Present:
Present:
Present:
Present:
Rene helps plan a ceremony honoring her father. She asks M.E. to write a biography of her father to present at the event. In doing her research, M.E. discovers information about Rene's father's past that could be emotionally scarring for Rene.
Present:
Present:
Mary Elizabeth solicits the help of her family and Rene in caring for her aging Grandma Otis. Meanwhile, Rene is asked to represent a boy whose family refuses to give him his inheritance because he belongs to a spiritual group they believe is a cult.
Rene is representing the parents of a child who has died of AIDS. M.E. tries bringing her friends and Rene's friends together.
Present:
Rene represents a lesbian couple who are forbidden to marry on public property. M.E. suspects that Colliar is having an affair.
When Rene defends a black family that has been kicked off their property, she must confront the Alabama law that states that interracial marriages are illegal. M.E. rediscovers her writing.
Present:
Rene's stalker is still around and she has to get a restraining order. M.E. and Colliar are beginning their own construction business.
Rene is reunited with her cousin who has spent the past 20 years passing for a white man. M.E. and Colliar bid on a construction company.
Rene represents a white man who was beaten by the police. When Kelly brings home her black boyfriend, M.E. and Colliar react.
After Rene agrees to hire a youth whom her boyfriend Bill mentors, she discovers that Bill is not divorced - only separated. M.E. feels guilty when she develops a crush on another man, but Colliar is confident that their marriage is safe.
Tully, a childhood friend of Rene and M.E.'s, offends Rene when he takes part in a bigoted, tasteless prank during a parade. M.E. and Colliar try to keep Tully from being fired from his job, only to find that they have alienated Rene in the process.
Rene sends some of M.E.'s stories to a publisher friend in New York. When the publisher visits M.E. on a trip to a Southern women's writing conference, M.E.'s writing career gets a jump start. To fight off her writer's block and help her finish the first chapter of her novel, M.E. returns to Port Dixie to revisit her childhood. Meanwhile, Rene and Detective Moody find themselves falling in love, and Rene is forced to deal with Bill's ex-wife and two children.
Mary Elizabeth and Colliar deal with Davis's suspension from school for ""sexual misconduct,"" and try to raise a son and a daughter in the '90s without gender-typing them. Meanwhile, Rene fights to have a strip club's billboard removed from the vicinity of her office, and Mary Elizabeth learns that Colliar plans to attend a friend's stag party at a strip club, opening the debate on what men see about these clubs that women ""just don't get.""
Mary Elizabeth and Rene go to Los Angeles to visit Mary Elizabeth's sister Teresa, whom they must help come to terms with her fiancé's less-than-honorable motives. When lovesick Teresa returns to Birmingham with Mary Elizabeth, she confronts the chilling memory of being molested by her piano teacher - the same man who now gives Kelly piano lessons.
Mary Elizabeth helps Rene prepare to meet Bill's kids. Each year Mary Elizabeth debates whether or not to plan a birthday party for Colliar. She always does, despite his protests and arguing, and he always has a great time. This year, again, Mary Elizabeth and Colliar get into an argument about his party. When he doesn't show up the next afternoon after work - or for the party - Mary Elizabeth is furious. Her anger soon turns to fear, as there seems to be no trace of him. Bill begins to search as Rene tries to calm her friend. Finally, Colliar turns up at a hospital far away, apparently having been through a dramatic and violent ordeal. Mary Elizabeth is thrilled and relieved to have her husband back. Rene and Bill cannot hold back any longer, and end up making love, and then getting engaged.