Designing Women

- Season 5

(1990)

Sugarbakers is put on a historical tour of homes, and Julia gets irate at the selling of the myth of the old south.

Anthony's 30th birthday is approaching, so the women decide to hire a private detective to find his long-lost father. An old man shows up at the office claiming to be his father's best friend with the bad news that he has passed away, along with other information about the man. When he meets Anthony, he shares this information with him along with a major surprise.

When Charlene gets upset about missing Olivia's first steps because she was at work, she decides to quit her job to spend more time with her daughter and watch her grow up. However, when Mary Jo comes to see her she finds that the working mothers in the neighborhood are taking advantage of her to run errands for them. A remark about Quint's latest troubles leads to a debate between the two of them about whether mothers should have jobs.

Julia plans to have dinner with Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, she is called to jury duty. When Mary Jo mentions a case about a man who blamed a sperm bank for his impotence, Julia reveals that is the case on which she is serving. When Charlene does her civic duty and informs the court that she talked about the case outside, the jury is sequestered in a motel. Meanwhile, Charlene has won a radio station contest that gives her the chance to take home all the music and movies she can get in a record store in 92 seconds for free.

Thinking that it will get her the membership she has always wanted, Suzanne holds a bachelor auction at the Beaumont Driving Club. One of the bachelors is Anthony, who feels uncomfortable about the idea of being auctioned off; he is surprised when he finds out who wins a date with him accidentally.

When Charlene buys a haunted house, she hires Sugarbaker & Associates to decorate it and insists that they treat her as just another customer.

Mary Jo learns from her mother that her former mentor, Miss Eulalie Crown, is now living at a nursing home in Atlanta, so she goes to visit her there. Frustrated with the lack of respect she perceives, she and a friend run away and stay at the women's office. Meanwhile, Charlene becomes starstruck when a photographer sends Olivia's picture to a talent agency.

When Julia and Mary Jo take up running, Julia becomes obsessed with the sport to the detriment of her business.

When Charlene goes back to college, she takes a psychology class with a socially awkward professor who falls for her but cannot express it appropriately.

When Charlene is distressed about Bill being on a classified mission, she goes to a support group for military spouses where she meets a military husband, also named Bill. While they start to grow closer, she imagines what life was like for wives on the home front in WWII.

Claudia brings home Jack, a 34-year-old man she met in a bar, who soon takes an interest in Mary Jo.

While Mary Jo deals with getting dumped by a rich, handsome client, Bernice has trouble getting her guests to show up on her new public access TV show.

While Suzanne tries out for the evening news, she shows the other ladies her $4,500 pearl necklace and mocks Mary Jo's costume necklace. To get even, Mary Jo switches the two. This backfires when she and Charlene are at a salad bar and she loses the necklace. Meanwhile, Anthony has weird dreams about him and Julia.

Anthony is forced to confront Billy Boy Swine, a bully who has taken over the laundry room in his apartment and disturbed all the other tenants.

Julia secretly sings in a nightclub; Anthony is attracted to an Asian woman.

Bernice decides to have plastic surgery. When the surgeon botches the job, the women have trouble telling her to her face because they are afraid to hurt her feelings.

While Suzanne starts smoking to lose weight, Mary Jo wants to have another baby while she still can. When J.D. returns to town on business, she wants him to father the baby instead of going to a sperm bank.

When Julia goes to an art show held by a curator friend of hers, she places her purse on an empty stand where two art connoisseurs mistake it for a work of art. Meanwhile, Mary Jo tries to make it up to Charlene after denting her car while Suzanne accidentally glues her mouth shut.

When the women go to New Orleans, they are unable to get another room for Anthony and must share a room so that he can have one of the two rooms they had already booked. Meanwhile, Mary Jo goes to bed with a man she has been dating before she finds out that he is already married.

While Suzanne gets in trouble for putting on her mascara while driving, Mary Jo finds that the man who robbed her is now working at a pizzeria.

While coping with the sudden death of her boyfriend Reese, Julia takes care of the nasty Randa Oliver while her parents have gone on vacation without her.

Bill gets a week's leave while Charlene and Mary Jo are writing a children's book that has a deadline.

The Beaumont Driving Club has changed their admission policies after being disqualified from the PGA Tour for racial discrimination. Suzanne tries to learn golf to get accepted into Beaumont, but the membership committee chooses Anthony instead. Julia suspects they only want him in as a token and urges him not to go, but Anthony decides to take advantage of the opportunity and become an active member of the club.

Mary Jo coaches her son's little league baseball team; they have lost six games in a row. When Julia becomes the co-coach, the team's performance starts to turn around, but Mary Jo feels that they have gotten too competitive.