SEASON 1 – TBS
Created by Betsy Thomas
Theme composed by Ed Alton
- 001. Pilot – 11/28/2006
- Penelope “P.J.” Franklin (Jordana Spiro) is a tomboyish sportswriter working for the Chicago Sun-Times, living in Chicago and covering the Cubs. She narrates the story and relates most of the things going on in her life to sports, especially baseball. P.J. mostly hangs out with her henpecked brother Andy (Jim Gaffigan), along with a group of their other male friends, including Brendan “Brando” Dorff (Reid Scott), a rock and roller working as a radio DJ who is on and off with his girlfriend Wendy, and who used to roommates in college with P.J., Mike Callahan (Jamie Kaler), a ladies’ man who works for the Cubs, and Kenny Bunin (Michael Bunin), a sports memorabilia store owner who struggles with getting dates. P.J. does have one close female friend, Stephanie Layne (Kellee Stewart), who constantly offering advice on dating men. A sportswriter named Bobby Newman (Kyle Howard) from the rival newspaper the Chicago Tribune when he begins covering the Cubs as well. They instantly have a crush on each other, and he begins playing on their softball team. She is thrilled when accepts an invite to play poker with P.J. and the guys at her house, although none of the guys seem to understand why P.J. is going to great lengths to look good, wear makeup, and make appetizers. The other guys keep frustrating her as well, as they pull him away after the game, before she can have any alone time with him. Nevertheless, he waits outside her place and the asks if they can have a drink together. She invites him upstairs, and she quickly gets him into the bedroom. Bobby seems more intent on slowing things down, and is rather turned off by how fast she is moving. He leaves before they sleep together, leaving P.J. rather distraught and confused as to the status of their relationship. Meanwhile, Brando, has again broken up with by his girlfriend Wendy and is forced to move in with P.J, but he gets called back to go to see her for an ’emotional booty call’, and act that will keep him tethered to her, much to P.J.’s concern about his well being. 1/16/22
- 002. Mixed Signals – 11/28/2006
- Although P.J. has accepted that her relationship with Bobby may have landed in the friend zone, he gives her an autographed baseball player Craig Biggio. She is definitely flattered, but because he did it in front of other reporters Charlie (Pat Finn) and Pete (Michael Coleman) in the clubhouse, she is forced to mute her excitement. He is clearly offended, and doesn’t show up at the next poker night, which Bobby claims he missed because he got caught up in stuff. She again appears to blow him off when Charlie and Pete ask both of them to go out to eat. P.J. attempts to talk in code about how the restaurant is underground, and that the less people that know about it, the better it is. Bobby thinks she wants to keep the relationship purely professional, while she really mean that she only wants it to ‘appear’ professional. Meanwhile, Brando plans to attend a wedding with his ex-girlfriend, and Mike and Kenny argue because Kenny doesn’t want Mike trying to hook up with a girl named Kate who Kenny had coffee with several months earlier, because he claims he’s trying to keep his options open with her. P.J. is taken aback when she and her friends run into Bobby at a bar, and he is with another woman named Claire (Claire Coffee). She is even more surprised when Bobby does in fact up show up again at the next poker night. P.J. can’t help but ask what the story is with Bobby now dating all of the sudden. They realize that their communication was lost in translation, and he thought P.J. meant that she didn’t want to date. Now things are too late, as he is in the middle of the relationship with Claire. Brando returns from the wedding, drunk and miserable, because Wendy slapped him with the bouquet, danced with another man, with whom Brando got into a fight. Alan Abrahamson and Steve Henson are reporters. 1/16/22
- 003. Team Chemistry – 12/5/2006
- P.J. discusses the chemistry and balance to maintain a group of friends. The team dynamic is thrown off somewhat when Traci (Brook Nevin), one of Brando’s fan girls whom he begins seeing, stays the night at the apartment and won’t leave, even when he’s not there. Meanwhile, Mike introduces P.J. to his college roommate Amad (Iseluleko Ma’at El O) and she asks him if he is seeing anyone. P.J. then sets him up with Stephanie and they all meet up for drinks. Stephanie thinks he is great, but she she goes to restroom, Amad kisses P.J. She leaves with Stephanie immediately and tells her what happened. This annoys Stephanie tremendously and she storms off and tells P.J. not to set her up with anyone else until she’s sure they don’t have a crush on