You Can't Always Get What You Want (Grounded for Life episode)

In a desperate grab for attention, Lily makes out with the nerdish next-door neighbor, Brad O'Keefe, in his car, causing Sean to respond in a rather unorthodox way-by throwing fried chicken at the windshield. Walt babysits Jimmy and Henry and teaches them how to dig a hole. Eddie stays in the house and tries to hook up illegal cable so he and Sean can watch soft-core porn.
Title Reference: Johnny B. Goode by Chuck Berry.

While snooping around in Lily's room, Sean discovers a fake id, and along with Claudia and Eddie, tries to find out what his daughter is doing in her spare time.

Jimmy's new science project, a scale model of the solar system, is due and he's eager to get back from the street fair, but, when Sean and Claudia discover The Ramones are playing, is forced to wait. Sean writes a note to Sister Helen, the principal of Jimmy's school, which gets Jimmy suspended. Sean and Eddie take Jimmy to the statue of Liberty.

Jimmy's claim of demonic possession and Lily's skirt length spark a battle between Sean and Sister Helen. Sean brings home an old friend who has became a priest.

Lily's trip to an amusement park with a group of her friends backfires when she calls Sean to pick her up. He doesn't like what he sees, and when he realizes HE was the one called because everyone thought he would go easy on them, he proceeds to get them all in trouble by telling their parents.

Lily freaks out when Sean says they can't afford to send her on a ski trip with her classmates. Things get worse when she learns that Sean inherited some money and spent it on a guitar for himself.

Claudia is looking forward to a trip to New Jersey to try to bond with Lily. Things go from bad to worse when Claudia tells popular cheerleaders from Lily's school that her daughter is still a virgin. Lily takes off, leaving Claudia stuck - with no daughter, no luggage, and no clothes.
Title Reference: "Like a Virgin" by Madonna.

Claudia asks Sean to take Henry to the barber but it is closed. Sean decides to do the haircut himself, which ends up in a real catastrophe.

Sean tries to keep Eddie from hitting on a woman Claudia is consoling after a break-up.

Sean catches a fly ball that's still in play and loses a game for the Yankees. Claudia's upset when the bachelorette party she's throwing for her friends gets disrupted by Sean, Eddie and the boys, who have been chased home by irate fans.

Walt gives Jimmy a BB Gun for his birthday, prompting an all-out war between him and Sean, which ends up with Walt in the hospital, shot in the rump.

To save for a dream vacation to Mexico, Sean and Claudia start working extra shifts at work. This leads to chaos at home, with Eddie raising the kids, Lily getting her tongue pierced, Jimmy becoming a bully, and Henry panhandling and eating out of the garbage.
Title Reference: "Kung Fu Fighting", by Carl Douglas.

Sean volunteers to referee Henry's soccer team and ends up making an unethical decision in the team's favor. Which in hindsight wasn't a great idea, when Henry gets an inflated ego. So Sean tries to make things right the following week by making an unethical decision in the opposing team's favor. Meanwhile, Lily flirts with the cute guy at the concession stand and the conversation leaves her walking on air. But when she starts to obsess over the introduction, she replays the scene over and over in her head, each time thinking that she made a bigger and bigger fool of herself.

Lily's dance for the talent show is removed from the show by the school principal, and Sean agrees to sell thirty boxes of chocolate to have it in the show, proving to be a big mistake when Lily's dance is "Big Spender ", a song from the broadway Sweet Charity.
Title Reference: "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter, by Herman's Hermits.

In the Season One finale, Lily is furious after finding out she was born before her parents' wedding.
Title Reference: "Love Child" by The Supremes.

After the family car goes missing one night, the Finnertys find themselves at an impasse: Sean is in mourning over the loss, while Claudia hopes to gain from an inflated insurance claim. But when the battered remains of the car are towed to the house a few days later, it becomes clear that Lily has been covering her tracks about an ill-fated joyride -- and the reason why her parents have to buy the missing parts from Eddie's mechanic.

Claudia's erotic dream about Eddie has Sean seeing red, so he sets out to reignite the passion with his wife. Meanwhile, Henry decides to make "candy apples" out of anything he can find; and Lily and her friend Allison get drunk on apple cider.

Claudia is shocked to discover porn on Jimmy's computer, and insists that she and Sean confront him about it, but Sean wants to ignore the situation. Lily gives Jimmy a picture of Sister Helen which they doctor and use as an e-mail joke. When the e-mail is sent to Sister Helen, things aren't so funny anymore.

Sean freaks out over Lily's attending a bash at Brad's after he spots the nerdy neighbor stocking up on certain sexy party supplies.

