All in the Family

Archie is furious with his houseguest, Cousin Oscar. It seems when they were kids, Oscar bullied Archie and now Oscar is taking full advantage of his visit at the Bunkers. Archie wants to throw him out, but Oscar makes an exit of his own when he turns up dead. This leaves Archie left with the funeral arrangements which drives him up the wall after looking over the costs.

Mike's artist friend, Szabo, is coming to the Bunker's house for a visit. Archie is a bit perplexed for two reasons. First, he is Hungarian. The other is that he sketches models in the nude. Szabo gets a great idea that Gloria should pose in the nude for him (an idea Gloria is all for). However, Archie is dead set against it and Mike doesn't seem to have any problems with it. That is, until Archie's nagging leads to him having second thoughts.

Mike and Lionel are planning on attending a demonstration at the United Nations. However, the rally gets out of hand and news of it appears on TV. This worries Gloria who begs Archie to go down there and get Mike. Later, Mike and Lionel return with reports that protesters were arrested. Pretty soon, the family figures out that Archie has been mistakenly arrested and is trapped in jail with a group of radicals.

The family manages to collect $30 in the family pot and an argument ensues when Edith wants to use the money to set her lyrics for a song to music. Meanwhile, Archie is disturbed by robberies in the neighborhood and wants to use the money to buy a gun. They ultimately decide to go with Edith, but before Archie can return the pistol to the store, two robbers break into the house and hold the Bunkers at gunpoint.

Mike and Gloria are all excited about their first wedding anniversary and order take-out as a special dinner. Sitting around the dinner table, an argument ensues which leads to Edith recalling the day Archie met Mike. It seems that things even then weren't smooth sailing, however, the real bombshell came when Mike and Gloria also announced that same day that they were planning to be married.

A local election has the Bunker family in turmoil as Mike and Gloria are all for Claire Packer, a woman, which is exactly why Archie is dead set against her. However, once down at the voting booths, Archie soon realizes that he can't vote because he isn't registered, leaving it up to him to try to convince Edith to vote for his candidate of choice.

As she is walking out of the grocery store, Edith accidently dents an unattended car in the parking lot with a can of peaches. However, what infuriates Archie the most is how Edith leaves her contact information so she can pay for the damage caused. As a result, Archie and Mike get into an argument over how honest people are in the world.

The Bunkers are having problems with their furnace which gets Archie entertaining the idea of possibly moving to California. When an unscrupulous black real-estate salesman, Mr. Byrd, offers Archie a hefty sum of money for his home, Archie is all for it despite Mike's warnings that Byrd is a blockbuster (someone who persuades white home-owners to sell by appealing to the fear that minority groups will move into the neighborhood causing property values to decline).

Mike is all stressed out with upcoming exams leaving him impotent and frustrated. Gloria encourages him to discuss it with her, but he refuses. Gloria confides in Edith what the problem is, and in turn she tells Archie. This leads Archie to enter the situation, trying to give Mike advice, but this just makes matters worse

Archie comes home from work in a particularly awful mood because he has to make an important decision at work: whether to lay off a minority worker or a white man. His decision to lay off a Puerto Rican leads to an interesting visit to the Bunker household. To compound his stress, Archie learns that his insurance has been canceled when his neighborhood is redlined as a bad risk.

Archie comes home from work in a great mood and orders Edith to have dinner ready and waiting, because he has an important date to watch the CBS Evening News to see himself on it. Apparently, Archie was interviewed as a man-on-the-street voicing his opinions on Nixon's presidency. However, getting to see himself proves to be difficult for him, when the TV breaks down.

Edith has been running herself ragged caring for Archie, Mike and Gloria, who have all come down with a terrible flu. This prompts her to call on her extremely liberal Cousin Maude to come and stay with the Bunkers and help out. Maude proves to be salt in an already open wound for Archie, who has never liked Maude and vice versa.

It's Christmas Day and Archie is the only one not in the Christmas spirit. Mike and Gloria question him, but he refuses to reveal what's bugging him. The Jeffersons come over to wish the Bunkers a "Merry Christmas", but this does anything but cheer Archie up especially since Henry is dressed as Santa.

The Bunkers are celebrating Edith's birthday at an Italian restaurant in the city when Archie discovers that Edith failed to mail out a payment to the insurance company. This leads him to run across the street to drop it off. However, on his way he gets stuck in an elevator along with a pregnant Puerto Rican and her husband, an aging hippie, and an erudite black businessman

Archie, Mike and Gloria are stunned when Edith becomes a rollercoaster of moods, going from joy to anger to tears in a snap of a finger. Gloria sits her down and suggests that perhaps she's beginning menopause. This worries Edith, who becomes convinced that Archie doesn't love her and find her attractive anymore. Meanwhile, the family tries to cope with Edith.

A man shows up at the Bunker's door claiming to be a government agent and begins asking questions about Larry Grundy, a neighbor of the Bunkers. Archie soon becomes paranoid when he receives a phone call from a neighbor saying that Archie too is being investigated. As paranoia overwhelms him, Archie becomes convinced that he's being watched that perhaps the house is bugged.

Edith answers the door to find a woman on the stoop with a young boy. The woman casually mentions that she's dropping Mike's son off and promptly leaves. Edith now finds herself in the awkward position of explaining to the rest of the family where the boy came from. When he finds out, a stunned Mike doesn't know what to say, but does admit to Gloria that he had been intimate with the boy's mother.

Archie and Mike head down to the store to get some items and on the way out Archie witnesses a mugging. Archie doesn't want to get involved in the matter and refuses to tell the police what he saw. However, when he is forced to get involved, he embellishes his story, citing that the mugging was an attempted mafia hit.

Mike and Gloria go away for eight days to spend some time in a commune, leaving Archie and Edith to spend some quality time together. Archie and Edith settle down for a quiet game of cards but when she lets him win, Archie insults her and they get into a big fight. Edith refuses to forgive Archie until he apologizes.

Edith gets a package in the mail and discovers that it is a mink cape sent to her as a 'thank you' gift by her Cousin Amelia for Edith taking care of her after a surgery. When Archie sees the cape, he is furious (since he takes it the wrong way) and demands that she give it back. However, that's when the cape is ruined in an accident and Archie sees a chance to make a three-hundred-dollar profit.

To get some extra cash, Archie has gotten a job driving a taxi for Bert Munson. Archie is in for a big surprise when one of his passengers turns out to be Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy inadvertently leaves his briefcase behind and arrangements are made for him to retrieve the briefcase at the Bunker house. As usual, Archie's ignorance and bigotry are full force as he nervously awaits Sammy's arrival.

One Sunday afternoon, Archie comes home from the laundromat in fury. It seems that he overloaded one of the machines causing the machine to eat his clothes and cause a flood. The irate proprietor of the laundromat, soon stops by the Bunker home to get Archie to pay for the damages but Archie refuses. Soon Edith is called in to act as judge to decide who is at fault in the matter.

Gloria is reading over an old love letter that Mike had sent her. This leads to a conversation between Gloria and Edith concerning an old flame of Edith's with whom she once spent a weekend. However, when Archie hears of Edith's supposed innocent weekend, he hits the roof and demands that Edith not keep any secrets from him.

Edith's cousin, Maude, invites Archie and Edith to the wedding of her daughter, Carol. However, Carol and Maude are not looking forward to Archie, since the man she is marrying happens to be Jewish. Later, the men and the women have their respective bachelor and bachelorette parties, but a grumpy Archie decides to stay in the motel. Meanwhile, Carol realizes just what her fiancée envisions as married life.