P.J. Mike starts getting annoyed when Kenny and Bobby begins doing things without him. P.J. hosts poker night and gets even angrier when Traci spills beer on the poker table. Andy tells Mike that P.J. and Bobby had hooked up. P.J. finally tells Brando that he needs to get Traci out of the apartment, and he agrees. When Kenny goes out for tacos with Bobby, Mike refuses to join and goes for barbecue in protest. The two finally reconcile, but Mike wants to know why he is the last to hear about P.J. and Bobby. Kenny then confesses that it is all news to him. Stephanie and P.J. reconcile, and P.J. admits that she is afraid that Stephanie will date someone stuffy that she doesn’t have anything in common with, and thought Amad would be a good match because they could talk about things, and that would keep her and Stephanie close. When Bobby finds out that everyone now knows about her making out with P.J., they trace the source to Andy, who found out from Traci. Brando admits he told her, but only after a night of passion. However, they are all surprised when P.J. tells them they only made out, no one agreeing what “hooked up” meant. Michael O’Dwyer is Paolo, the coffee man.3/10/22
- 004. The Slump – 12/5/2006
- The entire group seems grumpy because no one is dating anyone and they’ve gotten into a slump. The guys all lie to P.J. about what they are doing over the weekend because they all want to go out to prowl for women. Andy is stuck putting together an 800 piece toy farm for his daughter Savannah’s fifth birthday, but P.J. talks the guys into letting her go along, when she realizes that she too is in a slump now that her and Bobby have digressed to being friends. Even though she is buying all of the drinks, P.J. soon becomes a hindrance to the guys, when she interrupts Mike when he’s talking to a girl named Patty (Stacey Scowley), and she starts getting along with P.J. better than he is. She also interrupts Kenny and a girl named Kathleen (Jessica Wright). The guys finally get her talking to a guy named Ed (Adam Kulbersh), who is a complete snooze. After the failed night, Stephanie offers to take P.J. out somewhere nice. It is too high class for P.J., as she wants to chug her drinks rather than sip fancy martinis. When she goes to the bar for a beer, the bartender (Jon Crowley) tells her they only have fancy beers. A guy at the bar named Hank (Eddie McClintock) coaches her on what beer to get, and the two hit it off. They make a date for dinner, and gives her a classy goodnight kiss on the cheek. The guys notice that Wendy is calling Brando, and they go through his phone and they see he’s they’ve been calling back and forth. When P.J. comes home, they make fun of her for being dressed up, and she tells them that their sloppy dress and woman-hunting attitude is why they don’t have girlfriends. 3/10/22
- 005. The Show – 12/12/2006
- P.J. likens making it into a serious relationship with making it to the Major Leagues, or to ‘the show.’ After a dinner date with Hank, P.J. brings him home and they sleep together. The next morning, they head to breakfast and spot Brando out to breakfast with Wendy (Lindsey Stoddart). P.J. is taken aback because he told her that he was staying at his mother’s house. He continues to lie about it, until she finally tells him that she saw him. At this point, he admits that he is seeing Wendy again, and what’s more, he plans to propose to her. P.J. tries her best to feign enthusiasm. The group’s Thursday night poker game is whittled down to three of them when P.J. has a date with Hank, Brando is planning a visit to Wendy’s house so he can swipe one of her rings to find out her size, and Andy is beckoned by his wife Meredith to come look at house they may buy in the Naperville. Kenny and Mike are rather bitter about P.J. being too busy for them, so when she runs into them at Crowley’s Tavern, and Bobby invites her to go to the movies with them and she declines because she is going to the opera with Hank, they leave without her and tell her that they are going to find another place to be their central hub. They go to Mike’s place, but he has no furniture, and then they go to Kenny’s place, but he is too anal about his neatness. P.J. gets insanely bored at the 3-hour German opera, so Hank offers to leave, and then asks her what she’s rather do. He winds up dropping her back home so she can play poker with her boys, and although he doesn’t notice, Hank is visibly annoyed. Andy announces that he and his family are officially moving to the suburbs. Brando takes Wendy on a night picnic, and after spilling wine on her and accidentally hitting her in the face, he asks her to marry him. He later shows up at the poker game and tells everyone that she turned him down… but he is only kidding: she accepted the proposal. 7/13/22
