Ed

After Mike and Dr. Jerome get into an ongoing battle over the sign outside their office, Nancy initially brings in Toby to do some conflict management, but is later forced to take matters into her own hands to resolve the dispute; Mark feels responsible when another student's gastric bypass surgery doesn't turn out so well; Ed and Frankie work through the problems of an office romance as they represent an attorney who wants to be released from a contract to marry another lawyer; Carol is shocked and less than thrilled when Ed tells his friends about his romance with Frankie.

Ed tries lucid dreaming to figure out if he should pursue a relationship with Frankie.

Frankie defends Ed when he's sued for breaking a man's thumb while rescuing him from a burning car; Molly contends with Ryan's disapproval as she gets closer to Sean; Warren refuses to let Stella pull away from him after their night together; Carol gives Ed a little relationship advice about giving Frankie relationship advice, and discovers a small truth about herself; Stella chafes as Carol tries to mother her.

Ed becomes concerned about his legacy after taking a longevity test and learning that his life expectancy is ""only"" 83 years; Stella returns to Stuckeyville after breaking up with her boyfriend, who follows her there; hoping to cash in on the royalty market, Phil and Eli compete to create a new birthday song; Frankie and Leon come to a parting of the ways; Warren's high-flying approach to playing Cupid for Stella on Valentine's Day gets him the thank-you of his dreams.

Ed takes on his first homicide case when Eli's friend is charged with second degree murder after another friend dies during the drunken recreation of an old high school prank; Frankie and Eli provide the key to the outcome of the trial after damaging testimony nearly sinks the case; Molly develops a crush on Ryan's dad, and tries to mend the relationship between father and son.

Carol decides to be objective after debating whether she should avenge Rich Keenan's cruel high school hoax on Molly by writing a negative review of his restaurant in the ""Stuckeyville Progress"". As it happens, she sincerely hates the food and writes a scathing review, which prompts Rich to sue her for maliciously ruining his business. Ed and Frankie represent her in a bench trial before a judge who doesn't care for Ed, but who manages to be objective nonetheless. Although Carol wins the case, she is forced to deal with the aftermath of a secret that's revealed during the proceedings. Phil's latest lamebrained scheme to increase business at Stuckeybowl by attracting a younger crowd gives rise to ""Extreme Bowling"", an idea Ed quickly vetoes before it burns the building down. Molly is stymied about how to help a young geek from being harassed by other students until she devises an ingenious scheme to ensure his popularity, while all kinds of sparks fly between her and the boy's single f

Ed and Frankie represent a man who is suing his sister for ""outing"" him, even though he insists he's not gay; Carol goes looking for love in all the wrong places; by attempting to drive away all his patients, Dr. Jerome drives Mike crazy until Mike uncovers Dr. Jerome's real motivation in trying to drive him out of business.

As Ed takes the case of a injured high school football player who's suing another player for unnecessary roughness, he meets an enthusiastic law school graduate eager for a job; Eli helps Warren and Diane give Mark his last great meal before surgery; Molly does her best to be the coolest principal ever.

When a new lawyer arrives in Stuckeyville and encourages neighbors to sue each other, Ed hatches a scheme worthy of Phil to get Stuckeyvillans back together again; Carol urges Molly to become a candidate for Stuckeyville High principal, now that Dennis is teaching in Minneapolis; Mike prepares to take over Ed's crown as the Stuckeyville Recliner Rally champion; inspired by Mark's upcoming surgery, Phil connives with Eli to become the ""Jared"" of a local sandwich shop.

Lloyd returns to Stuckeyville, and his new scheme is selling makeup for men. When he's prosecuted for being part of a pyramid scheme, Ed doubts Lloyd's claims that he knew nothing about it, creating friction between the brothers. After Mark's father has a heart attack and Mark gets bad news about his own health at his annual checkup, Mike and Warren convince him to have gastric bypass surgery. Ed and Carol smooth over the rough patch in their relationship and become friendly again.

Tired of the continuing Carol/Ed saga, the pair's friends trap them in Stuckeybowl until they finally work things out, one way or another.

The families converge for the wedding, and Carol begins to have second thoughts after talking to her father about her parents' courtship; Warren enlists the help of Carol's sister Stella in writing a song for the bride, and the two hit it off better than Warren could have dreamed, leading him to seek out Eli for advice about women; Ed decides not to attend the wedding, but Carol begs him to reconsider; Jennifer encourages Ed to break up the wedding and he decides to go for it and ride up to the church on a white steed, but the horse he ends up with has other ideas; Dennis makes a painful decision to tell the truth at a crucial moment.

Jennifer Bradley breezes back into Ed's life claiming that she needs his legal advice; Ed accepts Dennis's sarcastic offer to be his best man; Carol's impending marriage is making Molly feel neglected.

