Gimme a Break!

In the series premiere, Samantha comes home with a black eye, and Nell teaches her a few skills on how to fight. Julie an her friend are studying on where babies come from, and as the cheif comes home, he walks into the kitchen to find them kissing. Simpson then arrives at the house with Katie, who was picked up for shoplifting, but wasn't arrested. Katie has been actin like this because of the recnt death of Margaret, her mother, and the cheif and her make amends in the end.

Nell and Angie go to a bar to meet guys. However, Nell gets sad that she isn't admired by any of the men. She then goes home and the Chief decides to fix her up with one of his officers. What he doesn't know is that the officer is just doing the Cheif a favor so he can get a better job position. The Cheif throws the man out and tells Nell what happened when she comes out ready for her date. Nell realizes he wasn't interested in her because she is overweight. Angie then shows up and invites Nell out and she accepts, even after being rejected by the officer.

A woman accidently hits the cheifs police car, because her contact lense came out as a moth sat on her face. When she meets the cheif to tell him how sorry she was for smashing into his car, she realizes the two went to Franklin High together, and she was a cheerleader, while the cheif was a professional football player. The two hit it off, and begin dating, and Samantha is sad because she doesnt want a step-mom. In the end, when Marion wants to sleep with the cheif, he hastily rushes out of her apartment and knew he could not go trough with it because of his love for his dead wife Margaret. However, Nell tells him thathe does not have to worry and that Margaret would have wanted him to move on.

A woman with a perfume gift for Margaret on her birthday shows up, learning that Margaret is deceased. When the Cheif comes home, he is upset because it is Margaret's birthday and she died 6 months earlier. He decides to take the family out to dinner at a Mexican restaraunt, but when the mariacci singers sing ""Happy Birthday"" to a woman named Margart, the family begins to feel sad again. Nell decides to get out the family home movies to which the Cheif objects to, but in the end is happy seeing Margaret the way he remembered her.

Nell decides to hold her PORKO'S meeting at the house, and when she gets on the scale she gets mad because she gained two pounds. WHen the Cheif comes home he is disgraced by the group and has a bad case of indigestion, forcing him to stay on vebetables for the next three weeks. However once Nell and the CHeif begin their diet, the Cheif insists on sampling her lasanga, and then they go on an eating bindge. The next moring when they wake up, they cant believe how crazy they were to eat so much in one sitting.

When the Cheif finds a man in Nell's room, he tells her he doesn't want her fooling around with guys in the same house as his teenage daughters. Nell decides to quit, and moves in with Angie for one night. The Cheif tries to adjust to Nell not being around and everything goes awry with the turkey being thrown through the front window, and the clothes shrinking in the wash. In the end, Nell gets fed up with staying with Angie and decides to come home, to which the family is overjoyed having her back.

While Nell is on the phone with Angie, her phone dies out and a second later a man from the phone company takes the phone away. She gets fed up and goes to the phone company to get it back, claiming that she did pay her bill, but the man there (Mr. Swackhammer) says that the computer called her ""Ms. Fong"", and that she is behind 3 months on it. She gets really aggrevated and pulls the phone out and ends up in Jail, where Simpson acts as a person with no typingt skills at all, jotting down Nell's info. Nell calls Hamilton Storm, Glenlawn's news reporter, and he flies to the scene, reporting that Nell had been wrongfully accused of not paying her phone bill. Mr. Swackhammer then gets a call from his boss, telling him to drop the charges on Nell, and Nell is let free. Nell is then rewarded with a bunch of new phones for the house, and installing them is Mr. Swackhammer, the new ""Telephone Installer"".

At the bowling alley, the Cheif meets up with Maxine, a prostitute who is used to nail bad cops. When Ed meets Carl at the bowling alley, he introduces him to Maxine and the two hit it off. When the Cheif finds out that Ed and Maxine moved in together, he tells Ed that he will not have his brother living with an ex-prostitute since she has decided to retire from the business. In the end, Ed stands up for himself and Carl accepts his brother and Maxine living together.

