The Davis Family (Season 5)

 (NSFW WARNING: This page Mentions Violence, Sexism, Strong Language, Sexual Abuse and Realistic Child Abuse. If you are sensitive to any of said topics, then please don't continue with this article.) 

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Episode Summary.
Jo visits the Davis family from Deltona, Florida where Phil and Debbra (41) have five children: 14-year-old Morgan, 9-year-old Phillip, 4-year-old Madison, 3-year-old Tiffany and 2-year-old Tori.

When Jo meets the family, she notices Phil yelling and swearing at his kids.

He expects his wife, Debbra (who works long hours) and his stepdaughter, Morgan to take care of the younger children and clean the house.

Debbra notes that Phil's chauvinist and perverted ways make him believe that her chores are "part of being a woman," yet it often brings her to tears. Additionally, he criticizes Morgan (who is Phil's stepdaughter since she was 3) for dressing so called provocatively and calls her a "slut," which brings her to tears as well.

The mornings are chaotic and ends with Morgan (who's also a Straight "A" Student) to begin getting late for school every day and failing first period.

Phil also disciplines his daughters with abusive methods such as smacking them in the mouth or spanking his kids with a leather belt or his hands. Debbra admits to Jo that Phil's behavior has caused them to separate before, but feels like she can't trust him to change.

Jo informs Phil that his abusive behavior is going to break his daughters' spirits and end his marriage. Can Jo teach Phil to stray from his abusive ways and rescue this family from falling apart?

Submission Reel.
The family is introduced consisting with Phil and Debbra "Debbie" (Age: 41), Phil's stepdaughter which he had her since she was 3, Morgan (Age: 14) Phil's Son, Phillip (Age: 9) and his 3 daughters, Madison "Maddie" (Age: 4), Tiffany (Age: 3) and Tori (Age: 2)

Phil works as a water plant operator and Debbra works as a commercial insurance sells producer.

When Jo watches the DVD reel, she hears Phil say, “The first thing a wife should do, is have the house clean before she leaves".

Phil leaves for work before 6:00 am. and Morgan helps her mom get her siblings ready to leave the house. Because the mornings are so hectic, that Morgan (Who's a Straight " A" Student) began failing her first-period class because she's always so late.

Morgan points out Phil's anger and how he calls her and the girls in the family "bitches" if they look at him the wrong way. He is also shown spanking and violently chasing the children with a belt. She also brings up the fact that Phil and Debbra have divorced a few times in the past because of his behavior.

How Jo reacts to all of this was that she said that Phil's punishments by using the belt were "extremely disgusting and appalling".

Observation.
During Jo's observation, as Debbra makes lunch for the kids, she finds out that Debbra is forced to do all of the responsibilities as Phil instead gets to relax with his son Philip. Then Phil begins to argue and criticize Debbra about the issue. But when the younger girls start crying, Jo asks if they yell all the time and Phil responds that he argues and yells "All the time" everyday. As Debbra steps outside to take a breather, she tells Jo that Phil needs to step up to the plate or it will really end their marriage.

Later on, Morgan intervenes with Phil over the way he treats all the women in the house and Phil inappropriately call her a Bitch only to yell, "You can walk your ass upstairs, you little bitch!" This ended up causing Morgan to run to her room in tears. Phil admits swearing at the children sometimes. Jo goes upstairs to talk and comfort Morgan.

Observation Continues.
Later on, Phil also admits to using the belt on all of the children, but Jo and Morgan are not impressed with his type of punishment. But when Tiffany and Tori start wrestling with each other, Phil slaps Tori hard in the mouth, causing Tori crying, running to Morgan as She looks so upset to Phil for what he did to Tori.

During a family walk, Phil rants about a necklace that Morgan got as a present from a "17-year-old" boy Named Chris (which Morgan married years later.) He again, starts inappropriately yelling at her with perverted feminine slurs, telling her that she looks like a slut (even though she's only wearing normal clothes like a red t-shirt, jeans and normal flip flops). After arguing whenever or not Her jeans are tight, Phil says, "I should let you run with the dogs and get fleas and act like a little hoe.", causing Morgan to break down again, but Debbra doesn't do anything to stop it.

