Seasons & episodes

Wanda explains to a disgusted Merle how Lila provides something that he doesn't, but when Merle suggests it's grounds for divorce, Wanda retires to the bedroom with him, leaving Lila alone on the living room sofa. Loretta orders Charlie's favorite pizza and puts on her shortest nightie, but Charlie rejects her in favor of a night out with Mac. A real estate agent tells Mary that he's been given approval by Pat's mother Mrs. Welch to sell the Gimble home. Mary invites Texas, Tiny, and Vernon over for a game of poker, and the evening turns into a total disaster when she spills employee secrets to Vernon.

Tom warns Mary that there's gossip at the plant about resentment brewing against Mary, who's trying too hard to break with traditions. At the plant, Texas is annoyed when Mary stops the conveyor belt to have coffee cake and a chat. Two cops visit the plant and grill Mary for information about Pat, who's still a fugitive. Merle's attempts to get close to Wanda are thwarted by Lila's presence. Merle intimidates Wanda into having sex with him.

Under orders from Mrs. Welch, Colonel Fleck arrives from the military academy to escort Little Garth back to school, which upsets Heather. The war between Mary and Cathy results in more casualties when it leads Martha and George into the mother of all married fights. Merle visits Mary and requests a very personal item of hers to help him get back his "force". Cops descend on the gypsy camp and arrest Cookie, but she remains a true friend to Pat. Zorrina feels that Pat is the son she no longer has, and Pat declares Zorrina the mother she never had.

Due to Martha and George fighting, Cathy convinces Howie that he should let her and Baby live with him in a platonic way while he romances her. Lila declares her love for Wanda and decides it would be better if Merle were out of the way. Loretta feels like a third wheel at the Capri when Charlie and Mac discuss Paul Newman and weekends in the wilderness. Mary receives an urgent phone call from Merle, who's deathly ill. Mary finds Merle unconscious and mistakenly believes that he's attempting suicide.

No one believes that Merle didn't try to commit suicide, and Clete shows up in the hospital to interview him. Mary attempts to get all the men in the plant to sign a petition for more pleasant working conditions. Catholic nuns arrive to escort Heather to their convent after receiving a letter from Mary, forged by Heather, requesting that she be taken in as a novitiate. Mary smuggles food to the gypsies who convince Pat to leave Fernwood with them.

After Wanda brings Merle home from the hospital, Lila blackmails her into not sleeping with him, insinuating that she could reveal their affair to voters. Later, Lila slips poison into Merle's vitamin capsules. Vernon visits Mary on the assembly line and after she insists the petition was solely her idea, he throws it in the trash can. Texas privately asks Vernon when their secret meetings will begin again. Charlie and Mac continue to bond at the Capri. Vernon holds a mysterious meeting of the Twilight Teachers of Truth, a white supremacist type organization. Disturbed by a lack of members in Fernwood, they decide to change their name to the Glorious Guardians of Good with Tom and Mary as their new image of all that's good and decent in middle-class America.

Vernon and the newly formed Glorious Guardians of Good (GGG) decide to change their outward appearance while keeping hate in their heart. Howie encourages Cathy and Mary to reconcile at the Capri, where Merle collapses again in agonizing pain. Lila adds more poison to Merle's pills. Raymond and Barbie agree to sow their wild oats before settling down together, but being macho is taking its toll on him. While making love on the kitchen floor, Tom and Mary spot a Peeping Tom through the doggy door. Mary is stunned at the identity of the peeper, who confesses that he saw Garth beating Pat and witnessed the accident that led to Garth's death.

Tom and Mary force the peeper to confess to Nat Dearborn that Pat was abused and Garth's death was accidental. After Wanda's confession that she kissed Merle and declaration that their situation is changing, Lila promises that she always gets what she wants. Pat prepares to leave Fernwood with Zorrina and Godza. During a drinking game with Charlie and Mac, Loretta admits that she's jealous of their friendship. Mary arrives at the gypsy camp with news that Pat is being cleared of murder charges, but Pat still has to decide whether to stay with her old life or leave for a new one.

Charlie reassures Loretta that it's just the two of them, but Mac interrupts with breakfast and a declaration that they're one big, happy family. Texas and Tiny give Mary the unwritten rules of assembly workers, and she breaks them. Howie reveals to Martha that he's an investigative reporter working on a story about underground groups. Mary pays a very crowded visit to Merle, Wanda, and Lila. Baby disappears while Cathy washes clothes at the launderette.

Mary and Martha argue about Cathy who arrives with news that she lost Baby. At the gypsy camp, Zorinna shows Godza the infant she snatched while tumble drying her babushkas at the laundromat. The Shumways lament their losses. Heather spies on Tom and Mary making out. Lila hides in the armoire in Merle and Wanda's bedroom and becomes enraged when the couple begin to make love. When Merle asks for one good reason why he shouldn't kick Lila out, Wanda soberly reminds him that she could destroy their lives.

Officer Malloy from the Fernwood police department questions Mary about Baby's disappearance. Howie unsuccessfully attempts to comfort Cathy. Vernon promises Texas that there are many unhappy families in Fernwood, and the GGG will happily give them a scapegoat for their anger. At Pat's disastrous welcome home party, Vernon surveys all the despondent guests intently.

At the plant, Mary and the men debate whether noxious fumes are a safety or grievance issue. Vernon invites Tom for an after-work drink to get to know one another better. Howie tries to interview an elusive Merle. Lila attempts to sabotage Merle and reminds him to take his pill, which she poisoned. Before leaving Fernwood forever, Pat shares a very heartfelt goodbye with Mary.

