Seasons & episodes

Nell is furious when she hears a squeaking noise coming from Joey and Matthew's room. When she checks in on them, she finds out that they are caring for Joey's class hamster, ""Harry"", who Joey knows would most likely be used to be tested on human products. Nell and Addy decide to make a fund to stop people from testing animals with human products. Late at night, to stop the squeaking of Harry's cage, Nell pours salad oil on it. However, what she doesn't know is that it is rancid. When she gets another hamster for Joey, she is surprised that it is a girl who has just had six babies, making Joey change his mind about her, after he finds out she killed Harry.

Joey begins to run ilegal gambling tickets from the staff at El Gatspacio, and Nell is horrified when she finds out he was picked up for running them.After Nell brings Joey home, she tries to teach him that gambling is wrong. When her lecture doesn't work, she finally confides in Marty, who uses the game ""Candyland"", as an example that it is wrong for Joey to gamble, bets Joey all their money, and in the end wins, teaching Joey a lesson that it is very wrong for people to gamble their money that they worked so hard to get in the first place.

As Nell and her mother are at the bank to put items into Mama Maybelle's safe deposit box, a con man shows up, tells Nell that there is a con man in the bank who is taking people's money, tells Nell he is a detective and to take her Mama's money out for the con man to take, then he will follow the guy outside and arrest him, but for Nell not to follow. When he doesn't come back, Nell realizes she was tricked, and Mama Maybelle is very upset. However, downstairs at Marty's restaurant, the guy shows up with a date, and Nell tells him she wants her money back, tells a waiter to alert the police, and brings Addy downstairs to snap photos of the guy. The officer doesn't believe Nell's story, until the guy says his name is one name, then the waiter calls him another name and he's finally caught for fraud.

Nell decides to buy a Christmas tree, as does Addy, who both know that it costs too much for one in New York. As the gang begins to celebrate Christmas New York style, Joey tells Matthew that there is no such thing as Santra Claus, and Nell blames Marty for the whole thing. In the end, Nell realizes that Marty always didn't believe in Santa Claus because he never got the toy train he saw in a store window when he was a child. In the end, Nell invites him to Christmas dinner, and on Christmas morning, he is surprised to see the toy train he has always wanted, which both Addy and Nell say they didn't get for him. Thus, proving to both Joey and Matthew that there is a Santa Claus afterall.

Nell gets a call from her highschool secret admirer, whom she never knew personally in Alabama. She decides to met him at El Gatspacio since he is in town, and she knows that he cannot have a successful relationship with a woman because he has never forgot about her. When she arrives at El Gatspacio, he calls her, telling her he wrote her a note years ago in school, and that he canot meet her, but in the end, surprises her by showing up at the restaraunt, after Nell has an emotional breakdown on the phone with him, telling him that she is a wonderful woman who did make fun of the note he gave her years ago.

Nell gives Addy a loan to buy a new dress to attend a gala event, knowing that she will pay her back in no time at all. As time passes, people in the building begin to take advantage of Addy, and ask her for money which she does give them. Everyone tells Nell that Addy is a saint for giving them money when they need it, but Nell is mad that Addy has not paid her back the money she borrowed from her. Nell goes to Marty for advice, and he insists that Nell makes a contract, but she gets mad and rips it up. In the end, Addy finally does repay Nell the money she loaned her.

Nell has a better job in her company as a book editor. However, that tears her away from staying with the boys. When Joey tells Nell that he's doing a Walk-A-Thon fund raiser for his school & wants to sign up sponsors. But Nell doesn't want Joey to go alone with Matthew wandering the streets of New York. But Grandpa disagrees. Joey also has to take Matthew to his guitar lesson as well. After school, Joey decides to go get sponsors, and takes Matt with him. When Joey goes to a doctor's office, he tells Matt to wait for him. Then Matt hears music coming from next door & sees a band rehearsing. Then the band lets Matt jam with them. Joey finds that Matt's missing and he searches all over for him. When he arrives home, he asks Marty for his help and Marty called the police. Nell enters & Marty tells her Matt's missing. Nell takes the receiver while Marty looks @ his restaurant. Nell is mad at Joey for losing his brother. Then Marty finds Matt & took him home. Joey's mad at Matt

Nell decides to quit her job so she could stay home with the boys. So Nell decides to get a new job instead. When she told Joey that, he was delighted. Then the phone rings and the company wants Nell to come to her interview. Nell tells Joey to watch Matthew, but he's still mad at him. So she calls Matthew and he comes with his guitar ready to go to a guitar lesson that Nell forgot. But Joey still won't take Matt to his guitar lesson. Nell's mom advises her to let the apron strings go, and to let Joey grow up. So while talking to Joey, she hears a puppy coming from Matthew's bedroom. They find the puppy outside the fire escape in a box, so she tries to get the puppy inside and her shoe's caught in the fire escape. Nell calls for Maggie to help. But she's scared of heights. Then a fireman comes and with a crowbar, gets her boot out of the fire escape. The fireman says that Joey's the hero who came to him asking him to bring his crowbar. Nell then tells Joey he can participate in

Joey begins to have a crush on Maggie, and at her husband's birthday party, Nell finds out that he wants to leave New York behind and move to Georgia.

