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Private Notes
After a recap of the previous season-ending episode, a shell-shocked Stacey arrives at the Moyers telling them how Ned kissed her then threw her out. She finally decides to go to Alex's to stay. At work Ned exaggerates his sorrow at the breakup with his supposedly beloved wife to gain sympathy from the boss, but Eric is sure Ned has unspoken and unresolved feelings for Stacey and encourages him to tell her about them. Pat Kirkland tells Ned to straighten out his life. Stacey returns to the apartment with Amanda to get her things. She's worried about how they will react when they see each other, but Ned tries to give the impression that he's never been happier, disappointing her. Stacey overloads Alex's apartment with her belongings. Back at work, Ned's confused state of mind is illustrated when he shows a wildly inappropriate commercial to the head of the Family Goodness food company. Kirkland threatens to fire Ned. Eric takes Ned out to a family gathering at Alex's parents where he wa
Stacey is at the restaurant with Alex and her cutesy-pie-lovers act is getting a little old for Eric--and one suspects for Alex, too. Ned comes in and sees them and he and Stacey begin sniping at each other. In an effort to eradicate traces of Stacey from the apartment, Ned turns her old room into a rec room. He also agrees to invest $65,000 in a piece of real estate Amanda wants badly. Stacey arrives at Ned's with her lawyer and the two women gang up on him, informing him that he breached his pre-nuptial agreement and that Stacey can legally keep her room in his apartment. At a racquetball game with Alex, Ned slams him in the crotch with a serve. Amanda comes to Ned's to get a check from him, followed by Stacey, who accuses him of assaulting Alex on purpose. Stacey's lawyer emerges from the bedroom wearing lingerie. Stacey leaves in a furor, followed by her sister Amanda--who makes sure to return for the check.
Back at his apartment, Alex tells Stacey that he's tired of the war betwee
Stacey and Ned are back together again in the apartment while waiting for divorce. Stacey insists she wants their lives and finances entirely separate during this time, an arrangement Ned then extends to cover the contents of the refrigerator. Amanda and Ned go to check out the last tenant of the property they bought, a muffin shop on the ground level. The old lady who runs the shop was under the impression that the shop would continue in operation and her dismay causes Amanda some discomfort. Ned has a run-in with one of the shop's elderly patrons, Nate.
After playing a childish prank on Stacey, she angrily tells Ned he's so selfish that he couldn't even imagine being anyone other than himself for even a second. That night he has a dream and sees himself as various characters from the muffin shop. The next day when the building sale is to be finalized, Ned does an about face and decides to keep the shop and run it--or rather, have Amanda run it. Amanda is wary of the idea but Eric wa
Billionaire computer wank Bob Gardner likes Ned's proposed commercial for his Omegatron computer and he also likes Stacey when Ned introduces her. Bob asks if Ned has any objection to him seeing her, since the two are getting divorced. Ned gives his assent and arranges a date with Stacey. At the muffin shop Ned sets up an Omegatron and Eric is irresistably attracted to its sultry female voice. Suddenly there is an awful lot of bookkeeping to be done at Amanda's Amuffins.
Stacey's date with Bob goes well and he thinks she's just brilliant. Stacey offhandley comes up with an idea for the Omegatron commercial and Bob loves it. Ned argues strongly against it, but Bob wants to use Stacey's idea over Ned's. Full of resentment, Ned directs the ""kitty"" commercial based on Stacey's idea. The ad is loved by people all around the world and sales of the computer jump dramatically, much to Ned's chagrin. What's worse, the ad is nominated for a Clio award. At the banquet, Ned's prayers seem to be an
Pat Kirkland is awaiting Eric's company audit, in which Eric has discovered that Les McDowell has been overcharging the company some $200,000 on his expense account. Scrupulously honest Eric won't cover for Les, so Les tries to blackmail Ned instead. He tells Ned than unless he stops Eric from turning in the report, he'll tells Kirkland about Ned and Stacey's arranged marriage, which Stacey earlier told Les's wife about. Ned goes to Eric, his career in the balance, but it's too late, he's already sent the audit via e-mail to Kirkland's office. So at an office Christmas party Amanda and (especially) Stacey try to keep Kirkland away from his office while Ned and Eric execute a Mission: Impossible-type plan to break into the office and retrieve the report. The result turns out to be more like ""Mission: Ridiculous!""
