Designing Women

- Season 3

(1988)

On a trip to the beach, the women feel threatened by their respective boyfriends' attraction to a beautiful and highly educated Danish au pair hired to take care of Mary Jo and J.D.'s kids.

Anthony's political activist group recruits Julia to run in a recall election against a reactionary city councilman.

Charlene wins tickets to a VIP tour of Graceland. In Memphis, the women encounter an assortment of Elvis Presley fans, a newspaper reporter working on an article designed to make them look foolish, and a truck driver who shares his emotional story about Elvis and his dying son privately with Julia.

While Julia's latest outrage involves a New York Times article about dirt-eaters in the South, Bernice receives a marriage proposal from a TV commercial second banana.

Mary Jo inherits $3,000 from an eccentric uncle who stipulates that she must spend it on something frivolous, so she considers getting breast implants.

The women plan an inventive way to counter the sexual harassment they face from construction workers outside their office.

Sugarbaker's is short on money, but they are able to find a great deal on curtains to decorate a motel-until the shop that makes them goes on strike. The women decide to go there sew them themselves, where they see the conditions which prompted the strike in the first place.

Bernice signs up the women on an all-female wilderness retreat that some of Lee Iacocca's top executives had attended in the past; she thought the then-CEO of Chrysler would be there. Mary Jo and Julia are stuck under the leadership of a pushy New Yorker named Big Edie, while Suzanne and Charlene's group is led by Bernice.

Anthony becomes a Big Brother to Tyrone, a smooth talking 14-year-old boy from a bad neighborhood. While Julia is determined to give him the benefit of the doubt and allows Anthony to hire him as his part-time assistant, the young man soon betrays their trust when he steals some gifts for Anthony's birthday.

The ladies' wealthy client dies before their work begins, so her heir-a cat named Mr. Bailey-takes over. The cat is set to inherit the woman's considerable fortune, but the state of Georgia plans to contest the will. The women must prove that she was in her right mind when she made Mr. Bailey heir to her estate.

Julia's old college friend whom she once dated calls to request her services, and Charlene and Mary Jo unexpectedly discover that the home is part of a nudist colony. Suzanne and Julia's nieces Camilla and Jennifer visit while on semester break and show a striking personal resemblance to their aunts.

In order to pay off her Christmas bills, Charlene becomes a seller of Lady June cleaning products. However, the other women become concerned about the influence they develop over her, likening it to a cult.

The other women are shocked when a wealthy, blind client falls for Suzanne.

Charlene's 19-year-old brother Odell comes to town with his fiancée, Sissy Sloan. They have to come to Atlanta because no Justice of the Peace or minister in Poplar Bluff will marry them due to a long-standing feud between the Fraziers and the Sloans.

Julia is humiliated at a charity fashion show when the dress she is modeling gets stuck in her pantyhose, revealing her backside to 1200 spectators and the Mayor of Atlanta. Suzanne buys an automatic rifle to protect her pig Noelle from a neighbor's threats. Mary Jo is worried that her daughter Claudia is going to have sex with her boyfriend Ben.

J.D.'s temporary stay at Mary Jo's house lasts longer than expected when he loses his job. When he starts to take advantage of staying at home, she feels uncomfortable about it. Meanwhile, Julia tries to shake Charlene's belief in psychics, even after a coincidental accident that almost matches something Charlene's psychic said to her.

When Charlene accepts Bill's proposal of marriage, he invites her to Virginia to meet his wealthy mother and Aunt Phoebe, but she is nervous about how they will perceive her. Meanwhile, when J.D. gets a job in Cincinnati, he and Mary Jo agree to see other people, so she dates a college student.

The women celebrate Charlene's wedding with an all-female "This Is Your Life" party with friends and family. The night before the wedding, Bill's Air Force buddies throw him a bachelor party with a Spanish-speaking stripper who locks the two of them into a pair of "Ménage-à-trois" handcuffs. When Charlene finds them still chained together in his apartment hours before the wedding she gets caught in the third cuff. The stripper's boyfriend - who is in Shreveport - has the keys, and he is stopped by police on the way to Atlanta. It's up to Monette, Charlene's old friend...

The women agree to pose for a famous photographer's upcoming magazine spread called "The Women of Atlanta," not knowing about the photographer's real intentions.

When Mary Jo is mugged on the way to pick up some concert tickets, the women join a self-defense class.

Mary Jo and Charlene discover Reggie MacDawson, the accountant who absconded with Suzanne's life savings, working as a bellhop and lounge singer at a dilapidated hotel. He explains the convoluted story of how and why he left the country, and what happened to Suzanne's money: he used it to buy a circus.

When a newsstand opens near the office featuring a large display advertising a pornographic magazine, Julia runs through it with her car. Insisting that pornography is not free speech, she continues to do it until the publisher of the magazine - a woman who considers herself a feminist - sues her for violating her First Amendment rights.