Once and Again

- Season 2

(2000)

Lily and Rick try to blend their families together but it doesn't go smoothly. Jesse has trouble adjusting to high school.

Judy turns the bookstore into a "book club for singles." This attracts an interesting clientele, including Jake (who's tiring of his girlfriend Tiffany) and Lily's boss Christie. Judy isn't sure about her attraction to the handyman who's fixing up the store.

Parental pressure bears down on Eli to get his act together for college. However, Eli wants to form a music group.

It's Thanksgiving and that means the Sammlers and the Mannings get together for dinner, whether they want to be there or not. It turns out that the two mothers get along quite well. It's Rick and his mom that have issues. She questions whether Rick knows that his children aren't doing as well as he would like to think. Barbara sees her son Aaron for the first time since Phil's funeral.

Changes in the design of Miles' building that Rick's firm are designing means a dinner meeting for Rick - and a reluctant Lily -- with Miles and important clients. When Lily puts her two cents worth in at the dinner, it makes for an awkward evening for Rick.

Jesse is taken to a psychiatrist to find out why she isn't eating. Karen's firm is hired to oppose the building of Miles' building -- the one that Rick is designing.

Grace gets her learner's permit. She has a crush on Pace, a boy from her driver's education class, who seems oblivious to her feelings. So she goes out with Paces' annoying friend, Spencer, in an attempt to maybe make Pace jealous enough and have him ask her out. The date is a disaster. Tiffany breaks up with Jake when it becomes clear to her that their relationship wasn't going to go beyond the physical attraction.

Lily thinks that she might be pregnant and the reaction that she gets from Rick wasn't what she was hoping for. She begins to think that he's not who she thought he was. Grace has an accident in Rick's vehicle after being distracted spotting Carla and Eli together. As a result, Grace starts to rethink her opinion of Carla.

Layoffs at her workplace make Lily even uneasier there. But the new management consultant reverses those firings, putting Christie on edge and making Lily look foolish for speaking up at a staff meeting. Christie fires Lily for meeting with Graham behind her back. Judy accuses Lily of taking her BookLovers idea and using it for the magazine at work. Zoe feels abandoned because Grace doesn't want to baby-sit and stay home all of the time. In the end, the investors liked Graham's presentation, and Grace and Zoe (and Lily and Judy) make peace with each other.

Judy finds herself drawn between two men: the intellectually stimulating Paul, and the physically stimulating Will. Eli grows tired of Carla always wanting to get into trouble.

Jessie's glitter is missing, and Grace and Carla are the prime suspects. Rick discovers some unsettling news about both sides of his project with Miles. Evidence is discovered concerning Jessie's progress in therapy.

Jesse doesn't want to go to a dance by herself, which frustrates Karen because they bought a dress for it. Christie and Graham continue to clash at work. Karen's worried that her relationship with Leo isn't building towards something. Lily is uncomfortable with Graham's flirting and when she goes to establish that their relationship is purely a working one, he confesses his feelings for her. Rick interrupts him before anything else can happen. When she tells Christie, Christie basically tells her it's no big deal. Later, Graham kisses Lily unexpectedly. When Leo shows...

As Valentine's Day approaches, Rick and Karen are battling over the Atlantor project. Things come to a head when Karen manages to get an injunction stopping work on the project and David quits the firm. Grace's protest of the Atlantor project adds to Rick's problems. Rick and Lily finally manage to get together for Valentine's Day but neither of them is happy with the way things turn out.

Grace agrees to help Jake out at the restaurant, working as a hostess. While she is working Spencer shows up for dinner with his grandmother. A confrontation among some other employees leads to a hostage situation and the rest of the family learns about the situation as it unfolds on television.

Rick and Lily celebrate their engagement. Tiffany reveals to Grace that she's pregnant, but Grace pretty much had that figured out when she heard Tiffany throwing up in the bathroom. Lily and Rick tell their kids about the engagement, and Rick and his kids moving into Lily's house. Lily finds out Tiffany is pregnant. When Rick tells Karen about his engagement and move, she seems less than thrilled. When the rooming arrangements are discussed, not everyone is happy with the decisions. Disagreements about where to put things come up also. Rick and Jake put a hole in the...

Aaron returns for an extended stay and impresses everyone with his improvement. Grace and Spencer go back to the restaurant to write about their experience there, but Spencer gets nervous (because he was scared then) and goes home. The voices that have haunted Aaron for so long return at dinner and he freaks out. Shelley returns and says that despite the dinner outburst, he is getting better.

Will returns to repair ice damage to Lily's house, making for awkward moments for Judy. Judy runs into Paul (the guy who went off on her when she broke it off with him), creating more awkwardness for Judy. Lily grows agitated with Graham's constant flirting with the office women. Judy tells Karen that she thinks that Paul is the one calling her late at night. When Jake finds out that part of the repair might include a workspace for Rick in the attic, he says that he won't pay for the repairs. Judy hears noises outside her store and calls Jake. Jake confronts Paul and ...

Lily and Rick begin their wedding plans and want Judy to help, but Judy seems hesitant. Jesse faints and falls in the girls' locker room. Grace learns of it and voices her concern to Judy. Judy tells Karen, who tells Jesse, and argument ensues. Dr. Rosenfeld tells Rick and Karen to put restrictions on Jesse's activities until she eats what Rick and Karen ask her to. Jesse, of course, doesn't like this either. Judy reveals to Jesse that she was bulimic when she was younger. Judy finally blurts out that she doesn't trust Rick enough to watch Lily get married to him. ...

Karen finds out that a grand jury is being impaneled to investigate the Atlantor project. The District Attorney wants Karen to help them, but she is reluctant. She acts nervously around Rick and refuses to discuss the investigation with him. Rick is subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury investigation of Atlantor. Allegations of bribery and arrests are floated about. Lily forces Christie not to print an unsubstantiated story concerning the grand jury. Rick fills his kids in on the situation. He finally talks to Miles, but Miles doesn't give him any assurances or ...

Miles gets indicted and work on the Atlantor project is indefinitely suspended. Rick is invited to appear on a local talk show to tell his side of the story. But instead, he gets ambushed by the host on the air and leaves in the middle of the interview. The DA working on the case does everything but say that he is interested in Karen. They steal a "moment" at an awards dinner they both attended. After drinking a lot a bar with co-workers, Rick comes home and get into an argument with Lily. Rick goes to Miles' suite and angrily confronts an obviously dying Miles. Rick ...

Rick and his kids start to move their stuff to Lily's and Lily gets a call to sign the divorce papers. Carla tells Eli that she's not going back home because she's convinced that her parents hate her. So Eli asks Grace to ask Lily about staying at Lily's house. Eli gets his reply from the University of Illinois about admittance, and it's not good. Lily's hesitant about Carla staying with them. Eil tells his dad about the letter, at the dinner table, and neither one of them is happy now. Carla is worried that her plans to travel in Europe in the summer might not happen...

As the wedding approaches, hardly anything is finalised. Lily's father appears to her in her dreams. He asks her to ask Jake "what's been lost". Grace gets a letter from Carla, who's living with her brother, saying that she misses Grace, but not Eli. Grace lies to Eli and says Carla does miss him. Rick finds out that he's really low on cash and his accountant asks about scaling back the wedding plans. "What's been lost" is Jake's restaurant. He tells Lily this when she goes to pick up the cocktail napkins. Judy finds out details about Will's past through Tiffany, like...