The cherry blossoms are in full bloom in good ole W-ASH-ING-TON baby, DC! Jack strolls through security at the Capitol building as he chats with Lemon on the phone. It's his first day in charge of the government's homeland security/extreme weather preparedness/homeless. He seems "jacked" about it although he freely admits that the GE dream he once had is as comatose as Don Geiss. Meanwhile Lemon defensively munches on her Mexican Cheetos at 8 AM. Tracy and Frank approach her as she hangs up with Jack. Tracy wants to know if something in the folder he carries looks like wizard nipples or not. He is hard at work on his uncanny valley video game, with Frank's aid. The working title of the game is "Goregasm: The Legend of Dongslayer." I have to say, it's not too dissimilar from the exclusive video game notes I unearthed a couple of weeks ago over at SlapClap. Tracy commiserates ironically with Lemon about working hard on a project while everyone else goofs off provoking her to burst out crying. "Uh-oh. Emotions. You having your woman times?" asks Tracy. "Oh boy," remembers Lemon. She missed her period.
Lemon flips through her unmarked calendar as Cerie enters her office bringing coffee. She looks at all the birth control dispensers on her desk and adds "I think you're supposed to take all of them in a row."
Kenneth enters the office of a one Mr. Pete Hornberger. He wants Pete to write him a letter of recommendation to be a page at the upcoming XXIX Summer Olympics, pronouncing XXIX in a new and profound way. Pete was a former archer who missed his chance at gold because of the US boycott in 1980. The problem however is that the deadline for submission to be a page at the games is today at five which floors Kenneth. His memo indicated it being a full two weeks from now. Suspicious? Well, yeah... Donny pops up outside of Pete's office. Donny admits to sabotaging Kenneth's dream by sending him a fake memo with the aim of scoring the page position himself. Now it's up to Kenneth to write his application essay in enough time to qualify for the job.
Jack walks into his new office and is greeted by Cooter Burger, his new co-worker. Cooter looks a lot like Matthew Broderick but I don't think that's him. I could be wrong but -- no, that's definitely not Broderick. The offices are a mess. The ceiling is leaking and there are zero pens on the premises. The problems are only compounded by Cooter's refusal to acknowledge any of the disaster surrounding them. According to studies there is no leak, which sounds like an attack on the current administration. I'm no Mark Russell, and I would never claim to be, but I think it is.
Lemon takes four pregnancy tests and all of them read positive. In a panic she marches up to Jack's office only to find Don Geiss's daughter sitting at a table adorned by stuffed ponies. Lemon finds it hard to adjust to life with no Jack and as Mrs. Geiss pulls a tiny toy car from out her mouth Lemon backs away carefully.
Tracy, Frank and Dotcom are in the studio listening to the vocal tracks being performed live by Jenna and Grizz. The scenario being played out is that of a warrior who has just defeated a snake elf and has been requested, presumably, by Florence the nympho water nymph to join him in the orgy chamber. "The poets will sing of this night," remarks Grizz's character. "Cut" yells Tracy. He doesn't like the way it's going. He's digging Grizz's performance but Jenna is over thinking things. "I don't need another Judi Dench situation," he reminds everyone. Jenna fakes sex sounds to the sudden shock of Grizz and to the delight of Tracy. He wants to do it again but this time records it.
Lemon stares at her pregnancy test as she phones Jack and leaves him an excited message that "things are happening." But back in Washington, Jack and Cooter sit in a meeting on infrastructure. As the table bickers he interrupts to point out that they need pens. The table bickers even louder but he cuts straight through it with an impressive speech about the greatness of the country. "We need hope. We need change. We need experience [Tina Fey edit]. We need pens." The crowd begins to clap, especially Cooter whose eyes are set to admiration.
Jenna finds Kenneth in the hallway after having to put her clothes on by herself. He apologizes but his application essay is the true culprit. Just then Donny quite clumsily reveals himself from behind a curtain. It's always nice to see one of the Human Giant guys. Donny taunts Kenneth about missing the deadline in Chinese, maybe even Cantonese. Kenneth answers back in kind and Jenna rounds it out with the only words she knows in Chinese: "I was told there would be no nudity." Donny makes a clumsy exit and Kenneth shares with Jenna he has a mental block with writing the essay. He finds it difficult to brag about himself. "Not even a backdoor brag?" she asks. Jenna tries to teach him one but he fails horribly then walks away, but not before sliding his application into the trash. He leaves and Jenna pulls it back out along with a positive pregnancy test. Hrm?
