Marilyn (Elaine Miles) prepares for a vacation to Seattle, though Joel (Rob Morrow) isn’t sure she should travel on her own. But that’s just the beginning of things for this episode. Joel is mothering her from the get-go, trying to make sure she has everything she needs for a safe trip, but Marilyn insists she wants an adventure.

Learning Curve was written by Jeff Vlaming, this episode was first broadcast on 8 February, 1993.

Marilyn seems to be having a great time out and about in Seattle, ignoring all of Joel’s advice, and just taking in the world, and enjoying the experience. Joel goes to Maurice (Barry Corbin) for a loan (which adds time to his contract) so he can go to Seattle and look for Marilyn.

Holling (John Cullum) reveals to Shelly (Cynthia Geary) that he’s going to final complete his education and get his high school diploma. He goes to the school, and the teacher, Jane Harris (Jo Anderson) is impressed with his abilities, and that he’s predominantly self-taught. This complicates things because she tells him that he’ll need to be able to show his work, and his essays need some editing, and punctuation.

Not only will he have to improve his writing style, he’ll have to get over some of his shyness.

Maggie (Janine Turner) is in turn impressed with Harris after learning that she flew missions in the Middle East, but is bothered when Jane says women pilots shouldn’t fly combat missions. Will the two pilots be able to hammer out their differences? Or will they recognize that they can have their differences?

Holling gets a special delivery from Harris during one of her flights, and with it comes a wonderful sense of accomplishment. Holling is a high school graduate!

Ill Wind first aired on 15 February, 1993 and was written by Jeff Melvoin.

A wind from the east, a coho, causes some strange things to occur around Cicely. There seems to be a lot of violence and death about, at least on the minds of the residents. Joel gets his nose broken (twice) by Maggie, once over a game of Risk.

Things escalate as Joel attempts to sue her, and Maggie, as his landlord, evicts him. Are they going to be able to patch things up, or will the winds change in a while new way for them? Finally.

Chris (John Corbett) saves Maurice from going over the roof of the K-BHR building while they were installing a new radio tower. Maurice is less than sure that he owes Chris some kind of life debt. This is exacerbated by the fact that everyone in town applauds Chris for saving him.

Chris is quite happy to let it go, but everything keeps bothering Maurice. And when he tries to gift money to Chris, he refuses to take it. Chris did a good thing, and is quite happy to leave it at that, but Maurice is troubled by the loss of perceived control over his life.

Can Maurice find a way to even things out?

And Ed (Darren E. Burrows) seems to be fascinated by ways of committing suicide. Not to do it himself, just to understand the types of ways one could kill themselves.

It’s a solid episode that looks at how we all rely on each other, how we interact, and our effect on those around us. So much fun.