The BEST episodes of Designing Women
Every episode of Designing Women ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Designing Women!
Julia Sugarbaker, Mary Jo Shively, Charlene Frazier-Stillfield and Suzanne Sugarbaker are associates at their design firm, Sugarbaker and Associates. Julia is the owner and is very outspoken and strong-willed. Mary Jo is a divorced single-parent whom is just as strong-willed as Julia, but isn't as self-confident. Charlene is the naive and trusting farm girl from Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Suzanne is the self-centered ex-beauty queen whom has a number of wealthy ex-husbands.
#1 - The Junies
Season 3 - Episode 12 - Aired 2/20/1989
Charlene becomes a part-time saleswoman for "Lady Jun" cleaning products, and when she repeatedly succumbs to psychological pressure from her friend Libby despite her stated intention to quit, Julia determines to rescue her from this "cult" -- and winds up taking on Lady Jun herself. Meanwhile, Anthony receives an unusual nomination from his junior college -- as homecoming queen -- and gets unexpected support from Suzanne.
#2 - One Sees, the Other Doesn't
Season 3 - Episode 13 - Aired 2/27/1989
Suzanne didn't spend one week and $2,000 at a spa to be asked out by a blind client who can't appreciate her radiance -- especially since she finds it difficult to believe that he is attracted by her personality.
#3 - Howard the Date
Season 2 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/14/1987
It's the mercy date from Hell when the female Sugarbakers staff accompany dateless Howard the nerd to his high-school reunion. Their sympathy quickly wears off when he begins to boast about handling his "four women."
#4 - Odell
Season 3 - Episode 14 - Aired 3/6/1989
Sugarbakers becomes the site of a Southern family feud after Charlene's brother arrives and announces he is marrying the daughter of a longtime family rival, Anthony partners Bernice in a dance contest.
#5 - Heart Attacks
Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/9/1987
Reese's fitness demonstration - arm wrestling an old buddy and sometime-rival -- causes a heart attack, and subsequent different treatment from Julia.
#6 - Stranded
Season 2 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/7/1987
While Charlene, Julia and Mary Jo get the flu on a trip to St. Louis, a snowstorm forces Suzanne and Anthony to share a motel room in Tennessee.
#7 - The Slumber Party
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/18/1986
Arriving at work one morning, Suzanne tells Julia, Mary Jo, and Charlene that when she tried to fire her maid, she put a voodoo death curse on her and proclaimed that Suzanne would be gone by midnight. Mary Jo invites Charlene, Julia and Suzanne to help her with Claudia's slumber party.
#8 - New Year's Daze
Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 1/1/1987
It is New Year's Eve, and everyone is dressed in their finery, anticipating a fun-filled night on the town. The identity of Charlene's date is kept secret until a news flash reports that the infamous "Shadow" is the subject of a massive manhunt.
#9 - Dash Goff, the Writer
Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/26/1987
Suzanne's visiting ex, a novelist who loves flowery Southern words and women, is in a writer's slump and contemplating suicide.
#10 - I'll Be Home For Christmas
Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/21/1987
Charlene and Anthony scheme to outsmart Mary Jo's disbelieving son on Christmas Eve -- until their hired Santa beats them to it, by swiping the Sugarbakers' Christmas gifts.
#11 - Ted Remarries (Ted and Tammy)
Season 2 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/21/1987
Mary Jo can't face her children being with her ex-husband's new wife, who is spoiling them.
#12 - This is Art?
Season 5 - Episode 18 - Aired 2/25/1991
Amateur painter Julia inadvertently becomes the darling of Atlanta's art scene when someone tries to buy her handbag while she's attending a gallery opening; Suzanne inadvertently glues her lips shut.
#13 - The IT Men
Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 12/11/1986
When her boyfriend Mason takes a job in Japan, Charlene finds she has chemistry with another man, a man who happens to be married to one of the Sugarbaker clients.
#14 - 101 Ways to Decorate a Gas Station
Season 2 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/14/1987
A scruffy gas-station owner wins free interior decoration from Sugarbakers, Charlene consults a psychic about her future.
#15 - Anthony, Jr.
Season 2 - Episode 3 - Aired 9/28/1987
Anthony goes to extremes to impress his girlfriends' wealthy parents, inventing a pedigreed family -- then an uninvited dinner guest informs him he is the father of her child.
#16 - La Place sans Souci
Season 4 - Episode 28 - Aired 5/21/1990
At a plush spa, the sparse diet, vigorous exercise program and thermal mud baths bring out the worst in Suzanne -- especially when Julia and Mary Jo are encouraged to gain weight.
#17 - Perky's Visit
Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/24/1986
Perky Sugarbaker, Julia and Suzanne's mother, and her friend Bernice hope to escape the dull routine of their lives in the retirement home by joining the girls and their ex-con handyman Anthony for the festive occasion, considering it an exhilarating change.
#18 - Cruising
Season 2 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/16/1987
Suzanne and Mary Jo become romantic rivals while doing a job aboard a cruise ship.
#19 - I Do, I Don't
Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 12/4/1986
The dinner is perfect, the champagne flows, Julia is presented with a single rose, and on a lark she and her current beau Reese get married. The next morning both parties regret their hastiness, and Reese appears with annulment papers. An argument ensues, and Julia finally agrees to sign the papers, thereby annulling their marriage and their entire relationship.
#20 - Half an Air Bubble Off
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/19/1987
When an eccentric client harasses the women with bizarre decorating requests, they decide to matchmake him with Bernice.
#21 - Design House
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/17/1986
Since Suzanne has money invested in Sugarbaker's and is tired of her image as a front bimbo for the firm, Julia assigns her to do the decorating of their next project. Unfortunately, the house burns to the ground while Suzanne is working on it.
#22 - How Long Has This Been Going On?
Season 5 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/28/1991
Everyone at Sugarbakers is baffled to discover that sensible Julia has covertly been singing evenings at a nightclub, Anthony tries to muster the nerve to ask out a girl who works at the bookstore.
#23 - Mary Jo's First Date
Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/3/1986
Concerned that Mary Jo hasn't dated since she and Ted broke up, Suzanne arranges a bind date for her with an old acquaintance, J.D. Shackelford, head scout for the Atlanta Braves baseball team, while Julia struggles through an I.R.S. audit conducted by the same Ray Don Simpson who tried to pick up the women at a restaurant and suffered a tonguelashing from Julia.
#24 - The Rowdy Girls
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/30/1989
While she is helping the Sugarbakers women choreograph a Supremes lip-synch routine, Charlene's favorite cousin inadvertently reveals that she is a victim of domestic violence.
#25 - A Big Affair
Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/20/1986
Suzanne's intimate dinner party, planned to impress an important client, goes awry before it begins when she arranges a date between a more-than-hefty man and a reluctant Charlene.
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