Sean and Eddie revive their old high school band to play a wedding reception, but Sean gets nervous when Lily seems interested in their hot new drummer. Jimmy convinces Henry that the reason he can't find baby pictures of himself is that Henry's a robot.

During a stressful day at work, Claudia takes a puff of a co-worker's cigarette which quickly turns into an entire cigarette and then a daily habit. Desperate to keep her smoking habit from Sean and the kids, Claudia tries to conceal it, but she's busted by Lily, who agrees to keep her secret -- for a price. After setting a date with Dean on her new cell phone, Lily is humiliated to find out Dean heard her gushing about him when the phone didn't turn off.

Sean gets ticked off with Walt, who's playing Santa Claus, when he promises Henry a $350 Astro Jammer Battle Buggy for Christmas. So Sean responds by bringing violence to Santaland. Meanwhile Lily tries to figure out if the blurry gift card on her boxer shorts reads "from Brad" or "from Dean."

After Henry catches Sean and Claudia having sex, Sean is determined to handle the inevitable topic of the birds and the bees with Henry in a better way than Walt did. After having a father/son talk with Henry about sex, Sean feels good about how he handled things. When Sean and Claudia catch word that they have a "reputation", they discover that Henry told his entire class about what he caught Sean and Claudia doing, forcing them to do some damage control.

The Finnertys' plan to push Walt back into the social scene backfires when he's social with a lady they don't like. Meanwhile, Lily fears that her bad behavior has thrust Brad into Kristina's arms.

A favor for Claudia's well-connected Uncle Sal (Vincent Pastore) goes awry, leading Sean to fear that the guy may be a goodfella. Meanwhile, Brad is more than willing to share a shower with Lily after a plumbing problem leaves the Finnertys all wet.

Jimmy and his class are having a robot science fair. Sean creates a "first place" robot for Jimmy. When the judge of the fair calls Jimmy's robot "substantial robot" and "you could prop a door wide open with this!" Sean stands up and admits that he made his son's robot. He requests that the other parents do the same (It's obvious that the other robots were made by the parents.) In the end, Jimmy and his robot, fight Benji (his classmate) and his robot in a robot battle!

Sean's takes a swing at tree surgery and ends up causing a blackout during the Super Bowl. His biggest concern is what he saw through Lily's window while chopping the tree -- Lily holding a bag of pot. But what's even more shocking is where Lily got the weed: out of Sean's closet. With the blackout, Dan O'Keefe moves his Super Bowl party to the Finnerty home, where they listen to a play-by-play given by Jimmy from his 5-inch TV.

Lily's compulsive credit-card usage sinks Sean's plans to take Henry and his friends to a pricey water park; Eddie refuses to open up to his family about the contents of his mysterious locked box.

Sean accepts a challenge from his neighbor, Mr. O'Keefe, for a boxing match. But he has second thoughts when he discovers Eddie's tried to fix the fight. Claudia becomes enraged when she learns about a rumor that she's had breast enhancement surgery.

While Sean and Claudia are chaperoning at Lily's school dance, Sister Helen catches Lily and Dean with a bottle of liquor and making out. Lily insists she is innocent and that the booze is not hers. But it comes as a surprise to both Lily and Sister Helen when the real culprit is revealed. Eddie has taken to using Walt as his goon to shake down his shady business associates.

Sean tries to talk a gay co-worker into coming out of the closet before it gets out that Sean has already done it for him. Lily's ready to rumble for her man after realizing that women keep hitting on Dean.

When Sean and Claudia win a free weekend in Atlantic City, so they reluctantly leave the kids in Eddie's care. When they return from their trip, they find Jimmy and Henry locked in the basement and obvious signs of a party. What's shocking is that Eddie may not be the one who's responsible...

Sean exploits a nun's foulmouthed slip of the tongue to get Claudia and the kids everything they've ever wanted from St. Finnian's.

Sean winds up in jail for buying some shady diamond earrings for Claudia from Eddie's so-called "connection"; Lily protests the nuns's donkey-basketball game.

The minor insults of Claudia's visiting parents get so far under an insecure Sean's skin that it starts to look like he's gone out of his mind. Meanwhile, karaoke leads to an unlikely liplock between Brad and Lily.

Sean and Eddie plan to honor their late cousin's wishes by scattering his Tupperware-borne ashes over the old water tower; Lily meets a cute guy at the funeral.
Title Reference: "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas.

A home-pregnancy test in the trash has Sean convinced Lily is with child, but it may be Claudia who has something unexpected to tell him. Meanwhile, Lily learns the truth about the musical circumstances surrounding her birth; and Jimmy sings the blues about the zit that is taking over his face.

