Can a TV show plagiarize itself? “Don Geiss, America and Hope” is the second time this season that Tracy finds himself in trouble because someone wrote a book about him. In “Into the Crevasse,” Liz steals Tracy’s life for her Dealbreakers book. Also, both episodes end with pornos inspired by Liz. Did it work, though? Eh, kinda.
Let’s get the negative out of the way first. Like I previously mentioned, Tracy is dealing with the fallout of his ex-nanny writing a tell-all book. But in a Tiger Woods twist, it reveals that he is faithful to his wife and has never cheated. He starts to lose endorsements because he sponsors smutty products, so he holds an unsuccessful press conference to prove he is faithful to his striper mistress. It just felt like a long one-note joke with no real resolution. Is the rest of the season going to have Tracy on a mission to cheat on his wife to restore his street cred? I hope not.
The rest of the episode was, mostly, more enjoyable. Liz’s doomed relationship with Wesley is caught in a bitter monotonous cycle: They date, hate each other, and randomly run into each other again. Trying to find out why they wrote Future Husband/Wife in their respective phones, Liz and Wesley go back to ground zero, the dentist’s office, to see if they can reconstruct what they liked about each other. As it turns out, it was nothing more than anesthetics-induced bonding. Again, this scene seemed a bit redundant – I mean, Liz was about to hump a plant under the influence of the anesthetics. But we can chock it up as the audience being a few steps ahead of the characters.
Even after deleting each other’s names from their phones, Liz and Wesley continue to run into each other, convincing Wesley that the universe is bring them together to settle. Liz, ultimately, defies the universe and does not settle for Wesley…For now.
Jack is dealing with both the acquisition of Kablevision and Don Geiss’ death. While he is assured that his job is safe, his responsibilities are primarily to look good behind NBC’s new CEO. Kablevision does not produce anything, their money is primarily generated through porn. This does not bode well for idea-man, Jack. But after sitting through yet another one of Liz’s I-don’t-understand-guys stories (before Geiss’ memorial, no less), Jack strikes gold: Porn for women – a semi-interactive channel of a man asking about a girl’s day and feelings and offering to listen to all her problems.
Although the episode felt a bit recycled, there were enough funny moments to keep it from being boring – Don Giess frozen in carbonite: Genius. It also provided a Liz-appropriate resolution to the Wesley relationship. Still, I wish it was bit less predictable.
