Hailey’s On It! Is back after the brief hiatus that started after a special holiday episode late last year. If you’re looking for more of Hailey’s infamous to-do list getting finished, you’ll be a little disappointed as only one half of the episode takes on a task, whereas the other brings back some 80s and 90s television tropes.
Mer-Made in Oceanside
It’s time for the Oceanside Mermaid festival, a tradition in the seaside town celebrating the sighting of the mythical mermaids. Get ready for some backstory that pays homage to famous Loch Ness Monster sightings, complete with blurry and out of focus photos.
There is a lot of debate as to whether or not the Mermaids are real, but Hailey knows for a fact they are. Her dad and her used to dive to collect sea glass, and she saw one on one of those dives. Though Beta is skeptical, he points out that today is the day to complete a task – see the Oceanside mermaid again.
In a very tame B storyline, AC is also somehow acquiring lots of sea glass and selling it to Kai (Hailey’s Dad). It seems like a big mystery how he’s doing it, but when Hailey takes her dive, she finds AC in a small submersible collecting it. How climactic! However, she finds him under the water because he overheard an earlier conversation between those who saw the mermaid and how she has a necklace of diamonds. So he’s down there in his sub armed with a harpoon to prove the mermaid exists and get that diamond…by any means necessary.
He tells Hailey this, and she is now on a mission not just to find the mermaid again, but to save her. Scott does the dive with her, complete with his Diver Dan action figure, but gets tangled in a bunch of seaweed. AC accidentally collects the toy among his seaglass crop, and Scott sets out to save it, breaking free from the seaweed. AC looks out his window and sees the silhouette of a creature with a tail (a mermaid) swimming off in the distance. AC thinks he has just seen a mermaid.
Elsewhere in the deep, Hailey is still searching for the mermaid when she comes across an old marquee item featuring a mermaid torso, advertising a tavern. Dolphins swim up and underneath it, playing with it and essentially giving the mermaid torso a tail and moving it from place to place. Beta is actually sad, he wanted to be wrong about his skepticism, but Hailey’s blinking wristband has confirmed that she has seen the mermaid once again.
She tries to tell her dad about the sighting, but in his excitement, he has gathered a crowd to make sure everyone hears his daughter’s news. Alas, she does not want to disappoint the whole crowd, so she starts saying how mermaids are so cool before AC interrupts with news of his sighting – complete with blurry photo (of Scott!).
While Hailey accepts what has happened and is disappointed, out in the distance off the pier, she, Scott and Beta all see a real life mermaid in the distance.
Full House (Of Bugs)
Becker is welcoming Petey the peacock to his new home at the Denoga residence, and has hooked him up with a stock of termites to snack on. Smash cut to the house now being fumigated as it is completely overrun by termites.
With the Denogas having to leave their house for a week, we discover that their new temporary lodging is actually next door – which means Hailey and Scott will be living together for a week. At first this news seems very exciting, and they are excited to see how long it takes for their parents to not get along anymore.
Distant laughing at the premise in the form of an 80s/90s sitcom laugh track and other sounds of a live studio audience start playing – strange for a cartoon right? Turns out, Beta has had a software update and these are the alerts of being sounded when an AI algorithm is triggered, identifying comedic or dramatic circumstances. Didn’t catch that? Don’t worry, it gets repeated several times throughout the episode that the laughter is coming from Beta.
In a bitter twist of irony, it turns out that Hailey and Scott don’t get along while living together. Both have multiple quirks and nuances that they’ve never noticed despite spending so much time together. Meanwhile, their parents are partying it up, and looking to extend the time together by asking the fumigator to take her time with the job, that way they can have more fun together.
After learning that the project time is flexible, Hailey sets out to get the time cut shorter, that way she doesn’t have to explain to Scott that she needs a little time to herself. Scott, dealing with the same issue, finds out about the dinner Hailey is organizing for the fumigator, and thinks she is going to extend the stay as well. Getting some help from Becker, they are ready to make sure this dinner goes out with a bang.
Yes, explosive food and explosive rock music, all against what Hailey had contrived after creeping on the fumigator on social media and dating sites online.
Obviously, the dinner goes awry, and the fumigator leaves crying. More tears come into play when their parents come back home sad because they found out the fumigator is going to rush the job and cut it short because she wants to get away from their nutty kids. In a way, they succeeded. When they found out that this was because they both needed to get away from each other, a laugh ensues again while they realize that they should have just told each other in the first place.
Morals, right? Now cue that freeze frame! Oh, we’re doing a cliche opening credits to close out the show. Close enough, I guess.
This episode of Hailey’s On It! Is now available on Disney Channel and the DisneyNOW app. You can catch up with earlier episodes on Disney+.