Joey is upset because his teacher, Mr. Gronomeir keeps hating him. When Nell invites him to the house to talk about Joey, he trips on Maggies skateboard, and decides to sue, and fakes that he has serious pains. However, he is on his way to spin the big wheel for fast cash on television, and when Nell turns on the television to see him spin the wheel, he wins the big jackpot, and says that he is going to buy an island in the Caribean, and will never have to look at another kid again. Nell is outraged by his act of foolishness.

When Joey's favorite television star ""Captain Jerk"", is hospitalized after swallowing a whistle, it is up to Nell to give him a blood transfusion since she has the same type of blod as him. However, as she goes to his hospital room to meet him, she finds out that he is predjudiced as she heards him talking to his co-stars about how much he hates blacks and how he organizes a group of people who are for a white society. She realizes that she must tell Joey the truth, that his favorite telvison star doesn't favor blacks. In the end, Capatain Jerk tells Nell to be on the show, but swallows his whistle again when he sees she is black. He gives her money, and tells her to not tell anyone she is black and gave him blood, which makes hm partially black as well. Joey hears this, and depite not believing Nell before, he finally knows that his hero is predjuduce and he and Nell leave the hospital knowing that Captain Jerk is nothing but one.

Nell knows that her boss is beginning to fire many workers on the job, and when she finds out he has a daughter named Molly that is Joey's age, she sets the two up, so she can work her way to staying on the job. What Nell doesn't know is that Joey is turning into a Gigolo, leaving the family everyday for Molly, even during Matthews birthday party. In the end, Nell madly storms into Molly's room, and tells Joey to come home for his brothers party. When her boss comes in and tells her to stop yelling, she tells him she doesn't have to set Joey up with his daughter in order to stay on the job. Nell is surprised when her boss tells her it doesnt have to be that way, since he just sold the company.

Nell finds out that it is Parents Week at Littlefield College in New Jersy, and she is upset that Samantha didn't invite her to attend it. However, she decides to go anyways. When she arrives at the college, Samantha is stunned to see her, and she begins to barge in on student's lives. She sits in on an English class of Sam's, and Professor Dudley gets upset with her. Afterwards, she meets a boy who wants to switch his career from Teaching to Fashion design, but cant stand up to his father, who is actually Professor Dudley. In the end, Sam and Nell are about to go to bed as Sam tells her a secret she has been keeping from her. She is in love with a student named Eric, and she and he are going to drop out of College and get married and move to South Dakota, where the two will live on a farm, since he doesn't have enough money to stay in school. Nell drops to the floor when she hears this.

Nell tries to convice Samantha to stay in college, and in the end, is successful at doing so. She also is successful at helping a fellow studen of Sam's to both stand up to his father and get his book published.

Nell prepares for Mary-Ellen Baldwin's arrival, a snobbish foe of hers from Alabama. She arrives in New York to tell Mama Maybelle along with Nell that she is knocking down the old church to make room for new condos. Mama Maybelle, displeased with the act of fooishness, rejects the check for $5,000 that Mary-Ellen gives her, but Nell wants the money. Mama Maybelle then decides she is going to Alabama to save the church. Once they arrive there, Mama Maybelle goes off to see Mayor Watson about what she can do about the church, as Nell and Joey stay at the Church, as she tells Joey about her father and how he preeched. In the end, she is amazed by her father's memories, and when Mama Maybele returns to tell her there is nothing she can do to save the church, Nell rips up the checks, saying that she will fight for her father's church, evel if she looses. Mama Maybelle is very proud of Nell for once in her life, since she finally made a right decision.

Nell is wooed by an African man who invented chocolate chip cookies in his African country. She is given a necklace by him, and is given a proposal to be his wife. She tells Addy that they should all move to Africa if she decides to accept his proosal, but in the end she declines it, when he tells her his mother wants him to marry a pure woman who hasnt had sex before. She is however, mad that she gave back the expensive necklace that she was given by him.

When Grandpa comes to get the boys' pajamas, since they are sleeping in his apartment because Addy is sick in bed, he tells Nell that her mother has a date. Nell wonders why her mother would have a date, and when her mother shows up, she meets her date, Ernie, a man from her past. It turns out that he was a jazz musician that knew her mother before she married Nell's father. When they were young, he took her to a dance contest, and asked her to go on the road with him, but she refused. Nell can't believe that this is true. In the end, as Ernie waits outside for Maybelle, Nell asks her mother if the two of them ever had sex, and Mama Maybelle tells her that Nell should know the answer to that question, and tells her she has a lot of growing up to do, and that she must realize that her mother is a woman, just like herself.