Jo, upset, admits that tomorrow she is going to definitely going to sit down and have a meeting with this family.

Parents meeting.
The next day at the parents meeting, Jo criticizes Phil about his behavior explaining about how he treats the women in the house, saying "A women's place." claiming that the money he earns contributes to the family and not to himself.

Jo then scolds how he calls Morgan a "slut" and a "hoe". Phil tries to make excuses claiming that he isn't intentionally calling her a slut and that he doesn't want Morgan to dress like a slut. However, Jo doesn't believe Phil about his excuse but then Phil questions Jo if Morgan should show her cleavage at 14, only for Jo to close the topic.

Then Jo explains how instead of how he disciplines his children make smart decisions but grabbing the leather belt and smacking them, before explaining that his abuse is breaking the children's spirits. Jo also talks about how his language is despicable before saying "You are a bully." to Phil.

The she lectures Debbra for standing in Phil's side and claiming that keeping her family together could prepare and destroy their spirits.

Jo tells both parents that she expects them to have commitment, An open mind, The family to accept the changes, to trust her and hard work from them, and saying that, "If you cannot give it to me, then this doesn't go down."

Teaching.
When the teaching begins, Jo sets up pictures of the children outside and brings Phil outside to discuss his abusive behavior. She makes him throw darts at the children's pictures, telling him, "Every time you verbally abuse your young girls, it's like throwing a poisonous dart right in their face." The exercise makes Phil realize how damaging his words are.

Later, Jo takes Phil and Debbra to a nearby gym to show Phil why he isn't trusted. Jo blindfolds Debbra and makes her fall backward, but Debbra has trouble trusting Phil to catch her because he's broken promises before. Then, Jo tricks Phil into thinking Debbra will catch him, but he ends up falling into a foam pit which makes Phil realize what it's like when a trust is broken.

When Maddie starts misbehaving as Phil tells them to go downstairs. Phil takes Maddie to timeout, Jo teaches Phil how to properly apply discipline. It takes a while, but Phil soon learns that timeouts work.

Later that day, Jo helps the Davis family prepare themselves in the morning and gives them a schedule board and 3 shelves for the younger girls to put their clothes on the night before.

The next morning, Jo arrives at the Davis house at 5:30 to make sure everyone is getting ready. Phil leaves for work as usual, Jo also teaches Debbra how to care for the younger girls while she gets ready and Morgan is able to focus on getting herself ready in the morning. In the end, 17 minutes were lost, everyone gets out of the house and Morgan successfully arrives to school without being late.

Meanwhile, Jo helps Phil and Morgan mend their strained relationship. Morgan tells Phil how angry she feels, saying, "You never listen to me or anything." When Morgan finishes, Phil hugs her, telling her that he'll try to change his behavior.

DVD Meeting/Parent Evaluation.
Clip 1: Phil is shown playing with his daughters as they were playing with Play-Doh before playing beauty shop. Phil plays as the customer, letting the daughters put elastic bands to his hair.

Clip 2: Phil is seen joking around with Morgan about her boyfriend.

Clip 3: Phil is threatening her daughter to be put in timeout as she is seen refusing to move as Phil is dragging her off the couch. Later she is seen kicking Phil while Phil is drying her with a towel.

Clip 4: Phil stubs his toe in the corner of the shelf causing him to accidentally swear which caused him to hit the wall with his fist.

Clip:5 Tori makes a mess in the carpet, causing Phil to slap her in the face.

Clip:6 When Tori begins to hit Phil continuously, but hit Phil in the face. Phil responds by hitting Tori with his arm to the face. He ends up hitting her so violently that it caused her to fall to the ground, luckily she is able to walk out the room crying.

The first time Phil hits Tori, Debbra was shocked and Phil replies "I shouldn't have done that." The second time Phil hit her, Debbra is seen in tears as Phil responds with "That was horrible." Jo declares that Phil has abusive behavior and needs help controlling it.