- 006. Clubhouse Cancer – 12/12/2006
- P.J. is starting to look at Hank as a ‘Five-Tool Boyfriend’, borrowed from a baseball phrase indicating a player who has all of the attribute of being a perfect player. She expresses to Stephanie, who is more interested in what she would look like for longer hair, that she’s like for him to hang out with her other friends. Brando brings up the fact that P.J. doesn’t like Wendy, but she denies this and insists she’d love to hang out with her. Meanwhile, Kenny invites his friend Trouty (Johnny Galecki) to the poker game, an annoying guy that P.J. considers a ‘Clubhouse Cancer’, and the other guys just refer to as a ‘bad hang’. The other guys accuse Kenny of being friends with him because Trouty buys things for him. Brando has Wendy call P.J. so they can make plans together. P.J. then arranges to have Hank spend the night on a night she knows the guys will all be over the next morning to watch football. However, when Trouty ruins the TV reception, they all head out to a bar to watch the game, leaving Hank behind. Since Hank really isn’t into football, he couldn’t care less… but P.J. criticizes Brando, and he promises they’ll try again. Although P.J. and Wendy don’t have much in common either, they find common ground in drinking wine and talking about Brando. The guys set up another afternoon and include Hank, and although it is a struggle find common ground, they wind up playing darts and having a good time. Later, Brando and P.J. both admit they had good times with their significant others, and also that it really hit home how important it is that they become friends. Mike and Bobby start to really get irritated with Trouty when he keeps running off girls they’re trying to hit on at Crowley’s Tavern. However, when Trouty hooks them all up with Rolling Stones tickets and backstage passes. Later at the bar, the guys agree that Trouty is pretty good guy after all, but when two girls who were at the show approach them, Trouty once again ruins it when he speaks his gangsta lingo to Corinne (Charlene Amoia). P.J. and Hank have dinner and she tells him how happy she was that he got along with her friends, and how well she got along with Wendy. But when she suggests they go on a double-date with Brando and Wendy, Hank balks and admits that he’s not a good fit for the guys since he has very little in common with them. Unlike her viewpoint, he thinks it isn’t important to get along with her friends, much to her obvious disappointment. She realizes that even a ‘five-tool player’ can upset the balance of a promising team. Casey Strand is Donna, the first girl who Trouty drives away. Marshall Cook is the frat boy they play darts with. 7/14/22
- 007. Free Agent – 12/19/2006
- The guys have had their annual Decathalon at Crowley’s on the calendar for a long time, but P.J. forgets about it and makes plans for dinner with Hank, whom she considers her ‘free agent’ addition to the group. She gives Andy her spot on the team with Kenny, who has been working out his thumb as a strategy because he thinks that Mike will pick thumb fighting as the last event of the Decathalon. They all play games like Candyland, $25,000 Pyramid, Family Feud, and Sorry! with varying degrees of skill. P.J. decides she wants to stay and watch, so she calls Hank and lies to him and tells him that she has to work. Stephanie warns her not to confess her lie, but the next night she does anyway. Hank says he doesn’t mind if she wants to do things like this with her friends, but also tells her that she will eventually grow out of it as she gets older. He also invites her to go on trip with him to Barcelona. That night the Decathalon continues, and P.J. and Bobby travel to Pittsburgh for the Cubs game. They talk about how their relationship has settled into a nice friendship, but when they get drunk, they wind up sleeping together. Although P.J. enjoys it and grades it a solid B, she questions what she is doing. Stephanie also questions her motives and tells P.J. that she thinks she is trying to give herself a reason to break it off with Hank. As the Decathalon winds down, Mike and Brendan get to pick the last event, which Kenny assumes will be thumb fighting. However, instead he picks Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. Kenny is able to utilize his enhanced thumb to win that game and ties up the Decathalon. Once P.J. returns, Hank comes to see P.J. at her apartment and brings her some jewelry and tells her about all of the things they will do in Barcelona. P.J. tells Hank that she doesn’t think the trip, or the relationship, will work. She says that he doesn’t take her life with her friend seriously and assures him that her life with them is not a passing fancy, and that she can’t keep her life with her friends and with her boyfriend separate. The two part amicably. Later she gets together with the others and tells them she broke it off with Hank, to which they throw in their money to Brendan who won the bet of when she’s break it off. Kenny is still annoyed that he never got to thumb-wrestle, so Mike gives him his chance… and soundly defeats Kenny in seconds. Kenny responds by tackling him. 11/7/22
