The Terrible Catsafterme

SEASON 1

Created by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee

Theme music: “Piano Sonata #20 in A Major, D. 959, IV. Rondo. Allegretto” composed by Franz Schubert, arranged and adapted by Antony Cooke

• 001. Legacy – 4/19/1990
  • Joe Hackett (Tim Daly) runs the small Sandpiper airline on the island of Nantucket, operating out of the Nantucket Memorial Airport. He only has one plane, and competes with Aeromass, a slightly larger airline with six planes run by the obnoxious Roy Biggins (David Schramm). Handling Joe’s ticket counter is  the flighty Fay Cochran (Rebecca Schull). Running the lunch counter at the airport is Helen Chappel (Crystal Bernard), with whom Joe grew up as a child, and Lowell Mather (Thomas Hayden Church) is the airport’s mechanic. Joe finds out that his father left him a package in his will with the understanding that it can only be opened in the presence of both Joe and his brother Brian (Steven Weber), with whom Joe has been estranged since Brian stole Joe’s girlfriend Carol and married her. Brian returns to the airline and the brothers open the package which contains a key that opens a locker in Boston. They end up spending the day on a wild goose chase, as the locker contains a key to another locker, which contains another key to another locker, and so forth. The final locker is in the airport and it contains a photo of the brothers, indicated the father’s desire for them to be reconciled. In the end Joe finds out that Carol has left Brian for another man, and Brian has lost his job. He offers Brian a chance to work at Sandpiper and Brian accepts. 12/20/13

• 002. Around the World in Eighty Years – 4/26/1990
  • A retired pilot named Howard Banks (Richard Erdman) camps out at the airport because he fears completing his around-the-world trip which is just 20 miles further because he promised God that He could take him once he was done. Faye talks him into finishing so that he can get on with his life, but at the last minute he decides to fly the distance backward to get home and ‘fool’ God. Faye realized that he is nuts. Meanwhile Helen gets a call back for a cello audition, and Brian convinces her to wear a sexy dress. Joe vehemently disagrees…until he sees Helen in the dress. She still gets reject for the job. 12/21/13
• 003. Return to Nantucket: Part 1 – 5/3/1990
  • An old friend of Brian’s named Danny McCoy (William Bumiller) visits the island and informs him that his ex-wife Carol has dumped the man she left him for and is moving to England. Brian tracks down her flight info and finds out that she will be having a layover in Boston. He leaves a message for her to meet him at the top of the Prudential Building, but then can’t get a flight himself because all flight are grounded in the fog. He takes Joe’s plane anyway, and is followed by Helen and Joe. Carol gets a message to him through a taxi driver (Sy Richardson)…and thereafter shows up in person. First of two parts. Bryan Clark plays a man posing as a security guard. First of two parts. 1/8/14
• 004. Return to Nantucket: Part 2 – 5/10/1990
  • Second of two parts. Carol (Kim Johnston Ulrich) postpones her London plans and comes back to Nantucket to give her relationship with Brian another chance. Helen is aghast that Carol doesn’t remember her, and resorts to binge eating to cope. Brian is loving having Carol back, and Joe seems to support him until Carol makes a pass at Joe and it takes everything he has to stop her advance. Helen witnesses this and gets drunk and goes to Carol’s hotel room to confront her and the two get into a wrestling match. Joe and Brian arrive in time to break up the fight and realize that Carol is no good for them and is tearing them apart. Carol ultimately chooses Brian, but he declines, and Helen delivers a pie to her face. 1/8/14
• 005. There Once Was a Girl from Nantucket – 5/17/1990
  • In order for Brian to be able to go out with a girl named Gail that he met, he must get Joe to take out her friend Cindy (Megan Mullally), who has quite a bad reputation for being promiscuous on the island. At first Joe refuses to take her out, but then has a change of heart when he finds out that she is trying to overcome her loose past, as long as Brian goes with them on a double date. He ends up dumping Gail, so Helen agrees to go along and be the fourth. When they get to the restaurant seemingly every man in the place knows Cindy, and one of them named Jimmy (Ben Mittleman) harasses her until Joe and Brian are forced to fight him and each receive an injured nose. In the end, Cindy decides she needs to start over in Boston, so she ‘dumps’ Joe. 1/26/14
• 006. All for One and Two for Helen – 5/24/1990
  • Brian gets tickets to the Celtics game and plans to take Helen and Joe so that the ‘Three Musketeers’ can have fun together again. But when Joe has to stay back and attend a meeting of the airport committee with Faye to save a nest of owls the Roy is threatening to build over, he has to miss the game. It turns out that the game is cancelled but Brian and Helen spend a nice evening together culminating with coffee back at her place. Brian makes some mild passes at her before she kicks him out, but as he’s leaving they notice that Joe is parked outside spying. They teach him a lesson and Brian sneaks out the back giving the illusion that he spent the night. Helen says that if they’re going to be the ‘Three Musketeers’ there can be no jealousy between them. Lowell accidentally runs over the owls. 1/26/14

SEASON 2

• 007. The Puppetmaster – 9/28/1990
  • Helen is holding fast to her ‘not dating pilots’ rule, so Brian orchestrates a scheme to make her change her mind. He hires an attractive actor named Matt Sargent (Craig Bierko) to hit on Helen and woo her, with the plan being that she will break her rule, and thus not have an excuse to date Brian in the future. Things begin to backfire when she not only lifts the rule, but says she is falling in love with him. Brian and Joe have him force her to break it off with him by insisting that she give up the cello, but she simply smashes her cello and says they are getting married. Joe then stops the proceedings by claiming his love for Helen and kissing her passionately, which starts a fight between Joe and Matt. Matt ends up pulling a gun, which Joe takes from him and then shoots him. As Brian panics, it is revealed that Joe, Helen, and Matt were all faking and turning the tables on Brian. While gloating, Helen mentions that Joe’s kiss took her by surprise and the two kiss again. Meanwhile, Roy tries to get Lowell to use walkie-talkies to maintain contact, a task that Lowell can’t seem to manage. 2/25/14
• 008. The Story of Joe – 10/5/1990
  • Joe is interviewed by American Flyer magazine by writer Ted Cobb (Charles Hallahan), but Cobb seems to find Brian more interesting. It seems that Brian has hijacked the interview, so Joe tries to crash their lunch, but learns that Brian has been talking up Joe the whole time.  Cobb eventually kills the interview because it is too boring, causing Joe to get depressed and take off on a solo flight. He admits to Brian over the radio that sometimes he wishes he could be a little bit more exciting like Brian. Brian pretends not to hear him, but when the radio is off he admits to himself that sometimes he wishes he were more like Joe. Meanwhile, Norm Peterson (George Wendt) and Cliff Clavin (John Ratzenberger) visit the island for a fishing trip (in a crossover with the TV series Cheers). They spend most of the time drinking beer at the lunch counter, The Club Car, and Captain Andy’s and never make it onto the water. 2/25/14
• 009. A Little Nightmare Music – 10/12/1990
  • Famous composer Edward Tinsdale (David Ogden Stiers) comes to the island on his honeymoon and Helen is dying to get a chance to audition for him. Brian concocts a plan to ‘lose’ his luggage and have Helen deliver it and then play her cello for him. When he hears her, he shuts her down and says she has not talent. Joe intervenes and insists that he listen to her again, which he does…but then gives her an even worse review. Helen feels freed by the fact that she no longer feels compelled to pursue the cello, but as he is leaving town, Tinsdale tells her that if she accelerates her practicing, she might have a glimmer of hope, which nearly drives Helen mad. Meanwhile, Faye practices fortune telling and has Roy freaked out when she keeps drawing the death card. After he loses much sleep, he realizes that she had actually drawn the Queen of Hearts and not the Ace of Spades. 5/20/14
• 010. Sports and Leisure – 10/19/1990
  • While waiting for an airplane part to arrive, the gang decides to take the day off and go on a fishing trip. Faye recklessly tells Roy about the trip and he shows up and ruins it for everyone by tricking them into jumping into the water. Then Faye lets it slip that they are having a Trivial Pursuit game night and Roy is ready to attend, but everyone tells him they don’t want him. They recant when Roy begins blubbering, but Joe gives him some advice on how to be nice to people. This proves nearly impossible when Roy is paired with Lowell, who answers every question with “Ann Margret.” 5/20/14
• 011. A Stand Up Kind of Guy – 10/26/1990
  • Joe is talked into acting as best man for a former classmate named Jerry Stark (Kelly Connell), whom he doesn’t remember at all, although Jerry seems to think they were best buddies. Joe throws a bachelor party for him, and the exotic dancer he hires turns out to be his Jerry’s former girlfriend Roberta (Leslie Cook). Jerry ends up dumping his fiancee Marilyn (Amanda Carlin) and marrying Roberta. After the wedding, Jerry gets carried away and invites Joe to stay with them and be the godfather to his children. Joe finally admits that he has no idea who he is, but after seeing how much it upsets him, Joe pretends that he was just joking. Meanwhile the gang find out that Roy has a metal plate in his head. Roger Til plays their old French teacher Monsieur Busard. 8/2/14
• 012. It’s Not the Thought, It’s the Gift – 11/9/1990
  • It’s Helen’s birthday and Joe and Brian participate in an escalating contest to buy her the most impressive gift. Eventually they reach a truce and promise to get her small gifts, but Brian ends up giving her the fancy CD player that Joe was going to give her before the agreement. Joe only gets her a piece of driftwood with a bird attached. Joe finally confronts Helen about carrying on about Brian’s gift, and the two end up in a fight. While Helen is watching home movies of her 11th birthday (which are interspersed throughout the episode), Joe comes to her place to give her a cameo. Helen, who has kicked Brian out for making a pass at her, tells Joe that it is too personal for her to accept, but Joe insists that it is just a trinket. She accepts it…but then notices that Joe’s mother is wearing it in the home movie. Faye helps Lowell with his finances and discovered that he is paying a monthly rent on a tuxedo in which his uncle is buried. 8/4/14

• 013. Hell Hath No Fury Like a Police Woman Scorned – 11/16/1990
  • Police officer Colleen Thomas (Sharon Barr) tracks down Joe and arrests him for having 42 unpaid traffic tickets, all of them actually Brian’s. Brian is able to get Joe out of being arrested by flirting with the officer, but then is pressured into going out with her. He has the worst date of his life and tries to avoid her, but she doesn’t take the hint. Brian then tells her that he is dating Helen, which prompts Colleen to follow and harass her. Helen tells Colleen that she is giving Brian up, so Brian has no other recourse than to tell the truth that their whole relationship was a sham. She appears to take it well, but Joe finds Brian the next morning hanging upside-down in the hangar. Meanwhile, Lowell desperately tries to find something to film for America’s Wackiest Videos in order to win a $100,000 prize. He misses out on a perfect series of pratfalls at the airport. 9/13/14

• 014. High Anxiety – 11/23/1990
  • At the airport’s blood drive, Joe is told by Dr. Bennett (Harris Shore) that his blood pressure is too high and he is grounded from flying until he gets it under control. He relies on Brian to take all the flights, but becomes angry that Brian behaves so unprofessionally. A fight leads to Joe firing Brian, but Joe is then unable to hire another pilot at a salary he can afford. With the plane not flying, the bills eventually pile up and Joe agrees to sell the airline to Roy. Helen tries to talk him out of it, and eventually calls Brian back, who has just been hired by TWA. Brian returns and lies to Joe and says he didn’t get the job, and that Joe will have to keep the airline in order to keep him employed. Joe acknowledges that Brian is doing something nice for him by returning, knowing that he did in fact get the job with TWA. Robert Colbert plays Deke Braverman. 9/13/14

• 015. Friends or Lovers? – 12/7/1990
  • Due to Joe’s being grounded, he searches for a back-up pilot, but the only candidates are an elderly man named Mr. Stubbs (Charles Dugan), a commando named Doug (Jeremy Roberts), and an 18-year old boy named Kenny McElvey (Michael Manasseri). Brian randomly chooses Kenny. Meanwhile, both Joe and Helen are feeling a vague dissatisfaction with their lives, Helen especially after attending yet another wedding. Joe convinces her that they should go on a date, but choose to keep it secret from Brian for fear of disrupting the ‘Three Musketeers.’ Brian overhears it on the faulty ground-to-air microphone, and tries to sabotage the date by making Joe nervous. Joe and Helen have a nice day, and some awkward moments -including an interruption by Kenny and some stuttering by Joe – at Indian Point lead to a passionate kiss. But ultimately they decide that a relationship would change too many things, so they decide they are not ready. Brian pops up from the back seat as they finish their conversation. 10/15/14

