- I never thought this day would come, Lizzie.
Okay, push.
- Push, Liz Lemon!
- Here comes your baby!
- Congratulations. It's meat cat!
The cheesy blasters mascot.
- I'm what's inside ya!
Razzmatazz!
I got to eat better.
- Oh, hello, Mr. Hornberger.
I thought I was the only one here at this hour.
- No, this is just my little ritual,
so I can have a moment of peace and quiet
between home, where this happened,
and work, where...
I'm always being interrupted.
- Oh, I get it.
A little Pete time.
Pardon the familiarity.
Well, you just enjoy your coffee, sir,
while I tell you a funny story
about my friend's cat.
His name is Mr. Wiggles,
and his cat's name is Benson.
- Where's Liz?
I need to speak to her right away.
- I guess that's the end of Pete and Kenneth time.
- Liz, she's here.
Verna's here.
My mother is downstairs.
- Are you sure?
- I didn't see her. Security called.
She was trying to use
an OxyContin prescription bottle as I.D.
- That's Verna.
- Oh!
- So is she coming up?
- Are you kidding?
I told them to throw her off the property.
But I'm sure she's down there,
sitting on a curb, chain-smoking,
and waiting for me to come out.
Just like the day I was born.
- Wow.
Look, Jenna, I know that she's no prize,
but no matter what, Verna is your mother.
Don't you want to have a relationship with your mother?
- This isn't a relationship.
This is some woman who shows up
every couple of years to ask for money.
To her, I'm just a gorgeous,
naturally-blonde atm.
- You know, my mother and I sometimes didn't see eye to eye,
but at the end of the day, we always said
♪ don't go to sleep ♪
♪ with a frown in your pocket ♪
- Ugh, Liz, you don't know anything about mothers.
Where's Jack?
- ♪ Go into your yard and tie it on a rocket ♪
Both: ♪ shoot it to the moon ♪
♪ you'll be feeling better soon ♪
♪ don't go to bed with a frown ♪
♪ ♪
- Yeah, there were firemen there and everything.
- Where? - At my house.
I left my sith lord cloak
too near my mom's shrine to Italian Jesus,
and the candles started a fire.
- Were the firemen strong?
Were any of them the ones from the calendar?
- My mom's staying with family upstate,
but I've got to find some place around here to crash.
- I'm sorry.
Would you like to stay in my guest house?
- Yeah. Thanks.
When's good to go over there?
- Oh, I'm not offering.
I'm just taking a survey
to Gauge general interest.
But Liz here has a spare apartment.
Ain't that right, Liz?
- Well, it's not really spare.
I bought the place upstairs from me
when I thought I was getting a talk show.
But I'm gonna finish the combination
as soon as I either hit the lottery
or get married.
Ugh. Fine. You can stay with me.
But it's stuff like this
that makes me eat things like this.
- Thanks, Liz.
Oh, I'd like to pre-apologize
for clogging your tub, sink, and toilet.
- Mothers.
You can't kill them...
- Verna's been using me my whole life, Jack.
I never saw a penny from any of the commercials I booked.
Keep you and your pets safe
with gator hater gator spray.
- Sorry. Honey, you got to get closer to the gator.
We drove eleven hours to get here,
and you're not getting any younger.
- But when I wanted to sing a duet
in a mother-daughter pageant,
she blew it off because there was no prize money.
- But today's different, Jenna.
Today you break the cycle,
because today you are going to say...
No.
I developed this presentation in 2002
when Colleen attempted
to lengthen her Christmas visit
to Martin Luther King Day,
or as she calls it,
"that day in January
when the post office is closed."
I had to draw the line.
I had to say...
This word is your best friend.
- Best friend with benefits?
- Step one, say no.
Step two...
She will try to pick a fight with you.
You will not let her.
She will raise her voice.
But I'm going to ask you to...
Always speak quieter.
- Can I just tell you I'm genuinely having fun right now?
- If you raise your voice,
emotions take over,
and she gets the upper hand.
But if you're calm and quiet,
you stay in control,
and it's on to step three.
And this is the hardest one of all.
She will tell you how disappointed she is in you,
and she will get up to leave,
and you...
Let her walk away.
It's simple.
Say no. Talk low.
Let her go.
- Frank. Frank?
Do you smell smoke?
What the hell, Frank?
- Oh, man. Look, Liz...
