Raising Hope

When well-meaning 23-year-old Jimmy Chance has a one-night stand with a wanted felon, he ends up being a dad to a bouncing baby girl. Inspired to do the right thing by his daughter, he has to convince his less-than-enthusiastic parents and great-grandmother to help him raise her.

Jimmy asks Sabrina's cousin to baby-sit Hope so he can return to work. Burt tries to persuade Virginia to quit smoking.

When Jimmy "teaches" Hope to crawl, the family must baby-proof the house and find new places to store their belongings. It's soon revealed that Virginia is a hoarder and has been saving junk in the storage shed, which becomes Hope's favorite new hiding place. This leads Virginia to realize that she may have to change her ways. Meanwhile, Jimmy makes frequent unnecessary trips to the grocery store to see Sabrina.

Jimmy is delighted when Sabrina accepts to pay him a visit. None of his family wants to help make a good impression, but she seems charmed by all their dysfunctional family quirks. Mother insists on explaining all the stressed misery caused by the annual Chance family pictures, as it's time for another with baby Hope, but accepts to let Jimmy take her place as organizer.

When Sabrina's boyfriend can't make it to the deli guy's Halloween party, Jimmy offers to put on his costume and go in his place. Virginia takes Maw Maw, who is dressed as a cat, trick-or-treating while Burt plots ways to play tricks on Jimmy.

When a box containing videos of Hope's mother arrives from prison, Jimmy must decide whether or not to let Hope see them. Virginia explains that children need to be protected from the truth, leading Jimmy to question what exactly his parents have been keeping from him.

When Hope catches a cold, Jimmy panics because the family does not have health insurance. Jimmy figures out a way to get a second job at Sabrina's grocery store so he can afford to take Hope to the pediatrician.

Jimmy decides to put Hope in an expensive daycare center, but meets an obstacle in the form of an old record from Burt's past, so the family decides to take matters in their own hands and deal with the law.

Instead of sleeping in and ordering pizza, per his normal Thanksgiving custom, Jimmy invites Hope's other grandparents, Dale and Margine, to join the Chances for a more traditional holiday dinner. The Chances soon realize that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree when Dale and Margine kidnap Hope, and it's up to them to get her back.

A washed-up rock star who is hired as the lead act at 'Grocery-Palooza', a rock concert at the supermarket where Sabrina works. Smokey was once Burt's musical idol, and Burt hopes to relive his rock-star years by playing backup for him at the concert.

Jimmy finds out about his father's annual Christmas scheme where he sells the most wanted toy for a lot of money, which always left Jimmy disappointed when he was a child. Virginia wants the family to be a part of the living nativity scene at their church to gain the respect of the members.

Jimmy hasn't had any time to socialize or make friends since Hope was born, so when he meets another single dad at the grocery store, he immediately sets up a play date. But when Jimmy finds out that Virginia is his new friend's housekeeper, Virginia insists that Jimmy cancel the outing. In an effort to keep the peace, Jimmy and his friend arrange a dinner at the Chance house.

When Sabrina points out to Jimmy just how many germs are lurking around his house, the Chance family becomes obsessed with cleanliness. Finding it impossible to keep Maw Maw clean, they move her to the backyard greenhouse, but after watching some old family movies, they discover a surprising secret that has kept them healthy all these years.

Virginia's cousin Delilah, who struggles to make ends meet, pays a visit to the Chance family unannounced, determined to claim her share of Maw Maw's - whom she thinks died years ago - estate. Further tension builds when Delilah admits she still has a crush on Burt. Meanwhile, Jimmy babysits Maw Maw and panics when she takes off on Sabrina's moped.

When Virginia and Sabrina discover secrets about each other, Sabrina blackmails Virginia into keeping her mouth shut. Meanwhile, Jimmy takes Burt to get a vasectomy after a family vote.

The Chances prepare to host once more Burt's cousin Mike, a hopeless loser even by their standards. Yet they find him a changed man, as neat member of a loony sect, one of Tanya's four 'brother-husbands'. Jimmy is inadvertently attracted by their neat, apparently harmonious 'fraternity'. Alas, Mike is 'divorced' and moves in whining and desperate, worse then ever. Burt has another confrontation with his brother Bruce, who wants help to get his son Mike back and gets it after explaining why he threw the boy out years ago.

The Chance family goes to see a lawyer to get their wills done, and Burt is insulted when Jimmy chooses Sabrina over him. Meanwhile, Sabrina is overcome with emotion by the news, while Maw Maw thinks mongooses are infesting the household.

Jimmy hopes gullible Sabrina's boyfriend Wyatt may be cheating on her in college, so he insists to go with her to Wyatt's frat's wild costume party, but conclusive evidence is perilously hard to find. In order to have contact with generation peers, Maw Maw goes to Dead Tooth's daycare. She falls for a man who also lives in the past, but that includes an affair with another crone, supposedly from his Korean War days.

Burt and Virginia sleep-train Hope; Jimmy's new girlfriend introduces him to a strange beverage that takes him on a frightening trip.

When Burt's flirtatious ways are exposed, the entire family begins to experiment with flirting. Jimmy and Sabrina compete to be Barney's favorite employee, Maw Maw gives away her treasures and Virginia is stalked by a coffee shop employee.

Supermarket branch manager Barney tells the team he lost out each year 'despite best ideas' in the chain's annual commercial competition, so now he wants Jimmy and his colleagues to compete for this year's submission, but flattery and considerations like fair-play and team spirit get in the way. As Hope's baby-phone accidentally tunes into a neighboring house's, ear-dropping Burt discovers Andrew is being grossly abused by his tyrannical, impossible to please wife Donna and wants to help. Virginia is reluctant to risk being seen as a nosy neighbor, but agrees to help by example, which proves harder then expected.

Jimmy doesn't mind at 23 sharing his birthday with Maw Maw, although it was hell as a kid, when she had lots of friends and he none. When he turned 18, in his impertinent Goth period (alias 'Drakkar Noir'), she 'finally' felt able to throw the Chances trio out of her home, so they had to grow up suddenly, seeking real job incomes supplemented by devious ways to skin the supermarket. Five years ago however, her mind went, so they got the house back with her as senile resident hazard.