Nell is having a very bad day, due to the fact that Sal Bonaducci charged her more money for her car being fixed, and the library overcharging Joey for a late book. When Nell goes to the library to return it, there is an earthquake, which repeats several times. Nell is trapped in the basement office in the library with a woman  who is deaf. She finds out that she and the woman have something in common, since they both wear crosses and worship God. In the end, the Chief shows up and says he will be cutting through the cieling and the two will be free.

The Earthquake

Nell Carter

Dolph Sweet

Kari Michaelsen

John Hoyt

Lauri Hendler

Joey Lawrence

Telma Hopkins

Lara Jill Miller

Howard Morton

The Lookalike

Alabamy Bound (2)

Nell and Joey go to New Orleans where Nells sees a man she hant seen in 15 years. The two take Joey to the World's Fair, and when they go to visit a jazz club, he proposes to her. She is baffled by his proposal and doesn't know what to say. As this is happening, a man is watching Joey in the jazz club. When Joey finally sees him looking at him, he goes to Nell and tells him he thinks that the man is his father. The man happily says ""Joey"" as Joey says ""Dad"", and the two embrace, as Nell stares in shock.

New Orleans (1)

Joey and his father reunite, and he takes Joey on a day at the World's fair. He then asks Nell if he can have Joey sleep on his boat, which she agrees to. In the morning, there is no sign of Joey, and Nell finds out the boat went back to Gnome Alaska. She and the man that asked her to marry him quarrel, and she madly accepts his proposal, but then ditches him in the end. As she walks along the boardwalks in New Orleans, desperatly thinking of Joey, he returns to her, and says he went to the hotel but she was gone and he looked all over for her, and the two reunite in a hug.

New Orleans (2)

Nell gets the bitrhday blues at turning 33. Addy is mocking her as the two are going on a cruise for singles 18-32 years old and she can lie about her age. When the two return home from dinner, the family surprises Nell with a cake and tell her that her birth certificate says she was a year younger than expected. Nell is overjoyed, but Addy is mad, since Nell is now doing what Addy did to her by mocking her about her age. In the end, the kids tell Addy they lied just to make Nell happy, and Nell is accepting of the news, although still wishes she was younger.

Nell's Birthday

An old Polish man finds Grandpa and forces him to marry his daughter. He finds out that Grandpa was the man that came over on the steamship Krakaur in the early 1900's, and that he and his daughter did the hanky panky together. When Nell meets the man's daughter, she tells her that she doesn't care about Stanely, and that she is afraid of her father. When Nell brings her to the house, she finally faces up to her father, tells him she doesn't want to marry Stanely, and says she is in love with an Italian man.

Grandpa's Secret Life

Sam is in love with a boy who just happens to be a big heel. He borrows money from the whole family, and when Nell tells him to leave the house, he and Sam decide to run off. Nell is shocked to find out that Sam's love Jeffrey had left her on the beach and had taken all of her money. Sam sears to never love again, but Nell tells her it will only be her first love and there will be many more.

Sam's First Love

Nell and Ray Parker, Jr. have a difference of opinion over giving CPR to a fallen man. When the man dies, Nell and Ray decide to give a show for his wife. What they didn't know was that he was a gangster.

Who Dunnit?

When Katie needs money for her business, Joey helps her out by breakdancing at the beach. Nell finds out Joey's grades are slipping in school, and when Addy finds sand in his shoes, she realizes he is going to the beach afterschool. When Nell gets there, Joey tells her Katies buisness is in trouble, and she decides to help her by pawning the couch and tv set, which make the chief devastated to lose. Nell then says she will call the pawn shop back and get them back.

Breakdance

While at Skipper Dwayne's for dinner, Addy finds out her car is being towed away as Nell is approached by a sleezeball who wants to go out with her. A man at a neaby table tells him to leave her alone and she is swept away by him. When he drops by the house while Addy is there, she is shocked to see that he is her long-lost father who left her mother when she was younger. Addy doesn't want Nell to date him after what he did to her mother and her when she was 8 years old. In the end, Nell takes Addy to dinner and her father is there as Nell sings ""People"" as Addy decides to give her father another chance.

