5.09 – Chain Reaction of Mental Anguish

Originally Aired: December 2, 2010
Written by: Kay Cannon
Directed by: Ken Whittingham

Summary:

JACK (ALEC BALDWIN) ADVISES LIZ (TINA FEY) TO FIND A THERAPIST

Jack (Baldwin) recommends that Liz (Fey) start seeing a therapist when she worries that Carol is getting bored with their relationship. In an attempt to take Jack’s advice, Liz begins talking to Kenneth (Jack McBrayer) about her problems. Jack also finds himself caught up in one of Tracy’s (Tracy Morgan) schemes when Tracy tries to convince him to invest in his son’s theme restaurant in Times Square. Meanwhile, Jenna (Jane Krakowski) and Paul (Will Forte) celebrate their six month anniversary. Also starring: Judah Friedlander, Scott Adsit, Keith Powell and Katrina Bowden.

Promotional Pictures: High Quality!

Fan Rating: 4.108 out of 5.

Quotes:

Tracy: Hey what was that sound?! It was opportunity knocking.
Jack: No one knocked. You just barged in.
Donald: Knock knock.
Tracy: You were right, Donald. It makes more sense for you enter first.

Tracy: You remember Donald, my son that’s two years older than me.

Jack: The theme restaurant business model does work. NASCAR’s Fat Load café is a goldmine.

Tracy: So it’s decided. Jack’s on board as an investor.
Jack: Not so fast.
Tracy: So… it’ssss… deciiid…

Donald: A Mexican billionaire is calling right now. Excuse me. Senor Mexico? Hold on. Si soy Donald. Si. Ándale Ándale? Arriba Arriba?
Tracy: What is Sr. Mexico saying? Stop keeping me out of the loop!

Paul: Jenna and I are mirroring until we achieve touch less orgasm…. Aaaand finished.

Jenna: I will say yes when Paul proposes… that we make a sex tape and leak it on the internet.

Jenna: Relationships are like sharks, Liz. If you’re not left with several bite marks after intercourse then something’s wrong.

Liz: Nothing’s wrong with me and Carol. I mean we haven’t spoken in five days but that doesn’t mean anything because we are not sharks. We are legless turtles, rotting on the beach.

Liz: Jack, what makes a guy get bored in a dating situation.
Jack: That’s an excellent question. The answer is: questions like that.

Liz: Have you ever been to a shrink.
Jack: No. I believe that when you have a problem you talk it over with your priest or your tailor or the mute elevator porter at your men’s club. Then you take the problem and crush it with your mind vice. But for lessor beings like curly haired men and people who need glasses, therapy can help.

Jack: Lemon, I want you to get better because, and I mean this, I’m tired of talking this much to a woman I’m not having sex with.

Jack: Is the theme of your restaurant not enough tables?
Donald: No, we just need a lot of room for the monster fight.

Donald: Ladies and gentlemen. There’s been an underwater nuclear explosion. A beast has been awakened. It approaches with fearsome steps. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Donald: Witness the primeval might that is Godzila with one L, for trademark reasons.

Godzila: Donald, George punched my crotch!
Mecha Godzila: You liked it.

Kenneth: He’s fine and having a great time with his flight crew; steward Brenda, Amber Crystal. Also in the background I heard lady giggles and the sound of a beautiful sunset.

Liz: Everyone I ever dated in high school turned out to be either gay or a girl dressed as a guy to get a journalism scholarship.

Liz: Of course there’s Santa Claus.
Kenneth: Ok. Talk about that.
Liz: When I was seven I asked for a CB radio for Christmas so I could track gas prices around the state for a cool chart I was making.
Kenneth: We’ll get back to that later.

Liz: Santa made an enemy that day. The next year when he returned to the galleria, so did vengeance.
[Flashback]
Santa: Ho Ho Ho! What can bring you this year?
Liz: What does it matter? You didn’t bring me what I asked for last year, your fat fraud. You’re a bigger disappointment then our current president, Jimmy Carter!
Santa: I am a fraud, little boy. My wife still thinks I work at the bank.

Kenneth: There’s a reason god gave us two ears and only one mouth; listening is twice as important as talking. But he gave us 10 fingers… He must really want us to poke things!

