Season 7, Episode 13, “The Perfect Couple”

Pre-Credits Gag:  The twins do a shitty job of wrapping their Christmas gifts for Becky.  To be fair, they’re like 2 years old and I really think that Jesse should wrap those gifts for them.  What a lazy, negligent father.  And husband.

This episode opens with Danny and Vicky making out.  Hey, the last episode started and ended with characters making out, too.  What’s going on around here?  Danny and Vicky are the most unpleasant couple to have watch while they smooch, too, because their lack of onscreen chemistry is so uncomfortably apparent.  Anyway, Vicky splits to go interview Princes Charles, leaving Danny to lament about his long-distance relationship to his idiot friend, Joey.  Danny says that he’s tired of only pretending to be in a heterosexual relationship every other weekend and wants to set a wedding date with Vicky so he can start living a lie full-time.  Joey supports this idea and then invites Danny and Vicky to be guests on a tv game show about relationships that he’s auditioning to be the host of.  Wait, what?  How is Joey constantly getting job opportunities like this?  Are he and Jesse even still radio DJs?  I can’t even keep track of all of the amazing jobs that they have handed to them all the time anymore.

So, naturally, the game show is about couples and will feature Danny and Vicky as an engaged couple, DJ and Steve as a dating couple, and Jesse and Becky as a married couple, because who wants to watch anything that’s not all about the people in the full house, right?

Jesse tries to prep Becky for the questions that they’ll be asked on the game show but she is able to easily prove that she already knows everything about him.  Jesse gets all bent out of shape about her claims that he is predictable but, honestly, what did he expect?  Seriously, the guys has like 4 basic characteristics that totally define him.  This is what happens when a character treads water for 7 Seasons with no development whatsoever.  I could go on this dating show with Jesse and get a perfect score, and so could anyone else who’s ever seen a single episode of Full House.  I can guarantee you that every question could be answered with either, Elvis, “Have mercy,” fried chicken, hair maintenance, neglecting your wife, motorcycles, neglecting your children, doing a half-assed job at work or terrible covers of Beach Boys songs.  There’s literally nothing else to him.  The only thing I find at all surprising about this scenario is that the show seems to actually be self-aware about this.

Steve comes over to pick up DJ for the game show and she gets all freaked out when she finds out that he knows how to juggle because apparently that means that they don’t really know each other at all.  I guess that when you’re dealing with such tragically undeveloped characters, learning trivial details about them can seem like a revelation.  He’s not even any good at it.  He does it for a few seconds and the audience goes nuts for some reason, though.  I wonder if the producers aren’t gassing them or something.  That would explain so much.

Stephanie is left in charge of Michelle and the twins because everyone else is on the stupid dating show.  She is immediately overzealous about being issued a morsel of authority but it’s quickly taken away from her when she tells the twins to put their pajamas on and they yell some sort of nonsense at her and then run out of the room.

Before the dating show begins filming, everyone reviews the issues that they’re having:  DJ is convinced that she and Steve don’t really know each other, Jesse feels like Becky thinks that he’s too predictable, and it turns out that Vicky isn’t going to be able to make it on time so she’s replaced by the producers assistant, Estelle.

The show begins filming and Joey comes out and starts doing a terrible impression of a tv game show host, adopting the persona of “Joe Stone”.  He’s even got a shitty wig on and fake teeth, as if regular Joey wasn’t hard enough to watch already.  This would almost qualify as post-modern if it wasn’t so devoid of conscious thought.

So the premise here is that each of the couples are having issues, which quickly becomes apparent onscreen and prompts the producer to instruct Joey to encourage arguments to make for a more entertaining show.  Joey proceeds to ask loaded questions and instigate conflicts between each of the couples while the producer gives him the thumbs up from off screen.  There isn’t much ground covered beyond this basic set-up except that the woman that Danny is paired up with seems to be pretty good at answering his questions.  There isn’t any sense that she and Danny will get together, though, because she isn’t conventionally attractive, and therefore could never qualify as a tv love interest.

Meanwhile, back at the full house, Stephanie tries to track down the twins in the hallway and there’s a lengthy sequence with sped-up footage and wacky sax music playing as the characters keep running in and out of rooms that seems to be a sort of homage to the Benny Hill show.

I don’t understand why Stephanie doesn’t just stand in the hallway and wait for the twins to come back out instead of running into different rooms the way she does.  Anyway, she finally finds them and brings them into her room, where Michelle is totally beating off over what a lousy babysitting job she’s doing.  Michelle makes a final point about what a shitty babysitter Stephanie is by getting the twins to put on their pajamas in 2 seconds and pointing out that the reason they refused before was because Stephanie gave them the wrong ones.  Stephanie says that she’s learned a valuable lesson about asking for help or not gloating about being in charge or some shit like that.

Estelle continues to correctly guess the answers to all of the questions about Danny.  She even knows that his recurring nightmare is about being naked on a Stairmaster.  For reals?  Danny naked on a Stairmaster is my recurring nightmare, too.  Becky continues to know everything about Jesse and he gets all up in arms about it, suggesting that the magic is gone because he’s so predictable, but then he realizes that it’s good because then she can tend to his every need so they start making out and then leave the set to go fuck.  That’s really what happens.  It’s not even subtle.

DJ continues to worry that she and Steve don’t really know each other but then he whips out some corny bullshit about how learning new things about her is like unwrapping presents and then all of their problems are solved. The show wraps up with Danny and Estelle having the best score and winning a vacation.  Afterwards, the producer commends Joey’s antagonistic performance but Joey tells him that he couldn’t do that to people every week and quits, which is the first time he’s ever shown any integrity.

Vicky arrives at the set and tells Danny that she missed the show because she was getting hired to anchor “the network news” in New York.  Danny is unable to be happy for her because it means that they’ll be even further apart and then the music comes on as he says that them being away from each other all the time is too painful and he can’t wait anymore for them to start their life together.  Vicky suggests that Danny moves to New York and he says that he can’t because he has like a whole village worth of people living in his house who are totally unable to take care of themselves.  Things get real serious and dramatic as they realize that love is not enough and they’re going to have to go their separate ways and then they hug goodbye, drawing the most passionless and unconvincing relationship in television history to a close.

If you ask me, Vicky got off pretty easy.  Although she never really developed any sort of a personality, at least she escaped before the full house drove her insane like it did with Aunt Becky.  It’s better to be bland and unmemorable than to be psychologically destroyed.

Back at the full house, Danny stares silently into the fire place, probably trying to remember one single potent memory he shared with Vicky and completely drawing a blank.  That would actually be a pretty good Zen exercise.  Try to remember one thing that Vicky ever said or did.  It really clears your mind.  Anyway, the girls all bring Danny a tuna melt and rub him so he’ll feel better.

He tells them that he really wanted them to finally have a mom but they remind him that they already have like 5 parents teaching them to be entitled pieces of shit and throwing one more privileged white broad up in that mix probably wasn’t going to help much.  Everybody hugs and then Michelle tries to eat Danny’s tuna melt because what the fuck does she care about her father’s feelings?  She wants that sandwich.

Firsts:  Joey has integrity, an explanation is provided for a love interest leaving the show