photo: nbc
Leap Day
Original Air Date: Feb 23, 2012
Valentina D. – Senior Reviewer
valentina@thetwocentscorp.com
Get your blue and yellow on, because it’s a very special holiday: Leap Day! Except if your name is Liz Lemon, you probably didn’t even know the holiday exists.
On her way to work, Liz is confronted by an old university classmate, Thad, who invites her to his “Leap Day” celebration. Later, Jenna immediately recognizes him as an internet billionaire according to her gold diggers message boards. Naturally, she demands to be Liz’s plus one.
In the writers’ room, Liz is greeted by a sea of blue, yellow, and a dancing Kenneth in a Leap Day Williams costume. Turns out, Liz is apparently the only one who’s unaware that Leap Day is a big deal holiday. She figures that her hometown, White Haven, PA, just didn’t celebrate Leap Day.
Jack uses Leap Day as a chance to show up his old college roommates and holds a press conference detailing the future of Kabletown. Things take a turn for the worst when he parades out three giant white “K”s and before he knows it, his “racist” press conference is the main story of the news. He comforts himself by eating some rhubarb, leaves and all, before Kenneth can point out they’re poisonous.
Having been told that this is the magical extra day where you can do things you normally wouldn’t do, Liz decides to go to Thad’s party wearing the only blue and yellow thing she owns: a Hawaiian shirt. While showing off his apartment, Thad confesses that this is all to impress Liz because he’s been in love with her since college. He “indecent proposals” her by offering her $20 million to take his virginity; a challenge that intrigues Jenna as she challenges Liz to a “slut-off.” Liz begins to consider accepting after speaking with Criss, who tells her to go for it (without knowing what “it” is) because he says it’s Leap Day and real life is for March.
Leap Day also means that Tracy has problems of his own. Awhile back, he did a commercial for Benihanna and demanded to be paid in gift certificates. Upon finding some old fan mail, he discovers he has one day left to use a $50,000 certificate. He treats the TGS gang but at the end of the night, he’s only used $6000. Depressed, he decides to take a walk and bumps into an old man, who might very well be the real Leap Day Williams. The old man gives him some good advice, telling him everything will be alright if Tracy just remembers where he comes from. After some thought, he takes all the homeless at the soup kitchen and treats them to a meal at Benihanna.
At Thad’s party, Jenna and Liz are battling it out over him when he finally asks Jenna to grab some drinks for Liz and himself. Jenna accepts that she has lost, but warns Liz that the gold digging models will show up at any moment. She’s right, as they show up not too long afterward and Liz is pushed aside.
Back in his office, Jack is nearly unconscious from the rhubarb leaves he ate earlier and has a very Christmas-themed dream: Kenneth visits him and takes him to Leap Days of past, present and future. In the past, he sees himself as a young boy with Colleen taking him to the Leap Day parade. During Leap Day present, he sees his nanny telling Liddy that Jack won’t be spending Leap Day at home with her. For the future, he sees a teenage girl hammering a nail. He’s confused until Kenneth tells him because he missed all those Leap Days, Liddy grew up to embrace liberalism and she now works for Habitat for Humanity. Basically, this is Jack’s worst nightmare and he rushes home to be with Liddy for her first Leap Day.
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Next Week: Alexis Goodlooking and the Case of the Missing Whiskey
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I’m going to NYC on Leap Day this year – if I see a guy in that suit I may freak out.
So, KP…Leap Day is officially behind us! Any encounter with Leap Day Williams while in NYC?
It was raining all day in NYC – so if he was there, we were walking WAY too fast to even catch a glimpse.