Season 6, Episode 19, “Subterranean Graduation Blues”

Pre-Credits Gag:  Michelle has to do a recycling project so everyone collects recyclables while she sits around and drinks soda.

Everyone continues to gather recyclables for Michelle’s project when Steve walks in, which makes the audience go “ow!” and “woo!”  It’s not an overwhelming reaction, but more like there are a select few people in the audience who just can’t contain their enthusiasm when Steve shows up.  Anyway, Steve brings over a can-crushing device he invented in shop class, which ends up not working very well.

Jesse comes in and pretends like his last paper didn’t go over well, but it’s just a clever ruse.  And with that, Jesse is officially a high school graduate.  Jesse explains that there’s going to be a big graduation ceremony at the Civic Center and he was picked to give the commencement speech, because who else was gonna do it?  Some extra?  Jesse further explains that the commencement speech will be a good way for him to prove to all sorts of people that he’s not actually a giant fuck-up, including the mayor, who is going to be attending Jesse’s stupid unimportant night school GED ceremony for some reason. Everyone offers their support to Jesse, especially Danny, who tells him that if his speech is good, people will remember it for the rest of their lives.  I guess it’s healthy to offer support and validation to Jesse for his meager achievements, but what Danny’s saying is straight up delusional.  Maybe it would be true if Jesse threw up or something during the speech.  I’d definitely always remember seeing something like that.

Jesse struggles with his speech but eventually finds inspiration while watching his kids assemble an Elvis puzzle.

While everyone waits for Jesse to get ready for his graduation, Danny tells Becky that he wants to talk about the plan for the Wake Up, San Francisco anniversary show.  She tells him that she wants to interview a bunch of women senators and do a spotlight on women in politics and then Danny shits all over her idea and says that he wants to spar with George Foreman instead.  This is one of those cases where Becky obviously has the better idea and the only reason that it’s such an issue is because the writers of this show hate women.

Once Jesse is ready to go, Michelle finds out that they’re going to have to take 2 cars so she dictates that they should take the Muni so they can all be together.  Naturally, everyone does what she says without question.  It would have been pretty natural and feasible if the adults had held this discussion and made this decision themselves.  Why does it have to be something that Michelle wanted to do?  Just to remind us that everyone does whatever she wants all the time?

They make the Muni look way too much like the New York Subway but I’ll forgive them because there’s a defaced Wake Up, San Francisco poster on the wall.

Naturally, the Tanner family has no fucking idea how to behave in the outside world and immediately start bugging the shit out of everyone on the Muni.  Michelle sees some guy  littering and tries to get Joey to threaten him into cutting it out.  Becky and Danny are recognized by a Wake Up, San Francisco fan who has obvious mental health issues.  But the worst is the poor guy who has to sit next to Jesse, who Jesse drums all over and then treats as a captive audience to tell about his stupid graduation while sitting way too close.

Meanwhile, back at the full house, Kimmie Gibbler is a shitty ass babysitter.  She just sits and chats on the phone with her grandmother while the twins rub paint all over the refrigerator.

The Muni shuts down and the conductor comes on to tell everyone that they’re gonna be stuck there for hella long.  Jesse realizes that he’s gonna miss his graduation and then the audience goes, “aww.”

After the commercial break, Jesse stomps around the train and yells, not giving a fuck about all of the other people who are also on the train and also very frustrated and don’t need some yelling asshole to add to their stress.

Meanwhile, Kimmie Gibbler finishes cleaning the green paint that got all over the kitchen and then Comet pulls her into the living room where she discovers that one of the twins has gotten green paint all over everything. What a shitty babysitter.

Becky and Danny continue their debate about women in politics vs. Danny sparring with George Foreman for their anniversary show and then the woman who recognized them earlier interjects and says that Danny’s idea is hella better.  She then reacts to a psychic contact she receives from Benjamin Franklin and for once this show acknowledges that only a crazy person would favor one of Danny’s ridiculous ideas.

Jesse mopes around because he’s missing his graduation so Danny decides that the only solution is to bother everyone on the train.  He attempts to get everyone to band together to throw Jesse an impromptu ceremony on the train but then nobody does anything.  Jesse actually acts like he recognizes that this is a stupid idea, even though he pulled the exact same shit during that terrible ass Christmas episode when they were stuck in the airport, plus that time they were stuck in a garage on Michelle’s birthday, plus probably some other corny incident that I can’t remember right now where they were stuck somewhere during an important occasion.

Jesse launches into a big pity parade about how everyone is gonna notice that he didn’t pick up his diploma because in his mind everyone around him is deeply concerned about everything he does all the time.  He then says that he must not be the graduating type even though he really did still graduate, he just missed the ceremony is all, and then this Keanu Reeves guy is like, “yeah, school is a bunch of bullshit.”

Jesse decides to intervene in the Keanu Reeves guys life and give him a big inspiring speech about how school is important even though all he’s ever done his whole life is mooch off of people and it seems to have benefited him a lot more than going to school.  Jesse’s inspiring words rally the people on the train after all, and many contrived lessons are divulged.  Dang, Full House, way to pull a forced message out of your ass at the last second.  Why is the lesson about going back to school happening after Jesse has already gone back to school, and why is it applied to some total stranger that they didn’t even dedicate a whole episode to?  He appears for the bare minimum of time required to establish that he dropped out of school and then convince him to go back.

The Keanu Reeves guy agrees to go back to school and then everyone on the whole train cheers and then a friendly black fellow plays the graduation march on his saxaphone and then, motherfucker!  They have a fake graduation ceremony on the train after all.

After the ceremony, the music comes on and Jesse says that graduation isn’t about people seeing you get your diploma, it’s about learning something, which I don’t really know what to make of.  If you ask me, finishing school is just about fulfilling requirements.  Anyway, Danny says that Jesse really made a difference that day and then Jesse gazes lovingly at the Keanu Reeves guy, then they give each other the dap.

The the train starts up again, then everyone cheers, then Jesse kisses Michelle on the mouth.  Stay in school, motherfuckers!