Previously: Jack and Jill get trapped overnight in their building's laundry room. Jack and Jill have meat dreams about the other. Jack asks if things would've been different if they'd met sooner or later. Jill is saved from answering. Elispa meets her dream guy hopping into a cab. After a single night together, he takes off and tells her she doesn't want to get involved with him. Then he changes his tune and decides he's not "horrible."
Magical realism time, kids! What you need: Realistic setting offset with innocent symbols of childhood; twinkling lights of Manhattan; tinkling bells of ice-cream truck juxtaposed with blaring car alarm. Please note that when diluting all the precepts of magical realism, make sure you start with a shot of a blandly handsome second-rate TV star and his enormous cleft chin. Jill rolls over and grabs his Pottery Barn alarm clock (set at 2 AM) to glare at it. He stares angrily into space.
Overhead shot of ice-cream truck with a purple hood and top. Jill emerges from the building in pajamas and overcoat and walks over to the ice cream truck. He says hi to the cute old man, who, as Sars and the gang at the Jack & Jill forum pointed out, has been in films from Roxanne to Scrooged, which means he's already had more of a film career than anyone on this show will. Twinkly old man smiles back with childlike yet all-knowing innocence. "I'm glad I wasn't asleep," says Jack, stumbling out. "You too?" Jill says. Jill says he'll fix the alarm and asks the ice-cream guy if he minds if he tries. Jack asks if he even knows what he's doing. Jill says of course he does and fumbles around. After three seconds, Jack says to let her try. This oughta be good, Jill snerks. Jack climbs into the cab of the truck. The cute little old man twinkles at her as she yanks and pulls at anything resembling a handle on the dashboard. Various things happen at once: the windshield wipers go on, Jill pops the hood up, and just as Jack yanks out the radio, the alarm stops. Jack then turns to the old man with a look of goony triumph on her face, except that she looks JUST like one of the evil creatures out of The Dark Crystal. Hats off to you, Jim Henson Puppet Workshop -- at this point in the show I dropped my cereal bowl (Special K) out of sheer fright. It's off, Jack says in triumph. The cute old man nods in agreement. What'd I do? she asks. You yanked the radio out of the dashboard, says the little old man, "but he [Jill] turned off the alarm." Jill appears at the old man's window, waving a couple of wires. He declares it was nothing, just fiddling with a few things under the hood. I ask anyone with mechanical aptitude if this is actually where a car's alarm would be placed, because I doubt this show's ability to document the process of hand-washing accurately, but I'm too tired to do any real research on the topic. Anyway, Jack says she's going to bed. Jill waves goodbye. Jack says, "Here," and hands the little old man his radio. The little old man turns to Jill and says, "Young man, you showed me a great kindness. Now I will help you." The little old man speaks with a total lack of inflection and sounds doped to the eyeballs. Jill says it was his pleasure. The little old man asks what's his wish. Jill says, "Um, I'll have a drumstick." The little old man smiles patiently and says, "No, no, your greatest wish. It'll come true." The little old man nods cutely at him and twinkles. Jill gives him an "I'm humoring you" nod. The little old man drives off, and tosses Jill a drumstick and the wires to the dismantled car alarm.
Cue annoying "doo-doo-woo-woo" song and the credits. MAN, this cast is white! Unbelievably white! It's like David Duke works at the WB! I bet each and every person on this cast is a HUGE Dave Matthews fan.
Jill's workplace. Two big yellow brick structures are on a table, from which Jill's head emerges like the mighty Grendel of yore. He looks rumpled. His boss tells him to rise and shine. Jill apologizes and launches into an explanation of "there was a little old man's car alarm," but rather than reprimanding him, his boss is telling him they're going to need him "full steam," now that "Zantopia here..." and he gestures to the structure on Jill's desk. "What's wrong with it?" Jill says, expecting to get ripped a new one.
New scene: @Bar. "Absolutely nothing," Jill is saying excitedly to Barto and Mikey. He goes on to say it's going to be the new Lego set, the modern-day equivalent of an Erector set, yippety yappety yap ready for Christmas year yappety yippety yoo. Barto and Mikey congratulate him. Mikey says, "That's absolutely amazing -- that's been like number one on your wish list forever." "What?" says Jack. (Uh-oh, kids -- can you hear that in the background? That THUMP-THUMP-THUMP? Why, you're right -- I do believe it is the footsteps of Mr. Overused Theme! Pull up a chair, Mr. Overused Theme!) Mikey continues, "The toy for the ages, the single great plaything for the --" Barto interrupts, "The single great TIMELESS plaything." Mikey says, "Right, I forgot timeless." Jill does his best approximation of a double-take (poor Ivan Sergei, they don't teach double-takes in modeling school) and goes into the "wait a minute guys, the craziest thing happened last night!" monologue about the cute little old man, and he tells Barto and Mikey the whole eerie coincidence. Mikey says it's too bad that Jill's great success happens along right when Jill is obviously losing his mind. Jill protests that it really happened, while Barto and Mikey point out the unlikeliness of anyone selling ice cream in the middle of the night, let alone three wishes.
