Wings

1990 - 1997

Independent airline owner Joe Hackett's orderly world is turned upside-down when his estranged brother, Brian, shows up looking for work. This show follows the Hackett brothers' wacky hijinks with their best friend Helen, employee Fay, rival airline owner Roy, and a variety of other quirky characters at a small airport in Nantucket.

Stars: Tim Daly, Steven Weber, Crystal Bernard, David Schramm, Rebecca Schull, Tony Shaloub, Thomas Haden Church, Amy Yasbeck, Valerie Mahaffey
Created by: David Angell, Peter Casey, David Lee
Tags: friend group, workplace

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Episode Tropes

Season 1

Dying to Die: Episode 2, "Around the World in 80 Years" (1990). An old man, who has been flying around the world, believes he's going die as soon as he's finished because of a promise he made to God, and he has decided to die in Nantucket.
The Old Pie in the Face Gag: Episode 4, "Return to Nantucket: Part 2" (1990). Joe's and Brian's mutual ex, Carol, returns to Nantucket and immediately begins stringing both of them along again, and she even pretends she doesn't remember Helen, which sends Helen into eating frenzy. When Joe and Brian finally get wise and dump Carol, Helen gets revenge by throwing a pie in her face.

Season 2

Remember Me?: Episode 5, "A Standup Kind of Guy" (1990). A guy named Jerry Stark calls and says he's an old friend of Joe's from high school, but Joe doesn't remember him, so he plays along and agrees with everything he says, including agreeing to be the best man in his wedding.
Bachelor Party Gone Wrong: Episode 5, "A Standup Kind of Guy" (1990). Joe throws a bachelor party for Jerry Stark, a guy who claims to be an old high school friend, but Joe doesn't remember him. For the entertainment, Joe hires a belly dancing stripper named Roberta, who turns out to be Jerry's old high school girlfriend. The two of them leave the party together mid-belly dance, and Jerry dumps his fiance to marry Roberta instead.
Pretend We're a Couple: Episode 7, "Hell Hath No Fury Like a Police Woman Scorned" (1990). Brian is too much of a coward to break up with Colleen, the police officer he's been dating, to get out of some parking tickets he got with Joe's car, so he tells her he's already in a relationship with Helen. When Helen finds out, she tells Colleen that she can have Brian.
Ashes to Ashes: Episode 11, "A Terminal Christmas" (1990). Fay is depressed because it's her first Christmas without her late third husband, George. To help Fay get closure, the gang piles into Joe's plane to scatter George's ashes over the ocean. Joe asks Lowell to "get George" from the back of the plane, and of course, Lowell drops the jar, and it shatters, spreading George's ashes on the floor. Lowell vacuums George up with Joe's dustbuster, and Fay throws the dustbuster into the ocean.
Dog from Hell: Episode 12, "Airport '90" (1991). Fay promises to look after Roy's dog, Brutus, while he's away, and Roy fails to mention that Brutus is a vicious attack dog, but after spending time with Fay, Brutus gets "in touch with his feminine side," and he now enjoys snuggling and wearing bows.
Unwise Wisdom Teeth: Episode 13, "Love is Like Pulling Teeth" (1991). Joe promised to take care of Helen after she has her wisdom teeth pulled, but Brian is having the guys over to watch a big football game, and Helen's TV is broken, so he sneaks a passed out Helen out of her bed and brings her to his house so he can watch the game, but she disappears.
Close Encounter: Episode 16, "Plane Nine from Nantucket" (1991). While on a flight hauling mannequins, Joe and Brian think they see a UFO. When Brian tells the gang at the airport, they don't believe him, and Joe pretends he doesn't know what he's talking about because he doesn't want "bad press" for the airline.
Catfish: Episode 17, "Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places" (1991). Roy has been writing to a woman he met through a personals ad in a magazine, and she's coming to the airport to meet him, but Roy is panicking because he hasn't exactly been truthful with her.
Jump: Episode 18, "Love Means Never Having to Say Geronimo" (1991). Brian is marrying a weirdo named Gwen, who insists they get married on Joe's plane and skydive after they say their vows, but they both randomly decide not to get married and just jump off the plane.
Little Black Book: Episode 19, "All in the Family" (1991). Helen tries to look up a number in Joe's little black book, and he suspiciously grabs it from her and locks it inside a drawer so she can't read it.
Long Lost Parent: Episode 20, "Mother Wore Stripes" (1991). Joe's and Brian's mother, who abandoned them when they were kids, shows up at the airport and wants to reconcile. Brian is happy to invite her back into the family, but Joe isn't happy to see her.
America's Most Wanted: Episode 21, "Murder She Roast" (1991). Brian is staying with Fay while Joe's house is being fumigated. He watches a TV show called "Fugitives from Justice" about a woman who takes in boarders and murders them, and she looks a lot like Fay, so Brian starts to fear for his life.

