In the middle of a shit-storm of Season 7 episodes, ABC Family decided to play a pair of Valentines-Day-related episodes from the “code-man” era of Step by Step. You see, seasons 1-5 of Step by Step featured Mr. Sasha Mitchell as Cody “The Codeman” Lambert, a goofy Bill/Ted/Wayne/Garth/Beavis/Butt-head/Pauly-Shore/Pauly-Shore’s-friend-in-Encino-Man stoner that doesn’t actually get stoned and doesn’t believe in pre-marital sex. He was the Fonz of Step By Step. The Urkel. He’s the one-dimensional, likeable doofus who causes conflict but has a good heart and always means well. Think of it this way, Step By Step with Cody is to Newsradio with Phil Hartman. Step By Step with Bronson Pinchot is to Newsradio with Jon Lovitz. Imagine if Newsradio had one more painful season without Jon Lovitz? Welcome to Step by Step Season 7.
The episode starts with a very brash Cody swinging in on the top of the kitchen door-frame. Cody was the long-reigning king of Step by Step at this point, and this entrance that not even Michael Richards would dream of doing exemplifies that 100%. Cody asks Dana (aka “Dana-Burger with Cheese” when Cody puts a foam-cheese hat on her or sprays her with spray cheese) how her date went. Dana, who looks pretty hot with her later-series shorter hairstyle dyed a less platinum, more natural hair color, starts barking “MEN ARE SCUM!” and literally thrashes Cody against the fridge. The opening theme begins, and by now it features a few modifications from the “classic” Step by Step opening titles as discussed by Kon on the write-up for episode 39. They include:
Back to the actual show: JT eats Oreos by licking the white stuff (as Weird Al called it) and putting the cookie part back together, and putting them back. Basically he’s eating them the Michelle Tanner way, except he’s an adult and not sharing half his brain with an identical baby like Michelle was. I don’t understand this at all. Do people really find the black part of the Oreo to be that disgusting? I find the whole cookie to be delicious. But I guess in sitcom land this is how things are. Frank comes home with a watch he bought for Carol for Valentines Day. It’s a counterfeit “Swiss Rolette” which is supposed to be like a Rolex. So basically its a fake version of a fake version of a fancy watch. Or, a “parallel brand item” as Frank was told. JT insists Frank is going to get busted. “What could possibly go wrong?” Frank doesn’t actually say, but if you watch this with the closed captioning, it does. This is a trick closed caption writers have used for years: 3 and half minutes into ANY TGIF show just type “what could possibly go wrong?” and 99% of the time it works well enough (sometimes you have to offset this if Linda Ellerbee introduces the episode urging parents to watch it with their kids so they can talk about gang violence afterwards).
Frank does the classic pompous sitcom husband thing of explaining truth in marriage. Little white lies and whatnot you tell your wife to make her feel okay. He uses the example of what to say when she asks you if you think the girls on Baywatch (audience recognition applause) are prettier than her. Remember when Baywatch was the go-to reference for something a horny dude watched? I kinda miss those days. What would the reference be now? A Girls Gone Wild infomercial? E’s Wild-On? Your teenage daughter’s myspace friends? I’m just sayin’, world, cut back on the sleaze a little. Just for a little while? We need to make it special again.
In the next scene, Dana reads Women are from Venus, Men are Pigs and smiles and nods, because that’s what people do when they read and are on camera and in a shot where a book’s jacket is being zoomed out from. Cody comes in with the mail: Sports Illustrated for Brendon, Rush Limbaugh newsletter for Mark (haha) and a secret admirer letter for Dana. Dana is cold at first and requests Cody simply throw it out, but is browbeaten into reading it by a suspiciously insistent Cody. Dana melts from the contents of the letter and then flitters away, smitten over a secret. “I wonder who Dana’s secret admirer is?” one of the boys questions aloud. “DUDE IT’S ME!” Cody pipes up. Cody’s plan is simple: Dana will lighten up a little and then “get a dude, like that!” I guess I can agree with this theory, since I’m living proof that the exact opposite thing happened to me and boy oh boy did it not work out. The short story: a girl once targeted her psychosis on me and began sending me distressing love notes. They were distressing because they WEREN’T from “secret admirer,” they had her name on them. I actually thought they were a third-party prank. She was not a person I wanted liking me. She was perfectly nice and beautiful, but criminally young and furthermore, we had NOTHING IN COMMON. And at the time, I was actually experiencing a surge of confidence with ladies (at least one in particular). Well, this girl threw a monkey wrench into that with an alpha-numeric suicide threat on my cell-phone. I may have gotten to one of the BASES if it weren’t for her. Oh well. Hope she isn’t reading this.