Grandpa Larkin asks Barbie to live with him. Vernon offers Tom and Charlie free lifetime memberships to the GGG. Howie tells Cathy that he's stuck in boring Fernwood and wants to track down the TTT. Loretta helps Mary write a song for the disgruntled workers, while Martha's one of the miserable housewives of America. George forbids Barbie from moving in but changes his tune when he realizes he needs Grandpa Larkin's social security check to help with the rent. At Wanda's dinner party for the Hartmans, Lila poisons a piece of pie for Merle, but Mary gets it mixed up and served to the wrong victim.

Mary and George convince Jess Davis to hire a depressed Martha as a part time bartender at the Capri. Cathy and Mary discover Martha's secret life as a thief. Wanda calls Lila's blackmail bluff, but Lila has a trump card: Wanda's personal diary. Vernon and Texas initiate Tom, Charlie, and Mac into the GGG.

Vernon tells Texas that they'll exclude George from the GGG until he's so left out that he'll come scratching at their door to be let in. Mary informs the family about Martha's kleptomania, a result of all her recent losses. Howie sleepwalks in frustration over thinking that the secret society he's investigating is in Austin. Lila demands that Merle convince the coroner to not perform an autopsy on Chief Nigel Quinlan, and after Wanda warns him that Lila's in possession of a personal diary, Merle's forced to comply.

Texas angers Vernon by bringing a stick of dynamite to the plant as part of a scheme to blow up a TV station because it aired Roots. Loretta and Mary decide to match make Mac and Lila to get Mac away from Charlie. Mary confides in George about Martha's problem. Lila meets Mac at the Capri and is disinterested, but Texas catches her eye. Wanda and Merle are stunned when they find that Lila has moved into their apartment.

Depressed over not being invited to the party at Mary's, George wanders Fernwood, seeking company from Grandpa Larkin and Barbie, Martha, Merle, and Cathy. Martha steals a lighter from a customer at the Capri and gives him $5 from the cash register. Wanda suggests that Lila get someone of her own, but Lila expects one to be a Jeeter. Tex passes out pink muumuus instead of robes as the official wardrobe of the GGG. George stops by Mary's kitchen and finds himself initiated into the GGG.

Vernon wants Mary to solicit Merle about the GGG, and Texas still has ideas about the TV station that showed Roots. Mary grimaces when George and Vernon talk guns. Howie is introduced to Vernon who warns him about the dangers of investigating secret societies. While the family keeps watch on Martha at the Capri, the wallet of a customer disappears. A rock bearing a threatening note smashes through Howie and Cathy's window. At the plant, Texas places a time bomb into a cardboard box.

Loretta offends Cathy while attempting to fix her up with Mac. Mac tells Loretta that he wants no part of a new romance since he's happy with her and Charlie. Texas presses Vernon about the TV station scheme. Tom reacts angrily when he finds Mary playing with Merle's toys and she tries to describe the nature of their childish relationship. Merle finds Lila entertaining Texas, and throws him out. Vernon offers to solve Mary's grievance about noxious fumes on the assembly line but secretly plans to do nothing. Texas loses his box on the conveyor belt, and the bomb detonates by Mary, George, and Tiny.

After an explosion rocks the auto plant, Texas admits to Vernon that it was the result of his bomb, not the noxious fumes reported by Mary. Howie receives a death threat warning him to stop his secret society investigation, and Cathy suspects him of being a virgin. Mary, George, and Tiny are trapped beneath the rubble of their collapsed work area. At the Capri, Lila shows Wanda's diary to Texas, but Martha swipes it. Texas and Vernon spot a convenient scapegoat for the bombing: Dewey, the auto plant's black janitor.

Trapped in the rubble of the plant, Mary asks George if he thinks she's good enough in God's eyes that she won't die. Loretta catches a distraught Merle praying for Mary in the Hartman kitchen. As Howie and network reporter Jud Thompson arrive at the scene of the disaster, Vernon says a clue's been found near the site of the bombing: an Afro comb used by foreigners and others of dark color. Lila uses Wanda's diary to blackmail Merle into appointing Texas as the new chief of police for Fernwood.

Vernon announces that a SWAT team has been called to rescue Mary, George, and Tiny from the rubble. After seeing Mac in action, Cathy decides that maybe "bigger" is her type. Merle attempts to reign in Tex's unorthodox police methods such as dismissing Cathy's claim that a dangerous right wing group is threatening Fernwood. At the Capri a distraught Tom and Martha talk about how different things could've been if they'd been more supportive of George and Mary, and they fantasize a life where George dances the tango, and Mary is a star chanteuse.

Mary, George, and Tiny laugh at George's suggestion that they're all going to die. Tom barges into the Jeeter apartment raging against Merle for his childlike relationship with Mary. Mary asks George and Tiny to share their innermost secret desires. Loretta's dinner party to bring Lila and Mac together is a disaster when both cancel, and Merle receives a phone call from President Jimmy Carter, who offers to send federal aid for the auto plant disaster. Vernon and Tom are stunned by the arrival of the SWAT team who are all midgets.

Dash, Skipper, and Chuck, the midget SWAT team, defend their qualifications to a skeptical Merle. At Mary's house, Cathy confronts Martha who is cleaning out the house, but Martha denies being a kleptomaniac. Mary scrambles to stop Tiny from committing suicide by hanging, bludgeoning, and suffocation. Merle and Wanda have a restless night worrying about their problems. Wanda attempts to trick Lila into going away to Miami. The SWAT team climbs through the plant's ventilation shaft in a last ditch effort to rescue Mary, George, and Tiny.