Season 3

See You in Court: Episode 2, "Is That a Subpoena in Your Pocket...?" (1991). After Helen drives her Jeep through Joe's office, she refuses to pay his insurance deductible, so Joe sues her and wins, despite the fact that Helen showed up to court with crutches.
Home Sweet Office: Episode 4, "I Ain't Got No Bunny" (1991). After his wife kicks him out of the house because of his jealousy, Lowell sleeps inside Joe's plane in the hangar.
Election: Episode 5, "If Elected, I Will Not Live" (1991). Roy is running for town council, and his only opponent just had a heart attack, leaving Nantucket with Roy as their only option. When Joe makes an impassioned speech about it, the gang convinces him to run against Roy. Fay volunteers to be Joe's campaign manager, and she pays a visit to the editor of the local paper to convince him to endorse Joe, but instead, the paper endorses Fay.
Sugar Mama: Episode 6, "My Brother's Keeper" (1991). A ridiculously wealthy woman comes to the island and immediately takes a liking to Brian and starts buying him lots of expensive gifts while Brian caters to her every whim.
Unwanted Surprise Party: Episode 7, "Crate Expectations" (1991). It's Joe's birthday, and he makes a point of announcing to everyone that he doesn't want them to celebrate: no gifts, no party, no nothing. So, of course, the gang decides to throw him a surprise party.
Green Card: Episode 12, "Marriage, Italian Style" (1992). Antonio's visa request was turned down, and he's afraid he might get deported back to Italy, so the gang suggests he marry an American citizen. The only woman Brian can find to marry him is "Sconset Sal," an eccentric, bug-infested sailor who wears only one boot, but Sal wins some money in a card game and backs out, so Helen steps in.
Performance Evaluations: Episode 14, "Stew in a Stew" (1992). Joe gives the staff their annual evaluations, and he has to break it to Fay that he can't give her a raise this year. Moments later, Joe and Brian are showing off their expensive new flight jackets, and Fay is so upset that she quits.
No Joke: Episode 18, "Take My Life, Please" (1992). When Helen gets fired from a real estate agency, Antonio suggests she take a career placement test, but the results are disappointing, so Brian changes them to lawyer or standup comedian, and Helen chooses the latter.
What a Dummy: Episode 19, "Four Dates That Will Live in Infamy" (1992). When the gang decides to try a video dating service, Joe goes on a date with a ventriloquist who will only speak through her dummy.

Season 4

Trading Places: Episode 2, "The Fortune Cookie" (1992). Brian convinces Joe to pretend he was injured in their recent plane crash to get more money from the insurance company, but Joe chickens out at the last minute, so they switch places, and Brian pretends to be the injured Joe while Joe pretends to be Brian.
Plastic Fantastic: Episode 3, "Noses Off" (1992). When a doctor points out a so-called bump in his nose, Brian decides to get a nose job.
Moonlighting: Episode 15, "The Gift: Part 1" (1992). To raise enough to buy a new cello, Helen gets a night job gutting fish in a plant, and it not only makes her so tired she falls asleep at the lunch counter, but it also makes her "smell like low tide," as Joe put it.
Dog from Hell: Episode 18, "The Key to Alex" (1992). Joe tells Alex he loves dogs in a poor attempt to show her that he's sensitive, so she asks him to watch her vicious rottweiler, Chopper, for the weekend.
What's My Name?: Episode 18, "The Key to Alex" (1992). Lowell is jealous of all his friends who have snappy nicknames, so he spends all day trying to come up with one for himself.
Tax Audit: Episode 18, "The Key to Alex" (1992). Roy is getting audited, and he's pulling out all the stops to try to fool the IRS, like claiming 26 children and calling a meal a "business lunch" because he told Antonio to ask him "How's Business?"

Season 5

Home Sweet Office: Episode 13, "Oh Give Me a Home Where the Mathers Don't Roam" (1994). When Joe and Brian ask Lowell to move out, he first sleeps in the terminal, and when Joe tells him he can't do that, Lowell sleeps in Joe's office instead.
Monkeying Around: Episode 18, "Moonlighting" (1994). Joe tells the gang a story about one off season when he had to take a job flying a famous chimp around the country.

