| Season 3 | Episode 4
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.It’s because of the high comedic currency of an episode like tonight’s “Gavin Volure” why I have never even tried to watch an episode of Two and a Half Men, or anything else on CBS for that matter. It’s amazing how many great one-liners got packed into what turned out to be a winding and cohesive story. As I watched the episode it put me in mind of hearing a great standup routine by a comedian, like Woody Allen’s “The Moose” a story that begins with him shooting a moose then taking it to a Halloween party and ends with Jewish man at a restricted country club. It’s loopy and has absurd twists but in the end it wraps up not just the joke but the story too.
The main storyline revolves around the Steve Martin character Gavin Volure, a rich agoraphobic businessman who never leaves his mansion in Connecticut. He invites Jack and Lemon to an Algonquin dinner, flirts with Lemon, and tells Jack about his brewing new business venture. The day Gavin invites Lemon to his house for a date. Now aside from that whole married with children thing, don’t Steve Martin and Tina Fey make a great “makes sense” couple? The same cannot be said for their characters, mostly because Gavin Volure is, in actuality, an indicted tax criminal. He lied to people to try and save face but he really likes Lemon and wanted to confide in her. That large man who shook your hand for me so that I wouldn’t have to risk germs is really a parole guard who monitors my whereabouts.
Meanwhile Jack has agreed to help Kenneth invest his money wisely in the stock market. What harm could that do? He puts all of Kenneth’s money, minus the Confederate dollars, into the new business venture Gavin previously told him about at the dinner party. Unfortunately for Kenneth there is no new Gavin business endeavor and instead Gavin stole the money from his account. Jack goes to Gavin looking for a money return but Gavin uses him to escape his parole guards and flees into the city and 30 Rock to find Lemon.
The other important storyline involves Tracy and his two sons. Tracy has made a lot of money of late and not just from his porn video game, but also from his ancillary products being sold in Japan. Products like a life-like sex doll in his likeness. But now his kids seem to crave his attention. They stare at him silently and want to know where he’s going. That might sound good to attentive fathers but Tracy leaps to the conclusion that his kids want to “Menendez” him, a theory he picks up while watching Court TV. It turns out his kids don’t plan to murder him. They’re just very insecure that their father will leave them now that Tracy is suddenly flush with cash.
Gavin appears at 30 Rock to try and win over Lemon, but when it turns out not to be, and Jack catches up to him, Gavin climbs to the stop of the scaffolding on the set of The Girlie Show with plans to commit suicide. Lemon, Kenneth, Jack and a seated Tracy all beckon him to come down but he refuses. Gavin’s got nothing more to live for. Before he can do anything further though, Tracy emerges on the top of the scaffold behind him and grabs him for safety. The Tracy seated below was his sex toy. The only other time I’ve seen a masturbatory product used to save a person’s life was that time I used a plastic mold of Sasha Grey’s vagina to blunt the impact of a falling box of Tera Patrick vagina molds. The last scene is a “The More You Know” p.s.a. by Tracy about the importance of sex dolls. In it he answers a burning question for anyone who has been watching. Is he posing as that sex doll or is that a real sex doll? I’ll spoil it for you. He’s the sex doll. What incredible concentration.
Steve Martin is excellent in this episode but then again I am a huge fan. He really plays two characters: the very rich and debonair businessman at the beginning, sort of a warmer, funnier version of him in Shopgirl, and then a more free-spirited crackpot criminal towards the end. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels anyone? Humble opinion assumed, he’s the best guest star of the year.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!A piano is being played softly at a mansion in Connecticut. Jack and Lemon walk into the dining room of eccentric businessman Gavin Volure who invited the pair to a private dinner. Lemon is nervous because of the "strange toilet" situation but Jack knows Gavin personally. He speaks of Gavin's accomplishments to Lemon then explains how he fell off the face of the earth, sold his company Sunstream, and hasn't left his home in three years. He's also right behind them playing the piano. Our first shot of Steve Martin as Gavin Volure. The room applauds, as do I. I've got a man crush. He introduces himself to the room and then he introduces everyone else: a thin black man from the world of fashion, a thin and aged white woman wearing a debutante's crown from the world of society, a thin, disturbed white man from the world of art collecting and yelling -- wait that's John McEnroe. "Why isn't there any good art in here? C'mon!" Gavin introduces Jack and Lemon last. He's especially pleased to see Lemon from the world of the Arts could attend. He saw a photo of her and Jack on the front of the New York Times Sunday Styles section and found her beautiful. She returns the compliment with a Time Out New York comprehensive compendium on the best cupcakes in New York.