Claudia learns the results of her pregnancy test and Sean celebrates the news with a major purchase: a bar that Eddie plans to burn down for the insurance money. Lily and Brad try their luck at getting liquored-up; Henry develops a craving for a different kind of watering-hole delicacy.

Sean nearly blows his shot at snagging a loan from Claudia's dad after losing the car Tony gave Lily in a street race. Meanwhile, Henry and Jimmy put the squeeze on their grandfather for some hefty Tooth Fairy funds.

Things get tense at the bar when Sean hires his high school fantasy girl as the bartender. Lily freaks out when she tells Dean she loves him at a concert and can't hear his response.

For the second time, Lily has failed her behind-the-wheel exam. But this time it's not her fault, it's Sean's, who sabotaged her driving test by teaching her ridiculous driving tips, such as the all-important "W-turn." Claudia is having a devil of a time keeping Henry and Jimmy from playing a violent video game condemned by Sister Helen -- but she winds up addicted to it herself.

The boys mock Sean when he can't get the lugnuts off of the car, leaving him to have his wife attract a trucker's attention to change the flat tire while he sits in drag in the backseat. Eddie holds a garage sale at Sean's house where he sells off hot merchandise and his brother's possessions, and he welcomes the kids to partake in the sale. But Lily is mortified when Brad buys her old bra from Eddie, then boasts to the school that he and Lily have slept together.

Following his school's drug-awareness day, Henry thinks his family is on drugs and he goes over-the-top and stages an intervention for Sean after he finds a suspicious plant growing in the yard.

Sean has a hard time fighting off an amorous Claudia after lying to her that he's undergone a vasectomy. Brad gets a chance to hang out with Lily by paying her to tutor him in a subject he already excels at.

Sean and Claudia are shocked to learn that Jimmy has been shoplifting and try to figure out his motivations for stealing. Lily agonizes over what to wear for dinner with Dean's parents. Henry brings home his class's pet lizard.

Lily goes on a shopping spree with her "emergency credit card," resulting in her having to pay back the bill by getting a job -- at the bar. Meanwhile, Eddie fumes over a scathing review of the bar; Henry takes energy conservation to the extreme.

Claudia wreaks havoc at a wedding reception after losing her glasses -- though it may not be Claudia who lost them. Lily convinces Eddie to persuade Dean to get her the perfect birthday gift; Brad begins spending way too much time with Jimmy.

Lily winds up with the strangest bedfellow after Dean fails to pitch enough woo on her monumental 16th birthday. Henry and Jimmy put Sean's shoddy fathering skills to the test with a con-game and a hot-wings binge.

Sean joins the Knights of Hibernia in order for Lily to compete in their beauty pageant.

When the dump closes, Walt finds himself with an abundance of free time and begins hanging around the house, much to the dismay of Lily, who finds it increasingly hard to get alone-time with Brad. So she schemes to get him a date online... which turns out to be with a drag-queen. Meanwhile, Eddie finds out that his girlfriend has another boyfriend.

After Sean confronts Brad's father, who's boasting that Lily and Brad have slept together, he confronts Claudia -- and finds out she already knew too. So when Brad gets injured by an airborn Christmas decoration, everyone thinks Sean lost his temper. The boys have spent Sean and Eddie's Liberty quarter collection, and Eddie is disgusted. So Eddie takes the boys out to teach them a lesson about stealing from other people -- by stealing a toy machine that Henry loaded with quarters.

Claudia feels it's time to smooth relations between the two families by having the O'Keefes over for dinner, but the evening falls apart when Brad's mother blames Lily for taking Brad's innocence. Eddie teaches Jimmy and Henry a lesson in respecting other people's property after he finds out that they used his coin collection to play arcade games.

Sean and Eddie hire strippers for the bar to help make ends meet -- then wind up being protested by the PTA. But what's most shocking is who set the PTA on their tails. Meanwhile, Brad asks Lily to break up with Dean. Lily doesn't want to hurt Dean, but agrees, only to find that he takes it far easier than she expected.

Brad is bothered that Lily is embarrassed to be seen with him, so Sean tries to make over his geeky image. Sean succeeds only in getting another student suspended from school, which leads to an in-bar confrontation with Sister Helen. Jimmy's "trademark" hair-length has become an issue at school. Claudia helps Eddie deal with an unwise purchase he made for the bar -- by getting drunk with the customers; and Lily confesses her relationship with Brad in front of the entire school.

Brad plans a romantic date with Lily in New York City, but because one incident throws them off schedule, the rest of the evening becomes a disaster. Eddie breaks a window in the sewing room, leaving it wide open for an animal to wander in...an animal which Henry wants to keep as a pet.

