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Just before his 50th birthday blowout, Jack realizes that, unlike Kenneth, he does not see the world through the eyes of the creators of Avenue Q, minus the Internet porn and everyday racism. (On related notes, Tracy sees the world much like John Malkovich, and Jack sees the world in purely financial terms, with Kenneth worth exactly $7.) Jack mournfully realizes that he has lost his childlike innocence. He puts an old home movie on repeat and hypothesizes that buying a gift that once made him so happy he threw up will take him back to happier times. Failing that, he will "Benjamin Button" himself. Jack finds the toy, but it doesn't do the trick. Read on...
Dennis returns to Lemon's life -- and Jenna's -- to apologize for victimizing them with his sexual charisma. Unfortunately, his attempt to make amends with Jenna is intercepted by Lemon. The ladies weigh their options: Give Dennis a piece of their minds (Lemon's suggestion) or stab him (Jenna's). Lemon's idea wins, but goes horribly awry. The results are threefold: 1.) Lemon learns that Dennis and Jenna's way of dealing with Katrina-induced vulnerability was to have sex in Lemon's bed; 2.) Dennis ranks the ladies' sexual skillz, and 3.) Lemon kind-of-on-purpose lets Jenna fall from a semi-great height. Lemon atones by letting Jenna show everyone a phone sex commercial Lemon made in college. This horrifying sight unlocks Jack's child-like glee. Vomit ensues.
Also, Tracy decides to become an astronaut. (Lance Bass rues the day!) On a whim, Jack decides to indulge Tracy's childhood dream. And by "indulge" I mean force Lemon and the TGS crew to whip up a low-budget rendition of space that's worthy of some Tracy-foolin'. The bar is low. Still, Pete does a stellar job (word play!), and Tracy goes another day wanting for nothing.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see which Cheers plotline vlogger Sean Crespo thinks 30 Rock is going to steal!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Lemon's apartment. Jack interrupts her once-in-a-lifetime attempt to go running to ask whether she's attending his 50th birthday bash. She will, but not in "the belted outfit," per Jack's orders. He hangs up before she can find out which belted outfit. Apparently, she has many. No time to worry, though, because Tracy's on the TV. He is holding a press conference to announce that he has decided to fulfill his lifelong dream of going to space, irregular heartbeat and all.
Lemon takes off her new running shoes and hears a knock at the door. She opens it to find Dennis. She tries to close the door on him, but he busts in to tell her about his sex addiction and his latest business venture: a single, inconveniently located coffee vending machine. She pooh-poohs this notion, so he returns to his original objective: to make amends for subjecting her to his "addiction." She couldn't care less. He takes this as her trying to lure him back in for hate sex. He warns her he won't give in, as his support group is "lousy with nymphos." Pure class, that one. Credits.
Lemon charges into Jack's office to discuss the "Tracy thing." Jack is trying to schedule an appointment with Tracy to dissuade him. Grizz gives him the runaround. Lemon notices that Jack is watching old movies from his childhood. Jack's ever-loving mother sent them to clear up space in the house for her new boyfriend's golf clubs. They watch one of a young Jack having the best birthday EVER! In Jack parlance, this translates to wearing a sweater vest, jumping up and down furiously, and finally vomiting from overwhelming merriment. Lemon relates. When she gets excited, she "Lizzes" her pants (laughing + whizzing = Lizzing). Jack pulls out a list he wrote in fifth grade of all the things he wanted to do before he turned 50. He has done them all... with relish. He wonders what his 10-year-old self would think if he could see grown-up Jack Donaghy. Lemon guesses he'd be excited enough to hurl. Lemon notes there is just one more item to check off: "Be friends with Batman." Jack has Jonathan call Adam West's manager. It's Grizz again. That guy sure is enterprising!
Over in the studio, Jenna flirts with a crew member as he fastens her harness. Not as dirty as she might like. Lemon happens upon them, and Jenna gives her her phone to hold while she tests out the flying cables. Jenna's phone rings. It's Dennis. Instead of admitting she's not Jenna, Lemon adopts a shiteous British accent that meets somewhere in the middle of Jane Krakowski and Madonna. Dennis begins to make amends with "former sex partner" Jenna. Lemon rolls with it, which naturally leads to Dennis trying to convince British Jenna Lemon that he was the love of Lemon's life. He fears that Lemon will be devastated, and her friendship with Jenna will be ruined if Lemon learns that he and Jenna had sex. We'll see! Commercials.
