Season 3

An anxious Caroline, not aware that Julia intercepted his message, waits for Richard's response but isn't prepared for his ""Oh, why is it so difficult to say three words - I got married!"" Devastated, Caroline calls Del in the middle of the night and he rushes over - still handcuffed to his date Kristin, and must be released by an amused Annie with one of her collection of keys. Caroline impulsively throws a reception to honor the happy couple, at which she gets drunk, but things turn serious when Julia's wealthy father's chauffeur arrives and summons her to talk - and for the first time in her life Julia turns down her father's money and announces she will stay married to the man she loves.

When Richard shows up wearing a ridiculous shirt Julia forced him to wear, Caroline advises him to talk to her frankly about the compromises inherent in marriage - and Julia leaves him. Meanwhile, Charlie is upset that Del still treats him as an underling rather than a partner, and Annie tries to cope with unemployment by finishing The Grapes of Wrath - which she started in eighth grade.

Caroline's date reads more like a Shakespearean tragedy after she tells a lie to James, an attractive novelist she runs into during her book signing, and must then desperately cover for the fact that she hasn't actually read his novel; Richard tables his own remedy when Julia's job at Remo's is a disaster and he has to replace her as waiter; it's bad fortune for Annie when a fortune cookie leads Charlie to believe they share a recipe for love; and Del inadvertently becomes third party on a honeymoon.

Julia throws a surprise birthday party for Richard by inviting everyone in his address book, under the impression that they are his friends, which results in a gathering chiefly of his ex-therapists - one of whom is interested in Annie, to Richard's horror. Meanwhile, the discovery that she has been getting illegal free cable for years puts Caroline in a moral spin, since the rest of the building is hooked into her outlet and anxious for her not to do the right thing.

Julia tries to cheer up Caroline by setting her up on a blind date, which Richard does his best to sabotage. Meanwhile, Annie prepares to realize her dreams of revenge at her high-school reunion, with an overly coached Del in tow pretending to be her highly successful husband.

Caroline's former colorist Jeannie comes back to town on a mission: she and her husband can't conceive, so she wants Caroline to donate an egg; Annie naturally seizes the opportunity to make Richard paranoid that Caroline plans to re-hire Jeannie. Meanwhile, Del has a close encounter with his old Porsche and gets himself hired as a male escort for the company that now owns his former automotive love.

Annie's former mentor from New Jersey is coming to town especially to see her star pupil in Cats, unaware that Annie quit the show. Annie begs Caroline to accompany them to dinner, where they learn that Miss McGowan has recently lost over 150 pounds, but immediately begins to overeat when Annie attempts to explain - so an uncharacteristically timid Annie must beg the producer for her job back for just one golden evening for Miss McGowan, abetted by an old programme supplied by Del. Meanwhile, Richard joins Charlie as an experimental guinea pig for testing new drugs (""We prefer the term biosluts.""), but a new antihistamine soon has them both convinced that Richard's furniture is staring at them.

While they wait for Chinese takeaway delivery, Richard shows Caroline a family wedding ring he was planning to give to Julia, and soon after, the heirloom seemingly disappears from her apartment -leading Fong to accuse, and throw out, his delivery boy son Tim, who takes up residence in Caroline's living room. Meanwhile, Del and Charlie scheme to climb to the top of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree to place a large ad for Caroline's line of holiday cards; and Annie develops a cabaret act and is attracted to hunky guitarist Paul, while oblivious to pianist Seth's growing infatuation with her.

When Annie discovers an old musical notebook among the possessions Richard wants to store in Caroline's locker, teasing leads to genuine surprise when one of Richard's compositions turns out to be the tune to ""The Way We Were,"" which won a Grammy award for Richard's summer camp instructor, Marvin Hamlisch. With Annie pretending to be his legal counsel, Richard braves Hamlisch's ferociously protective housekeeper Olga and steals the trophy, then begins hostage negotiations. Meanwhile, Caroline encounters her former blind date Trevor and they resume a relationship, complicated by Trevor's German Shepherd who remains stubbornly loyal to Trevor's former girlfriend.

Del gets excited over commercial possibilies when a civic politican mentions Caroline's cartoon strip in a speech, but Richard pours cold water on the idea: the man has a terrible record for opposing funding for the arts. His opinon changes slightly when Del drags the wily politico over for a meeting, whereupon Lake goes wild over Richard's recently completed painting and buys it. By the time Richard thinks better of selling his first work to a man he despises, Julia has already spent the money on a honeymoon trip to Hawaii; so Caroline steps in to prove she is not as politically naive as everyone assumes. Meanwhile, Annie, trying to cope with her cousin Jennifer who has dropped out of high school to find an acting career in Manhattan, goes ballistic when she discovers the girl has met a man claiming to be a movie producer who has promised her a role opposite Keanu Reeves - and sets out for the guy's hotel room to tell him off....

