a shadow cast over it-literally-when Charlene's boyfriend, Shadow, breaks out of prison to be with her.

Mary Jo and J.D.'s romantic evening is interrupted when her ex-husband Ted brings home the children on a flimsy excuse. Meanwhile, Anthony is required to attend a $5,000 poker game after a run-in with a corrupt businessman, and Charlene looks for a new doctor when her old one says to "wait and see" after finding a lump in her breast.

J.D. brings his ex-wife and Mary Jo's ex-husband Ted together to lay down some ground rules; Charlene goes in for a biopsy while Julia confronts her old doctor; Anthony tries to hide from two of Mr. BB's bodyguards.

Charlene's old friend Monette, now calling herself "Monica," asks Sugarbaker & Associates to re-design her house. She can afford a budget of $100,000 to $150,000 because of her profession: the oldest profession; she is the owner of a brothel.

Charlene's boyfriend's offer of a discount on antique furniture turns out to be of stolen goods, landing the women in prison.

Julia is jealous when Reese cancels six consecutive dates due to work involving a new lawyer at his firm; a young, attractive female one.

Just as her entire family is coming to visit her in Atlanta, Charlene meets Gaylon King, a man who claims to be a record producer with the intent of launching her singing career.

Suzanne becomes the foster mother to a Vietnamese boat girl for a month while the papers for her adoption by a Birmingham couple are being cleared. However, they become so attached that they don't want to split up.

When Mary Jo's recently divorced father, Davis Jackson, comes to town, he is instantly smitten with Charlene.

The ladies are overwhelmed by their latest clients: an ultra-rich couple that lavishes them with gifts and trips.

Suzanne's ex-husband, an Atlanta Braves pitcher named Jack Dent, writes a scandalous autobiography in which he admits to an unprecedented amount of infidelity during their three-year marriage.

A wealthy client makes a pass at Mary Jo.