We made it. It was a long, torturous trek from episode one to here. Here are the reviews for the final three episodes of season two of “Fuller House.”
Episode 11: “DJ and Kimmy’s High School Reunion”
(A high school reunion leaves DJ wondering whether she still has feelings for Steve, while a hapless Kimmy is trending for all the wrong reasons)
Brown: Because “Fuller House” has never found a sitcom trope it didn’t love to beat mercilessly, we get a classic: The high-school reunion.
They are always the setting for awkwardness, old memories, forgotten friendships loves, and (in my personal experience going to my 10-year reunion) a lot of alcohol.
“Fuller House” is a family show and won’t follow my example (their loss, really), but we get a little bit of all that.
The irony in all this: Two characters who never really left the ‘90s (DJ and Kimmy) are about to relive the ‘90s at their old high school. It’s totally natural if you roll your eyes here.
Froemming: There is a moment right away when Kimmy says their whole lives have been a 90s-themed party, being the first time in the history of reviewing this show I actually agreed with her.
Now, Kimmy begins to second-guess going after a photo of her wearing a garbage bag in high school pops up on the internet. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the accuracy of that piece of clothing for the hell-spawn that is Kimmy Gibbler. She is literally a garbage person.
Brown: Did you find comfort in knowing that Kimmy’s high school probably hated her as much as we do?
Froemming: Nobody hates Kimmy Gibbler more than we do here at the JOE-DOWN.
Brown: Before we’re whisked away to more 90s nostalgia in a show that feasts on 90s nostalgia, we get our B-plot with Stephanie and the kids. They get intros when they walk into the door because reasons. Max is student of the month again, Ramona is a highly-ranked dancer in her age group (to the point that Kimmy takes a jab at newspapers. A lot of words I want to say but can’t due to employment reasons) and Jackson is… a straight-A student? I mean, he could be, but the show never focuses on that.
Because of that, Stephanie decides to reward the kids with her first annual gifted student pizza party.
Folks, lesson time here on the JOE-DOWN. Something that you learn in day one of journalism school, and I still see it all the time and it sickens me: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FIRST ANNUAL! STOP IT! I’ll be right back (screams into a pillow).
Froemming: Well, that alone was worth the thousands upon thousands of dollars I spent going to St. Cloud State University. See, we do use some of the stuff we learned.
Now, I called this right away in my notes: Jackson cheated. What I didn’t foresee was the big production Max makes of it. This kid is pure evil, I swear. Also, Jackson you dolt, do not keep the evidence of your crime around for anyone to see (in the copier, where he changed his grades. See, you are good at something Jackson, white-collar crime).
And we catch a glimpse into the troubled world of Steve, who shows up at the house to make out with CJ in front of DJ for some reason. It appears he has an overdue book from high school he would like DJ to return for him, since she will be at the high school and all. The book? “Lord of the Flies.” He has kept it for 22 years, probably highlighting the murder scenes with the blood of his victims.
Brown: Let’s just knock out the B-plot. Jackson is bummed out because everyone in his family is a “superstar.” Wait, what? Max is smart but he dresses like Michael P. Keaton’s clone about to go to a Reagan rally. DJ is, what, a good “Rock Band” drummer (if we learned anything from Girl Talk, she is not). And Tommy is a toddler.
So he’s sad because reasons and Steph wants to give him a pep talk. That fails, so like any good person, she pawns off her duties on others. He’s convinced he’s a good brother, a good cousin and a good kisser from Lola. One problem with the logic here: Jackson is Lola’s first boyfriend. What standard is Jackson held to here?
Also, I agree with you, Froemming. Max makes too much of the cheating. It’s not your business, you narc. I can’t wait til Jackson meets you in the prison yard and hits you with a doorknob in a sock.
Froemming: I would like to once again point out that Ramona’s dancing is just like Elaine’s in “Seinfeld:” A full-body dry heave set to music.
At the reunion, we find that Kimmy’s party planning business is in charge of the festivities. So, no matter what, Kimmy still gets paid at the end of the night.
Her night of torture was nothing but pleasure for me, as she is mocked with cell phones with her garbage bag photo on them and when she introduces her good looking husband, Fernando, his face looks like it got jacked up with that doorknob in a sock Brown mentioned earlier. Apparently he was taunting bees just before this. My theory: Though he isn’t in this episode, I believe Fernando escaped a near deadly encounter with Joey Gladstone and Mr. Woodchuck.
Brown: Look, I get that Fernando’s character trope is lovable idiot. But he threw rocks at a bee hive because he was bored. A. He’s a sociopath for doing that. B. He got what he deserved.
