Family Ties: Season 3

When Elyse has a convention speech in 'fascinating east coast resort' Atlantic City, she didn't plan to waste any time and money gambling, but Alex is dying to get his mathematical system tested and Steven makes sure they stay in a casino and play a few hands of blackjack. His luck runs out very soon, but Elyse has enough to win big with Alex's system. Of course casino lucks never lasts, yet when losing she's already hooked. When Elyse returns from her solo last run, she surprises the family with both results and conclusions.

After Steven was looking forward to a weekend camping with the kids, only Jennifer volunteers to forgo urban comforts; Alex can't be bothered, and Mallory can't live without - well, her whole room's contents. Elyse stays home, as she's behind with work and feels miserable, though she just got a clean bill of health after a medical checkup. Skippy turns up, having been invited for dinner by wicked Mallory, and manages to stay for breakfast. Then Elyse's doctor calls with vital news she had presumed impossible; she is as thrilled as surprised, but isn't looking forward to telling Steven he's going to be a dad again. To make it even harder, the camping trip fell through in heavy rain due to Mallory chucking out the tent for her makeup table, so Steven's mood is thundery - yet he soon warms to the idea. Now the parents-to-be-again must tell the children, who have a dauntingly realistic view of the practical price they'll all pay and various objections, while none of them wants another sibling of the opposite sex.

It's a new academic year for the three Keaton kids. The girls are flippant about it, as every year. High school star Alex makes his entry at prestigious Leland University, overconfident so he puts his foot in his mouth answering professor Ephraim Bronski's rhetorical question whether free speech is an absolute constitutional right. Alex trusts his elaborate paper will more then make up, only to find his plain mate Doug gets the A he expected, he his first-ever, ineffable F: traumatic enough to consider dropping out of college, or at least out of constitutional law. However Bronski had a more inspiring view on Alex's failure...

Jennifer is delighted at the return of Scotty, a neighborhood boy and her garden ball sports friend from a few years ago, who has meanwhile turned into a handsome 17-year-old - according to Mallory, 'grown into his ears' - but unfortunately, Scotty now seems irresistibly drawn to the dumb sister his own age; this leaves Scotty's true friend Jen practically ignored and literally forgotten, but she won't take Alex's word for that just being cruel nature, so she intrudes on the couple's restaurant date. Meanwhile, Elyse is eating like a bear, and Dad is determined to pick and put together a crib - although the blueprints daunt even Alex.

Alex wouldn't even considering working with dad Steven, a respected producer, at the local TV station, as it is non-profit - but when the last of Alex's applications with banks falls through, he accepts a job as a production assistant for lack of a better opportunity. Dad is proud as a peacock and happy as a clam to show off his prodigy; he has annoyed the staff about him, as very proud dads do, for years. Yet when a bank comes back with a job offer after a medical emergency, Alex writes a letter of notice which Steven doesn't get around to read until after a documentary production crisis, with Alex deciding to stay and help his father all night - a great opportunity for father and son to learn to respect each other while collaborating professionally.

For once, airhead Mallory impresses even Alex by being a really good salesperson in a clothes shop. When her parents decide that her bad grades are a result of too much time on her job, she's ordered to quit it, but Jen challenges Alex to convince them to give her another chance. Even though her dad realizes they're being scammed by a master, they agree to a deal: She can keep working if she scores at least Bs on her next three tests. Alex decides to prevent his honorable victory becoming hollow by tutoring her, and succeeds with two tests. However the last, in history, coincides with a clothes sale, and even his tutoring isn't foolproof in such a crowd; she scores only C-, but everyone feels she worked too hard to lose out anyhow.

Alex must take a humanities course at college even though he doesn't want to, so he signs up for the student helpline. There he runs into James, an old enemy. When the duo get stuck at the station with their teacher, they are told they can lock up. Alex soon realizes that he's bitten off a little more than he can chew when a troubled teen calls in with thoughts of suicide.

The parents are away for a few days, Alex is in charge but cares only for his date Monica, so he wants the girls out; Mallory 'drives' straight into a telephone pole, now they must come up with some $300 to pay for repairs. Alex decides to earn enough by renting out rooms with ocean views to traveling Leland sports game attendants, who certainly bid enough to make a profit on top. Skippy, who can't go home, is happy to stay as unpaid bellhop and sleeps on the floor like the girls, 'hotel manager' Alex gets the couch and can't resist to keep the sweet money flowing in. Then dad calls: he'll be home in a few hours. The guests even brought fellow Leland fans to celebrate their victory frat-style...

Alex is irritated when his friend Doug starts spending more time with his new girlfriend, and is stunned at their sudden engagement, even refusing to attend the wedding. Ultimately, Alex has to decide what the friendship means to him.

The Keaton parents have high hopes for the weekend, one of their last chances before the baby is born to spend some quality time alone with the same-gender kids, and prepare trips through memory lane. Alex politely pretends some interest in Steven's souvenir football, but eagerly throws a chess game in a minute as an excuse to run off to a potential girlfriend; even Skippy, now welcome, just wants a ride to the library from Steven, with no time for any other activities. The girls blatantly ignore Elyse's huge photo album and run off from their secluded cabin retreat to find some fun. But when Elyse calls home out of loneliness, she and Steven both pretend to be having a swell time.

