The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd

Molly's mother introduces Molly, talks about her divorce 3 years ago and a bit about her life now. In the elevator, Molly reads Davey her new poem. Molly arrives at her job at Dennis Widmer's real estate agency. She's been having an affair with him and confronts him for not telling her he was married, which she's just discovered through an anonymous phone call. Molly sells a condo to a rich Indian guy, Birmanyi. Molly has lunch with her mother. Her mother complains about Molly's father retiring and doing nothing more than sitting on the barcalounger and about her brother living on an Indian reservation. She compares Molly with her sister, who's married with kids. In the elevator, Davey offers literary criticism. Later Molly plays piano and her ex-husband Fred uses his apartment key and comes in to listen. We find out that Molly is 33. Fred tells Molly that he's getting married. Molly takes a shower and breaks a cosmetic bottle (thus the episode title).

Begins with Molly writing a poem in the park and her mother's commentary about being uncomfortable with the sensualness of her poems. The door across the hall from her apartment opens and closes and Molly yells at it that inhabitants have been spying on her for years. Davey lets her on the elevator with a load of pregnant women and comments on her biological clock. Her mother is waiting in the lobby and talks with Molly about her irritation with Molly's father. Biranyi (Bill) signs on the condo and asks Molly out for dinner. Molly quits her job. She goes to a jazz club to hear Fred play. (He's a sax player.) She has a flashback to meeting him. He introduces his fiancee, Kirsten. Molly has dinner with Bill. She gets spinach in her teeth (thus the title).

Intro: Florence narrates as Molly waits for a job interview at an advertising agency. Molly meets her garbage man, Nick Donnatello, played by the show's creator, Jay Tarses; Nick asks her on a date and she declines. Davey tells her that Fred visited in the morning and that her mother is upstairs waiting for her. Molly's mother is cleaning her cabinets and tells Molly that she's staying over and going to a doctor for tests the next day but she won't talk about what kind of tests. No one but Molly knows that she's going for tests. Fred calls and asks Molly to meet him. Molly meets him at the planetarium, where he's composing music for a planetarium show. He asks for her help. He's convinced that an album and fame and fortune will follow. She refuses to help. Fred invites her for coffee at Spiro's and she goes along. It is apparently ""their"" old place; people greet them as if they're still a couple. The guys from the ""old gang"" (The Fred Dodd Quintet?) show up. Molly greets them as she le

intro: Fred plays sax as Florence narrates, talking about Molly's love of music and Molly's father's musical career Florence continues narrating, explaining that she's fine and will be back, as Molly gets in a cab to go home from a composition setting. Molly sees Nick and they talk; he hits on her. Molly tells Davey that her mother is lost; she isn't in the hospital and can't be found but left a message saying she's fine. When she gets in her apartment, there's another message that her mother is fine. Fred calls. Molly goes to his apartment. She and Fred argue. The phone rings; it's Kirsten. Molly is at a recording session with the whole band. Alex, the trumpet player, freezes up. A woman in the sound booth comes on to Fred. Molly goes to a restaurant with Alex. Molly goes to the Waldorf-Astoria and knocks on a door; her mother answers. Florence explains that something happened to her in the hospital and she's considering her life. Molly goes back to the studio and Fred says he can't p

Out on a date with pilot Blake Novack, Molly spots her father, Edgar, dining with a woman who is not her mother. Molly and Blake are again interrupted when Edgar, not realizing Blake is in the bedroom, arrives at her apartment early in the morning to explain.

Molly Dodd, on the verge of a breakdown, decides to see a psychologist after she tells Blake, a new boyfriend she thinks is perfect, she can't see him anymore. She realizes she has a problem when she rearranges her living room furniture in the middle of the night.

Molly is irritated by ""cousin"" Mike who seems to be staying on indefinitely at her apartment, borrowing her money and eating her food. Molly arrives at the bookstore to find Moss' father in the aisles and they end up going to brunch together. Moss returns to the store and he and Molly share an awkward conversation about earlier in the day. Molly tells Dennis she wants him to disappear from her life forever, that she has no intention of turning him in.

The future looks bright for Fred, who has just released an album and hired Molly as office manager for the band. Molly's future also holds great promise, as she begins to fall in love with black detective Nathaniel Hawthorne. And perhaps for the first time in their lives, Molly's life parallels that of her mother's, who has fallen in love with Arthur Feldman.

The results of a home pregnancy test send Molly into a panic, but things pick up at work when she gets the go-ahead on her proposal for a book on the life of a real cop, which is to be based on Nathaniel Hawthorne. At the end of the day, however, Molly's worst fears are confirmed by the doctor, and then, upon arriving home, she learns from Davey that her apartment building is really going co-op.

While Molly waits in the doctor's office, she agonizes over who the father of her child might be—Nathaniel Hawthorne or Moss Goodman—and tries to imagine what the child will be like. When she finally gets to see the doctor, she learns that she'll have to wait another five months before they'll be able to identify the father.

Molly's unstable employment history comes back to haunt her when she applies for a loan for the down payment on her apartment. A few rejections later, she reluctantly takes her mother's advice and asks Arthur Feldman to lend her the $7,000 she needs. After a brief encounter with her chatty new neighbors, Ron and Ramona Luchesse, Molly meets her ex-husband, Fred, for dinner and lets him in on her little secret.

As part of her research for her book, Molly spends the day at the courthouse with Hawthorne and his partner, Uribe. As the hours tick away, Molly fantasizes about her first day on the beat, but the real thing doesn't turn out to be nearly as glamorous or exciting. On a coffee run for Hawthorne and Uribe, though, she gets more excitement than she bargained for.

Molly invites Florence over for breakfast and a talk, but doesn't feel like doing much of either. Later, while browsing in the pregnancy and childbirth section of a bookstore, she's surprised to find Moss Goodman assembling a pregnancy book display and makes a date with him for dinner. That night, on their way to a police awards banquet, Molly breaks the news of her pregnancy to Hawthorne, who doesn't know quite how to react when he learns he may not be the father.

Over dinner in a restaurant, Molly confronts the father of her baby, who proposes marriage. Molly, caught off guard, accepts and subsequently arranges a dinner meeting between her fiance and Florence, her apprehensive mother. What begins as an awkward evening ends pleasantly for Florence and her soon-to-be Son-in-law, leaving Molly feeling strangely alone.

At work Molly discovers she has not been credited as the author of her book. Florence and Arthur go to Molly's apartment to deliver an engagement present, with unexpected results. Molly and Ron, her neighbor, discuss childbearing with another couple in a cappuccino cafe. Back at Ron and Ramona's apartment, Fred is waiting to give Molly a baby present.

Molly and Florence go to Ramona's beauty salon to get ready for a night at the opera. Later, in Molly's apartment, her fiance gives her a wedding ring. That evening, Molly grows anxious when her fiance does not pick her up in time for the opera. The eventual knock at Molly's door brings bad news.

Molly goes through tough times as she tries to cope with an unexpected tragedy, as the birth of her baby approaches and as she experiences jitters about her impending motherhood.

Molly breaks the fourth wall and talks directly to the camera, indulging her every whim: For the duration of this episide, Molly is not pregnant, is the star employee at work and is in control of her life.

While friends and family are gathering at Ron and Ramona's apartment for Molly's baby shower, Molly goes into labor. Only one person, having seen Molly on the street hurriedly making her way to the hospital, is present for the birth.