Age of The Nerd
After last week’s excellent episode following Dr. Owen’s return to his rightful home of the hospital, the show was moving forward with a more concise and interesting path. The second episode followed through with the same improved format. Not only does the show have a lot more flow throughout the 10-12 minute episodes but story is a main emphasis along with the humor that is always present.
This week on “Codename: Jennifer” the stakes have been massively raised. White House Chief of Staff Tooter Daniels has a mission for Lola Spratt, who is hilariously disguised as a Russian general to show off her undercover skills. She is asked to take care of “Jennifer, the president’s bastard kid” who has been afflicted with a strange medical condition. The mission is low key, due to the President wanting to keep his affairs private. Lola and the Childrens Hospital staff are vetted to help the child survive her problem, but Owen and Blake do not pass the background check in a funny but believable twist of fate.
The approved staff of Lola, Valeria, and Chief take care of the young girl, who has a matchbox car lodged in her sinus cavity. The hereditary condition is treated but the staff is forced to stay in the White House to keep the child a secret. That is until the First Lady(played masterfully by Julie Bowen) breaks past the doctor’s lies and realizes her husband has cheated on her. In order to deal with her stress, she tries shoving the extracted matchbox car up her nose. The staff now realizes the illegitimate child is actually legitimate, with the First Lady giving birth to her seven years ago. Lola reports back to Tooter Daniels to receive confirmation for a job well done, only to realize Daniels is her former lover Dr. Brian. Both must say goodbye as Lola must return to be a pediatrician and Dr. Brian has a long undercover job that cannot be compromised.
Meanwhile, Owen and Blake skulk around the White House as the diplomats for Bahrain and India, managing to squash their feud in record time and impressing the panel. Owen breaks their cover soon after and get both kicked out of the White House for good, making their trip to visit all of the bathrooms a fruitless journey overall.
As usual there were plenty of strong jokes to note. Lola Spratt’s(Erinn Hayes) Drew Barrymore impression is quite fitting and comical, but is out shined by a hilarious reference to how terrible the Philadelphia Eagles’ offensive line was last season in a previous line. Blake’s stupidity to follow on to plans is great as well, blowing up a balloon and placing it by his crotch for jokes numerous times before catching on to the plan. By far the two best jokes are the most subtle of the episode though. The bombing of Cambodia joke is fantastic in the context of the six inches off replication of the hospital build and watching a nurse get sniped for mentioning the President’ s affairs is well worth a long chuckle.
This episode did have better jokes than the season opener but the story was not quite as compelling as a whole. Despite the story being stretched a bit more this time around, the quality has not been stepped down from the opener though. The jokes are whip smart, the plot is solid, and the show is still showing a more honed vision for the upcoming episodes. If the show can keep this pace up for quality episodes, this will be the finest season of Childrens Hospital yet.
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