Episode Report Card Pablo G: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Dumping in Reverse
By Pablo G | Season 1 | Episode 17 | Aired on 04.06.2010
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Have you ever really wanted to get back with your ex after you broke off your engagement because she was non-committal and you slept with her main rival the same night? OK, well that's what happening here. Jonah gets an opportunity to sit in on the casting call for the Riley-inspired female lead of his movie and realizes just how hard it is to find a girl like Riles. It can't be that hard. Just smear some finger paint on a mannequin, tape an iPod with some Miley Cyrus to it and call it a day. Jonah doesn't like any of the actresses who audition and ends up butting heads creatively with the director who is sort of his superior now on this project. He fires Jonah. Luckily, leading man Owen Anderson has creative differences with the director as well and has the producer take him off the project, recommending Jonah take the helm. This should be good.
Meanwhile, Riley is trying to hold a fundraiser for her inner-city school project thing aimed at appealing to the child within all of her prospective donors. Drew tags along so he can continue his expedition into Riley's pants. The fundraiser starts off rocky, with none of the attendees participating in Riley's harebrained kid games. Drew saves the day with his particular brand of goofiness. He gets people jumping in moon bounces and crap. The fundraiser ends up being a huge success and raises way more than Riley expected through a silent auction, which becomes not so silent when Drew gets ticked off at a bidding war on an auction entry from Jonah. To try and show up Jonah, Drew declares a private show from his own rock band as part of the auction. Nobody bids on it. Instead, his quick thinking leads him to try and auction off a date with Riley, which actually gets a good response. Then, Jonah shows up and starts outbidding everyone, including Drew. Just as Jonah's about to win a date with Riley, Ella shows up and has the winning bid of $2,000. Busted.
But Ella lets it slide because she's been sneaking around herself. She's decided she needs to break into WPK in the dead of night to erase the fake records Amanda has that incriminate Ella for the company's missing money. To do so, she'll need a special code that only one nerdy guy Jonah met on his one day working for WPK has. That means Ella has to set up a blind date with this guy and work her magic so she can get her hands on the code, which he keeps on his keychain. She manages to not only get the code, but get dumped by this guy whose thick-ass glasses apparently don't work. Ella employs David to help her with his burglary expertise. That night, they break into WPK. They're unable to access the servers with the information so they just break into Amanda's office and try to steal physical file folders. ...OK, makes sense. They come across a folder for Sydney which has photos of different paintings. David is able to put it together that Amanda's after that painting. So nothing really gets resolved, but Ella comes to the realization that she feels guilt for keeping all of these covert operations from Jonah and wants to be completely open and honest with him. Don't do it, Ella!
David agreed to help Ella because she helped David in his hour of need. Coal becomes a hot mess when David fires Marcello for being Marcello. It just so happens that with the restaurant understaffed, a big-time food critic would show up, which David wouldn't have even noticed if it weren't for Ella's "who's who" encyclopedia in her head. And on top of all of that, Lauren shows up and decides to save the day by being a waitress. Yup. It's Super Doctor Hooker Waitress! This gesture doesn't go unnoticed by David -- at least eventually it doesn't. He thanks Lauren when he gets a glowing review from the food critic and everything seems close to being forgiven. These things just take time.
And we find out what all that dark morgue business was with Drew last week. He tracks down Lauren and in confidence claims the special heart valves invented by Dr. Mancini are actually killing patients over time by releasing toxins into their systems. He needs Lauren's help from inside Michael's team if they're going to set this right. Super Doctor Hooker Waitress to the rescue!
Pablo G. is some guy who lives in San Antonio, Texas. Check him out at Space Monkeys!, Obscure Sports Reference, and follow him @PendejoJoe on Twitter.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!We begin tonight overlooking The Complex Pool. Riley and Drew float on pool chairs, stargazing. Riley gets Drew to fall into the pool while stretching to see a star she's pointing out. He pulls her in, too. She starts talking about how she can't ruin her hair because of her fundraiser tomorrow for her school development project. She really hopes her idea of appealing to everyone's inner child will work. Jonah walks into the courtyard just in time to catch her and Drew making out and has to just keep walking...
...Jonah comes home announcing to Ella before he's even in the door that he's been invited by Curtis Heller to sit in on a casting session for his movie, but Ella is finishing up lighting romantic candles and is all dolled up in a teddy. My goodness. She's obviously after something and as she kisses Jonah, she uses her sexy talk to get around to asking him to show her how to access the WPK servers and delete the incriminating billing records against her. Say wha? Jonah doesn't agree with the plan. Ella: "See what I'm wearing? Now picture this... covered in a prison jumpsuit!" Jonah lets up a little bit, but reveals that even if he wanted to help her do this, they'd need to get a security code from some nerdy IT guy Jonah met on his one day working for WPK. Sounds like a dead-end. Jonah, however, conveniently throws in a little fun fact about the guy to end the conversation. Jonah thought the guy was really jumpy about being the guardian of the security code, but it turns out he was just afraid Jonah would reveal he has a secret online dating addiction. Things that make you go "hmm."
At Coal. Marcello is flying off his panhandle. He's berating all his cooks, going to each one and getting in their face about their mistakes. In fairness, all these cooks sound like morons, but he's definitely being excessive. David tries to calm Marcello down, telling him he's being loud enough for the restaurant patrons to hear him, but it's as if Marcello isn't even hearing him through his force field of power. David intervenes when Marcello won't let up on one of his cooks and fires him. "People come to this restaurant to eat my food," Marcello says. Good luck without me, is the gist of Marcello's parting words. I never liked that guy.
