Season 5, Episode 10, “Happy Birthday, Babies-Part 2”

Hey, there’s no pre-credits gag again!  The fuck’s goin’ on ’round here?

The episode begins with Michelle’s Flintstones-themed birthday party in full effect.  Damn, when they said they had to get the decorations together at the end of part 1, they were not fucking around.  This shit is elaborate!  The best part is when it’s explained that Danny got all of the props and costumes from the tv station where he works.  Well, alright.  I would never have assumed that he bought all that shit from a party store, but a tv station having an elaborate collection of real-life Flintstones sets and costumes makes perfect sense.  Thanks for clearing that up.

Jesse skulks around upstairs in his Fred Flintstone costume, resentful of the fact that his daily routine of laying down and plinking away at his guitar should be interrupted by a little girl’s birthday party.  Becky comes out from the bathroom and very calmly and cheerfully announces that she’s going into labor, which sends Jesse into a spiral of confusion and ineptitude.

Struggling to help him wrap his head around the situation, Becky explains that the indigestion she thought she was having was actually labor pains, which leaves Jesse concerned about why he himself is experiencing similar discomfort.  Ever willing to put his own troubles before anything else, even the birth of his children, Jesse declares that she can’t be in labor because he’s not ready to deal with it yet, but Becky explains that their children are about to burst forth from her loins whether he’s ready or not.  After exclaiming “Have mercy!” he flails around in a pathetic attempt to put an overnight bag together until Becky explains that she’s already taken care of it.  I bet she ends up having to drive, too.

The kids at Michelle’s party all beat Danny with clubs, which actually makes it seem like a pretty great time.  I’ve had that fantasy so many times and, although it never involved a Dino costume, I’ll take what I can get.

Jesse and Becky come downstairs and tell everyone that Becky’s gotta go to the hospital because the babies are being born. Everyone flails around buffoonishly and then Kimmie Gibbler shows up all of a sudden, I guess because we haven’t seen her for a while.

And then everyone except Michelle and her party guests leave for the hospital, straight up abandoning the children.  I was kind of hoping that the moments that followed would quickly devolve into a Lord of the Flies scenario, with casualties and everything, but instead the kids all just do that Home Alone scream and eat cake.  What is it with this show and young children shoving cake into their faces?  Eventually, Joey and Stephanie remember that they’ve left over a dozen 4-year-olds unsupervised and come back.

Jesse runs around the hospital in his Fred Flintstone outfit, being a total dick to all of the hospital staff, while Becky calmly stands around, not appearing to be in any pain or discomfort.  Danny runs in, still dressed as Dino, and Kimmie Gibbler, who is there for no discernible reason, gives him a hard time about it.  Becky’s doctor shows up but before she can offer Becky any real help, Jesse starts complaining about the discomfort he’s been having.  After a 2 second examination, the doctor makes the diagnoses that Jesse needs his appendix removed which, naturally, has to happen that very second.  It’s amazing how quickly and efficiently the hospital staff comes to his aid. It really makes me miss having health insurance.  But who cares about that, the real issue is that Jesse being a terrible, terrible, unbelievably shitty husband has just reached a new height, to such a startling degree that it could have never been foreseen.  This fucking guy just could not let his wife have a baby without causing a bunch of problems and making it all about himself.  He couldn’t just stand in a room.  That’s all he had to do.  Just stand in the room, you greasy, unemployed fuck.

Before they’re wheeled off to their separate hospital rooms, Jesse asks Becky to try to wait until he recovers to have the twins, because he had to ask her for one last thing before she went off to give birth without any help from him at all.  I’m surprised he didn’t ask her to make him a sandwich, or to listen to a song he just wrote, or for money.  This shit is just unbelievable.  This show is not a comedy anymore.  I mean, I know it was never funny, but this shit makes me want to cry.  How could this poor woman’s marriage get any worse than this?  Is he going to eat the children in the next season?  Or is he going to start choking her all the time or set her on fire or something?  I just don’t see where else this could all be leading.

Meanwhile, back at the full house, Joey and the girls scramble to send all the party guests home so they can attempt to fill the cavernous pit of non-support that Jesse has created at the hospital.  The children are all instructed to open up the present they’ve brought and present it to Michelle and then she walks down the line and ranks each gift.  And that, my friends, is the end of Michelle’s birthday party.

Danny provides an appropriate surrogate for Jesse by singing “We Will Rock You” along with Becky’s lamaze breathing and then talking at length about all the pain she must be in.  Joey and the girls come in so that they can stare at Becky and make lame jokes and then Kimmie Gibbler comes in because I guess anyone who wants to is allowed to just walk right into the delivery room.  The only people who aren’t there are Jesse and anyone on the medical staff.  Proving this point in the most hyperbolic way possible, Danny bring in the fucking film crew of Wake Up, San Francisco so they can document the birth for their audience.  The only saving grace is that Becky finally advocates for herself by kicking them out.  Up until this point I thought that her character put the women’s rights movement back by a million years, but now I’d push it up to around a hundred thousand.

After a scene where Danny complains to Becky about how difficult the birthing process is for him, Jesse is wheeled into the delivery room, so doped up on pain meds that he doesn’t even know what’s going on.

Again, the tragedy here is just unbearable.  Maybe next week I’ll review that footage of the Hindenburg disaster instead of the next episode, just to give myself a little break.  Adding to the unyielding humanity is about 30 straight seconds of Becky straining to push out the babies while Jesse sings to himself.  Damn, you guys, this has got to be the most intense moment of the whole series.  I actually thought that I had gone mentally insane while I was watching it.

After the babies are born, someone is lacking enough in common sense to let Jesse hold one of them, and then Becky thanks him for making this the happiest day of her life.  WHAT!??!  I’m astounded!  This woman is totally hot and has an amazing job.  Why does she hate herself so much?  He’d have been more help if he was dead and “there in spirit.”

You guys, I can’t stand it anymore.  This is like a fucking Greek tragedy.  Anyway, the family comes in, Joey talks in a little baby voice and then the twins are named Nicky and Alex.  Everyone sings Happy Birthday and I guess we’re not supposed to feel like we’re watching 2 new members of the worst family in the world beginning a new era of shameless baby exploitation.  Oh, the humanity!

Firsts:  The twins: Nicky and Alex