Sally begins to chafe at her role as the female when Dick invites Mrs. Dubcek and her daughter Vicki for Thanksgiving dinner; but Harry and Vicki hit it off atop the dinner table. Meanwhile, it becomes a true American holiday when Tommy fights with Dick and runs away to a pool hall.

Al goes to look for his aunt's pie, but finds she is dead.

A con artist tries to scare Lois and Clark with fake hauntings in an attempt to buy their house. The ghost of a dead woman who lived on Lois and Clark's house years ago enters on Lois' body, and she wants to have Lois' life and Lois' husband.

Lisa talks Marge into going to help rescue animals from an oil spill. This leaves Bart and Homer all along and on their own. Bart causes some damage at what the kids call the local "haunted house." As a punishment, Homer insists that he go there and work to pay for the damage that he caused. Bart discovers the house is actually a burlesque parlor and he begins working there as a stand-up comedian and maitre d'. Marge returns to find what Bart is doing and is angry with Homer so she goes to the owner of the house and tells her to leave Springfield. When that does not work, she goes before the town and tries to get them to bulldoze the place. They all travel to the house with tools of destruction and begin tearing it down, but Homer pleads with them to save the burlesque house and in the process he and everyone breaks into song. The song is so good that it convinces everyone on how valuable the house is to the town. Marge shows up late with a bulldozer. She offers to sing a song in response, but accidentally demolishes the house when she does.

Mulder receives information about a militant group that is collecting material to make a highly explosive weapon. An assault team breaks up the group and, during the raid, Mulder and Scully find Alex Krychek, who supplied Mulder covertly with the information on the group. With the traitor's help, the agents are able to obtain a diplomatic pouch containing a rock pulled from the ground in the Tunguska region of Russia.

NOVA explores the links between our individual development and the evolution of life itself.