Reinforcement.
Jo does something for Reinforcement, that she didn't do besides fixing their discipline.

Jo takes Phil to meet an abuse program coordinator Joyce Pastorek and speaks with a man who started and completed the program. She also has Phil talk to a girl who suffered abuse from her own father.

Jo plans to keep in touch with the family and get reports from the abuse program coordinator to make sure everything is okay.

Later that night, the family hugs and says goodbye to Jo as Phil is put into Counselling. Jo leaves the family on the condition that Phil doesn't continue child abuse.

The episode ends with a disclaimer which says that "Phil Davis is currently making good on his promise and receiving counseling for his abusive behavior."

Post-Episode.

 * The family were investigated.
 * Phil continued child abuse until his Investigation.
 * Morgan graduated in 2011.
 * Phillip graduated in 2017.
 * Phillip became a Army Man.
 * Phillip got married.
 * Morgan got married to Chris Burns.
 * Morgan gave birth to Skylar Elizabeth Burns in August 29 2016.
 * Morgan gave birth to a unnamed child in 2019/2020.
 * Debbra and Phil secretly divorced before they got Remarried in June 9 2019.
 * Debbra gave birth to Kennedy Davis in June 23 2010.
 * Debbra adopted a dog named Braelynn in April 16 2017.
 * Phil started a lawn service.
 * Phil became a police officer.
 * Tiffany got selected to an art show in 2018.
 * The Family except for Morgan moved to Coralville, Iowa in 2016.
 * Madison went missing early in the morning of October 11 2019, she was found the same day late at night.
 * Debbra revealed that Madison had a kidney infection.

Controversy.
After the episode's first airing, millions of viewers who watched it were shocked, disgusted and outraged by Phil’s sexist comments, perverted and abusive behavior. A week after the episode aired, a neighbor watched the episode and was so outraged, she called the police on the family. However, Phil's charges were not made, which meant he was not arrested, despite the proof of what he did in the episode. Which caused the police to receive backlash over letting Phil go instead of arresting him

Most Supernanny fans agree that The Davis Family is the worst family that Jo has ever helped, being described as worse than The Tafoya Family, an episode which at the time was considered the worst, due to many things. The main one being Holly walking out on Jo during the DVD meeting, after she, Jo and Jimmy watched a clip of her using soap on James, instead of sending him to timeout. Which lead to Jo trying and failing to explain to Holly why soap shouldn’t be used as a discipline technique. Phil has also become the most disliked parent in the series.

Other families ended up receiving this treatment, wether they featured abuse or not. These episodes include:

The Kerns Family for Shawn and Shannon's laziness which lead to the kids running towards their neighbour's yard, which is considered child abandonment and neglect

The McKeever Family for Hunter and River being shown to be extremely sexist towards Jo and Lucy.

The Christiansen Family for Collen and Chris believing that child abuse is a joke.

The Colier Family for Jason refusing to learn mature life skills, and him simply treating the boys in a baby like stake being mistaken for signs of him being a pedophile.

The Mann Family for the family's abusive behavior to their children which lead to them being investigated.

The Nitti Family for both John and Lisa's behaviour to the boys. With the two most known cases, being Lisa head-locking Devin and John verbally abusing him during the Test Run, admitting to disagreeing with the techniques and calling Jo “lady” when she called him out on it

The Bowersock Family for Jennifer doing corporal punishment, defending her right to do it and her constant excuses.

The Daniels Family for Lisa’s treatment of Halley, wanting to send her children to a boot camp and her constant excuses in the Parent Meeting.

The Phelps Family for Amy defending her right to use corporal punishment.

The Froebrich Family for Erich's abusive behavior to his Children.

The Sachs Family for the fact of how Nancy buys toys for Ryan and Jonathan 3 Times a week, which is why the boys are spoiled, especially Ryan.

The Chapman Family for Sara and Glenn's lazy behavior which lead to the family facing charges of child neglect.

The Jones-Nickolich Family for Todd's attempt to ban Jo out of his house and his abusive behavior to the children, especially the time where he intentionally hit Kai by letting go on a sliding door, resulting in the door hitting Kai.