• 016. There’s Always Room for Cello – 12/14/1990
  • Roy’s son Roy Jr. “R.J.” (Abraham Benrubi) comes to visit from school and asks to take cello lessons from Helen. Roy agrees because R.J. tells him he has a crush on her. The guys laugh it up but Joe ends up tell her, so she confronts R.J. He tells her that he is actually gay and only told the lie so Roy would let him take the lessons. Brian is excited to tell Roy, but Helen won’t let him. R.J. eventually tells Roy the truth, and Roy passes out cold. When he wakes up, he challenges R.J. to a game of one-on-one basketball, saying that R.J. can only be gay if he wins. R.J. does win, but Roy can’t accept it unless R.J. tells him that there is a one in a billion chance that he could change his mind and be straight. 10/15/14

• 017. A Terminal Christmas – 12/21/1990
  • Christmas has been ruined for most everyone at the airport: Joe and Brian’s ski trip has been cancelled when they are snowed in, Helen’s parents cancel their visit when a camel falls on her mom, Lowell’s wife throws him out when he makes a pass at his mother-in-law, and Roy’s son R.J. sets out to follow The Grateful Dead. They decide to salvage the holiday by visiting Faye’s Christmas party, but when they arrive, they find her alone sitting in the dark. She has been mourning her first Christmas without her late husband George. They try to make a holiday meal out of wheat germ, rice cakes, and pearl onions, but when Lowell searches for dessert, he finds a cookie jar containing George’s ashes. Faye decides to let him go and deposit his remains over the ocean, so they all go up for a flight. Thanks to Lowell, the ashes wind up in a dustbuster, which Faye drops into the ocean…where it lands on and sinks the boat of George’s arch nemesis Frank (George Furth). 11/14/14

• 018. Airport ’90 – 1/3/1991
  • When Brian lets Helen take the controls while they are flying together with Joe, dropping fish over water that end up in trees, Helen gets flying fever and asks Joe to teach her to fly. He starts a flying school where Helen, Lowell, and housewife Cathy Windsor are the only students. After six days of learning about lift, Helen becomes bored to death and accepts an offer from Brian to let her try flying. While they are in the air, Brian hits his head after they hit turbulence, and is knocked out, forcing Helen to land the plane on our own. Joe talks her down, and when she gets back, he kisses her. They decide that they should finally begin dating. Meanwhile, Faye babysits Roy’s vicious dog Brutus and turns him into a sissy. Ralph Bruneau is Walter the air traffic controller. 11/16/14

• 019. Love Is Like Pulling Teeth – 1/10/1991
  • When Helen forgets to pick Joe up after he gets his car serviced, Joe gives her a lecture on being there for someone while in a relationship. She then asks him to stay with her after she gets her wisdom teeth pulled, and he agrees, not realizing that the Boston College – Providence game is that night. Brian has arranged to have a group of friends watch the game at their house, complete with their friend Meriwether, who does tricks with his eyes. Once Joe gets her to sleep, he sneaks over to the house, but when a friend mentions that the drug she is on could give her hallucinations, he rushes back home, and brings her back with him. She disappears and they all end up searching for her until she is found on the neighbor’s porch. The next day Helen thanks Joe for taking care of her and missing the game. Joe feels slightly guilty…but also great about getting away with it. Ace Mask is Mr. Tupperman, owner of the worst toupee in the world. 12/26/14

• 020. The Tennis Bum – 1/24/1991
  • Lowell has been working for six years on a remote-control model Graf Zeppelin and is getting ready to enter it into a model air show and asks to store it in Joe’s office with strict instructions not to touch it. Joe later flies the Zeppelin, and it gets smashed to bits when Roy enters the office and hits it with the door. Lowell is inconsolable and Joe cannot think of how to fix it. Lowell and Joe get on their knees and Lowell prays for the sign that will allow him to forgive Joe, and when both of their feet fall asleep, Lowell interprets that as his sign. Meanwhile Brian lets Faye win at tennis to bring her confidence back, when he takes a lot of razzing, he demands a rematch. He fakes an ankle injury when she starts to win. Helen accuses Roy of never hiring women pilots, so Roy tells her that his latest pilot is a woman named Audrey (Christopher Best). Helen knows he is a man, but it takes a while for her to get up the courage to ask him if he is a woman. 12/27/14

• 021. My Brother’s Back and There’s Going to Be Trouble – 1/31/1991
  • Joe throws his back out and ends up in the hospital, reluctantly leaving Brian behind to run Sandpiper. Brian has big ideas to promote the airline and impress Joe, including having Faye host a junket for travel agents on the mainland. He brings back Kenny to fill in as pilot, but things go awry when the plane turns up missing. This proves even more stressful when FAA Inspector Hanson (Jonathan McMurtry) show up for surprise inspection. When Joe returns, he finds Helen playing the cello to entertain the waiting travel agent, the Sconset High Marching Mules (played by the Hollywood High School Marching Band) and their mule mascot, a psychic named Mrs. McCloskey (Karen Hensel) whom Lowell has brought to help find the plane, and Faye getting arrested for taking the travel agents through a private home she thought belonged to Herman Melville. Joe tells Brian that if he had checked his daily schedule, he would have known the plane was being picked up for a routine check. Dana Andersen is the candy striper. Dai Kornberg is Mr. Greely. 2/14/15

• 022. Plan Nine from Nantucket – 2/7/1991
  • While Joe and Brian a flying a batch of mannequins, they spot a brightly lit unidentified aircraft whiz by their plane. Joe wants to keep it secret so that the airline doesn’t get bad press, but Brian goes behind his back and reports it to the FAA and they get another visit from Inspector Hanson to whom Joe denies seeing it. An insider at the FAA there gives it to a fringe group of fellow UFO spotters (John Vickery as Al, Teddy Wilson as John, James Whitson as Tom, Roberta Farkas as Mary) and they convince both Brian and Joe to take them, along with a reporter (Michael Fairman), to look for it again. The spotters all seem normal until they don foil hats and dark glasses and put the hats on Joe’s and Brian’s head while the reporter snaps a photo that ends up in the paper. Meanwhile Helen accuses Faye of not paying her lunch bill of $42.50, which Faye insists she paid. The attempt to settle the dispute by arm wrestling. They continue the match even after Lowell finds the money under the counter. Faye wins by licking Helen’s hand. 2/14/15

• 023. Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places – 2/14/1991
  • Helen get angry at Joe for giving her a box of chocolates on Valentine’s Day because of her constant battle with weight. When Faye berates her for her behavior, she sends Joe a message to meet her at their special place. However, she thinks the place is Pontrelli’s Italian restaurant where they had their first date, but Joe thinks it is Indian Point where they shared their first kiss. Helen spends the evening being entertained by the waiter Antonio Scarpacci (Tony Shalhoub) and his cousin Giacomo (Perry Anzilotti). Brian has to leave his date with sexy lingerie saleswoman Stephanie to give Joe the message that he is in the wrong place, but Helen soon realizes where Joe might be and heads to Indian Point. Joe arrives at the restaurant and gets drunk with the Italian waiters. When Helen finally shows up, she confesses that being alone brought back the bad memories of her lack of dates during her school years. Meanwhile Roy goes out with a woman named Karen (Deborah May) whom he met in a personal ad. She is exactly as she described herself while Roy had vastly over-sold himself. She likes him anyway… which makes him suspicious and he spend the entire date trying to figure out what is wrong with her. This eventually makes her angry and she ends the date. 3/23/15

• 024. Love Means Never Having to Say Geronimo – 2/21/1991
  • When Brian interrupts Joe and Helen’s date for ‘Samurai Theatre’, Joe had to tell him that they need time alone. Brian heads out to a bar and meets a girl named Gwen Holmes (Lisa Darr), falls in love, flies to Paris, and comes back and announces their engagement. Joe and Helen try to talk sense into them, but Gwen turns it around and convinces Joe and Helen to be impetuous and get married. They agree, but quickly come to their senses. Brian and Gwen decide to have their wedding in the plane performed by Roy Koala-Chokhti-style with animal masks, and then skydive out of the plane. During the ceremony Joe and Helen again decide to go for it and get married, but Gwen and Brian call off their marriage, thinking the most spontaneous thing they could do at their wedding is not get married… so they simply jump out of the plane. Back at home, Joe and Helen try to convince Brian to spend the evening with them, remembering the chaos he caused the last time he went out. Robert Alan Browne and Laurel Lockhart are Mr. and Mrs. Beekman. 3/23/15

• 025. All in the Family – 3/7/1991
  • Kenny freaks out when Brian accepts a date with his mother Melinda (Marie Marshall), knowing how Brian discards women. Brian assures him that he won’t hurt her, but after one date Brian decides he can’t stand her excessive chatter and dumps her. Kenny is furious with Brian and storms out. Brian tries to make amends and follows him to his other job at Ahab’s Fast Fish, only to be punched by Kenny through the drive-thru window. Kenny asks why everyone keeps dumping on his mother, but Brian will only tell him that it is his own shortcomings. Meanwhile Joe becomes obsessed when Helen won’t tell him what is in her purse, which turns out to be revenge for a little black book he tried to hide from her. Roy finds out that he needs glasses. Christopher Darga is a passenger. 6/18/15

• 026. Mother Wore Stripes – 3/14/1991
  • Brian spots their mother Mae (Barbara Babcock) on TV in Palm Springs getting hit by Gerald Ford’s golf ball. Brian tracks her down and has her fly to Nantucket, but Joe is completely bitter that she left them and is not interested in seeing her. Eventually Joe agrees that she can come over to dinner, but hard feelings prevail, especially when Joe finds out that she spent years in prison for embezzlement, and Joe storms out. She follows him to the hangar and Joe describes the hardships that befell him by having to take care of both their father and Brian at the age of twelve. She apologizes for what she did and tries to make amends. In the end Joe gets closer to making up with her and gives her a hug, breaking the pitcher that he had made her as a child and just now given to her. Meanwhile Faye performs in a Senior Center production of West Side Story. 6/18/15

• 027. Murder She Roast – 3/21/1991
  • While their house is being fumigated, Brian stays at Faye’s house and enjoys being waited on by her hand and foot. However when he sees a story on the TV show Fugitives from Justice about a woman named Florence Chambers – aka the Culinary Killer – who has left a string of murdered boarders across the nation, and the computer-aged photo of her greatly resembles Faye, Brian starts to panic. Joe and Helen laugh at Brian’s theories, and join him for his farewell dinner at Faye’s, during which Brian is on edge. When Brian hits his head on the sink in the kitchen and Faye accidentally hits knocks out Joe with a leg of lamb, and Helen finds them both unconscious in the kitchen, Helen is left petrified. Later however they see that the real killer has been caught in Chicago. Meanwhile Lowell has to unload a dozen frying pans at a swap meet after his wife Bunny finds out that she passes out every time she tries to sell one. Lowell ends up purchasing a batch of ‘car-be-cue’ gizmos, of which Roy becomes a satisfied customer. Maury Povich is the host of Fugitives from Justice. Christopher Michael Moore is a difficult lunch customer, and Andrew Bilgore is the obtuse Carl Torley. 8/12/15

• 028. Duet for Cello and Plane – 3/28/1991
  • Helen tries out for the Maine State Symphony and while at the audition runs into an former student named Becky (Olivia Burnette), and engages in a bit of competition with the child prodigy. Much to Helen and Joe’s surprise, Helen gets an offer for the job, but then finds out that Becky purposely blew the audition so that she wouldn’t have to leave her boyfriend. Joe considers asking Helen to stay, but Brian convinces him that she will resent him for it. Helen is willing to stay if Joe asks, but he refuses… and also refuses to give up his airline and go with her. A fight ensues that involves destroying each others property and shooting each other with a grease gun and fire extinguisher. In the midst of the fight, Helen finds out that the symphony has been canceled for lack of funding. However after the events with Joe, she decides to leave for New York and pursue her dreams. Meanwhile Faye tends to a foreign peasant woman named Mooshta (Ivonne Coll) waiting for her husband at the airport, much to the chagrin of Roy, whom the woman refers to as a horse’s ass in her native tongue. 8/13/15

