This begins the story of two sisters, Jessica Tate and Mary Campbell. As the Tates and their butler, Benson, prepare for a dinner party with the Campbells, Jessica walks in on her husband, Chester, while he makes plans for a romantic rendezvous with another woman. Jessica’s son, Billy has a pimple on the night of his first date, and his uptight sister, Eunice, while ignoring the insane antics of their veteran grandfather, The Major. Jessica goes for a tennis lesson with Peter, the Tennis Pro, and winds up in bed with him. She leaves Peter just as his next “”appointment””–with Jessica’s other daughter, Corinne–arrives.

Meanwhile, at the Campbells’, Mary breaks up a food fight between her mobster son, Danny, and her second husband, Burt. Tensions flare again when Mary’s other son, Jodie, a homosexual, joins them at breakfast. Alone at last, Mary confronts Burt about his recent impotence, which, we learn, stems from guilt he feels after having killed Mary’s first husband (officially