- how can you smoke? It's disgusting.
And in my apartment?
- Wow. An old white lady yelling at me
while wearing microwavable socks.
This is so different than living with my mom.
Okay, so I smoke a little as a stress release.
I never told you, 'cause I knew you'd lecture me.
- It is not a lecture
to simply point out to someone
that the episode of diff'rent strokes
about Dudley's dad
has proven incontrovertibly
that smoking destroys your health
and leads to ridicule from Willis.
- Well, what about you?
You can't judge me
when you're eating that garbage.
- This is not the same thing at all, Frank.
- Dr. Oz did a show about junk food.
I saw it, 'cause it's on a compilation DVD I have
of fat ladies crying.
And this stuff will kill ya.
- "Manufactured in a facility that also processes food."
This is what meat cat spoke of.
- So I guess I'll just get
one of those little throat radios,
and you'll be buried in a piano crate.
Goodnight, Liz.
- No, Frank, that fire in your apartment
was no accident.
- I know. I just wanted to be in control!
- It was fate!
We've been brought together
to help each other stop being gross.
What do you say?
- All right.
But if doing this restores my sex drive,
the plus-sized ladies in the mail room
have you to blame.
- Oh, there's my baby girl!
- Hello, Verna.
No. Low. Go.
- Okay. I know.
Every time we see each other,
I'm always hitting you up for money.
And I know that it's always for something stupid,
like paying the medical bills
that time that my boyfriend
broke his tailbone off in that cage match.
But this time it's different.
- I said no.
Wait, what is this?
- I'm trying to pay you back.
I'm trying to make good for once.
- Is this the fight?
I'm talking quieter.
I'm in control.
- What's that now?
I'm the calm one.
Upper hand.
- Jenna, why are we talking like this?
Does somebody have a gun?
- I'm going lower now.
- Okay.
Well, I know you're busy.
I just wanted to say this face to face.
I am so proud of you.
And I love you so much.
And I wish I'd said that more.
- Don't go, mommy.
I'll stand closer to the gator.
- Goon!
- Sorry I'm late, Mr. Hornberger.
Funny story.
There was a guy on the subway
who I thought for a second didn't have any fingers.
But then I realized
he was holding his hand like this.
- Listen up, everyone.
Frank and I have some exciting news to share.
- I am quitting smoking.
- And I am gonna start eating healthier.
- I signed up for a service called "Noofud"
that delivers humanely-portioned organic meals.
- And I took the elevator all the way up here
without losing my breath.
- Liz, god knows you should eat better,
but maybe now's not the time.
It's show week,
and I can't have you melting down,
and junk food is your stress release.
We all need a release.
I know, because Kenneth has taken mine away from me,
and I'm worried about what I'm gonna do to replace it.
While you were talking,
I put a thumbtack in my neck.
- Makes me feel something.
- Well, don't worry about me, Pete.
I have a new outlet...
My delicious Noofud.
Like my upcoming lunch,
Autumn tempeh Risotto
with salmon-rubbed streusel chunks.
- Oh!
- Jenna?
I just wanted to see
how it went with Verna last night.
- Jack, it was perfect.
Like a John Mayer song.
- Good. So you said no?
- I didn't have to. She didn't want anything.
She's completely changed.
- What? No.
People do not change.
In the late '90s,
I thought Colleen had become a better person.
It turns out she had a tumor
pressing on her brain's pleasure center.
A tumor those quack doctors removed.
- Jack, this is different.
She gave me money.
- It's not different, Jenna.
It never is.
You must be Verna.
- Oh, and you must be Jack Donaghy.
Jenna, you were right, darlin'.
He does look like he'd be great
between those two things we were talking about.
- Interesting earrings.
- Oh, thank you. I made 'em myself.
Something's killing all the birds in my neighborhood.
- Mom, I really wish you didn't have to leave tonight.
'Cause my birthday's this weekend.
- Oh, my god. I am the worst mother.
- No. - Yes, I am.
- Don't say that.
Could a bad mom have raised a daughter
who was engaged to a congressman when she was 16?
- Jenna to the Stage, please.
- Oh, that's me.
Oh, goodness.
Oh.
- Blowing town tonight, huh?
- I knew it was her birthday.
I'm throwing her a surprise party,
and it's at a fancy restaurant,
so wear something nice.
