The girls conceive of and promote a special broadcast of the MTV show ""Loveline"" to be broadcast from the bar.

Gwen and Terry are trying to get insured, but the agent tells them they are not qualified. When he mentions that same-sex domestic partners are eligible for his company's insurance, Gwen says that's exactly what she and Terry are, and surprises Terry with a demonstation of her affection. The agent is not entirely convinced about this, so he plans to make a visit to them at home to check out their living arrangement, leaving the two women to try and set up a convincing domestic household in time. Also, Guy is challenged for the title of ""Mr. New York,"" the businessman who best knows where to go and how to get things done in the city.

The partners think Mrs. Francis' cooking is good enough to sell, and they help her open a diner/take-out restaurant. But they are having a hard time overcoming the brusque manner she displays towards customers, a leftover from her years spent at the unemployment bureau. Meanwhile, Danny gets surprisingly well-acquainted with a famous lesbian singer.

Terry Reynolds, longtime assistant to Gwen Leonard, creative executive at a Manhattan marketing and promotions firm, announces to Gwen that she's been let go from her job. The self-centered Gwen's reaction is predictable: she wonders how this will affect her. But she soon finds out that she's a victim of the same corporate downsizing. A few months later, Gwen shows up at the SoHo loft where Terry lives with her brother Danny, an aspiring writer who works at the bar downstairs run by Guy Mann. Without Terry to look after her finances, Gwen has spent all her money and has run up unpayable debts, resulting in her being kicked out of her high-priced condo. Desperate, she pleads with Terry to let her stay with her until she can get back on her feet. Part of that effort includes filing for unemployment benefits, where Gwen is confronted with the unsympathetic civil servant Mrs. Francis. Later Gwen tells Terry that their talents compliment each other and that they should go into business for

Terri and Gwen disagree over Guy's suggestion for their first client, a would-be comedian known as Little H. His father, who wants to see him succeed, is a mobster known as Bobby H., a man who usually gets what he wants and who people want to stay on the good side of. Trouble is, Little H. has no apparent talent.

Gwen's monopolizing of the bathroom and other personal habits are beginning to rub some nerves, so Terry proposes some house rules. Gwen is against them until Danny keeps her up at night playing around with his new girlfriend, a model named Lana. Some rules are hashed out: Gwen is limited to thirty minutes in the bathroom and restrictions are put on Danny's frolics with females.

Gwen goes to the unemployment office see Mrs. Francis, who is about to leave for home, and is surprised to learn that since she's no longer unemployed, she will no longer receive benefits. Gwen convinces Mrs. Francis to let her come home with her and use her bathtub. Gwen luxuriates in the tub listening to a relaxation tape and doesn't notice the water is overflowing, causing the downstairs ceiling to collapse. Meanwhile Danny has to find a new place to make out with Lana. He takes her to a dark storage room where he accidentally gets poked in the eye. At Clockworks, Terry takes over for the injured Danny behin

Gwen is laid up with illness for a few days and she has nothing to do but lay around watching infomercials and eating Terry's delicious soup made in a pressure cooker. She gets a brainstorm and decides that she and Terry could market pressure cookers as a way to make this delicacy. They find a dealer with a warehouse full of the cookers and make arrangements with him. Gwen recruits Guy to be in their infomercial and Danny to write it, though much of his strident working-class rhetoric is red-penciled. Gwen uses the soup to bribe Mrs. Francis into providing them the name of an out-of-work celebrity to endorse the product. June Lockhart is contacted. She's suitably impressed and agrees to endorse the cookers. The first broadcast of the infomercial is a ringing success with orders pouring in. But then the women find out that their supplier Mr. Tolafa has reneged on the deal and is selling them himself, touting them ""as seen on TV!"" June comes by in a fury and tells the girls in terms she

Gone from the unemployment bureau, Mrs. Francis hopes to make a deal with Guy to make appetizers for his bar. The food is wonderful, but a sticking point arises when she insists her eggrolls be billed only as ""Mrs. Francis' eggrolls."" Also, Danny learns some tough lessons about artistic compromise when his grim, hard-hitting play about drug addiction will only be considered for production by a children's theatre.

Terry is overjoyed to see her old friend from the neighborhood, Debbie. Gwen is a little put off, though, by Debbie's memory of the way Terry characterized her when she was Terry's boss. Terry wants to get the old gang together and hit the town one night, but Debbie will have to find a babysitter for her children. Hoping to rehabilitate her image, Gwen volunteers to do the job. Out at one of the girls' favorite old hangouts, Terry finds that the nightlife is not quite the way she remembered it. Meanwhile, Gwen is proving unsuited to the task of handling the kids and the oldest one, Molly, locks herself in the bathroom and won't come out. Gwen calls for help, but finally proves she has some ""people skills"" with younger folks, too, as she talks Molly out of the bathroom by sympathetically comparing both of their situations.

Guy has found himself a new girlfriend who he proudly shows off to Gwen and Terry. Gwen is relieved that now she won't be the constant target of Guy's aspirations, but surprisingly she misses the attention he gave her and she becomes jealous of the new woman in his life. Also, Danny can't believe his good luck when he hooks up with a songwriter for a project he's working on. Unfortunately, he finds out the man was literally a song writer--he wrote one big hit years ago and hasn't come up with anything else since.

Mrs. Francis is involved in a school charity auction, and Gwen convinces Tery and Danny to participate, despite their better judgment. Danny warms to the idea, though, when he meets one of the women who might be bidding on a date with him. But he's sold to his mother Tina, who's mad about him missing his lunch dates with her. Danny's agent Scott lowers the bidding on Terry by spreading rumors about her health and mob connections, then buys her for himself. Guy shows up prepared to spend big money to at last get a date with Gwen, but a former classmate of hers puts up $25,000 to create the fantasy prom he never had with her. Gwen also gets reacquainted that night with Steve, another former high-school classmate whose ego has fallen on some hard times since graduation.

Gwen wants to give down-and-out Steve a break and let him have a job with their small business. Terry agrees because it will give her an opportunity to show Gwen what a good boss should be like. But Steve would try the patience of Job as he mangles up the most simple tasks assigned him and is costing them a lot of money. Meanwhile Danny is trying to write a profile of Guy, but he can't penetrate the wall of secrecy surrounding Guy's past, and the clues he does come up with suggest all sorts of exotic and unbelievable things.

In a cough-medicine-induced stupor, an ill Terry mistakenly sends off the rent check written on the business account. Gwen is terrified that Mr. Lux will terminate their lease for running a business out of the loft. That night, Terry dreams of a scheme straight out of ""Mission: Impossible"" to try and get the rent check back.