So Kimmy has a photo of senior year put up on social media where she’s in a garbage bag, hence “Garbage Bag Gibbler.” And just for the idea of making Kimmy be really sad, this is my favorite episode of the series. I am fully against bullying but in this case, (REDACTED) that. Kimmy has been the stuff of my nightmares for 26 half-hours of my life.
She also gets her dress ripped and her party is kind of a dud. And I enjoy feasting on Kimmy’s misery.
Speaking of misery, we get a parade of loser former boyfriends of DJ’s.
Froemming: We do, but since this wasn’t a show I really cared for, I had no idea they were supposed to be callbacks. We have Nelson, a yuppie who can’t shut up about his net worth and Viper, who has a boss that makes him buy beer for. And frankly, there was no real point of shoehorning these two into the episode other than to make my life more miserable.
DJ has a heart-to-heart with Kimmy (who inadvertently informed her entire class that she currently has a urinary tract infection). This really doesn’t work, so Dwayne shows up to say “whatever.” He’s become a Harvard grad who has made a living giving motivational speeches of “whatever.” I wish I could shrug off the hours I spent watching this with a cool “whatever” but it will really take decades of therapy.
Brown: I feel like Dwayne’s “Whatever” catchphrase is what the writers and producers of this show said any time a half-baked idea was brought up, only to go into the show.
Because DJ needs to be saved from the reality of her poor, poor decision making, Steve arrives to bail DJ out.
With that said, this is where I imagined Steve becomes Dennis Reynolds from “It’s Always Sunny” where if DJ turns him down, he’s going to his car to go get his tools (NSFW).
Froemming: We soon find out just how troubling Steve and DJ are when they dance to Bryan Adams’ “Everything I Do (I Do For You).” That was their song. These are the whitest people on earth.
But we get seeds for something down the line — it appears DJ still has feeling for Steve and as soon as I picked up on that I wanted to turn off the TV and set it on fire to purge the evil voodoo from my life that this show has brought upon. But hey, Kimmy shows up wearing a garbage bag with the deformed Fernando to prove that they are, indeed, proud of being the terrible people they are.
Brown: Because DJ is an indecisive jerk, she wants to tell Steve she has feelings for him. Only, Steve reveals that he wants to propose to CJ. Thank goodness. You know Steve, I just about lost hope in you. And then, you TOTALLY redeem yourself. You got yourself a younger DJ without all the baggage.
One thing that bugged me: So apparently on their first date back in high school, Steve carved “DJ and Steve Forever” in the gym floor. How does that floor not get removed after 25 years? Also, what psychopath carves that into a floor on the FIRST DATE. Oh, right, the guy who I thought earlier would have kidnapping tools in his car.
Episode 12: “Nutcrackers”
(‘Tis the season to be in love, but Stephanie doesn’t want to hear it. Max gets a girlfriend for Christmas, and Ramona suits up for “The Nutcracker”)
Froemming: I just want to say at the start here that I watched this episode during my dinner break at work and Bemidji Pioneer Sports Editor Jack Hittinger sang the show’s theme song the whole way through by memory and — most disturbing — unprovoked by me. He just did it out of the blue and I am now haunted by the memory.
This is the Christmas episode, where things get even more dark and disturbing in the Fuller/Gibbler world. We find out DJ always carries a santa hat with her at all times and this is the episode where Max gets a girlfriend.
Yeah. A grilfriend. And it is creepy.
Brown: I always knew there was something wrong with Jack. Robocop’s prime directive should have been to destroy Detroit instead of saving it so people like Hittinger could never escape Michigan.
Back to the show, if Max is Damien from “The Omen,” his girlfriend Rose is one of those creepy hallway twins from “The Shining.”
The way they meet: Rose is CJ’s daughter, and they bring their bunny Jack (be prepared for a lot of “Titanic” references here, folks) to DJ because she’s a vet and all.
Once we were told her name was Rose, I went full Kenny Powers on it, asking the TV “Ya’ll named your daughter after (REDACTED) ‘Titanic?’” Here’s the NSFW clip of that.
Max is not the only one in love in this episode either. It’s time we revisit San Francisco’s favorite stoner duo, Stephanie and Jimmy.
Froemming: Jimmy tells Steph that he was offered a job in Auckland (that’s how this (REDACTED) pronounces Oakland). Look, I have questioned Jimmy’s job before and I still stand by my thoughts: He is not employed by National Geographic. Why would the magazine send him across the bridge to Oakland for a (REDACTED) JOB? They wouldn’t. He is making it up as he goes along.
Brown: He cooks meth like Walter White, we’ve established this.
