Something So Right

Jack and Carly are planning a weekend getaway at a mountain cabin but can only find Stephanie and Sheldon to take care of the kids. They can't relax at the cabin and cut the weekend short. Also, Lucy Lawless on hot on the trail of fellow TV warrior-goddess Stephanie after the latter made some disparaging remarks about her and her show.

Jack is a little uncomfortable when he finds out that the bed he's sleeping in was previously used by Carly's ex-husbands also, so they go out shopping for a new one. While doing this, they run into Brooke and David, old friends of Carly's who she ""lost"" in the divorce from Sheldon. But now they seem to want to make amends and become friends with Carly once again and her new husband, too. Jack and Carly are happy enough to have new friends at first, but at dinner they get a suggestion that the couple isn't perfect after David is unnecessarily rude to a waitress. Sheldon stops by the table and says he feels betrayed by his old friends, and says David and Brooke must choose between Jack and Carly or himself and Marianne. The couple picks the Farrells. Soon Jack wonders whether Carly really likes the pair or if she just enjoys sticking it to Sheldon. Carly soon admits she doesn't actually like David and Brooke. They don't like their bed either, and when they go to return it, they get a ch

Jack and Carly's friend Joel is depressed about his breakup with his wife Amanda and wants to talk about it with the couple, though at first Jack thinks it's an April Fool's joke. In private Jack and Carly agree that Amanda was to blame but also agree they should not badmouth her. Joel's daughter Cindy, a friend of Nicole's, is upset also, and Will comforts her at school. Jack invites Joel and Cindy over to dinner. Cindy is grateful for the kind attention Will has given her, and to his amazement, she kisses him. (Nicole is amazed too when Sarah tells her about it.) Joel asks Jack and Carly point blank what they think of Amanda. Uncomfortable at first, they soon start in on a character assassination of her. Now the couple has gotten involved exactly the way they didn't want to, as Joel decides he should divorce his wife.

Parents and offspring alike are praying for a ""snow day"" which would close school and allow them to do want they really want--climb into bed together and watch ""Leeza!"" As the show is going off, Sarah notes that ""Leeza"" is looking for ""blended families"" to feature on an upcoming episode. She secretly submits her family's name to the show as potential guests. When a letter comes back accepting them, Jack and Carly give a firm ""no,"" but their minds change when Leeza Gibbons herself comes to the apartment to persuade them. Jack, Carly and the kids plus Sheldon and Dante gather for the broadcast, but now Sarah is having second thoughts after comments by a classmate starts her wondering just what kind of a chance her new family has of staying together. Sarah excuses herself to go to the bathroom just before airtime, and after the show starts, she's nowhere to be found.

Jack and Carly lie in bed, fondly recalling how they first met, though they disagree on many details. The story flashes back to a teacher-parent conference about Will. Both of them are smitten with each other from the beginning, but Carly is wary of another relationship with a man following her two failed mariages. With Grace's encouragement, Carly finds an excuse to call Jack. When Jack tells her he'd been thinking about her and proposes they go out for coffee, Carly backs off, but she soon finds a reason to drop by the school. Again she draws away from Jack. Finally they make a date to go out. As they prepare to leave the building, Carly makes sure Jack understands that she wants to take things very slowly--then they fly into an embrace and kiss passionately.

Jack is dubious, but he lets Nicole guest star on her mother's show as Thora, daughter of Thena, and he's assured it's only a one-time thing since her character is decapitated. After the broadcast, Stephanie's agent calls with an offer for Nicole to model in an ad campaign for blue jeans. Jack will not even think of allowing her to do it, so Nicole gets her mother to sign the consent form. Three months later Carly and Jack are in a cab when they pass by a bus with an advertisement on its side featuring Nicole. Jack returns home in a furor at both Nicole and Stephanie. He grounds Nicole, which Stephanie disagrees with. Nicole gives her father the silent treatment. An agent calls with an offer of a two-week photo shoot in Cancun, which Jack immeditely shoots down. Nicole threatens to go live with her mother. Jack and Carly go to Steph to try and persuade her not to let Nicole go on the shoot. Stephanie agrees somewhat reluctantly. When the trio tells Nicole, she says she still wants to g

