Season 6, Episode 6, “Educating Jesse”

Pre-Credits Gag:  Pretty much all of the pre-credits gags now have to do with someone in the full house doing something with the twins before Michelle comes in and says some dumb ass nonsense.  This time it’s Joey.

DJ and Kimmie Gibbler are working on a stay-in-school campaign and make the preposterous claim that all of their friends at school listen to Jesse and Joey’s shitty radio show so they ask them to be spokesmen for an event.  Jesse refuses to help out and everybody’s like, “what the fuck?  He never says no to anything.  Usually he just shows up and does a terrible job.”

Michelle tells Stephanie to tie her shoes and Stephanie’s like, “bitch, it’s time for you to learn to tie your own muthafuckin shoes.”  Danny comes in and tries to teach her a shoelace tying song but before he can get very far, Stephanie starts debating the specifics of the instructional lyrics.

Michelle goes downstairs and OH MY GOD WHAT’S WRONG WITH AUNT BECKY’S HAIR!??!  Is this a dream sequence?  Why does she look like that?

Becky tries to teach Michelle a bunny-themed shoelace tying song and then Danny and Stephanie come down after having compromised on the lyrics to their own instructional song. At least I think that’s what happened.  I was too distracted by the hair.

Joey and DJ come in and are like, “hey, what the fuck’s up with Jesse?  He didn’t do something that DJ asked him to do.  Usually he’s totally down to make any event all about himself.  We thought for sure he was gonna sing ‘Forever’ again.”  Jesse comes upstairs and every single person in the full house surrounds him and is like, “why won’t you volunteer to help at DJ’s stupid stay-in-school bullshit rally?”

They’re so unwillingly to allow Jesse to abstain from providing an explanation that they actually physically block him from leaving the kitchen.  Given no alternative, Jesse admits that he dropped out of school and then he runs upstairs like a little girl as sad music plays and the audience goes, “aww.”

Ok, so let’s just go ahead and address how totally ridiculous this scenario is.  First of all, we’ve already seen Jesse attend his high school reunion, in an episode that included a flashback that took place one week before he graduated, no less.  So how are you gonna try to tell me that he never graduated?  But, hey, let’s just go ahead and acknowledge that I’m some weirdo who writes about every episode of this shitty show, so maybe normal people who watched this shit wouldn’t bother to remember something like that.  Hey, it’s ok, I get it.  So how about we turn this into a basic logic problem, where based on everyone’s ages we can determine that Jesse would have been in high school at the time that Danny married his sister, so how would Danny not know about Jesse dropping out?  It’s not like these people were respecting each others privacy in the past.  But, hey, let’s just assume that Jesse has been keeping it a secret from everybody somehow, just to keep this going.  Why would that prevent him from telling kids to stay in school?  Does he fundamentally believe that kids should not stay in school, or are we supposed to accept that he has some sort of a conscience in this one particular instance?  It’s not like being a terrible musician has ever stopped him from calling himself a musician.  I don’t buy it, you guys.  This whole scenario is nonsense.

Jesse has a very special moment with his kids where he admits to them that he’s a high school dropout and they just kind of stare off because what the fuck do they care, they’re babies.  At the end of the scene he kisses each of them and the audience goes, “aww” each time.  Shit, they sure are free and loose with those “awws” these days.

Becky asks Jesse to explain the gigantic plot hole of him being a high school dropout and he starts to tell her about a teacher he had named Mr. Pearson.  Apparently Mr. Pearson was a real ball buster, and he shamed Jesse so greatly when he was unable to recite, “Oh Captain, My Captain,” that Jesse excused himself to go to the bathroom and never came back.  Becky explains that it’s pretty easy to make up a single high school class if that’s all you need to get your diploma and urges him to go to night school so he can become a slightly less humiliating trophy husband.  Jesse struggles with the idea but since neither of them consider that he could just take a GED test, he finally decides to go back to school.  Congratulatory hugs follow.

