Wednesday, March 26, 2008

"You feeling alright out there?... We'll take care of that." or Just Say No Way (3.21)

Jesse gives the girls some chocolate moo juice, heavy on the chocolate, easy on the moo. Joey presents Michelle with a Raffi tape and they pop it into the baby boom box as Stephanie, Danny and Joey do a little song and dance routine to "Baby Beluga." I'm pretty sure I can still sing that entire song, and I almost linked it here but didn't want to get it stuck in your heads. Jesse stops and ponders when his life reached this G-rating status.

DJ and Kimmy come in and blow through the kitchen, not stopping to talk because they have to plan the school dance. Danny asks them when they plan on doing their homework and DJ says her's is almost done... and by almost done she means almost started. Heh.

Kimmy hangs up the phone and tells DJ that they've booked DogFace, a high school band, for the dance. Apparently the dance is a backwards dance, where the girls ask the guys. Kimmy and Stephanie urge DJ to invite Kevin, but she's chickenshit, so Stephanie ends up doing it for her. She's going to kill her until she finds out that KEvin accepted. Suddenly they're best friends again.

Ug is listening to "Baby Beluga" non-stop and driving Stephanie crazy. She tells Joey to be the one to change the song, but Ug won't let him, and because everyone insists upon catering to a toddler, he gives up fairly easily. It's time for the dance, everyone coos over DJ's uber 90s black bodysuit/pantsuit with a black cropped jacket with silver accessories. It's not too heinous given the time period. Kimmy arrives and tells DJ that DogFace bailed, so DJ begs Jesse to serve as the replacement band. Kevin shows up to pick up DJ and thanks Steph for inviting him. She asks if he has any younger brothers at home for her.

At the dance, Kevin meanders over to the punch bowl and tells two other guys, Paul and Sam, how socially awkward he is, especially when compared with the social butterfuly DJ, and they tell him to follow them out to the hall. I smell trouble.

Jesse is horrified to see his backup band is the school's marching band. He calls over the mic for DJ to report to the stage immediately. He's not pleased with the arrangement and DJ begs him to give the band a chance. HE agrees because he wants to really earn his 20 bucks.

DJ introduces the band and Jesse tells her to not use any names, so she calls them the "No Names." Heh. He starts playing some "Wild Thing" and the marching band chimes in and for what it's worth, they're not really all that bad. Granted, they're no DogFace. Jesse's discomfort and embarrassment is obvious and Kimmy declares that he's not worth 20 bucks. Ouch. DJ offers the only smattering of applause as they finish the first tune.

Later in the night, Jesse's really getting into his performance, even rocking out with one of the feathered band caps, and DJ cuts him off from their finale of "Stars and Stripes Forever" by telling him that they finally found a stereo. DJ asks Kimmy where Kevin is and she goes off to find him, figuring that he was hiding from the horrific band. She finds him in the hall with his two toolish friends drinking beers in the hallway. One of the guys sprays DJ down with a can of beer and Kevin goes to get her some paper towels to clean up.

She seizes the can from the other dorks and proceeds to launch into a lecture of Danny Tanner proportions. She really is her father's daughter. Just as she's holding the beer and mockingly saying how cool it is to drink beer, Jesse comes up behind her. The other boys quickly run off and tell DJ that they're only 13 and don't want any beer. She's confused until Uncle Jesse barks out, "DJ Tanner!" She turns around and realizes what's in her hand and the music before commercial shows that she's totally in deep shit now. Uncle Jesse totally doesn't buy it when DJ says that it was the guys drinking and not her and takes her home.

Back at the house, UgTot is STILL listening to "Baby Beluga"... that is until her tape deck craps out. Bwah! She starts yelling her head off and Joey, Danny and Steph rush in. Joey goes to repair the tape deck until Steph and Danny hold him back. Ug won't stop whining, so the trio launches into another performance of "Baby Beluga." Why must people insist upon catering to a 4 year old?