Back at 30 Rock, Jack and Lemon are trying to put out the fires of Tracy's astronautical ambitions. Tracy gets to the rub of it -- Shooting into space is his childhood dream. Jack can't bear to shatter a man-boy's long-held dream on his own birthday, so he promises to make a call to NASA and sort it out. Once out in the hall, Lemon is all, "What the hell?" Jack reveals that of course he doesn't know any of those NASA losers. He tells Lemon to gather her minions and organize a fleecing. So much for Lemon's run.
A brief walk to Jenna's dressing room will have to do. She tells Jenna that Dennis called to make amends for their sexual encounter. Jenna comes clean, all the while oversharing that her Madonna-esque whack-cent is a result of losing her virginity to the My Fair Lady soundtrack. (Yeah, I'm sure that guy didn't turn out to be gay.) Jenna justifies that Dennis and Liz were broken up when they had sex, then confesses that they both gave in to their vulnerability in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. And, with that, let's just take a pause in memory of all the life wreckage that damn hurricane inflicted...
So, back to it, Lemon reveals that she's most annoyed because Dennis thought himself capable of breaking up a longstanding female friendship like hers and Jenna's. She bemoans the fact that he is out there thinking that he even means anything to them. She invites Jenna to go with her and set him straight. Unsurprisingly, their interpretations of this idea vary wildly. One lady favors a good talkin' to; the other favors stabbing. You can guess which is which.
Kenneth delivers more gifts to Jack's office. Kenneth proudly shows Jack his haul from his last birthday -- a bobble head key chain. Seeing that Kenneth will basically get it up for anything, so to speak, Jack muses on what it must be like to see the world through Kenneth's eyes. We don't have to muse, though, as we get a taste of Kenneth vision. It's kind of like Avenue Q, but not dirty. Jack appreciates that Kenneth derives such joy from simple things, since most people lose their sense of wonder as they grow older. Kenneth deems that occurrence sad. Jack begs to differ, saying he's surpassed his wildest expectations for his life. Kenneth happily agrees, but manages to sneak in an oblivious reference to Jack's "big, empty house," leaving Mr. D with a sour taste in his mouth.
Downtown, Lemon and Jenna have procured the magical janitor key to Duffbucks and are ready for a showdown, possibly including knives. Dennis entirely too quickly jumps to the conclusion that they want him to rank them. Lemon scuttles that idea and gets to the point: Dennis is an unimportant a-hole. Then he reveals that he had sex with Jenna in her bed. Though angered by the defilement of her snacking station, Lemon decides to take the high road. Dennis stoops to rank them, putting "Blondie" at #1 in retaliation. Lemon continues out. Jenna does the Jenna thing and laps up any praise, regardless of how insulting and transparent.
Uptown at Jack's birthday party, Adam West makes an introductory speech in Batman mode, then flubs and calls the man of the hour "Jake Dellahee." It does nothing to help Jack's waning joie de vivre. He dismisses the guests. Adam West exits, muttering about his contractually stipulated free meal. Commercials.
When we return, Lemon has arrived fashionably late to the party to find no one but Jake Dellahee mournfully viewing his childhood birthday party on a loop. He wonders what was in the box that made him so happy. He wants that feeling back -- literally. He vows to find out what was in the box and buy it again, no matter the cost. Alternately, he will "Benjamin Button" himself. "We're not meeting in the middle!" Lemon shoots back.
She returns to work to find Pete in the midst of space-ifying 30 Rock. He has devised a pitch-perfect ruse to make Tracy think he's at Cape Canaveral. Some of the particulars: a blindfold, NBC New York's traffic chopper, Dot Com brandishing a heat lamp, and Kenneth using a Bonzi Buddy-like computer program to order Tracy to do "space sit-ups." Tracy asks the computer when he'll "get some Tang," then adds, "Also, I'm thirsty." Word play!
Lemon walks into the studio to find Jenna in full Peter Pan regalia, already strapped into her harness. Jenna admits she was totally satisfied by the Dennis showdown. She fist bumps Lemon for sisterhood and heads up into the air. Lemon is less keyed-up on female bonding, though, and decides not to speak up when she notices Jenna's harness clasp isn't securely fastened. Down falls Jenna. Lemon belatedly warns Jenna to be careful, then runs off.