- 008. Superstar Treatment – 12/19/2006
- A new superstar player Hernando Garcia (Benny Nieves) is transferred from San Diego to the Cubs and refuses to take any questions on arrival. Another superstar, this one reporter Jack Brisco (Jay Tarses) makes a rare appearance in the locker room to look for an opportunity to do an article on Garcia, but he doesn’t get an interview either. Meanwhile, the gang all meet Mike’s new girlfriend Dani (Andrea Bogart), and they all think she is way out of his league. All of the guys are gaga over her, but she can’t get P.J.’s name right. She even offers to get them all into the exclusive Belmont Club. Still, P.J. can’t find much nice to say about her. Back in the locker room, Garcia simply ignores every question from every reporter, including Brisco. P.J. mutters under her breath some negative things about Garcia and then tells Brisco that the story is how much of a jerk he is. Brisco corrects her and tells her that it is her job to make Garcia look good since the team is excited to acquire him. P.J. later finds out that Brisco has taken her idea about the article and even used what she had said as his opening paragraph. Mike brings Dani to poker night, where P.J. continues to be condescending to her. Soon it is obvious that Mike is really falling for her, but everyone starts to fear that Dani will break his heart when Brendan remembers her as a high schooler who was a minor celebrity who went out with Prince and was engaged to a member of the Vikings. P.J. thinks she only dates famous people and will soon dump Mike. P.J. is forced to re-assess her opinion when Dani offers to get her an interview with Garcia. P.J. goes back and forth whether she will accept the interview opportunity, and ultimately decides to do it. Dani also gets the guys tickets to a Bears game and passes to the V.I.P. Club inside the stadium. When they attend, Mike tells the guys that she is the woman he is going to marry. Brendan and Kenny debate whether they should tell Mike about her background, but before they get a chance, they see Dani with her arms around the newest player on the Bulls. When he confronts her, she breaks it off with him. P.J. confronts Brisco for stealing her article, and he tells her she could have never written as she does nothing more than stats. Just then the team owner (Tom Virtue) invites her to go see Hernando Garcia for an interview. leaving Brisco dumbfounded. She winds up with a front-page article on the sports section. The gang helps Mike drink away his sorrows, and she tells him he’s a rock store even without Dani. Andy, who has been dabbling in various wines since he and his wife have been attending wine tastings, ultimately decides that wine is stupid, and he wants beer. Zoe Perry is the waitress. 11/8/22
- 009. Managers – 12/26/2006
- Andy announces that his wife Meredith is taking their daughter Savannah to Oshkosh for the weekend while their house is sprayed for termites. Everyone is excited because this will mean the return of ‘fun Andy’ for the weekend. Brendan tricks everyone into admitting they have no plans for Sunday so that they can help him move his things into Wendy’s place. Meanwhile, Stephanie announces she is going on a cleanse and can only drink lemon water, and dreads missing ‘Andypalooza’. Andy goes wild and wants to drink all night on Friday, forcing PJ to drink much more than she wants, leaving her hungover during a double-header at work. When she gets home, she wants a quiet night with Andy, but he has invited over his friends Tommy (Michael Joseph Kelly), Max (Daniel Espeseth), and Sheldon “Squid” (Vern Urich), and wants to go out for pizza… which again turns into an all-night drinking extravaganza. PJ puts Brendan and Mike in charge of watching Andy so that she can go home and gets some sleep. They wind up showing up at her door in the middle of the night to tell her that they lost him. Kenny is trying to enjoy a first date with a new girl named Jennifer (Katie O’Rourke) and Mike tries to manage his every move, constantly telling him how he is approaching their date night incorrectly. Eventually, PJ finds Andy out on the street with a mariachi band and beings him back to her place. The next morning, he is in a sound sleep as everyone else moves Brendan’s stuff out of the apartment. When he wakes up, he starts drinking again, and PJ realizes that him having Meredith as his ‘manager’ is a blessing, as it probably saves his life from being so utterly reckless. Mike laughs at the fact that Kenny is in a new set of clothes, meaning he didn’t score with Jennifer. However, Kenny confesses to PJ that he really did sleep with her, but doesn’t want to give Mike the satisfaction. Although Stephanie had several breakdowns during her cleanse, but Sunday morning, she seems to be as sharp and healthy as ever. However, when she goes to get cold pizza for Andy to help him sober up, she finds Stephanie chowing down on it. 4/13/23
