Sue tries out for show choir with disastrous results. Frankie desperately tries to close a sale with disastrous results. Brick has trouble relating to his teacher with odd results.

Payments delayed until 2009 come due just as the dryer breaks, Sue needs glasses and Frankie comes within a jelly bean of losing her job. Sue tries out for the swim team with disastrous consequences but a tornado brings good fortune.

Mike gives daughter Sue questionable advice on handling a crush. Mirroring Newton's laws, growing Independence by Axl and Brick are balanced by codependency by Frankie's aunts. Assured the world won't stop without her, Frankie takes a fifteen minute break, and the world falls apart.

Socially indifferent Brick didn't bother to protest when classmate Olivia declared him her boyfriend, but soon tires of her 'romantic' demands to the point of despair. Alas, Axl's advise doesn't cut it and Mike is no match for the possessive, selectively deaf mini-bitch either, but Brick's brain ultimately finds a way out. Eager to see Sue succeed at something, both parents invest ludicrous effort in helping her win a place on a cheap bus trip to nearby Indiana by selling $3,000 food for the school. When her name is absent from the winners list, teacher in charge Perez is not allowed to 'get away with his error', nor with vague promises until it's too late anyhow. Only once Sue is aboard, non-assertive bad example Frankie discovers the real error, with twisted consequences.

Frankie is caught in the middle when Axl accidentally breaks down the front door, and Mike insists that he fix it - which could leave the Heck house wide open for days. Meanwhile, Frankie must sell a car within a week or be forced to wear a dog suit outside the lot, and it's school picture time for Sue, who has never had a flattering photo taken of her.

The Hecks' Thanksgiving plans are thrown into a loop when Mr. Ehlert makes her work a shift at the car dealership on Thanksgiving Day.

Mike gets a pool table so that their house can be the "fun house" in the neighborhood, and Frankie's job could be in jeopardy when a motivational consultant visits Ehlert Motors.

Frankie becomes distressed when Axl gets back together with Morgan one more time and she begins telling him what to do again, while Brick struggles to take care of a baby chick.

Frankie plans to get ahead of the game with her children's school needs, but winds up failing miserably.

Mike encourages Brick to take an interest in football right before the Super Bowl, Sue and Brad enter a square dancing competition, and Mr. Ehlert invites Frankie to a "management seminar," which turns out to be his colonoscopy.

Mike gets the unwelcome task of signing up to volunteer at Brick's school because Frankie is stuck at work, while Sue blackmails Axl to get free rides around town for her and her friends.

Frankie contemplates a new career after Mr Ehlert lets her go, Sue mentors a popular freshman girl, and Mike considers punishing Brick for his rudeness.

Dr. Ted Goodwin is livid when he doesn't peanut brittle that Brick sold him for a school fundraiser, and the Heck household is visited by a creature of the night.