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

Terri and Gwen disagree over Guy's suggestion for their first client, a would-be comedian known as Little H. His father, who wants to see him succeed, is a mobster known as Bobby H., a man who usually gets what he wants and who people want to stay on the good side of. Trouble is, Little H. has no apparent talent.

Terry insists that Gwen get rid of some of her possessions that are cluttering up the apartment. Gwen reluctantly participates in a tag sale out on the street. Guy comes by to hit on Gwen, but he does prove his worth by talking up the price on an item to a customer. Unfortunately, one of Gwen's old friends, Alyssa, sees her. Gwen explains that she was just hunting for bargains and suggests that Terry is some poor wretch she's helping out. After Gwen has lunch with Alyssa, Terry is not too happy, but Gwen got a contact for a new client, a radio station-owning millionaire. The women need an office to make a good impression, so they blackmail Danny into letting them use the one in which he's been carrying on with a businessman's daughter. In the office, Gwen and Terry have an argument over whose job is harder to do. Both claim they could do the other's job. So when the client comes in, Terry assumes Gwen's identity and vice-versa, even sending Gwen out for coffee! Tom Whitman is a brash,

The women are searching through the pockets of Gwen's clothes looking that she'd forgotten about in her more prosperous days when Terry finds a receipt for part ownership in a race horse calle Living Large, a purchase that also slipped Gwen's mind. Terry of course wants to sell the horse and put the money into the business. The impractical Gwen wants to hang onto the mare, which hasn't won a race in three years. Finally she agrees to sell the horse if it doesn't win its next race. Also among Gwen's things, Danny finds the number of basketball pro Karl Malone. He calls the number and finds out that, amazingly, Malone is familiar with his play ""A Stork in Winter."" What's more, Malone writes himself, and promises to send Danny a screenplay for him to read. Terry, Gwen, Guy and Danny all head to the track to watch Living Large run. Terry is adamant that she won't bet on any races, but her resistance wears down and she does. She ends up winning several races in a row, making a substantial a

Lunching at Clockworks, Gwen and Terry are both attracted to James Collins, a young man who's a new client, but they both agree (Gwen very reluctantly) that he should be off-limits while he's involved with them professionally. He proves too tempting for Terry, though, and she agrees to go out with him the first time he asks. He promises not to tell Gwen. However, the first time he's alone with Gwen he goes through the same routine with her, with the same results. When James comes by the apartment later, both women act like they're seeing him for the first time since their business lunch. As soon as he's alone with either one of them, he begins to put a move on her. Terry confesses her guilt to Danny, who sees it merely as fodder for a story. When Guy and Danny both agree Terry shouldn't tell Gwen the truth, she decides that she should do it anyway. At the restaurant Terry and Gwen are both about to confess to each other when they see James there kissing another woman. Terry tells Gwen

Gwen's monopolizing of the bathroom and other personal habits are beginning to rub some nerves, so Terry proposes some house rules. Gwen is against them until Danny keeps her up at night playing around with his new girlfriend, a model named Lana. Some rules are hashed out: Gwen is limited to thirty minutes in the bathroom and restrictions are put on Danny's frolics with females. Gwen goes to the unemployment office see Mrs. Francis, who is about to leave for home, and is surprised to learn that since she's no longer unemployed, she will no longer receive benefits. Gwen convinces Mrs. Francis to let her come home with her and use her bathtub. Gwen luxuriates in the tub listening to a relaxation tape and doesn't notice the water is overflowing, causing the downstairs ceiling to collapse. Meanwhile Danny has to find a new place to make out with Lana. He takes her to a dark storage room where he accidentally gets poked in the eye. At Clockworks, Terry takes over for the injured Danny behin

Gwen is depressed: she's been invited by the Mayor to present the Humanitarian of the Year Award, but she's mortified by the prospect of seeing her old acquaintances again and having to explain her poverty and unemployment. Ashley is upset too, worried that his dress won't be ready for the ""tri-state 'Hello Dolly' competition."" Gwen realizes for the first time that Ashley is Guy's son. Terry encourages Gwen to go to the gala anyway and reluctantly agrees to make a new dress for her. Gwen unsuccessfully tries to recruit Danny as her date for the evening, but has to settle for Guy. When Guy arrives to pick her up, Gwen promptly rips her gown in the loft's heavy door. The resourceful Guy helps do a quick remodeling job on another dress--Ashley's--and Gwen is able to arrive at the gala looking good. At the gala, Gwen's pretentious friends ask about her dress and her date. Gwen says she's wearing a Terry Reynolds original and that Guy is a Spanish count. Guy surprises her by speaking fluent

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

Gwen's intimidating, emotionally distant mother Rita comes to the door, and she finds herself in a situation similar to Gwen's. The most recent of her old, rich husbands has died and left her practically nothing. Now she is more ill-prepared to face the world without money than Gwen was. Despite Terry's disdain for her mother, Gwen tries to show her what she's learned in the past several months about living practically, including an attempt to cook a chicken. But it looks like Rita may have found another suitably rich suitor. Also, Guy is feeling pressure from other area bars and he turns his place into a Western-themed saloon to try and compete, much to Danny's chagrin.

Gwen and Terry are hoping to land a big account, Roberta York Cosmetics. But when they meets with Roberta, there's a problem. It seems that at her previous job, Gwen blamed Terry for her being late for a meeting with Roberta. Gwen doesn't remember what she said, but whatever it was makes Roberta very reluctant to work with Terry in the present. Later at the loft, a perturbed Terry jogs Gwen's memory: she told Roberta that she had to bail her assistant out of jail after a smash-and-grab jewelry store robbery! Terry and Gwen tell Roberta the truth about what happened. Roberta is willing to forgive a troubled youth's past action, but she won't forgive Gwen's lying about it. So the women reverse their stoiries once again. But Gwen also forgot that she also told Roberta that Terry was mentally ill and needed medication. Terry's actions now convince Roberta that she's off that medication. Fnally Gwen talks Roberta into letting them work for her by pointing out the whole cosmetics industry is

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.

Gone from the unemployment bureau, Mrs. Francis hopes to make a deal with Guy to make appetizers for his bar. The food is wonderful, but a sticking point arises when she insists her eggrolls be billed only as ""Mrs. Francis' eggrolls."" Also, Danny learns some tough lessons about artistic compromise when his grim, hard-hitting play about drug addiction will only be considered for production by a children's theatre.

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.

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.

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.

Guy has found himself a new girlfriend who he proudly shows off to Gwen and Terry. Gwen is relieved that now she won't be the constant target of Guy's aspirations, but surprisingly she misses the attention he gave her and she becomes jealous of the new woman in his life. Also, Danny can't believe his good luck when he hooks up with a songwriter for a project he's working on. Unfortunately, he finds out the man was literally a song writer--he wrote one big hit years ago and hasn't come up with anything else since.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.