SEASON 3

• 029. The Naked Truth – 9/19/1991
  • Ten months after Helen has left for New York, she phones Joe, who is in bed with his new girlfriend Gail (Gretchen German). Joe doesn’t tell Helen about Gail, and looks to his friends to support his decision. Everyone but Roy agrees that Joe owes it to Helen to tell her about Gail, so he and Brian head off to New York to tell her face to face. When they arrive, they find that Helen is working as a waitress in a strip bar and convince her to come back to Nantucket. When she arrives, she is surprised to find that Joe is with another woman. Although Joe thinks he can rationalize it logically, Helen acts on pure emotion and drives her jeep through Joe’s office in the hangar. Jonahan Palmer is the priest. 11/14/15

• 030. Is That a Subpoena in Your Pocket? – 9/26/15
  • Although Joe forgives Helen for the Jeep incident, he still expects her to pay $1000 to pay the deductible on his insurance to have his office repaired. She bluntly refuses, so Joe acts on the advise of Antonio, who is now driving cabs at the airport, to take her to court. Joe refuses at first and tries to talk sense into her, but she just ends up breaking more items in his office. Joe gets Roy to serve her a subpoena, and when she shows up in court on crutches, Joe thinks it is another ruse and knocks her over in front of the judge (Phyllis Applegate), earning a contempt of court charge. Helen still is forced to pay Joe restitution, but when Joe later lectures her, she gets angry and drives through his office again. Meanwhile Lowell is hurt when Joe doesn’t select him to repair the office, but when Joe’s contractor runs out on the job, he is forced to make a deal with Lowell to repair it. 11/14/15

• 031. The Taming of the Shrew – 10/10/1991
  • After witnessing Helen’s constant outbursts about Joe and Gail, all Helen’s friends stage an intervention to confront Helen about this problem. Although reluctant at first, she agrees to visit a Transitions support group for people who have lost their partners. Brian goes along to pick up women, but when they arrive they realize that the group is a branch of the Senior Center. They end up staying, but the time is mostly occupied by Brian realizing he needs therapy about Carol. As Helen does some role playing with the elderly Harry (Charles Dugan), she suddenly realizes that the reason she is having trouble getting over this is because Joe was her best friend. She makes amends with Joe, showing her that she can bring the jeep near his office without ramming it. After they embrace Joe attempts to take the jeep out of the hangar, but ends up accidentally destroying his office again. Angela Paton is group leader Sandy. 1/12/16

• 032. I Ain’t Got No Bunny – 10/17/1991
  • Lowell has spent the night in the hangar because his wife Bunny (Laura Innes) threw him out due to his non-stop jealousy. Against Joe’s wishes, Brian tries to give Lowell advice about how to handle the situation which includes taking her out for a nice dinner. This fails too when Lowell becomes jealous of the waiter. Brian agrees to talk to directly to Bunny, but sure enough, Bunny throws herself at Brian, proving that Lowell wasn’t in fact paranoid. Brian tries to get Joe to tell this to Lowell, but Joe forces Brian to do it himself. Faye then finds a note from Lowell indicating that he is “ending it all’. Joe finds Lowell at the steeple of the Unitarian Church, where he has going to contemplate whether he should ‘end it all’ with Bunny or not. Joe easily convinces him that he should when they spot Bunny from the steeple making out with Fred Haney. Meanwhile Roy and Helen compete in a contest for the best clam chowder, but Faye and Helen follow Roy and find out that he purchased his entry at a store and it is in fact canned soup. Peter Trencher and Hugh B. Holub are Hare Krishna. 1/12/16

• 033. If Elected, I Will Not Live – 10/31/1991
  • Roy is running for Nantucket Town Council, and when his opponent Lloyd Bruels drops out after a campaign stunt goes awry and puts him in the hospital, Joe is convinced by his friends to run against Roy. While running behind in the polls, Faye visits the editor of the Nantucket Herald Homer Padnick to try to get their endorsement for Joe, but the paper ends up endorsing Faye as a write-in candidate. Joe drops out of the race, and Faye pulls wildly ahead. Roy comes to Faye and pleads with her to blow the debate so that he can win, giving her a guilt trip about the time he was de-pantsed in front of his classmates while running for class president. Faye eats him alive at the debate, but then her guilt causes her to see Roy as a disappointed young boy with his pants around his ankles. She gives undue credit to Roy, which causes him to win the election. Meanwhile Helen decides to sell her cello in the classifieds but pulls the plug when she finds out that the buyer Mr. Larson (Tom Klunis) intends for his chimpanzee Jocko to play it in his act Maynard & Jocko. 3/24/16

• 034. My Brother’s Keeper – 11/7/1991
  • When rich textile tycoon Miriam “Mimsy” Borogrovos (Tyne Daly) flies into Nantucket flies to the island to look for investment opportunities and to find a summer place for herself. Helen, who has just received a real estate license, hopes to sell her an estate. Mimsy takes an immediate liking to Brian, and soon she is buying him extravagant gifts including a new red Porsche. Joe is disgusted by the way Brian is degraded into doing Mimsy’s bidding. Joe tries to put a stop to it, but Brian won’t budge. Soon Mimsy gets Joe to change his tune when she writes him a check so that he can buy his plane. Soon Brian becomes sick of Mimsy using him and breaks it off causing her to leave the island immediately, but everyone convinces him to crawl back to her so that they can take advantage of her money. Mimsy forces Brian to beg her to let him back, but then she ends up dumping him immediately to keep her self respect. Jay Bell is Lars. 3/25/16

• 035. Crate Expectations – 11/14/1991
  • Joe announces that he doesn’t want a birthday party, and although his friends had forgotten his birthday, they plan to put together a surprise party for him. Joe finds out about it, but unbeknownst to him, they all realize they have plans and postpone the party until the next night. When Faye asks Joe to stay late that night to accept a package from Ed’s Crate and Storage, Joe assumes that it is her way of getting him to the party. Ed (F. William Parker) and his son Skip (Brian Donovan) deliver the crate, and Joe is disappointed to only find airplane seats inside. When Joe expresses his disappointment the next day, Brian tells him that the party is still on that night… and then gets the others to hide inside a crate to surprise him for real. However Skip gets the crates mixed up and ends up delivering Joe a crate full of appliances, while the gang winds up on a cargo ship. Meanwhile Helen gets tired of everyone trying to set her up on a date. Raymond D. Turner is the soldier. Moria Turner is the elderly woman. 6/26/16

• 036. Ladies Who Lunch – 11/21/1991
  • Tired of the constant bickering between Helen and Gail, Joe suggest that they go have lunch together. Surprisingly they hit it off, sharing the bond of making fun of Joe’s quirks. Joe is skeptical of Helen’s intentions and accuses her of still having feelings for him. Helen ends up slapping Joe in the face with a piece of veal and they end up getting into a floured meat fight… then passionately kissing. Gail catches them in the act, and Joe is unable to tell her that he doesn’t still have feelings for Helen, which causes their relationship to end. Helen however has no interest in continuing their relationship. Meanwhile both Faye and Roy are excited to greet President Bush during a stopover on Nantucket, Roy so he can get a photo with Bush, and Faye so she can continue her streak of touching every First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Bush agrees to greet Helen, but Roy ends up arrested by the Secret Service. Edwin Newman appears as himself reporting the story of Roy’s arrest. Kevin Brief is the insurance salesman passenger. Michael McNab is a Secret Service agent. 6/27/16

• 037. Try to Remember the Night He Dismembered – 12/5/1991
  • With a fog hanging over Nantucket, the planes are grounded indefinitely, so after exhausting all of the games in ‘Faye’s Foggy Day Fun Box’, Brian turns to entertaining the group with his hypnotism. After successfully getting Joe to cackle like a chicken when he hears the word tortilla, Roy agrees to be put under his well. After asking for his confessions, Roy admits to finding a suitcase with a quarter-million dollars and burying it in his backyard. The gang decides to go over to Roy’s a dig it up based on instructions he gave them. After digging a giant home, they find that Roy is installing a hot tub with the location being right where they have been digging. Realizing they have been tricked, they put the dirt from the hole inside Roy’s house. Lowell starts having hallucinations after eating toadstools from Roy’s backyard. Carey Eidel is a passenger grounded by the fog. 9/17/16

• 038. The Late Mrs. Biggins – 12/12/1991
  • Faye tries to set Roy up with her friend Doris, but Roy seems uninterested and then blows the date with rude comments. Roy claims he has a hard time dating since his wife Sylvia died, but discrepancies in her burial location get him to admit to Faye that Sylvia actually walked out on him. Faye convinces Roy that he shouldn’t feel ashamed because he is now a successful businessman which gives him the courage to head to Boston and try to win Sylvia (Concetta Tomei) back.  He nearly chickens out, but Brian talks him into it and goes with him. When he arrives at her home, he finds that she is rich, has a butler (Gene Knight), has been married to a plastic surgeon for 12 years, and is currently throwing a fancy cocktail party with Luciano Pavarotti in attendance. Despite Roy’s pleas, she has no interest in him and has moved on with her life, blocking out nearly all memories with him. Roy storms out and threatens to never return, but ends up in the closet… where he steals Pavarotti’s overcoat. Meanwhile Joe flies a pizza from Boston to deliver to a rich man. Lowell tries to analyze his own dreams. Mark Davenport is overweight passenger Mr. Hyson. 9/17/16

• 039. The Bogey Men – 12/19/1991
  • Brian offers to take Joe for a weekend of golfing in South Carolina to show his appreciation for all Joe has done for him. Roy knows that Brian’s getting the trip free as part of a time share presentation, and blackmails Brian to let him go along. Lowell joins in as well. Meanwhile Antonio realizes he can get tips by playing his guitar in the airport, but he nearly drives Helen crazy playing the only song he knows, Michael Row the Boat Ashore. At the condo, the trip goes sour quickly when they are all whisked away for a sales presentation immediately upon arrival, followed by a raging downpour of rain keeping them indoors. Roy tries to go out anyway and quickly gets soaked. Roy hogs the bed and Lowell tries to sleep outside in the rain. The night is a disaster as well, with Roy snoring and the fire alarm going off when Lowell forgets to open the fireplace flue. Although anxious to get home, their landing is delayed when a woman chases a man with a guitar on the runway. 12/12/16

• 040. Marriage, Italian Style – 1/9/1992
  • Antonio gets notice that his visa will not be renewed and he will be deported back to Italy in a month. Brian offers to find him a woman to marry so that he can stay, but can only come up with the bizarre and outspoken Sally “Sconset Sal” McCabe (Susan Tyrell), who agrees to do it for $500. After going through the motions of getting to know each other, Sal abandons him when she wins some money in a crap game. When government agent George Fulham (Thomas Ryan) shows up, Helen jumps in and claims that she is marrying Antonio. He suspects a ruse, so insists on being invited to their wedding in the hangar. When Helen sees the wedding dress that Antonio gets from his mother, she nearly gets cold feet, but then cannot let Antonio down when he professes that Helen is like his family. The ceremony proceeds, with Brian paying strangers to fill the seats as guest, and they both say ‘I do.’ As they walk back down the aisle, Antonio informs Helen that they have to be married for three years. Meanwhile Lowell gets his long hair cut off. NOTE: This is the first part of a two-part episode. John Valentine is the Justice. Tom McCleister is the fisherman. 12/13/16

• 041. Divorce, American Style – 1/16/1992
  • With Agent Fullham promising to stop by and visit with them any time, Helen is aghast at the prospect of having to live with Antonio for three years. Brian finds out from a lawyer that the government is holding a lottery of Green Cards, so Antonio enters with the hopes that this will allow him to divorce Helen. Meanwhile Joe finds a woman named Rachel’s (Lisa Howard) phone number on a matchbook in his pocket and Brian encourages him to call her. When he does, she sounds sexy so they agree to meet. When she shows up, she is surprised that Joe is not the man who had hit her car and taken her number on the matchbook… a man who turns out to be Brian. He is forced to pay her for the damage, while Joe gets a date with her. Helen is inconsolable when Antonio doesn’t win the lottery. However she gets a phone call that he has in fact won the lottery, and when she confronts him, he admits hoping that they might actually work out, as his parents had after getting married without having ever met before. NOTE: This is the second of a two-part episode. 3/22/17

