The A-plot tonight returns to the rivalry between Jack and Devin (Will Arnett). You will recall from last season that Devin was as gay as Christmas morning, and had lusted after Kenneth. However, thanks to the miracle of Practicology -- a religion ostensibly invented by the benevolent alien living in Stan Lee's innards (and how was Stan Lee not in this episode? That man will appear in anything. Excelsior!) -- Devin has purportedly been drained of his homosexual impulses and is now engaged to CEO Geiss's postmenopausal daughter. Devin learns about Jack's heart attack, and spends all his time trying to make Jack's heart explode -- feeding him rich food in front of Geiss, forcing him to play football at a weekend getaway at Geiss's -- but his moment of gloating while deep-throating a hot dog turns ugly. Devin begins choking, and Jack doesn't give him a Heimlich maneuver until Devin promises to back off. In the end, Geiss tells Jack he's on the list as a candidate for succession.
In one of the B-plots, Jenna's still sporting thirty extra pounds. Her crash diet -- the Japanese Porn Star regimen, wherein she's allowed only to eat paper -- makes her even less aware of her surroundings than usual, and then Jack lowers the boom, tells her to lose weight, and sends her to Dr. Spaceman. The good doctor's first suggestion is crystal meth, but when Jenna balks at the meth mouth, he gets her into a clinic for a whole-body lipo treatment (and bone shaving). Before Jenna can go to the clinic, she has to do an episode of the show, and her tubby pratfalls make her a new tabloid darling and woman of the people. Jenna decides she'd rather be rotund and recognized than a svelte C-lister.
In the other B-plot, Tracy and Angie are still separated, and Tracy's idea of patching things up is to make up for all the years in which he fooled around on her...by sending Kenneth over to make sweet love to Angie. In Tracy's imagination, this makes sense. And in Tracy's imagination, Kenneth is swanning about in a page jacket, an eye patch and little else, massaging Angie's shoulders while Sade plays. In reality, Kenneth nervously threw up on Angie's foyer floor; she made him a grilled cheese with mayo (this condiment blows Kenneth's mind) and chewed Tracy out. He agrees to her terms for reconciliation: she will be on him like white on rice (her words, not mine), every minute of the day.
And the wee little C-plot -- or quite possibly D-plot: Liz is revealed to be mismanaging her personal life. She still has her $4000 ham napkin, she skips a dental appointment and a tooth falls out, and she hasn't assembled all her IKEA-esque furniture. At the end of the episode, we see her using her rolled-up ham napkin to prop up her poorly-assembled table. You sort of have to see it to appreciate it.
And now, on to the quotes and other comedy highlights ...
Second-best visual joke that calls back to last season:
Blerg office furniture. You will all recall that "Blerg" is a favorite phony curse word of Liz's.
Best visual joke that calls back to last season:
Kenneth getting a soda from the drinks machine, all while blithely unaware of Devin smoldering lustfully behind a window right to the machine.
Ten bucks says "pillowy abyss" makes it into either a Garnet Hill catalog, or a speech in the House of Lords:
Jack: Have you read Don Geiss's interview in this month's issue of Yachting Illustrated?
Liz: Uh, no. I subscribe to Giant Boats
Jack: (reading): "The ocean, says Geiss, like business, with a pillowy abyss of a lover's bosom, seems infinite, but all things must end."
Liz: Pillowy abyss?
Jack: Ignore that part. "All things must end." Geiss is sending signals about retirement, about succession.
Liz: By talking about sex in a sailing magazine?
Jack: That's exactly how Margaret Thatcher did it.
They don't call it the freshmen fifteen for nothing
Liz: [counseling Jenna that she's fine at the weight she's at] Don't let people make you crazy about this. You are just as beautiful and talented as you ever were.
Jack: No. No, no, no. You are fat. Go see Dr. Spaceman right now and get this taken care of.
Liz: How come men can be heavy and be respected, like James Gandolfini or Fat Albert. It's a double standard and America needs to get over its body image madness.
Jack: Oh, come on. What are we, back in college, freshman year? Let's go to the common room and talk about apartheid.
Liz: Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm sorry I care about making the world a better place.
Jack: You should be. It's a complete waste of time.
And if Practicology doesn't work, you can always get the Scarlet Witch to alter reality for you
Devin: Are you familiar with the Church of Practicology?
Jack: You mean the cult that was invented by Stan Lee?
Devin: I mean the religion founded by the alien king living inside Stan Lee. It is my faith in Practicology that has helped me uncover my true, straight self.