Right then, hitting his mark, Mikey's boss Kevin wanders up to tell Mikey to hop to work because they're three waitresses short. Mikey says he hopes the wish-dispensing dude will come by tonight, and that way he could wish for more help. No, wait, he says, that'd be a waste of a wish -- instead he'd have to go for one night with Laeticia Casta. After a pause that goes on for a bit too long, Jill says, "Yeee-aaaah," in his best frat-boy imitation, leading me to believe that Ivan Sergei can't read and had a hard time with the TelePrompTer. ["Or that, as Tumbleweed's boyfriend and I have long maintained, Ivan Sergei doesn't like girls 'that way.'" -- Sars] Mikey says wait a minute -- he could wish for Laeticia to wait tables. Oh, that lovable rogue Mikey! Don't you just wish YOU had him as YOUR buddy to toss out these hilarious one-liners during stressful life situations? Maybe Mikey could have a seat to Mr. Overused Theme! After he tosses off his latest bon mot, Mikey moves on. , cut to Barto's double-take reaction, which is totally out of sync, so the effect is not unlike watching one of those poorly dubbed kung fu movies from the seventies. Then Jill and Barto give each other "oh, that Mikey!" looks.
scene. Street fair. Elispa, wearing a hoodie and a black jacket, and Jack, training for her second career as a sherpa by wearing a purple poncho, wander the streets. Jack complains that she now hates street fairs since she did her bills last night and cannot buy anything until May. BOO-FUCKING-HOO. For some reason they turn to watch a mime. Elispa stops to pick up a hideous, cheaply enameled blue porcelain tin that she exclaims over. (Antiques Roadshow would use it as a spittoon, I'm so sure.) The woman at the booth tells her it's eighteenth-century "Severigne [sic]" French porcelain -- five hundred dollars. Now, I'm no antiques expert, but shouldn't that be more like FIVE THOUSAND dollars, since even a nineteenth-century-imitation-Shaker rocker made of cheap Philippine mahogany goes for like six hundred bucks at Crate and Barrel? But whatever. Elispa makes little "too rich for my blood!" faces and puts it down. Jack asks her about Jonathan. Elispa, lisping so much she sounds like Daffy Duck, tells Jack that he drives a cab, and then lists what I consider all of Jonathan's terrible qualities: "Plays a guitar. Sings at Max's. Makes me very, very happy." Jack prompts, "Except?" Elispa says, "I just don't feel like I know a damn thing about him. All we ever do is talk about me. Which -- normally [here Elispa makes a self-deprecating moue that would make Scarlett O'Hara proud; also, Jack starts laughing a beat too early, BEFORE Elispa gets to the punchline] would be fine, but I don't know -- like, for example, I've never seen his apartment." Jack says, in the hushed tones one would normally reserve for talking about someone's debilitating illness, says, "Maybe it's not much -- where he lives." ( As opposed to his other apartment, that he keeps livestock in?) "Oh my God, you're probably right," says Elispa, as if Zeus had struck her with a thunderbolt. "So stop worrying," says Jack. I sure wish that girl would learn how to deliver a line instead of using the tricks she learned at the Helen Hunt School of Eyebrow Emoting. Also, over-enunciating and moving your lips a lot is not an acting technique, or so I've heard. So just as Jack says, "Relax," someone knocks into her from behind, and in a slo-mo sequence borrowed from Charmed, an ostensibly expensive bottle gets knocked out of her hand and onto the ground, where it breaks. Jack goes into convulsive apologies. The porcelain hawker tells her not to worry -- since Jack's paying for it. Jack asks if she can borrow money from Elispa after all. Elispa says sure. Jack asks how much the bottle was. The porcelain hawker apparently thinks that chintzy shard of lavender glass is "Baccarat -- signed -- sixteen hundred dollars." D'oh!! Jack curls her eyebrows in distress. The porcelain hawker says, "I can let it go for fifteen hundred." Jack's eyebrow distress becomes even deeper, making her forehead look like some Botox experiment gone really wrong.
Max's Cafe. Deep, emotive wailing comes from the Embryonic Denis Leary, a.k.a. Jonathan. He does his best to sound like Matthew Sweet, and bobs his head up and down meaningfully for the end of the song, looking like a chicken with a crumb caught in its throat. How I hate folksingers. Elispa looks as pleased as punch. Cut back to Embryonic Denis Leary, who is still bobbing and has added forehead-crinkling to his repertoire as his strumming of ONE CHORD is apparently so moving to himself that it causes his entire upper body to convulse. He sings and crinkles his eyebrows some more. "My love needs a perfect prayer/you know me/I'm right heeeere."