• 042. Stew in a Stew – 1/23/1992
  • At annual review time, Joe is forced to tell Faye that he can’t afford a raise for her this year. While she tries to find ways to save the airline money, new expensive jackets arrive for Joe and Brian, which offends Faye so much, she quits. Brian brings in a girl named Teresa (Laura Fabian) who can’t speak English, while Faye takes a job with Roy. Brian tries to get them to reconcile by telling a story they’ve often told about the first meeting between Joe and a drunk Faye on a flight to Hawaii, while Joe was contemplating leaving the airline industry and Faye was being forced to retire by the airline on which Joe is flying. They decide to work together and build Sandpiper together. The trip down memory lane does the trick and Faye returns to work for Joe, who promises her he’ll find a way to give her the raise… all the while denying Brian the jacket. Teri Ralston is Sister Ann. Kate Benton and Glenn Casale are passengers. Curt Truman is the newlywed. 3/22/17
• 043. This Old House – 1/30/1992
  • During a terrible storm that is causing much damage to the island and has caused the airport to shut down, Brian and Joe find out that the house they grew up on is in danger of collapsing into the ocean and is going to be torn down. They visit the house with Helen and recall through flashback that young Brian (Spencer Vrooman) and Joe (Adrian Arnold) met the overweight young Helen (Valentino). They decide to try and have the house declared a landmark, but when Roy causes that to fail, they decide to visit it one last time and reminisce over beer with Helen and Lowell, who had never known them as children. They find Roy there looting. Soon they start remembering that their mother (Valri Jackson) left them and that their father (Gravnille Ames) went crazy. They decide that the house actually holds many bad memories, so they all pitch in to wreck it with sledgehammers. After it is virtually destroyed, Faye shows up to tell them that it had been declared a landmark after all since Herman Melville once stayed there. 10/6/17
• 044. Planes, Trains, and Visiting Cranes – 2/13/1992
  • Boston psychologist Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammar) and his wife Lilith (Bebe Neuwirth) come to Nantucket for Frasier to deliver his seminar The Crane Train to Mental Well-Being. Lilith is skeptical and sarcastic, and Helen recognizes Frasier from when she saw him in Boston, blaming him for her giving up everything to achieve her dream of being a professional cellist. She demands her money back, but the best Frasier will do is let her take the class again. Meanwhile Brian buys a big screen TV to watch a boxing match, with every intention of returning it after it is over. The match ends up only lasting six seconds and they miss it, then Brian proceeds to accidentally run a pipe through it when he loses control of the jack. During the seminar, Frasier points out that Helen’s failures stem from her broken relationship with Joe. He shows up and objects and ends up blaming Brian. They all end up in a fight, and Frasier gives up on the session and gives everyone a refund. 10/6/17
• 045. Das Plane – 2/20/1992
  • Joe donates a free plane ride to a Children’s Hospital auction, but when Brian submits the stipulations, he neglects to include the fact that they’ll only fly along Sandpiper’s normal routes. Therefore the eccentric Carlton Blanchard (William Hickey), a man full of stupid and infuriating questions, wins the flight with a $10,000 donation, and expects Joe to take him to Las Cruces, New Mexico to visit his estranged brother Milford. Lowell accompanies them n case there is a breakdown, and Antonio goes along so he can see America. During the flight, they are forced to crash land in an Oklahoma cornfield thanks to a faulty fuel hose. Joe blames Brian for the mishap, even though he did in fact have Lowell change the line, causing Brian to decide that he will be going his separate from Joe when they get back. A farmer (David Hayward) finds them and supplies them with the hose but stipulates that Joe must deliver livestock to his relatives in Missouri, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas. Once the crew finally make it to Las Cruces, Carlton remembers that his brother had actually moved to Rock Springs, Wyoming. Joe reluctantly agrees to take him there, and Carlton confronts Milford on the runway, gets in a fight with him, and retrieves their father’s watch from him. As they leave, Carlton realizes that the watch wasn’t his after all, and the man he found wasn’t his brother. Joe and Brian, in an effort not become like Carlton and his brother, patch up their differences. 5/10/18
• 046. Take My Life, Please – 2/27/1992
  • Helen is proud of herself for getting a job as a real estate agent but is quickly fired by her boss Liam MacDougal (Eric Christmas) for telling a buyer that an expensive chandelier goes along with a house sale. Antonio suggests that Helen take a job aptitude test to find out what career best suits her. When Antonio gets it back, he finds that her two job selections are music or food service. Knowing she won’t be able to handle that, they falsify the results to include lawyer and stand-up comedian. Helen has no interest in law, but begins working on a comedy act. Joe and Brian finally come clean about what they did, but Helen is furious and decides to continue with a stand-up act. She does a test-run for Lowell but gets no laughs. Brian tries to coach her to do material about the pain and failure in her life, and to incorporate her cello into the act. Just before Helen goes on at the Club Car, the emcee (Robert G. Lee) introduces comedian Jim Tavare (himself), who uses a stand-up bass in his act… so she refuses to go on. Oliver L. North appears as himself as a plane passenger. Ron K. James in comedian Tommy Morocco. 5/15/18
• 047. Four Dates That Will Live in Infamy – 4/2/1992
  • The gang decides to get together for another dateless night, but Antonio encourages them to follow in his footsteps and join the Romance Connection dating service. They initially all laugh at the notion, but soon Brian, Joe, Helen, and Lowell are all filming video segments for the service. Faye suggest that they add some fun by all meeting up at the Club Car after their dates, each throw in $25, and whoever has the worst date gets all of the money. Everyone by Brian shows up and compares notes: Helen thinks hers is the worst since she is technically still on it – right there at the club car. Her date Jeffrey #16 (Cameron Watson) had agreed to fill in for a waiter at the Club Car so frequently gets up to bus a table during the date, eventually having Helen assist him. Lowell’s date, although he starts off rocky with Sharon #325 (Laura Leigh Hughes) by showing her the forklift in the hangar, eventually gets better when Lowell opens up about his marriage. Joe thinks he has won when he tells the tale of his date Monica #187 (Heather Lee) and her ventriloquist dummy Trixie (voiced by Nancy Scher), who will only speak as Trixie. Brian’s tops everyone though when he shows up soaking wet, and talks about his high-powered date Barbara #242 (Peri Gilpin), who needs a payphone to make an investment call that is occupied by a giant biker (Eric Allan Kramer). When she provokes him by kicking over his motorcycle, Brian takes the brunt of his retaliation when the biker locks him the phone booth and fills it with water from a fire hose. Helen agrees that Brian won, but when he insults her, she changes the verdict to Joe. Meanwhile all four dates have gathered in the Club Car and have paired off to talk about their horrible dates as well. Roger Keller is a customer. 12/25/18
• 048. The Bank Dick – 4/23/1992
  • Brian gets a $5000 refund from the IRS and immediately squanders it by going on a tropical vacation much to Joe’s irritation. When he gets a note from the IRS that the refund was an error and he is expected to pay it back, Joe refuses to help him, so he gets a job as a security guard in the bank. Meanwhile Joe and Helen argue over Red Sox tickets that Helen bought him while they were dating, but which he intends to use with another woman. Joe, Helen, Lowell, and Antonio visit Brian at the bank to poke fun at him in uniform, just as the place is robbed by a Richard Nixon mask wearing man (Tony Maggio). During the robbery, the thief also takes the customers wallets including Joe’s baseball tickets. Brian loses his job at the bank as a result, and returns to flying full time. His first trip is to take Antonio to Boston so that he can fly home for a trip to Italy. Also onboard is a man who uses an obscure phrase that the robber had used. Brian tries to determine if the man is in fact the robber, but the robber ends up recognizes him and tries to force Brian at gunpoint to land in a field. Brian instead acts as if he is going to commit suicide and heads the plane straight to the ground. The robber gives his gun up to Antonio to get Brian to stop the descent. For catching the robber, Brian is given a $7500 reward, enough for him to pay back the IRS… and put a down payment on motorcycle. Joe is already irritated, but then also finds out the Brian was given the Red Sox tickets… and drives off with Helen on the back of his new bike. 12/25/18
• 049. Say It Ain’t So, Joe – 4/30/1992
  • With a highly successful and motivated teen baseball player named Ty Warner (Matthew Fox) poised to beat Joe’s strike out record, Coach Snyder (Bryan Doyle-Murray), who used to coach Joe and currently coaches Ty, asks Joe to fly the two of them along with some reporters to the next game where he likely will break the record. On the way, Joe finds out that it is planned for him to be part of the ceremony when he breaks the record. With the weather becoming foggy, Joe has to make the decision whether he can land the plane as Snyder demands, or stay in the air and potentially miss the game. Joe makes the decision to return to Nantucket, where Roy volunteers his pilot to fly in despite the lack of visibility. Helen, who has a crush on the young Ty, feels that Joe has landed in worse weather than that and is only trying to prevent his record from being broken. Helen eventually apologizes, but Joe is forced to admit that a part of him may have made the call so that he wouldn’t lose the record. Ty makes it to the game via ferry and despite only playing the end of the game, strikes out enough players to beat the record. Brian tries to cheer him up by playing some catch in the hangar. Brian talks him into throwing some heat, which causes Joe to throw out his arm, and Brian to get in the head with the ball. 12/19/19
• 050. As Fate Would Have It – 5/7/1992
  • The gang is dressed up and flying in a storm, when the plane loses one of its engine. Fearing their lives are in danger, Helen recalls the events that led up to their trip. Helen starts the morning by spilling food on the jacket of a grumpy man at her lunch counter. Helen realizes that the man is Peter Swinden (Ronald Guttman), the Managing Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who had never responded to any of the audition tapes that Helen sent to him. When Helen confronts him, he recalls that they had wanted her to fill the second chair but had lost her address. Helen is devastated that she came so close, and that they already filled the spot with someone of lesser talent. Things look up though when the cellist has tendinitis, and Swinden agrees to let Helen play. Joe and Brian have a bachelor party to attend of their friend Jim Bartow, and Faye and Lowell are busy as well, so it is only Roy who can attend the concert. However when Jim calls off his wedding, everyone suddenly becomes available again. Helen is convinced it is all owed to fate, but back on the failing plane she wonders what fate has in store. They are almost able to recover by throwing out seats and lightening the plane load, but then lighting strikes their second engine, and they are forced to make a crash landing in the ocean. NOTE: This is the season’s cliffhanger. 12/19/19