Amanda is harried and harrassed by the plethora of details involved in running the muffin shop, while Ned treats it as his plaything. Stacey bring her co-workers from ""Skyward"" magazine to the shop to give the place ""literary ambience,"" but all they do is take up space and spend little money. Amanda demands that Ned be a silent partner and she resists his ideas, especially the one about selling a loganberry muffin.
At the ad agency Eric has to fire an employee, a task he's ill-suited for. He finally works up the nerve to do it on the third try, then promptly hires the guy to work as the muffin shop's full-time (and unneccesary) accountant. Meanwhile the loganberry muffin has become an obsession with Ned, who tries all sorts of tricks to get Amanda to make it.
Ned comes over to Eric's with plans to sneak into the new movie ""Turbine Man,"" but Eric wants to prepare for his big presentation the next day. At that presentation, Ned puts on a very entertaining show and promises to take the clients to meet supermodels, but first Eric gives his very dry and dull report on the accounting numbers. Ned breaks up the presentation by shooting foam darts at Eric and taking the clients away in search of the promised models. Out to dinner with their wives that night, Ned and Eric argue. Eric is furious with Ned for the way he humiliated him and stalks out on the dinner with Amanda. Later Ned comes by the Moyer house, but he finds Eric playing poker with a new bunch of guys and he pointedly refuses to accept Ned's peace offering. Stacey comes home to find Ned putting on a big party with his supposed friends, a motley crew including Cornelius the doorman, Nate and Chazz from the muffin shop, Will (a cabdriver he just met), and Alex Trebek. The party is incred
Ned wants to shoot a television commercial to promote Amanda's Amuffins. He dresses Amanda in gingham and puts her in front of the camera where he tries to get her to project a wholesome, folksy persona. After endless takes Amanda blows her stack and starts berating her imaginary TV audience, shouting at them to ""Just buy the damn muffins!"" Ned edits together a commercial consisting of Amanda's rants and it airs on late-night television. Amazingly, it becomes a big hit. The muffin shop is now full of customers, most of whom implore Amanda to yell them just like in the commercial. She becomes a new pop culture hero in New York and gets invited on a local TV show. But Amanda finds out that the job of being abusive all the time is too much even for someone of her acerbic personality.
Amy, a young employee at Amanda's Amuffins, has a crush on Ned. She asks him to go with her to a street festival one evening. Ned, obsessing over some Cuban bananas he's bought, absentmindedly says yes. When the evening arrives Amy is working late waiting for Ned to arrive. He does, but he's got that night's female conquest accompanying him. Upset, Amy is ready to quit her job. Amanda tells Ned she's not about to lose her best employee and threatens Ned with violence if he doesn't work things out with Amy. Ned apologizes and agrees to go out with Amy--to her high school prom!
Ned and Eric arrive with Amy and her friend Alice. Eric enjoys himself, but Ned seems rather bored and inattentive to Amy, until popular girl Heather insults Amy and her ""grandfather."" Ned then vows that he'll make Amy the Prom Queen. Drinking large quantities of spiked punch, Ned begins wholesale bribery of voters and generally makes a spectacle of himself. They don't win Prom Queen and King (a tearful Eric and h
Stacey brings home the final divorce papers and finds Ned in front of the TV giving Eric and Amanda a tutorial on the virtues of Mr. Belvedere. Ned is excited that he's going to meet the former star of the show and perhaps sign him to endorse a client's product, ""Cappuccino in a Can."" When Ned visits him, he finds the man with much the same personality but living in a cheap apartment full of what appear to be stolen goods. ""Belvedere"" thanks Ned for his interest but doesn't believe the public cares about his character anymore. Ned plays his trump card as he's fixing to leave--he says the commercial will go to Tony Danza instead. Mr. Belvedere digs out his old clothes from the show and agrees to film the commercial.
On the set, Belvedere messes up his lines and causes $75,000 worth of delays. At home that night, Amanda is surprised to find Mr. Belvedere in the bathroom. Eric is keeping him overnight, and Belvedere dispenses his patented sitcom wisdom to Eric, who takes on the role of We
Eric and Ned are at the airport about to leave for a vacation in Nepal when Eric timidly backs out of the trip. At the muffin shop, Amanda is preparing to take the weekend off to spend with her visiting old friend Wendy. Stacey petulantly asks why competent employee Cynthia is being put in charge of the shop instead of her and Amanda mollifies her by saying she can be boss, with a wink to Cynthia. Amanda is eager for Wendy to meet her husband and sings his praises, but when she gets home she finds Eric an emotional wreck, lying on the couch covered with food and endlessly replaying a videotape of Ned taunting him from Nepal. Meanwhile Stacey runs off Cynthia with her petty bossiness and she and the hapless Chazz wreak havoc on the shop, ending up with a couple of feet of standing water on the floor.
