Too Close

The wedding of Henry's lifelong friend to a young Las Vegas showgirl upsets the groom's sons from his previous marriage.

Muriel unwisely commits herself to do a coveted helicopter photo shoot, which Henry demands she cancel due to her pregnancy. The back and forth fighting cause a big headache for the girls, who are forced to change their minds several times whether to cancel an elaborate surprise 25th anniversary party they had previously scheduled.

Jackie falls madly in love with a police officer who responds to a false burglary report at the apartment due to April sneaking in late one night after getting stuck on Alcatraz with her boyfriend. She immediately accepts his marriage proposal after just a few dates, refusing her parents' plea to consider the difficulties of being a police wife.

Henry is going up the wall with April keeping such late hours, spending time with her latest boyfriend. However, Henry and Muriel are in for a shock when they discover her boyfriend, Don is old enough to be her father. Henry puts his foot down and that's when Don asks April to move in with him, which she gladly accepts.

A fan of Henry's Cosmic Cow comic strip who has been sending him increasingly bizarre fan mail breaks into the apartment one night through the unlocked front door, kidnapping his puppet and vowing in a note to return before the end of the weekend. Interpreting the note as a threat on his life, Henry and Monroe set up a stakeout at the apartment with the help of a police officer, who abruptly leaves them to fend for themselves when he is called away.

April secretly arranges for her father Bill to meet face to face with his brother Henry, so they can attempt to reconcile after a petty childhood dispute caused them to stop speaking forty years ago. The effort may be for naught, however, when Bill eats a piece of cheesecake baked by Monroe, who did not realize it was an old Russian recipe for homemade poisoned rat bait.

Henry is contacted by a rival cartoonist who has perpetrated several practical jokes on him over the years, and Henry schemes with Monroe to pay him back during a dinner visit. However, when Henry is unable to stop the prank after the man claims he is dying, Henry feels obligated to assist him in an elaborate plan to cheat on his wife.

Upon realizing the birth of his third child is only six weeks away, Henry feels a sense of guilt for not spending enough time with his two daughters. He decides to invite them on a weekend ski trip, but the experience doesn't turn out quite the way he envisioned when the girls meet a couple of brothers and he discovers that Monroe packed the wrong suitcase in the car.

Muriel secretly asks her mother Iris stay with her until she recovers from childbirth, much to the chagrin of Henry, who has always found her to be overbearing. When Muriel unexpectedly takes a stand against her mother's nonstop criticism, it's up to Henry to straighten out the mess, and he learns a big secret about Muriel in the process.

Henry's generous offer to arrange a job interview for an attractive art student backfires when she begins showing affection for him, which puts him in the doghouse with an increasingly insecure Muriel and causes him to panic when Monroe tells him that she tried to jump out a window after her last break up. Henry and Muriel also host a Lamaze class in their apartment, which turns out to be a bad idea.

Just before heading off on a Las Vegas vacation, Henry reluctantly lends $100 to Sara, April, and Monroe so they can start a business selling home-baked cookies using Grandma Rush's recipe. However, a promising and profitable start quickly turns into a disaster that includes a trashed kitchen, hefty fines, a potential lawsuit, and a visit from the immigration service.

In order to reduce the cost of a trip to Europe, Jackie and Sara swap apartments with an English couple who wants to visit America. Henry's misgivings are confirmed when he accidentally opens a piece of their luggage that contains a high powered rifle, and concludes they are on a mission to assassinate a Russian ambassador.

Henry refuses to accept Sara's decision to drop out of college to become the weather announcer on a local television station, which causes her to announce that she's moving out in protest. Meanwhile, Monroe's clumsy method of wallpapering the baby's nursery has an unexpected outcome, and a wealthy family friend brings the Rushes a much appreciated gift.

Jackie's boyfriend Brad has recovered from his gunshot wound and decides he can't work a desk job, which causes him to reconsider the appropriateness of a long term relationship with her. Meanwhile, the Rushes' furnace goes out, and Monroe's desire to help only increases Henry's agony.

April's father sends her his baby grand piano, and she takes up Monroe's offer to move it into the apartment with the help of a large friend for $20. This proves to be a big mistake when everyone gets trapped in the apartment just as Muriel begins feeling labor pains and Henry's just-married friend becomes desperate to be reunited with his bride.

Sara and Monroe are ecstatic when a movie director decides Jackie and Sara's apartment would be perfect to film a movie. However, Henry and Muriel are totally unsure of the situation. Things get out of hand when a lion, being used for the film, gets loose and takes up residence in Henry and Muriel's kitchen.

Monroe has been struggling with the fact he is still a virgin and seeks out a psychologist for help. The psychologist suggests that Monroe hire a sex surrogate to solve his problem, but unfortunate circumstances cause Monroe to mistake Mrs. Rafkin for the surrogate, and the surrogate to mistake Henry for Monroe.

Sylvia Walker, an old college friend and recently divorced friend of Muriel's arrives in town for a visit and decides to make the most of the rest of her life. Meanwhile, Henry becomes insecure about his age after glancing over the obituaries and thinks he may be on death's doorstep soon. However, things turn around for him, when Sylvia makes a play for him.

Rich Holland, a man who took Muriel on the road with a band when she was young arrives in town looking just as young as ever. Henry soon feels old and becomes insecure, however, Muriel also becomes insecure when Rich takes an interest in Jackie.

Henry is not happy with the fact that he has been called in for jury duty. However, things get pressed when Henry's boss, Mr. Wainwright, wanting to avoid any problems associated with a possible strike, orders Henry to cough up next week's comic strip. This forces Henry to stay up all night and leads to him falling asleep in court the next day.

Henry's father, Huey breaks out of the nursing home, or rather is thrown out when he has a romantic interlude with another resident. He arrives in San Francisco to stay with Henry but soon his presence sends the household into an uproar. Meanwhile, Jackie debates over whether or not to accept a job offer in New York.

A football player, Buck Krulik, is in town and a fan of Henry's Cosmic Cow comic strip, so he comes by for a visit and has Jackie, Sara and Muriel fawn all over him. After admiring some of her photography, Buck remember her when a nude centerfold photo shoot goes awry and he calls her in to take over. However, she may not be quite ready for a male nude spread despite, Henry forbidding her.

A woman arrives at Sara and Jackie's door accusing Sara of dating her husband. However, the woman has the wrong Rush daughter, Jackie is the one and doesn't see anything wrong with it since they are separated. Still, she begins to feel her relationship coming to an end and quick.

Out of pity, Henry reluctantly allows Monroe to crash on his couch for Easter week when Monroe's parents decide they don't want him to visit them in Miami. Henry soon regrets his generosity when he learns that Monroe has ruined his unpublished Cosmic Cow drawings, and in turn his own planned vacation.

Henry is fired by Mr. Wainwright when he refuses to publish an apology for his recent Cosmic Cow comic strips that poke fun at President Reagan. Rather than face the indignity of taking unemployment compensation, he makes the regrettable decision to pursue his passion for painting and lets Muriel accept an offer for a full time job she doesn't really want.

Sara arranges for a medium to conduct a séance to connect Mildred Rafkin with her deceased brother in an attempt to find a missing antique broach. However, an accusation leveled by Rafkin's "spirit" threatens to split up Henry and Muriel, when the voice of the Rushes' late tenant accuses Henry of marital infidelity.