Season 2, Episode 15, “Pal Joey”

Pre-Credits Gag:  DJ schools Michelle in who the cutest boys are.  DJ’s top picks are George Michael and Michael J. Fox but Michelle’s all about Big Bird.  Kind of makes you wonder about what kind of weird shit the Olsen twins must be into these days…?  I should also have mentioned by now how vocal the character of Michelle has become.  Lots of jokes on the show come from her ability to repeat simple phrases, which makes for a lot of cheap, pandering jokes.

Danny does some serious mental programming on the baby as she helps him clean the kitchen.  He actually kneels down and tells her, “clean is good and dirt is bad.”  That’s some George Orwell shit right there.

The Uncles enter the scene and express their heartfelt love for one another and then the girls come in with Harry and make snarky comments about Danny’s obsessive compulsive cleaning.  Danny actually tells them that they can’t make fun of him unless they can afford their own apartments, which is just further evidence of the fascist regime that he’s running at the full house.

Harry laments his struggle with subtraction and when DJ is able to help him he gets a huge boner for her.

Jesse and Joey’s relationship is challenged as they have a serious discussion about how to decorate their new office in the basement.  Joey is able to coerce Jesse by doing a terrible impression of Pee Wee Herman and they start up a recurring shtick where they scream like Pee Wee every time someone says the secret word of the day, “office.”  That doesn’t even count as a pop culture reference, that’s just straight up theft.  Danny comes down and shows the first signs of feeling threatened by the Uncles unabashed lust for one another and the baby answers the phone, which always gets a big laugh.

Oh, man, when a baby answers a phone!  Hilarious!  The audience goes even crazier when Jesse says a long tongue twister about some sort of cookie jingle that they have to rewrite for their boss.  It just makes me so mad to see how easily impressed this shows audience is!  Adding insult to injury, the scene climaxes with the audience losing their shit while the baby makes a hideous face.

Harry comes by the full house with a romantic “I love you” lollypop in his hand.  When Stephanie graciously accepts it, Harry very matter of factly lets her know that he brought it for DJ.  Dang.  Raw as fuck.  DJ tries to tactfully deflect Harry when he starts mackin’ on her but he’s blissfully oblivious to her lack of interest.  He rolls out of there not giving a fuck about Stephanie’s feelings and she gets all upset at DJ, shouting, “you stole my man!” and storming off.  I’ve got to say that this is pretty much definitely the raddest scene on this series so far.

Danny and Joey try to squeeze in some bro time on the basketball court.  Joey’s sporting the most bizarre ripped up sweatpants in this scene…  I can’t tell if they’re supposed to look really worn or if that’s a style or what.

Anyway, Jesse rolls up on their party with some work related stuff and Joey tries to cut out on the basketball game, which makes Danny act like a big pouty bitch.  When Joey asks him what’s wrong, he actually says, “If I have to explain it to you then I don’t know why we were friends in the first place.”  What a diva!

Back at the full house Stephanie has traded rooms with Michelle because she’s hella mad at DJ and Danny continues his campaign of emotional immaturity.  Jesse tries to patch things up between Danny and Joey, which leads to an amazing flashback to the time they first met.

This sequence is interesting because it’s actually a lot better than the series usually is.  The child actors who play young Joey, Danny and Jesse are all much more charming and charismatic than their adult counterparts.  Incidentally, it’s kind of forced that Jesse would just happen to be hanging out on the same schoolyard as the other two guys on the day they first met but whatever.  Anyway, in this sequence we finally learn about how Danny and Joey met in grade school when Joey utilized the power of shitty jokes to prevent Danny from getting his ass beat by a fat kid.  On that day Danny and Joey decided that they were “soul brothers,” and there’s a rare, genuinely funny moment where they do their soul brother handshake and a young black kid watches them in the background and shakes his head at how lame they are.  It kind of makes you feel like maybe there was at least one person working on this show that was actually aware of how fucking corny and embarrassing it was.

After the flashback Danny still refuses to come to grips with his childish emotions and he decides to dig up the secret thing that he and Joey buried together on the day they became soul brothers.  Joey goes with him, partially out of spite but really just to serve the plot.

After failing to resolve the rift between Danny and Joey, Jesse decides to try to patch things up between Stephanie and DJ instead.  Harry enters the scene with lust in his eyes but DJ explains to him that she’s never gonna go for him.  Harry and Stephanie are then forced to reconcile, even though, really, after being dumped for her older sister I think it would be pretty understandable if Stephanie just told Harry to go fuck himself.

Joey and Danny find their lost artifacts:  Danny’s lame Giants hat and Joey’s first shitty joke book.  They also find a contract they wrote that declares them to be soul brothers for life (in the signatures we also learn their middle names for the first time).

The music comes on as Danny finally admits that Joey’s gay love for Jesse makes him feel insecure about his own gay love with Joey.  In the end they all recognize their undying, uncompromising gay love for each other and Jesse is invited to sign the soul brothers contract and bury his hair dryer along with their other stuff.

This episode really seems to recognize the gayness of Full house more than any other.  I mean, they basically sign a marriage contract.  If you think about it, “Soul brothers” would actually be a pretty good name for two gay men who are married to each other.  This episode is actually way ahead of its time because not only does it condone  gay marriage but also polyamorous relationships.  Very progressive!

Firsts:  Flashback, Danny’s Middle Name, “Ernest,” Joey’s Middle name, “Elvin.”