Season 6

When I'm 64: Episode 4, "The Spark and How to Get It" (1994). When Brian's therapist tells him he's completely over Alex and ready to start dating again, he hits the Club Car to cruise for chicks and has a vision of himself at 60 years old, still doing the same pathetic routine.
Bad Hair Day: Episode 4, "The Spark and How to Get It" (1994). Casey can't afford her usual fancy beauty salon in New York, so Helen recommends her salon, "Yankee Doodle Scissors," but on the way there, she gets sidetracked and ends up getting a haircut from Lowell's cousin Beevo.
Limp Willy: Episode 8, "Miss Jenkins" (1994). Brian gets a date with his former English teacher, on whom he had a huge crush as a kid, but the awkwardness of being with "Miss Jenkins" causes "equipment failure" and he can't perform.
How the Mighty Have Fallen: Episode 8, "Miss Jenkins" (1994). Helen loses respect for the gang's old English teacher when she spends the night with Brian.
Hostage Situation: Episode 11, "Insanity Claus" (1994). When Antonio unwittingly eats the last jelly doughnut, Bob, an unhinged air traffic controller, loses his shit and holds Antonio at gunpoint and demands a jelly doughnut, so the gang has to figure out how to make a jelly doughnut appear without leaving the airport or calling anyone.
Mi Casa Es Su Casa: Episode 12, "She's Baaack" (1995). Joe's stalker, Sandy Cooper, comes back to Nantucket, and even though she has booked a hotel, Helen insists Sandy stay with her, even though she knows how much Sandy disturbs Joe.
Cherish the Cabin: Episode 13, "Have I Got a Couple for You" (1995). Joe says his friend Larry is going to let him and Helen use his cabin in Vermont for a weekend.
Happy Loving Couples: Episode 13, "Have I Got a Couple for You" (1995). Joe and Helen start hanging out with another couple named Gwen and Scott, and they're having a great time, but they suddenly stop hearing from their new friends, and they won't return their calls. When Joe and Helen catch them at the airport about to go on a trip, Gwen and Scott explain that they find Joe and Helen too needy, and they need some space.
Mail-order Bride: Episode 14, "Fools Russian" (1995). Roy ecstatically announces to the gang that he's getting married. When they ask how he met his bride-to-be, he says he ordered her through a Russian mail-order bride catalog.
Skin Deep: Episode 16, "Remembrance of Flings Past: Part 1" (1995). Joe gets a massive pimple on his nose just before his high school reunion, so Faye helps him cover it up with a makeover.
School Reunion: Episode 16, "Remembrance of Flings Past: Part 1" (1995). Joe, Brian, Helen, and Lowell go to their combined high school reunion and Antonio tags along because he's "a lonely, lonely man."
How the Mighty Have Fallen: Episode 16, "Remembrance of Flings Past: Part 1" (1995). Lowell meets up with his old shop teacher and mentor, Mr. Conley, who turns out to be insane, and everyone knew it but Lowell.
When I Paint My Masterpiece: Episode 20, "Portrait of the Con Artist as a Young Man" (1995). Lowell builds a shoe rack out of old car parts for Casey for her birthday, and Casey shows it to an art gallery owner from New York, who finds Lowell's "art" intriguing and offers him his own art show.
Murphy Bed: Episode 24, "Et Tu, Antonio?" (1995). Antonio's one-room apartment has a Murphy bed that doesn't always stay up.
Bachelor Party Gone Wrong: Episode 25, "Boys Just Wanna Have Fun" (1995). Brian, who is legendary for throwing wild bachelor parties, totally botches Joe's when he books the hotel room in Atlantic City for the wrong night, so they end up in a cheap motel that only has a beta player, the pizza delivery man gets lost, and the stripper is sick. The evening concludes with Roy, Lowell, and the sick stripper watching Terms of Endearment

on beta and sobbing.
Disarmed: Episode 26, "Here It Is: The Big Wedding" (1995). When Brian accidentally drops Helen's wedding ring into the toilet, Joe reaches in to retrieve it and gets his arm stuck in the toilet.

Homemade Wedding Vows: Episode 26, "Here It Is: The Big Wedding" (1995). Helen and Joe wrote their own wedding vows, and they recite them despite Joe having his arm stuck in the toilet.

Weird Wedding Venue: Episode 26, "Here It Is: The Big Wedding" (1995). Due to a bizarre set of circumstances, Joe and Helen hold their wedding in a bathroom.

Season 7

Witness Protection: Episode 4, "The Person Formerly Known as Lowell" (1995). Lowell witnesses a mob hit, and the murderer's lawyer makes it clear that if he testifies, he's dead, so Lowell accepts the FBI's offer to put him in the witness protection program.

Surprise Prostitute: Episode 5, "Hooker, Line and Sinker" (1995). Antonio is depressed because his girlfriend dumped him, so Joe and Brian take him to the Club Car, where he meets a beautiful woman named Heather, and they hit it off. As they're leaving, Heather tells Joe and Brian that her rate is $300 per hour. Unwilling to break Antonio's heart, they pay her, and they try to talk Antonio out of seeing her again.

