Cox Digital Cable Description: A producer uses footage of Al for a sleazy commercial; Carol and Dana force health food on the family.
It’s winter on Step by Step! JT walks in wearing a scarf and gloves and there’s some fake snow on the front porch and a leafless tree, so it would be very safe to assume that it is indeed winter on Step by Step. Once the audience is done cheering, JT tells the girls (Al and Karen are “the girls,” Dana is officially a woman by now) all about his new job: he’s now a talent agent, and his first client is Al. Al’s an actor this season, you didn’t know that? You should have known that. He’s also putting out calls to Pamela Anderson, Lucy Lawless and “that big chick with all the makeup from Drew Carey.” Come on JT, you just sound like an asshole saying that from the ivory tower of CBS. Al is reluctant to let a fuckhole like JT be her talent agent, but JT has already landed her an acting job. He even references Al’s movie role from earlier this season; Step by Step is ending soon, let’s hope they can wrap up the Al’s Acting Career mythology in time. JT has lined her up a role in a suntan lotion commercial, but Al would rather be in Romeo and Juliet at the local theater than hawk a product that Billy Madison has already done the definitive pitch for (For Your Consideration: Most Overwrought Pop Culture Reference 2009). JT tells Al that Shakespeare stinks and commercials are the real way to go, but come on, we’ve all seen Al’s acting, we know she’s not landing a Shakespeare role. And here’s the kicker: the commercial pays $200. Even Karen is shocked. Al agrees: Shakespeare can go fuck himself, TV commercials are where it’s at. JT then goes off to find Rich to fill the role of Dopey in Snow White, man you guys forget you’re not at ABC anymore, Disney is suing your asses for that.
After the commercial, the house is covered in snow in the establishing shot, so see, it is winter. Mark and Lilly, after multi-episode arc of doing fuck-all, come back to rummage through the kitchen for food with Frank and Rich. There’s nothing to eat in the whole house! And all those boxes and cans in the shelves and refrigerator that they’re going through, those are all... empty I guess? Carol and Dana come home from the supermarket (to audience cheers, of course) and everyone grabs the shopping bags out of their hands like animals. Mark makes everything awkward and shitty by taking way too long to grab a shopping bag and getting tangled up in Carol’s scarf in the process; for god’s sake Mark, do you have to fucking suck at everything? The No One’s Favorite Characters Club go through the groceries and realize that it’s nothing but health food. I’m afraid I saw that coming when I saw that they had reusable burlap shopping bags. “Hey mom bad news, you must have taken some hippie’s groceries by mistake,” Mark says, desperately trying to fit in, you know he’s just dying to eat all this shit. Carol and Dana say that they are eating nutritionally from now on. “Only healthy foods from the bosom of mother earth,” Dana says, with tit gesture. Lilly tries eating some gummy bears but finds out they’re seaweed bears and spits them out. She then licks her arm like a kitty, making it the first time I liked Lilly. Long story short, everyone hates the idea of eating healthy, because they live in Wisconsin, and this is how they do.
Oh shit, here it is, we’re on the set of Al’s sexy new commercial, Al is wearing a robe and it is going to come off, oh fuck. It’s a small, crappy studio with a shitty beach set built in. Al mentions that it seems kind of low rent and that she’s not sure about it; is this foreshadowing or the producers covering their tracks by pointing out how cheap the set is? I don’t care, because Al is about to get sexy. Hell yes, the robe comes off and Al is in a bathing suit, fucking finally. It’s a one-piece, but we’ll take what we can get. Oh man and you can see Al’s nipples here and she’s rubbing suntan lotion on herself oh goddddddddd What the fuck? That scene abruptly ends with the director being a scumbag and they suddenly cut to an establishing shot back home; obviously there was a cut there. Come on syndicators, if you were going to cut something for time it had to be a scene of Al in a bathing suit? There wasn’t a fucking Mark scene you could cut out? God dammit.
We’re back in the kitchen, Carol and Dana are cooking while Frank, Mark, Lilly, Karen and Rich are dreading their first healthy meal. They are being huge babies about it, like fucking always. Lilly says “I hope I don’t throw up.” Karen says “If you have to, turn towards Mark.” She adds the caveat “I’m wearing silk,” but that was obviously just added to spare Mark’s feelings; “if you have to throw up, turn towards Mark” is just good advice in general. Dana starts serving LENTIL LOAF, the audience groans, like those swine even know what lentil is. Hey it doesn’t smell so bad, they say! Then Carol starts serving the salad, which she brags will clean out your gunney works. Hey it looks pretty ok too, they say! But don’t forgot about the first rule of sitcom writing: No one can stomach a single mouthful of salad, ever. Once they try to eat it, they all spit it out immediately like idiots. Mark is pretending obviously, this stuff is much better than the turds he usually eats.