As the family all gather together to hang a banner congratulating Jesse for going back to school, Steve comes over and asks DJ if Jesse has left for school yet.  What an awkward piece of exposition.  Why would Steve care about that at all?  It’s the first thing he says when he enters the house.  Regardless, DJ explains that Jesse’s still getting ready.  Michelle comes in and recites a shoelace tying song and then the audience bursts into applause and the whole family is like, “fuck yeah!”  Michelle explains that she has only learned the song and still doesn’t know how to tie her shoes and then Kimmie Gibbler pulls her shoe off so she can share her own shoe tying method, which results in everyone being appalled at the stinkyness of her feet.  Oh, Kimmie Gibbler’s stinky feet!  It’s been a while!

Jesse comes downstairs on his way to night school, which would have been really confusing if Steve hadn’t asked about him earlier.  Jesse tells everyone that he memorized “Oh Captain, My Captain” in anticipation for his first day back at school and then everyone tells him that they’re really proud of him because that’s what you tell a sorry ass loser when he’s trying to achieve some meager pathetic goal.

One of the other students in Jesse’s class recognizes him from Jesse and the Rippers, which prompts Jesse to get up and demonstrate some of his stage moves.  He’s so involved in his demonstration that he pays the teacher no mind when he comes into the classroom, but once Jesse sees who it is he’s quite dismayed.  Hey guys, before I move on, I want you to guess who Jesse’s teacher is.  No, really, guess.  Who could it possibly be?

It’s Mr. Pearson, the teacher who convinced Jesse to drop out.  Seriously, who the fuck else could it have been?  Let’s just skip all of the conceivable logic problems about this guy being Jesse’s night school teacher and move on to the fact that this course seems to be pretty far along as Jesse’s entering it.  Can you just sign up in the middle of the course like that?  Well, whatever, the real problem here is that Jesse says everything out loud that he writes down and constantly interrupts with inane questions.  Mr. Pearson points out what an annoying pain in the ass Jesse is and then he gives him an outline for all of his upcoming coursework.  For some reason this prompts Jesse to stand up in front of the class and recite, “Oh Captain, My Captain,” I guess because it’s the only thing he knows.

Mr. Pearson asks Jesse to explain the meaning of the poem and then Jesse is humiliated in front of everyone when it’s made clear that he has no idea.  Jesse feels himself reliving his old days of being dissed by Mr. Pearson so he decides to make the same childish move by leaving class and never coming back.  You know what would have made this whole problem easily avoidable?  If Jesse had just shut the fuck up and sat in his chair like you’re supposed to do in school.  He totally did this to himself by being such a loudmouth and drawing all that negative attention.  I’m amazed that we’re supposed to believe that this is the only class that he had trouble with back in high school.  Every single person in that classroom is better off if he never comes back.

Back at the full house, Michelle tries to hold her shoelaces together with bubblegum and Danny tells her that she’d better keep practicing her shoe tying.  DJ and Kimmie Gibbler can’t agree on a stay-in-school slogan so they make everyone vote on whose is better.  Everyone picks DJ’s, which makes it seem kind of unfair that the voting is entirely determined by DJ’s family.  Actually, the only person that doesn’t pick DJ’s slogan is Steve, presumably because he had nothing to lose.  It’s not like DJ can get mad and withhold all those blow jobs she never gives him.

Jesse comes home and tells the whole family that he hates school and he’s never going back.  Never!  As he’s heading upstairs to cry and not take care of his children, he finds Michelle throwing all of her shoes into the hallway.

Jesse goes into Michelle’s room and finds out that she’s going to quit learning how to tie her shoes even though there was just a scene of her saying that she was going to keep practicing like 2 minutes earlier and she didn’t even seem upset or discouraged at all.  Jesse says that it’s fucking lame to be a quitter and then the music comes on as he realizes that he shouldn’t quit night school, just like Michelle shouldn’t quit learning how to tie her shoes.  Man, that’s kind of a stretch.  That’s really what makes him decide to go back?  That’s like the most uninspired stitching together of plot threads ever.

I wonder if they’ll ever mention Jesse going back to school ever again.  I also wonder if these quick fix lessons about not quitting and shit like that will ever evolve into the actual practical lessons that these fucking people need to learn, like how to shut the fuck up for 5 minutes and stop bothering everyone.  When’s that very special episode going to happen?

Firsts:  Apparently we’re supposed to believe that Jesse never graduated from high school