The Ferret Feromone Flats. Audrey and Jack are doing bills. Jack asks Audrey how she did it before she got "her first big gig." Audrey, her hair done in fetching mini-braids at the crown, says, "I ate a lot of popcorn. And I had more than one job." Jack says she'd thought of that, but her hours at the station are already so -- here she sinks into the Cute Girl in Distress Move and flops her head onto the dining room table. Audrey asks if Jack might not go to the Bank of Dad. Jack gives her a look that is meant to communicate, "No way," but to me only says, "Gastrointestinal cramps." Audrey says, "My bad." Jack says thoughtfully, "I could sell one of my ovaries on the Internet," taking care not only of the requisite hipper-than-thou Web reference needed on every WB show, but my need to make an Amanda-Peet-Crying-Game joke. Because it's just too, too easy. "Or, as a last resort," Jack says, thoughtfully, getting up and going to the bookcase, and fetching a velvet jewelry case. "You mean that's not a last resort?" Audrey says. Jack opens the velvet jewelry case and shows it to Audrey. "My grandmother gave this to me. She got it from her mother the day my mom was born. It was the last thing she gave me before she died." (Besides the recessive Y chromosome.) Camera cuts to reveal a cheap rhinestone brooch set with several tear-drop-shaped red cubic zirconia. Your basic item you could pick up at any QVC fire sale or Ye Olde Renaissance Faire. Dare we hope that this episode will end like Guy De Maupaussant's "The Necklace" and Jack's granny duped her with a piece of glass? Press on, dear readers, for the breathtaking conclusion! Audrey tells Jack she can't pawn that. Jack, with wistful Little Match Girl looks, says in her best Kim Novak whisper, "It would tide me over." Audrey says, "Let me lend you two hundred bucks until payday." Jack gets googly-faced and says, "Aud, you're amazing," and hugs her. Audrey looks long-suffering and says, "No big deal, we'll just take it off of rent." "The rent?" Jack asks. Yes, Jack, that thing that ostensibly you've been paying for months which enables you to live in that incredibly unrealistic apartment? Please excuse me while I pound my forehead with the keyboard.
Elispa and Embryonic Denis Leary emerging from a building while Elispa babbles some shit about her father winning Clios for some ads that led to a lifetime supply of toilet paper -- oh god, and I won't make the obvious joke here either. EDL is chuckling to himself. Elispa says, "Why do I feel like I talk so much when we're together?" Why, Elispa, I'd say that now's a good time to introduce Mr. Perception to Ms. Reality! Maybe they'll watch the show with Mr. Overused Theme and myself. EDL chuckles and says she doesn't talk that much. He then concedes that she does. But he likes listening to her. Elispa then says she wants to know stuff about him. (Yes, Elispa, I find that non-stop monologues about oneself are THE single best way to inspire the other person to talk about himself. Yes! They always recommend that in Cosmo!) EDL asks what she wants to know. Elispa then asks about all that "you don't know what you're getting into stuff" EDL mentioned at their first meeting. EDL asks if he could take that back (note to EDL: unlike tetherball, there are rarely do-overs in relationships) because "maybe it doesn't matter." Really? Elispa asks. Really, says EDL. So, what do you want to do now? EDL asks, bobbing his head in the least erotic manner possible. "Ice cweam and a wideo!" says Elispa. (Really. I'm not kidding. She says it exactly like an idiot child.) "My place?" EDL says with a supposedly seductive head jerk that only connotes epilepsy. "I'd love to," Elispa says, her voice dropping an octave. She gives him a smoldering look meant to communicate unbridled passion. Instead she looks sort of like, well, a twerp. He offers her his arm. Instead she puts her chin on his shoulder, a la the Queen of Hearts, and grabs him from behind. Is she dating him or mugging him?
Allison and Jill are in a classy restaurant. "To Zantopia, where anything is possible," says Allison, as she and Jill clink wine glasses. Jill yaps about finding the perfect connectors that make the perfect, satisfying click when the pieces snap together with Zantopia. (Side note: in case no one gets it, the writers put that in so we could see what a sensitive, deep artist-dude Jill is! Now, the following dialogue is going to point out what an evil, cold-minded, success-obsessed bitch his girlfriend is! Pay close attention, or you might miss it! ) Allison says he should be really proud of himself. Jill then proceeds to describe -- in detail -- how indescribable it is to create something so satisfying and then have it come to fruition yip yap yappety yap. Allison says, "You're finally getting somewhere." Jill, disappointed at her lack of empathy, says, "Yeah." Allison says Jill should start thinking about where he wants to go -- Mattel, or Hasbro, or Sega. (Yes, since Sega designs video games, a very different design platform than Jill's ostensible occupation.) Jill says he's happy where he is. Allison gives a fake pout of agreement and then says, "Well, so am I." She really reminds me a lot of Kimberly on Melrose Place. Maybe she'll rip her hair off and put some life in this goddamned episode. Jill smiles at her, obviously willing to let bygones be bygones, but a Lingering Shadow of Doubt remains across his face.
