After years of danger signs gave way to weeks of writing on the Facebook wall, Netflix has confirmed the identity of those shadowy figures waiting just around the bend. Everywhere you look this morning, you’ll read that the streaming service has ordered 13 episodes of Fuller House, a sequel to the popular ABC sitcom/preadolescent tranquilizer Full House. John Stamos, High Priest of Have Mercy, announced Fuller House’s imminent arrival from the modern-day equivalent of Mount Sinai: The Jimmy Kimmel Live! couch. Despite skepticism from Stamos deniers, Fuller House does not appear to be a Jimmy Kimmel prank.
In the tradition of its predecessor, Fuller House will begin with a human sacrifice: The husband of an adult D.J. Tanner (Candace Cameron) dies, leaving her a widowed mother of two children, with one more on the way—just as foretold in the ancient texts guarded by Cousin Stavros. According to those customs, D.J. must then call upon one of her children’s blood relatives (Jodie Sweetin, reprising the role of Stephanie Tanner) and a friend no one else seems to care for (Andrea Barber as Kimmy Gibbler) to help raise this unholy brood. Adding to their number—for a house is not truly full, let alone fuller, without six residents—is Kimmy’s teenage daughter.
Stamos is signed-on to produce as well as guest star, and Variety reports that negotiations with fellow Full House alums Bob Saget, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Dave Coulier, and Lori Loughlin are “ongoing.” Ongoing, just like our confusion at this old world, with its spiteful clouds and its birds who claim not to know your tune. But upon Netflix’s invocation of the prophet Jesse Frederick, there shall appear a heart, a hand, and a light waiting to carry all of the lost ones home. We are promised that there is a place, a Fuller House, where evening TV remains as predictable as the milkman and the paper boy.
So it is written, so it shall be. And all TGIF’s children said, “Doo be doo bop bow dow.”