Episode Report Card Lady Lola: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Don't Try Out Loud
By Lady Lola | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on 11.05.2009
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It's audition day at TGS! Lemon and Pete have already picked their guy. His name is Jayden -- ugh. But they have to make sure Jack thinks he picked him, so they stack the deck in favor of Jayden. And then Lemon spoils everything when she remembers her days in the cattle call and gives Dot Com a pity audition. (To be fair, Dot Com does have a classical background.) Lemon's Achilles' heel foils the Hornberger System of Audition Manipulation, and immediately everyone from Frank to Brian Williams to Cathy Frickin' Geist lines up for a try-out.
Meanwhile, Jenna learns of the impending auditions and takes neurotic to a new level. And that's a new level in Jenna-speak, not by normal people terms. It's pretty astounding. She and Tracy scour the city for "talent" with which to flood Lemon, thereby creating a disaster scenario at the auditions.
Amidst all this, Jack contracts bed bugs. His new infirmity reduces him to begging for directions on the subway. (I know! Jack's on the subway!) Even a bum is all, "Keep your distance, mister." These new travails spark an epiphany in Jack about the dignity of the humble class. He shares this epiphany with Kenneth, who speaks fluent Latin, BTW.
When the day finally comes, it's a carnival of comic carnage. Ms. Geist earns my unconditional love by serving up a fierce, ram-like full-body butt to any competition, then executes a flawless SuBo impression -- the denouement of which, so we're told, was removing her knickers. A-MA-ZING. We also learn that Brian Williams best stick to his day job. Ultimately, Lemon's frontrunner turns out to be an actual maniac, but it's no matter because Jack hires the only auditioner who deigns to shake his hand. And who is a performing street robot. Versatility be damned! This is TGS.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Lemon's office. Lemon and Pete are having a last-minute meeting before their just-for-show TGS auditions with Jack. You see, they've already picked the guy they want to be the new cast member: Jayden Michael Tyler. Lemon had to endure "eight cities, 40 comics, one slap fight with a TSA agent" to get this close, so she'll be damned if Jack goes rogue and picks someone else. As insurance, they've stacked the deck in their pick's favor. His competition? A middle-aged female comic with a bolo tie, a one-man band who only plays Halloween music, and "Australia's Jackie Mason." Lemon regrets crushing so many others' dreams, having experienced her share of rejection as an auditioning comic actress. Pete assures her that at least she is "making this guy's dreams come true," He adds, "At your age, it's probably the last time you'll ever make a man happy."
Jack pops in just in time to laugh at Lemon's advancing age. He asks where they are on the talent search, so they pull the wool over his eyes about the strong contenders they have lined up for him to see that afternoon. Jack already doesn't like the look of some of them. Lemon reminds him that these are real people with hopes and dreams, but he doesn't want to hear it. He delivers a speech -- scratching all over his body throughout, but more on that later -- about being dispassionate and robotic. He concludes that human empathy is "as useless as the Winter Olympics... this February on NBC." Credits.
Out in the corridor, Jenna skitters up to Tracy in a tizzy. She asks if it's true that Lemon is holding auditions that day. Tracy doesn't think they have anything to worry about because the higher-ups will just hire some white guy who won't displace their bits. Jenna remains paranoid, and Dot Com chips in that it's true that anything can happen in the audition process. Tracy smugs that Dot Com must know everything about theater since he played a bird in a play one time. The bird in question? Trigorin in Chekhov's The Seagull.
Jenna spots Kenneth and heads over (floating with the wind in her hair like a witch, no less) to ferret information out of him. He admits he's under explicit orders from Lemon not to reveal any information about the auditions to Jenna. Then he remembers there's also a Jenna at the luggage store downstairs, so it must be okay to tell TGS Jenna. Since she's not hopelessly neurotic, nosy, and stopping-at-nothing to remain in the spotlight. Nope, must be that luggage store Jenna. Ohhhhhh, Kenneth. She sees the audition list and freaks out.