Jenna: It’s the vacant lot where we had our first face kiss.

Homeless guy: Get a room! Whatever that is…

Jack: You’re the only one bankrolling this? What about Brown and Folderson?
Tracy: That’s what I call my wallet.

Tracy: Come on. The boy’s only 43 years old.

Jack: Tracy, not everyone is cut out to be a businessman. For example curly haired men and people who need glasses.

Jack: You’re letting him fly on his own wings.
Tracy:
And I bankrolled that too! Thank god we tested it with a monkey first.

Kenneth: Ms. Lemon, I’m singing people up for the TGS softball team. So far I have 8 “nos” and 25 “shove it up your goon holes.”
Liz: Shove it up your goon hole!

[Flashback]
Aunt Linda: Your uncle never liked my cooking. But you do, right Elizabeth? You love your Aunt Linda. Here’s a fun game. Put on Uncle Harry’s cologne and give me a backrub in the bath. [cries]

Jenna: Liz, last night was a disaster, and not the good kind where I get to sing at a benefit.

Jenna: Paul’s idea of moving things forward is me meeting his parents. He said they live in a Sub-borb?
Liz: Suburb.

Jenna: Sabotage? I’m the one trying to make this relationship work. Which is why I’m going to have to be the one to propose the sex tape. Call me old fashioned but I think that’s the man’s job.

Liz: Jack! I found a therapist and I’ve made some big break through. [Takes a bite of egg] I know you don’t know what this mean but I’m eating eggs again!
Jack: I know it means this conversation is disgusting.

Jack: It’s your duty as a parent…Tracy, do not laugh at the word duty.

Jack: For the love of god stop calling him daddy.

Donald: I’ll be ok. I’ve got other ideas. Like a microbrewery that also sells frozen yogurt. I’m a call it Microsoft.

Jack: Lemon what are you doing? Is Kenneth your therapist?
Liz: Well kind of.
Jack: He can’t handle that. Look at his head shape! He has no brain pan!
Kenneth: It’s fine, Mr. Donaghy, I’m ok. And so am I. I’m Cheryl.

Jack: You dump your problems on some half-baked Barney Fife and you’ll start a chain reaction of mental anguish.

Liz: But he’s such a good listener, and he takes my insurance.

Jack: Put your mental burden in my mind vice and I will crush it. Kenneth, who was Harold.
Kenneth: He… was a role model of mine growing up.
Jack: Please let Harold be a human.
Kenneth: Harold was a pig.

Kenneth: With Harold gone. There was nothing keeping me home. It was time for me to move to New York and follow my dreams. But I needed 300 dollars for river ferry-train-ox cart-train-bus ticket.

Kenneth: I knew I could win that contest. I once ate an entire witch. A Pig was nothing. When they brought me mine… I would have recognized those eyes anywhere.
Jack: Kenneth, no.
Kenneth: It was Harold. And I ate all of him. Even the face in case of a tie.
Jack: Good god!
Kenneth: I ate him sir! I ate my father pig!

Jack: His sacrifice made you what you are today. Which is the lowest level employee at the last place network, in America!

Paul: The restaurant was crazy today. During nude hour, I got custard all over my penis.

Paul: Why can’t we just paint each other’s toenails, watch vintage pornography, then go to bed in our swing like a normal couple?

Paul: Fine! Let’s do this tape! But then what? What will you want next.
Jenna: Well there’s a sex resort in Japan where white people are treated like slaves.

Paul: You’re making it impossible to live up to your expectations.
Jenna: What are you saying?
Paul: I’m saying adopting a dog so it can watch us make love and then returning it claiming it bit our imaginary child, is all that I need.

Paul: I trust your to fairly divide up our panties. I’ll come get them tomorrow while you’re at work.

Liz: Don’t tell me your story. I can’t handle it. Look how small my head is.

Jack: Tracy listen to me, I was wrong. Don’t turn your back on Donald.
Tracy: Too late. Look how we’re positioned.

Jack: When I was in third grade my class put on a science play. The night before Jimmy came home drunk and found me rehearsing my lines. I was struggling with the science terms. Jimmy laughed and said well lookie here. Dr. Jack. The boy wants to be a scientist. Chowder head can’t even say the words! You’ll never be nothing!

