Season 6, Episode 22, “Prom Night”

Pre-Credits Gag:  Oh, hey, Vicky’s back.  I had completely forgotten that she even existed.  She and the rest of the family play Go Fish and Michelle cheats.

The episode opens just seconds after the conclusion of the pre-credits gag, when DJ enters the living room with Steve and Kimmie Gibbler as they prepare to go shopping for prom dresses.  They deliver some expository dialogue as they make their way to the front door and it is revealed that Kimmie Gibbler is going to the prom with some guy that Steve fixed her up with and Jesse and his shitty band are going to be performing there.  Of course they are!

During the game of Go Fish, Danny stresses the importance of telling the truth, which leads to Vicky admitting that she lied about her age when they first met.  He’s always thought that she was a year younger than him but it turns out that she’s actually a year older.  This totally incidental piece of information seems to cause Danny an inexplicable degree of emotional turmoil.

DJ models a prom dress for Steve and he seems totally uninterested.  Kimmie Gibbler comes out of the dressing room and, after pulling DJ aside, tells her that Steve’s ex-girlfriend is in there trying on dresses.  She comes out wearing the same dress as DJ and asks Steve how she looks and he seems to find her pretty boner-inducing.  After he snaps out of his boner-haze, he introduces his ex to DJ and Kimmie Gibbler even though it seems pretty implausible that they’ve never met each other since they all go to the same school.  Or even if they hadn’t ever met somehow, wouldn’t it be a given that Steve’s ex-girlfriend would know about who he was dating?  Even if she didn’t give a shit I’m sure she would’ve at least heard about it.

Steve’s ex-girlfriend invites them to a hotel party after the prom and Steve seems like he wants to go but DJ’s a real wet blanket about it, probably because there might be wine cooler there or something.

As Becky applies whoreish makeup to DJ’s big round moon face, she reminisces about her own prom and states with disbelief that she’s now old enough to be chaperoning at DJ’s.  So, Becky’s chaperoning at DJ’s prom, huh?  Of course she is!

DJ mentions that she and Steve were invited to an after-party in a hotel room and Becky supports her unwillingness to ever do anything that’s fun.  DJ worries that Steve’s still into his old girlfriend and Becky reassures her that Steve is only into stick-in-the-mud girls who never put out and have corny, overbearing families.

The audience does an awful lot of hooting as everyone comes out in their prom attire.  Becky and Jesse are all dudded up for their respective chaperone/band member roles, Steve shows up in a fly ass tuxedo, and DJ looks pretty bangin’ in her dress.

Jesse and his terrible band perform what could only be described as a calypso rendition of the Beach Boys song “Good Vibrations” at the prom and for some reason no one seems to mind.  I wonder if there will ever be any event in this entire series that Jesse’s shitty band doesn’t perform at.  I also thought I’d mention that I’ve always found it strange that every prom I’ve ever seen in movies or television has a live band, but I’ve never heard of that ever happening in real life.  My prom had a DJ, and I bet yours did, too.

After everyone dances to Jesse’s terrible band, Steve’s ex-girlfriend introduces her date, Paul, to Steve and he seems like he might be pretty sad that some other dude is gonna be bangin’ her that night, but it might just be because DJ is yet to let him even feel on her boobs over her shirt.  Even on prom night, second base is a million miles away.

Kimmie Gibbler’s date refers to her as, “my little love stick.” I cant really figure out what that’s supposed to mean but I think it might be disgusting.  Becky tries to hang out with the kids because the other chaperones don’t want to join her as she dances to her husband’s shitty music and also because there’s a running gag this episode about her feeling old and attempting to cling to her youth.

Abruptly, Jesse announces that it’s time to reveal who the prom king and queen are and it turns out that the Steve has been chosen as the prom king.  Of course he was!  Incidentally, they announce his name as Steven Hale and it made me realize that up until this point I had no idea what his last name was.  I’m not sure if they’ve never said it before or if they did and I just wasn’t paying attention, but either way, who gives a shit?