Elispa and EDL stumble into EDL's studio apartment. Elispa compliments him on his place. He says it's kind of a mess and starts picking up. Elispa says, "Your place is totally fine," as EDL wipes his brow. "I mean, if that's why you're acting so weird --" but EDL cuts Elispa off and asks what she thinks of going out instead. Elispa asks about the ice cream, but then acquiesces. EDL is visibly happy at leaving the apartment. He grabs his coat. Elispa grabs her coat and the one underneath it by mistake, and then sees that they were hung over two pairs of skates -- his and hers. DA-DA-DUM!! Elispa touches them as the Melancholy Piano of Infinite Sorrow tinkles in the background. EDL calls her name and she leaves the apartment.
Long shot of Manhattan, glittering island of dreams. Cut to Eddie Naiman's office, where Jack sits on the couch. Eddie enters his office and snipes that most people wait until he's in his office, knock, then ask to see him, at which point he pretends to be too busy to see them. Jack asks for her year-end review. Eddie points out that most people work someplace a year before their year-end review. Jack yimmers and yammers some more and tap-dances her way around the fact that she wants a raise. Eddie tells her she's not getting one. Jack says, "Okay, then," and walks out of the office, shoulders braced adorably against a cruel and uncaring world, except she actually looks like she's walking with a back brace on. Outside, Anchormatt asks how it went. Jack says better than she expected -- Eddie didn't fire her. Anchormatt asks why she won't let him lend her the Benjamins. Jack says she doesn't borrow money from her boyfriends -- "It's too -- 'yucky' I think is the technical term?" Man, Shakespeare is just kicking himself for passing on THAT witticism! Anchormatt then asks if a loan would be okay if they weren't dating, and when Jack says yes, then he says, "Okay, I don't want to go out with you anymore." Way to knock that joke right out of the ballpark, Anchormatt! Seriously, can someone get an eyebrow pencil for this boy? It's starting to really get to me. Unlike the other parts of this show, which I can process with perfect equanimity. Har. Jack: "Very funny." Amanda Peet has waaaay too many teeth for a human mouth. "It's just a loan," Anchormatt points out. "And it's incredibly sweet," Jack says. But she can't, it's about being on her own, and taking care of herself. Okay, if you're sure, says Anchormatt. "Umm, okay -- then let's get back together." Jack says, "Oh, all right." They kiss. Gosh, what a perfectly adorable and realistic portrayal of a young, impecunious couple in New York that work together in the same office!
Some diner. Mikey, Barto, Elispa, and Jack sit at the counter. Elispa: "I've looked at this eighteen different ways and I still can't figure it out. I understand the nervousness and the awkwardness -- I don't like it, but I can understand him not being ready for the Kick-Back Night at His Place. Because if it's good, then suddenly you're a couple. A thing. Fine. But what's with those white skates??" "Maybe he's doing Nancy Kerrigan," Mikey says. Somehow the others refrain from beating Mikey to death on the counter. Barto points out that everybody has something hanging in their closet, that's why they have closets. He tells her not to be such a -- "girl," Mikey finishes for him. Barto bobs his head in the universal "way-to-go-bro" head bob. "God no, is she being one of those?" Jack says. She and Elispa giggle at Jack's daring blow for feminism. Mikey then glances at his watch and says he can't believe he has to be at work already, and that he needs waitresses. To work. Or maybe just to prance around in front of him. "I can do that," Jack pipes up. Jack needs to work, Mikey will put in a good word for her with his boss. Jack implies she could work "or prance," and the thought of making Amanda Peet-equestrian jokes is the only thing that is keeping my hiney in the seat right now.
Mikey exclaims to Jill, "They're making you vice president! Whoa, it's like you skipped over all those other weird titles where you don't know what the hell they do -- like director. Manager. Unit person. Corporal." Knock at the door. It's Jack. She asks Mikey if he's talked to his boss. Mikey says he's on his way. He zips out the door. Jack says hi to Jill and asks if he's seen Audrey. Looking vaguely uncomfortable, he gestures towards Barto's Pleasure Palace and says, "She's in there." Jack asks if Jill could pass a message along when she gets out, but then gets distracted by the plans for Zantopia on Jill's drafting board. Exclamations of "neato-burrito" ensue from Jack. She (unlike Allison -- hint, hint) points out how a child would see it as someplace magical, where anything is possible. Jill says that he has to change basically everything about it -- that the main part has to come out of the box completely assembled. Jack protests no, that that's part of the toy's appeal, that the kid is the creator, and that Jill should make a case for the toy he envisioned, like how the cool teachers really liked it in high school when you argued with them. This then serves as a springboard to an incredibly boring and self-involved anecdote about her own supposedly smart self in high school pointing out that the Constitution was a framework for an agrarian society that isn't necessarily relevant in all its aspects to modern-day, industrial society, and I know that this is supposed to endear us to the nerdy brainiac Jack used to be, but instead it makes me wanna shake Jack's head until her eyeballs rattle like marbles in that enormous skull of hers. Jill looks at her and says, "You were a straight-A student, weren't you?" Jack says, "The point is, you got respect, for sticking to your guns." Jill says, "They're making me vice president." Jack says, "That's incredible." Jill says, "Yeah. I gotta start thinking career moves." Jack says, "I don't know. It's kinda like that 'be careful what you wish for' thing." DA-DA-DUM!! Is that Mr. Overused Theme I hear in the background, doing his Overused Theme dance?
