Ron and Rachel despair when Trevor claim to hate his new school for gifted kids.
When Trevor is late getting an essay written for school, he begs Ron to help him. Ron agrees, but then gets carried away and ends up writing the paper himself. When Trevor's teacher submits the paper to a citywide essay contest, and Rachel brags about the honor, the Aimeses decide that the best way to save face is to keep quiet - and hope Trevor loses. Meanwhile, Francine brings in a painting of a clown to spruce up the reception area, not realizing that Bruce as a morbid fear of clowns.
Ron is concerned about Trevor's soccer coach who is helping the team to win but is working the kids very hard. When Ron tries to talk to the coach, he quits and leaves the team coachless. Ron feels responsible so he takes over as coach with the attitude that ""everybody plays, everybody wins."" At first the kids love it, but after a five game losing streak, they decide it's time for Ron to go and that Trevor has to be the one to tell him. Trevor reluctantly fires Ron and the team goes on to win the championship, but Trevor learns that winning isn't worth hurting the people you care about. Meanwhile, Bruce vicariously enjoys the game as a team sponsor.
Trevor wants desperately to go to a weekend basketball camp but Ron and Rachel, feeling that they've been indulging Trevor lately, say ""no."" Trevor then discovers that underprivileged children can attend the camp for free so he tells the committee that he is poor and they admit him free of charge. However, when the camp counselor shows up at the Aimes', Trevor's scheme is foiled and Ron and Rachel hand down a very appropriate punishment. Meanwhile, Bruce's Jaguar gets scratched in the parking lot and when the security camera reveals the perpetrator to be Darby, she quickly promises to have Bruce's car detailed by a pair of gentlemen who make matters even worse; and Francine finally starts to enjoy her unmarried status.
While the Aimes play host to Ron's office Halloween party, Rachel confesses to Ron that she thinks she may be pregnant. Before she can get up the nerve to take a home pregnancy test, Emma - after eavesdropping on her parents - informs Bruce, Francine and Darby that her family is expecting a new addition... but the announcement may be premature. Also, Ron gives Bruce a lesson in humility when they go to a drug store to purchase feminine products for Rachel.
Ron hands over his priceless baseball card collection started by his grandfather, including an autographed Willie Mays baseball, to Trevor, who quickly runs out and sells thje entire thing for one of Shaquille O'Neal's shoes. Trevor feels badly, though, when he sees how devastated Ron is upon learning that the collection is gone. Trevor tries to buy it back but since the price has gone up one hundred dollars, he raises money by selling his friends the opportunity to stand in Shaq's shoe. He only makes enough to get the cards back so he asks an old man to pretend to be WIllie Mays and come over for dinner. Ron and Rachel know about the scheme but appreciate the effort by Trevor so they play along as ""Willie"" tells them about about in baseball. Meanwhile, while discussing their teenage daughter, Francine discovers that her ex-husband, Roger, is engaged to be married, which means she doesn't have to make any more alimony payments. However, when she and Roger end up in bed together, she fe
Trevor cuts class to go see a horror movie and afterwards sees Francine's new boyftiend, Dave, kissing another woman. Trevor wants to tell Francine but is afraid she will tell Ron that he cut school. Trevor finally breaks down and tells Francine on the condition that she not tell Ron. Fearing Trevor may become a chronic class cutter, Francine tells Ron anyway, but Ron can't punish Trevor without him finding out that Francine broke her promise. Meanwhile, trying to get into a prestigious orthodontic group, Bruce lies to Darby to keep her out of the office, and in her place he hires a militarily disciplined secretary who whips the place into shape — but then doesn't show up when the society president drops by for Bruce's review.
Ron gets angry at Rachel for opening his mail and tells her to respect his privacy. But when Rachel refuses to tell Ron her computer password, he becomes obsessed with finding out what she does on the internet. Ron and Bruce surf the Internet at the office and find someone who appears to be Rachel in a chat room called ""I'll Take Romance."" Fearing his wife is bored with their marriage, Ron tries to spice things up by recreating the night they met. When Rachel tells Ron that she was not surfing the net, they both realize it must have been Trevor using her password, and set out to teach him a lesson about the dangers of playing around on the information superhighway.
Wanting to enhance his reputation, Ron agrees to host a talk show for teens with problems. But he's the one with the problem when his hunger for notoriety in his field overtakes his better judgment, and ""Real Talk"" becomes not so real as reel teenagers with real problems pretend to be weirder than they are, and the show becomes a shrill, tabloid gabfest. When Trevor makes Ron admit to himself that doing a fake show is wrong, he quits, but decides to continue counselling the small group of teens.
After being tormented at the hands of Mrs. Gostchel, the office building's meanest tenant, Ron decides to take action, and presents her with a petition calling for her to vacate the premises and signed by everyone — even her brother. But the next morning Ron finds her still sitting in the same position in his office, still clutching the petition, dead. Will his guilt and depression move Ron to pay for the burial of the old witch's earthly remains? Ron is wracked with guilt and even thinks he sees Mrs. Gotschel's ghost. Then the building's security guard admits that Mrs. Gotschel died while having sex with him in Ron's office the previous night, and he propped her up to make Ron think that he caused it. Meanwhile, Rachel doesn't want to relive her experience as a professional basketball cheerleader. However, Ron urges her to try on her old skimpy uniform and attend a cheerleaders' reunion. She enjoys the party, but she realizes that she is content with her life as it is now.
