Fuller House Episode 4, “The Not-So-Great Escape”

Stephanie makes some observations about the baby that aren’t even worth mentioning and then Kimmie Gibbler comes downstairs, kisses her and refers to her as, “sister-wife.”  Well, cool, I guess that I can stop complaining about how Full House never acknowledged its gay subtext.  Now that it has, why don’t we all just quit while we’re ahead?

But, no, it just keeps going.  DJ and Kimmie Gibbler have different parenting styles.  DJ makes her kids healthy turkey wraps for lunch and Kimmie Gibbler just gives her kid money.  DJ’s oldest kid comes downstairs with his science fair project because he’s king of the nerds and says that he was, “up all night, erupting my volcano, ” which is taken as a euphemism. The somewhat racy jokes are akin to the gay stuff on this show for me.  They helped the show to exceed the low standard that was set by the original series, and I was sort of impressed by that at first, but now that I’ve slightly adjusted those standards all I’m really noticing now is crappy jokes on a bland ass sitcom.  That initial spark of having my incredibly low expectations slightly outdone has faded.  It’s like the opposite of an erupting volcano.

Kimmie Gibbler’s kid, Ramona, complains about how her new school sucks a fat ass dick and she doesn’t have any friends there.  DJ gets ready for work and reminds Kimmie Gibbler that she’s supposed to watch the baby but Kimmie Gibbler’s like, sorry, homey, I got shit to do.  One of the greatest things about Full House was always when Kimmie Gibbler was a super shitty friend to DJ and this is totally how that kind of thing evolves over decades.  Your super shitty teenage friend who is habitually dishonest and often takes advantage of you ends up being your adult friend who is casually unreliable and lives in your house for free.  Anyway, Kimmie Gibbler gets Stephanie to agree to watch the baby by breaking down her self-esteem.  She gets Stephanie to admit that she doesn’t have a boyfriend or a job or any money, which means that she should watch the baby all day for some reason.  Why doesn’t Stephanie have any money?  I thought she was a hot shit DJ.  I kind of assumed that she would make pretty decent bank from doing that.  I guess it’s  feasible that she snorted all that cash up, tho.  Also, I’ll give the whole exchange a pass because I got to see Stephanie being emotionally abused.

DJ’s middle kid runs in the room and starts shouting at everyone about how he’s gonna pick out his new puppy today.  Remember in the first episode when that dog gave birth in the back yard?  Continuity.

Ramona complains about how much their school sucks to DJ’s oldest kid so he promises to cook up a scheme to break her out of there.  All of this happens at a new set, which is their elementary school or middle school or whatever.  I’m not really sure how old these kids are supposed to be.

Speaking of new sets, we get to see where DJ works, which looks like some weird, tiny pet clinic in Chinatown.  DJ is greeted by her secretary, Janet, who sounds like she’s from Jamaica or something.

Her nationality probably wouldn’t be worth mentioning if we learned anything else about her, but she’s just Janet the (probably) Jamaican secretary.  That’s all you get to know.  DJ has her middle kid with her because he’s there to pick out his puppy, which I guess means he doesn’t have to go to school.  The other kids are at school right now, but this motherfucker gets to hang out with a bunch of puppies all day instead.  The other kids don’t even mind for some reason.  DJ’s middle kid exclaims, “holy chalupas” when he sees the puppies because that’s the kind of catch phrase you end up with when you release your whole season all at once, without figuring out what works first.

There’s an abrupt introduction to some other vet that DJ’s works with but it seems like the only reason he’s on the show is because DJ might want to bang his son, Matt.  The vet explains that Matt will be helping out around the office so that the show can have some sexual tension and then Matt and DJ totally jerk off at each other for a few minutes.  But, like, with their eyes.

While Stephanie and the baby wait in line at a coffee shop, some guy starts putting the moves on her hella hard.  He’s like, “nothing gets my dick harder than a single mom, ” so Stephanie proceeds to pretend that Tommy is her baby.  She orders like 3 things and the guy at the counter tells her that her total is $18.50 and I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a joke or not.  It seems like an absurdly high price for the items that she’s ordered, but it also seems sort of feasible, especially in San Francisco.  So it’s not high enough to be farcical and it’s not low enough to be reasonable.  So probably I’m putting more thought into it than anyone else did.  Anyway, DJ calls Stephanie and asks her if she can come fill in for her receptionist, who probably went back to Jamaica or something.  Stephanie agrees to come in so she skips out on paying for the stuff she ordered because it doesn’t matter whether or not the price is absurd when you’re straight up broke.

Meanwhile, back at school, DJ’s oldest kid sits around with his nerdy volcano and it looks like everyone else has a model volcano, too, so I guess this is like a class project and not the worst science fair of all time.  Ramona continues to scheme with him about how to sneak out of school.  She shoulda just said that she wanted to pick out a puppy.  That seems to get you out of school for a whole day for some reason.  Anyway, DJ’s oldest kid says that he’s gonna create a diversion so that Ramona can climb out of the window and on to freedom.

Oh shit, the kids’ teacher is played by Stephen Tobolowsky!  That motherfucker is in everything!  He’s that guy who plays Ned in Groundhog’s Day, plus bit parts in like everything ever, and also he had that podcast.  Plus also he’s one of the credited screenplayer writers of True Stories.  Anyway, DJ’s oldest kid mixes some chemicals together, which sets off the smoke alarm and all the sprinklers.