At that moment, a plaid-shirt-and-legging clad Audrey and a sweatpants-clad Barto emerge from his bedroom, looking exhausted, and say, "Hey." Audrey collapses on the living-room couch. Jack and Jill exchange uncomfortable looks. "OH NASTY!" my friend Katie bellows into the phone receiver. "So how was it?" Jill asks them. Audrey and Barto obviously can't believe their ears. I cannot believe how many Biblical and man-made laws are being violated right now, in this one scene.
Elispa and Embryonic Denis Leary are wading through the fog-drenched New York streets. All right, we get it, the streets of New York are simply LEAKING fog and steam. It's a friggin' dry-ice storm out there. EDL admits to being weird the other night at his place. Elispa says maybe a little. She excuses him by saying we all get stir-crazy. He says he gets stirrier than most. She says he gets crazier than most. They start talking simultaneously, during which EDL says, "Let's try my place again," and he and Elispa walk off into the dry-ice drenched scenery.
@Bar. Jack is telling Mikey she knows it all about waitressing. Mikey keeps trying to brief her and she keeps interrupting him. As Jack walks off to take her first order, Mikey shouts after her, "You gotta listen, Jack, listen!" And whaddya know, her first customers, and Jack doesn't listen to their orders and flubs the whole thing. Who'da thought? In ironic counterpoint, the song on the soundtrack wails, "I've seen better days," except I am using the phrase "ironic counterpoint" in its lesser-known meaning, which is "completely and stupidly obvious." , Jack takes the order of a couple, except the man orders both drinks. Jack, doing her "Feminism Made To Order" thing, asks the woman if it's a first date, and if he ordered dinner for her, too, and after the woman says yes, goes off on a little riff about "what is that exactly? It goes way beyond opening doors. Is it a macho thing? Or is it overcompensating for something lacking..." At this point Amanda Peet realizes her extraneous mouth movements and eyebrow waggling are in no way compensating for her complete lack of comic timing, and her monologue ends. The guy requests a new waitress. I request a medic, for my bleeding eyeballs. Just then Jill waggles his empty beer stein, requesting more libations. Jack puffs out her lower lip in frustration. Jack takes his empty glass and the camera stays on Jill with Allison. Allison tells Jill that the change to Zantopia isn't bad if it means more units will sell. Jill says that's what his boss said, too, but that the self-contained plastic unit goes against everything Zantopia is, that Zantopia's supposed to be magic -- and just then he catches sight of Jack, surrounded by angry, semi-drunk customers -- and bursts out with, "Zantopia is where the kid is supposed to be the creator." Allison tells Jill it's his career, and he's got to be pragmatic. Jill announces they're making him VP. Allison says that's fantastic, and why didn't he tell her that first?
Camera cuts to Jack standing above the bar, shouting, "Excuse me? Excuse me? Who had the scuzzy nipple? I mean, the fuzzy nipple?" Excuse me? Excuse me? Who skipped their Screenwriting 101 class? I mean, the extension courses at UCLA on how to write for TV sitcoms? Camera cuts to Jill laughing at how adorable Jack is when she screws up. Jack shouts, "Who had this orange thing?" and then proceeds to drink it.
Shot of sunny Manhattan skyline. Cut to EDL and Elispa in EDL's bed (frame from IKEA; sheets by Banana Republic). He Hops On Pop and they engage in some cutesy pillow talk, wherein they agree that a good time was had by all. They kiss some more; she pretends to wrestle him onto the bed. BARF! He says he has a cab to drive and wanders off, presumably to wait for his spin-off. Elispa says, "Yes!" triumphantly as if she scored a touchdown. She reaches for her shirt on the nightstand table and inadvertently tumbles a pile of stuff off of it, including -- DA DA DUM -- a letter. A letter written in block printing and signed, Love Jonathan, which Elispa reads. We can infer that this is a personal, private letter, one that Elispa had no business reading, and my casual dislike of her character blossoms into complete and total hatred.
Cut to scene of rowboats in the Central Park pond. ROWBOATS. Even though it's supposed to be winter. Elispa and Jack sharing a bench. Elispa fills Jack in on her complete violation of Jonathan's privacy by nattering endlessly about how he wrote to Amy about the most boring things -- German tourists he drove in a cab, a rude waitress at Dean & Deluca. Jack points out that it doesn't sound too bad. Elispa says yeah, but then the letter went on to say that he didn't know why he was writing this boring stuff, when all he wanted to write was that he loved her, and that he would always love her. Jack says ouch. Elispa said she liked him -- liked the way he ran for the bus, the way he listened, the way he sang. And that she wanted to be the one he told the boring stuff to. (Believe me, honey, you're better off.) Also, I'd like to point out that surely the show can afford hairbrushes? Ladies, please -- BEAUTY KNOWS NO PAIN. So comb your hair!
