For the past 30 years, Maude has been sponsoring an orphan who lives in Ethiopia and after all this time she is excited when she manages to get help from a local church to fly him over to New York. However, Maude's Ethiopian foster child turns out to be something different from what she expected and she is rather shocked to learn that he is of Italian decent.

Carol's ex-husband Vernon comes to town and begins showering her with flowers and attention. Both Carol and Maude are convinced he's looking for a reconciliation and Carol is seriously thinking about it, that until he announces that he is engaged to someone else and he has come to town in hopes that Carol would allow Phillip to live with him.