It's a late night on the set of TGS at 30 Rock. Tracy tells Kenneth he's afraid to go home because his two sons Tracy Jr. and George Foreman make him nervous. They follow him with their little kid eyes everywhere he goes now. "Those two have never paid me any attention and rightly so. I'm a strange man who can't be taken seriously." Kenneth suggests that the new attentiveness is born out of love, but Tracy sees something more insidious at hand. He holds up a doll the two made for him and charge them with practicing the dark art of voodoo. He does acknowledge, however, that there have been financial changes in his life recently and not just from the porno video game he created last year. There's new money coming in from the video game tie-ins, the toys, and a life size Tracy Jordan sex doll that is selling like hotcakes in Japan. "Well you know what they say," adds Kenneth. "Money is the root of all evil." Tracy is confused. "I thought that was just a tagline from my movie Death Bank." The Death Bank IMDb page.
| Season 3 | Episode 4
Back at the mansion in Connecticut, Gavin explains to Jack the idea for his new company. The pitch is wind power, bandwidth, and the Chinese market. I think T. Boone Pickens just got a boner, and so does Jack. He's footing the whole bill himself but agrees to make some room for Jack. When it's time to say goodbye he thanks Lemon especially, but because of his agoraphobia, he asks his manservant Carl to kiss her on the hand to bid adieu.The day in the TGS writer's room, Hornberger presents a hardhat and emergency kit to the staff. He needs a volunteer for floor marshal in case of fires, terrorist attacks, or Cloverfield monsters. None are present. Lemon walks in and hears her phone ringing. "Cerie is my phone ringing?" "It is. Wow you have like dog ears," and then she returns to her blackberry text. See Cerie can get away with that and almost anything because she looks like this. Lemon answers and it's Gavin. He invites her back up to his house this Saturday. "This must be what the kids call 'a booty call'." "I haven't been out of the house since 2004 and even I know the kids don't call it that anymore." She accepts the invite.
Tracy flips channels in his dressing room and happens upon a Court TV program about the Menendez brothers. The show host exclaims "the only thing standing between them and tremendous wealth was..." and at a pregnant pause Tracy eggs on the television for more information. The TV responds, "their father." Tracy jumps to the logical conclusion, "My kids are going to kill me!" He turns over a happy framed picture of his two boys only to discover a more menacing framed picture of his two boys behind it. Tracy bolts the room.
Jack sees Kenneth doing laundry in the hallway for extra cash. Kenneth is saving money to send back to his family. He keeps his entire savings in a coffee can, $4,000 in total if you don't include the Confederate money. Jack and Kenneth are yet again involved in a caper of sorts. He takes Kenneth's can of cash with the intention to invest it in Gavin's new business initiative. He takes the cash upstairs with him where he encounters Lemon. She tells him about Gavin's invite but not to his surprise. "I thought he might. He asked if we were involved. I said you used to have a thing for me but were getting over it. That is what's happening right?" "Yeah," confirms Lemon in the most suspiciously disagreeable way possible. She's not sure she wants to try and forge a new relationship with anybody but Jack reassures her. "Gavin is a fabulous guy. If I were dating a man he would be at the top of my list with Michael Jordan, Denzel Washington, Taye Diggs ... God do I have a black thing?" If he does it persuades her to go to Gavin's house.
