The Facts of Life

A flood hits Peekskill which prompts Blair and Tootie to race out to the stables to save some animals from being washed away. However the damn breaks and Blair and Tootie become in danger of being washed away.

Mrs. Garrett begins teaching a sex-education class at Eastland and her tactics are against the more prudish suggestions of Mr. Bradley. Meanwhile, Blair takes the ideas from class and expirements with her latest boyfriend, Steve.

Blair and Sue Ann kid each other about their weight and Sue Ann takes Blair's comments a little too seriously. However, when Blair sets Sue Ann up on a blind date which will involve going swimming, Sue Ann goes on a starvation diet leading to a collapse. Meanwhile, Mrs. Garrett also jumps on the dieting wagon, trying to fit in a size 12 dress.

Blair is so caught up with her latest boyfriend that she forgets about an English assignment in which she has to write a poem. So, at the last minute she plagiarizes a poem by Emily Dickinson and turns it in as her own. Things get worse when she's the only one who gets an A and Mr. Bradley enters her poem in a contest.

Tootie's father comes for a visit and doesn't like the activities that Tootie is being exposed to. Believing that Mrs. Garrett is a bad influence, Mr. Ramsey decides to have Tootie transfer out of Eastland.

Tootie accidentally comes across a paper which lists the I.Q. scores of each one of the girls. Nancy received the highest score and Sue Ann scored the lowest, this puts extra pressure on each one of them just prior to midterm exams.

Mrs. Garrett is surprised by a visit from her ex-husband, Roger, who wants the two of them to remarry. However, his gambling ways rub off on the girls who begin gambling on poker games and loosing what little money they have..

It's Parent's Night at Eastland and Blair's sophisticated mother arrives bringing with her, her flirtatious tendancies which prompt rumors when she becomes ""friendly"" with a married man.

The series opens with the Drummonds (from Diff'rent Strokes) visiting Eastland to see Mrs. Garrett (their ex-housekeeper). They arrive right in the middle of the Harvest Queen competition and Blair is sure she's going to win. So when Cindy considers running, Blair makes some snide comments about Cindy's femininity.

A widowed Mrs. Garrett is heading back to America on a cruise ship, ready for a new life and also looking forward to seeing her "girls" again, all of whom have grown into successful, independent women: Blair owns Warner Enterprises, which includes a stable of hotels, and is married to Tad Warner, without children. Natalie now serves as a behind-the-scenes producer at CNN juggling an active love life with a frenetic work schedule that takes her all over the world. Tootie, now preferring to be called by her real name, Dorothy, is a Hollywood-based talk show host and the mother of a 10-year-old girl, Tisha. Jo, now a police officer, is still married to Rick Bonner and they have a daughter, Jamie. Natalie has talked all the girls and Mrs. Garrett into spending the Thanksgiving holiday together back in Peekskill, NY. When Jo is unable to attend the reunion because of work, her teenage daughter, Jamie, comes instead in her absence. Trouble soon starts when Natalie receives two different marriage proposals, so it's up to the girls to help solve Natalie's predicament. Over the course of the holiday, the girls reveal to one another the personal troubles they face in their adult years and discover that, despite the time that has passed, they need each other's friendship more than ever.

Blair, Tootie, Natalie, Jo, Beverly Ann, and Andy visit the land down under. Blair and Jo are warned of a planned jewel heist; Beverly Ann visits a beau from many years ago; Natalie is stranded in the outback; and Tootie meets a Yale student who pretends to be a young Aborigine.

The girls and Mrs. Garrett head to Paris. The girls are going to spend sometime in the French counterpart of their school while Mrs. Garrett attends a cooking school. The girls were hoping to spend some time in Paris but find themselves stuck in the school but during the last week of their stay when they go to Paris, so they decide to bolt. Jo decides to go to Le Mans and meets a French boy. Blair try to hook up with a French guy. Natalie and Tootie run into a writer who's been struggling whom they decide to help do his assignment. And Mrs. Garrett has a hard time trying to impress the French Chef in charge of the class.