Ralph R. Farquhar
Bud and Kelly buy a car together and immediately have to share it, since both have dates the same night. Al insures it as a farm vehicle, which means a claim is only valid if there is a chicken aboard at the time of the accident. Meanwhile all the food in the house disappears.
Al and Jefferson’s gold expedition actually strikes gold, and the discovery turns both families against each other almost immediately. Then they learn what the mine really is: a tourist attraction salted with fool’s gold. The season 5 finale, with Pamela Anderson in Al’s fantasy sequence.
Kelly starts dating a city councilman, which makes Al a man with influence, and he uses it exactly as you would expect — to settle scores and be addressed with respect. Peggy’s interest in the arrangement is strictly financial.
Kelly turns eighteen, announces she can now do whatever she likes, and moves out. Al’s farewell to her new boyfriend involves a chokehold, a banister and a measured throw out the front door. The episode aired on Christina Applegate’s nineteenth birthday.
The Bundys copy the Rhoades’ tradition of going to the beach on the first sunny day in May, with the results you would expect from a family with no aptitude for leisure. It also reveals that Al and Peggy missed Kelly’s birthday the day before.
Peggy and Marcy buy a home computer over Al’s objections, and the episode recites its 1989 specifications with real reverence. Nobody in the house can operate it. Marcy also establishes exactly how long the two families have been neighbors: 937 days.
The series’ Valentine’s Day episode went out live, and viewers phoned in during the broadcast to vote on whether Al should tell Peggy he loves her. Her appeal to the audience covers his socks, his toenail clippings and what is living in his toothbrush.
Al, Peggy and Bud play for a mall softball team that keeps losing, so Al tells his wife to improve or get off the roster. Kelly, meanwhile, is trying to get a tattoo. The N on Al’s jersey is sewn on backwards, and nobody ever fixed it.
Steve and Marcy take Bud and Kelly for a weekend expecting to be a good influence, and the house does not survive it. Al and Peggy, meanwhile, have the best weekend of their marriage in a cheap motel. It is also the first time the series shows Peggy cleaning anything.