SEASON 4

• 051. Lifeboat – 9/24/1992
  • The gang strolls back into the airport after their crash landing, and Lowell is declared a hero for landing the plane on an aircraft carrier. But suddenly he sees a light… and finds himself in an inflatable lifeboat that Roy has hoisted him into following the water landing of Joe’s plane. As Joe laments seeing his plane sink to the bottom of the ocean, Helen decides that fate has finally determined her cello’s fate as it has also sunk to the bottom. But when it floats back to the surface she is so distraught, she shoots off their only flare at it. Lowell’s hallucination after his head bump continue with them being rescued by a swimsuit model (Amber Van Lent) on a jet ski. Everyone begins to bicker, and when Joe gets angry at Bryan for flicking a piece of plastic on the lifeboat, he grabs at him and pulls the piece off, which causes the boat to sink. Just then they are rescued by the Coast Guard. Back at the airport, Joe is a mess because he can’t get a rental plane and the insurance company won’t pay for his. He starts to go berserk as the bills roll in. Antonio returns from Italy and tries to calm him down, and despite the fact that he says almost nothing to Joe, he somehow inspires Joe to tear up his bills and give up Sandpiper. With dreams of moving to the South Pacific, he convinces a reluctant Helen to come along with him. She sells the lunch counter to Lowell for $500 and gets ready to head off. However before leaving, Lowell calls Joe in to see something in the hangar: his rescued plane which Lowell’s friend retrieved from a sand bar. As Helen tries to get him out the door, Joe hugs and kisses the plane. 4/9/20
• 052. The Fortune Cookie – 10/1/1992
  • Joe and Lowell are having a difficult time getting Joe’s plane up and running, and Joe is furious when his payoff from Unified General insurance company amounts to just $262. Brian suggests that Joe fake an injury in order to get a much bigger payoff. Helen thinks it is the stupidest idea she’s heard, but Brian insists that she doesn’t live in the real world. Joe thinks it is too dishonest and that he couldn’t go through with it. However when he finds out that his request to review his claim is denied and that they are in fact raising his rate, he becomes even more furious and agrees to fake a neck injury that has incapacitated him in a wheelchair. Brian brings in a disreputable doctor named Lenny (James Handy), who he met at the Club Car to fake a letter to the company. However when it comes time to meet to the claims investigator, Joe cowers in the corner scared to death to pull to try the scheme. Brian decides that he will pose as Joe and jumps in the wheelchair. The investigator Susan Benson (Barbara Lee Alexander aka Barbara Niven) turns out to be a beautiful blonde who make Brian regret ever pretend to be incapacitated. In fact when she requests alone time with him, she tricks Brian into standing up and proving that he is not. She threatens to bring fraud action against them, and they beg for mercy before she storms out. Helen then reveals that she is friends with Susan and they were teaching them a lesson, and that Faye had never mailed the injury claim. They are both incredibly relieved and thankful, but then find out that Roy had received a check from Unified after claiming he was injured in the plane accident. 4/9/20
• 053. Noses Off – 10/8/1992
  • Sandpiper gets back off the ground as Faye announces their first flight since the accident, but by the time she is through with the gory details, all of the passengers chicken out. Roy has started the Aeromass intern program and is using his first intern Marty (Scott Grimes) to be his personal servant. Faye gets tired of witnessing Roy’s abuse so she stands up for Marty on his behalf, ultimately getting him fired which means he has to find elsewhere to get his school credits by going to summer school. Joe is punched in the nose by a jealous husband named Gil (Scott Williams) who mistakes him for Brian. Joe is taken by Brian to see plastic surgeon Dr. Lasker (Peter Brown), who not only recommends surgery for Joe, but also recommends plastic surgery to get rid of a bump on Brian’s nose. From then on, Brian becomes obsessed with the ‘imperfection’ on his face. Brian gets in a discussion with the other guys about what actor is the best looking man. Although they all have different opinions, Brian decides he wants a nose like gymnast Mitch Gaylord. Joe can’t talk him out of it, and Helen takes him to get the surgery. Joe finds out from a guy named Kevin (Kevin Brief) at the airport that Dr. Lasker is well-known for talking people into surgeries they don’t need. As Helen is getting talked into liposuction by the receptionist Janine (Lana Clarkson), Joe rushes to stop Brian. He has already been sedated and is acting goofy, forcing Joe to sing him a childhood song to him. He finally gets him to leave, and just as they are nearing the door, Helen barges in and breaks Joe’s nose again. 7/21/20
• 054. Blackout Buggins – 10/22/1992
  • While watching a Red Sox game at the airport, Roy is disgusted when he sees rap stars Ice Tray (Geno) and the Cold Boys (Lorenzo G. Pryor, Joey Banks) sing the Star Spangled Banner. He spouts off that he could do much better, so Brian takes him up on it and arranges for him to perform. Roy tries to wiggle out of it, but when everyone calls him chicken, he accepts the challenge. However when the day comes, after the announcer gets his name wrong and calls him ‘Buggins’, he steps up to the microphone and immediately faints. Not only does his friends mock him when he returns, but the sports highlights keeps showing the clip over and over. Roy claims that he wasn’t feeling well, but he later confesses to Helen that he was scared that he wouldn’t be able to hit the high note. He practices and accepts the challenge to return and try again. Meanwhile Joe has disciplined Faye because she failed to file some service difficulty reports, and the F.A.A. is fining him $500. She doesn’t take the criticism well and breaks down crying, then refuses to spend any money on anything so she can save up and pay him back. Everyone flies to the next Boston game to see Roy fail again, but much to their surprise he does a great job. However his high note is obscured by the microphone cutting out. Everyone is disappointed that he did so well, but then Roy begins to insist that he had hit the high note and demands to sing it all again, resulting in him being escorted off the field by security. When Faye refuses to buy a hot dog or beer and insists on eating a jelly sandwich she brought from home, Joe finally becomes frustrated at her guilt trip and apologizes to her for yelling at her. She accepts and they move on. Keith Sellon-Wright is announcer Dave Barr. 7/21/20
• 055. Mathers of the Heart – 10/29/1992
  • When Lowell helps Helen fix her stove and nearly blows his face off, Helen gives him a kiss on the cheek, which makes him become instantly attracted to her. Although Joe sees the potential for disaster, Brian encourages him just to see what happens. Unfortunately she laughs in his face, causing him to slink off in embarrassment. Helen feels bad so she agrees to go out to dinner with him. Helen reports the next day to Joe and Brian that she had a nice time with Lowell, whereas Lowell finds Helen painfully boring. He spends the day trying to avoid her, but when she catches up with him and asks him to attend an art gallery opening, he feels he has to accept. Antonio gives Lowell some advice about how a man once sent back a steak that was terrific, but not to his liking. During the art opening, Lowell keeps unintentionally amusing Helen, and she keeps asking him to hang out with her for other events. Lowell finally builds up the courage to use the steak analogy and tells her that she is too fatty for his liking. Eventually she gets the gist that she’s being dumped, and Lowell simply tells her that their tastes are different. Helen stops by the lunch counter to eat some of her desserts, depressed after being dumped by Lowell. Joe tells her that she will find someone that truly appreciates her, and Helen suggests that maybe Joe will be that person. They share a long, romantic kiss, and then decide they were wrong.  Roy and Antonio have a martini lunch, and get frisky with Faye… and then each other. Erick Avari is the artist. 11/6/20
• 056. Two Jerks and a Jill – 11/5/1992
  • A new pilot named Alex Lambert (Farrah Forke) comes to Nantucket to set up helicopter tours and tick off the Hacketts by pulling out in front of them both. However when they finally meet Alex, they are both smitten with her immediately begin to argue about which one of them gets to ask her out. Meanwhile Antonio joins Lowell and his friend Tucker (Tracey Walter) at the dump where they like to gather on Tuesdays to shoot rats. However Lowell lives to regret it when Antonio shows him up by shooting more rats than anyone, which makes him the hero to all of Lowell’s friends. After he gets some advice from Faye, he decides to throw the competition ala Annie Get Your Gun the next time they shoot rats. Although Lowell knows he missed hitting the rats on purpose, it nonetheless works like a charm and impresses Lowell’s friends Tucker and Tom (Tom McCleister). When Joe and Brian find out that Alex will be joining a local gym, both of them show up to continue to try and impress and pursue her. They start to resort to dirty tricks like Joe causing Brian to get stuck in a leg press, then calls her mother to find out more about her. Helen reminds them when they both pursue the same woman, things never work out well. They finally agree to tell Alex that they won’t be pursuing her any longer. Before they can tell her, she sits them down and tells them that she doesn’t have time for a relationship and that they shouldn’t be wasting time on her. Alex decides to mess with them, and tells them it’s good they weren’t going to be competing any longer because she clearly is only attracted to one of them. They begin arguing again, and Helen encourages Alex not to tell them the truth even though she is feeling guilty. The brothers try to have the last laugh by telling them that she’s not fooling them, so she admits that she’s not attracted to either one of them. They walk out feeling both victorious and confused. 11/6/20
• 057. It’s So Nice to Have a Mather Around the House – 11/12/1992
  • Alex finally gives Brian a chance to take her on a date, just so she can get it over with. Brian asks if he can borrow Lowell’s boat for the night so they can have a romantic date on the water, but when Brian isn’t paying attention, he crashes the boat and it sinks. Lowell is inconsolable, and Brian offers up living with him and Joe until he finds another place, as well as volunteering Joe’s clothes for him to wear. Although Joe is reluctant, he can’t say no to the wailing Lowell. When Lowell starts making them both gourmet meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, they both start to get used to the lifestyle, so much so that when Lowell’s insurance check arrives, the brothers hide it from him. However soon they realize that Lowell is also very bossy, distributing frequent smacks to Joe’s hand with a wooden spoon whenever they get out of line. They then decide to give him the check to get him out of the house… but they cannot find it. That night when Lowell serves dinner, he reveals the check on the plate, and accuses both of them of conspiring to steal the money. They assure him that they only did it so he could stay longer. Lowell is touched and tells them that he’s be glad to stay longer. The brother have no choice but to allow it, but they plead with him to be more lenient with his rules. Meanwhile, Antonio takes order for his uncle to make everyone gloves, but he enlarges the tracings of their hands and the gloves arrive from Italy giant-sized. Helen leaves a nasty message for her date Michael (Scott Thompson Baker), but when he arrives late because of a flat tire, she makes up a story about terrorists holding her hostage at the airport and making her call and yell at him. 2/25/21
• 058. Just Say No – 11/19/1992
  • Joe and Helen get wind that a lawyer named Shannon Moss (Teri Austin) is coming from New York to the island, and they are concerned because Brian has had trysts with her in the past and she has always led him on and driven him crazy. They agree not to tell him that she’s there, but he runs into her immediately upon arrival. Brian thinks he is safe to have dinner with her because he is now more emotionally mature and she is in love with and living with a man named Mark. However at dinner, she tells Brian that Mark was having an affair with a girl named Melissa and that she is interested in new possibilities with him. They spend the night together, and Brian shows up late for work the next day and asks Joe to take his flights for the weekend so he can spend it with her. He prepares a picnic lunch, a banner to fly from the plane, a midnight cruise, and a stay at a seaside inn. Unfortunately when Shannon shows up at the airport, she says she has plans with her parents and is going to be busy with work. She blows him off and says that if she has time she’ll look him up. Brian beats himself over the weekend, too upset to take any of the flights. Joe and Helen tell him that it is a pattern with her, and she only shows up to have him stroke her ego when something bad happens. They tell him to stand up to her, but when she arrives at the airport to leave, she gets a call that she is being blames for the loss of a client and asks him to go away with her for the weekend to comfort her. He is eager to go, but in the end, stand up to her, and tells her to just use her plane ticket and go home. He is proud of himself at first… then later leaves messages on her answering machine that he didn’t mean anything he said and wants to see her. Hugh Maguire is Mike Burland, frightened passenger. Christopher Michael Moore is the customer who tells Brian how to sit casually. 2/25/21
• 059. It May Have Happened One Night – 12/3/1992
