When Nell is sick at home and the Chief going off to Los Angeles for a meeting, he calls his mother to help out around the house. She shuns away Katies new boyfriend since he has pink hair, puts garlic on everyone because she doesn't want them to catch Nells sickness, and feeds the family lamb with goats intestines. Fed up by this, everyone forces Samantha to go to Grandpa and tell him to beg Grandma to return home and she falls head over heels for him.

Nell Gets Sick

Nell Carter

Dolph Sweet

Kari Michaelsen

John Hoyt

Lauri Hendler

Lara Jill Miller

Season 3

Nell and the Kid

While Nell is on the phone with Angie, her phone dies out and a second later a man from the phone company takes the phone away. She gets fed up and goes to the phone company to get it back, claiming that she did pay her bill, but the man there (Mr. Swackhammer) says that the computer called her ""Ms. Fong"", and that she is behind 3 months on it. She gets really aggrevated and pulls the phone out and ends up in Jail, where Simpson acts as a person with no typingt skills at all, jotting down Nell's info. Nell calls Hamilton Storm, Glenlawn's news reporter, and he flies to the scene, reporting that Nell had been wrongfully accused of not paying her phone bill. Mr. Swackhammer then gets a call from his boss, telling him to drop the charges on Nell, and Nell is let free. Nell is then rewarded with a bunch of new phones for the house, and installing them is Mr. Swackhammer, the new ""Telephone Installer"".

Nell Goes to Jail

At the bowling alley, the Cheif meets up with Maxine, a prostitute who is used to nail bad cops. When Ed meets Carl at the bowling alley, he introduces him to Maxine and the two hit it off. When the Cheif finds out that Ed and Maxine moved in together, he tells Ed that he will not have his brother living with an ex-prostitute since she has decided to retire from the business. In the end, Ed stands up for himself and Carl accepts his brother and Maxine living together.

Brother Ed and the Hooker

Katie and Julie go out on a double date as Samantha tells everyone to make room for Debbie Jo, an imaginary friend of hers. The Cheif thinks she is crazy and talks to Nell about sending her to a shrink. When the thought of Debbie Jo gets too far, the Chief grounds Samantha and goes up to her room and pretends to beat Debbie Jo up and tell Samantha that he doesn't want to send her to a shrink. Samantha runs to Nell and says she hates her father and then tells Nell that Debbie Jo is her only true friend and that no one plays with her anymore since Julie is now dating and has no time for her anymore. Nell tells Samantha to tell Debbie Jo she has to leave and she agrees. She puts her inside of her Jewelery box as she says a tearful goodbye to her and tells her that her mom's picture will watch over her that she keeps inside of it. Nell comforts Samantha who is finally over Debbie Jo.

Sam's Imaginary Friend

When Grandma leaves to go see her sick sister who is about to have an operation, Grandpa is sent to live with the family for a few days. When he shows up he is nothing but trouble, as he wakes up in the middle of the night, bangs a bag of ice cubes on the counter to crush them, causes the garbage disposal to go insane, spies in on a neighbor's backside, and makes Nells puzzle fall the floor, only to vaccuum it up and wake everyone up. Nell gets mad and tells Grandpa that he is causing nothing but noise. When the Cheif tells him to stop doing the things he is doing, Grandpa leaves and goes to the mortuary. In the end, Nell shows up and tells Grandpa to come home and that she was sorry for acting the way she did to him.

Grandpa's Visit

Katie's friend, Valerie shows up at the Kanisky house with her new baby David. She tells the family that she and her husband Jonathan broke up since he left her for a bleached blonde lady at ""Kentucky Friend Chicken"". Valerie is serious about putting Dvid up for adoption, since she doesn't have a job to afford his upkeep. Nell and the girls take Valerie shopping for baby supplies and leave David with the Cheif, who grows attached to him. When the girls return home the Cheif tells Vallerie that they would have to kill him first before he lets her put David up for adoption and that the family will help her find a job. Nell then takes Valerie to a job interview to become a receptionist and uses her keen sense to drive off fellow competators for the job. In the end, everyone is glad to hear that Valerie got the job and can afford to keep David.

Take My Baby, Please

Nell hosts another one of her PORKO meetings at the house, where the head of the weight loss group shows up. When he arrives, the members of the group mock him for gaining all the weight he lose back. He tells them he is sorry and leaves. Shortly after Nell gets a phone call from him and realizes he is about to jump from the 13th floor of his hotel. Nell and the other members go to the hotel and get in the elevator but it stalls due to everyone insdie of it together. The elevator then safetly makes it's way back to the bottom floor as Nell takes the stairs and the PORKO members take the elevator. In the end, Nell talks the Dr. out of jumping off the balcony and everyone agrees to lose 2 pounds a week and stay on their diets.