Rich, Karen and Mark watch a basketball game (man they’re asking Mark to pretend a lot this episode) when they spot Al’s commercial on the TV. They call Al and JT to come see it. They are horrified to see that it has been re-edited to a sexy phone sex line commercial. Man, with the shittiness of the set and the sexy bad-acting-ness of the models and Al, it can pretty much pass for a Tim and Eric sketch. Nevertheless, the audience whoops. Man is this like actually a thing? Like do people really pretend they are making vaguely sexy commercials only to then use the footage in an explicitly sexy commercial? I bet there is an MSNBC documentary I can watch about the seedy industry of tricking unsuspecting girls into doing sexy commercials, but I will just end up crying. Back from commercial, Al beats JT with a pillow as I beat my dick with my fist. Al’s upset JT made her do that rude commercial when she could have been Juliet. Oh really Al, you actually had your sights set on Juliet? Um, hey how about Lady Montague, that’s not a bad part! You sure you don’t want to play one of the servants? Or citizens? There are no small parts you know. Let’s just be realistic here is all I’m saying. In fact, if I’m being honest here, acting in a sexy phone sex commercial was not exactly the worst use of your “talents.” Karen points out that Reverend Miller, among many never-to-be-seen Step by Step characters, may see the commercial. Hey I thought you guys only went to church when you need a comedic conflict with watching the big game.
Rich, Frank and Mark stay up late at night to sneakily eat pizza and other fast foods. I thought this was setting up a showdown between The Disgusting Club rebelling against their leader JT by having a Disgustingness Meeting without him, but that didn’t pay off. It’s just an excuse for them to be gross by eating, and if there’s one thing no one in their right mind wants to see, it’s Mark getting an excuse to be gross. But, since this is Mark we’re talking about, he even fucking sucks at being gross in a slobby way, instead he’s just gross in his shitty usual way, god why do you fucking suck so bad Mark. Carol catches them eating this junk, and in a twist that could have come straight from the brains behind Lost, it’s revealed that Dana is actually the one pushing the health food, and even Carol hates that stuff. Dana comes downstairs. “The nutrition Nazi,” says Mark, god why are you so insensitive you little fuck I hate you so much Mark I wish the holocaust happened to you I really mean that. Frank calls Dana a twit, what an asshole. Dana tries to take the food away and they all growl like hounds. Mark does a dog growl so lame that if it was a real dog, you’d put him down, in fact you would anyway. The family says enough with health junk, fuck you Dana and they are going to eat what they want. This from the show that said you will die if you drink alcohol and are an adult, damn CBS you have corrupted this show with your raunch like you did Bill Cosby. Mark then immediately has a heart attack and dies in real life, and even Dana has to concede that junk food IS good for something after all.
Frank watches the ball game that he taped from the night before. Rich tries and fails to stop him from seeing Al’s sexy rated-X sex commercial. Frank gets a glimpse of Al’s nipples on the TV, and just as soon as he starts getting a hard-on he notices that it’s his own daughter. Rich spills the beans about what happened. Frank runs out the door (where the fuck does he think he’s going?).
Back at the commercial studio, the beach set is still up, I guess they’re planning on shooting more suntan commercials? Yes, that must be the reason. Al and JT come in to get the scumbag director to take the commercial off the air. Scumbag Director points out that they signed a contract and he can do what he wants. Then Frank comes in to save them, having somehow got the address of the studio because Rich surely didn't tell him or even would know himself. Frank tells Director to give him the tape of the commercial or else he will toss the man’s camera out of the window. This does not phase Director. Director brags that no matter what Frank throws out the window it won’t do him no harm. So Frank dangles Director out the window in Step by Step’s tribute to the classic Suge Knight/Vanilla Ice feud. Frank makes a threat that he’ll drop Director four stories, drag him back up and drop him again. Come on man, you stole that from Batman. Director then gives Frank the tape of the commercial, and threatens Director that there better not be any other copies, conveniently wrapping up this whole debacle. Man am I the only one not buying Frank as a tough guy? Like it seems like Patrick Duffy has it in his contract that he has to intimidate a dude once every couple of episodes. Fuck you Duffy, come find me and threaten to beat me up, see if I give a shit.  The end: Dana is studying but tempted to eat donuts. She gives in and eats the donuts. Rich catches her eating donuts, whoop-de-shit.
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