Joan is home in Manhattan to be honored by an Off-Off Broadway Theater. Melissa and Cooper fly in for the event, staying at Joan’s grand East Side apartment. Joan is thrilled to have her family in town where she can rule the roost. Things get off to a bumpy start when Melissa tells Joan the airline lost her luggage. With Melissa scheduled for work meetings that day, she’s forced to search Joan’s fabulous closet to find something wearable.

Joan loves showing Cooper the Manhattan lifestyle. She takes the family to a famous ice cream parlor where they enjoy a backwards lunch (dessert first). They bump into an old friend, actress Sharon Gless, who remarks that Cooper has a real movie star look. This confirms Joan’s hidden desire to make Cooper an actor. The Rivers clan goes to see a Broadway show, “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”, and Joan takes Cooper backstage to meet the stars before the show. Cooper loves his visit, but Joan panics when he gets lost in the labyrinth of dressing, costume and prop rooms. She finds him just in time for curtain.

When Joan learns that the part of the young boy in the show is opening up, she plots to get Cooper to the audition behind Melissa’s back. If he gets the part, there’s plenty of time to tell Melissa before he needs to start showing up for rehearsals. The following day, while Melissa has meetings for her website “Shoparatti”, Joan gets Cooper an agent and the script for an audition that afternoon. Cooper agrees to do it if grandma will take him rock climbing – deal. At the audition, Joan turns into a stage mom, fighting with the other mothers. But the real fight happens moments before the ceremony honoring Joan, when Melissa finds the script in Cooper’s pocket. Melissa argues she is Cooper’s mother and is the only one who should make decisions about his future. Enraged, Melissa’s not sure how she is going to make a “doting daughter” speech at the ceremony, and Joan is panicked that Melissa will vent in front of fans and press.