Caroline becomes convinced that Richard is having an affair - but he is really moonlighting as a used car salesman to earn extra Christmas cash. Enter Del and Charlie in search of a used Porsche.

When Caroline's parents are stranded in Wisconsin by a snowstorm, Caroline reluctantly accompanies Del to his dysfunctional family Christmas - especially after he tells her that his mother still resents her never having brought a hostess gift the first time they met - leaving Charlie to house-sit Salty and attempt to spend some quality holiday time with his father. Meanwhile, while Richard tries to be enthusiastic about a delayed honeymoon trip to Hawaii, Annie tries to help Julia overcome her fear of flying with some tranquilizers that work all too well - and while defending herself to a furious Richard, lets slip the little fact that Caroline is ""still"" in love with him....

Caroline is aghast that Annie blabbed to Richard about her feelings for him, and tries to avoid his questions by inviting in a hyper-anxious knife salesman. When Richard discovers the truth about the answering machine message Caroline left for him (and which Julia erased), the two finally confess their mutual attraction, but quickly agree that they have both moved on. But a dinner double date at Caroline's turns into a competition for happiest couple between Caroline & Trevor and Richard & Julia - until they all wind up in an emergency ward with food poisoning from Caroline's fish chowder. Meanwhile, Annie tries a song and dance routine to help Del and Charlie defend their greeting card trade show turf against Del's evil brother Garner.

Annie's been dating Seth Rudetski for six weeks now, and he's decided it's time for her to meet his parents, an intellectual couple who run ""Nothing Trivial,"" a quiz show broadcast to colleges on public radio. They turn out to be big fans of Caroline's strip, and persuade her to appear as a celebrity contestant - a decision that revives her childhood trauma (seen in a flashback) of freezing under the pressure of a state spelling bee. While Del and Charlie try to coach her through her anxiety, she appeals to Richard - and Julia steps in with a solution of her own. Meanwhile, Annie's feeling pressure of a different sort: from the excessively close relationship between Seth and his doting parents. (.)

An unusual episode focussing on Del, who for once has an adult problem after he hears some shocking news from Laura, a former fling who's in town for the weekend - together with the daughter she had by Del but never told him about. Torn between a burning desire to meet his child and his terror of being a total disappointment to her, and Annie's brother quits his job to become a painter after he misinterprets Richard's evaluation of his work as an artist.

In a surreal take-off on both The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone, Caroline insists that Richard work late once too often for Julia, who accuses Caroline of being an inconsiderate employer and says that she should ""walk a mile in my shoes."" Caroline instantly finds herself doing just that, since everyone now sees her as Julia and Julia as Caroline, while (in the best touch) Charlie narrates a la Rod Serling. Caroline discovers the advantages of being the gorgeous Julia - the customers at Remo's don't care that she's an incompetent bartender so long as they get to ogle her behind her back - but is frustrated in her attempts to take advantage of the ""special thing"" Richard wants Julia to do with him as soon as they get home.

An ecstatic Annie bursts in on Caroline and Trevor to announce that her mother is finally moving out to live with an aunt in the suburbs. When Caroline discovers that Trevor has left his toothbrush behind, she begins worrying about whether their relationship is moving too fast, then decides to get a key cut for Trevor, then takes Annie's advice not to give it to him yet - only to discover that a distracted Richard has already done so. Both Richard and Caroline pursue Trevor to his gym, where they have to fend off the attempts of an over-motivated employee to sign them up as members and where Caroline and a flustered Trevor finally reach an understanding of sorts in the steam room. Meanwhile, Del and Charlie pursue their daftest promotional scheme yet: kidnapping the Central Park groundhog so that when he emerges he will be wearing a little Caroline in the City cape. Naturally, this scheme backfires, along the way ensuring that Annie's mother doesn't move out after all. (So now that she

Richard gets a chance to have a painting exhibited at the New York Public Library, but falls victim to on-line addiction at a cyber cafe. An outraged Caroline files a complaint against a rude cabbie, but Richard is her only witness (""A rude cab driver in New York? What's next, tall buildings?"") and fails to show up at the hearing. Meanwhile, after literal years on the waiting list, Annie finally gets an appointment with famous hair stylist Olaf, only to have Del and Charlie invade her session with a ridiculous scheme to market the hair sweepings of the famous - which Olaf loves.