After the meeting in Washington, Jack passes along some of the assertive wisdom of Don Geiss to Cooter. Cooter is over the moon now about the prospects of working with and learning from Jack. But Jack gets a phone call. It's Jonathan with surprising news. Geiss spoke. Wait spoke or spake? Spake? Geiss Spokane, Washingtoned. How's that? Anyway Geiss isn't out of his coma but he did manage to mutter the words "Jacky boy." Later Jack goes to Cooter in the office as he tapes the words Pen Closet on the door and hands him a letter of resignation. Cooter is taken aback and he denies the resignation. Jack says he can't do that but as acting head of about three different acronyms Cooter begs to differ. Jack begs him to be let go but it's out of Cooter's hands. Even Cooter's boss doesn't want anyone else leaving the administration in its waning moments. New boxes of pens arrive and Cooter starts the chant "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!"
Lemon finds Jenna in her dressing room and hugs her from behind. "Oh my God you're pregnant." Lemon spills her secret. The mystery semen donor... it's Duffy! She took him upstairs after a few too many margaritas but before he tried to throw her off the subway platform. In a flashback we see Lemon ask him upstairs to fix a light and Duffy turns around to the camera with his best look since Oz.
"How could you have slept with Dennis?" puzzles Jenna. Lemon doesn't pause long to regret it. She's ready to take on single motherhood, "like Erin Brockovich or Sarah Connor. Another Terminator reference thanks to Dean Winters. I smell a crossover.
Jack tries to reason with Cooter to let him go. "Haven't you ever thought of leaving?" Cooter has in fact, every day for the past two years or since the Roseanne, Tom Arnold, Jenna sex tape rumors. But he stuck with it and now he's got pens. "Glorious pens!" Cooter opens the pen box. It's full of pen caps without any pens. He starts to lose it. This guy even loses it like Matthew Broderick would, meaning he doesn't really have the range to lose it. I'll have to look up this actor's name at my local library. How long before the public library get cast information from television networks? Never mind, I'll find out that answer on the Internet. "AskJeeves" as my mother says. Cooter Burger isn't really Cooter's name. It's James Riley. The President gave him that nickname -- actually two nicknames -- because he looks like a turtle and ate a hamburger in front of him. "It wasn't even a hamburger. It was a sandwich." Jack and James agree to work together to get fired.
Lemon gets home early to find subway hero Duffy lounging on her couch. He lied to his mom about finding a job so he crashes at Lemon's place during the day -- no harm, no foul. He wants to know if she has something to tell him and then plays an answering machine message from a nurse whose tone sounds very similar to the messages his sister's got in high school. "You're pregnant." Duffy starts blurting out his baby demands, like that it be named Morpheus after The Matrix if it's a boy. Lemon kicks him out.
Jenna finds Kenneth in Tracy's living room and shows him a very special tape. No it's not the RoseTomnna tape everyone was clamoring for over at TMZ. It's a tape of his personal essay for the Olympics page position. She presses play. Jenna endorses Kenneth with some hidden camera footage full of backdoor compliments (for her not him) and a heartfelt song: "So beautiful in every way/I see myself in youuuu". Kenneth is overjoyed and thanks her. He has 20 minutes to rush over to NBC Sports and submit it but at the elevator Cerie wanders by, pulling on her hair like a strange untouchable nymph (water nymph) and informs him that someone wants him to carry 12 boxes of copier paper to Stage 1. A conflicted Kenneth remembers an ancient Chinese ethos: "Duty before self." He goes to get the copier paper.
Jack and James go through files trying to find something so incompetent it would get them fired. James unearths just that when he discovers a file on the government's secret plan to create a gay bomb that would reduce enemy soldier's combat posture by making them totally gay-bones for each other. Lest you think this is some great and elaborate flight of fiction by the 30 Rock writers I point you towards this real news story I wrote about just a summer ago. "This is exactly what we've been looking for," exclaims Cooter. The only hurdle now is finding money in the Congress for it but Jack just happens to have a friend.
Tracy marches in to Frank's office with a prototype of the Uncanny Valley game. He gives it to him to play and thanks him for all his hard work and tireless effort. Meanwhile Kenneth and the 12 boxes of copier paper reach Studio 1 only to find a diabolical Donny laughing at him. It was all a ruse to make him miss his deadline but while Donny holds on to Kenneth's slim shoulders Hornberger(!) pierces his leg with a bow and arrow. "Run, Kenneth, run!" Kenneth does just that but not before expressing sheer terror towards Pete. He makes his way through the hall more fleet of foot than even Dr. Leo Spaceman in a cape. Lemon is leaving yet another phone message for Jack but she pauses to marvel at Kenneth who grabs a pole then uses it to press the up button on the elevator. He dismounts on the NBC Sports floor and hurls his application envelope into the closing doors for the Beijing Summer Olympics HQ. Then he vomits into a blue bucket.