Ed represents a pair of squabbling morning radio hosts who want to split up after a twenty year friendship; Mike and Nancy find that their preemptive marriage counselor is more of a hinderance than a help; and Molly knocks some sense into Ed and Carol to prevent them from destroying their friendship.

Carol's father returns from Florida in time for his birthday party, unaware that she's engaged. When she finally springs the news on him, he's hurt that she's marrying someone he's never even met. At his birthday party, he gives Carol and Dennis the cold shoulder and refuses to speak to her or accept her apology. When she goes to his house to explain, she is shocked to discover that her father remarried a year earlier without telling her. Carol goes ballistic until she finds out that her father may be sick. When she asks him, he denies it. Finally, he visits her and they talk about how they have tried to protect each other ever since her mother died. He finally admits that he's scared and asks Carol to come with him to his doctor's appointment, where they get good news. Warren freaks out about the unfairness of the SAT system and mounts a one-man protest he calls ""Pencils Down!"". After several fruitless attempts to be taken seriously and enroll anyone else in his boycott, he finally fa

Overwhelmed by Carol's wedding preparations, Ed decides to take to the road for awhile, but finds the peace and quiet more than he can bear; Eli and Phil duke it out on the basketball court for the right to use Ed's office while he's away; Dennis makes Nancy prove her mettle before hiring her as a guidance counselor by assigning her to turn around a multi-cut slacker; Carol plays passive-agressive games with Dennis over plans for their upcoming nuptials; Carol tries to connect with Ed, but he won't admit his true feelings.

Ed is shocked when Carol announces her engagement to Dennis; Mark agrees to go on a diet if Diane enters the Miss Stuckeybowl pageant; Diane's participation in the pageant pits Carol against Ed; Phil and Eli continue to clash.

Ed is forced to defend the scam artist who manipulated Mike into betting and losing $3,000 on a baseball game; Carol, still furious at Ed for kissing her before she left on her trip with Dennis, finally makes a decision about her romantic future; Kenny bowls a perfect game, then bids adieu to Stuckeyville to pursue new adventures; and Ed hires a new supervising manager for Stuckeybowl.

Mike is sued for sexual harassment by a nurse at his office, and he reluctantly agrees to let Ed represent him. The long-time friends have a short-term but serious falling-out when a deposition reveals that Mike has withheld evidence that could destroy his case, because he didn't trust Ed to trust in his innocence. After her short story is rejected for publication, Carol takes Molly's advice to sharpen her writing skills by freelancing for Stuckeyville's newspaper, only to be dogged by frustration at every turn at the complete lack of anything in Stuckeyville that's even remotely newsworthy. In another one of his harebrained schemes, Phil tries to start a union at Stuckeybowl after Ed refuses to allow him to raid the snack bar refrigerator for a party in his motel room.

Ed's fast-talking big brother blows into town and ropes Ed into a risky plan to glam up Stuckeybowl; Nancy's Internet chat buddy turns out to be a little younger, but a lot older-acting than she expected; and Warren finally sees Diane in a new light after he fails to make headway with a college girl.

Ed winds up behind bars and in over his head after his favorite judge displays some outlandish courtroom behavior; Phil runs a boot camp for clowns to find the perfect one for a Stuckeybowl celebration; Mike becomes the object of derision after a marketer takes over the ads for his new private practice.

Ed helps a wimpy lawyer negotiate with a trucking company that is disturbing Stuckeyville's peace by routing its rigs through town; Carol regrets asking Dennis to critique one of her short stories; Molly rebuffs Jim's attempts to explain his behavior.

A beautiful, off-beat woman blows into town and sweeps Ed off his feet, while encouraging him to face his fears and live life to the fullest; everyone gets more than they bargained for when Carol gives her students a journalism assignment to videotape and report a news-breaking story at Stuckeyville High; Ed discovers an unpleasant truth about Jim and forces him to tell Molly, who is devastated by the revelation.

Ed and Carol disagree about the propriety of reuniting Ed's high school garage band to play at the funeral of the band's songwriter; Warren spends a blissfull week dating Jessica and immortalizes the event with an infinity tattoo; Molly tutors Phil in chemistry so that he can pass his G.E.D. exam.

Ed represents a woman who embezzled money from her insurance company employer to pay for a claimant's liver transplant, and breaches his own ethics to keep her out of jail. Nancy tries and fails at a new career as a substitute teacher, and realizes that she'd like to become a guidance counselor. For once, Phil gets it right when he turns a child's birthday party at the Stuckeybowl into a celebrity roast, which ends up being a bigger hit than Ed anticipated.

Carol breaks Ed's heart with a lie about her relationship with Dennis, who gives Miss Vessey cause to reconsider romance with him. Meanwhile, a Stuckeyville woman hires Ed to watch over her husband during his very unusual birthday celebration; Phil and Kenny set out to invent a new food; and Warren's first date with Jessica hits a snag.