After Eddie buys an electric car to impress a girl, Sean unwisely gives Eddie a loan without telling Claudia, which results in her college enrollment check bouncing. Brad discovers Lily has a tattoo with Dean's name, but Lily's plea for her parents to pay for her tattoo removal goes ignored.

After a night of partying, Lily wakes up with a nasty hangover, her car parked on the porch and no memory of how she got home. To teach Lily a lesson, Sean and Claudia decide to sell her car and have her sign a contract that she will call them when she is too drunk to drive. Angry at losing her car, Lily pretends to be drunk night after night in order to make her parents give her a ride home. Eddie makes a huge profit when he sells Lily's car for Sean.

When Jimmy's body odor becomes problematic, Sean and Eddie each intervene. Brad accidentally sees Claudia naked.

Sean becomes jealous when Claudia is asked to do some modeling for a fashion photographer. So she storms out, leaving him to deal with a bath products party that she'd organized. Lily receives her yearbook photos, which are terrible.

Sean and Eddie arrive at the bar to discover they've been robbed. Instead of calling the police, Walt insists on cleaning up. Lily and Brad spend a day at the mall and wind up in a fight, so Lily decides that she's going out with another guy.

Sean wants to go to a Sex Pistols concert, but Claudia has to study for a college test and Lily has a science project due, which leaves no one to watch the boys. Lily leaves Brad holding the bag by skipping off to a frat party... where she runs into Claudia. Eddie hires a bodyguard.

Lily resents her ex-boyfriend's ability to move on so quickly after she dumped him; Eddie's stand-up routine flops until he incorporates material from Claudia and Sean's personal life.

Sean forgets to give Claudia an important message from her professor; Jimmy hides the telephone bill to conceal his calls to a 976 number; Lily freaks out when Brad doesn't call her for three hours.

During a romantic getaway at a hotel, Claudia and Sean watch an adult film and realize it was shot in their home; a girl bullying Jimmy might like him.

Sean and Claudia try to take advantage of an empty house and spend some alone time together; Lily realizes that Brad is not a good dancer. Meanwhile, Eddie takes Jimmy & Henry to play paintball as a way to let go their frustration out on each other.

Lily, Brad and Jimmy sign abstinence pledges at school; Brad asks Lily to marry him; Jimmy throws out everything that reminds him of sex. Walt reveals that Eddie was born lefthanded.

Brad's dad, Dan claims to have been taking tennis lessons for years. After Sean beats him at a tennis game, it is revealed that Dan has been having an affair and not taking lessons.

When the Finnertys throw Brad a birthday party to take his mind off his parents' recent breakup, Sean invites Brad's dad to the party as part of his "plan" to reunite him with his wife Connie. Connie has taken Claudia's advice to "get some," which prompts her to pursue Eddie.

Claudia tries to set up a perfect family photo, but everything goes wrong. During a trip to the cemetery, Sean discovers that Walt buried his wife's cat in the plot reserved for Claudia. Lily wants Brad to be in the family photo, but Claudia says no. Eddie is trying to get a girl pregnant.

Eddie runs into Crazy Amy while on a date with Hope. He is afraid that Amy is going to ruin his relationship. So Sean helps Eddie steal a safe that contains nude photos of him. Jimmy gets a date with a deaf girl.

Sean is having trouble keeping the bar alive and Claudia asks him to reconsider running it. With St. Patrick's Day around the corner Eddie tries to lure customers over from rival pubs. Brad and Lily prepare for the parade and Jimmy is having trouble understanding the meaning of St. Patrick's day.

Sean disciplines one of Henry's bratty friends; Lily asks Brad to choose between her and his geeky friends; Eddie uses a Jewish online dating service.

Claudia copies Lily's school paper, only to find out Lily plagiarized the essay. Sean hints to Sister Helen that Lily may have cheated, but he learns too late that the school's "zero-tolerance" policy on cheating could result in Lily being expelled.

Claudia's father, Tony, has returned to the Finnertys for and operation, and the rest of the family is very sympathetic, except for Sean.

Claudia tries to alleviate Sean's hypertension and high blood pressure by running the household all by herself but everything goes awry. Jimmy gets suspended from school, which causes a set of problems all its own, and Lily and Brad break her bed so they steal the family car... and get it impounded.

Lily is less than thrilled about Brad's new job, which is taking up all of his time. Meanwhile, Walt's having problems finding work, so Sean and Eddie offer him a job at the bar. Jimmy's at the age where he finds his mother to be an embarrassment, so Claudia sets out to bond with him.