| Season 3 | Episode 4
Tracy returns home in the middle of the night. He's nervous. "Don't Menendez me." His boys walk into the kitchen wearing hockey masks and uniforms and to that Tracy FREAKS, yelling and running out of the house. One of his kids shrugs his shoulders, "we made the hockey team."It's Saturday and Gavin is giving Lemon a tour of his house with manservant Carl directly behind them. They enter one room and Gavin observes, "One of these benches is a priceless work of art and the other is an ordinary bench from which to admire it." It's apparent more than ever that he never leaves the house. Lemon asks a salient question, if you have agoraphobia how "is this" going to work? His answer is that they'd probably just sit around the house, watch TV, eat, read celebrity gossip on the Internet, and never touch each other. "Who would want that?" he asks rhetorically and Lemon raises her hand. Back at Jack's office he and Kenneth check with Jack's broker on the progress of their newfound investment. The account was closed out with a zero balance. Whatever the hot tip was it would have served him better to put the money in a coffee can. Gavin walks Lemon to the front door after a day spent watching MTV Canada. He invites her back weekend to her delight. "Nerds," says Lemon. She can't find her cell phone. It's in the other room. Carl walks away to retrieve it and in an instant Gavin locks the door behind him. Carl bangs on the door from the other side. Gavin grabs Liz and tells her the truth. "I'm not an eccentric agoraphobe. I just tell people that so they don't know I'm under house arrest for tax fraud ... and arson." Oh and by the way Carl's a U.S. Marshall. Gavin runs for his freedom and is tackled on his lawn by Derrick the other U.S. Marshall who he thought was still upstairs. "I miscounted the men Liz! I miscounted the men!"
Lemon tells Jack the truth about Gavin. He's a white-collar criminal who she allowed to hold her boob during Top Chef because she thought he was an agoraphobe. Jack vows to not only get Kenneth's money back but to hit Gavin Volure harder than a bottle of whiskey at an Irish wake. They turn the corner of the hallway and see Tracy sitting arms open in a director's chair. Lemon tells him he's blocking the hallway but then the real Tracy emerges from his dressing room. "Or am I?" The seated Tracy is the increasingly eerie Japanese sex doll tie-in from his porn video game. "You can tell us apart because it's not suffering from a vitamin deficiency." The doll is a decoy to fake out his greedy children and allow him to escape their murderous plot "un-Menendezed." In light of Gavin, Jack concurs with Tracy about the ways money can make a person or people go crazy. Lemon stares flabbergasted at the doll. Tracy: "You want to get one? I can get you one."
| Season 3 | Episode 4
Jack goes back to Volure's castle in Connecticut for an explanation. The money Jack and Kenneth invested is all gone, spent on disguises for Gavin's escape and there is no Sunstream money, Gavin's company, because there was never any such thing as Sunstream. "You watch our commercials we never actually say what we did." CUT TO: a Sunstream commercial. Images of a bald eagle in flight, an arrow hitting a bulls eye, tall glass buildings, rapidly moving cityscapes of New York, and a rising sun along with the words innovation, tomorrow, America, and Sunstream. Gavin is in fact penniless. The government owns the house he lives in and shares with three other white-collar criminals. One of them walks through the room and Gavin accuses him of stealing peanut butter. He snatches it away, takes a taste, then backs off. "This is not my peanut butter. I'm sorry Glenn." He's a pathetic mess and he knows it but he still misses Liz, and the sound of her scratching her dry elbow skin. He makes that motion while holding a glass of Scotch and the drink spills all over him. "I have got a serious case of the Mondays!" and then he walks into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. Jack continues to speak with him through the door. "We trusted you, Gavin." The voice on the other end says back "I know, good point." "And you betrayed us." "Wow, that's wonderful news." Jack opens the door to the bathroom. Empty, save a tape recorder playing Gavin's voice.Jack apologizes to Kenneth for failing to get back Kenneth's family savings. He offers him a check as retribution but Kenneth refuses the help. "Don't worry about us. We Parcels have eaten our share of rock soup and squirrel tail but we've also known lean times." Hornberger interrupts to ask Kenneth to be the new floor marshal and Kenneth is predictably honored. He shoves the hard helmet and emergency kit into Kenneth's hands and Jack seizes on the opportunity. He points out to Pete that the responsibility of floor marshal comes with a $4,000 signing bonus. Great Hornberger moment here: Pete plays along with Jack. He agrees about the signing bonus but then also reminds Jack about the per diem for gas that was promised to him. There is a silent standoff and Pete raises one eyebrow. Jack concedes and Pete clenches his fist and yelps out "Yes, Hornberger!" "Yes. Hornberger," repeats Jack under his breath.
