Season 4, Episode 11, “Secret Admirer”

Pre-Credits Gag:  Jesse catches Michelle eating the middles out of a whole jar full of Oreo’s and then putting the outer parts back in the jar.  When he tells her to cut it the fuck out she retorts, “next time, only buy the middles.”  You know what would have been a funnier punchline?  If he’d put her up for adoption.

As Danny prepares for the “First annual Tanner family quality time BBQ”, a knock at the door discloses the arrival of Cindy and Rusty.  I had a feeling we hadn’t seen the last of them after their introductions last episode (mainly because I checked IMDB), but I’m surprised that they’ve returned so quickly.  Considering that I have no recollection of these characters whatsoever, I have to assume that they won’t last long, but I guess it’s good for Danny that he’s finally gettin’ some action for the time being.

A second knock on the back door (It’s like no one ever uses the front door at all anymore!) announces the arrival of the paperboy, and DJ is pretty insistent about answering it because she’s totally hot for his wang (although this makes me wonder why she didn’t want to answer the door 1 minute earlier when Cindy and Rusty were knocking… how did she know it wasn’t the paperboy?).  DJ opens the door, revealing a pre-teen stud with the worst haircut you’ve ever seen in your life.  His posture is that of a man who is clearly ready to fuck.

DJ, as always, has absolutely no game, but since Danny only carries large bills, she is at least guaranteed a return visit from the paperboy because he owes Danny some change.  Rusty witnesses their awkward interaction and gives DJ shit about it.

Michelle walks in on Rusty dictating a fake love letter to DJ from the paperboy as a prank.  He decides to include Michelle in his scheme by paying her 10 cents to deliver the letter for him.  It seems that Rusty is still up to his old tricks, and I have to say that I’m pretty surprised that someone’s character flaws lasted longer than the traditional 22-minute episode.  Well, I guess that if they were going to bring this character back he had to continue being a puckish weasel because what else were they going to do with him?  Characteristics on Full House seem to work 2 ways:  either their character flaws are brought up out of nowhere and resolved over the course of an episode, such as DJ’s eating disorder a few storylines past, or their character flaws define their whole personality, like Jesse’s creepy obsession with Elvis, Joey’s obnoxious, inept impressions, and now, Rusty’s pranks.

Michelle gives Stephanie the letter because Rusty only specified that she was supposed to give the letter to her sister.  Although the letter is anonymously signed, “Hot For You,” Michelle admits that it was written by Rusty, which leads Stephanie to believe that Rusty is in love with her.

Her reactions are described by a voice-over of her inner thoughts, which is a device that’s never been used on the show before.  Stephanie is totally grossed out by Rusty’s feeling for her and decides to hide the letter in a nearby laundry basket.

It turns out that the laundry basket belongs to Joey and contains a dirty load that he’s put together for Cindy to wash.  When Joey gives Cindy the laundry basket, he tells her, “by the way, I left a little note in there.  It explains everything,” which has no context whatsoever.  Obviously, she finds the love note and assumes it’s from Joey, but what the fuck note was he actually referring to?  Cindy reads the letter in another voice-over and decides to hide it in a nearby folder because she doesn’t want Danny to see it.

The folder contains Danny’s work notes for Rebecca Donaldson, so he hands it to her when she shows up for the BBQ and says that there’s some important shit that he wrote inside.  Naturally, she finds the love note and assumes it’s from Danny and wonders how to handle the situation, as described by yet another voice-over.  This one’s remarkable because she comes to the conclusion that if Jesse finds out he’ll kill Danny, and then she starts to scheme about how if Danny died she’d have her own show.  This ominous train of thought backs up my theory that the Full House is in fact a living entity that negatively affects the psyche of its inhabitants, and that Rebecca Donaldson is slowly being driven crazy as she is pulled further and further in.  So, yeah, I don’t know, plotting Danny’s death seems like something that would naturally occur to you if you had to spend any amount of time with him, but also maybe the full house was built on top of a sacred Indian burial ground or something?

So the rest of this episode is basically just the same thing happening over and over again, kind of like that Jim Jarmusch movie, The Limits of Control, but without any artistic merit or quality of performance, or any reason for existing at all for that matter.  It’s just a repetitive, monotonous cycle of misunderstandings as the letter is handed off between cast members, all described by voice-over narration that is not once implemented with any cleverness or insight whatsoever.

Rebecca Donaldson puts the letter in Kimmie Gibbler’s overdue library book, which leads Jesse to hand it off to her and tell her that there’s a “surprise” in it for her, which in turn leads Kimmie Gibbler to believe that Jesse is in love with her.  Kimmie Gibbler welcomes Jesse’s confession of love, and doesn’t consider for a second that it is a crime.

Jesse finds the note after it’s left in the living room and concludes that it was written to Rebecca Donaldson by either Danny or Joey, so he decides to keep an eye on both of them so he can figure out who to beat the shit out of.  As Jesse investigates, there are further wacky interactions between himself and Kimmie Gibbler, as well as between Joey and Cindy.

Stephanie confides in DJ that Rusty wrote her a love letter and says that she’s gonna tell him to go fuck himself.  DJ intervenes by saying that she thinks that she can let Rusty down more tactfully.  DJ’s confrontation with Rusty is extremely vague and suggestive, so much so that it’s actually pretty understandable when Rusty thinks that she’s hitting on him.

The family convenes in the kitchen so they can head to the backyard together to start the BBQ.  Rebecca Donaldson takes Joey aside and tries to ask his advice about what to do about Danny’s feelings towards her but she describes the situation with misleading generalizations that cause Joey to think that she’s confessing her feelings to him.  When oh when will this web of intrigue end?

Rebecca Donaldson confronts Danny with the letter in the backyard but he thinks that she’s giving him a letter that she’s written, so now they both think the other is in love with them.  Danny panics as Jesse approaches and hides the letter under Michelle’s hat.  It’s a good thing that she just happened to be wearing a hat for the first time ever, because otherwise he’d have had to shove that letter up his ass.

Cindy tries to let Joey down gently and makes like the 10th misleading speech in as many minutes, causing Joey to believe that both his roommates women wanna bang him.  To be fair, Joey seems like the kind of guy who would mistake any compassion or sympathy a woman expressed towards him as romantically suggestive behavior.  You’d have to be pretty delusional in general if you were Joey… how else do you think he keeps from blowing his fucking brains out every single day of his life?

As the family all sit down to eat, Danny gives a rambling address while the camera pans over each character, revealing their inner thoughts.  There are some pretty choice quotes during this sequence, particularly when Stephanie thinks, “one false move and Rusty gets a weenie in his ear,” and Jesse’s notion that if he killed either Danny or Joey he’d “be doing mankind a favor.”  Truer words were never spoken!

When Danny’s seemingly endless babbling finally comes to a close, Michelle pulls the love letter out of her hat and everyone freaks the fuck out.  All of the misinterpreted origins of the letter are presented as accusations and chaos ensues.  Eventually Michelle, who’s actually the only person who really knows what’s going on, outs Rusty as the author of the letter, and the family all gather together to beat the shit out of him.

As Rusty is being torn apart, the paperboy swaggers into the backyard to return Danny’s change and strikes up a conversation with DJ.  DJ coerces him to stick around by offering him some hamburgers, and the episode ends with her giving him a handjob under the picnic table.

Yeah, I’ve given it up to some pretty homely girls for a hamburger, too.

Firsts:  Voice-over narration