Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Exposition
It's a Family Affair
The Crays are not your average family—they spend their time watching after wild animals, and make their living by keeping them tame on film for commercials and movies. After a frozen iguana falls on Mickey's head and gives him a concussion, he can't work due to bad headaches and blurry vision. This leaves the Crays broke and unable to make their house payment, so Wahoo's mom heads off to China to teach Mandarin Chinese to white businessmen, while Wahoo commits his dad to a new job working with a reality TV star on his show Expedition Survival!. We've got a bad feeling about this new gig.
Rising Action
Fools Rush In
After Derek totally abuses the animals at Wahoo's house during the first filming, and shows that he clearly has no idea what he's doing by making some of the worst choices a person could make when dealing with wild animals, Mickey accepts a job to take this numbskull out into the Everglades to wrangle wild animals for him in exchange for a hefty fee. But did he really think it through first? Wahoo and Mickey must know this is a really bad idea—especially since Mickey is still seeing double—but they need the money in the worst way. Uh-oh… this sounds like a conflict.
A complication arises when Wahoo meets Tuna and just can't leave her behind with her drunk dad who has a gun and beats her up. Instead, he brings her along to the wilderness where, as they spend more time together, he begins to care about her. But her dad feels like caring about her one day too, so he shows up uninvited… and with a gun.
Climax
I Vant to Suck Your Blood
Tuna's dad, Jared, ends up getting wasted and shooting an airboat driver (named Link) and Wahoo's dad while trying to snatch Tuna and escape the Everglades (oh yeah—and the cops) with his daughter in tow. Literally everyone is trying to stop Jared: Mickey tries to trick him; Link shows up wounded and ready to murder the man; Wahoo and Tuna tackle him into the water and—unsuccessfully—try to take the gun. Are you biting your nails yet? Because we sure are. There's just so much tension. No one sees what happens next coming: Derek shoots from the trees, attacking Jared like a vampire in the night… which is exactly what Derek thinks he's become.
Falling Action
Pesky Kids
If you have ever watched an episode of Scooby-Doo, then you know that the bad guy gets caught and arrested. The good guys (the kids) stand around cracking a few light jokes and explaining what just happened for those who didn't get it. Wahoo ties up Jared with Link's help. The police arrive, take the injured folks away, and arrest Jared as Tuna watches. It is all nicely packed up and finished.
Resolution
Back to Normal
In the Epilogue, we get a convenient update on how everyone in this story is doing by the time the episode airs on TV a few months later. Pretty much everyone goes home or to the hospital and life resumes its normal levels of stress and excitement: Jared ends up in jail; Mickey feels better after surgery; Link survives; Wahoo and Tuna keep in touch since she lives with her mother in Chicago now and they plan to see each other soon. The only one who winds up unhappy is Derek, but he was unhappy to begin with anyway, right?