Katie and Julie go out on a double date as Samantha tells everyone to make room for Debbie Jo, an imaginary friend of hers. The Cheif thinks she is crazy and talks to Nell about sending her to a shrink. When the thought of Debbie Jo gets too far, the Chief grounds Samantha and goes up to her room and pretends to beat Debbie Jo up and tell Samantha that he doesn't want to send her to a shrink. Samantha runs to Nell and says she hates her father and then tells Nell that Debbie Jo is her only true friend and that no one plays with her anymore since Julie is now dating and has no time for her anymore. Nell tells Samantha to tell Debbie Jo she has to leave and she agrees. She puts her inside of her Jewelery box as she says a tearful goodbye to her and tells her that her mom's picture will watch over her that she keeps inside of it. Nell comforts Samantha who is finally over Debbie Jo.

When Grandma leaves to go see her sick sister who is about to have an operation, Grandpa is sent to live with the family for a few days. When he shows up he is nothing but trouble, as he wakes up in the middle of the night, bangs a bag of ice cubes on the counter to crush them, causes the garbage disposal to go insane, spies in on a neighbor's backside, and makes Nells puzzle fall the floor, only to vaccuum it up and wake everyone up. Nell gets mad and tells Grandpa that he is causing nothing but noise. When the Cheif tells him to stop doing the things he is doing, Grandpa leaves and goes to the mortuary. In the end, Nell shows up and tells Grandpa to come home and that she was sorry for acting the way she did to him.

Katie's friend, Valerie shows up at the Kanisky house with her new baby David. She tells the family that she and her husband Jonathan broke up since he left her for a bleached blonde lady at ""Kentucky Friend Chicken"". Valerie is serious about putting Dvid up for adoption, since she doesn't have a job to afford his upkeep. Nell and the girls take Valerie shopping for baby supplies and leave David with the Cheif, who grows attached to him. When the girls return home the Cheif tells Vallerie that they would have to kill him first before he lets her put David up for adoption and that the family will help her find a job. Nell then takes Valerie to a job interview to become a receptionist and uses her keen sense to drive off fellow competators for the job. In the end, everyone is glad to hear that Valerie got the job and can afford to keep David.

Nell hosts another one of her PORKO meetings at the house, where the head of the weight loss group shows up. When he arrives, the members of the group mock him for gaining all the weight he lose back. He tells them he is sorry and leaves. Shortly after Nell gets a phone call from him and realizes he is about to jump from the 13th floor of his hotel. Nell and the other members go to the hotel and get in the elevator but it stalls due to everyone insdie of it together. The elevator then safetly makes it's way back to the bottom floor as Nell takes the stairs and the PORKO members take the elevator. In the end, Nell talks the Dr. out of jumping off the balcony and everyone agrees to lose 2 pounds a week and stay on their diets.

Julie wants to meet Andy Gibb and goes to see him after Nell lets her go, despite the fact that the chief grounded her, only to be found asleep outside his hotel room. When Nell brings Julie home, the cheif sees that she has been out, knows that she disobeyed her, and plans to arrest Andy Gibb and his group. However, Julie tells him that she fell asleep waiting for him, and the chief forgives her.

Nell falls for James Roland, a former member of her weight group , who continues to go to the classes on weight loss. He is impressed by Nell's determination to lose weight, yet Nell seems to think he is in love with the aerobics instructor Vanessa. When Nell decides to binge and pig out on food, Vanessa calls James for assistance. When he shows up at the house she tells James that Nell is in love with him. He asks Nell out and she accepts. However, in the end the Cheif wants a break on his taxes and since James is in that business, he helps the Cheif out. All goes well until Nell sees his tax return form that accideentlly ends up misplaced in the Kanisky livingroom and finds out that James is married with three children yet still loves Nell. Nell throws him out and shuts the door, telling him she is still going to go to the weight group each week.

Katie becomes involved with a college professor at Glenlawn Junior College who is much older than her. Nell begins to get upset at the man, when Katie intruduces him to the family, and she gets mad at Katie as well, knowing that he is too old for her. When the Chief finds out that Katie is seeing him, he objects to it, and grounds Samantha for sticking up for Katie. In the end, Katie decides not to see the college professor anymore, to save her relationship with her family.

Katie practices her jazz routine to ""Maniac"" for a show that will be taking pace soon in Glenawn. As the family is getting ready, rehearsing for the show, a boy named Joey comes by collecting for Jerry's kids. The family falls for his act, and as he leaves, Simpson says he is a con artist. Joey Donova is his name, and his Uncle Jerry dropped him off and left him in Glenlawn, because his dad Tim is at sea. The scial worker tells the cheif that Joey will stay with the family over the weekend and will be placed in a foster home shortly. Nell then looses control of Joey, and he escapes, taking her money, and goes to the bus station. However, Nell finds him, drags him home, and doesnt know what she is going to do with him.