So then they announce the prom queen and, oh snap!  It’s Steve’s ex-girlfriend.  I’m kind of surprised that Jesse didn’t just say it was DJ because it’s not like he hasn’t tampered with every other event he’s been involved in throughout the entire series by making it all about his stupid family but I guess that it better serves the formulaic plot if Steve’s ex-girlfriend wins.  The camera zooms in on DJ as sad music plays while the prom king and queen accept their awards.

As everyone gathers around the prom king and queen, Steve’s ex-girlfriend’s date, Paul, explains to DJ that she was the one that broke up with him and that he was all fucked up about it.  DJ becomes ever-increasingly butthurt.

Meanwhile, back at the full house, everyone tries to teach the babies the proper way to eat ice cream without looking like a fucking slob and then Joey unintentionally exemplifies the wrong way to do it.  Of course he does!

Danny and Vicky are left alone after Joey senses tension between them, which is the first time ever that Joey has picked up on a social cue.  I’m surprised that he didn’t just start talking like Popeye and spitting in their faces when he noticed that they were having issues.  Anyway, once they’re left alone, Danny starts talking about how he’s all freaked out about her being older because he was always taught that men should be older than women in relationships.  He also says that men should be stronger than women and there’s almost a subtle moment where he can’t open a jar and then she does it for him while they’re talking but instead of them casually doing this, which might have actually been kind of funny, they both stop speaking and make bug eyes at the jar when it happens.  Anyway, they putz through their totally inane discussion until the music comes on, which makes Danny come to his senses and realize that this is the most pointless non-issue ever in the entire series.  Seriously, who could possibly give a shit about this problem?  Passionless kissing ensues, which draws further attention to the fact that their age difference is the least of the problems in this tragic sham of a relationship.

The prom king and queen dance together as Jesse’s terrible band play a jazzy rendition of “I Will Always Love You,” which was a pretty ubiquitous song at the time.  DJ looks upset as Steve dances with his ex-girlfriend even though he looks pretty rigid and guilty the whole time.

Becky intervenes, grabbing the microphone and telling everyone to dance with who they came with, but it seems to go unnoticed.  DJ goes to cut in just as just Steve tells his ex-girlfriend that he’s gonna go dance with DJ but then his ex-girlfriend grabs him and totally slips him the tongue.  For some reason Steve doesn’t do anything to resist this and DJ sees the whole thing before getting all upset and running away.

Steve explains to his ex-girlfriend that he’s in love with DJ now and that they’ll probably finally have sex some time after they get married.  Steve goes to find DJ but she decides to revenge-kiss Steve’s ex-girlfriend’s date, Paul, right in front of him.

Steve tries to explain what happened but since the music is still a terrible cover of “I Will Always Love You” and not gentle piano music, the conflict remains unresolved.  Someone comes up to them while they’re arguing and mentions that the party is happening upstairs, which seems pretty oblivious and insensitive if you ask me, and DJ decides to take Paul up there to give him some more cold, closed-mouth kissing just to spite Steve.  In response, Steve grabs his ex-girlfriend to take her up there, too.  It seems kind of weird to me that neither of these other people have any issue with being blatantly used just to cuckold someone.

Becky pulls Jesse off of the stage and has him go over to the elevator to stop DJ, Steve and the passive participants that they’re using to spite each other before they can head up to the party.

Jesse pulls everyone out of the elevator and asks them what the fuck is going on.  They convince DJ that she should never ever go to a fun party, even if it’s just to get revenge on her shitty boyfriend, and then DJ says that the prom is ruined and her whole life sucks.

Steve intervenes and tries to convince DJ that the whole thing is just a big misunderstanding but she won’t really hear him out until a few minutes into it when the music finally comes on.  Once those soothing piano keys enter the scene, DJ finally takes Steve’s word that he never really loved his ex-girlfriend and that he’s totally dedicated to her.  Dang, did he really have to discredit his entire previous relationship just to appease her?  Why can’t she just be happy that he loves her and not his ex-girlfriend now?  Then they go back to the prom and dance to a very special song that Jesse dedicates just to them, “I Will Always Love You.”  Really?  We already heard that shit!  I guess they wanted to get their money’s worth after paying for the rights to it.

Firsts:  Steve’s last name (unless I missed it before), Joey picks up on a social cue