  • Alex comes into Joe’s office one night and asks him to join her for a drink, so that she can confide in him with how upset she is that she’s found out that an ex-boyfriend who didn’t want to marry her has gotten engaged. After chatting for a while, Alex asks Joe to take her home. The next morning, Antonio comes in and reports that he spotted Joe’s car outside Alex’s apartment, leading to speculation from everyone. Joe won’t tell Brian or Helen what happened, and it really begins to drive Brian crazy. Helen can’t get any information out of Alex either. That evening, Joe gloats to Alex about how he is enjoying driving everyone nuts, but then she confides that she too has no idea what happened. Joe refuses to tell her either, yet drops hints that they might have slept together. He tells her that he is also enjoying toying with her, as she has had him on a string since she’s arrived. She tries every tactic possible, but Joe enjoys having the upper hand too much. Joe finally tells her that she invite him in, they talked for a while, and then she fell asleep on his shoulder, and he then put her to bed and went home. She asks if she gave him a goodnight kiss, and when she tells him no, she then gives him a big one… and reminds him that she again has the upper hand. Meanwhile, Roy is being driven crazy by a cricket in his office. Lowell vows to get rid of it within 24 hours. After moving all of Roy’s furniture out and setting off an smoke intoxicant, he finally catches the cricket. However when he shows it to Roy, it escapes back into the office. Lowell tells him he’s surprised a pregnant female could jump that far. 6/22/21
• 060. The Customer’s Usually Right – 12/17/1992
  • It is Christmas Eve, and Joe, Brian, and Helen are planning their traditional night together watching a movie. Antonio plans to spend the evening with his cousin Jockamo, and Roy is picking up his mother from the nursing home. Lowell has bought Lowell Jr. a drum set and had it delivered to the airport. Joe goes to the video store and comes home with the movie Psycho, and also sees that he was charged the rewind fee for his last movie Sea of Love. Brian and Helen want to pick out another movie, and Joe is obsessed with getting a refund on the fee because he knows he rewound it. Joe can’t seem to get anywhere with the young manager Carter (Phil Buckman), and is ticking off the customers (Lorna Scott, Ralph P Martin) waiting in line. Finally Carter brings out the elderly lady in charge of the rewinding, Debbie Murphy (Ellen Albertini Dow) and fires her. Joe feels bad enough, but then he finds out that Lowell had watched the film after he did, and indeed did not rewind it. Joe tires to call and explain it to Carter, but finds out that Debbie collapsed after getting fired and is unconscious in the hospital. Joe goes to see her, and finds her family and neighbors in her room. He meets her son Mike (Michael Pniewski) and his wife Jeanette (Janice Kent) and son Danny (Christian Cousins), posing as ‘Jed’ so that they don’t know who he is. Joe is able to get in his apology to Debbie which wakes her up. Joe is able to sneak out before anyone can thank him…and identify him as an angel. Faye shows up everyone on the drums, and Antonio’s cousin cancels, so Antonio agrees to go to dinner at Roy’s so that Roy’s mother has someone to talk to, Brian and Helen wind up without a movie to watch. Walter Addison is the customer who Roy cons, and Suzanne Goddard is the customer who help Roy do it. 6/22/21
• 061. Exit Laughing – 1/7/1993
  • One of Joe’s old college friends, Connor McDevitt (Steven Eckholdt), now an oceanographer in town doing research, stops by the airport to visit with Joe. Helen is smitten with him right away, and the two seem to connect, so Connor asks Joe if she is available. He tries to tell her that they wouldn’t be good together, but when Lowell overhears the conversation and lets it slip to Helen, she is furious with him. He tries to tell her that they really wouldn’t make a good match, but she believes that Joe is just jealous. Joe won’t admit that, so she sets them up for a date. They go see a Jerry Lewis film festival, and she quickly finds out that he has the worst laugh in the world… enough to clear the theater. She naturally won’t admit this to Joe but tells the other that the laugh is unbearable. Faye convinces Helen to give Connor another chance, but the laugh just grates on her nerves more and more. Helen decides to tell him this before their next date, but before she gets a chance, he tells her that her Southern accent grates on him, and they can’t see each other. Helen again is livid, and tells him how shallow he is, but when he decides to give it another chance, she lays on the accent extra thick. She doesn’t want to tell Joe that he broke it off with her, so she finally admits that the laugh was too terrible. Meanwhile, Antonio’s neighbor keeps waking him up with his leaf blower and trying to discuss it with him only gets Antonio a black eye. Roy offers to take care of the problem for him, so he goes over to his house and destroys all of the man’s foliage through ice and locusts. The only problem is that he accidentally did it all to Antonio’s house rather than the neighbor’s’ place. Christopher Miranda is Brendan, the smart kid on Brian’s flight. 11/14/21
• 062. What the Cabbie Saw – 1/14/1993
  • Antonio witnesses a jewelry store holdup on the island while driving his cab, and then the next day, spots the hold-up man Frederick Watts (Beau Starr) come into the airport to catch a flight to Boston. Antonio informs everyone, and they call the police and attempt to keep the man at the airport. Faye announces that the Sandpiper flight has been cancelled because of a hole in the wing. When he tries to get a flight from Aeromass, they get Roy to delay his flight as well. Helen even offers him a free piece of pie to keep him there. By then the police arrive an an officer (Richard Camphuis) take him in. Roy warns Antonio not to testify because he thinks the robber will come back for revenge, but Joe convinces him it is his duty and the guy will have long forgotten him by the time he gets out of jail. Antonio goes in to testify, but the Watts is set free due to an illegal gathering of evidence. Again, Joe tries to tell him that the man will never come after him, but then Watts shows up at the airport. That night, Antonio is convinced that Watts is stalking him, so he comes over to stay with Joe, Brian, and Lowell. When a car starts driving back and forth in front of their house, they nearly destroy the house by breaking lights, shooting the ceiling, and breaking the windows. The doorbell then rings, and it turns out to be a pizza delivery boy (Gabe Dell, Jr.), bringing a pizza that Lowell ordered. The next day after virtually no sleep, Antonio spots Watts once again at the airport. This time he goes up to confront him and tell him to kill him if he has to, but to get it over with. Watts doesn’t even recognize him until Lowell tells him who he is. Watts then admits that ever since Helen tried to give him the free pie, he has been coming back to try and ask her out on a date. Antonio is happy to help. Robert Fieldsteel is Detective Crawley, who interviews Antonio, and who Joe and Brian used to pick on. 11/14/21
• 063. Labor Pains – 1/28/1993
  • Lowell spends some time with his friend and fellow mechanic Dewey in Boston, where he finds out that Dewey makes twice Lowell’s salary doing the same job. Furthermore, Logan airport offers a job to Lowell. Antonio and Faye suggest that it is now a good time to ask Roy and Joe for a raise, with Antonio giving him strategies to play his cards right. Lowell follows Antonio’s suggestions by making his bosses talk first and then getting in the last word, but Joe can’t afford to give him a raise, and Roy doesn’t want to. Instead, Roy suggests that they take Lowell out for a nice dinner at an expensive restaurant so that Lowell feels like part of the family. Antonio gives him more tips about ordering the most expensive items on the menu and telling his bosses that his request is not negotiable. However, Lowell is starting to worry because he has no desire to move from Nantucket to Boston, but Antonio assures him that they’ll never let Lowell leave. After the expensive meal, Roy tries to get Antonio a hooker named Marsha Peebles (Lisa Edelstein), but Lowell still won’t budge. Roy and Joe finally have to tell him that he should take the job in Boston. Antonio stills tries to insist that it is just a tactic, but when they hire another mechanic named Gil (Phil LaMarr), Lowell is forced to board the plane to Boston. Later, Joe and Brian find Lowell back at the job as if he had never left… and Gil and Antonio are each locked inside an oil barrel. Meanwhile, Helen makes fun of Brian for carrying a piece of his baby blanket. Brian says he can give it up whenever he wants so he lends it to Helen. He keeps trying to retrieve it from her cash register, until she finally has mercy and gives it back. John Petlock is the waiter. 4/27/21
• 064. I’ve Got a Secret – 2/4/1993
  • Brian is after Joe to take off and go to Atlantic City for the weekend to see a game. Antonio can’t go because he wants to go to traffic school because he has a crush on the teacher. Lowell and Faye also decide to go along, but Helen is upset because they had promised to go to a party thrown by her boring friend Martha Stinson. Alex agrees to go along with Helen to the party, but it is so boring that they run out and go back to Helen’s place for pizza and wine. Antonio stops by to drop off a Cindy Crawford workout tape, and they invite him in to stay. The girls give him a facial, and remark what a great guy he is that he can easily participate in a girls’ night, and not try to be macho with them. As they drink more, Antonio confesses that his soccer team caught him tryin on his sister’s wedding dress as a youngster. Alex then confesses that she once posed in a Girls of the Southeast Conference pictorial in Playboy magazine. The guys return from their trip, with Faye angry at them because they wouldn’t party with her all night. Alex drives the brothers crazy when she mentions that she wore Antonio’s sweater home that night. They won’t leave Antonio alone until he tells them the secrets he learned about Alex. After they find out about her pictorial, the guys all raid Roy’s collection of Playboy magazines to search for her pictorial… which they eventually find in the April 1986 issue. When Roy returns to his office, he immediately senses that this issue is missing from his collection. Alex hears them talking about this particular issue and blames Antonio for not keeping the secret, and they willfully reveals his wedding dress secret to the guys. It turns out, however, that Antonio did not spill the beans, but rather it was Helen who let is slip at the beauty parlor and it eventually go back to Joe and Brian. Alex and Helen have an argument in the ladies’ room, and Alex accuses Helen of being jealous of the attention she gets from the guys. Helen thinks that Alex is just full of herself. Faye forces both of them to make up with each other and berates both of them for her behavior… mostly so that she can use the restroom herself. When Alex asks Helen how Faye got to be so forceful, Helen tells her that Faye will kill her if she tells her the answer… but then proceeds to tell her after all. 4/27/22
• 065. The Gift: Part 1 – 2/11/1993
  • Faye sees an article in the newspaper that a founding member of the Nantucket String Quartet is leaving the group, but Helen considers her cello career to be over, so she has no interest in trying out to be his replacement. Meanwhile, she also sees that the Wharf Playhouse is putting on a play called Phantom of the Oprah, so Faye, Roy, Antonio, and Lowell all try out. Faye is made an understudy for the part of Oprah Winfrey, Roy is made a producer, Antonio is an interview subject on Oprah’s show, and Lowell gets to play a stagehand, assuming he will act as the actual stagehand. Helen sees everyone following their dreams, and starts to reconsider trying out for the cello seat. Bryan encourages her to take a second job so that she can put a down payment on a new cello which runs roughly $15,000. She winds up taking a third shift job at the Siasconset Seafood Company as a fish cleaner. She starts to get to know her co-workers Doris (Dori Brenner), Cecilia (Joy Claussen), and Betty (Pattie Tierce), and fends off the advances of her boss Gus (Ken Magee). She reports to work directly from the plant, reeking of fish. She is so tired that she can barely stay awake. After taking a phone call, she breaks down in maniacal laughter, because she finds out that she has gotten laid off from the fish plant. She sees that it is her station in life to work behind a lunch counter. Brian meets with Joe and suggests that they might mortgage their house so that they can buy Helen a new cello so that she can follow her dreams. After breaking a fake cello just for his own amusement to freak out Joe, he brings in the expensive cello. The brothers present it to Helen, but she storms out, asking how they could do this to her. Ron Robertson is the customer who wants fish. NOTE: This is the first of a two-part episode. 8/29/22
• 066. The Gift: Part 2 – 2/18/1993
  • Helen isn’t interested in accepting the cello from Brian and Joe because it would just be about the boys coming to her rescue, but they assure her that it is because of their friendship and the fact that she is always there for them that they bought it for her. Eventually, she agrees to accept the cello, and they say they will call it even when she gets the job with the Quartet. She goes to the tryout with the remaining members of the Quartet: Karl Spengler (Robert Martin Robinson), Lydia Detmeir (Mary Woronov), and the young Johnny Toshiba (Derek Basco), who wants Helen on the quartet because she is hot. While she is in the middle of the audition, the founding member Winston Catlow (Basil Langton) shows up in protest about them replacing him so unceremoniously. They throw him out, and Helen continues with the audition. In the end, however, they call to tell her that she didn’t get the position. Then Spengler shows up at the airport and tells Helen that she made the quartet after all, since their first and second choices fell through. The Phantom of the Oprah team continue with their rehearsals under the direction of Ed Snow (Jim Brochu). Lowell gets to step in and play the Phantom swinging on a rope during Oprah’s interview with Antonio as Bernardo, on how he only loves women who were once men. Meanwhile, Helen’s practices are getting weirder and weirder with her quartet, so when they show up to ask her if she would agree to a fifty-performance tour, she says she might have trouble leaving her lunch counter, but they insist. Helen is ready to quit the quartet, but then Joe and Brian give Helen a new dress for her opening night at the Wharf Playhouse. She decides to grin and bear it for their sake, and even agrees to the tour. On the night of the concert, Antonio spreads the world that the sponsors backed out of the play, and Phantom of the Oprah has been cancelled. During the concert, Winston Catlow swings in on a rope like the phantom in order to disrupt and shut down the concert. After this incident, the Quartet decides to disband. Helen decides to play back the guys by giving them a private solo concert in the theater. They feign enthusiasm, then put on the Walkman headphones. Jane Childerhose is the Oprah audience member. Dai Kornberg and Paul Ainsley are Oprah panel members. NOTE: This is the second of a two-part episode. 8/29/22