Like a pair of white jeans
and a Dan Marino Jersey or something, 'Kay?
- Hey. So how you holding up?
- Terrible. I have a headache, a stomachache.
Last night I spent an hour
trying to remember how to spell the word "heighth."
- Liz, your body is crying out
for all the chemicals it's used to.
You can't go on like this.
Here. Eat it.
Eat it. Come on. You need your crutch.
- Stop it!
God, your arms are really weak.
What are you smiling at?
Aren't you miserable?
- I have a very strong will.
Rossitanos have refused to fight in seven wars.
- I don't buy it.
There is no way that guy
is stronger than me. - Or me.
- He's got to be sneaking cigarettes.
- You're the one living with him.
Catch him in the act.
- Yeah. I still have his old cigarette pack.
I will leave it out tonight as a trap,
and set up a video camera.
- Good idea. Nanny cam.
Just like the one our nanny used
to catch me watching her sleep.
High five.
- Hi. I was told I'd get paid
if I came here and danced while the Atlanta hawks eat dinner.
All: Surprise!
- Oh, my god!
Mom, you remembered.
- Well, of course I remembered.
Come here, sweetie.
- I've seen this before.
Classic Colleen move.
Whatever it is Verna wants,
she's going to ask for it tonight,
and Jenna can't say no
in front of all these people.
My mother once won a radio contest
to announce the starting lineups at a Red Sox game,
and used the opportunity
to get me to promise never to put her in a home.
What could I do?
Carl Yastrzemski was looking right at me.
- This isn't about you,
so you need to get over your issues
and try to be happy for Jenna.
Speaking of issues,
I had a dream the other night that we were married
and I gave birth to a cartoon cat, so...
- Could I have
everybody's attention, please?
Thank you.
In my life, I've been a lot of things...
A liar.
A dental hygienist.
But I haven't always been
a good mom.
Jenna, honey, I don't know if you remember,
but when you were 11,
we were supposed to sing together
at a mother-daughter talent pageant.
- I had completely forgotten about that.
What betrayal?
- Well, I was drinking pretty heavily then...
On account of my bad knee.
And then I went and drove my jet ski
into that great big bunch of moss.
So I did not make it to that pageant.
Honey, I don't deserve a single thing from you,
but I've got to ask one favor.
And it's a big one.
If you would do me the very great honor
of joining me?
Hit it.
♪ ♪
♪ do that to me one more time ♪
♪ once is never enough ♪
♪ with a daughter like you ♪
- ♪ do that to me one more time ♪
♪ I can never get enough ♪
♪ of a mom like you ♪
♪ oh ♪
Both: ♪ kiss me ♪
♪ like you just did ♪
- How are you not moved by this?
- Because I'm listening to the words.
Both: ♪ do that to me once again ♪
- Verna.
- Hey.
Nice office, Jack.
I feel like I'm in
the Martha Stewart section of Kmart.
- What can I do for you?
- Oh, well, I just wanted to thank you
for coming to the party.
It meant a lot to Jenna.
And it was pretty important to me too.
See, now you know what the show would be like.
- What show?
- Jack, I did not drive my home
all the way to New York City
just to kiss my daughter's ass.
Thank you.
I want to do a TV show about me and her.
- You want to do a reality show?
- Come on.
You see how good I am
at pushing Jenna's buttons.
Yeah, this show will have laughter, tears,
topless arguments.
Infections caused by jacuzzi water.
- I knew it.
I knew you had something up your sleeve
besides a tattoo with, let me guess...
- it's a mermaid.
Doing it with captain Morgan.
Now, come on, Jack.
We both understand the value of a dollar.
Oop.
Now won't you please do me this favor?
Talk to Jenna.
There's a lot more where that come from.
Which is in my underpanties.
Come in.
- Jenna, I was right.
I was right all along.
- What's that?
- Oh. New earrings.
- My mom just made them.
So they still might have some pigeon mites.
But she said those can't affect... affect humans... humans.
- Yes, well, it certainly is amazing
to see how your mother has made this 180.
- It's even better, Jack.
She's made a full 360.
- Well, I just wanted to come by
and make sure you're okay.
I'm glad to see you're so happy.
- I am happy.
Because now I have everything.
- Good morning, dummies.
So Frank can go cold Turkey but I can't?
Well, well, well.
Frank's old cigarettes.
