Tom and Susan, newly transplanted to Kansas City, are invited over for dinner and game night. The reserved Tom, terrified at the prospect of being thrown in feet first with such a tight-knit group of people, begs Susan to decline the invitation. But, of course, she accepts and soon Tom finds himself thrust into the close-knit Kelly clan – complete with game-playing, dinner-song-singing and collective corn-shucking, and initiated into the dreaded "doghouse system."

After Tom loses a taco-eating contest to the Kelly men, he tries to prove his machismo by hosting a barbeque – but he can't assemble his new grill and Susan can't cook.

Tom tries to convince Chris that the family is taking advantage of his overly-helpful generousity and decides to loosen him up by taking him golfing. Eventually Tom's plan to make his brother-in-law less helpful and more laidback backfires when the family starts to rely on Tom to takeover all of Chris' chores.

When Tom meets fellow New Yorker Bob they instantly become best friends but the same can't be said when their wives meet. Susan tells Tom that Bob's wife was a girl that Mary and she hated back in high school. Meanwhile, Dave talks Chris into betting on a football game behind Mary's back.

Sandy isn't happy when Tom and Susan buy a small car because it means that they're not thinking about starting a family any time soon.

Susan finds out that Tom is still renting their old New York apartment after Lewis decides to skip Thanksgiving dinner with the family so that he can take a trip to the Big Apple.

Tom and Susan are obliged to stay overnight at the Kellys' on Christmas Eve to help with Sandy's frantic Christmas preparations, and Sandy has to face her first Christmas without her mother.

The rivalry between Tom and Mary heats up when he shows her up at her own award presentation and is invited to be a guest speaker at her university. Meanwhile, Lewis decides that it is time for a name change so he asks everyone to start calling him Lew.

Chris borrows money from Tom to start his own house-refurbishing business, and Tom is offered a job ghostwriting a book for a famous football player.

Tom's pretentious parents from New York attend Bill and Sandy Kelly's anniversary party in Kansas, and Chris refuses to sell the house he just refurbished.