Back up at Jack's office, a video tech enters to find Mr. Dellahee desperately staring at a still frame from his childhood birthday party film. Jake thinks the tech can employ some techniques from 24 to figure out what 's in the box. [Zoom and enhance! - Zach] The tech advises him to ask "Jimmy," whose name clearly appears on the gift card in the film. Flash forward to a couple of hours later, Jack has found Jimmy and duped him into coming down for a "job interview." Jimmy has no idea what he gave Jack for his birthday nearly four decades ago, but does point out that Jack is saying something in the (silent) film. Light bulb! "Jonathan, get me a deaf person!" Some time later, same shtick, less hearing. The deaf girl tells Jack that his childhood self is shrieking, "Apollo! Apollo! Apollo!" Like everyone else, she was not warned about the projectile vomit. She takes particular umbrage, though, since she was brought in for the express purpose of staring at Jack's mouth. Jack runs out, ignorant of her horror.
Back at the studio, Jenna charges Lemon for a girl fight. She announces that, for the first time, "These crutches are real!" because Lemon tried to kill her. Lemon insincerely apologizes, but their conversation is cut off when Tracy (still blindfolded, btw) and his "space crew" (in full NASA regalia, double btw) slow-mo march down the hall toward the "space shuttle." Once they're through the door, Jenna calls out Lemon for nearly letting her die over Dennis. She says that Lemon's woman empowerment spiel was all a lie. Lemon claims that, since Jenna slept with Dennis, they should be even. Jenna uninvites Lemon to the Canadian Grammys.
Somewhere between 30 Rock and the Moon, Tracy is Lizzing with excitement. He calls Earth to check in on Kenneth, who has just gotten the privilege of holding Jack's vintage Apollo 13 model. Tracy gives an eloquently concise description of Fake Space before spying Jack's lunar module toy. He and Kenneth agree that it's totally awesome. Jack admits that he envies their rose-colored outlooks on life. At which point we get the treat of seeing Tracy's perspective: In short, it's all Tracy, all the time. Jack agrees that, perhaps seeing the world through Tracy or Kenneth's eyes would make it lovelier, but he'll have to settle to see it through his own. His own eyes, FYI, put price tags on everything in view, including Kenneth, whose sum total value Jack finds to be roughly one-twelfth of a throw pillow. Jack heads out, sans Apollo, and we get a few more sweet moments of Kenneth-vision to keep us warm on lonely nights.
Down the hall, Lemon bounces down to Jenna's dressing room to make up for putting her sister in harm's way. She offers to let Jenna sing an inauguration-inappropriate song on TGS. Jenna turns up her nose. Lemon resorts to her last-ditch effort: Jenna can tell the writers about a commercial she shot back in her Chicago acting days. Jenna jumps up and runs to the Writers' Room. She announces to the whole crew that Lemon's only acting gig ever was for a phone sex line. Frank immediately finds the clip on YouTube, and the crew has a good laugh at Lemon's expense.
Laugh at what, you ask? Well, for starters, there is some serious '90s mise-en-scène going on. Then there's Lemon's close-cropped curly mop. And, lest we forget, her phone sex name is "Bijou." Followed by, in quick succession: lipstick-stained teeth, implied girl-on-girl, the possibility of sexy talk in English, German, or Polish, and a phone number with only six digits at the end. Jack walks in just as Lemon is seductively pawing a polyester duvet with a rose stem in her mouth, then advising potential hornballs to "Call us! We love to party!" Jack doubles over in laughter. Oh, but there's more -- tug of war, specifically, and another fake European feeding Lemon pizza greasy enough to drip down her mouth. Kenneth wanders in and asks why everyone is laughing so hard about Billie Jean King. That is the last straw for Jack, who blows chunks into Kenneth's interoffice mail box. Jack's literally uncontainable glee kind of kills the mood for everyone else, but he couldn't be happier.
Later, Lemon visits Jack's office to check in on him. He feels great, like a kid again. Jack gets mushy, admitting he doesn't know what he would do without her. She starts to head out. He bids her adieu: "See you tomorrow... Bijou."
And now for a few comedic bijoux...
Café Dennis
Lemon: I don't want to hear about your job, Dennis.