- 010. Take One for the Team – 12/26/2006
- While everyone is playing poker, Trouty shows up and invites the group to join him at a private club called The Streisand, with its own craps table and spectacular mixed drinks. Stephanie wants to bring a date named Gregg whom she just met at her office. When they can’t accommodate, she goes out with him instead. Andy also has to skip it because he is going to Napierville for a house inspection, since is planning to move his family to the suburbs. At The Streisand, everyone meets the owner Steve (Colin Ferguson), who seems to have a true affinity for Trouty, which no one can understand. Despite Trouty getting them into the place, he seems to be poison to every conversation the guys get into with women. Steve takes a liking to PJ and asks her out, and the guys all encourage her to go out with him so they can have a way into The Streisand without counting on Trouty. Sure enough, Steve gives her five special passes that will get them into the place. However, he hits on PJ pretty hard much to her annoyance and is surprised when Trouty interrupts in order to interrupt Steve from coming on too strong with her. The next time, the guys return without Trouty, and Steve overhears the guys talking negatively about Trouty. Steve explains that Trouty saves his life when he nearly drowned in a river and throws them out for talking badly about him. Stephanie’s date Gregg breaks it off with her when he decides to return to his ex-girlfriend. She talks PJ into taking her to The Streisand, but when they arrive the bouncer (Tyler Mane) won’t let them in. Steve tells her it is because of their shabby treatment of Trouty, to which she tells him that she actually likes Trouty. Back at Crowley’s, every talks about their distaste for The Streisand, but PJ surprisingly sticks up for Trouty, who shows up and confronts them about how they had been talking about him. He asks them to explain why they don’t like him, so they go over all of his annoying habits and he takes diligent notes and tells them that he will work on them. He starts to tell them all of their faults too, but then stops and does it in a very passive-aggressive way instead of directly. Andy gets word that the house in Napierville is full of termites and is uninhabitable, much to his relief, as he has been lamenting moving to the suburbs. Lilly Hartley is Suzy, the girl at The Streisand. 4/13/23
- 011. When Heroes Fall from Grace – 12/27/2006
- P.J. is excited when her Aunt Phyllis (Laurie Metcalf) comes to Chicago for several days to work on an article in Chicago but wants to keep her visit secret from P.J.’s mother. When everyone meets her, they are amazed how much Phyllis and P.J. act alike. While they are all at Crowley’s, Mike notices one of his baseball idols, former Cubs pitcher Danny Finn (Neil Flynn) drinking at the bar. He and Bobby approach him and buy him drinks and they wind up getting an invite to go out for a steak dinner. Phyllis joins the gang for a night of poker, and she ends up sleeping with Kenny, which makes both P.J. and Andy uncomfortable. Meanwhile, Brendan lets Wendy run amok with all of the wedding planning, and when Wendy finds out that Brendan plans on having P.J. wear a tuxedo and be Brendan’s Best Man. P.J. confronts Phyllis about her dating Kenny, but Phyllis tells her that they are just two adults having fun together. However, P.J. starts to realize that Kenny is falling for her, so she asks Phyllis to make sure she has a talk with Kenny and gently let him down. Danny Finn has a grand old time having dinner and drinks with Bobby and Mike, but Bobby starts to realize that he’s not a very nice person. At the end of the meal, Danny leaves the table to go to the restroom and never returns, leaving Bobby and Mike stuck with the $600 bill. They later run into him at Crowley’s again and confront him about running out on the check. Mike buys him one last drink to remember how much his once-loyal fan now sees him as a has-been. Danny doesn’t require much time to recover before another fan (Steve Shane) recognizes him and buys him a drink. After Wendy tells Brendan that he can’t have P.J. as his Best Man. P.J. tells him that he needs to stand up to Wendy, and when he does, the realize that they both want different things in life, and they end up calling off the wedding and break off their relationship. As poker night rolls around again, P.J. is dumbfounded when she realizes that Phyllis has left town without saying goodbye to anyone, including Kenny. When he shows up for poker night, P.J. has the unfortunate task of telling him. While P.J. is surprised by Phyllis’s behavior, but Andy knows she’s always been this way. P.J. says she’s always thought that they were exactly alike, but Andy insists that she’s more like her mother: kind and responsible. P.J. then calls her real hero, her mother. Staci Roberts is the waitress. 8/22/23