It's Christmastime, and Carly is depressed because all the kids are leaving to spend the holidays with their other parents. Jack just wants to get everyone ready and out of the apartment building. His reason: on his way in his car splattered their hapless neighbor Mr. Sandzimeier with water and caused him to fall down while carrying his groceries. Of course Jack can't escape a confrontation with him. Later, with the kids gone, Carly wants to do something meaningful for Christmas, like take Sandzimeier for a carriage ride. When they knock on his apartment door, though, they find that they've woken him up from a much-needed sleep now that he is getting ill from Jack's drenching. Carly and Jack return from their carriage ride to find a large puppy in the elevator. Carly insists they take it in for the night, against Jack's better judgment. They leave the dog in the living room for the night, where it proceeds to tear up the Christmas tree, decorations, presents and an odd pillow or two. W

Jack is concerned about Will's poor study habits and thinks Carly is too easy on him and doesn't push him to reach his potential. Although she resists the idea, she finally agrees and tells Will that if he doesn't make a ""B"" on Jack's test, he won't be able to go on a school trip to Washington, D.C. Feeling the pressure, Will cheats on the test. Jack and Carly are ecstatic when Will gets an ""A"", but when they let Will know that now they will expect that kind of grade from him more often, he admits that he cheated. This creates a dilemma for Carly and Jack, because keeping Will from going to Washington also means they won't be able to go on their ""second honeymoon"" ski trip to Vermont.

Carly and Jack are alone in the apartment, except for the odd roach or two. They start to feel amorous and head for bed, but discover they are out of birth control. Jack is ready to run out to the drug store during a thunderstorm, but then it occurs to him that Will might have some ""protection"" somewhere in his room. Guiltily, he searches Will's room and finds a condom. Excitedly he returns to Carly, but when she finds out where the condom came from, she's disturbed that Will didn't speak about the subject with her and the romantic mood evaporates. When Dante brings Will home Carly questions Dante about it and is further upset to find that he's the one who gave Will the condom without consulting her. Also, there is a slight thaw in the relationship between Sarah and Nicole after Sarah's father cancels plans to be with her.

The pressures of work are keeping Carly and Jack apart more and more. He surprises her with a picnic at her office but she can't even take fifteen minutes to enjoy it. Jack decides not to go schmooze at the faculty Halloween party and Carly lets Grace handle the big toy manufacturer's party so the couple can spend the evening together. But Carly can't stay away from her big event, so Jack heads for the faculty party. He doesn't stay there long and ends up at Carly's party. While there, he pretends he's not Carly's husband and talks up her virtues to several prospective clients. After the party, these same clients see Jack and Carly making out, and thinking she's cheating on her husband, they cancel plans to give her their business.

Carly meets a New York Times reporter who is doing a story about women balancing career and family, and she is interested in profiling her. But when Carly invites her over for dinner, the reporter gets an eyeful of the more chaotic side of extended family life, plus Jack and Carly get into an argument about keeping secrets from each other.

Jack and Carly are newlyweds anxious to prove to themselves and to the world that they can make their marriage work. She's running a fledgling catering business and has been married twice before--to Dante, a blue-collar would-be musician with whom she had a son, high-school freshman Will; and also to Sheldon, a rich businessman who is the father of her younger daughter, Sarah, 11. Jack is a schoolteacher who has an about-to-turn 16 year-old-daughter, Nicole, and is divorced from her mother, TV actress Stephanie. The ""blended"" family has been living in their new Manahattan apartment two weeks, and while Jack and Carly are wildly in love, the kids are getting testy. Nicole and Sarah are both chafing about having to share a room, and Will is infatuated with his beautiful stepsister, as evidenced by him ""accidentally"" walking in on her in the bathroom. Now Sheldon enters the picture saying he thinks it would be best if Sarah came to live with him. Carly asks for two weeks to see how things