Fuller House Recap: Getting to First Base

Fuller House

A Giant Leap

Season 1 Episode 10

Editor’s Rating 4 stars ****

John Stamos as Jesse, Bob Saget as Danny, Jodie Sweetin as Stephanie, Dave Coulier as Joey, Candace Cameron Bure as D.J.

I have a feeling that Kimmy Gibbler has never left a party voluntarily. She’s the kind of girl who, if left unattended, will stay until the bar runs dry and the lights go on. Either that, or she does something so ridiculous that security gets involved and she is paraded out in front of a bunch of gawking bystanders. She is not at all ashamed, though, because they just don’t understand her brilliance.

That’s what happens when the whole crew goes to a Giants game and she decides to get on top of the dugout to advertise her party-planning business. She even enlists the help of Ramona. Isn’t that endangering the safety of a minor? Should she be fined for that? Kimmy Gibbler is thrown out of the game, but she doesn’t care. She and her business are going to be on the local news, so she gets what she wanted all along.

The funny thing about Fuller House — and a thing that makes it different from Full House — is it seems like no one is ever punished for their actions. When Stephanie drove the car into the kitchen, Danny Tanner at least nominally punished her. Now, everyone does ridiculous things all the time and it’s just waved off like a fly that gets a little too close to your corn on the cob.

Sure, security ejects Kimmy, but she gets on the news and her business is promoted. Result? Up.

Jackson takes Lola shopping for a $250 jersey that he buys with Matt’s credit card. He impresses the girl and all he has to do is wash Matt’s car for the rest of the year. No one even yells at him. Result? Decidedly up.

D.J. strings along two guys, sort of lying to both of them, then pitting them against each other for her own emotional needs. They both decide to stick around and fight for her heart. Result? Up, up, and away.

All I really want to see is just one person put into a time-out or get grounded or maybe, I don’t know, get dumped and have to deal with real, actual human consequences. Sure, these stories are all supposed to wrap up nicely at the end of 30 minutes and I’m glad for that, but it doesn’t mean everyone should get off scot-free.

“A Giant Leap” is one of the best episodes of the series for one simple reason: They didn’t try to fake the Giants ballpark, but instead, they actually went there and filmed on location. Did they get some kind of tax credit from the city of San Francisco for doing this? Who knows? Who cares! It was just so much better than seeing the gang at fake Coachella or that awful fake nightclub where they did the Dirty Dancing reenactment.

So, they go to a Giants game because Stephanie is suddenly dating Hunter Pence (or, as Kimmy Gibbler likes to call him, “Underpants”), who is apparently someone who plays on the team. I don’t know this because I have seen SportsCenter as many times as I have seen an air conditioner fall out of an apartment window and land on someone, which is exactly zero times. However, sticking with a lovely tradition this show has started, Hunter is crazy hot. I have to give it to the casting directors of Fuller House; they have given us more man-candy than a Magic Mike reunion tour. Hunter looks like he could be selling artisanal turkey-brining kits in Brooklyn, which is just the kind of lumbersexual I would like chopping down my tree.

Hunter is nice enough to get Stephanie a gig singing during the seventh-inning stretch, but since he hasn’t gotten a hit since they started dating, everyone thinks that she’s a jinx and they boo her. She doesn’t get to sing and, for some reason, gets thrown out of the park by security. I didn’t really understand why. It’s crazy that after Hunter got them amazing tickets on the first-base line, three of them get kicked out, Jackson and Lola run off to the upper decks, and only D.J., Max, and Hunky Vet Matt actually sit in those very expensive seats.

D.J. runs into her own trouble at the game. She’s been getting to first base with Hunky Vet Matt, so she decides that she should let her high-school boyfriend, Steve, off the hook gently. When she tries, he plants a kiss on her and it reignites a flame and she decides that, since Hunky Vet Matt is moving back to Miami, maybe she should break up with him instead of Steve.

Things get a little dicey when the heteronormative tyranny of the Kiss Cam comes around and Steve witnesses D.J. necking with Hunky Vet Matt. The whole thing comes to a head in the living room, where all things come to a head. D.J. decides she’s not ready to date anyone, so she’ll date both of them. I don’t understand how Stephanie, who is a slut, has zero boyfriends and D.J., the world’s biggest prude, now has two of them.

She really should pick just one. But this is sort of like deciding whether you want to eat cookies or cakes for the rest of your life — they’re both sweet, they’re both delicious, they’ll both keep you warm at night and not make you too gassy, and Kimmy Gibbler hasn’t gotten her hands on either one. Because they’re both so similar, there is no easy favorite, but that also means there is no bad choice. But no: D.J. wants her cakes and to eat cookies, too, so they’re both still on the hook.

Yes, we’ve come all this way just to end up where we started in the first place, where no one is punished and everyone is allowed to enjoy their personal messiness without repercussions. Thank God for sitcoms.