- 012. Released – 12/27/2006
- To try and get over his breakup with Wendy, Brendan pledges to be alcohol-free for an unspecified length of time. However, every time he starts to talk about her, the guys offer him drinks. Meanwhile, P.J. and Stephanie run into a nerdy acquaintance from their college days named Keith Luger (P.J. Byrne). Stephanie wants nothing to do with him, but P.J. would prefer to be polite. It gets a bit awkward when Keith then asks her out for dinner, but she agrees to go with him. Bobby finds out that Mike is getting fired from his job, and consults Kenny to see if he thinks they should tell him. Kenny thinks it will stress him unnecessarily, so they keep it quiet. Once he is indeed fired, Bobby lets it slip that he has heard something about it. Mike is angry that Bobby didn’t tell him and begins giving Bobby the silent treatment. Bobby tries to get Kenny to admit that not telling him was Kenny’s idea. Instead, Kenny tells Bobby to try and help Mike to find a job. P.J. tries to come up with a kind way to break it off with Keith, but she is surprised that four days later, he hasn’t even called her. She takes the initiative to call him to find out why and gets rooked into having dinner with him again. After they have dinner, P.J. does say that they don’t really fit together, causing Keith to break down into tears. P.J. backpedals to calm him down… and winds up making out with him. She looks to all of her friends with ideas to break it off with him, and Mike suggest that P.J. become the stalker in the relationship. Bobby gets Mike a job interview with the Blackhawks, even though Mike can’t stand soccer. Despite being more focused and more intelligent without the alcohol, even winning a lot in poker, Brendan finally reverts back to drinking as he keeps talking about Wendy. P.J. has dinner with Keith and again, and as soon as he starts to talk about how he has fallen for her, she starts to be honest with him, causing him to break down crying again. P.J. then starts talking about eloping, scaring him off immediately. Mike has his interview with the Blackhawks, but Bobby knows he didn’t get it. When Bobby tells him, Mike gets angry again that he didn’t let him enjoy himself for a night. Brendan bets on his poker hand, and thinks he has a straight… even though he only has four cards. P.J. tells Mike that there will be an opening soon with the Bears. Kenny finally lets it slip that he also knew that Mike was getting fired. leading to Mike attacking him. 8/22/23
- 013. Baseball Myths – 12/28/2006
- Just like in baseball, life is full of myths and legends that people try to figure out what the real truth is. While hanging out at Crowley’s, the waitress tells Kenny that an old acquaintance named Freddy “Mexican Freddy” DiPaolo (David Pressman) came in looking for him. Kenny tells the story that they used to play craps, and when Kenny won his dice from him, Freddy came after him. He claims that no one has heard from Freddy since. Andy’s wife Meredith (Jeannie Noth Gaffigan), whom Andy refers to as the Wicked Witch of the West, comes into the bar to enlist P.J. to help arrange a surprise birthday party for Andy’s 42nd birthday. Initially, she seems like she is very nice and friendly, but P.J. tells the others that she is just putting up a front. Meanwhile, while discussing unusual people they’ve made out with, P.J. and Brendan admit that they once made out in college. P.J. says that he took afterward and then the next day, he blew off P.J. with a quick “what’s up?” and then kept walking. Brendan claims he was actually skiing in Alpine Valley the next day, and that the brush-off never happened. When pressed further, he doesn’t want to talk about it, and seemingly gets annoyed every time anyone mentions it. P.J. claims that Stephanie was with her in the library when he blew her off, but he doesn’t remember it either. P.J., Stephanie, and Meredith meet for lunch to plan Andy’s party. They plan for P.J. and their friends to take Andy out on an excursion while she gets Crowley’s ready for the party. Meredith treats for the meal, and Stephanie also thinks that Meredith is much