When I went to bed last night,
there were 15 cigarettes in the pack.
This morning, there were 12.
- What? - J'accuse!
- Look, I don't know where those cigarettes went.
- If only some genius
had secretly videotaped her living room last night.
Oh, wait. It did.
- Hang on. You videotaped your living room?
All night?
- Sure did.
And as soon as I figure out
which one of these things
is the thingy...
- Coming at you.
Gimme.
- You didn't believe in me.
But I believed in myself.
Just like the last scene
of all movies.
- Okay. Here we go.
What are you wearing?
Both: They're called "night Spanx".
- I don't even remember getting up.
What am I doing?
- You're sleepwalking, Liz.
It's a little-understood parasomnial disorder.
That's gross.
- She's not sleep walking.
- Oh, my god. I'm sleep ea ting.
- You tried to take away your release, Liz,
but nature finds a way.
Did you learn nothing from Jurassic park?
- Why am I making a phone call?
- Okay, I don't mean to be the black guy at the movie,
but you better move, girl!
- Uh-oh.
- Oh, Liz, you didn't!
- I ordered a pizza?
Oh!
- Oh, I don't want to see this.
- Okay, fine.
I cheated in my sleep.
But Frank folded too,
because I am not making it up about the cigarettes.
Any minute he's gonna... - Wait, what are you doing now?
- No. No. Please, no.
- Oh, god, Liz. You didn't smoke the...
- I'm eating it.
- Okay, well, mystery solved.
Liz ate the cigarettes,
and I guess some of us
just don't need a release.
So let's turn the TV off.
- Hang on.
- Oh, thanks, Frank.
- Oh, there's more.
Denise, I said wait upstairs.
My boss is asleep in the other room.
- I was told
you have a package for the mail room.
- Oh, come on!
- This just got awesome.
- I need you, Denise.
I'm trying to quit smoking,
and my mom's not here.
- I'm your mama now, baby.
♪ Don't go to sleep ♪
♪ with a frown in your pocket ♪
♪ go into your yard ♪
♪ and tie it on a rocket ♪
- This is the worst thing I've ever seen.
- ♪ You'll be feeling better soon ♪
Both: ♪ don't go to bed with a frown ♪
- I love you, Denise mommy.
- We all need our release.
- Verna,
I want to be in business with you.
- Oh! Ho, ho, ho!
We are gonna be swimming in green, Jack.
Just like when I dye my pool on St. Patrick's day.
- I do have a couple of notes.
This project will not be about
drama or dysfunction.
People are tired of that.
- Well, so what's it about?
- Redemption.
It's about a mother making amends to her daughter.
And it's not a show.
It's four visits per year...
Christmas, mother's day,
Jenna's birthday, and Thanksgiving.
You treat Jenna with the respect she deserves,
you get a check.
- You're trying to bribe me
into being a good mom.
- Well, it is all just about money,
isn't it, Verna?
- Well, maybe for me.
But this is emotional for you, isn't it?
And I believe that gives me the upper hand,
and you're gonna have to pay.
Big.
3 grand a visit,
and a rain tarp for my washer and dryer.
- Deal.
Verna, stop stroking my palm
with your middle finger.
This is a business transaction.
- Sorry.
Whoo-hoo, Mr. Big stuff.
- Dudley's father went outside
and lit a cigarette.
In the next episode...
- Good morning, Pete, Kenneth. - Liz.
- If you are spending your mornings with Kenneth,
what's your release?
- Uh...
Oh, I feel alive!
I've been biting my nails.
- Oh.
- Hey, Liz.
Verna's coming back for mother's day.
We're gonna do a duet of I'll make love to you
at a children's hospital.
- That's great, Jenna.
Hey, Jack, guess what?
Verna's coming back for mother's day.
- She is? What a surprise.
- So I guess you were 100% wrong about everything.
Think about that, Jack.
- You're a good man, Jack Donaghy.
- Thanks, meat cat.
- Oh, I've got an idea for a show called doctor
about Richard doctor, who's a piano player.
Do you remember that show Jennifer slept here?
Ann Jillian plays a ghost of a Hollywood starlet
who helps teenagers.
With what? I don't know.
Some of those people on match game were drunk...
With power.
Did you know The Today Show used to have a monkey on it?
Hasn't been as good since.
I think that chimp used to drive the truck himself
on you know what and the bear.