“The Legend of El Explosivo” may sound like the story about Andre the Giant having Montezuma’s revenge on a tour of Mexico and sitting on Bad News Allen’s face, but it is in fact the obligatory wrestling episode of Netflix’s Fuller House.
That’s the 2016 revival of beloved family sitcom Full House, designed to appeal to millennials who have forgotten that the original series kind of sucked – not anywhere near as much as, say, Step By Step, but sucked nonetheless.
The series kicked off with near-maximum fan-service, bringing back all the beloved characters like Jesse, Becky, Danny, Joey, and, well, neither of the Michelles, but most of the beloved characters. By episode two, however, the cast was pared down to DJ, Stephanie, and Kimmy Gibbler, plus a bunch of new kid characters nobody wants around.
DJ Tanner now carries the not-entirely-unlikely name of Fuller, and, in keeping with Tanner family tradition, her spouse has just died, prompting family and friends to move in and help raise her offspring.
This show wouldn’t be fully modern without a child character whose first name is a last name, and DJ’s oldest son Jackson fills that role. Maybe he and Riley from Girl Meets World could hook up.
(Coincidentally, “Jackson Fuller” is the new ring name for at least three different WWE wrestlers in developmental.)
Jackson comes home one day sporting scrapes all over after attempting a dangerous skateboarding stunt at his friend Bobby Popko’s house. DJ thinks this Bobby character is bad news and forbids Jackson from going to his house. And if he does go to Bobby’s house anyway, he’ll surely be punished in some way, like having to miss out on some live event that he really likes.
That brings us to the episode’s main plot, and the reason it’s featured on Wrestlecrap and not TVcrap: Stephanie Tanner comes home bringing not only great news – she got a DJing gig at the upcoming Lucha Kaboom show – but also tickets for DJ’s whole family to said wrestling show. And yes, Stephanie is a DJ; DJ is a veterinarian. It’s confusing, I know.
Jackson and his little brother Matt love Lucha Kaboom, which, according to Jackson’s description, sounds like an illegal cockfighting syndicate.
But it’s arguably even better than cockfighting: it’s lucha libre… or Mexican wrestling, seeing as no one on the show calls it lucha libre because the writers know only six words of Spanish, two of which are “pollo” and “loco”.
Best of all, it will feature the promotion’s top star King Jaguarito… or as Deej thinks he’s called, King Dorito.
But that’s not his naaaaame, DJ!
Yeah, mom, he’s not a corn chip!
DJ gets on board with the good lucha thing when she figures that this “Jaguarito” fellow raises awareness for endangered species, to which Stephanie has a sassy reply.
I think I’ll post this gif the next time Raw’s main event is a GM “performance review”.
Hyped up for the upcoming matches, Jackson goes to Bobby’s house after school to perform some crazy stunt. But wasn’t that precisely what his mom told him not to do? So in one scene, the mom makes a rule, and in the very next one, the kid breaks it? Nice plot hole, geniuses!
Hiding his face with a pair of panties (or a lucha mask), the eldest Fuller child executes El Explosivo off a tool shed. El Explosivo, it turns out, is King Jaguarito’s finishing move.
Jackson’s stunt double crashes onto little brother Matt with a splash just as DJ arrives to catch her boy in the act.
That means no Lucha Kaboom for Jackson.
But Mooooom!
In the episode’s B-plot, Kimmy Gibbler’s daughter has a racially diverse dance troupe, and Kimmy wants to teach them some moves.
Unfortunately, all of her moves are irredeemably hokey
(not to mention suggestive as hell).
Stephanie steps in and shows them what’s what, which only makes Kimmy jealous.
Then she makes fun of Ms. Gibbler’s dance moves as decades outdated.
Jackson, who described his ban from the Popko residence as “bogus”, received no such admonition from Aunt Stephanie.
To further establish herself as the cool adult, she even lands the dance troupe a gig at Lucha Kaboom.
Kimmy then proceeds with a very crass impression of Stephanie.
(Crass, but not inaccurate)
At the wrestling show, which unfortunately had to turn away hundreds of fans at the door due to it being held on a small set in a TV studio…
…the troupe is one girl down due to food poisoning, or as Kimmy’s daughter (the only member of the troupe with a speaking role) put it:
I guess it’s easier to understand than “cagándose como si no hubiera mañana.”
That means that lame old Kimmy has to step in, and she ends up being so impressive that the audience at this wrestling show demand an encore from the middle school girls.
The only thing left in their arsenal is Kimmy’s dreaded dance moves, which get over huge.
King Jaguarito, whom the announcer dubs the greatest luchador in “luchador history” (see what I mean about no one on the show knowing the term “lucha libre”?), then judges a costume contest.
After selecting little Max as the winner, he borrows his homemade club for the night.
Meanwhile, his grounded older brother hatches a scheme with his his trouble-making friend to get him to the show.
In the middle of a tag team battle between técnicos Los Calaveras and rudos Los Pollos Locos (again with the pollo and the loco!), King Jaguarito does a run-in…
…and gets his “tail” (by which I mean “ass”) kicked.
Jackson arrives on the scene and, thinking the bad guys are beating up his seven-year-old brother, runs in himself.
The announcer soon discovers that this newcomer has no business being in the ring, and he tells the crowd exactly that.
At least this kid knows how to bounce off the ropes, which is more than could be said about David Flair.
After seeing the mystery wrestler get unmasked as her own son, DJ comes to the rescue and busts out a flurry of offense more convincing than anything ever put on by the likes of ostensible wrestlers like Eva Marie.
And I do mean DJ herself, not some stunt double, as Candace Cameron Bure would rather spend hours learning to perform flying head scissors and splashes than lose the respect of the notoriously opinionated family sitcom studio audience.
She ends up being, as this announcer might put it, the greatest wrestler in wrestler history.
(I think what most disappoints me about the announcer is that, with all the bad chicken puns he was throwing out there, he never once refers to Los Pollos Locos as “chickens**t heels”.)
With La Magistral cradles in stereo, DJ Fuller and King Jaguarito win the match they weren’t even in. What a moment!
And to think that none of it would have been possible had Lucha Kaboom hired that head of security from WrestleMania 33.
Back at home, DJ has a heart-to-heart talk about risk-taking or something, but without the patented syrupy Miller-Boyett strings and piano, it’s hard for the audience to feel anything.
I can’t recommend Fuller House, but if WWE is looking to pair Kalisto up with a celebrity to take on Los Vendedores de Multipropiedad Locos (Primo & Épico), then Candace Cameron should top their list.