Episode Report Card Lady Lola: B- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Mixed Marital Arts
By Lady Lola | Season 5 | Episode 11 | Aired on 01.20.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Jack blissfully returns from his island wedding. The only snag is that the French-speaking minister accidentally married him to Lemon, who unfortunately wore a white dress and a veil-like mosquito net hat when she stepped in as best man at the last minute. Jack has but a few days to rectify the situation while Avery attends a Chinese economic summit. Lemon proves the holdout when budget cuts take away many of the niceties to which she and her fellow TGS-ers are accustomed. He tries to wear her down by hiring Angie as an intern, but Lemon sees through the ruse. Amidst the ruins of their crumbling relationship, HR rep Jeffrey Weinerslav requires the newlyweds to stop by his office and prove they're not engaged in some sort of nepotistic arrangement. Of course they are, but in the end their chat with Weinerslav reminds them of all the good they bring to each other's life. They each compromise in order to end their marriage and mend their friendship.
As a result of the budget cuts, Danny and Jenna are also forced into a strained union sharing a dressing room. They immediately squabble like old marrieds, and Kenneth finds himself in the eye of the storm. Taking advice from Pete, he offers himself as a human buffer in hopes they'll stop fighting. As you might expect, the plan fails remarkably, sending Danny to the Y and Kenneth, one suspects, to years of therapy.
Following a dreadful diagnosis by the always correct Dr. Leo Spaceman, Tracy believes his days are numbered. He worries how Angie and the kids will fare when he's not there to support them. They turn to Jack, who offers Angie an internship with TGS. When that blows up in everyone's face, Angie gets pissed, pulls a bitch's weave, and proves she has what it takes to helm her own utterly watchable reality show. Not bad for a day's non-work.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!30 Rock. Jonathan wishes Jack a happy new year and congratulations on his recent nuptials. He hopes to give Jack his present, but once Jack vetoes the gift of song, Jonathan makes do by whipping off his own belt. Jack tells him about the tropical island ceremony, including the French-speaking officiant. Jonathan bursts into song at the details, but Jack shushes him by shoving the belt back into his hands. Jack says the only hiccup at the wedding was when his best man took ill (after eating some bad toucan, naturally), so Lemon had to step in. Jack opens an envelope that just arrived from the island where he was married. Inside is his wedding certificate. When Jack looks down, horror washes over his face, and Jonathan screams like a howler monkey. Credits.
Downstairs, Lemon runs into an uncharacteristically punctual Tracy. Lest ye worry, he excuses himself for the day as soon as he arrives. Lemon carries on into Jenna's dressing room, where she finds one busy bee of an Asian fellow, who screams at her in his native tongue, "Nerds only!" Does he not see her glasses and outfit? Pete informs Lemon that Jack is renting out space on their floor so that he can keep the budget down. Jenna's dressing room is now the makeshift home of an IT company, the green room now houses an NBC Experience store, and they'll have to work their rehearsals in between Bar and Bat Mitzvahs.
Lemon promises to talk to Jack about these inconveniences. She figures he'll be in a good mood since he's still in the honeymoon phase. Pete asks how the wedding was, and she tells him it was a disorganized nightmare and that she lost her luggage on the way there. Luckily she had all "the essentials" in her carry-on, including toiletries, closed-toe shoes, and a mosquito head net. As Lemon rants about Avery wearing a black dress, the unprofessional petal pacing of the (four-year-old) flower girl and the monkeys in attendance(?), Jonathan streaks in like greased lightning and demands her presence in Jack's office immediately.
She heads upstairs where Jack informs her that the Francophone minister actually married the two of them, not Jack and Avery. Flash back to Jack kissing Avery at the end of the ceremony, then the minister reckoning that Lemon is "very European" and wondering if he and Lemon could get their swing on, too. Lemon, whose resolution was to say "yes" more, offers a chipper "Oui!" at which point we mercifully cut back to the present. Lemon stresses out immediately, screaming that "Hitler and Martha Stewart would have hated" Jack's disorganized wedding. He promises to rectify the situation immediately, but does note that it was a natural mistake for the minister to think that the woman in the white dress and a veil (make that government-sanctioned head net) was the bride, especially as she held on to Jack's arm. Lemon squawks that it was for balance. Lemon apologizes for roping Jack into another of her adventures. He insists that he's the protagonist of this little episode and vows to have the situation set right before Avery returns from an economic conference in China. With that, Lemon leaves his office, making some wifely remarks along the way just for funsies. [Cue breakable pottery thrown at closing door. A classic! - Zach]