Season 3, Episode 8, “Divorce Court”

So I meant to put up a special post on March 7 to commemorate the first anniversary of Full House Reviewed but then I forgot all about it.  Then I decided that since the March 7th post was just an introduction and the first actual review went up march 13th, the latter would be a better date to call the blog’s first anniversary.  And wouldn’t you know it?  The 13th rolled around and I forgot all over again!  Well, shit.  Anyway, happy birthday to us!  According to some quick math I just did in my head, this blog’s gonna take about 4 years to complete, so I hope you fuckers are in this for the long haul!

Pre-credits Gag:  Jesse tries to teach the baby to snap her fingers and sing “Mack the Knife,” but she sings “Jingle Bells” instead.

DJ comes home from school and she’s kickin it with Duckface and this kid Jimmy who we’ve seen once or twice before but he’s never really done anything worth mentioning.  The boys want to play guns but Stephanie’s like, let’s play Barbies and talk about our periods instead.  Duckface makes a pass at Stephanie and she decides that she’d rather play guns than be sexually harassed.  DJ enters the scene with Kimmie Gibbler and some new friend we’ve never seen before named Monica and the trio tell the younger kids to bug off.  Stephanie tells DJ that she wants to make plans for the upcoming Halloween carnival that they always go to together but then DJ’s friends are like, Kathy Santoni’s having this bad ass Halloween party and we’re all gonna drink wine cooler and let the boys get to second base and DJ’s like, sorry Stephanie, but I’m hella old and cool now so you’re gonna have to ride to that lame ass carnival Han Solo style.  Then DJ and her friends tell the younger kids that they wanna talk about guys’ dick sizes so they’d better split but then Stephanie’s like, whatever, y’all, I got two men all up on my jammy.  Peace out!

Danny and Joey teach Michelle how to play football in the backyard.  Jesse comes home with Rebecca Donaldson, who we haven’t seen in a while, and he makes smartass quips about how Joey and Danny suck at sports.  Danny retaliates by outing Jesse for being in the Glee club back in the day and then the dad’s all have a frenzied dispute about who’s the least gay.  It’s decided that the only way to settle it is for the three of them to have a ¼ mile race at 8 am and Rebecca Donaldson decides to witness this event for her own amusement.

DJ and Stephanie bring their dispute to Danny, who decides to solve the problem by yelling at them and forcing them to hug.  When that doesn’t work Danny kicks all their friends out of the full house and makes the girls sit in silence in their room until they can get along, which is the first time Danny has really put his foot down about anything.  Dang, I actually almost kind of took him a little bit seriously for a second.

In preparation for their big race in the morning, the dads all talk a bunch of shit to each other.  They each become so confident that they will win that they decide to make a bet on the race:  the winner gets to pick the losers’ costumes for the school Halloween carnival.

Up in the girls room, Stephanie makes passive aggressive jabs at DJ by discussing her with Mr. Bear and then proceeds to find as many ways as possible to act like the most annoying asshole on the planet.  DJ proposes that the two of them pretend to make up so Danny will let them out of their room, which Stephanie agrees to.  Danny enters the scene and after the girls agree to hug while he watches, he lets them off the hook.   Danny splits for the gym and the girls immediately begin arguing again until they finally agree that it’s time for Stephanie to move into Michelle’s room.

Once she’s moved her bed into Michelle’s room (and, no, I have no idea how she was able to move it in there… this actually kind of harkens back to the first episode, when DJ inexplicably moved all her shit into the basement…ah, memories…), Stephanie begins to lay down the law to Michelle, prison-style.  However, once it’s lights-out time the baby starts jumping up and down and shouting and Stephanie realizes that sharing a room with the baby sucks ass.

As the dads all prepare for their race, Rebecca Donaldson rolls up on their scene with the crew from Wake Up, San Francisco.  She’s decided that the race would be a fun inclusion for the show, seeing as how it seems to be completely based around what a gigantic dork Danny is.  At the starting line, Danny tries to convince the uncles to let him win the race so he doesn’t look like a totally loser on his show but the uncles aint havin it.  The race starts and the big gag is that the dads are all so slow and out of shape that it’s a pretty pathetic scene.  Towards the end they’re all so tired that they agree to stage a tie but as they approach the finish line they all become determined to win and deliver one final, spirited sprint.  Rebecca Donaldson has to take a Polaroid to determine the winner and as she waits for the image to develop she tries to get a word from the runners but they’re all too busy writhing and panting in a big homoerotic heap to make any lame jokes.

Anyway, it turns out that Danny won the race.

When the dads return to the full house Stephanie declares that she wants to move back into her old room and when DJ protests Danny realizes that they were just bullshitting about making up before.  Danny decides that the only rational way to resolve this issue is to stage a courtroom hearing in the living room with himself as the judge and the uncles as the lawyers.  I mean, really, how else was this gonna get resolved?

The court scene is actually pretty unremarkable.  DJ bitches about what a pain in the ass it is to have Stephanie all up in her face all the time and Stephanie says that DJ treats her like shit.  Danny says that they have to continue to share a room because he wants Michelle to have her own room for the time being, which brings up a kind of interesting subplot that’s been happening for a while.  Danny seems to always favor Michelle and he never tells her that she can’t do anything.  It’s never really been the focus of an episode and it’s kind of interesting that there’s been this underlying relationship happening on this show.  I’m actually impressed that they’ve managed to work that in there without totally shoving it in your face like they do with everything else.  Oh my god, you guys, how fucking low have my standards gotten?  I’m dying inside.

The court scene ends with Danny telling the girls that they’re just going to have to learn how to share a room despite their differences and all the changes they’re going through but the girls are still all pissed at each other.  Nothing really gets resolved in this scene and it didn’t really fit in with anything else in the episode… it’s almost like they decided to call the episode “Divorce Court” before they’d written anything and then they forgot about it and then tried to just cram it in at the end.  I also think that now’s as good a time as any to point out that the puppy they got in the previous episode makes no apperance in this episode at all.  Seriously, you guys, where did their new puppy go?  Anyway, the girls talk later in their room as they get ready to go to their separate Halloween events.  They’re dressed as Batman and the Joker from the 1989 Tim Burton movie, which makes this scene kind of fascinating.

So the music comes on and Stephanie talks about how rad she thinks DJ is so DJ agrees to take Stephanie to her lame ass carnival for stupid babies before getting felt up later in the evening at Kathy Santoni’s.  The two of them hug, which is a pretty common occurrence on this show, but on the other hand I don’t think I’ve ever seen Batman and the Joker hug before and it’s extra bizarre to see it in the form of two little girls.  It’s like an eternal battle finally laid to rest.

Ok so as if that didn’t already make me feel like I was going crazy, the last 30 seconds are like a total bombardment of total fucking nonsense.  Danny comes in and commends their hugging and then the baby runs into the room dressed as a cat and she makes cat claws and meows at the camera before staring offstage to look for further direction in a shot that really should have been 2 seconds shorter.  Then the uncles enter the scene dressed in the humiliating costumes that Danny picked for them and then they rock back and forth with him while singing, “The Good Ship Lollypop.”

What WAS that!??!