Even Stevens Season #1

EVEN STEVENS

EPISODE #1: SWAP.COM – After making a deal with a kid at school for a date with Ren in exchange for a rare trading card, Louis actually manages to talk Ren into going. The Stevens are a middle-class family living in Sacramento, CA. Husband and father Steve is a successful attorney. Wife and mother Eileen is a state Senator. Their oldest child Donnie is a high-school sports legend. Ren, at 8^th grade, is just about the perfect daughter. She makes the best grades, she’s popular, she does volunteer work and other extracurricular tasks by the score. Her brother Louis, in the 7^th grade is her opposite. He likes to sleep late, he’s messy, his grades are not so good, he’s frequently in detention and he seems to take nothing seriously. But he is serios about finding something of his own that he can do to put himself on a pair with the rest of his overachieving family. Though he and Ren occasionally soften their attitudes toward each other, at any given moment they’re likely to be fighting, like mongoose and cobra. In this episode, Louis finds a valuable “Roaring Drycon” card for sale online. He asks the price and finds out that the seller wants a date with his sister. The seller is the hygienically-challenged Ernie Morton, so it doesn’t look good. But Louis hatches a plan. Ren needs four more hours of service to become a Volunteer of the Month. Louis convinces her that Ernie is a needy applicant in the “Adopt-a-Friend” program and that if she hangs out with him at the mall for four hours, she’ll win the award. Before the “date” Ernie tells Louis he will want a kiss from Ren. At the mall, a surprised Tawny runs into Ren and Ernie but Louis distracts her before she can ask what’s going on. After the four hours, Ernie doesn’t ask for the kiss, but gives Louis the card. Louis feels guilty. He sees Ren admiring a necklace in a store window. At school, Ren goes to the counselor to get her credit, but is told there is no “Adopt-a-Friend” program. Ernie has pictures of him and Ren at South Creek Mall and he’s telling everyone about his supposed date. In anger, Ren confronts Ernie in the hall and berates him in front of a crowd. Ren is furious with Louis but he tries to explain and presents her with the necklace she wanted. Bat at school, Ren apologizes to Ernie. She tells him he wouldn’t be so unpopular if he didn’t act like such a jerk. She gives him a present. He asks for a hug. When she gives him one, a guy pops around the corner and takes a picture of the “couple.”

✰ EPISODE #2: STEVENS GENES – Ren agrees to write for the school newspaper but becomes upset when she learns that has to write the sports page. Louis is forced to run track in PE but makes the best out of it by having Larry (whose working the stop watch) lie to the coach about Louis’ actual time. As a result, Louis gets invited to join the track team and some undeserved popularity. Things are going well for Louis until Ren finds out the true source of her brother’s speed. Coach Tugnut is looking for a replacement on the track team and he gives a tryout to Louis, the younger brother of the legendary Donnie Stevens, who the coaches reveres. Team member Larry Beale sees an opportunity to destroy the Stevens legacy at Lawrence Junior High and finally defeat his nemises, At the tryout Larry makes it look like Louis’ time is best and he makes the team. In practice Larry holds back against Louis, making Louis think he’s a great runner. Ren, who is assigned to cover the track meet for the school paper, figures out what’s up. She tries to tell Louis but he’s sure that Ren is just jealous because he’s finally found something he’s successful at. Ren wants Larry not to mess with “Stevens genes” he’ll lose every time. During the race, Larry gets tangled up with an opponent and falls down. Louis goes back to help Larry, who jumps up and speeds off to win the race. Louis sticks with the injured opponent and the crowd cheers them instead of the winner Larry. Ren writes up Louis as the hero for the paper’s headline story. Larry complains to her and she threatens him with exposure of his cheating.

✰ EPISODE #3: TAKE MY SISTER… PLEASE – Desperate to be in the school talent show, Louis teams with Ren to come up with a brother-sister act. However, things go sour when the two disagree on what act they should do. Louis wants to enter the school talent show an do his comedy routine but he waits too long and misses the entry deadline. He tries to get Ren to let him share her spot in the show with him, but she has no sympathy. At dinner, Louis gets his parents to pressure Ren into doing an act with him, much to her annoyance. They do Louis’ act in rehearsal and it gets a lot of laughs. Larry Beale sees this and doesn’t like it. He tells Ren that she’s just being her brother’s flunky in the act and that he keeps all the good lines for himself. Falling into Larry’s trap, Ren gets mad at Louis and quits the act. When the talent show comes around, Larry and his partner Ivan go onstage before Louis and steal his act. Louis is crushed now that he won’t get to do the one thing he felt he was really good at. Ren takes pity on him and at the last minute and they come up with a comic opera routine that wins the brother and sister first prize.

✰ EPISODE #4: WHAT’LL IDOL DO? – Ren is overjoyed that June Marie is going to be her “pre-high school mentor”. She excitedly sings her praises to everyone in the family, but Louis is only interested in finding his missing tape of a favorite Saturday Night Live episode. He gets some surveillance equipment from Tom and begins spying on family members to find out who taped over his show. While doing this he finds out that June Marie is only using Ren in an effort to make a play for their brother Donnie. Louis tells Ren, but she is reluctant to believe him.

