It loooks like Gwen's sacred ""no sex before the fifth date"" rule may cause some real trouble, because the spontaneous route may be the only way Mickey will be able to participate--before or after date no. 5. Guy decides to hold a literary competion to help nuture a Bohemian atmosphere at the bar, but the main result is a pair of competing, revealing memoirs written by Terry and Danny.

Gwen ambitiously wants to cook a Thankgiving dinner for everyone, but her plans are hampered by her lack of culinary skills and Danny's forgetting to buy a turkey. While an attempt is made to locate a bird on Thanksgiving Day, Gwen's mom Rita shows up unexpectedly, not knowing that her ex-lawyer Gordon, who once stood her up at the altar, was invited.

Gwen is being driven crazy by the noises made by the broken tower clock in their building and wants to complain to the landlord Mr. Lux, despite the direst of warnings from Terry, Danny and Guy. Despite their pleas, Gwen thinks she can reason with this oddball with a penchant for predatory birds. Lux agreees to fix the clock, which then strikes so loud every hour that it's deafening everybody in the building.

Gwen calls to complain about the newspaper delivery. She gets a wrong number, but hits it off well with the man she reaches. With Terry's encouragement, she calls him back using the phone's re-dial feature, but in the meantime Danny had called his and Terry's father. The result is that the siblings are soon horrified to find that Gwen is dating their dad.

In a cough-medicine-induced stupor, an ill Terry mistakenly sends off the rent check written on the business account. Gwen is terrified that Mr. Lux will terminate their lease for running a business out of the loft. That night, Terry dreams of a scheme straight out of ""Mission: Impossible"" to try and get the rent check back.

The girls conceive of and promote a special broadcast of the MTV show ""Loveline"" to be broadcast from the bar.

Gwen wants to give down-and-out Steve a break and let him have a job with their small business. Terry agrees because it will give her an opportunity to show Gwen what a good boss should be like. But Steve would try the patience of Job as he mangles up the most simple tasks assigned him and is costing them a lot of money. Meanwhile Danny is trying to write a profile of Guy, but he can't penetrate the wall of secrecy surrounding Guy's past, and the clues he does come up with suggest all sorts of exotic and unbelievable things.

Danny and Terry invite their old friend Mickey, now a firefighter, over for dinner and he and Gwen are instantly attracted to each other. Neither one will admit it, however, and they both go to elaborate lengths to prove their indiference while still running into each other. Danny has an idea for his new newspaper column, using overheard snatches of conversations to provide a colorful, intriguing pastiche. He soon decides, however, that the bar's patrons are the dullest people in the world, so he makes up cocktail napkins with conversation starters on them. His ploy works too well.

Terry Reynolds, longtime assistant to Gwen Leonard, creative executive at a Manhattan marketing and promotions firm, announces to Gwen that she's been let go from her job. The self-centered Gwen's reaction is predictable: she wonders how this will affect her. But she soon finds out that she's a victim of the same corporate downsizing. A few months later, Gwen shows up at the SoHo loft where Terry lives with her brother Danny, an aspiring writer who works at the bar downstairs run by Guy Mann. Without Terry to look after her finances, Gwen has spent all her money and has run up unpayable debts, resulting in her being kicked out of her high-priced condo. Desperate, she pleads with Terry to let her stay with her until she can get back on her feet. Part of that effort includes filing for unemployment benefits, where Gwen is confronted with the unsympathetic civil servant Mrs. Francis. Later Gwen tells Terry that their talents compliment each other and that they should go into business for

Gwen is laid up with illness for a few days and she has nothing to do but lay around watching infomercials and eating Terry's delicious soup made in a pressure cooker. She gets a brainstorm and decides that she and Terry could market pressure cookers as a way to make this delicacy. They find a dealer with a warehouse full of the cookers and make arrangements with him. Gwen recruits Guy to be in their infomercial and Danny to write it, though much of his strident working-class rhetoric is red-penciled. Gwen uses the soup to bribe Mrs. Francis into providing them the name of an out-of-work celebrity to endorse the product. June Lockhart is contacted. She's suitably impressed and agrees to endorse the cookers. The first broadcast of the infomercial is a ringing success with orders pouring in. But then the women find out that their supplier Mr. Tolafa has reneged on the deal and is selling them himself, touting them ""as seen on TV!"" June comes by in a fury and tells the girls in terms she

Unscrupulous rival Jack Goodman is trying to steal the partners' best client, the Texas millionaire Tom Whitman. Gwen hatches a plan for Terry to get a job with his company and do some corporate espionage, but Terry unexpectedly finds herself liking her new place of employment. Meanwhile, Danny's agent Scott tries to find work for a bar patron who believes himself to be Benjamin Franklin.

Terry is overjoyed to see her old friend from the neighborhood, Debbie. Gwen is a little put off, though, by Debbie's memory of the way Terry characterized her when she was Terry's boss. Terry wants to get the old gang together and hit the town one night, but Debbie will have to find a babysitter for her children. Hoping to rehabilitate her image, Gwen volunteers to do the job. Out at one of the girls' favorite old hangouts, Terry finds that the nightlife is not quite the way she remembered it. Meanwhile, Gwen is proving unsuited to the task of handling the kids and the oldest one, Molly, locks herself in the bathroom and won't come out. Gwen calls for help, but finally proves she has some ""people skills"" with younger folks, too, as she talks Molly out of the bathroom by sympathetically comparing both of their situations.

Mrs. Francis is involved in a school charity auction, and Gwen convinces Tery and Danny to participate, despite their better judgment. Danny warms to the idea, though, when he meets one of the women who might be bidding on a date with him. But he's sold to his mother Tina, who's mad about him missing his lunch dates with her. Danny's agent Scott lowers the bidding on Terry by spreading rumors about her health and mob connections, then buys her for himself. Guy shows up prepared to spend big money to at last get a date with Gwen, but a former classmate of hers puts up $25,000 to create the fantasy prom he never had with her. Gwen also gets reacquainted that night with Steve, another former high-school classmate whose ego has fallen on some hard times since graduation.

Terry should be in dating heaven as her moribund love life has been resurrected by three cute guys pursuing her. The problem? They're all studying for the priesthood. In the meantime, Gwen is an unenthusiastic volunteer at the church rummage sale until she finds designer clothes at incredible bargain prices. She recruits Guy to help her corral the most desirable items, but his worst fear is realized when the ruse is discovered by Sister Mary Grace.

Terry tries hard to make sure that there won't be any physical or emotional relationship between her old friend Debbie and her brother Danny.

Gwen and Terry are trying to get insured, but the agent tells them they are not qualified. When he mentions that same-sex domestic partners are eligible for his company's insurance, Gwen says that's exactly what she and Terry are, and surprises Terry with a demonstation of her affection. The agent is not entirely convinced about this, so he plans to make a visit to them at home to check out their living arrangement, leaving the two women to try and set up a convincing domestic household in time. Also, Guy is challenged for the title of ""Mr. New York,"" the businessman who best knows where to go and how to get things done in the city.