Skippy is smitten with Mallory's friend Jane, and asks Alex to talk to her on his behalf. But when Alex learns he is the object of Jane's longtime affection, he finds himself getting involved with her, and hiding the truth from Skippy.

Steven gets depressed from interviewing frightfully inept candidates as housekeeper-nanny for the baby, such as a child-hater ad an ex-con. Alex is impressed with Karen Nicholson, regardless of lack of any vaguely domestic experience, even hires her on his own. Even with help from Alex and his sisters, who quickly take to her too, she's a household failure bordering on disaster, yet nobody wants to fire her for 'just' wrecking the house till it just gets too much for dad...

Alex is dead-set to be selected for the Alpha Phi Epsilon fraternity, snobs who fixate on prestige, power and money. He lies his way trough an initial interview with chapter officials Don Caruthers and Craig Duvall, but his trump card, a gorgeous though Mallory-dumb date for the party for preselected candidates, has to cancel. Clumsy housekeeper Karen, Alex's only alternative, says she can't help him. She would like to help him but just can't. Seeing how badly disappointed he is, she turns up as Alex's date, but clearly knows Dean Ian McCall, an alumnus, too well. She leaves, and later explains everything to Steven.

Elyse and Steven host a Lamaze class at their home. One woman who attends is not married and Alex becomes involved in helping her at the classes.

Alex likes Mallory's favorite aunt Gertrude 'Trudy' Harris for one reason: the pair of airheads regularly go somewhere together, out of his way. After such trip, Trudy gets a heart attack, Skippy helps rush her to the hospital but she doesn't survive. The Keatons hold her wake, but it gets a mixed crowd: Alex never canceled the garage sale. At the funeral, truly mournful Mallory makes a scene because the reverend's speech is fake, every detail wrong as he never met her...

Alex has a cold, but insists on working all night on his term paper on the Declaration of Independence - which he had used as an example to encourage his dad Steven, who out of inexperience has declined an invitation to testify before Congress in Washington on the funding of PBS. Alex 'wakes up' in a dream as a Philadelphia stable boy, with his uninterested mate 'Skipford', and they accidentally hear Thomas Jefferson turning down John Adams' request to write the Declaration, just because he would rather spend the night fluffing his wig. But Alex won't rest until he makes sure Jefferson does write it, on exactly the kind of paper and in the celebrated phrasing the brilliant student knows by heart.

The Keaton kids are utterly disgusted to have to participate every year in dad Steven's lame PBS telethon as his loving, fake-enthusiastic WKS family, without ever having been asked, and they don't even hide it anymore. The parents think the asking is the problem, so Steven poses the open question - but all three bail out instantly, Jennifer even without any excuse. After some prodding from adult strangers, who all enjoy the loyalty of Steven's colleagues' families, even Alex ends up caving in. A good luck card doesn't cure their guilt, so after Elyse volunteered to play guitar and sing, the trio turns up unexpectedly. However a totally unexpected Keaton has chosen this day for his early, absolute and hence more memorable debut.

While everyone is at Steven's PBS telethon, he is at home for plumbing issues. As Elyse sings on the air, she goes into labor. With snowstorm complications, Elyse gives birth at the television station as Steven races to get back in time.

Everybody else goes baby-crazy all the time, even Alex - who can see the next Richard Nixon and Mickey Mantle rolled into one bassinet. Losing her familiar place in the center of family pictures and seemingly being routinely ignored makes Jen decide she hates her new 'rival' Andy and turns childish again, which Alex correctly calls regressive behavior. The kid has healthy lungs, and a vocal volume which keeps everybody awake, desperately trying to sing him to sleep. An attempt to make Jen the center of family attention again is professionally cried apart by Andy and baby-mania.

Alex and fellow Leland student James Jarrett start up a joint tutoring business. Judging by the IQ of prospective tutees like William, who even needs to be told to go home, a fabulous market, but when both have an 'unprofessional' eye on Robin Green, the rivalry wrecks their cooperation as feared, apparently irreparably... Meanwhile Mallory wines dad has chosen a practical new car with more room for the baby but ugly 'like a fridge on wheels' and he bores everyone to tears with his reading the manual aloud.

Another row between Alex and Jen over the phone and another about Mallory abusing Alex's shirt make Steven and Elyse realize they desperately need more quality time. A restaurant dinner fails, neither can stop thinking about Andy and babies in general, she even burps the waiter...

Alex wants to come along visiting Grandma because she lives close to Lisa Tobin; Jennifer wants to come for the cable TV. Elyse makes Steven first drop by for a 'reunion' with another couple from their Lamaze group who had twins, and gets more visitors with, to the others' regret - or without, to their own regret - crying babies. Mallory stays home to work on a paper on the Louisiana Purchase (not about shopping, to her disappointment). Alex gives her permission to consult his 'archives' in the basement, but the trunk is too heavy, so Skippy comes down to help, but accidentally lets the door lock - so they're trapped (her version) or joined (his version) together all night. They finally come closer together, realizing they are both (birdbrain) outsiders.

While at the family home to help their mother sell the house, Steven and his brother argue over childhood issues. As they argue, they also mellow.