✰ Episode #5: All About Yvette – Charlotte’s old friend Yvette is back in town and Ren feels threatened. Meanwhile, Louis and Tawny babysit Twitty’s three-year-old brother. Louis wants to babysit Twitty’s kid brother to earn some money but his mom says he’s too young et, but if he can get Tawny to babysit with him then she’ll think about it. Meanwhile, Ren and Charlotte are on the decorating committee and must get the school’s gymnasium decorated for the school dance which will be chaperoned by Ren’s parents! Talk about a nightmare for Ren, but that’s not the biggest part of her problem – Charlotte’s old friend, Yvette moves back from Topeka and she’s afraid that Yvette will move in on their best friend relationship. Charlotte’s old friend Yvette shows up and Ren starts to feel left out as Charlotte seems to pick up right where she left off with Yvette. Even Ren’s mom likes the new girl. The situation isn’t helped when Yvette accidentally knocks Ren off a ladder while they are working in the gym, sending her flying through a huge hanging banner. Ren becomes so irritated that she breaks off her friendship with Charlotte. Mom tries to convince her, though, that it’s possible to have more that one best friend, something Ren doesn’t think is true. At the dance, Ren and Yvette run into each other in the bathroom and to Ren’s surprise, Yvette confesses that she has felt like the odd person out with Charlotte since she came to Sacramento. All three girls make their peace. Meanwhile, Louis tries to convince his mother that he is mature enough to babysit for Twitty’s little brother, along with some help from Tawny. Little Miltie turns out to be a real handful for the duo.

✰ Episode #6: Louis in the Middle – Louis saves a popular student’s life. Louis saves a popular student’s life when he suddenly starts choking and as a reward Louis becomes the guy’s sidekick for “!5 minutes of fame”. The sudden popularity that Louis begins receiving from everyone goes straight to his head and its up to old friends Tawny and Twitty to shock him back into reality. Meanwhile, Ren runs for school cafeteria policy monitor and tries to start a new suggestion box. In the cafeteria one day Louis saves the school’s sort-of celebrity Blake Thompson (who’s made a couple of TV commercials) from choking. Blake is grateful and takes a liking to Louis, inviting him to join his “in” crowd. Louis takes to his new status right away, putting a strain on his old friendships with Twitty and Tawny. But as soon as Blake sees that Louis is gaining some popularity himself, he drops him like a hot potato. The result is that Louis is out of favor with both his new friends and the old ones, too. Tawny comes up with a “lifes0aving” scheme, though. Meanwhile, Ren is being given a hard time in her job as school policy monitor by Larry Beale, who heckles her when she speaks at lunch and fills her suggestion box with not-so-nice suggestions. Ren feels like she’s “lost her mojo” when it comes to handling Larry and is going to quit her policy monitor position, but she gets some encouragement from Louis – and unexpectedly from Larry, too.

✰ Episode #7: Foodzilla – Ren is starting a school news station. Wanting his 15 minutes of fame, Louis contributes an accusing interview of the cafeteria lady, whom he nicknames “Foodzilla” Louis is dying to be on the TV-news magazine “Wombat Report”. Louis manages to convince Ren (who is producing it) to allow him to do a serious piece profiling one of the cafeteria ladies. When the show airs live. Louis ambushes the woman and mocks them in the interview. Ren is unable to be mad when she learns what a hit Louis’s story is. The kids at school begin call the cafeteria lady “Foodzilla”. Embarrassed she flees the cafeteria and quits her job. Louis and Ren become overcome with guilt and decide they need to fix the situation.

✰ EPISODE #8: FAMILY PICNIC – Competition is important to say the least – as the Stevens family prepare for the annual Deming, Deming and Deming Law Firm Company Picnic. Louis discovers how competitive his father is at a picnic competition and he feels he needs to win at any costs. Loui is dreading his father’s law firm’s family picnic because Steve Stevens is determined his family will win the picnic’s decathlon for the third yea r in a row. Donny injuries himself in an event, so Louis must participate in the deciding contest, the father son kayak race. Louis decides he’s willing to do anything to win the race.

✰ EPISODE #9: SCRUB DAY – Louis tries to lead an uprising against Junior High School initiations. The eight graders prepare for Scrub Day to prank the seventh-grade class. However, Louis becomes most-wanted scrub when he stands up to them. The eighth graders prepare for Scrub Day, an initiation directed at the seventh-grade class. Louis is desperate to find a way out, but receives no help from Ren, Donnie, or even Principle Wexter, who’s actually looking forward to it. Louis organizes the “United States of America” to stand up to Larry Beale, their chief tormentor. However, Louis loses all of his supporters when Larry decides that they’re only going to torment Louis this year. Meanwhile, Donnie is struggling to look for a historic figure to impersonate for his high school history report. On Scrub Day itself, the patrol is out in full force seeking Louis, but he proves to be elusive to them. When Louis is finally caught, Larry and company take him to the cafeteria where they dump him in a vat of sloppy Joe’s. Louis however starts to make jokes about it himself and soon has the cafeteria laughing along with him, taking the thrill of victory away from Larry and his friends. The 7^th graders become terrified of the approaching “Scrub Day”. Scrub Day is when the upperclassmen are supposedly allowed to do terrible things to unsuspecting 7^th graders.

✰ EPISODE #10: EASY WAY – Louis, not enthusiastic of doing actual volunteer work, agrees to sleep in a bed for 48 hours to earn money for charity, not knowing what he might miss. Louis participates in a school fundraiser by spending 48 hours in bed. It backfires when he cannot join in on free activities and food with everyone else at Funtasia. Ren becomes in charge of organizing the “Beacon of Help” fund raiser, where people work, walk, Tawny. He decides to “doze for dollars” and is scheduled to spend 48 hours in a bed in a department store window. He soon draws a crowd and news media. Ren is irritated by all of the attention Louis is receiving. She feels that she does all the hard work and that Louis is the only one getting any attention. However, Louis is soon upstaged by a skateboarding dog.