Season 5 - Episode Guide

When Marie surprises the family with the news that she's treating them all to a two-week vacation in Rome, everybody loves the idea, except Raymond. Not willing to let his sour mood spoil it for the rest of the family, Debra, Frank, Marie, Robert and the kids go on their merry way and soak up the atmosphere, sights, smells and tastes of the city of love and try their best to ignore Ray. Meanwhile, Robert meets the girl of his dreams—she's stunningly beautiful, unbelievably sexy, and works in a gelato shop.

When Marie surprises the family with the news that she's treating them all to a two-week vacation in Rome, everybody loves the idea, except Raymond. Not willing to let his sour mood spoil it for the rest of the family, Debra, Frank, Marie, Robert and the kids go on their merry way and soak up the atmosphere, sights, smells and tastes of the city of love and try their best to ignore Ray. Meanwhile, Robert meets the girl of his dreams—she's stunningly beautiful, unbelievably sexy, and works in a gelato shop.

Ray and Debra lose their cool when Frank and Marie pull the ultimate unannounced visit to their home. Their untimely appearance sets off a series of events that becomes the "straw that broke the camel's back" with respect to Ray's relationship with his parents. Meanwhile, Debra tries her best to play peacemaker among the family members and to get Ray to reveal the true reason for his hostility towards his folks.

Robert finds himself in the most unlikely position of having to choose one of three women—girlfriend Amy, ex-wife Joanne, or Italian bombshell Stefania—to share the future with him. But when he tells Amy about his recent reunion with ex-wife, it all starts to come apart.

Ray accidentally kills Ally's pet hamster, so Debra insists that they must have a pet funeral. It gets very emotional when Ray realizes how much Ally has grown.

Ray's dreams of authoring a sports book get squashed when the publishing company takes a pass on it, just as Robert receives the good news that he is being promoted to lieutenant. The Barone family doesn't quite know how to react to this most bizarre of situations in which Ray has failed at something while Robert has succeeded. But worst of all, Ray doesn't know how (or if) he's ever going to get past this.

Ray is mortified when he meets a girl whom he dated 25 years earlier and believes he treated disrespectfully, and he's determined to apologize. However, when he finds out the real reason Elizabeth went out with him that night long ago, he regrets ever bringing up the past. Meanwhile, Debra demands that Ray give her an example of something he regrets, but incredibly he can't come up with anything.

Robert starts to date a 22-year old woman. Marie and Debra don't think it's right, due to his being 43 years old. Meanwhile, Frank is having a birthday where everything goes wrong.

While celebrating Thanksgiving, Debra discovers that her seemingly contented parents are really not very happy with each other.

Ray fears that he is going to come down with something dreadful after someone sneezes on him. When Marie hears that Ray is under the weather, she doesn't waste any time in coddling her younger son with homemade chicken soup, special treats, and intense TLC, and he laps up every second of it, much to Debra's disgust.

Ray buys Debra an elaborate Christmas gift in the hopes that she will be so impressed, she will let him go on a weekend golf trip with his buddies, but he doesn't count on the even more extravagant gift that Debra has purchased for him.

When Ray doesn't react to Debra's choking everyone makes fun of him so he tries to be more attentive in relative situations.

Ray gets to go to the Super Bowl and cover it for his newspaper. He brings Gianni but feels bad about not having brought Debra when he sees that all the other reporters brought their wives so he has her flown in and to prove that he wants to spend time with her he rips up the tickets to the Super Bowl.

When Marie blurts out an embarrassing incident from Ray's past, he can't figure out how she could have possibly known that information. That is, until he deduces that she must have read—and broken the secret code he used when writing—his journal. And in the process, his mother has learned about his most personal, and perverted, thoughts

Ray and Debra discover that they have nothing to talk about except the kids.

Ray is upset when he finds out that Debra signed up Michael and Geoffrey to play fairies in a school play.

Robert gets a surprise visit from Stefania, the woman with whom he fell head-over-heels in love when the Barones vacationed in Italy. Robert's excitement over having his beloved, and stunningly gorgeous, Stefania so close quickly gives way to annoyance when he is witness to a few of her idiosyncrasies. Meanwhile, Stefania's father, who has accompanied her to America, has his own change of heart with respect to his feelings for Robert.

Ray purchases a new state-of-the-art vacuum cleaner from an attractive door to door saleswoman, and it ignites a housekeeping war between Marie and Debra.

Tempers flare when Marie accuses Debra of not returning a borrowed canister that holds sentimental value, while Debra insists that she has already given it back. Debra is then horrified to discover that she does still have the canister in her possession, and with Ray and Robert's reluctant assistance, concocts an elaborate scheme to get rid of the evidence, rather than admit to Marie that she was right all along.

Debra becomes angry when Ray contributes $1,000, without first consulting her, to his friends' harebrained scheme to open a go-cart business.

Marie gathers Robert's ex-girlfriends, Amy and Stefania, and his police partner, Judy, together so they can dissect his character in an effort to help her better understand why her eldest son can't commit to a relationship.

When Ray realizes that his kids would rather spend time with their Uncle Robert than with him, he decides to do something about the situation. When Robert makes the observation that, as a parent, Ray finds it boring to be around his kids, Debra couldn't agree more. She then suggests that Ray follow Robert's example and to try to have more fun with his children.

Debra gets upset when she finds out that her parents have separated.

When Ray and Debra find Frank painting their house, they find out that Marie put him up to the job due to his retirement. But, when Frank paints it the color they don't like, Ray fires him. That's when Marie reveals the truth behind Frank's retirement.

As Ray escorts Ally to a father-daughter dance, he realizes how grown up and independent his daughter has become. As a result, he begins to recall the day, nine years ago, when the Barone clan welcomed her into the family, but not without incident.