Jimmy Chance, a 24-year old directionless guy who lives with his parents, Burt and Virginia, his cousin Mike, and his great-grandma, Barbara June "Maw Maw" Thompson, has his live upended when he's returning hope from buying bubblegum ice cream. He encounters a woman named Lucy running away from a man, and after letting her into his van, they sleep together. While watching the news with his parents the next morning, they discover that she's a serial killer, and call the police. Eight months later, he visits her in prison, where she reveals that she's pregnant with his child. Several months after giving birth, she's executed by the state, and Jimmy receives custody of the baby, named "Princess Beyoncé". While his parents try to convince him to give the baby up, Jimmy insists on keeping her, and meets Sabrina, a grocery store employee, while pawning some of his possessions to buy baby supplies, who accuses him of stealing a cart and us suspicious of his baby. After assuring Sabrina the cart and the baby are his, the cart is stolen from the pawn shop, and Virginia picks him up, where she questions his readiness to be a parent, revealing her own poor parenting. After calling her out on it, she kicks Jimmy out of the car, and he goes back to the grocery store to buy food for Hope. After returning home, Jimmy changes Hope, which leads to him and Virginia throwing up on her. After bathing her, he puts her to bed, but she refuses to sleep and cries all night. Eventually, Virginia and Burt come in to soothe her to sleep with a song. After trying again to convince him to give up the baby, Virginia concedes, and comes up with a new name for her: Hope.
This episode provides examples of:
- Abnormal Allergy: According to Virginia, Jimmy is allergic to fruit.
- Answer Cut: Lucy is absolutely adamant that they wouldn't execute the mother of a 6-month old baby. Cut to her execution, 7 months later.
- Artistic License – Law: In real life, while they certainly wouldn't execute an expecting mother so soon, it's highly unlikely that she would be executed only 15 months after being arrested; odds are she would go through years of appeals before she ever saw an execution chamber, if at all.
- Dumbass Has a Point: Despite Jimmy's lack of knowledge about parenting, he knows enough to call out Virginia for her own crappy parenting.
- For Your Own Good: Virginia tries to tell this to Jimmy when persuading him that he can't raise a baby.
- Hidden Depths: Jimmy is shown to have artistic talent, Burt is good at playing guitar, and Virginia is a very capable singer.
- Hypocritical Humor: Virginia berates Jimmy for his poor parenting, despite Virginia having been worse than he is.
- Improbable Weapon User: Virginia knocks Lucy out with a TV.
- Not So Above It All: Eventually, Virginia gives in, and sings Hope to sleep.
- Oh, Crap!: The whole family, when they realize Lucy is a serial killer.
- Refuge in Audacity: When Jimmy was a kid, Virginia didn't have a car seat for him, so she let him jump around the car, unbuckled, with a hole in the floor, clearly big enough for him to fall through. As Jimmy notes, it's amazing he's still alive.
- Shout-Out: The news reporter makes one to "My Name Is Earl".
