Season 8, Episode 7, “On the Road Again”

Pre-Credits Gag:  Jesse jams out with his new band, which now has like 50 members (including some pretty fly backup singers).  At the end of the song, Viper starts smashing his guitar, either because it was stylish at the time, what with the kids and their grungy music (note his ripped jeans), or because he suddenly realized how horrible the band he joined is.  The rest of the family all praise Jesse and his terrible new band and then he reveals their name: Hot Daddy and the Monkey Puppets.  I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.  Is it supposed to sound like something else, or be a reference to something, or what?  I remember Jesse having a monkey puppet and calling himself “Hot Daddy” when he was home schooling the twins a few episodes ago but that doesn’t really explain why it ended up being the band’s name.  Michelle’s all, “what the fuck?,” not because of how nonsensical the name is, but because she suggested they be called “Uncle Jesse and the Sunflowers” and, to her astonishment, as well as my own, they actually didn’t do what she said for once.  I can’t really say which name is worse.  Finally, did you notice Jesse’s stylish dashiki?  If you missed it somehow, please take a moment to soak it in.

After Jesse escorts his new band mates out of the back door, Viper loops around the side of the house and meets up with DJ in front of the kitchen windows for some hot smooching. Danny walks into the kitchen and sees them, which is pretty unavoidable because they’re in a totally conspicuous place, and he decides for some reason that he has to hide behind the kitchen counter so they don’t see him.

After they’re gone, Joey shows up and Danny confides in him about what he just saw.  Joey gives some uncharacteristically wise advice about how Danny forbidding DJ to date Viper will just further compel her to do so but then, before the room could really start spinning as I laid witness to Joey’s alarming unforeseen cognizance, he started talking about how he got sick from eating too much dirt when he was in high school and all was right with the world again.

Stephanie and Michelle go into DJ’s room and start a hardcore snooping campaign, straight up digging through her shit so they can find her diary because they think she has a new boyfriend.  They find a big glossy photo of the Monkey Puppets under her pillow and deduce that she must be dating one of them, but before they can begin to speculate about which one it is, DJ enters the room.  Instead of apologizing for being invasive assholes, they start grilling DJ about who she’s dating until she finally shoves them out the door.

As they prepare to travel to their upcoming gig, the Monkey Puppets lament their roadie unexpectedly quitting and decide to dupe Joey into doing the job for free by asking him to open for their performance with his shitty stand-up comedy act.

Everyone helps Becky carry her and the twins’ luggage to the car because they’re going on the road with Jesse for some reason.  After they all exit the scene, Viper comes into the kitchen and starts smoochin’ all up on DJ again.  He tries to persuade her to come to the gig and to tell her dad about them but she insists that Danny will object on account of his shabby attire and big fake tattoo.

Danny comes in and gives Viper the stink eye until he leaves and then DJ convinces Kimmie Gibbler to come with her to the Monkey Puppets gig so Danny wont suspect that she’s just going so she can engage in more closed mouth smooching with Viper.

Jesse brings his wife and young children to the shittiest hotel on the planet.  Apparently he stayed there a bunch of times before but I guess he didn’t notice all the filth and malfunctioning equipment because he was too busy bangin’ groupies.  Becky seems pretty imperturbable about the whole thing, presumably because it’s pretty much what she’s come to expect at this point, but it still seems odd to me that she doesn’t just offer to pay for a nicer hotel, what with her high paying job and all.

DJ tells Danny that she’s going to go see Jesse’s band with Kimmie Gibbler and he tells her that there’s no way that she’s going because he knows all about her personal business.  She asks him why the fuck she was spying on her and for some reason he doesn’t clarify that he only knows because she was smooching in front of a big window and all he was doing was standing in the kitchen.  Danny tells DJ that he doesn’t trust Viper because, unlike Steve, he’s not really the kind of guy who will wait 18 months to get to second base and then DJ tells him that he can go suck a dick because she’s gonna go anyway and he can’t stop her.

As Becky entertains the twins with the vibrating bed, Jesse brings back a bunch of crap from the vending machine for dinner, like a true hunter gatherer.  Joey and Viper come in to scheme on the snacks and then Jesse admits that the hotel is a big shithole, which leads to an existential crisis about him getting older.

Before Jesse can fully face facts about being an aging failure, Danny calls his room to tell him that Viper has been dating DJ, who’s on her way to their show as they speak.  Danny rounds up Stephanie and Michelle so they can head over there, too, and then Jesse immediately fires Viper after hanging up the phone.  Viper says that Jesse can kick him out of their terrible band if he wants but he wont stop pursuing a lukewarm relationship with DJ and then he storms off.

As Joey does the mic check, the gig owner, who’s got to be the seediest motherfucker who ever walked the earth, comes over to him and wags his cigar while demanding that they appease the polka fans who are coming to the show that night (incidentally, I kept thinking that the owner was saying “poker” and it took me several minutes to understand why poker fans demanded a particular type of music for their card night).  Before Joey can fully explain the situation to Jesse, DJ comes in with Kimmie Gibbler and Jesse pulls her aside and tells her that he fired Viper.  DJ’s all, “what the fuck?” and Jesse explains that Viper’s a greasy young musician who wants nothing but poontang and then Becky cuts in and points out that Jesse was the exact same way when they met.  She further explains that her own mother objected to her dating Jesse at first and for some reason no one takes this as a blaring alarm that DJ is about to get into a relationship with a guy that will do nothing but sponge off her and drag her down.  Becky says that she had to show her mom that there was more to Jesse than “long hair, rock ‘n’ roll and a Harley,” so I guess Becky’s mom was persuaded to like him after learning that he also likes fried chicken.  That had to be it because there really is nothing else to him after that.

The club owner comes over and starts demanding that the band gets ready to perform some polka and Jesse’s like, “what the fuck are you even talking about?”  Once the situation is clarified, Jesse tells him that they’re not equipped for polka but then the owner tells him that he’s got a “roomful of polka supplies.”  Sure, why not?  Before Jesse can explain that they’re not a polka band and are totally unqualified to play that kind of music, Viper intervenes and shares that he was raised in a polka band.  Ok, so that’s one guy who can play polka… how’s the rest of the band supposed to learn how to do it now?  Why are they even humoring this scenario?  I doubt that this gig pays jack shit.

Jesse is so moved by Viper’s offer to help him play a gig that he should clearly walk out on that he apologizes for objecting to their relationship and invites him back into the band.  As Jesse and his band head to the back room to prepare to humiliate themselves even more than they would have if they’d played their own music, Danny comes in with the girls.  DJ takes him aside and explains that she’s almost 18 years old and he can’t dictate who she can and can’t date.  The music comes on (for the first time in like 4 episodes!  I kind of hoped that it was never coming back but I guess that was a pretty unrealistic aspiration.  Maybe it was missing from those last episodes because they had such nonsensical premises’, whereas this one has a much clearer very special message.  Or, more likely, no one cared enough to remember to include it) as DJ explains that there’s nothing to worry about because she’s pretty obviously one of those wait-for-marriage chicks and then Danny says that he trusts her judgment, and then, hugs.

Jesse and his band come out in their lederhosen and I guess we’re supposed to believe that they can perform polka after all.  Hey, why not?  For a second I thought that the whole relationship premise was going to be nullified when DJ sees Viper in that ridiculous little polka outfit, because if that’s not a deal breaker then I don’t know what is, but for some reason she seems pretty into it.

The band plays a polka rendition of “I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night” as everyone dances around like corny assholes and the performance runs through the entire credits because I guess they thought someone would be able to stand to watch more than 5 seconds of it. Well, they were wrong.