Jesse and DJ come in arguing, yelling for Danny, and Danny comes down to see what all the fuss is about. Jesse tells him that he caught DJ drinking beer at the dance and DJ protests, saying that she knows drinking is stupid and wrong. Unfortunately for Deej, Danny can smell the beer that was sprayed all over her, and sends her to her room while he talks with Uncle Jesse. She's livid that Danny would take Jesse's side over his own daughter, and tearfully and angrily runs to her room.

Yeah, she smelled like beer, but it was just on her clothes. Why don't one of these guys smell her breath or take into account that she's completely lucid and not inebriated?

DJ throws herself onto her bed crying and furious that the guys didn't believe her. Stephanie comes over and asks what happened and tells DJ that she believes her. Down in the kitchen, Danny is freaking out that drinking is even an issue when DJ's only 13. JEsse and Joey tell him how things are different nowadays, and there are a lot more temptations out there for kids DJ's age. Stephanie comes down and tells the guys that whatever they are accusing DJ of, she didn't do because she was crying, and it wasn't tears of remorse, it was tears of the wrongfully accused. Danny starts to head upstairs to talk to her, but Stephanie informs them that DJ had Mrs. Gibbler pick her up to take her back to the dance to prove her innocence. Jesse takes this as a sign that everything he's saying is right, first DJ lies, then is caught with beer, and now she's sneaking out. Jesse and Danny go to the school to get to the bottom of all of this and Joey offers to stay at home and hold down the fort.

Back at the dance, Dj runs into Kimmy who tells her that Kevin and the other tools were caught with beer and their parents are on their way. Kevin finds DJ and apologizes, and she asks why he even felt the need to drink. He says that he was nervous and the tools told him it would help him loosen up. She says that she had more fun with the old Kevin, and that her father thinks she was drinking. He apologizes again, and his father comes to take him home.

On Kevin's walk out, he runs into Jesse and Danny and stops to tell Danny that it was him and his friends drinking and that DJ was trying to stop them. Jesse asks Danny to wait outside while he goes into talk to DJ and apologize for getting angry and not believing her. He explains the emotions he felt when he saw her with beer in her hand, and she understands that the situation looked bad. He says that as she gets older, she'll be faced with more difficult decisions about not only alcohol but drugs and sex (oo! They said SEX!). He laments that DJ can't stay young and innocent and be safe forever, but he hopes that down the road she'll continue to exercise the same good judgement she used tonight. They walk off together as the inspirational music concludes our very special episode.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ooohhh, this episode makes me sooo mad. I remember how obvious it was that DJ was making fun of the kids who were drinking. Jesse totally makes an ass out of himself (which is kind of unusual because he's typically more "cool" than this). He wouldn't even let DJ explain the situation. However, I loooved when Stefanie tells DJ that she believes her...so cute!!

MilkMan said...

Yeah, I mean I know the circumstantial evidence made DJ look pretty bad, but you would think that Jesse would be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt since she's always been such a good kid, and be willing to listen to her explanation before flying off the handle. Most parents are more into denial and thinking their kid would never do such a thing, so it's funny that they went the opposite route.

But I also absolutely loved the sisterly moment between DJ and Stephanie, and I forgive the guys for not believing her only because it led to such an awesome scene between the two girls.

Anonymous said...

i loved the band

Sara said...

This episode pisses me off so hard. I hate the Cassandra Truth trope where the parent is so eager to believe the worst of their kid. Jesse and Danny know DJ well enough, or even if they did think she'd been drinking they could've at least given her the benefit of the doubt. It shouldn't take a seven-year-old shaming them to make them REALIZE this.

Lynn said...

This episode pisses me off because the adults seem like they don't even WANT to consider that DJ's innocent, they're just all too happy to peg her as a teenage alcoholic and scream at her. Even fucking JOEY, who should know what it's like to be in trouble. Also, those stupid boys pulled a major dick move by trying to make her look bad and shouldn't Jesse realize it? Like, shouldn't DJ's own uncle believe HER over two little shits he hardly knows? It's bullcrap. The guys caught the idiot ball to the point where an eight-year-old had to talk some sense into them. Though the sisterly moment between DJ and Steph was still sweet.

The subplot sucked, too. I actually like Michelle, but when I think of childhood songs that have aged well...Baby Beluga is not one of them. Eugh.

DJ's outfit was pretty cute, though.