Summary for January 29, 1997
"Misery Loves Company"

This episode deals with Julia and Charlie's fight. Julia decides to move out and go live with her boyfriend, Sam, so that she doesn't have to deal with Charlie. Claudia becomes concerned and visits Julia at Sam's apartment to try to get her to come home. When this does not work, she goes to Bailey because he is always the one who keeps the family together. Unfortunately, Bailey is quite hung over and does not try to help Claudia. Bailey has recently developed a drinking problem which Will starts to notice. He asks Bailey if he has a drinking problem and Bailey blows up at him. Later, Sam asks Julia to move back home because he is not ready for her to live with him. Also in this show, Grace's apartment is burned down in a fire, Charlie offers for her to stay with the Salingers for a while. During the first night, Charlie felt uncomfortable sleeping in the same bad with Grace because he was still thinking about Kirsten so he decided to sleep on the couch. The next night, he realizes he is ready to continue building a relationship with Grace, so they sleep together. This show ends with Julia moving back home and Bailey's problem unresolved.

Summary for February 5, 1997
"Mind Your Own Business"

In this episode, Grace (Tamara Taylor) begins to wonder if living with the Salingers is a good idea. Things are tense between Charlie and Julia and the girls are also having a hard time accepting that Grace is living with them. Claudia attempts to make life at home better by trying to be friends with Grace. Claudia decides to volunteer for Grace at he office. Unfortunately, Claudia does not live up to her expectations as she screws up at work. Grace immediately fires her and life at home becomes more tense. Meanwhile, Bailey is continuing to have drinking problems. Sarah admits to Julia that she still loves Bailey so Julia sets them up to go to a concert together. At the concert, Bailey becomes drunk and Sarah becomes annoyed and leaves. Sarah confides in Julia about Bailey, but Julia does not believe her. Later, Sam offers Bailey a job, and Sam discovers that bottles of liquor went missing while Bailey was working with him. He asks Julia about this and Julia and Sarah conclude that Bailey needs help. They go to his apartment and ask him about his problem, but Bailey thinks he does not have one. Later, Sarah tries to convince Callie to make sure he is okay, but Callie does not listen. Grace tells Charlie that she is planning to move out of the Salinger home because sbe thinks that they rushed into the relationship too fast and also because she thinks she does not belong in a nice home, while at work she is dealing with homeless people. At the end, Charlie convinces Grace to stay.

Summary for February 12, 1997
"Point of No Return"
I'm sorry, but I missed half of this episode so I only have half of a summary!

At Owen's third birthday party, Bailey shows up to take the place of a clown that he couldn't find. The only problem is that he is drunk. As he walks out to the outside party with Owen's huge cake, he stumbles, falls, and the cake is ruined. Charlie gets mad at him so he Bailey hits him and Charlie falls on the ground. Owen's whole birthday becomes ruined by Bailey. Later, they lie Bailey to bed. When the rest of the Salingers go back up to check on him, they realize that he has left in his Jeep. Julia, Sarah, and Grace believe that Bailey has a real drinking problem, but Charlie seem to think he is just having fun as a freshman in college. They try to phone Bailey at home, but Callie says he has not showed up. Meanwhile, Julia breaks up with Sam.

Summary for February 19, 1997
"Intervention"
This show starts off with the Salingers trying to organize a meeting with Bailey at the restaurant so they can confront him about his drinking problem. He doesn't show up so they decide that they will pretend that Owen is hurt. Claudia phones Bailey and starts crying and saying that Owen has hit his head. Both Bailey and Callie rush over to the house and when Bailey finds out that they used Owen as an excuse to tell him about his drinking, he gets mad right away. Charlie, Julia, Claudia, Sarah, and Grace all try to convince him that he is an alcoholic, but he does not listen to them. Bailey believes that they are robbing him of having a good time in college. He tries to show everyone else their faults like Julia's pregnancy, Charlie's cheating on Kirsten, etc.etc. Charlie decides to call Sam (a very close family friend) and Sam has a BIG family secret to reveal. He attempts to talk to Bailey, but Bailey thinks Sam will just tell how disappointed his parents would be. Instead, Sam says that Bailey's father would say "Not my son too." The father was an alcoholic for many years, but sober for 18 years before he died. Everyone is in SHOCK because when they were young, their father never took one sip of any alcohol. Claudia asks how her father stopped and Sam says its because their mother said she would leave him. After hearing the news of his father, Bailey realizes he too is an alcoholic and that everyone is right. Sarah comes to talk to him outside and Bailey talks about what qualities Sarah inherited from her mother. Then he says Charlie looks like their father, Julia looks like their mother, and Claudia got her mother's musical talents. Bailey concludes that he inherited the alcoholism from his dad. Later, Bailey admits he is an alcoholic, but decides that he is not going to get help and stay the way he is. Claudia really then almost gives Bailey an ultimatum--either he get help, or she will never talk to him again. At the end, Bailey walks out showing that he doesn't want to be part of the family anymore.