Hoping to turn the case into a First Amendment issue to be heard by the Supreme Court, a celebrity lawyer offers to help Ed defend an ex-classmate being sued by a woman for embarrassing her on the Internet. Mike resorts to extreme measures after Dr. Jerome decides to postpone his retirement. Warren finds that the class clown who laughs first is the one who get the most laughs.

Ed becomes the anti-Claus after a wealthy client gives Stuckeyville a Christmas gift he really can't afford, forcing the bowling-alley bunch to host a frenzied fund-raiser. Meanwhile, Mike fears that he and Nancy are a bad influence on their own daughter; and Carol gets a peek at the other woman in Dennis's life.

Ed represents a teacher who admits to refusing to cast a talented African American in a play--as Abraham Lincoln; Warren gets an image makeover; Molly resists her boyfriend's efforts to get her a new car.

Ed represents Dennis in a minor fender-bender case, but when the other party's lawyer asks for an exorbiant amount of money, Dennis insists they settle in order to close the case; Ed tries to resurrect the annual Thanksgiving Day parade; Nancy declares war on her fellow ""cookie moms"" when she is sabotaged while launching her own cookie line.

Carol is infuriated when Dennis cancels the annual budget meeting for all faculty. The entire faculty bands together to get rid of Dennis, including writing his end of the first semester review. Carol convinces the faculty to give Dennis a chance to prove himself. When he later takes Carol to task for her actions, she investigates further, discovering he was fired. Carol writes him a positive evaluation, which Dennis tears up and returns. Frustrated by his continued rebuffs, she kisses him. A young lawyer, Joe Baxter, fresh out of the corporate world and full of energy, requests to join Ed's ""firm"". He observes Ed for a while, and launches his own ""bowling alley practice"" complete with Kenny, Shirley, and Phil-esque characters in his employ, and going so far as to steal Ed's clients. He advertises himself as the world's first bowling alley lawyer. When push comes to shove, Joe cannot deliver in the court room, and Ed happily regains his status. Ed gets involved in the Carol-Dennis tiff

Carol asks Ed to help her friend Sonja, whose husband Andy wants a divorce after discovering that Sonja had advertised herself in a mail-order-bride catalog before they met. Sonja is about to be deported to her native Brazil, since they live in a no-contest divorce state and Andy can get a divorce immediately. As Ed gets more involved in the case, he re-evaluates his own failed marriage and invites Liz to visit him so that they can mend fences. Mike continues to be beleaguered by Dr. Jerome, who refuses to relinquish his practice until Mike reads all the volumes of medical knowledge Dr. Jerome has amassed in his career. He also has a friend pose as a patient who needs an emergency appendectomy but refuses to listen to Mike and walks out of his office. When Dr. Jerome takes Mike along to see a terminally ill patient, Mike realizes that Dr. Jerome isn't such a bad guy after all. Molly and Jim continue to wend their way through the trials and tribulations of dating. After Jim cancels a da

Ed's on the case after a bitter kid's show host talks a young boy into running away; Molly gives up on wooing Jim; Warren comes up with the worst idea ever on how to impress his classmates.

Carol and the new principal face off on ""The Great Gatsby""; Mike and Nancy debate over whether to try for Baby #2; Phil goes all out to find a missing bowling ball, ""The Devastator"", which magically reappears; Warren reveals to Carol the secret of the class ""Bingo"" game; Molly objects to Ed defending a sleazebag salesman, but Ed maintains that said sleaze has done nothing illegal.

When a client changes his name and his image, Ed decides to follow his lead; Molly tries to catch the eye of a bowling alley equipment salesman; Mike takes drastic measures to find ""the last straw"" which will end the impasse with Dr. Jerome.

Ed and Carol's close encounter is interrupted by Bonnie Hane; Ed defends Warren on a charge of criminal negligence after Warren brings a keg of beer to a party and an underage drinker has an bicycle accident on his way home; Nancy quits her job to be a full-time mother.

Ed's old high school girlfriend, Kara, tests her husband's fidelity by hiring a friend to come on to him, When the husband fails the test by sleeping with the woman, Ed helps Kara in the divorce settlement. Meanwhile Carol tries to stop the forced retirement of the school's music teacher due to budget reasons. Also Nancy tests the nanny to determine if she's trustworthy.

Ed and Carol finds themselves on opposite sides when he represents a gym coach who is flunking one of her best students; Dr. Jerome continues to humiliate Mike; Shirley starts working as Ed's legal clerk.

A brush with death inspires a local man to change his life and do things he's never done before such as scale a wall, bowl naked, and go out with Molly. Meanwhile, Ed tries to recapture his youth by doing things he did when he was 18, and Warren becomes inspired by Thoreau's call to ""simplify"".

