His show's ratings falling and on the verge of being fired, Jay's life begins to turn around when he meets Alice Thompkins, a single mother from Knoxville and her daughter Penny.
This episode has examples of
- Aroused by Their Voice: Alice is aware that Cyrus is a cheating pig, but she "melts like butter on a bagel" when he sings. Jay breaks her of this pattern by doing a goofy accordion act.
- Behind the Black: Alice shows off her exquisite paintings twice, and Jay admits to the audience he's not sure how he keeps missing this stuff.
- Big Eater: In Forrest Gump 2: Gump Harder, Bill Clinton goes on and on to Forrest about the many variations of shrimp that he enjoys, while eating Forrest's delivery.
- Caustic Critic: Starting this season, Jay softens a bit when reviewing movies, dismissing A Few More Good Men with a mere "feh" instead of ripping it to pieces. On the other hand, Penny notes Jay previously gave The Lion King (1994) a bad review and punches him in the nose for it (though she does apologize for that).
- Commonality Connection: Jay and Alice both have a history of unhappy marriages.
- Creator Breakdown: In-universe. Alice realized Cyrus was cheating on her because of the titles of his songs, which ranged from subtle ("My Lying Heart" and "Daddy's Stepping Out") to the brazenly obvious ("I'm Being Unfaithful To My Wife, Alice Tompkins. You Heard Me, Alice Tompkins.").
- Didn't Think This Through: Jay eats a bucket of shrimp before remembering he's allergic to it.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Alice is reluctant to accept the assistant job, as she doesn't want a job out of pity. Jay doesn't see the problem, saying that's always how he's gotten hired.
- Enfant Terrible: Jay and Alice watch Dennis the Menace II Society, with young Dennis shooting up Mr. Wilson's house.Mr. Wilson: That kid is a pain in the ass.
- False Reassurance: A man at the door happily tells Alice that he has news that will get her out of this lousy apartment building. He then slaps an eviction notice on the door.
- Friendship Moment: Seeing how hung up Jay is on Alice, Jeremy suggests he got to her apartment and tell her how he feels.
- "Hell, Yes!" Moment: Duke over Jay's ratings finally going up.
- Honor Before Reason:
- Duke lampshades how Jay wants to give money to someone when his own job is hanging by a thread.
- Alice refuses to accept a handout from Jay, saying she got her pride from her father. She's also unsure of taking a job as his assistant out of pity, though he convinces her he'd be hiring her because she's qualified.
- Hypocritical Humor: Duke tells Alice that southerners have to work extra hard in New York to prove they're not illiterate country bumpkins. He then accidentally activates his Country Bear Jamboree (three mechanical hillbilly bears) and gets a kick out of their performance.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Jay admits he can make peace with not ending up with Alice, but not if she ends up with an ex that treated her like dirt.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When introducing himself to Alice, Jay tells her, "I used to have a big show on ABC", a reference to how The Critic originally aired on that station before being dropped and picked up by FOX.
- Mistaken for Gay: Cyrus assumes that Jay is Alice's gay friend. Alice insists he's not gay, which an eavesdropping Jay thanks her for.
- Noodle Incident: Apparently, Rex Reed both punched Jay's nose for his bad review of The Lion King (1994) and apologized by kissing it.
- No-Sell: Thinking Jay means her harm, Alice hits him with the pepper spray. It doesn't remotely faze him. He even considers it quite tasty.
- Nothing Personal: Duke tells Jay that while he personally likes him, he would fire him on business grounds.
- Overly Long Gag: The clip of Forrest Gump 2: Gump Harder can best be summed up by the Big Eater simply asking, "Did you say shrimp? I love shrimp!"
- Precision F-Strike: Madonna guest stars on Humphrey the Hippo's show and does this, much to the horror of Humphrey and the kids.
- Samaritan Relationship Starter: Jay meets Alice letting her and Penny share his cab to get out of the rain.
- Sanity Slippage: Jay's previous assistant got institutionalized, due to the stress of having to constantly reassure Jay.
- Self-Deprecation: Jay suggests Penny go watch a cartoon with pointless violence right before a flower pot suddenly falls and hits him in the head.
- "Sesame Street" Cred: Parodied, where the special guest on the latest episode of Humphrey the Hippo's show is Madonna. Cluster F-Bomb ensues.
- Ship Tease: The closing lines (in singing fashion) note Jay's attraction to Alice isn't one-sided.Alice: Jay, I'm glad that you're not gay. I may show you why some day.
Jay: Yay. - Small Role, Big Impact: What convinces Jay to help Alice and Penny is a thoughtless passerby knocking over her groceries and leaving the two to fend for themselves in the rain.
- That Poor Cat: As Jay falls down the stairs in Alice's apartment building, a cat's screech can be heard.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Jay's response to Duke being nice to him.
- Tranquil Fury: Doris tells Jay that Duke yells at everybody, but he's only really mad when he starts to sweet-talk people. Duke comes in to hug Jay and softly tell him that he's going to get canned if he can't boost his show's ratings.
- We Will Meet Again: Cyrus promises to keep trying to get back together with Alice, only to immediately get distracted by an attractive woman in the hallway. According to the DVD commentaries, he was going to reappear in the planned third season.
- Wonderful Werewolf: According to Jay, the makers of Interview with the Vampire opted to capitalize on that success with Scent of a Wolf-Man. Frank is a blind werewolf just having fun, and Charlie is akin to a professional dogwalker.Frank: [catching a frisbee with his mouth] HOO-AH!
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Just as Jay is about to confess his true feelings for Alice, he walks in on her with her ex.