Yet another slice of stock footage of Manhattan, beautiful Manhattan. Yeah, yeah, we get it, this show is set in the city of dreams, the city that doesn't sleep, yippety yappety yap. Cut to a health club. Jill and a tubby exec with glasses are on the treadmill; a smarmy exec is on the ground, chatting with them. They're execs from Jill's toy company. They're talking about Zantopia and how it's going to be year's Furby. Then the execs tell Jill they want the toy to be edgier and more aggressive. Jill says, "Violent," and they decry any thought of violence, but then say they want to maximize the excitement. They talk about adding knights to a "futuristic medieval world" with laser jousts. Jill asks sarcastically why they don't add a moat filled with sulfuric acid and partially dissolved plastic corpses, and the smarmy exec tells him, "Now you're thinkin'!" Jill looks appalled.
Now we get a shot of Manhattan and one of its famous bridges by night. Hey, instead of spending all this money on stock footage, why not just print up t-shirts for all the cast that say, "WE LIVE IN NEW YORK"? Just an idea.
Anchormatt walks up to Jack's door. Jack opens it. Anchormatt says it's great she's ready because the movie starts soon. Jack says she's really sorry, but another shift opened up at the bar. Anchormatt looks sad and says he misses her. Jack repeats the sentiment. Anchormatt then offers to give her a loan, "I mean, for my sake." Hmmm. In my part of the world, buying someone's time sure sounds like prostitution. Boys, let's book this john on solicitation, lack of eyebrows, and poor acting skills, pronto. Jack rushes down the hall, calling back, "Let's meet back here at one!"
Elispa calling EDL from a pay phone. He picks up, she hangs up without saying anything. No hair-combing has occurred since the last scene.
Allison walks into a fancy restaurant to meet Jill. She is wearing a crew-neck sweater with that v-thing cut out at the front that all the kids are wearing. She sits down and asks what's wrong, since the hottest toy guy in New York shouldn't look so mopey. Jill says glumly that instead he's supposed to be arming Zantopia for World War III. Allison then goes into some spiel about how she's a vegetarian, yet she took a case defending a cattle rancher, but she couldn't get off the case because it would've taken her off the partner fast-track. Jill asks what she did. She said she survived her compromise, and that he will, too. Then she tries to cheer him up by telling him she got him a present. It turns out to be a shiny name plate that says David Jillefsky, V.P. Jill says thanks in the most non-sincere way possible. He says it's beautiful. Allison says, "Yeah, I thought you'd like it." He smiles non-sincerely at her.
@Bar. Mikey pours some product-placed J&B into shot glasses. Mikey's boss Kevin asks how he's doing. Mikey says, "Pourin' and scorin'." Kevin asks how "Chatty Cathy's" doing. Mikey says pretty good, that she's selling premium brands right and left. Jack then returns to the bar and bumps into Kevin, nearly sending bottles flying. I would like to note that these scenes really emphasize her teeth. Amanda Peet not only has MORE teeth than anyone I've ever seen, but they are enormous and gleaming and white -- it's like Stonehenge got porcelain caps, fillings, and braces, and then moved into her mouth. Kevin compliments her and says that Mikey says she's been selling all her tables the top shelf. Mikey gives Jack the thumbs-up behind Kevin and Jack grins (shudder) and says, "Oh yeah!" and mutters as Kevin leaves, "Whatever that means." Mikey says Jack must be raking in tips. Jack says not really. Mikey lists a ton of high-list liquors that Jack sold -- and they both realize that Jack forgot to enter them into the computer. Jack asks how much she's going to owe.
Before we can find out, we cut to EDL's studio apartment, where he's strumming on his guitar. Somehow over his single chord of genius he hears the noise of a note being slipped under his door. He opens and reads it quickly, than yanks open the door, shouting, "Elisa!" but no one's there.
Cut to Jill at his drafting table, as seen through the window. Jill picks up a little plastic cannon. The soundtrack wails meaningfully, "I'm feeling so lost/I can't see where I'm going." Jill hops onto his fire escape and hollers at Jack walking along the street. They exchange platitudes about how bad their days have been. Jack says that the term Happy Hour was obviously not invented by anyone who ever worked at a bar. Jill says he's been contemplating killing himself with a miniature plastic cannon. Jack says she'll be right there.
Shots of Jill's drafting table, scattered with drawings of vaguely blobby, futuristic type things. Jill says he doesn't know where to put the cannon (I have a suggestion). Should he put it by the laser jousting rink or by the giant catapult? Jack says it's a tough choice, obviously not meaning it. Jill says she doesn't like it. Jack protests, and says she's not his target demographic. "No," Jill says, "That would be psychotic eight-year-old boys [heh] and marketing executives." Jack says that maybe the cannons aren't the problem. Jill says that's what you have to do in the real world. Jack says that she just loved it the way it was before. Jill says so did he. Jack says she has to go. Jill says good-bye. The adenoidal singer reaches pitches of meaningful wailing never wailed before. Jill lolls his head on the drafting board in a way that means "despair."