As Ed and Bonnie grow more comfortable in their relationship, Carol grows more uncomfortable so Ed suggests that they all go out for dinner. Not wanting to be a third wheel, Carol brings an escort along. But dinner is a disaster for everyone when a misundering with her escort forces Carol to betray Molly's confindence and Bonnie drops a bombshell on Ed: she's accepted a job in Washington, DC; Big Rudy, the former owner of Stuckeybowl decides he wants the bowling alley back and resorts to dirty tricks to get what he wants-even enlisting Phil's help. In court Ed represents a singer/songwriter suing her band for the rights to her songs after she was kicked out.

Ed represents a priest who is being fired for not increasing the church's congregation; Phil turns love-doctor and tries to make an ordinary man into a ""love machine""

When Carol's music box is stolen from her car, Ed tries to help in apprehending the thief. Though the music box is valuable, Carol really wants it returned for sentimental reasons (her grandfather gave it to her). During the investigation, Carol lets her jealousy of Bonnie get the best of her and the two butt heads. Finally the culprit is found and with Ed's detective work the man is brought in for questioning. Unfortunately the man has an alibi. Ed investigates the alibi and learns that the man lied. Confronted by Ed, the thief admits that he stole the music box because he was desperate for money because he lost everything while supporting his sick mother. He refuses to admit that in court however until Ed promises to talk the DA into waiving jailtime and putting him on probation. When Bonnie learns about the deal, she becomes furious that Ed used their relationship to his advantage, but she does end up waiving jailtime anyway, to Carol's dismay. Later that night, Ed and Bonnie

Ed handles a case involving a man being fired if he doesn't make a fish ""sing""; Mike believes the Burton's new nanny has a crush on him; the Stuckeybowl staff tries to come up with ideas to drum up business.

Ed locks horns with a sassy new D.A. while defending a man charged with breaking the law by putting dimes in parking meters; Molly chides Carol for taking Ed's attention for granted; Phil searches for his own personal catch phrase; Nancy must decide whether she wants to accept a promotion at work.

Ed's visiting parents show their disapproval of his new life in Stuckeyville; Ed defends two men being sued for pulling a prank involving a lottery ticket; Carol becomes coach for the school's losing junior varsity basketball team; Shirley and Kenny stake out a vandal at Stuckeybowl.

The return of former high football star, Troy McCallum, brings out feelings of resentment in both Ed and Carol. Meanwhile Ed tries to help high school student Warren, whose nerd vs. jock conflict mirrors his own.

When Molly's grandfather hires Ed to write his will, he ends up revealing a shocking secret;; Mike has a new rival at the doctor's office; Phil hosts an open-mike night at Stuckeybowl.

On his first Thanksgiving without his wife, Ed decides to start a new tradition and arranges an unconventional Thanksgiving feast at Stuckeybowl for his friends; Phil schemes to resell store bought turkeys as marked up Corinthian birds; Mike dreads spending the holiday with his father-in-law; Ed represents a young man who was hurt while breaking into a man's cabin (on a dare) and is suing the owner.

Carol shocks Ed by announcing that she is leaving Stuckeyville to become a writer; Ed concocts Stuckeyville's first-ever Festival of Ducks to boost the town's reputation; Phil becomes mentor to a young bowler.

Carol drowns her sorrows over breaking up with Nick with a ""Xanadu"" marathon; Ed represents a jittery bride-to-be who sues her hairdresser over a bad pre-wedding haircut; feeling that her relationship with Mike is in a rut, Nancy decides to spice things up by starting a book club; Ed steps forward and makes yet another bold move to win over Carol's affections, which runs into a snag and causes some misunderstandings.

Ed defends a secretary being sued over a payroll error; Carol decides that she and Nick have to end their relationship; Mike is reviewed by his superior; Molly selects talent over beauty in casting the school play.

Ed goes up against his old law firm in a case involving four friends who wrote up a contract on a bar napkin. At the same time, he must pick a manager for Stuckeybowl and deal with being ""just friends"" with Carol. Nancy and Mike fuss over who takes care of the baby at night.

Carol's childhood diaries prove useful when the town's premier magician, Stuckeyville Stan, sues a competitor for revealing his secrets; Nancy becomes threatened by the baby's nanny.

Ed Stevens has just been fired for misplacing a comma in a 500 page contract, which cost his law firm employer millions of dollars. When he arrives home to give his wife the bad news, he finds her in bed with the mailman. He decides to pack it all in and head back to his hometown of Stuckeyville, Ohio. When he runs into Carol Vessey, the girl of his high school dreams who is now an English teacher at Stuckeyville High School, he decides to stick around and purchase the local bowling alley, where he sets up a law practice.