Season 6, Episode 3, “Road to Tokyo”

Pre-Credits Gag:  There’s a joke about Michelle giving her old broken toys to the babies but I was too distracted by the hilarious magazine Stephanie is reading.  It is called “Teen World.”

This episode opens with a shot of the hairpin turns on Lombard street, an iconic location in San Francisco that’s never been featured on the show before.  They then cut to the most horrible location in all of San Francisco, the full house, as Joey and Danny argue like an old married couple about brussel sprouts.  Danny accuses Joey of deliberately being an annoying pain in the ass and it’s kind of surprising that he’s just realizing this now, after all these years.

DJ, Steve and Kimmie Gibbler all come downstairs and Steve immediately starts eating all of the food.  He grabs a bunch of new groceries that Joey just bought and then he just leaves, which seems pretty odd to me.  I mean, if he wants to stick around and finger bang DJ after he eats the food, that’s one thing, but to hit it and quit it like that?  Seems a little disrespectful to me.  Anyway, Danny asks the girls about school and Kimmie Gibbler says that she’s running for class president and DJ says that she’s auditioning for the school paper, even though she’s already been on the school paper for like years.  Ok, so maybe that was when she was in junior high and she’s in high school now (I honestly don’t remember), but even still, who the fuck ever has to audition for a school newspaper?

Jesse gets a call from Fat Fish Records informing him that his shitty ass cover of “Forever” is the #1 song in Japan.  They want to fly him and his family out there for 2 weeks to do promotional stuff so Becky asks Danny if he can cover for her on their show for the next few weeks with no notice and he’s just like, “sure, no problem.”  I feel like they shouldn’t address these kinds of practical concerns at all if they’re going to resolve them in such a thoughtless manner.

Michelle makes a hideous face that makes the audience go, “aww,” when she finds out that Jesse will be going away for a while, but then he promises to send her letters and buy her presents and so she feels reasonably accommodated.

The next thing we see is a shot of an airplane and then some cheap stock footage of Japan, which kind of makes me think that the shot of Lombard street in the beginning was put there to contrast the locations or something.  It’s not much, but it may be the most artistically inspired narrative devise in the whole series.

In a small set that represents Jesse’s dressing room as well as all of Japan, Jesse is surrounding by enthusiastic fans.  He asks his assistant, Koji, to get him some unsalted nuts and then he’s greeted by the Japanese representative of Fat Fish Records, who brings him his schedule for the week.  Upon hearing the schedule, Becky is upset that Jesse has to work so much because she wants to have some family time during their trip.  I guess it’s pretty understandable that she’d have trouble adjusting to him having a work schedule since he’s just been dicking around on his guitar in the basement any time she wanted to see him for the last few years.

Koji returns with Jesse’s unsalted nuts and Jesse immediately sends him out for honey roasted nuts, representing his ascending rockstar attitude.  The representative from Fat Fish Records tells Becky that Jesse’s time is all booked up for the rest of their visit and then she whisks him away.  Gentle music plays during an overly-long shot of Becky consoling the babies, which plays out extra weird because the babies are clearly unaffected by anything that’s going on.  They just kind of stare off in their tiny Japanese robes while they chew on Kaiju monster toys and their mom projects her sad emotions onto them.

Meanwhile, back at the full house, Joey and Danny continue to bicker until DJ interrupts them to complain about how she’s conflicted over her article for the school paper because she wants to maintain her journalistic integrity but doesn’t want to be honest about what a useless piece of shit school politician Kimmie Gibbler would be.  Danny tells her that she has to maintain her integrity even though all he’s ever done with his own ridiculous career is get his stupid loser friends jobs.

As Michelle anticipates a call from Uncle Jesse, she asks Stephanie a bunch of questions about how far away Japan is.  At this point in the series, these two characters don’t really have very discernible personalities from one another.  They’re both just totally bitchy wise asses with horrible butt faces.

Jesse performs in front of a really cheap set that’s supposed to look like a crowded venue, I guess.  Maybe it’s a stadium, even?  He sings a terrible cover of “Help Me, Rhonda,” in phonetic Japanese off of cue cards that Koji holds up for him but of course Koji drops them, leaving Jesse with no choice other than to name-drop Japanese car companies, Godzilla, and of course Karate Kid Part 2.  After years of seeing the Spanish language and culture treated in a similar fashion on Full House, it’s kind of nice to see that their disrespect for other cultures is spread evenly across all nations.  Anyway, Jesse then performs his cover of “Forever,” because we really needed to hear that fucking song one more time.

DJ and Steve come home and show Danny and Joey DJ’s article, which tactfully alludes to Kimmie Gibbler being a dumb ass choice for class president.  Kimmie Gibbler then walks through the door and does one of those fake-outs where she comes in looking all pissed and then she abruptly becomes cheerful and hugs DJ and says that she won the election.  That’s the end of the Kimmie Gibbler running for class president/DJ joining the school paper plotline, which I think represented the writer’s disregard for an audience’s ability to understand subtext.  That’s also the end of the Joey and Danny bickering storyline, which really wasn’t about anything.

The representative from Fat Fish Records tells Becky that they want Jesse to tour Asia for an entire year, spreading his terrible covers of songs that weren’t even that good in the first place across a once-proud land.  Becky addresses the offer to Jesse with some concern and then-wait, I’m sorry, I just noticed that the promotional poster of Jesse that’s in his dressing room is from that episode where he got stuck hanging from some cables while he was performing at the Smash Club.  I guess that we can assume that there were photographers at the Smash Club that night, but even still, that was like a disaster of a performance.  It was also an occasion when Jesse was putting on a phony image to try to appeal to more people, which he ultimately decided was wrong, so why would there be pictures of it around?  Wait a minute, why am I actually thinking about this?  Oh my God you guys I’m so ashamed that I even noticed that.  Fuck watching this show, you guys.  My brain is just totally awful now.

So anyway, Jesse is elated by the offer of the tour, so much so that he sends Koji to break out “the good stuff,” which is of course honey roasted nuts.  Seriously, no one on this show will ever drink even one beer.  Becky gets pissed and kicks all of Jesse’s enthusiasts out of the room so she can yell at him about how he’s been neglecting his family for the last few weeks so there’s no fuckin’ way she’s gonna let him go on tour for a whole year.  Again, I do have to say that it is kind of understandable that she’d have such a hard time adjusting to Jermsey actually working for a change, but it’s not like he was ever a good dad or husband.  I kind of think that absentee-father-on-tour-Jesse is a better deal than hangs-around-the-house-all-the-time-not-working-but-still-won’t-help-his-wife-or-listen-to-anything-she-says-Jesse.

Becky eventually walks out on Jesse, leaving him in his room to have a heart-to-heart talk with Koji about the importance of family or something.  Jesse runs to catch Becky but finds her waiting for him in the hallway and then the music comes on as he says that he’s going to quit the tour to be with his family.  Becky tells him that he doesn’t need to give up everything, he just needs to stop being such an asshole and expecting whatever kind of fancy peanuts he wants, but it doesn’t really matter because it’s not like they’re ever going to follow up on this storyline anyway.  Jesse and Becky make up and then Jesse excuses Koji so he can fuck his wife but first the two men show their respect by bowing first, and then exchanging handshakes, representing a beautiful unity between east and west that could only be forged by a terrible cover of Beach Boys song.

Back at the full house, Michelle tries to dig a hole to Japan so she can see Jesse again.  Just then, Jesse returns home and kisses her inappropriately and then everything’s back to normal.