Annie feels abandoned on the day of her mother's funeral when her father bolts for home, Eric counsels a couple and Matt escorts Renee to the hospital after she goes into labor at the post-funeral luncheon.

The Camden kids learn hard lessons about race when Eric invites a black family to stay at the house after their church is destroyed in a racially motivated arson.

Annie and Matt are robbed at gunpoint; Mary wants a tattoo; Eric is told to fire the church organist; Simon and Ruthie have the chicken pox; Lucy runs for student-body president (as does Jimmy Moon).

Everyone's plans for a romantic Valentine's Day are interrupted when Happy, Simon's dog, gets out of the house and is hit by a car.

When Eric helps his friend Reverend Morgan Hamilton secretly meet up with his wife's ex-husband Kevin, they are shocked at the outcome that he's paralyzed from the waist down. While covering for the Hamilton's daughter Keesha, Lucy unexpectedly goes on a double date with them. Soon Annie and Mrs. Hamilton bust the girls when taking Ruthie and Lynn to the movies. Back at school, Mary clandestinely dates one of Lucy's classmates.

Lucy is spending the weekend at camp 'All By Myself'. It turns out everyone at the camp has to spend the weekend all by themselves without talking to anyone. Ruthie is angry with classmate Bobby Tripp because he keeps making fun of her since he accidently saw her underwear. Now, Ruthie decides to make him realize what he did was wrong by starting a war: Camdens vs. Tripps. The church's women group throws a baby shower for Annie. Eric and Matt have lunch with Morgan and John Hamilton. The manager of the restaurant doesn't serve Morgan and John their meal because he doesn't serve black people.

Eric defends a custodian named Rudy from Simon's school who claims to be hearing messages from God and is forced into early retirement through the school board. Annie wants to cut loose for the evening, and does so with other fellow mothers. Ruthie encounters a chimp living in the Camden's tree in the backyard, but nobody in her family believes her when she tells them about it. Mary stays up babysitting for the twins when the parent's are out, and is ditched by Lucy.

Eric and Annie desperately try to figure out how Mary managed to pay her credit card bill while the kids team up to throw them off the scent. When the parents vs. children game finally breaks down, drastic changes happen. After learning that Mary stole from the twins to pay her bills, Eric and Annie come to the heart-breaking realization that they must take drastic action to help their misguided daughter and to protect and preserve the family. The Camden's gather to confront Mary with their feelings of hurt and betrayal and their conclusion to send her away to Buffalo with ""The Colonel"" and Grandma Ruth.

When Eric and Annie learn that Morgan and Patricia Hamilton are facing a marital crisis, they draw on their own recent problems to stop their friends from making the same mistakes. Meanwhile, juggling her studies and planning her wedding leaves Lucy stressed, but when she confides to Kevin that she might quit school, he threatens to call off the wedding.

Also, Simon and Cecilia go to a G-rated film to try to avoid thinking about sex and get kicked out for making out. Ruthie tries to find Ben a new girlfriend because Mary wants to get back together with Ben and Ruthie doesn't want Ben to get hurt. Lastly, Roxanne decides to resign from the police department when she feels that her father was kicked out of the police department unfairly.