After taking the “Family Guy” Cool Whip joke and making it about Oakland, Jimmy causally brings up that he loves Steph, which she (rightfully) seems taken aback by and doesn’t really acknowledge it. The next morning he tries to broach the subject again while saying he wanted to make a gingerbread house. You know, munchies and all. So now, we’re left to this cat-and-mouse game all episode until the very end where DJ determines (with her psychology degree she does not have) that Steph walls herself off after their mom died. But now, she opens her heart to Jimmy and says she loves him.
I wonder what the real estate situation is in Auckland so I never have to see these two ever again.
Froemming: Outside a reporter’s budget I would imagine.
Since, like America with Brietbart, we are normalizing terrible things, so we have Ramona’s dancing career as a plot in this episode. She is the King of the Rats Mouse King in her school’s performance of the “Nutcracker.” But because of the show’s apparent popularity (I do not recall one high school or middle school performance in my youth that went beyond one show, because let’s face it teenagers don’t care about this garbage), she will have to miss Lola’s holiday party.
But Kimmy has a plan (and I was hoping it would have been her taking a bath with a toaster plugged in, but it wasn’t). Fernando will drive Ramona to the party, then to the show!
Brown: Well, Fernando is an idiot race-car driver so he drives in circles. Someone has to be the mouse king. And who better to be a disgusting trash-festering rodent than Kimmy Gibbler! And because she’s a ham, she chews the scenery more than Negan in “The Walking Dead” without any of the charisma or the baseball bat.
Eventually, Ramona gets back and assumes the role of the nutcracker because of some bad joke about kicking the original actor between the legs.
I’ll tell you what, man, how cathartic was it to see Ramona stab her mom on stage?
Froemming: Not once, but twice. Look, Ramona (minus her “dancing”) is probably the only character on this show that doesn’t make me want to drink bleach to forget this whole experience. So her taking charge and stabbing Kimmy felt right. But even in a death scene, Kimmy has to extend it — testing not only her family’s and the fictional audience’s patience, but mine as well. I mean, it felt like Kimmy was going for a Rasputin take on this death scene. And like Rasputin — or even the Grimace — Kimmy simply cannot be stopped.
Brown: Because I see the light at the end of the tunnel, let’s go speed round here.
- Max and Rose continue to make countless “Titanic” references and determine that they are soulmates. I recall the days of finding my soulmate at eight years old. Then she got a puppy and I just faded out of the picture.
- It’s Christmas day and Stephanie finds out Jimmy wasn’t around because he does his Christmas shopping late so he can “get Christmas gifts at Hanukkah prices.” Legit, this show made a Jewish people are cheap joke. Read that sentence again and just try to hold your rage in.
- Stephanie decides she loves Jimmy. I’m sure Jimmy loves her, too, but not as much as food. Every nickname he has for her revolves around food. Munchies, man.
Episode 13: “Happy New Year Baby”
(Steve comes to DJ for help with an important proposal. Jesse and Becky’s new addition brings Danny and Joey home — and has Jimmy spouting baby talk)
Brown: Looks like we made it! We have made it to New Years and the gang is coming by for the festivities. Which means Froemming and I have to mentally prepare to talk about Joey again. As I fight off the incoming migraine, you set the scene here, Froemming.
Froemming: It is New Year’s Eve, and DJ is waiting for Matt to come home from India (if I were him, I’d stay there to be away from these people). A package arrives for Kimmy: Fernando has gotten her a dress from Argentina that is too gaudy for Kimmy (yeah, I was not buying that at all).
Jesse and Becky are adopting a child and are in town to pick it up on…New Year’s Day? Sure, why the (REDACTED) not at this point? With them is Danny and Joey (his family, I assume, are busy establishing their hippie murder cult in Death Valley). With Joey is…..*deep sigh* Mr. Woodchuck, his murder puppet that gives his victims that false sense of security.
Brown: My note on seeing Joey walk into the house: Don’t let him in the house. He’ll think he’s people.
Not only do we get the insufferable Joey, we get our favorite hat-wearing jerkwad returning in Popko, who is still trying to get to Ramona. At this point, I was hoping the Christmas tree was up in the Fuller house. It would have made for fine tinder. Alas, my inner “Carrie” was not indulged.
Froemming: CJ and Steve pop in with year-old decorations for New Year’s (that Steve makes CJ return, because he is a terrible person). Steve wants DJ to help him with his marriage proposal speech, because he is not a writer (neither is DJ, but that is neither here nor there at this point). CJ, we see, is getting suspicious of Steve’s attention to DJ (as she should).
The older children are planning a New Year’s party of their own, but because life is cruel they are saddled with Max. Max is so unbearable that I tend to blank out his plotlines. I do recall they trick him with a fake New Year’s countdown and send him to bed early.