When Caroline's mother visits, Annie becomes upset at the blandness of their relationship and encourages Caroline to have a healthy fight as she and Angie do. When Caroline timidly tries to open up to her mom, Margaret repostes with a real shocker: she hates Caroline's comic strip. Meanwhile, Del and Charlie go to Atlantic City at the request of a potential investor, and Richard tags along for the free ride, desperately trying to finish the new John Grisham thriller while resisting everyone's determination to tell him the surprise ending.

For insurance purposes, Del and Charlie pretend to be gay, but then Del meets a beautiful woman at a party, and in trying to pursue her gets himself and Charlie invited to be the couple of honor at a gay pride rally. Meanwhle, Richard reluctantly agrees to change his appearance so that he'll be picked for jury duty, and Annie lies to her mom about her dad's fiancée.

Annie goes on a blind date with a former priest, and to her own surprise hits it off with him - particularly when she learns he has never been with a woman but would really, really like to be. Richard attempts to reconcile with Julia's multi-millionaire dad, who is still convinced that Richard is only after Julia for the money, and Caroline becomes convinced by a serious of strange accidents that he is actually trying to kill Richard: a theory Richard poo-poos until he finds himself at the controls of a plummeting plane while Mazzone prepares to parachute to safety. Meanwhile, Del thinks he can improve on the punch line of Caroline's latest cartoon, then he and Charlie desperately try to retrieve it from the syndication editors before it goes to press, using measures that give new meaning to the phrase ""cartoon strip.""

Caroline and Jo Anne Worley agree to stage a feud after the cartoonist is blamed for having a deli sandwich named for Worley being renamed in her own honor. Meanwhile, Richard agonizes because Julia's regained wealth has given him painter's block; and Annie shows a reluctant Richard that his new $12,000 gold Rolex watch gives him shopper's credit in the stores that formerly scorned him.

Caroline returns home to find Richard, Julia, Trevor, Annie, Del and Charlie bound and gagged together - which turns out to be the doing of a deranged marriage counselor, as we learn in a series of flashbacks: To quit or not to quit? That is the question Richard faces in this hour-long episode. When Julia is finally able to claim her inheritance, the Karinskys move into a penthouse and ponder leaving their jobs. While Mrs. Karinsky gives up bartending in a flash, Richard makes excuses about abruptly leaving Caroline. A concerned Julia hires a marriage counselor, who turns out to be more interested in Richard's job than his life. Meanwhile, Caroline suggests that she and Trevor move in together. Garry Shandling has a cameo as one of the therapist's other patients.

Julia and Richard's marriage counselor starts work as Richard's replacement but finds that everyone still wants him to give them relationship advice.

Now that they are planning to move in together, Caroline and Trevor hold a rummage sale on Caroline's doorstep, but she can't bear to part with her things and winds up buying them back at a loss. All she manages to sell is Del's softball glove, which he needs because he is helping Charlie coach a Little League team; this surprises everyone until they meet Monica, the attractive mother of one of the boys. Meanwhile, planning to spend the summer in Spain, Richard and Julia throw themselves a bon voyage party (described by Caroline as a ""Eurotrash compacter""). While Julia shops, a distracted Richard is indifferent to the cook's ""perfect Bernaise sauce,"" so the indignant chef quits (and Remo gets the job on two hours' notice, with the new waitress from his restaurant as staff). Julia has celebrated by buying herself a flashy new diamond bracelet; and during the party, when Caroline and Annie sneak into the en suite bathroom, they accidentally overhear a man with a distinctive laugh making

On the eve of their moving in together, Caroline leaves Trevor alone as she dashes off to Spain, with Annie in tow, in an attempt to repair the damage she has done to Richard and Julia's marriage. Lunching at Remo's, they have seen Remo's new waitress wearing a diamond bracelet and realized it was she making love to José during the party. Richard arrives in Spain and the hotel maid, who hates Julia, directs him to the ""matador bar"" on the corner; but when he demands to speak to a ""worthless matador named José,"" every man in the bar stands up. By the time Caroline and Annie arrive, Richard has traced Julia to Pamplona, where she has gone to see the running of the bulls; unaware of the event, and distracted by the arrival of Caroline, Richard flees for his life and is trampled by the bulls - only mildly, as we discover. Meanwhile, Del suffers through endless bad pitches thrown by Monica's son while Charlie explains why he won't let the hopeless kid into the game, and discovers an unexpec