Three Sisters

As Season Two begins, the Keats' son turns 1. Naturally Bess is preparing for a party, but Steven is concerned that Charlie can't do all the things that a neighbor's lad can -- like grip a football. Meanwhile, Annie can't help with party plans because she has a job as a bartender (the only drawback being her inability to mix drinks). And it's not a first birthday but a first husband that concerns Nora, who has just learned that Elliott never signed the divorce papers. ""I never would have slept with you last week if I'd known we were still married,"" she says. ""That's just sick.""

While Bess tries to hide the fact that she's a parent from her new old-fashioned boss, Vince, Nora has to endure her family's less-than-enthusiastic response to the news that Elliot is back in her life -- until she gets a little unexpected help from Steven.

When Jake decides its time to get serious about his love life, he sets his sights on Annie. To keep things safe, Annie invites Gordon to hang out with her and Jake -- and ends up making an interesting discovery in the process. Meanwhile, Bess is determined to prove that she and Steven are still a hotter couple than Nora and Elliot.

When Steven and Bess take a romantic weekend getaway sans Bess' birth control, she worries that she may be pregnant. Meanwhile, Nora and Elliot make parenting decisions of their own after babysitting Charlie. Annie and George attempt some father-daughter bonding, and Honey becomes attached to a raccoon that's been eating the koi in her pond. (from NBC)

Nora needs a new job (her last one was directing a gross-out reality show, for crying out loud!), so her father offers her an interview with the university's dean. Reluctant, Nora sees herself with no other choice. At the interview, she reads the note from her dad saying ""don't be thrown by Nora"". Offended, she tries to prove she's not an intimidating person, but ends up looking even more intimidating to the dean. George invites dean Webber to the family brunch, where the dean gives Nora a second chance. Meanwhile, Steven and Jake win an award, but Steven doesn't give Jake a chance to say thanks, which they solve by Jake giving Steven a punch. Bess, on the other hand, doesn't think they can solve things without emotions.

Baby Charlie's first Halloween sparks a spirited debate between Steven and Bess as to how they will celebrate Christmas and Chanukah. Steven enlists George's support in his anti-Xmas tree campaign, while Honey sides with Bess. Meanwhile, Annie is convinced that her car is haunted until Bess and Nora give her a little sisterly help contacting the offending spirit via the Ouija board. (from NBC)

Nora comes in asking if it's ok to pay for movie tickets with pennies, which leads the whole family to remember how Steven originally dated Nora and ended up with Bess. It was 1994. Annie was graduating from high school, Bess was still single and Nora was just left by Elliot. In a convenience store, bachelors Jake and Steven spot lonely Nora, and Steven starts to hit on her. They go on an awful date at a baseball bat, and Nora is back home much sooner than she expected. Bess briefly meets Steven, with whom she immediately falls in love. Steven, on the other hand, is going to try to get a 2nd date with Nora, so he sends her carnations, a bear and a card. George develops an allergic reaction to the flowers and they all rush to the hospital, skipping Annie's big graduation day. But they make a pact to pretend they all went. Back in present days, Nora is surprised to learn the flowers were for her, and they all wonder what ever happened to the card.

George says he used the card as a book marker. The book was given to Nora, who gave the book to Bess, who lent it to Elliot. The card is exactly where George left it 7 years ago. While Annie is shocked to learn that none of her relatives attended her graduation, and that she lost her virginity to a guy who used Steven's flowers as his own, Nora says she would have gone out with Steven again if she had read the card. Bess freaks out with the thought of her marriage with Steven being a destiny accident. She and Steven argue when they fell in love for each other. While Bess fell for him the moment she saw him, Steven's heart didn't beat any faster until one day, with a simple gesture, Bess picked up a pepper from the floor.

When Bess is forced to spend Thanksgiving with her mother-in-law in Chicago, she winds up learning a secret she wishes she had never heard. Meanwhile, an argument between Nora and Annie results in their hosting separate Thanksgiving dinners side-by-side in their shared apartment with their respective dates, Elliot and Gordon, caught in the middle.

Annie makes an audition tape for MTV's ""Real World"", using footage of her dancing on top of the bar at work as the centerpiece of her submission. Enlisting Gordon's help in making her tape, Annie realizes she wants to take her relationship with Gordon to a new level. Meanwhile, Nora gets caught in the middle when Elliot and Honey work out their frosty relationship through a particularly vicious game of ping-pong. (from NBC)

Bess and Steven hire a nanny to take of Charlie for the holidays. But they're very surprised when the nanny turns out to be a 45 year-old man. Terry is a wonderful nanny, but Steven and Bess are embarrassed to tell people that he's the nanny, so they start to come up with fake stories for a reason why he's helping with Charlie, until Terry finds out and quits. Meanwhile, Annie and Gordon go on their first real date. But Annie keeps blowing Gordon's plans for more spontaneous things, until he surprises her with a romantic dinner.

When Bess' boss, Vince, institutes ""bring your dog to work day"", Bess freaks out because she doesn't have a dog, so she asks Annie for one. Annie's dog at first seems too small, but Vince thinks it's perfect. Unfortunately, the dog is cast on Frasier and Bess has to take a new dog to work. He messes the entire office sniffing butts and other private parts. Bess gives up on the idea of bringing a dog to work, and just as she is ready to prove herself worthy to Vince she discovers that they've run out of business. Meanwhile, Nora reprehends Jake for dating one of her students. She dumps him and now Jake has Nora escort him home after dental surgery. Nora quickly sees in a sedated Jake a fun opportunity to tape everything he says and use it to make fun of him later. But what she didn't expect was Jake confessing that he feels lonely and wants to raise a family.

When Nora and Elliot decide to move in together again, Annie is out of a place to live until Jake offers her his spare room - an arrangement that Gordon isn't thrilled with. Elliot becomes increasingly exasperated by Nora's refusal to agree to marry him again and her insistence that he occupy only one room in her house - an arrangement that makes him feel like a boarder. After a blow-up, he returns home to an unexpected, but pleasant surprise. Meanwhile, inspired by Elliot's situation, Steven begins a campaign to create his own ""guy room"" at his and Bess' home. (from NBC)

Annie and Jake accidentally see each other naked and feel awkward about it, but not as awkward as Jake feels when he accidentally tells Gordon, especially since he hasn't seen Annie naked yet. Annie, on the other hand, is fine with it and tries to work things out with Gordon, which they eventually do. Meanwhile, Bess gets a little carried away planning Nora's wedding, and confesses she was very disappointed with her first wedding, when Nora and Elliot got married without waiting for Bess. And Steven has a hard time calling George ""dad"" after he asks him to.