Episode Report Card Lady Lola: C | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT 100% Chance of Pain
By Lady Lola | Season 5 | Episode 20 | Aired on 04.21.2011
He pours himself a scotch and asks what's happened to Jack. He didn't follow his own plan and is now working for "Kableklown." Jack corrects him, saying it's not funny. "It was when I said it on my syndicated radio show," snarks CEO Jack. CEO Jack says Jack used to be a shark. Jack insists he still is, then proffers his hands like claws. "Sharks don't have claws!" yells CEO Jack. "You don't even know what a shark is anymore." Jack claps his hand to his mouth in horror. CEO Jack traces it all back to Lemon, who has become Jack's focus at the expense of his ambition. He resurrects Jack's dilemma from the first episode. To fire or not to fire Lemon? Tom knocks on the door to tell Jack about the gas leak. Jack agrees to evacuate, with CEO Jack taking a deep breath in as he screams out, "The real Jack Donaghy could handle a little gas leak!"
Over on the Brooklyn Promenade, Tracy also repeats some behavior from the first episode -- taking to the public in his underwear and yelling, "I am a Jedi!" Of course some damn hipster approaches and philosophizes that Tracy is ironically reappropriating himself. Tracy has failed again. Just then, a guy flies off of his bike into the river. Tracy is forced to save him, and his heroic act is marked on that night's newscast.
Lemon sees the news on the ticker and is discouraged. She focuses back in on the task at hand -- making TGS better than ever. She asks Lutz what he's working on. "Breathing through my mouth so I don't smell the throw-up on my shirt," he says. And all I'll say for his explanation for not taking his shirt off is that it involves two rescue chimps and a missing nipple. Lemon tells him to focus, then asks Cerie for her computer. Cerie says she's only seen her use it to look at pictures of Nate Berkus, so she didn't bring it.
As Lemon heads back inside, she runs into Jack. She asks if he can call in favors from Jeter and Springsteen to get them to be in the show. "They have to kiss," she adds. Flustered that she needs his help, Jack blows up at her. He leads her into the NBC store to ask who she thinks is the reason his career is in the pits. She ventures, "Sort of thinking you're going to say 'Leno'?" He says that, in trying to help her, he "became the American auto industry, failing to recognize that you can't fix a Lemon." She argues, to the contrary, Jack has dragged her down and her life was better five years ago. Lemon demands a flashback: Jack consults with Pete about firing Lemon, but Pete insists that Lemon has nothing else going on ("She threw a birthday party for her TV!") and vows to quit if Lemon is fired. Jack tells him he'll never succeed for sticking his neck out for someone like Lemon but takes consolation in firing someone, even if it's not Lemon herself. Back to the present, Lemon calls Jack out for wanting to fire her one week, then positioning himself as her mentor the next. Jack says that he got Lemon-ed. She stomps out, saying, "I should have fired you from my life." Then she screws up opening the door for her dramatic exit, and Jack smugs that he knew she was supposed to push instead of pull.