Tracy has set the bait to catch his two boys in the act of murder by putting his sex doll in the bed as he observes from the closet. "It begins," he whispers as one of his two boys walks into the bedroom looking for him. His son tells the sex doll decoy of Tracy that he's been having a scary dream. In the dream Tracy gets so rich that he leaves them and gets a new family. The poor son cries and hugs pretend Tracy, saying how much he loves him. The real Tracy is overcome with emotion. "I love you too, son," he says, revealing himself from hiding. His son screams and hits him with a lampshade. "Stop patriciding," commands Tracy. He calms his son down and tells him not to worry; he would never leave his family for another family and that if anything ever happened to him, "you and your brother are going to go to JAIL."
| Season 3 | Episode 4
Tracy shows himself off to Lemon as an explanation that he is still alive. Also Lemon, everything went well with Jenna's dad visiting. She has no idea what he's talking about. Lemon walks over to the rehearsal set when a man who is keeping a low profile in a painter's uniform, hat, and shades steps in front of her. "Hello, Liz." It's Gavin. He's come for her. Actually he's come back for her. He had already escaped across the Canadian border but returned to be with her. Gavin provides proof: cheap cholesterol medicine from Canada and a Paris Hilton film released only in Canada. "Camp of Approval? What's that even mean?" asks Liz. She should check the Camp of Approval IMDb page. Gavin pleads with her to go back with him to Toronto and gets a flat-out refusal. Then Jack struts in. "Volure. I thought by now you'd be some place U.S. law couldn't touch you like Bali or Utah." Gavin points a paintbrush at Jack then insists he only returned for Liz but Jack announces she's too good for him. He doesn't really put it that way. What he really says is "I can't believe I'm saying this to the great Gavin Volure, but Liz Lemon is too good for you." He tells Gavin to give him the brush and it sets Gavin aflame. He refuses to go to real prison. He's lost it all. He's lost Liz, to which Liz faintly disagrees, he's financially ruined, and that paint over there is drying weird. "Not prison. Not for Gavin Volure." Gavin climbs a ladder to the top of a scaffold. "Get down from there!" "Good God Volure, that's got to be 15, 16 feet." Gavin reaches a high point and yells down his intention to jump. Someone on set calls for the floor marshal and Kenneth comes running to the rescue wearing a hard helmet and holding his emergency kit. He glides by in slow motion befitting an entrance by Dr. Leo Spaceman. When he arrives, he offers water and saltines, which is of course the first thing you do during a terrorist attack. Tracy would feel safer with some saltines and pulls up a chair. Gavin is still ranting about the women and the money and the yacht and how he lost everything. Jack tries to reason with him. "Gavin, I'm not going to lie to you. You'll probably be killed in the first six months of prison." That tact doesn't seem to be working, so Jack reminds Gavin that he still has friends and that more importantly, perhaps most important of all ... "grab him Tracy!" Tracy grabs Gavin from behind on top of the scaffold. He tackles him to the ground. "But you're down there." Says a confused Gavin. "Or am I?" answer Tracy. Down there is a motionless Japanese sex doll. Jack puts his arms around it. "Good job sex doll." Lemon jabs the back of its head with her finger. "He miscounted the men." The end.
| Season 3 | Episode 4
Wait! This episode ends with an important epilogue. Tracy sits facing the camera and tells us, the audience, the following verbatim:"You know, a lot of people look down on sex dolls, but as we saw tonight they save lives and bring families together. How am I such an expert? I'm Tracy Jordan's sex doll."
