Episode Report Card Lady Lola: C- | 3 USERS: A+ YOU GRADE IT The Women Who Hate Women or The Girl with the Lemon Tattoo
By Lady Lola | Season 5 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.24.2011
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.After a blog post claims that TGS hates women, Lemon takes it upon herself to hire more female writers. She picks Abby Flynn, a comedienne noted in the same blog post as one of the up-and-coming voices of comedy. Frank, Toofer and Lutz vow to take on new personae (rich, bad-ass, and British, respectively) in an concerted attempt to impress Abby once she joins the gang. Their attempts go about as spectacularly south as Lemon's when it turns out that Abby is a babbling, blonde bimbette with a penchant for Man Show-style punch lines. Lemon is offended for womankind, while Jenna is offended as she credits herself as the pioneer of mainstream baby talk circa 1998. They band together to free Abby of her desperation for male attention or to flush her out of 30 Rock, whichever comes first. When Abby turns a deaf ear to Lemon's attempts to build up Abby's self-esteem and show her a better way, Lemon digs up an old clip of Abby (née Abby Grossman) when she used to have brown hair, longer hemlines and an actual brain. Abby reveals that she didn't change her appearance and personality to impress men. In fact, she did it to escape her abusive husband. She flees to find yet another identity, and Lemon is left to eat a slice of humble pie. Or, if we know Lemon, an entire pie covered in cheese.
Meanwhile, Jack finds a stumbling block in his plans to succeed Kabletown's current CEO. Since Kabletown is a family-owned business, the CEO's 14-year-old granddaughter Kaley (Chloe Moretz) is next in line to assume the throne. Jack reads up on his nemesis and invites her to 30 Rock for a bit of gentle guidance. He is relieved to find out that she has no ambitions to work in television. Instead, she wants to be a marine biologist. Jack arranges a private tour of the American Museum of Natural History with famed oceanographer Dr. Bob Ballard. Along the way, however, he becomes nostalgic about his former ambitions in the sciences. For a moment, he considers throwing it all away to secure his legacy as a scientist and explorer. Then he realizes that Kaley has made a thank-you poster that shows a picture of Jacques Cousteau that can only be found in Jack's home safe and his autobiography. He realizes that Kaley has been doing recon on him just as he did on her. She does want to succeed her grandfather as a Kabletown honcho after all. With that, it's game on. Will the chutzpah and boundless energy of a youngster win out? Or will dashing looks, glossy hair, and experience prevail? Only time will tell.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!30 Rock. Jenna enters the writers' room to tell all the "non-famouses" the good news that she's hit the Internet, via the website JoanOfSnark.com. The writers look at Jenna's write-up as Lemon explains that JoanOfSnark dishes on celebrity gossip and features listicles on things like which celebs have the worst beach bodies (Ruth Bader Ginsburg!). Jenna says the article deems her one the freshest new voices in comedy. Toofer quickly corrects her, pointing out that the article she's looking at is about another comedienne named Abby Flynn, whose picture appears next to her under the headline. If Jenna had scrolled down further (or perhaps read the article at all), she would have seen the following article, "Why TGS Hates Women." Lemon thinks that idea is crazy, especially since it's all Jenna, all the time during Tracy's sabbatical to "Africa." Cut to clips of Jenna playing Amelia Earhart and Hillary Clinton, both of whom screw up their jobs when they get their periods. Lemon claims the jokes were ironic re-appropriations of sexism but immediately recognizes she's on thin ice. She stands up indignantly and spews about how TGS -- formerly known as The Girlie Show, fans from way back -- has a responsibility to lift up women. Then she screams, "Ohhhh, my period. You're all fired!" and collapses to the floor. Credits.
Jack's office. Lemon asks the boss man if he thinks she hates women. He says yes, but argues that she's pre-disposed to view other women as competition for the attention of powerful men such as himself, Hercules, the Highlander and God. Lemon retorts, "I want to roll my eyes right now, but the doctor said if I keep doing it, my ocular muscles might spasm and eject my eyeballs." Jack says attempts to breed the competitive streak out of women have only ended with lesbians with hip dysplasia. Lemon insists she supports other women (like a human bra) and, as such, wants to hire this Abby Flynn. Jack starts to claim it's not in the budget, then he sees Abby's photo and practically leaps on board. He justifies his change of heart by quoting Kabletown CEO Hank Hooper's autobiography, "New blood is the life blood of every company's blood," then he qualifies, "He's not a strong writer." He tells Lemon he plans to succeed Hooper in the near future. Lemon says if he believes in himself, he'll reach his goals -- she read that on a bottle of women's exercise water. Jack explains that it's not that simple, because Kabletown is family-owned, so he'll have to destroy Hooper's Bieber-loving 14-year-old granddaughter Kaley (kick-ass actual 14-year-old Chloe Moretz) by guiding her toward the same useless pastimes as her trust-funded relatives, who are variously smoking pot and painting (her aunt) or trying to sail an inflatable castle across the ocean (her father). He thinks she can find some other reasonable occupation, such as "a doctor's nurse or a lawyer's mistress or even the President of the United States... Shopping Association." Lemon takes umbrage because, while Jack is scheming to thwart a young girl's dreams, she is trying to help women achieve their potential -- "Because potential is the difference between what you can't do and what can't you do." Jack snarkily asks if she read that little gem off of a water bottle. She snips that no, she submitted it to AquaFem but was rejected. So there!