[Cut to Devin holding a glowing geode, with electrodes attached to his forehead]
It's definitely working! I can feel the gay draining right out of me. By the eye of Zolnak, right, guys?
1 2 3 4
At first, I thought we were going for a Van Halen punchline
Kenneth: Mr. Jordan, can't you just apologize?
Tracy: No! Things have been said that can't be taken back! She called my license plate "inscrutable"!
[Cut to an SUV with a New York plate reading "ICU81MI."]
Tracy: "I see you ate one. Am I?" Hilarious! Angie is in the past, like Dracula and broadcast television.
Fresh off a plane from the Renfrew clinic ...
Dr. Spaceman: Now, Jenna, medically speaking, for your height, your weight puts you in what we call "the disgusting range."
Jenna: [sigh]
Dr. Spaceman: Fortunately, there are solutions. Crystal meth has been shown to be very effective.
Jenna: [thoughtfully] Hmmm.
Dr. Spaceman: [holding up "You Do the Meth!" pamphlet] How important is tooth retention to you?
Jenna: It's pretty important. What about my crazy surgical options, Dr. Spaceman?
Then again, teeth are overrated
Liz: [on a roll] We are going to dare America to change their attitudes about body image.
Frank: Why do you have to make everything into an issue? Don't you have things to do in your own life?
Liz: At least I don't live with my mom -- ow!
Frank: Hey, my mom's cool.
Liz: I've got my life together, okay?
A molar comes tumbling out of her mouth.
Today, you become a lycanthrope:
Tracy: And here's the gold record from my novelty party song ...
Flashback to...
Tracy: [singing his novelty song while dressed like Michael Jackson in "Thriller"] Werewolf bar mitzvah, very spooky / boys becoming men / men becoming wolves.
Why, Mr. Parcell. Are you trying to seduce me?
Kenneth: [hoping to provoke Tracy into a fit of jealous reconciliation with his wife] Hello, Angie. I hear you're single now. That's cool.
Angie: What?
Kenneth: I like your top. I'm a real good sex person. I do it all the different ways.
Angie: Uh-huh. [Tracy looks over, intrigued. She sees this.] Well. I don't have a husband anymore, so you can come over any time.
Kenneth. I will. I'll come over at night!
It's the condensed, atheist version of Breaking the Waves
Tracy: Hey, Kenneth!
Kenneth: You're up early, Mr. Jordan.
Tracy: I only got eleven or twelve hours of sleep last night. I've got something on my mind grapes I need to talk to you about.
1 2 3 4
Kenneth: Oh? What is it, sir?
Tracy: I saw you hitting on Angie the other day. Seeing you with her, it opened my eyes.
Kenneth: Good for you, sir.
Tracy: Yeah, all those years fooling around? Wasn't fair to her. So you gotta make it fair! I want you to go to my house and make love to my wife, Ken!
Kenneth: [voice rising two octaves] Jiminy Christmas!
Tracy: My home address is on the GPS under "dacrib" because we live on Dacrib Avenue. Now you go to Angie. And you make sure you pleasure her!
I found the Dove Bar commercials to be more meaningful.
Liz: You just can't be a real woman in this country. It is like those Dove commercials never even happened.
This never happened when The Rock wrestled with Triple-H
Jack: Winthrop here wrestled at Yale.
Devin: With other dudes, or...?
Jack: [to Winthrop] He says he can pin you.
Winthrop immediately begins grappling with Devin.
Devin: Oh, you're so strong. Oh God, you're having your way with me! Your back is like a barrel of snakes! Oh, God, I'm just your doll. I think I love you -- we're joking!
The powerful bread lobby couldn't suppress that study
Dr. Spaceman: Did you know, scientifically speaking, that humans want food -- but don't need it?
Tonight, we dine in...Chelsea!
Winthrop: [tackles Devin from behind] Quitter!
Devin: Ah, God. Just like the Greeks.
So does Tracy think "the Page" is Kenneth's hyphenated last name?
Tracy: I'm going to kill you, Kenneth The Page!
[Tracy skids to a halt in his living room. Angie is on the couch, reading. Kenneth is sitting at a breakfast bar, eating a sandwich, napkin on his lap, while Grizz watches.]
Kenneth: I'm sorry, Mr. Jordan. I just couldn't do it.
Angie: This boy comes in the door, tries to kiss me, then he throws up and starts crying.
Kenneth: My body wouldn't let me violate the sacred bonds of marriage, sir.
1 2 3 4