Designing Women

- Season 2

(1987)

To promote their business, the ladies raffle off a free room re-design. The winner of the drawing is a shiftless bum named Eldon Ashcroft IV who keeps changing his mind constantly.

Mary Jo is worried about losing control over Claudia and Quinton when Ted and his girlfriend Tammy start spoiling them.

After Suzanne is in a car accident, she decides to become more charitable. However, her idea of charity is helping Anthony make himself look more well-off than he is to impress his girlfriend's wealthy parents. She lets him use her house. But no one is prepared for the shock when a woman comes to the house claiming that he's the father of her baby.

The ladies plan a funeral for a fellow designer who is dying of AIDS.

An eccentric client falls in love with Julia, while Bernice enters a beauty pageant for senior citizens.

Suzanne's ex-husband, novelist Dash Goff, is depressed because his latest book, "Being Belled" has failed to sell to either the movies or TV or to go into paperback.

When Reese suffers a heart attack, Julia is reminded of how her husband died.

When the ladies are on a singles cruise ship, Suzanne and Mary Jo make a bet on who can catch the most attractive man.

Charlene meets and falls in love with Bill Stillfield, a recently widowed Colonel in the U.S. Air Force. That night, she dreams of herself in a World War II era bar. There she meets him, accepts his proposal of marriage, and believes he'll be back even though his plane is shot down in Europe.

The ladies are off to St. Louis for Design Expo, where Julia, Mary Jo and Charlene come down with the flu. Back in Atlanta, the airport closes due to snow before Suzanne, who is judging a beauty pageant, can leave, so she must ride in the van with Anthony. They stay in a small motel in Tennessee and end up in the same bed.

Howard Earp Head, a socially inept, nosebleed-prone man the ladies met on the singles cruise, returns to beg Mary Jo to be his date for his 15th High School reunion.

At Christmastime, Mary Jo is upset because her son Quinton doesn't believe in Santa Claus and sets up a trap to prove it. Charlene, who plays Santa at her church, stops by to give him a surprise (with Anthony as an elf). Suzanne decides to surprise them and send a department-store Santa over there. Anthony gets caught and breaks his ankle, and the department store Santa steals the tree and all of the presents.

While Anthony's former inmate, T. Tommy Reed, offers him a job running his gift boutique, Mary Jo and J.D.'s respective children don't get along on their weekend together.

Bill tells Charlene he's not ready to go deeper into their relationship. Charlene becomes withdrawn, and Julia talks to Bill about how she felt when her husband Hayden died.

Julia and Suzanne's half-brother Clayton, who has suffered from alcoholism and mental illness in the past, comes to town.

Mary Jo's daughter Claudia is going to the school dance with Kyle, a star football player who happens to be black. Mary Jo has no problem with this, but Kyle's father does.

Suzzane learns she has amassed a large amount of back taxes and she has to pay it or....so she decides to marry a wealthy older man. When Julia learns of this, she decides to talk to IRS man Ray Don Simpson whom she had dealings with, to try and help her sister.

Suzanne is now living with Charlene and selling lingerie to pay off the IRS. Charlene tells her a story about how the founder of Federal Express kept his company afloat. He went to Las Vegas and won enough money by gambling to make the payroll, Suzanne gets the same idea. She drags her and Anthony to Atlantic City with her last $4500.

Suzanne applies for membership at the Beaumont Driving Club, the most exclusive country club in Atlanta, and files an application for Julia on her behalf. However, Julia doesn't want to belong to the club because of the type of exclusivity she believes they represent. When they accept her but not Suzanne, she lets them know what to do with the application.

Julia is chosen to sing a solo at the closing ceremony of the Baptist convention, but she worries about a high note in the arrangement of "How Great Thou Art". Charlene is upset when she discovers her minister is against allowing women to preach. She tries to persuade her minister to reconsider his position, but when he remains firm, she faces a painful decision.

Mary Jo believes that Ted has changed and that he wants a reconciliation, in spite of his approaching wedding to Tammy.

The ladies take their boyfriends (and in Suzanne's case, ex-husband) on a skiing trip in the mountains of North Carolina, where an avalanche snows them in. Tensions flare up enough to turn into a major battle in the War Between Men and Women.