Diana Huntley, the creative director of competing ad agency Klein Abernathy, comes into the muffin shop to place an order, belittling Eric behind the counter in the process. Ned sees an opportunity for some corporate espionage and assumes a ridiculous Scottish accent, telling her he'll deliver the muffins personally. When he gets to her office he pumps her for information about an account. Based on that, Ned pitches her idea to a client, who finds it grossly offensive. Having fooled Ned, she comes by his office to gloat, but recognizing a kindred spirit, she suggests a relationship. They begin one, but even so Diana steals away Ned's creative team. Ned has fooled her, though, as she has actually hired three incompetents from the muffin shop. They have a violent arguement following this, ending in a torrid embrace and passionate kisses.
At the shop, Ned putters around in a good mood, having just passed his one-month anniversary with Diana, who drops by to say she has to cancel their dinner date that night because of business. At the restaurant that evening Amanda and Eric see Diana kissing another man. Stacey and Amanda are against telling Ned, but Eric feels he should. Diana shows up at Eric's cubicle and icily warns him not to say anything to Ned. Despite his fear of Diana, Eric tells what he saw to his friend. When confronted, Diana acts like it's normal behavior for people like her and Ned. He tries to play along, pretending he has other women on the side. A date with a beautiful set of triplets fails to make Diana suitably jealous, so Ned goes on an arduous dating spree, going after bigger and better targets. Stacey finally confronts Ned about his behavior and true feelings, sounding very much like she really cares about her fake husband. Ned admits that Diana's actions bother him. Ned goes to see Diana ready to
Stacey is proud of her latest article for Skyward magazine, ""The Secret Rivers of the Northwest."" But her boss Mr. Pace cuts out all the parts about toxic waste dumping, and does it rather condescendingly as well. Furious, Stacey talks to the other writers about a work stoppage against Pace. They heartily agree--until the moment he steps out of his office. Pace demands a rewrite and an apology, both due the next day. Driving Stacey to work the next day, Ned is in a great mood, having decided to fly out to L.A. to see Diana. Stacey ruins that mood when she breaks down crying about her failure as a writer. Ned tries to gloss over things, but after he reads the article Stacey left behind in the car, he goes to confront Stacey's boss. But in the meantime, Stacey has been grovelling at Pace's feet in front of the rest of the staff. Ned bursts in and with his usual bombast lambastes Pace, praising Stacey's article, even though he read only the sanitized version. He tells Pace that Stacey wil
It won't be long before the divorce is final, and Stacey is in her usual financial straits as she looks for an apartment. Diana offers her a high-paying job as her personal assistant and Stacey jumps at it. When Ned tries to ease some of the demanding tasks Diana has given Stacey, Diana accuses Ned of having feelings for his soon-to-be ex-wife. To prove he doesn't, Ned stands by quietly as Diana cruelly exploits Stacey to greater and greater degrees. When Stacey is made to don a ridiculous bookworm outfit at a reception for an author she admires, Ned can take it no longer and breaks off his relationship with Diana.
Ned's agency is going on a retreat to a ski resort. Ned doesn't want to take Stacey but she corners Pat Kirkland and convinces him that this is just what she and Ned need to help save their marriage. Ned has amorous plans for the office manager Ms. Willoughby, but the presence of his wife makes it hard for him to convince the young woman to go along with them. Amanda also wants to spend some quality romantic time with her husband Eric, but he is in seminar heaven and is ignoring his wife's wishes. At the couples seminar, Ned and Stacey find out that there's really not that much they despise about each other anymore. Back in their room, it appears that the fake marriage may be finally moving toward a consummation, but Ms. Willoughby shows up. Now the prospect of both love and office supplies appears dim for Ned.
