Recap / Central Park S3E03 "Ice Ice Not Baby"

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

"We got a love worth fighting for."

Original release date: September 9, 2022

Written by: Ava Tramer
Directed by: Brian Kaufman

♫ We got a love worth fighting for
Baby, baby, hold on
We got a love worth fighting for
Baby, baby, be strong
If we want it to last forever
It's gotta hurt a little bit more
We got a love worth fighting for ♫

—Birdie, "Love Worth Fighting For"

Molly and Brendan get into their first big fight, while Abby gets her first big commercial audition for a local deli. Additionally, Bitsy is trying to appeal to Interim Mayor Quincy Leeds in order to manipulate him.

Songs

• "Ten Out of Ten" - Molly & Brendan
  Written by: Shaina Taub
  Additional Arrangements by: Emeen Zarookian
  Performed by: Emmy Raver-Lampman & Eugene Cordero
  Additional Vocals: Jessica Childress, Moorea Masa, Will Choi, Adam Shapiro, Brent Knopf, & Emily Goldstein
• "The Wash and Dry For Me" - Interim Mayor Leeds, Helen, & Hotel Staff
  Written by: Rafael Casal
  Additional Arrangements by: Emeen Zarookian
  Performed by: Sam Richardson & Daveed Diggs
  Additional Vocals: Jessica Childress, Moorea Masa, Brook Dillman, Eugene Cordero, Michael James Scott, & Brent Knopf
• "Love Worth Fighting For" - Birdie
  Written by: Mike Viola
  Additional Arrangements by: Emeen Zarookian
  Performed by: Josh Gad
  Additional Vocals: Angelica Cox & Emily Goldstein

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Tropes:

• All for Nothing: The Tillermans (sans Molly) help Abby rehearse for her audition to appear in a sandwich commercial by having her practice eating a sandwich while smiling. After eating multiple sandwiches to finally get the right smile, her agent calls her to let her know Herman the parrot got her role. She isn't sad because her agent tells her Herman is a huge deal and if she's auditioning for the same as Herman it means she's on the right track on obtaining big roles.
• Big, Stupid Doodoo-Head: While role-playing as Brendan with Molly, Shauna describes "himself" as a "dummy dumb face."
• Brutal Honesty: On Abby's first attempt at smiling while eating a sandwich, Cole tries to tell her his opinion of her acting in the nicest way possible. He then immediately describes it as though she looks like she sat bare-cheeked on a grumpy porcupine.
  Paige: Harsh. But, actually, I can't think of a better way to describe it.
• Buffy Speak: During his song about how he loves washing, Quincy refers to the conveyor belt that fresh towels are put on as "rolly things."
• Cannot Spit It Out: Bitsy wants to discuss business matters with Quincy, and he insists that they do so as they're loading laundry. Bitsy at first says no, but Helen urges her to say yes. Bitsy struggles to say "yes" to him, but it keeps reverting to "no" mid-sentence. This forces Helen to clarify for her.
  Helen: She means yes. That sounds great. Now let's get you two some dirty sheets.
• Cutaway Gag: When meeting up with her friends at the skating rink, Henry notes how Molly isn't freaking out about her art homework. She explains that she needed some time off from it to compose herself because she keeps smudging her art. Cut to a scene of Molly in her room in which she smudges a drawing of an apple, to which an imaginary monster on her page tells her that she did a bad job, causing her to scream in horror.
• Delayed Reaction: Molly is pretending to be a professional figure skater at a championship, and asks the judges (Brendan) for her score of her performance. His response is that he gives her an eight, when she was expecting a ten.
  Molly: (pretending to thank the audience) Thank you, thank you!— (realizes what Brendan just said) Wait, did you just say eight?
• Distinction Without a Difference: During her first argument with Brendan, Molly begins to yell. He asks her if she's shouting at him, and she denies, clarifying that she's just raising her voice a lot.
• Fun with Subtitles: Birdie gets annoyed by the subtitles, which he finds intrusive and unnecessary because they're just reiterating his narration. He keeps pushing them away, and on the third time they push back. At the end, they make up.
• Get Out!: An agitated Bitsy yells this at a maid carrying towels when she is interrupting her attempt to suck up to Quincy.
• Let's Duet: Molly and Brendan sing "Ten Out of Ten" while they have fun ice skating where they do goofy skates moves and rate their performance ten out of ten.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Quincy's family ran a laundry, so he's ecstatic at being in the Brandenham's laundry room and performs a musical number about it. Bitsy finds it annoying.
• "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: As part of her tactic to get Quincy to like her, Bitsy stages a conversation with her butler in front of him to invoke this trope. He acts as though she paid for his wife's hospital bill, and adds that she gave birth to triplets, and she's naming them after her. Their names are Bitsy, Branden and Ham.
  Bitsy: Oh wonderful! I love kids, and I don't think they're disgusting!
• No, You: Quincy compliments the chandelier at the Brandenham hotel lobby, and Bitsy tells him that she bought it herself. Helen points out that it's actually 150 years old, to which she retorts, "You're 150 years old."
• Now You Tell Me: After Abby gets a stomachache from eating a bunch of sandwiches to practice her smile while she's eating for two hours, Paige did some research to help her and found that most actors just bite and spit the food in a bucket and don't actually swallow it. Abby gets frustrated that she just now learned this fact.
  Abby: Where were you two hours ago, internet?
• Special Guest: "Ten Out of Ten" was written by Shaina Taub.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: Molly wants to use the DJ booth microphone to announce her apology to Brendan and find him. The DJ tells her that they only do that if someone can't find their kid. Molly, latching onto this, lies that he can't find hers. So she is allowed to use it, and she announces to Brendan that she's looking for him, and tells him that it's his mommy speaking.
• Third-Act Misunderstanding: Molly and Brendan get into this trope when the former believes that the latter is jealous of her for a belief that Jacob likes her. In reality, he was just being weird because he got her a box of square markers that he was planning on giving to her because he did understand her love for art, and was unsure of how to give it to her.
• The Unsmile: Abby finds smiling while biting on a sandwich too difficult, and all her attempts come out looking weird. By the time she manages a presentable smile, the role she's been auditioning for has been filled.
• Verbal Backpedaling: On her announcement over the loudspeaker, Molly tells Brendan, "This is Molly, by the way. I mean, Mommy. Mommy's here, sweetie!"
• You Know What You Did: After much speculation, Molly believes that Brendan is jealous that Jacob might like her because he made her laugh, and she confronts Brendan about it. She refuses to hear his explanations, but she finds out the truth by herself. By the time she does, Brendan has abruptly left, and she can't find him anywhere. It takes her to make an announcement on the skating rink DJ microphone to get his attention again.

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♫ Wash and dry for me
Get out the stains to suds and steam
We gotta send it out, and then
And then more comes down again ♫

—Interim Mayor Leeds, "The Wash and Dry For Me (End Credits)"

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