Jill stands with the two execs. They're exclaiming at how well the redesigned Zantopia has turned out, and how far it's come. The tubby exec says that he's especially impressed because he thought Jill was going to be one of those designers who'd be all, "My vision! My vision!" Jill says that when you work at a big toy company, these are the kind of compromises you gotta make. Exactly, agree the two execs. Which is why, Jill says, as his soul rises from the grubby pits of commerce, "I don't work here anymore." He then walks off, dramatically sweeping the gigantic model of Zantopia off the table top. Any minute I expect him to launch into the "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" speech from Network, but alas, I am disappointed. The smarmy toy execs are astonished. Jill walks down the street (pssst! by the way, it's a MANHATTAN city street), then hears the tinkling of ice-cream-truck bells. He looks around, puzzled, an expression I imagine comes easily to him.
@Bar. Mikey does something on the counter as Jack walks in the door. Jack then goes into a big speech about how she appreciates Mikey lying about her experience so she could work there, but after paying off her last shift, she can't afford to work there anymore. She asks where Kevin is. Mikey says he's in the office, calling her apartment to fire her, because of the champagne bottles that exploded when Jack put them in the freezer. He gets up and comes around to Jack's side of the counter, holding what I believe is sliced cheese on a cutting board. Or maybe the brains of the small children the producers of this show had to sacrifice in order to get Satan to give them a time slot. Jack says, "You're sweet," with a disturbingly simian protrusion of her upper lip. Mikey says, "Oh, so are you!" and hugs her, only to continue, "Which makes up for the fact that you're the world's worst waitress." Jack simpers. Jill walks in. Mikey asks what he's doing there in the middle of the day. He says he quit. Jack and Mikey express astonishment. Jill says he didn't know who was more surprised, him or his boss. Jack says good for you, and that he was brave. Jill hems and haws, but Jack says if that's what he really wanted, it's brave. Jill asks what she's doing there. She says she was quitting too, and she didn't think anyone was surprised, and flares her nostrils wider than the Carlsbad Caverns. Jill asks if she wants to have lunch. She can't; she's on her lunch from her other job, but she'll be around to talk later. They smile poignantly at one another.
Jack stands outside a shop helpfully labeled, "PAWN SHOP." In fact, the two words are superimposed over a giant letter "A," so that it literally reads, "A PAWN SHOP." Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, how stupid do the writers think the viewers are? Jack is clutching her grandmother's ghastly brooch and looking pouty.
The Not-Necessarily-The-Newsroom. Elispa and Jack walk down the stairs. Elispa asks if Jack is okay. Jack says it's just a brooch, it's not like she ever wore it. Elispa says, right, and that EDL was just a guy, and a few weeks ago she never even knew he existed. Yep, because this conversation originated about YOU. Jack gives her a comforting hug.
Jill spins a basketball on his finger. He's lying on the couch. He calls, "It's open," at a knock on the door. You know, that happens all the time in MANHATTAN. Allison walks in and asks if he's okay. Jill says he's better than he has been in a long time. Allison asks if it's true that he quit (she found out when she called the company to speak to him). Jill confirms it and says he won't be using that nameplate anytime soon. Allison says he will, at some other company. Jill says he won't -- that the corporate thing isn't him, although he wishes it were. Allison asks what he wants -- to move to Vermont and carve wooden trains? Jill says he hasn't thought that far ahead. Allison asks if he couldn't have stayed at the job until he figured out what he did want to do. Jill says that another moment at Major Toys (great name for a toy company, by the way) and "[he] would've lost himself." Great, because then maybe this show could've found an actual actor! Allison moves in for the smackdown, saying, "Well, forgive me for not sharing your romantic notion that having no food and no rent money automatically makes you a good person," and Jill says, "Is that what you think this is all about?" and Allison says maybe they want different things out of life, and Jill agrees, and I personally am totally confused by the writers' sloppy and shoddy language. I don't know WHAT the fuck anyone is talking about at this point, but long story short, Jill breaks up with Allison. Allison asks if he's kidding. Jill says he ain't. Allison says, "You're quitting on me, too?" Jill says, "Yeah," which is a refreshingly direct and well-stated answer on this show. Allison bites her lips and looks puzzled and confused. She gets up and says, "I hope you find what you're looking for," and Jill says he hopes she does, too. She leaves. He pounds the basketball on his forehead.
Street fair. Jack, her hair looking like weasels were nesting in it, stops for a second at a counter. A salesman tries to tempt her into handling a crystal vase and she erupts into histrionics, saying she doesn't want to look at it or hold it or be near it. You know, she could've tried a "no thanks." Backing away, she bumps into Anchormatt, who says he was on his way to see her. He says he got her a present. Jack unwraps it. It's her grandmother's ghastly brooch. He says he knows he shouldn't have, but he's allowed to get her presents, and it's their anniversary. "Of what?" Jack says, and Anchormatt says, "I have no idea," then says that Elispa told him.