Daddy's Little Girl

It's a case of sexual harassment when a female officer wants a raise and the Chief will not give it to her. SHe takes the case to Addy's Congress of Determined Women, and the chief fears she will take him to court. The cheif worries for nothing when the female officer tells him she had a dream of him seducing her, and knows he is not the type of man who would do a thinkg like that and drops the case. The chief finally gives her the promotion she had long waited for.

Carl's Delicate Moment

Nell and Addy go up to a ski lodge to find Julie with her boyfriend, Jonathan after they win their big debate. When Jonathan hurts his foot in an accident, Nell goes to his room to help him, with her date, who is a doctor, and is shocked to see it is Jonathan, and finds Julie in the bathroom. Julie and Nell argue over what has happened, and Nell finally realizes that Julie needs to be Julie and needs to accept her for who she is. Julie and Jonathan share an intimate moment together, as he tells her she's gonnas be his first woman ever.

Julie's Lie

Samantha gets upset at Nell, who disapproves of her going on a camping trip with teenage boys which will not be chapperoned. She gets increasingly angry at her when she favors Joey rather than her, and dresses Joey in blackface when he is to perform ""Toot-Toot-Tootsie"" in front of Nell's Congregation, as a way to get back at him.

Baby of the Family

After being lifted by a class at night school on how TV tears families apart from one another, Nell decides to make the family stop watching TV for a night. However, once they make the promise, Simpson comes by and tells the Chief that the football game is on, since it's a special wednesday night game, and Addy comes by to tell Nell that they will watch Dynasty, and to find out who Alexi's lover is. However, the Chief and Nell reject their offers and the family sits down just to chat about what is going on in their lives. In the mean time, Grandpa pretends to have a hearing-aid on as he and Carl listen to the football game on the radio, and Nell pretends to heat up a pie in the microwave as she sneaks the portable television set inside it and sneaks a peak at it as she goes in the kitchen to check on the pie. In the end, Nell finds out what the Chief and Grandpa did, as everyone finds out what she has done, and everyone goes back to watching tv.

TV or Not TV

Nell and Addy decide to spend Christmas in her apartment a few days earlier, since she is going to Alabama for Christmas, and wont be home to celebrate it then. As the night progresses, A neighbor of Addy's, comes knocking on the door for cooking oil to make french fries, but when Addy and Nell find out he's not married, the two invite him to Christmas dinner, compete with each other to win his affection, and in the end, he decides to ask his wife to take him back.

The Spirit of Christmas

When the family tells Grandpa to go see a lawyer to make up his will, he refuses in doing so. In the end, Nell finds out he doesn't want to make out a will because he has nothing left to give his family.

Grandpa's Will

Nell is mad that her current flame is going on a buisness trip with another woman, so she leaves him a message on his answering machine, and then gets second thoughts about it, and forces Samantha and Joey to help her go to his apartment and erase the message.

The Answering Machine

Nell disapproves of Katie accepting a diamond necklace from her new boyfriend and tells her to give it back to him. However, when she is awarded the title of ""Glenlawn's Woman of the Year"", she is given a mink coat, and decides to wear it, as well as the necklace that Katie is to give back, to her gala ceremony, so that everyone will admire her, instead of her best friend Addy. However, when they reach the restaraunt, a robber approaches Nell, and steals the coat and the necklace. Nell then goes hystericol to try and tell Katie that she took her necklace without asking her permission first.

The Gift

Nell, Addy, and Joey go off to Alabama to arrive for Nell's sister's Wedding. Nell is angered because her mother has not changed, and she is still ridiculing her. Nell is happy that son after the wedding, she will be going back to Glenlawn, and will be away from her mother for good. However, Nell learns that after the wedding Mama Maybelle will soon be moving in with her in Glenlawn.

