Season 8, Episode 23, “Michelle Rides Again Part 1”

Pre-Credits Gag:  DJ doesn’t have a date to the prom so Kimmie Gibbler decides to make it her mission to find her one.

Danny sits on the sidelines during Michelle’s horse riding practice.  I wonder if that’s DJ’s horse from one of the earlier Seasons?  I can totally see Michelle deciding to claim it for herself one day with no resistance from anyone.  The weird thing about this scene is that it’s about 30 seconds long and doesn’t contain any information that isn’t immediately conveyed through dialogue in the next scene, when Michelle and Danny come back to the full house and discuss her horseback riding lesson.  I guess that since they use this location later in the episode they wanted to get their moneys worth out of it or something.

Back at the full house, Michelle and Danny discuss Michelle’s riding lesson with Becky and then Stephanie comes in and tells everyone that she’s been rehearsing a scene from Romeo and Juliet.  Even though nobody has given a shit about anything that Stephanie has said or done since like the second Season, the family humor her as she complains about how her scene partner always cuts it short when they’re supposed to practice the kissing scene.  Michelle, always eager to jump at any opportunity to make some cutty, asshole remark, says that Stephanie’s partner wont kiss her because she has hella dry ass lips.  Becky attempts to reassure Stephanie but then she stops when she gets near her and is like, “damn, you do have some dry ass lips,” so Stephanie runs off to get some chap stick.  You have to assume that the storyline ends there, right?  Stephanie has dry lips and then she puts on some chap stick.  Where else is there for this to go?

Jesse and Joey come home and tell Becky that they’re auditioning for their own late night tv show.  I guess that since they’ve both managed to stumble onto several show business jobs already without any talent or work ethic, they might as well go after this next opportunity, too.  Their plan is to host a show where they go and interview people with unusual jobs and their first subject is a team of wrestlers.  Becky wonders if Jesse isn’t over-committing himself, as he’s already got 2 careers that he’s terrible at, plus he’s a terrible husband and father, but Jesse assure her that he’ll still be able to maintain the low standard that he’s provided for so many years.

Kimmie Gibbler brings over the first crop of potential prom dates for DJ and they’re all a bunch of sorry ass nerds.

DJ asks Kimmie Gibbler why she has such a low opinion of her as to bring over an unworthy gathering of pathetic nerds but Kimmie Gibbler tells her that this is all she could scrape together since DJ is so notorious for not putting out.  DJ tells Kimmie Gibbler to round up the nerds and fuck off.

Down at the horse stables, Michelle makes friends with another young horse rider named Elizabeth.  Elizabeth tells her about the upcoming jumping competition, which Michelle decides that she’d like to be a part of.  Danny shows up and is dissed by Elizabeth’s mom, who mistakes Danny for stable help as a way of showing us how bourgeois and unlikeable she is.  Michelle tells Danny that she wants to enter the jumping competition but he’s not into it because he’d have to buy her a bunch of expensive riding equipment.  I think that might be the first time ever that expense was a prohibitive factor for anyone on this show.  Usually they all seem to have magical unlimited money all the time.  Anyway, Danny changes his mind when Elizabeth’s mom starts talking hella shit about how her kid’s gonna win the competition, at which point he makes pitting his own kid against hers his top priority.

As Stephanie reads over her lines and applies chap stick, Danny comes in with a new saddle that he’s bought for Michelle.  Stephanie asks what it’s for and Danny ushers Michelle in, who was apparently waiting outside until Danny prompted her to come in and model her new riding outfit.  The audience get really excited over Michelle’s gear for some reason, probably because they don’t get out much.

Michelle expresses her concern about not winning the competition, which is successfully conveyed by her outstretched arms with palms facing upward, but Danny tells her that he doesn’t care if she wins as long as she beats Elizabeth.  But isn’t Elizabeth the kid who always wins?  So really what he’s telling her is that winning isn’t everything, but she has to do better than the best kid.  Well, ok.

Stephanie’s acting partner comes over to rehearse and Michelle refuses to leave the room while they practice their scene.  They get to the kiss and Stephanie’s partner hesitates, at which point Michelle starts making a bunch of shitty remarks about how dry Stephanie’s lips are.

Stephanie chases Michelle around, who continues to mock her, and then Stephanie’s scene partner rushes out of the house.  Man, he was only there for like a minute and a half.  I guess that’s about as much time as I’d be able to stand it in that house, too.  Stephanie’s like, “I can’t believe you’d be such a fucking asshole,” and storms out of the room but Michelle is totally without remorse.  All she says is, “I guess dry lips make people cranky,” which is an amazing way of deflecting any responsibility for totally humiliating her sister.

Michelle approaches Jesse to discuss her concerns about her upcoming jumping competition.  He tells her that he’s hella busy with all of his responsibilities because he’s actually taking them seriously for the first time in his life so he doesn’t really have time to listen to her stupid trivial problems, plus he can’t make it to her competition.  He tells her that she’ll do fine and then shoos her away before Joey approaches him to practice wrestling moves for their upcoming tv audition.