Porko's

The Chief goes on a stakeout with two officers where they are on lookout for an old-lady targeter. One of the officers dresses up as a woman and stays out in the streets, while the Chief and the other officer wait inside listening to the sounds on the recorder. The Chief cracks a few jokes with the officer about gay people and the officer is offended by this. He then tells the Chief that he himself is gay. The Chief says that he knows it's not going to be easy for the officer to be known as a man who has ""come out"". In the end, the Chief is stuck in the bathroom when the other officer hears that the targeter has struck. He runs to stop the targeter and is wounded. The Chief finally is able to see that he is not a bad man after all.

The Chief's Gay Evening

Julie invites a handsome boy at school to come over to stud with her, but he falls for Katie, and the two go out. When Katie comes home, Julie and her have it out in a hilarious catfight of sister versus sister. In the end, Katie finds out that the boy knew Julie was Katies sister and wanted to go over the house so he would get a date with her. Katie and Julie final make up when Katie tells Julie what the boy told her.

Katie Steals Julie's Jock

Nell is out of town at her cousin's funeral as Simpson storms into the house and says that the Cheif was shot but is alright. The Cheif is mad at Simpson because he accidently shot him in his office when he showed a fellow officer his secret moves with his gun. As he shows the family how he performs the moves, he accidently shoots the gun again and the bullet smashes into the fish tank, killing Gertrude the goldfish. Soon everyoen learns that the Cheif has an assasin against him as Simpson is interviewed on the news, telling everyone he saved him from being shot dead by his gun. Samantha becomes obsessed that God is taking too many people around her and begins to talk to him about why he takes people away. In the end, Sam talks to Grandpa and he tells her that she should enjoy life and take it slowly and not have to worry about death anymore. When Nell returns from her cousins funeral, Samantha fills her in on what happened while she was away and she cannot beleive it, as Simpson shoot

Sam Faces Death

Angie tells Nell that she is going on a trip to Mexico with the money she made by selling vaccums. She urges Nell to attend a gathering where the operator of the sales talks about how rich everyone is getting off of the product. Nell then has a party at the house and invites people to it and demonstrates the amazo vac. However, it does not work the way she intended it to, and goes back to another meeting and tells everyone that the salesman is a fake after doing research on him.

Nell Goes Door to Door

Nell is woken up in the early hours of the morning by a neighbors barking dog. When the Cheif wakes up he sees that she is asleep at the kitchen table and she tells him why she didn't get enough sleep. He phones their neighbor to come over and have coffee and Nell tells her about her dog. She then leaves and Nell goes outside to throw his dog doo inside a bag and light it on fire as he bites her and she takes the neighbor and her dog to court. At court, the neighbor says that the dog never bit anyone before, and the case is dropped, until Simpson shows up and says the dig had bitten two people before and the case is open again, the lady is sued, and the dog will be put to sleep. However, Nell changes her mind and drops the case when she hears about the dog being put to sleep for what he did. The neighbor tells Nell that she will keep her dog inside at night from now on.

Love Thy Neighbor

While playing the accordian at dinner, Uncle Ed falls I'll and feints into the fishtank while cooling off. He ends up in the hospital and when he wakes up he realizes that he needs to have a kidney transplant for not living a healthy life and a sibiling would be the best bet for a transplant. The Cheif talks with Ed and is worried about him and tells him he will do anything to help him get through this. Ed asks him if he'll donate his kidney to him and he agrees. Once the family hears this, Julie is against it, and slowly the rest of the family begins to get scared and they have thoughts on the Cheif dying. The CHeif tells Nell that if he does die in the operation that she can raise the girls and she will get the house. Before the operation, the girls and Nell join the Cheif in bed and have hot cocoa and are afraid that he may die. However, the operation is a success and everyone dances as Ed's doctor plays the accordian for the family.

Love, Kidney

The Chief finds a cigarrette in his sock and questions each of the girls about it. When he finds out that Samantha and Katie don't smoke, he tears through Julie's room and then appologizes when she tells him she would never smoke. However, she smokes when he leaves the room but he catches her. She then moves to Grandma and Grandpa's after he hits her and it's up to him to get her to come home. He tells her that years before he and Margaret were smokers and he quit and so did she, but went on and off until it was too late and she got lung canger and died. In the end, Julie realizes that is the reason why he slapped her and she agrees to come home and stop smoking.

Julie Smokes

When Mr. Swackhammer shows up to inform the Cheif about the female officer who posed nude, he rushes into work and tells her she is fired. Once the town and the country get a hold of what happened, they are against what the Cheif did. Even the girls and Nell don't like how he fired the officer. The police station begins to be mobbed by angry women who picket and are forced to leave, and Simpsons mother shows up and hits the Cheif with her pocket book. If that wasn't enough, Hamilton Storm shows up to do a cover story on how unfair the Cheif is, just as a mad bomber shows up and is about to blow up the whole place.