Alabamy Bound (1)

After hearing the news that her sister Loretta insists that Mama Maybelle move to California to live with Nell in Glenlawn after the wedding, Nell is not keen to the idea. Even when Mama Maybelle finds out that Loretta is planning on sending her to live with Nell in Glenlawn since she and her soon to be husband Howard will be living in Colorado in privacy, she is not keen either. However the Cheif tells Nell that Mama can move in because she talked Grandpa into moving in. Nell cant beleive his response. In the end, Mama says she loves Nell, and was always looking out ofr her, but now all she needs to do is get a small 1 bedroom apartment and she will be all set and wont have to get in the way of her daughters lives.

Nell books Sammy Davis Jr. to appear to the town of Glenlawn, and sing for them. However, when she calls Sammy to ask him if he is arriving on time, he tells her that she had scheduled him for the following month instead. When Nell goes to the gas station to get her car washed, Albert, the man at the gas station is a dead-ringer for Sammy Davis, and she tells him if he appears on stage as Sammy to fool the town, she will give him what he has always wanted, Angie. However, in the end, Sammy does show up, and he and Nell sing a number to the town of Glenlawn.

Officer Simpson ane the chief go out during a stormy night in Glenlawn, to check upon a bridge that had washed out. When the chief returns home, he shows the family Simpsons clothes, and tells them that an officer reported he saw a cat fall into a river, and an officer jump in to save the cat. The family begins to believe that Simpson was the man who tried to save the cat, since he would do anything for his cat ""Sherlock"", who he hasn't seen in several days. Nell receives an envelope from Simpson which contains $5,000, and she is happy she can go on her vacation with Addy to Hawaai afterall. However, in the end, Joey rushes into the house, telling the family that he found Simpson and Sherlock.

Cat Story

When the whole staff at the police station gets food poisoning, it's up to Addy and Nell to help them out. Simpson makes the two official police deputies, and there is a call that there are burglars at the Kanisky house. Nell and Addy, like scaredy cats, go to the house and check it out in the dark with flashlights, to find Grandpa and Joey home at the same time. In the end, two robbers leave Nell's room with a television.

Police Mamas

The chief gets angry Katie after her friend who got a part in a play offers her apartment to her. The Cheif also gets mad at Samantha for wearing a tactless outfit. The Cheif confesses that Julie was alwasy his favorite daughter because she thinks like him. This causes Nell, and the girls to move to Kaites new Apartment. When the Cheif tells Grandpa that now this will give them time to get to know one another better, he gives him a face, and he and Joey go to Katie's as well. After the apartment is over crowded, everyone comes home and makes amends.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Nell is angry that Addy has not called her in over a week, and is doing things with other members of the family and not her. When Julie tells her that Addy told her she is having lunch with Yvone Anderson, Nell calls Angie, and the two decide to go to lunch there as well. At the restaraunt, Nell tells Yvonne and Addy that Angie is her best friend, and in the end, Addy tells Nell that she was busy with the Junior Symphony Orchestra, and didn't have much time to call her, and they forgive one another.

Friendship

On Julies 18th birthday, Nell has a plan to get her and Jonathan back together after they broke up. She keeps orderig pizza, and when Jonathan keeps showing up, Julie hides in the closet, nly to have Nell tell him to deliver the pizza there. The Cheif however is happy that Julie and Jonathan broke up, because he thinks he is a ditz. In the end, Nell tells Jonathan to g for it and tell her how much he loves her. The two run out of the house, and in the morning, Nell asks Katie where Julie is. Katie tells her she never came home. Nell thinks Jonathan has kindapped her, goes into the kitchen, and Julie and Jonathan walk through the door and say they ere in Vegas all night. Nell is angry and thinks that they gambled, but Julie shows her a ring and says they got married. While they are in the kitchen, Nell hears the Cheif say ""Is that Julie in there Nell?"", as she screams no! Because she knows the two have some explaining to do to him.

Julie's Birthday

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.

The Earthquake

Seasons6

Season 4 Episodes25

Cast9

Discussion

Episode Summary