The Fernandez Family for Marla's shockingly abusive threats as she told Jo that she would pull her children's teeth out, leave them with strangers, have them be kidnapped and call the police to take them away.

The Benjany Family for Richie being in denial on Blake playing with girls toys.

The Potter Family for Chris' behavior to his children, most notably dragging them up the stairs.

The Minyon Family for Frank's neglectful comments to Frank Patrick in the test run homework segment, and also calling him a 'whiny brat'.

The Young Family (U.K.) for Susan and Paul’s use of hitting the boys with objects which was so bad that Jo ended up failing this family, which eventually lead to Joel burning the family's house down in 2007 and Jacob being arrested in 2020 for rape. With the Producers also being blamed due to them allegedly instantiating the boys

The Hillhouse-Docherty Family for Kerry’s abysmal way of discipline and the Milk spilling scene, which led Jo to also fail to help this family

The Bixley Family for Heather’s forceful way on getting Brandon to eat by forcing food in his face, and for spanking Zack in the mall as well.

The Richardson Family for Ralph’s very abusive nature, with Jo witnessing all of it, likely due to his anger getting worse after the loss of his parents.

The Peterfreund Family for Keith and Sonya’s use of hot sauce, due to the case of Jessica Beagley (Despite this, hot sauce was barely even featured in the episode in the first place)

The Williams Family (UK) for Tyler’s extremely high aggression, which some say was caused by the producers, due to the Young Family (UK)‘s allegations towards them doing the same to the boys

People also pointed out during the controversy surrounding The Spivey Family in the spin-off Jo Frost: Nanny On Tour. How Phil was never reported to authorities, whilst Chris, the father, was reported to child protective services, for allegedly abusing his autistic son, Marcus in his room (it's never been proven he did, as the door was closed when he allegedly abused him). Many people have argued with this however, stating the neighbour who called the police did the right thing, as child protective services wouldn't be able to do anything about it today, as it was a long time ago, and Phil's likely changed his ways (according to his Facebook he seemingly has)

Whilst unrelated to the controversy surrounding the episode. Many pointed out how ABC, was somehow able to avoid fines from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as real child abuse and sexual harassment is not allowed on TV, by them. Had ABC begun getting fined, and if it were to, too many times, it may’ve resulted in the channel being shut down entirely. These fines likely would’ve been for all the moments in Supernanny where child abuse was physically shown on-screen or the sexual harassment done by Phil.

Transcript.
Coming Soon.

Family Members.
Bold = Off Screen.

Behind The Scenes.
This episode was filmed in between November 2008.

Though in the 100th Episode Special during the Supernanny secrets it was listed as November 2008.

The family's stepson, Jordan may’ve filmed the submission reel, likely due to him not wanting to participate in the episode

Viewership.
Unknown, however speculated to be around 5-6 million

Gallery.






External Links.

 * Orlando Sentinel Article About The Family's Investigation.
 * New York Daily News Article About The Family's Investigation.
 * WAHM Forums Discussion About The Family's Investigation.
 * Lipstickalley Forums Discussion About The Family's Investigation.
 * Florida dad probed in abuse case after slapping daughter on 'Supernanny' - New York Daily News, February 25, 2009.
 * https://www.wahm.com/forum/introduce-yourself-miscellaneous-talk-33/412574-supernanny-family-being-investigated-abuse.html - WAHM Forums, February 25, 2009.
 * The Davis Family Minecraft Home Replica Announcement.- By GrimsterRusty. A replica of the families house in Minecraft.
 * Full epis ode on YouTube (Some Parts Are Cut to prevent Copyright or Demonetization).
 * Full Episode in Russian on YouTube

