By Lady Lola
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.As Avery's due date approaches, raging hormones cause her to question Jack's closeness with Lemon. Jack explains that they are in the Jack Donaghy Mentor Experience together, but Avery doesn't want to hear it. She demands he set greater boundaries with Lemon. So off Jack goes, looking for a new mentee with just the right amount of DIHC (Drive, Intelligence, Humility, Chaos). Yes, it's pronounced the way you think it is. He looks high and low, ruling out Jonathan for his lack of drive, Jenna for her low intelligence, Tracy for his dearth of humility, and Avery herself for the insufficient amount of chaos in her life. In the end, Avery realizes that Jack and Lemon's weird, semi-dysfunctional relationship will not interfere with hers and Jack's and lets things go back to the way they were.
Even with all that DIHC up in her business, Lemon struggles without Jack's guidance when it comes to another Dick -- her 80-year-old father, who announces during a visit that he's taking a "gentleman's intermission" from her mother. No amount of common sense or costumed intrigue in da club will set Dick straight, so Lemon's return to Jack's (read: Avery's) favor is not a minute too soon. Jack takes the low road, putting the fear of God into Dick by impersonating a juiced up Guido whose girl said Dick hit on her the night before. No sooner does he say, "I'll set you on fire," than Dick promises to go back to his wife in Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, Tracy and Jenna are both obsessed with death. Well, not so much death as eternal life through the pre-packaged obituaries NBC News prepares for celebrities. While Tracy doesn't think his legacy is strong enough, Jenna is pissed that she doesn't even merit an obituary under NBC standards. Tracy sets about correcting his image, and Jenna sets about constructing hers. Their stories collide in the form of one hapless little hero cat, who saved its elderly owner's life by dialing 911. Tracy thinks he can reform his image by becoming a double hero if he saves the cat's life. Of course, this entails getting a be-ski-masked Kenneth to go after the cat with a hammer, but those are just details. Just seconds before Tracy is to stop Kenneth, he learns that his latest movie, Hard to Watch, is garnering Oscar buzz. He realizes winning an Oscar will be a much easier way to change his obituary headline (and, lest ye forget, take him one step closer to EGOT!) and decides to abort the plan -- without telling Kenneth, of course. We needn't fear for the doomed kitteh, though, because Jenna sees Kenneth menacing hero cat and bonks him over the head with a fire extinguisher, saving the cat and becoming the double hero herself, thus earning her place in the prefab obituary files. When hero cat dials 911 on behalf of poor, concussed Kenneth, everybody wins!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!It's morning at the Donaghy-Jessup abode. Avery shows Jack a customized Hermes saddle, emblazoned with the letter "C," that she had made for their daughter -- "so she can ride the maid!" Jack wonders if Charlotte is the right name for their daughter, particularly since Lemon didn't approve. Avery thinks Jack needs to set firmer boundaries with Lemon. He argues that she is his mentee, and he does not take the mentoring process, nor the selection of his mentees, lightly: "They have to have the drive and ambition to be worth my time, the intelligence to understand the challenges they're going to face, the humility to accept my help, and finally a life that is a bottomless swamp of chaos. Drive, intelligence, humility, chaos -- or the acronym DIHC," pronounced in a way that rhymes with "shtick." He adds, "I'm looking for DIHC, Avery, and I'm going to take it wherever I can find it." Avery tells Jack that his mentoring relationship has gone on for four years, and maybe it's time for Lemon to be released in the wild. Then she has a crazy hormone swing and sweeps everything off the breakfast table while hurling a bowl of whipped cream at Jack and howling that everything smells like onions. With that, Jack agrees to institute more boundaries in his relationship with Lemon. Credits.
30 Rock. As Kenneth leads a tour of NBC, he happens upon an editor working on Tracy's video obituary. He immediately drops to his knees in a blind panic and screams to the heavens that he's not done with Tracy. Another page informs him that Tracy isn't actually dead, they just need to update his obit to include his recent submarine DUI. Naturally. Kenneth regains his composure and asks for a copy of the obit so he can show it to Tracy. Then Tracy can see his own funeral just like Tom Sawyer. Nope, not the iconic character of 19th century American literature. Some kid from Stone Mountain that Kenneth and the townspeople accidentally buried alive. After they dug him back up, he tried to kill everyone. Naturally.
Lemon's office. Her father, Dick Lemon, calls and suggests he come to New York for a visit. She's excited about the prospect of seeing both her parents, but her father says her mom won't be coming. She says her parents always travel together, and her dad snaps that he wants to have a little fun by himself. Her mother returns home, and he hangs up the phone abruptly after telling her, "This conversation never happened."