You know, as this series has approached the finale, I’ve felt nothing but relief.  I can’t say I’ll miss watching this terrible garbage one bit.  That’s why I was so caught off guard by the wave of emotion that overtook me as I watched Joey and Jesse wrestle during this scene.  It suddenly occurred to me that this might be the last overtly homosexual exchange that occurs between these two worthless assholes.  As I watched them writhe around on the floor together, moaning and grunting, I thought back to all the times that I’ve watched them grope and manhandle one another, and I felt like a whole chapter of my life was coming to a close.  Here’s to you, overtly gay uncles.  I like to think that you’re both still out there somewhere, coming up with feeble excuses to press your bodies together so the rest of the family can still pretend that they don’t know that you’re totally doin’ it.

Michelle and Elizabeth wish each other luck before the race, exemplifying their good sportsmanship.  Danny and Elizabeth’s mom come in and start prompting the girls to beat each other, exemplifying their poor sportsmanship, and the girls are clearly perturbed.  Their parents walk off towards the matte painting in the background and then the girls lament how much riding sucks dick now that their parents are being all shitty and putting so much pressure on them to win.  They decide to skip the contest and go riding on their own, which no one stops them from doing for some reason.

The family all sit by the sidelines waiting for the show to start and the twins tell Becky that they want a horse but it really sound like they say “whores.” This makes the exchange that follows pretty interesting.  They say, “momma, we wanna whores,” and then Becky says, “ok, I’ll get you one when you’re older.”  They ask, “how old,” and she says, “old enough to carry a shovel,” because I guess that Nicky and Alex’s future whores are doomed to the same fate that all of the mysteriously disappeared love interests that have entered the full house have fallen victim to.

As the competition begins, Danny notices that his hideous demon of a daughter isn’t there and so he and Joey rush off to find out why.  As they search for her, they run into Jesse, who’s like, “I decided to come because I remembered that Michelle is more important than my job and responsibilities.  Also, it’s convenient, story-wise.”  They ask some weird ranch hand if he saw where Michelle went and he directs them to the trail she went to but they never ask him why he let two little girls ride off unsupervised like that.  The ranch hand shows even more negligence as he sits idly by as all of the dads appropriate some horses so they can go after her.  Is this guy supposed to work there?  What’s his story?

As Elizabeth and Michelle whimsically stride through the countryside on their beautiful horses, Elizabeth decides to jump over a log and does it with minimal effort because it’s just a tiny ass log.  She urges Michelle to follow suit but then Michelle fucks it up and falls off her horse when she tries to make the jump.

YES!  Take that, you evil piece of shit!  I honestly hope that you die!  I am no more ashamed for wanting this than I am for being able to say that it’s justified by having watched and reviewed over 190 episodes of this terrible garbage.

It seems like it would make more sense for Michelle to have gotten hurt in the jumping competition, which she clearly couldn’t be more unqualified for, than during her scenic horseback riding tour.  Given how desperate this show is to teach us a heavy-handed lesson, you’d think that point would be that Danny shouldn’t have pressured her to compete in the competition just so he could show up some shitty mom, and the music could come on as he realized that Michelle’s safety was more important than winning, or some such bullshit.  But this is pretty much just a freak accident.  I guess maybe the lesson is not to go off horseback riding unsupervised?

The dads all show up and crowd around Michelle’s unconscious body as sad music plays and then the words “To Be Continued…” appear.  It’s too bad that this show didn’t get cancelled on a cliff-hanger Season finale, like ALF, or Soap, because if the series ended at this moment it kind of would have all been worth it.  But I guess there is a lot to resolve here.  Will the Uncles get yet another undeserved job in show business?  Who will DJ go to the prom with?  Is Stephanie gonna kiss that kid in that scene?  I know that none of the real questions will be addressed, like what the fuck is wrong with all of these people and why do they all still live in that cramped ass house. but maybe they’ll at least wrap up these dumb story lines.  But the real question is, “is Michelle dead?”  Man, that would just be the best.  What a great ending that would make.  Like she finally dies and then whatever evil hypnotism she’s been using would wear off and all these people could start living normal lives where they learn to wait their turn and stop getting in people’s faces all the time.  But even if their lives weren’t magically fixed, I’d settle for her just being dead.  Seriously, I’d take back every shitty thing I ever said about this show if it would just do me this one solid.  Oh please oh please oh please…

FHR Wrap Party Update:  I hope to see a whole bunch of you guys at the Waypost in Portland, Oregon on Friday, January 24th at 9 PM for the final celebration of this project coming to a close.  I’ll make a Facebook event page for it and link to it next week.  For those of you who are curious about how the San Francisco party went, some super rad fans filmed the whole thing and I’ll be posting videos here soonish.  I’m planning on posting a lot of extra content during the final week of the blog so it’ll most likely go up then.

Like I did at the SF event, I’ll be reading a few posts from the site and then doing a Q and A.  Does anyone wanna suggest which reviews they’d like me to read?  At the first event I read “DJ’s Very First Horse” and “The Last Dance” (which is totally the best review ever) but I kinda think I should pick 2 different ones for this next one.  What do you guys think?

I hope to meet a lot of you then!  My big dream is that Teebore will come!  Fingers crossed!