Brown: That’s what Max gets for rapping, which is apparently a Fuller family trait (in the previous episode, DJ raps to annoy Stephanie into talking to her. It’s as funny as it sounds).
As the little brother, I did empathize with Max a little bit. I had my sister tell me once to show her a certain part in the Sega Genesis version of “Beavis and Butt-Head,” only for her to take the TV I was watching and turn on MTV.
Once Max knows what’s going on, he gets revenge on the big kids by tying their doors together, ostensibly keeping them hostage so Uncle Joey’s family can perform their satanic ritual. Eventually, they make up, because this is “Fuller House” and all squabbles are solved by hugs.
Well, one of these family squabbles nearly comes to blows between Danny, Jesse and Joey. Or, I really wish it did. At least a Mexican standoff.
Froemming: Jesse decides he wants Joey to be his new child’s godfather, despite living with the guy for 20 years and knowing about his predilections for blood lust. This upsets Danny, because he (rightly) thinks he is more stable than Joey. This starts a round of arguments WHEN THE TRUTH IS FINALLY SET FREE! They recognize how terrible they truly are.
Then Jesse makes a fatal error. He mocks Mr. Woodchuck, Joey’s God of Murder. While I cheered wildly as he threw the puppet into the neighbor’s yard, I couldn’t help but wonder the consequences he has unleashed from Gladstone. My guess: There will a lot of dead bodies found by morning in the neighborhood covered in bits of torn colorful felt.
Brown: I imagine my Mr. Woodchuck more like Jigsaw from the “Saw” movies where the Fullers/Tanners are caged somewhere and have to play Mr. Woodchuck’s game in order to live another day.
While it was extremely cathartic to see Mr. Woodchuck get tossed aside like a bum’s bottle of Thunderbird, there was a fire pit RIGHT THERE, Jesse. You could have ended the madness there. Instead, you only inconvenienced Joey. Surely, you’ll be dead by morning.
Then, we have Steph and Jimmy. And what, a week after saying they love each other, they’re already talking about kids? Only one issue. As we found out in season one, Steph cannot have a child. Steph gets an adoption talk from Becky, Steph makes some joke about raising a plant first, I make a joke about how Jimmy would smoke their baby.
In all seriousness, I thought we were going to get a heavy-handed finish to this season. Instead, we got typical “Fuller House” BS. I don’t know if that’s a relief or not.
Froemming: The reveal last season was one of the few actual moments I believe both you and I applauded the show for. I am glad they didn’t try it again.
Brown: The closest they got to a moment like that in season two was the last episode when bringing up DJ and Steph’s dead mother. Unfortunately, a moment of seriousness was ruined by DJ’s Eminem impression. Fred Durst is a better rapper than you are, DJ.
Froemming: Well, Steve and DJ are practicing the proposal as CJ watches on. CJ thinks Steve is proposing to DJ, which causes a…whatever, you get it by now. This leads to Steve being so nervous (my guess: He knows the feds are onto him and will be crashing in at any moment) that he has DJ propose to CJ for him. Matt walks in and sees this without any context, but stands there like the mindless goon he truly is.
Brown: Like this review, the clock strikes midnight and we get everyone in love. CJ and Steve kiss. DJ and Matt kiss. Max and Rose kiss. Jackson and Lola kiss. Kimmy (in her ugly Argentinian dress) and Fernando kiss. Joey gives Danny a peck and I pray that Mr. Tanner cleaned his face with steel wool and rubbing alcohol.
And there was a moment where I was actually proud of Ramona for not giving in and kissing that creepy bastard Popko. But then she does and I’m reminded that everyone in this house is a garbage person.
Finally, Jesse and Becky get their adopted baby, and I immediately want to call CPS.
Froemming: This show has exposed the darkest depths of insanity masked as a colorful sitcom. I tremble with fear now whenever I hear the opening bars of the theme song. Especially when sung by Bemidji’s sports editor.
Brown: We’re defeated. We’re exhausted. We’re mad. Let’s end these feelings with alcohol recommendations.
WOULD YOU RECOMMEND “FULLER HOUSE” SEASON TWO?
Brown: Hahahahahaha. No. This was worse than season one. I hate this show and I hate myself for doing this again. I hate Kyle for ever suggesting this and I hate you, Froemming, for figuring out the logistics of how to do this.
Froemming: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. I remember thinking after season one “there will never be anything worse that that.” Then season two came and bludgeoned that concept to pulp like Negan on “Walking Dead.” This show is (REDACTED) unwatchable.
The JOE-DOWN 