Episode: An insanely boring episode featuring Lilly and Rich plots. PREAMBLE: My recording started with the tail end of a Sabrina: The Teenage Witch episode with a real black guy stuck in a Doom video game while Sabrina shoots at him. My first reaction was, "Man is this an allusion to Clarissa Explains it All?". My second one, "damn this seems really racist".
OPENER: Lilly and Karen are playing with dolls and Karen is being all superficial. Dana is there to and she drops some feminist knowledge on the two. Lilly says something and looks ugly. Rich enters the house and.... TANGENT #1: Why does every show that has a strong feminist character have to have a gigantic wimp for a boyfriend? If you combine Rich and David from Roseanne you got the testosterone of Scooter from The Muppet Show. Is there no middle ground between "all out wimpy dork" and "dumb scumbag"? Maybe it’s a rule in the Feminist Handbook to find the weakest man alive and marry him. Or if you are Dana, find the weakest man alive who isn't Mark or Brendon.
So anyway, Rich and Dana make out while Lilly watches like a creep. Frank and Carol walk in and Lilly spreads an awful lie about Rich and Dana having a baby for no reason. Plates are destroyed. TANGENT #2: I rewinded the tape 5 times trying to get the joke or the reason why fucking Lilly assumed Rich and Dana were pregnant. I thought maybe Rich called Dana "baby" while they were smoozing, but they didn't. Is Lilly just supposed to be an asshole who would do this? I guess we'll find out. Oh, guess what? THAT WAS A PLOT POINT. We return to the scene and Lilly explains that someone told her that "kissing=baby". OPP. HERE WE GO. NOW THEY GOTTA TELL HER WHERE BABIES REALLY COME FROM. Frank does an advertisement for Cabbage Patch Kids. Carol wants the truth, but Frank doesn’t want Lilly to hear it. Frank doesn't seem to want to tell Lilly because he hates looking at his daughter's goblin face.
The producers or the director senses that this shit is going nowhere and goes to a completely different scene sometime in the future (because it is still in the living room because Step by Step has only 3 sets to choose from) where JT and Rich watch horse racing. Jean-Luc comes in with a cowboy hat; he seems to reprising his role as Black Bart from two whole episodes ago. Instead, Jean-Luc correctly predicts which horse won and then Jean-Luc brags about how he's going LINE DANCING and leaves. This boring affair took longer than this paragraph suggests. TANGENT #3: This is the 2nd time in 3 episodes that a group of family members are watching television and are interrupted by Jean-Luc who brags about something and then leaves. Is this how the rest of the series will go?
We then cut to Lilly's kindergarten class which is the same one as Michelle's on Full House. I hate that I notice this instantly. Lilly despicably shows off what she learned about sex from Frank. She does so while talking like a 15 year old boy. It only confirms my beliefs that Lilly is being played by Mickey Rooney in a wig. We cut to commercial before Lilly shows the kids through Barbie and Ken dolls what "boning" is.
Class has ended and Frank and Carol find out what Lilly did. The teacher is sympathetic about this and suggests that Frank and Carol have a meeting with some parents that are offended by this. So you guys have a boring discussion about sex education coming up in this episode to look forward too. Lilly shows off that she had taken the clothes off her dolls. Jesus Christ. We cut to Jean-Luc teaching Al French. I guess we don't get to find out how that LINE DANCING went. Rich and JT show up with a lot of money thanks to Jean-Luc's horse knowledge. Who would have guessed that inconsequential thing would come up again? JT and Rich are going for a big score and Jean-Luc encourages this. Al doesn’t. Tangent #4: This episodes is really exhausting to talk about.
Turn out Jean-Luc set up a little trick to teach Rich and JT a lesson. He has a bunch of tough guys pretend to be bookies and encourages JT and Rich to bet a lot of money on that horse. The horse loses badly and the tough guys start to rough up JT and Rich. At one point one of the tough guys puts JT's head in a laundry press, which is easily the funniest thing in this whole episode. They then find out it was a all dirty Jean-Luc trick. I guess it was worth two gigantically boring living room scenes to set it up.
We return to the kindergarten where Frank and Carol find out that the parents who were offended are only in their 20's. This starts and uncomfortable argument that IS NOT WORTH WATCHING OR TALKING ABOUT. NEEDLESS TO SAY LILLY AND HER FRIEND JOEY ARE STILL FRIENDS AT THE END. THERE HAVE BEEN 5 JOKES IN THIS WHOLE THIS WHOLE EPISODE AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  There is a stinger where one of the tough guy talks about laundry. But I have thoroughly had it with this episode. Please bring back the dumb fantasy scenarios if this is step by step's idea of "humor in everyday life". I don't know if I can fucking do this anymore. I want it in my contract that I don't have to do Lilly heavy episodes. They are basically just doing rejected Michelle plots. I can't stand it!
Cultural Name-checks: JT's line "Yeah right, and Demi Moore looks good bald" wow, Does anybody even remember G.I. Jane? What a dated reference. Lilly is a complete creep in this episode. I think Frank started talking about Cabbage Patch dolls so he could start talking about adoption, only to help soften the surprise for Lilly for when they put her up for adoption. TGIF crossover moment: When Rich is in the tough guy's headlock he sounds like Joey Gladstone's woodchuck puppet. I wonder if his brains are made out of... (looks around) WOOD?? Mark Watch: Mark is not in this episode
Tony Longo played the big brute guy, he's a character actor who appeared in a shitload of 90s straight-to-video kids movies like REMOTE and PREHYSTERIA. Be basically plays a dumb thug that gets outsmarted by children in everything I've ever seen him in. He actually has a "comedy partner" who usually appears with him in those shit movies. He's basically a twerpier version of the guy that wound up playing his partner in this episode. I wonder if they auditioned together? I wonder if this episode caused a rift between the two of them? Also, I wonder how it feels to be a comedy-duo who specializes in shitty, middle-of-the-road kid-friendly comedies? Why bother being a duo? Just be two shit actors that appear together frequently! Honestly, if you get the VHS of "REMOTE" they do a behind-the-scenes puff piece trying to push the idea of these guys being a comedy team. It's really pathetic.
Lilly looking like a pumpkin watch: entire episode. When Frank and Carol drop the boxes after Lilly says Rich and Dana are going to have a baby I assume it was because they were afraid of the genes that created that freak troll Lilly being spread around. I don't blame them. Hey Rich what are you doing betting on horse races aren't you supposed to be riding the horse I remember really hating the scene where Frank is rude to the young parents, what an asshole. PS: I dunno I don't think Demi Moore looked all that bad bald. Of course we can't all have as great hairstyles as JT.
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