With the finalization of the divorce approaching, Stacey is going to have to deal with telling her parents. Ned meanwhile doesn't want to give up his relationship with his in-laws and is making plans to be Saul's first mate at a boating regatta. Eric feels left out as a son-in-law compared to Ned. Stacey gets Ned to agree to her plan to break the news to her parents, but when she does, Ned acts as if he's hearing about it for the first time. Eventually Stacey gets Ned on the same page with her, but Saul and Ellen are shaken. When Ellen tells Amanda that she and Saul won't be moving to Florida because they should stay near Stacey at this critical time, Amanda blurts out that the marriage was a sham all along. The Colberts are devastated by this news and feel betrayed by their daughter Stacey. She tries to pull her mother out of her funk by telling her that Amanda is pregnant--which she isn't. Eric now gets his much-hoped-for opportunity to be Saul's first mate at the regatta. Both of th
It's nervous times at the agency with a new board of directors installed, and they want Ned to prove his worth by creating a catchy campaign for a client's product--sponges. A fire at work forces Ned and his creative team to work at his apartment. Eric and Amanda are at a hotel continuing with their task of trying to get her pregnant, while Stacey babysits Howard at their apartment. The couple returns home, though, after Eric refuses to cross a picket line at the hotel. Stacey's slobbish ways have resulted in a cockroach invasion, so she returns to her apartment with the Moyers in tow. Amanda and Eric immediately commandeer a bedroom and get back to work. But it's hard for Ned and the team to get any work done, especially with Jeannie admiring Eric's heroic efforts in the bedroom. The next day at the meeting with the client Ned still has nothing. The clients are about to leave dissatisfied, but some tossed-off remarks by Ned result in some slogans he likes for some of their other produ
Eric is delighted when his superior at work, Stephanie, asks him to help with the annual fiscal review. But he's not so happy when she begins to make a move on him. Stephanie, however, tells Eric he's imagining things. But later at a dinner party at Ned's she leaves no doubt--she wants Eric! Amanda, unaware of the situation, thinks it's a great idea for Eric to accompany Stephanie on a trip to a conference in Boston and pressures him to go. Eric tells Ned about his dilemma. Ned's idea is to draw Stephanie's attention to himself, but his effort is so heavy-handed that he gets hit with a sexual harrassment charge from her. Stephanie now realizes how she made Eric feel and apologizes to him. Ned meanwhile attempts to fight the charge by clumsily editing a surveillance videotape. Meanwhile Stacey must contend with an aching tooth despite her fear of dentists.
Stacey and Ned are working on the final paperwork for the divorce and they're having a good time, playing silly physical games with each other just like lovers would. To delay the final signing, Ned tells Stacey he has an important date the next day. At the muffin shop, the dimwit Chazz asks Stacey to go out. She accepts. After a trip to the IMAX theatre where Chazz indulges in his usual moronics like falling out of his seat, Stacey is ready to call it a night. She grants him a goodnight kiss, though, and finds out that she likes it very much. In fact, the next day at the muffin shop, a breathless Stacey is telling an incredulous Amanda that Chazz is the greatest lover she could ever imagine. Ned confides to Eric that he's troubled by the feelings he now has for Stacey. Back home, Ned tries to recreate their good time of a couple of days before to stop Stacey from going back out with Chazz. It doesn't work, and Ned ridicules Chazz, asking if he's really the man she wants to spend her l
At work, Pat Kirkland's son Skip is second-guessing Ned's ideas and generally undermining his position in the company. Ned confronts him, and Skip tells Ned how he was responsible for his being sent to military school 14 years before (in a story told in flashback). Ned delivers an ultimatum to the elder Kirkland: it's either Skippy or him, and he's ready to take clients with him if he goes. Kirkland shows him the door. Ned takes Eric with him, sure that Kirkland is bluffing, but he's not. At the muffin shop, Amanda delivers the joyous news that she's finally pregnant, but the occasion is dampened by Eric's new state of unemployment. Ned manages to steal an account from the agency, and he fortuitously meets Lloyd Bridges, who Stacey is interviewing for a magazine. Bridges agrees to endorse the client's product and makes a commercial. Ned and Eric are exulting in their success when the news breaks that an out-of-control Bridges has been arrested for shoplifting.
Ned is working out of the muffin shop (with little success), he's being sued by his former employer for stealing a client, and now Stacey is ready to move out of the apartment. He flashes back to the beginning of his relationship with her. Ned meets an old client who's started a promising new business, and he sees an opportunity for himself. He pleads with Stacey to help him out one last time in her role as ""business wife,"" and she relents. The meeting with his client goes well, until the couple gets another invitation out. Ned tells Stacey she needs to continue in her role, because she's proven that she doesn't have the maturity to live life on her own. Hurt and insulted, Stacey storms out. A few days later, the divorce is finally granted.
Ned has sublet his apartment and is living out of the muffin shop, where his early morning routine is not doing much to ensure repeat business from the customers. He shows up one day at Stacey's studio apartment, telling her how he's been on the roa