Joey goes on a hunger strike and says he is not going to an orphanage. Nell then lies to Joey and tells him that she made a friend of a man whose window she broke years ago when she was a child. Joey beleives her, and knows Nell is not a lier, like many adults he knows are. Nell then tells the Cheif he owes her, and she deserves to take Joey in as her foster child. The Chief objects, but Joey tells him he is right, and even himself wouldnt want him as a foster child. The Cheif's feelings change, and Joey is accepted into the family as their foster child

The Mayor of Glenlawn falls for Nell, who wants nothing to do with him. He tells her that the cheif will get his new patrol car if he gets her. At his condo, she seduces him, and he tells her she is coming onto him. She tells him that he treated her wrong, and he appologizes, and tells her he will see her at the ceremony when he donates the patrol car to the cheif.

Nell and Joey go to New Orleans where Nells sees a man she hant seen in 15 years. The two take Joey to the World's Fair, and when they go to visit a jazz club, he proposes to her. She is baffled by his proposal and doesn't know what to say. As this is happening, a man is watching Joey in the jazz club. When Joey finally sees him looking at him, he goes to Nell and tells him he thinks that the man is his father. The man happily says ""Joey"" as Joey says ""Dad"", and the two embrace, as Nell stares in shock.

Joey and his father reunite, and he takes Joey on a day at the World's fair. He then asks Nell if he can have Joey sleep on his boat, which she agrees to. In the morning, there is no sign of Joey, and Nell finds out the boat went back to Gnome Alaska. She and the man that asked her to marry him quarrel, and she madly accepts his proposal, but then ditches him in the end. As she walks along the boardwalks in New Orleans, desperatly thinking of Joey, he returns to her, and says he went to the hotel but she was gone and he looked all over for her, and the two reunite in a hug.

Nell gets the bitrhday blues at turning 33. Addy is mocking her as the two are going on a cruise for singles 18-32 years old and she can lie about her age. When the two return home from dinner, the family surprises Nell with a cake and tell her that her birth certificate says she was a year younger than expected. Nell is overjoyed, but Addy is mad, since Nell is now doing what Addy did to her by mocking her about her age. In the end, the kids tell Addy they lied just to make Nell happy, and Nell is accepting of the news, although still wishes she was younger.

An old Polish man finds Grandpa and forces him to marry his daughter. He finds out that Grandpa was the man that came over on the steamship Krakaur in the early 1900's, and that he and his daughter did the hanky panky together. When Nell meets the man's daughter, she tells her that she doesn't care about Stanely, and that she is afraid of her father. When Nell brings her to the house, she finally faces up to her father, tells him she doesn't want to marry Stanely, and says she is in love with an Italian man.

Sam is in love with a boy who just happens to be a big heel. He borrows money from the whole family, and when Nell tells him to leave the house, he and Sam decide to run off. Nell is shocked to find out that Sam's love Jeffrey had left her on the beach and had taken all of her money. Sam sears to never love again, but Nell tells her it will only be her first love and there will be many more.

Nell and Ray Parker, Jr. have a difference of opinion over giving CPR to a fallen man. When the man dies, Nell and Ray decide to give a show for his wife. What they didn't know was that he was a gangster.

Nell is sad and doesnt want anyone to remind her of the Cheif since he pased away. Joey recives part of a toy train the Chief gave him, and puts it in the Cheifs room. Nell get mad when Jonathan insists that he and Julie move into the Cheifs old room, but gets extremely mad when Joey plays with his train in it. Grandpa says that Carl would have been happy that the family is still together, bringing him up in their daily discussions. He says that they all loved him, and that it's not right to not talk about him, because he was loved by them. Nell then changes her mind and lets Joey keep the train in the Cheifs old room, and lets Julie and Jonathan move into it.

Nell decides to take her ex-husband's offer up on performing on his ship. While she is on the ship,she finds out that Tony has left his second wife, who is many years younger than Nell.

While continuing to perform on Tony's ship, Nell discovers that he has fallen in love all over again with a woman that Joey befriends on the ship.