Lily has her doubts when Brad tells her about a girl, Lana, he once had a relationship with at space camp. But Brad, tired of Lily thinking this, changes his summer plans and boards a bus to space camp with a very cute, and very real, Lana.

Sean intercepts a phone call from Claudia's doctor and discovers she is pregnant. He doesn't want to tell Claudia yet since it's his fault she is pregnant. Brad, after admitting he hooked up with his space camp buddy, Lana (guest star Mila Kunis), begs for forgiveness from Lily until he learns of her infidelity.

Sean's feeling sick, and Eddie convinces him that he has sympathetic pregnancy syndrome. Brad and Lily decide to just be friends but their hormones get the best of them. Jimmy tries to impress the new neighbor girl by pretending to be a sports fanatic. Eddie resumes his relationship with his ex, Faye, who's become more bitter and angry than ever.

Now that Eddie is spending all of his free time with Faye, lonely Sean finds every possible thing wrong with her, including the way she parks her car, which he "accidentally" smashes into. Lily's attempt to make Brad jealous by dating Mocha Joey backfires when Brad points out that Lily and Mocha Joey have nothing in common; and Claudia gets upset when she finds out that Sean has told everyone that she is pregnant.

Eddie moves into the Finnerty basement after being evicted from his apartment. Claudia is not happy and tells him if he screws up he's out. Lily is jealous of Taya, Brad's new girlfriend, after she becomes the first girl on the Football team at school. Claudia's pregnancy interferes with her motherly duties.

Claudia is upset with Sean when she finds out he gambled the money for the baby's crib and used the winnings to buy a new TV. When Claudia accidentally breaks the TV, she convinces Eddie to bring her to the track so she can win money to repair the set. Meanwhile, Jimmy must endure a painfully long day of father-son bonding to keep Sean from finding out about the broken TV, and Lily enrolls in a Big/Little Sister program, but is dumped by her Little Sister.

Brad and Lily fight it out in a race for student body president, but the sniping and mudslinging is a mask to hide the former lovers' true feelings about each other. Meanwhile, Eddie is depressed and seeks the help of a quack psychiatrist. Claudia tries not to learn the baby's sex, wanting to be surprised.

Sean's old friend Dave is in town, a children's performer who goes under the name "J.J. Bodybuddy". He lets Dave stay at his house. He's promised the school that he can get J.J. Bodybuddy to do a show for the kids. The problem is, Dave--a recovered alcoholic who hasn't touched the stuff in ten years--gets too drunk to do the gig, and Sean has to put on the Bodybuddy leotard himself. Lily is jealous of the new baby, and is letting her feelings be known.

With the bar in financial trouble, Sean and Claudia are having difficulty paying their bills, so Sean applies for a manager position with T.J. Shenanigans, while Claudia works from home collecting unpaid medical bills. Sean and Eddie contemplate selling the bar after finding out that they are competing for the same job. Meanwhile, Brad and Lily get back together, to the dismay of broken-hearted Taya. On the rebound, Taya starts dating Jimmy to help win Brad back.

Depressed that she doesn't feel sexy while pregnant, Claudia gets a boost when her cute study buddy, Steve, flirts with her. Her bubble is burst when she finds out that Sean paid him to do it. Lily helps Eddie write material for his stand-up routine, but it backfires when another comic steals Eddie's jokes. Brad gets a reluctant Jimmy into Sciencenauts and his attitude changes when he finds out that the "secret" of every meeting involves porn.

Lily becomes insecure when she learns that she's "not school smart." So when Brad snags an interview at Yale, she becomes jealous and connives to land her own interview. Sean takes a second job as a limo driver, to avoid doing work at home. Claudia tries to convince her neighbor, Arianna, that the Finnerty clan is not trash. Jimmy seeks advice from his uncle Eddie for his debut in the school production of Tom Sawyer.

Sean becomes infuriated after receiving letters from the Home Owner's Association telling him to clean up his house, while Claudia is happy about the positive changes to the neighborhood. Lily insists that Brad buys her an anniversary gift from a list that she's made, but he defies her wishes and gets her a sexy nighty that he can't enjoy because he's busy picturing Sister Helen, who he ran into at the lingerie store. Jimmy shocks the family by making an unusual lifestyle choice -- he announces that he's a vegetarian.

Eddie's ex, Amy, displays naked photos of him in an art gallery, but he's too afraid to ask her to remove them. Sean is having problems trying to sell the Red Boot; Claudia has a baby shower, and Jimmy fills in on the cheerleading squad to get close to the girls.

In the series finale, Claudia and Sean miss Lily's graduation (thus spoiling Lily's senior-prank plan) when Claudia goes into labor. The Finnerty boys learn that Walt has a girlfriend... his cleaning lady!