Recap / Central Park S2E11 "The PAIGE-riarchy!"

RECAP:
Index
Season One: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Season Two: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16
Season Three: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

Original release date: March 4, 2022

Written by: Lindsey Stoddart
Directed by: Ian Hamilton

♫ Anything they can do
We can do bleeding
Succeeding while bleeding
That's what I'm talking about
Anything they can do
We can do bleeding
So don't hide, take pride
Let me hear you shout ♫

—Paige, "Rockin' on the Rag"

When Molly has her first period, Paige throws a period party for her to let her know that periods are a blessing. When Bitsy doesn't make the "Annual 50 Women Over 50 Worth Over 50 Million" list, she tries to get the woman who took her spot to lose money so she can reclaim her spot on the list.

Songs

• "Awfully Beautiful" - Birdie
  Written by: Tim & Patrick Dacey
  Performed by: Josh Gad
• "Rockin' on the Rag" - Paige & Molly
  Written by: Party Nails
  Performed by: Kathryn Hahn & Emmy Raver-Lampman
• "Light the Match" - Gwendolyn Swish, Bitsy, & Helen
  Written by: Danny Elfman
  Performed by: Catherine O'Hara, Stanley Tucci, & Daveed Diggs
• "Why Me Waikiki" - Paige & Molly
  Written by: Rachael Cantu
  Performed by: Kathryn Hahn & Emmy Raver-Lampman
• "Awfully Beautiful (Reprise)" - Molly
  Written by: Tim & Patrick Dacey
  Performed by: Emmy Raver-Lampman

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Tropes:

• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: The conflict of the A-plot is Molly getting her first period, which Paige goes overboard in trying to be supportive of, to Molly's mortification.
• Bookends: The episode begins with Birdie singing his version of "Awfully Beautiful" and the end credits song is Molly singing her version of "Awfully Beautiful".
• Brick Joke: Near the beginning of the episode, Brendon comes over to Molly's house to hang out with her, but because she got her period and doesn't want him to know about it, Owen goes to tell Brendon that Molly isn't feeling well and can't hang out with him right now. Later, Brendon returns to bring Molly soup so she can feel better, unfortunately, he came when Paige is throwing her a period party and now learns of her period, much to her humiliation.
• Cringe Comedy: Paige throwing Molly a period party. Not only is she mortified about how overboard the party is, but it gets worse when Brendon comes to the party, completely unaware they were having one, because Owen told him Molly wasn't feeling well (keeping Molly's period private) so he came over to bring her soup. Molly freaks out and runs to her room humiliated.
• Cultural Translation: Hazel mentions her cousin had a period party where they played Otis Redding music. The French dub said they watched The Thin Red Line, the Latin America Spanish dub said they heard the song "Cielo rojo" (Red Sky), the Brazilian Portuguese dub said they played the movie "A Dama de Vermelho" (The Lady in Red), and the Japanese dub just said there's a lot of red colors at the party.
• Engineered Public Confession: When Gwendolyn announces to the crowd at the fundraiser that Bitsy is donating $2.5 million to save the foxes, Bitsy tells her that those were just words, and she can't make her do something just because she said she would. This causes the crowd to hear her, and they stop applauding and start whispering. This was implied to be all according to how Gwendolyn planned.
  Helen: They're turning on you.
  Bitsy: Oh, caca.
• Exact Words: Gwendolyn asks Bitsy if she's willing to "light the match" for the fundraiser, to which agrees to, and writes the check. But after she does, Gwendolyn reveals that what she meant was to pledge the match what's raised by her guests.
• Female Empowerment Song: To show Molly that periods are okay to have, she sings "Rockin' on the Rag" where she sings how all the greatest women were on the rag and she shouldn't be ashamed about it, but this makes Molly feel embarrassed.
• First Period Panic: Molly gets her first period in this episode and is quite upset about it.
• Freudian Excuse: After Molly runs out from her period party feeling humiliated thanks to Paige, Paige sings to her her reason for putting a lot of pressure for her to have a magical period was because Paige's first period was awful and she wanted to make sure Molly didn't go through what she did. When Paige was her age and on vacation in Hawaii, her mother didn't know how to handle periods and gave her bad directions, thanks to her own mother also getting her bad directions. The end result is after Paige went for a swim and gets out of the water, her pad sagged down her swimsuit making it look like she's wearing a diaper in front of all the beachgoers.
• Innocently Insensitive: Paige tries to help Molly with her period by making it clear she shouldn't be ashamed or embarrassed about it, in order to not make the same mistake her mother did. However, this makes Paige too supportive towards Molly, which just makes Molly more uncomfortable while Paige fails to notice how Molly really feels. Paige makes it even worse by throwing a period party without talking to her about it first and inviting some of her classmates. Brendon coming over, unaware of the party, becomes the straw that broke the camel's back, causing Molly to run to her room humiliated.
• Living Lava: After getting her period, Molly draws a new monster based around called "Lava Flow".
• Lost in Translation: In "Why Me Waikiki", the line "Why me Waikiki? Why, why?", where "Wai" and "why" sound the same, doesn't translate well in other languages since they already have their own way of saying "why".
• Money Song: "Light the Match" is about Gwendolyn Swish convincing the people attending the charity event to write a check to save the Fennec foxes and tricking Bitsy into donating money.
• No Periods, Period: Heavily averted. Molly has her first period and Paige throws her a period party to show her that it's a blessing to have, but this only makes Molly feel more embarrassed, especially when Brendon finds out later. Discussed when Paige apologizes to Molly because when she was her age, her mother didn't know how to handle periods and gave her bad directions, but only because her mother's mother also gave her bad directions. Paige didn't want Molly to suffer a humiliating experience like what she went through.
• Sand In My Eyes: At her period party, Molly asks her father if he's crying. Owen responds that he's not, and Paige just stepped on his foot.
• Special Guest: Danny Elfman wrote "Light The Match".
• Spit Take: Bitsy does this with her glass of champagne when she realizes that she was bamboozled into donating a lot of money for the fundraiser.
• Themed Party: To help Molly feel less ashamed about her period, Paige throws her a period-themed party with red balloons, red and period-themed food and drinks, and a uterus piñata. Enrique wears period clothing at the party because he misunderstood the theme.

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♫ It's awfully beautiful
I take on every cramp
I push through it like a champ
And baby bird sees Mom
Flying towards her
Looking all concerned
Mom wants to make it better
But she only makes it worse
Isn't it awfully beautiful?
Awfully beautiful ♫

—Molly, "Awfully Beautiful (Reprise)"

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