While on vacation in New York, Rhoda meets a man (Joe) and she decides not to return to Minneapolis.
Rhoda has difficulty finding an apartment in New York City and finally moves into the one place she never even considered--her parents' apartment.
Rhoda's smooth romance with Joe gets a little bumpy when he decides it might be best if the two of them begin dating other people as well as each other.
Rhoda and Joe decide to set aside one day to tackle the generation gap, and schedule lunch with his parents and dinner with hers.
Rhoda lands a job with a small publishing firm and ends up delivering the eulogy at the funeral of an author whose specialty was X-rated books.
Joe pops the question, but it's not exactly the one Rhoda wants to hear. Instead of ""Will you marry me?"" it's ""How about living together?""
Unable to think of just the right gift to get Rhoda, Brenda decides to throw a shower for her soon-to-be-wed sister and uses the occasion to stage a small reunion for Rhoda with some of her old high school classmates.
Complications arise when Rhoda and Joe's plans to have a small wedding is complicated by Ida, who invites all of her friends.
Rhoda almost doesn't make it to her own wedding when, at the last minute, Phyllis forgets to pick her up.
Rhoda and Joe's cruise doesn't turn out the way they expected.
Rhoda wants a new apartment, especially after an old beau of Joe's lets herself in with a key.
Rhoda thinks she may be pregnant, but she isn't sure enough to tell her husband Joe, especially when he comes home with the news that his business is facing economic troubles.
Joe goes to his father for marital advise.
Despite Joe and Brenda's insistence that she butt out, Rhoda continues to plunge ahead to prove to her younger sister that her new boyfriend is really a married man.
It's a case of mutual dislike at first sight when Rhoda meets Joe's friend Charlie Burke, a patronizing ""man's man"" who is not exactly thrilled with his best buddies wife.
With his business on the verge of failure, Joe becomes ever increasingly worried, resisting Rhoda's advice to free his emotions, even if it means crying.
At Ida's insistence, Rhoda talks Joe into asking her father for the money he needs to save his business, but then is surprised to learn things about her dad's financial state that are news to even her mother.
Rhoda's shy, retiring high-school chum, Myrna Morgenstern, shows up unexpectedly to demonstrate her new, Rhoda-like, head-on approach to life, and she begins a tumultuous non-romance with Joe's best friend.
Rhoda and Joe work very hard at being the perfect modern couple, free of all jealousies and hang-ups until a man Rhoda once loved asks her out for dinner.
When Rhoda discovers Joe has been visiting a doctor without telling her, she begins to worry, but not as much as when she finds out what kind of doctor he is.
Rhoda and Brenda have to take their mother on her very first trip to the doctor, a visit that mama Ida faces with a combination of fear and embarrassment.
Distracted by visitors who keep interrupting her work at home, Rhoda opens an office and soon learns about the problems faced by a woman launching her own business.
Brenda decides to break out of her ""nice, warm rut"" by moving to San Francisco, a plan that isn't discouraged by Rhoda, but one that Joe thinks is rotten.
Bored with her life, Rhoda's mother Ida decides to become a ""now"" woman and surprises Rhoda and Brenda by announcing she's launched a whole new career.
Mary Richards shows up unexpectedly and throws a monkey wrench into Rhoda's and Joe's plans for a long-awaited weekend alone at Cape Cod.