[Flashback]
Jack:
I am a protoid. Protein! All living orgasms. I mean… Orgasms.

Jack: When I got home I threw away my microscope, my shell collection, my map of the stars.
Tracy: Nerd.

Jack: A parent is the one person who is supposed to make their kid think they can do anything. Says they’re beautiful even when they’re ugly. Thinks they’re smart even when they got to Arizona State.

Donald: You couldn’t be a scientist you couldn’t even be protein in a school play. And I can’t run a business. I’m a failure.
Jack:
I am a protein! All living organisms need me to function. A basic building block of the human body, I’m made of amino acids found in ribosomes. Proteins give energy give energy from everything from flowers and butterflies to heroes who turn in communists! I am a protein.

Donald: Can I have $50,000 to start a business where people can call in and get air quality reports from across the United States? I’m a call it…
Jack: Donald no!
Donald: …American Airlines.

Liz: This is what happens when you work at being happy: Godzilla sits next to your while you’re eating an egg salad sandwich. What a world!

Godzilla: I’m pathetic. I’ve got no real skills. A degree in theater tech. So you move to Pennsylvania. Live with your parents. All of your old friends have kids and careers. And what do you have? Maybe your name in the credits of a TV show that no one will even remember. Should have moved to Cleveland with that guy when I had the chance!

Liz: Damn you Godzilla!

Ratings: 5.034 Million Viewers. 3.1/5  HH share.  2.3/6 in the 18-49 Demo.

«5.08 – College

5.10 – Christmas Attack Zone»

6 Responses to “5.09 – Chain Reaction of Mental Anguish”

  1. 1
    Matt Says:

    Hmm… I don’t know what I thought about this episode. While I appreciated a lot of the structure, and a lot of the lines were really funny, something felt off about this episode.

    Nothing was particularly bad but nothing about it was particularly memorable to make it a classic. Some great lines though especially by Tracy. And I did love crying Jack Donaghy.

    I’ll have to watch this again to figure it out.

  2. 2
    Maddie Says:

    I think this was definitely a setup episode for next week’s Christmas episode, especially Jack’s storyline. Rather sad to see that Paul and Jenna broke up. Paul turned out to be the saner of the two. Jenna’s mom has really screwed up her thinking over the years, and I think this whole episode served to point out both how difficult it is to be a parent and how easily our parents (and family members) can screw us up mentally even if the intentions were good. Life really can become a chain reaction of mental anguish.

    Loved Kenneth as Liz’s therapist, then Jack as Kenneth’s therapist. I too dreaded finding out just who Harold was. Poor Kenneth!

    Would love to know how Arizona State became the latest university to be joked about on this show. That was a good one.

  3. 3
    RandomHajile2 Says:

    i liked it loads

    glad to see the flashbacks back :P

    esp when Liz gets called a boy :)

    i have to say tho, jack looked weird, either he put on face weight or his eyes got whitend… ??

  4. 4
    Lakeesha Gutierrez Arafat Says:

    I don’t want to get too TV Without Pity/Onion AV Club, but it’s clear to me now that 30 Rock is undergoing a huge shift this season. Maybe there’s less hype, maybe we’ve finally settled in with the cast and the recurring guests, or maybe this is how a show survives and makes you care in its 5th season, but I feel that the writers are really digging into the characters now. I think we’ve seen more depth in each major character this year–even Lutz!–when we probably would’ve seen only a punchline or two in the past. I don’t know if this is the first time, but these relationships may finally have repercussions that go beyond, you know, wolfing a teamster sandwich at the airport.

  5. 5
    Janet Jopler Says:

    Totally agree with Matt and Lakeesha. It felt very different upon first viewing, though I’ll definitely need to watch it again without interupption, and they are definitely developing the characters more this season, especially the main ones.

  6. 6
    Mindgrape Says:

    I agree RandomHajile2, Alec looked a little bit puffy (more than usual, I mean). But he looked fine at Tina’s Mark Twain award thingy, so I’m assuming it’s just bad makeup for the day. I really miss his season 1/2 hair – short and undyed, he looks frumpy with his hair now.

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