Julia tries coping with her boyfriend Reese's death by looking after Randa Oliver, the supremely spoiled child of a client couple on an extended vacation.
Amateur painter Julia inadvertently becomes the darling of Atlanta's art scene when someone tries to buy her handbag while she's attending a gallery opening; Suzanne inadvertently glues her lips shut.
Everyone at Sugarbakers is baffled to discover that sensible Julia has covertly been singing evenings at a nightclub, Anthony tries to muster the nerve to ask out a girl who works at the bookstore.
Anthony, concerned with his masculinity after working with the women so long, tries standing up to his bullying neighbor, and is further humiliated when the women come to his rescue.
Mary Jo borrows and loses a string of pearls flaunted by Suzanne, subbing as a lifestyles reporter for local TV news. Meanwhile, a recurring dream about Julia upsets Anthony.
After Bernice gets a local public-access cable TV show, Mary Jo has her heart broken by a client and decides that Bernice's show is the ideal arena to air her views on men.
Mary Jo forbids her nearly 18-year-old daughter to date a 34-year-old, then dates him herself, Julia is forced to crash the men's room at a football stadium.
With her husband away on a mission, Charlene guiltily draws close to a man in her support group for military spouses who wife is also away. Meanwhile, lottery fever sweeps Sugarbakers.
When organizational confusion leads to Suzanne winning a date with Anthony in a bachelor charity auction, the two reluctantly try to make the best of a very awkward situation.
Resentment builds between Charlene and Mary Jo when Charlene wants to take a year off to look after her baby. The decorators cater to the whims of a rich, insufferable 10-year-old client as Mary Jo and Charlene ponder the joys and pitfalls of working mothers.
Sugarbaker's is beset by tourists when the building's Civil War foundation puts it on the Tour of Historical Homes, Mary Jo opens her heart to an old friend eager to make good on a marriage pact they once entered into.