Ann gets a job offer in London and ponders taking it. Despite getting nagged by her mother, she decides to accept the job. This leads her to wonder how she's going to tell the rest of her family that she's leaving.
Working side by side at the travel agency spawns a growing attraction between Max and Barbara, that becomes impossible to ignore.
Schneider gets a new lease on life after he's accidentally electrocuted, then revived, a hair raising experience in which he claims he died and came back to life.
After six years of not smoking, Sam lights up. But when he tries to quit, he finds his willpower has gone up in smoke.
Mark's jokester friends are visiting and taking their jokes too far to the point where everyone gets sick of them. Barbara gets so fed up that she tries to teach them a lesson by ""getting hurt.""
An Italian priest arrives unexpectedly at the Royers, claiming to be a distant relative of Grandma Romano.
Ann and Francine's business relationship is threatened when Francine announces she's marrying an ad executive Ann doesn't trust.
Barbara loses charge of her household when Grandma Romano moves in with her own set of rules, menus, meal schedules and a collection of cuckoo clocks.
Schneider has a sentimental reunion with his high-school love, who pays him a visit on his 50th birthday, bringing along her own cherished memories of their past.
Francine goes behind Ann's back to talk Sam into designing an elaborate office suite that's too grandiose for Ann's taste.
Sam's late night disappearance has the family convinced he's been kidnapped until Ann learns he's kept his old apartment.
Ann has the holiday blues, believing she and Sam will be alone on Christmas, but Sam plans to surprise her with a Caribbean cruise.
To arrange a long-overdue vacation, Barbara and Mark visit a travel agency, where Barbara finds an unexpected career opportunity.
Barbara, still wanting to have a child, continues to consider adoption.
A weekend watching little Annie for Max and Julie has Barbara longing to have her own baby and begins considering the option of adoption.
Ann's imagination runs away with her when Sam runs off on a business trip with an associate who happens to be his ex-girlfriend.
A plan to collaborate on the writing of children's stories drives Julie and Max into a bitter feud over Max's potential as a writer.
The opening of his new dental office gives Mark such a case of the jitters that he may give up his practice before the first patient walks through the door.