Dennis: One word -- coffee. One problem -- Where do you get it?
Lemon: Anywhere, Dennis. You get it anywhere!
Dennis: Wrong! You get it in my coffee machine. Thirty-eighth and Sixth, in the basement of K-Mart. You just go downstairs, you get the key from David, and boom! You plug in the machine...
Lemon: You're done!
Daily Alerts, I'm Sure
Lemon: Have you seen this Tracy thing?
Jack: I am aware of it. I have a Google News alert for the phrase "Tracy Jordan Ridiculous Disaster."
The Bucket List, Donaghy-style
Jack: Live in a house with stairs. Beat up a Russian. Hit Mom with a car. ...Fly on a plane -- I've flown on Air Force One. Go to Disney World -- Lemon, I've held Walt Disney's frozen head in my hands. I've danced with Queen Noor. I've hunted the world's most dangerous game -- man. [Jonathan coughs.] Excuse me, manatee! I once shot a manatee. [Indicates photo.]
The Great White-Haired Way
Jenna: It's funny, I actually played Peter Pan on Broadway. Did you know there's a Broadway Street in Tampa?
Nuttin', Punny
Jack: Tracy, listen. You can't go into space. Your contract expressly prohibits dangerous activities like extreme sports or riding the subway on St. Patrick's Day.
Tracy: What is this? Horseville? 'Cause I am surrounded by neigh-sayers. Word play!
Lemon: That is solid.
Tracy: Look, when I was a kid in the projects, I would look up at the stars and dream of going into space -- of escaping the slums, of killing a Ewok! Now the man that kid has become can make those dreams come true! Do you know what that's like?
Jack: Oh, I do.
Tracy: Then you know why I have to do this! As Robert Browning once wrote, "Oh, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what is a heaven for?" I was prepared for the possibility of this meeting!
They've Put Many a Great Career on Hold
Lemon: Jenna, stop. Yes, what you did was disgusting, but how long have we known each other?
Jenna: Fifteen years! We met at that car dealership audition in Chicago. You were trying to be an actress then, despite your neck.
Back Then He Was Known as "Jacqueline"
Jack: You know, I wore nothing but hand-me-downs until I was 12 years old.
Kenneth: I thought you were the oldest, sir.
Jack: Oldest boy.
Plates, Pillows? Same thing!
Lemon: I want you to understand how unimportant you are. You are not the love of my life. You are not capable of hurting me. And you could never do anything to damage this friendship.
Dennis: It was in your bed.
Lemon: Oh, come on, guys! I eat in there!
They've Done Worse
Jack: Tonight was supposed to be special, and all I could think about was that kid, so happy he threw up. The closest I came to vomiting tonight was when I saw Ann Coulter's shoulder blades.
Pete's Plan
Lemon: Looks good. Where's Tracy?
Pete: In Cape Canaveral. By which I mean through that door. We told him he had to be blindfolded before launch to prevent space madness.
Lemon: Sure.
Pete: And then we put him on the Channel 4 traffic 'copter for a couple of hours.
Lemon: And now he's landed here in sunny Florida. Well done, Hornberger!
Pete: Well, as a child, I dreamed of being a congressman like my father. Now I do this. [Mutters] One DUI in high school...
Tell Those Chinos Who's Boss!
Lemon: Morning, Jenna.
Jenna: God, telling Dennis off together was so empowering. I felt so jacked up on my way home that I threw a brick through the window of a Banana Republic.
I Want To Go To There
Kenneth: Mr. Jordan! How is space? [winks at Jack]
Tracy: Great wink, Kenneth! Space is very cold, but very beautiful, and sometimes sounds like Jenna yelling in the distance.
Coming Soon To Dancing With the Stars
Lemon: I want to make it up to you, Jenna. What can I do? How about, on the show, you can do that song they wouldn't let you sing at the inauguration?
Jenna: No, "Chocolate Rainbow" is too good for TGS.
Acting 101
Jenna: Everyone! Listen to me -- no, it's a real thing this time. When we were both living back in Chicago, and Liz was still trying to be an actress, the only job she ever booked was for a local phone sex line.
Lemon: It was a chat line for urban singles.
Jenna: And they only hired her because their first choice was deported.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see which Cheers plotline vlogger Sean Crespo thinks 30 Rock is going to steal!