The sprinklers set off all of the volcanoes, which is actually pretty well staged, and then Ramona sneaks out of the window while all the other kids shuffle out into the hallway.  Since everyone else is also leaving, you’d think that she could just go out with them and then sneak away in all the kerfuffle once they get outside.

Stephen Tobolowsky gets all pissed at DJ’s oldest kid because he saw him activate the smoke alarm and then Ramona gets busted for sneaking out of the window because apparently everyone lines up right outside of it during fire drills.  Couldn’t she be like, “I was going out there to line up with everyone and I went out the window because there was water spraying all over the place or I was freaked out or whatever”?  This whole scheme seems very convoluted to me.

DJ’s middle kid continues to try to decide which puppy to choose.  Seriously, why isn’t this kid at school?  And why is this taking all day?  It’s really upsetting to me that a scene which features a lot of puppies could be so irritating.  Stephanie comes in and starts demanding that DJ pays her before she even does any work and then she starts vying for the attention of all the people who are patiently waiting for their pets to get some medical treatment.  Kimmie Gibbler comes in to pick up the baby and then someone’s phone rings and everyone checks to see if it’s theirs.  They keep doing that on this show.  There’s a phone ringing sound and everyone checks to see if it’s theirs.  I don’t really have anything to say about that but I noticed that it keeps happening so I thought I’d point it out.  Anyway, the call is from DJ’s kids’ school, to tell her that he got in trouble for setting off the fire alarm.  Moments later, Kimmie Gibbler gets a phone call about how Ramona is in trouble, too, but that barely registered with me because I noticed all of the photos on the wall that are supposed to be from DJ’s older co-worker (the one with the son she wants to bang).  There are pictures of a dog steering a boat and riding a motorcycle on that wall.  It’s enough to make you stop paying attention to whatever else is on the screen.

Anyway, DJ and Kimmie Gibbler head down to the school, leaving Stephanie to watch the baby and run the vet clinic, which must be pretty challenging when none of the vets are there.  That guys who wanted to bang Stephanie at the coffee shop walks in and tries to stick it to her some more and then DJ’s middle kid wanders into the room because he’s still there for some reason.  The coffee shop guys says that single moms with multiple kids get him all horned up even more than single moms with one kid so Stephanie says that DJ’s middle kid is hers, too.  Stephanie ushers the kid into the other room and also kinda haphazardly shoves the baby’s stroller in there so she can continue canoodling with the coffee shop guy, which was kind of funny in a laughing at horrible negligence kind of a way.

There’s a really over-long shot of DJ’s middle kid trying to pick out a puppy while the baby sits there in the background and it’s just so blatantly like, “look, babies and puppies!”  They’re not even trying here.

Some weird lady walks into the pet clinic and lets a skunk loose in what is maybe the most abrupt, random occurrence in the history of television.  The whole scene is like 10 seconds long.  The following scene shows us DJ returning to the clinic to find Stephanie soaking in a tub of tomato juice, along with the kids and the puppies.

DJ exclaims her old catch-phrase, “oh mylanta,” which doesn’t get a reaction from the audience because it was never very memorable.  DJ’s like, “what the fuckin is even going on around here?” and Stephanie explains that they all got prayed by a skunk and she googled what to do, hence the tomato juice baths.  She doesn’t explain where she got all that tomato juice but whatever.  Stephanie is worried that DJ will be mad but DJ just takes a picture and says that it will be great for her Facebook page.  Ha ha, Facebook!  That’s a thing we all use these days!

Back at the fuller house, Ramona has a friend over because getting in trouble at school made her instantly popular.  Both Ramona and DJ’s oldest kid have been suspended for 3 days after their terrible scheme went belly up.  Kimmie Gibbler doesn’t give two shits about her kid getting in trouble but DJ starts doling out strict repercussions to her son.  DJ”s kid gets all pissed about being in trouble when Ramona isn’t so DJ takes Kimmie Gibbler aside and asks her to stop being such a cool mom all the time.

Things get hella emotional when Kimmie Gibbler explains that she’s being so lenient because her marriage fell apart and she made her daughter move in with a bunch of annoying crackers so she feels bad but then DJ’s like, that’s understandable but you need to stop being such a fucking pussy because you’re fuckin’ up my shit.  Then the two moms go back to the kids and tell them that they have to share the duties of DJ’s kids punishment because it’s more fair.  Ramona tells them that DJ’s kid only set off the alarm to help her escape and that makes them reduce the punishment for some reason.  I guess the lesson there is that it’s ok to do something illegal that disrupts an entire institution if it’s to help someone you care about do something they’re not supposed to.

DJ’s younger kid comes in with his new dog.  I’m not sure which one he picked because they all looked exactly the same.  Actually, all of those dogs that we saw will probably be playing the dog on this show.  The doorbell rings and it’s that guy from the coffee shop coming over to bone Stephanie, who lies to him about who everyone else in the house is in relation to her because I guess the parents haven’t already taught the kids enough warped lessons already.  But, hey, check out that adorable new puppy!