• 067. I Love Brian – 2/25/1993
  • Antonio has been watching and I Love Lucy marathon but seems to think that Fred and Ethel are the stars of the show. Brian says he can’t imagine anyone ever getting into such ridiculous situations as her, especially when it comes to trying to meet celebrities. Meanwhile, Alex is trying to get tickets to see the country singer Clint Black (himself). Brian claims to know Clint as a longtime friend and says he can get tickets to the show. Alex doesn’t believe him at all, but Helen encourages her to go along with it and enjoy the tickets to the show, or at the very least, watching Brian try to squirm out of his lie. In fact, she adds to Brian’s difficulty level by requesting not only an additional ticket for herself. Brian keeps striking out getting tickets to the show, but miraculously, Lowell has four tickets for him and his friend so they can search for dropped treasure under the seats and is willing to sell three of them to Brian for $300. Once he tells the girls he has them, Helen mentions how much she’s looking forward to meeting his old friend Clint. After the concert, Brian tells the girls that Clint is leaving right away for Nashville. Another fan (Christine Cavanaugh) in the audience tells them all that this is not correct, and he is throwing a party in his apartment across the street. Lowell and Brian get into the party while the girls wait downstairs by dressing as waiters, as the events take even more of a turn toward an episode of I Love Lucy. When Brian spills his tray of drinks on Clint, his bodyguard (Andy Garrison) throws them out. They manage to sneak back in via the roof and balcony, while Helen and Alex have managed to get in thanks to two guys they meet in the lobby. Brian tries to get a moment to talk to Clint, but the bodyguard ejects him again. He sneaks back in by carrying in a large bunch of flowers. Alex catches him, and this time she calls Clint over and tells him that Brian has been saying he knows him. To both of their surprise, Clint corroborates a very nervous Brian’s story. Helen later reveals to Brian that she covered for him as he was so losing so pathetically. Back at the airport, Alex apologizes for doubting Brian. However, she said it was really flattering when she thought that Brian went to all of that trouble for her, but now that she knows he really knows Clint Black, it really wasn’t that big of a deal. Kirstie Alley appears as Rebecca Howe, begging Clint Black to come to Boston and meet the guys at the bar in a crossover with the sitcom Cheers. Peter Gonneau is the French Aeromass passenger. 12/13/22
• 068. The Key to Alex – 3/11/1993
  • As Lowell is actively looking for a nickname, Brian and Joe lament their lack of success with dating Alex. Brian believes he has to find the ‘key’ to unlock her interest. They also notice that Helen is going out with a new guy named Stan Barlow (Gregory Balaban), and Helen tells them that she started dating him immediately when she realizes how sensitive he is about his cat. Joe tries to utilize this by letting Alex see a cat calendar by his plane. When she questions him about it, he admits his fondness for cats, and then when she says she’s more into dogs, suddenly Joe is into dogs as well. He tells her about his late dog Ranger, and then she asks him if he is busy for the weekend. When he says he doesn’t, Alex brings in her giant vicious dog Chopper and asks Joe to babysit him while she goes to Boston for the weekend. While Joe is suffering a bite on the hand, Helen starts to tire of Stan’s sensitivity when he starts crying during a Marx Brothers movie because Harpo can’t talk. When she says she’s done with him, Brian tells her that he saw Stan with another attractive woman. Helen’s jealousy gets the better of her and she starts to lament that she’s losing him. Brian decides to try to use jealousy to get to Alex, by asking her to help him make his girlfriend jealous by going out with him to the Club Car where she works. Alex agrees to do it if Brian will leave her alone. When they get to the Club Car, Brian identifies a random waitress (Cherie Lyn Michan) as his girlfriend and gets Alex to hug and kiss him. Suddenly a hulking man named Otto (Robert Shafer), one of Alex’s ex-boyfriends, comes in and violently threatens Brian. After Brian begs for mercy, and even kisses the waitress to try and prove that she’s his girlfriend, Alex and Otto reveal that they were playing a joke on him in retaliation for his scheming. To add insult to injury, the waitress’s husband is the chef Murray (Steve Eastin), who then threatens Brian as well. Brian and Joe get together and realize that their schemes are getting them nowhere, so they invite Alex to the Club Car and ask her if they can start over as friends. She tells them that there are things she likes about both of them: Joe’s responsibility and Brian’s fun nature. They put words in her mouth that together they form the ‘perfect guy’. Brian says if he were a little more like Joe, she’d prefer him, but Joe thinks if he’s a little more like Brian, she’d prefer him. As they continue to argue, she walks out, realizing that getting along as friends was too good to be true. 12/13/22
• 069. The Houseguest – 4/8/1993
  • Carlton Blanchard shows up the airport and says he is waiting for his son Carlton Jr. to arrive from New York to celebrate his 70th birthday. Most of the guys try to avoid him entirely as he drove him crazy the last time they had to deal with him. However, when his son fails to show up, Helen starts to feel sorry for him and slowly is able to recruit everyone to help throw him a birthday party at her house. Upon arrival, he complains when they don’t have gifts for him but still found time to buy the balloons. He puts them through their paces, having them play 20 Questions, at which he cheats. Helen lies about having something to do the next day, and she almost is able to clear everyone out… until Carlton goes upstairs to use the restroom and then falls down the entire flight of stairs. They get a doctor to come to the house and tell him that he has mild sprained ankle. He tells Helen that he really needs to spend the night and alludes to the fact that his son, the New York lawyer, might want to sue, then is disappointed when he only gets the couch for the night. One week later, Helen is reaching the end of her rope as he still hasn’t left, and worse yet, he has rented a hospital bed with Helen’s money in order to stay for another month. Helen tries to recruit Faye to come help her, but he drives her off quickly when he starts demanding water refills. He sends Antonio to being over his eight cats. After he drives out Faye and Antonio, Helen catches him up and about and dancing in the living room. She reads him the riot act, and he admits that he really has no sons, and how much fun he had the last time he hung out with everyone. However, he says that his fall was quite real. Helen’s friends finally agree to help get him moved out of the house. On his way out the front door, while he is on Joe’s watch, Carlton falls on the front porch, but this time Helen tells him that if Joe breaks him, he gets him. 5/30/23
• 070. Goodbye, Old Friend – 4/29/1993
  • Joe finds out that one of the airport’s old mechanics Weeb Gilroy has passed away. They are worried about how Lowell will take it since Weeb had taken him under his wing and taught him to be a mechanic as they worked on building an old plane together. At first, Lowel doesn’t believe them, and then once he’s past denial, he quickly goes through the next four phases of grief in the space of 30 seconds. Lowell decides he wants to write and deliver a eulogy for Weeb. Meanwhile, Helen’s attic is full of squirrels, and she commits to ridding the house of them herself without calling an exterminator. However, after several days, they are still there, so she gives in and calls an exterminator. In the meantime, she can barely stay awake at the lunch counter and when she isn’t nodding off , she is completely slaphappy. Joe and Brian convince her she should go home, but when Brian attempts to get her keys for her, he accidentally bumps her in the head with the door, causing her to faint. The doctor (Ted Sorel) looks Helen over and tells her that she may have a concussion and orders her to stay awake for the next eighteen hours. Already exhausted, she has Brian and Joe over to try and keep her awake. She tries every trick in the book to go to sleep, even sending Joe to bed and trying to seduce Bryan to let her sleep next to him. Their method for keeping her awake is squirting a squirtgun at her every time she starts to fall asleep. Lowell stops by and gives an update on the poem and ensures that Joe will be getting him up in the morning. After Joe gets some sleep, he finds that Lowell isn’t at the house and winds up finding him at the airport. Lowell tells Joe that he no longer wants to give the eulogy and can’t seem to describe how he felt about Weeb in one paragraph. Instead, he manages to put the old plane that they had worked on together, back together. Lowell says the next step would be to be able to fly it, so Joe agrees to take him for a ride it. As Helen finally is able to climb into bed for some sleep, the old, noisy plane flies overhead and wakes her up. 5/30/23 
• 071. Another Wedding – 5/6/1993
  • After attending the bachelor party of the air traffic controller Walter, the guys are all surprised how hungover they feel, while Walter is as chipper as ever. A girl named Evangeline drops off Lowell’s toolbelt at the airport, and Lowell is forced to admit that Evangeline was the stripper at the party. Lowell speculates that Bunny may be at the wedding and nervous but is looking forward to seeing her. Brian asks Alex to go with him, but she declines the offer in no uncertain terms. Helen invites Henry Applegate (Timothy D. Smith) from air freight since no great looking guy has ever asked her to dance at any other wedding. Anotonio shows up to the wedding in his white suit, but when he sees a girl who he’d like to ask to dance, he realizes he has gravy on his jacket. When he removes the jacket, there is a huge ink stain on his shirt. Eventually Faye talks him into taking a chance, only to find that the woman has a giant stain on her dance as well. Roy is seated at the kids table, where a boy named Tommy (Adam Hendershott) keeps repeating everything he is saying. He introduces the kids to the shell game, then tells them to go get some money from their parents. Joe runs into the talkative Al Weimper (Bill Gratton) from the Whale Lodge, and he follows Joe around all night, so Joe never gets a chance to meet any women. Bunny shows up to the wedding, and when Lowell goes to speak with her, she starts flirting with him. Then she lowers the bomb on him that she’s there with a date named Phil (Lee Brooks). Lowell believes she’s joking until Phil materializes and proves to be a real guy. He tells Bunny that he’s there with someone named Yvette, but can naturally never produce her. Just when he is about to be honest, Alex shows up and tells Bunny that she is Yvette, since Faye had tipped her off to Lowell’s plight. Bunny is clearly jealous in the end. Helen is finally asked to dance by a sharp-dressed handsome man (Anthony Addabbo), but Henry insists on dancing every single dance. By the time he is ready to stop dancing, Helen’s hair and makeup is a disaster, so the handsome guy isn’t interested in her phone number. Brian hits on and dances with an attractive woman, but she asks him to make sure he watches The Crying Game, hinting that he’s transgendered. Lowell is appreciative of what Alex did for him and the two dance together. 9/30/23
• 072. Date Package Number Seven – 5/3/1993
  • Roy and Lowell find a handheld video game that was left behind and become obsessed with it, but Faye wants them to put it down and have an intelligent conversation, which they abide by for a few seconds. Meanwhile, Alex comes into the hangar looking for Joe and ends up joining Brian in shooting some hoops. Alex shoots a swish while Brian can barely hit the hoop. Off the cuff, Brian asks Alex to join him for dinner and she agrees to not only go out for some lobster but go find a place to eat in Maine. The next morning, both Brian and Alex are walking on air after their date. Alex tells Joe and Helen about how much fun they had finding a lobster place to eat, and the playing some miniature golf, and finding a tandem bicycle leaning against a tree. They also find an older couple who said they met in that same spot years earlier. Joe and Helen laugh at Alex because Brian had manipulated everything that they did and had in fact taken several women on that exact same date that he referred as Date Package #7. Alex laughs it off and says she doesn’t care since she had such a great time. Brian asks Alex out again, but she invites him to come to her place instead. When he gets to her place that night, she gives him champagne and starts to kiss him… only to pour cold water in his lap instead, the throws him out. Brian returns to the airport and tells Joe and Helen what happened. They both find it hilarious, but Brian doesn’t find the humor and tells them that he really liked Alex and hoped that she might be the one. Helen feels bad, but Joe just says that he got what he deserved. However, that night Joe goes over to see Alex and tells her that Brian really liked her. He says that when he would get turned down in the past, he would make jokes like he didn’t care but this time he didn’t even crack a smile. She acts as if his visit made no difference, but the next day, she visits Brian in the hangar and tells him that she’s going to give him one more shot. Clarifying, she says he has to hit a basket, but he can’t seem to do it. He then proposes that they discuss it over dinner, and she agrees to go out with him one more time. Brian proposes an Italian restaurant, but Alex asks if he has ever been there before. He admits that he has… but not with her. A kid (Beau Byron) comes and retrieves his lost video game from Faye, but then gives it to Roy and Lowell, and Roy pays him off. 9/30/23