Assertiveness Training: Episode 9, "The Big Sleep" (1995). In Joe's nightmare, Antonio starts listening to self help tapes that teach him to act like a jerk and demand everything he wants. He even demands that the plane "go up" when it's plummeting into the ocean.

Chain Letter: Episode 11, "B.S. I Love You" (1996). Antonio gripes about receiving a chain letter, then he discovers that Roy and Fay have already sent out 20 of theirs, and they've both come into good fortune while Antonio is having some of the worst luck of his life.

Poor Baby: Episode 14, "Bye George" (1996). Joe gets sick and spends all his time in bed whining and yelling at Helen to bring him things.

Weird Wedding Venue: Episode 14, "Bye George" (1996). Fay announces to the gang that she's going to City Hall to get married, and Helen insists they get married at her house instead for some reason.

Inappropriate Violins: Episode 17, "Lynch Party" (1996). In a flashback scene, Helen is about to tell Davis she's dumping him and marrying Joe when a trio of violinists come in playing "Isn't It Romantic?"

Not-the-mafia: Episode 19, "Driving Mr. Dcarlo" (1996). Antonio gets a job chauffeuring rich Italian man named Mr. DeCarlo, and when the gang hears about it, they convince Antonio that Mr. DeCarlo is in the mafia. Antonio confronts Mr. DeCarlo and finds out he's actually a diamond merchant.

Time Capsule: Episode 23, "Life Could Be a Dream" (1996). While the contractor is laying the foundation for Joe and Helen's house, Joe finds the time capsule he, Brian, Helen, and Casey buried 22 years ago, and it contains letters they all wrote about what they thought their futures would be like.

Jump: Episode 24, "The Lyin' King" (1996). The gang is writing their own eulogies to inspire them to live their best lives. After Roy writes that he was "adventurous" in his, he decides to go skydiving to make it true.

Dance Lessons: Episode 25, "Love Overboard" (1996). Antonio wants to make extra money by dancing with elderly women on a cruise ship with Roy, but he doesn't know how to dance, so Roy teaches him.

Season 8

FOMO: Episode 3, "Maybe It's You" (1996). Joe is seething with rage because he thinks everyone was invited to his friend Dave's wedding but him, and just after he leaves Dave a nasty message, an apologetic Dave shows up with Joe's invitation, which he had accidentally dropped under the seat in his car.

The Last Costume Left: Episode 6, "The Gift of Life" (1996). It's Halloween, and Joe waited until the last minute to find a costume, and all the store had left were Miss Piggy and Pinocchio, so he chose Pinocchio.

I Bought the Bar and the Bar Won: Episode 7, "Olive or Twist" (1996). Brian gets his insurance check for burned down house, and Casey talks him into buying an old diner and turning it into a martini bar, but the very first customer slips and falls on the floor, and by the end of the episode, he owns the bar.

Close Encounter: Episode 7, "Olive or Twist" (1996). A group of UFO enthusiasts predicts that aliens will visit the island, and no one believes them, but they turn out to be right when a spaceship lands on Nantucket.

Trapped: Episode 11, "All About Christmas Eve" (1996). It's Christmas Eve, and Helen, Fay, and Casey accidentally lock themselves in the basement of the department store where Casey is working a seasonal job as an elf.

15 Minutes of Fame: Episode 14, "Just Call Me Angel" (1997). While Joe and Brian are on a plane coming home from Las Vegas, the pilot, co-pilot, and Joe all get violently ill from a cheap dinner special, and Brian has to land the 747. When the plane lands safety, Brian is hailed as a hero and called "The Hero of Flight 28" by the press. As Brian's fame grows, he becomes too big for Sandpiper, and Joe becomes pissed off.

Security Arms: Episode 18, "Ms. Write" (1997). Helen feels nervous when Joe's on a flight and she's home alone, so they decide to install a security system. When Antonio finds out, he offers to install one for them, but his shoddy work terrorizes Joe and Helen with loose wires, laser beams, bright lights, and overly-sensitive alarms.

Pretend We're a Couple: Episode 20, "Heartache Tonight" (1997). Roy begs Joe and Helen to come to dinner at his house as a "buffer" when he introduces his girlfriend to his mother, but just before Mom arrives, Roy's girlfriend calls and dumps him, so he asks Helen to pretend to be his girlfriend to avoid upsetting his mother.

Raging Bull&@!: Episode 22, "Raging Bull*&@!" (1997). Joe and Brian end up facing each other in an amateur boxing match, and it causes tension in the family.

Character Tropes

Fallen Childhood Hero: Big Strong Man - Played by Robert Ridgley in season 5, episode 23, "Call of the Wild" (1994).