Joe accidentally injures Mel's boyfriend, Austin (guest star Trevor Donovan), during a competitive game of pool. Mel accuses Joe of doing it on purpose to ruin her romantic weekend getaway.
Meanwhile, Joe invites a nerdy kid to join Ryder in his home school studies, and Lennox takes to psychoanalyzing everyone in the house.
Melissa is a grown-up former wild child of a political family who is now a local politician herself. When her sister ends up in prison and brother-in-law flees after a scandal hits, Mel must take responsibility for her teenaged niece Lennox and pre-adolescent nephew Ryder. Spread too thin to manage by herself, help comes in the unlikely form of Joe who, desperate for a job, moves in and becomes the family's manny.