SEASON 5

• 073. Stop in the Name of Love – 9/16/1993
  • Brian wakes Joe up in the early morning hours to tell him how excited he is about life and his new relationship with Alex. Amazingly, he says he hasn’t slept with her yet, but is enjoying her mind as much as he’s into her body. The next day at work, Brian tells everyone he’s planning on having dinner with Alex in the evening and then breakfast in the morning, per her request. All the while, Helen is complaining about her most recent date with Larry Thompson, who is actively hounding her to buy insurance. Joe makes a comment about how Brian will quickly be looking for a way out of his relationship with Alex after he sleeps with her. Brian thinks he is just jealous, but others at the airport also echo these sentiments, with Faye, who has just started taking community college classes, cites as one of the theories in her Psychology book. Even one of the airport patrons, a lady named Susan (Katherine Moffat) claims she was once dumped by Brian after sleeping with him during a visit to Nantucket years earlier. Brian finally agrees that since he thinks Alex is special, it might be worth slowing down with her and dating her for a little bit longer before sleeping with her. That night after dinner, they go back to her place and get hot and heavy quickly on her bed. Brian then sees visions of Joe, Antonio, Helen, Faye, Roy, and Helen visiting him in the bedroom and prodding him to go slower with Alex. She simply thinks he’s distracted, especially when he yells out Helen’s name. He then explains how it has been pointed out that he’s screwed up relationships by sleeping with them too early, and he’s willing to forego a quick jump in the sack if it means a more successful relationship with her. Alex is genuinely moved by this and thinks it’s the sweetest thing he’s ever done. She agrees with him, and invites him to spend the night without sex, but Brian thinks it is too risky, gives her a kiss and departs. He quickly returns and asks if they’ve waited long enough, but then sees all of his co-workers shaking their heads in disapproval and he leaves again. Susan Watson is the passenger who requires Antonio’s services. 1/28/24
• 074. Terminal Jealousy – 9/23/1993
  • Helen is panicked when the Lobster Bucket is hit by the county health inspector and begins a frenzy of cleaning her lunch counter. Roy complains how bored he is when Helen refuses to give him more coffee refills. Meanwhile, Brian has been joining Alex jogging around the island, but when he tries to pull up his socks while running, he trips and injures his backbone. His injury causes him to have to sit out some flights, and since Joe is maxed on hours, Alex agrees to help out and take some flights. Joe is reluctant, but Roy suggests that Joe take her up for a test flight. Roy also offers to take Brian to the doctor so that Joe can take off with Alex. Roy then starts prodding Brian about Joe being up in the air with Alex alone, clearly curing his boredom by stirring up trouble. Brian gets an inflatable donut to sit on at the doctor, as Roy keeps pointing out that Joe is up in the air a long time with Alex. Then when Joe and Alex leave together because Joe needs to be dropped off in Boston, Brian really starts getting suspicious. Faye reminds Brian that he once stole Joe’s fiancé. Between picking on Brian, Roy tries to arrange for Aeromass to become the official airline of the Boston Celtics. The health inspector shows up to see Helen, but she is not there at the time. Roy, however, knows the woman is the health inspector when Helen tells him that the woman is Pam Chase (Holly Gagnier), a girl she knew from school who used to pick on her mercilessly. Roy then encourages Helen to let her have it, so Helen tells her that she is rude, vindictive, shallow, a phony, and a tramp, then admits that it was her who gave her the long-lasting nickname “Wham Bam Pam.” When Helen finds out that she is the health inspector, she tries to quickly backpedal. Joe later asks Brian if he can take Alex to see the Boston Pops after a couple on the airline gave them free tickets. Brian agrees to allow it, but as Roy taunts him more and more, Brian gets drunk and waits up at the terminal until 2am when they come home. He confronts them both and makes a fool of himself, causing Alex to storm off and tell Brian to go to hell. She also tells Brian that she was only spending so much time with Joe to try and help Brian during his injury. Helen is also in the building, trying to clean up the food counter after being nailed with 16 health violations. As they all talk, the start to realize that Roy was behind all of the manipulation and stoking of the fire. The next day, Roy comes in and reports his wonderful mood because he has heard from Boston Celtics owner Red Auerbach, who has named Aeromass as the official airline of the team. He has even invested in a new 727 plane and put down a sizeable deposit, which he was able to afford because actor Jack Nicholson has bought some of his property through Nantucket Realty. Brian and Joe then congratulate each other for their impeccable impressions of Jack Nicholson and Red Auerbach. 1/31/24
• 075. Bye-Bye, Bunny – 9/30/1993
  • When a girl named Lisa (Linda Larkin) comes to see Lowell and berates him for not following up to meet her for their first date, the others realize that Lowell is having a hard time with his separation from Bunny. No one wants to come out and say it, so Joe is the first to tell him that it is time for him to file for a divorce. He thinks the notion is ludicrous, but when he calls Bunny and she agrees that it is time, he finally agrees to see a lawyer. Meanwhile, Antonio finds a cell phone in his cab, and receives a call from Betty, the wife of its owner, trying to reach her husband Phil (Gordon Clapp). He lets is slip that he saw Phil with another woman in his cab, and he and Faye begin trying to talk her through her depression about her husband. Joe and Helen accompany Lowell to see the lawyer Warren Banks (Peter Van Norden), and when Bunny is late, Lowell starts to think she doesn’t want to go through with it. However, she does show up, and they sign papers which effectively end the marriage. This makes Bunny see Lowell in a new light, and they wind up sleeping together on Banks’ desk after everyone leaves. The next morning, Joe and Brian, who though Lowell was up crying about Bunny all night, are surprised to figure out that she had been there having sex with him all night. Joe then receives a call at the house for someone claiming to be Bunny’s fiancé.  Faye is tricked into being the one to tell Lowell about this, but Lowell doesn’t believe her. Lowell then confronts Bunny about this, and she admits it, telling Lowell that she really isn’t cut out to be a wife, but enjoys sleeping with him. He tells Bunny that he needs more, and that they need to stop seeing each other naked. When Phil comes looking from his phone, Antonio confronts him and finds out that Phil had intended to cheat, but never went through with it. Antonio has him call his wife to reconcile. 6/14/24
• 076. Business or Pleasure – 10/7/1993
  • Joe becomes frustrated when an oil pump causes him to have to ground his flight because he skimped and didn’t let Lowell buy a spare one. He decides that it might be time to get an investor to buy into the company and take partial ownership. Faye is against this, as she believes that corporate greed will force her out and send her into a nursing home. Sill, Joe moves forward and gets a rich businessman named Davis Lynch (Mark Harelik) to come to Nantucket to hear Joe’s proposal. Joe dresses in a suit and coaches everyone on how to behave to make them seem professional, but they are surprised when Davis shows up, and despite getting sick from the bumpy flight, is quite down-to-earth. He takes an immediate liking to Helen and asks Joe to arrange for him to be able to go out with her. Joe talks her into showing him around on the island and pays Antonio $50 to watch her lunch counter. Alex is disgusted with Joe for prostituting Helen, and when Brian says that Joe should have a found a woman willing to sleep with Davis, Alex becomes furious with Brian. Antonio tries cooking up special dishes that he had inherited from his family tradition, but one customer (William Schreiner) merely wants a hamburger, while another woman (Donna Davis) insists on nothing more than a donut. That night at the Crab Castle, Helen is surprised to find that she actually likes David and finds that he’s not a stuffy businessman at all, but a man who keeps her laughing. When the others start to make Joe feel guilty about Helen, he heads to the restaurant to tell Helen that she can leave and that he will take over. Davis insists on doing business the next day, but Joe forces him to tell him whether he is getting the loan. When Davis tells Joe that he’s not going to invest and admits to Joe that Sandpiper is ‘small potatoes,’ Joe demands that Helen leave with him. Helen says she wants to stay, and Joe thinks she is doing it to make a point to Joe. However, the next morning, it becomes clear when Joe sees Helen kissing Davis that she really likes him. Making matters worse, when Davis leaves the island, he tells Roy that they will continue to talk about their own business venture. John Hawkes is the waiter. 6/15/24
• 077. An Affair to Forget – 10/14/1993
  • Brian and Alex decide to forego their vow to abstinence, but Alex wants it to be special, so Brian arranges for a cabin for the weekend in Connecticut. Meanwhile, after being brushed off repeatedly by Helen due to business commitments, Davis finally invites Helen to come to New York for the weekend. Unfortunately, Joe has a commitment to take a charter group of salmon fishermen, so he isn’t able to let Brian use the plane and doesn’t want to drop either of them off the night before. Roy repeatedly sees a woman named Barbara Farkichevski (Stacey Pickren) coming in and going out on his flights but is too nervous to talk to her. Faye and Antonio agree to help give him a makeover and help him come up with a suitable opening line. Brian and Helen fight about who Joe should take before realizing that they’ve been able to talk him into anything all of their lives. Once they gang up on him, the next thing they know Joe is flying them to their destinations. However, Joe is concerned about the fog and is hesitant to land in Connecticut. Both Brian and Alex volunteer to land the plane, but Joe eventually takes them down. Brian and Alex settle in for a romantic evening in bed, but they are soon disturbed by a knock at the door. It turns out to be Joe and Helen, who were unable to take off due to the fog. Brian and Alex have no choice but to take them in, even though it ruins their entire evening. Joe gets a kick out of it and spends the entire time trying to taunt Brian by imitating a mime. Helen is upset that she’s missing a date with Davis and starts to get drunk. Alex wants to go for a walk, but Brian insists he should go with her. She argues that she can take care of herself, and Brian accuses her of always acting too strong and not behaving like a woman. This leads to more arguments, much to the delight of Joe. Brian tries to smooth things over with Alex by offering to go for a walk and finding a place they can have sex outside. She is sarcastic and unreceptive, Brian is frustrated, Helen gets sick, and Joe suggests that they should book the trip for the following year.  The next morning, Roy is made over with puffier hair and new pinstriped Italian suit and pleated pants. He approaches Barbara and delivers a very romantic line, which impresses her right away. However, when she asks him to tell her more, he fumbles and can’t think of anything else to say, so begins repeating his line until she gets bored and annoyed and walks away. As Joe, Brian, Helen, and Alex trickle in, Faye questions where they had been since Davis had called and said she never arrived. Joe tells her that Helen was with him, so Faye congratulates Helen. She asks if the congrats were for not killing Joe and then heads off to call Davis. Brian comes in begging Alex to end the silent treatment and offers to apologize if they do it at the same time. However, when he counts them down, he is the only one apologizing, and she is quick to accept it. 10/14/24
• 078. Black Eye Affair – 10/28/1993
  • After going out with Antonio to gather cranberries to get into the spirit of the town’s Cranberry Festival, Helen sits up all night eating Ben and Jerry’s ice cream while waiting for Davis to call her, prompting some of her friends to remark that she’s putting on weight.  Joe thinks that it is pathetic that she is jumping through so many hoops after having just one date with him. Much to her relief, he then calls and says he’s coming into town for a date and will be there in four hours. Helen is ecstatic, but quickly beings to freak out when she thinks of all she needs to do to get ready. She makes a hair appointment but is unable to get dinner reservations due to the Cranberry Festival. Lowell agrees to come over and cook for them. Alex offers to take her to the gym so that she can get some relaxation in the pool, while also sweating out some pounds so that she can fit into her new dress and shoes, both of which are too small for her. The stress of the situation starts to cause her to itch, which happens to her whenever she gets nervous. On top of everything else, her New York friend Stella (Cindy Ambuehl) shows up and asks Helen for her moral support, as she has just broken up with her photographer boyfriend Dominick (Karl Wiedergott). Roy recognizes Stella as the Slick and Speedy motor oil girl and has her sign his calendar. Since Helen is so pressed for time, she asks Joe if he will take her out and cheer her up, and as soon as he sees how beautiful she is, he jumps at the chance. Helen gives Lowell the keys to her house so that he can get dinner started, and she heads off to the gym with Alex. She starts to relax but then realizes that she has no keys to get in her car, so Brian lets her borrow his. When Helen returns home, she has a black eye from the racquetball court and green hair because the pool’s chlorine had a strange reaction to her new highlights. She thinks she can recover and heads upstairs, but when the doorbell rings, she thinks it is Davis and tells Alex to stall him. Lowell remarks that dinner is not ready. It turns out to be Brian coming for his keys. The doorbell rings again and Helen thinks it is Davis and tells Alex to stall him. Lowell remarks that dinner is not ready. It turns out to be Roy, who has come to get a picture with Sella, hopefully in the nude. He insists on staying and parks it on the couch. The doorbell rings again and Helen thinks it is Davis and tells Alex to stall him. Lowell remarks that dinner is not ready. It is Joe, who has come to pick up Stella, who is asleep upstairs. Helen freaks out when she sees how many people are now in her house. The doorbell rings again and Helen thinks it is Davis and tells Alex to stall him. Lowell remarks that dinner is not ready. It is Antonio, who has come to tell Helen that he has gotten a bad rash of poison oak from picking cranberries and has brought Helen some Calamine Lotion in case she has big splotchy, red marks that she just now notices. The doorbell rings again and Helen thinks it is Davis and tells Alex to stall him. Lowell remarks that dinner is not ready. It is Roy’s friend Fred (Harry Woolf) and two other friends with cameras who have come to take picture of Stella as well. Helen tells Roy to take his friends and leave. There is then an explosion in the kitchen, and Lowell says he is going to need to reassemble the chicken. While looking for his keys, Brian stumbles in on Stella’s room where she is sleeping in the nude. The doorbell rings again and Helen thinks it is Davis and tells Alex to stall him. Lowell remarks that dinner is not ready. It turns out to be Faye, who has brought Dominick over to see Stella. Helen goes in to try Lowell’s sauce at his insistence, as the little photographer Dominick is threatening to hit Joe. He knocks the sauce onto Helen’s new dress, causing her to finally accept the fact that she is not going to be able to do this. She throws everybody out of her house. Once they are gone, the doorbell rings. She opens the door with foil in her green hair, splotches covered in pink lotion, her black eye, and her dress covered in sauce, and yells “what the hell do you want” before realizing that it is Davis. 10/14/24

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