The BEST episodes of The Facts of Life
Every episode of The Facts of Life ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Facts of Life!
Charlotte Rae stars as a dietician and house mother at a private girls' boarding school, watching over students Blair, Tootie, Natalie and Jo.
#1 - The Christmas Show
Season 5 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/21/1983
The holidays bring joy to the girls when they all plan on going home for Christmas but when Jo's mother temporarily moves to Miami, Jo is stuck in Peekskill.
#2 - Out of the Fire...
Season 7 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/14/1985
After returning from their summer vacation, the girls discover that Edna's Edibles has burned down. This leads the girls to discuss rebuilding and opening up a new business.
#3 - With a Little Help From My Friends
Season 6 - Episode 18 - Aired 1/30/1985
Blair is concerned when she discovers her date is doing cocaine.
#4 - A Death in the Family
Season 5 - Episode 17 - Aired 2/1/1984
The girls are shaken by the sudden death of Natalie's father and wonder how to ease her pain.
#5 - Next Door
Season 5 - Episode 14 - Aired 1/4/1984
A young boy enters Edna's Edibles and Tootie befriends him and learns that he lives next door. She also learns that his mother works all day and leaves him home alone and tells him never to leave their apartment and when a gas leak is detected on the block the young boy won't budge.
#6 - Small but Dangerous
Season 5 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/16/1983
Streetwise Kelly alleges that the vandalism of Edna's Edibles was the work of a local gang, but Jo decides to investigate.
#7 - Brave New World (1)
Season 5 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/21/1983
Jo and Blair have a hard time adjusting to college.
#8 - Let's Party!
Season 4 - Episode 16 - Aired 2/9/1983
Tootie is excited about the impending visit of her brother Marshall, however is stay becomes one of fear when he invites the girls to a college party where beer is being served. After the party, a drunk Marshall, insisting that he isn't drunk, offers to drive Blair, Natalie and Tootie home. However, their trip home is interrupted by an accident.
#9 - Christmas in the Big House
Season 6 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/19/1984
For the Christmas season, Blair and some of her snobby friends plan on putting on a Christmas show at a home for boys. Her Christmas spirit quickly changes when she discovers that the home for boys is really a home for convicts.
#10 - Take My Finals, Please
Season 4 - Episode 22 - Aired 4/27/1983
It's finals week at Eastland and the girls are planning an all night study session. They soon find out that studying is going to be hard with so many distractions, including Blair and Jo's fears of the future in college and Natalie's fear of an upcoming Chemistry exam in which she must memorize the atomic symbols.
#11 - The Chain Letter
Season 5 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/28/1983
While Mrs. Garrett frets over an inspection by the Board of Health, the girls get involved with a chain letter and ignore their responsibilities.
#12 - Talk, Talk, Talk
Season 6 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/28/1984
While working at the campus radio station, Jo finds herself needing to fill 5 hours of air time. Things start off on a bad note, when she can't find a key to the record cabinet, which leads, Natalie, Tootie, Blair and Mrs. Garrett to come to her rescue.
#13 - Graduation (1)
Season 4 - Episode 23 - Aired 5/4/1983
Blair and Jo share a common feeling of disdain toward their graduation from Eastland.
#14 - The Last Drive-In
Season 6 - Episode 22 - Aired 3/13/1985
The local drive-in theatre is closing and the girls decide to pay it one last visit on the final night it's open. However, chaos reigns when people begin to loot the theatre and Blair gets into a cat fight.
#15 - The Second Time Around
Season 5 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/14/1983
Jo begins seeing sparks between her divorced parents and immediately hopes they get back together. However, her hopes quickly become dashed when she learns that her father is planning to marry another woman.
#16 - Me and Eleanor
Season 6 - Episode 14 - Aired 1/2/1985
A no-win situation: Tootie asks Natalie for an honest opinion of her dreadful one-woman play about Eleanor Roosevelt.
#18 - Two Guys From Appleton
Season 6 - Episode 17 - Aired 1/23/1985
Mrs. Garrett receives a visit from the high-school sweetheart she ran out on, and she's swept off her feet all over again.
#19 - Advanced Placement
Season 5 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/2/1983
Natalie is allowed to enroll in a college course at Langley College and she quickly gets an overblown ego which quickly threatens her friendships with Blair, Jo and Tootie. Things get even worse when she learns that if she can keep her grade point average up she will be allowed to graduate early and enroll at Langley in the fall.
#20 - What Price Glory?
Season 5 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/19/1983
Tootie's new boyfriend, Jeff, is the star football player on the football team at Eastland. However, she learns a startling secret that he's been keeping, he's illiterate. She now must decide whether or not to encourage his behavior of having other kids do his work for him.
#21 - The Americanization of Miko
Season 3 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/20/1982
The strict father of new Japanese student Miko comes down hard on her for sneaking out to see a rock concert and causing $400 in damage with Jo's motorcycle.
#22 - Cruisin'
Season 6 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/31/1984
On a dateless Saturday night, the girls cruise downtown Peekskill in hopes of finding Mr. Right. However, a string of bizarre events leads the girls to hideout in their car at a closed gas station.
#23 - Teacher, Teacher
Season 7 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/5/1985
Jo is offered a job at a major company which is tempting but this causes her to reevaluate her dream of becoming a teacher.
#24 - Bus Stop
Season 6 - Episode 25 - Aired 5/8/1985
Mrs. Garrett and the girls are all excited about Natalie's graduation and buy her a bookcase with a brand new set of encyclopedias on the assumption she's going to college. To her friends surprise, Natalie has a very different plan for life after high school.
#25 - It's Lonely at the Top
Season 6 - Episode 24 - Aired 3/27/1985
With Mrs. Garrett out of town, Blair wants to be in charge of the shop so a reluctant Jo, Natalie and Tootie step aside and let her. Quickly Blair's handling of a competitor food shop goes awry.