Fuller House Episode 5, “Mad Max”

I wish I was watching Mad Max.  That would be way better than this crap.  That’s kind of a weird title for this episode, tho.  I don’t really know what it’s supposed to be referring to.

Stephanie helps DJ’s middle kid practice his trumpet and boy does he suck!  This kid is just the pits.  He’s worried about performing at school (and rightly so!) but Stephanie assures him that he’s from a long line of people who are grossly rewarded for their every effort, no matter how terrible or overbearing they may be.  He’s still peeing his pants about going onstage so she gives him her scarf, claiming that it’s magic and has always helped her perform as a DJ because lying to kids is often the best way to comfort them.  The fabrication proves to be reassuring but then he suggests that Stephanie holds on to the scarf until he needs it, as letting him keep it now might infringe on a potential plot contrivance.

DJ comes home and complains about how she told her shitty kids that she wasn’t gonna do all the work to raise their new dog but she’s totally doing it anyway.  Can’t say I didn’t see that coming.  Most kids do not deserve dogs.  At least she gets to pet the dog for a while, which makes the audience go, “aww.”

Kimmie Gibbler tells DJ that she’s made an online dating profile for her and she’s already inundated with dick pics.  DJ says that she’s still not ready to date, what with her husband’s recent tragic death and all, but she would like it if Kimmie Gibbler would store all those pictures in a desktop folder.  Ladies sure do love dick pics.  If they didn’t, why would guys always send them?  That’s just science.

As Stephanie feeds the baby, her tacky, orange, British friend Shannon enters the kitchen and says that she’s been horrified to see Stephanie’s latest internet posts that document her sudden complacent domesticity.  Clearly the only way to counteract such a horrible life change is to be whisked away to Cochella, where people go to desperately thwart their burgeoning adulthood.

As Stephanie gets ready to skip out on her responsibilities with her ghoulish friend, DJ expresses her confidence that she can hold it down at the fuller house while she’s gone.  Kimmie Gibbler enters with Ramona right as Stephanie is leaving and DJ immediately latches on to them for help.  DJ then realizes that there would be vast comedic potential if Ramona watched the baby so she sets it up.

DJ’s middle son asks the oldest son where Stephanie went because he wants the scarf for his performance tonight.  DJ’s oldest son divulges that Stephanie has skipped town with some British mess of a woman and then the younger kid starts shouting with alarm, which is surprisingly effective for conveying his plight considering how he shouts most of the time.

Ramona records a vlog in the bathroom that’s all about how she’s watching the baby.  Why is she doing it in the bathroom?  She starts changing the baby’s shit-filled diaper and since this is a vlog on a tv show it manages to be uninteresting content on two platforms at once.  After changing the baby, she flushes the diaper down the toilet because that’s what happens when you stick a 12 year old with these kinds of responsibilities.

DJ’s middle kid practices his trumpet in his room for the dog, who is wearing shorts.  DJ comes in and she’s like, “whys the dog wearing shorts” and he explains that the older kid told him to do it.  DJ’s like, “ok”  then she leaves and then there’s about 10 more seconds of trumpet practice for the dog.  That’s the whole scene.  Why did that happen?  What does it even mean?  If you took this scene out it wouldn’t effect the rest of the episode at all.  Just, what the fuck?

Kimmie Gibbler lets a strange man in the house and it turns out that he’s one of DJ’s potential internet dates and Kimmie Gibbler is doing like a screening of him.  Sure, why not?  She guesses his weight and they do this really hokey effect where she picks him up and I thought that it was just poorly done enough to be funny.  There’s also a lame joke about “picking up guys” and I have to admit that Kimmie Gibbler is probably the greatest deliverer of corny jokes in the entire entertainment industry.

So Kimmie Gibbler heads upstairs to find DJ, but DJ is in the kitchen, calling the plumber to find out when they’re coming over to pull that diaper out of the toilet.  DJ stumbles onto the date guy, who’s just standing around in the living room, and mistakes him for the plumber, which is a fairly reasonable deduction since Kimmie Gibbler apparently never told her about this date guy coming over.  What follows is a series of deftly crafted exchanges that can be interpreted as either requests for plumbing assistance or casual sex.  DJ is all, “let’s go upstairs and you can insert your penis into my vagina,” which could easily be about plumbing if you think about it.  Groundbreaking material!  Regardless of what a stretch some of the exchanges are, DJ’s delivery is pretty good and I like how the date guy is just totally down to fuck a complete stranger.  I guess that’s not too unrealistic.

Eventually, Kimmie Gibbler comes in with the real plumber and everything gets sorted out.  When the plumber realizes that these ladies are into online dating he puts himself out there as being available, too, which was really pretty brave of him.  I hope that lonely plumber finds the love that he’s searching for.

