Episode 4 - Jack the Writer
29 March 2012
Â
Synopsis: Jack wants to get to know each part of his business and so sits in with the writers. He slowly dominates their meetings to the point where Liz has to ask him to leave. He is upset about this and asks his assistant to tell Liz to apologise to him. She does and the real source of his hurt feelings was the idea that the writers didn't like him. Liz assures him that that isn't the case and he says that they should become friendly. Meanwhile Tracy begins to take advantage of having Kenneth the page at his disposal. Liz advises Cerie to dress more appropriately.
The Good: There is certainly a lot of interesting character interaction going on here.
Jack understandably wants to see his new employees in action and thinks because he is good at so much, that he can just step in and create comedy. I enjoyed the sinister way he took a note down after Frank displayed his ignorance. Once Liz has kicked him out we discover that he does want to be liked by his co-workers. We saw an old work friend of Jack's in the previous episode so perhaps that is part of his character. Certainly once he has made up with Liz he doesn't hold it against her when she behaves inappropriately. He apologises before and after yelling at her in front of the GE higher ups. So clearly a friendship will be formed between him and Liz which would be pleasant.
Liz plays the frustrated women in the middle very nicely. It was a fun touch to show her dancing with the writers. It gave us a glimpse of them being themselves and having a good time together. Liz' fear and courage in standing up to Jack were good positive signs for her as a character. Her interaction with Cerie was very good as well. Her well meaning advice goes right over Cerie's head and in good sit com fashion Cerie is happy being herself. The costume department did a great job finding her more and more inappropriate clothes to wear.
Tracy and Kenneth have a passable interaction too. Tracy clearly likes having a gullible servant on hand and Kenneth is all too willing. There is of course some obvious humour to be had with Kenneth innocently reciting Tracy's tips for a good marriage "be a good listener, a giver of gifts and work that vajay-jay!"
The Bad: The characterisation left me a little confused though. Jack was coming across as the boss who was above his workers. So to suddenly crave their friendship is a bit of a surprise. I suppose that is just who he is but the story was a little unclear about the direction of his character. By the end he seemed somehow too friendly to Liz. They had hardly had enough bonding to justify to me why he would apologise so much to her. Hopefully his personality will become clearer as the season progresses.
In general I didn't laugh much at Jack's failure to be funny. Again I didn't feel like I knew his character well enough to see why his failure was funny. Otherwise his list of silly catchphrases just came across as unfunny to me as it did to the writers.
There's something too innocent about Kenneth which doesn't quite make me laugh at this stage. He doesn't seem to have any fear or shame about what he is doing. He's rather like James from Spin City, the country boy now in New York. But James would look uncomfortable and confused which is where the humour came from. While there is a charm to Kenneth's naive optimism, it didn't really translate into laughs.
Pete's character is still a bit messy for me. When he is alone with Liz he plays the sensible friend and confidant. But then he suddenly acts like a crazy, pathetic loser when around Cerie. That would be fine if there were a smoother transition from one to the other. As it is he jars a bit when he tries to jump into pathetic middle aged man jokes. Similarly I wasn't happy with him laughing his ass off at Liz trying to look sexy. Should a friend be so joyously mean?
Comic Highlight: The opening scene was a nice standard sit com gambit. Liz tells the writers that they need to work on a joke about Donald Trump and they all ignore her. The men are all staring lustfully at Cerie as she bends over her desk. Liz tries twice to get Cerie to move out of the way but only ends up creating new compromising positions for her. Finally once Cerie has left the room Frank says "We gotta change this Trump joke."
The Bottom Line: I'm still not entirely sure what this is about when it comes to its humour and characters. But this was a decent attempt to get to know them all better.
Feedback
Add your comments on this episode below. They may be included in the weekly podcasts.
’)