Trivia/Goofs

 * Phil is mostly considered to be the worst father in Supernanny history. Some other notable examples include Joe from The Del Re Family, Bill from The Dostal Family, Todd from The Jones-Nickolich Family and Glenn from The Chapman Family and Erich Froebrich for his abusive behavior.
 * The full episode on YouTube cuts out the following scenes to prevent demonetization or copyright issues:
 * The intro of the show (However, this can be excused, as the intro stopped being shown after Season 1 was fully uploaded to YouTube)
 * Some clips at the Submission Reel.
 * Phil calling Morgan a bitch. (However this clip was uploaded separately with the slut and hoe scene)
 * Morgan looking upset at Phil.
 * Phil calling Morgan a "slut" and a "hoe".
 * Jo leaving their home for the night.
 * Clip #3, #4, #5 and #6 of their DVD Meeting.
 * And the last few minutes of the episode (including the disclaimer)
 * A Russian copy of the episode was eventually found, which contained the episode in its entirety, although dubbed in Russian.
 * This episode is also one of the few that did not receive a “Watch Party” upload
 * Philip is the second child in Supernanny to have never spoken in an episode.
 * The first child was Zachary from The Burnett Family.
 * This episode is one of the rare times where the reinforcement doesn’t focus on discipline at any point. Instead the segment revolves around Phil's abuse counseling.
 * The Orlando Sentinel revealed that the family had a stepson, named Jordan, however he didn’t participate In The Show
 * Although it's possible that he was the one who filmed the Submission Reel to the show.
 * The Orlando Sentinel also revealed that Phil was responsible for the episode, as he called the show to help the family.
 * Tori's shelf misspelled her name as "Torrie", This was likely made as a mistake.
 * This may not be the case however, as in Facebook posts, Debbra kept misspelling Tori as Torrie repeatedly and on one occasion "Teri". With Tori’s Facebook also being called “Tory Davis”. Debbra did luckily refer to Tori as how her name is actually spelled in some posts, however the likely case is that Tori’s name is multi-spelled due to her name being Victoria.
 * Phillip owns an Xbox 360, as shown in the episode.
 * This is mostly considered as the worst episode in Supernanny history, due to Phil's abusive and perverted behaviour to The girls, and some consider it to be one of the worst reality TV episodes of all time.
 * This is considered as the worst episode of Season 5.
 * Phil is also regarded as the worst parent on Supernanny due to his abusive, perverted behaviour, mainly towards Morgan, which he was heavily criticised for.
 * Despite this, Phil seemingly stopped being abusive after the investigation as Debbra claims him to be a great father on Facebook. At first, many fans were sceptical about this claim, however once Phil made a post saying Morgan looked beautiful. It was confirmed he has changed.
 * Debbra was also criticized for not standing up to Phil and leaving him for good when they first divorced. Her Facebook does state that the two are still married. People also believe she was being abused too.
 * Jo was also criticised during the backlash she received from Jo Frost: Nanny On Tour, for not getting Phil and many other parents arrested for what he did, instead calling the DCFS on the Spivey Family, a black family. Which made some consider her to be racist
 * This episode received a massive amount of public backlash, mainly due to Phil never getting arrested for his abuse, which also caused Supernanny to lose many fans.
 * This episode started the show's downfall, as many fans didn’t want to see more abusive parents.
 * The "Chris" Morgan dated was found to be Chris Twofour (Whom she married.)
 * The scene during the DVD Meeting where Phil hits Tori in the Face, could’ve and might’ve been faked or scripted due to the fact that Phil intentionally hit Tori twice. If it wasn't fake he could've said that what he knew what he did at the scene was wrong and it was an accident or he lost control of himself. Some evidence this could be true is due to The Young Family (UK), where after Joel burned the families house down, it was claimed the producers were telling the boys to act out and misbehave, which has brought mass speculation most of the show is scripted and done by the producers intentionally
 * Despite Phil not helping Debbra. She's ironically a month older than Phil.
 * The counselor who helps Phil in the reinforcement is Joyce Pastorek.
 * In a 2017 Q&A, Debbra confirmed that Phil has the most stubbornness and the worst temper.
 * Whilst this does give official confirmation from the family, that Phil has changed his ways. He is still stubborn.
 * Madison Davis is possibly a Lesbian as a woman named “Haley Little” is in her relationships page on Facebook