I can swallow the rest of this crap but that is just too much

And then Ruthie totally went on to become a lesbian karate expert and sniper. The End.

While there is always some moral core that ties separate plot-lines together during the episode, the show largely focuses on how the family spies on and rats out one another.

Say the moral of the story is "Respect". Well, the typical plot could be something like Matt and his friend get disrespected at the local eating establishment. While Mary and Lucy team up to pick on some girl at school. Ruthie treats the dog poorly, so either mom or dad have to set her straight. Now, Matt comes in and tells dad about those nasty bullies, and Eric informs the police (Officer Mike). Simon overhears Lucy and Mary discussing how bad they felt about treating some loser like crap, and immediately tells Robbie, the ex-boyfriend living in the attic in the garage. Well, Robbie goes to dad's church and explains the problem using phony aliases ("I have a friend...etc...") to see what he should do. Meanwhile Ruthie is hiding in the closet while Matt and his friend discuss whether or not they should press charges against the ruffians who slandered them with "hate speech", and since this is Ruthie, you can rest assured that she'll end up using those words several times by the end of the episode. When Lucy comes in on Ruthie calling the dog a "nigger", Lucy realizes that words can hurt and goes tell Mary that they have to set things right with the dweeb at school. As a way to wrap things up, all these events will come out in the open during one of their famous "family meetings" and everyone will learn that one must respect our fellow man if we ever hope to survive this wacky world we live in!

Oh, and some time during the episode, Simon will probably get punked out by a family member, because he's a fucking retard and nobody likes him.

TL;DR While every episode is a very special episode, their flavor of christianity is so milquetoast that it takes a backseat to family shenanigans.

Don't forget, for some inexplicable reason, several bits of the twin boys baby-talking.

I always figured they had to be the kids of a producer or something.

Shot point blank with a pellet gun, give the guy a break

It would have been really funny if he had gotten shot again after coming out and saying "I'm fine".

Nah that kid went on to become chubby, tattooed and ghetto. This kid just has that look that was popular with t.v./movie kids back then: The penis hair cut (either tussled or not depending on if the kid is from the "streets"), kinda sorta has a fem scowl on his face every other scene ( cause hes got TUDE bitch!), and a nice suburban "urban" style of dress.

That woman makes it sound like the gun is the victim in the whole thing.

You talking about Joan of Arcadia? gah, that show had a high cringe factor. Wasn't she in the unaired Babylon Fields pilot?

You know what's the most shocking thing? That show was less preachy than this one. This one was fueled by pure paranoia from over protective parents.

For example from the Hallmark Channel forums 24-May-2010:

"Nobody does shows like TBAA, LHOTP, The Waltons, 7th Heaven anymore and that is so sad."

There's a lots of threads over there with people complaining about how 7th Heaven keeps gets getting put on and taken off, or bumped by that damn Martha Stewart.


In a surprising turn of sanity, most of the IMDb discussions seem to be lengthy endeavors to pick the most ridiculous scenes.