Elispa trots down the street. She gets to her building only to find Embryonic Denis Leary waiting for her in the archway. She turns away. He follows, asking what's with the note. Elisa walks away, saying that it's better, that she saw the skates, and the letter to Amy. She asks what was up with the cryptic mystery stuff, why didn't he just tell her he was with someone? EDL says, "Because I'm not," in the snottiest, most thirteen-year-old boy voice EVER. Elispa stops walking away and says, "That makes me feel so much better!" EDL says, "She died. A year ago. December 29th." (Right! That makes all those brilliant, sunny shots of Manhattan make sooo much more sense.) Anyways, EDL goes into the sad song-and-dance, blah blah, she had this cute habit of bringing him food and they'd eat together between his sets, and that night he kept waiting for her, and he was even getting angry, the jerk didn't even see her when he hit Amy because he kept driving, yap yap yap. EDL tries to sound poignant and touching but succeeds only in sounding annoying and yappy, and his voice breaks peculiarly, like Michael J. Fox's on Family Ties when he played Alex P. Keaton. Elispa goes hushed and poignant too and says she's so sorry. EDL hammers in that sentimental point, saying, "I try to smile a lot. People always ask what's wrong when you're frowning." Does he live in New York or Fargo, Minnesota? Last time I checked you could walk down a major city street crying and tearing your hair out and most people wouldn't ask you what was wrong. ["Actually, you'd think they wouldn't, but New Yorkers who wouldn't look twice at the sound of gunshots will stop a crying woman to see if she's okay. I don't know about crying men, though." -- Sars] Anyways, he continues down Hallmark Lane by saying, "I guess smiling keeps 'em at a distance." Elispa says, "Sometimes. Not always," adding appropriate head bobs and nods during this last line.) The grab each other's hand and look deeply into one another's eyes. BOO-FUCKING-HOO.
Jill walks down the foggy Manhattan streets and hears the mystical tinkling of bells. He jaywalks over to the ice-cream man's truck. Jill announces, "I could use a drumstick." The cute little old man asks if his greatest wish came true yet. Jill says, "That would be a no," and launches into how the best toy he ever created got turned into something he hates, he got offered a promotion he thought he always wanted, and quit a job he thought he always loved. Then he yammers on about how he went the extra mile and broke up with his girlfriend. The little old man says there's only one explanation -- he didn't know what his greatest wish is. People always make the same mistake. Jill asks if he does this a lot. The little old man, twinkling, says, "It's only a hobby. The real money is still in the ice cream business." (I'd like to note that in seventy-five seconds of screen time that cute little old man managed to be funnier and more charismatic than everyone else on this show.) "Figure out what your real wish is, Mr. Jillefsky. Then watch it come true. And by the way -- no harm in givin' it a little push yourself." Then he drives off. Jill asks the air, "How'd he know my name?" At that moment he glances up toward's Jack window to see her shadow strutting and preening.
Cut to the Ferret Feromone Flat. Jack is putting on a horrendously tacky beaded shawl. Audrey says, "Do you know that it's the first time since the eleventh grade that we've both been involved in relationships?" She then stops self-consciously (not a big stretch for any of these actors) and says, "God [note: there is no God, as long as a show like this continues to prosper], that word's never rolled off my tongue. It just did. Did you hear that?" Jack, brows beetling furiously and her Farrah Fawcett wings flouncing, says, "Mmm-hmm." Audrey says, "Wow. Things are going way too well. I can feel it." Just then someone knocks at the door. Jack says, "That's Matt," and yanks it open to reveal Jill. At this point Jack has dropped the shawl to reveal a low-cut, wine-red spaghetti-strapped VERY unflattering red disco dress not seen since the days when Cheryl Tiegs, Jaclyn Smith, and Kate Jackson were famed as law enforcers across this fair nation of ours. Jill bursts into the apartment and announces that they need to talk and goes off on this supposedly endearing riff about how really, it's just HIM that needs to talk, and she can listen. Jack says it's not the best time. Jill bulldozes Audrey off into the wings. Jill says he's making it the best time to talk, that people never talk, they waste time, or that they don't even know what they're looking for, or that they're looking for one thing, but that it's really something else entirely. He asks if Jack knows what he means. Jack agrees, brows beetling at the speed of light. Jill says never mind, he can do better, and that the point is that he doesn't know a lot about himself or where he'll end up, but he does know that there is one thing that he wants, more than anything he could possible imagine, and that's Jack. Jack looks astonished. Jill says, "I want you. You're my wish. Okay? And you have been from the first minute that we met. And I'm gonna do whatever it takes to make my wish come true. Well, I'm probably interrupting --" and at this he and Jack simultaneously glance down at the burgundy horror of her dress "-- something -- seemingly important." He continues that he knows about bad timing and other people and everything, and that he doesn't know quite how he's going to overcome it, but he will, and he'll be back, tomorrow, with a plan, and that he's going to leave Jack with that, and go figure out a plan. He rushes for the door and turns to say, with a cocked gunfinger, "So you should be ready." Jack looks astonished. Even her hair is subdued.
Apparently, in February, Jill announces to Matt that he intends to win Jack, and Jack's forced to make a choice and shouts a lot.