Summary for February 26, 1997
"Hitting Bottom"
Unfortunately, I don't have an episode summary for this episode, so here's a link for a summary.

Summary for March 5, 1997
"Leap of Faith"
In this episode, Bailey starts to make steps to his recovery. He decides to start going to AA meetings. He also dumps all of the beer in his apartment down the drain. At his first AA meeting, he sees Walter Alcott, the man who killed Bailey's parents. The presence of Walter bothers Bailey at first, but Charlie convinces him to keep on attending the meetings.

Meanwhile, Griffin discovers that he is receiving $100,000 dollars for his leg injury. Julia and Griffin go visit Griffin's father and his father asks for a $6000 loan to pay off some overdue bills. Griffin agrees. His father then asks if Griffin would like to start a security company with him. Julia later realizes that Griffin's father is using his son for his money. She admits her suspicions to Griffin. Later when Griffin and his father are looking for an office for their company, Griffin realizes that Julia is right and backs down on the security company.

Grace decides to run for City Council. Charlie is not happy at first because he thinks Grace already has too many things on her hand. Charlie agrees to have Grace run her campaign at home. One day when Grace is not home, Charlie answers a phone call for her. It is a reporter wanting to know more about Grace, so Charlie tells him about her. Charlie's words appeared to be great for Grace's campaign when they came out on the newspaper. At the end, at a press conference, Grace apparently does not do a good job, but she is still in the running.

At the end, Bailey decides that he cannot take the AA meetings anymore because the people there rely so much on God. Bailey thinks that God does not care about him because his parents are dead. He doesn't want to lie at the AA meetings by pretending to support God. Bailey thinks he can get over his disease by himself.

Summary for March 19, 1997
Promises, Promises
In this episode, Sarah is trying to divide her time for Bailey and her new boyfriend, a medical student. Sarah constantly spends time with Bailey because he needs her help and support. Gailey claims that the only reason he will not drink because Sarah doesn't want him to. Sarah cuts off a date with her boyfriend to be with Bailey. Meanwhile, Callie is starting to get jealous that Bailey is spending every waking moment with Sarah. She wants herself to help Bailey instead of Sarah. Callie rearranges the apartment and gets rid of the bar. She wants everything that reminds Bailey of drinking out of the house. Bailey thanks Callie for her efforts, but says that she was the only not there for him while he was an alcoholic. Sarah thinks Bailey should stay away from EVERYTHING that made him want to drink. Bailey decides that living with Callie reminds him of drinking so he decides to move out.

Campaigning is still going on at the Salinger's house while Grace is running for City Council. Claudia starts to complain to Charlie that Grace doesn't care about her and the rest of Charlie's siblings unlike Kirsten.

Griffin starts to worry about Julia as she skips school to be with him. He also finds out that she got an F on an assignment and shows his concern.

Summary for March 26, 1997
"A Little Faith"
Everyone is on Spring Break during this episode as Sarah takes off to be with her family. Bailey really wants her to stay, but he realizes that she can't be with him 24/7. Meanwhile, Claudia has been asked to perform as a guest soloist for the Los Angeles Chamber Orchesta and is trying to find someone to take her to her violin performance. Ross is on jury duty, Charlie has to work at the restaurant, and Julia has gone to Nebraska with Griffin. Bailey volunteers to take her because he needs something to do to keep himself busy.

Julia and Griffin are on their way to Nebraska when Griffin's motorcycle breaks down. They take it back to a local motorcycle shop to get it fixed. They guy who runs the shop tells Griffin that he is going to sell it and Griffin jumps at this wonderful opportunity. When Julia finds out, she gets upset because their Spring Break vacation is ruined because Griffin has to start working on his shop. This leaves Julia wondering whether she wants to be with Griffin or not.

