Line #4 Series/GroundedForLife


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_1175.JPG]]
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3	This DomCom, which aired on Creator/{{Fox}} from 2001–03 and Creator/TheWB from 2003–05, starred Creator/DonalLogue and Creator/MegynPrice as Sean and Claudia Finnerty, an Irish-American couple who lived in Staten Island, New York, while raising their three kids, Lily (Creator/LynseyBartilson), Jimmy (Creator/GriffinFrazen), and Henry (Creator/JakeBurbage).
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5	The other main characters were Sean's shady and eccentric younger brother Eddie (Creator/KevinCorrigan), Sean and Eddie's father Walt (Creator/RichardRiehle) and Brad O'Keefe (Creator/BretHarrison), the next-door neighbor who also served as Lily's love interest.
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7	The show heavily featured flashback and cutaway sequences to events that had previously taken place off-camera, often revisited to show an event from another perspective.
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9	The series lasted for five seasons and 95 episodes.
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12	!!This show provides examples of:
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14	* AbuseOfReturnPolicy: Lily goes on a large shopping spree and tries to return the clothes she purchased (essentially treating it as a kind of rental), only to find out that the refund would be provided in the form of store credit. This, and her going on an angry tirade that pissed off the store manager, led to her being forced to WorkOffTheDebt she accrued on her parents' [[CreditCardPlot credit card]] to avoid being arrested.
15	* AMistakeIsBorn: This is why the parents are "grounded" for life - they had sex in high school, she got pregnant, they had to get married.
16	* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Lily. You could practically label her rolling her eyes and doing an annoyed "Ugh!" at something her parents said to her (usually denying her something) as her CatchPhrase.
17	* BuxomBeautyStandard: Claudia - In high school, she faked being ill in gym class to avoid having to do activities that would result in her breasts bouncing, much to the dismay of the boys.
18	* ChekhovsGunman: Occasionally, characters that appeared in earlier episodes would appear more significantly later, such as "Crazy" Amy or Faye.
19	* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: Henry's actor moved east with his family, so his character was dropped. He was still alluded to from time to time but never shown.
20	* ConfidenceSabotage: In "Mrs. Finnerty, You've Got A Lovely Daughter", Claudia inadvertently does this to Lily when she causes a scene at the talent show during her act, resulting in the audience booing that she's ruining the show, which Lily thinks is aimed at her.
21	* DearNegativeReader: InUniverse. After spending the entirety of "Welcome to the Working Week (Take This Job and Shove It, Dad)" trying to win over a blogger who wrote a bad review of the bar he and Sean owned, Eddie wound up writing one to the critic. He even declared that he'd started his own blog, for the sole purpose of insulting the critic.
22	%%* DomCom
23	* {{Flashback}}: Most episodes start about halfway through the story, so a significant part is told in flashback.
24	* GirlfriendInCanada: Subverted in the episode "Space Camp Oddity", where Brad says that he had a girlfriend at Space Camp, and brings up several lame excuses when people want to meet her. Eventually, she appears, played by Creator/MilaKunis.
25	* GroundedForever: The title is one example of these. Doesn't happens InUniverse, though, but there's several instances of people being grounded.
26	* HighSchoolSweethearts: Sean and Claudia in their youth; Brad and Lily.
27	* HopelessSuitor: Brad O'Keefe to Lily. He assumed that her emotions were divided between himself (whom she barely noticed and openly discouraged any kind of advance) and her boyfriend (who she was all too ready to get hot and heavy with). Eventually he decided to "back down" and openly referenced the concept that they were in a "love triangle" to the boyfriend, whose only concern was "The two end points don't touch, do they?". Eventually subverted, because Lily and Brad wound up in a relationship for most of the show's run.
28	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Every episode is either named after a well-known song ("Dream On", "You Can't Always Get What You Want") or a song-based pun ("Lily B. Goode", "I Wanna Be Suspended").
29	* MadeOutToBeAJerkass: Claudia finds out that Eddie had an adult movie shot at the house and bans him from the house. Of course, when the kids find out, they side with their poor uncle. It even has [[LampshadeHanging lampshading]].
30	-->'''Claudia''': Wait a minute. How did ''I'' become the bad guy?
31	-->'''Henry''': You made Uncle Eddie leave. Now I'm going to have a porno birthday!
32	* MafiaPrincess: Claudia learns her uncle is in the mob.
33	-->She's a mafia princess. She's too close to know the truth.
34	* MinorWithFakeID: Brad finds out his former bully, Scott, has a fake ID and asks him to buy beer, but gets ripped off. Sean and Eddie force him to buy the beer for real, but just as he goes to pay, a cop enters and arrests him for being a minor purchasing alcohol, which gets him suspended from the school basketball team.
35	* AMistakeIsBorn: This is why the parents are "grounded" for life - they had sex in high school, she got pregnant, they had to get married. Another see also: TeenPregnancy.
36	* MistakenForGay: Sean took his kids to the amusement park. It was "Gay Day" there and everyone was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. Guess what he was wearing...
37	* {{Oireland}}: The Finnertys are of Irish descent. A later (small) plot point, in that Sean and Eddie bought a bar, and used their heritage to their advantage on St Patrick's Day, by touting the fact that ''their'' bar was run by a legitimately Irish family, as opposed to their corporate rivals.
38	* OneDialogueTwoConversations: Sean confronted Lily's boyfriend because he thought he slept with her. It turns out they just got tattoos together.
39	* OnceMoreWithClarity: Almost every episode is a series of flashbacks flashing further back each time. One character may have a flashback to a hit and run driver taking out their car door, followed by another character revealing they were the hit and run driver late in the episode.
40	* TheParentProducedProject: One episode surrounded a science fair project for one of the boys, which Sean took over completely (at one point welding it in the bedroom). Claudia is paranoid that they're going to be caught out for it and even takes steps to disguise Sean's involvement... until they get to the science fair and find out that every other student's project was also done by a parent.
41	* RelationshipUpgrade: Lily and Brad big time by the end of Season 3.
42	* SecondHandStorytelling: Flashback, too, in each episode.
43	* SexyShirtSwitch: Eddie is shown to reverse the roles, putting on the female's shirt/blouse the morning after. In one episode, when Eddie goes off with another girlfriend for the night, it's even said "You know, he'll really look good in that blouse."
44	* ShoutOut: Jimmy was a fan of anime and ''Anime/DragonballZ'' was mentioned in one episode.
45	* StacysMom: Lily's male classmates all have the hots for Claudia, a fact that makes Lily ''very'' jealous.
46	* StPatricksDayEpisode: In "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City," Sean is having trouble keeping the bar alive, and Claudia asks him to reconsider running it. With St. Patrick's Day around the corner, Eddie tries to lure customers over from rival pubs. Brad and Lily prepare for the parade, and Jimmy is having trouble understanding the meaning of St. Patrick's Day.
47	* StripperCopConfusion: In episode 110 - Catch Us If You Can, Claudia is throwing a bachelorette party for one of her girlfriends while Sean incites a mob of angry Yankees fans for catching a fly ball still in play. A cop shows up who Sean thinks is here to control the mob outside the house, but he is a stripper.
48	* TeenPregnancy: Claudia when she became pregnant with Lily.
49	* WrittenInAbsence: The actor playing Henry isn't in the final season. In the final episode, Walt casually mentions that "he's around here somewhere".

Context Series / GroundedForLife