The real Tracy walks on screen and stands to the Tracy Jordan sex doll. The Tracy Jordan sex doll assumes the arms open posture it had for the entire episode, thereby answering the question 'was that a real sex doll or was that Tracy playing a sex doll?' "The More You Know" music and logo appear. Okay, now ... the end.
Wait! I almost forget about the jokes and the one-liners. There were many.
I wonder what Ebony started out to be?
Jack: "Volure's a God. He was the first man to be on the cover of Fortune and Jet magazine at the same time. Of course that was back when Jet was actually about jet ownership. That magazine took a weird turn."
The Parcel families oral history
Kenneth: "Sometimes kids act out when there's a big change. I know I was a handful when our family moved from our farmhouse to that militia camp in the woods."
Tracy Jordan's IMDb page
Kenneth: "You know what they say? Money is the root of all evil."
Tracy: "I thought that was just a tagline from my movie
Death Bank."
The gift that keeps on giving.
Jack" "This is the most exciting day of my life and I was pulled onstage once to dance at a Bruce Springsteen concert."
Stating the obvious for the win
Hornberger: "I can't do it because my head is to big for the helmet. So any volunteers?"
Frank: "No but you have a big head."
Hornberger: "It's not a burn. I just said that."
How Detroit GM's arrive to Senate bailout hearings
Gavin: "I'll send a helicopter to take you to the train station."
What David Brooks would call "the loyal opposition."
Jack: "Laundry Kenneth? I know we pay you a living wage. I fought against it."
I wish that didn't sound familiar.
Lemon: "What's the upside? It works and you have to have a bunch of sex?"
Jack: "Lemon what do you want? Do you want to be alone for the rest of your life?"
Lemon: "No. I just wish I could start a relationship about 12 years in when you really don't have to try anymore and you can just sit around together and goof on TV shows and then go to bed without anyone trying any funny business."
| Season 3 | Episode 4
Well it's not a white thing.Jack: "Lemon, don't over think this. Gavin is a fabulous guy. If I were dating a man he would be at the top of my list with Michael Jordan, Denzel Washington, Taye Diggs ... God do I have a black thing?"
Silent Comedy Award
Kenneth's Beat Street evoking street performance.
I see no need to drag Henry Paulson into this.
Jack: "Kenneth I'm very proud of you. stop home ownership! I'm just kidding. The middle class is dying. You'll be renting forever."
Pimp My Very Sensible Mitsubishi Galant
Lemon: "Gavin this was wonderful. I really enjoyed watching MTV Canada with you."
Gavin: "Yeah. They can't seem to get anything right up there can they?"
An illegal business usually run as part of organized crime.
Lemon: "What is racketeering?"
Jack: "No one knows Lemon."
Tracy's sex doll.
Jack: "Other than the natural inclination to make love to yourself why did you get this?"
Socialist
Kenneth: "Mr. Donaghy I can't take that. What would this country be if our economy didn't let wealthy people to take advantage of rubes?"
Marxist?
Tracy: "It's me. There's nothing to be freaked out about. That's just a Japanese sex doll in daddy's bed."
Communist!
Gavin: "Come with me to Canada. Toronto is just like New York but without all the stuff."
You've made your point. No, we get it now.
Jack: "You've already done enough damage taking advantage of her loneliness and her Big Ben sized biological clock."
Lemon: "Come on."
The ole cognitive-dissonance disorder
Jack: "The thing is you're alive now which means there's hope."
Gavin" You know you're making a lot of sense."
Jack: "Yes you have to pay for the things you've done."
Gavin: "You're not making sense anymore!
The No-prize Award Winner
Here we have a near impossible choice. Tracy was on fire this entire episode but then again so was Jack. They had some of the best lines of the night. So what do you do when you have to break a comedy tie? Easy. You give it to Steve Martin. This is the first time a guest star has ever won the "no-prize" award, a fact that's sure to make it into any additional chapters added to the paperback version of Martin's new Memoir Born Standing Up.