The Centerfold (1)

The man who has a bomb strapped to him tells Simpson he knows him from some place. He realizes that he's seen him before at the singles bar. They both talk about how they can never pick up women, and how Simpson likes a woman officer but he can't have the courage to tell her. The man decides at the last second to stop the bomb and tells Simpson he will look him up when he is done his time in jail. Simpson then confesses to the Cheif that he sent a picture of the officer from the Christmas party to the magazine and that is why they chose her to model in it. The Cheif decides to take back his compliment of telling Simpson he is a hero. The Mayor of Glenlawn who is about to be re-elected tells the Cheif to re-hire the officer or else he will fire him. The Cheif decides to go to a live telecast taping with the Mayor and decides to hire the officer back. Simpson finally has the courage to tell the officer he likes her and she decides to go out with him.

The Centerfold (2)

Aunt Blanche pays a visit to the Chief on his birthday and threatens to take custody of the girls after seeing what looks like Nell and the Chief doing an indecent act in the kitchen, when she really was doing the heimlick maneauver on him as he was choking on a piece of his sandwich. In court, Aunt Blanche breaks down, after Nell tells her that Blanche really doesn't want her to raise the girls because she is black. Blanche then decides to drop the suit in the end.

The Custody Suit

Nell tells about her singing past with a doo-wop girl group. Nell and her two friends years before she met the Kanisky's decide to audition to get called back by a famous celebrity. However, the man likes the other two girls, and refuse Nell to be part of the group. Nell knows that the girls are going to visit her and havent seen her in years, and in the end she finds out they are fat like her, and lost their singing careers after they gained weight.

The Return of the Doo-Wop Girls

At the dinner table, Grandpa insists that Eddie should marry Maxine, since they have been going together for six months, and she says that if he ever asked her she would agree. Due to this soft-fit proposal, he agrees to propose to her, and the two plan to marry. However, on their wedding day, Eddie locks himself in the bathroom, after he decides he needed time to think about all of this he is getting into. He tells Maxine that when he was thinking, he knew that he would rather be too old with her, then too old without her. She decides to take him back, and the two are finally married.

Eddie Gets Married

Grandpa hides a letter from Grandma and she beleives he is cheating on him. When she secretly takes the letter and reads it, she realizes that the apartment they live in is being converted into a condo and they need to come up with $60,000 or else they have to leave. Grandpa and Nell go to the bank and Grandpa is hard of hearing, as the man at the bank decides to decline him of the loan. Everyone mistakes him as a robber as he decides to turn off his hearing aid because he doesn't like the way the bank treats him. In the end, the police are called, and the Cheif tells the bank that his father and Nell would never do such a thing. Grandpa tells the man at the bank that he gave him the money when he was mistaken for a robber, but he wouldn't give it to an honest guy like him. The man gives him a waffle iron and appologizes for the way he treated him. In the end, the Cheif tells Grandpa and Grandma that they don't have to move since he made Simpson pose as a building inspector and found a

Grandpa Robs a Bank

When Samantha reads Nell part of her essay she is doing on the Cheif for school, Nell tells her it would be a good idea to go to the police station and observe her father in his daily routine. When she gets there she observes several different scenarios. One scenario involves Mr. Swackhammer having a plumber arrested for stealing his toilet, which he claims flushes up and not down, since the plumber says he didn't pay for it after it was installed. Another Scenario involves a teenage girl that claims her dentist impregnanted her while she was under anesthesia, but the Cheif realizes it's a fraud story and knows that she is only trying to cover up for her boyfriend getting her pregnant and he volunteers to tell the girl's parents which she agrees to. The final scenario involves a mother and father worried about their missing baby in the supermarket. The father of the baby snaps and doesn't like the way the Cheif handles the job. However, in the end, the child is brought to the police st

Greenlawn Street Blues

While at ""Max's Delacatesan"", Nell and Max see a girl shoplifting. Nell saves her from being arrested, telling Max she is taking her home. Nell finds out she has nowhere to go since her parents left her and her grandmother had recently died.  When the Chief finds this out he is ready to arrest her, but she agrees to live with Max and help him out at the store. At first, the two don't get along so well, but they accept that each other has to get by even though there are people in their life that are no longer around.

Gimme a Break! is an American sitcom which aired on NBC for six seasons, October 29, 1981, until May 12, 1987. The series stars Nell Carter as the housekeeper for a widowed police chief and his three daughters.

Nell Gets Sick

Seasons6

Season 2 Episodes22

Cast6

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Episode Summary