nicer than she had been lead to believe. P.J. is surprised when when finds that Brendan has been looking at Craigslist for apartments. On Andy’s birthday, they blindfold him and take him to Wrigley Field so that he can hit some balls and run the bases. A birthday message is then put on the scoreboard for him. On the way back, they try to get Andy to pop into Crowley’s for a drink, but he tells them that Meredith told him that he was supposed to be home two hours ago. When they finally get them in there, he is surprised to find Meredith and another group of friends waiting for him to continue his celebration. P.J. tells Meredith what an amazing job she did putting together the party. Meredith admits that she was a little afraid to ask P.J. for her help, because Andy has always balked at making plans for Meredith to hang out with P.J., saying that she is always too busy. P.J. says that she and Meredith can always get together without Andy. Mexican Freddy shows up at the party and asks to speak to Kenny. It turns out that he has gotten sober and wants to make amends with Kenny for beating him up so badly, much to Kenny’s relief. Freddy then asks the guys to give Kenny his dice back as an apology for kicking his ass. The guys realize that Kenny has been lying but decide not to press Kenny about it. The gang all agree they don’t know what to believe anymore. When P.J. and Brendan get home, P.J. asks him why Brendan has acted so different since they told everyone about making up. Brendan finally admits that he knows he “what’s upped” her. He also admits that he wanted to pursue her at the time but didn’t want to chance spoiling the friendship. Before heading off to bed, he comes back and kisses her. 12/16/23
- 014. The Promise of a New Season – 7/30/2007
- Six months have gone by since the kiss between P.J. and Brendan, Spring has rolled around like the start of a new baseball season. Andy has moved into his new home in the suburbs, Kenny is now dating a girl named Kimmie (Nicole Sullivan), Bobby has been reassigned to cover NASCAR, and Mike is now taking yoga and powerwalking in a women’s group every morning. P.J. is a little hurt that Brendan has moved out because he says he need to be alone and go in a new direction but is now dating a new girl named Colleen (Michelle Noh). When Kimmie comes to poker night, they find out that she is quite pregnant. P.J. lets on to Stephanie how she is taken aback by Brendan’s new situation. She also tells her about the night after they made out, and how they had an awkward dinner during which they never talk about the kiss and wind up heading to Crowley’s to meet the others. The group later gets together for their annual Fantasy Baseball picks, but P.J. gets further annoyed when Colleen shows up. Andy is stuck in traffic trying to get there. Kenny lets everyone know that Colleen’s baby isn’t his. Brendan becomes concerned that Colleen is bored, so he decides to leave to play shuffleboard at the bar and says they can do it the next night online. P.J. then takes one of Brendan’s go-to picks Derek Jeter. Andy arrives as Brendan is leaving. Brendan comes over and reads P.J. the riot act about being rude to the women he dates. Brendan tells P.J. that she isn’t the center of the universe for the guys, and that there are other women they’d rather spend their time with over her. After a snowy Opening Day with the Cubs, everyone goes back to Crowley’s, and Bobby reveals he’s asked for his baseball job back. Kenny and Kimmie stop at the bar as well, and Kimmie reveals that that she is actually just a surrogate mother to the baby, and she’ll earn the down payment on her condo for doing it. P.J. expresses to Stephanie how upset she is that Brendan didn’t show up for opening day. When P.J. mentions that her kiss with Brendan was the same night as Andy’s birthday, Stephanie reminds her that this was also the night that she lost her keys and P.J. brought her the extra set. This means that she took the call from Stephanie and ran over to help her right when she and Brendan started to make out. Brendan had wandered off to bed when he heard her on the phone telling her that she was headed to bring her the keys. Stephanie thinks she left because it was a good ‘out’ for her. P.J. admits that it would be very awkward to start dating after knowing each other for so long. She also worries about risking their friendship. She says she loves him so much but can’t imagine dating him. She goes to see Brendan and apologizes to him and tells him that things are totally her fault. They agree that they don’t want anything to jeopardize their friendship. She tells him that she’ll trade him Derek Jeter back. The rest of the guys show up at Crowley’s, and Bobby tells everyone that he got his old job back. Bobby asks if he can crash at P.J.’s place again. Luiggi Debiasse is the waiter. Jack McBrayer (aka Jack McBraye) is the man at the bar who Kimmie yells at. 12/17/23