In the bedroom, Frank presents Carol’s present to her by lying in bed with the covers completely covering him. That’s just stupid staging, right? Drama teachers of the world, email me and let me know if I’m off-base! Carol is thrilled with the watch but finds it to be too decadent (she doesn’t know it’s a fake, get it?) and bemoans that she doesn’t have an equally suitable gift for Frank, and wants to do something to match it. “I can think of something to tide me over.” The scene ends as Frank and Carol make some Lilly.
The next day, Carol goes to return the watch so she can get the money and book a romantic getaway for Frank. The woman at the counter instantly picks up on the fakeness of the watch, but suspects Carol of actually trying to defraud the store. So instead doing what someone on Planet Earth would do and simply stating “did you know this is a counterfeit watch?” and sending her on her way (like EVERY RETAIL STORE IN AMERICA WOULD DO), she slyly calls a man in a suit to come arrest Carol. What? I didn’t know that all you needed was a suit to arrest people. Well, that still leaves me out.
Back at home, Dana brags about her fourth letter from her secret admirer. She suspects that the culprit is a guy who works at the “Bear’s Lair” a coffee shop near campus. Dana describes him as a cross between Brad Pitt, Billy Baldwin, and Val Kilmer rolled into one. So her dream guy makes for a dull, odd talk show interview (boy, I hope this joke is accurate. I didn’t really feel like researching it. I’m just going off ONE crazy interview Val Kilmer did once and that is IT). Dana goes off to confront this man to tell him he likes her too! Cody enters and hears about Dana’s plans from Karen and Al, who sure hang out a lot together, don’t they? Doesn’t Al have more in common with Dana? Anyway, Cody rushes off to go tell Dana she’s mistaken. Nobody actually likes her!
Meanwhile, JT watches TV in the Living Room while Frank brags about how well Carol’s present was received. The phone then rings. JT picks up. It’s Carol, calling from prison. JT gloats that he was right while Frank makes a mad dash out the door. Hey, these two subplots are basically the same, huh? What the fuck is this shit! Sitcom writers, being LAZY? What!? My world makes no sense!
Carol is in prison with a ditzy hooker. Basically she’s Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors. “What are you in for?” She asks Carol. “I married an idiot! You?” “I date a lot” Trixie responds. Oh, behave. Frank instantly shows up. Wow, it takes the same amount of time to walk from the jail phone to lock-up than it does to drive from their house to the jail. Living that close to a jail you’d think there’d be a lot more crime in the Foster/Lambert neighborhood. Frank posted Carol’s bail, they reach an understanding, and you’re fucking welcome, you didn’t have to actually watch it because of me.
Aw fuck, I still have another subplot to wrap up? Okay, lets do this, I’m out of jokes so don’t expect much. Dana has entered the “Bears Lair” the campus-adjacent coffee shop. Dana begins flirting with who she suspects to be her secret admirer. He’s actually happy to see her. Try to act surprised when he reveals that he actually does like her. Cody shows up and tries to keep Dana from embarrassing herself, but she keeps turning him away. Instead of just blurting it out, Cody keeps making attempts to get her to leave the coffee house so he can tell her outside. He has PLENTY of opportunities to just tell her where she sits, but this is a sitcom so everything has to be extra dumb “don’t forget the dumb!”
Eventually Cody is able to tell Dana the truth, and explain that he just wanted her to lighten up, and that guys would probably like her better if she was a little less cold. When Cody exits, the coffee dude asks Dana out, citing that he thought she was kinda stand-offish, but in the past week or so (the same time she’d been getting these letters) he realized she was perfectly friendly and nice. The phone rings at the bar: It’s for Dana. It’s Cody, calling from the payphone across the room. He sings “Coffee Dude (i forgot his name, I’m sad to report Cody actually did refer to him by his real name and not some dude-centric nickname) and Dana sitting in a Tree”) Dana laughs (a rare moment of Dana enjoying Cody) and a pink I love Lucy heart border encircles Dana’s face. No Closing Tag! Mark watch: Mark’s presence in this episode has been noted, so I’m just gonna take this time to point out that in this episode Mark’s face hasn’t melted completely off yet as he’d not caught Lou Gehrig’s disease from Balki yet.* *I know this joke isn’t accurate. Please, no more letters about this.
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