Normal, Ohio

After a four year stay in California after he came out of the closet, Butch Gamble returns to Normal, Ohio to attend a going-away party for his son, Charlie, who's going off to medical school. His sister Pamela, a lively single mother of two, welcomes him warmly, as does his mother, Joan, though she can't quite bring herself to say "gay" aloud. Charlie, on the other hand, is not quite up to lukewarm. After Butch has a heartfelt talk with Charlie about how he's happier since he came out, Charlie decides to tell the truth too -- during his send-off, Charlie reveals that he doesn't want to go to medical school.

While digging through Bill's war memorabilia for the upcoming "Normal Ohio Founder's Day Parade," Butch and Pamela find a love letter that was written to Bill by his "Korean plaything" whom he had an affair with during his stay overseas. At the urging of Butch, Bill decides to confide to his wife that he was unfaithful -- but he changes his mind when he learns that Joan had an affair too (and to boot, Pamela unknowingly named her son after the man Joan had an affair with). Meanwhile, Pamela goes to confront Robbie's teacher, Mr. Collins, over Robbie's unsatisfactory homework, but ends up inviting Mr Collins home to tutor Robbie, when she sees how handsome he is. Kimberly has plans of her own when Mr Collins arrives, to confront him with a mistake he made a few years ago when he was her teacher, which he never took the blame for.

Four years ago, Butch came out on Joan's birthday, and, to Butch's surprise, Robbie caught "The Incident" on video. It's Joan's birthday again, but all she wants to do is lay in bed, so Butch makes plans to take her out for a surprise dinner with the family. He finally gets her to agree to go somewhere, but when the car breaks down, they find themselves stranded at a biker bar.

Butch gets Pamela to host a family Thanksgiving meal, and he then leaves for a football game.

Butch buys Charlie an used car in an attempt of establishing a better father-son relationship and Elizabeth accuses him of buying Charlie's love. Butch has to do the right thing and return the car, because he realized that Charlie has to like him for who he is, not for his gifts.

Pamela is tired of having mediocre jobs and decides that she wants to do something where she can be her own boss. When she goes to her parents for money, they refuse to loan it to her, so she decides to get multiple jobs in order to put the money together. Tired of being bossed by teenagers, she quits and decides she wants to be a stripper after finding out that strippers can make tons of money. Butch then makes an intervention and tells their parents that she's turning into a stripper if they don't loan her the money, so they do.