- 015. Off Day – 7/30/2007
- P.J. announces that she has been asks to be a guest on The Turk Vardell Show starring Turk Vardell (Ian Gomez). Meanwhile, Stephanie tries to talk P.J. into committing to a trip to Italy in the Fall, and to buying a total of four tickets and assume they’ll have boyfriends by then. Andy tries to leave the poker game early because he is tired of the long commute home, but Mike offers to let him crash at his place any time he wants. Andy calls Meredith at home and acts like he’s drunk so that she will encourage him to stay. However, when they arrive at Mike’s apartment, Andy is stunned that he has just one chair and no other furniture. Andy decides to go bed shopping with Mike, so he’ll have a place to sleep when he stays there. They run into Kenny and Kimmie at the furniture store, when they spy Mike and Andy through the window while out on a baby clothes buying excursion. He wants to have a baby shower, but Kimmie is getting annoyed and thinks Kenny is much more into the baby that she’s giving up than he is into her. During her appearance on the show, P.J. struggles to keep up with Turk and his two sidekicks, reporters Charlie and Pete. While trying to come up with a catchy catchphrase, she rattles off numerous non-sequiturs that make no sense. Stephanie tells her that she did great on the show, but she was hitting on a guy in the studio the entire time and not paying attention. The other guys watch the show at Crowley’s, and they all agree not to tell P.J. how bad she did. Turk gives P.J. the impression that he plans to have her back on the show, while he is clearly just being polite. Over at the bar, Kimmie breaks it off with Kenny. The guys all tell P.J. how great she was. However, a day before the taping, Turk has not called P.J. to make a return appearance, while Bobby has been asked to go on instead. They all try to convince P.J. that Turk is merely a sexist and it had nothing to do with her. However, when they can’t keep it up any longer, they tell her that her effort on the show was a swing and a miss. Andy equates her appearance with her grade school piano recital when she threw up into the third row. Although slightly hurt, P.J. is able to laugh it off. Bobby’s first act on the show is to accidentally fall out of his chair. 4/23/24
- 016. Ethics – 8/6/2007
- Stephanie’s magazine Chicago names the city’s Fifty Sexiest Bachelors, and Brando comes in at #37. Meanwhile, P.J. has a very flirtatious interview in the locker room with Cubs pitcher Matt Dougan (Travis Schuldt). Stephanie eyes one of the men in the article, a union plumber named Mark Meisinger, whom Kenny claims to know. When the magazine throws a publicity party to celebrate the article and invites all of the men on the list, Matt asks P.J. to go as his date. Even though she has turned down a previous invite to go out for pancakes, she agrees to go to the magazine party. They are all surprised to find out that Trouty is on the list at #16. He stops in at Crowley’s and agrees to take Mike to the party has his plus-one. Everyone comments to Bobby that he should be on the list, so Brando takes him as his plus-one so that he can be his wingman, even though he has told everyone that he is bringing his girlfriend. Since Stephanie works at the magazine, she agrees to take Kenny with her if he will introduce her to Mark Meisinger. Reporter Jack Brisco warns P.J. via telling her a story of a famous female reporter named Bar Sakowski who started dating a player, and how it ultimately caused her career to plummet. Andy crashes the party by wearing a tuxedo and carrying a clipboard, as it makes him appear that he is supposed to be there. When the guys all see that Brando had brought Bobby instead of any of them, they are all offended. Mike tries to hit on some of the ladies, but Trouty keep stifling him with his obnoxious behavior. When a photographer (Eugene Shaw) tries to take a photo of her with Matt, she tries to stay out of the picture. She admits that she has never dated any players on the Cubs and has decided that she and Matt need to keep their relationship professional only. Brando tries to avoid everyone, but they manage to corner him to ask him why he brought Bobby. He admits that he needed a wingman in order to hit on any women as he’s not good at it on his own. Stephanie learns that Mark has a fiancé and is annoyed that Kenny didn’t tell her. Andy somehow winds up playing drums with the band at the party. Later, Jack tells P.J. that Barb may have been fired because she was a drunk and had the writing talent of an eight-year-old. 4/23/24
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