ULA. Drew is trying to resuscitate a patient who has flat-lined. It's completely cliché ER drama. He's still applying CPR as nurses try to call time of death. Later, after the body has been taken away, Drew sneaks some blood from the cadaver. Lauren walks in and sees Drew take the vial of blood. Lauren asks lots of questions, implying she might be a tattletale, but Drew turns it around on her since he didn't ask her a million questions about her whoring. He wants her to keep quiet.
Two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen title card
Commercials
Multiple establishing shots of the LA sunrise. In The Complex Courtyard, Riley has her hands full with bags of kid crap, but she still manages to catch Lauren as she's running by on a jog. Lauren hasn't been answering her calls or returning voicemails reminding L she's still her best friend despite her renting out her vag. Riley repeats the sentiment and they hug it out. Riley asks Lauren about what's up with David and -- speak of the devil -- he comes down in a rush on his way out to Coal because he's now understaffed after firing Marcello. He takes off. Riley and Lauren part ways as well. As Riley's walking off, she bumps into Jonah who immediately has gaga eyes for her. Practically Lady Gaga eyes, they're so attention-grabbing. Riley thanks Jonah for submitting a day on the set of his movie as part of her fundraising auction. Jonah's all "aw shucks." Ella shows up just in time to interrupt this grossness. Riley takes off after the sight of Ella smooching Jonah. Ella leans in to Jonah to tell him not to get any ideas on the casting couch today.
We jump right to the casting session. Jonah walks in with Curtis who tells him that he'd like Jonah to read the male part since their normal casting director has come down with swine flu. Lucky guy. Simon the director enters and Jonah practically slobbers all over him. Curtis says he needs to get down to Clint Eastwood's set so he leaves the two alone. Jonah notices Simon's copy of the script is covered in notes and changes in the margins. Simon starts detailing to Jonah some of his ideas for changes. Like always, they fundamentally miss the point of Jonah's original vision, which involves that whole thing with the lead actress being in a sumo suit. Maybe changing Jonah's original vision isn't such a bad idea.
David is freaking out at Coal. He's going between cooks and waitresses, encountering problem after problem with his restaurant. Lauren flies into the scene carrying a tray of cocktails and seats guests who have already been waiting for a long time for a table. David asks her what she's doing. "Lending a hand." Oh geez.
Ella enters a bar. She sits down next to a stereotypical nerdy guy. "Gabe Taylor! Are you up for a matinee?" Gabe recognizes Ella, but looks around nervously. Ella asks if he's looking for Statsgirl183. She grabbed a photo off a friend's Facebook page to trick Gabe into meeting her as an online blind date. She backs up her story under the guise that WPK strictly forbids inter-office dating. Still, Gabe is unconvinced. He doesn't see what they have in common since she's a trendy socialite and he's just a numbers geek. Ella: "You see? I hate that. Everybody just thinks I'm a walking Barney's rack, but really, if they stopped to get to know me, they would see that I'm a Battlestar watching nerd with a wicked Halo game." Oh, Ella, take me! Take me now! Gabe's interest is piqued, of course. Ella goes in for the kill and starts to feel his arm up and claims his forearms are huge. Wonder why. Ella's willing to bet Gabe a tub of popcorn he has a gym card on his keychain, which is her excuse to try and get a look at the WPK code he keeps on his keychain. She doesn't get that good a look at the key code. Ella owes Gabe popcorn. They walk off arm in arm.
Commercials
At Riley's outdoor fundraiser event, Riley isn't happy that no one is getting into her theme of "The Child Inside Us." She has an inflatable bouncy room and a finger paint wall no one is using. Drew's there with her and points out that her silent auction is in full effect. "Oliver Clothesoff" has bid on every item except Jonah's entry. He thinks it's hilarious in a way that reveals he is, in fact, Oliver. Riley points out the Jonah omission to Drew who says he doesn't want to encourage anything like that. "Like what?" asks Riley. Drew points out how painfully obvious it is that Jonah isn't over her. Drew changes the subject by getting the attention of an older woman whom he invites to join him in the bouncy. OK, Drew, you win this round.
Coal. Lauren is still running shit, but everyone around her and David are pretty much incompetent. A cook drops a huge pot full of crabs. Hehe... crabs. Those crabs were already late to be on a table, so Lauren makes sure the cook knows she already had to lie to that table. David: "Well, I'm sure you had them in the palm of your hand." First degree burn.
Ella and Gabe exit their movie. Ella drops a hint about needing a jacket because she's cold, hoping Gabe will do the chivalrous thing and give her his blazer which has the keychain in it. He says he's kind of sweaty. Nerds are so oblivious, aren't they? Then, Gabe does the unthinkable. He tells Ella he isn't interested and doesn't want to see her anymore. He offers a friendly handshake. Ella's a bit stunned by this curveball, but composes herself and goes in for a kiss instead so she can reach into his coat pocket to get his keys. She unclasps the WPK key and replaces his car keys before parting ways with a bittersweet goodbye.
Back at casting. The actresses pretty much suck and I'm pretty sure one of them is a porn star. Simon the director doesn't agree with Jonah's assessment that the girls are terrible. He somewhat likes the actresses and this last b