Ron's father comes to visit with hopes of making up for the 20 years he worked instead of spending time with his son, but the unaccustomed togetherness soon wears on Ron's nerves. Meanwhile, after Bruce escorts Francine's daughter to a father/daughter dance. the girl begins to think that Francine and Bruce might make a good couple.
After being picked on once too often by the school bully, Trevor enroll sin martial arts classes, then gets in trouble at school for apparently looking for reasons to use his new-found skills. Meanwhile, Bruce tries everything in his quest to get inside information out of one of Ron's patients, a girl whose father is CEO of a major corporation. But, after acting on a tip that could put him on easy street for life, Bruce finds out the girl is a compulsive liar.
Francine's perfect, preppy nephew Brandon stops in for a visit before entering Harvard's pre-med program, and falls hard for Darby, who introduces him to a completely new side of life. But will the 4.0 student really give up medicine to become a waiter-trainee at Crabby Crab? Instead of partaking in his favorite intellectual activities, Brandon starts doing silly things with Darby like entering a cheese-steak eating competition. Then he announces that he wants to leave his prestigious university and move in with Darby. But when Brandon gets a low-paying job and assumes that Darby will marry him, Darby ends their relationship. Distraught, Brandon threatens to leap off the building ledge. Before he can reconsider, he slips and falls off, breaking his leg. He finally leaves Darby and returns to college. Meanwhile, the Aimes get the results of Emma's entry test to the school for gifted children Trevor attends, but the results are not quite what they expected ... or what they seem. When Emm
Rachel convinces Trevor to act on his feelings for a secret love, not knowing that the woman Trevor pines for is Darby. When Darby receives an anonymous love letter, Ron realizes to his horror that Trevor is enamored with Darby. Ron and Rachel ask Darby to kindly reject Trevor, but she unwittingly makes him think that she will be his girlfriend. She finally tricks him into ending the ""relationship"" by acting very possessive and irritating. Meanwhile, Bruce tries to get up the courage to break off his relationship with Amy, a beautiful woman he finds annoying, selfish, and greedy. To stop her from crying, he buys her a car and expensive presents and even lets her move in with him. After observing Trevor telling Darby that it's over between them, Bruce gets the courage to do the same.
Francine and Bruce travel to California for a medical convention, where they are forced to share a room. Will their living arrangemennts encourage romance? Meanwhile, a nervous Rachel objects when Ron hires a rough-looking teenager, Bam, to tutor Trevor in math.
Trevor decides to run for class president to help establish himself socially at his new school. When he and Julie, his campaign manager, stop by Ron's office, they see Andy, Trevor's opponent, leaving after a session. Although Ron makes Trevor promise not to smear Andy's public image by telling people that he sees a psychologist, word somehow leaks out, and Trevor wins the election. Did Trevor have a hand in dirty politics? Meanwhile, Darby discovers to everyone's astonishment that Francine once dated a rock star.
After being mugged at gun point in the parking lot, Bruce goes off the deep end trying to protect himself from another attack. Although he is afraid to step forward and identify his attacker to the police, Ron, Francine and Darby convince Bruce to do the right thing. But when he ends up fingering the wrong man, the accused shows up at the office to exact revenge. Meanwhile, Rachel finds a girlie magazine in Trevor's room and she and Ron try to explain to Trevor why the magazine isn't appropriate—only to discover that he purchased it for the articles.
In hopes of convincing affection-starved Joanna, the only female in his three-member teen therapy group, that having a baby with one of the guys is a bad idea, Ron enlists Rachel and Francine to help him throw them a pre-baby shower. Meanwhile, after damaging a tooth, dentist Bruce reveals a long buried secret — he's afraid to go to the dentist.
Ron and Francine think Bruce's plan to marry a Canadian model he just met so that she can stay in the country is ill-conceived. But when he seems genuinely happy after the wedding, they begin to think the marriage might have a chance - until Bruce confesses that his loveless marriage with a gorgeous trophy wife is not as fulfilling as he had hoped.
It's Christmastime, and Ron and Rachel decide to limit the kids' gifts in hopes of making the holiday less materialistic. When Trevor finds out his friend Julie has run away from home, he hides her in the basement. While taking care of his friend, Trevor fails to complete his gift to Emma, which upsets Ron and Rachel until they find out the reason. After Ron helps Julie reconcile with her father, the Aimes praise Trevor for knowing the true giving spirit of Christmas. Meanwhile, Bruce spends the day helping out at a soup kitchen in order to impress a beautiful woman, who he later learns is a nun, and Francine decides to spend the holiday alone because she misses her daughter, who is spending Christmas with Francine's ex-husband.