Grace has a very important interview with the media. She backs out of it at the last minute because she feels she is going to be sick. Luckily, Charlie is there to fill in for her. Grace realizes that she has felt sick for three mornings in a row and also that she is "late." She confronts Charlie that she thinks she might be pregnant and they go to the doctor's office together. While waiting outside the doctor's office, Charlie and Grace discuss the situation. Out of the blue, Charlie suggests that if Grace is pregnant, that they get married. This suggestion completely surprises Grace as she goes in to get tested. Later, they find out they she just has a hormonal inbalance and that she is not pregnant.

Later in bed, Charlie asks Grace if she didn't want that child right now, or if she never wants to have a child. Grace tells Charlie that she NEVER wants to have children. This surprises Charlie as he starts to wonder whether he is with the right woman or not.

While Claudia is rehearsing for her performance, she realizes that Bailey looks really bored and makes him leave to have some fun. Bailey goes back to the hotel room where he sees the mini bar full of drinks. He gets extremely tempted, so he calls Sarah to keep his mind off of it. Sarah is not around and neither is Charlie when he calls him. Bailey loses all resistance and starts to drink again. Later Joe and his wife drop by the hotel room because Claudia asked them to meet her and Bailey there to have dinner. They are angry that Bailey is drunk as they go to pick up Claudia. Joe and his new wife, Franny, try to hide what Bailey has done, but Claudia realizes right away. After discussion with Joe and Claudia, Bailey returns home and goes to an AA meeting.

At the end, Julia realizes that being with Griffin is more important than not going on her spring break trip, so she goes to the shop and apologizes.

Summary for April 2, 1997
"You Win Some, You Lose Some" Season Finale
Bailey spends most of this episode making a mend with all those he hurt while he was an alcoholic. He starts with his wrestling coach, Coach Petrocelli. Surprisingly, the Coach let him back on the team.

Justin gets accepted to Yale so his parents offer to pay for a two month backpacking trip to Europe. His girlfriend can't go with him, so he asks Julia. Julia says she would love to go and proposes the idea to Griffin. Griffin doesn't wants her to go because he is afraid that she may fall in love with Justin, or something else would happen.

Meanwhile, Grace and Charlie are having a discussion about the celebration party when Charlie suggests inviting 40 people plus KIDS. Grace totally disagrees with the kid idea because she thinks kids like Owen will get cranky. Charlie accuses her of having a "no kids" motto.

Bailey and Sarah are out having ice cream when Sarah tells Bai that she broke up with Drew. They apparently had no time to see each other. Later, Bailey goes to Sarah's house to invite her to go see a concert. She is not home as her mom says that Sarah and her dad are out "celebrating". Bailey asks why they are celebrating and Mrs. Reeves says they are because Sarah got into Brown, an East Coast College. Bailey gets disappointed because she'll be 3000 miles away from him.

Grace and Claudia both get up in the middle of the night and Grace starts asking questions about Charlie and Kirsten's relationship. Grace finds out that Kirsten couldn't have children. She later asks Charlie why it's acceptable that Kirsten couldn't have kids and why it's not acceptable when she doesn't want to have kids. Charlie says "I don't know."

Griffin decides that the only way he can allow for Julia to go to Europe is if he marries her. He proposes marriage and Julia accepts!

Sarah runs over to the Salinger house to share her great news with Bailey. Bailey says he already knows that she is going to Brown and that she'll be far away from him next year. Sarah tells him that she was accepted to Brown, but she also got a letter from Berkeley. (A san fran college!) She has decided to go to Berkeley and Bailey becomes so happy and relieved that he kisses her.

Later, Charlie is sitting outside looking down and Grace comes out and asks what is wrong. Charlie says he knows why it was acceptable for Kirsten not to have kids. He said because even though she couldn't have her own kids, she wanted to take care of Charlie's kids. (Owen and Claudia) Charlie realized that Grace didn't even want to have Charlie's kids so he breaks up with her. Grace is stunned and asks why he is putting his kids in front of his own life. He says "That's what parents do."

Julia comes home and announces the news. The whole family is stunned!

Later, Bailey tries to get back together with Sarah, but she says that she jsut wants to remain friends despite their kiss.

At the end, Grace wins her campaign. Also, before Julia leaves for her backpacking trip with Justin, the Salinger family decides to give her a present. The present was their mother's wedding ring. :)

Back to Party of Five