Episode Report Card Michael Neal: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT The Scrump That Screwed Christmas
By Michael Neal | Season 3 | Episode 6 | Aired on 12.11.2008
The TGS staff are all watching the clock in the writer's room. According to Lutz if they stay 'til noon they get paid a full week's work. "Tracy, you made $300 million dollars this year," says Lemon. Tracy rubs his fingers together. "And I'm not going anywhere for Christmas." Lemon chuckles as she sets down her presents. It's a nice touch when an actor responds to something funny that someone else on the show has said. It's not just people bouncing lines off one another that way. Kenneth sees her bag of gifts. "Ms. Lemon you really outdid yourself. Those are going to be the happiest poor kids since my brother and I went to Neverland Ranch." Again, Lemon smiles. See. Lemon is going to deliver the presents to Tashawnte and Marcus personally to see their faces light up in the spirit of Christmas. Their address is 245th Street and Lawrence Taylor Boulevard. "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!" yell out Tracy and DotCom. They jump up, get into Lemon's face, and tell her that they will be coming along to protect her. Frank counts down the clock to noon. 3, 2, ... "exciting news everyone! We are going to put on a live Christmas Eve special this year." It's Jack, and "this year" really means tomorrow. Of course that means a lot of hours and the sacrifice of being apart from our loved ones, our mothers. Lemon rolls her eyes. Jack leaves and Lemon catches up with him in the hallway and tells him it's unfair. Jack doesn't care. He only has to survive Christmas and then Colleen gets shipped to a nursing home on the coast of Maine, run by the same French company that oversaw Napoleon's exile. "She will be treated humanely but there will be no escape." If I'm not mistaken Napoleon managed to escape at least once from that exile. Merry Christmas.Lemon, Tracy, and Grizz find the right floor and door number of the Glover family. DotCom sets down all the presents. Lemon asks Tracy to take a picture of the transaction and gives him her camera. She knocks at the door to be greeted by two unfriendly men. They take the presents immediately and then slam the door. "What just happened?" Tracy steps in. "What's the past tense for scam? Is it scrumped? Liz Lemon I think you just got scrumped." Tracy takes her picture. I can't believe he used the flash. That wipes away all the character in a photo, like the way Lemon's face is exuding both shock and awe.
Back on set Hornberger is helping put together the sudden Christmas special. "Donaghy wants a Santa costume and a Mrs. Claus." Why is it every time I hear the word Claus I think of Fred Claus? Thanks Vince Vaughn. Jenna tries to coach her piano player as they go over a Christmas song. A grip tests the snow machine and Jack bounds happy as a fat kid checking a Snickers bar for dirt. Hornberger reminds him how they are going into quadruple overtime because of this but Jack is unmoved. He wants to give kids the perfect Christmas, or at least something better than his Christmases spent as a child. His dad was long gone by then and every year Colleen would bring by a Mr. Schwarz to the house for dinner. She made Jack play the piano as she sang to him. "My parents divorced when I was nine," drops in Hornberger only to be conversation steamrolled by Jack's grim memory. "Every year the dreadful moment would arrive when I would catch Mr. Schwarz caressing my mother's bony thigh." Hornberger asks about overtime. "Approved," says Jack. "It's Christmas."