C.C.! It's C.C. voiced by one of my favorite voices on television Edie Falco. Jack dragged her out of a meeting hoping to convince her to lend him the money for the Gay Bomb project. "I did certain things for you in bed that you were going to reciprocate but then we broke up before my birthday so now you owe me," says Jack in what is surely not a first in American political bartering. Zing! Politics. C.C. begrudgingly agrees to help him get fired. Later Jack sits by candlelight in his office about eat a slice of pizza when he plays his cell phone voice mail messages. They are all from Lemon. The first one is the "It's all happening" message and from there it echoes all the crazy events of her day. She's pregnant. It's Dennis Duffy's. She wants it. Duffy he knows. Kenneth just did a flip into the elevator. Baby crib shopping. Happy. Sabor de Soledad. Doctor call waiting. Never mind. I'm not preg ...
Jack jets back to New York and Lemon's apartment. "It was the cheese curls," is the first thing she says when she opens the door to find him. It was Sabor de Soledad that caused all of the false positives on Lemon's pregnancy tests. But the whole experience taught her something valuable. She's ready for a child. "I want to adopt." Jack stands up. "Then Lemon, I want to assist you." Not like that, he then goes on to clarify.
Three months later. The Pentagon. Jack breaks it to the military brass that the Gay Bomb experiment was a failure. The chemical dissipates harmlessly in open tactical environments therefore only is effective in closed quarter and unventilated spaces. Spaces such as the tightly secure meeting room they all presently sit in. Cooter remarks "Ooh pens," but when he goes to reach for one, you guessed it, he knocks over the Gay Bomb compound on the table. "Let's do this," says Jack. Across the table a guy who looks remarkably like Dick Cheney strokes the hair of General Petraeus as he's getting a neck rub from behind. Outside that highly secure room Frank walks into Tracy's dressing room with the video game in his hand and a full beard. He thinks he's been playing it for a few hours. "Frank you've been in your office for three months," informs Tracy. "Yes, I'm going to be a billionaire!" Meanwhile in a hotel room in Beijing, China Kenneth lays comfortably in his bathrobe on a bed with a very beautiful Chinese woman. She speaks to him in Chinese (no subtitles) and Kenneth responds in an alarming fashion. The door bursts open and a man holding a gun aims it at him. Roll credits. What the hell just happened?
Jokes folks:
My Favorite Song by The Smiths? Hand in Glove Why?
Jack: "Lemon I have to go. It's time for my freedom search."
Donny's Summer Vacation
"Beautiful breezy Beijing."
Touch. Feel. Lose
Tracy: "These avatars need to be able to do anything to each other."
Jenna: "Touch my cheek. Touch my butt. Touch my knees-butt. Touch my feet with your knees."
Portland Has a Dam System?
"The city of Portland has requested $9 million dollars to shore up its dam system.
Bureaucrat: "I can't support that. Dam is a swear word. I'd support it if instead of dam we called it a God finger.
It Takes Two
Jenna: "Kenneth where have you been? I had to put on my jeans by myself."
Upon Finding the Positive Pregnancy Test
Jenna "Oh no. Someone's going to get more attention than me."
Three the Very Hard Way
Lemon: Oh, so you're the only one who's allowed to make sex mistakes? You had a three-way with Roseanne and Tom Arnold."
Jenna: "That was two years ago!"
The What Do You Think I Am Game ...
"My name is James Riley. Cooter Burger? What do you think I am
a) "... the last page of a junior high textbook?"
b) "... a cartoon dog?"
c) "... a pornography video game?"
d) "... the starting point for an episode of American Dad?"
Breaking and Entry and Disregard
Lemon: "Dennis, what are you doing here?"
Dennis: "I don't have to explain myself to you."
One Pill Means You're Fatter
Duffy: "Prenatal vitamins. I know what prenatal means. 'Pre': before. 'Natal': ruined."
Kenneth Cleans Tracy's Fur Coat
"You must have been such a pretty monkey."
Confucius Kenneth
(spoken in Chinese) "I will not fail you, Rainbow Chicken."
So Unbelievably Correct
Jack: "A guaranteed disaster. Like eating a burrito before sex."
Silent Comedy Award
Kenneth making like a pole vault high jumper but then using it to press a button on the elevator.
Sabor de Soledad
Lemon: "I guess in Mexico women use it to stop their periods before Cinco de Mayo."
Shear Genius
Lemon: "I guess I'm getting to that age where I don't care what anybody thinks of me."
Jack: "You're going to want to get a very short haircut. Resist that urge."
No-prize Award Goes to ...
Jane Krakowski wins in a rout. In an episode where she was only tangentially part of the plotline she steals the show with one-liners, funny orgasms, backdoor compliments, selfishness, vanity, and a song. Nice to have Jenna back.