There’s like a 2-second stock footage shot of a crowd that signifies to us that we are now witnessing Coachella.  Stephanie and her disgusting friend spend all their time backstage, though, in a way more manageable set.  Stephanie finds out that some other bullshit rich kid DJ broke his arm so now she’s being invited to perform as a last-minute replacement, which comes as quite a surprise to her even thought pretty much everything in her life seems to happen this way.

Meanwhile, DJ hangs out with her kids backstage before the middle kid’s performance.  He’s shitting in his little pants because he doesn’t have the stupid magic scarf that Stephanie promised him so DJ decides to call Stephanie, who is in the middle of performing onstage.  She’s got like backup dancers and everything.  I guess it’s not that big of a deal for her to take a call during her set because she’s just one of those laptop DJ’s anyway.

DJ explains the trouble that’s been caused because Stephanie didn’t leave the kid her magic scarf, which is sort of a weird problem if you think about it.  Like, the kid doesn’t seem to really give a shit that she just cut out and isn’t coming to his show at all, he just wants the scarf.  So the lesson here isn’t really that you shouldn’t abandon kids, it’s just to remember to leave them with token gifts that you promise.  I don’t know.

So check this shit out.  Stephanie cuts off the music that she’s playing and puts the kid’s video call onto the projectors and has him play his shitty ass trumpet for Coachella.  So, not only are these people totally ruining an entire music festival with this bullshit, but you should also keep in mind that DJ’s kid is playing the trumpet backstage at his own show, so he’s also ruining whatever performance is happening onstage right now.  Stephanie gets the crowd to chant for DJ’s kid, which they are on enough drugs to go along with, so he acquires the confidence to play at some dumb little kid recital.  So I guess the lesson here is that if you forget to do something helpful for a kid then you’d better ruin a music festival for their benefit later.  Man, fuck this show.

Backstage at Coachella, Stephanie is applauded for forcing a bunch of people who paid an awful lot of money for a festival ticket to watch her stupid nephew suck at the trumpet.  Stephanie’s trainwreck of a friend urges her to go on to their next adventure, which will start with a drunken airplane ride and end with matching BFF abortions, so Stephanie decides to join her.

DJ asks Ramona why she flushed a diaper down the toilet but Ramona blames it on the baby, which leads to about a full minute of audience-pandering baby close-up shots.  DJ doesn’t get too mad about it because it’s her own fault for leaving her baby under the supervision of a little kid with no training.  Then, abruptly, and related to nothing, Kimmie Gibbler comes downstairs with the plumber and is like I’ma go hit this.  End of scene.  Well, I’m glad that things worked out for that guy.  He seemed really special and deserving of love.

As DJ puts the baby to bed, Stephanie enters the room and tells her that she decided to forego whatever STD’s she was inevitably about to contract and come back to the fuller house instead.  She goes on about how DJ’s deeply uninteresting children have burrowed into her heart like some sort of parasitic worm and then DJ says that she sees mom potential in Stephanie.  Then shit gets all serious and DJ’s like what wrong but Stephanie wont tell her but then DJ’s like bitch this show’s only like 25 minutes long just spit it out.

Stephanie tells DJ that she found out a few years ago that she’s unable to have kids.  She explains that she didn’t really think about it too much when she found out but since she’s been filling a parental role lately it’s been weighing on her.  DJ expresses her sympathies and says that her kids are Stephanie’s kids, too, and then they hug.  I’m sorry, you guys, but this was genuinely affecting.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been doing a bunch of projects about reproductive health over the past year or so, which has exposed me a lot to what women go through over this stuff and possibly made me incapable of being an asshole about it when it occurs on this show as a consequence.  But, honestly, I just think that they pulled off a genuinely emotional moment for once.  This is really the only time they’ve been at all mature or insightful when handling an issue.  The shit that Stephanie is going through is realistic, and makes sense in this scenario, and the actresses both really deliver emotionally honest and restrained performances here. This is the first time ever that a scene that was intended to have some sort of heart-string-pulling effect didn’t feel completely hollow and manipulative.  What really gets me is that this is  the first time that anyone has had any actual character motivation on this show.  Full House was all about how hilarious it would be if 3 total fuck-ups pissed and shit their way through raising kids together and, besides the dad, they never really created any clear reason for anyone to be there besides probably free rent.  Stephanie’s situation actually adds depth to her character by giving her a motivation for being there and it also strengthens the family aspect of the show.  As always, I am judging this show based on the all-time low bar that has been set by the original series, so I very well could be giving it too much credit here, but this is definitely the first time that seeing these characters cry didn’t make me laugh.

The kids all come in the room and greet Stephanie and then they all hug and then Kimmie Gibbler comes back from gettin her pussy ate by that gentle plumber and then she hugs with them, too.

P.S. I was just kidding earlier.  I know that ladies don’t really like dick pics.