Joey is saved by a man from being hit by a bus, and when the man tells his family that he is from another planet, everyone but Nell believes him. The man says he is from Zoron, and that he doesnt have a last name, and is known as ""cute"". In the end, the man leaves, and the family still beleives he is from another planet.

Nell finds out Addy was given a teaching job as the a Dean at Columbia University by a professor she despises and thinks is tricky. Nell and Addy get into a fight at her goodbye party, and Nell does not want to say goodbye to her. However, in the end, she decides it's the best thing to do. She goes to Addy's apartment to say her goodbyes, but when she gets there she finds Addy unpacking, only to hear that the profssor is tricky and selfish, and was only pulling her legs about getting the job on New York.

Jonathan leaves on his archeological Mexican dig project. In the meantime, back at the Kanisky house, Julie finds out that she is pregnant with his baby after she decides to go to enlist in the Navy and fails the test.

Samantha, excitied that she has gotten into Littlfield College in New Jersey, is let down when she recieves a letter in the mail, saying that the school cancelled her scholarship. As this is going on, Julie and Jonathan, the proud new parents of baby Nell, are finally moving to Bakersfield to have privacy for a change, and to manage the chalk factory, as Simpson helps them with the move. Nell then calls Addy, who says she will do all she can to make sure it was an error, and that Samantha will get her scholarship back. While Samantha is in despair, Katie arrives home one last time to have her laundry cleaned before she moves to SaFransisco, and tells Samantha to come with her and she will give her a job there. When Simpson arrives for another load of Julie and Jonathan's belongings, Nell tells him she is losing her girls, but Simpson tells her she will always have him.

Nell continues to talk Samantha out of moving to Sanfransisco with Katie. She then realizes that Samantha is still 17, and she has legal control over her still. Addy finally calls Nell and tells her that Samantha did get the scholarship, and that it was a computer error. An excited Samantha, decides that she is going to college afterall. Nell finally sees Julie and Jonathan to the front door as they say their goodbyes. Nell knows that the girls are all grown up now, and that she has the house to herself.

Nell and Joey fly to New Jersy to move Samantha to her college living space at Littlefield College. While they are there, and New York is so close by, and Addy as well, who is now living there because she has gotten a job at a big University, they deicde to visit her and see how she is doing. Nell is surprised that Addy has a basement apartment, in which the view consists of being able to see tiny dogs and peoples feet who walk by. Nell gets furious when the construction workers outside maske noise and she is not able to hear anyone, so she goes outside and gives them a kick on the leg. In the meantime, she is really worried about Samantha, who shows up in New York to go see a musical with a new guy friend of her's. As Nell is in the Bathroom, she hears Sam out in the livingroom, but the door is stuck. She kicks it down and Sam and her new firend go off to see a musical on Broadwat. Also, Joey is told that his father is in New York and has a big surprise for him. Joey is anxious and ho

Joey meets Matthew finally, and is mad that he has a little brother. Tim says that he has some matters to take care of and will meet Nell and the boys at a restaruant shortly. Nell and Addy then decide to take the boys to the park and they have a blast. As Addy and Nell sit and talk on a park bench, they realize that Joey and Matthew have disappeared and Nell calls the police. Joey and Matthew were taken to a museum by a police officer who tells Nell they are not fond of one another and are arguing back and forth. Later, the boys are fine, and everyone returns to Addy's, where Nell and Tim talk in private at Addy and the boys look at her computer. He tells her he wants her blessing so he can raise the boys in New York, now that he has a job there. He tells the boys and everyone deicdes to go out for pizza. In the end, Joey returns back in the apartment as Nell stays behind and finds out that she is not going to live with them and he cries. Nell tells him to keep her picture and she wi

Nell recives a letter from Joey in New York, telling her that he is fine, but she knows that Tim is not taking proper care of them. She returns to New York, where she ruins Addy's date with a lawyer, and tells her the two will get Joey back. She spies on him at the playground, and he sees her, and she tempts him with a big southern meal at Addy's Apartment. Nell finally agrees to become roomates with Addy and move to New York. When Tim shows up to pick up Joey, he tells Nell he wants to go back to sea, and as much as he loves his boys, he has no time to be with them. He offers her to be their full guardian, and she accepts.

Nell tries to get a job at a famous New York publishing company. She then decides to rent an apartment in Greenwich Village where she, Addy, Joey and Matthew move into.