"I love the smell of Lysol in the morning" or Goodbye Mr. Bear (2.18)

It's Spring Cleaning in the Tanner household which is the equivalent of Christmas to Danny. He's assembled his cleaning army of Jesse, Joey and the girls and they set off singing a drill song: "If we find dirt we will attack/And we'll get Danny off our back!" The girls are sorting the toys in their room to select some to be donated to charity. Stephanie starts becoming apprehensive because she can't find Mr. Bear, and everyone tells her not to worry, but it's pretty obvious that this is going to turn into a major issue. D.J. blows her off because she needs to go to karate.

Danny is inspecting the cleaning job done by the fam and let it be noted that Joey even dusted the firewood. I'm pretty sure that I also used to have to dust the firewood when I was cleaning my living room in the house I grew up in. Joey helps Stephanie look for Mr. Bear when it dawns on him that he might have accidentally given the bear away. Ruh roh. Stephanie is in her room praying in a very humble and endearing way that God return Mr. Bear to her while Joey looks on sadly.

Danny brings D.J. home from karate and in the kitchen, Jesse is completely re-doing the kitchen cabinets. He was supposed to just replace a broken handle, but that handle was discontinued, so he opted for an entirely new set of handles, but that required bigger holes in the cabinets, so Jesse decided to install new cabinet faces. Danny is not impressed as he cries, "How can you do this to me? This is my Christmas!"

Meanwhile, there's a cop in the living room. Stephanie flagged him down to report her missing bear. Jesse thinks that Danny called the po-po on him for screwing up his kitchen. The cop handles it pretty well when it's revealed that it's a bear and not a person that's missing. Joey then confesses that he may have possibly accidentally given Mr. Bear away to charity. Stephanie is a merciless one, and demands that he be arrested. I agree! Lock him up and throw away the key!

Stephanie is hard at work making Missing posters for Mr. Bear. D.J. tries to tell her to get over it, and references how she lost her Pillow Person, but got over it. Just then, Stephanie pulls the Pillow Person out of hiding and D.J. rejoices at finding her favorite childhood toy. Joey comes in to apologize and offer his services, so he begins joining Stephanie is making posters.

Downstairs, the newly renovated kitchen looks great and Danny's ecstatic. He can barely contain his joy and grabs Jesse into a tight embrace. Jesse backs away and scolds Danny to "never hug me in front of my power tools!" Bwah! Woohoo! Nick and Irene are there! I'm glad they're featured so regularly, because they are my favorite grandparents of the family. They've brought a plethora of new teddy bears for Stephanie to select from. UgBaby comes in and completely blows off Grandma to pursue the toys. "Nice to see you too, honey" Irene dryly replies. This is why Irene rules.

Stephanie peruses the group of bears but none of them jive. This episode tugs at my heartstrings because I too once lost my most precious childhood possession. I had a yellow baby blanket named Sara, and I brought that thing everywhere. Even as I got older, I would fold it up and keep it in the bottom of my sleeping bag or duffel bag. One time I brought it over my cousin's house and somehow, accidentally left her behind. When I tried to reclaim it, I discovered that they thought it was a rag and burned it. I was so pissed. I still kind of am, on account of the fact that they're completely self-absorbed and blow us off for all family events. But seriously? I had this blanket my whole life, and everyone in my family knew it and recognized it, so WHY would they burn it? Who even burns baby blankets? I've just opened an entire floodgate of resentment. I wanted to pass that blanket on to my children! And now I can't because they were thoughtless brats! This was one of the most emotionally scarring periods in my childhood.

Um anyway, so what I'm saying is I totally feel Stephanie in this situation here. You can't replace your security item that you tote around everywhere. Just then Joey comes in with what appears to be Mr. Bear. But under closer scrutiny, Stephanie determines that he does not bear the scar on his nose from when it got shut in the toy box and Joey has brought home an impostor. Stephanie says that looking at that face when it's not the actual Mr. Bear is too painful, and she asks that Joey take him back to the store. She sadly returns upstairs, while Danny wonders why she's so attached to that bear. Irene and Nick offer to take the other bears back, but apparently that brat Michelle has claimed them as her own. And because nothing breeds brats better then letting them get their way, no one tells her otherwise. It's moments like these that shaped Michelle into the little snot she is in later years.

Everyone goes to try to comfort Stephanie and remind her that she's not alone in the world. Jesse demands a smile and it's pretty rough. Finally, D.J. recalls that Mr. Bear was a present from Pam on the day when she brought Michelle home from the hospital. So, duh! Obviously a gift from her dead mother is significant to her. But then in a weird moment, Stephanie didn't realize that's where Mr. Bear came from either, so hm.

They talk about how it's harder for the girls to remember their mother because they haven't talked about her a lot since the accident because it was too painful. Stephanie's afraid of losing her memories of her mother, so they begin sharing memories. Apparently Pam used to sing "On Top of Spaghetti" to the girls, which I don't really get, but whatever. This is kind of a touchy sensitive subject so I'm not going to nitpick. Then they decide to put on some old home movies to the delight of Danny, "If spring cleaning is my Christmas, then home movies are my New Year's Eve!"

The family gathers on the couch as they pop in the tape of Pam coming home from the hospital with Michelle. Jesse walks in the door before his sister and it's the return of the mullet! Present-day Jesse ponders whether he should grow his hair long again, which is met with a resounding "NO!" from the rest of the Tanner clan. Joey comes in with the girls' presents, a charm bracelet for D.J. and Mr. Bear. At the moment that Mr. Bear is on-screen, Michelle goes to retrieve him from her hiding place in some chest. That little piece of shit. Like they weren't constantly mentioning that they were looking for Mr. Bear, and she just now decides to go get him. If I were Stephanie, after the initial relief wore off, I would have backhanded that little shit right across her porky mouth. God I hate Michelle. This episode is a testament to why she leads the polls as most annoying FH character!

The family sits and watches Pam on the T.V. in quiet reflection and it's a really sad and touching closing scene as we close on the family silently watching her and listening to her voice.